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human wave attacks | > trained, fed and transported to the battlefield, that's a huge investment going to waste.
In ye olden times the troops in those waves you're talking about often had no training beyond "take this pitchfork, stick 'em with the pointy end" and were likely fed the cheapest rations that would keep someone moderately alive. Lords and kings weren't throwing their elite knights in expensive armor at the enemy, they were wearing them down with commoners before the elites went in. | [
"The human wave attack, also known as the human sea attack, is an offensive infantry tactic in which an attacker conducts an unprotected frontal assault with densely concentrated infantry formations against the enemy line, intended to overrun and overwhelm the defenders by engaging in melee combat.\n",
"Human wav... |
why notebook paper has blue text lines and red margin lines | Blue lines are not reproducible. You can not copy them on a xerox machine.
Two reasons for this.
The first reason is that the sellers do not want you to make lots of copies of lined paper, they want to sell you more paper, but consider the other thing of having your well done handwriting reproduced without the lines showing how much you relied on them. | [
"This embossing is transferred to the pulp fibres, compressing and reducing their thickness in that area. Because the patterned portion of the page is thinner, it transmits more light through and therefore has a lighter appearance than the surrounding paper. If these lines are distinct and parallel, and/or there is... |
Why were the buildings of a Roman castrum spread out? | First: *castrum* is not typically used in Latin, except in very rare cases, and those probably confusion with the similar *castellum,* which does appear in the singular. The Latin noun is always plural, *castra*, though it refers to a single camp.
For the average run-of-the mill *castra,* there were no "buildings." The structures inside were tents, and the whole thing was put up and taken down in a single night on the march. The more permanent forts, like those along the *limes* in Imperial times, were constructed on analogy with the marching forts, and more or less took the same shape.
There are practical considerations for both the temporary and the more permanent forts. The spaces between the tents/buildings afforded rapid internal movement from any one side to any other side. Men could move quickly down the "lanes" (the Romans called them [*viae*](_URL_0_), 'roads'). Internal mobility was an important feature of successful repulsion of attack, since reinforcements could be moved rapidly from point to point. The lanes also afforded quick mustering and departure from any of the four gates.
You find it hard to believe that the *castra* could be built within a day, but I think you have the wrong idea about what it looked like. See [here](_URL_1_), though this pic probably gives TOO much space inside the walls. It was not only built in a day, but often within a couple of hours, or even less. Every soldier knew his job, where to dig, where to pile up dirt, and much like ants, and well-trained legion could erect a structure like a *castra* with terrifying speed. And contrary to what you are suggesting, the space between the rows of tents makes construction and organization go faster, because all the tents can be erected at roughly the same time, instead of each row in succession in the case of them "touching" one another. I also don't understand why a Roman army would need to "conserve space" on the march. Space from what? When the Romans are building a *castra*, they typically own the countryside far and wide. | [
"The castrum was discovered in 2009. Excavations have taken place in the years 2010 and 2014-2015, demonstrating that it was built by the Romans. The wood discovered in the walls showed a construction period ranging from 50 BC to 125 AD: it was the time when Augustus wanted to annex to his Roman empire the short-li... |
Would a white population eventually turn black if they lived many generations in Africa? | Given enough time, and assuming the climate remained as it is (ie hot and dry) it is conceivable that the average skin color of the population would get darker, yes.
Darker skin is a result of higher levels of the pigment melanin in the skin, which protects it against harmful radiation from the sun. Paler skin is more susceptible to skin cancer, so over time those with darker skin (more melanin) would tend to survive longer than those with lighter skin, and so the genes for darker skin would become more prevalent. This also assumes that there are no artificial steps taken to mitigate the effects of the sun, ie sun cream etc. | [
"The result was a series of conflicts which eventually led to a reduced presence of White Africans due to emigration and natural death. Many were murdered, tens of thousands driven off their lands and property, with many of those remaining being intimidated and threatened by the government and political and paramil... |
what is api, rest, soap, json and xml | API: Application programming interface - definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software, mostly built by companies to allow 3rd party access
REST: REpresentational State Transfer - standardised communication style
SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol - platform independent format for sending and receiving messages
JSON: JavaScript Object Notation - human readable way of transmitting certain data
XML: Extensible Markup Language - set of rules to encode information that is both machine readable and human readable
I guess the best really depends on what you want to make. Certain things (like Javascript or 3rd party access to someone else's code-base means you are limited to certain types.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional computer engineer. I code for fun. | [
"Web 2.0 Web APIs often use machine-based interactions such as REST and SOAP. RESTful web APIs are typically loosely based on HTTP methods to access resources via URL-encoded parameters and the use of JSON or XML to transmit data. By contrast, SOAP protocols are standardized by the W3C and mandate the use of XML as... |
Can anyone describe the use of and attitude towards marijuana in the German Democratic Republic? | Since this is such an absurdly specific question I tried to do a little bit of reading to see what I could come up with.
In *German Democracy : From Post-World War II to the Present Day* Gert-Joachim Glaessner writes that the idea of drugs, as an example of a decaying or corrupted society, were often used as a tool by the GDR in opposition to the FRG. He says that
> The leadership never tired of stressing the social security in which GDR citizens could live, in contrast to the unemployment, material want, and other problems of capitalist society, such as crime and drugs.
He doesn't go into detail on that claim, but I think we can surmise that if the GDR state didn't like it, it was unlikely you were going to be doing it unless you really wanted to stick it to the authorities or were in a *very* priveleged position. The Stasi were not known for their relaxed attitudes toward law-breaking, especially if it makes the GDR look bad, in their eyes, compared to the FRG.
In "Youth Justice in Germany" Hans-Jörg Albrecht claims that there were distinct jumps in crime in East Germany - including cannabis offences - following reunification, to a far greater extent than in the west. He gives a number of theories for this;
> Some argue that young people in the east are
far more exposed to risks thought to contribute to crime and therefore
are far more involved in crime-particularly street crime and car theft
(Frehsee 1995; Kerner and Sonnen 1997, p. 342).
Police and the public
in the east may also still differ from the west in control styles and crime
reporting patterns.
Another hypothesis is that children and juveniles in the east are far more visible than in the west because the infrastructure of specially designated places for juveniles is only slowly catching up with the west.
Another hypothesis, not yet examined closely, is that extended group activities (which produce more suspects for a single criminal offense) are more common.
He's more of a sociologist or criminologist than a historian, but it doesn't mean his views aren't valuable. Note that he is talking about both pre and post unification here though, so it's not all that valuable when you're talking specifically about the GDR. It just provides a bit of insight.
From these limited sources I'm going to go out on a limb and say marijuana didn't really figure in the minds or needs of the people of the German Democratic Republic. Certainly not enough for there to be a distinct cannabis culture or "problem" if you want to frame it that way. | [
"Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and the subsequent Soviet participation in the invasion of Poland, the Communist Party was against the French war effort and so was outlawed: the Communist Party did not support what the Nazis stood for, but did support the Soviet Union's tactical treaty with Germany i... |
Is there a quantitative way of measuring tiredness? | There are many different objective clinical scales that can be used to measure sleepiness, fatigue, tiredness, and drowsiness (based on many possible definitions of these words), but most are very specific tests that are only useful for very specific conditions.
With that said, there are a few general objective scales that can be used for a wide range of conditions as well as normal subjects. The most common are the multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) and the maintenance of wakefulness test (MWT). Another popular one is the Oxford Sleep Resistance Test. All of these measure tiredness quantitatively by combining subjective questionnaires with objective physical measurements of things like brain waves and heart rate. Some examples:
**EEG waves.** You're entirely correct about neuroscientists using "some brainwave thing" to measure daytime drowsiness. We can tell when a person is very alert, mildly alert, drowsy, very drowsy, and so forth all the way through the various stages of sleep by looking at their brain waves. The first thing we notice when a person starts feeling drowsy is that some of these waves begin to slow down (we see more theta waves and delta waves beginning to appear). In general, the more tired a person feels during the day, the sooner we see these changes when they're allowed to fall asleep in a lab. So objective tests for daytime tiredness are often based on how long it takes for these waves to show up when a person tries to fall asleep during the day.
**Eye measurements.** Our eye movements change depending on how alert we are (just like brain waves), and some devices can quantitatively measure these movements. For example, the more tired we feel, the less frequent our blinks become (in general), and we can measure this quantitatively with an EOG (spontaneous blink rate). There are some other subtle eye movement parameters that are correlated with our levels of tiredness, but the point is that most of these movements can be measured quantitatively. There are actually some drowsiness detection glasses currently in development that people can wear so that they don't fall asleep while doing something important.
**TLDR:** We can quantitatively measure tiredness by looking at brain waves and tracking people's eye movements. Another method is to time how long it takes for someone to fall asleep in a lab during the day. | [
"Study in fatigue has been focusing on mainly two fields: application in designing regarding size in aeronautics and energy production using advanced calculation methods. The LCF result allows us to study the behavior of the material in greater depth to better understand the complex mechanical and metallurgical phe... |
why do anti-virus and malware programs move the virus and malware files to quarantine instead of deleting them? | For a few reasons:
1. false positives.
2. recoverable data - if a little bad shit has come into my phD thesis I may want to try to recover the good from the good + bad.
3. Evidence. It's a great pile of validation of the worth of the product you bought.
4. In some systems, and some configurations, permissions. Depending on the account the virus software is running as it may not be _able_ to delete reliably.
| [
"Many third-party anti-virus software vendors have released detection updates to their products and claim to be able to remove the worm. The evolving process of the malware shows some adoption to the common removal software, so it is likely that some of them might remove or at least disable some variants, while oth... |
Are there games similar to Foldit designed to aid other fields of science? | [EteRNA](_URL_0_)- Researching RNA design to make things more predictable/improve computer models
There is also [BOINC](_URL_1_), a collection of projects that run as a sort of screensaver. Uses up your "unused" processor cycles to do crowdsourced resources for different projects you can choose from, like ATLAS@home, Einstein@home, and SETI@home. Not really a game but something you can passively be involved in. | [
"\"Foldit\", while also a GWAP, has a different type of method for tapping the collective human brain. This game challenges players to use their human intuition of 3-dimensional space to help with protein folding algorithms. Unlike the ESP game, which focuses on the results that humans are able to provide, Foldit i... |
Light Thrust? | Fermat's principle isn't that light rays **finds** the quickest path. It's not like light ray knows it will leave A end up to B and then optimizes to take the quickest path there. It's that the path that light rays that do reach B happen to **take** is the quickest. "Find" and "take" are very different words.
Consider sunlight. Light rays leave the sun and travel in a straight line to earth. That's Fermat's principle. They didn't take a zig-zag path, they didn't go past earth and then decide to turn around. They went straight. The quickest path. This doesn't mean all sunlight does this, after all some bounces off the moon and comes to earth, taking a longer path. It's that the light rays that do come directly to earth go straight.
Now, in cases where it's not a vacuum, or any other constant media, it's a little different. But the same idea, it's not that light knows to go to B by the shortest path, it's that the light that does reach B has taken it. You can derive laws like the law of reflection or Snell's law from Maxwell's equation, and if you look at them you can see they follow Fermat's principle.
If you need to go from point A to point B and have the requirement that you touch a mirror at one point, the shortest path happens to reflecting at the same angle as incident. If a light ray was to say go straight to the mirror hitting it at 0 degrees, and then bounce at off a new angle to go to B, this would be a longer path. Now of course this does not happen. It's not that a light ray that hits the mirror at another angle that is not the shortest path to B will take a longer path, it simply will not go to B at all. The light isn't finding the shortest path, the path that the behaviours of electromagnetic fields follow in hindsight will have been the shortest path.
Same with Snell's law, to go from A to B through a medium interface, the light will have bent by a certain angle following Snell's law, which is ultimately following the boundary conditions that Maxwell's equations have at the interface. Now if you drew any other path with the two different velocities on each medium, like straight between with the shortest distance them for example, it would have taken more time. That's not that these light rays found the shortest path, lot's of other light rays left A at different angles, except they didn't take a longer path to B but instead didn't go to B. No optimal path was "found".
As for thrust from light, you do not need mass, you need momentum. Introductory physics tells you momentum ins mass*velocity, but this is only right for large massive non-quantum objects at non-relativistic speeds. Light has momentum, even without mass. Whether you use the classical electromagnetic view or photon view, light leaving something is momentum leaving something. Due to conservation of momentum, this means the objects the light is leaving is gaining the opposite momentum, it has thrust.
