question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Why did Britain/USA not just colonialize Saudi Arabia? | You've pretty much answered your own question. Invading and controlling countries was not the preferred method ot at least was losing favour. That doesnt mean that some control was entirely off the books (vis a vis Persia and the Brits), but that it wasnt the ideal way of gettings one way. It was clear that a pro-weste... | [
"The background of the Protectorate of South Arabia is part of an effort of the British Empire to protect the East India Route, the sea route between the Mediterranean Sea and India, in and through the southern coasts of Arabia. Already before the opening of the Suez Canal, industrial Britain with its rapidly expan... |
Have there been Nobel prizes awarded for theories that were later disproven? If so, how does the foundation respond? | Yep, there has been the prize of [Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger](_URL_0_) in 1926.
> The 1926 prize went to Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger, "for his discovery of the Spiroptera carcinoma", a microbial parasite which Fibiger claimed was the cause of cancer. This "finding" was discredited by other scientists shortly th... | [
"The Nobel Foundation was founded as a private organisation on 29 June 1900 specifically to manage the finances and administration of the Nobel Prizes. It is based on Nobel's last will and testament. At the time Nobel's will led to much specticism and criticism and thus it was not until 26 April 1897 that his will ... |
Which part of China did Han people originate in? | The earliest that "ethnic Chinese" can be placed with certainty is the 13th century BC, when the Shang were writing divination records in what was clearly an ancestral form of the Chinese language. Shang materials have been found over a large part of north China but concentrated around Yinxu in Henan, identified as the... | [
"During the 4th–12th centuries, Han Chinese people from North China's Yellow River delta migrated and settled in the South of China. This gave rise to peoples including the Cantonese themselves, Hakkas and Hoklos, whose ancestors migrated from Henan and Shandong, to areas of southeastern coastal China such as Chaoz... |
Why does orbital velocity decrease with distance from the planet/sun, but velocity around a turntable increases with an increased radius. | It is because the two are not the same.
Your example of a coin on a turntable has constant angular velocity, regardless of distance from the center. In other words, no matter how far away it is, it makes one revolution in the same period of time. This is _forcibly_ imposed on the coin by the friction of the turntable.... | [
"However, as a planet grows more massive and its interaction with the disk becomes nonlinear, it may induce eccentric motion of the surrounding disk's gas, which in turn may excite the planet's orbital eccentricity. Low eccentricities are correlated with high multiplicity (number of planets in the system) based on ... |
When in the past did year abbreviations switch over (ex, '90s to 1890s vs 1990s)? | I'm not sure what question you're asking.
The 1890s will always be the "Gay Nineties", as per your link (or [The Mauve Decade](_URL_0_)), just as the 1920s will always be the "Roaring Twenties", and the 1960s will always be the "Swinging Sixties".
However, if you refer to the "nineties/'90s" *now*, most people will a... | [
"The first era name to be assigned was , celebrating the political and organizational changes which were to flow from the great of 645. Although the regular practice of proclaiming successive era names was interrupted in the late seventh century, it was permanently re-adopted in 701 during the reign of Emperor Monm... |
since space itself is stretching, does that mean that black holes could form more easily in the distant future? | It actually makes it harder for black holes to form because over time matter becomes more sparsely distributed. However, most black hole dynamics are on stellar and maybe galactic scales, which at this time aren't affected by the expansion of space. | [
"In the Star Trek universe, wormhole theory states that if a section in the fabric of spacetime joins together with another section of spacetime, a direct connection can be made between the two, allowing speedy travel between the two (normally unrelated) spacetime coordinates. Black holes are one such way of stretc... |
how do criminals get away when being interviewed in documentaries on national geographic and such? | The police cannot assume what is on "TV" is true. Neither should you. It could easily be staged or scripted. In order to become evidence, a man or woman would have to testify in court that everything on the video is true. That would make the film makers job very difficult in the future, so you can imagine they aren't ... | [
"True crime documentaries have been a growing medium in the last several decades. One of the most influential documentaries in this process was \"The Thin Blue Line\", directed by Errol Morris. This documentary, among others, feature reenactments, although other documentary filmmakers choose not to use them since t... |
how do communication waves travel in space, for example between the rover or apollo and nasa. don't waves need matter to travel? | Not Electro-Magnetic waves. Those can also travel as particles. Back in the day we did, in fact, thought that there must be a medium in space to allow light waves to travel through, called **aether**, but all attempts to detect it failed, because it doesn't exist.
Electromagnetic signals can act as both particles and ... | [
"Mechanical and electromagnetic waves may often seem to travel through space; but, while they can carry energy, momentum, and information through matter or empty space, they may do that without transferring any mass. In mathematics and electronics waves are studied as signals. On the other hand, some waves do not a... |
why is usb the standard and not thunderbolt? | USB has been around for over 15 years. Thunderbolt's been around for only a couple. Will Thunderbolt become the standard? Maybe. It's hard to see something replacing USB, though. Maybe it will become the standard for displays (although HDMI is quickly becoming a standard on the PC side for that), or maybe storage devic... | [
"Thunderbolt is the brand name of a hardware interface developed by Intel (in collaboration with Apple) that allows the connection of external peripherals to a computer. Thunderbolt 1 and 2 use the same connector as Mini DisplayPort (MDP), whereas Thunderbolt 3 re-uses the USB-C connector from USB. It was initially... |
car engine terms | > What does a (x)liter V(x)engine means?(The x are the numbers, for example 3 liter V8 engine)
The first is the capacity in liters of the cylinders of the engine. More liters = more air/fuel mixture and more power.
The V8 is the layout and number cylinders. The V indicates an engine with half of it's cylinders on ei... | [
"Engine: The word engine derives from \"ingenuity\" and originally referred to contrivances that may or may not be physical devices. See Merriam-Webster's definition of engine. A steam engine uses heat to boil water contained in a pressure vessel; the expanding steam drives a piston or a turbine. This principle can... |
Can aquatic mammals get Decompression Sickness (the Bends)? | Human free-divers can do the same.
The problem is different gas pressures in your breathing mix - for a SCUBA diver or someone working in a pressurized caisson, they inhale air at higher-than-atmospheric pressure, which causes the concentration of dissolved nitrogen in their blood to increase. When they move back t... | [
"Diving animals such as rats, minks and burrowing animals, are sensitive to low-oxygen atmospheres and (unlike humans) will avoid them, making purely hypoxic techniques possibly inhumane for them. For this reason, the use of inert gas (hypoxic) atmospheres (without CO) for euthanasia, is also species-specific.\n",
... |
in a time when drunk driving is so universally frowned up on and everyone is cracking down on duis, why is it that in some cities a business cannot be issued a liquor license if they don't have enough parking? | It's often that they need a certain amount of spots in order to host any event, or they lack the required number of specialized spots (handicapped, expectant mothers, etc.) Or they lack the ability to have overnight parking for people who wish to drive there, drink, and then come back the next day and pick up their car... | [
"A study of about 39,000 alcohol-related traffic accidents in Kentucky found that residents of dry counties are more likely to be involved in such crashes, possibly because they have to drive farther from their homes to consume alcohol, thus increasing impaired driving exposure. The study concludes that county-leve... |
what is syndication exclusivity? | Syndication is when a show starts airing on other networks. Sometimes they make contracts promising to exclusively air on only specific networks. | [
"Syndication exclusivity (also known as syndex) is a federal law implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States that is designed to protect a local television station's rights to syndicated television programs by granting exclusive broadcast rights to the station for that program in... |
What are the chances that the Human race could evolve into two different species that couldn't reproduce with each other? | Some small population that had enough people to maintain itself would have to become isolated long enough from the rest of humanity that they would change enough to not be able to reproduce with us.
