question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Are we born to like certain things? | I'd just like to add a couple things quickly. It would be incorrect to attribute our likes or preferences (for example) to either nature or nurture exclusively. Rather, they develop through complex interaction of the two.
Evolutionary psychologists will tell you that we developed our preferences over a long period of time through natural selection. For example, I don't like the taste of bitter foods as much as sweet foods. We may have developed this preference because poisonous foods were perhaps more likely to be bitter while sugars serve as a source of energy. Avoiding these bitter, poisonous plants increases the likelihood of us surviving, and in turn, reproducing. | [
"We are not just born with these abilities. They can only be acquired during a lifetime. It can happen in many ways, as for example in fellowship and cooperation with people who are important for our development. Often it begins with our parents, then teachers and other inspiring and charismatic people. These are p... |
where is edward snowden and what will probably come of him? | Edward Snowden is living in Russia and is supported by the Russian government. As he has FSB bodyguards on him 24/7, it is unlikely that unless the Russians give him to the US voluntarily, or he can be tricked out of the country somehow -- *so the CIA or FBI can arrest him* -- he will likely be living in "exile" in Russia for a very long time. | [
"BULLET::::- Edward Snowden (born 1983) was revealed in June 2013 as an NSA whistleblower, leaking classified government documents to \"The Guardian\" newspaper of Britain. Snowden spent part of his childhood growing up in Elizabeth City.\n",
"In October 2015, at the annual Politicon non-partisan political conven... |
A few questions about indentured servants in the early 18th century | If you're looking for a primary source, I highly recommend William Moraley's [*The Infortunate*](_URL_0_), an autobiography of an indentured servant from the early 18th century - the introduction by Susan Klepp and Billy Smith and should provide you with an excellent introduction to the subject and answer most of the questions you have.
You also might want to look at Marianne Wokeck's [*The Trade in Strangers*](_URL_3_), which provides an in-depth analysis of migration, mostly from Ireland and Germany, in the 18th century.
Robert Galenson's ["The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas"](_URL_4_) is also a good article in terms of providing economic context, although it does not provide any information about the nitty-gritty of the emigrants' lives.
Edit: Also, Bernard Bailyn's magisterial [*Voyagers to the West*](_URL_1_) is an indispensable source for understanding the nature of migration in the 18th century.
If you're interested in the Southern colonies, [this article](_URL_2_) on migration to 18th-century Maryland might also be useful. | [
"Moreover, the origins and \"types\" of servants changed over time. Whereas indentured servants in late-17th and early-18th centuries migrated predominantly from England, Scotland, and Wales (Great Britain after 1707 Acts of Union), a majority of those in the mid-to-late 18th century consisted of (northern) Irish a... |
why do car companies design strange looking electric cars instead of following telsa's clear success of making cool looking cars people want. | The Prius is a hybrid, not an electric car. The Prius looks just like any other car to me. If people "don't want" them why is it one of the top selling cars? And Nissan has sold twice as many EV's as Tesla.
Some of it is function over form. The Leaf has weird headlights because they're designed to redirect air away from the mirrors. This is for aerodynamic purposes but it also makes the car more pleasant to drive with the windows open.
Putting the engine at the front of the vehicle is the most efficient place since internal combustion engines usually require a water-based cooling system. You're accustomed to seeing cars in their current form because gasoline vehicles are essentially all required to have the same basic construction. With EV's the cooling requirements are minimal and the battery and drive train can be put under the vehicle.
Also confirmation bias. The Fit, Focus, 500, Smart, RAV4, Spark, and SMART EV's look essentially just like their gas counterparts. You only notice the ones that are different. | [
"On January 7, 2014, an article in CNNMoney announced a partnership between AT&T and car manufacturers Audi and Tesla. AT&T head of emerging devices, Glenn Lurie, told CNNMoney that these advancements reflect a major step forward in converting cars form mindless machines to intelligent gadgets. AT&T says everything... |
Does general relativity really affect GPS? | Yes. Very much so. Three things to consider;
1. Because of their altitude (lower gravitational field) their clocks tick faster than clocks here by about 45 microseconds per day. This needs to be corrected for.
2. Because of their speeds their clocks tick slower than clocks on the ground by about 7 microseconds per day. This also needs to be corrected for.
In total we get a skew of about 38 microseconds per day which takes outside the desired accuracy levels and means locations end up wildly inaccurate in a pretty short amount of time if we aren't doing something about it.
3. When you get a signal from three (or more) GPS satellites you are not going to be equidistant to them. Since each one is a different distance to you the effect is never cancelled out. Go 1km in any direction and the time it takes for the signal from satellite A to reach you changes, and changes relative to satellite B. You might be closer to one and further away from another.
EDIT: Fixed the dumbest mistake ever. | [
"Although the Global Positioning System (GPS) is not designed as a test of fundamental physics, it must account for the gravitational redshift in its timing system, and physicists have analyzed timing data from the GPS to confirm other tests. When the first satellite was launched, some engineers resisted the predic... |
[Biology] What causes some people to be more prone to headaches than others? | There are a lot of different types of headaches, and like almost every trait, both genetic background and environment play in role. It's also a hard question, because some of the most common types of headache, including migraines, are not perfectly understood yet.
For example, there is a heritable component to frequent migraines: _URL_0_ but there usually isn't a single gene difference that predisposes people to them. Some of the identified genes that may contribute involve chemical signaling systems in the brain, which fits with one theory of migraines that says they are caused in part by overactivity of certain areas of the brain. Women are more likely to get them than men, in part because of cycling changes in hormone levels that influence neurochemical signaling as well. I haven't read up on this much for other types of headaches.
Among environmental factors, things like poor posture that leads to compressed nerves, consistent sleep deprivation or stress, certain dietary triggers, sinus infections, etc. could all lead to more frequent headaches, and each individual will differ not only in how much they experience these things (based on lifestyle) but also on how sensitive they are to them (which may be partly genetic or epigenetic in itself.) | [
"Like other types of pain, headaches can serve as warning signals of more serious disorders. This is particularly true for headaches caused by inflammation, including those related to meningitis as well as those resulting from diseases of the sinuses, spine, neck, ears, and teeth.\n",
"A headache-prone CNS may ha... |
how much can our life choices change our dna and how much of that could get transferred to our children? | Your DNA is changed by random mutations, not by any actions of yours. Any injuries that remove a sense wil not be passed on. Any abilities that you acquire will not be passed on. [Lamarckism](_URL_0_) was the disproven hypothesis that this occurs. | [
"In the specifically protein coding regions of the human genome, it is estimated that there are about 0.35 mutations that would change the protein sequence between parent/child generations (less than one mutated protein per generation).\n",
"More and more people are getting their DNA sequenced. But the use of gen... |
In understanding language, does hearing an utterance and reading a text work differently in the brain? | It's a bit more complicated than yyzed76 makes it out to be but we do build the same sort of representations to represent concepts transmitted via language regardless of the channel used. However, there might be slight differences due to the loss of intonation, emphasis, etc for a particular utterance - so what is transmitted might change but how we understand and reason about it largely does not. | [
"When reading aloud, people must decode written language to decipher its pronunciation. This processing takes place in Broca's area. The reader might use previous knowledge of a word in order to correctly vocalize it, or the reader might use knowledge of systematic letter combinations, which represent corresponding... |
What makes the International Space Station or any other object stay in a precise planetary orbit? | The ISS is very much not in a stable orbit and it is boosted back up every month or so by burning several thousand pounds of fuel per year. The primary cause of the orbital decay is atmospheric drag from Earth's outer atmosphere. The atmospheric drag varies due to density changes caused by the Sun.
Here's a graph of the altitude in km,
* _URL_0_ | [
"The purpose of maintaining an orbital outpost varies depending on the program. Space stations have most often been launched for scientific purposes, but military launches have also occurred. , one fully operational and permanently inhabited space station is in low Earth orbit: the International Space Station (ISS)... |
what makes each cell in a fetus differentiate into different types of cells? | You've asked two questions here, I'll answer the second (and easier) one first.
Gametes (sperm and eggs) are created by a process called meiosis. Basically a cell divides and, instead of getting its DNA being copied to each daughter cell, the DNA is instead split in two so that each daughter gets half. So for humans, each gamete gets 23 single chromosomes.
So when a sperm cell finds an egg, it enters and the egg changes its outer layer to prevent other sperm cells from entering. The sperm cell inside is fully absorbed and its DNA is joined up with the DNA of the egg to form one complete set of chromosomes which is 23 pairs. Every cell that is produced by the egg inherits all 23 pairs of chromosomes **except** for the gametes that the egg itself produces in the case of females.
So the mechanism that distributes the DNA of the parents happens right at fertilisation of the egg.
Your other question is a bit harder to answer because we still are not completely certain what causes the cells to separate into layers, pre-organs and organs.
There is certainly an extremely complicated system of DNA switching that causes certain portions to be turned on and off at certain times. The switching is probably regulated by methylation of the DNA which permanently alters gene function in certain cells.
How that occurs is still an active area of research.
However, it's likely that methylation causes cells to release chemicals or show proteins on their surface that cause them to clump with other cells of the same general type. Over time, the methylation of DNA makes cells more and more specialised and so they clump into to smaller and more specialised units.
Moving back onto firmer ground, the cardiomyocetes are a highly specialised cell which has probably undergone multiple rounds of methylation. The began as the primitive streak in an embryo which steadily grew into the mesoderm. The mesoderm grew and differentiated into the gastric system and the heart, lungs, bones and many other internal organs.
So cardiomyocetes don't get scattered because they can't be scattered. Only cells in the mesoderm ever go on to become heart cells. Even if one of the cells did happen to scatter somewhere else, it wouldn't become a heart because it wouldn't get the right signal from the surrounding cells to **tell** it to become a heart.
If the pre-heart cells did get scattered, you'd probably end up with a dead embryo which would spontaneously abort.
Source: I did developmental genetics at university a long time ago and haven't really kept up with the reading as it's not my area any more. Any errors are purely my own.
| [
"Most distinct cell types arise from a single totipotent cell, called a zygote, that differentiates into hundreds of different cell types during the course of development. Differentiation of cells is driven by different environmental cues (such as cell–cell interaction) and intrinsic differences (such as those caus... |
Does any organism's hair, other than humans, go white with age? | Sure, [gorillas](_URL_0_) and [golden retrievers](_URL_1_) both have fur that lightens as they age | [
"Humans are the only primate species that have undergone significant hair loss. The hairlessness of humans compared to related species may be due to loss of functionality in the pseudogene KRTHAP1 (which helps produce keratin) Although the researchers dated the mutation to 240 000 ya, both the Altai Neandertal and ... |
What was a soldier's life expectancy during the Thirty Years War? | Pretty terrible. The first data that springs to mind, Geoffrey Parker provides in *The Military Revolution,* where he catalogues the astounding wastage of men in the Swedish parish of Bygdea. In 1620, there were about 400 men of military age, of whom 36 were drafted to fight in Germany. In 1639, there were still 36 men from the parish in the army. However, there were only 170 of the original 400 men left in the town. Besides them and the thirty six in the army, 200 men had died fighting for the king in Germany. That would be one man dead every 1.1 months for 228 months. If we assume that the newest soldier will only die after every other man who was sent to fight before him, that gives him about forty months purely as a mathematical average. | [
"Analysis of death records from the Hundred Days in 1918 suggests that around 60% of those who died were conscripts, and that despite the recent lowering of the age limit for service on the Western Front to eighteen-and-a-half, the average age was still in the mid-twenties. Although incompleteness of records makes ... |
What's the reasoning for PEMDAS? | Turns out that polynomials are best thought of as sums of terms with powers of the variable with their coefficients. That is, oftentimes, representing a polynomial like x^(2)+3x+2 is much better than (x+1)(x+2). The easiest way to do this is with PEMDAS. | [
"SPMD usually refers to message passing programming on distributed memory computer architectures. A distributed memory computer consists of a collection of independent computers, called nodes. Each node starts its own program and communicates with other nodes by sending and receiving messages, calling send/receive ... |
how do hand warmers stay warm for up to 10 hours? what makes them stay at a temperature perfect to warm me, but not burn my hands? | It lasts 10 hours because it is a very slow chemical reaction. The temperature is not exactly a delicate balance. Anywhere from 70 - 110 Fahrenheit will warm without cause any harm. So staying in a 40 degree temperate range is not that hard. | [
"Hand warmers are small (mostly disposable) packets which are held in the hand and produce heat on demand to warm cold hands. They are commonly used in outdoor activities. Other types of warmers are available to provide soothing heat for muscular or joint aches.\n",
"When the fingers are exposed to cold, vasocons... |
how does something like google maps work on the software side? what kind of software is used to make it interactive like it is? | Most interactive websites use JavaScript for the interactive code. This is because JavaScript is supported in all browsers and have the ability to interact with the browser and website elements in a way that other browser elements like Flash and Java can not. There are already similar open source applications to Google Maps like OpenLayers and Leaflet which might be a good starting point for you. | [
"Software maps can express and combine information about software development, software quality, and system dynamics by mapping that information onto visual variables of the tree map elements such as footprint size, height, color or texture. They can systematically be specified, automatically generated, and organiz... |
I've never been able to comprehend the concept of faster than light travel and its impacts. Help? | It's not about "time particles" it's the fact that rulers and clocks **aren't** absolute measurement devices. Two equal clocks, moving relative to each other, will appear to run at different rates. And two equal rulers moving relative to each other will appear to measure different lengths.