E^2 = (pc)^2 + (mc^2 )^2 is the full versions of E = mc^2 . A photon has energy (E) but no mass (m), so what it has is momentum (p). The momentum is p = h/λ, where h is Planck's constant and λ is the wavelength. The energy is E = pc or E = hf (f = frequency). Now, loosely speaking (technically should take the derivative), if we divide each side of E = pc by time we get E/t = cp/t. Now energy per time is power, and momentum per time is force. So we get P = Fc or F = P/c. You get a thrust force depending on the power of the light you put out (wavelength or frequency doesn't really matter), and it is scaled by the speed of light. Now c is a big number, so for even a megawatt of power (a fairly large generator) put out as radiowaves, light, x-rays, etc. directed in one direction you get 3 mN (0.0007 pounds) of thrust in the other direction. Not exactly a lot of force, but a force none the less.
| [
"The optical force is a phenomenon whereby beams of light can attract and repel each other. The force acts along an axis which is perpendicular to the light beams. Because of this, parallel beams can be induced to converge or diverge. The optical force works on a microscopic scale, and cannot currently be detected ... |
does body adapt to different climates? if yes, how does it adapt? | Yes. When army people are dropped off at a new location, their bodies have to get used to, or acclimatize, to the new weather and temperatures, normally over 2-3 weeks. A returned soldier friend of mine said that when his squadron went home by plane, they hadn't received proper time to acclimate, so when they left the temperatures of Afghanistan at 115° F, they were going through an area of 60° weather (I think through Colorado) and some of them were experiencing hypothermia (body malfunctions due to sudden drop in temperature)
Same thing also goes for different altitudes. If you go into the mountains, your body also needs to get used to not having as much oxygen in the air. As a result, your body stores a lot more oxygen in the blood. Some athletes train this way when prepping for a major event | [
"As in other mammals, thermoregulation in humans is an important aspect of homeostasis. In thermoregulation, body heat is generated mostly in the deep organs, especially the liver, brain, and heart, and in contraction of skeletal muscles. Humans have been able to adapt to a great diversity of climates, including ho... |
How/Why did Britain lose the Battle of Hong Kong against Japan in 1941? | **How?**
For the how part, they were attacked by a much stronger force of far superior quality that enjoyed complete air superiority. To compound problems further the British gravely underestimated the fighting ability of the Japanese and left only three batalions on the Gin Drinkers line. There was just no way that a garrison of \~14000 men consisting of mostly fresh colonial troops could possibly hold out for very long against a battle hardend Japanese army of 29000 combat troops.
**Why?**
The why part is a little more complicated and takes us into geo-politics and specifically the balance of power in the Pacific region. So there are basically five major players around the table here we need to keep some kind of tabs on.
Great Britain - Until the signing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance Britain had largely pursued a foreign policy of non-intervention since the Concert of Europe often called Glorious Isolation. The idea was basically that Britain should avoid permanent alliances with other major powers that risked dragging Britain into continental wars. I won't get into the pros and cons of it but by the end of the 19th century it was becoming clear that while the Splendid Isolation left Britain free of obligations, it also left it without friends or allies in a world where grand alliances were once again forming.
The USA - For most of the 19th century the US had followed some form of non-interventionalist policy, perhaps most famously the Monroe Doctrine. However, with the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War the USA too was abandoning its isolationist policies.
Russia - Imperial Russia had pursued a policy of imperialist expansion in the east for centuries. Above all else it sought a warm water seaport in the East. The main eastern port of the Russian Empire was Vladivostok but it was not reliably open during the winter months. When Russia intervened in the Boxer Rebellion it effectively occupied Manchuria, after the war Russia held onto Manchuria in defiance of the Boxer Protocol. This was a cause of great concern for both Japan and Britain who had tradtionally been one of the counterweights to Russian expansion in Asia.
Japan - The Empire of Japan had been on the rise as a major power in the Pacific since roughly the Meiji restoration. While it had centralized the government, adopted many western aspects within its military and industry it was not, nor did it attempt to be, a western nation. Imperial Japan was very much looking towards overseas expansion in the wake of the Meiji restoration and did not look kindly on the Russian occupation of Manchuria. This would eventually lead to the Russo-Japanese war.
China - While large and populous, China under the Qing dynasty was politically unstable and in many ways backwards, however, the sheer size of China always made it a force to be reconned with, at least regionally.
So, come the turn of the century a few key things have happened. Russia has remained in Manchuria after the Boxer rebellion, Japan has won the First Sino-Japanese war *convincingly*, proving to both itself and the other powers of the region that the Japanese army and navy are a competent force to rival any in the region. France, Russia and Germany have signed the Triple Intervention, forcing Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula but, Britain, while invited, did not sign it.
We now have a situation where Britain is abandoning the Spendid Isolation and looking for allies while it is fighting the Boer War, Russia is holding Manchuria in defiance of the Boxer protocol and Japan is looking to expand further in the wake of its success in the First Sino Japanese war. The Anglo-Japanese alliance is formed. To Japan, it is a guarantee against foreign intervention by France or Germany in anticipation of its coming war with Russia, to Britain it is a safeguard for its East Asian holdings since Britain is now allied to Japan with its strong Pacific Navy.
The Anglo-Japanese alliance would hold for 20 years which allowed Japan to kick Russia out of Manchuria and further strengthen its position in mainland Asia. This is relevant because in the years leading up to WW1 and over the course of the entire war, Japan was an ally to Britain. Despite Japanese victories against the Chinese and Russians, Britain still considered Japan something of a second rate army since they had, until this point, mostly fought the Chinese and Russians.
So, Britain did not really consider Japan a threat to its colonial possesions in Asia until well after ww1 and did not really start to consider the possibility of a Japanese invasion of Hong Kong until the Japanese conquest of Canton. Suddenly Hong Kong was surrounded by Japan. At this point, Britain did not consider Hong Kong defensible. It did not have the Naval power to contend with the Japanese and without that, Hong Kong was always doomed even with the Gin Drinkers Line reinforced the analysis was that Hong Kong could at best delay the Japanese to buy time for Britain elsewhere. Because of this view Hong Kong was relatively lightly defended until 1941.
The garrison of Hong Kong was strengthend in 1941, in part to act as a deterent to a Japanese invasion but also to show British commitment to its Asian holdings, particularly to the Chinese. However, the garrison was still mostly fresh troops from Canada and the British Raj, it was not nearly strong enough to withstand a full scale invasion and fell much quicker than the British (or the Japanese) had anticipated. You have to view this in light of the global situation in 1940/1941. It was not as if Britain had an abundance of troops available since the war in Europe and Africa was not going particularly well at this point.
TL;DR - Britain never really heavily fortified Hong Kong because Japan was an ally of Britain until \~ early 1930's and it was hard pressed for troops for other theaters of the war since Britain was effectively the only major power still standing against the Axis in 1940/1941 until the US and Soviet entries into the war. | [
"In 1941, during the Second World War, the British reached an agreement with the Chinese government under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek that if Japan attacked Hong Kong, the Chinese National Army would attack the Japanese from the rear to relieve pressure on the British garrison. On 8 December, the Battle of Hong K... |
how is a 12oz can of coca-cola and a 20oz bottle of coca-cola both one serving size of coke? | Because most people will drink the entire can or bottle in a single sitting, and not save some of it for later. | [
"In summer of 1960, Double Cola used a Chinese name as \"(得寶可樂)\", a locally made super king size with much more carbon dioxide for only 40 Hong Kong cents for a 16 fluid ounce (473 ml) bottle which could serve three then-typical beverage cups.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"United States v. Forty Barrels & Twenty Kegs of Co... |
when did the northern European monarchies become
powerless? | The Revolutions of 1848 definitely killed the absolutism of the Danish Monarchy and killed off the French one as a whole. It also helped to change the Netherlands to a much more liberal nation under decree of William II (although William III unpopularily attempted to reverse everything). The Swedes went to constitutional monarchy in 1809 after they lost Finland and the nation demanded change. Belgium was never an absolute monarchy to begin with since they modeled their monarchy on the British, although it really took the Royal Question of 1950 to render it powerless. For most of these countries, a liberal revolution or at least a great liberalization happened between 1800 and 1890. | [
"Since the end of World War I, however, most European monarchies have been abolished. There remain, as of 2016, twelve (12) sovereign monarchies in Europe. Of these, seven are kingdoms: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland are of pre-modern origin. The kingdoms of the N... |
whats the difference between all of the different kinds of salts? what makes a 50$ pound bag of salt better than a 50 cent pound bag of salt? | The cheap salt you get in the grocery store is *just* salt - sodium chloride. It tastes 'salty'.
WHen you start looking at fancy salts, you end up with little bits of different minerals mixed in. Just like tap water in different cities tastes differently because of minor differences in mineral content, salt from different places will have different tastes.
The costs really just depend on how fancy or prestigious the salt is - it might come from a place with limited production capactiy or limited infrastructure for moving things out. All of the fancy salts have one thing in common - they're generally meant to be used as "finishing salts". You would use them when sprinkling a it of salt on the surface of a finished food product rather than tossing it in while you're cooking (which would 'lose' a bunch of the subtle flavors).
It can be a fun way to spend a few extra dollars if you like spending money on fancy foods (like olive oils & balsamic vinegars). | [
"Because the salt has a purer flavor due to the lack of metallic or bitter-tasting additives such as iodine, fluoride or dextrose, it is often used in the kitchen instead of additive-containing table salt, so such flavors are not introduced to prepared food. Estimating the amount of salt when salting by hand can al... |
Can an atom have significant mass from its electrons? | Not really. An electron is about 1/2000 the mass of an atom. Even in the largest nuclei, all the electrons amount to a few percent of the mass of a proton. | [
"That is, the total atomic mass is the mass of the nucleus, plus the mass of the electrons, minus the sum of all \"electron\" binding energies for the atom. This equation is rearranged to find formula_12, and formula_17 is found similarly. Substituting these nuclear masses into the Q-value equation, while neglectin... |
I'm a poor farmer in France during the revolution. I live far away from any cities or near the frontier. How is my life affected? | I'll copy a bit from an old post I made:
Where do you reside? Most specifically, are you from the North or the South? Another question I need to ask is how old are you? What gender are you? Those last two are the most important because, frankly, they determine how likely it is that you live or die. How rich are you, your family? Do you have any royal ties whatsoever? If the answer is yes to the last line this post ends here because you were near guaranteed to be dead flat out as long as you stayed in France.
Let's say you were from the South. The South of France experienced a disproportionately large amount of anti-Revolutionary tendencies and would be considered in "semi-revolt" throughout the 1790's. Mayors were extra corrupt and outright ignored calls for conscription. If you were not old enough to be conscripted (unlikely, you'd have to be in your late 30's, 40's, or 50's by this point along with some kind of medical issue to really seal the deal) you would likely be victim at some point or another of a Revolutionary Army -- sans-culottes. This would be initially paraded by our friend Maximillien Robespierre -- the architect of what is called "The Terror" between '92 and '93. Almost 3/4th's of those killed in 'The Terror' would be people just like you -- regular working class peasants accused of hoarding grain or anti-revolutionary thought. Frankly, these bands were filled with people who felt it safer and more profitable to wage war on defenseless French civilians than to go out and defend the country. It was full of cowards and, I know this is loaded language, terrorists.
You would be visited by these sans-culottes regularly and would see either a family member or a friend in town sent to the guillotine most certainly. You may also have witnessed or fallen victim to noyades -- mass drownings -- or mass shootings if your town was deemed as harboring anti-Revolutionary sentiment. Thankfully though if you would survive this period through about 1794 the Terror would end with Robespierre's fall and the rise of the Directory which would dismantle these Revolutionary Armies and scatter them throughout the regular army. Let me reiterate this -- whether you are in the North or South, if you were not in the military, you were subject to seemingly random and completely unregulated murder by Revolutionary forces in the first few years of the revolution. Your chances of surviving this if you had any aristocratic heritage, any anti-revolutionary sentiment or hoarded any food whatsoever was not very high.
If you were in the North you would experience a life very similar to the South except with slightly less Revolutionary Terror and more death and destruction from war. The North would be subject to constant attacks by the British and Austrians in particular. Remember at this time the area of the Low Countries was held by Austrian nobility and would be a staging area for Austrian offensives into France. Whether it was a British, Austrian, or French army your farm would likely be destroyed entirely. Burned to the ground most likely and all your crops stolen by foraging parties and your soil destroyed by men constantly marching through and fires. I'd also wager it's likely if you have any daughters they would be raped if you were in an area of particular contention.
Basically if you were not drafting into the military your likely options were death, destruction of everything you own, rape and murder of your family, and your town or province being irrevocably destroyed by war or paramilitary Revolutionary forces. It is highly unlikely you would escaped unscathed.
What is far more likely (and far more interesting to talk about) however is that you were drafted into the military. All men between the ages of 18 and 25 were to be forcibly conscripted for military service -- all men. Men into their 30's would also regularly volunteer or be called upon as well though. If you were fighting your first few years in the military would be one of utter disorganization and panic. Revolutionary hype would be ripe and you and your comrades would feel it. Any officers living a little too luxuriously? Mob them and send them to the guillotine. Your NCO being a little too harsh on you and your mates? That doesn't sound like liberty or fraternity, I don't like being drilled! You'd probably be part of a mob that killed him or stripped him of his power. It is very likely you would be witness or a participant in the murder of an individual whose only crime was being a bit rich, an aristocratic heritage, or was being a bit too strict with you. | [
"The population in French rural areas had risen rapidly, causing many peasants to seek a living in the cities. Many in the bourgeoisie feared and distanced themselves from the working poor. Many unskilled labourers toiled from 12 to 15 hours per day when they had work, living in squalid, disease-ridden slums. Tradi... |
In Battlefield 1 many American troops call German soldier "Hun" during World War One. Was that popular slang for German soldiers or is Battlefield taking liberties with history again? | Yes it comes from a speech made by the Kaiser. I can't get it right now but I'll send you a link in a few unless someone beats me to it.