The chances are incredibly slim in our modern world, almost impossible. Given that even "isolated" tribes on islands in ... | [
"Population-dependent and reversible sex determination, found in animals such as the blue wrasse fish, have less potential for failure. In the blue wrasse, only one male is found in a given territory: larvae within the territory develop into females, and adult males will not enter the same territory. If a male dies... |
What is a good (modern) book on the Battle of Passchendaele? | These may be of some help:
- Your first stop should be John Terraine's *The Road to Passchendaele: the Flanders Offensive of 1917* (1977); while not "modern" in the strictest sense, Terraine is very much reliable on these matters and is one of the fathers of the "learning curve" school to begin with. He doesn't put up... | [
"The book has seven chapters, the first two cover the days prior to the battle, four chapters deal with the day and night of each of the two days of the battle, and the last one with the immediate aftermath of the \"hecatomb\". Historical notes are attached.\n",
"Coningsby is the author of a diary of the action o... |
How similar is present-day Judaism to the Judaism of the 1st and 2nd centuries? | This is not really a simple question to answer. There's no way to really define how similar things are over time. Additionally, the 1st-2nd centuries were a time of incredible amounts of change in the Jewish community, and neither ancient or modern Judaism are homogeneous.
The foundation texts that define modern Jew... | [
"The history of the Jews and Judaism can be divided into five periods: (1) ancient Israel before Judaism, from the beginnings to 586 BCE; (2) the beginning of Judaism in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE; (3) the formation of rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE; (4) the age of rabbinic ... |
why does the math they teach in school keep changing and getting harder? | One could argue that 3+5=8 hasn't changed in, forever.
The pressure is to teach **more math** in the same amount of time. That means that more intensive techniques need to be used, and students must **work harder**. It's not the math that's different, it's how much math you need that's changed since your parents wer... | [
"Traditional mathematics focuses on teaching algorithms that will lead to the correct answer. Because of this focus on application of algorithms, the traditional math student must always use the specific method that is being taught. This kind of algorithmic dependence is de-emphasized in reform mathematics. Reforme... |
why no one appears to be talking about lockheed martin's recent claims to have a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology. | Because they haven't made a breakthrough yet. They have a design that isn't even complete, let alone a working prototype.
| [
"When Lockheed Martin announced a \"major breakthrough\" in fusion power in October 2014, Lincoln described the process of nuclear fusion for the Australian Science Media Centre. He expressed some reservations about the alleged break-through, noting that achieving an energy output greater than the required energy i... |
what's the point of big research stations in antarctica? | I have a professor that goes to Antarctica yearly to study climate change, by examining Ice cores and sedimentary deposits. A lot of things can only be observed in Antarctica about paleoclimate (how the climate was in the past) because Antarctica is pretty untouched by man. | [
"A number of governments have set up permanent research stations in Antarctica and these bases are widely distributed. Unlike the drifting ice stations set up in the Arctic, the research stations of the Antarctic are constructed either on rock or on ice that is (for practical purposes) fixed in place.\n",
"The lo... |
why does anybody get any kind of insurance? aren't they statistically formulated to rip you off (after calculating probabilities of accidents etc).. | Insurance is designed to protect you from catastrophic loss. You *shouldn't* buy insurance for a TV or Playstation because losing them won't ruin your life. You *should* by insurance for your health, car or house because losing one of those could put you in a financial hole you can't recover from. Most people aren't... | [
"In the United States, economists and consumer advocates generally consider insurance to be worthwhile for low-probability, catastrophic losses, but not for high-probability, small losses. Because of this, consumers are advised to select high deductibles and to not insure losses which would not cause a disruption i... |
Biography recommendation(s) on the space/arms race during the cold war. | Von Braun is kind of overdone — you're not going to find anything too new or interesting. If it were me, I would seek out other, often-overlooked, plenty interesting figures. Theodore von Karman comes to mind. Qian Xuesen is also an interesting case (though not European...). There were Germans who were taken to the USS... | [
"During the Cold War, the magazine committed itself to presenting a balanced view of the physical and human geography of nations beyond the Iron Curtain. The magazine printed articles on Berlin, de-occupied Austria, the Soviet Union, and Communist China that deliberately downplayed politics to focus on culture. In ... |
what is the purpose of the extra gears in my automatic car? when (if ever?) should i use them? | If you're driving down a steep slope, shifting into first or second will hold you back so you don't have to ride your brakes all the way down. I recently drove over Sonora Pass, and there was a large section I had to take in first, and some of it I even had to take in second. | [
"The name Self-Changing Gears is sometimes confusing: the gearboxes are not fully automatic, \"selection\" of gear ratio remains a manual choice, but the gear-changing and any clutch control needed is automated. The gearboxes were used in conjunction with a fluid coupling so no clutch pedal was needed.\n",
"BULLE... |
What differences would we see in the world (technologically and otherwise) if it was proven that p = np? | I actually just started a research project about this and I've interviewed several people about this. An example of what could be solved include extremely accurate weather prediction. However, not every consequence would be beneficial; computer security relies on the fact that some problems are too complex to efficient... | [
"The question of whether P equals NP is one of the most important open questions in theoretical computer science because of the wide implications of a solution. If the answer is yes, many important problems can be shown to have more efficient solutions. These include various types of integer programming problems in... |
why did the dea strike a deal with the sinaloa cartel? | I live in Juárez México, you might have heard of if because at one point in the drug war it was considered the most dangerous city in the world. So I know a bit about this, there are a lot of factors but to summarize, the United States needs the drug trade, it means money , a lot of money, and México is the fastest rou... | [
"When Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006, he announced a crackdown on cartels by the Mexican military to stem the increasing violence. After four years, the additional efforts had not slowed the flow of drugs or the killings tied to the drug war. Of the 53,000 arrests made as of 2010, on... |
When did Europeans start to refer to themselves as Europeans? | People identifying themselves as European? That's still rather a strange thing to do for anyone. Only a few people who are seriously supportive of the EU would do that. Most others would either identify mostly by their national identity or even by a regional identity, like Scottish, Catalan or Occitan.