For more, [there's this famous post](_URL_0_) | [
"In 2018, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency made public a 2010 report that surveyed multiple different approaches to faster-than-light travel. One physicist who reviewed the report explained, that, while the theories were legitimate, they did not represent \"something that's going to connect with engineering any... |
if the speed of an object is relative to another object, then why can't matter travel faster than the speed if light, but in relation to something else? | Velocities do not actually add up like you learned in high school/freshman physics. That is called Galilean relativity, and in the early 20th century it was found to be incorrect - velocity addition actually have a more complex formula, and they always add in a way that relative velocities do not surpass the speed of light. If the bullets are shot at each other at 0.5c, each of them will see the other one heading towards it at 0.8c. | [
"When an object is pushed in the direction of motion, it gains momentum and energy, but when the object is already traveling near the speed of light, it cannot move much faster, no matter how much energy it absorbs. Its momentum and energy continue to increase without bounds, whereas its speed approaches (but never... |
What was American religion like prior to the First Great Awakening? | The growth in the Baptist and Methodist Churches was a product of the Great Awakening, so they're not quite part of this question. As to the rest of it, there is much to say.
First and foremost, remember that nothing "replaced" the Anglican and Puritain faiths. The Episcopal Church (the name for American Anglicans after the Revolution) is still extant and popular, and the Puritian denominations eventually morphed into the Congregationalist Church (which is, somewhat ironically, one of the more liberal variants of Christianity today).
Religion was one of the many markers of cultural difference in early America. Each group had their own church or churches: French Huguenots, Dutch Reformed, some Irish forced to keep downplay their Catholicism everywhere except Maryland, Germans with their dizzying variety of small experimental church communities. The latter did come to mix with the English-descended majority, particularly after the great awakening. There was not much thought of thinking of these other ethnic and cultural groups as English. For the most part, colonial society was a "salad bowl" instead of a "melting pot": Each culture and religion tended to have their own communities (if not whole colonies), with little interest in mixing with others. An exception would be some of the French Huguenots living in New York, which produced the powerful and influential DeLancey and Jay families.
Being that religion was part of one's cultural identity, there was a public component. Well-to-do members of the community across the board tended to keep active membership in their respective churches, regardless of how seriously they took religion. For example, Washington, a Mason and possible Deist, was a financial supporter of the Anglican church throughout his whole life.
There were some non-Christian religions present, though their numbers tended to be small and their impact limited. There were synagogues in New York City and Philadelphia for those cities' Jewish populations. Some (we have no idea how many) of the African slave population was exposed to Islam in Africa, but most slaves came over with their own animistic religions. Having no official support and often actively discouraged, these died out or were fused with Christian beliefs fairly early on.
There are a number of good sources for this topic. A handy one that covers these questions (and more!) is Bernard Bailyn's *The Peopling of British North America*. | [
"In the American colonies the First Great Awakening was a wave of religious enthusiasm among Protestants that swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It resulted from powerful preaching that deeply affected listeners (already church members) with a deep s... |
Does irradiation of food for safety purposes affect nutritional content? | Not particularly. Ionizing radiation kills microorganisms by damaging macromolecules like DNA and proteins. We do not incorporate whole macromolecules from our food, and many of them would be quite harmful if we did. The digestion process disassembles these molecules into their components. Denaturing them (basically, causing them to re-fold into a different, usually non-functional shape) or cleaving them (cutting the backbone in the polymer) is the same process that happens naturally during digestion. Also, irradiation only affects a very small fraction of the macromolecules in the food; it takes a lot less damage to kill a cell than to digest it. (You don't even have to kill the cell to stop it from causing infection. You just have to prevent it from reproducing.)
2-alkylcyclobutanones (2-ACBs) are unique chemical products that are formed by radiation but not other processes. They are produced in very small amounts, and are not toxic. Given the diversity of weird chemicals that plants, bacteria and fungi synthesize naturally, I wouldn't be surprised if something that we eat makes its own 2-ABCs without irradiation, and we just haven't noticed it yet.
And... there is naturally occurring ionizing radiation from things like cosmic rays and radioactive decay in things like potassium. Some of that will trigger the formation of 2-ABCs. They've been an unavoidable part of our food for millions of years. | [
"Food irradiation is another notable biological engineering process to achieve food safety. Research into the potential utilization of ionizing irradiation for food preservation started in the 1940s as an extension of studies on the effect of radiation on living cells. The FDA approved usage of ionizing radiation o... |
What is the historical basis for having the dollar sign appear before the sum where units are standardized as appearing after the quantity? | If you write me a check like this 100.00$ then I can easily turn it into 1100.00$ before cashing it.
It is much harder to employ shenanigans with $100.00 | [
"Yet another explanation suggests that the dollar sign was formed from the capital letters U and S written or printed one on top of the other. This theory, popularized by novelist Ayn Rand in \"Atlas Shrugged\", does not consider the fact that the symbol was already in use before the formation of the United States.... |
does anything actually have any color? | Things do have a color, but in the end how we "see" it is based on how our human sight has developed. Let me explain.
Our sun emits radiation over an entire electromagnetic spectrum. The human eye has evolved to detect a very narrow band of that spectrum called visible light. Light behaves like a wave (sometimes), and the frequency of that wave (within that narrow visible light band) determines its color.
So why do objects have color? Well all objects are made of atoms of different elements. The short answer is that the atomic composition of grass absorbs light color bands (within the visual spectrum) except green, meaning the green area of the light band reflects off and goes into your eye. The same is true for all objects.
So in conclusion, yes everything actually has color, but it is a function of how our human eyes developed to see light and the frequencies of this visible light that bounces off a particular object (due to its atomic structure).
_URL_0_
_URL_1_
EDIT: Since this received some attention, anything that's white is reflecting all visible light and anything black is absorbing all visible light. (most*) | [
"The spectrum does not contain all the colors that the human eyes and brain can distinguish. Unsaturated colors such as pink, or purple variations like magenta, for example, are absent because they can only be made from a mix of multiple wavelengths. Colors containing only one wavelength are also called pure colors... |
What do you think of Guns, Germs and Steel? | There's a reason it's used so frequently in undergraduate history courses- It's an entertaining introductory text that forces people to look at world history from a different vantage point. That being said, Diamond writes a rather oversimplified narrative that seemingly ignores the human element of history, instead portraying advancement as out of our control. I think most historians would agree that the issue isn't so black and white.
(This topic has come up before, check out these posts if you want a more in-depth analysis than the one I can provide.):
_URL_2_
_URL_1_
_URL_0_
_URL_3_ | [
"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (previously titled Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years) is a 1997 transdisciplinary non-fiction book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1998, \... |
How do we know that some sub-atomic particles respond differently to observation? | This actually isn't unique to subatomic particles. It's an effect called the "observer effect". Imagine heating up a beaker of metal (let's say iron for the fun of it). You're goal is to heat it to a couple hundred degrees C above the melting point. Once the sample is completely melted, how do we normally measure temperature? We drop a thermometer in. A thermometer colder than the liquid, that must come to thermal equilibrium with it's surroundings. By introducing the cold thermometer, you cool the metal directly in contact with it. If the thermometer is left static, this sets up a thermal gradient. The heat flow into the thermometer will at some point match the heat flow **out** of the thermometer to the air it's exposed to. This means the thermometer effectively acts as a heat sink, and cools the nearby metal , and thus reads artificially low. This is a form of error that careful experimental design can minimize.
The particle physics equivalent is a beam of electrons whose position we're trying to measure. We bombard a point in space with photons. If an electron is there, we reflect a photon, which is detected to indicate the electron presence. However, we have to conserve momentum, right? And clearly the momentum of the photon going in is different than coming out. This means the electron's momentum can't be the same going in and coming out either! If it were, then the total ingoing momentum is different the total outgoing momentum. So, by reflecting a photon so we could measure something, we change it's dynamic trajectory.
This shouldn't be confused with the Uncertainty Principle. The Uncertainty Principle says that certain combinations of properties cannot be simultaneously measured to arbitrary position. Essentially, if the measurements don't commute, then there is a certain minimum product of uncertainty based on the extent of the non-commutation. The Uncertainty Principle is a lower bound that better technique **cannot** beat. | [
"The positions of the particles are considered to be the hidden variables. The observer not only doesn't know the precise value of these variables of the quantum system considered, and cannot know them precisely because any measurement disturbs them. On the other hand, one (the observer) is defined not by the wave ... |
If you point your phone camera at an IR LED (like in a TV remote) it is visible but why does it show up as blue/purple rather than red? | The explanation has to do with how digital cameras try to determine the color of an object. Cameras usually use a sheet of silicon sensors to detect the intensity of incoming light. However all the intensity tells you is how much total light falls on a given pixel (weighted by how responsive the sensor is in that spectral region). In other words, the best you could do at this point was to build up a grayscale image. In order to get information about the color, you need some way to separate light by wavelength. One way to do this is by adding a grid with color filters, e.g. a [Bayer filter](_URL_0_) on top of the sensor layer, [as shown here](_URL_3_).
Now this set of filters is the only know the camera can distinguish between different colors. Because there are only three color filters, there is only so much spectral information you can get. However, that is fine, since our eyes also only have three types of biological censors, called cone cells, [that can distinguish colors](_URL_2_). As a result, a camera can detect more or less as much spectral information as our eyes can see. A display can then use three color sources (e.g. RGB or red, green, and blue lights) to mimic the same color our eyes can see.
That intro was a bit long, but we finally we can get to the heart of the question. The actual efficiency of the red, green and blue pixels of a camera is shown in [this graph](_URL_1_). Notice that above 650nm, a filter is said to block off most of the near infrared (IR) light. Of course, a bit of it will leak in. In the case of things like an IR remote, the light will usually have a wavelength of ~900nm. In that wavelength range, the green, red, and blue detectors are triggered about equally strongly. Now when the camera tries to map this response on the RGB color space, it looks for the closest mixture of visible colors that would have given the same reading. It turns out that you can mimic a similar response by shining white light with a bit of extra blue/violet light mixed in. As a result, the camera decides that this was the light that must have hit it and records the infrared light as having a violet hue. | [
"The camera is mounted on a pivot, allowing for positioning. Focusing the camera is performed by rotating a ring around the lens. It comes with two LED lights on the front. A blue light turns on when the PS2 is on, indicating that it is ready to be used, while the red light flashes when there is insufficient light ... |
when looking at atoms through an electron scanning microscope, why are there no abundance of nitrogen/oxygen(air) atoms getting in the way? | As CommissarAJ says, SEMs typically have a vacuum chamber - whatever you're looking at is put inside, and then the air is pumped out. What little remains doesn't really matter, because the image is built up as a computer model by a beam that scans back and forth (hence the "S" in SEM) and the odd air molecule that's left here and there is just ignored. | [
"The high energy of the electrons leads to the electron beam interacting not only with the surface of a material, but forming a tear-drop interaction volume underneath the surface. While the spot size on the surface can be extremely low, the electrons will travel into the bulk and continue interacting with the samp... |
why does the length of music files differ from how long the file plays? | In streaming especially, media files come with not only the media content but also some metadata like Title, Artist, and Length. This is important because you can't estimate the length of a song you haven't finished downloading. Since this data isn't directly calculated from the actual length of the song, it can be wrong.
How a media player deals with an inconsistency may vary.
If the number is shorter than the actual length, it may either stop early or keep playing.
If the number is longer than the actual length, it may either keep "playing" where there is no data and thus play nothing, or it may stop when it detects that there is no more data.
Unfortunately, in streaming, what looks like "no more data" may just be a pause, so to be safe, they choose to keep playing where there may not be data. Then when the reach the given length, they request the next song. | [
"A side effect of the second session containing the music in compressed form is that the maximum length of music on a CDS disc is reduced, being approximately 70 minutes. The remaining space is use for the compressed audio (and the player software and other files though these are small by comparison).\n",
"This i... |
- how do video game servers work? | I'm going to assume you're talking about servers for typical FPS (First Person Shooter) games.
All the server is doing is acting as a "middle man" to ensure all of the players (clients) know what all of the other players are doing, and to handle any reactions to those players actions, and again, ensuring all of the players observe the same reaction at the same time.
Multiple times per second, your computer sends information about exactly where you are and what you are doing - moving in a certain direction, opening a door, firing a gun - and does the same for every other player at the same time.
Then, multiple times per second, the server shares that consolidated information with all of the players, so that each player's computer knows what to display on the screen.
Certain decisions are also made by the server - did that bullet you shot hit that other player? How much damage did it do? Did it kill the player? All of that information is sent to all of the players at the same time, so everyone observes the same thing.
It gets more complex.... on games with really big maps, the server may only share information to players from other players in their vicinity, so not every player is receiving the same information, but players who are close to each other would get very similar information.
This is a very high level summary - it gets far more detailed and complex and varies between different games.
| [
"A game server (also sometimes referred to as a host) is a server which is the authoritative source of events in a multiplayer video game. The server transmits enough data about its internal state to allow its connected clients to maintain their own accurate version of the game world for display to players. They al... |
How successful was African American participation in politics during the post-emancipation period? | This is a huge question, you're basically asking for an overview of the Reconstruction era. I don't have time to type it all out but since no one else seems to be answering I'll give the cop out answer. People can feel free to downvote it once if/when real answers show up.
Check out Eric Foner's *Reconstruction.* It answers precisely those questions. | [
"The later 19th century was a high point in the history of civil rights for African Americans. Reconstruction for a time limited the power of former slaveholders in Texas. Leaders, such as George T. Ruby and Norris Wright Cuney, worked to establish educational and employment opportunities for blacks and organize bl... |
Do men who have homosexual intercourse have less or more likeliness of getting prostate cancer? | You may want to consider thinking beyond homosexual intercourse. I've witnessed more than enough straight men come throught the ER needing surgical removal of objects. | [
"In 2003, an Australian research team led by Graham Giles of The Cancer Council Australia found that males masturbating frequently had a lower probability to develop prostate cancer. Men who averaged five or more ejaculations weekly in their 20s had significantly lower risk. However they could not show a direct cau... |
Are there any accounts of a battle ending with only 1 or 2 men on both sides? | There was a battle called "The Battle of 300 Champions" which took place between Sparta and Argos in 546 BC. There were only three survivors: two on the Argive side and one on the Spartan side. The two Argives assumed they were victorious and left the field. The sole surviving Spartan claimed otherwise since he had remained on the battle-site whilst the others had retreated.
Needless to say, no side could agree on who won.
