question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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why is bed-wetting associated with serial killers? | It is part of the Macdonald triad. The Macdonald triad proposes that three behaviours in youth (extended bedwetting, fire-starting, cruelty to animals) are indicative of later violent tendencies.
The thing is though, we aren't actually sure if the Macdonald triad is actually statistically a thing. Some studies say it is, some studies say it isn't, some studies say that those behaviours (among others) are linked to childhood neglect and abuse which puts a child more at risk of violent tendencies. The people who believe in this say that bed wetting longer than average can lead to feelings of shame and loss of control, which can then result in fire starting and animal cruelty (trying to regain that control), especially when they are punished by parents for this bed wetting. But like I said, there is a lot of debate if it is a thing at all. | [
"Confusional arousals have often been linked to sleep-related violence (self-injury or injury to the bed partner). The latter highlights important medical and legal issues when such behaviours are suspected and purported to have caused a criminal offense. The first documented case of homicide as a result of confusi... |
when watching a screen, do our eyes focus purely on to the distance of the screen or the percieved depth of the picture? | Purely on the screen. Same if you're looking at a photo: the depth isn't real and doesn't affect your focus. | [
"Focal length and diaphragm aperture affect the depth of field of a scene – that is, how much the background, mid-ground and foreground will be rendered in \"acceptable focus\" (only one exact plane of the image is in precise focus) on the film or video target. Depth of field (not to be confused with depth of focus... |
do my dogs think i'm just a big dog? | It's hard to say what dogs actually *think*, but there are some things we can infer from their behavior and from their body chemistry. We have recently come to understand that dogs' brains are capable of generating oxytocin in the same way ours are, and under the same circumstances. When you interact with other humans, when you hold hands or hug or put an arm around someone's shoulder, your brain generates the hormone oxytocin, and this hormone strengthens human relationships. It's been referred to as the love hormone, because it's the chemical that seems to be most responsible for feelings of love and affection.
The fun thing is that dogs' brains do this as well when we interact with them. When they're being loved-on, hugged, petted, etc., their brains also produce oxytocin. Our best guess is that dogs probably realize that we are not dogs. They know that we're not dogs. They probably don't have the means to comprehend what we actually are, but they know we aren't dogs. But through tens-of-thousands of years of selective breeding, they've still come to view us as vitally important to them. They absolutely see us as part of their "pack." The part of your dog that is still a wolf tracking through the wilds with its pack sees you as a part of that pack. | [
"Additionally, most people can tell from a bark whether a dog was alone or being approached by a stranger, playing or being aggressive, and able tell from a growl how big the dog is. This is thought to be evidence of human-dog coevolution.\n",
"\"A dog has no politics or religion, so you can tell people about him... |
why do we only see fog when it is at a distance? | Fog is a collection of tiny water droplets suspended in air at or just above ground-level. They are too small to see individually but they bend light never the less. As you get further away, there are so many droplets bending light that the objects further away from you can't be seen because the light from those objects isn't (entirely) traveling to your eyes. | [
"Fog shadows may look odd to viewers who are not used to seeing shadows in three dimensions. A thin fog is just dense enough to be illuminated by the light that passes through the gaps in a structure or in a tree. As a result, the path of an object's shadow through the fog becomes visible as a darkened volume. In a... |
At the time of the American Revolution, were there any other republics in the world? | The Swiss Confederacy was a federation of states, named "cantons"; it was formed over time, starting in the middle ages, as different communities in the Alps developed a series of alliances.
It was a part of the Holy Roman Empire but it fought against the Habsburgs and did gain independence. That was formally recognized as an independent state by the europeans powers in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia.
In Italy, the republics of Venice and of Genua were born as city states, mainly concerned with sea trade within the Mediterranean Sea.
Later, after the discovery of America and of the route to India around Africa, the Mediterranean become a bit of a backwater, and both cities expanded over land. Venice in particular did gain vast territories, expanding to the west nearly to Milan and controlling the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea (Dalmatia).
The were some other small republics in Italy, that based on the city state of Lucca and the tiny city state of San Marino (which is still existing today !). Also there were some city states that were nominally members of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, but that in practice were mostly autonomous.
Keep in mind that those republics could all be defined as oligarchies: the power was concentrated in the hands of the members of a very small number of wealthy families, mostly very successful trading houses. Membership in the ruling councils was mainly by co-optation by the existing members, only extended to members of the families.
So nothing like the suffrage that was established in the United States, that was certainly not universal at the start but that was mush more effective and direct.
Also, many of those entities were destroyed by the revolutionary and napoleonic wars and the by the Congress of Vienna, with the exception of the Swiss confederacy. Venice was given to Austria, Lucca to the Duchy of Parma, Genua to the Kingdom of Savoy and Sardinia. | [
"Beginning the Age of Revolution, the American Revolution and the ensuing political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century saw the Thirteen Colonies of North America overthrow the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and then reject the British monarchy itself to become the sovereign United Sta... |
What was Attila the Hun's full name? | So far as we can tell, his name was Attila. As you've guessed, Huns did not use surnames or family names, and only a non-Hun would call him "the Hun."
Interesting trivia: *Attila* does not seem to be a Hunnish name but Gothic, like *Totila*. The Huns were not one tribe but a confederation of tribes including the Goths who did not flee them and the Sarmatian Alans. These tribes tended to adopt Hunnish culture, like cranial deformation and facial cicatrization. But it means that depictions of Attila as a Mongol might be quite a ways off: Goths were Germanic tribes, as in Ostrogoth and Visigoth (tribes that did flee the Huns).
Ingraham, *People's Names*. | [
"Attila (; fl. c. 406–453), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, and Alans among others, in Central and Eastern Europe.\n",
"Attila (also known as Attila the Hun in the UK) is a ... |
what would happen to you if only your head was above water for a long, long time? | Depends how long and what kind of water.
The skin is capable of passing stuff in and out of the body. If you're under water this presents a problem, if the water is pure enough the overall transfer will be water into the body and salts/minerals out of the body (bones and blood would have major issues). If the water is very salty the process reverses to drive up salt in the body effectively dehydrating you (this is why you can't drink seawater). If the water had just the right amount of all the necessary components then it's harder to say what will happen, I can't give you an answer there.
A vacuum would be less forgiving, lets assume a space-like vacuum.
Any moisture in your skin exposed to the vacuum would boil away, the skin would draw more moisture from the body and the process goes on until you're a dried out meat husk. Not to mention of course that your digestive tract is a hollow tube from end to end, if only your head was protected then everything would be sucked out the rear anyway. There's slightly more to it but the end doesn't get any better for you. The whole ordeal won't take long at all, only a few minutes at most.
Obviously less intense vacuums would be much less severe, but given enough time death would be the likely outcome. Our lungs are designed to work with equal pressure, if the outside of the chest is a vacuum then exhaling becomes more difficult, your chest will want to expand into the vacuum. While not as dramatic as in space your skin will still dehydrate faster than normal, this could make you bleed and, as air is required for clotting, it might not stop. | [
"BULLET::::- \"This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down\", by Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risley, Jackie Speier, and Jan Yanehiro, 2007,\n",
"Hypothermia from exposure to cold water is not as sudden as is often believed. A person who... |
why are paddling pools blue etc instead of black to absorb the heat and keep warm? | Blue reminds people of the seas and oceans (or rather shallow water near the beach). Black would be creepy to many people (b/c it looks like deep water).
Absorbing heat can make the water too hot, and most pools are sold in areas with a lot of sun, and people want their pools to stay cool.
Lighter color makes it easier to see dirt, so you know when the pool is clean. | [
"Starting 9 August, the pool used for diving competitions began turning a green color instead of its natural blue, followed by the water polo pool the next day. Several athletes reported that it affected their performance, either by preventing them from seeing underwater or hurting their eyes (possibly because of i... |
A few questions on Wave interference | Observing interference is a little harder to do in those situations. Things like headlights and music are made up of lots of waves with many different wavelengths so the interference pattern is very complicated and you won't notice it.
There are two ways you could observe wave interference at home:
1. Set up your speakers as far away from each other as you can and point them towards each other, a few meters would be good. Instead of music, play a continuous note of a single pitch through the speakers. You should be able to google something to play single pitch sounds. Then, if the distance between the speakers is a few multiples of the wavelength, say 1:3 or 1:4 (pick either but be as precise as possible!!), you should set up a nice standing wave pattern, ie. constructive interference that doesn't change with time. To observe it, start with your head at one speaker and move your head along a line towards the other speaker. If your speakers are good enough (decent computer speakers should be) and you have set up the distances precisely, then you should notice changes in volume along the path.
2. With a wide pan or bowl of water you could dip you fingers in and out quickly at two different spots to make ripples which will interfere as they cross over each other. Watch closely though!!
You'd need better equipment to observe this effect with light. But if you have a laser pointer you could maybe do it with the [double slit experiment](_URL_0_). | [
"In physics, interference is a phenomenon in which two waves superpose to form a resultant wave of greater, lower, or the same amplitude. Constructive and destructive interference result from the interaction of waves that are correlated or coherent with each other, either because they come from the same source or b... |
Why don't orbiting electrons radiate? | It's not enough for you that they're in their lowest energy state? Clearly, they can't emit energy in the form of a photon and _gain_ energy doing so - that'd just blatantly violate of conservation of energy.
But fair enough then. If the electrons behave quantum mechanically (which you've accepted) and the field is behaving classically (which you're sort of implying), then it _still_ can't emit any radiation, even if the electrons have orbital angular momentum (not all bound states do though).
Because they're behaving quantum-mechanically, the electrons have no definite positions in space. You only have the electron probability-density (= charge density) around the atom. In the ground state and other energetic eigenstates, the state is _stationary_. The probabilities of where the electrons are likely to be doesn't change with time, so the charge density is stationary. There's no charge flux, no acceleration of the charges, nothing capable of emitting radiation.
| [
"This model is even more approximate than the model of hydrogen, because it treats the electrons in each shell as non-interacting. But the repulsions of electrons are taken into account somewhat by the phenomenon of screening. The electrons in outer orbits do not only orbit the nucleus, but they also move around th... |
How does LIGO know that the gravitational waves they observed were from 2 black holes? | The shape of the signal they detected -- how long it lasted, how its frequency changed, how its amplitude changed -- distinguished the event as a black hole merger, and even allowed determination of the masses of the two black holes.
There was a lot of modeling of various phenomena using general relativity to see what kinds of gravitational wave waveforms they'd produce, so that when there was a signal, the could recognize what kind of signal it was.
You can read a press release about the modeling of black hole mergers [here](_URL_0_).
| [
"BULLET::::- Existence of gravitational waves (1916–2016): On 11 February 2016, the Advanced LIGO team announced that they had directly detected gravitational waves from a pair of black holes merging, which was also the first detection of a stellar binary black hole.\n",
"In 2015, the LIGO project was the first t... |
does poison ivy really get worse each time? why? | > "the memory of the last infection"
Your immune system has greater reactions to things it recognizes more quickly, and it recognizes things more quickly by being exposed to them in the past. I think this is why you can develop allergies to things like super powerful epoxy if it touches your skin too much.
Essentially, when your body recognizes a foreign and potentially dangerous substance, it produces antibodies that attach to that substance and serve as markers for other parts of the immune system to destroy things. After the threat is neutralized, your body continues to circulate antibodies for that substance, in case it shows up again. Then if you are exposed to that substance again, the immune reaction is even faster and more dramatic as a result, because there are already a lot of antibodies for the thing floating around. | [
"Poison ivy is particularly sensitive to carbon dioxide levels, greatly benefiting from higher concentrations in the atmosphere. Higher carbon dioxide levels increase the rate of plant growth, and causes them to produce more unsaturated urushiol, which causes stronger reactions in humans. Poison ivy's growth and po... |
Why do some vaccines, such as Hep B or HPV, require multiple shots spread out over time? | If you inject too much of weakened disease thingy's into your body at once, it can still overwhelm your immune system. You also need to keep your "database" up to date. Think of the immunity to the disease as something expirable. After a while of not using it, your system will toss it into the trash bin. It needs to be reactivated to stay effective. I think that's basically it. | [
"Research suggests that VLP vaccines against influenza virus could provide stronger and longer-lasting protection against flu viruses than conventional vaccines. Production can begin as soon as the virus strain is sequenced and can take as little as 12 weeks, compared to 9 months for traditional vaccines. In early ... |
why are services like uber and airbnb considered by some to be disruptive to the economy? | Hotels and cab companies are regulated and taxed, they have to follow certain rules in order to keep their operating license. If I rent you my house for a short stay or pick you up and drive you around the government doesn't get any tax revenue from that and I'm not bound by the same licensing requirements. Because the hotels and cabs I'd be competing against do have to pay taxes and follow those regs I'm operating at an unfair advantage. Of course I can charge less than Yellow Cab, I don't have to pay for official inspections or cab medallions. | [
"Uber, Airbnb, and other companies have had drastic effects on infrastructures such as road congestion and housing. Major cities such as San Francisco and New York City have arguably become more congested due to their use. According to transportation analyst Charles Komanoff, \"Uber-caused congestion has reduced tr... |
What is the definition of a "Great Power" and what makes a country one? | I was a history and international relations major as an undergrad, and here is where the two disciplines meet. The term "Great Power" comes from the Realist tradition in international relations. Without going too far down the rabbit hole of explaining what Realists believe, they essentially view international politics as a struggle for survival between nation-states and they see power rather than ideology as the key variable that leads nations into conflict (ideology may be an important reason why a war is worth fighting for the common man, but the conflicts are ultimately driven by competition for security between nations rather than conflicts over ideology.)
