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How did the religious class view Benjamin Franklin's scientific experimentations during his retirement? | I'd suggest that that documentary was probably lying, or at least misrepresenting things. People have offered naturalistic explanations of lightning for as long as people have been writing about lightning, and I don't think they would have created a dichotomy between "God did it" and "lightning is a result of X natural process," that's more of a modern hang-up. | [
"In 1743, Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society to help scientific men discuss their discoveries and theories. He began the electrical research that, along with other scientific inquiries, would occupy him for the rest of his life, in between bouts of politics and moneymaking.\n",
"He was part of a ... |
Why do we build larger particle colliders with bigger diameters instead smaller diameters traveled multiple times? | To go to higher energies at a fixed bending radius, you need stronger bending magnets. The momentum per unit charge of a particle along the central orbit inside a bending element is called its *magnetic rigidty*: Bρ = p/q.
B is the magnetic field strength of the bending magnet, ρ is the bending radius of the central orbit, p is the momentum of the test particle, and q is the charge of the test particle.
If you want to increase p while leaving ρ fixed, you need to increase the magnetic field strength proportionally to p (or in terms of energy, sqrt[E^(2) - m^(2)]).
We can only make our bending magnets so strong, and it ends up being better just to increase the bending radius. That means that if you need a larger diameter accelerator.
Or you could sidestep the need to bend the beam entirely by using a linear accelerator. But then you lose the ability to put the beam particles on target (or collide them with another beam) more than once. | [
"The shape of the collider is also important. High energy physics colliders collect particles into bunches, and then collide the bunches together. However, only a very tiny fraction of particles in each bunch actually collide. In circular colliders, these bunches travel around a roughly circular shape in opposite d... |
why do people tap the top of their soda cans before opening them? | If bubbles have formed on the side of the can, tapping the can may dislodge them and cause them to pop at the surface. Since the can is usually somewhat pressurized, any gas in the can will expand when you open it. If the gas expands under liquid (the bubbles stuck to the side of the can), the gas might carry the liquid with it, making a foamy mess. If the gas is all at the top, then it will hiss out as you open it, but there won't be any liquid coming with it. | [
"Cans are filled before the top is crimped on. The filling and sealing operations need to be extremely fast and precise. The filling head centers the can using gas pressure, purges the air, and lets the drink flow down the sides of the can. The lid is placed on the can, and then crimped in two operations. A seaming... |
Why can't we make a camera that captures images that look the same as how we see them? | What you should be asking is, "why can't we make a camera that captures images exactly how we see them and reproduce them in a medium which is visually indistinguishable from the original scene?"
Designing a camera that captures information identical to the photoreceptor layer of your retina is simply a matter of engineering four sensors with the same sensitivity vs wavelength functions as your photoreceptors. This isn't perfectly accurate due to temporal effects, but suffices as a first approximation. Difficulty of engineering aside, this is perfectly feasible from a theoretical standpoint.
Reproduction, on the other hand, is a much more daunting task. Current display or printing methods rely on representing different perceptual hues, which are the result of activation levels for each of three different cones, as the weighted sum of three or more components, each of which has its own distinct spectral characteristics. Disregarding rods for the moment due to their relative absence in the fovea, the implication of this is that each has a single, 3-dimensional response vector which represents the activation of your different photoreceptors to that particular component. You might think that any three components with linearly independent response vectors would suffice to produce the full gamut of colors that we can observe, but this fails due to the fact that we cannot have negative coefficients when mixing. Because of the overlap of the wavelength response curves for different cones, it is very difficult to choose a limited number of components that can reproduce any photoreceptor response. For example, violet is impossible to reproduce in the RGB color space. Two solutions to this would be to either to design a technology capable of reproducing exact spectra in the visible range, or to use direct stimulation of photoreceptors, which would in effect give you the component bases [1, 0, 0], [0, 1, 0], and [0, 0, 1]. | [
"Photographic technology employs different physical methods than the human eye in order to capture images. Thus, manufacturing optics which produce images that appear natural to human vision is problematic.\n",
"Certain image capturing devices are capable of producing images through materials that are opaque to v... |
I have a question about Pavlovian conditioning. | It could get generalized to either of the two responses. It is more likely that it will not bring forth any response, though that may depend on how the middle C functioned during the conditioning process. If there was no stimulous matched with it then there would be no reason for the dog to expect anything.
I dont know how sound is percieved by dogs, but for humans we can hear multiple distinct sounds at once. So what would be interesting is to sound both high and low Cs at once and see how the dog reacts. | [
"Pavlov proposed that conditioning involved a connection between brain centers for conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. His physiological account of conditioning has been abandoned, but classical conditioning continues to be to study the neural structures and functions that underlie learning and memory. Forms of ... |
Parsley can cause a miscarriage? | [There is some evidence that parsley might be partially effective in inducing abortion, but it doesn't appear to be very safe.](_URL_0_)
That "infographic" is at least ill-advised and possibly dangerous. | [
"Miscarriage, also known as spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the natural death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently. Some use the cutoff of 20 weeks of gestation, after which fetal death is known as a stillbirth. The most common symptom of a miscarriage is vaginal bleeding wit... |
why can't i just hit the "off" button on my computer rather than "shut down" | + Pressing shut down
Will terminate all system and user processes normally. Exiting processes have time to write logs and results in the primary memory. Some of it can be important, but 95% of the time you won't notice a difference, if you are a casual home user and not involved in servers or programing projects etc.
It will also do what I describe in the next section
+ Pressing down the power button
Gives enough time for the mechanical parts of your computer (HDD mostly) to power down safely.
+ Just pulling the plug
Will cause the mechanical parts of your PC to lose power while still working, possibly damaging them or wearing them down (if they power down at an active position. | [
"In Apple macOS the computer can be shut down by choosing \"Shut Down…\" from the Apple Menu or by pressing the power key to bring up the power management dialog box and selecting button \"Shut down\". An administrator may also use the Unix codice_1 command as well. It can also be shut down by pressing [Alt]+[Comma... |
Could a planet be 'locked' in orbit between two stars? | ~~Yes but~~ no because it would be unstable meaning if there were any gravitational fluctuations at all from anything it would perturb the system pulling the planet towards one of the Stars slightly more than towards the other which would increase the Gravity from the one-star and decrease it from the other until the planet was engulfed. Worse yet is it would be impossible for a planet like this to form because when it was attempting to coalesce one of his particles would be closer to one star and one of them would be closer to the other and the two would never meet. | [
"The two stars orbit each other with a period of only 2.15 days and an eccentricity of zero, indicating their orbit is close to circular. They are orbiting sufficiently close to each other that their rotation periods have most likely become tidally locked—meaning they always maintain the same face toward each other... |
Why is history's calendar based off a religion that not everybody follows? | Well it has been the tradition, and from a long history of western colonial dominance it has become (generally) the worldwide norm, the same way that western dress and the English language have become dominant in governments worldwide. Some countries, (Saudi Arabia is the best example) don't use the Gregorian calendar, and have their own variants, often based on the local majority religion.
That's not to say there haven't been major attempts to change the calendar and use a secular one. After the French Revolution, as part of a massive Enlightenment effort to secularize and rationalize the state, a secular calendar was created that lasted until 1805. (Another, much more successful product of this effort was the metric system.) The calendar featured a ten day work week, and had days and months named after the natural world at that time of year. Year one in the calendar was 1792, the year the French Republic was declared. It's pretty interesting, and the wikipedia article is pretty good: _URL_0_.
The calendar was brought in mainly for, as you mentioned, a desire for a secular calendar not based on Christianity. The main problem was that the calendar was poorly designed, and unpopular. It featured a longer working week and was relatively awkward to use, so many people opposed it.
While we basically use a Christian calendar because it's what's easy and no one really wants to undertake a massive effort to change it for no major benefits, it's not outside the realm of possibility that had a more popular universal calendar been adopted in the French revolution, we might all be using a secular calendar. | [
"[T]he Christian calendar no longer belongs exclusively to Christians. People of all faiths have taken to using it simply as a matter of convenience. There is so much interaction between people of different faiths and cultures – different civilizations, if you like – that some shared way of reckoning time is a nece... |
What causes logs to turn white while burning, and why do moving black patches appear? | The ash that is produced is composed of several products. Some of of it is incompletely combusted carbon which tends to be black. Other components are due to other elements in the wood such as magnesium which forms white magnesium oxide when burned. The colour fluctuations you see while it is burning is due to blackbody radiation. When a surface doesn't emit light of its own (luminescence) it is considered black. When heated, the body starts to emit radiation at low frequency first (infrared, which we feel as heat). As it gets hotter, the frequency of the radiation increases to red, orange, and then white. The hotter the object the higher the frequency of radiation emitted. The temperature in the fire fluctuates due to convection currents causing areas of the wood to change temperature resulting in the colour of the blackbody radiation to change as well. When it's very hot it appears white, if it cools off it appears black again. | [
"Logs that are cut from the butt forest, brought to a mill or to a log-house construction yard, have their bark removed and are used to build a log-house shell (handcrafted log houses), or sent through profiling machines (manufactured logs) are usually referred to as \"green\" logs if they have not been air- or kil... |
why right before you go to sleep do you feel heightened emotions that you normally don't feel during the day? either motivation for making a life change, fear for a test, regret for a decision etc. | Do some meditation and you'll see that this doesn't have to happen only at night. The sad fact is that people are scared to be alone with themselves and their thoughts. We find distractions to fill our minds every minute of every day. Have you ever seen the running joke on reddit that people HAVE to take something to the bathroom with them to read, even resorting to reading shampoo bottles if there is nothing else. We have to be distracted even when taking a poop.
It happens when you are about to sleep because that is the first time in the whole day that you are just alone in the quiet and can think about important stuff without distraction. | [
"Sleep plays a role in emotion regulation, although stress and worry can also interfere with sleep. Studies have shown that sleep, specifically REM sleep, down-regulates reactivity of the amygdala, a brain structure known to be involved in the processing of emotions, in response to previous emotional experiences. O... |
how to christians justify strict adherence to one part of the bible (e.g. homosexuals not allowed to marry) and complete disregard for another (e.g. bible says you cannot get a divorce, etc.)? | Because people tend to not follow rules/laws they don't want to follow. Every religion has the rules that only the most devout people follow because those rules are inconvenient. And you'd have trouble finding someone who doesn't J-walk even though it's against the law, because it's an inconvenient law. | [
"Christian marriage is to be between one woman (adult female) and one man (adult male) and that God Himself joined them and that no human is to separate them, according to Christ (Matthew 19:4-6). The Holy New Testament states that an unmarried Christian woman is to celibate or is to become the Christian wife of on... |
What speed and distance units were used to measure speed before cars? | Speed limits for horses were often expressed in terms of the horse's gait: walking only, no trotting or running, etc. Certainly by 1905, towns were posting speed limits for autos in mph.
But miles per hour were certainly well known for trains, and speeds for ships were similarly measured in knots. It's just that steam engines didn't commonly have speedometers, so an engineer interested in his speed had to count telegraph poles or mileposts passed in a certain amount of time. | [
"Speed is the change in distance to an object with respect to time. Thus the existing system for measuring distance, combined with a memory capacity to see where the target last was, is enough to measure speed. At one time the memory consisted of a user making grease pencil marks on the radar screen and then calcul... |
what does a light scratch hurt more than a deep cut? | Because most of the pain receptors are found near the surface of your skin, , so a wide superficial cut will trigger a lot more pain receptors than a small but deep puncture. | [
"Low levels of damaging forces produce small bruises and generally cause the individual to feel minor pain straight away. Repeated impacts worsen bruises, increasing the harm level. Normally, light bruises heal nearly completely within two weeks, although duration is affected by variation in severity and individual... |
I have an AP US History exam tomorrow, what is one bit of US History you feel is important for me to know? | Alexander Hamilton shows up all the time. On every practice exam I took, he was on it. So I'd know who he is and why he's important (and why he's the most awesome founding father ever, but that's just me.)
The other guy who will show up all the time is Henry Clay. That dude lived for a long time. | [
"The AP U.S. History exam lasts 3 hours and 15 minutes and consists of two sections; additionally, each section is divided into two parts. Section I, part A includes 55 multiple choice questions with each question containing four choices. The multiple choice questions cover American History from just before Europea... |
what is the difference between an emoji and an emoticon? | An emoji is a little picture, while an emoticon is a collection of letters and symbols which look like a little picture (;-) | [
"Emoticons is a Unicode block containing graphic representations of faces, which are often associated with classic emoticons. They exist largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' implementations of Shift JIS.\n",
"An emoticon (, , rarely pronounced ), short for \"emotion icon\", also known simpl... |
why is there always construction being done on roads that had nothing wrong with them? | Yes, that happens. But preventative maintenance is still a thing.
Also, sometimes they have to work on something under the road (sewer/gas line, etc) and there's nothing to be done but to tear up the road to do it. | [
"When roads are built by engineers with capital to support their work, they are successfully able to build roads across difficult soils. Modern road builders have less need to seek out easy geological conditions. When roads were made not by civil engineers but by people walking on the ground, the road followed the ... |
What is the history of coal and coal mining? | Well, I can't give an in depth review of the importance of coal, but I can say this-
1: Coal was important because it was commonly found in Europe and abroad, but where as something like oil took a fair amount of processing to take from initial substance to a workable product (mining might seem expensive, but so was tracking a whale on the other side of the globe, or traveling to the icy waters of the north to hunt seals, and if you wanted to use it for something other than heating and lighting, you needed to refine whatever you gathered. The infrastructure simply wasn't there to make much of oil and oil products till the start of the 20th century) coal was fairly simple. There was such a thing as poor quality coal though. Forget what they called it- brown coal or lignite or peat coal or something- but basically it didn't burn as well and was a lot messier.
2: Coal was important because it could attain, and hold very high temperatures. The development of pre-industrial steel owes a lot to coal. The wider industrial revolution was entirely dependent on coal, especially high quality coal. One of the reasons that Britain was a major player in the Industrial Revolution was because of it's ability to gather large amounts of it. Coal was a primary indicator of a nation's wealth throughout the Industrial Revolution.