_URL_0_ | [
"Although recorded as a colloquial term for Germans by the mid-nineteenth century, it was during World War I that \"Kraut\" came to be used in English as a derogatory term for a German. In World War II it was used mainly by American soldiers and less so by British soldiers, who preferred the terms Jerry or Fritz. I... |
how to songwriters ensure they aren't accidentally ripping off someone else's music? | Well, if you're a professional musician, that song will go through many people and iterations before it's released. If it's at all a popular song, someone will catch it. There's a story about Paul McCartney who woke up with the tune for "Yesterday" in his head walking around and asking other bands if they've heard it before.
That said, this is something that happens. Even to famous and extremely talented musicians. To continue with a Beatles theme, George Harrison was successfully sued for plagiarism for his song "My Sweet Lord". It indeed sounds very similar to the song "He's So Fine" as recorded by The Chiffons, and Harrison likely unintentionally copied it. | [
"There is a way to prevent such legal battles. A songwriter can commit their \"intent to make a song\", which prevents any of the parties ripping the song apart. Some artists send out a legal disclaimer making clear that if their melody isn't used after doing a topline, it reverts to them, and the track back to the... |
why the fridge door sometimes sticks really hard | If I had to guess: when enough warm air gets into the fridge and then the door is closed, the temperature then drops causing the air to contract and drop in pressure like a vacuum. Since fridges are fairly well sealed, that may be enough to cause some extra resistance when you try to open the door. | [
"The \"refrigerator rule\" applies, and a refrigerator door is not opened from the inside. If the hinges are on the right then it is a right hand (or right hung) door. (Australian Standards for Installation of Timber Doorsets, AS 1909–1984 pg 6.)\n",
"By the mid-1980s the house had fallen into disrepair, as water... |
Why was Andrew Jackson against the Bank of The United States? | Henry L. Watson, in his seminal work “Liberty and Power,” extensively describes the politics of the Jacksonian era. He explains how the early republic quickly found itself politically divided among many competing visions of the future. The United States has always been a diverse place with very diverse interests. From the beginning, the federal government acted through a series of rigorous compromises, including the several layered controversy that is the National Bank re-charter. Watson describes that, "Jackson felt the advance of commerce, banking, and industry tended to undermine the independence, virtue, and equality that made the republic possible" (Watson p.133). Since the National Bank was made up of many financiers out of London and New York, many Southerners held the same belief as Jackson that this foreign entity had too much influence on the American government. These entities took control over the currency that the Congress was allocated and gave it to a private bank. Not only did Jackson veto the bank's re-charter, he opposed anything that could not be justified unless the strictest reading of the Constitution was used. Jackson opposed popular internal improvements like the C & O canal because they unfairly allocated funds to states and companies. Jackson’s priority as president was to pay off the federal debt at any cost. He saw a dangerous, slippery slope in an open interpretation of the powers allocated to the government in the Constitution.
If you look, there are only two presidents from the North up to Andrew Jackson. Both have the last name Adams. Politically, the South had more power at the federal level in the early history of the republic. John Adams' late appointments of federalist judges ensured a legal structure that was opposed to the popular position of the Southern political majority. Deadlock ensued. Jackson's election as a member of a single issue political party marks the emergence of social mandates. For example, Jackson’s platform was, "I oppose the National Bank's re-charter. If elected, I will veto it". This was a milestone in America's political history. Polarizing issues would now attract people to parties. Well defined regional political identities would begin to be established. People who supported Jackson saw the National Bank as a threat to freedom and individual liberty. The greatest fear of a farmer was to lose his land to the bank.
Jackson thought concentrated power like the Bank of the United States was not only corrupt, but dangerous. It was deemed unconstitutional by strict interpreters of the Constitution who carefully read article one, section eight, specifically these lines concerning congressional power:
"Congress has the power... To borrow money on the credit of the United States;"
"To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;"
"To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;"
The Constitution says that the Congress has the power to do these things, but it does not say how it should get them done. Hamilton, the architect of the National Bank, saw that the only way to effectively regulate the currency was under a British model, which included a national bank. A strict interpreter saw the existence of the bank as a way for a concentrated power, like this national bank, as an entity that takes the power to coin and regulate the value of currency. When the National Bank prints money, Congress and the elected officials acquiesce to the authority of the un-elected bank.
The other argument concerning federal authority and allocation of funds comes up when Henry Clay (a great rival of Jackson) introduced a bill to build the Mayesveille Road in Kentucky. Originally, Roads had been created and funded with federal monies to facilitate postal delivery between the states. This justification was later used in the construction of the massive C & O canal. The Mayesveille Road was argued as being unconstitutional because the Constitution states that, "the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." The logic being that an internal improvement connecting states falls within this authority. However, one lying within the borders of a single state would not. Jackson saw that federal funding of individual state or local projects went around what he called, “the authority of the natural Aristocracy.” Jackson believed that if a state wanted an interior road that did not connect to another state, they had to find the funds through state taxes.
Watson argues that Jackson's big victories over corruption, "did little or nothing to slow the growth and proliferation... [of] trusts and monied corporations emerging in the nation” (Watson 171). So in a TLDR: Jackson was a strict interpreter of the construction who believed that only congress had the authority to print money.
Works Cited:
Watson, Henry L. Liberty and Power. Hill and Wagg, New York, NY. (1990).
The Constitution of the United States of America. Applewood Books Ed, Bedford Ma. (1791). | [
"When Jackson entered the White House in March 1829, dismantling the Bank was not part of his reform agenda. Although the President harbored an antipathy toward all banks, several members of the president's initial cabinet advised a cautious approach when it came to the B.U.S. Throughout 1829, Jackson and his close... |
what are the long term effects of casual alcohol consumption (ex 3-5 drinks per week) and how do the effects differ from alcoholism/heavy drinking? | First of all, there is a difference between alcoholism and heavy drinking. Alcoholism is a psychological dependency on alcohol, where the individual cannot or will not stop drinking despite whatever bad effects it is having on his life, health, job, and family. Alcoholism and heavy drinking typically go hand in hand, in that most alcoholics are heavy drinkers, but not all heavy drinkers are alcoholics. In my medical practice I have encountered plenty of people who drank a lot, but as soon as they were told that it was harming their health they just stopped. Many of us have known (or in some cases been) the heavy college partier who consumed completely unhealthy amounts while in school but gave it up as soon as they hit the "real world". There is at least some genetic component to becoming alcoholic.
The average adult can handle about two drinks per day/14 per week without any major long term problem. Any more than that, and there is increasing risk of liver damage. The liver is a remarkable organ with a high capacity to regenerate itself. Most people who shows sings of alcoholic liver damage are able to reverse it if they quit drinking.
The healing potential of the liver does have a breaking point however, and severe long term damage may be permanent, usually called cirrhosis of the liver. Enough liver damage can ultimately be fatal.
Note that the above is for the average person. Some people can consume more without a problem. Some (including some particular ethnic groups) will do damage with less. A blood test can usually spot early signs of liver damage. | [
"Alcohol consumption: Studies suggest that light-to-moderate alcohol intake is associated with lower risk (once or twice a week or three or four times a week), as were frequent drinking in earlier life is identified as a risk factor for cognitive decline in later life.\n",
"A study found that moderate consumption... |
How different in duration was the lifespan of the earliest stars in the universe? | The life span of stars is heavily dependent on their mass, very massive stars will go through their supply of Hydrogen a lot quicker even now. There are some very massive stars that live just a few hundred million years before violently dying, while small dwarf stars can simmer away for billions of years. Our sun is fairly tiny compared to a star like [VY Canis Majoris](_URL_0_) which has a radius over 1,400 as large as our Sun. | [
"By (100 trillion) years from now, star formation will end. This period, known as the Degenerate Era, will last until the degenerate remnants finally decay. The least massive stars take the longest to exhaust their hydrogen fuel (see stellar evolution). Thus, the longest living stars in the universe are low-mass re... |
How many more people have died than are alive? | In the range of 108 billion.
_URL_0_ | [
"Of the roughly 150,000 people who died each day across the globe, about two thirds—100,000 per day—died of age-related causes in 2001, according to an article which counts all deaths \"due to causes that kill hardly anyone under the age of 40\" as age-related. In industrialized nations, the proportion was even hig... |
if we can create animals like "ligers" and "mules" why haven't we attempted to create a mix of humans and chimps? | [Some have tried](_URL_0_). I think there would be some pretty big ethical problems if it succeeded. | [
"Chimpanzees (\"Pan troglodytes\") are smart, social animals. In the wild they cooperate to hunt, dominate rival groups, and defend their territory. They have participated in many cooperative pulling experiments. The first ever cooperative pulling experiment involved captive chimpanzees. In the 1930s Crawford was a... |
where do small animals go at night, and bugs go in the winter? | Deer move as families and nest in the forest. They never stay at the same nest for more than a few days.
Turtles bury themselves in mud at the bottom of the creek, breathing in the oxygen from the water. Some other freshwater turtles may dig themselves into a marshy area of grass or moss.
Some bugs migrate in the winter. Some stay underground, living comfortably until spring off of stored food and the warmth of each other's body heat. Some cluster together in their nests or hives to stay warm. Some insects go into diapause, which is when their development is suspended during the predictable seasonal change of winter, but resumes again when spring arrives. | [
"They are active year-round, day and night, but are usually more active near sunrise and sunset. They make trails through the surface vegetation and also dig underground burrows with many entrances. They burrow under the snow in winter. These animals are often found in colonies.\n",
"During certain times of the y... |
Why can I "feel" the bass, but not the other parts of the song? | Have you ever been in the Ocean and buffeted by a series of "Thin" by waves. You move a little, but definitely not as much as a "Fat/Long" waves. It's similar with sound. Low frequencies have large wavelengths and as a result you get to feel them more than the other frequencies.
Additionally, the song/music could have very high energy bass that is out of your hearing range, meaning you would not hear it at all, but would definitely feel it.
Note: Bass is simply the name for the frequency range 60-250 Hz (Give or take a bit depending on your school of knowledge) | [
"I have to be able to feel the bass. I've worked hard with our producers to make sure that when you play our records on your stereo, you can feel the bass. You might not necessarily be able to hear it all the time, but if you turn it up you can feel the movement in the low end—that it's moving the song. And when it... |
Does ECT work? | There is certainly a place for it in modern medicine, and it is still used quite frequently. The early days of ECT were certainly fraught with unethical practices and using a treatment without fully understanding it, however we've come a long way since then. It's important to keep in mind that it's by no means a perfect treatment, and it is NOT a first line treatment. However, in cases of severe intractable psychiatric symptoms that aren't responding to other treatments, ECT is often an effective tool. There is still a huge stigma around ECT, and while I don't necessarily advocate it's use in most cases, there are cases where I think it's an appropriate treatment. | [
"In contemporary psychiatric practice, ECT is used mainly in the treatment of depression. It is occasionally used in the treatment of other disorders such as schizophrenia. When undergoing modern ECT, a patient is given an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant. A brief-pulse electric current of about 800 milliamperes i... |
Why is it light cannot travel through an opaque object when members of the electromagnetic spectrum on either side of light can? | Visible light interacts with matter through electronic transitions. What that means is that when a photon hits something coloured it is absorbed by an electron in an atom and gives that electron more energy.
Electrons have certain energy levels they are "allowed" to have (you could say there are discrete quantities they can have, that their energy is quantised and that is where the quantum in quantum physics comes from) and only light of the same energy as the gap between these two allowed levels will be absorbed.
If the light is higher or lower in energy it wont interact with the material and pass straight through it (like your gamma and radio waves).
This is a bit of an oversimplification, but should hopefully answer your question. The physics and chemistry of light is a really interesting topic and I hope you pursue both these subjects in the future, they are really interesting :). | [
"If the object is transparent, then the light waves are passed on to neighboring atoms through the bulk of the material and re-emitted on the opposite side of the object. Such frequencies of light waves are said to be transmitted.\n",
"Since X-rays and visible light are both electromagnetic waves they propagate i... |
why are math, tech and science majors paid more than literature, art and social studies? | Basically, you should rarely think about pay as anything other than "how much money can i likely make for my boss" and secondly "how hard would it be if i left." The idea of jobs being paid according to importance, or worthiness, or "value to society" is very rarely the case. It is "how much is this work worth it to the bosses and customers who have the money to pay."
Things like gatgets, computers, medicine, buildings, strategy power points on where to build your next store... these are things that right now a lot of people in society are willing to pay lots of money for, so there is money in the companies to pay people.