Realists like John Mearsheimer would define great powers generally as those which have a significant military capability (including latent capability) and an influence on affairs that extends beyond it's immediate region. Great powers can also extend their territorial influence beyond their defined borders in the absence of another power stopping them from doing so. There's not really a hard-and-fast way to differentiate great powers from lesser powers, but a nation that stands a realistic chance of defeating another great power in a war is generally going to be considered a great power.
The term was much more relevant in the absence of *superpowers*, which are essentially magnified great powers capable of projecting power over vast regions of the globe. *Great Powers* are much more important when there are powerful states with great military capabilities with no clear hegemon dominating a region. Historically, Western Europe has often been characterized by competition among Great Powers including Russia, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. Certain of these countries have dropped off the list of Great Powers at different points as their ability to influence affairs beyond their boarders lessened and their military capabilities became weakened. Now, some people would characterize Germany, Japan, the UK, France, and Russia as Great Powers (although these are all arguable) but most IR Realists would say that the United States is the sole Superpower in the world, rendering Great Power status fairly useless. | [
"A great power is a nation or state that, through its great economic, political and military strength, is able to exert power and influence not only over its own region of the world, but beyond to others.\n",
"BULLET::::- Great power: In historical mentions, the term \"great power\" refers to the states that have... |
Just how credible is the Abiotic Oil Theory vs. the organic algae/zoo-plankton theory? | [This review from Resource Geology shoots it down pretty hard.](_URL_0_) Really, the most obvious criticism is that there haven't been any big oil discoveries that can be conclusively credited to this hypothesis.
This hypothesis might have been worth consideration back in the 1950s, when the Russians came up with it, but it doesn't mesh with what we now know about the world. | [
"One of the main counter arguments to the abiotic theory is the existence of biomarkers in petroleum. These chemical compounds can be best explained as residues of biogenic organic matter. They have been found in all oil and gas accumulations tested so far and suggest that oil has a biological origin and is generat... |
what is happening when the body develops a cauliflower ear? | The ear fills with blood and fluid that calicifies and hardens over time if it isn't drained and taken care of right away. | [
"The most common cause of cauliflower ear is blunt trauma to the ear leading to a hematoma which, if left untreated, eventually heals to give the distinct appearance of cauliflower ear. The structure of the ear is supported by a cartilaginous scaffold consisting of the following distinct components: the helix, anti... |
Have there been any major Civil Rights movements in the US which ultimately failed totally and completely? | Well, there's the modern pederasty movement. By pederasty I mean movements defending adult - adolescent sexual relationships, especially of the homosexual kind. It arose during the 60s and 70s, along with other parts of the sexual revolution and civil rights movement. NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) was founded in 1978 and describes itself as a political, educational and civil rights association whose goal is to end "the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships". So they (the few members) describe themselves as being part of civil rights, but I don't know how much other civil rights would agree with that (I think not much, at least from what the statements I've read of gay civil rights associations, that try to dissociate their image as much as possible from them). | [
"Most civil rights movements relied on the technique of civil resistance, using nonviolent methods to achieve their aims. In some countries, struggles for civil rights were accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest and even armed rebellion. While civil rights movements over the last sixty years have resulted in an ... |
if someone were pushed into a bottomless hole, what would be the first thing that killed them and how long would it take? | If they could theoretically fall forever, my guess would be dehydration would kill them eventually. | [
"I was entombed once for 6 long hours. It seemed like 6 years. There were no visible means of getting out either – we had just to wait. I was once right next to a cave-in when my fire boss was buried alive. As we were working and chatting a big stone twice as big as a trunk came tumbling down on my mate from overhe... |
Can one neuron within the human brain have several types of neurotransmitters that binds to it? For instance, can a neuron that usually allows binding by GABA neurotransmitters also allow binding from other types of neurotransmitters, such as NDMA, DA, 5-HT, etc? | Yes. Neurons can have, for instance, both excitatory and inhibitory inputs, mostly mediated through glutamate and GABA | [
"A neuron of a given kind (e.g. a thalamic cell) cannot be functionally replaced by one of another type (e.g. an inferior ollivary cell) even if their synaptic connectivity and the type of neurotransmitter outputs are identical. (The difference is that the intrinsic electrophysiological properties of thalamic cells... |
how do google glasses work if i can't focus on anything within three inches of my eyes? | You can't focus on anything within three inches of your eyes because the lens in your eye can't accommodate (become stronger) well enough. You can only make the lens so strong and it turns out that the shortest focal point you can get with just your eyes is around that distance, so you can't focus on anything closer than that.
What Glass does is focus the light for you. A little projector projects light onto a prism (the glass thing) and the prism will actually focus the light onto your retina, so your eye lens doesn't have to accommodate.
[See this infographic.](_URL_0_) | [
"Google Glass is a brand of smart glasses—an optical head-mounted display designed in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses. It was developed by X (previously Google X) with the mission of producing a ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displayed information in a smartphone-like, hands-free format. Wearers communicated w... |
the difference between functions, methods, objects, classes, and oop languages. | A *function* is a block of code which runs some commands and can be called on from elsewhere in the code.
example:
def function():
print "I do something."
# now we can call the function from other code, like this, and it will always print "I do something".
function()
A *class* represents an object. A thing. It can contain both *data* and *functions that operate on the data*.
A function which is attached to a class is called a *method*. It can only be called through the class.
So, for example:
class Car():
def __init__(self):
self.model = "Honda"
self.color = "red"
def drive(self, destination):
# do something
henry = Car()
henry.drive()
in this example, I have a "car" class with two attached methods. One of them, __init__, is something used by python to create the object. The other one, drive(), does something about driving.
then i created an *instance* of the car class, and called the method 'drive' on the instance.
So: function() is a 'function', meaning a block of code that can be called from elsewhere and run when it is called. 'Car' is a *class*, which is a collection of data and functions that operate on that data; the functions contained within a class are called 'methods'. So *drive* is a function contained within Car, meaning it is a method. | [
"Like Smalltalk, in Objective-C, class methods are simply methods called on the class object, hence a class's class methods must be defined as instance methods in its metaclass. Because different classes can have different sets of class methods, each class must have its own separate metaclass. Classes and metaclass... |
What technological breakthroughs between 15th century to the 19th century were required for the creation of pistols and rifles? | Depending on the specific cutoff date you've got, I'd argue that smokeless gunpowder in 1886 is the single most important breakthrough. Smokeless powder paved the way for firearms as we know them today. Smokeless powder burns slightly differently than black powder (rapid burn rather than low explosive) and is significantly cleaner on firing. Although the immediate effect is apparent in the name - less smoke means it's easier to see on the battlefield - the more significant benefit was the significantly cleaner result of firing, meaning guns no longer had to be designed around regular cleaning after fewer than a hundred rounds. This in turn allowed bores and bullets to decrease in size (as the utility of large bores with respect to getting more shots between having to clean was gone) while velocities went up, allowing for flatter-shooting, longer-ranged weapons. Smokeless powder also proved far more conducive to autoloading systems thanks to higher pressures and cleaner burns, which made machineguns a truly viable weapon on the battlefield.
& #x200B;
Prior to that, percussion caps and brass drawing were very important steps. Percussion caps at first allowed for a quicker and more convenient way to prime a gun compared to a flint lock, but they ultimately provided the foundation for the primers in every modern cartridge. Meanwhile, brass drawing provided an effective and consistent means to contain cartridges that could be mass-produced. Unlike paper cartridges, they left no residue in the chamber after firing, and unlike rolled brass cartridges, they were sturdier and easier to produce. | [
"During World War I, the Austrians introduced the world's first machine pistol the Steyr Repetierpistole M1912/P16. The Germans also experimented with machine pistols, by converting various types of semi-automatic pistols to full-auto, leading to the development of the first practical submachine gun. During World W... |
What was the impact of the Albigensian Crusade on the centralization of France ? | Hi there - unfortunately we have had to remove your question, because [/r/AskHistorians isn't here to do your homework for you](_URL_0_). However, our rules DO permit people to ask for help with their homework, so long as they are seeking clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself.
If you have indeed asked a homework question, you should consider resubmitting a question more focused on finding resources and seeking clarification on confusing issues: tell us what you've researched so far, what resources you've consulted, and what you've learned, and we are more likely to approve your question. Please see this [Rules Roundtable](_URL_1_) thread for more information on what makes for the kind of homework question we'd approve. Additionally, if you're not sure where to start in terms of finding and understanding sources in general, we have a six-part series, "[Finding and Understanding Sources](_URL_2_)", which has a wealth of information that may be useful for finding and understanding information for your essay. Finally, other subreddits are likely to be more suitable for help with homework - try looking for help at /r/HomeworkHelp.
Alternatively, if you are not a student and are not doing homework, we have removed your question because it resembled a homework question. It may resemble a common essay question from a prominent history syllabus or may be worded in a broad, open-ended way that feels like the kind of essay question that a professor would set. Professors often word essay questions in order to provide the student with a platform to show how much they understand a topic, and these questions are typically broader and more interested in interpretations and delineating between historical theories than the average /r/AskHistorians question. If your non-homework question was incorrectly removed for this reason, we will be happy to approve your question if you **wait for 7 days** and then ask a less open-ended question on the same topic. | [
"As a result of the Albigensian Crusade, there were only a small number of French recruits for the Fifth and Sixth crusades. Strayer argues that the Albigensian Crusade increased the power of the French monarchy and made the papacy more dependent on it. This would eventually lead to the Avignon Papacy.\n",
"The A... |
How do Historians recognize/rule out humor or sarcasm from historical texts? | To answer this, I'm going to first start with an example and work through why the historical account is contested. One of the most infamous cases of this is probably Caligula, the "depraved" Roman Emperor. In pop culture (e.g. things like the series *I, Claudius*) he's portrayed as a truly despicable human being. He murdered people for no reason, openly slept with married women, wasted money, claimed he was divine, and slept with his sisters (he eats his sister's fetus in *I, Claudius*...there are no historical accounts of that happening).
These stories are from a variety of stories. The main two who were contemporaries of Caligula were Philo of Alexandria (in his work *Flaccus* where he discusses Caligula's treatment of Jews...Caligula claimed to be a god and they refused to worship him) and Seneca the Younger (whose analysis of anger in *De Ira* is considered a thinly-veiled critique of Caligula...though he does not mention Caligula by name). They paint the picture of someone unstable and crazy (considering himself a god and punishing the Jews for not worshiping him) and unstable and full of rage (challenging the gods to fight and lashing out at all those around him).
The other two sources, and all of the "juicy" stuff that people remember come from Suetonius (in his work *De Vita Caesarum* - The Twelve Caesars) and Cassius Dio (in *Historia Romana*). These are where the accusations of incest, wasteful spending, and the desire to appoint his horse a consul of Rome. The important thing to note here is that Suetonius was born almost 30 years after Caligula died and Cassius Dio was born over *100* years after Caligula's death.
So, that leads us to our first clue: the truly "juicy" stories don't come from his contemporaries but from people who were born decades after Caligula's death. Suetonius' work is, essentially, a massive piece of hearsay. Interesting for sure, but ultimately problematic when compared with previous writings on Caligula. It's possible they had access to sources that have since been lost but this isn't the only reason to be skeptical.
The other major reason that these stories are suspect is that Caligula was...not well liked by some powerful people. The Senate in particular hated him. In the end, he was assassinated by members of his own Praetorian guard. These same people would have a vested interest in painting Caligula in the worst possible light and spread scandalous stories about him to make the assassination seem more "justified".
So, to sum up, there are a number of things historians look for. Consistency in accounts are particularly important. It's likely that Caligula did have a temper as both Philo and Seneca mention it. It's not likely that all of the salacious details from after his death are accurate. Contemporary accounts are also incredibly important as it's less likely the stories will be distorted over time (e.g. perhaps Caligula was not serious in his threat to make his horse a consul, it was a way to call his opponents in Rome incompetent, but that's not how it was told to Suetonius). Looking at the motivation of those writing/relaying the history is also quite important as a highly biased source is not as trustworthy.
edit: noticed a couple typos
edit2: I should also note, history is not as...clean as most schools before higher education tend to show. In many cases there is no one "truth", even for more recent events than Ancient Rome. This is where lively debate comes into play. Historians will get into - sometimes quite heated - debates about what truly happened as you will frequently have sources that either contradict each other or make outlandish claims. Historians try to create a plausible hypothesis for events based on their evidence and present their findings to the academic community. | [
"Though in the English language there is no standard accepted method to denote irony or sarcasm in written conversation, several forms of punctuation have been proposed. Among the oldest and frequently attested are the percontation point—furthered by Henry Denham in the 1580s—and the irony mark—furthered by Alcante... |
why does the box of my ps4 say it comes with 500 gb when it only comes with 407.2 gb? | GB can technically mean 2 different things. One is the computer definition. That works off binary and powers of 2. So, there are 8 bits in 1 byte. Then we start counting bytes by doubling 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024. 1024 bytes is a kilobyte (KB). If you do the same thing, counting KB, 1024 KB is a megabyte (MB). If you do the same thing, counting MB, 1024 MB is a gigabyte (GB) and so on to terabytes (TB), etc.
Now, in non-computer contexts, the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera all mean a thousand, a million and a billion. So, while computers themselves use the first system to count up space, the manufacturers can use the definition of "a billion bytes" for GB on the packaging without the FTC coming down on them for lying in their advertising.