3: Coal isn't a rock. And while it's purely conjecture, I'm sure someone who had seen mined coal, and had ever worked a fire would have looked at the embers after a fire, looked at coal, and drawn the connection. Regardless, the answer for the earliest usage of coal is lost to history. We have reason to believe the Chinese were mining it up as early as 1000 BCE to smelt copper. We've found trace amounts of coal used in bronze age funeral pyres in the British Isles, which was probably harvested from outcroppings. The Romans extracted coal from Germany (Rhineland, specifically) for use in iron smelting.
Coal is important because its *easy* to work with. Compared to other common heat sources you simply didn't get much simpler than the usage of coal from initial harvesting to final product without giving something up. Wood might have been replenish-able and (arguably) easier to get, but it didn't burn as hot. Oil may have been able to burn hotter and / or longer, but was also far more involved to harvest. | [
"The history of coal mining goes back thousands of years. It became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings and generate electricity. Coal mining continues as an important economic activity today. Compared to wood fuels... |
if looked at under an extremely powerful microscope, what would sub-atomic particles look like? what would the space between them look like? | Part of the problem with you question is that "looking" is something that is not independent of size.
Visible light has a wavelength from 390 to 700 nm (3.9 to 4 x 10^−7 m) while atoms have a radius of 30 to 300 pm (3 to 30 x10^-11 m).
So seeing is not really applicable here visible light does not work at this scale.
| [
"Because of their extremely small size, the study of microscopic and subatomic particles fall in the realm of quantum mechanics. They will exhibit phenomena demonstrated in the particle in a box model, including wave–particle duality, and whether particles can be considered distinct or identical is an important que... |
why jeremy johnson is being jailed for contempt of court after invoking his 5th amendment rights? | From the article:
> After being sworn in and refusing to answer basic questions, the judge found Johnson in contempt.
Your 5th Amendment rights don't apply to basic questioning, only to questions asked that could incriminate you while you are in custody. | [
"The Fifth Amendment protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination and guarantees the rights to due process, grand jury screening of criminal indictments, and compensation for the seizure of private property under eminent domain. The amendment was the basis for the court's decision in \"Miranda v. Arizona... |
do the wings on my paper/plastic/model airplane work like the wings on a real airplane? if not, how does it fly? | Model airplanes, yes. They use a specially shaped wing to produce lift (see: airfoil). A paper airplane, however, is acting more like a parachute, using the large surface area to slow its descent. | [
"The wing box of an airplane is the structural component from which the wings extend. It is usually limited to the section of the fuselage between the wing roots, although on some aircraft designs, such as the Boeing 787, it may be considered to extend further.\n",
"\"Note on terminology:\" Most fixed-wing aircra... |
How do pebbles on the beach get those tiny holes through them? | The stones aren't the same stuff through and through. Sometimes there's an inclusion or patch or bit of other mineral that's more soluble or less resilient than the surrounding mineral, leaving a gap, hole, or pit. | [
"Pebbles are found in two locations – on the beaches of various oceans and seas, and inland where ancient seas used to cover the land. When then the seas retreated, the rocks became landlocked. They can also be found in lakes and ponds. Pebbles can also form in rivers, and travel into estuaries where the smoothing ... |
does keeping someone "awake", keep them from dying like in movies? | > You know that thing they do in movies where people are like: "Hey, stay with me?" as if they're trying to keep someone from falling asleep? Does that actually prevent someone from passing away?
It does not. It is used to determine the patients ability to stay conscious. If it doesn't work anymore, the situation has gotten worse. As a side note, this method only tests their response to verbal stimuli. Another method is testing their response to painful stimuli, such as pinching the trapezius muscle or sternal rubs. These allow medics to place a patient on the AVPU scale of alert, responds to verbal, responds to pain, unresponsive.
Source: 5 years as a paramedic | [
"The Dead Sleep Easy is a 2007 Canadian drama film, a co-production of Odessa Filmworks and Zed Filmworks produced on location in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Its tagline is \"When you're this far south, sometimes it's better to be dead than alive.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- Waking sleepwalkers does not harm them. While... |
where does the idea that jews run the world come from? and when something happens, immediately point to isreal and us? | The idea that Jews runs the world dates back to the early imperial age and the rise of the middle class. Often times merchant ventures needed loans to get started, and since Catholics weren't allowed to charge interest on loans, invariably that meant going to a Jew. Now, being in a position to even approach someone about a loan is a rare social feat, and having merchant ventures be possible is a separate thing entirely, but for some, it felt like the Jews decided who would succeed in business and who would fail.
As the imperial age progressed, banking continued to evolve, particularly under a Jewish family called the Rothschilds, a banking family who were really the first super-rich non-nobles. Being as they weren't nobles, many cried foul.
Today, modern banks who use the Rothschild's techniques on loans to make money control the economy in a serious way, but very few of them are actually run by Jews. It's true that in the middle ages, Jewish people played a niche role in the economy that gave them a lot of power (though not nearly enough to counter how much of a hassle it was, believe me they had it rough). Today, there is no such advantage. But racist old myths die hard. The Rockefellers were another major banking family, and they weren't Jews (though conspiracy theorists will say they were neo-pagans of some description).
In truth, people hate being poor. When plates are empty, foreigners and subcultures are targeted. The Jews have historically always been that subculture in Europe, really until the 1950s. This hate will take any actual or perceived slight it can as justification. In the middle ages it was the ability of Jews to choose which boats would sail. In the Imperial Age where many could finance ships and the Dutch were crowdsourcing ships, it was the predatory practices of banks that were somehow the fault of an entire race. Today, with predatory banking a universal practice, it's geopolitical cash transfers that are considered to blame.
Now, don't get me wrong - Banks were predatory, and Israel's lobby in America is disproportionately powerful. But that isn't the fault of a whole race of people. What crosses from reasonable criticism to bigotry is when you treat the actions of one person like they belong to a group - whether that's blaming Palestinians for throwing rocks, Israelis for AIPAC's strong presence in US politics, Jews for predatory loans, or any group of people for anything done by someone else you associate with them.
Anti-Semites will try to use any bad thing done by any Jew against the whole race. Islamophobes will try to use any bad thing done by any Muslim against the whole religion. It's the same thing, really. And it needs to be stopped.
| [
"According to some ancient Hebrew worldviews, reality unfolds along a linear path (or rather, a spiral path, with cyclical components that nonetheless have a linear trajectory); the world began with God and is ultimately headed toward God's final goal for creation, the world to come. The main textual source for the... |
How does my brain instantly calculate that I can toss an object into a small area from several feet away while walking? | It's an interesting question; do you mean for something you are doing for the first time, something you have practiced, or something you do often without thinking too much about?
The same question could be asked about how people are able to react in sports to balls, for example. How does a tennis player know exactly how and when to hit a ball, how do they calculate in real-time, the exact direction and path of an incoming ball etc.
Is the answer simply trial and error? Are our brains simply advanced enough to calculate spatial awareness, coupled with intuitive movements that we know we are capable of? | [
"Cells in the M pathway have the ability to detect high temporal frequencies and can thus detect quick changes in the position of an object. This is the basis for detecting motion. The information sent to the Intraparietal Sulcus (IPS) of the posterior parietal cortex allows the M pathway to direct attention and gu... |
Footage of people being knocked out by a 'sucker punch' usually shows their legs instantly going rigid. Why is this? | The nerves for conscious motor control originate in the "top" of the brain at the cortex and make up the corticospinal tract, but there are also subconscious reflex arcs that help you maintain your balance in the vestibulospinal tract.
These reflex arcs originate much lower in the brainstem and often even in the spinal cord itself. Their main way of maintaining posture is to extend the contralateral muscles when you lean too far to one side. This is why people sway side to side when standing with their eyes closed.
When the brain is traumatized to the point of unconsciousness, the corticospinal tract is overwhelmed by the vestibulospinal tract and the "extend" messages are the only messages the legs receive. Stiff legs are an indicator of damage to parts of the brain closer to the top of the head.
Source: [_URL_0_](_URL_1_) | [
"David Boreanaz's stunt double, Mike Massa, says the scene in which he is tossed across the room upside down is his favorite stunt of this season. To get the effect, he was shot across the room using an air ram. \"The reason I like it so much is because it really knocked the heck out of me,\" he says. \"It was 900 ... |
what does western society have against the female nipple? (serious responses only) | It's not so much that society is *against* the female nipple. It's more that society is against public sexuality. A fully nude man is, broadly speaking, no more acceptable in public than a fully nude woman. But female nudity has become so fetishised that the default assumption is that bare skin on a woman is sexual in nature.
The result is that bare chests on men are not seen as *automatically* sexual, but bare chests on women are. So bare nipples in public are commonly more accepted on men than they are on women. | [
"The culture tendency to hide the female nipple under clothing has existed in Western culture since the 1800s. As female nipples are often perceived an intimate part, covering them might originate as a Victorian taboo just as was riding side saddle. Exposing the entire breast and nipple is a form of protest for som... |
Does an increase in energy also increases the amount of entropy in a system? | Generally speaking, yes. When increasing the internal energy of a system increases its entropy, that system is said to be at positive (absolute) temperature.
Certain systems can be arranged in a way that increasing their energy decreases their entropy. Then it would have a negative temperature.
So any system with positive temperature behaves as you described. | [
"This effect can be explained by looking at the change in entropy of the system. At zero temperature only the lowest energy level is occupied, entropy is zero, and there is very little probability of a transition to a higher energy level. As the temperature increases, there is an increase in entropy and thus the pr... |
do authors get money only when a person buys their book, or when the bookstore buys it in bulk? | I think this answer needs a little background. Via the traditional publishing route:
Author writes a book.
Author sends book to agent, who reads the book and figures out what publishing editors to pitch it to.
Agent pitches the book to editors at various publishing houses. It could be a high-powered agent with good connections in big-name publishing houses, or it could be a more common agent who does a lot of work with mid-range or small presses.
Sometimes an editor wants to buy the book outright, and offers the agent/author, let's say, a 50k advance (this is a fairly big advance, especially if the author is debut or works in a less popular genre)
Sometimes multiple editors at multiple houses want the book, and they'll get into a bidding war. Usually agents manage the auction, and will normally accept the highest bidder. Sometimes the agent will sell the book to a lower bidder, if the benefits are better.
Either way, let's say the editor buys the book for a 50k advance and 15% royalties. Though the numbers vary a lot from book to book and editor to editor and author to author, let's use them as an example.
Upon signing a contract with the editor, the author usually gets one third of the 50k advance right away. Some of that goes to the agent.
Then the editor suggest changes that ought to be made to the book, and the author and editor essentially negotiate how much to change the book, what to leave in, what to leave out. Eventually they (ideally) come to an agreement, and the author makes the required changes. If the editor likes it, the book goes to copyedits, where all of the typos are fixed, things like that.
Then the author gets the second third of his/her 50k advance.
Then the publishing house worries about formatting, covers, jackets, publicity, blurbs, promotions, all that good stuff. Eventually, the book goes to print. Then, the author gets the final third of his/her 50k advance.
Then the book hits the shelves.
What happens after that, in terms of author compensation, is a bit tricky. Using our previous numbers, the author basically earns 15% of every single book sold, BUT the first 50k of what he earns in royalties goes back to the publishing house. That 50k they gave him? It was basically just lending him the first 50k from his royalties, interest-free.
Time goes on. Either the book sells, or it doesn't.
If it sells decently, the author will eventually pay back that whole 50k, at which point he's actually able to collect royalties for himself, with some of it going back to his agent.
If it sells poorly, in all likelihood that publishing house simply won't buy from that author in the future. From what I can tell, he doesn't normally have to pay back the 50k, but it can vary from contract to contract.
To address your question more directly: Larger publishing houses usually print larger runs of books they think will sell well. The books are distributed to various vendors across the country. If some vendors can't sell the books, they will try to ship them back to the publishers. The author's mostly concerned about the books that actually get into the hands of the reader, because that's when he/she gets the royalty.
TLDR: Big publishing houses usually have larger print runs, especially if they expect the book to do well. Smaller publishing houses have smaller print runs, and either house will order another print run if the book sells well. Unloved books might be destroyed or sold on discount/overstock. | [
"“Writing books, reviewing books for publishers, and copying them afterwards takes a lot of time. This time is usually paid for by state institutions or funding agencies. The publishers do not pay for it. On the contrary, some even require money from the authors to keep the book prices low (...). When libraries buy... |
video aspect ratios | It adds dramatic quality to the video. Epic and dramatic scenes and movies will be filmed in a wider aspect ratio than say a comedy or something. There are many movies where aspect ratios change dynamically throughout more intense/epic scenes and you wouldn’t even notice unless you were told. You would notice the scene was more intense but you wouldn’t even be able to notice the black bars changing size, making you feel that way.
It also can just makes things feel more expensive or of a higher quality.
Edit: added a thing | [
"Cinematographic aspect ratios are usually denoted as a (rounded) decimal multiple of width vs unit height, while photographic and videographic aspect ratios are usually defined and denoted by whole number ratios of width to height. In digital images there is a subtle distinction between the \"display\" aspect rati... |
why do our tongues get stuck on poles. | Because your tongue is wet, and metal is extremely heat-conductive. So, the metal cools your saliva faster than your tongue can warm it up. At low enough temperatures, the saliva freezes to both the pole and tongue, so you're stuck.
The only safe option for releasing the frozen saliva is to heat up the pole above freezing, usually by pouring hot water on it at the point where the tongue is stuck; just pulling will tear off the tip of the tongue where it is frozen. | [
"The practice is associated with significant health risks, as tongues are coated with a film of microorganisms, which may cause infections in the eye, such as conjunctivitis, herpes and chlamydia. It also carries the risk of corneal abrasion and corneal ulcers. Oral bacteria on the tongue can potentially enter corn... |
musical chord progressions. | Your question is pretty vague but I'll give it a shot!
A chord progression is essentially a sequence of chords, often repeating multiple times throughout the duration of a song, that have been selected and placed in a specific order due to their relationship to one another.
