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government deficit spending like how the us did during the great depression. how can a government spend money it doesn't have? | The same way anyone or any organization does: the government borrows it from other people.
When you buy a government bond, that's lending the government money. | [
"In the late 1920s and early 1930s, during the height of the Great Depression, many economists (most prominently John Maynard Keynes) tried to persuade governments that increased government spending would mitigate the situation and reduce unemployment. In the United Kingdom, the staff of the Chancellor of the Exche... |
This week's theme: Oral History | Wew, not a whole lot of answers this round. Shame too, a lot of these questions were pretty good :\ | [
"The NAMM Oral History program is unique, unlike any other collection in the world. The heart of the collection is the depth of its narratives that cover innovative creations, the evolution of musical instruments, the ever-changing world of music retail, as well as our collective quest to improve music education ar... |
How is magnetized plasma created and what kind of gasses produce them? | The gases can be most anything. Hydrogen (including its fusion-fuel isotopes deuterium and/or tritium) or helium are common choices. Storage generally requires some sort of magnetic confinement. A toroidal magnetic field geometry such as in a [tokamak](_URL_1_) is a common choice, though there are other geometries, such as [stellarators](_URL_0_).
In tokamaks, plasma is often made by pumping the chamber full of neutral gas and then sending current through a central coil, discharging in the medium. This acts to heat the medium (through Ohmic heating) as well as generates a toroidal magnetic field in the plasma. Alternatively, plasma can be heated by propagating energetic neutral beams into the medium or using some sort of radio-frequency or microwave heating.
Alternatively, you can also make magnetized plasma in the laboratory by zapping matter with an intense laser beam. One way of generating magnetic fields in such plasma is to produce misaligned gradients in electron density and electron temperature, causing a thermoelectric magnetic field to grow in the medium. These magnetic fields can be quite large, up to ~10^9 Gauss in the case of the highest intensity lasers interacting with solid-density matter.
Edit: added some links | [
"In the pioneering experiment, Los Alamos National Laboratory's FRX-L, a plasma is first created at low density by transformer-coupling an electric current through a gas inside a quartz tube (generally a non-fuel gas for testing purposes). This heats the plasma to about (~2.3 million degrees). External magnets conf... |
Where does sediments comes from? | Sediment deposition somewhere is the product of erosion somewhere else. Imagine a mountain with a stream flowing down the side of it that eventually flows into a lake. Rocks are weathered (broken down into smaller bits by physical and chemical processes at the Earth's surface) and then the products of that weathering (sediment) are eroded (transported away from their initial location by some process, usually at least in part driven by gravity) by the stream and carried into the lake. The ability of the water to carry sediment is dictated by the flow speed of the water (which is largely driven by gravity) so once the water (with the sediment it's carrying) enters the lake, it slows down and the sediment falls out of suspension and is deposited. When that sediment is deposited it obviously begins to displace water (i.e. if you had a glass of water and poured some sand into it, the water level would go up), but there are a couple of processes acting to limit the amount by which the water would go up in a natural system. The first is [compaction](_URL_0_), basically as more sediment is deposited, the weight of the overlying sediment squeezes the sediment below it and forces gaps in the sediment (i.e. little air pockets we call pore space) to close. Additionally, as the weight of the sediment increases, [isostasy](_URL_1_) will cause the whole column of rock to sink a little bit, effectively lowering the elevation of the top of the sediment (i.e. the bottom of the lake). Eventually, even with compaction and isostasy, the lake could fill up with sediment, forcing the water to spill over into whatever the next lowest area is and sediment would begin to 'bypass' this former site of deposition and fill in a new area and may even start to erode this former site of deposition. All of this is balanced by the amount of erosion upstream (i.e. mass is conserved, you're just moving material from one place to another). | [
"Before being deposited, sediments are formed by weathering of earlier rocks by erosion in a source area and then transported to the place of deposition by water, wind, ice, mass movement or glaciers (agents of denudation). Mud rocks comprise 65% (mudstone, shale and siltstone); sandstones 20 to 25% and carbonate r... |
how come cats get stuck in trees and need to be rescued? could they get down on their own given enough time? | Cat claws are designed for climbing up. A cat is not a squirrel. Squirrels can climb up, down, and sideways, always headfirst, no problem. But a cat has to climb with her head up to avoid falling, and once she’s up, the only way down is to back down. A cat that's exhausted, scared, or injured can't make that climb, and sometimes the cat just has trouble figuring it out.
There have been cats that have eventually become too weak to climb down, and even after being rescued, have died later of the effects of starvation, dehydration, or exposure.
We don’t see cat skeletons in trees because Kitty becomes too weak to hold on, lets go, and falls. If the kitty were to actually die in a tree, they'd be picked apart by scavengers, insects, and then wind pretty quickly, and what was left wouldn't stay intact or in a tree very long. How many bird skeletons have you seen in trees? Truth is, skeletons just don't last long up in the elements. | [
"CH cats don't understand that they are disabled, so they will not be self-inhibited from trying to climb or descend. Prevention of injuries requires careful consideration of the specific hazards posed by where they live and their potential abilities. Some cats that cannot walk well or jump, can still climb extreme... |
why do most foods taste better when drunk or high? | in very simple terms, weed blocks certain neurotransmitter reuptake. so, if your brain sends a signal that something tastes good, that signal will have a hard time turning off. so, that "this tastes good" signal will just keep firing.
| [
"The drink is a particular phenomenon as its taste is quite different from the taste of its constituent liquids which are rather bitter. The chemical structures of both ingredients are of a similar molecular shape and attract each other, shielding the bitter taste.\n",
"For an aperitif, flavoured dry wine or spar... |
why do we react with anger upon hurting ourselves? | Our brain has a complex reward system that is activated both when we receive a reward (food, money, etc.) and when we make an error.
Error detection is extremely important for our survival. For example, if touching a plant gives you a rash, you won't want to touch that plant anymore.
Because of this need, the areas of the brain associated with error detection have connections with e area associated with emotions.
So, take for example a game where you are told to push the letter on your keyboard that appears on the screen and you receive $1 for every correct button push and -$1 for every incorrect button push. When you correctly press a button, the reward system is activated (even if you haven't received the money yet) and if you press the incorrect button, and realized your mistake, the error detection system will activate emotional areas causing anger. These negative emotions make you less likely to make the same mistake again.
Source: I'm a Cognitive Neuroscience student | [
"Anger can potentially mobilize psychological resources and boost determination toward correction of wrong behaviors, promotion of social justice, communication of negative sentiment, and redress of grievances. It can also facilitate patience. In contrast, anger can be destructive when it does not find its appropri... |
what's the deal with muslims in the u.k.? | > DailyMail
> The Sun
If the story is from one of these sources, it is guaranteed to be at least 80% fiction and gross exageration
> Telegraph
> Guardian
If the story is from one of these sources, it is heavily biased and slanted to the right (telegraph) or left (guardian). Facts will be interspersed with lots of inference and suggestive conjecture.
While this story is, to an as yet unknown extent, true and being investigated, the other stories about Sharia law being implemented are complete nonsense. Just because it comes from a UK newspaper doesn't make it trustworthy at all.
Also, these problems are almost entirely specific to certain urban areas in England^1 (other parts of the UK have much lower immigration and/or smaller, quieter existing muslim communities), where there is a lot of muslim radicalisation going on. It's not even so much immigration (which is very, very difficult if you're not from the EU e.g. Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.) as it is easier access to extremist ideologies designed to warp impressionable minds.
But it's important to not develop an understanding of the situation from newspapers which, as we in Britain can easily recognise, are either biased or complete bullshit. FT, The Times, The Herald, BBC are all much more balanced reporting.
1. parts of Birmingham, Bradford and London are the most noteworthy. | [
"Unlike many Muslims in Europe, American Muslims overall do not tend to feel marginalized or isolated from political participation and have often adopted a politically proactive stance. Several organizations were formed by the American Muslim community to serve as \"critical consultants\" on U.S. policy regarding I... |
Can someone please explain medically what Lance Armstrong took and how he got away with it? | He has been accused by the US Anti-Doping Agency of using erythropoietin and steroids. Erythropoietin (EPO) makes your body make more red blood cells, which increases how much oxygen your blood can carry and, to a lesser extent, how much CO2 it can carry away. This increases aerobic capacity greatly. Steroids, well you know what they do, increase muscle mass, etc.
The effect was not subtle and times have been about 10% slower after crackdowns on doping, which is an enormous difference.
EPO and steroids have severe health risks, so it is vital to the safety of the athletes themselves that they are not allowed or feel forced to use these agents. EPO thickens the blood-
"Yes, EPO has its dangers. EPO injections thicken the blood, which increases the strain on the heart. This is particularly dangerous when the heart rate slows down, such as during sleep. The increased thickness, or viscosity, of the blood increases the risk of blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes. According to the book "The death of Marco Pantani" by Matt Rendell, **some cyclists reportedly set an alarm each night to wake up and cycle on a trainer for ten minutes to jump-start their circulation and reduce the possible health risks of using EPO.**"
_URL_0_ | [
"BULLET::::- Lance Armstrong was in August 2012 - despite of not having confessed any guilt yet — given a lifetime ban by USADA for doping with EPO, testosterone and human growth hormones in 1996, and EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone throughout 1998-2005, and having a positive indication of \"blo... |
Is freezing a feasible way to separate Heavy Water from Light Water? | This effect is known as isotopic fractionation. Using water as an example, the heavy isotopes (deuterium, tritium, oxygen-17 and oxygen-18) tend to favour the solid phase during freezing. The ice becomes enriched in heavy isotopes and the leftover liquid is depleted in heavy isotopes. However the difference is very very small, therefore this would not be a practical way of manufacturing heavy water. You could work out theoretically how many times you would need to freeze, melt and refreeze water to get a decent concentration of heavy water, but it's getting late so I will think about it more tomorrow. | [
"Some applications use the thermal capacity of water or ice as cold storage; others use it as heat storage. It can serve either application; ice can be melted to store heat then refrozen to warm an environment which is below freezing (putting liquid water at 0°C in such an environment warms it much more than the sa... |
when using a debit card, why do some merchants require me to enter a pin, sign a receipt, or simply swipe? | I can't remember the last time I swiped my card or signed a receipt.
In the UK it's pretty much chip and pin or contactless. | [
"Some consumers prefer \"credit\" transactions because of the lack of a fee charged to the consumer/purchaser. A few debit cards in the U.S. offer rewards for using \"credit\". However, since \"credit\" transactions cost more for merchants, many terminals at PIN-accepting merchant locations now make the \"credit\" ... |
what do insurance companies mean when they say "you can save $x when you switch to this company."? | It's typically an annual savings amount. However, they only mention that "those who switch save $X", but they never mention what percentage of people who contact them for a quote actually switch. Maybe it's only a specific demographic that saves a lot and thus chooses to switch, while the vast majority realize they are getting a better deal with their current company. | [
"Insurance companies themselves, as well as self-insuring employers, purchase stop-loss coverage for a premium to protect themselves. In the case of a participant reaching more than the specific (or \"individual\") stop-loss deductible ($300,000, for example), the insurer will reimburse the insured (the company, no... |
Why does lithium not form a strong base, and florine a strong acid? | The main difference between lithium and fluorine and the rest of the members of their groups is atomic size.
In general, atomic/ionic radii increase as you move down any group in the periodic table (because heavier elements have more electrons taking up space). Because lithium and fluorine lie at the top of their respective groups, they are significantly smaller than the other members of the group. When they form ions, the charge density is correspondingly higher - A F^- ion is like a small, 'hard' baseball of negative charge, while an I^- ion is like a giant 'soft' beach ball where the negative charge is dispersed over a much larger radius.
In order to act as an acid or base (in the Arrhenius sense), a compound like HF has to dissociate into H^+ and F^-, both dissolved in aqueous solution. But the concentrated negative charge of F^- favours bonding to the charged H^+ ion, over dissolution in the merely polar water. The less concentrated negative charge of I^-, however, is more similar to the water, and so dissolves and dissociates much more easily. More dissociation = stronger acid.
LiOH behaves in a similar way, where it needs to dissociate into Li^+ and OH^- to act as a base.
As for francium and astatine, we would actually expect them to behave quite similarly to caesium and iodine, respectively, forming the strong base FrOH and the strong acid HAt. However, since both of these elements are so radioactive and unstable, experimental verification is challenging, and we don't have much data to confirm this. | [
"Like the other alkali metals, lithium has a single valence electron that is easily given up to form a cation. Because of this, lithium is a good conductor of heat and electricity as well as a highly reactive element, though it is the least reactive of the alkali metals. Lithium's low reactivity is due to the proxi... |
what is the significance of the u.s. losing the contract giving them authority over internet ip addresses? | They have not lost anything. They are contemplating releasing control of it over to the UN. That has not happened yet. | [
"BULLET::::- The concept of legal ownership of IP addresses as property is explicitly denied by ARIN and RIPE NCC policy documents and by the ARIN Registration Services Agreement, although ownership rights have been postulated based on a letter from the National Science Foundation General Counsel. NSF later indicat... |
When and why did trousers become the standard garment for European men? | My knowledge doesn't go back as far as their invention, but there's a great deal of discussion over the ancient usage of split leg garments in the other links already provided. As for trousers as we know them today, they begin to appear around the early 18th century. Prior to that you have hose, a fitted full leg garment that is more like a pair of non-stretch tights that have two separated legs. By the mid 16th century you see things like pumpkin hose, or what will develop into breeches in the late 17th century. Essentially a separation of the leg covering to sections above the knee and below the knee.
