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What do you think happened to the lost colony of Roanoake? | This question gets asked quite a bit and an [answer](_URL_0_) is in the FAQ section. u/colevintage or others may have more to add. | [
"The Lost Colony is an historical outdoor drama, written by American Paul Green and produced since 1937 in Manteo, North Carolina. It is based on accounts of Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts in the 16th century to establish a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island, then part of the Colony of Virginia. The play has bee... |
How has the depiction of war in fiction changed since the World Wars? | I wouldn't agree that war was glorified prior to the World Wars. Famous works like Tolstoy's *War and Peace* portray war as a chaotic, futile endeavor. Even famous British poems like Kipling's [Arithmetic on the Frontier](_URL_5_), [The Last of the Light Brigade](_URL_6_) and Tennyson's [Charge of the Light Brigade]... | [
"War is a common theme in art and has inspired many great works. Throughout history, most representations of war depict military achievements and often show significant battle scenes. However, in the 19th century a “turn” in the visual representation of war became noticeable. Artists started to show the disastrous ... |
What caused the growing whining sound when old propeller planes went into a nose dive? | The noise you are thinking of is a [Jericho Trumpet](_URL_0_). They were specifically mounted on German Stuka dive bombers just to freak people out as they came in for an attack. It was a kind of psychological warfare designed to divert the enemies focus towards something they couldn't actually do anything about.
The ... | [
"Eyewitnesses claimed that the aircraft's engine was emitting smoke or fire. The aircraft later nose-dived and exploded as it plunged onto the sea. According to local fishermen, the aircraft went down at 10:22. While the aircraft was nose-diving, eyewitnesses noted that the engine made an unusual sound. There was n... |
Parents who lose their child seem to enter into an intense and lifelong grieving process (today). Was this always the case? What about in societies where infant and child mortality rates were very high? | In the middle ages, though my source (Women's Roles in the Middle Ages, Edited by Bardsley) doesn't specify time period beyond "the middle ages" or a specific country, midwives were allowed to baptize infants who seemed like they were not going to make it. This was the *only* time women were allowed to perform such rit... | [
"Main and Hesse found that most of the mothers of these children had suffered major losses or other trauma shortly before or after the birth of the infant and had reacted by becoming severely depressed. In fact, 56% of mothers who had lost a parent by death before they completed high school subsequently had childre... |
Why are car starters powered by as low voltage as 12V? | A higher voltage system has advantages like lower weight wiring, but need more cells in the battery. That means a bigger battery and a high impedance in one cell will render the whole battery useless. It would require more windings in the starter and alternator to get the same power. 12 volts is a good compromise becau... | [
"The voltage of the power outlet is usually near 12 V DC, (14V to 15V while the running engine is turning the alternator, in order to charge the car battery while providing electrical power), because it is unregulatedly directly powered from the car's electrical system.\n",
"A second problem is that nominally \"t... |
what makes games like 2048 so incredibly addictive? | They're simple, easy to learn, easy to play on many devices, goal oriented and not incredibly difficult to get fairly good at. It's the lowest hanging fruit on the quick, easy rewards tree, with a good difficulty curve that lets people come back and get better and better. | [
"Joseph Walsh of Nintendo Life gave the game a score of 7/10, saying that the game is \"incredibly addictive\", with \"new mechanics that help breathe life into one of gaming's oldest genres\". He criticized a \"lack of levels\" and \"some presentational hiccups\".\n",
"Some argue the game has addictive qualities... |
If photons have no mass, how can a laser beam bore a hole through something? Wouldn't the equation E=MC^2 resolve to 0=0? | E=mc^(2) is only part of the story.
The full expression relating energy E, momentum p, and mass m is
E^(2)=p^(2)c^(2) + m^(2)c^(4)
Photons have no mass, but they do have momentum, and thus they have energy.
| [
"Several photons of energy below the ionization threshold may actually combine their energies to ionize an atom. This probability decreases rapidly with the number of photons required, but the development of very intense, pulsed lasers still makes it possible. In the perturbative regime (below about 10 W/cm at opti... |
what makes it so that people get used to smoking as opposed to coughing like people do at first. | Little hairs in your windpipe cause you to cough when they are irritated. After you have been smoking for a while, they stop working as well. | [
"Asthma, COPD, and smokers have reduced airflow ability. People who suffer from asthma and COPD show decreases in exhaled air due to inflammation of the airways. This inflammation causes narrowing of the airways which allows less air to be exhaled. Numerous things cause inflammation some examples are cigarette smok... |
why does most of the pens have a small hole in the middle of their body? | It depends on what you mean. The cap on pens tends to have a hole to prevent them stopping people from breathing if they are accidentally swallowed, and also to allow an outlet to stop suction which would otherwise prevent their removal.
You might instead mean the tiny hole on the side of a plastic pen body, roughly h... | [
"Most round pens are located outdoors, but due to their relatively small size can easily be enclosed by a roof or a tension fabric building. Round pens made of portable panels are sometimes set up within a larger riding arena allowing one horse to be worked in the round pen while others may still ride along the rai... |
On a microscopic level, what makes something feel soft? | First, since you said "feel", I suspect you mean "compliant", which is a low resistance to elastic (i.e., temporary) deformation. Something that's "soft" has a low resistance to permanent deformation (i.e., you can scratch it easily). Compliant is the opposite of stiff, and soft is the opposite of hard. One doesn't nec... | [
"Soft materials are important in a wide range of technological applications. They may appear as structural and packaging materials, foams and adhesives, detergents and cosmetics, paints, food additives, lubricants and fuel additives, rubber in tires, etc. In addition, a number of biological materials (blood, muscle... |
what would happen if i was driving my car backward at a decent speed and suddenly switched gears to go forward? no tapping of the gas pedal or brake pedal, just switching gears. | Modern automatic transmissions are not mechanically linked to the shifter and will simply ignore this input until you stop. Manuals have physical interlocks to prevent this.
Should you manage to overcome all this, then it comes down to whether the transmission is tough enough to stall the engine or if it just breaks. | [
"The driver could down-shift for passing by fully depressing the accelerator. The clutch was needed to change between low and high range. The fluid drive system allowed the driver to stop at a light or in traffic and remain in gear without depressing the clutch. The driver could, if not concerned with fast accelera... |
how can people can use sites like silk road without being arrested? | I can't speak for every country, but in Australia it's not illegal to use the sites, or even to purchase something. The illegal part is attempting to import drugs into the country, or attempting to sell them.
> Doesn't the post office scan packages?
Yes, but only a small fraction of them.
> how and why haven't the... | [
"BULLET::::- Photography on private property that is generally open to the public (e.g., a shopping mall) is usually permitted unless explicitly prohibited by posted signs. Even if no such signs are posted, the property owner or agent can ask a person to stop photographing, and if the person refuses to do so, the o... |
French Foreign Legion: How important of a fighting force has it historically been? | First and foremost I must recommend The French Foreign Legion by Douglas Porch, it is an exhaustive, and in english at least, definitive history of the legion. I dont have my copy on hand, but when I get home I can give exact quotes to support this summary.