The bigger the hard drives get, the bigger the difference between the 2 methods of calculation get.
And, because this went to court a couple of times a while back, you'll find that the packaging itself usually has fine print explaining this in legalese. | [
"CECH-4000B consoles (those with hard drives) weigh approximately , while the CECH-4000A weighs approximately . Both are roughly 25% smaller and about 20% lighter than the original PS3 Slim. This version has a sliding disc cover rather than the slot-loading drive found on previous PlayStation 3 consoles (Similar to... |
Why didn't the Germans bombard southern England with artillery? | They did, to an extent. The Germans had quite a bit of cross-channel artillery at Calais, which they used to fire on Kent for years. Economically though, it probably wasn't all that useful. The German guns and their barrels and ammunition probably cost more than the damage they did to anything on land. The firing rate of the German guns was often less than one round per hour, and obviously they didn't have any spotters to help them zero in on targets.
On the other hand, the cross-channel guns were highly useful for attacking British shipping passing through the straits of Dover. The Germans had radar there, and anything passing through the straits could expect to be fired upon. | [
"Artillery bombardments were to be co-ordinated with infantry attacks, with various types of artillery given suitable targets for the cumulative destruction of field defences and the killing of German infantry. Heavy artillery and mortars were to be used for the destruction of field fortifications, howitzers and li... |
What is chemically happening when pasta sauce stains tupperware? | Without having a source I would rather say that there is nothing happening on a chemical level
It is just the Carotine (rather the Lycopin) that makes tomatos red, that is stuck to the plastic.
Since Carotine is liposoluble, you should try to rub it out with oil (just normal cooking oil). I learned that this hould help. | [
"Lycopene is the pigment in tomato-containing sauces, turning plastic cookware orange, and is insoluble in water. It can be dissolved only in organic solvents and oils. Because of its nonpolarity, lycopene in food preparations will stain any sufficiently porous material, including most plastics. To remove this stai... |
Wouldn't a diver get serious hearing damage if he was to swim close to the pistol shrimp? | It's important to note that that 218 dB is at a distance of 4 cm, and is relative to 1 µPa. Now, first off, by convention the source level you quoted for a jet is equivalent to a measurement at a distance of 1 m. Taking that into account, the source level of the shrimp drops to 190 dB. Moreover, it's important to consider that dB is a relative scale of pressure. Sound Pressure Level and pressure are related through the reference pressure, by the equation P=Pref*10^SPL/20, where SPL is the sound pressure level in dB, and Pref is the standard underwater pressure reference of 1 µPa. Sound levels in air, on the other hand, are measured with respect to 20 µPa. If we make the appropriate conversion, we find that the appropriate sound pressure level should be 164 dB re 20 µPa @ 1 m.
That's still pretty high, right? Well, that's because we're talking about pressures. The thing that really matters is intensity, which is the amount of power per unit area of the wave. Well, since water and air have different acoustic impedances, even if the pressures are the same, the intensities will be different. If we take that effect into account, the level of the shrimp will be further reduced to SIL=128 dB re 10^-12 W/m^2. So, the shrimp is quieter than a jet engine, but still pretty loud.
To take this a step further, the sound generated by a jet is a consistent sound, while the sound of a pistol shrimp is a loud POP. What if we compared this sound to a similar loud POP, like a gun? From wikipedia, the M1 Garand Rifle has a source level of 168 dB at a distance of 1 m. 128 dB, in comparison, carries about 1/10000th of the energy. So, while it would be loud, it wouldn't be instant deafness.
So, despite the very large looking number of 200 dB for a pistol shrimp, the actual amount of sound they put out is not excessively dangerous to nearby swimmers.
*Edit: A colleague pointed out that the 128 dB is actually rather close to the sound level of a balloon popping, which [this Express Letter from the Acoustical Society of America by Patynen](_URL_0_) found to range from 120-138, depending on the size of the balloon. It should be noted that the way the pistol shrimp actually stun their prey is with the shockwave that is generated by the bubble cavitation. This shockwave only has a very short range.* | [
"BULLET::::- Stunning may be a fairly safe means of arrest on land, but underwater would likely make the diver lose his mouthpiece and drown (unless he has a fullface mask or some sorts of strapped-in mouthpiece), or lose control of depth with consequent barotrauma.\n",
"Divers, however, are far less vulnerable t... |
why my dog loves his collar so much? | It probably feels odd to have it off. If he wears it all the time it would be like having a necklace on all the time, you'd notice when it wasn't there and feel a bit 'off'. | [
"William Harrison, in his description of England during 1586, describes the type as: “... Mastiff, tie dog, or band dog, so called because many of them are tied up in chains and strong bonds in the daytime, for doing hurt abroad, which is a huge dog, stubborn, uglier, eager, burthenouse of bodie, terrible and fearf... |
When I was in the USA I noticed the First World War memorials were dedicated to soldiers who died in The Great War of 1917-18. Why is it not described as 1914-18? | This seems too obvious, but wouldn't it be because the United States only joined the war in 1917? | [
"The Second World War that broke out in 1939 consumed the attention of a new generation. Across most of the theatres of conflict, the participants attempted to respect the memorials to World War I. After the Second World War there was no equivalent mass construction of memorials to the war dead; instead, often loca... |
Ionization Question - Ionization Energy | for electrons on atoms, the electrons are either bound or unbound depending on their total energy relative to the potential well ([a morse potential](_URL_0_)). if the electron in question has total energy less than the dissociation energy (the ionization energy), then the energy is quantized to discrete states (your E1, E2, E3, for example). as energy increases closer to the dissociation energy, the density of states (literally, the number of states per amount energy increased) increases dramatically, and there are many states near the dissociation energy. beyond the dissociation energy, the energy levels are so close together that they form a continuum of states, in which an electron can exist with any amount of energy. because of this, **a photon that can impart any amount of energy to make the total energy of the electron greater than the dissociation energy will lead to dissociation.** | [
"The ionization potential is the minimum amount of energy required to remove one electron from each atom in a mole of isolated, neutral and gaseous atom. The \"first ionization energy\" is the energy required to remove the first electron, and generally the \"nth ionization energy\" is the energy required to remove ... |
why is china airlines from taiwan? why not call it taiwan airlines instead? | Because Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China (ROC).
Also, China Airlines was founded back when the Taiwanese government still considered itself the government of China (though exiled)
| [
"As Republic of China (Taiwan)'s flag carrier, China Airlines has been affected by disputes over the political status of Republic of China (Taiwan), and under pressure from the Communist Party of China, was barred from flying into a number of countries maintaining diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of ... |
Planets revlove in an ellipsoid trajectory around the sun - but what are the foci? | One of the foci is, strictly, the centre of mass of the system, rather than the centre of the Sun itself, but effectively the difference is minute. The other focus doesn't have any astronomical meaning. | [
"The heliocentric ecliptic system describes the planets' orbital movement around the Sun, and centers on the barycenter of the solar system (i.e. very close to the center of the Sun). The system is primarily used for computing the positions of planets and other solar system bodies, as well as defining their orbital... |
how does tidal energy not break conservation of energy? | In short, the moon is constantly slowing the rotation of the earth. Eventually the moon and earth will always be facing each other. | [
"Tidal power, also called tidal energy, is a form of hydropower that converts the energy obtained from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity. The potential of tidal wave energy becomes higher in certain regions by local effects such as shelving, funnelling, reflection and resonance.\n",
"This type ... |
does putting "i do not own this song" on youtube videos actually prevent it from getting taken down from the record label? | Nope! Some people think it's polite though, which is kind of strange, because the people are pretty much saying "Yes, I knowingly violated the copyright on your product, but at least I'm not claiming it's mine" | [
"Watson chose to remove the song from the iTunes Store, claiming the commission's advice was censorship. John Key commented that the song and its music video was, \"quite professionally done. It was anti-us but as a parody it was okay.\"\n",
"In August 2008, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the Northern District of Californ... |
what damage can be done if someone gets access to your wi-fi password? | There are definitely a few guides out there detailing how to beef up your network's security, check them out when you have a chance (on mobile, can't link any at the moment).
There are a few implications when someone has access to your network:
* If they're doing something bandwidth-heavy (gaming, streaming HD, etc.), it can slow down the connection for other devices on the network.
* If they're doing illegal things, you are the first person your ISP will come after or warn.
* There is software out there that allows people to "sniff" the traffic of other people on the same network that is being sent back and forth from the device to the network. They can't explicitly see what you're doing, but the software can glimpse at the data being sent back and forth and steal cookies, passwords, and other data being transferred.
ELI5 Version:
* You start taking a shower on the first floor, but only have lukewarm water because someone else in your house has been running the hot water in the shower on the second floor for the past hour.
* I stole something with your name on it, started beating people with it, and left the object with your name on it behind as the initial piece of evidence.
* You snuck into a dark closet with your friend, shut the door, and told them who your crush is. But before you came in, someone else snuck in, hid, and overhead you telling your friend who you have a crush on. They now have your sensitive information. | [
"On April 28th, 2017 the Tokyo District Court ruled that accessing a wireless LAN network without authorization is not a crime, even if the network is protected with a password. In a case brought before the court involved a man named Hiroshi Fujita, who was accused of accessing a neighbors wi-fi network without aut... |
why do politicians and the media never just call people liars? | Because that can be considered defamatory, leading the person to file, and win, a lawsuit against you. This will have the effect of making them look like a victim, and making you look like an asshole while paying them a bunch of money. | [
"The practice is not always referred to as a \"liars table,\" but that term appears across the United States, including Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Texas, and Ohio. The word \"liars\" refers to the idea that the men are lying or gossiping about local social or political happenings.\n",
"\"Showing ... |
string theory and m-theory | String theory: everything in the universe is connected by invisible strings and can be interacted with through the forces of nature.
I can't even imagine how someone would explain M theory to a five year old...
| [
"In physics string theory is an attempt to describe general relativity and quantum mechanics with a single mathematical model. Although it is an attempt to model our universe it takes place in a space with more dimensions than the four of spacetime that we are familiar with. In particular a number of string theorie... |
How brutal was the USSR to the people in Nazi territory when it helped beat the Third Reich in World War II? | Soldiers of Waffen SS when captured by frontline troops were shot on spot. If they got lucky and were captured by 'trophy company' or by MPs, they will be put in POW camps. Many survived - there's a book in preparation (in russian) with recent interviews of former POWs, many from Waffen SS. So, despite all supposed horrors of russian POW camps many are still alive.
In general, advancing russian soldiers didn't have much time to interact with local civilians. They were in hurry to end the war. In 2-3 days at most - all populated places were controlled by military police (*военная комендатура* - at a time), which was supported also by NKVD troops. There were strict orders from all Front Commanders in Germany proper to minimize interactions with local populace which stated that anybody found harming german civilians will be punished - up to death penalty for serious crimes.
Now, I'm not saying there were no instances of civilian abuse at hands of soviet soldiers, and I would say that amount of abuse was unexpectedly high for Stavka - that's why there was a special orders, specifically spelling out punishments and conduct guidelines.
Many incidents have happened in small window of lawlessness - when frontline troops moved away, but MP didn't moved in yet. And perpetrated by support troops, which did not have strong chain of command, while their senior CO being far away.
Here's one visual example of purported abuse I've came across recently (it doesn't involve murder or rape):
* Ever seen the photo of bike which is [pulled from hands of a woman by a russian soldier](_URL_5_)? Seems very clear what is going on here - a marauding soldier is taking away property of civilians.
* Now let's see the same photo, [published on The Life magazine cover](_URL_0_). Note the lines below photo: *A Russian soldier involved in a misunderstanding with a German woman in Berlin, over a bicycle he wished to buy from her.* Now it seems not as clear-cut as before.
* But here's [the original from the archive](_URL_1_). One more sentence added to the description: *After giving her money for the bike, the soldier assumes the deal has been struck. However the woman doesn't seem convinced.* Wow - now scene goes from dramatic to comic. Note also how image was cropped more and more.
Moving on to the favorite source about Soviet Army brutality - Beevor's book *"Battle of Berlin"*:
* anonymous account from a cog of Goebbels machine (talking about *"A Woman in Berlin"*) cannot be taken at face value without scrutiny. Sadly, Beevor did not scrutinize it properly. He just say "oh, she was OK, it's all must be true" - without any verification of details.
* another reason why I cannot seriously consider Beevor to be accurate: he never mentioned a practice of *sex for food* and never takes it into account in his calculations. Which is really strange, since it mentioned quite often in memoirs of russian soldiers.
Here's detailed criticism of Beevor - [What is the basis of Russian criticism of Antony Beevor's work?](_URL_3_)
**Sources**
1. [Nikolai Litvin - 800 Days on the Eastern Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II](_URL_6_) . That's memoirs of a driver from support troops. Boring - you won't find glorious battles, but if you want to know day-to-day routine of soldiers - read it.
2. [From Stalingrad to Pillau: A Red Army Artillery Officer Remembers the Great Patriotic War](_URL_4_). Memoirs of jewish gun commander. Frontline troops. Very critical at times and does not hesitate to poke at observed issues.