Trousers themselves start out as a [sailors garment](_URL_2_). A very common runaway ad will read that they wore a "sailors jacket and trousers", a dead give away as to where they came from. Around 1750 trousers begin to show up more commonly in written references like court documents, without reference to sailors. Used mostly by the laboring class or military (gaiter trousers, for example), they really weren't accepted to be "fashionable" until the very late 18th century. While there is a lot of speculation that the French Revolution and the Sans Culottes (those that did not wear breeches, but trousers) caused this shift, it's very likely it would have occurred regardless. There was already a strong trend for country dress than began occurring in the 1780s with chemise gowns and other, almost nostalgic, clothing styles. While British and French fashion were closely tied, one did not ever wholly change the other. An exchange of ideas constantly occurred and each made the concept their own. To be honest, with as much distaste of French fashion as you see in British satire of [rich](_URL_3_) and [poor](_URL_1_), it's hard to believe that they would take up trousers solely because of the revolutionaries trends. Those that did take up French fashions during this time were [even mocked](_URL_0_). The British are still wearing breeches above all else in the 1790s, trousers becoming more common for day wear in the 1810s. It isn't really until the 1830s that breeches fade out (with the exception of court wear) and trousers are accepted in most situations, formal or casual, in both England and France. | [
"In most of Europe, trousers have been worn since ancient times and throughout the Medieval period, becoming the most common form of lower-body clothing for adult males in the modern world. Breeches were worn instead of trousers in early modern Europe by some men in higher classes of society. Distinctive formal tro... |
In Medieval Europe, women were considered inherently lustful and prone to sexual sin. Would modern stereotypes of male sexual appetite apply to them? | No. Latin medieval culture could, and did, spin a fancy tale of the devil seducing Eve seducing Adam, and the humoral composition of women making them "leaky" and "open" to demonic influence. They made up theological and biological backing for this teaching.
Popular comic literature came down equally hard on both sexes, each in their turn. Canon lawyers ruled that husbands and wives owed each other sex on demand ([within Church limits, of course](_URL_0_))
But when it came down to actual, on the ground practice: women might well be accused of being sluts, sure. In one of the texts I work with, widow Katharina Tucher has a vision of Christ calling her, essentially, a ho. Men, on the other hand? Could be *rapists*. Of course, the standards for conviction were ridiculously and hatefully high. This does not change that medieval people understood the force to come from men in cases that they did see as rape.
Thomas Aquinas wrote that prostitution was sinful but women prostitutes might well be tolerated, *because men can't control themselves* and otherwise would corrupt good women. His words can't be compartmentalized off as "normative," either. Legal brothels in late medieval cities hosted women prostitutes, not men.
The medieval stereotype of the lusty women was a convenient veneer for and form of for misogyny. The late 20th-century figure of the "player" is aspirational. | [
"Medieval women were assumed to be far more insatiable than men and a woman's lust would have been considered her ultimate sin. She was believed to receive far more pleasure from a sexual encounter than men and reach her sexual readiness far earlier than men. Perceived as more sexually mature than males, women were... |
eli15 sn1 and sn2 reactions and their differences. | Basically, SN1 favors stability, and SN2 favors a quick attack. If you have a large structure with many carbons attached to it, and/or with many conjugated bonds (which also increase stability) See benzene, SN1 will likely be favored thermodynamically. There are still reactions with SN2 models on larger compounds, but they are less common and will probably not be tested over.
SN2 would not be favored in the in large bulky compounds because of steric hindrance. SN2 does that back attack thing remember? It likes to shoot in really fast and not bump into anything on it's way. SN2 favors a strong nucleophile (negatively charged) which basically attacks the nucleus (positively charged) quickly.
There are reactions that you can do at low temperatures that will favor SN1 because of it's love for stability and a thermodynamically favorable product, but will favor SN2 at high temperatures. Why? Well SN2 is fast and doesn't care about stability, and SN1 is slow and careful. Edit: To clarify this section, slowing down the reaction will favor the formation of thermodynamically stable products, while speeding up a reaction favors the product that forms most quickly.
So in a most basic sense, if you see a very stable molecule and/or a weak nucleophile, it will be SN1. If you see a unstable molecule as you carbo-cation and/or a strong nucleophile (strong base in most cases) it will be SN2 because a quick reaction will take place. Solvent is also important, but I can't go into that because it's been too long. Something about polar protic/aprotic or something. Good luck and I hope that helps clear things up. | [
"The S1 reaction is a substitution reaction in organic chemistry. \"S\" stands for \"nucleophilic substitution\", and the \"1\" says that the rate-determining step is unimolecular. Thus, the rate equation is often shown as having first-order dependence on electrophile and zero-order dependence on nucleophile. This ... |
What is the limit of the size of an element's atomic nucleus? Could a neutron star be considered an element? | A neutron star is held together by gravity, not by the strong nuclear force.
Any normal element's nucleus is held together by the strong nuclear force.
Pretty much every element at the edge of the periodic table is unstable and only exists for a fraction of a second before it breaks apart... so take a look at the periodic table, and that will give you an idea of the limit.
I've read about predictions of stable elements beyond the highest currently known elements [here.](_URL_0_)
But these have yet to be confirmed. | [
"In 2010 it was estimated that the neutron star's mass was at least formula_1, and possibly as high as formula_2 (the latter of which, if true, would surpass PSR J1614−2230 for the title of most massive neutron star yet detected, and place it within range of the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit).\n",
"With a mass... |
What caused Celtic languages in the British Isles to develop phonemes like Bh (V), Mh (W), and Y in place of U, when their conquerors who exposed them to the Latin alphabet didn’t? | The use of the 'h' to represent a *séimhiú* (the lenition of a consonant) is relatively new. Traditionally Irish was written in Gaelic script (which some enthusiasts still use) which, while still clearly based on the Roman alphabet, is different enough from regular letters to take a while to get used to. Traditional Gaelic script does not use the 'h's, it instead uses a little dot above the consonant in question. Irish went through a spelling reform in the late 1940s and a move to using modern script happened more or less at around the same time - the letter 'h' was a convenient option to replace the dot. To consider this nonsensical, if I may, is somewhat anglo-centric. More on the 'h' later.
This [story](_URL_0_) was written down as part of the 1931 Schools' Folklore Collection. (A fascinating project in itself, but somewhat outwith the scope of this question). You can see several instances of the use of little dots (the dot is called a *buailte*) on the first line. For comparison, there is a transcription (using the 'h's and modern lettering) on the right hand side. There are many other examples (and many English-language texts also) if you have a browse around the website.
[This](_URL_1_) link should take you to an Old Irish manuscript (circa 14C). I cannot understand it (it is significantly different from modern Irish), but you can see that, to complicate matters, some of the 'dots' look like little 'h's - the sound mutation involved is sometimes described as a 'softening' of the consonant, but is mostly more of an 'aspiration', a breathing-through of the letter, so using a little 'h' actually kinda makes sense. | [
"Little is known about the introduction of Celtic languages to the British Isles, though an increase in Mediterranean/Neolithic derived DNA into southern England during the Iron age suggests that a more southern influenced population than that of the Rhine Beaker Peoples was introduced. Celtic speakers associated w... |
when people "catch the holy spirit" and start freaking out in church, what's that all about? | I suggest you watch this [Derren Brown](_URL_0_) special.
Basically, it's a result of suggestibility coupled with their belief of how they're supposed to react. Firstly, people who attend these congregations already have a bias to believe in this sort of thing (self selection). Secondly, when they are touched, or "healed", or whatever, they are essentially being called up on stage. Once they are in this situation, coupled with their likely suggestibility, they have two options:
1. They could stand there and not move or do anything awkwardly, or
2. They can start speaking in tongues or spasm as they are *expected* to do.
Check out [this](_URL_1_) video to see how people can do things they wouldn't otherwise, without actually ever being *forced* to do it.
The same principle applies to stage hypnotists. A good "hypnotist" selects audience members that are the most suggestible. It is, as you state, a sort of "act". The members may feel regret later, **but in the heat of the moment, they may have found it too uncomfortable to let everybody down.**
Edit: I neglected to mention that the person can genuinely believe in their experience (our brains take advantage of different coping mechanisms during intense experiences). The person speaking in tongues isn't necessarily being insincere. However, their behavior is a result of the pressure they feel (external *or* internal). After all, we're all participating in the "act" we call "life". | [
"\"We believe that we have a right to revelations, visions, and dreams from God, our heavenly Father; and light and intelligence, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus Christ, on all subjects pertaining to our spiritual welfare; if it so be that we keep his commandments, so as to render ourselves... |
how does the sun's heat reach us if there's so little matter to transfer it in space? | It doesn't transfer through conduction or convection, but radiation. It travels in the form of infrared photons, which are emitted directly from the sun radiate outwards. | [
"Here on earth, the sun delivers lots of bounce, and the atmosphere surrounds it with a wall that reflects the energy back in. In outer space, however, there’s nothing — a vacuum — and the bounce all disappears very quickly, leaving very little moving. Lack of motion means little heat, and almost no transfer — very... |
Did Romans know about elephants before the Punic Wars, or were they a completely new animal to them? | The Romans faced war elephants a few years before the First Punic War. In 280 B.C. Pyrrhus brought 20 war elephants from Greece to Rome. As Cassius Dio (via Zonaras) reports in [book IX](_URL_0_):
> Now Pyrrhus set out, not even awaiting the coming of spring, taking along a large, picked army, and twenty elephants, beasts never previously beheld by the Italians; hence they were invariably filled with alarm and astonishment.
Before the battle, the Roman consul Laevinus made a speech to alleviate fear among his legionaries, fear caused by the reputation of Pyrrhus and the presence of elephants. Pyrrhus kept his elephants in reserve initially. During the battle he used them to counter Roman cavalry which was threatening his rear. The account Cassius Dio / Zonaras gives is quite something:
> Then, indeed, at the sight of the animals, which was out of all common experience, at their frightful trumpeting, and also at the clatter of arms which their riders made, seated in the towers, both the Romans themselves were panic-stricken and their horses became frenzied and bolted, either shaking off their riders or bearing them away. Disheartened at this, the Roman army was turned to flight, and in their rout some soldiers were slain by the men in the towers on the elephants' backs, and others by the beasts themselves, which destroyed many with their trunks and tusks (or teeth) and crushed and trampled under foot as many more.
Keep in mind that Cassius Dio wrote his history in the 2nd century AD, more than four centuries after the battle, and this part was excerpted by Zonaras 1000 years after that. So this shouldn't be taken too literally, but the takeaway is that the Romans didn't manage the first encounter with elephants very well. | [
"By the time of Claudius however, such animals were being used by the Romans in single numbers only – the last significant use of war elephants in the Mediterranean was against the Romans at the battle of Thapsus, 46 BC, where Julius Caesar armed his fifth legion (\"Alaudae\") with axes and commanded his legionarie... |
Did America ever steal tech or knowledge from the Soviet Union? | In the first several years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the leading Russian export was... patents and inventions. Sorry, don't remember the source.
| [
"But the United States found a way to use its opponent's strengths for its own purposes. In the late 1990s, it emerged that many stolen technological secrets were funnelled by an arm of American intelligence to the Soviet Union. The documents were real. They were of versions of the product which contained a critica... |
us citzens, what happens if someone commits a crime in a state and runs to another state that what he has done is not ilegal? | If you commit a crime, and flee across State lines, the United States Federal Government is responsible for returning you to the State in question to face charges. This is accomplished by the US Marshall's. | [
"On January 5, 2018, Nations was sentenced to three years of probation for threatening members of the public in Colorado; however, he was not released since he had an active warrant out on him from another county, back in Indiana. On January 24, Nations was finally transferred to Indiana officials' custody on an un... |
how does a new stock on the market open trading at a price different than it was offered? | The market makers are the first ones to release the stock into the world. The stock is essentially private, controlled by the market makers. They bought it from Twitter at $x, and are now reselling it on the open market. They want to get as much money as possible for their stock.
They initially announced $26/share, but when they started to get offers in, they realized they could charge much more. So, they started feeling out offers, and decided that $45.10 was a good place to start.
Now that it has hit the open market, we will really see what people think about Twitter. | [
"On the English stock exchange, a transaction by which, if a member has sold securities which he fails to deliver on settling day, or any of the succeeding ten days following the settlement, the buyer may give instructions to a stock exchange official to \"buy in\" the stock required. The official announces the qua... |
Is it possible to determine where in Africa modern humans originated? | [National Geographic](_URL_2_): "*Most paleoanthropologists and geneticists agree that modern humans arose some 200,000 years ago in Africa. The earliest modern human fossils were found in Omo Kibish, Ethiopia. Sites in Israel hold the earliest evidence of modern humans outside Africa, but that group went no farther, dying out about 90,000 years ago.*"
[Human Origins Project](_URL_1_) and the [Genografic](_URL_0_) will probably tell us more.
Nothing else so far.
| [
"BULLET::::- 21 September – Scientists report that, based on human DNA genetic studies, all non-African humans in the world today can be traced to a single population that exited Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.\n",
"BULLET::::- Geography Predicts Human Genetic Diversity ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2005) – ... |
why is mediafire still online but megaupload got taken down? | To my understanding, it's because
* Megaupload had tons of illegal uploads and barely anything was being done about it, while MediaFire actively takes down illegal files
* Megaupload was used way more than MediaFire to upload illegal files
| [
"GreatFire has been targeted with distributed denial-of-service attacks that attempt to take down the website by overloading its servers with traffic. In April 2015 it was targeted by a Chinese attack tool named Great Cannon that redirected massive amounts of Internet traffic to servers used by GreatFire.\n",
"Fi... |
Would using a heavier head on a golf club give the ball more distance? | For simplicity, we assume an elastic collision: the kinetic energy of the golf ball is proportional to the kinetic energy of the club, which is a function of its mass times the square of its velocity. While it initially seems that more mass would be beneficial, the force accelerating that mass (you swinging the club) is constant. As force = mass times acceleration, doubling the mass would cut the acceleration (and velocity) in half.
Put simply, KE = 0.5mv^2 , while F (constant) = ma. Looking at the equations we see that to maximize the energy of the golf ball we actually need to *minimize* the mass of the club head, which may seem counter intuitive.
Practically, engineers design club heads to be as light as possible while still retaining their structural characteristics.
tl;dr: Less club head mass = faster golf ball. | [
"It is played using a club similar in appearance to a standard golf driver with a thicker, shorter shaft. The head on a Park Golf club is rarely varied, but the length of stick can change according to the height of the Parker. The club is flat, and only the most skillful Parker can hit the ball in the air.\n",
"C... |
Why is walking/running up a hill so much harder despite physical condition? | When you walk up a flight of stairs or see a gradual hill, your body begins to 'prepare' itself by activating the sympathetic nervous system. This will increase your heart rate and respiratory rate. So even if your a marathon runner, just walking up a few flights of stairs will get your HR/resp rate up. | [
"Nor does sure-footedness imply a head for heights, something that is often stated as a requirement for using mountain paths. In this context, a head for heights means having the ability to negotiate exposed sections of a route without feeling unduly frightened. However, it is no accident that both requirements are... |
why do big websites such as reddit and facebook not require their users to verify their emails? | I recently worked on a project and I had to make this decision, so I'll share my thought process.