Reference:
_URL_0_
Edit: Holy Crap! Thank you for all the up-votes, everyone! | [
"A battle pair is the smallest unit above the individual soldier, in the modern era chiefly employed by Baltic militaries. It consists of two soldiers with one soldier acting as senior of the two fighters (decided amongst the two or by their superior). A fireteam in turn consists of at least two fire and manoeuvre ... |
why do you get air bubbles all over your skin when you submerge yourself in a tub with hot water? | For the same reason bubbles form on the inside of your glass of soda.
Air can dissolve in liquids just like a solid like salt can. However, there's one big difference. With solids, warm water is generally able to dissolve more of a solid than cold water. With gases it's just the opposite. Cold water can dissolve more gas than warm water.
The water that is pumped into your house is cold. In order to have your hot bath, the water has to go through your hot water heater. As the water gets warmer, it is less able to hold on to those dissolved gases, but the gases aren't able to come out of solution yet, because there is no place for them to go while the water is enclosed in a tank or a pipe. It's only after the water comes out of the faucet that the dissolved gases start coming out of solution, which is why the bubbles form on your skin. | [
"Bubbles on top of the water, less ambiguously known as a foam bath (see photo), can be obtained by adding a product containing foaming surfactants to water and temporarily aerating it by agitation (often merely by the fall of water filling the tub). The practice is popular for personal bathing because of the belie... |
A question about wind chill factor. | Some info here _URL_0_
I believe the wind chill is intended to represent the rate of heat loss. For instance, in your example, it is negative -5 outside, but the increased heat transfer due to wind speed causes your face to lose heat at the same rate as though it were -20. | [
"Many formulas exist for wind chill because, unlike temperature, wind chill has no universally agreed upon standard definition or measurement. All the formulas attempt to qualitatively predict the effect of wind on the temperature humans \"perceive\". Weather services in different countries use standards unique to ... |
raspberry pi | It is basically a computer, including processor, memory and graphics processor in a single, very small, board.
To function properly, you have to add storage space (sd card) for operating system, software and data, and a power supply.
It can also benefit from a screen to display stuff and some sort of HID (Human Interface Device) for input, like a keyboard, mouse, or touch screen.
It has also other interfaces that allow the user to control anything that is connected to the Rasp, through proper programming. | [
"The Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote teaching of basic computer science in schools and in developing countries. The original model became far more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for uses s... |
the contribution of eating meat and thusly derived amino acids to the evolution of human intelligence. | meat is a rich source of protein, but this isn't really what is considered important for human brain development.
the theory, as far as I understand it, claims that increased meat consumption allowed a much more efficient source of calories for human ancestor species and this calorie surplus is what really drove the development of increased brain size in human ancestor species. in other words: growing a big brain takes alot of energy. it wasn't possible to do until there was alot of extra food energy available. | [
"Due to the variety of environments inhabited, physiologies of the humans and human ancestors alive during the Paleolithic over 2.8 million years, we can’t ascribe a single set diet to any species, regional or cultural group. Increasing amounts of animal protein is viewed by some scientists as essential to the evol... |
why are cold showers so uncomfortable compared to pools? | They're both equally unpleasant to me, but if this is the case for you, I think it's for the same reason it feels colder when wind is blowing. In a still medium (water, air), you feel cold at first, but over time the temperature of your body and its close environment starts to equalize, making you a little colder but also a thin layer of air/water around you warmer. If you're pouring a water on yourself however, it's only you getting colder, the water doesn't get warmer because it exchanges for new water constantly (kind of like a cooling system in PCs for example). | [
"Under many circumstances, temperatures approaching and exceeding would be completely intolerable and possibly fatal if exposed to long periods of time. Saunas overcome this problem by controlling the humidity. The hottest Finnish saunas have relatively low humidity levels in which steam is generated by pouring wat... |
Why does the UK, for its size, have the largest amount of universities near the top of this list that aren't American? | Number of reasons.
1. Language. English is the lingua franca, which means that it's very easy for an english speaking university to "pull" people from a HUGE pool. For example I'm Finnish and went to one of the 3 English universities listed there. Why not France? I don't speak French. A lot of the top universities globally are now trying to embrace english speakers to avoid simply being overwhelmed. It's all very nice for a French University with 250 million potential applicants, compared to an English or American one that can pull applicants from a global pool.
2. Money. England has - for much of the past 1000 years - been either *the* wealthiest country on the planet, or one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. It also hasn't been pillaged or suffered a revolution in ages in a marked contrast with its continental competition. England was also more elitist than its competitors (who, with their occasional revolutions, kept confiscating the wealth of the elites) which allowed tremendous wealth concentration particularly in Oxford and Cambridge. With the Empire this phenomena also fed itself quite nicely, as the elites of the colonies were very keen to send their children to study at Oxford/Cambridge... which created wealthy alumni, which created wealth and prestige for the universities, which then fed the process all over again.
(It is not an accident that the first university not from UK/US is from a multi-lingual country of tremendous wealth that hasn't been pillaged in centuries - Switzerland)
Edit: There's another reason, and that is a focus on a steadily educated population in many of the top educated countries. Germany is the most noted example of this, where there are forces acting against a huge concentration of talent in a few universities at the expense of all the others. This has resulted in tons of very well educated Germans, but no real super university (because the top 200 professors are split between 50 universities, not between 3). | [
"Considering the four systems together, about 38 per cent of the United Kingdom population has a university or college degree, which is the highest percentage in Europe, and among the highest percentages in the world. The United Kingdom trails only the United States in terms of representation on lists of top 100 un... |
When did Ukraine become culturally separate from Russia? | While it's certainly true that many Russian historians like to conceive of an unbroken line of Russianness characterizing Kievan Rus and stretching through various successors to the modern Russian Federation, such a reading is at best lazy and at worst dishonest. As Serhii Plokhy discusses at length in his book *The Origins of the Slavic Nations*, there's nothing really particularly Russian, Ukrainian, or Belarusian about Kievan Rus'. These identities are largely modern constructions that really began to develop in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and so to talk about Ukraine "becoming culturally separate from Russia" presupposes a problematic narrative of a timeless Russian identity from which Ukrainians deviated. Linguistically, at least, we can identify a common Old East Slavic (though classification of the speech of early Novgorod as preserved in the birchbark manuscripts is tricky), characterized by (among other things) relatively faithful orthographic representation of the [yers](_URL_1_), preservation of the [yat](_URL_0_) and by use of the letter *ѧ* (originally representing a vowel like that in French *vin*) for the sequence /ja/, as in *землѧ* for Modern Russian and Ukrainian земля.
In the thirteenth and especially fourteenth centuries, while Muscovy was consolidating its power over northeastern Rus', the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was taking control over western and southern Rus' (including much of modern Belarus and Ukraine). In short order the Grand Duchy entered personal union with Poland, and Old East Slavic diverged into Old/Middle Russian and Ruthenian. Linguists generally date Ukrainian and Belarusian as literary languages to the early nineteenth century, but it's important to keep in mind that they did not simply arise fully formed from the pre-modern or early-modern carcass of Ruthenian: Ukrainian and Belarusian were codifications of certain parts of a dialect continuum that had been developing for several centuries. | [
"The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC. During the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus' forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divid... |
Can viruses account for evolutionary "leaps"? | > 2) If this is possible, could a genetically engineerd virus be used to exterminate certain handicaps, i.e., would it be possible to create a specific DNA change using a virus?
Phage (viruses that infect bacteria) have been used to engineer specific DNA changes in bacteria for a while. See this description of [phage transduction](_URL_0_)
Bacteria are single celled organisms, so it is much simpler to manipulate their genetic material. It becomes much tricker in humans, and cancer becomes a concern whenever you are introducing mutagens into humans. | [
"Viral evolution is a subfield of evolutionary biology and virology that is specifically concerned with the evolution of viruses. Viruses have short generation times and many, in particular RNA viruses, have relatively high mutation rates (on the order of one point mutation or more per genome per round of replicati... |
how are synthesized sounds created, like those in today's music? | The concept was based off of speaker vibrations and the study of sound as a wavelength.
If you look at a large speaker, you'll see it moving up and down, which is how it creates sound. Every possible sound has a vibration speed and wavelength, so speakers wiggle up and down like that to produce the vibration and wavelength of the sound it's supposed to be producing.
By studying wavelength patterns and vibration speeds, musical engineers were able to create duplications on computers, mathmatically. If we know what the vibration is supposed to equal, we can work out a program that also produces such a vibration.
| [
"Sound synthesis can be used to mimic acoustic sound sources. Generally, a sound that does not change over time includes a fundamental partial or harmonic, and any number of partials. Synthesis may attempt to mimic the amplitude and pitch of the partials in an acoustic sound source.\n",
"Audio synthesis is the el... |
what would be the immediate result of the u.s. declaring an end to its support of israel? | Israel would be fine.
First, let's be clear: Israel has been winning wars since its inception, with or without outside help. It has a powerful, well-trained military with a strong and well funded military industry to back it up which is more than I can say for it's neighbors.
Second, with whom would they go to war? Syria is in the middle of a civil war, Egypt's political structure is falling apart, Iraq is already on shaky ground, Jordan doesn't have the capability to fight with any conviction, and Saudi Arabia would get torn to shreds in an air war. The only one that could really go to war with Israel would be Iran, and even then the distance between them would require the aid of at least a few of the Arab states (which they aren't likely to give) and considering the state of their economy with the sanctions leveled at them, a sustained war across the middle east would devastate the oil market and bring them to their knees fairly quickly.
Third and finally, the US isn't the only game out there. With Syria sliding into chaos, Putin is probably in the market for a new middle east ally. In fact Israel might be a better ally for Russia than the States, a little saber-rattling out of Israel and the price of oil jumps and Russia's oil fields look far preferable to Europe.
Long story short, Israel would be fine but America's foreign standing would take a nosedive.
EDIT: silly me, I forgot. Israel has nukes and is not afraid to use them, and you don't touch a nation with nukes unless your willing to be turned into a radioactive wasteland | [
"The United States responded to the announcement by rebuking Israel for taking measures that were 'counter-productive' to the two-state solution in peace talks. The expropriation was also condemned by the United Nations, the United Kingdom Egypt, France, Spain, Russia, European Union, Turkey, Norway, Japan and Amne... |
purpose of tv commercials and other advertisements having the background speaker's voice sound unnatural and sillier? | It makes it more noticeable. If the voice is weird it's harder to tune out, so people often retain more information from it. | [
"In 1956, when Woodweev Blinds needed someone to provide a voice for their radio commercials, Naylor was \"co-opted\" into the role – reportedly because his voice made him sound like \"a nice family sort of fellow\". This led to a two-year stint as the radio presenter of the company's program on radio station 3AK. ... |
How accurate is the television series Downton Abbey's portrayal of the Edwardian/Pre-World War I era? | It's a highly romanticized portrayal. Popular history broadcaster A. N. Wilson [trashed the show's idealistic portrayal of country life](_URL_1_) on BBC 4's _Today_:
> We all know that during the years before and after the First World War, life was miserable for most people and we did need a re-ordering of society. And I don’t want to be too serious about it, but the idea that Downton Abbey represents this country’s finest hour is bullshit.
Essentially, his argument is that the rosy picture provided by _Downton Abbey_ doesn't show the serious class tensions apparent in British society on the eve of the First World War. That, of course, is probably to be expected given the social status of the show's characters. Professor Alison Light, likewise, had this to say:
> It is a very liberal fantasy and, if it’s nostalgia, it’s obviously for a time that didn’t exist...It is very paternalistic and benign and generous, and nobody is nasty to anyone. So it is very much of the present moment; it is not a depiction of the Edwardian years....This is fiction. It’s preposterous. It’s a romance.
There is also the question of language and phrases used in the show that [weren't used at the time](_URL_0_).
> Footman Thomas Barrow, played by Rob James-Collier, used the words "get knotted" in the October 9 episode, while in last Sunday's episode he said: "I am fed up seeing our lot get shafted."
Both expressions are believed to have originated in the 1960s.
It should be noted that there's disagreement over the origin of such phrases (and it's something that's notoriously hard to prove), but these kinds of small errors pop up every now and then. | [
"The second series of the British historical period drama television series \"Downton Abbey\" aired from 18 September 2011 to 6 November 2011, comprising a total of 8 episodes and one Christmas Special episode aired on 25 December 2011. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV, and in the United States on PBS,... |
how can plant seeds be stored for weeks and grow and be “alive” and have a life? | Plants seeds are so tough that they are capable of dormancy. It's an evolved response because seeds are incapable of choosing where they fall - if they land on a piece of rock they can't root in, then trying to grow would result in failure and death. Instead, the seeds are capable of sensing things like water content and light composition that makes sure they only start to germinate when buried (preferably in soil). This gives them the maximum chance of survival. Some seeds are so resilient they can last for years just waiting for soil. | [
"The seeds are dispersed short distances by wind, but can travel longer distances by water, animals, and people. The vast majority of seeds (95%) are found in the top of the soil within a few meters of the parent plant. Seeds may stay alive in the seed bank for more than five years.\n",
"The seeds maintain their ... |
waste management | In the United States, there are two major processes depending on where you live, I will cover both.
**Homes with sewage systems**: When you flush a toilet the waste is pushed down the pipes in your house and into the neighborhood sewage pipes. From there it makes its way to a sewage treatment plant, helped along by pumps and gravity if the geography permits.
When it arrives at the sewage plant the waste is first sent through a series of filters to catch big things like condoms, paper, and other materials that will cause damage later down the line. These are gathered and usually sent to the local landfill. After the initial screening the waste is sent through a series of treatments with microbes, which are tiny bacteria that eat the waste in the sewage. These microbes turn the bits of waste into more basic compounds. The bacteria's byproducts sink to the bottom of the pool where the treatment happens and the water that is mostly clear of contaminants is sent to a second filtration step.