The Legion was inherently very different from the regular, co... | [
"The French Foreign Legion is an elite force composed of soldiers of different race, trade, religion, and sentiments, which began as part of the French Army. Through the years, it has earned a quasi-legendary reputation due to its victories and also its gallant defeats. It was founded in 1831 and was given the righ... |
what stops humans from sleeping for days at a time? | One reason is that you can't store as much nutritients as a bear can. Your body is not situated to do this. Bears store nutritients to hibernate in periods where they would lack food and overall the period where they wouldn't be happy to live in.
If that makes sense. | [
"The \"Preservation and Protection\" theory holds that sleep serves an adaptive function. It protects the animal during that portion of the 24-hour day in which being awake, and hence roaming around, would place the individual at greatest risk. Organisms do not require 24 hours to feed themselves and meet other nec... |
why can we hear such high frequencies ( 20khz ) when its seems completely useless for survival ? | As long as there is nothing killing us because of those high frequencies, there's no trend to "remove" that trait. Also, whereas having the extra range is totally pointless, it may be an indicator/side-effect of better hearing in the regular frequencies. This would be a significant evolutionary advantage.
It's like w... | [
"One consequence of the configuration of the outer ear is selectively to boost the sound pressure 30- to 100-fold for frequencies around 3 kHz. This amplification makes humans most sensitive to frequencies in this range — and also explains why they are particularly prone to acoustical injury and hearing loss near t... |
What did Soviet leaders make of the hippie movement in the West in the 1960s? | Follow up question and my apologies if it has already been asked: Where did the USSR get their soldiers (not during a major war)? Did they have a draft like the US?
Why am I being downvoted? | [
"Hippie culture emerged in the late 60s and early 70s. Although very similar in terms of aesthetic to their western cousins, Soviet hippies were more passive. The Soviet hippie movement did not develop the same radical social and political sensibilities as did the New Left in the United States. Elsewhere in the eas... |
So if salt was a currency at times in Rome, are there any records of someone just boiling seawater until they'd amassed a fortune in salt? | There is no evidence in ancient sources that indicate that salt was used as a currency in Rome.
Occasionally an incorrect translation of Pliny's Natural History 31.89 surfaces that claims he says this, when in fact he says that salt:
> is also related to magistracies and duty abroad, and that’s where we get the word... | [
"In ancient Rome, salt on the table was a mark of a rich patron; those who sat nearer the host were \"above the salt\", and those less favored were \"below the salt\". The Roman historian Pliny the Elder stated as an aside in his Natural History's discussion of sea water, that \"[I]n Rome ... the soldier's pay was ... |
How do mosquitoes pierce skin? | To start, the labrum is very flexible. So it can make a 90 degree turn and not break. Using basic physics we know that pressure= force / area. So a very small object like the labrum doesn’t take much to penetrate your skin. Think of getting your flu shot, they don’t push hard on the needle do they? If I try and shove a... | [
"When mosquitoes bite a person, they do not inject the blood of a previous victim into the person they bite next. Mosquitoes do, however, inject their saliva into their victims, which may carry diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, or West Nile virus and can infect a bitten person with these disease... |
how come we can see highly detailed images of a nebula 10,000 light years away but not planets 4.5 light years away? | Compared to nebulae, planets are very very very very very small. You can see a mountain that is 1 kilometre away from you much clearer than you can see a grain of sand that is 1 metre away.
Edit: as several people have mentioned, planets don't emit any light of their own, this makes it extremely difficult to see plane... | [
"At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of Saturn's moon Titan, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions. The nebula lies in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about from Earth. It has a diameter of , corresponding to an ... |
Is there such a thing as a 'chord' of light? | I'm sure that you could define an analogous concept to musical chords in the frequencies of light, but I'm not so sure that it would amount to much as perceived by a human. We perceive light frequency in a somewhat low dimensional space (3 for most humans, 2 for many men, possibly 4 for some women).
Also, I'm not an e... | [
"This usage of the term \"chord\" is similar to the geometric concept (see: Chord (geometry)). The difference being that in the geometric sense a chord refers to a line segment whose ends lie on a circle, whereas in the astronomical sense the occulting shape is not necessarily circular.\n",
"In music, the 'northe... |
If there was a perfectly symmetrical circular spinning top spun perfectly horizontal on a frictionless platform, would it continue forever since air resistance wouldn’t be able to “grasp” on the top since there are no deformations on it? | As long as the fluid around the top has nonzero viscosity, it will be dragged along with the top a little bit and leech energy from it. Microscopically, gas molecules scattering off of the side of the top will be preferentially scattered in the “forward” direction, along the direction of rotation of the top, and the ga... | [
"In purpose-built aerobatic aircraft, spins may be intentionally flattened through the application of power and aileron within a normal spin. Rotation rates experienced are dramatic and can exceed 400 degrees per second in an attitude that may even have the nose above the horizon. Such maneuvers must be performed w... |
why do some ingredients on food packaging (example: cereal) often state the percentage of certain ingredients but not others. namely sugar. | Restaurants aren't required to list ingredients because it would be very involved to list every single ingredient that is in each serving and dishes are not made from a factory; they are made subjectively and may vary from dish to dish. Some restaurants also use prepared ingredients which have their own ingredient list... | [
"In most developed countries, the law requires that ingredients be listed according to their relative weight in the product. If an ingredient itself consists of more than one ingredient (such as the cookie pieces which are a part of \"cookies and cream\" flavor ice cream), then that ingredient is listed by what per... |
why is running a game (or anything) in windowed mode more stressful on a computer than running it in fullscreen? | When you are windowed, Windows not only has to draw your game screen, but all of the other things running in windows too. Plus, it has to convert the resolution you have chosen to something smaller.
When you run in fullscreen mode, All of the graphics power is reserved for the game alone, and no conversion needs to b... | [
"Crash to desktop bugs are considered particularly problematic for users. Since they frequently display no error message, it can be very difficult to track down the source of the problem, especially if the times they occur and the actions taking place right before the crash do not appear to have any pattern or comm... |
how is a universal standard in computing achieved (like usb, hdmi, 3.5mm audio jack) and who maintains and updates them? (usb 2.0 to usb 3.0) | Industry standards are created by companies trying to solve a problem. If everyone works in the same direction, they can lower the costs of components as well as the costs of knowledge, so companies will sit down with each other to figure out how things are supposed to work. These committees will hash out the details... | [
"For hardware manufacturers and software developers, the USB standard eliminates the requirement to develop proprietary interfaces to new peripherals. The wide range of transfer speeds available from a USB interface suits devices ranging from keyboards and mice up to streaming video interfaces. A USB interface can ... |
Has there been much precedent for suspending the British parliament since the Cromwellian era? | Yes, it happens very regularly, usually annually.