3. [Sex for food - memoirs of Prussian women](_URL_2_). Unflattering and rather biased against soviet soldiers, but at least with some verifiable facts.
| [
"In the early stages of World War II, both Nazi Germany and the USSR invaded and occupied the countries of Eastern Europe after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Germany then turned against and invaded the USSR: the battles of this Eastern Front were the largest in history. The USSR joined with the Allies and in confere... |
Was Bohemia very bohemian? | hell yeah dude, it was pretty much all bohemians! ... with a bunch of germans thrown in
on a more serious note, these threads are probably what you are looking for:
_URL_0_
_URL_1_ | [
"Bohemians were associated with unorthodox or anti-establishment political or social viewpoints, which often were expressed through free love, frugality, and—in some cases—simple living or voluntary poverty. A more economically privileged, wealthy, or even aristocratic bohemian circle is sometimes referred to as \"... |
why do most foods, drinks etc have to be refrigerated after one use? what happens to the contents after just one use? | In many cases, the contents have been pasteurized. So they're "clean" and "free" of bacteria sealed as they are. The second you open it, they become exposed to bacteria. Refrigeration slows the growth of bacteria. | [
"This can also be done by using reusable items such as thermoses for daily coffee or plastic containers for water and other cold beverages rather than disposable ones. If that option isn't available, it is best to properly recycle the disposable items after use. When one household recycles at least half of their ho... |
how can people sell video game merch or art on etsy? | It’s not legal for sure, but they probably aren’t making enough to be on anyone’s radar. There is also the slim chance that they are doing really well for themselves and managed to get some sort of license.
_URL_0_ | [
"Players can optionally purchase cosmetic color palettes and tools from the game's virtual store. They are purchased with ducks, a virtual currency that they get from other players or with microtransactions, which, once made, gives the player access to Drawception Gold. Which gives the ability to create Draw First ... |
What are the ergonomic effects of sleeping without a pillow? | I think this was linked before when this topic came up. _URL_0_ | [
"Orthopaedic pillows are regarded as therapeutic pillows based on claims that they can help relieve various conditions including sleep apnoea, snoring, insomnia, breathing difficulty, blood circulation problems, acid reflux, gastroesophageal reflux disease, lower back pain, sciatica pain, neck pain, whiplash, rotat... |
why can websites appear to be down for me but be online for everyone else? | Unless a website has different servers for different people (very unlikely if it's within the same region) this should not happen ever. If you experience a website that is down and others don't, the problem is on your end and could be your internet connection. | [
"Along with proximity and time, physical appearance is another factor about the internet that is of no importance. Like previously mentioned in the anonymity paragraph, people are unable to see the physical characteristics of the person or persons that they are interacting with on the internet. This allows people t... |
why is it that if you drop something electrical into a pool it affects the whole pool, but if you drop something electrical into the ocean, it dosent electrocute the whole ocean | The pool is ≠ the ocean, in any way.
The electrical thing you throw in the pool doesn't affect the whole pool either. Electricity is very, very good at finding the path of least resistance and following that. It's almost never through a human or a fish. Those metal drains and grounded lights are just a better path. | [
"Besides boats and dockside power hookups, several other potential causes exist. Lightning strikes over or near water have caused electric shock drownings. Faulty hydroelectric generators or damaged underwater power lines can cause leakage currents, potentially creating a hazard. In general, anything electrically a... |
how does the current "competitive healthcare market" benefit the patient? | The idea is that the insurance companies will compete with each other and this will cause lower prices for the patient. Sort of like the cell phone companies (Sprint, Verizon, AT & T, etc...). Unfortunately, this hasn't really happened, and I'm unsure if it ever will. | [
"Improving access, coverage and quality of health services depends on the ways services are organized and managed, and on the incentives influencing providers and users. In market-based health care systems, for example such as that in the United States, such services are usually paid for by the patient or through t... |
How can Burning wood (carbon) generate UV radiation? | Do you expect a lot of UV for some reason?
The thermal emission will contain tiny amounts of UV. In principle chemical reactions can directly lead to UV emissions as well but I'm not aware of specific reactions that would occur in a wood fire. | [
"For instance, upon harvesting, wood (as a carbon-rich material) can be immediately burned or otherwise serve as a fuel, returning its carbon to the atmosphere, \"or\" it can be incorporated into construction or a range of other durable products, thus sequestering its carbon over years or even centuries.\n",
"The... |
james holmes killed 12 people and injured 70, but is charged with 24 counts of first degree murder and 140 counts of attempted first degree murder. why does he has 2 charges for every murder/attempted murder he did? | From a ways down that page:
> For each person killed in the shooting, Holmes was charged with one count of murder with deliberation and one count of murder with extreme indifference. | [
"On July 16, after jury deliberations, Holmes was found guilty of twenty-four counts of first-degree murder, 140 counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of possessing illegal explosives, and a sentence enhancement of a crime of violence. The two murder convictions for each death were first-degree murder ... |
What is the current state of knowledge on the long-term effects of caffeine on productivity/well-being? | What do you mean by long-term effects on productivity and well-being? There are tons of studies on the long-term biological effects of chronic caffeine consumption. Some of them say caffeine can be good, others say caffeine can be bad. It depends on the area/system of the body, and it depends on the methodology/outcome measures used. Caffeine also has a lot of metabolites, and numerous factors (tobacco use, alcohol use, liver health, etc) make a big difference in the biproducts produced during caffeine metabolism.
As for long-term effects on productivity and well-being? Those are really broad terms and the answer really depends on what exactly you're asking. There are a host of studies showing that caffeine improves performance on certain tasks requiring working memory, selective and sustained attention, memory encoding, and processing speed (mostly cognitive abilities in the immediate moment). There are many other studies suggesting that caffeine could disrupt more long term memory consolidation and retrieval, and could have a negative impact on some language functions (namely, word retrieval).
The thing to remember is that caffeine is a nonselective adenosine antagonist. While it's half life is typically between 4-6 hours in a healthy adult (LOTS of other factors play into speed of metabolism, and this number can be much higher in some people), there are some studies suggesting the actual effect on cognitive alertness and attention may be much shorter, on the order of 15 minutes or so. This is why drugs that mimic the adenosine antagonistic properties of caffeine haven't been used in treating ADHD.
Hope this helps somewhat. If you clarify your question, perhaps I can provide more information. | [
"The effects of caffeine on short-term memory (STM) are controversial. Findings are inconsistent, as many effects of caffeine sometimes impair short-term and working memory, whereas the other studies indicate enhancing effects. Increasing our capacities of STM and working memory only seem to have beneficial impacts... |
Was there a particular flag that the Union used during the American Civil War other than the traditional 34-star flag? | I assume you're asking was there a flag that didn't have stars representing the Confederate States? In that case, no, not officially. Even when West Virginia broke away from Virginia, the official flag gained a [35th star](_URL_1_) (which still included Virginia and all the other rebelling states). In the view of the US, you can't actually secede from the Union (there was a [Supreme Court Case](_URL_0_) affirming this). They viewed the Confederacy as a group of rebelling states rather than an actual nation. Creating a flag without those states could be seen as official acknowledgment that they were in fact their own country, which as you said, would be a little counter-intuitive on their part. | [
"The first official flag of the Confederate States of America – called the \"Stars and Bars\" – originally had seven stars, representing the first seven states that initially formed the Confederacy. As more states joined, more stars were added, until the total was 13 (two stars were added for the divided states of ... |
If you were on a spaceship in the absolute black void of space, how could you measure your speed without any points of reference? | You couldn't, using only local measurement. That is the whole point of relativity - there is no difference in local physics based on how fast you are moving (no preferred frame of reference).
You could measure the *difference* in your speed by keeping track of your instantaneous acceleration and integrating that.
For external references, you could use Doppler shift of spectral lines in the distant stars. | [
"There's no way you can visualize the speed. There's nothing you can see to see how fast you're going. You have no depth perception. If you're in a car driving down the road and you close your eyes, you have no idea what your speed is. It's the same thing if you're free falling from space. There are no signposts. Y... |
how do different antibiotics target different parts of the body? | The thing about antibiotics is that they only effect bacteria, which are very different from your cells (if you’re 16:bacteria are prokaryotes and your cells are eukaryotes). So as previous reply said, the antibiotics disperse throughout your body and attack the bacteria... all of them. Including the good ones in your gut. That’s why a common side effect of antibiotics is the runs (the poops, the scoots, diarrhea, etc) | [
"Antibiotics are commonly classified based on their mechanism of action, chemical structure, or spectrum of activity. Most target bacterial functions or growth processes. Those that target the bacterial cell wall (penicillins and cephalosporins) or the cell membrane (polymyxins), or interfere with essential bacteri... |
Does a positive correlation exist between the length of a gestational period and the intelligence of the birthed animal? | Your comparison of a fish to an elephant is a little broad. But generally I would say no, the gestational period does not translate to inherent intelligence. The length of 'childhood' or child rearing may be a better indicator of intelligence. Certain animals have a long gestational period and hit the ground running (literally). Certain creatures are helpless when they are born and can only persist when taught proper environmental and cultural skills and behaviors.
I promise you, that if you investigate, you will see that species that child rear display more complex or 'intelligent' behaviors than those that don't. You can also expect, as a general trend, the longer that child-rearing period, the more complex the behaviors will be. Remember though, time does not scale evenly for all species. | [
"The time at which insemination occurs during the oestrus cycle has been found to affect the sex ratio of the offspring of humans, cattle, hamsters, and other mammals. Hormonal and pH conditions within the female reproductive tract vary with time, and this affects the sex ratio of the sperm that reach the egg.\n",
... |
" A small splinter group of the Muslim army crossed the Pyrenees and was defeated by Charles Martel near Tours in 732, a minor incident in this whole story and, in no way, the turning point in European history as it has sometimes been portrayed" | I think it depends largely on what perspective you are viewing this from, and I would love to hear a comment from a European medievalist on how this was viewed at the time in France or Europe, but I think the line you quoted is broadly in line with the thinking of historians of the Arab conquests.
That's largely because the broad conclusion is that the Islamic empire was incapable of expanding very far beyond its borders in 732 and that had the Arabs won at Tours it would not actually have changed the situation very much.
That sounds like a counterfactual but it has some good supporting evidence, namely:
1. In 750 the Ummayad dynasty was replaced as rulers of the Arab/Islamic empire in the Abbasid revolution. The internal violence of this revolution, within a matter of decades, led to some significant fracturing of the empire, especially at the periphery in North Africa and in Islamic Spain. The survivors of the Ummayad dynasty escaped the slaughter of the Abbasid Caliph al-Saffah and established their rule in an independent Islamic Spain, which would have been the logical jumping off point for any renewed expansion into Europe. In fact they proved incapable of doing so and as a peripheral kingdom of Islamdom they could not muster the kind of forces that were available to the Abbasids. And if the Abbasids wanted to expand in that direction (which they did not) they could only have done so by going through the Ummayads, not to mention the other independent dynasties that would pop up in North Africa.
2. Contrast the loss at Tours in 732 to the *victory* at Talas in 751. Despite crushing the Chinese army of the Song dynasty, the result of the battle was not massive civilizational change or Islamicization of China, rather it was the consolidation of Arab/Islamic control over their central Asian territories.
3. Given the above, and the eventual reconquista of Spain, it strains credulity that an Islamic conquest of France, let alone all of Western Europe, was ever possible.
I think the conclusion is that that Tours was important as a high water mark, but a high water mark *that was going to turn back somewhere or other*. If the Arabs had won at Tours, it's difficult to imagine them continuing their victories for much longer, and nearly impossible to imagine that they would somehow have wiped out European civilization or something (not that the Europeans were very civilized at this point, but that's a separate issue!) | [
"BULLET::::- The Battle of Tours in 732. The Muslim Moors marched into France meeting no foes, until encountering the Christian Frankish forces led by Charles Martel at Tours. Despite the Moorish advantage over the Franks militarily, they were defeated decisively by the Franks.\n",
"In 732 AD, Abdul Rahman Al Gha... |
If I urinated on an electrified fence, would it shock me? | If you can get close enough to produce a steady stream then yes, you would get shocked by the fence, because urine is electrically conductive, but you have to avoid 'fragmentation' of your urine.
[Here's](_URL_1_) a vid of a guy doing it, and [here's](_URL_0_) a Mythbusters vid of the same effect but using the 3rd rail instead of a fence. I know it's not a scientific paper or anything, but I hope it sufficiently demonstrates what's happening. | [
"There is no visible warning to electrified water. Swimmers will be able to feel the electricity if the current is substantial. If the swimmers notice any unusual tingling feeling or symptoms of electrical shock, it is highly likely that stray currents exist and everyone needs to get out. Swimmers should always swi... |
how do we make extremely, extremely high frame-per-second cameras? | The sensors in most cameras are perfectly capable of capturing at a higher frame rate than what they are normally being used for, but the challenge is getting the data and putting it somewhere fast enough. If your storage subsystem is too slow, you won't be able to ingest the flood of incoming data fast enough. Some of the fastest high-speed cameras have ridiculous amounts of RAM to initially capture the video, and then they take a minute or two to dump that to a slower hard drive or SSD afterwards.