At this point the water is disinfected by a number of methods, usually UV light (UV rays, the same ones that cause sunburn kill bacteria) or ozone (ozone is a type of oxygen molecule that damages cells). Once the water's bacterial content is low enough to be sent back into the environment without causing harm, it is usually pumped into a nearby water source such as a river, lake, or sometimes into a drainage basin.
The sludge that is left in the basins is sent to another tank where it further decomposes and eventually is sent to landfills or is used in fertilizer.
**For homes hooked up to septic tanks**: When you flush your toilet the waste is sent to a tank nearby the house where it is digested by a special type of bacteria similar to that in the sewage plants. This process is usually not mechanical, the tank itself is usually fairly deep and at one end is an inlet for the waste and at the other is an outlet for the water that is free of sludge. The water is then sent, usually downhill, to what is called a leach field where it is filtered through natural processes. The sludge that builds up in sewage plants is removed regularly, but with septic systems this is difficult and is usually done on an annual basis by a septic management company. If the sludge is not removed then the septic tank can overfill and spill into the yard or backup into the house.
This process is becoming more and more rare because of the expense involved in maintenance and the difficulty in having many people using septic systems in the same area.
**What happens to the water when its cleaned:** There is a growing movement in many regions (particularly in the American southwest) to send the "cleaned" water from sewage plants into drinking water plants rather than sending it back to rivers and streams. This is due to the lack of fresh water in those regions and the fact that the water that leaves a sewage plant is cleaner than the water that flows through the local water sources to begin with. Other regions (example would be Cape Coral Florida) is for the treated water to be sent back to the homes and businesses not as drinking water but as irrigation/industrial use water. This helps in areas that don't have access to dump fresh water into an ecosystem and for regions that use a large amount of water for non-drinking purposes.
| [
"The waste management hierarchy indicates an order of preference for action to reduce and manage waste, and is usually presented diagrammatically in the form of a pyramid. The hierarchy captures the progression of a material or product through successive stages of waste management, and represents the latter part of... |
In 1996, the nintendo 64 was released and was '64' bit. The dreamcast which followed was billed as 128 bit. Why did it take so long for 64 bit home PCs to arrive and what's different between a 64 bit PC and a 128 bit dreamcast? | "128 bits" in consoles was just marketing. The CPUs were not 128bit like the N64 was 64 bit. The memory bus might have been 128 bit but that is completely unrelated to how many bits the CPU operates with internally. A 128bit memory bus is basically just having a wider "highway" into the CPU, not changing anything inside the CPU itself. It's also not really relevant. A wider memory bus *can* allow for higher transfer speeds, but the speed of each lane matters too. Total data per second is what you really want, and widening the bus is *one* way to do that.
The N64 did not utilize the major strengths that 64 bit systems supply, which is the ability to address more than 4 GB of memory. PCs did not really require 64 bit CPUs and operating systems until 4+ GB of RAM became commonplace. The N64 didn't even have 1/100th of that. | [
"Released June 23, 1996, The Nintendo 64, commonly called the N64, and codenamed Ultra 64, was Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. It was released with three launch games in Japan (\"Super Mario 64\", \"Pilotwings 64\" and \"Saikyo Habu Shogi\") and two in North America (\"Super M... |
Why is it that when we look at bright objects we see extra artifacts surrounding it, such as vertical lines of light? | The bright lines in that particular picture look like [CCD smear](_URL_0_), an artifact caused by a certain type of image sensor.
For the vertical lines that you see with your own eyes, do they get more pronounced (brighter, longer, or larger) when you squint? If so, I think it may be [the phenomenon described here](_URL_1_). In short, it is caused by reflections off the edge of your eyelid and/or reflections from or refraction through the cylindrical layer of fluid (tears) that accumulates along that edge. | [
"In the real world, objects and surfaces are visible due to the fact that they are reflecting light. This reflected light then illuminates other objects in turn. From that simple observation, two principles follow.\n",
"Variations in surface texture directly influence the level of specular reflection. Objects wit... |
Discussion thread: Promising "FTL neutrino" explanation published yesterday. | I am 99.7% certain that the theorist (Contaldi) has the experimental details incorrect. He states:
> Due to both receiver and atmospheric transmission effects it is still not possible to use the GPS signal received at the two ends of the baseline as synchronous UTC markers with the required ns precision. To counter this the OPERA experiment employed a travelling time- transfer device (TTD) to calibrate the difference in time signals at each receiver. We assume this device to be a transportable atomic clock of sufficient accuracy [13]. The TTD constitutes a classic moving clock synchroni- sation conundrum in relativity.
He simply assumes that the GPS "common-view" method cannot be used, and that they use a transportable atomic clock. Reference 13 is not a link, but a complaint that he could not access some of OPERA's references in their paper that link to the analysis of the time transfer.
He is right that a *standard* GPS receiver cannot get the required precision. The design precision for GPS is +/- 100 nanoseconds. OPERA admits this and explains the more precise systems that they have set up:
> A key feature of the neutrino velocity measurement is the accuracy of the relative time tagging at CERN and at the OPERA detector. The standard GPS receivers formerly installed at CERN and LNGS would feature an insufficient ~100 ns accuracy for the TOFν measurement. Thus, in 2008, two identical systems, composed of a GPS receiver for time-transfer applications Septentrio PolaRx2e [16] operating in “common-view” mode [17] and a Cs atomic clock Symmetricom Cs4000 [18], were installed at CERN and LNGS (see Figs. 3, 5 and 6).
Poking around at some of the papers and such by the precision timing and navigation folks, it looks like they are currently pushing towards sub-nanosecond resolution, and +/- 10 ns is pretty easy these days with specialized equipment.
It looks like the time transfer was cross checked by multiple institutes, quoting OPERA again:
> The Cs4000 oscillator provides the reference frequency to the PolaRx2e receiver, which is able to time-tag its “One Pulse Per Second” output (1PPS) with respect to the individual GPS satellite observations. The latter are processed offline by using the CGGTTS format [19]. The two systems feature a technology commonly used for high-accuracy time transfer applications [20]. They were calibrated by the Swiss Metrology Institute (METAS) [21] and established a permanent time link between two reference points (tCERN and tLNGS) of the timing chains of CERN and OPERA at the nanosecond level. This time link between CERN and OPERA was independently verified by the German Metrology Institute PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) [22] by taking data at CERN and LNGS with a portable time-transfer device [23]. The difference between the time base of the CERN and OPERA PolaRx2e receivers was measured to be (2.3 ± 0.9) ns [22]. This correction was taken into account in the application of the time link.
Note that the device used by the German Institute for cross checking is also a GPS based device, and reference [23] can be accessed [here](_URL_0_).
Contaldi nicely explains why it is difficult to get ns resolution by synching clocks and then transporting them, but it appears that this has nothing to do with how OPERA synchronizes clocks. | [
"The novel explores one possible outcome of the solar neutrino problem, that was unsolved when Clarke wrote the work and has since been explained. There seemed to be a lack of neutrinos reaching the Earth from the Sun, because scientists were only looking for one particular state of the neutrino particle.\n",
"Fu... |
How big could a spinning space station reasonably get? | As it turns out, gravity inside a hollow sphere or annulus cancels itself out, so no, it would not be an issue.
Acceleration due to rotation is linear with radius (assuming fixed angular velocity) so artificial gravity at 1/2 distance would be 1/2 the artificial gravity at full distance. | [
"Both scientists and science fiction writers have thought about the concept of a rotating wheel space station since the beginning of the 20th century. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote about using rotation to create an artificial gravity in space in 1903. Herman Potočnik introduced a spinning wheel station with a 30-met... |
what laws are actually broken when a parent bribes someone to get their kid into a prestigious school? | The main thing here was that the company that they were paying to help get their kids into better colleges was illegally posing as a charity, so that the parents appeared to be donating to charity and getting tax writeoffs at the same time that they were cheating to get their kids into a prestigious school. That's the major law that got broken. | [
"In practice, a student can usually be subject to permanent exclusion for a total of five disciplinary breaches, for which the student does not have to receive formal warnings. Depending on his or her offence, a child can be excluded from the school system within any range of time after his or her misdeed. Though t... |
Is longevity of use a recurring event with military firearms and equipment before the 20th Century. | Forgive me kerri; alas! But to answer this question, I must beg that it belies an assumption - ie, that the most important thing in warfare is the quality of your equipment.
Surely it is so that equipment helps the soldier to fight, and some of those things (the jump boot) are marvelously well designed now. But Armies, Navys, and Air Forces standarise the equipment around logistics pipelines for what can be incredibly complex machines, along with all the intricate and interlocking training systems needed for people to build, repair, and use those machines. Cost. Availability. Most importantly though, **doctrine** will affect what equipment is considered good to go and what needs to be replaced lickity-split. Does that make sense? Everything goes in the end, but the stuff that works with current doctrine tends to stay put until it's needful.
Hence the jump-boot won't have changed, but you bet your ass the armour-systems on a HUMVEE will have when the Americans switched styles from heavy-vehicle warfighting to light-vehicle patrolling in the Middle East.
Take the Brown Bess musket, talked about further down. It saw over *100 years* of active duty, because it was perfect to equip a large formation of close-moving soldiers battering away as fast as they can at other large formations of close-moving soldiers. Rifles - which had been invented but were limited to skirmishers' weapons - did not support the doctrine of the Force which employed them, and were expensive and difficult to use. The rifle gained many more supporters when those factors were reduced... and doctrine was altered to sui thet new circumstances. But it was only once the doctrine changed - essentially only after certain groups had tried it out on a limited scale - that the rifle saw widespread adoption by militaries. Does that make sense?
On the other hand, a great example of quality kit **not** working with doctrine and being randomly replaced is the A-10 Warthog. That is a fantastic plane and clearly perfect for its role; CAS. The problem is that the Air Force most decidedly does NOT wish to be strategically subordinate to a ground-role. They wish to be relevant all on their lonesome - flying fighters to gain air supremacy, and then bombing the hell out of things with conventional or Atomic weapons to force a result. Who needs Navy/Army? That strategic worldview is also the only thing justifying their existence as a separate service outside a Corps of the Army. The US Air Force has therefire tried to get rid of the Warthog several times because it doesn't mesh with their conception of what the Air Force *is* and what it should be doing - in fact it is downright dangerous to that vision. Does that make sense?
I am sure I am teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, but I sometimes wistfully think the focus on technology obscures the way that war is fundamentally about human beings. It's worth considering, anyway. | [
"As happens, the Army's men often had the weapons to fight the \"last\" war by the time of the following conflict. Most of the 19th century weapons were technologically obsolete at their introduction or within five years, and despite the apparently exhaustive testing many inadequate weapons were issued.\n",
"This... |
Question about Nazi nerve gas. | most likely they were referring to [Zyklon B](_URL_0_) - it was a cyanide based pesticide that was used to gas large groups of people inside concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, and Sachsenhausen. some numbers put the casualty count in these camps due to Zyklon B up to 1 or 1.2 million deaths.
It was not used as an offensive weapon, and Nazi Germany did not use chemical weapons as a part of their arsenal; some speculate because of Hitler's own experience with them in World War I. Zyklon B would not make a very effective weapon on a battlefield because of the time it takes to absorb moisture and begin to spread. It is not adaptable to artillery shells, bombs, munitions like Chlorine / Mustard / VX / Sarin gas is.
Red Spaniards may refer to communist/socialist Spanish fighters and volunteers during the [Spanish Civil War](_URL_1_) | [
"In May 1937, he joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP). On 7 September 1939 he and Henry agreed with the Army Ordnance Hörlein the production of the gas Tabun, an extremely toxic nerve agent. More than 100 prisoners of war were used during construction of the designated poison gas factory in Dyhernfurth. \n",
"Bauer cite... |
What is the oldest expression we still use in modern times? | A lot of enduring phrases are usually religious in origin simply because preaching in olden times was the main way to convey an idea. "A drop in the bucket" can be linked to Isaiah 40:15 (KJV) for example. Now if this became an everyday expression more recently or not is harder to prove, but the strong imagery is something that many people have always been able to understand. | [
"The oldest known written uses of the word are in the book \"The Student\" (1750–1751), ii. 41, where it is called \"a word very much in vogue with the people of taste and fashion\", and in Ferdinando Killigrew's \"The Universal Jester\", subtitled \"a choice collection of many conceits ... bon-mots and humbugs\" f... |
what is so horrible about the "new" simpsons seasons? | When the Simpsons started out, they set out to mock and spoof old family television and movie cliches.
The show was quite subversive and rebellious for its time, with children casually swearing, the family worshiping Television, the show mocking authority figures, and generally turning moral lessons on their ear, and so on. It's kind of hard to believe these days, looking back, but at the time it was very controversial.
A good example in the early seasons is when Bart asks Homer how important is it to be popular and Homer responds "It's the most important thing in the world", which is the exact opposite of any message you might get from any normal family sitcom.
A few years in, they ran out of cliches to mock, and the original writing crew started leaving.
Somewhere between seasons 5 and 7, the show started getting more absurd with Homer going to Space, Mr. Burns blotting out the sun, etc. Homer got dumber and got into more outright cartoony situations. Somewhere after season 8 or 9, they started being more self-referential, they started trying to preach their own moral lessons, take a more political stand, and so forth.
Seasons 12 and on were probably the third or fourth generation of Simpsons Writers/Show Runners, and the first generation to have grown up with the Simpsons as mainstream. They were also the first generation of writers/showrunners who came up through school with the goal of writing and producing specifically for "The Simpsons", and so got far away from the original subversive intent, and instead they just wrote "The Wacky Adventures of the Simpsons".
Which makes sense, I suppose, since most of the things the Simpsons did on TV back in the early 90s, which were so shocking and subversive at the time, are pretty commonplace now, so there's not much left for them to mock. | [
"Some critics felt season 13 was an improvement over the previous Scully seasons. DVDDizzy rhetorically asked how the season \"stand[s] up for someone just looking to jump into a full, semi-recent year of episodes\", answering \"Pretty darn well\". It explained \"Nearly everything that makes \"The Simpsons\" what i... |
What is the mechanism by which a virus dies outside a host cell--and what happens to the RNA inside? | If a virus is ripped apart by soap, the genome will be exposed to extracellular nucleases that will chop it up really quickly.