First of all, verifying emails takes a long time and a lot of clicks. I'd estimate that 50% of users probably would close the tab if they saw that an email was required on registration.
Second, there's not a huge use for emails. All you can really do with an email address is use it to help a user recover their account, and if a user really cares about their account enough to recover it, they'll add it in an optional step later on anyway.
Basically, requesting an email reduces how many people use your service and it provides very little utility, so it's not worth it for a lot of sites. | [
"The need for email validated identification arises because forged addresses and content are otherwise easily created - and widely used in spam, phishing and other email-based fraud. For example, a fraudster may send a message claiming to be from \"sender@example.com\", with the goal of convincing the recipient to ... |
why do companies like ferrari which advertise minimally still achieve international recognition? | They do advertise. You just don't see it because you aren't the target market.
Have you seen advertisements for audemars piguet, leerjet, lurssen? Probably not. | [
"The automotive industry is a significant part of the Italian manufacturing sector, with over 144,000 firms and almost 485,000 employed people in 2015, and a contribution of 8.5% to Italian GDP. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles or FCA is currently the world's seventh-largest auto maker. The country boasts a wide range of ... |
Does Boxing/MMA headgear protect against trauma? | I'll give this my best shot, since none have answered yet.
The headgear/padding used in most fighting sports are there to protect you from the most serious injuries: skull fractures, fingers/knuckles cracking, wrists breaking. As far as protection from concussions or brain trauma, again it protects against the worst f it.
All safety gear in fighting sports has to allow for enough trauma to allow the fighters to hurt each other enough for a knockout/win. The gear just acts to prevent the athletes from going to the hospital/dying. | [
"BULLET::::- Headgear: Used to protect boxers from soft tissue damage, (bruises, cuts, etc.), during sparring - also used in competition in amateur boxing. Headgear offers no protection from the effects of hard punches (stunning, knockdowns, KOs). It is important that boxers are aware of this otherwise headgear can... |
Can you identify what decade this picture was from based on the clothes worn? | The buildings are probably a better bet.
Context: The image is looking roughly south (the Pacific -- west -- is to the right, Santa Monica -- east -- is to the left). The rings are just south of the famous Santa Monica Pier.
* The two tall buildings by the acrobat's hands look to be the Santa Monica Shores buildings. Note the "3-2-2" pattern of windows/balconies. They're a few blocks south of the Santa Monica Pier. They were built in 1965 and 1966 according to [Emporis](_URL_0_).
* The pier extending out to the ocean would then probably be [Pacific Ocean Park](_URL_1_), which opened in 1958, closed in 1967 and was demolished in the mid 70s.
Guess: No earlier than 1966 and no later than 1975. | [
"\"This room features four figures in clothes that date from the 1873 to early 1880s period. It was typical of the time that some people wore more up-to-date styles than others; whether people wore the very latest fashions depended on their tastes, income and also their age.\"\n",
"Many of the fashion styles and ... |
why is it called hemophilia? | According to _URL_0_
it's using an alternative emphasis on the latter part of the word.
> [philia](_URL_1_) "to love", here with a sense of "tendency to." | [
"Hemophilia, or haemophilia, is an X-linked recessive disorder that impairs the body's control over blood clotting. Haemophilia A and Haemophilia B arise from mutations in the genes for factor VIII and factor IX, respectively. Females with this disease are almost exclusively unaffected, obligate carriers. The mutat... |
My high school history teachers always said that the Manhattan Project scientists had some degree of not knowing what was going to happen during the Trinity Test. How much of these allegations, specifically that some thought they'd light the sky on fire, were true? | There was certainly a lot of uncertainty, but the uncertainty was bounded. Here is a _very_ abridged rundown of what I think the interesting areas of uncertainty were:
* To get it out of the way, _very minor_ uncertainty about whether the test might ignite the atmosphere in a giant fusion reaction. Which is to say, they were almost totally sure that wouldn't happen. [_Almost_ is not _100% certain_](_URL_0_), but they did not really think it was a realistic possibility. But it isn't as uncertain as it sometimes is portrayed.
* They had _considerable_ uncertainty about the efficiency of the implosion mechanism being tested, which meant they had considerable uncertainty about the explosive power of the bomb. The "solid" bet was around 4-5 kilotons of power. The pessimists thought it might not work at all. The "optimists" thought it might be several tens of kilotons. In the end, it was 20 kilotons, which is 4-5X more powerful than they expected. That's not _terrible_ (especially since damage is mostly an issue of order of magnitude; you have to increase the explosive power by a factor of 8 to increase the damage by a factor of 2), but it's still an uncomfortably large factor to be off by when we're talking about a nuclear weapon.
* They had _a lot_ of uncertainty about where the radioactive cloud would go, or how intense it would be. They had monitors and soldiers in nearby towns, ready to evacuate them if the radiation levels got unacceptably high. They didn't end up evacuating anybody but [a considerable area was exposed to fallout](_URL_2_).
* They had a _lot_ of uncertainty about how nearby people would react, whether they would buy their "an ammunition dump" exploded story, and so on. Would their secrecy hold? They hoped so, but there wasn't much they could do about it beyond what they did.
* They had a _fair amount_ of uncertainty about the actual effects of the weapon. They could guess how some of the effects (blast, radiation, pressure) would scale up to kiloton ranges, but they really didn't know. They tried to use instrumentation to gauge it; some of it succeeded in getting good data, while some of it failed (a bunch of it was destroyed by the test itself). This means they went into the bombing of Japan with only a rough idea of what was going to happen to the cities they were dropped on (destroyed, yes, but there are a lot of other details — they [didn't expect so many people would be exposed to acute radiation and survive the initial attack](_URL_1_), for example).
There are other areas one could probe for uncertainty (if you or anyone else have questions, feel free to ask them), but this I think gives a gist of what they were thinking. I think it's important to note that uncertainty exists on a scale, which is to say, it's not all or nothing. In some areas you might have a little uncertainty, in some areas you might have a lot, in some areas you might have none, etc. Separately there are the areas where you don't even know you have uncertainty (the oft-mocked but not-dumb idea of "unknown unknowns"), which can be their own sources of deep uncertainty (an example from Trinity might be, "were there any spies at the Trinity test?", which nobody appears to have even considered at the time; at least one spy, Klaus Fuchs, was present).
The best overall book on the Trinity test is F.M. Szasz, _The Day the Sun Rose Twice_, which has a _lot_ of detail in it. | [
"On July 16, 1945, Bainbridge and his colleagues conducted the Trinity nuclear test. \"My personal nightmare,\" he later wrote, \"was knowing that if the bomb didn't go off or hangfired, I, as head of the test, would have to go to the tower first and seek to find out what had gone wrong.\" To his relief, the explos... |
What, on the atomic level, causes cooling when a gas is expanding? | In order for the gas molecules to expand, it uses energy to push away the surrounding molecules. It loses energy and will therefore be at a lower temperature than the surrounding molecules. Being at a lower temperature will mean that heat will flow from the hotter surroundings to the cold expanded gas.
Also compressing gas doesn't necessarily mean it will increase in temperature. It depends if it is adiabatic compression or isothermal. If it's the former, then it will increase in temperature and then cool down to the same temperature as its surroundings (equilibrium). | [
"where formula_11 is the critical temperature of the substance. So for formula_12, an expansion at constant enthalpy increases temperature as the work done by the repulsive interactions of the gas is dominant, and so the change in energy is negative. But for formula_13, expansion causes temperature to decrease beca... |
How widely used was the French Revolutionary Calendar? | It was VERY widely used. All government documents from that period bear the Republican calendar date. Passports issued use that calendar. Birth certificates.
People were quick to adopt it, too, because it signified that you were favorable to the new Republican regime. Using words like "citoyen(nne)" ("citizen") to address a stranger or as an honorific ("Citizen Boulanger") was another way to show that you were most definitely not monarchist, nope no way.
You can still see some buildings in Paris that have their erection date displayed in Republican calendar terms.
When Paris declared itself independent from France in 1871 during the Commune, they briefly switched back to the Republican calendar to show their ideological roots as from the Revolution.
As for your bonus question... I don't think it was ever intended to make people less religious. I'd love to see contradictory evidence, but I think it was partially symbolic and partially to develop a new labor schedule that was more fair to more people. | [
"The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar was a calendar proposed during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days in 1871 in Paris. Dates in official records at this time use the revolutionary calendar and need \"trans... |
if potatoes are relatively healthy, olive oil is very healthy, and salt isn't that bad for you, why are french fries so terrible? | Potatoes are starch (sugar storage for plants) oil is fat ( energy storage) and salt is actually fine as long as your water consumption is on par.
You end up eating a lot of calories for very little nutritional benefit. | [
"Once a potato has been baked, some people discard the skin and eat only the softer and moister interior, while others enjoy the taste and texture of the crisp skin, which is rich in dietary fiber. Potatoes baked in their skins may lose between 20 and 40% of their vitamin C content because heating in air is slow an... |
"jesus died for our sins" - what exactly does this mean? | The idea as I understand it is thus:
God is perfectly good and perfectly just. Being Good, he loves his creations and wants to bless them and be with them forever. However, being Just, he cannot reward evil. The penalty for transgressions has to be paid.
Jesus had no sin of his own. He took the sins of everyone on himself, making us justified in the eyes of God. And, because Jesus is a part of God (or also God, whatever), sin, death and damnation have no real power over him anyway, so after paying this penalty he came back to life, still as sinless as ever.
Does that help? | [
"In the Jerusalem \"ekklēsia\", from which Paul received this creed, the phrase \"died for our sins\" probably was an apologetic rationale for the death of Jesus as being part of God's plan and purpose, as evidenced in the scriptures. For Paul, it gained a deeper significance, providing \"a basis for the salvation ... |
Is the cell we each started off as still part of our body when we're born? If so, what part of the body is it in? | While I do not know the answer to the question, you have to remember that what would you call the "original" cell of the body. When a cell goes through mitosis, it splits into two. How would you determined which cell was the "original" cell? | [
"One theory is that the three-part body originates from an early common ancestor of all the deuterostomes, and maybe even from a common bilateral ancestor of both the deuterostomes and protostomes. Studies have shown that the gene expression in the embryo share three of the same signaling centers that shape the bra... |
what is a "tontine?" | The money from a tontine is usually put into some sort of interest earning fund. This could be as simple as a savings account or it could mean stocks, bonds, money markets, or many other financial instruments.
Since this money collects interest the amount gets bigger. | [
"A tontine (English pronunciation: ) is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As member... |
how is it decided how far to watch for deer/elk along the freeway? | > At 51 miles am I in the clear and don’t have to worry about it any longer?
You *always* worry about shit jumping out into the road. The sign just tells you "This area has a higher concentration of deer and elk jumping out onto the road than usual, so keep on your toes." You aren't ever "clear" of the danger, and probably the danger lessens to background well before the 50 mile point. It is just a broad swath of a warning. | [
"After 1.1 km the path opens up into a more open area and meets the Greengully Trail that enters from the left (south). The intersection is badly signed. Continue past large open areas on the right (east) where Kangaroos/Wallabies can be seen on a regular basis, just 20 km from the Melbourne CBD. Deer have also bee... |
how big of a plant would you need in a sealed room for enough oxygen to survive? | According to this guy _URL_0_ probably about 400 house plants (he doesnt give more detail) per person.
You might want to google the term Biodome (not the film) for experiments where they have actually tried putting people in sealed environments and using plants to generate the oxygen for them. | [
"With the incorporation of the membrane technology, oxygen plants have outstanding technical characteristics. Membrane oxygen plants are highly reliable due to the absence of moving parts in the gas separation module.\n",
"Membrane oxygen plants are finding increasingly broad application in various industries all... |
- why, exactly, were biggie smalls and tupac so influential? | The characters behind the words play to it as well. Tupac was more than just a rapper; he was a revolutionary, born into a family of revolutionaries. Pac had vision: while many rappers were happy simply living the 'Scarface' lifestyle at the time, Pac wanted more, not just for blacks, but for humanity as a whole. Although in many of his songs it sounds like he just hated the idea of whites ruling blacks, in reality he didn't like the idea of anyone ruling anyone. Remember that at the time, saying something like that wasn't gangsta, and gangsta was what people wanted. As a result, Pac often came across as quite contradictory, releasing songs like Keep Ya Head Up, praising strong women, while also talking about his bitches in other songs, or talking about how we all need to get along in Ghetto Gospel while seemingly advocating violence in Ride On Our Enemies. Pac was a great lyricist, a great rapper, but his message was what mattered most. If it wasn't for that, he would probably just be remembered as a great rapper, but not an icon.
Notorious B.I.G was the East Coast's big star. He may not have had the same level of vision as Pac (although he certainly wasn't merely a 'bitches, bling and guns' rapper), but he was a master of flow and lyrical construction. Even if the themes of his music get boring (and they do to many), there's no doubt that he could write and perform the hell out of a song. The relationship with Pac was a very interesting one as well: originally close friends, paranoia destroyed the relationship after Pac was shot and Biggie released Who Shot Ya? at quite an unfortunate time. Their rivalry was big and nasty, not like the little bullshit Twitter beefs of nowadays, and it helped build their image as 'hip-hop warriors'. Biggie is an artist that you need to *really* analyse to fully appreciate. The best song I can think of is Hypnotize, which is the one that most people know but few really listen to. In it he employs a style that, to this day, very few rappers can pull off... and he does it effortlessly. Even the greats like Nas or Em, who can pull off similar things, just can't do it like Big. He was, like Pac, ahead of his time, even if it was in a different way.