Another issue with super extreme high speed cameras is light sensitivity of the pixels, as well as cooling of the sensor. When you get into the *really* high speed territory, the individual pixels in the sensor have less time to gather light before the next frame, so you have to use extremely bright external lighting, or even sunlight to get a usable video. The sensors that are capable of such fast frame rates require additional cooling which makes the cameras bulky and loud. | [
"In 2010 researchers built a camera exposing each frame for two trillionths of a second (picoseconds), for an effective frame rate of half a trillion fps (femto-photography). Modern high-speed cameras operate by converting the incident light (photons) into a stream of electrons which are then deflected onto a photo... |
why are most (not all) military personnel right wing and anti-obama/universal anything if they are part of a government run, universal healthcare providing, free almost everything military? | The majority of America's military volunteers come from regions in the US that are majority conservative. That gives way to a majority conservative military. That being said, I've met plenty of liberals who served in the military, who are pro-gun, pro-gay, and anti-war. | [
"The American system is a mix of public and private insurance. The government provides insurance coverage for approximately 53 million elderly via Medicare, 62 million lower-income persons via Medicaid, and 15 million military veterans via the Veteran's Administration. About 178 million employed by companies receiv... |
Is there archaeological support for the stereotype of Roman infanticide as sex selection? | I can't speak for Roman society generally, but I am familiar with one specific case of sex-selective infanticide from Tel Ashkelon, Israel. We excavated a Roman/Byzantine bathhouse in Grid 38, (you can read the publication report for free at _URL_2_, just download the massive PDF of volume 1 and you can find some descriptions of the "baby drain" on page 295, and the publication of the DNA analysis on page 537), and found literally hundreds of infant skeletons in a drain underneath the bathhouse. Why were hundreds of dead babies thrown into the drain of a bathhouse? Why were they nearly all male? (Answer, it may have also been an illegal brothel). I have sat on this drain to do paperwork many times, and am excellent friend with the person who oversaw the excavation of the infant remains. Part of the drain is actually still there, it being made of Roman concrete and all. [This](_URL_1_) is a picture of the drain as it was excavated. [This](_URL_0_) is a picture of it basically as it is today, taken by one of my colleagues. The drain is the concrete thing that all the people are standing on, they are standing on the same thing the guy is standing on in the other picture. | [
"Sex selection may be one of the contributing factors of infanticide. In the absence of sex-selective abortion, sex-selective infanticide can be deduced from very skewed birth statistics. The biologically normal sex ratio for humans at birth is approximately 105 males per 100 females; normal ratios hardly ranging b... |
how do courts decide who to send to white collar prison? | There's a point system that takes into account a number of things (age, gender, crime committed, whether the person is an escape risk, and whether they have violent tendencies). The more points the convict gets, the higher level of prison security they get. | [
"According to human rights groups, black jails are a growing industry. The system includes so-called \"interceptors\" (截访者, literally \"inquiry-stopper\"), or \"black guards\", often sent by local or regional authorities, who abduct petitioners and hold them against their will or bundle them onto a bus to send them... |
How have small speakers (cellphones, beats pill) improved in quality so much recently? | Hoffman's iron law of speaker design/performance dictates that you can only pick 2 out of the following three things:
Small enclosure size, High efficiency, deep bass.
That means that in order to chase deep bass in a tiny enclosure, phone and mobile speaker makers have most likely sacrificed speaker electrical efficiency. Given the impressive gains in class D amplification efficiency and technology (which would offset the reduction of speaker/driver efficiency) over the last decade or so, this doesn't seem that implausible. The other side of the equation is that power handling and excursion of a small speaker must also improve, which can be overcome with good driver design, smart equalization, and materials science.
Now Hoffman's Iron Law is not hard cast - it's slightly malleable/ductile and can be stretched using several shortcuts such as passive radiators (which are functionally the same as vents/reflex, but have much smaller volume requirements), BMR and other high tech drivers, virtual bass and other DSP algorithms.
I would say that the biggest driver of everything going on here is simply consumer dollars - people want better sound from their mobile devices, and large manufacturers are now willing to spend good money in R & D and engineering talent trying to achieve differentiation (as opposed to side projects by independent speaker builders with limited resources).
Whatever the driver is, consumers are the beneficiary. I personally recommend the UE mini boom and the UE Boombox as my goto mobile bluetooth speakers - they have the hardest hitting bass in their respective classes. | [
"Business magazine \"Bloomberg Businessweek\" suggests that caution is in order with regard to high-resolution audio: \"There is reason to be wary, given consumer electronics companies’ history of pushing advancements whose main virtue is to require everyone to buy new gadgets.\"\n",
"Most designs produce high qu... |
At what point and location did the English language split among the use of the article "the" before "hospital"? | This is not a historical development, as such. Though nor is it usage which may be explained with a hard and fast rule, as there is some dialectal variation with respect to it.
What we are observing, essentially, is that English nouns require an article where they are countable, singular and concrete (“I found *a* quarter”, but not “I found quarter”) and do *not* require an article where they are abstract and uncountable (“the boy has spirit” is acceptable), or countable and plural (“the boy has legs” is acceptable).
But the prior category can give way to the latter in particular in cases where what is otherwise or previously a count noun is treated in an abstract fashion which construes it as uncountable. The extreme case of this is word such as “heaven” or “hell” which for conceptual reasons, cannot be enumerated in a given cultural context. One goes “to heaven” rather than “to the heaven”, as to qualify *which* heaven one is referring to, or how many, would be nonsensical (in a majority of English Christian contexts), making a countable use of the word impossible, and the interpretation of the word as uncountable the natural development. And indeed, in a less extreme case, when we say we go “to church”, we are implying our attending the uncountable abstraction of the church concept, rather than a specific edifice which is therefore countable. Though in this case, both approaches coexist, as they often do. Which nouns conventionally see this usage or these changes in countability is, however, as I say, subject to dialectal variation. | [
"The grammar of the word differs slightly depending on the dialect. In the United States, \"hospital\" usually requires an article; in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the word normally is used without an article when it is the object of a preposition and when referring to a patient (\"in/to the hospital\" vs. \"i... |
Did the reforms of the Gracchi Brothers actually influence Rome? | TL:DR Yes, absolutely. At least in aristocratic memory.
Who is Jeremy Corbin?
First of all, the Gracchi were one step in a line of "trouble-making" tribunes. Lily Ross-Taylor wrote an important article "The Forerunners of the Gracchi," in *JRS* 52 (1962) if you can get it. She challenged the traditional narrative that the Tribunes had been subverted by the Senate and shows there were basically always Tribunes who used the powers of the Tribune to subvert Senatorial control. So they weren't all that strange; and about a generation later you get M. Livius Drusus, who was REALLY radical (and perhaps a direct consequence of the Gracchi's activities, but more on that later).
All the sources report that Tiberius was concerned about the gr owing urban poor and the collection of land among a few very wealthy land holders. Rosenstein at OSU (*Rome at War* I think is the title of the book) has fairly recently (10 years ago?) challenged this narrative - his argument is that there was no dearth of small farmers; they just didn't want to enlist in the army anymore, but since the question is about the Gracchi's influence, let's stick to the narrative the Romans told themselves. The aristocrats were gathering up huge tracks of land owned by the state meant to be rented in amounts no larger than 500 jugera/citizen (don't ask me to translate that into acres- I am not up to math at the moment and I have no idea anyway). According to Plutarch, Ti.'s plan was to seize public land illegally held and redistribute that land to the urban poor. The poor would have land, the state would have soldiers, and everything would be great.
This required a survey though, to find out who held too much land and to redistribute it in the appropriate amounts to the right people. To this end Ti. passed a law to form a commission of three to conduct the survey etc. after some politicking, but the Senate refused to fund the commission. At this point Attalus, king of Pergamon, died and willed his state and fortune to Rome. Ti. proposed a law to use this money to fund the commission, and after more politicking, got himself lynched by a mob of angry senators. However, the land commission went ahead with a new commissioner.
Gaius, Ti.'s little brother, was a member of the land comcimission, and in adjudicating the redistribution of land managed accidentally to redistribute land that was not Roman public land, but both properly held private land and land belonging to the Allies (this is from Appian, *BC* 1). The Allies, not being Roman citizens, could not represent themselves in court, and got Scipio Aemilianus to represent them, But he died under mysterious circumstances in 129 BCE. Gaius also ended up getting himself assassinated for politicking shenanigans.
The land problem was left open for about 30 years after C.'s death. Rome's relationship with the Allies turned increasingly sour. in 91 the Tribune M. Livius Drusus tried to pass a law granting the Allies citizenship, and ended up stabbed to death on his front porch. The Allies snapped and fought a very nasty war against Rome which Rome very nearly lost, and only ended when Rome extended (or imposed - the question is still up for debate) the citizenship to (or on) the Allies. That war left Sulla in command of an army, as Consul elect, and directly set up his conflict with Marius for the Pontus command, which in turn led to Sulla's dictatorship and set the pattern for Roman politics until Augustus.
So, yeah, the Gracchi influenced Roman politics. They were not original in using their position to mess with the Senate, but they took it further and forced the Senate further than anyone else, and demonstrated the power the people had to oppose the Senate when organized properly. This proto-communist stuff I'm not so sure about; they didn't seem, to my eyes at least, to have an ideological commitment to social equality, but instead sought to address specific problems (lack of solders, urban poor) and, according to their enemies, use those that benefited from these reforms to further their own careers.
This is the story that all the surviving sources give us, from Cicero to Cassius Dio. Much of this has or is being questioned by modern scholars. [EDIT: a sentence dropped out before my coffee this morning: You don't have to believe the revisionists.] Not everyone believes Rosenstein, for instance. But as far as what Romans themselves thought, yes, the Gracchi did have significant influence on the course of Roman history. | [
"The emergence of new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and others, engaging in continued conflict with each other for their own interests, meant that the problem of effective governance awaited resolution. The reforms of the Gracchi had come to an end by violence; and this provided a brutal precedent that wo... |
How was the iconography of the Confederacy reframed into something that's treated as honorable/worthy of obsession? | Civil War memory is something I write a lot about, so I'd point you to [this older answer of mine](_URL_0_) which focuses more on the evolution of Confederate statuary than the Lost Cause itself, but I think does speak well to your question, although I'm of course happy to do my best with any follow-ups you may have. | [
"Beginning in 2015 and accelerating in 2017, a national controversy grew over the prominent positions of monuments and memorials to the Confederacy in many public spaces across the United States, and particularly in the American South. In this context, the statues of Confederate notables along the university's Sout... |
What happens to the body when your cortisol levels are constantly too high? | This is a really broad question, since excessive cortisol in the human body can have a lot of implications. I'll just talk about one of them.
One area of your brain that has a lot of cortisol receptors is the hippocampus. There is some evidence that excess cortisol can cause the hippocampus to be damaged in various ways. Individuals with excess cortisol have been show to have smaller hippocampi, suggesting that certain cells called pyramidal cells in the hippocampus likely atrophy due to cortisol activity. Another idea is that cortisol in the hippocampus suppresses neurogenesis, or the formation of new neurons. Both of these are likely causes of depression, and SSRIs both work to reverse these effects of excess cortisol in the hippocampus.
Extremely high cortisol in a short time can also impair memory. This is why individuals often can't remember times where they're extremely emotional.
| [
"Elevated levels of total cortisol can also be due to estrogen found in oral contraceptive pills that contain a mixture of estrogen and progesterone, leading to Pseudo-Cushing's syndrome. Estrogen can cause an increase of cortisol-binding globulin and thereby cause the total cortisol level to be elevated. However, ... |
how do electromagnetic pulses (emp) destroy electronics and is it possible to deploy it in bombs for warfare? | it is basically a very strong signal that is capable of frying weaker systems. It can be used for warfare, but its use is some what limited by the fact that military hardware is tough and most known systems are not big enough or thorough enough to take down civilians areas with any effectiveness. Either would take a nuclear sized blast to get anywhere, and by that point your already nuking them. | [
"An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. Nuclear explosions create a pulse of electromagnetic radiation called a nuclear EMP or NEMP. Such EMP interference is known to be generally disruptive or damaging to electronic equipment. If a single nuclear weapon \"designed to emit EMP were ... |
why do headphones sound tinny until you put them on? | Bass waves travel the least amount of distance, while higher pitched waves will reach your ears. Your ears are best at picking up and discerning those higher pitched sounds because they are most like the sounds you would normally be hearing. All of this considering the headphone speakers are very small and produce a relatively small decibel level. | [
"The outer shells of in-ear headphones are made up of a variety of materials, such as plastic, aluminum, ceramic and other metal alloys. Because in-ear headphones engage the ear canal, they can be prone to sliding out, and they block out much environmental noise. Lack of sound from the environment can be a problem ... |
Were Serbs exceptionally effective in the war against Austria during WWI? | Serbia's army had experience from the [Balkan Wars](_URL_0_), unlike the Austrians who were quite green. Austrian troops were better equipped, but had far less patriotism due to the fact that most of them weren't Austrian, but Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, etc. The Serbians also could match the Austrians in terms of numbers, since the bulk of Austria's army was engaged with Russia for most of the war. The land itself isn't exactly a bunch of flat open plains, and favored the defender. All-in-all, it isn't a surprise that Serbia performed how they did. | [
"The Serbs beat back an Austro-Hungarian invasion in August, at the Battle of Cer. It marked the first Allied victory over the Central Powers in World War I. Potiorek was humiliated by the defeat and was determined to resume the assault against the Serbs. He was given permission in September to launch another invas... |
the d & d alignment system, particularly the distinction between "neutral good/evil" and "chaotic good/evil." | It helps to just view the alignments one axis at a time -- lawful, neutral, chaotic; good, neutral evil.
Lawful means you will follow certain rules.
Chaotic means everything is random -- rules are made to be broken.
Neutral is somewhere in between these two; really, most people you meet with in real life would fall in the neutral spectum.
Good means you put others above yourself.
Evil means you willingly harm others, either for your own good or because you have been told to.
Neutral will generally not kill innocents, but certainly will not sacrifice themselves for others.
Neutral good would be someone who puts others above themselves, but isn't following a set pattern to it -- not helping others because their god said to, just because they want to. Neutral evil would be similar -- not killing just for the heck of it, but not killing just to obey a higher order.