Radiation inactivation, like with gamma or UV, will cause major genomic damage that may allow the virus to enter a cell, but never replicate to produce new viruses.
Fixing chemicals like formalin will essentially lock the virus proteins in place. Essentially paralysis for the virus so that it cant change its shape which is required for function. | [
"Once inside the host's body, the virus will attach itself to a cell's surface through receptor-mediated endocytosis. This essentially means that the proteins and DNA material of the virus are ingested into the host cell. The viral RNA material will undergo several changes and processes inside the host's cell so th... |
How many friends do you need on Facebook to get a > 99% chance that at least one of your friends have birthday each day of the year? | This problem is identical to the [coupon collector's problem](_URL_2_). The "coupons" are the 365 possible birthdays. We are ignoring February 29 and we are assuming birthdays are uniformly distributed by day of the year. (There is a solution for nonuniform distributions, but it's bit more difficult to describe.) A "draw of the coupon" is just the random selection of someone from the population to be your Facebook friend. In general, if there are N coupons to be collected, the expected number of draws required to gather all N coupons is
> E = N H(N)
where H(N) is the so-called *harmonic number* defined by
> H(N) = 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + ... + 1/N
For large N, H(N) is approximately equal to log(N). So the expected number of draws scales like N log(N). For N = 365, the exact value of E is
> [E(365) = 2364.64](_URL_0_)
So if many people tried to gather enough friends so we can celebrate a birthday each day of the year, then the average number of friends required is about 2365.
The reason the number is so much larger than 365 is that the first few birthdays are easy to collect. Remember the classic birthday problem? You have a 50% chance of getting a matching pair with only 23 people. So you have a 50% chance of drawing 23 friends in a row who don't share a birthday. But what happens once you have collected, say, 364 birthdays? That last birthday is very difficult to get since there is only a 1/365 chance of getting it on any draw after you have collected the first 364 birthdays.
---
Now for your specific question. How many draws must we make for there to be a probability P of having collected all N coupons? Well... this question is difficult to answer exactly. But we can get some useful bounds, which are all on the Wikipedia page. Let T = number of draws you actually make to collect all of the coupons. Then we have the following three bounds:
`[; P\left(T\geq cE\right)\leq \frac{1}{c} ;]`
`[; P\left(|T-E|\geq cn\right)\leq \frac{\pi^2}{6c^2} ;]`
`[; P\left(T > c n\log(n)\right)\leq \frac{1}{n^{c-1}} ;]`
So how are these useful? Let's use the last one, for instance. The expected number of draws is 2365. Let's bound the probability of requiring at least 10% more, that is, the probability of requiring at least 2602 friends. The value of *c* in the last inequality is then [c = 1.208](_URL_1_). So we have
`[; P\left(T > 2602\right)\leq \frac{1}{365^{0.208}} = 0.293 ;]`
So there is about a 30% chance you need at least 2602 friends. What about the chance of needing 20% more than the expected amount, or 2838 friends? The appropriate value of c is [c = 1.312](_URL_3_). Then we have
`[; P\left(T > 2838\right)\leq\frac{1}{365^{0.312}} = 0.153 ;]`
So there is about a 15% chance you need at least 2838 friends. If you want a bound of only 1%, then we need to choose [c = 1.78](_URL_4_), which corresponds to 3834 friends, a 62% increase over the expected number of friends.
**Warning:** This last section uses loose bounds on the probabilities. These are not exact probabilities. So 3834 friends guarantees *at most* a 1% chance of having a birthday for each day of the year. The actual number of friends you need to guarantee a 1% chance is lower than 3834. Note that I have also only been using the third of the bounds I wrote above. The other two bounds may give better bounds for some values of c.
Note, however, that the expected number of friends you need is *exactly* 2365.
| [
"It may well seem surprising that a group of just 23 individuals is required to reach a probability of 50% that two individuals in the group have the same birthday: this result is perhaps made more plausible by considering that the comparisons of birthday will actually be made between every possible pair of individ... |
why are dogs' noses wet? | There are several reasons, actually. The first, and most important, is that the chemo-receptors (the things that actually pick up smells) on a dog's nose are more functional when wet. Similarly, our tongues can't taste anything when they are dry (stick your tongue out, let it dry, put something salty on it). Same idea. So the dog excretes a mucous that keeps the dogs nose wet, allowing the chemo-receptors to pick up smells.
Less importantly, dogs don't sweat, but they need to shed heat. The nose is a piece of exposed (not furry) flesh that can be easily licked to take advantage of evaporative cooling. | [
"The wet nose of dogs is useful for the perception of direction. The sensitive cold receptors in the skin detect the place where the nose is cooled the most and this is the direction a particular smell that the animal just picked up comes from.\n",
"The most common types of canine ear infections are caused by mic... |
why do tanning oils (any oils?) make you tan/burn faster? | They work similar to how light works when burning things with a magnifying lens. It attracts, then refracts the light creating a more powerful beam and focusing the UV rays. You can get similar effects if you tan while wet from the pool or if you rub mineral oil on your body | [
"Leather can be oiled to improve its water resistance. This currying process after tanning supplements the natural oils remaining in the leather itself, which can be washed out through repeated exposure to water. Frequent oiling of leather, with mink oil, neatsfoot oil, or a similar material keeps it supple and imp... |
The advent of firearms largely made the bow and arrow obsolete, but also the heavy body armor that could defend against arrows. As infantry became increasingly unarmored, was there ever a resurgence of the bow and arrow before firearms became so advanced as to obsolete them entirely? | Others have linked to discussions on the shock value of firearms, but I specialize in Tudor and Stuart England, and can speak to the role of heavy armor during the time of transition from arrows to muskets in that respect. Heavy armor actually *did* stand a very good chance at stopping musket fire, particularly pistol fire. It was common to "proof" a suit by firing a musket ball at the breastplate point-blank. The reality was that heavy armor was anything but obsolete, rather it was proving to be more useful than ever before, yet it still beat a hasty retreat from the battlefield. The change we see here is not so much the result of evolving weaponry, but more so the changing role of those who fought the battles.
There's a bit of a misconception in your question, that infantry had access to heavy armor. Heavy armor was not ubiquitous in early modern combat. Full suits of armor were exceptionally expensive, and required a skilled craftsman to custom-fit the armor to the individual. The nobles clad head-to-toe in shining armor were the wealthiest members of their societies, and wore their armor as both a status symbol and as a means of protection. You may be aware of a few videos online of people in full metal armor jumping around and being rather agile. This is the armor as a medieval knight, *not* the armor of someone fighting in the days of muskets. Armor ca. the English Civil War could weigh 80 lbs easy. The wealthy men of status that could afford this armor made up heavy cavalry units called Cuirassiers, and played only minor roles in the English Civil War past the first year or so. Not because they weren't effective on the battlefield, but because of the increasing danger they found themselves in. With the widespread use of cannon, prolonged sieges became less practical for defenders as their defenses could be blown away well before the enemy might be hit by supply shortages or disease. This led to more proper battles on open terrain, in which there was a very real chance of a wealthy nobleman being killed, despite their superior protection. The consequences of this being that the men who made up the heavy cavalry outsourced their role to retunines and plied them with cheaper armor, and/or took on more ceremonial roles like guarding the commanders on either side of the battle.
The infantry could never have hoped to afford any sort of heavy armor. It was a luxury reserved for the wealthy and their choicest of men. The best they could hope for in this time was a thick leather buff coat that did well against swords and pikes, but next to nothing against musket balls.
So why no arrows? As I mentioned before, a combination of cost and hazard forced the few men who could afford heavy armor off the battlefield rather early on. Light cavalry of the time continued to wear chest armor which could also stop a musket, but this too would eventually prove too costly. Infantry never had access to anything that could protect against musket fire. Arrows were very effective weapons, but there was little they could do that muskets could not do better. Crossbows were cheap and easy to use, but lacked the range and power of muskets. English longbows recovered from the Mary Rose ca. 1545 had draw weights of up to 180 lbs. and could very well compete with early muskets. But the skill required to use these bows was immense. English archers trained for years to be able to draw that kind of bow. We can identify English archers by their remains because their arms would deform from the force need to draw the bow. In comparison, muskets could be used by any old peasant with little training. If combat in the early days of firearms interests you, I’d recommend checking out Stuart Reed’s “All the King’s Armies,” and Peter Young’s “English Civil War Armies” for a more in-depth account of the military side of the English Civil War.
Edit: /u/Chickendoodles4u has brought up a lot of great counter points to my last paragraph, please take the time to read through his remarks below. | [
"The advent of firearms eventually rendered bows obsolete in warfare. Despite the high social status, ongoing utility, and widespread pleasure of archery, almost every culture that gained access to even early firearms used them widely, to the relative neglect of archery.\n",
"While bows remained in use long after... |
why are archers in movies instructed to fire all at once? | Well usually we see it in movies in the context of the first volley against a force moving towards the wall. In that case the commander can simply say 'on my mark' if they want the arrows to start only when the enemy forces are close enough to get a reasonable hit on with the arrows.
Also it's a lot more devastating to morale to have them all hit at once. The perception of a well-coordinated enemy is itself disheartening but also it means you're getting this rain of grievous injuries all hitting together so from the perspective on an enemy foot soldier there's just waves of death causing quite a few of the guys around him to start bleeding out all at once. Has a bigger sense of impact when you get all these injuries hitting together. | [
"BULLET::::- two-way shooting: two shooting lines and two sets of flags are set up. One shooting line and one set of flags is placed at one end of the range; the other shooting line and other set of flags is placed at the other end. The archers shoot from one shooting line towards one set of flags, walk to the flag... |
why is a budget surplus a good thing and a fiscal deficit bad? | Well a budget surplus simply means that the Government is making more money than it is spending. On the surface this is good because that's what you want to do. You, yourself would like a job that pays you more each month than your bills come to.
But a surplus or deficit on their own may or may not be a good things - it's also important to look at how they have achieved this.
If the government is providing top notch services to everybody and is still making enough money (through taxes, etc) this can be a good thing.
But if the government is in surplus because they are cutting funding to vital services this can make an area start to deteriorate, which can decrease property values, make businesses want to move elsewhere (and take jobs with them), increase crime (if they cut spending on the police,etc) and in the long term might have a negative effect.
Similarly if a government is in surplus by taxing people more than anywhere else - similar thing - businesses and people will want to live somewhere cheaper, and will have less money to spend on other things so jobs, etc will suffer.
Conversely sometimes a deficit can be a good thing. As long as what they are spending the money on will help the area grow at a better rate than the interest they are paying on the loans. For example - a city might go into deficit to fund improvements to their roads. But these new roads make it easier for new businesses so there are more (and better jobs) so they end up making more in the long run through taxes, property values increase so they make more in property taxes, etc, etc, etc
I hope this helps - it's quite a complicated concept | [
"In any given time period, the government’s budget can be either in deficit or in surplus. A deficit occurs when the government spends more than it taxes; and a surplus occurs when a government taxes more than it spends. Sectoral balances analysis shows that as a matter of accounting, government budget deficits add... |
When did it become common to have a calendar in your house? | It certainly was around in Rome, often for horoscopes and such. Allusions to them are recurrent throughout Roman literature, such as in the Cena Trimalchionis, by Petronius.
> Fragment 30 (translated by JP Sullivan):
> [In the house of Trimalchio on the walls there was a fixture which] displayed representations of the moon's phases and the seven heavenly bodies. Lucky and unlucky days were marked with different coloured studs.
I don't know by which date Romans had horoscope calendars (this text was written around the late 1st century CE), and Trimalchio is not a 'common man' so to speak, so this does not answer your question exactly. Nonetheless I think you should bear ancient superstition regarding zodiac and whatnot in mind. Older zodiac calendars, like the Egyptian [Dendera zodiac](_URL_0_), survive by merit of being in stronger, larger buildings, while domestic buildings are much less sturdy. | [
"A calendar house is a house that symbolically contains architectural elements in quantities that represent the respective numbers of days in a year, weeks in a year, months in a year and days in a week. For example, Avon Tyrrell House in Hampshire was built with 365 windows, 52 rooms, 12 chimneys, 4 wings and 7 ex... |
Without modern equipment, how did early civilizations build those wood and rope bridges that go across huge canyons? How did they get it to the other side to connect it? | First step: get somebody on both sides of the gap you want to bridge (which can be tricky).
Second step: Bring your bow, an arrow, some very light cord, and some heavier rope.
Third step: Tie the light cord to the arrow and shoot it across the gap.
Fourth step: Tie the heavier rope to the light cord.
Fifth step: Get the guy on the other side to drag the rope across using the cord.
Sixth step: Tie both ends of the rope to something sturdy.
Congratulations: You now have a sturdy rope across the gap. You can use that to build bridges or do whatever you want. For very wide gaps, you might have to use more than two rope stages to lessen the drag on the arrow you shoot.
Side note: if it's not too much trouble (and it would be for challenging gaps) you can just get the guy on the other side to trail a rope as he crosses the gap instead of having to shoot it across with a bow. | [
"Inca rope bridges also provided access across narrow valleys. A bridge across the Apurímac River, west of Cusco, spanned a distance of . Rope bridges had to be replaced about every two years: to this end, the communities around the river crossing were commanded into a \"mita\" for the construction of the new bridg... |
What problems existed before Matthew Perry's arrival that contributed to the Tokugawa fall? | Ok I hope I can answer your question having read the book by Jansen and many others.
Sorry this is all off the top of my head but if you pm later I will be able to send you some other good books to read about this topic.
I find it easier to split it into economic, social and political factors for this.
Economic: There had been several bad harvests within Japan resulting in famine. (Japan at this point was very reliant on the rice market).
The Japanese elite at this point were in debt to some of the merchant houses that had developed.
Political: The Japanese Daimyo used an alternate attendance system which meant they were some cases of them not being fully connected with their domains.