The act of proroguing Parliament by the Queen's primary (Prime) minister is, in itself, entirely normal. The differences in precedent here come from the length of prorogation (five weeks instead of the usual week-or-so) and the fact that the new Prime Minister has not... | [
"In 1653, after the forcible dissolution of the Rump Parliament, the Army Council adopted the Instrument of Government which made Oliver Cromwell the Lord Protector of a united \"Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland\", inaugurating the period now usually known as the Protectorate. After Cromwell's death, a... |
graded, action, and resting membrane potential. | Basically you have Na^+ (sodium), K^+ (potassium), and Cl^− (chloride) ions which, through various mechanisms, may be allowed to enter or leave a neuronal cell.
Together, the concentration of these ions inside and outside the cell determine the charge of neuron (i.e. the potential [voltage] difference between inside ... | [
"Graded membrane potentials are particularly important in neurons, where they are produced by synapses—a temporary change in membrane potential produced by activation of a synapse by a single graded or action potential is called a postsynaptic potential. Neurotransmitters that act to open Na channels typically caus... |
It is said that slavery had a long history in Africa. Was there an indigenous anti-slavery or abolition movement? | I can't answer this, but for the sake of clarity, when you say 'Africa' are you asking about a movement that spanned the entire continent? Or about any anti-slavery action in any African nation at all, even on a local level? | [
"According to Blassingame, African culture was not entirely removed from slave culture through the process of enslavement and \"was much more resistant to the bludgeons that was slavery than historians have hitherto suspected.\" \"African survivals\" persisted in the form of folk tales, religion and spirituality, m... |
why does coffee taste "stale" once a pot has been sitting out for a little while? | Oxidation. Oxygen really likes to bond with practically anything, and we can't really get away from it unless we want to stop breathing. It's bad for beer, it's bad for wine, it's bad for coffee... It's basically the anti-beverage. | [
"Because the ground coffee beans in cold-brewed coffee never come into contact with heated water, the process of leaching flavor from the beans produces a chemical profile different from conventional brewing methods. Coffee beans contain a number of constituent parts that are more soluble at higher temperatures, su... |
whats actually happening when a blind persons hearing is increased? | It doesn't actually change.
They just rely on it more, so they become for attuned to the slight variations in sound and notice it more.
It's no different than an experienced woodsman being able to notice when something has moved through the brush, a maestro being able to tell that one of the saxophones is playing fla... | [
"It has been suggested that blind individuals have an enhanced ability to hear and recall auditory information in order to compensate for a lack of vision. However, whilst blind adults' neural systems demonstrate heightened excitability and activity compared to sighted adults, it is still not exactly clear to what ... |
Where and how do documentaries and TV channels get hold of original war footage? | I want to preface this by stating that I am NOT an expert in this; but I have had some limited experience.
Footage typically comes from two sources; one is independent footage houses like AP/WorldWide Photo that can legally license footage that they have acquired over the years. The second is news outlets that have th... | [
"The wartime authorities in both Britain and America produced a wide variety of documentary films. Their purposes included military training, advice to civilians, and encouragement to maintain security. Since these films often carried messages, they grade into propaganda. Similarly, commercially produced films ofte... |
what are sensitive teeth? my teeth hurt sometimes but my dentist tells me i have no cavities. | Cavities are not the only thing that can cause sensitivity. Inflammation of the gums or the interior of the tooth can do it too. | [
"BULLET::::- Dentin hypersensitivity (over-sensitive teeth) - short, sharp pain is triggered by hot, cold, sweet, sour, or spicy food and drink. If the cementum covering the root is not protected anymore by the gums, it is easily abraded exposing the dentin tubules to external stimuli.\n",
"or air), sweet or spic... |
why is the illuminati associated with the number three and triangles? | A lot of Illuminati symbolism is derived from Masonic symbolism, especially the Eye of Providence (which I believe is what you are referring to - the pyramid with an illuminating eye atop it). The number 3 and triangles play important roles in Masonic teaching and rituals. For instance, the "3 Great Lights" of the lodg... | [
"BULLET::::- In \"The Illuminatus! Trilogy\", the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has \"virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities\". However, for the Illuminati, 17 is tied with the \"23/17 phenomenon\".\n",
"The Square and Compasses (or, more corre... |
what does bandwidth means and its use in torrents? | Bandwidth can be thought of like a road that information travels along. Lets say your bandwidth has ten lanes, normally 2 of those will be for uploading and 8 for download (most people download way more than they upload).
Basically your torrent program is saying “okay, we set aside these 6 lanes for torrenting, we hav... | [
"Bandwidth management is the process of measuring and controlling the communications (traffic, packets) on a network link, to avoid filling the link to capacity or overfilling the link, which would result in network congestion and poor performance of the network. Bandwidth is measured in bits per second (bit/s) or ... |
This might be an idiotic question, but do things really fall at the same rate? | There are two masses in there, the mass of the earth, which you rightly say is the same, and the mass of the object, say a hammer and a feather. So there is a large force acting on the hammer, and a small one on the feather. But in order for a force to accelerate the object, the same mass again plays a role: Force = Ma... | [
"These results supported Galileo's hypothesis that objects of different weights, when measured at the same point in their fall, are falling at the same speed because they experience the same gravitational acceleration.\n",
"Researchers have tried to create a consensual definition of a fall since the 1980s. Tinnet... |
AskHistorians Podcast Episode 009 Discussion Thread - ANZAC Day | I have never done an interview like that before! Thank you for the opportunity.
If anyone has questions, I am more than happy to go into much more detail than I was able to in the podcast. It was tricky to make everything simple, and I was nervous. My accent is also not so good! | [
"Official Anzac Day commemorations were held at Gallipoli, Turkey over two days beginning on 25 April 2015 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. The commemoration was attended by Australian, British, New Zealand and Turkish leaders. A service was held during the dawn of 25 April to remember fallen... |
why there are secret laws and secret courts? would they charge regular person with these laws in these courts? | Where are you talking about?
The US has no "secret laws" and the only thing close to "secret courts" are the FISA courts, but they don't hold actual trials. | [
"Certain special rules procedures have historically applied to high treason cases. The privilege of the peerage and parliamentary privilege preclude the arrest of certain individuals (including peers, wives and widows of peers and members of Parliament) in many cases, but treason was not included (nor were felony o... |
how does one film a shot of someone looking into a mirror from their perspective? | It's a simple trick. They angle the mirror so that the performer is actually looking at the camera, not herself. Now the camera is looking at her.