More people want new iphones every year than want hand made art or than want season passes to a theater. | [
"Criticism of the traditional humanities/liberal arts degree program has been leveled by critics who see them as both expensive and relatively \"useless\" in the modern American job market, where several years of specialized study is required in most job fields. According to a 2018 report by the Humanities Indicato... |
why are so many animals intolerant to theobromine (an active ingredient in chocolate) but humans have no problem eating it? | Humans do have a problem with theobromine, it's just that the fatal dose for a human is very high. Iirc, the fatal dose for humans would require eating 6kg of dark chocolate in one sitting (over 40kg if you prefer milk chocolate)
A lot of cheap chocolate is so processed it contains hardly any theobromine at all. | [
"In sufficient amounts, the theobromine found in chocolate is toxic to animals such as cats, dogs, horses, parrots, and small rodents because they are unable to metabolise the chemical effectively. If animals are fed chocolate, the theobromine may remain in the circulation for up to 20 hours, possibly causing epile... |
Why were opposite gender friendships less common in the past? | So there are a couple of things going on here. One is that women not appearing in photos in bars/pubs/saloons doesn't indicate that women were never friends with men: drinking establishments were often officially or unofficially coded as masculine spaces, particularly if they served a middle-class clientele. (Working-class establishments might still segregate women into a specific area of the building, possibly a room closed off from the main action.) This is largely because it was seen as inappropriate for middle-class women to spend time in public places, drinking alcohol - it was unrefined and unrespectable. Women of this class were supposed to enjoy quieter pleasures in their homes or the homes of their friends, or perhaps in a salubrious location out-of-doors like the seashore or a tennis pitch. It was often assumed that women appearing in respectable eating/drinking places alone were prostitutes looking for customers, so it was in a restaurant or pub's best interest (from the proprietors' perspectives) to discourage them.
But beyond this, women and men, married and unmarried, certainly had friends of the opposite gender. [The 1858 diary of Stephen DeForest Hopkins](_URL_1_), for instance, describes young women paying calls on his family many times, noting that he knew and socialized with them. Belle Wright came with Bill Peat on August 31, and the two talked to him alone for some time as he rested his injured foot; in the evening, Dick Rice came and played backgammon with Stephen's sister, Mary. Gert Hawley and Minnie Cronkhite also paid a call on the house as a whole and conversed with him alone, a few days later. He regularly referred to young women in his generation by their first names, indicating a degree of familiarity and intimacy, and talks to them at his house, their houses, in public, and at parties. (Lest you think he was just being a player, Stephen was madly in love with his future wife, Lizzie, and regularly agonized over the fact that they couldn't yet marry.) He also corresponded with at least one female friend, a young woman named Fannie (possibly Burnham) who was studying to become a teacher.
As another example, there's [Florence Ranger's 1879 diary](_URL_0_), in which she discussed much the same sort of social interaction. On February 8th, she wrote:
> After tea Will & Lodice came up played euchre all the evening Gertie up to Jennie Wait's Charley Dix came after her to take a ride, about 7.30, went up to Jennie's and took them both.
On the 14th,
> At three o'clock Nell's father took, Nell, Lodice, Kate Thomas, Julia Parks Jennie Susie Gert & Carrie, up to Long Pond. for a short hour's skating, in his three-seated Rig. Charley Dix brought Paul Dakin up in his Cutter & the Underwoods came also. home about 5:45, Arthur brought Carrie home in the Cutter Herbert went in the [had?] also Dakin and Lodice rode home with Charley Dix. At seven they all went to their Club Meeting at Willis Haviland they went down in a farm rig, home at 11.15.
During the summer, similar mixed-gender groups would attend balls and "hops", and go boating and picnicking. (Though I would note that Florence typically was only reporting on the social events her younger sisters, Gert and Carrie, attended – it's not really clear why she tended to stay home.) While these events offered opportunities for romance to blossom, they weren't inherently romantic. Boys and girls would attend as friends and simply have a good time together. In the case of dances, this was especially important – typically, a girl's escort was instrumental in making sure that she had many dance partners besides himself.
By the late nineteenth century, young people were expected to arrange their own marriages/engagements from within the social circle their parents had allowed them to construct. There was always the chance of a parental veto, but adults simply didn't barricade young women in the family home and then let them out once a suitable husband had been selected. Having friendships and connections of their own was an important aspect of creating the next generation of the social circle. (There is more to be said about married men and women, but I simply don't know as much about that as the unmarried/courtship stage.) | [
"2. Research he conducted with Richard C. Keefe overturned a long-standing assumption that women are attracted to older men, and vice versa, because of the norms of American society. This research demonstrated that the pattern of sex differences found in the United States is found all around the world, and is in fa... |
Who were the Philistines of the Bible, and where did they come from? | This is a rather large question mark in this area. Based on linguistic evidence (mostly place-names), they don't seem to have been a Semitic people, certainly not a Canaanite group. Because artifacts recovered from digs resemble those of Greek groups (but not Canaanites), they seem to have been at least from the Aegean, if not Greek themselves. See [here](_URL_0_).
The main issue with identifying them is that they integrated into Canaanite society over time, adopting the Canaanite pantheon and eventually a Canaanite language. The lack of much documentation of their language beyond a relatively small number of names is particularly troublesome--a solid relationship with other languages would aid in the determination of where they came from. | [
"The Philistines were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan between the 12th century BC and 604 BC when they were exiled to Mesopotamia by King Nebuchadnezzar II. They are known for their biblical conflict with the Israelites. The primary source of information about the Philistines is the Hebrew ... |
how does one 'occupy' a territory? | You spread your troops/police force/militia/bandidos throughout the area in which you wish to occupy. Define it as yours loudly and denounce/arrest/kill/oppress those who disagree with you. Wait 100 years for it to become your de jure land.
- source CK2 | [
"Military or belligerent occupation (hereon after referred to as simply \"occupation\") is effective provisional control by a certain ruling power over a territory, which is not under the formal sovereignty of that entity, without the violation of the actual sovereign. The territory is then known as the \"occupied\... |
american politics vs canadian politics | The main difference between our two nations is how we deal with the different branches of power. The United States has a Senate, a President, and Congress, each of which has its own powers an responsibilities, and it is expected (and encouraged) that each of them will influence the course of government so that no one group has too much power.
Canada also has 3 systems: the Parliament (congress), the governor general (president), and the senate (senate). HOWEVER, the thing with Canadian politics is that the Parliament is really the only group that has any real political power. For instance, while the Governor General (the Queen's representative in Government) does technically have the right to "veto" bills passed by parliament, if she did there would be a huge uproar as her power is more symbolic than practical. In addition, our senate is not elected, but rather appointed. They also TECHNICALLY have the power to veto bills, but once again there would be a huge uproar if they did (there are always arguments going around Canada about scrapping the senate, as it is seen as useless).
Canadian parliament is everything then. They make and pass bills, and any "political news" revolves around them (you would almost never hear a news story about a decision in senate, for instance).
American government is based on one group never getting to much power. The Congress makes and passes bills, the senate approves these bills, and the president has the power to veto these bills if he sees them as a danger to the stability of the country. This is necessary because of the 2 party system that has developed in the USA. American politics is very much about direct opposition between Republicans and Democrats, and in doing this three house system, you usually have a balance between Rep and Dem voices.
Canada gets away with a functionally 1 house system because we have multiple political parties. A typical government make up would be something along the lines of 40% Conservative (Your republican equivalents), 30% Liberal (Your democrats), 15% Bloc (A provincial party), and 15% NDP (Socialists, gasp!!!). In this situation, the Conservatives are technically "the government", however, they can not pass bills without the support of one of the other groups because they don't have majority control of the house. To pass a bill, they would have to amend it so that one of the other groups finds it favourable enough to agree to help it pass.
Now, this all sounds very utopian, and I don't want you to go away thinking that the Canadian system doesn't have problems as well. If you look at the current Canadian government, it is actually more like 55% Conservative, 35% NDP, 10% Liberal. So, in this case the Conservative party has TOTAL control of Canadian government and can effectively pass whatever bills they want completely unopposed.
Both systems have their ups and downs. | [
"In Canada politics are similar to United Kingdom politics but it does instead have either one or occasionally two and three national and provincial third parties since last few decades in Canadian politics like the national New Democratic Party and most its provincial chapters, the national Green Party of Canada a... |
why is it that in the ocean so many different species can live in such close proximity to each other but on land it seems like they live separately. | Volume of room. On land you have one flat plain while in the ocean layers. It boils down to volume vs. Surface area. | [
"All species have geographic limits to their distribution, which are determined by their tolerance to environmental conditions, and their ability to compete successfully with other species. In marine environments this may be less evident than on land because there are fewer topographical boundaries, however, discon... |
If I cut open a fruit (e.g a pomelo), does it continue to ripen? | There are two basic types of fruits in regard to ripening: climacteric and non-climacteric. Climacteric fruits will continue to ripen after being picked, while non-climacteric fruits must be picked ripe because they don't ripen after being picked. Bananas are a great example of a climacteric fruit-if you buy green bananas at the store you can just let them sit on the counter for a couple of days until they're ripe enough to eat. Strawberries (technically an accessory fruit) and oranges and other citrus fruits (like pomelos) are a good example for non-climacteric fruits. They have to be picked ripe because once they are picked they won't ripen on their own.
When you cut open a pomelo, it's not ripening, it's oxidizing. | [
"The fruit matures from December to February, being a pear-shaped red berry, known as a riberry, growing to 13 mm long, covering a single seed, 4 mm in diameter. Seed germination is unreliable, complete after 25 days; however, cuttings strike readily. The fruit is eaten by the Australasian figbird, emu, and flying ... |
360° videos | Those videos are created by using a specialized device that captures footage through numerous cameras simultaneously, and then are stitched together to create the illusion of a seamless recording. YouTube has had support for this kind of video, but as you can imagine, very few videos on the service utilize it. | [
"360-degree videos, also known as immersive videos or spherical videos, are video recordings where a view in every direction is recorded at the same time, shot using an omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras. During playback on normal flat display the viewer has control of the viewing direction like a pa... |
what is the point of buying an ultra hd (4k) tv when there are very few movies/tv channel in the world that have the 4k resolution? | There is not reason. Turns out that when everyone owns a TV, there is very little reason to buy another TV. So manufactures make better tv's and then try to convince you to replace your current "outdated" tv with a new one. First we had HD tv's (720p), then flat screens, full HD, (1080p), then smart tv's, 3D tv's, 4 colour tv's (RGB + Yellow) curved tv's and now Ultra HD (marketed as 4K)
There is always something new or better just to get you to buy a new TV but most of it is just a gimmick. Some people may have a specific purpose for using 4K video but most consumers don't but needing to have the latest and greatest, will buy it anyway. | [
"In March 2015, DirecTV became the first multi-channel video provider to offer 4K Ultra HD programming direct to customers, offering a variety of new releases, popular films and nature documentaries with nearly four times the resolution of HD. Customers who have DirecTV's Genie HD DVR are able to watch 4K programmi... |
why do airplane flight tracks always make big arcs, rather than a “straight line” directly to your destination? | Because the earth is round and what you're seeing is a projection on a 2D map of the shortest path on a sphere (the Earth). | [
"In air navigation, ground tracks typically approximate an arc of a great circle, this being the shortest distance between two points on the Earth's surface. In order to follow a specified ground track, a pilot must adjust their heading in order to compensate for the effect of wind. Aircraft routes are planned to a... |
How did Washington and the colonial army pay for the costs of the American Revolution without the ability to levy taxes? | They borrowed.
First, the individual states and the Continental Congress printed paper money, and as expenses exceeded income, they printed more of it. As a result the paper money depreciated in value to little or nothing, which eventually led to the phrase "not worth the Continental". This essentially was a tax levied on, money borrowed from, all the people who took the currency in exchange for actual goods- food and firewood for the troops, cloth for uniforms, etc.
Second, there were wealthy patriots who loaned the government money, like Oliver Pollock and Robert Morris. They often loaned the government money to buy their own goods. This would later lead to claims that they were war profiteers, hoping to eventually make huge amounts from these sales when they were repaid. But for the most part they were motivated by devotion to the cause.
Third, they borrowed from the French. That French navy outside Yorktown, blockading the British, was not free. and the French contributed both money and materiel to the colonists. When Morris started the First Bank of the United States, in order to begin to pay down the war debts, the French supplied the start cash.
At the end of the War the public debt was $42,000,375. $7,885,008 was foreign, $34,115,290 was domestic. Efforts were made to try to pay down the debt, but often at a discount. Continental currency was redeemed at 1/40th of the face value. Whether they thought they might profit from the Revolution, most all of the financiers in the end suffered for it. Pollock never recovered his business. Morris entangled his own finances with those of the Revolution to a dizzying extent, loaning the Army almost 14 million dollars, took a great losses. The repayment of the French with yearly tobacco shipments didn't last, and their unpaid loans to the Continental Congress and contributions to the American Revolution would be a significant part of the huge debt burden that finally collapsed their government and led to their own Revolution.
It should be noted, though, that part of Washington's success had to have been due to his ability to keep an army in the field despite lacking reliable funding. It was something he was forced to learn to do in the early part of the French and Indian War ( or Seven Years War) when the colonial governments were equally unwilling or unable to provide adequate financial support.
Anderson: Crucible of War
Bolles: [Financial History of the United States](_URL_0_) | [
"The purpose of the tax was to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies after the French and Indian War, but the colonists had never feared a French invasion to begin with, and they contended that they had already paid their share of the war expenses. They suggested that it was actually a ... |
If you were on the Moon, and wanted to "throw" something at the Earth, what is the minimum speed it would need to be launched at in order to escape the Moon's gravity well, and reach Earth? | This is not an easy question to answers. Rough estimates would be fairly easy to come by but the absolute minimum not so. Just considering the Earth and Moon makes it a [three-body problem](_URL_0_) and you already have to solve this numerically or make some simplifications. Furthermore, if you really want the absolute minimum, you'd have to consider the Sun and possibly Jupiter too.