Social: There was a rise in a weathy peasant class in Japan. This was the the first time that a class not born into the elite became important. This created tensions between the wealthy peasants, the samurai (who were facing cuts to their pay) and the peasants.
Also I would like to point out that foreigners had been in Japan long before the arrival of Perry. So there were groups forming within Japan creating divisions within society.
Currently on my mobile at the moment. I do have a lot of notes on my computer with references if you want me to continue.
Hope I could help. :)
Edit1: There had been 200 or so years of peace since 1600ish. Before this Japan had faced many years of war. During the Tokugawa period it was relatively peaceful. People wanted to keep it that way. One of the reasons why the arrival of Perry was so explosive to Japan was because it forced Japan to change to maintain the stability.
| [
"The Tokugawa did not eventually collapse simply because of intrinsic failures. Foreign intrusions helped to precipitate a complex political struggle between the \"bakufu\" and a coalition of its critics. The continuity of the anti-\"bakufu\" movement in the mid-19th century would finally bring down the Tokugawa. H... |
What is the practical and observable difference between mitosis and amitosis? | I'll jump in here real fast, but hopefully someone else will know more: In the early days of studying cell division, it wasn't clear whether most cells divided through mitosis or "amitosis." It's now clear that the vast majority of cell divisions take place through mitosis (in other words, with DNA replication and spindles, etc).
In my brief search, I found the term "amitosis" to lack a clear or consistent definition in the modern literature. It's not surprising that forming an image of what's going on is difficult. It's seemingly a catch-all for divisions that "don't look like normal mitosis."
Where did you learn about amitosis? It's somewhat of an obscure topic! Maybe some context will help someone answer your question more fully! | [
"In cell biology, mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle when replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Cell division gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the number of chromosomes is maintained. In general, mitosis (division of the nucleus) is preceded by the S stage of interphase (du... |
Why does xenon an inert gas interact with flourine? | "Xenon reacts directly with fluorine because fluorine is a very powerful oxidizing agent (hence it gets reduced and it gains an electron from Xenon). Xenon has larger radii; therefore the electron attraction to the nucleus is weaker in comparison to the smaller noble gases. Fluorine on the other hand is very tiny and highly electronegative, so it would steal an electron from fluorine, forming a compound."
[
Source](_URL_0_) | [
"Liquid xenon is used in calorimeters to measure gamma rays, and as a detector of hypothetical weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. When a WIMP collides with a xenon nucleus, theory predicts it will impart enough energy to cause ionization and scintillation. Liquid xenon is useful for these experiments b... |
How did the Norse treat people with dwarfism? | Dwarfs in norse mythology and people with dwarfism in norse society are not necessarily the same, nor would they have been treated the same. Dwarfs are often portrayed the same height as normal humans, but as ethereal creatures that either lived underground or lived in stones and possessed magical skills or abilities. Later Norse Mythology portrays them as diminutive sometimes, often with a whole host of other afflictions to highlight their demonic qualities. Much like giving a witch a crooked nose emphasizes their evilness. But we are dealing with elements of story telling and the use of stock characters which sometimes gets a bit heavy handed with such details. | [
"After the Christianization of the Germanic peoples, tales of dwarfs continued to be told in the folklore of areas of Europe where Germanic languages were (and are) spoken. In the late legendary sagas, dwarfs demonstrate skill in healing as well as in smithing. In the early Norse sources, there is no mention of the... |
Why do Intel's next gen processors have lower clock-rate (~1.7GHz or ~1.9GHz) ? | I work in supercomputing and my first thought is, "Don't get caught up in clock speed comparisons." These newer processors have additional instruction sets that allow them to do more work per clock cycle.
Due to this benefit, newer processors do not need these insanely high clock speeds that people associate with speedy computing.
Intels latest processors seem to focus on power consumption than speed improvements. Here is an interesting wiki article on this subject:
_URL_0_
I'm not too savvy on the latest broadwells but I do know that the advertised frequency that the processor can operate on (1.7Ghz or 1.9Ghz) in your example is the frequency that all the features of the processor can operate on at its maximum load. When Intel processors go into "turbo" states, they typically shut down several cores. Essentially the processor sacrifices its multi-threaded ability to push performance for a single thread.
From Intel: "Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the average power, in watts, the processor dissipates when operating at Base Frequency with all cores active under an Intel-defined, high-complexity workload."
So, like you said... what if you need an insanely high clock speed?
Since Intel hasn't released anything for the server side, I'll default to Haswell, which I am more familiar with.
E5-2637v3 has four cores at 3.5Ghz
E5-2683v3 has fourteen cores at 2.0Ghz
It really boils down to choosing the right processor for your application. Right now, for higher clock rate applications... Broadwell is a poor choice. | [
"Older processors such as the Pentium 4-M, which use older versions of SpeedStep, have fewer clock-speed increments. SpeedStep technology is partly responsible for the reduced power consumption of Intel’s Pentium M processor, part of the Centrino brand.\n",
"Between 2001 and 2003, Intel and AMD made few changes t... |
Best books to understand how government *really* works and is constrained? | The thing is, I don't think this is really a history question; it's more of a political theory or political science question.
The interaction and interplay of rules and constraints, written and unwritten, legal and customary, that impact the behavior of individuals in government is one of the primary topics of study in the field of political science. And the way these things interact at the highest levels of state, particularly how they condition the interactions between states, is a major concern of the separate field of international relations. History informs a lot of the inferences that political scientists and international relations theorists make, however while historians are typically very concerned with evaluating and reinterpreting details, political scientists and international relations theorists typically try to extrapolate broad universal conclusions. This means that it is very difficult, or even impossible, to answer your questions from a historical perspective.
Political scientists and international relations theorists also differ from historians in methodology and approach, even though in the past two decades or so younger scholars have begun looking at smaller and more self-contained topics (sometimes to the displeasure of their older colleagues, who prefer to debate broad universal truths). In any case, a political scientist might begin a study asking a question like "What are the main questions and concerns behind the implementation of a healthcare policy?" and from this question will usually try to extrapolate a theoretical framework that policymakers and government workers can use to inform their decisions. A historian would be more interested in asking something like, "What factors drove a wedge between theory and practice in Italian healthcare policy between 1945 and the reform of 1978?" In this example, a journalist, politician, bureaucrat, or another academic handling an inquiry in the state of healthcare might do well to read both studies, and both examples certainly have a lot of overlap (if they were working at the same institution, these two hypothetical scholars would probably collaborate or at least inform and influence each other's work). However while the political scientist is interested in asking, "How does government *really* work?" the historian is asking, "How *did* government really work?"
But before you repost this to r/AskSocialScience, know that your question is also difficult to answer from a political science or international relations perspective. As you might imagine, focusing on conclusions (or, if necessary, lack thereof) means that there are multiple competing theories and schools of thought in the fields of political science and international relations. While historians also have their differences in ideas and approaches, historians seldom extrapolate views that they hold to be broad universal truths (although I suppose you can always make broad conclusions on human nature, but I digress). Historians are much more likely to qualify that their assertions are only valid insofar as they relate to context of the evidence they have examined. So what is indisputable in the history of the Mediterranean is not necessarily applicable when examining China or India: while scholars ask questions of the causes and qualities of the fall of the Roman Empire and rise of the Frankish Kingdom, these causes and qualities cannot be applied to the Sixteen Kingdoms period of Chinese history. To their credit, political scientists and international relations theorists are typically very careful about precise wording, and often qualify their conclusions with many caveats so that they are aligned with the evidence they present (things like "this is only valid for democracies," or even, "this is only valid for parliamentary democracies").
So you ask for reading material; I can suggest a few books that might interest you. The first part of your question, I think, is most addressed by the discipline of Public Administration Theory within Political Science. I have only really tangentially examined this in the historical setting, and wouldn't really know where to start introduction-wise. Although I'm biased towards my area of study, a book that I really like and recommend is Putnam et al's *Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy* (1992) which draws some general conclusions about civic government based on historical and empirical evidence collected in Italy. I'm actually better versed in the shorter second part of your question, and can recommend a few books on international relations strongly informed by historical analysis. They are: Mansbach's *The Global Puzzle: Issues & Actors in World Politics* (1994); Jackson's *Global Politics in the Twenty-first Century,* (2013); and if you can get a hold of it Dehio's *The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle* (1965). Of the three I like Dehio's best, not just because because he's a pure historian. Although his book is old, his views are a surprising reflection of number of theories in the "Realist" school of International Relations, which influenced many of the the views inside American academia and government for some five decades after the Second World War. | [
"In recent editions, the book stipulates that groups have urged decentralization and citizen participation. It emphasizes an important need for individuals to exercise a greater degree of control over local services and facilities, and ask how much democracy really exists in the United States. The book states that ... |
why does my mouth feel more slimey and my breath smell significantly worse after waking up or working out as compared to throughout the rest of the day? | Well, to answer that question, we have to first go to one of the common causes of halitosis -- dry mouth. When your mouth is dry, bacteria have a field day. See, your saliva washes away and control bacteria, so when it's not there, bacteria thrive. And what do those bacteria do when left to themselves? Well, imagine schoolchildren without the teacher or principal -- they'll have a field day, causing all kinds of mischief. They munch on compounds, proteins, amino acids and leftover foodstuffs in your mouth and teeth, and produce volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) which, well, stink.
To get a bit more specific for you chemistry people, the VSCs responsible are believed to be hydrogen sulfide (H2S), methyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulfide. These VSCs are generally produced through the bacterial metabolism of sulfur amino acids like cysteine and methionine.
Okay, chemistry class is over -- the bottom line is, bacteria crunch and much away in a dry mouth, and the result is bad breath. So that brings us back to the morning. You see, as we sleep, saliva production is markedly reduced. This allows those previously mentioned bacteria to thrive and do their thing, resulting in -- ta-DA -- morning breath.
Yes, it really is that simple -- morning breath generally comes from drymouth, which causes bad breath. Also working out can cause you to dehydrate, again causing bad breath.
Sources:
1 - _URL_0_
2 - _URL_1_
3 - _URL_3_
4 - _URL_2_
| [
"The intensity of bad breath may differ during the day, due to eating certain foods (such as garlic, onions, meat, fish, and cheese), smoking, and alcohol consumption. Since the mouth is exposed to less oxygen and is inactive during the night, the odor is usually worse upon awakening (\"morning breath\"). Bad breat... |
why isn't there displayport on new tvs in general and most tv's just have hdmi 1.4? | HDMI is the standard for TVs. No one is asking for or wanting displayport, so there is no reason to put it on. TVs use HDMI. | [
"Current models are vastly improved, and offer a cost-effective HDTV large-screen display. While still thicker than LCD and plasma flat panels, modern rear-projection TVs have a smaller footprint than their predecessors. The latest models are thin and light enough to be wall-mounted, although by this time the marke... |
i consumed 2100 net calories yesterday, how did i gain 4 pounds? | You didn't, but you did eat food and drink water which has weight. That stuff is still in your body until your piss/shit it out. Body weight naturally fluctuates a few pounds on a daily basis. | [
"Calories expended, however, changed little. Accordingly, Cutler posits that the 20 min average reduced time of food preparation has resulted in an average increase of 100 Cal per day per individual. The extra 100 Cal can largely account for a weight gain of 10-12 lb in the American population over the past 20 year... |
how are old movies so clear today? | If the original prints of the film are available, they can create movies in newer formats directly from these prints. Due to the method of filming used decades ago, they are not limited to pixels and have a "resolution" far higher than DVD and even Blu-Ray. So they aren't taking the VHS footage and using it to make DVDs, they're working directly from the source prints. | [
"Nostalgia for old Hollywood movies would be a theme of Donen's next film: \"Movie Movie\" (1978), produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment and scripted by Larry Gelbart and Sheldon Keller. The film is actually two shorter films presented as an old fashioned double feature, complete with a fake movie trailer and a... |
Why do glasses get scratch marks after washing in a dishwasher? | Unlike bath or liquid dishwashing soap, a component of dish-washing powder is an abrasive compound. It's like sand eroding driftwood but at a less intense scale. The graininess is responsible for providing the friction that does the cleaning. Similar to a dentist's toothpaste, actually. | [
"Because the glass comes in direct contact with the marver, it must be kept exceptionally clean in order to prevent points of poor conduction or the transfer of debris into glass worked upon it. Metallic marvers are generally rubbed with steel wool and then wiped with rubbing alcohol to prevent rust.\n",
"When de... |
why does a small amount of urine come out when you put your dick in your pants after peeing? | The remaining pee in the penis gets squeezed out when you put it back in the underwear. This is why it’s good practice to squeeze the pee out from the base of the shaft. Squeeze twice though, otherwise you’re just playing. | [
"For men, because of the flexible and protruding nature of the penis, it is simple to control the direction of the urine stream. Many men urinate in a standing position although they could urinate sitting down or squatting.\n",
"Ultrasounds from a 2014 study, involving seven women who reported recurring massive f... |
why does blood pressure increase with age? | To control blood pressure the arteries are elastic. However they become stiff with age which means higher blood pressure. | [
"The rise of blood pressure is correlated to ageing. The arterial compliance - the amount of tension produced per stretch of arteries, decreases with age, and the stiffness of arteries increases with age. The structural change in blood vessels causes the elderly to be more susceptible to hypertension, which leads t... |
what exactly does a travel agent do? | They organize flight times, book hotels, and possibly contact entertainment venues like sky-diving companies, or scuba diving instructors, etc and make appointments for you. They might buy your Disneyworld tickets for you in advance.
So basically, they don't do much that can't be done for yourself online nowadays. They have special deals open to them if they book for you, but shit, so do Expedia and Travelocity. | [
"The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) is a trade association which was formed to represent and defend the business and regulatory public policy interests of travel intermediaries, including travel agencies (including traditional \"brick and mortar\" agencies, online portals, mega- and corporate agencies, ... |
Does exercising on an empty stomach train your body to burn fat not carbohydrates when normally exercising? | The basic concept behind this is a metabolic state called ketosis, which is a process in which the human body begins converting long-chain fatty acids into molecules called ketones. These molecules are then used by the body as an alternative source of energy.