In a few cases they use digital video editing instead, and just fake the mirror image, editing in something the recorded separately. | [
"This psychological effect is often used in the cinema, where an actor will be shown apparently looking at himself or herself in the mirror. What viewers see is different from what the actor sees, because the camera is not right behind the actor, but the position of the actor is often chosen so that his or her imag... |
what would happen if i skydive through a big cumulonimbus cloud? | Probably get struck by lightning. Definitely get wet and cold. Plus they can reach really high, you'd need to be up about 50-60 thousand feet to be above it | [
"An analysis published on July 21, 2014, based on observations by the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile, concluded alternatively that the cloud, rather than being isolated, might be a dense clump within a continuous but thinner stream of matter, and would act as a constant breeze on the disk of matter orbiting th... |
why is there so much clipping/ what causes the clipping in bethesda games? | The games are massive and open plan. Everywhere 2 sides meet is a potential point for clipping but due to the size of these games it is very labour heavy try to find all the clipping spots.
Classic corridor games are much easier to debug for this because there is a much more restricted area that you can walk about on.... | [
"On January 26, 2006, a blank letter was sent to a number of players connected to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection that contained a glitch item called \"Red Tulips\" that was able to corrupt saved game data. If placed on the floor inside the player's house, the item would create an invisible and indelible \"wall\" that re... |
Physics Problem: How can I calculate the equivalent weight on bench press that a push-up accounts for? | Get in push-up position with your hands together and put a scale under your hands. It will probably be around 60% of your body weight. That being said, a push-up and a bench press are quite different exercises. The arm movement is different because of a different angle and you have to do a lot more for stability when d... | [
"The overhead press is set up by taking a barbell or other weight and putting it in racking position. This can be done by taking the weight from a rack or by cleaning the weight from the floor (clean and press). The weight is then pressed to overhead until the elbows are fully locked out. As the weight clears the h... |
Why did the american colonies unite as a country while the spanish colonies did not? | There's three big factors that should be looked at. One is the level of interconnectedness between the English colonies v. the level of interconnectedness between the Spanish colonies; one is the nature of the economies of the respective colonies; one is the geography of the English colonies v. the Spanish colonies.
*... | [
"Spain's American colonies took advantage of the postwar chaos to proclaim their independence. By 1825 only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under the Spanish flag in the New World. When Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne in 1813 and expended wealth and manpower in a vain effort to reassert control over the colo... |
how does gpa work? how is it possible for so many to get 4.0? | In the USA we use a weighted index based on percentages. There are 6 possible grades from best to worst: A, B, C, D, F. Letter grades correspond to the percentage of points earned out of the maximum possible for the entire class including homework, quizzes, projects, papers, tests, and final exams.
A: 90-100%
B: 80-... | [
"The 10-point GPA is categorized as follows: 10–9.1 (O ( out of standing ) or A+) – Best, 9–8.1 (A) – Excellent, 8–7.1 (B+) – exceptionally good, 7–6.1 (B) – very good, 6–5.1 (C+) – good, 5–4.1 (C) – average, 4–3.1 (D+) – fair, 3.1–2 (D) – Pass, 2–0 (E+–E) – fail. A GPA of over 7 is generally considered to be an in... |
How does Facebook generate its trending topic summaries? | I honestly believe they are curated my humans. This because I have seen summaries that are well off from, but only slightly related to the topic. How one could do it would be through a natural language summariser. Build a neural network that takes in the passage and rewrites the main ideas as a few sentences. FB has pu... | [
"The chart shows an average 39% annual growth rate in aggregate activity from 1998 (the inception of Yahoo! Groups) through 2015. However, note that these statistics do not take into account the change over this period in accessibility to the Internet, use of social media vs. private messages, the use of closed and... |
what would happen if someone committed a crime directly on the four corners? what state would handle the case? | Whichever state wanted to prosecute the person would do it. If more than one wanted to, they would go to court to argue about who should get to do it. The deciding factor would be whichever State has the most ties. For instance, if the criminal drove through one of the States, or lived in one of them, or if there was a... | [
"If murder is committed within the borders of a state, that state has jurisdiction, and in a similar way, if the crime is committed in the District of Columbia, the D.C. Superior Court (the equivalent of a state court in the District) retains jurisdiction, though in some cases involving U.S. government property or ... |
how to programmers and game designers seem to constantly achieve what was previously "unachievable" when the hardware remains unchanged? (through code alone) | Here's an analogy:
Imagine a game developer is a painter. They've just got brand new, state of the art brushes, paints and canvases. They're a bit different to what they're used to, but they still manage to make a painting that looks pretty good.
In doing that painting, they've learnt a bit about their new tools. How... | [
"There should be a continuous effort to simplify the code, because otherwise just adding capabilities will slowly increase the software complexity. The code should be refactored over time to make it simple and clear, not just constantly add new features. The goal should be code that is “obviously right”, as opposed... |
why is jackson pollock so important in art? what makes his work so great? | Jackson Pollock was applauded by critics for creating a 'new medium' of art - the fact he created artwork when it was horizontal on the ground and used gravity and loose gestures to produce the marks was an entirely new method at the time.
He is important because it started a new wave of artwork which played with 'op... | [
"When Jackson Pollock created many of his famous works, the United States was already at the forefront of the kinetic art movement. The novel styles and methods he used to create his most famous pieces earned him the spot in the 1950s as the unchallenged leader of kinetic painters, his work was associated with Acti... |
why do video games built on computers have to be ported to said computers? | If you are designing a game for a console, it's entirely possible that you'll never have a version that runs on a PC. The coding is done on a PC, the character designs and animations are done on a PC and it's even all put together on a PC, but when it comes time to test a complete version of the game, you need a dev k... | [
"Certain game titles were even able to be ported due to availability of shared engine code even though the game's code itself remains proprietary or otherwise unavailable, such as the video game \"\" or the multiplayer component of \"\". Some games have even been ported entirely or partially by reverse engineering ... |
Could the US during the very early cold war start a nuclear war against the USSR without the fear of a worldwide nuclear holocaust? | Technically yes, the United States had nuclear arms superiority for a very long time. However, politically it wasn't really possible without provocation, and the USSR never did anything to warrant such retaliation.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, many (such as General Curtis LeMay) wanted the US to use the crisis as ... | [
"During the Cold War, concepts such as mutual assured destruction (MAD) led lawmakers and government officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union to avoid entering a nuclear war that could have had catastrophic consequences on the entire world. Various scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan, predict... |
why is virtualising servers efficient? | A server typically doesn't use anywhere near 100% of its processing power.