The big thing that many people remember, though, is their deaths. Many have said that if they hadn't died, they wouldn't have the rep they do. That may be true, but there's no way of knowing. The eerie thing was that they both seemed to... know. While recording *The Don Killuminati*, Pac was reported to have been chain smoking, on edge, paranoid, and whenever something went wrong, apparently proclaimed "we don't have the time for this!". And they didn't; Pac was shot dead the month after recording the album. Biggie was a similar case. The dude's first album was called *Ready to Die*, and the final song was him dying. In his songs he often talked about his death, and his second album, released after his death, was titled... *Life After Death*. This album actually formed a turning point for rap; you know how gangsta rap and pop kinda intertwined with artists like 50 Cent? It all started with this. The mystery and apparent premonitions of the rapper's deaths affected how they were seen, and has given them an almost 'divine' aura.
Their deaths were also a big shock in rap. Now a lot of people have died in rap; Big L, ODB, Dolla, Big Pun, Eazy E... I could go on. But they were killed in events separate from hip-hop. Pac and Big's death... it almost seemed to be caused by hip-hop. It's very likely it wasn't; I'm sure that they had mixed with dangerous people, but a lot of people even to this day view the killings as a result of beef in hip-hop. This was a wake-up call, and beef was taken more seriously. Nobody wants another Tupac and Biggie incident, and so their deaths stand as a dark lesson in how bad things can get if beef gets too out of hand.
I'm gonna wrap this up now because I've gone on. Basically, their character, personal lives and deaths all contribute to their reputation as legendary, along with their technical skill. If *anybody* says that either Big or Pac were the greatest to ever live, then that person needs to listen to more hip-hop. There have been better rappers since and better rappers before. They may have been two *of* the best, but the very best? Move on son. I love both, but they are two of the most overrated people in hip-hop in terms of technical skills. If you want to really understand why they're so influential, you have to look at the men behind the music, as there was a lot going on.
**EDIT**: I just realised that, even though I've tried to use understandable language, this is a fucking huge wall of text that no 5 year old would read, so I'll do a sum up:
*Tl;DR*: There was a lot more to them than their songs, and their character, ideas, relationship and shocking deaths all contribute to what make them so influential.
**EDIT 2: Electric Boogaloo**: [This piece](_URL_0_) was just posted on /r/hiphop101 that goes into depth on Tupac. It covers far more than I would ever be able to in one post, and is well written. If anyone's interested and doesn't mind a long read, check it out; even if you don't agree with it all, it certainly helps explain why Pac is so influential. | [
"Tupac Amaru Shakur ( ; born Lesane Parish Crooks, June 16, 1971September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Much of Shakur's work has been noted for addressing contemporary social issu... |
Why the electron cannot be view as a spinning charged sphere? | Electrons are pointlike particles in the Standard Model, and a single point can’t “rotate”. If you try to interpret the electron as a classical, rotating spherical charge, you get nonsense conclusions, like that the “surface” of the sphere has to move faster than c. | [
"In this model, the orbits of the electrons were stable because when an electron moved away from the centre of the positively-charged sphere, it was subjected to a greater net positive inward force, because there was more positive charge inside its orbit (see Gauss's law). Electrons were free to rotate in rings whi... |
which has more caffeine and why? dark coffee beans (dark roasts) or greenish/tan coffee beans (light roasts). | If you measure your coffee by scoops, light roasted coffee will have more caffeine. Since the beans are denser than a darker roast. However if you weigh out your scoops, darker roasts will have more caffeine, because there is less mass. What should also be noted is that Arabica beans vary in levels of caffeine depending on the plant species. | [
"Caffeine content varies by roast level, diminishing with increased roasting level: light roast, 1.37%; medium roast, 1.31%; and dark roast, 1.31%. However, this does not remain constant in coffee brewed from different grinds and brewing methods. Because the density of coffee changes as it is roasted, different roa... |
After the sun expands to consume the earth, will earth continue to orbit as before, just inside the corona now? | You are on the right track. The sun will expand to a maximum radius of about 1.2 AU. During this expansion the sun will have lost about one third of its mass. As a result of the loss of mass, it loses some of its "tug" on the Earth.
Now because of the decreased mas of the Sun, the Earth's orbit will increase up to 150%. But as the Sun's expansion continues, drag on the Earth from the sun’s outermost layers will cause Earth to drift inward, countering the effects of the Sun's mass loss. At this point, the Earth will essentially be spiraling into the Sun and will only survive a few hundred years more before being destroyed by the Sun.
sources:
Schröder, K.-P.; Connon Smith, Robert (2008), "Distant future of the Sun and Earth revisited", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 386 (1): 155–163, Bibcode 2008MNRAS.386..155S, DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13022.x
Goldstein, J. (May 1987), The fate of the earth in the red giant envelope of the sun, 178, Astronomy and Astrophysics, pp. 283–285, Bibcode 1987A & A...178..283G | [
"In roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will cool and expand outward to many times its current diameter (becoming a red giant), before casting off its outer layers as a planetary nebula and leaving behind a stellar remnant known as a white dwarf. In the far distant future, the gravity of passing stars will gradually r... |
Is using a "mind palace" an effective memory tool, or is it pseudo-scientific bunk and other memory methods are more effective? | There is a popular [model developed by Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch in 1974](_URL_2_) that describes memory as an information processing system with specialized components, much like a computer. As I understand it, learned associations are easier to recall using this "memory palace" technique because it simultaneously activates the components of memory responsible for processing semantic and spatial information. For a more in-depth examination of this technique, which is also called the *Method of Loci*, see Allan Paivio's classic article [*Mental Imagery in Associative Learning and Memory* (1969)](_URL_0_). As far as how it compares with other techniques, it depends on the task and the kind of information [(e.g., Herrmann, 1987)](_URL_1_). The method of loci seems to be most effective for paired-associate learning (i.e., one item of a pair evokes the other item), and is less effective for serial learning (i.e., a sequence of items). | [
"Alan Baddeley's theory of working memory has yet another aspect to which memory can be stored short term. The visuo-spatial sketchpad is this store that holds visual information for manipulation. The visuo-spatial sketchpad is thought to be its own storage of working memory in that it does not interfere with the s... |
When did the Bishop of Rome become the Pope and primary figure of the Christian faith? | It is tempting to create a narrative of papal history that marches inexorably towards the monarchical papacy of the High Middle Ages and its role at the center of Latin Christianity. However, the question is a bit problematic—what elements we decide are essential or fundamental to the office of the papacy will ultimately determine when we decide the papacy ‘began’. I am not sure that is as useful, as it superimposes onto the past our image of what a pope –medieval or modern— ought to be. I realize that comes across as a bit pedantic, and maybe it’s not completely necessary, but I hope it will help illuminate the special role the *papa* of Rome has held for most of the position’s history.
I am happy to leave the early histories of the bishops in Rome to other, more qualified posters, but by the fifth century, the bishop in Rome held the title of *papa*. The title was not unique to the Roman see, and was commonly used to refer to a senior bishop who was to act in an advisory position to other sees in his sphere of influence. The title would, however, become unique to the apostolic see by the eighth century. The apostolic see was also one of five patriarchs (Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem) that placed them atop an admittedly decentralized ecclesiastical hierarchy. Even among these, Rome was singled out as special—it was after all the resting place of not one, but *two* apostles, on top of countless* martyrs. The legacy of the city as the old capital of the Empire was also hard to shake. Even Constantinople was willing to recognized Rome’s special preeminence among the episcopal sees, but it's worth pointing out that this garnered no additional jurisdictional or theological clout.
The papacy of the earliest medieval period was largely oriented towards the East and Constantinople, and as a result was often caught up in the theological disputes and politics of the Eastern Roman Empire-- central and southern Italy were part of the Empire for much of the period. Until the papacy of Zachary in 741, the election of a new pope required confirmation from the Emperor. As the only Latin patriarch, the pope represented the West (in theory) in eastern affairs, but in terms of real, enforceable authority, the pope exercised little to no control over the western bishops. Like other patriarchs, the pope had a number of civic responsibilities. The sees of Ravenna and Rome paid the imperial armies in Italy and Rome fed the poor of the city from its estates. The acquisition of civic and administrative duties was not itself unusual, but among the metropolitan bishops of the West, Rome was particularly wealthy; the patrimony of St. Peter during the papacy of Gregory the Great numbered over 400 estates, many of which were located in Sicily.
Despite its eastern orientation and the increasingly fragmented condition of the western churches, the apostolic see was still held a position of special deference. During the fifth century, bishops from Gaul would occasionally petition Rome (addressing him as *papa*) or, as in the case of some African bishops, seek intervention in local conciliar affairs. This ", however, was not regular, and more often than not the bishops involved were in trouble back home. As the western half of the empire continued to disintegrate, regional bishops became increasingly focused on the affairs of the various successor kingdoms to which they belonged. With the conversion of the Visigothic nobility from the 'Arian' heresy, the ecclesiastical life of that kingdom became increasingly centered on Toledo. The bishop of Arles in Gaul, theoretically and at times functioned as the papal representative in the region, but Rome lacked real jurisdictional authority over the bishoprics of the West.
Again, it's important to emphasize the slow and incremental changes in papal prerogatives in the West. Fifth century popes like Leo and Gelasius both emphasized the importance of their spiritual authority, but it's hard to gauge the extent of their vision for the role of their office; they were certainly unable to impose their will on the Latin bishops. Gregory the Great at the close of the sixth century certainly grew the prestige of the office, and while there was indeed an expansion of the papal bureaucracy over the course of the sixth and seventh centuries, the authority of the popes rarely extended beyond Rome, the surrounding territories and at times in Northern Italy.
I suppose most people conceive of the pope as the head of a centralized Latin church. In that respect, the eighth century, during which the papacy began to look north to the Carolingian Franks rather than East to Constantinople.^1 The Franks increasingly looked to Rome in matters of the liturgy and instruction. Even still, the real authority of the papacy was limited--but it was growing. Beginning with Louis the Pious,^EDIT the pope would ~~periodically anoint emperors~~ take a more prominent role in the anointing of emperors, a reversal of the days when the Eastern emperor confirmed the pope’s position (though the Frankish emperors were still *usually* notified of the election of a new pope). Over the course of the ninth century, archbishops in greater numbers sought the conferral of the *pallium*, the ceremonial woolen vestment symbolizing the authority of their office, from the pope. It was an old practice^2 , but the increased frequency speaks to the extent to which the ecclesiastical leaders of Francia were beginning to look towards Rome for legitimacy, even if the pope as of yet was unable to dictate who was elected.
The tenth century saw the continuation of several trends established in the preceding centuries and the papal offices were quite busy, even when the popes themselves were rather lackluster. Charters connecting the papacy to various corners of the Latin West are a testament to the increasingly centrality of Rome. Monasteries in particular sought the protection and patronage of the apostolic see^3 —and it is out of these relationships that we witness the birth of the reform movements that would characterize the papacies of the eleventh century. Otherwise the eleventh century would look back on the tenth with not a little disdain. Papal election had always been a political affair, but the tenth century is notorious for the contests between leading Roman families, West Frankish rulers, and German kings—though the condemnation of the period overlooks continuity and consistency with earlier papal models. It is also at the end of tenth century that we witness the first ‘official’ papal canonizations. These, however, would not become a sole papal prerogative until the thirteenth century.
If there is a case to be made for when the pope emerged as *the Pope*, or at least what modern folks imagine when they picture the medieval papacy, it would be during the great reform movements of the eleventh and subsequent centuries. For the sake of brevity, the reforms championed among popes, monastic foundations and other centers would attempt to unify and regulate the far-flung communities of believers and establish papal authority in the farthest reaches of Christendom. It is under the reform popes that we see our first ‘crusades’ and stronger appeals to a universal Christian community. Excommunication and the suspension of the sacraments –long-standing papal prerogatives, if rarely used—were also utilized more frequently and papal insistence on investing bishops with the symbols of their office, as opposed to the temporal princes of Western Europe, would spark its own controversy. It was not an easy transition and the conflicts between popes and princes that would play out over the next few centuries would see emperor’s excommunicated, popes bloodied, anti-popes raised, and much angst and gnashing of teeth all around. Papal developments beyond the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including the crystallization of canon law, are a bit outside of my wheelhouse—I will leave that to hopefully another poster who might be able to elaborate further.
Any time you cover six centuries worth of history things are going to be left out—I have tried to stick to general trends, but even then some things are inevitably left out (so please follow-up!) What I have attempted to demonstrate, however, is that the papacy as an office and institution evolved over time, reacting and adapting to various circumstances within the spheres of influence it found itself. Like any long-standing institution, it will only become more recognizable to us over time, and for me at least, some of those familiar kernels are recognizable quite early.
----
^1 I don’t quite want to get into all the complexities, but the weakening presence of Constantinople in its Italian holdings and increased Lombard hostilities ‘encouraged’ the pope to look elsewhere for a protector.
^EDIT As noted below, Charlemagne was crowned by the pope in 800. Carolingians had also been anointed by the pope at various points prior to this event. ~~While I am having trouble tracking down the reference~~ (FOUND IT: in McKitterick's chapter in vol. 3 of the New Cambridge Medieval History), the emphasis on the anointing of Louis the Pious is ~~probably~~ with regards to the pope's insistence that he anoint the new emperor at Rheims in 816. Other than that, please excuse the lazy writing on my part. Whoops!
^2 Pope Marcus (d.336) conferred the pallium on the bishop of Ostia, and Symmachus on Caesarius of Arles in 513; Augustine received the pallium before his mission to Kent—in fact, I have not mentioned it above, but the burgeoning English church looked to Rome in a way that Gaul and Hispania were not during the seventh century (but hey, there’s only so much of 600+ years of history that one can cover, right?)
^3 For ex: the foundation at Cluny—the Starbucks of medieval monasticism. The monastery would produce a couple of popes over the next century, including Gregory VII and Urban II
| [
"The Bishop of Rome, called the Pope, was important since the early days of Christianity because of the martyrdom of both the apostles Peter and Paul there. The Bishops of Rome were also seen (and still are seen by Catholics) as the successors of Peter, who is considered the first Bishop of Rome. The city thus beca... |
What can we do to help future historians? | Preserving our own digital cultures is incredibly important, but I'm going to address this question from a slightly different angle. One of the other things we need to do to help future historians (and present-day historians too) is embrace an open-access philosophy when creating digital archives of *existing* historical materials. A lot of sources that were once available freely through public libraries and archives are currently being digitised by commercial publishing companies and then placed behind a paywall. In the process, the original documents are being put into storage, sold off, or (in some rare cases) even destroyed in the expectation that we'll all use the digital surrogates instead. I work in the digital humanities, so I'm certainly not adverse to promoting this kind of research - but I am concerned about how our past is being privatised in the process.