What I can however tell you is that the escape velocity from the lunar surface is not enough to do this, although you only need a little bit more. I'm sure many will find this counter intuitive.
The reason is that you don't only need to escape the Moon, you also need to change your orbit around Earth. Moon, and consequently you too at first, is orbiting Earth at about 1 km/s, most of which you need to cancel to eventually reach Earth. So that's about 1 km/s you need. In addition to this you need to escape the Moon, that's 2.4 km/s. But since you are doing both these at the same time and working in the same direction, the total is less than the sum of these.
You can estimate this for example by first only considering the gravity of Moon until you get to the point where Earth's gravity is more significant and then from there only consider that. Doing that I got about 2.5 km/s as the speed needed to leave Moon. Then you'll leave Moon's sphere of influence at about 970 m/s velocity relative to Moon, and remembering that Moon orbits Earth at about 1000 m/s, it gives an Earth relative velocity of about 30 m/s. Which is low enough so that you don't miss the Earth and just end up on a highly elliptic orbit around it.
With some googling I found out that Apollo missions leaving Moon did a trans Earth injection burn of 3000 feet/s, or about 900 m/s. They did this at a lunar orbit with an orbital velocity of about 1600 m/s. Which gives them a total Moon relative velocity of 2500 m/s which is around the same figures I got.
And if you only consider simple single burn transfer orbits (and not some weird multi-body halo orbits) then there really isn't any options in the transfer you can do. There's no fast or slow or low energy or high energy transfers. So Apollo missions didn't take that orbit because it was fast or low energy, they took it because it was the only one. Similarly you shooting something from Moon, you only have one option. Well naturally there are tiny variations and you'll hit the surface of Earth at a different location or do a nice half orbit in the atmosphere and aerobrake but those don't really change the energy requirements much at all at the Moon end.
Edit: I went a bit too far with the last paragraph. There are actually transfers that get you from Moon to Earth faster but using more energy, at least if you don't mind colliding with Earth instead of making a smooth landing. What Apollo missions did, and what I've calculated, is about the minimum however. Which will enter Earth at about 11 km/s. That's the slowest you can do without using your engines to brake before reaching Earth. You are essentially falling from the orbital altitude of Moon to Earth and picking up a lot of speed in the process. | [
"The speed at a perigee of 6555 km from the centre of the Earth for trajectories passing between 2000 and 20 000 km from the Moon is between 10.84 and 10.92 km/s regardless of whether the trajectory is cislunar or circumlunar or whether it is co-rotational or counter-rotational.\n",
"If the speed is the orbital s... |
Does dyslexia affect things like sheet music as well? Or is it strictly written language? | I'm not sure of the neuroscience behind it, but I have dyscalculia (numbers) and it also affects my musical ability. I have serious difficulty with reading sheet music and my instructor identified it as a form of dyslexia. It also had something to do with the way I naturally try to strum a guitar going up first instead of down. He had a long explanation for it but unfortunately it was a few years ago and my memory isn't that good. | [
"The phonological deficit theory proposes that people with dyslexia have a specific sound manipulation impairment, which affects their auditory memory, word recall, and sound association skills when processing speech. The phonological theory explains a reading impairment when using an alphabetic writing system whic... |
Is it possible for a noise to be so loud it could be heard around the world? If so, how loud would it need to be? | Large metorite strikes are presumably "heard" around the world.
\- _URL_1_ -
(Depending on how we're defining "heard". The pressure waves from big strikes are strong enough to just blow away large objects in the vicinity - I don't know whether you're defining that as a "sound".)
1883 eruptions of the volcano Krakatoa were heard thousands of kilometers away.
> The explosions were so violent that they were heard 3,500 km (2,200 mi) away in Perth, Western Australia and the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, 4,800 km (3,000 mi) away
> The pressure wave radiated across the globe and was recorded on barographs all over the world, which continued to register it up to 5 days after the explosion. [A "sound wave", even if not audible to humans.]
\- _URL_0_ -
Looking for comparison at the Chicxulub impact, which may have killed off the dinosaurs
> The impactor had an estimated diameter of 10 km (6.2 mi) and delivered an estimated 96 teratons of TNT (4.0×1023 J).
> By contrast, the most powerful man-made explosive device ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, had a yield of only 50 megatons of TNT (2.1×1017 J), making the Chicxulub impact 2 million times more powerful.
> Even the most energetic known volcanic eruption, which released approximately 240 gigatons of TNT (1.0×1021 J) and created the La Garita Caldera, was substantially less powerful than the Chicxulub impact.
\- _URL_2_ -
So, as compared with Krakatoa:
Bigger bang, bigger boom. | [
"In finance, noise obtained a formal definition in a 1986 paper by Fischer Black: \"Noise in the sense of a large number of small events is often a cause factor much more powerful than a small number of large events can be.\"\n",
"Most of the whistles described generate nearly pure tones that can be heard. The mo... |
what language do people have thoughts in if they speak more than one language fluently? | I fluently speak Danish, English and French. It strongly depends on whom I'm with and what I'm doing. When I'm with my family I'll think in Danish, and with friends I'll think in either English or French depending on what we're speaking. But if I'm driving for example, I'll think in French since it's the language I learned the signs in but if I'm using my computer I'm thinking in English since my computer is in English.
For me it all comes down to the language I learned to do a certain action in or my surroundings. | [
"Our thoughts often occur as the inner speech of our natural language. Inner speech is used for such things as rehearsing facts, having a mental conversation with oneself, and counting, among many others. Being fluent in more than one language can affect inner speech in multiple ways. Studies have revealed that flu... |
what is so difficult about making wings for people? | You'd need something like a 12 metre wingspan and muscles far stronger than those you possess to fly like a bird. Humans are not birds. Stick to jetpacks mate. | [
"There are also different types of wings. Cheaper, paper-made wings are disposable, and are made for temporary use. They are unidirectional (up or down) and the user can only partially control them by leaning in the desired direction. Higher-quality wings can be taken on and off at will and are controlled by telepa... |
why can't we put probes or something similar in black holes to study them deeper? | For starters, the closest black hole to earth is around 7800 light years away from earth. The fastest man made object ever was a space probe traveling 25 miles per second. At that speed it would take **58 million years** to get there.
58 million years ago, the first primates were just beginning to evolve. Humans have only been around for about 200 thousand years.
Even if we could magically travel there at the speed of light, 7800 years is a long time. 7800 years ago, mankind hadn't discovered the wheel, how to work with metal or writing.
So, if we just ignore the travel thing, sending a probe into a black hole would be pointless. The gravity of a black hole is so intense that nothing, not even light can escape it. Radio waves are a form of light. This means we'd have no way of getting any information back from the probe.
...and that doesn't even get into the issue of the gravity tearing the probe apart or problems with the accretion disk.
**edit:** To make things even worse, any radio signals sent by the probe before it got sucked into the black hole would, themselves, take 7800 years to get back to us. | [
"Probe size is important because longer probes hybridize less specifically than shorter probes, so that short strands of DNA or RNA (often 10–25 nucleotides) which are complementary to a given target sequence are often used to locate a target. The overlap defines the resolution of detectable features. For example, ... |
how did foods like onions and cranberries get to be considered food, when they must have been so difficult to eat when discovered? | A food is pretty much is anything you can eat and it will not kill you (when ingested). I would be more interested in who decided to eat lobster first and how many people died before finding out what parts of a puffer fish were edible. | [
"Vegetables are not found often in the archaeological record and it is difficult to determine the role that they played, because plant foods were often eaten raw or were simply boiled, without requiring special equipment for preparation, and thus barely leaving any trace other than the type of food itself. Vegetabl... |
why do we sleep better in clean sheets/clothes? | Could be mental, much in the same way getting dressed up makes you more productive throughout the day. Lounging around in pyjamas breeds laziness, etc. | [
"Other materials, notably cotton and wool, have also been used for sleeping bags. Wool repels water nicely and also resists compression, but it weighs much more than any alternative. Cotton suffers from high water retention and significant weight, but its low cost makes it an attractive option for uses like station... |
How fast would the earth have to rotate in order to fling us (or other stuff) off of its surface? | I'll work from the assumption that we're on the equator, where rotational speed is greatest.
The acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^(2). Centripetal acceleration in a rotating system is calculated by a = v^(2)/r, where v is the circular velocity and r is the radius of the circular path.
Let 9.8 m/s^(2) = v^(2)/(6378000 m)
From this we get v^(2) = 6.25 X 10^7, and **v=7900 m/s**. The circumference of the Earth is only 40,000 km, so at that rate it would be completing a full rotation every ~~five~~ **five thousand** seconds. And in order to actually fling things off its surface, it would have to be going slightly faster.
Of course, such a rapid rotation would lead to the Earth quickly distorting and becoming extremely oblate, which would make its equatorial radius even larger and therefore increase the rotational velocity at the equator. This would eventually lead to pieces of the crust flying off of the equator. | [
"With the Earth move [...] all things that are on the Earth. If, therefore, from a point outside the Earth something were thrown upon the Earth, it would lose, because of the latter's motion, its straightness as would be seen on the ship [...] moving along a river, if someone on point C of the riverbank were to thr... |
why hotdogs are not a normal item at fastfood places? | In some places (Chicago, New York) they are. It's merely a cultural preference; there is no scientific reason for it. Why apple pie and not peach? | [
"Hot Dog on a Stick, is a fast food company that was founded by Dave Barham in Santa Monica, California, in 1946, and later branched out into malls and shopping centers. In 2014, the company was purchased by Global Franchise Group (the strategic brand management company behind Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Cr... |
why does rock music and classical music fit together so well? | All western music is based on the same music theory of melodies and harmonies created from the major and minor scales and the different modes of them. But rock, (especially metal) has closer ties with classical than, say, R & B because some of the more unusual modes and scales are shared by both. Rock guitarists learn a lot of classical scales in their early years and so they natural influence the songs they write later on. | [
"Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as \"rock and roll\" in the United States in the early 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and later, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style whic... |
from where was the logarithmic constant pulled from? | The derivative of an exponential is an exponential as well, so there will also be an exponential whose derivative is itself, and that is e^x
And it turns out because of that it also has lots of other mathematical proprieties and appears very often in maths | [
"Before 1748 and the publication of Introduction to the Analysis of the Infinite, the natural logarithm was known in terms of the area of a hyperbolic sector. Leonhard Euler changed that when he introduced transcendental functions such as 10. Euler identified e as the value of \"b\" producing a unit of area (under ... |
why doesn't apple make iphones that can use only one kind of headphone, thereby essentially forcing everyone to buy headphones made by apple? | The backlash would cost them sales and bad PR. | [
"Prior to the iPhone, \"Handsets were viewed largely as cheap, disposable lures, massively subsidized to snare subscribers and lock them into using the carriers' proprietary services.\" However, according to \"Wired\", \"Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone\", ... |
why is pi repeating and how or why does this happen? | as far as we know pi doesn't repeat | [
"Circular cumulative causation is a theory developed by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal in the year 1956. It is a multi-causal approach where the core variables and their linkages are delineated. The idea behind it is that a change in one form of an institution will lead to successive changes in other institutions.... |
where did the song structure "verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus" originate, and how did it gain such popularity? | According to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_), it began in the early 20th century, when the chorus was just a way of changing things around a bit. By the 1960s it had become the norm, and the chorus wasn't just used to change things around but had become the main part of the song. | [
"There are two distinct uses of the word \"chorus.\" In the thirty-two bar song form that was most common in the earlier twentieth-century popular music (especially the Tin Pan Alley tradition), \"chorus\" referred to the entire main section of the song (which was in a thirty-two bar AABA form). Beginning in the ro... |
why are aliens portrayed as stronger and superior? | The general thought I see it as: If an alien race has the technology to come to our planet, they are technologically advanced/superior to our own.
But, this isn't always 100% accurate: See War of the Worlds, where they are stopped not by humans, but by disease that we are immune to (or well, resistant to the point of not dying from). | [
"\"Aliens versus Predator\" received \"favorable\" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. IGN praised the game for allowing the player to play three different characters, each with a unique game-play element, and for being \"fun and terrifying at the same time\". \"GameP... |
how do we know where a missile is headed? | Simiple trajectory of Newtonian physics (ballistic trajectory). Of course each course correction updates the trajectory so the missile needs to be constantly tracked for any trajectory changes.
_URL_0_ | [
"The guidance system of the missile is actually command guidance, as the missile doesn't have its own radar. It only follows orders provided by the onboard radar of the carrier/launcher helicopter, the Thomson-CSF I/J-band \"Agrion 15\". When this radar detects and identifies a suitable target, it switches to autom... |
how are exit/opinion polls calculated during elections? | They pollsters know the voting patterns of each constituency, based on decades of poll results. They can sample key locations, and use that as the basis for an analysis of how that area will vote.
| [
"An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. Unlike an opinion poll, which asks for whom the voter plans to vote, or some similar formulation, an exit poll asks for whom the voter actually voted. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is... |
what is safer for the baby, a natural birth or c section and why? | There's evidence for the safety of both and the dangers of both. I trained to be a doula for a while, so this was all very important for my studies, and I'm basing my statement off of peer-reviewed evidence-based practice and theory.