So getting several virtual servers to share a single processor *is* efficient - up to the point where the processor starts to get maxed out. And even then, if the users don't notice any appreciable difference in performance it might still be be... | [
"The ability to consolidate applications running on tens of servers in a single physical server running a hypervisor resulted in cost savings for servers as well as more automated management of the servers. Due to these advantages, by early 2010, many companies had implemented \"virtualization first\" policies, whi... |
why was brussels attacked? | The Islamic terrorists that are believed to have committed these bombings don't seem to care who is peaceful or not. Rather, it was reported recently that the "mastermind" of the Paris attacks was apprehended a few days ago in Belgium, and that this was likely a retribution attack by the Muslim terrorists. | [
"From 21 November to 25 November 2015, the government of Belgium imposed a security lockdown on Brussels, including the closure of shops, schools, public transportation, due to information about potential terrorist attacks in the wake of the series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris by Islamic State of Iraq ... |
Can an artificial intelligence be achieved without the computer being self aware? Can the two be mutually exclusive? | This will come down to semantics and definitions. First start by defining artificial intelligence and self awareness. Many definitions of one that I have heard imply/assume the other | [
"One hypothetical approach towards attempting to control an artificial intelligence is an AI box, where the artificial intelligence is kept constrained inside a simulated world and not allowed to affect the external world. However, a sufficiently intelligent AI may simply be able to escape by outsmarting its less i... |
how was the transatlantic telegraph line maintained? | Similarly to [this video](_URL_0_), but with appropriately older technology.
Effectively, they'll winch it up with some kind of rope, chain, or other line w/ a hook. Then they splice or repair the communications cable(s) as necessary.
Cables today are far more complex, dense, and even durable, but this is an extreme... | [
"The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid by cable layers in 1857–58. It briefly enabled telecommunication between Europe and North America before misuse resulted in failure of the line. In 1866 the successfully laid two transatlantic cables, securing future communication between the continents.\n",
"The ... |
To what degree were Pantheons shared in the Late Bronze Age Near East? | I've only now had the time to give this question the time it deserves, so hopefully you're still interested in an answer.
#Pantheons
Each of the societies in the ancient Near East had its own pantheon of native deities. The Egyptians worshiped Amun, Re, Isis, Horus, Osiris, Thoth, Hathor, and so on. The most prominen... | [
"The largest number of indigenous deities found in the whole Iberian Peninsula are located in the Lusitanian-Galician regions, and models proposing a fragmented and disorganized pantheon have been discarded, since the number of deities occurring together is similar to other Celtic peoples in Europe and ancient civi... |
Why aren't the Pyramids at Giza restored to what they would have looked like in ancient times? | **Costs**
The Great Pyramid alone has ~85,000 m² of lateral surface.
* You could either restore it the way it used to be, with large, white limestone blocks. For that you would need at least 170,000 tons of limestone to be quarried, transported and fitted. That would probably cost tens of millions of dollars;
* Or y... | [
"For the Great Pyramid of Giza, most of the stone for the interior seems to have been quarried immediately to the south of the construction site. The smooth exterior of the pyramid was made of a fine grade of white limestone that was quarried across the Nile. These exterior blocks had to be carefully cut, transport... |
how do server farms work? | Usually there is one or more boss computers who hand off tasks to the worker computers. Sometimes there is a big boss computer handing off types of jobs to little boss computers who then decide which worker computer will do each job. | [
"A server farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers – usually maintained by an organization to supply server functionality far beyond the capability of a single machine. Server farms often consist of thousands of computers which require a large amount of power to run and to keep cool. At the optimu... |
why did car design go from curvy (up to 1960s) to blocky (70s-90s) to sleek (modern)? | As everything in Design, Car-Design goes hand-in-hand with its environment. One thing are production-methods, establishing new opportunities for designers, to make new forms possible, new materials and new technologie in general. Cars had to look modern and new, but they also needed to look comfortable and wellknown, l... | [
"Cars in the U.S. from the early 1970s are noted more for their power than their styling, but they even lost their power by the late-1970s. Styling on American cars became progressively more boxy and rectilinear during the 1970s, with coupes being the most popular body style. Wood paneling and shag carpets dominate... |
When an electrons is excited and move to a higher energy state, how is that represented by the wave function? | Let me give you just a brief overview, and let me know if you can follow:
Schrödinger's equation is something like H f = E f. H is a differential operator and f is your wavefunction.
This is an eigenvalue equation, meaning that I have to look for both the eigenfunctions "f" of H which satisfy this equation and the al... | [
"The wave functions of a particle moving into an external potential, which is centrosymmetric (potential energy invariant with respect to a space inversion, symmetric to the origin), either remain invariable or change signs: these two possible states are called the even state or odd state of the wave functions.\n",... |
why can't the pancreas be trained like a muscle? | hgih sugar intake damages it, sort of like how training your liver to process 2 bottles of vodka a day ends up wrecking it. | [
"Pancreas is both an endocrine and an exocrine gland, in that it functions to produce endocrinic hormones released into the circulatory system (such as insulin, and glucagon), to control glucose metabolism, and also to secrete digestive/exocrinic pancreatic juice, which is secreted eventually via the pancreatic duc... |
Besides solar are there any industrial scale means of generating electricity other than turning a turbine? | Read: _URL_1_
Now that you know what an alternator is, yes you can use something other than a turbine. You can use a piston, or anything that can force a magnet (or an object generating a magnetic field) to move linearly back and forth inside a stationary wire coil (or vice versa, move the wire coil linearly with r... | [
"According to a 2011 projection by the International Energy Agency, solar power generators may produce most of the world's electricity within 50 years, with wind power, hydroelectricity and biomass plants supplying much of the remaining generation. \"Photovoltaic and concentrated solar power together can become the... |
Can you help me identify a 1962 (Swedish?) military dress uniform? | Well, that's a Grenadier's badge, but I don't think it's Swedish; the only Swedish Grenadier regiment in 1962 was the Livsregements grenadjärer, which had red and white as it's official colours, not solid red. I'm not 100% up on my Swedish military uniforms from that period, though so I could be wrong.
If we could ge... | [
"There are three versions of full dress uniforms in use in the Swedish Army as of the present day, all belonging to the Life Guards. The infantry wears the dark blue uniform of the Svea Life Guards (1st Life Guards) with yellow collar, cuffs and piping which dates back to 1886. The Swedish Army Band wears the unifo... |
why large images open in a lower resolution on my mobile phone? | It looks like the original image is already low res, and you don't notice it because the letters are too small to read.
A google image search with the link of the original one might give you a readable one. | [
"The camera's resolution is two-and-a-half times higher than the handheld's screens. However, their resolution is considerably lower than contemporaneous digital cameras and mobile phones. This was done to help keep their price reasonable and to maintain a preferable response time for viewing photos in quick sessio... |
Why can't computers check math proofs? | Understanding is hard.
We *can* verify proofs using computers, but even obvious statements require proof if they're not exactly in the form of the axioms.