In Britain, the most obvious example is our newspaper archive. The British Library's flagship digitisation program feeds content into the [British Newspaper Archive](_URL_0_), which is owned and operated by a family history company named Brightsolid. You need to take out a subscription in order to use the archive - not an *enormous* amount of money, but enough to restrict the archive's use in schools and for speculative research. Once this company scans a newspaper, they hold long-term copyright over the scanned images (even if the copyright on the original texts has long-since expired). This becomes particularly problematic if access to the original documents is restricted. They also control the future of the archive - if it ceases to be commercially viable in a few decades' time, then how will we access these sources? The choice of materials for digitisation and the design of the archive's interface is also influenced by commercial rather than academic aims - I can't take their data and do something else with it because they control access.
This isn't just happening with newspapers. Loads of our archives are being broken up into small chunks, sold off to digitisation companies, and then placed behind separate paywalls. This process is creating an increasingly fractured archival environment - everything is held within its own walled-garden. This, in turn, is creating a divide between researchers who can afford the necessary subscriptions (either personally or through their institution) and those who can't. I'm an enormous fan of digitisation, but in our rush to fund it we've sacrificed control over our archives and erected barriers to access that will be extremely difficult to pull down.
So, what can we do to help future historians? We could start by making sure that the records we have *already* been trusted to protect remain in public control, and adopt a flexible, open-access approach to digitisation that doesn't require us to sell-out to commercial publishers. | [
"BULLET::::12. Historical research allows one to discuss past and present events in the context of the present condition, and allows one to reflect and provide possible answers to current issues and problems. Historical research helps us in answering questions such as: Where have we come from, where are we, who are... |
how to get infinite chocolate from a chocolate bar | The gif is subtly doctored. When the piece moves from the left to the right, you can, if you pay attention, see it growing slightly.
Pay attention to the left edge of the piece. You see it growing from 2+1/2 to 2+2/3 | [
"The chocolate itself was a common black milky bar, flat and thin. But what really made it achieve so much success was that each of them would come with a figure made on a thin cardboard paper with a picture of an animal on it.\n",
"The candy is made of a whipped nougat covered with milk chocolate. The nougat cho... |
In terms of harvesting power from radio waves, is there an equivalent to a solar panel? | This is what all satellite dishes and radio telescopes already do in the sense that they convert radio waves into some electrical signal. However, there's no step in there where they interact with some semiconductor wafer or anything like that. The signals typically need to be drastically amplified in the electronics and remember that a single radio photon has significantly less energy than an optical photon. Instead of a wavelength of 500 nm you might be talking about 50 cm, and so if the wavelength changes by a factor of one million then the energy also drops by that amount. So it's not really practical to harvest energy via radio waves. | [
"Space-based solar power (SBSP) is the concept of collecting solar power in outer space and distributing it to Earth. Potential advantages of collecting solar energy in space include a higher collection rate and a longer collection period due to the lack of a diffusing atmosphere, and the possibility of placing a s... |
how are saturn's rings clean if they have existed for millions to billions of years? | They are not clean. They have drawn in countless meteors and such. Thus their current color instead of just looking snowy white. | [
"The rings of Saturn consist of ice crystals and probably meteorite particles describing circular orbits around the planet's equator. In all likelihood these are fragments of a former moon that was too close to the planet and was destroyed by its tidal effect. \n",
"\"Rings of Saturn\" is located in the Sir Ruper... |
Why were ship designs so different in Asia compared to Europe? | You're going to need to clarify a few things: what parts of Asia/Europe? Time period? Are you referring to hull design or rigging? Warships or merchantmen? | [
"Geography contributed to important geopolitical differences. For most of their histories, China, India, and the Middle East were each unified under a single dominant power that expanded until it reached the surrounding mountains and deserts. In 1600 the Ottoman Empire controlled almost all the Middle East, the Min... |
how power banks understand the difference between being charged and charging? | You plug it in the laptop via a USB port, and in the mobile phone via a micro USB port. This means you use two different ports on the powerbank as well. This decides if you're charging the bank or the device. | [
"Smart charging is a form of electric vehicle charging in which the time and rate at which an EV's battery pack is charged can be controlled in a more \"intelligent\" way than the simple use of a manual on/off switch.\n",
"Charge control is a technology that lets an electric utility control, in real time, the cha... |
if you got in a plane and started flying flat along with earth then maintained that direction, would you eventually begin flying out of the atmosphere? | tl;dr: The plane would need to follow the curvature of the earth.
As an airplane gets higher in the atmosphere a few things happen. First, as the plane encounters less air resistance, it can move faster, generating more lift. Counteracting this, however, is the fact that the air gets thinner, so less of it is displaced by the airfoil, so overall less lift is created.
At a certain point, even if you have a plane that can somehow generate enough lift to get to the very top of the atmosphere, the oxygen content is not high enough to fuel the combustion of the fuel inside the jet engines, so the engines will flame out.
There are certain ways to get around this problem by using different air compression designs. Ramjets and scramjets are for ultra high altitude planes that travel many times the speed of sound. These engines do not have traditional fans to compress the air, relying instead on the shockwave of the air hitting the engine intake to compress the air for it. Because of this, you have to already be flying at very high speeds to use these types of engines, making them a logistical challenge on commercial aircraft (along with many other reasons this is completely infeasible.)
However, even these engines fail at high enough altitudes, so you would need to carry your own oxygen supply for combustion, like traditional rockets. You may notice now that we are no longer talking about the original subject, so the short answer is that the plane would follow the curvature of the Earth unless you had very special engines to get it to the upper atmosphere. Even then, it would eventually need to follow the earth's curvature unless you are flying a rocket ship. | [
"For example, consider an airplane that travels in a straight line, takes a 90-degree right turn, travels another , takes another 90-degree right turn, and travels a third time. On a flat Earth, the aircraft would have travelled along three sides of a square, and arrive at a spot about from where it started. But be... |
how did those inbuilt battery testers work? | The bar is made of a thermochromic strip of paper/film (paper that changes colour based on temperature) layered on top of a strip of some conductor.
When you press down on the two ends, the strip makes contact with the battery terminals and allows electricity to flow through it. This causes the strip to heat up and change the colour of the paper/film.
The width of the strip is also not constant, so different parts of the strip requires different currents to heat up enough to cause the colour change. The "0%" end of the strip requires less current, the "100%" end of the strip requires more current. That corresponds to a discharged and fully charged battery. | [
"A battery tester is an electronic device intended for testing the state of an electric battery, going from a simple device for testing the charge actually present in the cells and/or its voltage output, to a more comprehensive testing of the battery's condition, namely its capacity for accumulating charge and any ... |
During the late 19th century, why was Japan able to modernize its military better than China? | This is an age old topic.
My answer is pretty simple. Japan could modernize because it became a nation-state by using ethnic nationalism. Qing China (1644-1911) could not modernize because it was multiethnic empire ruled by the minority Manchus.
So in Japan's case, the new Meiji state (1868-1912) could rely upon the age-old imperial family (going back to at least the 500sAD) and a relatively quick construction of Japanese identity based upon a shared language and culture. So despite the massive changes brought upon by Westernization, they could say that they remained Japanese and continue to swear loyalty to the new Westernizing government.
In Qing China's case the imperial family was Manchu. These Manchus were a non-Chinese people who came from north of the Great Wall and conquered the Han Chinese in the 1600s. The Manchus spoke and wrote in their own language, they were Tibetan Buddhists, and culturally they were semi-nomadic. The Chinese wrote in classic Chinese, they were a fusion of Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, and they were agriculturalists who practiced foot-binding. To govern this China (that also included other minorities like the Mongols, Tibetans, and central Asian Muslims) the Manchus set up a system of diarchy where top government posts in China proper were divided evenly between Manchus and Han Chinese.
The only thing that really bound the Manchus together with the Chinese was Confucianism. The Manchus adopted Confucianism as the philosophy to govern China and continued to use it as the basis for the Civil Service Exams that selected government officials.
Fast forward to 19th century and the need to reform. One of the things that both countries needed to do was learn Western technology and adopt schools that taught many of the Western sciences.
In Japan, adopting that Western curriculum to modernize its military did not endanger Japanese identity nor endanger the basis of Meiji government. (Because of the ethnic nationalism mentioned above.)
In Qing China, however, if you adopted the Western curriculum you were abandoning the Confucian curriculum and the Civil Service Exams. It took a bright person at least 20 years of studying classical Chinese and Confucianism to pass the Civil Service Exams. It was unrealistic to add another 10 years of Western education. So if you pull out Confucianism from the curriculum, then what binds the Manchu people with the Han Chinese people? Very little I'm afraid. So when members of Qing China's leadership realize this, they pull back from full scale Westernization and reforms. Chinese students who study a Western curriculum instead of the Confucian curriculum also begin to question why they have to have an alien Manchu emperor in China. Thus it wasn't accidental that the father of the 1911 Revolution in China, Sun Yat-sen, got his education in the West (Hawaii and Hong Kong). And that the 1911 Revolution starts right after the Manchus abandon diarchy and staff 80% of the top government posts with Manchu princes in 1910.
TL:DR Japan could push through the necessary reforms to learn how to use ships and guns they bought, but also to eventually make them. Qing China could only buy ships and guns but not teach the students how to make them.
This also explains why once China became ruled by the Han Chinese, they could do lots of reforms (particularly social reforms) in the 20th century. | [
"Once created, the Meiji military machine was used to extend Japanese power overseas, for many leaders believed that national security depended on expansion and not merely a strong defense. Room was also needed for population expansion. Within thirty years, the country's military forces had fought and defeated impe... |
Question regarding using the blood plasma of recovered people to treat sick people: When the plasma is injected, is it just the antibodies in the donated plasma that attacks the virus, or does the body detect the antibodies and create more ? | I don’t see the right answer yet so:
The plasma contains antibodies from the donor. Presumably there are antibodies in the donor that have neutralized the virus. Antibodies are just proteins that latch on to a target and help flag it so the hosts immune system recognizes the problem and eliminates it.
The donor antibodies will circulate for weeks to months in the host, but they cannot make more of themselves — they are just proteins originally made by B cells in the host. Therefore plasma infusions for these critically ill patients are just a temporary measure until their own bodies hopefully learn to eliminate the virus without help. | [
"BULLET::::- Antibodies: Donors are sometimes immunized against agents such as tetanus or hepatitis B so that their plasma contains the antibodies against the toxin or disease. In other donors, an intentionally incompatible unit of blood is transfused to produce antibodies to the antigens on the red cells. The coll... |
...the difference between behaviorism and cognitive science. | I'm just going off memory here, and it's been a little while since I learned about this stuff, but I'll give it a shot. (Note: I'm not familiar with Chomsky's particular arguments or ideas on the topic, but hopefully my answer isn't entirely useless)
As I recall, Behaviourism is the study of observable behaviour, and that's it. That is to say, if I was a Behaviourist and I was studying a child, I would simply observe his or her behaviour, in the most objective way possible. If the child were to start crying, for example, I would simply write that s/he had cried, without trying to explain the behaviour as a result of unobservable, intangible things, like the child's thought processes or emotions.
I believe Behaviourism arose from a desire to make Psychology more scientific, as a lot of the research done at the time relied on imprecise methods such as introspection (ie having subjects describe their feelings, etc). Lacking the modern technology we currently have, observing behaviour was about the best they could do.
Cognitive Science, as the name implies, does what Behaviourism couldn't: it looks at things like emotions, learning and thought processes. It's a broad field that covers a lot of topics, but I'll focus on the things I listed. Thanks to major technological advances, we have at least a general idea what different areas of the brain are used for. Neuroimaging techniques allow researchers to see which areas of your brain are most active when you're talking, when you're laughing, or in any variety of moods. So instead of just observing that a child is crying, they now have the ability (theoretically, at least) to see what emotions she's feeling. With animal test subjects (such as rats), researchers are more able to directly interact with their subjects' brains, by methods such as lesions (cutting out portions of their brain) or direct stimulation. Given how similar the structure of a rat's brain is to ours, this provides a lot of insight into how many behaviours are linked to certain emotions, and does so in a scientific way.
To sum it all up: people aren't especially reliable when explaining their motivations for an action, so it was all but impossible to obtain accurate data via 'introspective methods'. Behaviourism was an attempt to emulate the 'natural sciences' (chemistry, biology, etc) by being completely objective, but fell short in explaining the causes of the behaviours observed. Cognitive Science is sort of the best of both worlds. We can measure objective things, like emotions, in a subjective way. | [
"Simply put: Cognitive Science is the interdisciplinary study of cognition in humans, animals, and machines. It encompasses the traditional disciplines of psychology, computer science, neuroscience, anthropology, linguistics and philosophy. The goal of cognitive science is to understand the principles of intelligen... |
what causes the "stitch" | It's said that it's caused by the midriff, a muscle that important for breathing. If you are breathing in a fast maner, it can feel the same pain as any other muscle that you overuse. Running more and breathing deeper and more slowly will do the trick. | [
"There is no single precise known reason for a stitch to occur. There are, however, a number of popular theories as to what may cause, increase the chances of, or otherwise exacerbate a stitch. A leading theory is that the pain may be caused by an increase in blood flow to the liver or spleen. Increases in the hear... |
why does an object traveling at the speed of light gain infinite mass |
Relativistic mass is an outdated concept.
Many contemporary authors such as Taylor and Wheeler strongly argue against the concept of dynamic mass, and most modern textbooks actually avoid it.
Taylor and Wheeler state [1]
> The concept of "relativistic mass" is subject to misunderstanding. That's why we don't use it. First, it applies the name mass - belonging to the magnitude of a 4-vector - to a very different concept, the time component of a 4-vector. Second, it makes increase of energy of an object with velocity or momentum appear to be connected with some change in internal structure of the object. In reality, the increase of energy with velocity originates not in the object but in the geometric properties of spacetime itself.