In theory, natural childbirth is far safer and better for both the baby and mother. Natural childbirth, especially without pain medication, has been shown to increase mother-child bonding and up the baby's immune system. The introduction of pain medication doesn't dramatically lower outcomes, but it gives the baby what some people describe as jetlag--it makes them slower, because some of the medicine enters their bloodstream as well in some cases. This makes it harder for them to latch (and recent research has shown a lot of benefits for mother-baby bonding with breastfeeding, in addition to a higher immune system response to ear infections, which can be chronic in young children) and they don't bond as quickly. They also suffer from lower temperature and have trouble stabilizing.
But C-sections are also, in theory, very good for mother and baby. For one, C-sections avoid a lot of the pelvis issues that natural childbirth brings with it, like pelvic floor dysfunction after childbirth (this is why so many women who give vaginal birth have the "sneeze wees" or pee when they sneeze.) However, babies are far more likely to die in childbirth during a ceserean than they are to die during a natural birth AS LONG AS IT'S IN A HOSPITAL.
Now, that's the key to this argument. Many naturalists argue that birth should take place outside of the hospital setting. See *The Business of Being Born* for a good example. Midwives can practice in a hospital, but only CNMs (certified nurse midwives; nurses who go on to midwifery school) are allowed in hospital settings and CPMs (certified professional midwives; people who take special training to become a midwife, but don't have a medical background) and CMs (another name for CPMs, or certified midwife; same as CPM or even no training in some states) only preside over births in birth centers (some of which are attached to hospitals, which is fantastic and has the same outcomes as a hospital birth as if something goes wrong they can just wheel them down the hall to an operating room) or home births.
Home births are fucking dangerous. There's no way to provide immediate care if something goes wrong. While midwives carry many tools with them, they don't have bags of blood for transfusion (which can be necessary very often when hemorrhage happens) or surgical skills if the baby is dying in the uterus and needs to GTFO. They have to call an ambulance, and it's possible that it would take too long. Doctors don't preside over home births, ever, and that's a problem.
**tl;dr** Unmedicated natural birth is safer and better for baby and mom, next best is medicated natural birth, next best is C-section. Never ever have a fucking home birth and for chrissakes DON'T HAVE AN UNASSISTED BIRTH.
Further reading:
* _URL_0_
* _URL_1_ | [
"In December 2014 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated its guidance regarding where women should give birth. The new guidance states that midwife-led units are safer than hospitals for women having straightforward (low risk) pregnancies. Its updated guidance also confirms that home birth is... |
Do any animals other than humans like spicy food? | Spiciness, caused by the chemical Capsaicin, appears to be an adaptation of plants to prevent mammals from eating their fruit/peppers. Birds, which are immune to Capsaicin, appear to be the intended consumer of these fruits, which is understandible considering they fly and can, thusly, disperse the seeds over a wider area.
As to why some humans have developed a fondness for Capsaicin, there's some evidence that Capsaicin inhibits bacterial growth and, in this way, helps preserve freshness in food. Spicy food is less likely to make you sick than non-spicy food due to this quality. | [
"Treeshrews have also been observed intentionally eating foods high in capsaicin, a behavior unique among mammals other than humans. A single TRPV1 mutation reduces their pain response to capsaicinoids, which scientists believe is an evolutionary adaptation to be able to consume spicy foods in their natural habitat... |
how does france maintain more than two political parties despite a winner-take-all system? | Many countries with single-winner, district-based elections have multiple major parties. These systems discourage party fracturing, but do not prevent it--e.g., in the United Kingdom the Liberal Democrats are a respectable third party. The reason the United States has just two main parties has to do with political polarization in its early political history, first over federalism and later over slavery. | [
"France has a multi-party political system: one in which the number of competing political parties is sufficiently large as to make it almost inevitable that in order to participate in the exercise of power any single party must be prepared to negotiate with one or more others with a view to forming electoral allia... |
Do static electric shocks people get on a door knobs and metallic objects can hurt and/or kill them? | When you shuffle your feet along the carpet, you're picking up electrons from the carpet. So now you've got all these extra electrons hanging around, meaning you're negatively charged. If everything you touched had the same high charge, it wouldn't matter - you wouldn't feel it. The only way you get current is if there's a difference in charge between you and the doorknob. So all those electrons jump from you to the knob, and voila. Spark!
The actual process by which you pick up charge has been investigated since the Greeks. It's called the triboelectric effect, and it describes charging of materials based on contact and separation. If you watched Bones last week, you saw them generate electricity from scotch tape to make X-rays - this is the same principle.
The actual shock on a doorknob won't kill you. But the triboelectic effect *can* kill you, given some truly unfortunate circumstances. There's anecdotal evidence of solvent ignition because of static sparks. I'm sure you've pulled two buckets apart at some point, and felt the resistance between them? That's due to the same effect, and if there were flammable liquids around, you could start a fire. It's not too likely, and you need just the right atmospheric conditions - but it can happen.
This is also why if you are going to fill a plastic gas can at the pump, you should *always* set it on the ground, rather than leave it in your truck bed. You don't want to risk a spark! | [
"A person touching the un-earthed metal casing of an electrical device, while also in contact with a metal object connected to remote earth, is exposed to an electric shock hazard if the device has a fault. If all metal objects are connected, all the metal objects in the building will be at the same potential. It t... |
how is it possible rick astley's "never gonna give you up" has 140,000,000+ views and he's only made $12 from royalties? | Part of it has to do with the way his song has been shared. It's been uploaded and re-uploaded by hundreds (probably) of people, none of which are officially tracked. Sure, Astley deserves to get paid, but by whom? YouTube isn't going to take responsibility for paying for illegally uploaded content. Neither is the record label that recorded the song in the first place. So *who* owes him royalties?
Second, I don't know how much he's entitled to. He may have sold the rights to his song, or just a bad deal for not a lot of royalties. It's not like he could have predicted what it would become! So he may have sold the song for a decent flat amount and low royalties, predicting (reasonably) that it would do well and then fade in popularity, like most songs do, so that higher flat amount would have been worth it. But I don't know, that's just a guess. | [
"In 2018, Adam Sandler wrote and performed an emotional tribute song dedicated to Farley in his 2018 Netflix stand-up special \"Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh\". Netflix published the song performance on YouTube later that year to commemorate the 21st anniversary of Farley's death. Sandler later played the song live on a... |
What does a geological history map of the world tell you about the region (beyond the age of the uppermost rocks)? | Title question:
Not much, geologic maps of the world are very simplified and there is little use to look at the world as a whole. If you get a detailed smaller map, then you can get down to business. Maps in geology have near infinite applications, usually the more detailed maps have age, a rock description and various geologic features on them. A lot of field geology is just mapping your area to better understand it, mapping not just different kinds of rock, but folds, faults, dikes, shear zones, strikes and dips, and much much more!
Body question:
No. What it means is that the rocks exposed at the surface date back to the precambrian. Disregarding the idea that they probably formed deep in the earth (because there's no way in hell you can build a house 10 Km underground), the precambrian rocks could have been deposited, buried, heated, squished, brought to the surface, buried again, and finally brought back to the surface for you building enjoyment. I should say that rocks spend most of their life(?) underground. | [
"Eoarchean geology is the study of the oldest preserved crustal fragments of Earth during the Eoarchean era from 4 to 3.6 billion years ago. Major well-preserved rock units dated Eoarchean are known from three localities, the Isua Greenstone Belt in Southwest Greenland, the Acasta Gneiss in the Slave Craton in Cana... |
insect intelligence | Insects (and other invertebrates) still have brains made of nerve cells and can make their own decisions. Some research showed that [fruit files can make decisions on their own](_URL_1_) (i.e. they appear to have free will) and other research that [jumping spiders appear surprisingly intelligent](_URL_0_), tho they are quite slow to work out strategies (probably due to how small their brain is)
> As a maze to be worked out from a single viewing – and with no previous experience of such mazes – this would be a tall order even for a rat or monkey. Yet more often than not, Portia (a type of jumping spider) could identify the right path. There was nothing quick about it. Portia would sit on top of the dowel for up to an hour, twisting to and fro as it appeared to track its eyes across the various possible routes.
There's probably a lot of instinct involved too, especially for finding a correct place to build a nest, but that's true of most animals. It's not like a mouse sits down and thinks "If I dig a burrow in the ground I'll be safer", it just knows what to do.
Ants and bees have a collective intelligence too. For ants they react to certain chemicals, and also release chemicals. an ant can make a trail from their nest so they can work back to find it, if they find food they release a different chemical so ants know they can find food that way, more followed trails (eg. several ants came back with food from the same spot) have stronger scent so more ants head that way, they release chemicals when under attack that cause other ants to attack any non-ant thing nearby etc. This creates complex behaviours from simple rules.
Of course the thing about intelligence is we don't really understand how anything more complex than a worm *really* thinks, so what really goes on in insects' heads is just as much a mystery as other animals. | [
"The premise of the multiple intelligences hypothesis, that human intelligence is a collection of specialist abilities, have been criticized for not being able to explain human adaptation to most if not all environments in the world. In this context, humans are contrasted to social insects that indeed have a distri... |
what do iss spacesuits do? i know they provide an at atmosphere but do they have insulation? i'd guess not because there's no atmosphere to cool you down, but what about depressurization? | They are insulated because space is a wild set of climates. Imagine standing inside a huge deep freeze with a million watt floodlight 10 feet from you pointed at your back.
So you wrap yourself up in crazy amounts of insulation to keep from freezing and boiling at the same time. But now all that body heat you generate is trapped in there with you. So you have to remove that and radiate it away. Spacesuits have chilled water lines running through then and that keeps you cool.
So the spacesuits provide full climate control along with the proper amount of atmosphere. | [
"Spacesuits are required for astronauts to survive in space; they are the most essential piece of equipment with many features to help protect them from the dangers of space. Due to space being a vacuum, the suits are required to have oxygen, which is stored in tanks allowing astronauts to work or remain outside fo... |
How did the Mongols view sex and virginity? | First of all it would be false to claim that Jochi's paternity caused no issues. While he was afforded respect and authority as Genghis Khan's first born son it appears that the questionable parentage was raised as a point against him by Chagatai when Genghis Khan's was choosing his successor.
That said the Mongols attitudes towards sexuality and sexual purity were distinctly different from contemporary European ones. It was common for Mongol men who could afford it to have multiple wives. Of these one would be considered the chief wife who continued the bloodline, only Genghis Khan's sons from his first wife were considered as sucessors, although they all had separate accommodations; and visitors often commented on the surprising lack of disputes that this arrangement engendered. Furthermore Mongol women retained the right of divorce, and remarriage, something that was considerably more different for both sexes at the time. | [
"However, Mongol and Persian chroniclers criticize Ögedei for a crime he committed in 1237 which violated the laws of his father, Genghis Khan, which forbade seizure, rape, kidnapping, bartering, or selling young girls, who were allowed to be married at a young age but could not engage in sexual activity until the ... |
Can re-hydration occur through food only, without access to liquids? | There are two levels to this. One is that if you eat a 'watery' food like watermelon, it'll help because there's literally water there.
But there is also the fact that the metabolism of some foods will actually generate water. This is called 'metabolic water' and while in some bacterial species it can be upwards of 60% of the cytosolic water composition, in humans it's closer to 10%. | [
"The liquid leaches out a valuable fraction of proteins, nutrients and lactic acid. To recover them, and to avoid drowning the fermentation, runoff is captured from the fermentation vessel, either through a tap, into a base of absorbent material such as biochar or waste cardboard, or into a lower chamber. The runof... |
Would someone be able to describe in lamens terms what Long-term potentiation is? | I'm not sure how simple you want it, so I'm going to err on the side of "really simple" and lead off with a ridiculously simple analogy (if it's condescendingly simple, it's unintended and I apologize in advance).
Say you really love cookies, and you're in the middle of a park with a lot of people around you. You have boxes that can carry cookies, but its tiring for you to bring too many boxes at once, so lets say on day 1 you just bring one box for each person in the park around you. I come along and I happen to have a lot of cookies to give you, and I completely fill up your box. You get excited that now there's a person around who will give you cookies, and you have learned, hey, alkahdia will give me cookies. But, your cookie box was saturated by my cookies. So wherever I happen to be near you, you start bringing more boxes so you can carry more cookies. Now we have a pretty good connection between us, me sending you lots of cookies and me bringing more cookies for you. Of course, the other people in the park aren't doing anything for you and your love of cookies, so you don't bring out more boxes for them (again, cause it's tiring for you), so around them, you still have the one cookie box.
Now say that I'm a presynaptic neuron, you're a postsynaptic neuron, my cookies are neurotransmitters, and your boxes are neurotransmitter receptors. When I send you my neurotransmitters, you receive them on your receptors, and THEN (blah blah blah a bunch of cell biological steps that aren't important for understand the concept blah blah blah) and THEN you express more receptors, so you become more receptive to my neurotransmitters. It is now easier for me to stimulate you.
The reason I made a point that you're in the middle of a park with a bunch of people around you and only I'm giving you cookies is this: long-term potentiation happens between two neurons at a time. Just because me and you develop a stronger neurochemical bond doesn't mean that your bond with a third neuron is strengthened, too.