And if one woul... | [
"Yolŋu had known about Europeans before the arrival of British in Australia through their contact with Macassan traders, which probably began around the sixteenth century. Their word for European, \"Balanda\", is derived from \"Hollander\" (Dutch person).\n",
"Historically, learned Europeans were often identified... |
It's often stated that the U.S. has been at war for most of it's history. How does this compare to other states, past and present? | So the question we really need to tackle is: What do you mean by "been at war"? The United States has not *legally* been at war since 1945, which means weve had nearly 70 years of uninterrupted peace since the end of World War Two. Infact, in its history the United States has only issued 5 declarations of war, so (agai... | [
"The history of armed conflicts involving the United States of America spans a period of more than four centuries. A period ranging from the early era of European colonization and the formation of the new national polity that is to become the United States, to its evolvement through technological and political uphe... |
what is redox chemistry and what is it used for? | Redox is a reaction that involves reduction and oxidation of molecules. Examples are electron transfers that happen in living organisms during respiration. | [
"Redox therapy is an experimental therapy that aims to effect an outcome by modifying the levels of pro-oxidant and antioxidant agents in cells. The term \"redox\" is a contraction of \"reduction-oxidation\". For cancer patients, the therapy is predicated on the idea that the redox state of cells may have an effect... |
why the bullshit of naming sequels with original titles? | Don't know the thinking in the game world, but I read the movie industry avoids numbering sequels because the audience thinks they have to have seen all the films in the series to get the new one, lowering the number of people who go to the sequel. Probably something similar applies for video games. | [
"Not all remakes use the same title as the previously released version; the 1966 film \"Walk, Don't Run\", for example, is a remake of the World War II comedy \"The More the Merrier\". This is particularly true for films that are remade from films produced in another language, such as: \"Point of No Return\" (from ... |
how do pearls form? | Here's a hint- It's the same material as their shell.
The sand is an irritant to the soft gooey creature, it can't reach to dislodge a grain of sand that is stuck, so it covers it in a layer of the same stuff the shell is made of. They get the minerals from their diet. Layer after layer it gets incrementally larger, j... | [
"Natural pearls are formed by nature, more or less by chance. On the other hand, cultured pearls are human creations formed by inserting a tissue graft from a donor mollusk, upon which a pearl sac forms, and the inner side precipitates calcium carbonate, in the form of nacre or \"mother-of-pearl\". \n",
"Pearls a... |
Why was property ownership a requirement for voting in early US history? | Hey, this can be traced to the English traditions and views on voting rights. Though, it has to be said, we have to make a distinction between three phases: pre-Revolutionary structures, the 13 states under the Articles of Confederation and Post-US Constitution in 1789.
& #x200B;
Pre-Revolutionary structures varied ... | [
"The Constitution did not originally define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to decide this status. In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only white male adult property owners to vote (about 6% of the population). By 1856 property ownership requirements were eliminated in all states, gi... |
Why do I sink faster in water than others? | Buoyancy in water is all about water displacement.
Generally the fatter you are the easier it is to float. If you are more muscular with very little fat then you will sink. This is why it takes a toll on you. You have to work to stay afloat where others can do little to no work for the same effect.
| [
"A human is unlikely to sink entirely into quicksand due to the higher density of the fluid (assuming the quicksand is on dry ground and not under water, but even if underwater, sinking is still improbable). Quicksand has a density of about 2 grams per milliliter, whereas the density of the human body is only about... |
why are gay pride and black pride encouraged while straight pride and white pride are considered as racist ? | I've always found 'pride' to be a shit word for this sort of thing. 'Not-shame' would be more accurate, but there's no good word for that.
Basically in the past and to a degree in the present homosexuals and black people in the United States, amongst other groups, have been subjected to prejudice against them for the... | [
"The Black Gay Pride movement is a movement within the United States for African American members of the LGBT community. Started in the 1990s, Black Gay Pride movements began as a way to provide black LGBT people an alternative to the largely white mainstream LGBT movement. The movement serves as a way for black LG... |
Are there any good books or sources to read up on the mid to late pueblo people of the mesa verde region? | Unfortunately, there aren't too many good and accessible sources on Mesa Verde meant for more general consumption (as opposed to very technical archaeological material).
If you are interested in Ancestral Puebloan archaeology generally (and not just Mesa Verde), then there are three good overviews of Pueblo archaeolo... | [
"Cordell's research focused on the pre-Columbian history of the Southwestern United States. She was particularly interested in the anthropology of the Pueblo Indians, their social organization, their migration and demography and their culture (especially ceramics). In the field of archaeobotany Cordell dealt with t... |
How did ancient archaeological sites like the Palace of Knossos and Troy (but not limited to) get buried? | Most ancient cities quite honestly get torn or burned down due to accidents, conquests, or natural disasters and are subsequently built over.
Tenochtitlan was the Aztec capital. The Aztecs had built and modelled their city over the ancient ruins of Teotihuacan. After the Spanish Conquest and the fall of the Aztec Emp... | [
"The site of the Greek colony and its necropolis have been periodically excavated since the 19th century; even though the site has suffered from erosion (and the tombs also from looting), the digs produced rich findings (archaic ceramics, inscriptions, etc.).\n",
"Among the first archaeological sites discovered i... |
why do leaves turn yellow and wither during fall? | During winter, there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. The trees will rest, and live off the food they stored during the summer. They begin to shut down their food-making factories. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. They then slowly begin to become waste products of the tree and turn from... | [
"Leaves in temperate, boreal, and seasonally dry zones may be seasonally deciduous (falling off or dying for the inclement season). This mechanism to shed leaves is called abscission. When the leaf is shed, it leaves a leaf scar on the twig. In cold autumns, they sometimes change color, and turn yellow, bright-oran... |
why are americans saying special words for school years, like "sophomore"? | Cambridge!
In or before 1688, Cambridge University used a ranking system for students to help professors keep track of student progress: Fresh Man, Sophmore, Junior Sophister, Senior Sophister. These terms relate to the Greek "Sophos" meaning knowledge and were meant to reflect the amount of knowledge the student pos... | [
"Among high-school and college students in the United States, the words \"freshman\" (or the gender-neutral terms \"frosh\" or \"first year\", sometimes \"freshie\"), \"sophomore\", \"junior\" and \"senior\" refer to the first, second, third, and fourth years respectively. For first-year students, \"frosh\" and \"f... |
when drawing straws, are you more likely to get the short straw if you pick first, or after several people have already picked? | It does not matter. Say there is 5 straws. The first one to pick have a 20% chance of picking the shortest one. Now there is 4 straws so the next person have a 25% chance of picking the shortest one. However that is assuming the first person did not already pick the short straw. And there is an 80% chance that he did n... | [
"Straw is a soft, dry stalks containing small grains such as barley, oats, rice, rye, and wheat. Straw is easy to handle and available in most agricultural areas. When deciding to use straw, is imperative to make sure that the straw is not palatable. To do this, the seed must be checked to ensure it is not availabl... |
Is it possible to ever encounter plastic in nature that wasn't made by humans? | Not in the strictest sense, as most definitions I have seen for plastic specifically use the words synthetic or man-made. As such a non-manmade plastic is impossible.