In short, you'd need the person who wrote it to write it in a computer-readable manner. This would require specifying many, many, many more steps than any reasonab... | [
"Until the twentieth century it was assumed that any proof could, in principle, be checked by a competent mathematician to confirm its validity. However, computers are now used both to prove theorems and to carry out calculations that are too long for any human or team of humans to check; the first proof of the fou... |
why is baking soda effective for putting out grease fires? | Burning baking soda releases a non-flamable gas that displaces air and thus helps smothering the flames while also taking some heat off the grease, helping against reignition. But it is only useful for small grease fires. In can cause the burning grease to bubble and splash about. | [
"For similar reasons, water should never be used to extinguish burning grease or fat, which both behave similarly to wax. Water is ineffective at putting out other flammable liquid fires, but in most liquids (e.g. petrol), the water remains as a liquid, and spreads the fire by allowing the liquid to float and burn ... |
how we have pictures of mars like the one in the description, but we don't have pictures of the us flag on the moon? | We have rovers, with cameras, physically *on* Mars. Those pictures aren't taken from far away, they're taken from right there. | [
"In his 1994 science-fiction novel \"Moving Mars\", Greg Bear describes the flag of the fictional Federal Republic of Mars as follows: \"red Mars and two moons in blue field above a diagonal, white below\".\n",
"Schmitt claims to have taken the photograph of the Earth known as \"The Blue Marble\", possibly one of... |
it's 92 degrees. why do furry animals, like my dog and cat, like to lay in the heat and how are they not uncomfortable? | Cats have a higher average body temperature than we do! We are 98.6 and they are at 101.5. Because of this, what is "room temperature" for humans is actually a bit nippy for cats. That's why cats like to hide in insulated spaces like boxes, or lay in the sun. Cats are perfectly comfortable in 85 degree weather while it... | [
"Some animals living in cold environments maintain their body temperature by preventing heat loss. Their fur grows more densely to increase the amount of insulation. Some animals are regionally heterothermic and are able to allow their less insulated extremities to cool to temperatures much lower than their core te... |
flowers and pollen (multiple questions) | Yes, pollen is edible. A lot of health food stores sell it as a supplement.
Yes, there is usually some pollen in honey. But, though pollen is a reproductive cell, it is rather far from semen.
No: they lack a central nervous system. They can do things like turn towards light, but they can't process information on any ... | [
"Pollen in plants is used for transferring haploid male genetic material from the anther of a single flower to the stigma of another in cross-pollination. In a case of self-pollination, this process takes place from the anther of a flower to the stigma of the same flower.\n",
"The flowers of the family Rosaceae, ... |
why do thai opposition boycott elections? isn't it what they demanded? | Because Thai elections have been rigged again and again and again. What you're seeing in Thailand right now is part of a MUCH larger struggle between the rational middle class (who ironically are also royalists), and the vast majority of uneducated lower classes, who dutifully vote for a really REALLY bad guy (basicall... | [
"The Pheu Thai Party lamented the decision, stating that the country had lost an opportunity to move on and that the court had established an \"infamous standard\" by which an entire election can be overturned because of disruptions at some polling stations. Opposition MP Chuwit Kamolvisit issued a similar statemen... |
If sunlight's interaction with the earth's atmosphere makes the sky blue, then why isn't our planet covered with a blue fog when viewed from outer space? | [But, it practically *is* covered with a blue fog...](_URL_0_) | [
"The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue... |
could you make water if you had enough hydrogen and oxygen? | We could. Burning hydrogen in the presence of oxygen creates water and heat as byproducts. It's a tremendously expensive way to create water though. Since hydrogen is a real pain to store and transport.
Shortages of clean water on Earth have everything to do with economics and logistics and very little to do with the... | [
"BULLET::::- Scientists have shown how an enzyme from a microbe can quickly and cheaply produce hydrogen from water. Hydrogen is seen as vital to future energy systems, but its production has previously been too costly and time-consuming to be viable on a large scale. (BBC)\n",
"Oxygen can be partially hydrogenat... |
What was the difference in GDP between the US and the USSR throughout the Cold War? | _URL_0_
See the fourth figure. This is probably a better question for google than askhistorians. | [
"At the crux of the issue is how U.S. specialists estimated the size of the Soviet economy and the amount of resources it devoted to military expenditures. Up until 1975 the CIA estimated that the Soviet GDP was about 50% of that of the U.S., and that Soviets spend about 6% of the GDP, same as the U.S., on military... |
what would happen if we threw all of earth’s water at the sun? | If we threw all of earths water into the sun, assuming nothing happens to it on the trip, it would all instantly split into hydrogen and oxygen then become plasma, becoming part of the sun. There would be literally no notable effect. | [
"Planetesimals at a distance of 1 astronomical unit (AU), the distance of the Earth from the Sun, probably did not contribute any water to the Earth because the solar nebula was too hot for ice to form and the hydration of rocks by water vapor would have taken too long. The water must have been supplied by meteorit... |
Why do most mammals, along with many, many other creatures, think/eat/vocalize/hear out of the 'top' of their bodies? | The higher up your sensory organs are (particularly sight and hearing), the further away they can receive signals from (on average, because they will be above more grass/brush/other interfering objects). Keeping your brain close to your sensory organs increases your reaction time. | [
"Though there is disagreement about the uniqueness of language to humans, babbling is not unique to the human species. Many animals produce similar ranges of sounds to human infants. These ranges of sounds are used in the young of many species to experiment with sound-making capabilities, or to practice for future ... |
How did one become a Roman General? | *Specifically* a *Legatus?* Well, there was pretty much one overriding prerequisite to becoming a *legatus.* You had to be born that way. Romans put a great deal of emphasis on people from different classes of their citizenry - and let me explain how that worked real fast. Your class was based off of a few different fa... | [
"Military leadership evolved greatly over the course of the history of Rome. Under the monarchy, the hoplite armies would have been led by the kings of Rome. During the early and middle Roman Republic, military forces were under the command of one of the two elected consuls for the year. During the later Republic, ... |
Why does the bottom of the slinky hover over the ground? | other people are giving incorrect, or incomplete answers here. If you do a simple force diagram, using hookes law to see how much force the slinky is exerting on the bottom due to the spring, you will find (as arumbar did) that the bottom should still be accelerating downward as the spring force should be decreasing. ... | [
"When the top end of the Slinky is dropped, the information of the tension change must propagate to the bottom end before both sides begin to fall; the top of an extended Slinky will drop while the bottom initially remains in its original position, compressing the spring. This creates a suspension time of ~0.3 s fo... |
My alarm clock's display wiggles if I chew something crunchy like ice. What gives? (also, try it for yourself). | Our process of vision has an effect similar to the refresh rates on televisions, lcds, florescent lamps, and so on. If you could take high-speed photographs of these items, you could see they are not constantly on, but instead flicker very quickly.
What you're seeing is a combination of the speed at which your brain ... | [
"The device functions as a regular alarm clock, except that it moves on its own power when the snooze button is pressed a second time. A microprocessor ensures that the device will move at a random speed, in a random direction, and around obstacles, using a different route each time. Large wheels on shock absorbers... |
why do movies always have a much higher rating on imdb when they are new in theaters? | My theory: those that want to see it are likely into the movie/genre so they will review likewise. | [
"Several sources reported that internet bots were used to reduce the movie rating on the IMDb website. In response, IMDb deactivated ratings on the film's page. By February 18, 2019, the movie had more than 15,000 ratings on IMDb, although it had not yet been released in theatres.\n",
"However, having a film audi... |
During the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, were the Soviets purposely giving ground as they had during Napoleon's invasion, or where they actually being driven back by the German war machine? | To answer your question briefly, the Soviets were actually driven back by the German war machine.