These strengthened connection is basically how learning happen. I may be able to answer some greater details, but I'm only a student so my knowledge may fall short of everything you want to know. | [
"In neuroscience, long-term potentiation (LTP) is a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity. These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons. The opposite of LTP is long-term depression, which produces a long-l... |
why were european and other folks in the medieval and early modern world religiously intolerant. why burn heretics? what is to be gained? | An important thing to remember is that a heretic is not someone who holds a different religion than you hold. It is someone who holds your same religion but interprets things in a different manner than the religious leadership does. This is potentially dangerous as it can undo your entire religion. | [
"During the European Middle Ages, the centuries following Christianization of the continent, the Church focused on the persecution of heresy in order to maintain unity of doctrine. Practitioners of folk magic were left unmolested by the authorities.\n",
"Throughout Europe Christianity was becoming the main religi... |
Slavery during Roman times is portrayed in media as being less of a race issue and more of a "we conquered you" issue. How accurate is this and did racism play any part into slavery during that time? | While experts prepare more targeted answers, here are some threads with background information on the topic from the FAQ section on “[Racism and Slavery](_URL_8_)":
**Race and Slavery in Antiquity**
* ["I don't think that ancient slavery is really comparable to the chattel slavery that we saw in the Americas." How did ancient slavery differ from the atlantic slave trade?](_URL_0_) - 91 comments, over 6 months old.
* This thread is mostly about Roman slavery including how slaves were acquired, what they were used for, and what ethnicity/race they were and thus allowing comparison with the situations presented in the threads above.
* [" it should be noted that slavery in the ancient Roman Empire was closer to the modern-day employer-employee relationship, not the slavery of other eras based on kidnapping and racism" some biblical scholar](_URL_7_) - 47 comments, over 2 years old.
* Specialists on both eras involved engage in comparisons and debate on ancient and early modern slavery.
* [I've often heard it said that the ancient Romans were so culturally and ethnically non-homogenous that "racism" as we now understand it did not exist for them. Is this really true?](_URL_2_) - 137 comments, over 2 years old.
* This thread dives headlong into the matter, inciting debates over whether the ethnic stereotypes common in the ancient world are of the same kind as modern racism or not while supplying plentiful evidence and analysis for both sides.
* [Was there much racism in the Roman Empire directed at people from other regions?](_URL_5_) - 47 comments, over 1 year old.
* The commenters in this thread differentiate between the xenophobia present the ancient world from the modern understanding of racism.
* [I know the Romans had no conception of race, but did they view Black Africans any differently than they did the Persians, Libyans, or Celts?](_URL_6_) - 80 comments, over 11 months old.
* This thread goes into the way Rome interacted with peoples that would be classified in the modern day as being of different races.
**Related Threads**
* [do historians mean something different then normal people when they use the word "racism"?](_URL_1_) - 11 comments, over 2 years old.
* Commenters here talk about concepts of race as dealt with in Anthropology and other related fields.
* [Racism in the ancient world?](_URL_4_) - 37 comments, over 1 year old.
* This thread pulls examples from all across the world and its history along with copious amounts of sources for further reading.
* [Did the Romans have stereotypes about the behavior of people from particular tribes or geographic areas?](_URL_3_) - 9 comments, over 11 months old.
* Several commenters detail the most common stereotypes that Romans held of others at the borders of their empire and beyond. | [
"According to Jennifer Glancy, sexual exploitation of slaves in Roman Empire, was helped by Christian morality. Jesus urged his followers to act like slaves, implementing a slave morality. The early Christian theologians were unconcerned about slave morals.\n",
"During the period of Republican expansionism when s... |
how do aquariums get the large fish to the aquarium once construction is finished? | I admit, I can't help but think of them being transported in huge plastic bags, like goldfish. In reality, they do it like [this](_URL_0_). Basically, big tanks that look like storage containers. | [
"The aquarium opened in 1985 after 10 months of construction. Tarlton developed a new method of building an acrylic tunnel by taking large sheets of clear acrylic, cutting them to size and heating them in an oven until they took the shape of the mould. Some of the sheets weighed over one tonne. Because of the refra... |
When you dry heave why do you always feel better? | Once you trip the gag reflex (or mental equivalent thereof) your body is going to keep trying to expel (what it thinks is) something dangerous until it succeeds or it was proven to be a false message. | [
"Dryness is a property of beverages that describes the lack of a sweet taste. This may be due to a lack of sugars, the presence of some other taste that masks sweetness, or an underabundance of simple carbohydrates that can be converted to sugar by enzymes in the mouth (amylase in particular). The term \"dry\" may ... |
Did Pasteur's rabies cure involve injections to the stomach? | Biologist here:
Awesome question!
Pasteur’s treatments were indeed shots in the abdomen, in a series.
Its known as an attenuated vaccine, by starting with an incredibly weak version of the virus and slowly stepping up in strength and condition of the virus, the body is slowly able to build an immunity and stop the infection before it becomes uncontrollable.
We used to use abdominal shots because the fatty tissue slowed the virus down in getting into the bloodstream and into the brain, giving the immune system a chance to spot it and attack it before it settles into brain tissue and starts destroying the brain | [
"Pasteur also isolated a crude preparation of the infectious agent for rabies. In a brave piece of rapid medicine development, he probably saved the life of a person who had been bitten by a clearly rabid dog by performing the same inactivating process upon his rabies preparation and then inoculating the patient wi... |
how do they film those commercials/videos where people are frozen, but the camera moves all around them? | They use a lot of cameras and select different images from each camera, like [this](_URL_0_). The first instance of this technique I'm aware of was in the matrix, they called it bullet time, I don't know if it has a more formal name these days since becoming more common. | [
"Camera movements can also be motion captured so that a virtual camera in the scene will pan, tilt or dolly around the stage driven by a camera operator while the actor is performing. At the same time, the motion capture system can capture the camera and props as well as the actor's performance. This allows the com... |
why do movie theaters still use film reels when there is other technology available? | For the most part they aren't anymore. I forget the movie, but a recent one (possibly even an upcoming one) was/is supposed to be available on film only due to director preference and a bunch of theater chains are giving loud wtf's on that. They all just spent a bunch of money upgrading to digital projectors so nobody needs to physically ship film reels anymore... | [
"Historically, all mass-marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters. In 1971 U-Matic became the first magnetic format in which movies could be enjoyed ... |
I found this small ice formation in my garden. It has the appearance of a stalagmite however there was nothing above it which could have dripped on to it, suggesting the ice rose upwards on its own. Can anyone explain the process by which this could have occurred? | I don't have any scientific expertise in this area, but your description does remind me of ice cube tray ice spikes. I don't know if they're related, but [here's some reading](_URL_0_) if you're interested! | [
"In early 2015, scientists announced the discovery of an almost circular structure in the ice surface, about wide. First hypothesis for its origin, among other ice-shelf processes, was the impact of a meteor. The feature was discovered by German scientist Christian Müller as he conducted an aerial survey on 20 Dece... |
Diminishing returns on exercise. How big are we talking? | The first hour a week is far and away the most important, because it stimulates the metabolism and muscle growth of an otherwise unhealthy/unsporty person. Someone who works out regularly should not notice a positive effect of such an extend after each individual workout.
Other than that, you can't really define "benefit" in a broad sense; cardiovescular exercises have an entirely different effect than exercises for muscle gain.
The former have a fairly marginal "diminishing returns" effect - especially if you're working towards fat loss, you'll burn twice as many calories if you work out twice as often.
For muscle growth, on the other hand, too much exercise is actually counterproductive. A muscle needs approx. 48h rest after a workout.
| [
"Physical exercise may increase life expectancy. People who participate in moderate to high levels of physical exercise have a lower mortality rate compared to individuals who are not physically active. Moderate levels of exercise have been correlated with preventing aging and improving quality of life by reducing ... |
Question about kingship and the Holy Roman Empire | In a sense, it developed around 1000 A.D. that "Rex Romanorum" was the title that the electors confered on the elected, before that it was "Rex Germaniae" or even "Rex Francorum" - they meant East Francia.
Before Maximilian it was implied that the elected would have to get the pope to crown him to be emperor. In 1508, Maximilan got the pope, Julius II., to confer upon him that he could call himself "Elected Roman Emperor" without getting crowned by the pope.
His greatson, Charles V. called himself "Elected Emperor" after his election and the pope concured in 1520.
However, Charles still managed to get crowned in 1530 by the pope in person.
His successors kept the "Elected Emperor" part and weren't crowned by the pope anymore.
The difference between a crowned and annoited Emperor and the "King of the Romans" was prestige; going to Rome and getting the Pope to crown the King of the Romans showed that he was quite powerfull. For example, from 1220 to 1312 there was no coronation.
Compare that to what happened to Sigismund, who had to wait 22 years to be crowned.
Most emperors before Maximilian (his father and the emperors before 1220) and most of his successors sought to have their son crowned "King of the Romans" to have a successor to be monarch without another election after their death. | [
"The four Salian kings of the dynasty—Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V—ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1027 to 1125, and firmly established their monarchy as a major European power. They achieved the development of a permanent administrative system based on a class of public officials answerable to the ... |
Is there a defining symptom for comas? | One of the difficulties with answering this question is that the term "coma" is not used in medicine at all. It's a layman's term, so the definition varies broadly. I think the most reasonable definition that medical personnel would agree with is a person who is unresponsive in all ways (voice or movement), cannot move their body spontaneously, and has no functional memory. Beyond that I cannot further define coma because, again, it is not a medical term.
You can't fake a coma. There are a few tests that can be done to assess your level of consciousness the simplest of which is just causing pain and seeing if you react. Even if you don't react and keep your body limp, we can always just stick a bispectral index monitor or just an EEG on you and see your brain activity. You can't fake the brain activity of someone in a "coma".
| [
"The severity and mode of onset of coma depends on the underlying cause. For instance, severe hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) or hypercapnia (increased carbon dioxide levels in the blood) initially cause mild agitation and confusion, but progress to obtundation, stupor, and finally, complete unconsciousness. In cont... |
Are there any books on ancient martial arts practices, exercises, and philosophies? | Two books are:
* Michael B. Poliakoff, *Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence, and Culture*, Yale University Press, 1987. As the title suggests, this is restricted to sports (mostly wrestling, boxing, and pankration), and focusses on Greek sports. Egyptian stick-fighting is covered in a few pages.
* Peter A. Lorge, *Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century*, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Covers ancient, Medieval, and modern Chinese martial arts, with about 1/4 of the book covering ancient China up to the end of the Han Dynasty.
The most important and prominent ancient Chinese martial art was archery, and a significant amount of written work on technique, practice, and philosophy has survived. A useful book collecting material on Chinese archery, ancient and later, is:
* Stephen Selby, *Chinese Archery*, Hong Kong University Press, 2000
Moving past "ancient", much more material has survived from the late Medieval period and later, from Europe, the Middle East, China, Japan, and Korea (I'm not familiar with Indian martial arts texts). The majority of this material deals with armed martial arts. Some deals with unarmed martial arts, and some is heavy on philosophy/theory. One example of the latter, from the 18th century, is
* Chang Naizhou (original author), Marnix Wells (translator and editor), *Scholar Boxer: Chang Naizhou's Theory of Internal Martial Arts and the Evolution of Taijiquan*, North Atlantic Books, 2005
| [
"The manuscript contains instruction of martial techniques and is one of three extant sources on martial techniques in Middle English, the other two being Cotton MS Titus A XXV folio. 105 and Additional MS 39564.\n",
"Books written by modern-day martial artists make many claims that are not congruent with histori... |
Do animals that don't sweat require additional water when it is hot? | I'm no expert but animals that don't sweat can have other forms of thermoregulation that involve evaporating water.
ie. dogs stick their tongues out and pant when it's hot, therefore they would require more water. | [
"Xerocoles have developed a variety of mechanisms to reduce water loss via evaporation. Mammalian xerocoles sweat much less than their non-desert counterparts. For example, the camel can survive ambient temperatures as high as without sweating, and the kangaroo rat lacks sweat glands entirely. Both birds and mammal... |
What did soldiers in the Mongol army do in their "free time"? | They trained archery, horsemanship and wrestling the three manly skills. _URL_1_. These were important for the Mongols. You can read about the Genghis khan and his empire forging in the book "Genghis khan and the making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford. Also Conn Iggulden's "Conqueror" series is good, albeit not historically accurate, but one gets the broad lines of Mongol conquests. _URL_0_ | [
"Forces under the command of the Mongol Empire were trained, organized, and equipped for mobility and speed. Mongol soldiers were more lightly armored than many of the armies they faced but were able to make up for it with maneuverability. Each Mongol warrior would usually travel with multiple horses, allowing him ... |
Why are Lagrangian points only limited to the orbital plane? | No, there are no such points. So the whole Lagrangian points are only relevant in a rotating reference frame so that's what we're going to use. There are three forces present. Gravitational force towards each of the two bodies and the centrifugal force (centrifugal force is very real in our reference frame, don't go on about pointing how it's not a real force). The sum of these three need to be zero for the object to be stationary. Centrifugal force is always parallel to the plane of rotation, not directly away from the central body. And obviously the two gravitational forces are directly towards the two bodies. If you are out of the orbital plane, then you have two forces with a component towards the orbital plane and the centrifugal force is parallel to it so it has no such component. Thus the sum of the forces can't be zero, there's nothing to cancel that component of the gravitational force towards the orbital plane. | [
"Lagrangian points are the constant-pattern solutions of the restricted three-body problem. For example, given two massive bodies in orbits around their common barycenter, there are five positions in space where a third body, of comparatively negligible mass, could be placed so as to maintain its position relative ... |
why is there speculation about 9/11? why do some believe that the us government knew about it beforehand? | Because if we have no control over our world, things would be scary.