However plastics are really just polymers, long chain molecules that are usually organic (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, maybe a few heavier elements). The... | [
"A 2004 study by Richard Thompson from the University of Plymouth, UK, found a great amount of microdebris on the beaches and waters in Europe, the Americas, Australia, Africa, and Antarctica. Thompson and his associates found that plastic pellets from both domestic and industrial sources were being broken down int... |
If you are on the moon, does Earth appear to go through phases? | Yes.
In fact, it will be the exact opposite of whatever phase the Moon is in as seen from Earth. So if it's a New Moon as seen from Earth, it will be a Full Earth as seen from the Moon; if the Moon is in a waxing crescent phase, Earth will be in a waning gibbous phase. | [
"The lunar phase or phase of the Moon is the shape of the directly sunlit portion of the Moon as viewed from Earth. The lunar phases gradually and cyclically change over the period of a synodic month (about 29.53 days), as the orbital positions of the Moon around Earth and of Earth around the Sun shift.\n",
"In w... |
Why were the soldiers after WW1 seemingly so much more traumatized than the soldiers after WW2? | I'd say it's a difference of depiction more than anything else. The fact that more armies and more soldiers fought in WWII than in WWI, the new weapons available, the extent of the destruction caused by the war, and the extent of the atrocities committed in WWII, the trauma of the second world war was probably of a muc... | [
"Soldiers (and other frontline personnel) returning home from World War I suffered greatly from the horrors of war that they had witnessed. Many returning veterans suffered from what was then known as shell shock; now known as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).\n",
"Veterans of World War I had little affectio... |
What mathematical structure represents a spin-3/2 field? | You might be interested in the [Rarita-Schwinger equation](_URL_0_). The field is represented by a spinor. | [
"Spin is a 2-to-1 cover, while in even dimension, is a 2-to-1 cover, and in odd dimension is a 1-to-1 cover; i.e., isomorphic to . These groups, , , and are Lie group forms of the compact special orthogonal Lie algebra, formula_39 – Spin is the simply connected form, while PSO is the centerless form, and SO is in g... |
double exposure | Originally, a double exposure is an accident where a camera does not advance the film to the next frame, and you take a second picture ontop of the first. This often results in a mess, but sometimes it makes an interesting effect.
Using digital cameras, the term 'double exposure' is somewhat misleading. New cameras ac... | [
"In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be identical to each other.\n",
"Double Exposures (A.K.A. Alibi Breaker) is... |
how do animals that come back from extinction overcome inbreeding problems | They don't. At least not in the short-term. In the short-term they're absolutely will be inbreeding related problems associated with that bottleneck.
In the long-term if the species does survive, it does so because the problematic genes that have been over-represented in the population are slowly culled out by natural... | [
"Inbreeding and genetic diversity loss often occur with endangered species populations because they have small and/or declining populations. Loss of genetic diversity lowers the ability of a population to deal with change in their environment and can make individuals within the community homogeneous. If this occurs... |
why is unrefined sugar more expensive than white
sugar? by the same token, why do whole grain
products like whole grain bread and brown rice
tend to be more expensive than their white, refined
counterparts? surely, refining should add extra
cost? | In a third world country unrefined food is cheaper than refined food. But in the western world they realized they can charge more by calling it "healthy". | [
"Brown and white granulated sugar are 97% to nearly 100% carbohydrates, respectively, with less than 2% water, and no dietary fiber, protein or fat (table). Brown sugar contains a moderate amount of iron (15% of the Reference Daily Intake in a 100 gram amount, see table), but a typical serving of 4 grams (one teasp... |
what is that bubbling creaking sound that my eyeballs make when i'm tired and i rub them? | Wen you rub your eyes from left to right and vice versa, especially over the joint of the two lids, you are causing air to get into and under your eye lids. This forms bubbles and makes squishy noises.
This seems to happen more if you are short sighted, because that means that your eyeball is not exactly spherical and... | [
"Periorbital puffiness, also known as puffy eyes, or swelling around the eyes, is the appearance of swelling in the tissues around the eyes, called the orbits. It is almost exclusively caused by fluid buildup around the eyes, or periorbital edema. Minor puffiness usually detectable below the eyes only is often call... |
How does the quantum tunneling effect limit development of micro processors and how do we overcome that? | When transistors get to a certain size, they can’t always hold electrons back, which can cause false signals and errors in computations. As far as I know, we can’t directly overcome tunneling, we can only work around it. | [
"Fundamental quantum mechanical concepts are central to this phenomenon, which makes quantum tunnelling one of the novel implications of quantum mechanics. Quantum tunneling is projected to create physical limits to the size of the transistors used in microprocessors, due to electrons being able to \"tunnel\" past ... |
Do the rate of calorie intake and weight gain have any relationship? | eating an extra 4k in a day would drastically alter hormones via increasing insulin and a variety of other hormones (thyroid hormone for example). these drastic hormone deviations shouldn't be seen if you only eat a couple hundred extra kcal per day.
i'm not quite sure, but I believe the drastic changes in hormone le... | [
"Weight gain has a latency period. The effect that eating has on weight gain can vary greatly depending on the following factors: energy (calorie) density of foods, exercise regimen, amount of water intake, amount of salt contained in the food, time of day eaten, age of individual, individual's country of origin, i... |
When listening to music with earbuds/headphones, how are the producers/artists able to make the music only play on one side? | This is called stereophonic sound, or simply stereo. It works by storing the music in 2 separate channels, one intended to be played by the speaker (or earbud) on the left side and one for the right side.
On the recording side, this effect is created by using specific microphone setups, for example two microphones pla... | [
"Conventional music recording is produced for stereo playback which makes use of only Left and Right playback for speakers and headphones. The implementation of Dummy Head allows the recording artist to make use of three dimensional sound reproduction. This is because through playback via headphones the listener pe... |
Wikipedia says that when Constantinople fell and the Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque, the mosiacs depicting Jesus were either covered or destroyed. Since Muslims believe in Jesus, why were these mosaics covered or destroyed? | Well the thing is, that during the first centuries of Hagia Sophia's history as a Mosque the mosaics were infact uncovered and were still prominently on display. When Cornelius Loos made his engravings of Constantinople around 1710, he documented the mosaics [pretty clearly](_URL_0_) (this example is particularily stri... | [
"The 9th- and 10th-century mosaics of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople are truly classical Byzantine artworks. The north and south tympana beneath the dome was decorated with figures of prophets, saints and patriarchs. Above the principal door from the narthex we can see an \"Emperor kneeling before Christ\" (lat... |
Why do certain materials in my dishwasher retain water so much longer than others? | Heat capacity.
Ceramic/Metallic objects can store a lot more heat during the long wash/rinse cycles than plastic objects can. During the drying cycle, that helps evaporate any water that remains on them, while the plastic objects cool off before the water evaporates. | [
"Absorption or desorption of water (or other solvents) can change the size of many common materials; many organic materials change size much more due to this effect than due to thermal expansion. Common plastics exposed to water can, in the long term, expand by many percent.\n",
"The heat inside the dishwasher dr... |
why shouldn't you clean your earwax? | Cleaning earwax is fine, cleaning too much is when their is an issue. As earwax protects your ears from excess sound, so too little earwax can result in damaged eardrums.