To break it down further; a chord itself is a collection of multiple notes (often 3 or 4) which are played together. Chords are usually built from a sequence of notes known as a "scale" as those particular notes sound pleasant (harmonious) when played together, as opposed to unpleasant (dissonant).
In a chord progression, different chords have different roles, also known as harmonic functions, which gives the progression its feeling. For instance, the second to last chord in the progression may be "unresolved", which gives a feeling of incompleteness that is then satisfied by the final chord in the sequence. The exact same chord can have different roles in different progression depending upon where it is placed in relation to other chords, as well as what the other chords are.
In practice, an example of a common chord progression is C-G-Am-F (in the key of C). This means that the instrumentalist in question will play a C Major chord (i.e. the notes C, E and G) followed by a G Major, then an A Minor and finally an F Major. This progression is extremely widespread in popular music due to it's harmonious quality when repeated.
Hope that makes sense! | [
"Harmonically, in rock music, the most common way to construct chord progressions is to play major and minor \"triads\", each comprising a root, third and fifth note of a given scale. An example of a major triad is C major, which contains the notes C, E and G. An example of a minor triad is the A minor chord, which... |
why does america have such a higher report of children with autism and adhd compared to other countries? | There is so many things that play a role, it is hard to name them all.
- Overall, the USA does have a very high quality medical system compared to certain countries. Doctors are available here and know what Autism/ADHD is. You can't say the same about certain other countries. Sometimes they do not have doctors, of when they do, they either have bigger fish to fry than autism/ADHD or they might not have the knowledge to diagnose it.
- In the USA, there is less stigma regarding these diagnoses than in other countries. People are more willing to admit that they or their children have this disorder, whereas in certain other places, that sort of information is kept secret.
- Higher maternal and paternal age increases the risk of kids ending up with these kind of disorders. In the USA, many people are having kids later in life. That might be something that fits better into the culture, but you cannot deny that it also has effects on the quality of the eggs/sperm production.
- And yes, there is also some over-diagnosis going on (among certain groups, other groups are under-diagnosed). | [
"The best-known example is that of the increasing rates of autism in developed countries such as the United States, which some studies suggest is at least partly a result of people substituting diagnoses of autism for mental retardation and learning disabilities. While a pilot study by the MIND Institute published ... |
How did Harald Hardrada escape from Constantinople? | > The same night King Harald and his men went to the house where Maria slept and carried her away by force. Then they went down to where the galleys of the Varings lay, took two of them and rowed out into Sjavid sound. When they came to the place where the iron chain is drawn across the sound, Harald told his men to stretch out at their oars in both galleys; but the men who were not rowing to run all to the stern of the galley, each with his luggage in his hand. The galleys thus ran up and lay on the iron chain. As soon as they stood fast on it, and would advance no farther, Harald ordered all the men to run forward into the bow. Then the galley, in which Harald was, balanced forwards and swung down over the chain; but the other, which remained fast athwart the chain, split in two, by which many men were lost; but some were taken up out of the sound. Thus Harald escaped out of Constantinople and sailed thence into the Black Sea...
From "Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway" by Snorri Sturluson (~1230) _URL_0_ | [
"The crusaders reached Constantinople on 23December 1096. The Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos demanded an oath of allegiance from their leaders and imposed a blockade on their camp to enforce it. Baldwin made raids against the suburbs, compelling Alexios to lift the blockade. The Emperor also agreed to hand ov... |
Can all life be explained by chemical reactions/processes? | Although we can't recreate all elements of it (ie throw a bunch of components together and have it work as a eukaryotic cell) science and physics adequately explains every component of the life of a cell and all of the functions of life | [
"In the same way, biology cannot be fully reduced to chemistry despite the fact that the machinery that is responsible for life is composed of molecules. For instance, the machinery of evolution may be described in terms of chemistry by the understanding that it is a mutation in the order of genetic base pairs in t... |
what does it mean for a watch to be waterproof up to "200ft"? | After that the water pressure is great enough to break whatever seal was protecting the goods | [
"In horology, the waterproofness of a watch is defined by its resistance under pressure. The manufacturers indicate mostly the degree of waterproofness in metres (m), feet (ft) or atmospheres (atm). Watches with the \"waterproof\" name, with or without indication of overpressure, have to be complied and have to und... |
In his time was Shakespere's writings difficult to understand? | Hi, FYI there have been some earlier posts asking this question
* [When Shakespeare's plays were first performed, was the average theater goer able to sufficiently understand the dialog to be able to follow the plot and understand the character's motivations?](_URL_0_) - featuring /u/texpeare
* [Did people actually talk how Shakespeare wrote?](_URL_1_)
* [Could the average person in the Globe Theatre during the Elizabethan era literally understand Shakespeare?](_URL_2_) | [
"Besides the publications cited above, he revised and edited Charles Hole's \"Brief Biographical Dictionary\" (1866), and the \"Dickens Dictionary\" (1873), and began a \"Cyclopædia of Shakespearian Literature\". He edited \"Mother Goose Melodies\" (with antiquarian and philological notes, 1869). He left unfinished... |
If we were to discover tomorrow that a huge asteroid is going to hit Earth, could we do something about it? | there have been a lot of theories of how we would be able to deter an asteroid, most people first think to blow it up but if it's too close to earth then that isn't going to do us much good. The best plan that I've seen (works only if there's enough time before it gets to earth) is to land a vehicle on the asteroid and, once it's secured onto the surface, it uses it's rockets to over time nudge the asteroid's orbit path just far enough away from earth that we're safe | [
"In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported \"It's 100 per cent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 per cent sure when.\" Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book \"Brief Answers to th... |
what is a "principal component analysis"? | Hard to explain without using images.
See:
_URL_0_ | [
"Principal component analysis is used to study large data sets, such as those encountered in bioinformatics, data mining, chemical research, psychology, and in marketing. PCA is also popular in psychology, especially within the field of psychometrics. In Q methodology, the eigenvalues of the correlation matrix dete... |
Did nativism play a significant role in the American prohibition movement? | There was indeed a great deal of overlap between the nativist and prohibitionist movements. The Anti-Saloon League, the most vocal prohibitionist organization in the country, was led mainly by Protestant ministers, most of whom were concerned that the religious and moral character of the United States was in peril.
It was not only the pernicious effects of alcohol that concerned them, but also that alcohol was of central importance to the social life of the millions of Catholic immigrants who had come to the country since the mid-19th century. The urban saloon was not merely a retailers of beer or rum – it was a place for the working man to socialize, and an arena where immigrants could organize themselves politically.
In particular, the tavern was associated with Democratic urban political machines such as Tammany Hall. The advocates of prohibition, meanwhile, tended to find their home within the Republican Party, and viewed the cause of temperance as being inextricably tied together with attempts to clean up corruption in urban politics – which was in turn caused by the clannish tendencies of immigrants and the degrading effects of drinking.
Once the Volstead Act was introduced, furthermore, it highlighted the status of immigrants as law-breakers while also infusing nativism with an added moral dimension. Various immigrant organizations had opposed Prohibition – notably the National German American Alliance, which represented German-American brewers (and which was tarred with the brush of disloyalty because of World War I) – and Catholics and Jews were disproportionately involved in rum-running and clandestine sales of alcohol.
Given the difficulties of enforcing the Volstead Act, many of its supporters turned to vigilante action, which was typically directed toward immigrants. The Ku Klux Klan was revived as a fraternal organization in the 1920s, choosing Catholics and Jews as its main targets. This reborn Klan was strongest in areas where Prohibition had the greatest support – not merely in the South, but also in the West and Midwest.
The Klan supported both immigration restrictions – culminating in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which effectively put an end to the period of mass migration that had begun in the 1880s – and tighter enforcement of Prohibition regulations. Chicago Lawyer Clarence Darrow told the Baltimore Sun in 1924 that the “father and mother of the Ku Klux is the Anti-Saloon League. I would not say every Anti-Saloon Leaguer is a Ku Kluxer, but every Ku Kluxer is an Anti-Saloon Leaguer.”
Governor Al Smith of New York came to a similar conclusion about the Democratic Party convention of 1924: “the Klan and the anti-saloon forces in the convention were practically identical.”
Not all supporters of Prohibition were necessarily nativists, but given their ideological similarities they made natural allies.
| [
"In a backlash to the emerging reality of a changing American demographic, many prohibitionists subscribed to the doctrine of nativism, in which they endorsed the notion that America was made great as a result of its white Anglo-Saxon ancestry. This belief fostered resentments towards urban immigrant communities, w... |
why do "800 service" call me every day but nobody is ever on the line? | If you let it go to voice mail, they'll play a prerecorded message. But they know that trying to play a prerecorded message when there's a human on the other end doesn't work, so the computer making the call is programmed to hang up if someone answers. | [
"AT&T Phone (formerly AT&T U-verse Voice) is a voice communication service delivered over AT&T's IP network (VoIP). This phone service is digital and provides a voicemail service accessed by *98 from the home number. Customers who subscribe to both AT&T Phone and U-verse TV get features such as call history on chan... |
so how does the body 'die'? also what does it feel like just before a person is about to die? | Neuroscience PhD here.
We have learned a lot from near-death experiences (NDEs). The body dies from the outside in.
For most people, your heart is the first to stop. It just gets tired and worn out having been in use continually for 80+ years. Because blood is your body's way of heating the whole system, you start to cool down. This means your nerves send and receive signals more slowly. Your extremities are sending signals a long distance and so you notice the delay a lot more. This is perceived as a numbness by your brain.
As your brain gets deprived of oxygen-rich blood you slowly lose consciousness. Its like going to sleep, or under anaesthetic. Some people are still aware of the next changes that happen.
The first thing is your inner ear system turns off. With no feedback coming in about the direction of gravity, your body interprets this to mean you're airborne (hence the "floating" feeling some NDE survivors describe).
Then your eyes stop sending signals. Many people don't know this, but nerves in your eye send signals only when there is dark. This is economical for an animal which is active during the day as it saves resources. So as your eyes stop sending signals, your brain interprets this as white light which grows in size as the nerves continue to die.
The next thing to die are inhibitory interneurons. This then permits the spontaneous activation of thousands of excitatory neurons, including the ones which encode your long-term memories. The "seeing my life flash before my eyes" is likely due to this.
Inhibitory interneurons also regulate the release of neurotransmitters involved in the reward pathway. So you get a huge rush of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. This is related to the "feeling of euphoria" that NDE survivors sometimes report. | [
"In a certain philosophical context, death can be seen as the ultimate existential moment in one's life. Death is the deepest cause of a primordial anxiety (\"Die Anfechtung\") in a person's life. In this emotional state of anxiety, \"the Nothing\" is revealed to the person. According to twentieth-century German ph... |
do blind people need to close their eyes to go to sleep if so why? if they already see pitch black? | Because eyes need moisture and the only way to do that it to close your eyes so that your tears can cover the entire surface of your eye. | [
"Another study has indicated that sleeping with the light on may protect the eyes of diabetics from retinopathy, a condition that can lead to blindness. However, the initial study is still inconclusive.\n",
"Night blindness is the difficulty for the eyes to adjust to dim light. Affected individuals are unable to ... |
what do the numbers mean in reference to eyesight? eg. 20/20 | According to below, 20/20 essentially means the person can see an image 20 ft in front of them the same way someone with 'normal' vision would see the image. if they had 30/20 vision for example, this person would see an image 30 ft away the same way someone with 'normal' vision would see the same image from 20 ft away.
More explanations below.
source : _URL_0_ | [
"The standard definition of normal visual acuity (20/20 or 6/6 vision) is the ability to resolve a spatial pattern separated by a visual angle of one minute of arc. The terms 20/20 and 6/6 are derived from standardized sized objects that can be seen by a \"person of normal vision\" at the specified distance. For ex... |
the college admissions process. | Let me give a broader version than the other comments:
*Applications/Colleges and Admission in General*
College X has enough space/professors/resources to educate 500 freshmen next year. However, 5000 students apply to College X. At first, you'd think it was easy: just admit the best 500 students and enroll them. However, College X is competing with Colleges A, B, C, and D for the best students. If each college just accepted the top 500 students and ended up splitting them, each school would end up with only 125 freshmen.
This is where priority applications and waitlists come into play. If Student 1 really loves College X, Student 1 can apply "priority" or "early decision." This means that Student 1 promises to go to College X if they are admitted, and in return College X gives them a higher chance of acceptance. This is a win-win: College X has one less variable in trying to get 500 students, and Student 1 has a better chance of getting into College X.
Waitlist is the flip-side of this balance: College X calculates that accepting 750 students will *probably* give them 500 freshmen. However, they instead give 700 students acceptances, and another 100 waitlists. That way they can just admit "extras" from the waitlist to fill up their 500 numbers. This is great for College X (since it makes it easier to get the right number) but sucks for students, who don't get a straight answer from College X.
*Perspective of the Admissions Committee*
In order to do all this number/student-manipulating, College X has to decide who are the best students to admit, given that they can only admit a certain number of students. Most universities have some kind of formula for sorting students: RAI from the lower comment is a good example. Some schools say "any student with an SAT below 1600 is automatically rejected," some schools do complicated calculations, etc. In general, they try to assess how well a student does on a bunch of metrics:
* GPA from High School
* Test scores like ACT/SAT
* Extracurriculars
* Application Essays
* Recommendations
* (Optional) Interview
There are a lot of different ways to analyze this, but basically the university is trying to figure out how close you are to their image of a perfect student, so that they can admit the right amount of the right students.
Usually what happens is a temp college student is handed a stack of applications and told to auto-reject any that fall below their minimum requirements. Then the ones that seem okay are forwarded to an admissions officer/committee, who pick out the best ones and recommend them for admission.
*What YOU Need to Do*
Applying to college is a series of decisions:
1) Pick colleges you want to apply to. This is a bigger question than I can address as part of this post, but it's an important step. Rule of thumb, apply to ~6 schools, 2 schools that you're overqualified for, 2 schools that are about right, and 2 schools that you're slightly underqualified for. This depends entirely on you though, and is a good conversation to have with your college counselor at your high school.