Chaotic good is a character who is out for the greater good, but feels "the man" gets in the way, so (s)he will buck the rules constantly. Chaotic evil is one of those who just wants to watch the world burn.
Check the [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) page; it gives a pretty good overview of each of the nine types. | [
"\"D&D\" 4th Edition, released in 2008, reduced the number of alignments to five: lawful good, good, evil, chaotic evil, and unaligned. In that edition, \"good\" replaced neutral good and did not encompass chaotic good; \"evil\" replaced neutral evil and did not encompass lawful evil; \"unaligned\" replaced true ne... |
why can my dog eat shit and be fine, but not grapes or chocolate? | Because dog shit doesn't contain a compound (Theobromine) that is toxic to dogs. It *may* contain pathogens that make them sick, though. | [
"Dogs have around 1,700 taste buds compared to humans with around 9,000. The sweet taste buds in dogs respond to a chemical called furaneol which is found in many fruits and in tomatoes. It appears that dogs do like this flavor and it probably evolved because in a natural environment dogs frequently supplement thei... |
Why didn't the overthrow and regicide of Charles I prompt massive retaliation from other monarchs the way Louis XVI's did? | For much of the time of the English Civil War(s) Europe was still involved in the Thirty Years War. And the concurrent Franco-Spanish War, which blurred with the Thirty Years War but lasted longer. For the Holy Roman Empire and Spain the Thirty Years War was a much more pressing threat against their power than an English squabble. For France the potential shifts in continental power was a much more important and interesting situation.The Thirty Years War was over around 1648 and Charles lost his head in 1649. And France and Spain continued to be at war until 1659. So, there wasn't a lot of money or interest in mounting another major invasion.
Charles, who could be very competent in other areas, had also made a bit of a mess of foreign policy prior to the civil wars. He would, of course, blame this on not being funded by Parliament. But he made a poorly advised attempt at war with France while, at the same time, being at war with Spain. He did come to peace with both and had a fragile alliance with Spain. But he hadn't done much to endear himself to those powers.
The very nature of the wars was also not very well understood at the time or, honestly, still. As has already been discussed, it was not the overthrow of all vestiges of authority as the later stages of the French Revolution came to be (and remember much of Europe didn't intervene in France until it got to the stage or even later.) The tensions between royal authority and parliamentary authority were absolutely at stake. But there was also a strong religious component to the wars. With the royalists being associated with Laudianism and the parliamentarians being associated with puritanism. The reality was more complex but Europe wasn't itching to get involved in another religious war, at this point, either.
And the English (or at least the nobility) seemed to have a nasty habit of rebelling against and killing their kings. It's funny to think of now with the UK being one of the few monarchies left. But Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, and Richard III were all killed and that's not counting Edward V. Only Richard III in a proper battle. King John, Henry III and Edward II all faced serious rebellions by barons concerning their rights and privileges and the Parliamentary forces intentionally mimicked the stances of those fights. (I leave out the revolt against Richard II, War of the Roses and rebellions under the Tudors because in many ways those were about succession and/or the fitness of the ruler but the earlier conflicts were about limits of royal power and the "traditional" rights of the barons.) In some ways, this was framed as a very English conflict fighting over ancient grudges. And it was very intentionally presented this way by the Parliament even when they were going far beyond the traditional rights of the institution. It wasn't something obviously and markedly different the way the French Revolution became in its final stages. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we see it as something distinct from all of those conflicts. They didn't necessarily, at the time.
And I know that is an absurd thing to claim because a king was not only killed but he wasn't replaced. Oliver Cromwell was not a king. Nor did he have any even plausible birth claim to the throne. That's a huge change from the past. And that can't be ignored. But from the outside little had really changed radically under Cromwell despite his title. Also Spain had been fighting protestant insurgents in the Netherlands for decades so the existence of powerful protestant uprisings wasn't a foreign concept. Despite wars between nations through out the century, Europe in the late 18th century was in many ways a more settled place than Europe in the mid-17th century. So, the occurrence of such an uprising was more of a shock to the system.
All that being said, it is not as though other kingdoms did *nothing*. France did take in Charles's family. Although France eventually allied with the Cromwell government, they did so because they needed allies against Spain in their continuing war. Spain made an alliance with Charles II and gave him some money for troops. The Battle of the Dunes had English royalists on the Spanish side and Cromwell's forces on the French side. (The French won.) Charles II was just never given enough money to invade England, which would have been a massive undertaking. Neither France nor Spain condoned killing a sovereign monarch. They were just consumed with each other and not in a position to do all that much about it. Other powers of Europe were devastated by war and not as close to England's orbit.
Long story short, there were plenty of wars going on on the continent to distract the major powers of Europe. And, at the same time, the English Civil War was not as monumental a shift in power as the French Revolution eventually became. | [
"Charged with undermining the First French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by a majority of one vote, that of Philippe Égalité, he was condemned ... |
how credits were added to film | Assuming you are talking about the older days before computers, credits where often printed onto a a sheet which was attached to two rollers, kinda like a treadmill. Then they could just film it.
They could also layer films over one another to superimpose credits on a live action scene. | [
"Then, early in the 1930s, the more progressive motion picture studios started to change their approach in presenting their screen credits. The major studios took on the challenge of improving the way they introduced their movies. They made the decision to present a more complete list of credits to go with a higher... |
Sources on pre-modern/medieval arms race | You are entirely right that much internet information on weapons is fragmentary and contradictory. Part of this is because a lot of the information out there is by enthusiasts of different knowledge levels and there are a lot of old sources and bad scholarship mixed in with good sources and sound methods.
But part of this is because the entire history of weapons and armour is a vast topic and any summary will be fragmentary and contradictory by necessity. Weapons and armour do not exist in a vacuum - they are not simply better or worse than each other, but exist within a tactical, technological and economic context. Weapons do not necessarily fall out of favor because they are inferior - often it is because the manner of war changes. The form of weapons is not just dictated by how efficiently they are shaped for attacking - it is also dictated by how weapons are produced, and the technology available to produce them. We cannot understand weapons and armour without understanding how these factors shaped them. And this is hard, because it requires us to study military history, the history of technology, art history and social/economic history.
All of this is to say that the history of a few weapons or a specific type of armour in a single period is a complicated topic. The history of weapons and armour and the way they interacted throughout history is a massive topic, too big for a single scholar, since it requires too much background knowledge. This is really why historians specialize in general - acquiring in-depth knowledge of a period is itself a full time job - acquiring in-depth knowledge of thousands of years is not possible in a human lifetime. This is why my flair area covers one region and only 350 years.
Zeroing in on the period that I know about, the later Middle Ages in Western Europe, all the factors that I mention mean that the development of weapons and armour is more complex than better weapons driving the creation of better armour. Plate armour was partly, perhaps, a response to crossbows and other weapons, but it was also the product of an increasingly sophisticated steel making process in Medieval Europe - larger blooms from bloomeries could be turned into larger plates (allowing the forcing of large iron plates like breastplates), while waterwheels powered the bellows of the bloomeries and blast furnaces, the drip hammers that pounded the blooms into sheets, and the polishing wheels that polished the finished armour. Similarly the form of swords was dictated not just by their use in battle but also the state of metallurgy - the all-steel one-piece sword blades of the late middle ages could be formed into shapes that would not have been possible in the early Middle Ages. Similarly, we need to place armour and weapons in the context of how they were used - Italian knightly armour and weapons of the 15th century (armour that includes many overlapping and layered plates, a heavy lance, a lance rest mounted high on the breastplate) is well suited to heavy cavalry combat, but not well suited to fighting on foot. As soldiers change how they fight, their tools change to fit the task. Ultimately full plate armour wasn't simply rendered obsolete by stronger and stronger guns, but it stopped -making sense- on the late 16th century battlefield, for a number of reasons. I deal with this more in [this answer](_URL_0_). In general, the development of armour and weapons in the Middle Ages is not a two-sided arms race of more powerful weapons against stronger armour, but a multi-faceted story involving many causes.
So with that said there are some books to recommend that deal with the development of weapons and armour - heavier on the armour than the weapons.
*The Knight and the Blast Furnace* by Alan Williams is a history of plate armour in medieval and early modern Europe, as told through its metallurgy. This book deals heavily with the technological developments that made plate armour possible, and looks at how it developed over time. Partially in response to different weapons (mostly firearms), partially as a result of changing industrial processes and economic/social forces. *The Sword and the Crucible* by the same author deals with swords. Currently I am reading it.
Tobias Capwell's *Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450* is a hyper-focused text (the first of two volumes covering only 15th century England) that shows just how the form of armour is developed to suit the purposes it is used for - the way that people fight.
I should point out that all the books mentioned here are massive - folio-sized. Both The Sword and the Crucible and 'Armour of the English Knight' approach 400 pages or exceed it. The Knight and the Blast Furnace is 900 pages long. And there is still so much to be said about these topics.
| [
"The medieval heralds also devised arms for various knights and lords from history and literature. Notable examples include the toads attributed to Pharamond, the cross and martlets of Edward the Confessor, and the various arms attributed to the Nine Worthies and the Knights of the Round Table. These too are now re... |
If light has properties of waves, would it be possible to phase-cancel two laser beams? If yes, what would happen? If no, why not? | Yes. This is called interference and is a property of all waves. The prime apparatus that demonstrates laser beam interference is a Michelson interferometer. Basically, a laser beam is split into two different laser beams (so that they are coherent because significant interference requires coherence) which travel along different paths and then using mirrors are recombined and then hit a camera or a screen. One of the paths is a different length or through a different material so that one of the laser beams acquires a phase lag. On the screen, you get a series of dark and light rings (called an interference pattern). The dark rings are where the two laser beams are out of phase and cancel each other (called destructive interference). However, energy is not destroyed. Rather, energy is redirected to the areas with constructive interference (the bright rings).
Another approach is the double-slit setup. You send a single laser beam through two slits, which turns it into two coherent laser beams. These laser beams interfere, producing a pattern of light and dark bars. | [
"It is possible to arrange multiple beams of laser light such that destructive quantum interference suppresses the vacuum fluctuations. Such a squeezed vacuum state involves negative energy. The repetitive waveform of light leads to alternating regions of positive and negative energy.\n",
"For example, in the cas... |
Do all terrestrial bodies which experience a planetary wobble and orbit a star have four seasons? | The Earth's wobble (precession of the equinoxes) doesn't cause the seasons. The seasons are due to the axial tilt and the orbit of the Sun.
"Seasons" isn't an astronomical term. Any planet whose axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital plane will have solstices and equinoxes. If you wanted to, you could define four seasons between those solstices and equinoxes. That's not quite the same thing as "the four seasons we experience", though, since the seasons (in terms of weather and biosphere) don't have to follow the equinoxes and solstices. Also, a planet with only very slight axial tilt will have only very slight changes in insolation throughout the year. | [
"The planets' orbits are chaotic over longer timescales, in such a way that the whole Solar System possesses a Lyapunov time in the range of 2–230 million years. In all cases this means that the position of a planet along its orbit ultimately becomes impossible to predict with any certainty (so, for example, the ti... |
why do japanese swords only have one edge? | Japanese swordfighting styles are suited to slashing with a sharp, curved edge to negate the style of armour (or non-armor) popular at the time. European, medieval styled swords are double edged with a point to infiltrate the heavy, plated armour that was used. Thick armour, but many joints and separations can be penetrated by a point and heavier, "blunt" strikes. | [
"Over time, however, the curved single-edged sword became so dominant a style in Japan that \"tou\" and \"ken\" came to be used interchangeably to refer to swords in Japan and by others to refer to Japanese swords. For example, the Japanese typically refer to Japanese swords as 日本刀 \"nihontō\" (\"Japanese \"tou\"\"... |
how does professional poker work? | I am not a professional poker player, but I do know three pros personally. They are not big name pros, but they do earn a modest living ((think mid-five figures) playing poker.
One of them got his start by making the final table of a large multi-table tournament at a casino with a smallish ($200 or so) entry fee. He then ran that 25k up quickly and has settled into a routine playing $2-$5 hold'em, 2-5 Pot Limit Omaha, and slightly larger games when they are available at his home casino.
The other one saved his money working an 8-5 job until he had a decent amount of money to make a go at it (he said it was $10,000) and then ran that money up playing similar limits live and online.
They also invest their poker profits in other players that they know are above average.
You mention elimination in your question. I think you may be referring to tournament poker, which is only one of many, many forms of poker. Tournament poker is definitely one way to make money when playing poker professionally, but the pros that I am aware of make most of their money playing "cash" or "ring" games where you sit at a table with set limits on starting cash (typically at least 100 times the small and big blinds) and play against other players. So a 2-5 table might have a $200 minimum requirement and a $500 maximum, though many casinos do raise the maximum requirement to as much as twice that. | [
"Poker is a popular card game that combines elements of chance and strategy. There are various styles of poker, all of which share an objective of presenting the least probable or highest-scoring hand. A poker hand is usually a configuration of five cards depending on the variant, either held entirely by a player o... |
Is there a difference between the chubby and skinny Buddha? | Similar to "what race was Jesus," Buddha has different versions depending on what country you're in or what time period. Also, while there is one, original Buddha, there are also many other Buddhas, people who have achieved enlightenment and become immortalized in statue form.
In Japan, there are examples of monks who would starve themselves in a self-mummification ritual and then be built into a statue. I saw an example of this at the Tokyo National Museum and I *thought* I had taken a picture of it but I can't find it, so I think it's in the "no photo" gallery. I *believe* it was [this statue here](_URL_8_), but I can't be 100% sure. [Here is an image](_URL_15_) from Discover magazine of a similar statue that originated in China, [with a brief story](_URL_14_) on the history of such practices.