I normally just wrap a tissue round my little finger and clean my ear, this means that only some wax is cleaned as the finger is too big to go fully... | [
"Ear cleaning in general may also be ineffective when used by one with little experience or guidance. When done incorrectly, significant amounts of ear wax may be pushed deeper into the ear canal rather than removed. The lining of the ear is delicate and can be easily damaged. The ear is also self-cleaning and earw... |
why is there little to no border security between european nations. | There's an agreement between many European countries called the Schengen Agreement. This means they have all agreed to abolish border controls between their countries, and cooperate on maintaining border controls with countries outside of the Schengen Area. So for the purposes of border controls, it's as if they were a... | [
"European Union laws prohibit systematic customs checks at any border between two members of its Customs Union. So, there is permanent customs facility at the borders with these countries. However, France has borders with non members of this Union : Switzerland, Andorra, Brazil and Surinam. At these borders are loc... |
How did ancient/medieval wars lasting for dozens, hundred+ years work? | The Peloponnesian War lasted over two dozen years (431–404 BC). Think of it as being something akin to the Cold War (the modern one between USA and Russia) where it is mostly political maneuvering and proxy wars. However unlike the Cold War, direct and intense fighting between the two biggest warring states (Sparta and... | [
"The Hundred Years' War was a time of rapid military evolution. Weapons, tactics, army structure and the social meaning of war all changed, partly in response to the war's costs, partly through advancement in technology and partly through lessons that warfare taught. The feudal system was slowly disintegrating thro... |
Did the Communist party have any chance of success in the post WW1 world? | In hindsight, they probably did not have much of a chance of success. Electoral Communism had its high-water mark on the Continent as minor coalition partners to much-farther-right, distinctly-anti-Soviet labor and social democratic parties in proportional representation nations. (It never had more than one or two MP... | [
"The Communist Party and its allies played an important role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but never succeeded, with rare exceptions, either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda of fighting for socialism and full workers' control over industry, or in conver... |
Would deep-sea pressure have any effect on explosions? | Yes:
_URL_0_
During such an explosion, the hot gas bubble quickly collapses because:
The water pressure is enormous deeper than 2,000 feet.
The expansion reduces gas pressure, which decreases temperature.
Rayleigh–Taylor instability at the gas/water boundary causes "fingers" of water to extend into the bubble, incre... | [
"The blast caused by a sudden release of the gas pressure inside a diving cylinder makes them very dangerous if mismanaged. The greatest risk of explosion exists while filling, but cylinders have also been known to burst when overheated. The cause of failure can range from reduced wall thickness or deep pitting due... |
why soldiers are such a big deal in the us, while for europe for example it isn't such a big deal. | I don't know the answer and am braced for the downvotes but Americans seen to get very overenthused about a lot of things.
Halloween, Christmas, thanksgiving, soldiers. The world series of sports that only America plays etc. | [
"BULLET::::- The United States Army – Exhausted from all the heavy fighting across the world; it struggles to keep American superpower dominance in the world. The US Army has the power to balance out all types of combat and situations out in the field. The US Army has a brute force of veterans, as they can skill up... |
Did the Rome begin what we now understand to be civilisation? | So, "civilization" is a pretty terrible term. It seems to be ranking different people in a way where "civilized" is good and developed and "uncivilized" is bad and primitive. In addition, by selecting some traits as necessary traits for a "civilization" we exclude people who might suit the term in other ways. For in... | [
"Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern language, religion, society, technology, law, politics, government, warfare, art, literature, architecture and engineering. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called \"res publica\", the inspiration for modern repu... |
how i can circumvent internet censorship with proxy's and vpns. | [Tor](_URL_0_) is pretty good. They have a firefox plugin that gives you a button to enable or disable it. When you request a webpage through Tor, your request gets encrypted and sent to one of the Tor nodes out in the internet. That node sends it encrypted to another one, who then sends it encrypted to another one,... | [
"Some networks have an HTTP proxy which can be used to speed up web access when multiple users visit the same websites, and to get past blocking software while the owner is using the network of some institution that might block certain sites. Public proxies are often slow and unreliable and so it is worth the troub... |
During nuclear fission in uranium, what kind of radioactive rays are emitted? Alpha, Beta or Gamma? | All of them can result from a fission reaction.
After each fission reaction has occurred, the products may generally be in excited states, which can gamma decay to the ground state. Fission products tend to be neutron-rich, so they will usually beta decay one or more times to reach stability. Alpha emission from fiss... | [
"The total prompt gamma ray energy in a fission explosion is 3.5% of the yield, but in a 10 [[Nuclear weapon yield|kiloton]] detonation the triggering explosive around the bomb core absorbs about 85% of the prompt gamma rays, so the output is only about 0.5% of the yield. In the [[Nuclear fusion|thermonuclear]] Sta... |
How do you determine the boiling point of water under certain vacuum pressures? | You use [Antoine's equation](_URL_0_) which is an empirical forumala that gives you the vapour pressure as a function of temperature. Each chemical has different A, B and C constants. You're going to have to convert your vacuum units into absolute pressure to use it however. To save you time, here's a graph of the resu... | [
"The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding environmental pressure. A liquid in a partial vacuum has a lower boiling point than when that liquid is at atmospheric pressure. A liquid at high pressure has a higher boiling point than when that liquid is at atmospheric pressure. For example, wa... |
if we can produce phone screens that are 6" in diameter with a full hd resolution, whats stopping us from making 16k tvs? | Nothing is stopping us. Theres just no market value. Even 4k is limited by content creators actually making their products 4k in resolution, most of the market for media consumption is for 2k displays.
| [
"An important consideration, however, is that this is based on the physical screen size in millimeters and is not proportional to the screen size. As such, an 18 mm tube with a resolution of around 64 lp/mm has a higher overall resolution than an 8 mm tube with 72 lp/mm resolution. Resolution is usually measured at... |
what "chained cpi" is, and how it affects the social security cuts. | Standard CPI has a couple of problems in that it overestimates inflation for consumers as it doesn't account for substitution in consumer behavior.
In the simplest example imagine someone is buying Lays brand chips that cost $2 a bag. Suppose that the price rises to $2.20 a bag, instead of accepting the higher price p... | [
"Application of chained CPI has been suggested as a means of reducing the US federal budget deficit by reducing the rate of growth of government benefits. The Moment of Truth Project estimates that moving to the Chained CPI would reduce the deficit by about $390 billion in the first decade alone, with roughly one t... |
can insects see cells and their organelles? aren't there insects or other very, small microorganisms (think face mites or mites in general) that can see things as small as mitochondria? any organism with eyes that can detect things- what's the smallest thing they can visually perceive? | People are talking about what the smallest visible thing actually is and while I find that very interesting, I wonder if they might be overlooking something (but I could be wrong).