2) Decide how you want to apply. Is there one you love love love enough to promise you'll attend? If so, make sure you're applying priority/early to that school. If you're not 100% convinced (or if you haven't toured the school) do NOT apply early.
3) Try and excel at those bullet points for admission. Try and get good grades. Prepare for and take the SAT and ACT (I personally recommend taking both if possible). Participate in extracurriculars (volunteering, sports, etc.). Get to know (and do well in classes with) teachers who will write your recommendation letters. There isn't really a magic bullet for getting into college, but if you are *missing* any of these, it will reflect very badly on you.
4) When it comes time for applications (usually early fall senior year is when you should be writing them), fill them out carefully and focus on writing essays. Essays are how you stand out to the admissions committee. This is also beyond the scope of this post, but college essays are very important, it is your only chance to stand out and be unique in a sea of GPAs and SAT scores.
5) Mail in your application (plus transcripts and test scores) and wait. When you get your answers, *TOUR THE SCHOOLS* before you make a decision, and pick the place that you think you will succeed, and not necessarily the one that's "best."
If you have more specific questions, just ask :) my mom has been on admissions committees for years and many of my friends have worked as admissions office interns. | [
"College admissions in the United States refers to the process of applying for entrance to institutions of higher education for undergraduate study at one of the nation's colleges or universities. For people intending to go immediately into college after high school, the college search usually begins in the elevent... |
how does kelvin work? | Kelvin is a temperature scale that start with absolute zero and has uses the same degrees as Celsius.
Celsius has water freeze at 0° and boil at 100° absolute zero is at -273.16° C.
So in Kelvin absolute Zero is a 0 K, water freezes at 273.16 K and boils at 373.16 K
There is a corresponding temperature scale that also starts at absolute zero but uses Farenheit degrees called Rankine, but it is rarely used.
Here is a chart:
Celsius | Kelvin | Fahrenheit | Rankine
---:|---:|----:|----:
-273.16°C | 0 K | −459.67 °F | 0 °R
-40°C| 233.15 K| -40 °F | 419.67 °R
-17.78°C| 255.37 K | 0 °F| 459.67 °R
0 °C | 273.15 K| 32 °F |491.67 °R
100 °C | 373.15 K| 212 °F | 671.67 °R
| [
"The Kelvin transform is a device used in classical potential theory to extend the concept of a harmonic function, by allowing the definition of a function which is 'harmonic at infinity'. This technique is also used in the study of subharmonic and superharmonic functions.\n",
"The kelvin is the base unit of temp... |
why commercial airplanes are usually white while military airplanes are usually grey? | 3 main reasons :
1. Minimizing visual signature . Aircraft operating over sea can be camouflaged by painting them blue\-grey.
2. Blending of aircraft with the tarmac. Parked aircraft outlines are harder to see if the aircraft color doesn't provide sharp contrast with the surface they are on.
3. Modern military aircraft are painted with radar absorbent paint . The paint is most effective with darker colors and a matte finish. Hence, grey aircraft. | [
"Originally, many aircraft in service retained the basic color scheme they were acquired in. Prior to World War II, combat aircraft were given a green and brown top scheme with white or sky blue underside, similar to the Royal Air Force. After the war, jet fighter aircraft such as the Sabre and Starfighter would se... |
how do websites, particularly like instagram and tumblr, deal with constant additions in content? is their storage virtually unlimited? | those are so tiny compared to youtube.
youtube adds storage space at the rate of petabytes a day. there's a module in a shipping container that house storage for 12petabytes. drop one of those in, you're good for another couple of days
| [
"Web Storage is a W3C standard API that enables key-value storage in modern browsers. The API consists of two objects, sessionStorage (that enables session-only storage that gets wiped upon browser session end) and localStorage (that enables storage that persists across sessions).\n",
"BULLET::::- One file per ar... |
why do home appliances all hum at the same tone frequency? | Your electrical power is alternating current - switching back and forth 60 times per second. You will hear that 60 Hz tone, as well as overtones of 60 Hz (such as 120, 180, 240 Hz).
edit: typo in overtone frequencies. | [
"Digital alarm clocks can make other noises. Simple battery-powered alarm clocks make a loud buzzing or beeping sound to wake a sleeper, while novelty alarm clocks can speak, laugh, sing, or play sounds from nature.\n",
"Some central office switches in the United States, notably older GTD-5 EAX systems, utilize a... |
how can there be so much opiate prescription drug abuse when, in theory, the number of manufactured pills and the number of prescriptions are known? isn't it obvious the pills are being abused? | Canadian pharmacist here.
Getting opioid medications is a 2-step process: the physician needs to OK it, and the pharmacist needs to OK it. Both of these checkpoints are failing.
From the physician's side:
Imagine you're a physician and a patient presents to you saying they are in pain (or has a bad cough.) Pain is very subjective so it's difficult to judge if they're lying or how much pain they are in. These people also tend to be very clingy and would refuse to leave your office until they get something. What do you do? You give them something hoping the pharmacist would stop them.
There are also other perspective the physician can take. They could consider it as harm-reduction (at least they're not using xxx.) They could be an irresponsible practionner (money is involved.) They could be working in a area with a high addict population; suddenly opioids become the norm and it's hard to judge what is abuse and what is common place.
From the pharmacist's side:
A patient arrives to the pharmacy. You have your doubts that the patient needs it, but the prescription is valid. Like the physician, the pharmacist really also don't want to deal with this BS: You want to get on with your day and move onto other patients; You want to make that patient leave ASAP; You want to make money; You consider it as a harm reduction approach. If you're a busy pharmacy processing 300 prescriptions a day, you don't have time to deal with this. if you're a slow pharmacy processing 50 prescriptions a day, you really need the money.
If you don't fill their prescription: They might attack you or threaten to be outside for you when you leave); They might rob you (robberies for narcotics are VERY common); They might sue you for discrimination; The physician might also get mad that you for not trusting them. One other common tactics that pharmacists use is to lie that they don't carry it. In this case, the prescription is handed back to them which only pushes the problem onto other pharmacists; they can easily find someone else to fill it for them.
What doesn't have much repercussions is actually filling the medication. The prescriber has already OKed it and the adverse effects are well know. If the patient is abusing it or is harmed, everyone expected it so pharmacist doesn't really take the blame. Both the prescriber and the pharmacist know that they're only responsible for the medication itself. No one will take responsibility for addiction.
Illegitimate ways to obtain prescription narcotics are actually very limited. Addicts would much rather illegal drugs over prescription drugs that are more difficult and expensive to obtain. Common strategies these people use are "Double Doctoring" - going to multiple prescribers to get multiple narcotic prescription; or "Prescription Forgeries" - faking/copying/editing a prescription. Physicians and pharmacists who get involved in this get into a lot of shit, so they are very careful and aren't afraid to call the patient out on it with strict laws behind them.
**EDIT**:
There are a few questions concerning how we know a prescription is forged. There are a few safety measures/red flags:
- Many pharmacies are equipped to automatically and instantly upload prescriptions online
- Some pharmacies have a procedure to confirm with the prescriber for each one
- Insurance companies instantly know if it has been filled
- Some prescriptions require special paper for the prescription to be written on
Red flags include:
- The patient has never been to this pharmacy
- The prescriber has never been documented at this pharmacy (they might be a legit prescriber, but far away; why would the patient travel so far)
- The patient looks anxious/is lying/not cooperating with the pharmacist's questions/counselling
- The hand written prescription is legible.
**EDIT**:
Firstly, I am an Albertan Canadian pharmacist. I have no ideas of the roles/laws outside of the province, let alone the US or other countries. Just to list off a few things Albertan pharmacists can do: independently prescribe any medication (except narcotics), independently adapt the strength, dose, formulation, regimen, type of drug, ect. for any medication, independently renew prescriptions, prescribe in an emergency, dispense for animals, administer vaccines, administer injections, develop care plans, order lab tests, refuse prescriptions. And we get paid for all of them. Yes, even the refusal. When a pharmacist make any change, they are a sole responsible prescriber. No, family physicians aren't happy.
Now just because we CAN, doesn't mean we should/will. A responsible pharmacist will know when they are not competent enough and refer to someone else. This is like how although dentists are allowed to prescribe anything, they should stay within their scope. Pharmacists know the medications very well, but we're not the best at diagnosis, so we will still be referring to physicians for most ailments. Most pharmacist aren't comfortable with prescribing and will refer for most things. However, we are getting more comfortable with prescribing for minor ailments. Also, many pharmacists are also getting specializations for a specific field (eg. diabetes.)
Second, I am getting a lot of comments about it's not the pharmacist's business how to manage patient's prescription. This is absolutely false as this is literally our job description, especially in Canada and the US. When something goes wrong, both the pharmacist and the prescriber are equally responsible. ~~For many countries in the world, "pharmacist" are people straight of out high school with no higher education. In these cases, their role is very limited.~~ Looks like I'm completely wrong on this. Canadian and US pharmacists have a ~3-4 years of university professional degree, and for various reasons, we're paid literally 2-4 times more than pharmacists from most European countries (yes even the developed ones).
Our job description: We make sure that your medications are indicated, effective, safe, and manageable. Indicated means that it's the right medication for the right condition for the right patient. Effective means that the dose/strength of medication is appropriate. Safe means that the benefits outweigh the potential harm. Manageable means that you can actually take the medication by the prescribe regimen - this includes addiction concerns.
If we do see a problem, we can either take care of it independently (and be the sole responsible prescriber) or contact the original prescriber to give a second opinion (this is why your prescriptions take so long, because we're always on ~~the phone~~ hold with the receptionist.) The prescriber can change the prescription and fax us a new one or cancel it completely. Nevertheless, we will contact everyone involved about the actions we took. No matter what happens, best practice states that the pharmacist must refer the patient to someone to can help them.
Example 1:
A family physician gave a patient a narcotic prescription. The pharmacist caught that the patient was double doctoring. The pharmacist refuses to fill. After the patient leaves, the pharmacist notifies all prescribers involved and all pharmacies involved to cancel the prescriptions.
Example 2:
A dentist gave an antibiotic prescription for a urinary tract infection. Although dentists are legally allowed to prescribe anything they want, this is not within their scope of practice. The pharmacist deems the dentist incompetent in the field and refuse the fill the prescription. The pharmacist refers the patient to a walk-in-clinic. The pharmacist then notifies the dentist.' NOTE: just because it's outside of their scope doesn't mean that we have to refuse. The dentist could be fully competent and assessed the patient appropriately, plus pharmacists also can assess the patient and confirm the dentist's prescription. | [
"In 2015, approximately 50% of drug overdoses were not the result of an opioid product from a prescription, though most abusers' first exposure had still been by lawful prescription. By 2018, another study suggested that 75% of opioid abusers started their opioid use by taking drugs which had been obtained in a way... |
What are some examples of artwork by historical leaders? | Winston Churchill did [a lot of painting](_URL_0_) too. | [
"Its name honors the politician and historian Diogo de Vasconcelos, which stood out as a pioneer in defense of the historical and artistic heritage, mining and national level and is considered the first historian of art in Brazil.\n",
"Among the most representative works available to the public, we find historica... |
Who was General Tso? | [Tso Tsung-t'ang](_URL_1_) (alternately Zuo Zongtang) was a Chinese general during the late Qing dynasty, most famous for helping to quell the Taiping rebellion.
I'm about to commit a horrible sin for /r/AskHistorians by linking to a TED talk. Nevertheless, this [talk by Jennifer 8. Lee](_URL_0_) (coincidentally titled "Who was General Tso?") is actually rather informative on the subject of American "Chinese" cuisine.
To answer the sub-question, "General Tso's chicken" is an entirely American invention. | [
"General Xu Yongchang (15 December 188512 July 1959) (Hsu Yung-chang; ; style name: Cichen (Tzu-chen)) was the Minister of Board of Military Operations of the Republic of China between December 22, 1948, and April 22, 1949, and the representative of the Republic of China on September 2, 1945, at the signing of the ... |
How do we have so many pictures and videos of the treatment of Jews in europe during the Nazi-era? | Much of the footage that you see was done by the Nazis themselves. Their plan was to destroy the Jewish people and wanted to have evidence of how they had done so in a very thorough and efficient way. There was also a plan for Führermuseum - a museum whose purpose was to display a selection of the art bought, confiscated or stolen by the Nazis from throughout Europe during World War II. While ultimately the war ended before they could wipe out the Jews and build a museum, they had created a very significant amount of visual evidence of what they had been doing. | [
"The attitude of German soldiers towards atrocities committed on Jews and Poles in World War II was also studied using photographs and correspondence left after the war. Photographs serve as a valuable source of knowledge; taking them and making albums about the persecution of Jews was a popular custom among German... |
Is there any evidence suggesting that the Roman origin myth, that it was settled by emigrees from Troy (or the Trojan war), had any basis in fact? | The Homeric epics and Virgil's Aeneid, the telling of the myth of Rome supposedly founded by the descendants of Troy, are, well, myth. The Iliad tells us more about the culture of Archaic Greece at the time that the epic was put in writing than it does about the mythical time of Greek Gods and Heroes that is narrated in the epic. Same with the Aeneid, which is more about Rome and the way Rome saw itself than it about the actual historical origins of the Romans.
This said, is there evidence that could theoretically link the Latins of the time of the founding and early days of Rome with the Greek world? Let's look at a couple of objects from the archaeological record, the Corinthian Chigi Vase and the Laconian Arkesilas Cup.
The [Chigi Vase](_URL_0_) is an "olpe", a wine jug that in Archaic Greece could have been used to serve wine to aristocrats getting together for a "symposion", the custom of elite men getting together to drink wine and enjoy dance, music and poetry. The Chigi vase was made in Corinth, and its protocorinthian style allows us to date its manufacture to about the year 650 BCE. It famously depicts a battle between hoplite forces, but it also includes images of young men hunting lions and riding horses, and of children hunting rabbits with dogs. Seen as an overall narrative, it tells how to become proper Greek heroic men through the stages of youth to the adulthood as warriors. The imagery is very much a product of Greek culture of its era. And yet, it was excavated in Veio, an Etruscan city that was just north of Rome. How did it end up there? It is unlikely that it was brought to Etruria from Greece by someone hoping to find a buyer for such an unique, high-end artifact used in the Greek symposion and depicting Greek culture. It is more likely that it was commissioned by someone from Etruria who was familiar with Greek culture and customs of that time.