You'll notice that people who think the government are ultra-meticulous masterminds also accuse them of amazingly inept when talking about other grievances. | [
"Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether \"The Oil Factor\" and 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or allowing them to take place. For instance,... |
Fight or flight is controlled by the adrenal glands (atop the kidneys). Does someone who has had kidney transplants lose this response? | there are a few misunderstandings in your question. innervation of adrenal glands do not originate in the kidneys. their removal does not prevent innervation (but does affect adrenal function). secondly, you are right that some nerve connections do not regenerate but that is isolated for the most part to central nerves (ie. brain and spinal). in fact, we study peripheral nerves in attempt to learn and induce regrowth in central nerves. it's an ongoing and very complicated field of research.
back to hampering adrenal function during a kidney removal. the architecture of the body is not identical on either side. the right-side kidney empties into the inferior vena cava whereas the left-side kidney empties into the left adrenal vein. because removal of the left kidney would necessitate clamping off the left adrenal vein, the function of the left adrenal gland would be severely hampered. removal of the right kidney would not have that effect as it drains directly into the inferior vena cava and does not need to be clamped off. | [
"This downregulation of sympathetic nervous system reactivity is also believed to be accompanied by a compensatory increase in a number of opposing organs and systems. Although these are not as well specified various candidates for such \"organs\" have been proposed: the parasympathetic system as a whole, the septa... |
why don't porn sites end with .xxx instead of .com? | The .xxx domain only came up a few years ago. Most major porn websites existed long before.
They could in theory have their old .com just redirect to an .xxx version, but why bother really? Nothing stops them continuing as-is. | [
"Around late 2000, when ICANN discussed and finally introduced aero, biz, coop, info, museum, name, and pro TLDs, site owners argued that a similar TLD should be made available for adult and pornographic websites to settle the dispute of obscene content on the Internet and the responsibility of US service providers... |
Does anything exist in between solar systems? | Yes, the so called [interstellar medium](_URL_1_), which is made of hot and cold gas, cosmic rays and dust particles. There are also [rogue planets](_URL_0_) and rogue comets between the stars, if you don't consider them as own systems. Similarly to the interstellar medium, there is a [intergalactic medium](_URL_2_) primarily made of very hot gas. | [
"At present, few systems have been found to be analogous to the Solar System with terrestrial planets close to the parent star. More commonly, systems consisting of multiple Super-Earths have been detected.\n",
"orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a ... |
Is there historical doubt of the "historical Muhammad"? | From my Early Islamic History class, what I would say is that there is no doubt that there was a very charismatic man named Muhammad whose general life story (somewhat successful business man, left for Medina, returned to Mecca, etc) is not in doubt. He died in 632 or so and by 634 you already have the "Muslims" (unclear to what extent this was developed as its own religion, my professor actually thought that early Islam was in fact less its own religion rather than a rigorist monotheist apocalyptic movement that embraced Jews, Christians, and newly monotheistic Arabs) attacked Persian and Byzantium/Eastern Roman Empire.
What is in doubt are many of the sayings in the Koran, which were compile in the next century, and especially the hadith, which were the sayings of Muhammad that were collected ~200 years later. While there is no specific reason to doubt any of these, and they were rigorously examined to prove their accuracy at the time they were collected (they each have a transmission chain of X told by Y who heard from Z who was with the Prophet when...) you do have to deal with the fact that they were collected and written down much later (although, as I said above, this doesn't mean they aren't true). | [
"While the existence of Muhammad is established by contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous historical records, attempts to distinguish between the historical elements and the ahistorical elements of many of the reports of Muhammad have not been very successful. Hence the historicity of Muhammad, aside from his exis... |
Do we have any actual clue on what happened to the Vikings in Greenland after 1408? | There's a Denmark-based international research group that's been pushing *hard* at this question in the last 5-10 years (although the project goes back to 1982 or something nuts like that); *Journal of the North Atlantic* has had a few special issues devoted to archaeological and paleobotanical research from various angles.
Earlier presumptions of a high medieval shift to a marine-based (hunting/fishing) diet instead of livestock have been confirmed, along with some evidence of attempts at cereal agriculture that were similarly abandoned in the 13th-14th century (Ledger et al. 2014). So the Greenlanders were adapting to whatever the changing conditions (environmental, trade) were throwing at them--while it was still useful for them to hold on.
Traditional and bioarchaeological work has shown a couple things that point to Greenland being just "not worth it" for 15th century residents. First, we've known for awhile (Berglund 1986) that basically no valuable items (personal seals, rings, weapons) were left behind. Scholars now see this as evidence of purposeful abandonment and taking their valuables with them.
Second, Lynnerup 2014 argues for gradual decline rather than sudden collapse. That is, that over the course of the 14C in particular, environmental and economic conditions made Greenland less attractive to new immigrants (there are fewer and fewer female skeletons found) and made *emigration* more attractive (new and improved opportunities in Iceland; changing trade patterns and economic conditions after the Black Death and new trade routes). | [
"The book \"Norse Greenland: Viking Peasants in the Arctic\" (Routledge, 2018) discusses how a community of 2000–3000 Viking peasants survived in Arctic Greenland for 430 years (ca. 985–1415), and why they finally disappeared.\n",
"Archaeological evidence shows that over the next hundred years the last Norse sett... |
why did old-timey western saloons have swinging doors ? | Hollywood exaggerated their prevalence considerably. Most saloons of old had normal full length doors, and were very small inside. Basically a closed hallway with a bar on one side. Real estate was very expensive and a huge bar with tables all over was very rare.
The "batwing" style doors were almost never used as a front door. They used them between the kitchen and the seating area, and are still in prevalence today (though the swinging doors from the kitchen are usually full length, now). This is so staff can go through the doors no problem with both their hands full. Some bars indeed had swinging front doors for staff to carry cases of booze through, however they generally had full length doors as well that they would keep open during business hours, but close at night and during inclement weather. | [
"A pair of \"batwing\" doors at the entrance was one of the more distinctive features of the typical saloon. The doors operated on double action hinges and extended from chest to knee level. Further in the American West, some sold liquor from wagons, and saloons were often formed of materials at hand, including \"s... |
how do pit stops work in racing ? do you lose your spot | Yes you do lose your spot but in long races with stops allowed there is a strategy involved with doing them, a car that plans to do a certain number of pit stops can refuel, meaning they can carry less fuel during the race which will make the car lighter, they can also change the tires which will make it handle better on corners. A car that doesn't pit stop runs the risk of having lighter cars pass it, or it messing up a tight turn because of worn out tires or other things that mess up during the race like brakes. Also all the cars will end up pit stopping some time during the race so there are chances to catch up. | [
"The pit-crew also has a deciding factor in each race because the more funds are applied into it, the faster they work when in pit stops. The pit stop events are controlled by the player, when a car has the need to go in for a pit stop the player controls one of the mechanics in the pits, which changes the tires on... |
When did we move away from the notion of "primitive" peoples? | It's interesting to look across historical sub-disciplines, because one of the things you notice is that various fields are at different stages of epistemological and theoretical maturity. For example, western European medievalists often consider the Byzantine field to be approximately 20 years behind in this regard.
There are many reasons why a field can "fall behind" - the Byzantinists, for example, have a significantly steeper learning curve with respect to required languages for study (reading proficiency in at least 8), which sets the bar significantly higher. More important, however, is the silo-ing off of subdisciplines. I just attended a talk in the classics dept, for example, where a person presented her revolutionary thesis on the mental construction of law and social groups in 6th century Constantinople, something that medievalists have been talking about forever.
All this serves as a long preamble to this: I don't think academia has, as a whole, moved away from the notion of "primitive peoples", even if it has become a more marginal view. Different disciplines and sub-disciplines move at different rates.
| [
"Through history, successful civilizations have spread, taking over more and more territory, and assimilating more and more previously-uncivilized people. Nevertheless, some tribes or people remain uncivilized even to this day. These cultures are called by some \"primitive\", a term that is regarded by others as pe... |
why do animals have so many different shapes of pupil and colours of iris? | The eye is actually fairly uncomplicated from an evolutionary perspective. It only takes a few thousand years to grow, and every small evolution is a massive advantage
Dawkins did a great presentation on "what use is half an eye": _URL_0_ | [
"Goats have horizontal, slit-shaped pupils. Because goats' irises are usually pale, their contrasting pupils are much more noticeable than in animals such as cattle, deer, most horses and many sheep, whose similarly horizontal pupils blend into a dark iris and sclera.\n",
"In humans, the pupil is round, but other... |
if the us congress has less than a 10% approval rating, why haven't we fired them? | A great many people believe that "their guy" is the only good one in congress. Since that's the only one they CAN vote for, he gets reelected, and the electorate continues to complain about all the "other guys". | [
"Since 2006, Congress has dropped 10 points in the Gallup confidence poll with only 9% having \"a great deal\" or \"quite a lot\" of confidence in their legislators. Since 2011, Gallup poll has reported Congress's approval rating among Americans at 10% or below three times. Public opinion of Congress plummeted furt... |
If differences in human phenotypes such as skin colour, hair colour, etc. are due to clinal adaptation, what clines lead to the development of East-Asian slanted eyes? | The explantation for epicanthus is that Central Asian steppes, the area where proto-Mongoloids origated, were very dusty with common dust storms and the epicanthus helped them to protect their vision. But it's also possible that it was a random mutation and an example of the founder effect.
Because epicanthus doesn't occur only in Mongoloid-descended populations, but also in some tribes in Africa, like the Sudanese Dinkas and some Bushmen. But the Malagasy people on Madagascar have it from Mongoloids, since the first settlers there were Austronesians who originally came from Taiwan. | [
"In Eurasia, modern humans acquired adaptive introgression from archaic humans, which provided a source of advantageous genetic variants that are adapted to local environments and a reservoir for additional genetic variation. Adaptive introgression from Neanderthals have targeted genes involved with keratin filamen... |
®, ©, and ™ | © indicates the owner and copyright properties of a creative work. For example, if I drew a picture in 2009, I could say © mustardgreens 2009, and then list the specific copyright restrictions.
® indicates an officially registered trademark. e.g. [McDonald's®, I'm lovin' it®](_URL_1_)
™ indicates a registered or unregistered trademark. e.g. [McDonald's™, I'm lovin' it™](_URL_0_)
In the examples above ® and ™ are interchangeable. But if McDonald's wanted to come out with a new slogan, for example "Where smiles happen", they would have to use ™ instead of ® until the trademark is officially registered.
Note that trademarks only apply to *products*, not services. If you invent a chemical that cleans computer CPUs, you could trademark the chemical or the name of the chemical. But if you want to offer a cleaning service with the chemical, you need to use the Service Mark symbol: ℠
**tl;dr** ® and ™ are mostly interchangeable. © is for attributing art and shit.
Bonus for windows users: Alt+02222 = ®, Alt+0153 = ™
And for other curious cereal box perusers, the dagger mark † indicates a footnote in the same way as an asterisk *. | [
"Licensing means renting or leasing of an intangible asset. It is a process of creating and managing contracts between the owner of a brand and a company or individual who wants to use the brand in association with a product, for an agreed period of time, within an agreed territory. Licensing is used by brand owner... |
I want to actually learn physics. What math or (other classes) should I take first? | The basics: algebra, geometry
Beyond the basics: calculus
Starting to actually understand things: vector calculus, differential equations, linear algebra
Going in deeper: partial differential equations, group theory (never took this myself) | [
"Physics First is an educational program in the USA, that teaches a basic physics course in the ninth grade (usually 15-year-olds), rather than the biology course which is more standard in public schools. This course relies on the limited math skills that the students have from pre-algebra and algebra I. With these... |
nonpolar molecules with polar bonds? | ELI20: It comes down to geometry. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is such an example, with the C=O bonds each having a dipole moment, but because of the linear geometry of the molecule, the dipole moments cancel each other out and you’re left with a net zero dipole moment — i.e. a nonpolar molecule.
A slightly more complex example is methane (CH4). Each C–H bond has its own dipole moment, but the symmetric geometry of the molecule (tetrahedral) makes the dipole moments cancel.
ELI5: Think of it like a seesaw. If you and your (identically-sized) friend are sitting at equivalent positions on your own ends of the seesaw (molecule), you balance each other! This situation is “nonpolar”. But if one of you moves forward or backwards, it becomes unbalanced and there is now a “polarity”.
Ditto for a four-way seesaw (is that a thing?). As long as you and your friends are sitting in equivalent spots with each other, you can balance the 4saw (molecule) and keep it nonpolar. But if even one of you moves out of the right spot, that creates an imbalance, and the 4saw is now polar. | [
"Bonds can fall between one of two extremesbeing completely nonpolar or completely polar. A completely nonpolar bond occurs when the electronegativities are identical and therefore possess a difference of zero. A completely polar bond is more correctly called an ionic bond, and occurs when the difference between el... |
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