I've got a few different photos of Japanese Buddhas to share. [This Buddha](_URL_18_) is from 8^th century Nara Japan. Nara was based in the southwest of Honshu and their Buddhas share many common traits with Korean and Chinese examples. [This multi-armed Buddha](_URL_9_) is from the 14^th century Nanbokucho period, also from the southwest region. You can compare these Buddhas to [this one from Seokguram, Gyeongju Korea](_URL_11_) and notice that they share a lot of similarities - the almond shaped eyes with a tiny slit, the fairly narrow nose (although the Nara Buddha has a bit wider and flatter nose), the same hair style (even on the Nanbochuko Buddha, the little heads above the main one share the hair). [This Korean statue](_URL_3_) from the 8th century Silla dynasty again shows similar features - almond eyes, hair, and a wide nose, ala Nara Buddha - and [this Buddha statue](_URL_0_) from the 14^th century Goryeo dynasty shows a more Chinese influence - rounded face, different hairstyle. It should be noted that the Silla kingdom was based in Gyeongju, a stones throw from the southeast coast of Korea. Also, the Silla and Paekche kingdoms fought with the Paekche losing and many of the Paekche upper-class fled to Japan. Furthermore, China, Japan, and Korea all traded across the southern Korean coast with Korea frequently acting as an intermediary, so it is no surprise that the Buddhas are similar. Goryeo, on the other hand, encompassed all of modern South Korea and most of North Korea and they based their capital in the Seoul region. They had more contact with the Chinese at that point. These last two statues I mentioned were both stolen from Tsushima Island Japan a few years ago by Korean patriots/art thieves/opportunists and brought back to Korea. It's been claimed that Japan plundered them and a court recently ruled that the standing Buddha must be returned to Japan since no one in Korea was claiming it, but a temple in Seosan claimed the seated Buddha. Earlier this year the court ruled that that statue would stay in Korea, but it's been going through the legal system with a hearing before the Supreme Court just this March.
[Here is a photo of the Buddha at Bongeunsa Temple](_URL_7_) in Seoul. I know I've got photos of this one, I've been here dozens of times but I just can't seem to find any. [Here's a funny commercial regarding this statue and the origins of pizza.](_URL_13_) Anyway, note the large ears on this guy. [Here is a Buddha statue at Seoraksan National Park](_URL_10_) - again, note the giant ears. This one also has his eyes slightly open, at least more-so than any of the others I've shown have had. This particular Buddha was built in the 90's, [being finished in 1997](_URL_2_). [A statue at Beobjusa Temple](_URL_5_) in Chungcheongbuk-do South Korea is the tallest standing bronze Buddha in the world. Again, note his large ears. This statue was finished in 1989. [At Donghwasa temple in Daegu](_URL_17_), a 30 meter tall Buddha was finished in 1992 and his ears make Dumbo's look tiny. [At Mangbolsa temple in Gyeongsangbuk-do](_URL_19_), you can see two Buddhas with big ears. They also have [the Buddha I think you're talking about](_URL_1_).
This statue represents Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. It was said that he exercised and starved himself in an effort to overcome the minds desires and that when he finally sat down beneath a tree to meditate, he was so emaciated that this was what he looked like. These statues are supposed to show the dangers of being too extreme and to show that transformation is possible.
There are a couple of different chubby or laughing buddhas. [Here is one from Jogye Temple](_URL_6_) in downtown Seoul. Then there's [Budai](_URL_12_) who was not actually a Buddha, but the incarnation of Maitreya, a future Buddha.
So to sum up, there are many different Buddhas - there is the original Buddha who founded the religion and then anyone else who has achieved enlightenment. Depending on the time and place, each Buddha can be depicted differently. While I made a point of noting that Korean Buddhas have large ears, it should be pointed out many other countries Buddhas have them too. However, Korean Buddhas tend to have all around large ears whereas other versions tend to only have elongated lobes. You can also see the similarities between Buddhas in regions that share a common Buddhist history, i.e. China, Korea, and Japan. So to answer your main question, you're seeing two different Buddhas from specific points in their histories. Budai is only one form of Maitreya - [he could look like this Chinese carved Budai](_URL_4_) or [like this Korean made Maitreya](_URL_16_)
| [
"BULLET::::- The historical Buddha was not obese. The \"chubby Buddha\" or \"laughing Buddha\" is a 10th-century Chinese folk hero by the name of Budai. In Chinese Buddhist culture, Budai came to be revered as an incarnation of Maitreya, the Bodhisattva who will become a Buddha to restore Buddhism after the teachin... |
how do completely torn ligaments such as atfl heal? | Fairly complicated, the simple answer is that cells communicate. A cell can tell other cells where is it, what type of cell it is, and if it’s in some kind of “distress”. There is also a 3 step response when tissue tears, and the first step is basically inflammation. In this step, a ton of different cell types (tissue, stem, blood, immune, etc.) rush to the site of trauma and they all have different jobs. This is where a lot of communicating occurs, and your body is essentially trying to figure out what happened and how it can best be fixed.
Cells that make up what’s left of the ligament will communicate, and with the help of other cell types, will slowly undergo mitosis and other cellular processes to repair the ligament. | [
"Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, also known as Tommy John surgery (TJS), is a surgical graft procedure where the ulnar collateral ligament in the medial elbow is replaced with either a tendon from elsewhere in the patient's body, or with one from a dead donor. The procedure is common among collegiate and ... |
How do you continue studying history after graduation? | Keep up with the big journals, and go to some of the big conferences. You'll stay up-to-date with the most recent research, and get to keep interacting with people who hold a similar academic interest.
Once you have your JD, there's always the option of (potentially) writing academically on classical law on the side. Additionally, if you have the option for electives, take some on ancient law if they're available to you.
Hope this helps a little. Happy reading! | [
"Initially, graduate students usually rotate through the laboratories of several faculty researchers, after which the student commits to joining a particular laboratory for the remainder of his or her education. The remaining time is spent conducting original research under the direction of the principal investigat... |
Aside from the obvious (algebra, chess, etc.), how did Western science benefit from encounters with Islam and the Middle East during the Crusades? | In my understanding that old idea of information transmitted through the Christian East has been rather debunked. Most of the things that the Islamic World transmitted to the West came through Spain, not Syria and Palestine. The eastern contacts were more important for economic reasons, moving goods into the Mediterranean that originated in the Far and Middle Easts. | [
"Medieval Islam's receptiveness to new ideas and heritages helped it make major advances in medicine during this time, adding to earlier medical ideas and techniques, expanding the development of the health sciences and corresponding institutions, and advancing medical knowledge in areas such as surgery and underst... |
Are artificial food dyes different than dyes used in craft supplies? | Dyes that are approved for use in food or hygiene products have undergone testing to various degrees in order to ensure that they are non-toxic in the quantities you'd find in those products. Crafts supplies have no such regulations in place, and there is no telling what materials are present in the dyes or pigments used. The best guarantee you can hope for is that they aren't toxic merely by being in their presence. For example, the glass containers you can buy for dirt cheap at a craft store are often full of lead, and they will usually say that they are not meant for the storage of food or drinks.
Unfortunately, we are a long way off from knowing what the specific effect of food dyes on children with ADHD is. The state of the field is that researchers are still trying to establish that there even is a reproducible link between food dyes and hyperactivity. If that research is successful in nailing down a precise link, other scientists can begin work on figuring out exactly how that effect comes about. | [
"The primary source of dye, historically, has been nature, with the dyes being extracted from animals or plants. Since the mid-19th century, however, humans have produced artificial dyes to achieve a broader range of colors and to render the dyes more stable to washing and general use. Different classes of dyes are... |
How does the UV Catastrophe relate to the quantization of energy? | The basic problem can be thought of like this: in classical thermodynamics there is the [equipartition theorem](_URL_0_) which means that each mode has the same (finite) average energy. The electromagnetic field has an infinity of modes, hence the problem.
edit: corralled some runaway words | [
"The term \"ultraviolet catastrophe\" was first used in 1911 by Paul Ehrenfest, but the concept originated with the 1900 statistical derivation of the Rayleigh–Jeans law. The phrase refers to the fact that the Rayleigh–Jeans law accurately predicts experimental results at radiative frequencies below 10 GHz, but beg... |
Is it possible to condition your own bladder to hold more liquid? | The feeling of needing to urinate stems from mechanoreceptors in the bladder, it's certainly possible to learn to develop tolerance to the desire to urinate and as such increase the length of time between urinating. Drugs such as Tolterodine and various bladder training techniques have been shown to help increase the volume stored within the bladder but these were patients with over-active bladders. | [
"Emptying the bladder is one of the defense mechanisms of this tortoise. This can leave the tortoise in a very vulnerable condition in dry areas, and it should not be alarmed, handled, or picked up in the wild unless in imminent danger. If it must be handled, and its bladder is emptied, then water should be provide... |
Why were the Anglo-Saxons one of the only Germanic groups who didn’t assimilate into the cultures they conquered? | Who says that they didn't? Robin Fleming argues in *Britain After Rome* that the idea of the Anglo-Saxons as a purely Germanic culture is misguided and not supported by the evidence that we have available through archaeology. She points to the blend of clothing and jewelry styles that emerged following "Anglo-Saxon" migration to Britain as evidence that these two cultures were assimilating into something difference from either that came before. She views this process as more or less a peaceful one. While they was some endemic violence inherent to the time period, she does not see evidence for the mass violence that is often assumed to have accompanied the Germanic migration into Britain.
However Peter Heather offers another explanation that is worth mentioning. He posits that due to the fragmented and small scale nature of migration into Britain, combined with a fluid cultural identity for the native British there was little reason for the native British to hang onto their culture in certain parts of Britain so the population assimilated into the new Germanic one.
Also worth bearing in mind is that the label of "Anglo-Saxon" as applied to the migrators themselves is misleading. While many of the Germanic people who came to England did come from Jutland or Saxony, others came from Norway, Frisia, Ireland (not even Germanic people!), and Sweden. Also that the process of assimilation was not as smooth in some of these places as you might imagine. For example, Frankish Law (or Salic Law) maintained legal distinctions between Franks and Romans for centuries following Frankish control over northern Gaul. Even though the populations "assimilated" in the end, we should not imagine that this process was quick, easy, or assumed. | [
"The Franks and the Anglo-Saxons were unlike the other Germanic peoples in that they entered the Western Roman Empire as Pagans and were forcibly converted to Chalcedonian Christianity by their kings, Clovis I and Æthelberht of Kent (see also Christianity in Gaul and Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England). The re... |
why do my muscles hurt after using them? | Lactic acid build up within the muscle may cause pain. Muscle tightness also may cause pain in the muscle. | [
"As a result of this effect, not only is the soreness reduced, but other indicators of muscle damage, such as swelling, reduced strength and reduced range of motion, are also more quickly recovered from. The effect is mostly, but not wholly, specific to the exercised muscle: experiments have shown that some of the ... |
Why does my vision change when I focus intently on anything around me? | When you [stabilize an image on your retina](_URL_1_) for a long time, you adapt to portions of the image and stop noticing / seeing them. The auditory equivalent is when you do not notice the hum of a light or a fan until you pay attention to it again. Normally, your eyes are moving many times a second, even when you are fixating on something, in order to provide some change in the sensory input to a portion of your retina. This is called a [microsaccade](_URL_0_). | [
"Changes in spatial attention can occur with the eyes moving, overtly, or with the eyes remaining fixated, covertly. Within the human eye only a small part, the fovea, is able to bring objects into sharp focus. However, it is this high visual acuity that is needed to perform actions such as reading words or recogni... |
what is going to make future 5g internet, faster than current 4g networks? | Well, there was a mobile network CEO or tech apecialist recently that described how the 5g network will work. It will be closer to skynet in terms of the net will be smarter, faster, more organized, and better equipped with newer generation technology that enables up to gigabit. There will be bigger, thicker cables to every cell tower so that connectivity will be wider spread and more reliable. The network will be smarter in the sense that it can tell when your battery is low and it'll start pinging your phone less, and more organized since there will likely be a prioritization system set up that deals with making business lines have a higher priority than our own commercial lines. Generally, the network will be smarter and more efficient for every cent spent on it. | [
"5G succeeds 4G LTE wireless technology; developments have been focused on enabling low-latency communications, and promises of a minimum peak network speed of 20 gigabits per/second (20 times faster than the equivalent on 4G LTE networks), and uses within Internet of things and smart city technology.\n",
"A new ... |
How was life as a Carthaginian compared to life as a Roman? | So there's this incident where Claudius is headed to what is now England in a ship. He gets spotted by a Carthaginian ship, and it's one group of rowers against the other. Claudius argues the reason his rowers won (and escaped) was that they were free men, while the Carthaginian rowers were slaves. But that was much later, and we're talking a very different Carthage than the one during the Punic wars.
Not only that, to believe the argument, you have to trust the ancient sources, and the modern one (Graves, in this case). For your basic question, "Was Rome really militaristic," the answer can only be yes. Was Carthage a democracy? that's a modern question, which may not actually be relevant in ancient terms.
They *did* have election of kings, but we would describe it as an oligarchy. Look up "Tribunal of 104" if you're interested. Your average Carthaginian citizen was more interested in trade than fighting, so they depended heavily on mercenaries from subjugated provinces for their military. The struggles for power would have been familiar to any Roman: political murders, bought offices, intrigue and deceit. Both systems thought of themselves as republics.