Ketone bodies are only produced once the body runs out of glucose, which can result by fasting, sustained rigorous exercise, or even radical changes in diet that restrict carbohydrate intake.
There are several things that happen before your body begins cleaving lipids to produce ketones, however. First, your liver will begin metabolizing your cells' glycogen stores—converting it to glucose to provide fuel. Once your glycogen stores are depleted, a process called gluconeogenesis occurs whereby your body begins metabolizing certain organic acids such as lactate to maintain blood glucose levels. Finally, your body will begin to cleave long-chain fatty acids to produce for energy, reserving the remaining blood glucose for your brain.
If the body remains in this state for a sustained period (a couple of days, typically), your brain will begin using ketones directly for fuel in order to preserve glucose for critical needs. Your brain always needs a certain amount of glucose to function, however, and can continue to create it via other metabolic processes that convert proteins (ie: muscle mass) into glucose. The body doesn't like to use up protein this way; however, so it will only do this lacking any other source.
Many people deliberately induce a state of ketosis through restricting their carbohydrate intake to below 5 grams a day (edit: this should be 20g, or 5 to 10% of your total macronutrients). This cyclist appears to be doing the same by restricting her caloric intake prior to rigorous exercise, forcing her body to burn through its glycogen stores more rapidly than if she had carbohydrates readily available to provide blood sugar.
Somebody more qualified than me will need to weigh in on whether or not a fully keto-adapted state can be achieved in such a short period of time...I don't believe it can, although the body will certainly begin burning fat as soon as it runs out of other sources of fuel.
Edit: some grammar.
| [
"Diet itself helps to increase calorie burning by boosting metabolism, a process further enhanced while gaining more lean muscle. An aerobic exercise program can burn fat and increase the metabolic rate.\n",
"Phillips maintains that aerobic exercise is more effective for fat loss when done first thing in the morn... |
If electrons move in a copper wire not by each electron travelling all the way, but by bumping into the one ahead and pushing it forward, how can electricity travel faster than the speed of sound of copper? | The electrons do not bump into one another, this is simply a convenient way to explain what is happening in simple terms to people new to the idea.
When a potential difference is applied to the ends of a wire it sets up an electric field all the way through. This field propagates through the wire at an extremely high speed and causes the electrons to begin moving as soon as it passes them. Within this field all of the electrons drift at the same speed. | [
"Therefore, in this wire the electrons are flowing at the rate of . At 60 Hz alternating current, this means that within half a cycle the electrons drift less than 0.2 μm. In other words, electrons flowing across the contact point in a switch will never actually leave the switch.\n",
"The 90° redirection of the w... |
Whys is sound quality over the phone still much worse than a sound recording taken on the same phone? | [Significant compression is applied over the phone.](_URL_1_) There is actually a long history of compression with speech, and today the compression can go as low as 700 bits/sec. If that number does not shock you, let me explain why it should.
Uncompressed 8-bit quantized speech requires 54.4 kbits/sec. This comes from needing 6800 samples/sec, due to the [Nyquist-Shannon Sampling theorem](_URL_0_), and then 8 bit/sample by code design. The sampling theorem states that any bandlimited signal can be exactly reproduced as long as it is sampled at twice the highest frequency in the signal. A quick google search shows 3400 Hz to be the upper end of the human vocal range, thus twice that being 6800 samples/second are required.
So, without any type of compression 54.4 kbits/second are needed, and yet, with some extremely lossy compression, only 700 bits/sec are needed to reasonably understand the other person. In order to achieve this compression, a large number of features of your speech are removed and not transmitted. | [
"A problem with recording a telephone conversation is that the recorded volume of the two speakers may be very different. A simple tap will have this problem. An in-ear microphone, while involving an additional distorting step by converting the electrical signal to sound and back again, in practice gives better-mat... |
what is the source behind christianity's hate of sodomy/anal sex? | This is an inaccurate use of the word hate on your part. Anything seen as a distraction from procreation was forbidden. Masturbation and homosexuality were equally scorned, if I recall correctly. This was in the old Testament, so not just Christianity. It would include Jusaism as well. | [
"This has precipitated crises in various Christian denominations, resulting from divergent construals of Christian ethical doctrines (see Homosexuality and Christianity), which in turn are associated with the interpretation of the Bible (exegesis and hermeneutics). Traditionally, Christian doctrine has categorized ... |
When did we refer to the Middle Ages as such? What is it the middle of? Eventually we will have a new middle age wouldn't we? | Yes. The middle ages are a construct of the renaissance. No one is sure when they start or stop, and they start or stop at different times in different places anyway.
Most historians dislike the term. | [
"BULLET::::- Middle Ages – Lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and is variously demarcated by historians as ending with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, merging into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.\n",
"The term \"Late Middle Ages\" r... |
why does the top comment thread on every front page post consist of a chain of puns? |
The competition is fierce. On ten different occasions I've tried writing a pun in my comments, but as far as reaching the top -- no pun in ten did. | [
"Puns are a common source of humour in jokes and comedy shows. They are often used in the punch line of a joke, where they typically give a humorous meaning to a rather perplexing story. These are also known as feghoots. The following example comes from the movie \"\", though the punchline stems from far older Vaud... |
Anglo-Saxon England Books | This is pretty much [everything written up until recently](_URL_0_).
You'll have to hunt for the relevant sections, but its my go-to list for all AS stuff. | [
"Anglo-Saxon England is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal covering the study of various aspects of history, language, and culture in Anglo-Saxon England. It has been published since 1972 by Cambridge University Press and is available in print and digital form. Every volume is concluded with a bibliography gi... |
Admiral Yi Sun-sin is often portrayed as almost single handedly defeating Hideyoshi's invasion force. How true is this? Just how much did his command affect the outcome of the war? | Admiral Yi Sun-Sin was certainly a naval genius and a major factor in repelling the japanese invasion of Korea but he wasn't the only factor that led to a Japanese defeat.
First of all hideyoshi never went to Korea himself but rather dekgated the invasion to his generals. What was poor planning on bideyoshi's part however was that he did not establish a chain of command for his generals. Rather the generals were all equal status with each other under hideyoshi. This caused a lack of cooperation between generals as there was no superior officer for them to report to (aside for hideyoshi back in Japan). This caused generals to focus on personal glory and therefore they rushed the invasion without thought to supply lines or reinforcements.
Two of hideyoshi's best generals kato kiyomasa and Dom agostino (his christian name after baptism I forget his birth name) were bitter rivals. Kiyomasa was a devout Buddhist of the nichiren sect who despised anything western, especially Christianity, as impure an evil. This ensured that the two generals hurried to conquer as far north as possible by themselves leaving there troops far from reinforcements and resupply.
Secondly, compared to the Korean navy, the Japanese navy was pitiful. Japan had never had a prominent navy as most of their battles were internal. When hideyoshi ordered the invasion it called for a massive undertaking by Japans ship builders unlike ever before and they simply could not keep up. This led to many merchant ships being repurposed for troop transport or battle and they were very I'll fit for open sea naval operations.
Japan's most experienced sailors were also wako, or pirates. These wacko focused o. Small manuverable craft to make a quick approach and board an enemy vessel or for small rading parties. Almost no Japanese sailors had open sea naval expertise.
The Koreans on the other hand were excellent sailors as sea trade was Koreas lifeblood. Also Koreans had experience with Japanese naval tactics as the wako had raided Korea for many years before hand.
Even the Japanese naval battle tactics were not well thought out. Most ships were nothing more than large firing platforms for soldiers to fire their teppo or arquebus(sp?). Japan never placed high priority on cannons and those generals who had cannons many times reserved them for their personal castles, meaning very few Japanese ships even came with cannon.
Korean sailors understood the value of naval cannons and therefore their largest ships had entire sides covered in cannon with an effective range that dwarfed the Japanese teppo. This forced the Japanese to cross several hundred yards of enemy fire before they could even consider returning fire.
What admiral Yu Sun-Sin did was capitialize on his advantages over the Japanese navy to inflict very heavy losses on the Japanese navy. Without a navy Japan had no way of resupplying its much more successful ground forces who had made considerable gains into Korea.
Japans superior land forces were left to wither on the vine with no supplies except what they could gather from the conquered lands. The lack of supplies plus the looming threat of China joining the fray before the Japanese had secured Korea made the Japanese positions untenable, thus forcing a total withdraw.
Admiral Yu Sun-Sin was a naval genius however he was fighting any enemy that expected quick and easy victory rather than a drawn out war of attrition
| [
"After the battle, he kept his position, until the peace talks between Ming Dynasty and Toyotomi Hideyoshi began. Then he moved to Jeolla province, and from then on, Gwon Yul became the Dowonsu, the Commander-in-chief of Korean forces. He was briefly removed from office due to his harsh treatment of deserters, but ... |
- how do catalysts work without being consumed? | They lower how much energy is required for the reaction.
Lets say you're trying to get over a wall. It would take a lot of effort to try to climb over it. Now lets introduce a ladder. It would make getting over the wall easier without changing the end result. The ladder never changes throughout the action, but it still assists it. | [
"A catalyst is a substance that alters the rate of a chemical reaction but remains chemically unchanged afterwards. The catalyst increases the rate of the reaction by providing a different reaction mechanism to occur with a lower activation energy. In autocatalysis a reaction product is itself a catalyst for that r... |
Is there a standard distance for measuring decibels? | Out in the field, the measurement is often taken where the sound is going to be commonly perceived. Distance plays a big factor in sound, see the [inverse square law](_URL_1_).
But, a lot of equipment is measured in anechoic chambers which allows us to know how many decibels the actual piece of equipment generates without having to worry about outside noise and reflections. So that measurement may have come from something [like this](_URL_0_) or it may of came from an OSHA measurement at an airport runway, or a military measurement on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. | [
"Since it is referenced to the watt, it is an absolute unit, used when measuring absolute power. By comparison, the decibel (dB) is a dimensionless unit, used for quantifying the ratio between two values, such as signal-to-noise ratio.\n",
"Probably the most common usage of \"decibels\" in reference to sound leve... |
Did germany have a plan to invade the US or they just hoped Japan was enough to invade the US ? | At no point in the war or before did either Germany or Japan in anything approaching a serious manner consider attempting a landing on the US mainland.
The Kriegsmarine was simply a broken force in so many ways, from design, to organization, to political leadership. It bounced between multiple concepts of operations and never got good at any of them enough to maximize resources expended. And throughout the war its first and in many ways only concern was how to beat the Royal Navy.
But enough about that small unfortunate force the Japanese at least better understood the requirements of fighting a hemispheric naval war. Fueling, transit time, safe harbor, and ship endurance did more than anything to determine what was within a force's ability to strike at and what was not.
And that put the West Coast WELL outside the ability of the IJN to sustain operations there. Submarines are one thing and can be designed for long range raiding cruises and easier to clandestinely refuel and provision. A large task force with fuel guzzling battleships and carriers, short ranged destroyers, and dozens of transport craft would simply not have been able to be sustained. The IJN additionally was relatively inexperienced and underway refueling, having only gotten serious about the practice just before the war, and the need to do so on the way to Pearl Harbor became a motivating factor to learn, and the small number of fleet oilers additionally limited the size of task forces operating far from bases at length.
And that makes sense, the Japanese strategy against the US was fundamentally defensive in nature. It was to use the Kido Butai as a perfected raiding force(which also limits its utility in supporting sustained landings and land battles in contrast to late war USN carrier forces) to punch the US in the mouth. If this did not result in peace then the operational freedom bought would allow the IJN and IJA to seize the Southern Resource Area and then fortify a string of island bases. These islands running from the South Pacific up through the Mandate Islands of the GIlberts and Marshalls would provide a series of mutually supporting bases and airfields to bloody US counterattacks. This then would be backed by a second line of bases in the Marianas as their anchor. Once the bloodied US forces would have reached this inner line then the final battle of decision would be sought. The well rested and supported Combined Fleet would seek out and destroy the US fleet as they could. This was at least the mainline thinking inside the IJN.
For some additional reference on the limited nature of IJN amphibious capabilities and ability to power project ashore we can also turn to _URL_0_. Written by Parshall and Tully two of the leading historians of the Pacific War we have this very topical article. It examines the issues related to just invading Hawaii, both in December 1941, and as a follow up to a reversed battle of Midway. And why it just wasn't in the cards. _URL_1_ | [
"Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States were ordered by Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II from 1897 to 1903. He intended not to conquer the US but only to reduce the country's influence. His planned invasion was supposed to force the US to bargain from a weak position and to sever its growing economi... |
why are interest rates for bank-funded credit (personal loans, credit cards, etc.) much higher than government bonds? | You're comparing the cost of someone else lending you money (and thus absorbing all the risk of you defaulting) with you lending someone else money. Naturally, the interest rate to borrow money is going to be higher than the interest rate you're going to get from privately lending someone else your money - everyone wants to make money.
Also, government bonds are more or less the most secure guaranteed-rate investments there is. Barring a complete collapse of the US government (and maybe even still then), you will get your money back. | [
"The researcher found it intuitive that basic interest rate caps are most likely to bite at the lower end of the market, with interest rates charged by microfinance institutions generally higher than those by banks and this is driven by a higher cost of funds and higher relative overheads. Transaction costs make la... |
Why was Confucius named Confucius? | Confucius stems from the 16th century latinization of the Chinese honorific "孔夫子/Kong Fu Zi"
*Source: 'Catholicism and Confucianism: An intercultural and interreligious dialogue' by Peter Phan*
edit: also OP just a bit of a correction, in mandarin the philosophical school of Confucianism is "Ru Jia" not "Yu Jia". It doesn't mean "scholar" per se, it's just that scholars became almost synonymous with Confucians after a while. "Ru Jia" translates literally to something like - the family of softness/mediation.