It is a lot more more useful to simply stick to rest mass and consider the increase in kinetic energy of a fast moving object.
[1] E. F. Taylor, J. A. Wheeler (1992), Spacetime Physics | [
"As speeds approach that of light, the acceleration produced by a given force decreases, becoming infinitesimally small as light speed is approached; an object with mass can approach this speed asymptotically, but never reach it.\n",
"When an object is pushed in the direction of motion, it gains momentum and ener... |
Have there been recorded cases of randomly decreasing entropy? | Something like that happening on the macro scale is statistically less likely than everyone independently hallucinating that it happened and was recorded and well established. The standard deviation increases with the square root of the number of independent events added together, so for 6\*10^23 atoms, the standard deviation would be the momentum to move around 8\*10^11 of them, or 800 billion. So you'd need about 800 billion standard deviations to move the entire mole of atoms. Normal z-score calculators can't do that many standard deviations. Wolfram Alpha can't even do it. But I did manage to use Wolfram Alpha to figure out how to approximate it. It's something like a probability of e^(-x^2). So you're looking at a probability on the order of e^(-Avogadro's number). So basically, you'd need around the same number of zeros to express how unlikely this is as there are atoms in the object you're looking at. If it's one or two atoms, it will happen constantly. If it's 6.022\*10^(23), not so much.
On a smaller scale, sure. If you look at it electron by electron, it will decrease entropy about half the time. | [
"Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) and Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) discovered the second law of thermodynamics in the 19th century. It states that total entropy, sometimes understood as disorder, will always increase over time in an isolated system. This means that a system cannot spontaneously increase its order without an ... |
how do you make an app? | It depends on what operating system (Android, iOS, Windows).
But in either case there is software that exists which lets you write code in a specific programming language. That code is compiled and then you're able to either distribute that app directly or submit it to an app store.
For each OS:
* Android - You use Eclipse to write apps often in Java, and put them on the Google Play Store
* iOS - You use xCode to write apps in Object-C (or Swift), and put them on the apple app store.
* Windows - You use Visual Studio to write apps in C# or _URL_0_ normally, and put them on the windows app store. | [
"In 2003 [[Handango]] introduced the first on-device app store for finding, installing and buying software for smartphones. App download and purchasing are completed directly on the device so sync with a computer is not necessary. Description, rating and screenshot are available for any app.\n",
"BULLET::::2. The... |
what is actually happening when a single taste bud decides to stick way out and get super sensitive? | Welcome to the wonderful world of inflammation.
The most common scenario where this happens is when you happen to have too hot a cup of coffee or soup, or eat way too many salty snacks without refreshing your mouth with water.
In scenario 1, the intense heat manages to burn part of your tongue, or atleast heat it sufficiently enough to stop the enzymes and cell processes from working properly, and in scenario 2, your cells are exposed to so much salt, that they shrink too fast and damage themselves due to extensive water loss.
In either case, your cells are now damaged, and will start to give off warning signals into the local capillaries and blood vessels. Typically, what triggers inflammation is a change in the local environment of the blood vessels. During cellular damage, the cells release a wide variety of chemicals called prostaglandins, that perform a variety of functions.
One of the things that they can do, is trigger the process of inflammation. They also increase the sensation of pain, sort of like a throwback warning to remind you not to further damage that region, since repairs now have to take place.
The early stage of inflammation is characterized by vasodilation, wherein the blood vessels to the damaged area dilate and become leaky, creating more space in the tissues surrounding the damaged cells. This is what makes the burnt taste buds look so red and large.
This allows the local beat cops, the neutrophils and macrophages, to come in and survey the damage. If they find that any intruders and bacteria have come to crash the party, (and there will be a lot of them), they clean them up, and also send information into the blood to call for more back up. They also clean up any dead cells, and if any cells are too damaged to function, they shut them down and trigger orders for new cells to come up in their place. Most of the time, the nearby cells know when to divide and replace damaged ones, so they start growing anyway.
The tongue is very well supplied for blood, so most of the time, there's no real need for an exaggerated response, that's why pus rarely develops there, because the local cells are able to easily handle any infection that develops. But the repair process takes time. Taste buds themselves take about a week to grow back, so until that time, the gates to enter the body are open, meaning that the burnt area is exposed and raw, which means that the inflammation will continue, as more and more invading bacteria keep trying to enter and force their way in. Once a new set of taste buds have grown, the entry region for the tongue is now closed, and you stop feeling the sensitivity.
Edit : An important thing to note, the bumps that you see are actually not "taste buds" but larger structures called papillae which line the entire tongue and come in different shapes and sizes. So when you see inflammation, the visible swelling is actually the inflamed papillae.
TL;DR
Prostaglandins are amongst the first few cellular messengers that trigger inflammation, which is necessary for both cellular defense as well as cellular healing. A side effect of prostaglandins is increased pain sensitivity, and the inflammation typically continues until a new set of taste buds grow to replace the damaged ones, as the damaged region is an easy entry point for local bacteria to enter the body. | [
"An example of a receptor potential is in a taste bud, where taste is converted into an electrical signal sent to the brain. When stimulated, the taste bud triggers the release of neurotransmitter through exocytosis of synaptic vesicles from the presynaptic membrane. The neurotransmitter molecules diffuse across th... |
How did Portugal (as a fascist state under the Estado Novo) manage to stay non-belligerent in World War Two? | Because Estado Novo is a very peculiar fascist state. We didn't had 90% of the ostentation of Italy and Germany, and Salazar didn't want to recuperate the Portuguese Empire as the Italians want to bring back the Roman Empire or the German the Reich, Salazar wanted his people poor, traditional and in the countryside.
Our natural enemy has always been Spain, so the 1st thing Salazar did was make the Iberian Pact where both of us decided to have a neutral position in the war. But Franco gave a lot of support to the Axis and ended up not having his position recognized as Portugal had, this was signed by the same time the Italians invited Portugal to join the Axis.
Joining the Axis was entering some european politics that he saw unrelated to Portugal, and his focus was on the colonies.
Portugal was at risk of invasion only two times: Operation Felix, the ideia of invading Gibraltar with the support (or not) of Spain, if the allies interfered ocupying Portugal. This made Salazar plan to move the government to Azores, so he send a lot of trops to the islands.
The second one was a plan by UK to invade Azores and use the islands since it's strategic location, but the trops there from the Felix operation made them think twice because Portugal would defend the islands.
But we were alone, not very well armed, and Salazar was a very lucky bastard. | [
"For the duration of World War II, [[Portugal]] was under the control of the dictator [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Early in September 1939, Portugal proclaimed neutrality to avoid a military operation in Portuguese territory. This action was welcomed by Great Britain. Germany's invasion of France brought the Na... |
How was oil obtained in the middle ages? | Hi! FYI, you'll find some additional information in the FAQ (link on the sidebar)
[Mineral resource extraction]( _URL_0_) - see under *Petroleum* | [
"According to Kasem Ajram, petroleum was distilled by the Persian alchemist Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) in the 9th century, producing chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic (\"al-ambiq\"), and which was mainly used for kerosene lamps. Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce... |
when talking on a cellular phone how does my voice get translated into bits of ones and zeroes? | The sounds you vocalize lead to a series of compressions in the air.
The compressions are picked up by a microphone, where they cause a membrame to move in synch with your voice.
The movement of the membrame in the microphone is measured and gives rise to an electric signal that varies over time, still in synch with the noises that you make with your mouth. This is known as an "analog" signal.
Next comes the conversion from "analog" to digital. This is done by measuring (sampling) the analog signal at a regular time interval and recording the value of the measurement as a number, represented by a certain pattern of ones and zeroes.
Typically, the sampling occurs at a rate of many thousands of times per second, and the accuracy at which the measurement is made is measured in numbers of bit used to describe the value.
For example, in the process of you saying "no" to your telephone conversation partner, at one certain millisecond this causes an analogue value of 0.325 to be measured. You can represent the number 0.325 more or less accurately using zeroes and ones. The process that does that conversion is not difficult: instead of using a ten-based numerical system, you use a 2-based numerical system. Here is the relevant Wikipedia: _URL_0_
Now, in the next millisecond, the sampled value has risen to 0.328. Again, you can convert 0.328 to a series of ones and zeroes. It will be a slightly different series of ones and zeroes, seeing as that 0.325 does not equal 0.328.
In practice, an engeneering improvement is that you do not send both values 0.325 and 0.328 across the line, but you compute their difference (0.003) and send *that* across. In general, the difference can be encoded with a smaller amount of ones and zeroes, which in turn means you use less bandwidth to get the message across.
| [
"Examples of one-bit messages in the real world include the sound of car horns, police sirens, and “open” signs. Telephone calls which are deliberately terminated before being answered are also an example of one-bit communication.\n",
"Phonetotopy is the concept that articulatory features as well as perceptual fe... |
Does low birth weight in humans have an effect on the brain later in life? | It seems nearly certain that it does. Low birth rate children have higher rates cognitive delays and other neurological issues. The effects seem to be mild for most affected, but they seem to be persistent.
Source: _URL_0_
JSTOR subscription needed, but the abstract says it. | [
"There is also evidence that birth complications and other factors around the time of birth (perinatal) can have serious implications on intellectual development. For example, a prolonged period of time without access to oxygen during the delivery can lead to brain damage and mental retardation. Also, low birth wei... |
Is the heat energy that we get from the sun just from Photons? | Yes. Since there is (almost) nothing between the sun and the earth to transfer the heat through conduction or convection, the only way for thermal energy to be transferred is through radiation, which consists of photons. | [
"Energy released as gamma rays will interact with electrons and protons and heat the interior of the Sun. Also kinetic energy of fusion products (e.g. of the two protons and the from the p-p I reaction) increases the temperature of plasma in the Sun. This heating supports the Sun and prevents it from collapsing und... |
How come our eyes can see both dark/light areas simultaneously while cameras can only be set to a specific exposure? | It's actually the same principle, just a difference in magnitude. Your eyes are able to perceive a contrast difference of 10-14 stops in a single "image". A digital camera usually falls somewhere around 11 stops, give or take. The difference is that your eye has an iris which can open or close to allow you to quickly switch "exposure" when you look from a brighter area to a darker area. This substantially increases the dynamic range you can perceive, up to as wide as 24 stops. Once a camera captures an image, its exposure is set and you can only look at the image as it was captured, so it appears to have a narrower range. | [
"Two general types of infrared / near-infrared (also known as active light) eye-tracking techniques are used: bright-pupil and dark-pupil. Their difference is based on the location of the illumination source with respect to the optics. If the illumination is coaxial with the optical path, then the eye acts as a ret... |
why the hell do big states allow smaller states to have so much influence over the direction of a political party? | It's all about the order of the primary. Candidates get money from their party and press coverage based on how well they are doing (or how crazy they are) if you mange to win the first few states, you get tons of publicity (and civilian donations) as well as extra party backing, especially now that there is less competition and people can support you because you're less likely to fail hilariously.
tl;dr: strong start = strong support. | [
"Moreover, this will be effective if an influential state wants control over small states from a liberalism perspective, because building a series of bilateral arrangements with small states can increase a state's influence.\n",
"There are several reasons why, in some systems, two major parties dominate the polit... |
Why did it take so long to unify Italy again (1870s) after the collapse of the Roman Empire? how did countries more technologically backward such as England, France and Castile/Spain unify more quickly than what was previously the most advanced empire in history? | This question takes in the best part of a millennium and a half of West European history, and I was aiming to find 3-4 earlier answers that might address parts of it.
However, it turns out u/AlviseFalier has written an epic answer to a very similar question: [It seems odd that the Italian peninsula could give rise to the Roman Empire and then largely resist political unification until 1870. How have historians explained Italy's extended political fracture after the Western Empire fell?](_URL_0_) | [
"In the decades following unification, Italy started to create colonies in Africa, and under Benito Mussolini's fascism conquered Ethiopia founding in 1936 the Italian Empire. World War I has also been interpreted to have completed the process of Italian unification, with the annexation of Trieste, Istria, Trentino... |
if/once the cuban embargo is lifted, what will change? | It will be easier people in the US to visit Cuba, acquire Cuban goods and do business in Cuba. Vice-versa for people in Cuba dealing with the US. | [
"Although the Cuban trade embargo can only be ended by the U.S. Congress, the Obama administration took executive action to ease some restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, as well as restrictions on the import and export of goods between each country. In his 2015 State of the Union Address to Congress, O... |
Are there (presently) multicellular organisms with very few (2-50) cells? | There is a spectrum of morphologies and sizes of simple life-forms. Some organisms such as slime molds and choanoflagellates can alternate between states in which they are single cells and states in which they have multiple cells. The multicellular phases of these organisms could include states with only very few cells (50 or less) but can also have many more cells. The protist Volvox is a colonial algae that could have few cells (but can also have several thousand cells). In the animal kingdom, the smallest full-grown organisms tend to have about 1000 cells, but if you count embryos then you would have living organisms of 50 or fewer cells. | [
"Furthermore, multinucleate cells are produced from specialized cell cycles in which nuclear division occurs without cytokinesis, thus leading to large coenocytes or plasmodia. In filamentous fungi, multinucleate cells may extend over hundreds of meters so that different regions of a single cell experience dramatic... |
wide area networks | A wide area network is similar to a local area network, but uses multiple routers/hubs and occasionally a VPN system to enable network access by dozens or even hundreds of people over a large and disparate landscape. | [
"Broadview Networks is a network-based electronically integrated communications provider serving small and medium-sized businesses in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. The Company offers local, long-distance and international voice services; data services that encompass VPN and MPLS enabled offerings... |
radar guns that the police use. | _URL_0_
Short version of that: The gun shoots a radar signal at the car, the signal bounces off the car but is changed slightly by the car depending on its speed, the radar gun detects how the signal was changed and calculates the car's speed. The way the signal is changed is caused the Doppler Effect. | [
"Police officers can use LIDAR speed guns or sometimes the older and less accurate radar speed guns to gather evidence for prosecution. These may be operated from temporary static sites or from within police vehicles.\n",
"Radar guns that operate using the X band (8 to 12 GHz) frequency range are becoming less co... |
How did music originate? | You might have better luck asking an anthropologist than a historian. | [
"Music can be theoretically traced to prior to the Paleolithic age. The anthropological and archaeological designation suggests that music first arose (among humans) when stone tools first began to be used by hominids. The noises produced by work such as pounding seed and roots into meal are a likely source of rhyt... |
how does a company gets money when you buy its share, if when you buy a share the money goes to the seller of the share (which is not necessarily the company)? | They care about the price of the shares because the shareholders **own the company**. If the share prices do poorly, the shareholders can fire the CEO & hire a new one. | [
"By selling shares they can sell part or all of the company to many part-owners. The purchase of one share entitles the owner of that share to literally share in the ownership of the company, a fraction of the decision-making power, and potentially a fraction of the profits, which the company may issue as dividends... |
why it's harder for micro-organisms to become resistant to alcohol based disinfectants than drugs | To keep it simple, alcohol kills the microorganisms by physical means : it mostly causes their membranes to fragilize, causing death.