The [Arkesilas Cup](_URL_1_) is a xylik, a vessel used by the Greek elite for drinking wine at a symposion. It is from Laconia (Sparta), and can be dated to about a century later than the Chigi vase. It depicts a very Greek imagery, the loading of agricultural cargo in the Laconian colony of Cyrene, in North Africa. Again, like the Chigi vase, the Arkesilas Cup is very much a product of Archaic Greek culture and elite customs. And yet it was excavated in Etruria, in Vulci, about 100 km north-west of Rome.
Taken together, these two objects tell us that the culture and customs of Archaic Greece were known and sought after in the area surrounding Rome, in a period ranging from the middle of the seventh century to the middle of the sixth century. There is no reason to think that this would have started suddenly in the year 650, so it is likely that there was commercial and cultural contact between the Etruscans and various parts of the Greek world in the early seventh century and possibly mid to late eight century. These are the years that are traditionally given for the founding of Rome (753 BCE) and the time of the seven kings of Rome. So while the founding myth of Rome in the time of Heroes and Gods, is just a myth that is designed to connect the history of the city to the great epics of the Greek world, it is not completely impossible that there was some actual human or cultural Greek DNA in the very early days of Rome, passed through them by the elite Etruscans.
**Sources**
Hurwit, Jeffrey M. "Reading the Chigi Vase." *Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens* 71, no. 1 (2002)
Osborne, Robin. *Archaic and Classical Greek Art*, Oxford: Oxford University Press | [
"Eratosthenes, the most influential of the ancient chronologists, reckoned that the sack of Troy occurred in 1184 BC, more than four centuries before the traditional founding of Rome, in 753. The history of the Alban kings conveniently filled that gap with a continuous line leading from Aeneas to Romulus, thus serv... |
how do doctors choose which of several medicines that do the same thing they should prescribe? | Medicines will be ranked as first, second or third choice, etc., for a given condition. Doctors will work through the line until they get a solution.
This is why you should never give up on meds just because they don't work for you. Second line meds might work far better than first line meds for any given person. | [
"In pharmacy, a formulation is a mixture or a structure such as a capsule, tablet, or an emulsion, prepared according to a specific procedure (called a “formula”). Formulations are a very important aspect of creating medicines, since they are essential to ensuring that the active part of the drug is delivered to th... |
Was it common for WW2 fighter planes to shoot for wing-mounted bombs? | Such precision gunnery was nearly impossible with WWII fighters. Shooting for the bombs would be a much more difficult target than the engine, cockpit, or wing root (where the wing meets the fuselage). There were largely two types of guns in WWII fighters. The first type was wing-mounted guns that were generally configured to converge at a given distance for maximum firepower. Most American and British designs featured this setup, with machine guns being the primary armament. Planes like the Spitfire and Hurricane for the British as well as the Mustang, Lightning, and most US naval fighters for the US. The second type of gun mount was in line with the pilot either through the propeller hub or through the propeller arc. These guns fired straight ahead and often included a cannon through the propeller hub. Many axis planes featured this alignment, though US planes like the P-38 and P-39 also had this type of arrangement.
> And was, say, a B-17's bomb bay as armored as the rest of the plane?
No, there was little armor at all on a B-17 or most other bombers. To attack from below was difficult but possible. Also, most heavy bombers of the time used internal bomb loads--wing-mounted bombs were generally featured on dive bombers and fighters outfitted for ground attack.
> Would it be easier to just shoot the plane itself?
Yes, yes it would. In either configuration accurate gunnery was difficult at any kind of range. Even bombers were moving in three dimensions through the sky and were varying their path--to avoid flak if nothing else. So you had to predict where your target would be by the time your bullets or shells reached it, maneuver yourself into position to make the shot, avoid incoming fire from the bomber and its escorts, *and* provide the right amount of lead for your shots to hit your target. None of these were easy to do. If your shots converged at a point out in front of you due to having wing-mounted guns your fire was much less concentrated at any other distance. You may have been firing six or eight machine guns, but the sky is still a very large place and it becomes an incredibly busy place during combat. Even if your guns fired straight ahead it was still difficult to produce accurate gunnery. Gyro-gunsights were available in WWII in some fighters and they did help, but later improvements like radar-assisted range finding would help even more. Even then, targeting the engines, cockpit, or wing root was much more likely than trying to pinpoint a relatively tiny bomb.
> What about rockets?
The rockets mounted on planes in WWII were smaller than the bombs were. Most of them were mere inches in diameter, which would make them even more difficult to target than bombs.
As always, followup questions by OP and others are encouraged. | [
"During World War II, a new bombsight was invented that allowed bomber planes to hit precision targets from high altitudes, but at 25,000 feet a single degree of oscillation in the plane's flight course threw a bomb 400 feet off its target. The Flight Control Equipment system commonly known as “auto-pilot” was init... |
why do many americans support a 2-term limit on presidents? | If you take a good hard look at this current election, do you really think the logic of "if people don't want a president, they won't vote for them" always plays out perfectly?
There are many reasons why term limits are important. Why, look no further than the Senate. The Senate is useless, constantly gridlocked, and full of apathetic legislators more vested in their own interests than the good of the country.
Why? Because they have no term limits. And sitting in those seats of power allows them to slowly amass power, influence, and sway over their electorate.
If a President can sit in the seat of power indefinitely, *his primary motivation will be keeping that seat*. It incentivizes him to be selfish, to pay off in favors people who can keep him there, and to wage private wars with opponents and up-and-comers.
This is the problem with career senators. If they can make a career out of it, they're going to focus much more on that than doing their actual fucking job. They'll vote along party lines (because the party will cut their funding or kick them out if they rebel), rather than having the guts to vote pragmatically, and to write legislation that helps us, rather than secures their seat of power. | [
"Many modern presidential republics employ term limits for their highest offices. The United States placed a limit of two terms on its presidency by means of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951. There are no term limits for Vice Presidency, Representatives and Senators, although there have been calls for... |
How intelligent are giant octopuses? | I don't know, but increased body and brain size don't correlate with higher intelligence so you can't really infer anything from that alone. | [
"Octopuses are ranked as the most intelligent invertebrates. Giant Pacific Octopuses are commonly kept on display at aquariums due to their size and interesting physiology, and have demonstrated the ability to recognize humans that they frequently come in contact with. These responses include jetting water, changin... |
How can a curve in spacetime make a a force (gravity)? | The rubber-sheet analogy is an extreme simplification that doesn't really shed much light on the underlying mechanism. It gives a bit of intuitive justification for how the paths of objects can be curved, but as you correctly observe, it doesn't provide any explanation for where their motion comes from, or why gravity appears to be a "force".
The key is that it's not space that's curved, it's *spacetime*. Objects are always moving "timewards" in spacetime, at a rate of one year per year. But because of the curvature of spacetime, those timewards paths aren't necessarily parallel. If you put two massive objects at rest near each other, each of their worldlines appears locally straight, but the curvature brings them closer and closer together as time goes on. Gravity feels like a force because if you wanted to keep the objects separated, you'd have to continually apply an opposing force to keep the worldlines separated.
This is much easier to explain visually, so look at the last diagram on [this page.](_URL_0_) Imagine that the north-south axis is time, and the east-west axis is one-dimensional space. Each particle is moving north (into the future) along as straight a path as it possibly can, with no east-west deviations; nevertheless, they collide at the north pole.
Of course, the actual geometry of the universe is more complicated than a sphere; it's a 4-D space with curvature that changes over time depending on the mass distribution. But if the universe were ever to suffer a [Big Crunch](_URL_1_) (which seems unlikely) that diagram is a decent geometric analogy for what it would look like, with all world-lines being forced to intersect at the "future-most" point. | [
"In Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravitation is an attribute of curved spacetime instead of being due to a force propagated between bodies. In Einstein's theory, masses distort spacetime in their vicinity, and other particles move in trajectories determined by the geometry of spacetime. The gravitationa... |
Is anything still named after Hitler? | Maybe not entirely irrelevant to your question would be the story of the Viale delle cave ardeatine in Rome.
You might have guessed this road was formerly named 'Viale Adolfo Hitler'. And was part of the greatest charm offensive in history.
Mussolini wanted to impress Hitler so badly that he invited him over on a tour of Italy that took almost 2 years in preparation. The enitire length of railroad Hitler would travel in Italy was meticulously checked for buildings that weren't up to standard. Shabby looking houses were torn down or obscured from view by massive posters. Every town the train went through was adorned with Italian and Swastika flags and thousands of people were recruited to cheer at Hitlers train in every town.
In Rome Mussolini had roads specially constructed that would appeal to Hitlers love for wide boulevards and because the Termini train station was in an area surrounded by 19th century housing blocks Mussolini built an entire railway station, Roma Ostiense, in an area that showed Italy's new industrial zone and that had an appealing route into the city that passed all the great monuments.
The entire city was all flags and every monument was lit up using gas lamps and airial search lights. The road from the station Ostiense towards the ancient city gate Porta Sao Paulo was named after Hitler himself.
After the war it was renamed after the Cave Ardeatini, the location where the biggest massacre inflicted by German forces on Roman citizens had taken place. 335 Citizens where massacred as retribution for a bomb attack on a German army collumn. The Germans tried covering their deed up by blowing up the cave.
So it's not really named after Hitler anymore. The station still remains as a piece of History that is hidden in plain sight, though.
Source: *Capturing the Fascist Moment: Hitler's Visit to Italy in 1938 and the Radicalization of Fascist Italy* by Paul Baxa.
For anyone that wants to see a good movie about the visit of Hitler to Rome I can advice watching 'Una Giornata Particulare' (or 'A Special Day' in English) it makes use of acutal newsreel footage of Hitlers entry into Rome. _URL_0_
*Edits* Spelling is hard. | [
"\"Schicklgruber\" is the surname Adolf Hitler's father, Alois Hitler carried for the first 40 years of his life, until he took the name Hitler (Hiedler) from his stepfather. While Adolf Hitler himself never carried the surname, the British made use of it for propaganda purposes since even to Germans, the name is l... |
What would stop an AI system with greater-than-human intelligence from being detrimental to humanity? | This question is difficult, mostly because of the notion of "greater-than-human intelligence". What does this mean?
In some sense it seems to imply that intelligence is a unidimensional quantity, and everything fits neatly onto some scale with humans at the top (currently). This is obviously wrong, though. Computers already possess "greater-than-human intelligence" when it comes to arithmetic or any rote computational task. Whereas humans are unbelievably better than computers at other things, such as spatial reasoning. (Of course this could change quickly.)
Even if we were to grant that computers would become more intelligent than humans in _every conceivable way_, this by itself would pose no innate threat. So long as computers remained tools for human use--they only solved problems we set them to solve--we are fine.
The real question seems to be: What would happen if a super-AI system was given free will? What would motivate the AI--what would it want? Would its needs support human well being or oppose it? Would humans maintain a dominant role in the relationship? How would our ethical systems adjust?
These are philosophical questions outside the domain of computing. Within the domain of computing (and neuroscience, to be honest), what we can say is that we are far, far away from achieving them. (Even the energy requirements of simulating a human brain on modern processors would be prohibitive.) For the moment they are not a practical concern.
I'd recommend posing this to /r/askphilosophy as well. | [
"A survey of AI experts estimated that the chance of human-level machine learning having an \"extremely bad (e.g., human extinction)\" long-term effect on humanity is 5%. A 2008 survey by the Future of Humanity Institute estimated a 5% probability of extinction by superintelligence by 2100. Eliezer Yudkowsky believ... |
Why was American Revolution helped by European powers, but French Revolution was feared? | The reason is that the American revolution wasn't viewed as a revolution. The American revolutionaries legitimised their actions by claiming that the England had encroached on their traditional rights as Englishmen. The monarch had acted as a tyrant and rebellion could therefore be defensible, if the aim was to *restore* their rights. The French revolution was a true revolution; society itself was transformed. The sovereign, the King ordained by God, was replaced by a new sovereign, the nation. The American revolution did not change the basis for society itself (atleast until the constitution was ratified); the French revolution overturned the ideology of the ancien régime itself, threatening every society in Europe. One way to exemplify this is to look at the foreign policy of the United States and revolutionary France. The former never tried to export its ideas, but many of the most outspoken proponents of the latter wanted to spread the ideas of the revolution throughout Europe by force.
I hope that makes sense.
Source: Max Edling, 2009: "Den konstitutionella revolutionens startskott", in *Maktbalans och kontrollmakt*, eds. M. Brundin & M. Isberg. Edling is the foremost Swedish expert on the American revolution and a researcher at King's College, London. His dissertation, "A Revolution in Favour of Government", is an eminently readable revisit of the American revolution from a state formation perspective. | [
"French support of the American Revolution was probably a significant factor in shaping American's feelings towards France. Prior to that, the French had been seen as rivals for control of North America until their decisive defeat in the French and Indian War. With the elimination of France as a major colonial powe... |
Would it be possible to build a magnetic shield for earth to protect us from solar flares? | Yes it is possible, and the earth already has one! The part of the earths atmosphere that protects us from radiation from the sun and other sources of radiation is called the [magnetosphere](_URL_0_). We could build an artificial magnetic shield by wrapping massive wires around the earth several times and inducing a missive current in the wires. Saying this is "possible" is not necessarily saying it's probable though. Building a global magnetic shield is far beyond our current engineering and resource capabilities. Other methods could be used such as an array of satellites all with massive magnetic fields, but these would face the same issues with availability of resources and modern engineering capabilities. | [
"CME radiation is dangerous to astronauts on a space mission who are outside the shielding produced by the Earth's magnetic field. Future mission designs (\"e.g.\", for a Mars Mission) therefore incorporate a radiation-shielded \"storm shelter\" for astronauts to retreat to during such an event.\n",
"Another stud... |
semiconductors and doping | Si has 4 electrons in its outer shell, and they bind up with other Si atoms in the crystal pretty well, so it is hard for them to move around. If you introduce a few atoms with 5 valence band electrons, those extra 5th electrons are like free agents. They aren't all that needed to bond the crystal together, so they are relatively free to move about. They are said to be in the "conduction band" of energy, and you've created an n-type semiconductor.