An eye has to be fairly complex in order to perceive small, intricate things, and as far as I'm aware, the smaller a creature is, the less... | [
"Many small organisms such as rotifers, copepods and flatworms use such organs, but these are too small to produce usable images. Some larger organisms, such as scallops, also use reflector eyes. The scallop \"Pecten\" has up to 100 millimetre-scale reflector eyes fringing the edge of its shell. It detects moving o... |
Solar thermal farms are 19th century technology, why isn't the US full of them? | This chart from the Energy Information Administration shows the levelized cost of energy from various renewable and non-renewable sources:
_URL_0_
Essentially, solar thermal is among the costliest sources of generation, even when compared with other renewable alternatives. Still, it has had some success in California... | [
"Solar thermal power plants can generally be built in a few years because solar plants are built almost entirely with modular, readily available materials. In contrast, many types of conventional power projects, especially coal and nuclear plants, require long lead times.\n",
"In the early 1970s, before the Arab ... |
Did people living in the Roman Empire call it the "Roman Empire"? | It was more common to refer to people ethnically rather than in terms of a kingdom, although "Romans" often referred to themselves as *Romani*. So you had Etruscans, Etrurians, and so on which made up the body. All people could collectively be referred to as *The Populus*, however that's not really the name for the e... | [
"Though Marcellinus does not refer to the Empire as a whole after 395, only to its separate parts, he clearly identifies the term \"Roman\" as applying to the Empire as a whole. When using terms such as \"us\", \"our generals\", and \"our emperor\", Marcellinus distinguished both divisions of the Empire from outsid... |
Any sources for reading about CIA, NSA, or just secret intellegence over all? Good non fiction. | Look for James Bamford's books:
The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence
Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency
The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America
I've read and enjoyed the first two, didn't read the ... | [
"Espionage and secret operations have long been a source of fiction, and the real and perceived U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a source of many books, films and video games. Some fiction may be historically based, or will refer to less action-oriented aspects, such as intelligence analysis or counterinte... |
How did the introduction of the pocket watch effect surveying? | Finding longitude and latitude were very big problems for a ship out on the ocean. It was impossible to precisely measure the distance from one day to the next with no hard and fast landmarks, and the actions of currents and imprecise speed gauges made it hard to correlate knots with actual travel. Use of navigationa... | [
"The use of pocket watches in a professional environment came to an ultimate end in approximately 1943. The Royal Navy of the British military distributed to their sailors Waltham pocket watches, which were 9 jewel movements, with black dials, and numbers coated with radium for visibility in the dark, in anticipati... |
What social opportunities would be available to a free black family living in the antebellum deep south? | This is what my master's thesis was on, so buckle in, I love to talk about it. It was specifically about a wealthy Tuscaloosa, Alabama man named Solomon Perteet. He was by no means the most successful person of color in the antebellum South, but he's the one I know best. That said, let me give you a short bio of his li... | [
"There were economic and ethnic differences between free blacks of the Upper South and Deep South, with the latter fewer in number, but wealthier and typically of mixed race. Half of the black slaveholders lived in cities rather than the countryside, with most living in New Orleans and Charleston. Especially New Or... |
how come even after just wearing my glasses for an hour without touching them, they’ll still get smudged? | Your eyelashes may hit the lenses, leaving behind oils. And airborne dust may also get caught in said oils, further adding to the smudges noticed. | [
"The glasses appear to be more susceptible to damage than the screwdriver; in \"The Girl Who Died\", a Viking warrior takes the glasses off the Doctor's face and easily breaks them in half. Nevertheless, the glasses continue to appear via replacement or repair until the end of the season. They return the following ... |
how do dogs know to be gentle with babies? | Weve been breeding dogs for 40 thousand years to do things we want. The ones who didnt, didnt get to reproduce. Part of this was selecting for good hunting dogs, tracking dogs, guard dogs, but not murdering your children is also a trait that would be selected for. | [
"They make fairly good watch dogs. When necessary, this dog will bark to alert its family that someone is nearby. This breed is typically good with other pets, especially when socialized at an early age. This dog gets along well with children, but it may be a good idea to socialize this breed at an early age as wel... |
Does listening to neuroacoustic music have any measurable effect in putting people to sleep? | The man is a quack and he has no scientific studies (besides his own) backing him up. There's no identifiable process behind the supposed 'theory', and everything I've read is nonsense.
So in short, no. Nothing beyond placebo. | [
"In another study, specifically looking to help people with insomnia, similar results were seen. The participants that listened to music experienced better sleep quality than those who did not listen to music.\n",
"The use of auditory stimulation has been shown to increase PGO waves during waking and sleeping cyc... |
when you listen to music on high volume in a loud place, does it damage your hearing the same way as it would in a quieter place? | If you turn your music up, it will be more likely to damage your hearing. Doesn't matter how loud it is relative to your background noise. That's not considering if the background noise is loud enough to damage your hearing as well | [
"According to the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks, the risk of hearing damage from digital audio players depends on both sound level and listening time. The listening habits of most users are unlikely to cause hearing loss, but some people are putting their hearing at risk, becaus... |
what makes good sushi "good"? | the freshness of the fish and how the chef cuts it, i.e. not leaving the skin on it, thick or thin slices etc. Also with nigiri sushi (fish on rice with wasabi between) the right amount of wasabi. Some bad sushi ive had had insanely big slices, like hard to eat big, the salmon still had a little silver on the side, and... | [
"Sushi has seen rapidly rising popularity recently in the Western world. A form of fast food created in Japan (where bentō is the Japanese variety of fast food), sushi is normally cold sticky rice flavored with a sweet rice vinegar and served with some topping (often fish), or, as in the most popular kind in the We... |
how did "*" become an understood symbol for correcting a spelling mistake made while typing? | "*" is usually used in text to [reference a footnote](_URL_0_). I assume it has derived from this as the corrections are usually placed under the text. | [
"Incorrect use of the \"ß\" letter is a common type of spelling error even among native German writers. The spelling reform of 1996 changed the rules concerning \"ß\" and \"ss\" (no forced replacement of \"ss\" to \"ß\" at word’s end). This required a change of habits and is often disregarded: some people even inco... |
How were cartoons (political or otherwise) printed in newspapers during the age of movable type? | What /u/CptBuck said. Also, cartoons don't really appear in newspapers until the 19th century, first in the form of lithographs; *Punch* in Britain and *La Caricature* and *Le Charivari* in France in the 1830s. Before that they exist as stand alone sheets. What we would recognize as political cartoons, employing carica... | [
"Until the 1980s, most large newspapers were printed with turn-of-the-century \"letterpress\" technology using easily smudged oil-based ink, off-white, low-quality \"newsprint\" paper, and coarse engraving screens. While letterpresses produced legible text, the photoengraving dots that formed pictures often bled or... |
what is the leading theory / theories regarding creation of our solar system / universe / etc within the scientific community? |
Thanks to a guy called u/BadAstronomer, AKA Phil Plait, for most of this information. I knew only the most rudimentary of things before, and used to even be scared of the concept of such a huge universe before I saw his videos.