Drugs kill them acting on cellular mechanisms (for example, some antibiotics make it impossible for the bacterias to synthetize their membrane). However, these cellular mechanisms can evolve through mutation and natural selection, causing them to evolve so that the drug that used to have an effect on them now is useless, as the mechanism is now very different or has even completely disappeared altogether. | [
"The use of some antimicrobials such as triclosan, is controversial because it may lead to antimicrobial resistance. The use of chlorine bleach and alcohol disinfectants does not cause antimicrobial resistance as it denatures the protein of the microbe upon contact.\n",
"A study published in 2018 showed multi dru... |
how do antibodies actually work? does your body store antibodies for literally every disease it contracts during your lifetime, or is it more like a recipe? | So I answered a similar question a while ago. I'll paste and tailor it to your question.
You want to defend yourself from the unknown. You don't know what's going to attack you, you just want to make sure anything that isn't you, that is inside you, gets destroyed. How do you go about doing that?
Well put simply, the body takes a very intriguing approach to this difficult problem. It has some genes that code for proteins. It takes these genes and shuffles them around so they now create different proteins. Then you take these proteins and put them on the surface of some immune cells. These proteins now function as sensors. You wire these sensors in these immune cells such that when they're activated, the cell goes haywire, sending signals to the rest of the immune army and fighting one on one with what activated the sensor. These proteins have different sequences, and so they fold differently as the constituent parts of it interact with each other in a different way. If a protein is shaped a specific way and has a particular sequence, it can have affinity to certain other compounds or proteins. So that's how they "sense."
Of course, with this random approach, some of these sensors are bound to get activated when they come in contact with your own proteins and cells and so on. So the body first takes these cells through some "schooling." It puts these immature cells in a specific place and exposes them to the different proteins and lipids and stuff that you have in your own body. If they react, that's bad, so they get killed. After this schooling, only cells that are unreactive to your body get to graduate and become mature cells that are allowed to patrol your body.
When a foreign object or pathogen are in your body, some of these sensors may get activated due to chance. So the cells in which they are Release a bunch of signals. These signals bring in other cells that cause an inflammatory response. Which essentially activates a bunch more cells, dilates your blood vessels so more blood can come to "fight", makes your vessels more leaky so these soldiers can pass through and get to the tissue to fight, and so on. Part of this response is also that whatever cell got activated now gets all the attention, it starts to turn into a plasma cell and a memory cell. The plasma cell produces a lot of these antibodies that are known to work, so they help the immune system find more of that pathogen if it replicated. The memory cell just go and hides in your lymph for later, in case the pathogen infects you again.
I extremely oversimplified the matter. It is far far more complex. Because there are also things called PAMPs, these are Pathogen Associated Molecular Patterns, basically things found in many pathogens. And our body evolved to have sensors for those. So those are sort of like a recipe. But pathogens also evolve like we do and they change to avoid these sensors. And there are sooo many types of immune cells with different functions, like some even bind to proteins on your own cells, and your own cells costantly sample their insides and break them into pieces and put those pieces on those proteins on the outside. And if an immune cell senses self on these proteins, you're good, and the cell is allowed to live. If it has foreign pieces on it, it gets killed. Like when a virus hijacks your cell. Some viruses even evolved to reduce these proteins on your cells so the sentinel cells going around don't detect them. Well we evolved too and if the immune cell detects that the protein is too low, they kill the cell too. Just to give you an idea about just how complex the immune system is.
Edit: Woah the comment I copied also got gold, awesome! Thank you for the shiny stuff anonymous benefactor | [
"Antibodies are produced naturally by the body and play a key role in fighting infections caused by bacteria and viruses. They can also be used to treat infections by use of injections with blood plasma that contain large amounts of them. The use of whole, natural antibodies as medicines presents many problems: the... |
what is the difference between mitosis and meiosis | Mitosis creates two cells which are fully functional cells with all of the organisms chromosomes. Imagine mitosis as cutting a sandwich in half, and winding up with two full sized sandwiches - it's pretty awesome.
However, meiosis creates cells with only half of the number of chromosomes: 23 for humans. Overall, meiosis is only for the creation of sex cells - cells which have no function other than to pass on half of an organisms genes. With the sandwich metaphor, imagine cutting a sandwich in half, and getting two halves of a sandwich. | [
"Like mitosis, meiosis is a form of eukaryotic cell division. Meiosis gives rise to four unique daughter cells, each of which has half the number of chromosomes as the parent cell. Because meiosis creates cells that are destined to become gametes (or reproductive cells), this reduction in chromosome number is criti... |
What kind of measures were taken to combat disease during military conflicts, especially for soldiers in campaigns? | Until relatively recently the causes of the diseases were not known. They couldn't effectively fight diseases because they didn't have the necessarily scientific knowledge. The Greeks and Romans held to the [Four Humors Theory](_URL_0_) and it remained the leading knowledge of medicine up to the 1800s.
By the time of the American Civil War (what I have been studying recently) this idea was out of favor, but the germ theory had not been developed. It was thought that sickness like malaria was caused by bad air, but that didn't stop the commanders from camping their men in swamps if that was the military necessity. Sanitation and cleanness were not thought necessarily, expect by a few commanders who figured it out just by trial and error.
The Civil War did result in a large advance in medicine. The wounds and cases were recorded and published after the war, giving doctors a huge resource to study. An ambulance system was developed, as was triage, field hospitals and more. | [
"Throughout the history of warfare, armies have depended on clean water, wholesome food, sanitation, disease and injury prevention, hazard-free environments and other sound public health practices to keep Soldiers in fighting form. The Army Public Health Center has broadened the scope of the public health mission t... |
Were the witch hunting trials by throwing people into water real? How were the deaths of innocents justified? | Trial by water was one option available under trials by ordeal in Medieval Europe. Trials by ordeal, like trials by combat, come from ancient Germanic law customs. I'll mostly write here about its use in the High Middle Ages in Britain.
Trials by ordeal generally came in two forms: trial by fire, or trial by water. In the case of trial by fire, the accused held a red-hot iron for a prescribed length of time, after which the healing wound would be examined to determine guilt. Similarly, in trial by water, the accused would be thrown into a body of water: sinking meant innocence, and floating meant guilt. The concept behind trials by ordeal were that God would intervene to display the guilt or innocence of the accused party. Invoking the sacred would often include a priest exorcising or blessing the iron or water to be used in such trials.
Trial by fire was considered the more prestigious of the ordeals: it was used for women, and more accused males of higher social status. Trial by water was more often used on serfs (but likewise seems to have been the vastly more common type of ordeal, on the scale of something like 83% to 17% trials by fire in England in the 12th century. Trials by ordeal were not used specifically in witchcraft cases, which in the High Middle Ages were practically nonexistent anyway (witchcraft hysteria is more a product of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period). As Robert Bartlett describes it:
> Unlike trial by battle, the unilateral ordeals of iron and water were employed in England only in criminal cases ... Henry II made widespread use of them in the drive against crime initiated by his Assize of Clarendon in 1166. According to this enactment, juries of twelve men of every hundred and four men of every township were to supply the names of anyone who, within the last twelve years, had been accused or was suspected of robbery, murder, or theft, or of harbouring robbers, murderers, or thieves. The sheriffs were to seize those accused or suspected and bring them before the royal justice. Unless they had been caught with stolen goods and were of bad repute, they could undergo trial by cold water. If they failed, they lost a foot (and, after 1176, their right hand too). If they passed the ordeal but had a bad reputation, they had to go into life-long exile from the kingdom.
Interestingly, the records from this period in England indicate that something like two thirds of those subjected to trial by water passed, ie they were judged to have sank, and therefore were not guilty. Bartlett, however, notes that what passes as "sinking" or "floating" can be very arbitrary concepts: "To place the case before God was also to put it into the hands of a small body of men with opinions and feelings of their own."
I cannot really speak to how common the practice was for witchcraft trials, as those tended to be more common in later time periods (and mostly in other parts of Europe, such as the Low Countries, that used civil law and inquisitorial prosecution). Nor can I speak to when the idea became a common modernist myth that witch trials involved trial by water (usually with the Catch-22 idea that an innocent person would sink and drown, while a guilty person would float and then be executed). But it seems to be mostly that. While trials by ordeal are very foreign to modern people, and invoke the supernatural to a degree that would make us comfortable, there were rules behind their use, and most of those who submitted to such trials appear to have been acquitted.
Mostly from Robert Bartlett, *England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225* | [
"Ordeal by water was associated with the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries: an accused who sank was considered innocent, while floating indicated witchcraft. Some argued that witches floated because they had renounced baptism when entering the Devil's service. King James VI of Scotland (later also James I ... |
what is the united nations' role in the russia/ukraine situation? | It can't have one because Russia is on the Security Council. Motions were made to take the matter up, and Russia blocked them, as is its privilege.
This is the "bug" in the UN system. The permanent members of the Council (US, UK, France, Russia, China) don't have to live within the UN framework if they don't want to. | [
"Several members of the international community have expressed grave concerns over the Russian intervention in Ukraine and criticized Russia for its actions in post-revolutionary Ukraine, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South K... |
Were Native Americans ever taken back to Europe, as slaves or to be assimilated into European society? | The famous Native American Squanto was an example of this. He was captured as a young man in 1605 by the British, enslaved, and taken to England where he was taught English so he could be used as an interpreter. 9 years later he returned to New England as part of one of John Smith's expeditions. He tried to return to his people, but was then kidnapped again, got taken to Spain where he was almost sold into slavery again, got out of that situation, then went to England, went to Newfoundland on an expedition, came back to England, and then finally was allowed to return to his true home (this is almost 15 years after being abducted originally). He gets back to New England with another Jon Smith expedition... and then finds out his entire village was obliterated by a Small Pox outbreak a year earlier...
2 years later he gets into contact with the Pilgrims who have just gotten through their first winter in the Americas. They were a little worse for wear to put it mildly. He showed them native farming techniques including how to cultivate maize, helped them learn the land, and acted as an interpreter and diplomat of sorts for them with native tribes in the region. He died a year later, but in that year he saved the Pilgrims expedition from failing like so many similar ventures in the New World did. He had crossed the Atlantic six times. | [
"European nations sent Native Americans (sometimes against their will) to the Old World as objects of curiosity. They often entertained royalty and were sometimes prey to commercial purposes. Christianization of Native Americans was a charted purpose for some European colonies.\n",
"Once Europeans had gained cont... |
Panel AMA – East Asia in the Early 20th Century | - How was Henry Puyi's day-to-day life when he ruled the Manchukuo under Japanese in Tianjin? What kind of duties did he do? What kind of freedom was allowed him?
- A lot of Chinese migrated from Meixian to my country in 1930s, my grandfather included. My mom always said it was because a lot of people wanted to avoid 当兵 (dunno what the English term is), is it true or is there any other cause?
Sorry if my question is too far away from the permitted topics but I'm curious nonetheless. Thanks in advance! | [
"East Asia is an especially important regional focus. During 2000-2005, the Press published 184 academic monographs on the region, 82 on China, 81 on Japan, and 21 on Korea. The three principal subject areas were language and literature (with 23 on China, 25 on Japan, and 7 on Korea); religion and philosophy (with ... |
Why can Windows run .exe files, but Mac can't even get a program to convert it to a readable file? | The .exe contains x86 machine code, which the CPU in your computer interprets. To get an intuition for why it's not readable by humans, please look at the [cards in this video](_URL_0_): the holes on the cards translate into movements of the machine, and those *movements* result in the actual fabric patterns.
Now, most Windows computers and most Mac computers both use the same x86 CPUs and thus you'd expect the CPU to execute the .exe file just fine, right?
The first problem we run into is that the .exe file doesn't contain *just* x86 machine code, but it also has a very particular format and structure which Windows understands, but Mac OS doesn't. Imagine if you hired a new loom operator but they didn't speak English so you couldn't tell them how to load up the cards and pump the loom.
The second problem we run into is that while there's lots of code in the .exe doing the things specific to your software (whether it's a game or Excel or whatever) the code also *refers* to and *relies on* specific things provided by the operating system.
For example, whenever the software needs to tell the time by the machine's hardware clock, or whenever the software needs to put something on the screen, it needs to talk with the OS to accomplish that task. The OS makes sure that if you run two programs at the same time, they get fair access to the hardware resources. The OS also lets the software simply ask "what's the time?" instead of having to know that your computer has a FD510-534-b2 clock by Taiwan Electronic Clockwork Corp that provides its timing information in multiples of 2.3 picoseconds.
Unfortunately, all OSes have different ways of asking "what's the time" and the way that Windows understands the question is baked into that .exe file you have. If it tried to ask Mac OS "what's the time", it would be like asking in a language that Mac OS doesn't understand. | [
"The operating systems the archivers can run on without emulation or compatibility layer. Linux Ubuntu's own GUI \"Archive manager,\" for example, can open and create many archive formats (including Rar archives) even to the extent of splitting into parts and encryption and ability to be read by the \"native progra... |
how do we know where the borders that distinguish each ocean are, (i.e between pacific and atlantic) and how were they distinguished? | At the boundaries between the oceans, no, there's no sudden change.