Do the same thing with a dopant with 3 valence band electrons and you get the opposite situation...a "hole". It acts a lot like the opposite of a conduction band electron, except they are slower to move about. And you get p-type semiconductor.
Now what happens if you abut the two types? The conduction band electrons and holes can combine. But the Si in the two areas doesn't have all of the *other* charges equally distributed around...the charges associated with the atomic nucleii. (Those atoms with an extra valence band electron also had an extra proton in the nucleus.) The overall charge of the Si material is neutral, but now you've got one area that has more positive atomic nucleii and one area with more negative. This creates a built-in electric field (called the "space-charge region" or "depletion layer").
Now if you want to have current flow through the diode, you first have to overcome that built-in field if you have the diode hooked up in the reverse bias direction. In the forward bias direction, it doesn't cause a problem and current can flow easily. (I'm vastly simplifying this.)
The [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) article on this is pretty good, and it has pictures that might help. | [
"Doping is the key to the extraordinarily wide range of electrical behavior that semiconductors can exhibit, and extrinsic semiconductors are used to make semiconductor electronic devices such as diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, semiconductor lasers, LEDs, and photovoltaic cells. Sophisticated semiconducto... |
Why is South Africa the most developed African country? | This might be better suited to /r/asksocialscience.
Also, you might want to re-frame the question - by any metric of development I'm aware of (for example, [HDI](_URL_0_)), South Africa *isn't* the most developed African country. | [
"South Africa is the most structurally and economically developed nation on the African continent. As such, its major cities have experienced construction booms that most other cities of similar size in Africa have not. Advanced development is significantly localised around five areas: Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Du... |
Why was the Soviet military so ineffective in the first half of WW2? | This is a very complex and complicated subject - probably hundreds of books have been written about this both inside and outside of the USSR. Essentially, the reasons could be put into 2 categories:
**First Reason**: The Soviet Union was simply not ready for war when Germany invaded. During peacetime, the military of any major country works on a skeleton crew. It is simply too expensive to maintain a war-time full size army in peacetime. As soon as the war starts, the country will call up reservists, troops will assemble in cities all over the country, get on trains (or ships/planes whatever) and then be transported and deployed to face the enemy. This is call mobilization. For a country the size of the Soviet Union, this process takes a long time - more than a month. When Germany invaded the SU on June 22, 1941, the Red Army was still largely a peace-time army - it wan't mobilized or it was perhaps only partially mobilized. The troops in the interior of the country have not yet joined with those at the border. This gave the German army a significant advantage. The German army could concentrate an overwhelming amount of troops at the key points of their advance. This allowed them to quickly surround and destroy many of the Red Army units facing them. This meant that the mobilizing RA units arriving from the interior could no longer join with anybody and had to make a new front. Essentially, the defeat at the border created a cascading domino effect where the Germans would never really fight the RA at full strength and instead defeat it peace-meal.
You might ask "Well, why didn't the SU mobilize sooner? Couldn't they have seen this coming?" There is a lot of misinformation out there that basically says that Stalin was given accurate intelligence that the invasion was pending but refused to believe it. Actually, intelligence reports he received were contradictory and not reliable. There was no conclusive evidence that war was indeed imminent. However, the Soviet leadership became very concerned about the threat in the early June (about 2-3 weeks before the invasion). Even if mobilization was declared then, it was already too late, since at least 30 days were needed. But more importantly, they reasoned that a mobilization would be provocative to Germany and make war a certainty rather than merely a threat.
**Second Reason** is the difference in troop quality. The the few years before 1941, the RA had grown by nearly 5 times. Soviet military academies had difficulties meeting the demand for qualified new officers. On a more theoretical level, the RA didn't really have a clear and effective doctrine that it would put into use. Senior officers understood that the nature of war had changed dramatically since the days of WWI, especially with the advent of the tank. However, it was not very clear what was the best way to use armor, and without concrete experience it was hard to determine. (The terrain during the war with Finland was not very suitable for armored warfare). To give an example, originally the Soviets had their tanks spread across the infantry. However shortly before the war, in 1940, they decided to organize all the tanks in to 19 mechanized corps. Each corps would have hundreds of tanks. However as experience showed, these mechanized corps, while looking formidable on paper, were actually too big and too difficult to control. Also, as experience showed, tanks actually need a lot of infantry and artillery support - something that these mechanized corps didn't have enough of. Finally, the mechanized corps didn't have sufficient transport which limited their mobility, which is a key feature of armored units.
The Germans, on the other hand, probably had the best and the most complete doctrine on how to use armor at the beginning of the war. During the interwar years, they put a lot of thought into how armor should be organized, what the proper ratio of tanks to infantry is, and so on. The campaign in Poland was just about the ideal scenario to test their doctrine - it was a real war with a real enemy but still forgiving enough that mistakes would not lead to a disaster. The Polish campaign was also one of several opportunities for German officers and soldiers to gain valuable experience. Thus the German military was well ahead of the RA qualitatively.
**Re: Stalin's Purges**: The misfortunes of the Red Army are often explained by Stalin's purges. However these claims are usually exaggerated. Overall, only about 4% of Red Army officers were killed as a result of the purges. The majority of those affected were returned to the army either before or immediately after the war began. Several of Red Army's very senior officers were killed but there is no indication that they were more talented or capable the the ones who replaced them. Also, while it is true that the RA had a deficit of junior officers, the purges were very top heavy. Of course, the purges didn't help the situation but it would be incorrect to say they were the main or even a very significant reason for RA's defeats of 1941.
Sorry for the wall of text but this as I said earlier, it is a rather complicated subject.
**TL;DR** - The Soviet Union was not ready for war operationally - the Red Army wasn't mobilized or deployed at the start the war. Also the Soviet military planners, nor the officers in the field, had sufficient experience with modern warfare (contrary to Germans, which had a ton).
EDIT: Formatting and grammar | [
"Soviet forces suffered heavy damage in the field as a result of poor levels of preparedness, which was primarily caused by a reluctant, half-hearted and ultimately belated decision by the Soviet Government and High Command to mobilize the army. Equally important was a general tactical superiority of the German arm... |
why do non-native english speakers make the "their vs. there" confusion less often than natives? | Native speakers learn the language mainly through listening and speaking as a child. As there, their and they're are pronounced the same they may not be distinguished from each other for many years until a child starts learning grammar.
On the other hand when you are learning a foreign language you tend to begin with a greater focus on the grammar than a native speaker and this saves a lot of the confusion with these words | [
"Because of the use of English as a lingua franca, native speakers are outnumbered by non-native speakers of English, which is a situation that is quite atypical for western European languages. A consequence of this is a sense of ownership of the language by different communities, which is reflected in the way Engl... |
what is cosmic radiation and why is it harmful to life? | Cosmic rays originate from outside of the Solar System, and it's essentially high-energy radiation coming from space. Because of how powerful it is, it's not only bad for life, but it's also bad for electronics because it can alter circuit components in them.
As for life, it's the main barrier for space travel because it's essentially space's form of ionizing radiation; That is, radiation that can separate electrons from atoms. With that said, long-term exposure to cosmic rays (and thus radiation) would lead to acute radiation sickness, and eventually death. | [
"Space radiation comes from cosmic rays emitted by our local star, the Sun, and from stars beyond the Solar System as well. Space radiation can trigger cancer and cause damage to the central nervous system. Similar instruments are flown on the Space Shuttles and on the International Space Station (ISS), but none ha... |
why do some governments call snap elections, even if they have a chance of losing? | Sometimes, governments are forced into positions where they have to make unpopular decisions.
Some people will see how the government's hand has been forced and will accept it. But other people might object to the decision they've made, and feel the government is not acting for the thing it claimed to stand for when it was elected.
In this case, the legitimacy of the government might be called into question. This can result in them losing control, not being able to pass laws, and not being able to effectively govern.
They might then call an election. They'd hope to be re-elected, and, if they are, they will regain their legitimacy because the public have still voted for them even though they've seen what the government have had to do previously. Even if they lose, this will probably be less damaging than trying to govern without support. | [
"Since the power to call snap elections usually lies with the incumbent, they usually result in increased majorities for the party already in power having been called at an advantageous time. However, snap elections can also backfire on the incumbent resulting in a decreased majority or even the opposition winning ... |
Who do you think is Jack the Ripper? | Academic historians tend to be fairly unconcerned with who the murderer really was. This is partly because we'll never know for sure, and partly because the myth of the Ripper is far more interesting than any reality. As a cultural historian of late-Victorian Britain, I'm fascinated by the response to the murders and what it reveals about British culture and society at the time. The failure of the police to apprehend the murderer created a void; a blank space into which people poured their fears and fantasies. It's a great way to explore ideas about gender, race, crime, the city, and the press. This is much more interesting (to me at least) than desperately speculating about the identity of the killer. Historians tend to leave this stuff to the Ripperologists... | [
"There are many and varied theories about the identity and profession of Jack the Ripper, but authorities are not agreed upon any of them, and the number of named suspects reaches over one hundred. Despite continued interest in the case, the Ripper's identity remains unknown.\n",
"Jack the Ripper features in hund... |
[Meta] Can we start a FAQ link of Recommended History Books? | we have a link on the sidebar for finding good resources, however compiling a list of books can get unwieldy quick. WARFTW alone would contribute like 40 books just on the Battle of Kursk. | [
"The book, written in the satirical paper's editorial voice, contains entries for nearly every country on Earth, including detailed maps, feature articles, and humorous stereotyped descriptions of regional history and customs. For example, Romania's entry is subtitled, \"Bram Stoker's Romania.\"\n",
"The book com... |
the congressional vote to repeal no child left behind, and the impact it will have on the federal push for common core standards implementation. | Remember during the Bush administration when a school's funding was to be based on test scores, and all the kids who failed the tests still got to move on to the next grade? That was no child left behind.
Now that they are finally acknowledging our failing education system, they want to make kids pass the tests in order to move on like they did when our education system wasnt such a joke, and steer funding away from being solely dependant on testing results.
Of course there is A LOT more going on, but this is the main point. | [
"The No Child Left Behind Act(NCLB) legislation was signed by President Bush in January 2002 and dramatically expanded federal influence over the nation's more than 90,000 public schools. The main implications of this legislation was states had to conduct annual student assessments linked to state standards to iden... |
Can light waves experience interference? | Yes, one of the most well known phenomena is [two slit interference](_URL_0_) | [
"Interference of light is a common phenomenon that can be explained classically by the superposition of waves, however a deeper understanding of light interference requires knowledge of wave-particle duality of light which is due to quantum mechanics. Prime examples of light interference are the famous double-slit ... |
For some species of ant, like Army Ants, what determines whether they become a small worker, a large soldier, a male, or a queen? Is it random or do queen ants choose which profession ants will be when they lay the eggs? | It depends on the species, but among many species of ants the caste that an egg develops into is based on differences in nutrition received through care and feeding by other ants as the larvae develops -- not by anything that the queen does. | [
"Not all ants follow the basic pattern described above. In army ants only males are alates, having wings. They fly out from their parent colony in search of other colonies where wingless virgin queens wait for them. A colony with an old queen and one or more mated young queens then divides, each successful queen ta... |
how are professionals able to spot counterfeit signatures if a person can't sign their name exactly the same each time? | It's more about finding consistent patterns than about finding perfectly consistent shapes to each figure. Maybe the signer does wide, loopy lowercase L's. They won't all be exactly the same, but they're always wide and loopy. If the L on a signature is thin and stunted, then it casts doubt on the signature.
Maybe he lifts his pen between a specific two letters every time, maybe he dots the i as he makes it, instead of after finishing the word. Maybe the pen moves slower on one letter, and leaves a thicker line of ink because of it. All of these little things are more consistent than the shape exactly matching every time - find them all to be consistent, and it's almost certainly real. Find several discrepancies, and there's a good reason to doubt the signature. | [
"While many people sign their names enough that it becomes very routine, it is still an important skill to have. A \"false signature\", forgery, is a punishable by law offense. Writing a check, signing a credit slip, signing a marriage certificate, and signing an apartment lease are just a few of the occasions when... |
why is low blood pressure and a low heart rate good, if that means that your heart is pumping less often and not pushing as hard? | As long as your body functions normally at a lower pressure or pulse, that means it's doing what it needs to with less effort and less strain that could be damaging over time. It also means there is more room for pressure or pulse to increase later in life without necessarily becoming a problem.
But there are people whose hearts underperform and their pressure or pulse is *too* low, causing them problems with circulation, and they take medication to correct it. | [
"Some heart conditions can lead to low blood pressure, including extremely low heart rate (bradycardia), heart valve problems, heart attack and heart failure. These conditions may cause low blood pressure because they prevent the body from being able to circulate enough blood.\n",
"When the heart beats excessivel... |
How did Buddhist-majority nations reconcile state violence (wars and so on) with Buddhist precepts of non-violence? Did they bother to do so? | Interestingly enough, I did a paper on this very question in my bachelor (comparative religion). My case study was Sri Lanka, but I'll give examples from other nations here as well, for a more 'universal' approach.
There are three means of reconciliation of violence and Buddhism I will distinguish here. Incidentally, these are not unique to Buddhists. Other religions handle their formal rejection of violence in a similar manner.
First, Buddhism, like other religions, is linked to cultural and national identity. Buddhists would fight in protection of their nationstate and what they perceive as the "keepers of the tradition". They apply a larger-than-life mentality to the warfare. That is to say, the importance of continuing the tradition outweighs the views on morality they hold. (Daniel Kent (2010), 'Onward Buddhist Soldiers, Preaching to the Sri Lankan Army' in: *Buddhist Warfare*)
> Soldiers don’t shoot the enemy out of personal anger. If they shoot they do so for the common good. This war is on behalf of the country, people, religion, region, and motherland. It would be negative karma to shoot one’s neighbor over a land conflict, but the intention here is a good one.