Scientists still have very little idea as to why the Big Bang happened.
We do know that ... | [
"Ideas concerning the origin and fate of the world date from the earliest known writings; however, for almost all of that time, there was no attempt to link such theories to the existence of a \"Solar System\", simply because it was not generally thought that the Solar System, in the sense we now understand it, exi... |
what are those random sharp pains i get often on my skin almost like a big bite that catches my attention but immediately goes away? | It could be a misfire of the nerves. It could be a hair stuck and being pulled on by something. Or it could be an insect, there are many microscopic insects that live in the pores and hair follicles of your skin. | [
"Pain is very subjective and it is difficult to ascertain how much the initial piercing will hurt to a given person. Some people experience pain comparable to that of an average cartilage piercing to the helix or tragus, and others have described it as one of the most painful piercings they've ever received, either... |
Is it possible to access more of your subconscious? | The subconscious is a psuedoscientific term used by New Age types... *not* by modern psychologists.
Contemporary science doesn't really view the unconscious mind (which is the more scientific term) as some sort of powerful resource to be tapped into. | [
"Erickson maintained that it was not possible consciously to instruct the unconscious mind, and that authoritarian suggestions were likely to be met with resistance. The unconscious mind responds to openings, opportunities, metaphors, symbols, and contradictions. Effective hypnotic suggestion, then, should be \"art... |
how did the fluoridization of water improve dental health in america; historically and scientifically? | They found that people who lived in areas with naturally high fluoride levels in their water supplies had far fewer cavities than those that lived in areas with lower levels of fluoride. So they started testing the compounds and determined that fluoride helps to strengthen enamel. It was a simple addition to the water ... | [
"Water fluoridation is the controlled addition of fluoride to a public water supply to reduce tooth decay. Although many dental-health organizations support such fluoridation, the practice is opposed by conspiracy theorists. Allegations may include claims that it has been a way to dispose of industrial waste, or th... |
How did tall ships and the like leave port before the advent of modern engines? | Most of the time tall ships aren't docked, they're moored in a more accessible area and then when they push off, it's mostly a question of letting the wind and the tides do the work.
However, if that's not good enough, there is also a particular anchor called a kedging anchor which is taken out by longboat in the dire... | [
"The steamship was preceded by smaller vessels designed for insular transportation, called steamboats. Once the technology of steam was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels, the technolog... |
How much of the earths surface can we see from the moon? | From the side of the moon that is facing us, one would see about half of the earth at any single point in time, or all of the earth over a period of time.
From the side of the moon that is not facing us, one would see none of the earth ever.
Asking "How much of the earths surface can we see from the moon?" is essenti... | [
"BULLET::::- The full moon covers only about 0.2 deg of the sky when viewed from the surface of the Earth. The Moon is only a half degree across (i.e. a circular diameter of roughly 0.5 deg), so the moon's disk covers a circular area of: × (), or 0.2 square degrees.\n",
"The Sun is seen from Earth at an average ... |
why do people hate tsa soo much? | The TSA is the organization that deals with security at places like airports. The typical person's interaction with a TSA member consists of the individual having to prove that he or she is not a threat. This involves waiting in long lines and going through a metal detector. In other circumstances, people may be pat... | [
"The entertainment industry has been accused of depicting those with TS as being social misfits whose only tic is coprolalia, which has furthered stigmatization and the general public's misunderstanding of persons with TS. The symptoms of Tourette syndrome are fodder for radio and television talk shows. Some talk s... |
Do we lose any weight through exhalation? | You're exactly right! We actually lose *most* of our weight through exhalation. (Sweating is the other major mechanism, but since that's mostly water it doesn't create a net loss.) This is why weight loss is so hard; all the fat molecules that your body stores have to be oxidized and exhaled. | [
"The main reason for exhalation is to rid the body of carbon dioxide, which is the waste product of gas exchange in humans. Air is brought in the body through inhalation. During this process air is taken in through the lungs. Diffusion in the alveoli allows for the exchange of O into the pulmonary capillaries and t... |
Why are cheetahs so fast? | Cheetahs have a ton of physical adaptations for speed. Just mentioning a few here –
- extra flexible spine for long strides and quick turns
- shoulderblade doesn't attach to clavicle for added flexibility
- lighter bones
- they only run on the tips of their toes, using their claws more for traction than other big cats... | [
"African cheetahs may achieve successful hunts only running up to a speed of while hunting due to their exceptional ability to accelerate; but are capable of accelerating up to on short distances of . It is therefore the fastest land animal. Because of its prowess at hunting, the cheetah was tamed as early as the 1... |
What was the first event in recorded history? | There's a discussion of dated events at _URL_0_. I was taught at school that Egypt's unification around the 32nd century BCE was the first specifically recorded "event", though the precise date is unknown. I'm not sure if we've found earlier ones in the interim - shameful, I admit! | [
"The earliest recorded event in its history is the building by Ethelfleda of a fortification at Runcorn to protect the northern frontier of her kingdom of Mercia against the Vikings in 915. The fort was built on Castle Rock overlooking the River Mersey at Runcorn Gap.\n",
"Three Plinian eruptions are known to hav... |
How effective was armor in medieval battles? | Alright there's a lot to unpack here. But the short answer is: armor is amazing, that's why the wealthiest people and elite fighters wore it. What sane person would choose to wear 30-60 lbs of steel on their body if it didn’t do anything but slow you down?
First things first, light, medium, and heavy armor isn't rea... | [
"Medieval armor often offered protection for all of the limbs, including metal boots for the lower legs, gauntlets for the hands and wrists, and greaves for the legs. Today, protection of limbs from bombs is provided by a bombsuit. Most modern soldiers sacrifice limb protection for mobility, since armor thick enoug... |
factory method design pattern | Have you ever had to instantiate an object, and then do *something* to configure or manage it?
Let's say your application has a SoundManager object, and you need it to know about every Sound object that you create. This means that you're liable to write code like this:
mySound = new Sound( data );
mySoundMana... | [
"The making of industrial patterns begins with an existing block pattern that most closely resembles the designer's vision. Patterns are cut of oak tag (manila folder) paper, punched with a hole and stored by hanging with a special hook. The pattern is first checked for accuracy, then it is cut out of sample fabric... |
How did Buddhist communities in East/SE Asia perceive the decline of Buddhism in India? | We actually have some decent contemporaneous accounts of Chinese pilgrims visiting India during Buddhism's stable phase and then further accounts during the terminal phase.
Faxian describes his experiences in India in his text *Foguoji (A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms)*. He departed China in 399 as part of a pilgrima... | [
"The decline of Buddhism has been attributed to various factors, especially the regionalisation of India after the end of the Gupta Empire (320–650 CE), which led to the loss of patronage and donations as Indian dynasties turned to the services of Hindu Brahmins. Another factor was invasions of north India by vario... |
I was microwaving some water, and it exploded all over the inside of the microwave with a loud "pop". What happened? | Superheating happened.