The technical borders of each ocean are dictated by the International Hydrographic Organization. For example, the boundary between the Atlantic and Indian oceans is defined by the 20E meridian from Africa to Antarctica.
On a large scale, each ocean has its own properties that make them unique and worth referring to separately. They have their own currents, their own species, etc. Despite that, on a very fine scale, there's no exact point where one becomes the other. The border for the Atlantic/Indian above could just as well be 19E or 21E. 20E is a nice round number and just so happens (coincidentally) to be very close to the southernmost point of Africa, and we had to make the distinction *somewhere*, so that was a good spot. | [
"The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe: the Strait of Gibraltar (where it connects with the Mediterranean Sea—one of it... |
who are neo-nazis, what do they believe in? | It's hard to really put a finger on that one. There are people with different mindsets who consider themselves or are considered Neo-Nazis.
One possible definition is people who agree with what the Nazis did in the 30s and 40s, like considering Germans (or US-Americans,..) a superior race, thinking jews are a harm to society and wanting them gone and so on. This one probably is the easiest definition (basically just meaning Nazis living today). Not like I knew any of them, but these usually seem to be rather unintelligent people disappointed by life who seek belonging.
Another approach is people who don't necessarily agree with Hitler & Co but still think there are better or worse races and that they shouldn't mix.
For example, an acquaintance of mine completely disagrees with Hitler's approach to the "problem"; he thinks jews shouldn't live with German people, but he doesn't agree with just killing them. He actually thinks Hitler was bad because he was emotion-driven and destroyed the in his view good idea of all 'German people' (=/= people from Germany but people from the 'German race') living in one, powerful state. He considers himself a Neo Nazi but not in connection with 'Old Nazis' but because he sees himself as a nationalist and socialist. He isn't one of those stereotype Neonazi skinhead guys, he's actually a very intelligent guy that dresses formally and so on.
Another possible definition is just very racist, far-right people. In my humble opinion, the line between far-right and Neo-Nazi is blurred but does exist, so I wouldn't automatically consider every racist a Neo-Nazi.
**tl;dr: there are many possible definitions, depending on who you ask. Might be Hitler-fans, might be national socialists or just very racist people.**
Regardless of the definition , I don't agree with any of them! | [
"Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or related ideologies. Common aspects of modern-day Neo-Nazism include hatred or fear of minorities such as blacks, Hispanics, lesbian, gay, and transgender people, non-white immigrants, and sometimes even Christians bu... |
Why is the interior of the great pyramid in Egypt not covered in paintings and ancient Egyptian writings or reliefs like all the other supposedly older pyramids found in Egypt? | Just like today's tombstones are not burried with the deceased, in ancient egyptian times paintings and relief decorations were usually reserved for places where others (mainly relatives and priests) could see them, in the accompanying chapels and temples.
Khufu's pyramid complex is in very bad condition but those of chephren and menkaure leave no doubt that the pyramids and their temples were meant to serve a death cult.
If you want me to go into anything specific just ask.
P.S.: I am not aware of any extensive decorations in any older pyramid so if you could point me to them it would be appreciated. | [
"The inner part of the temple has the same triangular layout that most ancient Egyptian temples follow, with rooms decreasing in size from the entrance to the sanctuary. The temple is complex in structure and quite unusual because of its many side chambers. The hypostyle hall (sometimes also called a pronaos) is lo... |
what constitutes a radio station being hd quality, and how do they make it hd? | 'HD radio' is a branded implementation of the In-Band/On-Channel (IBOC) method of 'hybrid' broadcasting, wherein compact digital 'saddlebags' are placed at either end of the station's reserved 'mask' (the space it's allowed to use on the 'dial').
In many cases, there is only one HD channel, 'HD1'. Even if there are others, 'HD1' always refers to the digital version of the same station's analogue programme. (No one has been willing to give up their analogue signal and go digital-only, because HD has not caught on, so giving up their analogue signal would be financial ruin, since most listeners would not pick them up at all anymore.)
'HD2' and higher HD numbers refer to other available channels, usually with different programming, from the same broadcaster. A common use of HD2 in many cities, for example, is secondary-language programming. (This is similar to SAP -- Secondary Audio Programme -- on cable TV, if you know about that.)
At this time, all 'HD' channels are subsidiary to an existing analogue ("standard") radio channel. Analogue stations do have sub-channels, and some of them are available to the public, with special equipment. CRIS, for example, is a nationally distributed reading service for the blind that is transmited on these subchannels. But most listeners are not aware of analogue subchannels, and it would be difficult to make them available as conventional alternative broadcast channels in the manner of the main signal. FM signals need a lot of space on the dial to work right, and there really isn't room to squeeze more than one into the 'mask' that the FCC assigns each station right now. (Nor are there any plans to make the masks wider, and for reasons I can't lay out here I can say confidently that there never will be; in the simplest terms, it really can't be done.)
Digital signals are more compact than analogue FM signals, so they can sound good even though they don't take up a lot of bandwidth. But more than one analogue signal in that same mask would have to sacrifice bandwidth in order to fit, and the result would be poorer sound. This is okay for CRIS, as it's only voices speaking, but music would not sound good on narrower FM channels, so it would be a poor choice for a commercial broadcaster to make.
| [
"WAWZ broadcasts in HD Radio with both its HD1, HD2, and HD3 channels providing Artist Experience data including song titles, artists, and albums on compatible radios. Over the years, 99.1 FM has hosted a variety of formats on its HD sub-channels. The current HD sub-channel formats are:\n",
"Uniquely, the station... |
Are there any examples of successful opposition to Jim Crow in the segregated South before Brown v. Board? | Good question. We often think that African American protest and the Civil Rights Movement began with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. This is usually the beginning marker because it was the first successful legal battle for de-segregation. However, do we define successful opposition to Jim Crow as only legal battles?
The current scholarship is leaning more and more to the answer "no". Opposition can take many forms, individual, silent protest, labor agitation, organizing community councils, boycotts, etc. This type of African American protest has existed as long as there have been African Americans (this is not my specialty, but slave narratives are a good example of the small and large ways blacks protested oppression). In terms of the 20th century, African American protest began to organize more and solidify into a coherent argument during the labor agitation of the 1930s, and there you can see many instances of successful challenges of Jim Crow.
Interlude: Jim Crow didn't exist only in the South. My current research is on Depression-era blacks in the Midwest, and often the conditions and social treatment of African Americans outside of the South was comparable. For more, see Thomas Sugrue's [*Sweet Land of Liberty:: The Forgotten Struggle of Civil Rights in the North*](_URL_2_) and Kimberley Phillips' [*AlabamaNorth African American Migrants, Community, and Working-Class Activism in Cleveland*](_URL_0_).
Ok, back to the South. So how do we define "successful opposition"? Robin D. G. Kelley argues that opposition to racism is not always obvious. In ["'We Are Not What We Seem:' Re-thinking Black Working Clark Opposition in Jim Crow South](_URL_3_)", Kelley talks about how workers would sing hymn and spirituals while they worked in dismal factories. While employers thought this was a simple show of religion, in fact it held deeper meaning for the black workers. It was a recall to the days of slavery when slaves used hidden meanings in spirituals to give hope (as well as clues) for escape. Kelley also talks about silent protest, like slow-downs, where workers would intentionally work slower to delay production. Outside of work, African Americans in the South would also participate on small, unorganized levels of protest. Kelley tells of the story of a particularly racist bus driver would drew his gun several times on black women riders, and how he would intentionally miss blacks' stops. The riders responded by ringing the bell for stops and not get off. Is this a successful protest?
One last example of protest was the ["Don't Buy Where You Can't Work"](_URL_1_) movement, which had several iterations across the country, both northern and southern cities. There were many businesses, large and small, that would not employ blacks. African Americans in cities like Chicago would organize and decide to boycott businesses that would practice this, until the businesses would hire black employees. This also promoted black businesses in the community. Is this a successful protest?
I know answering a question with more questions is such a typical historian move, but I do think it's important to challenge what we mean by protest. I definitely recommend you read Kelley's article (and really anything by Kelley- he's superb). But in short, I would argue yes- there were many ways African Americans successfully protested Jim Crow, in the South and North, prior to Brown v. Board. They might not be forms of protest we are familiar with, but it was brave all the same. | [
"These Jim Crow laws revived principles of the 1865 and 1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. Segregation of public (state-sponsored) schools was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in \"Brown v. Board of ... |
When/how did we begin to view the Earth as a planet in a solar system of multiple planets? In other words, at what point in time would you be able to ask "What planet are we on?" and people would begin to understand what you're talking about? [X-post to no stupid questions] | hi! other responses are welcome (especially to represent various other cultures), but you can get started here
* [When did humans become aware that they were on planet Earth, in a solar system, and part of the Universe?](_URL_0_)
It might also be worth x-posting to /r/AskScience (astronomy) | [
"With the advent of the Scientific Revolution, use of the term \"planet\" changed from something that moved across the sky (in relation to the star field); to a body that orbited Earth (or that was believed to do so at the time); and by the 18th century to something that directly orbited the Sun when the heliocentr... |
how can bill cosby's wife be compelled to testify against him? | The problem is that, while she is his wife, she's *also* his business manager. The plaintiffs say they're only asking her to testify in her role as his business manager. | [
"On May 3, 2018, after her husband's conviction for sexual assault, Cosby released a three-page statement defending her husband in which she compared her husband's conviction to the racially charged killing of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who was lynched after a white woman said she was offended by him in h... |
what kind of things would people have worn during beheadings in 17th Century France? | Do you mean 18th century? Beheading by guillotine saw widespread use from 1790ish onward, not the 1600s.
Assuming that you do, revolutionary fashion tended to involve plain, close-fitting shirts for men, somewhat influenced by the english landed gentry. Frenchmen would also wear a plain frock or riding coat, short waistcoat or high leather boots, again due to English fashion, which became very popular in France.
Simplicity came to be seen as progressive in the early 1790s, but the *bonnet rouge* (red bonnet) also became popular, as did the colours of red, white and blue. The tricolour cockade was worn often, and clothes often had those 'revolutionary' colours.
[Here](_URL_0_) is an example of French soldiers, dressed in the revolutionary tricolour. [Here](_URL_1_) are male *sans-culottes*, dressed in revolutionary colours, but less colourful clothes (as I mentioned above) were also common. [Here](_URL_4_) is the female version.
[Here](_URL_2_) is a painting of the execution of the king, and [here](_URL_3_) is one of some other poor sod. | [
"Starting in the 1550s, middle- and upper-class women in Europe wore dresses which included a smock, stays, kirtle, gown, forepart, sleeves, ruff and a partlet. Undergarments were not worn underneath. In England, Queen Elizabeth dictated what kinds of dresses women were allowed to wear. French women were inspired b... |
Why aren't analog computers more widely used? | We don't use analogue computers because the cost and complexity to build such machines is extremely high, and their reliability is low for their cost.
The main problem with analogue computers is that in order to represent all of the possible values, you need multiple voltages across the circuits, and be able to accurately discern between them. For a binary computer, this is typically quite easy to handle: you have +5V and 0V. Detecting between the two is very easy, and errors in determining the voltage is extremely low -- circuits don't typically confuse +5V with 0V and vice-versa.
An analogue computer however has to have multiple voltages it must be able to discern. In fact, the voltages are _continuous_^0, which can make representing a specific value challenging. We do have the technology to make it work, but outside specific applications the precision needed to give accurate results is extremely high and very, very costly.
Digital circuits on the other hand are very simple (in relative terms), and very, very cheap to manufacture. It is estimated that humanity has built over [13 sextillion MOS transistors](_URL_0_), making it the most manufactured item in the history of the world. Not only can we build them cheaply and at huge scales -- we can also make them extremely fast -- fast enough and cheap enough that computers based on them can be as fast (and in many cases, faster) than what we can achieve via an analogue computer.
So the short version is that it's cheaper and easier to optimize simpler circuits than it is complex circuits. That said, for some types of continuous calculations an analogue computer might make sense even with the extra expense and complexity involved -- however, for the vast majority of computation for which we want good integer math, digital computers will continue to reign supreme.
-----
^0 -- voltages are also continuous in a digital computer, but we use a clock to decide when the signal should be measured, such that we're only effectively taking measurements when the signal is either high or low. | [
"Analogue circuits are typically harder to design, requiring more skill than comparable digital systems. This is one of the main reasons that digital systems have become more common than analogue devices. An analogue circuit is usually designed by hand, and the process is much less automated than for digital system... |
why does it get harder and harder to make friends and form meaningful relationships the older you get? | Just one mans opinion here but.. I believe it has to do with shared experiences. When you are young the world is new and there is much to learn about it, you have friends and those friends get to experience all those things for the first time with you, strengthening your relationships. As you get older you know the game already, you have solidly formed opinions and a definitive perspective on life. You may go and do things with people but they aren't as ingrained in your view on life as those people that were with you when you were gaining that view. | [
"Relationship building is a component to identity creation in young adults. Attending college is the next step for many privileged high school students when transitioning into adulthood. Prior to college, young people who attend rely more heavily upon their parents or parental figures for guidance through difficult... |
what makes me... me? memories? consciousness? my body? and why? | No one really knows the answer to this. I've alwyas considered someone's thoughts and their body make up who they are, but then again thoughts and your body can be manipulated and changed.
Ive always found it amazing that we are made up of different cells, like they're completely different living things to eachother, but all seem to 'sgare' a consciousness.
In short it's probably best not to overthink it. | [
"\"If consciousness is then the sum total of everything of which we are aware, pre-consciousness is the reservoir of everything we can remember, all that is accessible to voluntary recall: the storehouse of memory. This leaves the unconscious area of mental life to contain all the more primitive drives and impulses... |
when do you stop worrying about heat from air friction, and start worrying about air compression. | Engines that use supersonic air compression ([scramjets](_URL_0_)) for propulsion start working around mach 5. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Kinetic heating\". As the airspeed increases, more and more molecules of air per second hit the aircraft. This causes a temperature rise in the Direct Reading thermometer probe of the aircraft due to friction. Because the airflow is thought to be compressible and isentropic, which, by definition, is ... |
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