Second, there are attempts to de-humanize the opponents. This is very similar to Christian and Islamic justification of violence. Opponents are represented as possessed by demons, thereby transforming the violence from a mortal to a sanctified action. (in: Michael Jerryson (2010), 'Militarizing Buddhism, Violence in Souther Thailand' in: *Buddhist Warfare*)
> [B]ecause whoever destroys the nation, the religion, or the monarchy, such bestial types [man] are not complete persons. Thus we must intend not to kill people but to kill the Devi [Māra]; this is the duty of all Thai.
Third, karmic sacrifice. This is a classic case of multiple interpretations of (somewhat) ambiguous theology. Some individuals are considered such sinful beings, that they will only commit more crimes the longer they live. Killing these individuals can be considered a heroic act, because the killer will sacrifice his own karma in order to prevent the victim from committing more crimes and going to hell. (in: Derek Maher (2008), *The Rhetoric of War in Tibet*)
> [K]illings [can be] undertaken in order to preserve sinful opponents of Buddhism from committing worse crimes that could be expected to earn them more severe karmic retribution than if they had not been killed.
Lastly, on a more personal note (hope that's allowed) there are some understandable misconceptions about Buddhism. (these same misconceptions incited my initial question for the aforementioned paper). Buddhism has many forms. And the majority of those forms has aspects similar to other religions. Please don't believe that "Buddhism is more a philosophy than a religion". Many forms of buddhism have gods, demons, heaven, hell, prayer for help, and rituals with magic properties. Therefore, evil and violence toward perceived evil is not at all uncommon among buddhists. If someone tells you that that is not real Buddhism, that would be a theological belief, not a statement supported by scholars. | [
"Buddhism and violence refers to acts of violence and aggression committed by Buddhists with religious, political, or socio-cultural motivations, as well as self-inflicted violence by ascetics or for religious purposes. Buddhism is generally seen as among the religious traditions least associated with violence. How... |
i try to light my gas stove, but it doesn't light. i smell the gas several seconds later. i turn on another one, and that ones lights. why doesn't that flame blow my house up? | They put bitterants in the gas that humans are *extremely* sensitive to. You smell amazingly small traces of it.
You need a decent amount to get a decent bang.
Certainly you could do some damage if you were trying but the gas needed for the stove for a few seconds isn't really that dangerous. Be safe and give a bit for it to clear out, but it's no that big of a deal if you just flip the gas on and off. | [
"BULLET::::- Gasifier stoves force the gases and smoke that result from incomplete combustion of fuels such as biomass back into the cookstove's flame, where the heat of the flame then continues to combust the particles in the smoke until almost complete combustion has occurred, reducing emissions. Typical gasifier... |
Why are water droplets equal distance apart? | Imagine instead of liquid water, we have the flow of identical marbles out of a spigot. That is, one successive marble after the other with the same initial horizontal velocity. The time between successive marbles starting to fall will be constant, let's call it Δ*t*. All marbles will follow the same trajectory, so the separation between successive marbles at any time is just the amount of distance corresponding to Δ*t* along the trajectory. This means that at any fixed point in the trajectory (e.g., the ground), the separation between successive marbles will be the same. Also the separation increases as the marbles fall further (at least until they've reached terminal velocity).
In fact, we can easily solve for the vertical separation between successive marbles neglecting air resistance. If the distance to the ground is a height *h*, then the time for one marble to reach the ground is sqrt(2 *h* / *g*). The next marble will have been airborne for sqrt(2 *h* / *g*) - Δ*t*, which means it will have fallen a distance *h* - Δ*t* sqrt(2 *g h*) + *g* (Δ*t*)^2 / 2. So the vertical separation is just Δ*t* sqrt(2 *g h*) - *g* (Δ*t*)^2 / 2 (as we expected it increases with drop height *h*).
Now, the question is why a continuous stream of water breaks up into droplets, [which is not quite as simple to answer](_URL_0_). Naively, the stream has surface tension holding it together, but the acceleration will cause the stream to stretch for the same reasons as above. [At some point](_URL_1_) surface tension is overcome and we get water droplets for which the marble analysis holds. BTW, certain fluids (such as honey) are viscous enough to disfavor the formation of droplets, and instead exhibit [other interesting phenomena](_URL_2_). | [
"When a single stream of water hits a surface the water must go somewhere, and because the stream is uniform the water will tend to go mostly in the same direction. If a single stream hits a surface which is curved, then the stream will conform to the shape and be easily redirected with the force of the volume of w... |
What was the siege of Malta significance in WW2 and what are some good sources to read on the subject? | Malta had a great strategic significance for the British in the Mediterranean, as a result of its geographical position. Being in the centre of the Mediterranean, aircraft, ships and submarines based there could interdict any shipping trying to move past it. This proved to be especially valuable, as it controlled the shipping lanes from Italy to North Africa. The RN based two main forces there - Force K, and the 10th Submarine Flotilla. Force K was a surface force, based around two light cruisers, *Penelope* and *Aurora*. It destroyed several Axis convoys, before increased German and Italian bombing forced a retreat. The 10th Submarine Flotilla was based in the old lazarette on Manoel Island in Marsamxett Harbour. Composed mainly of small U-class submarines, it was highly effective at interdicting shipping to and from North Africa. The flotilla produced some highly successful submarines, including HMS Upholder, which sank ~120,000 tons of shipping, making it the most successful British sub of the war. It provided a base for the RAF to launch raids on the Italian coast, and for repairing ships damaged in the waters around it. The British carrier *Illustrious*, heavily damaged by Stukas while escorting a convoy to Alexandria, received major repairs in Valetta's Grand Harbour. Aerial reconnaissance from Malta also proved useful. For example, Martin Maryland recon aircraft from Malta were able to confirm the presence of the Italian fleet at Taranto before the RN launched their raid. Once the siege had been broken, Malta also provided an excellent base for offensive operations against Sicily and southern Italy. The Italians and Germans were, of course, trying to prevent the British from using all of these functions. As far as books go, the big recommendation is James Holland's *Fortress Malta*, which is an excellent popular overview of the siege. Bradford's *Siege Malta 1940-1943* is also worth a read. If you can find them, the British official histories *The Air Battle of Malta 1940-1942* and *The Mediterranean Fleet* will give a good overview of the British side of the battle.
| [
"The Siege of Malta began on 11 June 1940 following Italy's entry into the war. The island was dependent on supply convoys fighting their way through from Gibraltar or Alexandria, and meanwhile, the garrison and people were subjected to some of the heaviest bombing of the war for a period of over two years. For its... |
What are the consequences of significantly skewed gender ratio among human population? Are there any documented cases? | Check out [this article on missing women of Asia](_URL_0_) and China's [one-child policy](_URL_1_), both of which outline actual cases of sex disparity and consequences of such. | [
"Although there is significant evidence of the prevalence of sex-selective abortions in many nations (especially India and China), there is also evidence to suggest that some of the variation in global sex ratios is due to disparate access to resources. As MacPherson (2007) notes, there can be significant differenc... |
Why does Israel exist? | > I will fully admit I am coming from a place of relative ignorance here but my uninformed understanding is that sometime following WWII, the U.N. created the state of Israel
The UN did not create Israel. It proposed a partition of what was known as the British Mandate for Palestine, originally envisioned as a Jewish state someday to come, where Jews and Arabs would get a state apiece. When this proposal passed the UN General Assembly, which was *nonbinding*, a civil war was launched between Jews and Arab Palestinians. The civil war turned into an international war when, in May 1948, Israel declared independence and the Arab states around it invaded (they had previously only been contributing resources and personnel more covertly in the civil war). This war is what Israel rose out of, not a UN decision.
Furthermore, Israel was conceived of well before the 1947 partition proposal. Jews had been pushing for a state in the area since the 1880s, and the British proposed a Jewish state there (and partition) for the first time in 1937. It was not a new, or post-Holocaust idea.
> My question is why. Was it just so western nations could have an ally in the region?
The reason behind supporting the creation of Israel was moral and strategic. Morally speaking, the Holocaust absolutely contributed. But there was also a moral imperative because of the feeling that permeated the world that self-determination should be given to all peoples, a theme that animated the creation of many new countries around then. Coupled with the belief by many that Jews simply deserved a homeland of their own and had none, the moral case was made. The strategic case was less clear, since it was unclear which side a Jewish state would take in the brewing Cold War over time, but both superpowers chose to support one, believing it might ally with them. The US was the first to *de facto* recognize Israel when it was created, for example, choosing to issue such a recognition 11 minutes after Israel's declaration of independence. The Soviets issued a more forceful *de jure* recognition a mere 3 days later, well before the US did. Israel eventually gravitated towards the west, but it's worth remembering that many of Israel's founders were very far-left, to the point of being socialist in many regards.
> Why is it a traditional ally of the U.S. and other western nations?
This began with the shift of the Arab states to rely on the Soviets for arms. Israel was seen as a counterweight when the West could no longer rely on Arab allies, who the US had tried to entice as well. Israel's success since then made it a powerful strategic player in the region.
> And what happened to the people who claimed that territory already?
Which? Are you referring to Palestinians? Arab states?
> I am assuming the creation of Israel is only one part of the continual Middle East conflict, but didn't its sudden creation make a complicated situation infinitely more complex?
Depends who you ask. That's kind of a difficult counterfactual to figure out, though.
> Why would claiming that your ancestors owned the land thousands of years ago hold any weight in geopolitics?
See above. | [
"Israel was established as a homeland for the Jewish people and is often referred to as the Jewish state. Israel's Declaration of Independence specifically called for the establishment of a Jewish state with equality of social and political rights, irrespective of religion, race, or sex. The notion that Israel shou... |
On average, how accurate is the modern ascribing of medical conditions to historical figures? | Even in situations where an accurate diagnosis can be made, the utility of this kind of diagnosis can be questionable.
All diseases are, to some extent, culture-bound. How we interpret and feel about symptoms and treatments, and how those feelings and interpretations inform our actions are directly tied to what we believe to be happening. For example, there was a time and place in which finding suppurating sores on one's skin would be a relief (it means that the bad stuff is coming out!).
While there's perhaps some ways that knowing what a historical figure "really" was suffering from might help us better understand the past, it can also get in the way of understanding it if you apply it too rigidly.
Sometimes it works best to accept that what someone was suffering from was exactly what they and their contemporaries believed it to be, even if it's not a real thing anymore. If there's no context to understand, say, fibromyalgia, in the 19th century, declaring that a case of hysteria was 'really' fybromyalgia might obscure more about lived experience and context than it reveals. | [
"His landmark paper \"Phthisiologica, seu exercitationes de phthisi libris comprehensae. Totumque opus variis histories illustratum\" was published in Latin in 1689, with an English translation appearing in 1694. A second English edition was published in 1720. Its significance is partly due to the disease receiving... |
Darwin's use of "Natural Selection" | Is there a question here? I'm having a little trouble figuring out what kind of answer you're looking for. | [
"Darwin thought of natural selection by analogy to how farmers select crops or livestock for breeding, which he called \"artificial selection\"; in his early manuscripts he referred to a \"Nature\" which would do the selection. At the time, other mechanisms of evolution such as evolution by genetic drift were not y... |
if sugar is so bad why should i eat fruit? what does it give me that vegetables don't? | It's not that sugar is bad; it's that sugars in certain capacities are bad.
If you drink a soda that has 20g of sugar, those 20g of sugar are going to be immediately and instantaneously absorbed by your body. On the other hand, let's say you eat a piece of fruit that contains 20g of sugar - that sugar will be digested over an hour or so, meaning it won't cause that significant spike the soda's sugar did.
Your body needs sugar. Just make sure you give it the right kind in the right form. | [
"A 2003 World Health Organization technical report provided evidence that high intake of sugary drinks (including fruit juice) increased the risk of obesity by adding to overall energy intake. By itself, sugar is not a factor causing obesity and metabolic syndrome, but rather – when over-consumed – is a component o... |
what is a virtual cpu ? | > Virtual CPUs or vCPU are the brand name of NetLogic for its SMT implementation, like Intels HyperThreading. The concept is easy: For each CPU core you have several vCPU's, which are simulated and share the hardware of the one core. The software that runs on such a architecture "sees" x vCPU's altough there are only y physical cores present. This is done for performance optimization.
^_URL_0_
Considering that you have an i7, this is presumably from HyperThreading, which is only present in i7 series processors.
**Why badly optimized games lag a lot?** Because they're unoptimized! More accurately, an unoptimized speed can be though of as the "base" or default speed. Optimization improves the performance, causing the game to run faster. As a result, an optimized game has better performance than an unoptimized game, in comparison.
**Why does it over-heat fast?** Laptops don't have very efficient cooling systems (compared to desktops). That's part of the reason that processors and such for laptops are slower than their desktop variants. For comparison, my i7-2600K runs at 3.4 GHz by default, but can be easily overclocked to 4 GHz (the "K" means the chip is unlocked and can be overclocked).
To prevent overheating, get a cooling pad for laptops. And avoid blocking the air intake at the bottom of the laptop. Contrary to their name, they shouldn't go on your lap. | [
"General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU, rarely GPGP) is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU), which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the central processing unit (CPU). The use of multiple video ca... |
When I viciously rip a leaf off of a tree during Spring months such as April, what exactly happens to the tree? | Assuming you didn't tear some of the bark and only ripped off the leaf, the tree will simply seal off that area via the [abcission layer](_URL_0_). Trees don't heal, they seal; leaves are shed in the fall by this same mechanism. While auxin is produced in the leaf the abcission layer will not seal off the leaf stem, but if conditions are appropriate to halt auxin production, or if a leaf is removed, the layer will grow and seal off the area exposed.