Water normally boils at 100^o C or 212^o F, but that is only if there is a nucleation site for the first bubbles to form. A nucleation site can be a defect in the vessel (your mug in this case) or contaminates in the water. If you had relatively clean water, and a nice smooth mug, it's possible ... | [
"In a July 2012 post (which has since been removed), Hari quoted the ideas of Masaru Emoto that microwave ovens cause water molecules to form crystals that resemble crystals exposed to negative thoughts or beliefs, such as when the words \"Hitler\" and \"Satan\" were exposed to the water. Steven Novella calls Emoto... |
how does the united states federal government prevent a president from assuming total control and creating a dictatorship - like the actual people, laws or processes, etc that stop a rouge president from becoming a thing? | Mostly the fact that people would not recognize his authority.
If the president ordered airstrikes or army occupation of a US city without cause, the military leadership would inform the president that is an illegal order and ignore it and likely inform congress of the president's attempt to murder US citizens so that... | [
"In dictatorships, the title of president is frequently taken by self-appointed or military-backed leaders. Such is the case in many states: Idi Amin in Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Ferdinand Marcos in Philippines and Saddam Hussein in Iraq are some examples. Other presidents in authoritarian states have wiel... |
how and why does mega work differently than others file hosting services? | Mega does this because the file itself is encrypted. Files are encrypted before uploading and then decrypted on your system.
What is really happening is:
The encrypted file is downloaded, this takes the time.
The file is decrypted, very fast.
The decrypted file is saved, as you noticed rather quickly.
They do this to... | [
"Open hosting servers allows people to upload files to a central server, which incurs bandwidth and hard disk space costs due to files generated with each download. Anonymous and open hosting servers make it difficult to hold hosts accountable. Taking legal action against the technologies behind unauthorized \"file... |
Assuming there IS silicon based life there in the universe, what would they use as "water" or as their organic solvent? | If water is available, there's not much reason to believe they wouldn't use it - carbon and silicon have near enough identical chemistry with water.
Otherwise, your options are quite limited. If it's too hot for water, you're really too hot for most simple liquids - you also don't really expect silicon at high tempera... | [
"In addition to carbon compounds, all currently known terrestrial life also requires water as a solvent. This has led to discussions about whether water is the only liquid capable of filling that role. The idea that an extraterrestrial life-form might be based on a solvent other than water has been taken seriously ... |
Did modesty in clothing (particularly covering the genitalia) originate from one culture or did cultures develop this fashion concurrently? | Perhaps this is a question more suited for r/askanthropology? I'd suggest cross posting this there. | [
"Early in the culture, the loincloth was used by both sexes. The women of Crete wore the garment more as an underskirt than the men, by lengthening it. They are often illustrated in statuettes with a large dagger fixed at the belt. The provision of items intended to secure personal safety was undoubtedly one of the... |
why are we not working on sending a probe towards our nearest habitable planet (gliese 581g)? | Because by the time it could get there we'd already have sent probes there using faster engines, if there's any reason to do it at all.
Current technologies would take on the order of a hundred thousand years. We can probably cut that significantly just by waiting a few decades. At that time scale, it would even make... | [
"Freitas finds numerous reasons why interstellar probes may be a preferred method of communication among extraterrestrial civilizations wishing to make contact with Earth. A civilization aiming to learn more about the distribution of life within the galaxy might, he speculates, send probes to a large number of star... |
Why is derivative notation d2y/dx2? | Often, dy/dx is written d/dx(y), where "d/dx" is an operator. It's an abuse of notation but well understood.
If you apply an operator twice it's common to write it as "squared" - another abuse of notation. e.g A(A(t)) = A^2 (t).
If you square d/dx you get d^2 /(dx) ^2.
Apply that to y and drop parentheses and you ... | [
"Partial derivatives may be combined in interesting ways to create more complicated expressions of the derivative. In vector calculus, the del operator (formula_28) is used to define the concepts of gradient, divergence, and curl in terms of partial derivatives. A matrix of partial derivatives, the Jacobian matrix,... |
why will youtube show people dying but freak out over nudity even non sexual nudity? | For the exact same reason a film can have dozens of deaths depicted yet remain PG but throw a couple breasts and swear words in and it's an instant R rating. American prudishness, pure and simple. All nudity is considered inherently sexual (not long ago there was a question on here freaking out about the idea of child... | [
"Experts say that sexting poses a serious problem, partly because teens do not understand that the images are permanent and can be spread quickly. \"It does not click that what they're doing is destructive, let alone illegal.\" \"Once they are out there, it spreads like a virus,\" police say.\n",
"In January 2019... |
What is the volume of an inch of rain? | So, first of all, a full measure of rainfall would be "X inches in the last Y hours". (Typically, the Y is standard, particularly on local news, and many times is just 24 or however many hours since the rainfall started. But a careful weather report will make sure to indicate the value of Y.) The reason you don't need ... | [
"The largest recorded raindrop was 8.8 mm in diameter, located at the base of a cumulus congestus cloud in the vicinity of Kwajalein Atoll in July 1999. A raindrop of identical size was detected over northern Brazil in September 1995.\n",
"Rain is measured in units of length per unit time, typically in millimeter... |
why does a rocking motion facilitate sleep? | I imagine that it has something to do with the development of an unborn child in the mother's womb. In what way is it comfortable to sleep? - in darkness, in warmth and with rocking motions, three attributes of the inside of the uterus. You spent the first nine months of your life sleeping inside of there. It's only lo... | [
"Many adults find rocking chairs soothing because of the gentle motion. Gentle rocking motion has been shown to provide faster onset of sleep than remaining stationary, mimicking the process of a parent rocking a child to sleep.\n",
"Indian people believe that the rocking motion soothes and relaxes the child and ... |
why is it that playing an online game uses less data in comparison to watching a video or browsing the internet? | Here's an analogy. You're driving down the road, talking to your mom on the phone, telling her everything you see. Your mom isn't familiar with the area, so you have to say a lot - what restaurants you're passing, what the streets are called, what the signs say, where the potholes are, etc. You have to say a lot. In ot... | [
"Online games are video games played over a computer network. The evolution of these games parallels the evolution of computers and computer networking, with new technologies improving the essential functionality needed for playing video games on a remote server. Many video games have an online component, allowing ... |
Is it possible to cure HIV or AIDS with a full body blood transfusion? | HIV infected cells migrate to (reside in) the lymph nodes as well as in circulation. Performing a full body transfusion, which would be difficult on its own, would not remove the infected cells which are traveling in the lymph or residing in lymph nodes.
What you may want to look into is the recent case involving a... | [
"Preventing the spread of these diseases by blood transfusion is addressed in several ways. In many cases, the blood is tested for the pathogen, sometimes with several different methodologies. Donors of blood are also screened for signs and symptoms of disease and for activities that might put them at risk for infe... |
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