/u/MrMarbles2000 goes into the [reasons why in this answer](_URL_0_). | [
"While the German 6th and 4th Panzer Armies had been fighting their way into Stalingrad, Soviet armies had congregated on either side of the city, specifically into the Don bridgeheads, and it was from these that they struck in November 1942. In Operation \"Uranus\" started on 19 November, two Soviet fronts punched... |
Are there any limits to what science can explain? | Here is the wikipedia article on [the scientific method](_URL_1_) which you should read over.
You've asked two different questions here:
* Are there any limits to what science can explain?
* Are there any questions science cannot answer?
The second one isn't really what science is about. There are lots of question... | [
"Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. The boundaries between what is and what is not to be considered science, known as the demarcation problem, continues to be debated among philosophers of science and scientist... |
How long did it take Allied officials to understand what was happening in the Holocaust, and how did they initially react? | Not to discourage further discussion, but u/commiespaceinvader talks about what allies knew and when in [this previous answer](_URL_0_). | [
"By the summer of 1941, Action T4 became widespread public knowledge in Germany (and also in neutral countries and to Germany's enemies), and on August 24, 1941, Hitler ordered the joint chief of the operation Dr. Karl Brandt to halt it due to public protest (however it still continued, not only out of the public e... |
why does the perceived health of certain foods seem to be constantly changing? | I would assume it's due to an influx of scientific research being done on various foods, and the constant rebutting of theories in a seemingly endless loop of right and wrong. Also, sprinkle a little bit of consumer trends and food industry interests to spice it up a bit. Finito! Das a spicey meat-a-ball! | [
"As a given food is increasingly consumed, the hedonic pleasantness of the food's taste, smell, appearance, and texture declines, an effect commonly referred to as sensory-specific satiety. Consequently, increasing the variety of foods available can increase overall food intake. This effect has been observed across... |
[Medicine] Why is it that when you are ill, you get much more sensitive to temperature, sound, and touch than normal? | During illness, your body generally produces inflammatory mediators from cells such as mast cells, macrophages, and neutrophils. These include compounds such as prostaglandin, bradykinin, NGF, TNF-α, etc. This "inflammatory soup" is able to sensitize various cell surface receptors located on free nerve endings, for exa... | [
"Cold sensitivity may be a symptom of hypothyroidism, anemia, fibromyalgia or vasoconstriction. There may also be differences in people in the expression of uncoupling proteins, thus affecting their amount of thermogenesis. Mental activity may also play a factor in perceived temperature.\n",
"The ability to feel ... |
Why does NASA sterilize rovers that they send to other planets? | The big reason is, we want to find out if there's life on Mars. If we don't sterilise the stuff we send, and then we "discover life on Mars", we can never be totally sure that what we found wasn't something we brought with us and just haven't come across on Earth before.
Edit: And more generally a lot of our prelimin... | [
"The two landing modules and the rover will be cleaned and sterilised to prevent contaminating Mars with Earth life forms, and also to ensure that any biomolecules detected were not carried from Earth. Cleaning will require a combination of sterilising methods, including ionising radiation, UV radiation, and chemic... |
Reliability of Commentaries made by Caesar and Tacitus on the German Peoples | It depends from what could be considered as reliable : both Caesar and Tacitus extensively used previous scholarly sources (and probably accounts from merchants, envoys, officers, etc.) and while Caesar had direct contact with Germanic peoples during the Gallic Wars, Tacitus probably didn't and wrote what was been some... | [
"Caesar's accounts portray the Roman fear of the Germanic tribes and the threat they posed. The perceived menace of the Germanic tribesmen proved accurate. The most complete account of Germania that has been preserved from Roman times is Tacitus' \"Germania\".\n",
"The work can appear moralizing at points, perhap... |
how time can be a physical thing that moves slower or faster. like how time moves differently for satellites in space or time can move slower or fast for different sized planets? | You just compare: I can take two identical clocks, keep one with me, and put the other in a satellite, and watch the one in the satellite "tick" slower than mine. What's interesting is *why* this happens.
It's easier to imagine these sorts of things if you imagine a very simple type of clock: a beam of light bouncing... | [
"One more important step being left out of the standard model, Wiltshire claimed, was the fact that as proven by observation, gravity slows time. Thus, a clock will move faster in empty space, which possesses low gravitation, than inside a galaxy, which has much more gravity, and he argued that as large as a 38% di... |
How do you quantify the heaviness (rate) of rainfall? | Millimeters per hour or liters per square meters per hour. Both of which are identical.
If you're using the imperial system inches per hour. | [
"Quantitative precipitation estimation or QPE is a method of approximating the amount of precipitation that has fallen at a location or across a region. Maps of the estimated amount of precipitation to have fallen over a certain area and time span are compiled using several different data sources including manual a... |
Is it possible for current human technology to destroy ALL life on Earth? | No. We couldn't even wipe ourselves (humanity) off the face of the Earth even if we tried _really_ hard. That's not to say we won't have the ability to one day, but at the moment it wouldn't be possible. | [
"This is the argument that technological civilizations may usually or invariably destroy themselves before or shortly after developing radio or spaceflight technology. Possible means of annihilation are many, including war, accidental environmental contamination or damage, synthetic life like mirror life, resource ... |
if a heavy duty pickup truck like the ram 3500 hd and a hypercar like a bugatti chiron both have around 1000 lb-ft of torque, then why can't the bugatti tow as much weight as the ram? | The torque does not, strictly speaking, dictate what can be towed. The most important factors are weight, gears, and horsepower. A hypercar is designed to be lightweight, and so it can only ever exert a limited amount of force before the tires slip. A pickup with twice the weight can exert roughly twice the force befor... | [
"The frame and body structures feature 98 and 54 percent high-strength low-alloy steel respectively. Innovative high-strength steels allow auto components to be made thinner, and thereby lighter. The Ram 1500 reduced its weight by nearly 120 pounds from the chassis. The frame alone accounts for 100 pounds of weight... |
In terms of cultural artifacts, how damaging was the Cultural Revolution in China actually? | Follow up question: can you reccomend any decent documentaries on the cultural revolution? | [
"Many religious and secular images were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, ostensibly because they were a holdover from China's traditional past (which the Communist regime led by Mao Zedong reviled). The Cultural Revolution included widespread destruction of historic artworks in public places a... |
We encounter static electricity all the time and it's not shocking (sorry) because we know what's going on, but what on earth did people think was happening before we understood electricity? | The scientific community (including Ben Franklin) thought of electric current as some sort of invisible fluid. "Positive" objects possessed a surplus of this fluid and negative bodies didn't posses "enough fluid" to be "balanced." | [
"Static electricity is usually caused when certain materials are rubbed against each other, like wool on plastic or the soles of shoes on carpet. The process causes electrons to be pulled from the surface of one material and relocated on the surface of the other material.\n",
"Long before any knowledge of electro... |
how did the 1864 presidential election work without the electoral votes from the confederate states? | > Since they weren't included, does this mean the Union recognized the Confederacy as a sovereign state
No the Union did not recognize the Confederacy as a Sovereign State. Technically the Union didn't take any legislative action at all. The Constitution requires the Secretary of State or similar position of the Stat... | [
"The elections were processed over six months due to the amount of Confederate territory occupied by the Union Army, in addition to all of the absentee ballots necessitated by the large refugee population. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas sent 32 of the 41 Anti-Administration Con... |
Does eating lactose while lactose intolerant have cumulative negative effects? | The lactose itself does nothing in people with lactose intolerance, they just can't digest it. The bacteria that feast on the undigested lactose that enters the intestine cause the problem.