One other problem: most of the writers we base our view on were actually foreigners, in many cases hostile foreigners. It's difficult, under such circumstances, to make real assertions. But some basic things are clear: Rome had a plunder economy, while Carthage was based slightly more on trade. Land power vs. sea power. Citizen military vs. mercenaries. All those are oversimplifications, but have some truth to them. The modern concept of freedom can't be said to apply.
I haven't researched the "rage on the TW forums," but if they're pro-Rome, they're probably misreading. Arguing that the Romans were a positive influence is another modern simplification. They made life suck for any non-Roman area (such is the nature of a plunder economy), and for the majority of Romans themselves. Their whole system was based on the idea that "We're going to kick your ass and take all your stuff." | [
"The Punic Wars with Carthage had a particularly marked effect on Roman viticulture. In addition to broadening the cultural horizons of the Roman citizenry, Carthaginians also introduced them to advanced viticultural techniques, in particular the work of Mago. When the libraries of Carthage were ransacked and burne... |
How did the United States of America arrive at their valuation of Greenland in 1946? Could the area have been worth the cost of purchase in terms of economic output, or was the value purely strategic? | Initially, America very much wanted it for strategic reasons. The GIUK Gap was hugely important. Specifically, it was important to the Soviet Union's submarine fleet.
If you look at the terms of the [Montreux Convention](_URL_2_), it was impossible to "sneak" a submarine through Turkish waters. If you look at a map of the Baltic Sea, or more specifically the [waters around Denmark](_URL_0_), it's similarly unlikely that you could ever sneak a submarine past even a semi-aware detection network. Denmark, of course, was one of the founding dozen of NATO.
This means that if the Soviets actually want to conduct any submarine operations with any degree of stealth, they need to be based out of Murmansk in the White Sea or somewhere in East Asia (Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, Magadan, or Sovetskaya Gavan. Realistically, if the Soviets wanted to have their submarines remain undetected, they really could only use those five ports. And if you wanted to operate in the Atlantic, you weren't going to put your HQ on the northwestern coast of the Pacific. You were going to put it in Murmansk.
This, effectively, meant that any ships the Soviets sent to the Atlantic had to pass through the GIUK Gap. And it would be relatively easy to detect (and subsequently track or shadow) them if you had assets in the area beforehand. And it's kind of hard to be all sneaky and such when the USN is dropping [practice depth charges on you](_URL_4_). They couldn't do any meaningful damage, of course, but it's an implicit threat: the USN was basically saying, "we could sink you at any time."
As for the overall economic value of Greenland: that's up in the air. We [already see](_URL_1_) Greenland being exploited for hydrocarbons. The USGS released a review of hydrocarbons in the region [here](_URL_3_). I believe they described it as "a genuinely stupid amount of dead dead plants buried in the sea floor." (Okay, that wasn't their exact phrasing.) (._.)
Theoretically, yes, Greenland would've paid for itself. Eventually. If the estimates actually pan out. | [
"Following World War II, the United States developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland, and in 1946 the United States offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100,000,000, but Denmark refused to sell.\n",
"Following World War II, the United States developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland, and in 1946 t... |
has the physiological damage caused by trauma been the same through out history? | No. Trauma has been present with humanity throughout our history. The difference is that nowadays, we are allowed to actually speak about our traumas, and help them heal, whereas in the past there was mostly an attitude of 'why are you acting like this, stop it'. Or if it was mentioned, it was mentioned in vague terms that do not always translate well to modern ears. The deadly sin sloth, for example, initially didn't really refer to simple laziness. It was meant for apathy and loss of interest in life, exactly the sort of symptoms commonly associated with depression (potentially due to former trauma). | [
"Historical trauma is described as collective emotional and psychological damage throughout a person's lifetime and across multiple generations. Examples of historical trauma can be seen through the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, where over 200 unarmed Lakota were killed, and the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, when A... |
Why was the USS Indianapolis sailing without an escort when she was sunk? | It's normal for a cruiser to operate alone without destroyer escort in some circumstances. A heavy cruiser is an important asset, but it's not a capital ship that will shift the balance of naval power if lost. Destroyers were always in high demand for various roles in world war two and there were usually not enough to go around. A cruiser task force going in to action might normally include some destroyers, but not each individual cruiser on a non-combat mission.
Anti-submarine weaponry in World War Two was generally only effective *after* the submarine was detected. An escorting destroyer would not have been able to detect the submarine and prevent the Indianapolis's loss, (high speed reduces the ability of surface ships to detect submarines) although it may have meant a ship was present to rescue survivors or counterattack the submarine. A heavy cruiser is much faster than a submarine (surfaced or submerged) and a fast speed and zig-zag pattern course (which the Indianapolis should have been following but wasn't) will generally provide as much protection as possible against the submarine's first salvo of torpedoes.
The main reason to avoid including destroyers as escorts to a heavy cruiser is range. Destroyers have a much shorter operating range than cruisers, especially at high speeds, and the voyage from Honolulu to the Marianas would be too close for safety to the maximum operating range of a WWII destroyer. Destroyers accompanying major task forces have to periodically refuel from supply ships or larger warships, which is time consuming and creates a moment of vulnerability.
| [
"USS \"Indianapolis\" (CL/CA-35) was a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. At 00:15 on 30 July 1945, she was struck on her starboard side by two Type 95 torpedoes, one in the bow and one amidships, from the Japanese submarine , captained by Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, who initially thought he had spotted t... |
What adaptations do humans have that allow them to remain balanced without a tail? | During the time our tails were disappearing (and they still are, if you look at our skeletons), we began to evolve a sense called Equilibrioception—or balance.
Equilibrioception makes use of a variety of sensory input to keep us from falling over while walking or standing:
1. Visual cues, like the horizon and the horizontal angle of local references (e.g. flat surfaces, the level of other's eyes).
2. Vestibular system—there are specialized, liquid-filled canals in our ears that contain super-sensitive hairs that can track the internal movement of the liquid when the head changes position. This gives us information on the angular and rotational movements of our head, much like a smartphone's accelerometer.
3. Proprioception—the body's own perception of where it is in space, made possible by special nerves located within joints and muscles attached to our skeletal system. These nerves allow our limbs and joints a general idea of relative distance to each other, and also clue them in on some motion/acceleration information by sensing the physical effort currently being exerted by muscles (e.g. during running, jumping, etc). | [
"Manx (and other tail-suppressed breeds) do not exhibit problems with balance, Balance is controlled primarily by the inner ear. In cats, dogs and other large-bodied mammals, balance involves but is not dependent upon the tail (contrast rats, for whom the tail is a quite significant portion of their body mass).\n",... |
"Rubbing Alcohol" is the main ingredient in most skin care (and other) products but we've all been told to basically not use it for anything except an antiseptic. Why? | If I remember correctly, there are two big reasons for this:
When the skin dries up, it flakes off and ends up in the pores which will cause more blemishes then when you originally started.
Second, because it dries up so much, your skin will try to regain a balance and then overproduce oils, creating a longterm problem. | [
"All rubbing alcohols are unsafe for human consumption: isopropyl rubbing alcohols do not contain the ethyl alcohol of alcoholic beverages; ethyl rubbing alcohols are based on denatured alcohol, which is a combination of ethyl alcohol and one or more bitter poisons that make the substance toxic.\n",
"Product labe... |
When did the US Government begin doubting that China/Taiwan would ever retake the Chinese mainland? | The US was never really under any illusions that the nationalists would somehow turn things around in the Civil War after they retreated to Taiwan. Even before the end of WW2 there had been multiple American observers and experts in China who had reported the Communists enjoyed much broader popularity than the Nationalists, and by 1949 the GMD was very obviously overwhelmed.
Before the Chinese entered the Korean War, the US was expecting an invasion by the mainland to finish things off, and the US government had diplomatically indicated that they weren't going to do anything about it. Only when the Chinese entered the Korean War did the US send the 7th Fleet to the Strait of China to prevent the invasion. They also began to provide the Taiwanese military with equipment and weapons.
After the war the US certainly hoped that the CCP would crumble, but their support of Taiwan was based on denying the CCP territory, and especially on keeping China's UN security council vote out of the hands of the Communists. There was no real belief that Taiwan could attack the CCP. | [
"On 16 December 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. would sever its official relationship with the Republic of China as of 1 January 1979. It was the most serious challenge to the Taiwan government since it lost its seat at the United Nations to the People's Republic of China in 1971. Presiden... |
How do physics and astronomy undergrad majors differ? | They are very similar, but you'd do better to get a degree in physics if you're really interested in high level astronomy. Astronomy degrees can focus too much on what may or may not be relevant to your interests. It's better to get a broad understanding of physics, rather than an astronomical based understanding of it. Your appreciation and understanding of astronomy will only benefit.
If you plan on going to grad school, many people recommend a math degree with either a duel degree in physics, or at least a minor. Almost everyone regrets not taking more math. | [
"The courses for physics major have much higher level than those two case that had been talked above. At the beginning of the college. Their courses have few difference with the physics courses for the general education of science major. After the first year, the physics majors need to go up and study many deeper k... |
how do octopuses avoid giving themselves brain damage? | They don't really have a localized brain, like we do. Rather, it is spread throughout their body, with a lot of neural tissue in the tentacles. | [
"The octopus (along with cuttlefish) has the highest brain-to-body mass ratios of all invertebrates; it is also greater than that of many vertebrates. It has a highly complex nervous system, only part of which is localised in its brain, which is contained in a cartilaginous capsule. Two-thirds of an octopus's neuro... |
why did we go from round headphone wires to flat ones? | i'm not sure what you mean. all headphones i've bought in the past few years have round wires. can you give an example of these "flat" wires? | [
"Owing to the fact that a round wire will create air gaps that are not electrically used, the fill factor is always smaller than one. In order to achieve higher fill factors, rectangular or flat wire can be used. This can be wound on flat or upright.\n",
"Early speaker cable was typically stranded copper wire, in... |
who was the last living person to hold the position (however ceremonial) of a roman senator? When was the last time the Roman senate met? | The Roman Senate continued to meet throughout the first part of the sixth century, and even enjoyed a renaissance of sorts under the barbaric rulers beginning with Odoacer and especially under Theodoric the Great. The Gothic Wars, though, devastated Italy in the mid-sixth century, and Rome was no exception. In 536, it was recaptured by the Eastern Romans; a siege began shortly thereafter in March 537 and lasted for a year; sacked in 546 by Totila (during the siege of which, a famine haunted the city); captured again in 550 by Totila; and finally captured for good by the Eastern Roman General Narses in 552.
Nonetheless, the Roman Senate did survive all these events, albeit in diminished form. We know that they continued to meet in some fashion because they pleaded Emperor Tiberius II Constantine for help against the Lombards in 578, sending an envoy to Constantinople with 3,000 pounds of gold. (The Emperor returned the gold, saying there were no troops to spare and instead advised the Senate to spend it on using it to secure support from Lombard and Frankish rulers)
But by 593, Pope Gregory I wrote the following in his Homilies on Ezekial (essentially a reflection on the dire state of the world):
> Where is the senate? Where are the people? The senate is vanished, the people have perished... Rome is empty and yet Rome is burning.
By 593, Rome of course was not empty, and was probably a city of some 30,000 - 50,000, making it still one of the largest cities in Europe at the time even though it was a shadow of its former self. So what he said should not be taken literally, but it's indicative of the decline of the Roman Senate.
The last time the Senate is mentioned though is in 603 in the Gregorian Register, in which it is noted as having acclaimed new statues of Emperor Phocas and Empress Leontia. But, it's referenced in the register as, "by the whole clergy and the senate." Moreover, the Pope ordered the statues to be moved to the chapel of the Imperial Palace on the Palatine. So it seems clear that in whatever form the Senate existed by 603, it was clearly no longer a significant body. After that time, there's no more references to the Senate, and we know that in 630, its meeting place (the Julia Curia) was converted to a church.
I think it's worth quickly noting though that the Eastern Roman Senate continued to meet in Constantinople for hundreds of years afterward. It was mostly a ceremonial body during this time, although it did have some influence (in 1197, they exempted Constantinople, and thus themselves, from a special tax that the Emperor had specifically convened them to approve).
As for the last person to hold the position, I have no idea. Boethius is probably the last well-known Roman Senator (don't take my word for that), but the Senate continued to function for decades after his death in 524. The last consul was Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius in 541. After him, the title was added to the Imperial title until Emperor Leo VI got rid of it altogether in the late 9th century.
Some sources:
_URL_2_
_URL_0_
_URL_1_ | [
"The senate as a body was formed of sitting senators, whose number was held at around 600 by the founder of the \"principate\", Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – AD 14) and his successors until 312. Senators' sons and further descendants technically retained equestrian rank unless and until they won a seat in the senate.... |
American and Russian submarines during WW2 | During WWII the United States Navy used the Mark 14 torpedo. The torpedo had a speed of 46 knots. Now it is unclear what class of Soviet submarine was being used but I can assure you that it would have been hopelessly outmatched in terms of submerged speed. From what I found the submerged top speed of most submarines of that era top out at around 10-14 knots. And actually that torpedo would be able to catch the fastest submarine in the world, the Soviet K-222 which had a top speed of 44.7 knots and was commissioned in 1969. | [
"During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained large submarine fleets that engaged in cat-and-mouse games. This continues today, on a much-reduced scale. The Soviet Union suffered the loss of at least four submarines during this period: \"K-129\" was lost in 1968 (which the CIA attempted to... |
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