Trees shed leaves before fall as well; infestation from aphids can cause trees to prematurely abcise their leaves. Nothing really bad happens to the tree other than getting a little less glucose from photosynthesis. If you were to damage part of the bark, the tree will still seal off the area to prevent the spread of infection, creating a callous tissue around the edge as well as using chemical defenses. | [
"In the opening of the final chapter, \"Death\", the tree is 550 years old and stands 80 meters (260 feet) tall. Under the weight of too much snow accumulating on the canopy mat, a branch breaks off. Stresses from a long winter with a dry summer weaken the tree's immune system. The exposed area where the branch bro... |
why aren't we always hungry for the things that our body needs most? | You are hungry for specific things. That's why you crave certain foods sometimes. Your body is used to nutrients being in that food so it tells you to eat that food. | [
"There is no single explanation for food cravings, and explanations range from low serotonin levels affecting the brain centers for appetite to production of endorphins as a result of consuming fats and carbohydrates.\n",
"Commonly people have an appetite for meat or eggs, high protein foods. But these may be exp... |
why are there free refills for soft drinks in the us? | In the US refills are free because soft drinks are commonly dispensed from fountain machines. A 12oz soft drink from a fountain costs the restaurant almost nothing, typically less than a penny. So restaurants see free refills as a perk they can offer with only a tiny cost to themselves that might encourage patrons to stay longer and maybe buy more food.
Dunno why they're uncommon in Europe. Maybe Europe got soda fountains later or they're less common. | [
"Free refills are seen as a good way to attract customers to an establishment, especially one whose beverages are not their primary source of income. Due to the extremely low cost of fountain soft drinks (especially the beverage itself, not including the cost of the cup, lid and straw), often offering a profit marg... |
how does prison labor work? | In my prison, as an example, the guys who work in the dining facility start out at 40c an hour. The guys who work in the welding shop start out at 60c an hour. The guys who work in the wood shop get 45c an hour, but can get a bonus of up to $25 dollars depending on what they build. Inmates who stay with a job long enough and attend additional training can work up to become a supervisor and can earn up to $1.10 an hour. The guys who work third shift make an extra dime per hour.
They don't make a lot of money, because, regardless of what the inmates believe, it costs a lot of money to house an inmate. The difference between the wages of an inmate and a living wage outside goes to offset some of that cost. The inmates can do what they want to with that money. Some use the money to pay for college courses. Some use the money to buy things from the commissary. Some invest the money in a savings or retirement account.
Large corporations at some prisons can "outsource" jobs. The corporation has to be approved to do so, and some of the considerations are if the inmate labor will have an effect on the local economy.
Inmate labor is allowed because the inmates have to have something to do during the day. You can't leave them locked up in their cells all day and having a job to go to helps prepare them to reintegrate with the outside when they get released and have to have a job. | [
"A labor camp (or labour, see spelling differences) or work camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment under the criminal code. Labour camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especially prison farms). Conditions at labor ca... |
Are there any lifeforms that have evolved exclusively on land and never began from water? | Not sure what you mean there.
If you trace back the lineage of all known life forms further and futher back, eventually they all had ancestors that lived in the water.
(E.g. for *Homo sapiens* - _URL_0_)
If you're just looking back one or two evolutionary steps, then of course the recent ancestors of almost all land animals were also land animals. | [
"Recent studies showcase that ambulocetids were fully aquatic like modern cetaceans, possessing a similar thoracic morphology and being unable to support their weight on land. This suggests that complete abandonment of the land evolved much earlier among cetaceans than previously thought.\n",
"Most life forms evo... |
How is the insulin transfer into the bloodstream regulated? | The insuline secretion is mainly modulated by the blood sugar, i.e. your glucose level in the blood which is roughly 5 mmol/L or 90 mg/dL. Every cell in the body absorpts glucose (different mechanisms) where it can be metabolized. One important substance that you get this way is the ATP (Adenosine-Triphosphate), an energy carrier of a cell. If you want details on this I recommend to read up on glycolysis and the citrate cycle.
As the ATP levels inside the beta-cell rises, the membrane permeability of potassium decreases. This happens because there are ATP-sensitive potassium channels directly built into the membrane of the cell which deactivate upon interacting with ATP. This causes potassium to accumulate inside the cell. Note that the inside of a cell is negatively charged relative to the outside of a cell, in other words, the cell becomes *less* negatively charged.
As a consequence of this ion-shift the cell 'deporalizes' (see below) and thus increases the Calcium influx to the cell. Calcium is usually a trigger ion because its native concentration in cells is *extremely* low. Therefore, the cell is turn extremely sensitive to changes in the calcium concentration (which can easily change by up to 2 orders of magnitude). As a result of the Ca-increase inside the cell, the exocytosis of prepared insulin vesicles is triggered.
The insulin then allows other cells in the body to absorb glucose and thus lowers the blood sugar level. In turn, the glucose level inside the beta-cell of the pancreas decreases which leads to the activation of potassium channels which down regulates the Ca levels and therefore finally decreases the scretion of insuline. In short, insuline sort of regulates itself.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------
Now to add on a few terminologies:
A cell membrane is an electric isolator that has selective permeability to certain ions and molecules. There are active and passive transport mechanisms which built up an ion concentration gradient or passively resolve it. In all your cells there is a transporter that sacrifices one ATP to bring 3 Na ions out and 2 K ions into the cell (Na-K-ATPase). This way you have a very high concentration of potassium in your cell. Note that you have also gained a difference in electric charge. This change in charge is what your cell ultimately wants, because it allows it cell to have 'turned on mode' and a 'turned off mode'. Normally a cell is polarized, i.e. the membran has a negative electric potential. When the permeability of a membrane increases this electric gradient is decreasing and the cell depolarises. This mechanism is periodically induced in your pace-maker cells in the heart or used to store and transfer information in your nervous system. It is also used to trigger the release of Ca in your muscle cells to cause contractions of your muscle fibers.
For most (if not all cells) potassium is the driving factor for where the exact membrane potential is without excitation. It is usually sufficient to use the so called Nerst equation to calculate the membrane potential via E = RT/(zF) ln(\[K\]\_o / \[K\]\_i) which only uses the concentration of potassium inside and outside of the cell (and some constants). More generally you have to actually take the [Goldman equation](_URL_0_) which also accounts for the membrane permeabilities (the permeability for other ions than potassium is extremely low in comparison however and thus somewhat negligible).
\-----------------------------------------------------------------
To add on the blood sugar level in general:
There are of course a lot more hormones that regulate this important parameter. To give just one example, glucocorticoids (e.g. cortisole) are called 'gluco' because they increase the blood sugar levels. Patients that take high doses of cortisole or prednisolone over a long period have a high risk of developing a 'steroid diabetes'. Note that cortisole levels are also elevated under high psychological stress.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------
Why do we need insulin? Why don't cells just absorb glucose, what is all this fuzz about?
Cells absorb glucose differently. There are, in fact, different glucos transporters. The most important ones are GLUT1-5 (yes biochemists finally had an easy naming convention). We have these because we want our beta-cells in the pancreas to permantently check the glucose level, so they have the GLUT 1 transporter that does allow the uptake of glucose without the interaction of insuline.
However, we absolutely do not want our muscles or fat cells (fat cells are the worst) to take all the glucose without any regulation, so they have the transporter GLUT4 which only acts with insuline. If the muscles did not need insuline, they'd just burn the glucose and our liver wouldn't be able to produce glycogen (short-term storage of glucose that lasts maybe 10-20 minutes under physical exercise, we use this energy ressource until the burning of fatty acids allows long-term energy supply).
Similarly, the fat cells would produce fatty acids with the glucose. The problem here is that this is a one-way ticket, there is basically (Succinyl-CoA etc. aside) no going back from fatty acids to glucose and we wouldn't be able to restock our short-term storage in the liver. If a lion now decided to hunt us, we'd have to parley for 20 minutes until we have activated the burning of fatty acids. This is also the reason that a diabetes patient has small lipoma around the insuline injection points. | [
"This influx then stimulates fusion of the insulin vesicles to the cell membrane and secretion of insulin in the extracellular fluid outside the beta cell; thus making it enter the bloodstream. [Also Illustrated in Figure 1.1.1].\n",
"This insulin signal transduction pathway is composed of trigger mechanisms (e.g... |
Roman (and other classical) political graffiti--what's the deal with it? | > In I, Claudius, I think there's a major plot element where Claudius freaks out about seeing his name written upside down
Not quite. Part of the plot involves Germanicus, Caligula's superstitious father, being terrorised by defacements of his name and other omens, which turn out to be the doing of Caligula. | [
"More than simply text and thought, Roman graffiti give insight into the use of space and how people interacted within it. Studying the motivation behind the marks reveals a trend for the graffiti to be located where people spend time and pass most frequently as they move through a space. Common places for graffiti... |
why does steam always have to install microsoft c++ redistributable 2005 when i install a game? | In case it isn't already there. It isn't part of the operating system (Windows XP, say, was released in 2001 so isn't going to have something released in 2005). Since the game needs it, it is going to be installed.
Why do all games need it? Because it contains all the basic building blocks of the C++ language when compiled with the MS compiler. | [
"The game also drew praise for its high-performing engine, which enables the game to run on previous-generation hardware; the minimum system requirements for CPU on Steam are stated simply as \"Anything made since 2004\" and the game supports Windows XP despite Microsoft having discontinued support for that operati... |
what's the difference between a war and a 'cold war'? | The cold war was a period where neither side liked each other, but both were too afraid of the consequences to fight an actual war against each other (since both had nuclear weaponry). The cold war involved spies, propaganda, arms races, foreign coups, supplying aid to terrorist groups attacking your enemy, supporting your allies in proxy wars (i.e against your enemies allies), and so on. Actual wars typically involve full scale fighting between the sides at war. | [
"A cold war is a state of conflict between nations that does \"not\" involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates. This term is most commonly used to refer to the Soviet-American Cold War. The surrogat... |
why do cars stop/stall when they are spun around? | Cars can stall when the car is in drive and the car is spun and the tires start to roll in the opposite way that the gear is supposed to be rolling, thus making the gears go the wrong way. If you have enough power and are spun, and keep your foot on the gas and the tires are spinning forward still, the car wont stall, like when youre doing a burn out.
Manual cars also will not stall if spun if you hold the clutch in, disengaging the power from the engine to the transmission.
Some cars also will shut off the engine just because it thinks you may have been in an accident.
If you look at enough police chase videos, youll find some where the car doesnt stall when pitted and keeps on running | [
"Once the vehicle is rotating sufficiently rapidly, its angular momentum of rotation can overcome the stabilizing influence of the tires (either braking or skidding), and the rotation will continue even if the wheels are centered or past the point that the vehicle is controlled. This can be caused by some tires loc... |
Are we bound to get cancer if we don't die from something else before that? | Pretty much yes.
Cancer is an unavoidable consequence of evolution.
A multicellular organism is a colony of cells that work in concert for one common goal. As we have evolved our cells have developed mechanisms to make sure all the cells divide and grow as complying members of the whole. Still, an individual cell that mutates (mutations happen all the time) to grow out of this control will do so!
The control systems have evolved to reduce the risk of cancers until they no longer posed significant selective pressure on reproductive success.
Generally though, because of evolution, as you live longer the chance of getting cancer approaches 1. That being said, there is no reason why we should not be able to push this back a lot further.
=)
| [
"With the right medical help, cancer doesn't have to be a death sentence. Those who can afford it travel to other countries to pay for their treatment and care. Those who can't are left to suffer and die.\n",
"Treatment and survival is determined, to a great extent, by whether or not a cancer remains localized or... |
If you could theoretically survive on Venus, would you be floating in mid-air? | Density, not pressure is the key point for buoyancy. According to wiki,
> The density of the air at the surface is 67 kg/m3, which is 6.5% that of liquid water on Earth.
So while the air is 50 times denser than Earth's air, it's still like 15-20 times less dense than the human body, so you won't float. | [
"Although there is little possibility of existing life near the surface of Venus, the altitudes about 50 km above the surface have a mild temperature, and hence there are still some opinions in favor of such a possibility in the atmosphere of Venus.\n",
"The fact that Venus is located closer to the Sun than Earth... |
why do some armies use chevrons and others use inverted chevrons? is it simply a stylistic choice or does it have some significance? | I dont exactly know where it came from, but from an educated guess it could be left over from the use of heraldry when it was used to show a particular family association, or even a throw back to the Spartans who used a lambda (Λ) on their shields. Of course if you read the da vinci code, you'd know its a penis. | [
"At the earliest times, military insignias were very simple. Tree branches, mauled birds, heads of beasts, or a handful of dry grass, were placed on top of a pole or long stick, so that the combatants could recognize themselves in the fight, or to signpost a meeting place in retreat or defeat. But as the arts of wa... |
how to patent an invention idea and get rich. | tl;dr: patents are not the way to go for an inventor
It is said, that every good idea for a product is worth negative one million dollars. Why? Because you have to invest a significant amount of money until you can get any profit from it (prototypes, testing, tooling for production machines, investment in raw materials and parts).
So could you just get a patent and then license it to a bigger company, which then in turn makes a huge profit and gives you a (still decent) cut? So suppose your idea is *really* good. Then you will have to hire a patent lawyer which helps you to formulate your patent, or it will be worthless and easily circumvented. Let's also say that your did your research and there is no prior art present (nobody invented said thing before you already). Then the patent will be granted to you. At this point you can sue anybody who you think is infringing on your patent. The question is: Do you have enough free time and money at hand to fight that lawsuit?
Also: In you patent you will have to disclose a lot of information about your invention. This means that everbody interested in said invention will look for loopholes to use your idea, but without infringing your patent instead of giving money to you.
So what would you do if you have a brilliant idea? First check if it is really that brilliant. What to do next depends on the idea itself. Not disclosing how e.g. a production process works and relying on trade secrets could be an idea. | [
"[T]this could be done best, by giving the public at large a right to make, construct, use, and vend the thing invented, at as early a period as possible, having a due regard to the rights of the inventor. If an inventor should be permitted to hold back from the knowledge of the public the secrets of his invention;... |
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