If you don't eat lactose for a longer period you'll have less lactose-consuming bacteria in your intestinal flora.
If instead you ... | [
"The principal symptom of lactose intolerance is an adverse reaction to products containing lactose (primarily milk), including abdominal bloating and cramps, flatulence, diarrhea, nausea, borborygmi, and vomiting (particularly in adolescents). These appear one-half to two hours after consumption. The severity of s... |
how do bad actors/actresses keep getting major roles in hollywood movies? | There can be many “Hollywood” reasons but it’s usually “because they make money.”
Until fairly recently Adam Sandler was a money factory. He would hire his friends, make a $40 million movie which would get $300 million at the box office. If you don’t count Hotel Transylvania (as it’s voice work), he hasn’t done well l... | [
"The studio can incur large costs from high-profile housekeeping deals which have become less common during economic down turns. Many such \"vanity deals\" with name Hollywood actors have not generated returns for the studios, thus often an actor's production company is not renewed to stay on the lot after their sp... |
why is it so hard for machine translation to get english- > russian right? | Syntax varies from language to language , so it can be difficult for the AI to decipher what it is you're trying to say.
For example:
*"My name is John"*, in Irish is *"John is ainm dom"*, which literally translates to, *"John is the name upon me"*. So you can see with just that simple example, spread across a whole... | [
"Over 60 Romanized Russian statements from a wide range of political, legal, mathematical, and scientific topics were entered into the machine by a computer operator who knew no Russian, and the resulting English translations appeared on a printer.\n",
"«Until the Russian language is respected by the Russians the... |
if our body can make new antibodies, how come our body doesnt think the new antibody as foreign? | All the stuff in the body that are ours have specific markers on them that vary from person to person. These markers basically say that this is a part of the body. For example, that's where blood type comes from. It has to do with the presence or absence of several protein markers. I'd imagine antibodies also have thes... | [
"These non-human antibodies are recognized as foreign by the human immune system and may be rapidly cleared from the body, provoke an allergic reaction, or both. To avoid this, parts of the antibody can be replaced with human amino acid sequences, or pure human antibodies can be engineered. If the constant region i... |
Can Psychological Pain cause a release of Endorphins, like Physical pain does? | Both physical and psychological pain cause the release of cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Fun fact: when you cry because you injured your foot or something, your tears are mostly water. When you cry due to an emotional upheaval, your tears will contain more cortisol (and other hormones). You are literally crying y... | [
"Endorphins are substances produced by the brain as a result of various things including sexual arousal, physical exercise, strong pain, laughter, etc. They cause pleasurable sensations and are somewhat addictive; drugs like morphine attach to the same receptors as endorphins. However, endorphins do not fit Reisman... |
If alcohol makes you dehydrated, why is urine clear in colour (while drinking a lot), which indicates that you're hydrated? | Alcohol reduces the production of a hormone called vasopressin, which tells your kidneys to reabsorb water rather than flush it out through the bladder. So once you have drank enough alcohol you stop absorbing the water from what you are drinking and it just goes right through you, which is why your urine is colourless... | [
"A lack of water causes dehydration, which may result in lethargy, headaches, dizziness, confusion, and eventually death. Even mild dehydration reduces endurance and impairs concentration, which is dangerous in a survival situation where clear thinking is essential. Dark yellow or brown urine is a diagnostic indica... |
When partitioning Yugoslavia, why did Nazi Germany throw its weight behind the Croats and not the Serbs who were already in positions of power? | Serb here, passionate about learning history so I will try to do my best.
First, Yugoslavia had a pact with Germany that allowed them to move troops whenever the wanted. But a few years before the war started there was a coup (British influenced and staged) in Belgrade which put to power the government which declared ... | [
"Yugoslavia was soon partitioned. Some Yugoslav territory was annexed by its Axis neighbors, Hungary, Bulgaria and Italy. The Italians also occupied Montenegro with the intention of setting up a vassal state, and the borders of this territory included most of the Sandžak. The Germans engineered and supported the cr... |
Why do swimming pools evaporate more at night than during the day ? | I'm guessing that what you're referring to is the misty appearance around pools at night.
TL;DR: This is the same reason you see your breath in the cold. It's condensation, not evaporation.
Evaporation is increased when water is warmer. So to increase the evaporation of a pool of water, you need to heat the pool. Ind... | [
"In addition to the stress factors induced by trying to survive in summer in decreasing and warming waters, some pools have very low oxygen levels, exacerbated at night by the lack of the photosynthetic oxygen produced by plants, and often lower at the pool base where the fish feed, or under the mats of algae that ... |
What kind of armours and shields where used by Europeans during VI-VIII centuries? | We know a lot about shields. We know less, especially in the British isles, about armor. I'm still coming to grips with the archaeological material for continental Europe, so my answer's rather skewed toward British evidence.
**Shields**
Shields were your most common form of bodily protection. They were always made o... | [
"In the early Middle Age Iberian armour was typically made of leather, with iron scales. Head protections consisted of a round helmet with nose protector (influenced by the designs used by Vikings, who attacked during the 8th and 9th centuries) and a chain mail headpiece. Shields were often round or kidney-shaped, ... |
How have historians of the Holocaust evaluated and contextualized the place of sexual assault as part of our understanding of the Holocaust experience? | **Part 1**
So, this CNN article cited here suffers from the usual problems of science reporting in a lot of media, chiefly that some of the things stated there are a bit overstated.
First of all, Lawrence Langer has written a lot about Holocaust memory and survivor testimony but to call him a preeminent Holocaust sch... | [
"BULLET::::- Zoë Waxman, \"Testimony and Silence: Sexual Violence and the Holocaust\"; in: \"Feminism, Literature and Rape Narratives: Violence and Violation\", ed. S. Gunne & Z. Brigley Thompson, New York City, Routledge, 2010, page 118. , .\n",
"While no textbooks in the sample overtly question the history of t... |
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