But many of the other schools survived too in one way or another. Taoist scholars would be said to belong to "Tao Jia" - the family of the way. Legalist scholars to belong to "Fa Jia" - the family of the law, etc. | [
"The name \"Confucius\" is a Latinized form of the Mandarin Chinese \"Kǒng Fūzǐ\" (, meaning \"Master Kǒng\"), and was coined in the late 16th century by the early Jesuit missionaries to China. Confucius's clan name was \"Kǒng\" (; Old Chinese: ), and his given name was \"Qiū\" (; OC: ). His \"capping name\", given... |
[Thanksgiving question] Who invented pie and why don't we honor them? | I believe the general consensus is that it was a Greek invention (Aristophanes mentions pastries in The Clouds, so 5th Century BC at least), but the pastry was used to carry and preserve the contents, rather than being designed to be one edible article. The convention of eating the crust came far later during late medieval times in England where the poor would eat the undesirable (and practically inedible) crust. Americans "refined" the pie down to sweet pastries only for some odd reason (perhaps a lack of meat available meant filling pastry with fruit was more cost-efficient?).
Here is a long article that covers the history of the pie (not in a very well structured order, unfortunately) which uses sources such as;
- Oxford English Dictionary, Volume III, 1982
- Pie: A Global History, by Janet Clarkson
- The White House Cookbook by Mrs. F.L. Gillette, 1887
_URL_0_
As a Brit, I have to say that everyone should eat a steak pie at least once. There's nothing better than hot steak pie, chips and gravy. | [
"It was not until the early nineteenth century that the recipes appeared in Canadian and American cookbooks or pumpkin pie became a common addition to the Thanksgiving dinner. The Pilgrims brought the pumpkin pie back to New England, while the English method of cooking the pumpkin took a different course. In the 19... |
How restricted was hunting by ordinary citizens in the Soviet Union? | People living in the countryside could legally own hunting rifles, particularly after the Civil War. It wasn't necessarily easy to get a permit and you basically had to prove that it was a necessary part of your work/livelihood. It was highly regulated, and there were times (right after the Revolution and later under Stalin) when there were crackdowns on gun ownership include laws requiring people to relinquish weapons (or have them confiscated). In 1923 the there was a resolution "On Hunting" that allowed people to officially register for a hunting license that was issued by the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. The NKVD was responsible for the permits for the firearms and ammunition.
I have not seen a ton of research on this. I know that there is a little bit on it in Orlando Figes' *A People's Tragedy*, and even though I am not a huge fan of Figes, I don't doubt this particular research. The specifics also depend on the period of the Soviet Union we're talking about. | [
"Since the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 the USSR saw a small wave of liberalisations for civilian gun ownership. Soviet civilians were allowed to purchase smoothbore hunting shotguns again, even without mandatory submission of hunting licenses. However, this lasted for not more than six years. The buyer again had... |
why is 0 plural? like 0 seconds or 0 apples. | It is only plural when referring to objects you can count discretely (eg. zero matchsticks). Zero does not pluralize a noun which can't be quantified (eg. zero tolerance, zero effort). Grammatically, *zero* is synonymous to *not any*, and since *any* refers to an arbitrary number of countable objects, we pluralize the noun it goes with (eg. I do not have any apples).
**TL;DR** *zero* is grammatically synonymous with *not any*.
EDIT: ie. -- > eg. (Thanks /u/SpaceMonkeyWes for the key point about Latin semantics.)
EDIT2: Thank you kind stranger, will pass it on :) | [
"The number of apples is marked on the noun—\"apple\" singular number (one item) vs. \"apples\" plural number (more than one item)—on the demonstrative, \"that/those\", and on the verb, \"is/are\". In the second sentence, all this information is redundant, since quantity is already indicated by the numeral \"two\".... |
Based on the time periods and geography in the mythology around King Arthur, what type of sword could Excalibur have been if real? | Perhaps a variant of the Roman spatha. The spathas resembled a lengthened gladius, and increasingly supplanted the latter as more and more Franks, Saxons, Goths, etc were recruited in the Western portion of the Empire as auxiliaries and cavalry grew in prominence. In an account of the botched 1st century rebellion of a British chief named Caratacus, Tactius describes the blades carried by Roman forces as ["spathis"](_URL_0_) (sec. 35).
With early use attested to amongst Roman and auxiliary forces in Britain, spatha-esque weapons would certainly have been in use by the local populace (as well as the Germanic tribes that Arthur is said to have fought) by the time of Roman withdrawal in the early 5th century.
The attached images courtesy of a historic sword reproduction company and a reenactor, provide an idea of what such weapons may have looked like.
[1](_URL_2_)
[2](_URL_1_) | [
"There are a number of references to the legend of King Arthur, with ships named \"Excalibur\" appearing in the main series and the \"Crusade\" spin-off, and a character in \"A Late Delivery from Avalon\" claiming to posess the sword itself. Straczynski links the incident which sparked the Earth-Minbari war, in whi... |
when they find a fossilized piece of a skeleton, how do they determine what the rest of the animal looked like? | Sometimes scientists are fortunate enough to be able to base their reconstructions on complete skeletons, but most excavated skeletons have missing pieces. Fortunately, individuals of the same species, as well as those of closely related species, tend to be similar. This allows scientists to combine information from different partial skeletons in order to understand how a complete skeleton **would** have looked. Once all the bones are known, scientists arrange them in anatomically correct, lifelike positions.
TDLR: They are reconstructions all of whom are based on speculation.
| [
"Apart from the specimens mentioned above, mostly consisting of rather complete skeletons preserved in large slabs, though not fully prepared from the rock matrix, several other fossils have been found. Together they allow for a good impression of what the animal looked like.\n",
"It is composed of fossilized bon... |
"Hannibal was recalled to Carthage when the Romans attacked it" - how exactly did they 'recall' him? | Carthage and Hannibal were in contact throughout the war. Hannibal sent his brother Mago back after Cannae to ask for money and reinforcements, both of which Carthage sent and Livy records that Hannibal received them. Hannibal was also aware that Hasdrubal was going to cross into Italy prior to his defeat at the Battle of Metaurus.
The picture which Livy paints is of messengers passing between Hannibal and Carthage despite the Roman navy. Certainly there does not appear to have been any diplomatic immunity and, given the Roman attitude towards negotiation, it seems highly unlikedly. In all likelihood, Carthage and Hannibal sent messengers to each other whenever they had something to say.
Source: Livy, The War with Hannibal | [
"In 203 BC, Hannibal was recalled from Italy by the war party in Carthage. After leaving a record of his expedition engraved in Punic and Greek upon bronze tablets in the temple of Juno Lacinia at Crotona, he sailed back to Africa. His arrival immediately restored the predominance of the war party, which placed him... |
Why are vegetables / fruits better than multivitamins? | There are at least two reasons why multivitamins are not sufficient: (1) the vitamins/minerals in them are not identical to those you obtain from fruits and vegetables, and (2) there are likely to be a lot of nutrients that you miss because we can't synthesise them or we're just not aware of them and their function.
A really important thing to keep in mind is that multivitamins—because they are considered a dietary supplement—do not go through the stringent quality controls of pharmaceuticals. The content of a multivitamin can, therefore, [vary from what is promised on the box](_URL_0_). | [
"According to US Food and Drug Administration reports, Fruits are known to be rich in nutrients such as Vitamin A, C and Calcium. This is why in addition to its communication as containing No Added Sugar, No Preservative, No Artificial Colours, Chivita 100% Fruit Juice also considers its 100% juice a Nutrient densi... |
why is it that in most species, especially birds, that it is the male who is more "dressed up and colorful" but with humans it's the other way around? | [There is a ton of info available on why birds have colored plumage](_URL_1_), but humans do also do similar selections but not with color.
The issue is as humans, we try to subdue the things that make us animals. Pubic hair, facial hair, the size and shape of our bodies (muscles, figure, genitals); humans are the only primate to have predominant breasts without reproducing.
The human animal reproduced just like any other animal, the bigger stronger males would reproduce more often; [humans being polygamous](_URL_0_). Females picked males that were capable of producing offspring and vice verse, physical traits are a big part of that.
makeup, hair products, shaving, cologne, are all tricks we use to enhance or attractiveness to the opposite sex.
There is a great multi part documentary by the BBC entitled ["The Human Body"](_URL_2_) that came out in 2005. That might give you some more information.
| [
"In birds, males often have a more colourful appearance and may have features (like the long tail of male peacocks) that would seem to put the organism at a disadvantage (e.g. bright colors would seem to make a bird more visible to predators). One proposed explanation for this is the handicap principle. This hypoth... |
why do call center agent's voices sound so distorted and how are they often able to fix the problem? | If you have a call center person who you're talking to and their voice is muffled or garbled, the chances are good that the problem is in the position of the microphone on their headset. Call center people aren't talking on normal phones, they're using headsets with a stalk type microphone. If that microphone gets pushed out of the way, down below their chin or even into their shirt collar, up by their forehead, or any other position where it might get moved to, they can move the microphone back into the optimal position and it'll sound better. | [
"Complaints are often logged by callers who find the staff do not have enough skill or authority to resolve problems, as well as appearing apathetic. These concerns are due to a business process that exhibits levels of variability because the experience a customer gets and results a company achieves on a given call... |
when we switch off a phone and switch it back on after say 5 hours, the clock has automatically set according to the time, how is this possible? if it didnt have power how did it have memory? | Like computers, cell phone have a Real Time Clock RTC. Even when turned off, there is a tiny amount of power used to count the seconds/milliseconds. When you turn it back on, the network also provides timestamps to the device to synchronize time.
On computer motherboards, there is even a small battery that keeps the RTC going even if the PC is unplugged. | [
"Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays; many other display technologies are used as well (cathode ray tubes, nixie tubes, etc.). After a reset, battery change or power failure, these clocks without a backup battery or capacitor either start counting from 12:00, or stay at 12:00... |
Where and why did humans start using utensils to eat rather than their hands? | The Greeks were the first to craft kitchen forks; their two-tined specimens helped them secure meat while it was being cut. By the seventh century, Byzantine nobles had begun to use the fork for dining as well. An oft-mentioned tale in forklore is that of a Byzantine dogeressa of Venice, who brought forks with her to her new home. When she contracted a fatal illness, Peter Damien, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, was quick to write an account entitled, 'Of the Venetian Doge's wife, whose body, after her excessive delicacy, entirely rotted away'. Evidently the adoption of the fork was not a seamless one, the logic being that, if we have fingers, why would we use forks?
But adopted they were. The fork migrated westward through Europe, spreading from Byzantium to Italy to France and finally to Britain and Germany. Though the fork was not common in Western Europe until the 16th century, it was in use far earlier in the East. Catherine de' Medici brought them to France in 1533 when she married the future King Henri II. Again, adoption was slow: eating with forks was 'affected'; besides, half of the food fell off of the fork on the way to the mouth, anyway. It was not until 1608 that we first learn of many forks in England: Thomas Cayote transported some back after his travels in Italy. Predictably, the English did not immediately latch onto this new utensil, their system having served them well for hundreds of years. The fork served for some time as a means of transporting food from a common dish to one's own plate, and among the wealthy it gained broader use. As late as the early seventeenth century, forks were still regarded as a luxury item, being frequently made of gold or silver.
If the fork was not adopted into Europe until the late Middle Ages, what was its precursor? As alluded to above: fingers. Solids, especially meat, were taken by hand; liquids with ladles or spoons from a communal dish, or, oftentimes, being simply drunk. In seventh-century England, knives with pointed ends were being developed to serve both as a cutting implement and as a means of conveying food to mouth. Diners were in frequent physical contact not only with their food, but with other people. With the adoption of the table fork (as well as other utensils), Europeans' relationships to each other and their food changed drastically. By 1859, well after the fork had been widely adopted both in Europe and America, eating with fingers was described as 'cannibal'.
Interestingly, the fork's implementation came much later in the American colonies. Apart from one fork owned by Governor Winthrop (of Massachusetts), forks do not appear in archaeological sites until the early eighteenth century. James Deetz, in *Small Things Forgotten*, notes that
> The first mention of a fork in the Plymouth Colony area probate inventories is in 1721, in the estate of a wealthy gentleman in Marshfield, but significant numbers of forks do not show up in these records until the second half of the century. When forks appeared in quantities in England, knives changed in shape, and rounded blade ends replaced the pointed ones, since forks had assumed the function of the pointed blade. However, since most New England knives were made in England, and the fork appear do later in America, this relationship did not prevail in the New World.
Thus New Englanders, forkless and with a round-ended English knife, had to make due with their spoons, knives, and fingers. This dynamic is still visible today: whereas European etiquette dictates that the tines of a fork face downward, the American standard is to switch the fork with tines pointing up after the meat has been cut. Deetz points out that, 'if even one generation used knife and spoon in this manner [that is, the manner in which we currently use knife and fork] the fork, upon its belated appearance, would be used in a manner similar to the spoon'. Which is, of course, the case.
---
The above is modified from a project on forks that I did for a class a few years ago. (I removed citations for formatting's sake but do ask if you have any questions!)
I can't speak much about the origins of the knife--it's been around for ages and I imagine it'd be hard to determine at what point it began to be used while eating rather than just for cutting. Soup spoons, as far as I know, were also a later development since all-liquid foods weren't popular and people would use bread to sop up excess liquid/juices from stews/meats. But I don't know as much about this.
P.S. As for the *why*, I could go much more into that. But, to be brief, utensils and table manners developed in tandem with our modern idea of disgust (I am paraphrasing Norbert Elias here). There is nothing inherently more 'civilized' about eating with utensils rather then one's fingers. Rather, a distancing of eater and eaten (and thus disgust with the eaten) increasingly became a status marker: it was the lower classes who ate with their fingers; the upper classes had forks to distinguish themselves. | [
"A variety of eating utensils have been used by people to aid eating when dining. Most societies traditionally use bowls or dishes to contain food to be eaten, but while some use their hands to deliver this food to their mouths, others have developed specific tools for the purpose. In Western cultures, cutlery item... |
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