question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
|---|---|---|
how do fraternities work? do they serve any real function to the university? | Benefits to University:
- Provides a social network for students who join.
- Provides social and extracurricular events for students without the need for university resources.
- Provides opportunities for students to gain experience holding leadership positions.
- Often provides housing, which can be limited on some campuses.
- Depending on a university's relationship with fraternities and sororities, it can provide the university with ways to regulate social events that can't be applied as easily to non-Greek events.
- Fraternities and sororities typically require some amount of philanthropy, which benefit the community and improve a school's reputation.
- Provides for networking opportunities that can help students with their careers.
- Increased donations from alumni.
Harm to University:
- "Pledging" a fraternity or sorority often involves hazing, which can mentally and physically distress students. There have even been instances of people dying due to hazing.
- Fraternities and sororities generally throw parties with alcohol, which can lead to irresponsible behavior, injuries, crime, etc. This is bad for students and the university's reputation.
- Associating mainly with one's own brothers or sisters may limit interactions with other students and/or decrease the diversity of people a student gets to know.
- Students may feel pressured to spend unnecessary amounts of time and money on matters related to their chapter.
- Dealing with fraternities and sororities requires time on the part of the university's staff, often requiring hiring people specifically for this purpose.
- Promotion of "fratty" culture, which can include immature behavior, sexism, sexual misconduct, excessive alcohol consumption, etc. | [
"In the context of the North American student fraternity and sorority system, service fraternities and service sororities comprise a type of organization whose \"primary\" purpose is community service. Members of these organizations are not restricted from joining other types of fraternities. This may be contrasted... |
Why would decreasing the extracellular concentration of Na+ cause the membrane potential to increase (get more negative)? | To start with, your terminology is out. Getting more negative is a decrease in membrane potential. But it is quite confusing, that's why we always try to say depolarize or hyperpolarize.
In response to your question, it is a little hard to know why in YOUR simulation changing [Na+]o (extracellular sodium concentration) changed the resting membrane potential. But in general it boils down to the reversal potential of a given ion.
The reversal potential of an ion is the potential at which the ion bulk direction of travel, either into or out of the cell, reverses. Or more simply, the reversal potential is the potential the ion tries to pull the cell to, when it flows. That is to say, that if the reversal potential for potassium was -90 mV, when potassium channels opened, they would try to pull the cell to -90 mV.
The reversal potential of any ion channel that is permiant for a single ion (X) is given by the Nernst equation, which is:
RT/zF * ln ( [X]o / [X]i )
You can look up what those various constants mean, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that when you change the intracellular or extracellular concentrations of ions, you change its reversal potential. So for Sodium, when you have 150 mM outside the cell (and probably about 10 mM inside), the reversal potential for Na+ is +70 mV. When you changed the extracellular concentration to 30 mM, the reversal potential dropped to about +30 mV.
We can calculate the current that flows into a cell with the following simple equation:
i = G*(Vm-Ve) Where G = conductance, Vm = Membrane potential and Ve = the reversal potential
Thus you can see, that by changing the reversal potential, and in this case, by bringing it closer to Vm, we reduce the magnitude of the sodium current. I don't know what the total sodium conductance in your cell is, but it must have been something. Whether that conductance was due to a persistent sodium channel, or perhaps the Ih channel, I don't know. But ultimately, with a smaller sodium current, you remove s slight depolarizing influence.
TLDR. Changing the extacellular concentration of any ion, changes its reversal potential, and hence the force driving the ion into/out of the cell. This means greater/lesser current, and hence a change in membrane potential. | [
"As can be derived from the Goldman equation shown above, the effect of increasing the permeability of a membrane to a particular type of ion shifts the membrane potential toward the reversal potential for that ion. Thus, opening Na channels shifts the membrane potential toward the Na reversal potential, which is u... |
Why was Unit 731 commissioned and did Japan ever intend on using their "research"? | You can get the US gov't documents here.
_URL_0_
Pages 32-34 and 46-49 gives summaries of the activities during the investigation.
Pages 53-55 gives a Q & A of Unit 731 in 1995.
It's a US gov't report so it's very concerned about what happened to US PoWs.
You should read the documents for yourself but here's my summary:
Unit 731 began experiments in 1932 on Biological Warfare in order to defend against a possible BW attack. This phase included human experiments such as figuring out the minimal dosages necessary for infection and for lethality. (The BW experiments were not conducted on US PoWs, but rather on Chinese criminal sentenced to death, at least 3000 were subjected to these horrific experimentations.)
Unit 731's General Ishii Shiro then began to experiment on possible uses of BW as an offensive tool. This phase (1940-1941) starts the field tests, such as artillery shells and bombs with BW agents and crop destruction in China. So Chinese civilians (!) and soldiers are subjected to these tests a total of 12 times. Mostly unsuccessfully, thankfully: a total of 25946 people were infected after 6 tests according to data from the papers of Kaneko Junichi, a Japanese doctor who was part of Unit 731. [I don't know how many of them subsequently died.]
_URL_1_
To me it seems clear that this is following a very similar pattern to many military research. "The enemy has a devilish plan! We must defend against it by making our own!" You make out the enemy to be inhuman, and in the process you yourself become inhuman.
Final point: Some people have accused the US of using BW during the Korean War and that because of this, there's massive cover up of the activities of Unit 731 even today. (The US government gave Unit 731 immunity from war crime prosecutions in exchange for their data.) There's no way to know for sure if the cover up is still going on or if all the information has been released, so for now I will only go with the documentary evidence that we have available instead of the hearsay that may or may not be accurate.
| [
", also referred to as Detachment 731, the 731 Regiment, Manshu Detachment 731, The Kamo Detachment, or the Ishii Company, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–19... |
In general, how were utilities (plumbing, electricity, gas) handled in the United States during the late 19th and 20th centuries? | The modern induction type electromechanical watt-hour meter was invented for the Westinghouse corporation in 1894. Prior to that there were several different designs for metering electricity running back to Samuel Gardiner who invented a meter that measured how long electricity was applied to the load (it didn't measure how much power was used just when power was used) and to Thomas Edison who in 1881 developed a meter for his DC power system.
Read all about it [here](_URL_0_) | [
"The 1860s saw the creation of a public water system providing firefighters with a source of water carried via wooden mains that could be accessed by boring a hole in them. Each of the pumpers carried a short pipe that was designed to be pushed into the hole to deliver water.\n",
"In the United States it became a... |
why does coconut oil and other oils soak into some people's skin, and sit on top of others? | Now that you mention it...Coconut oil will absorb on my upper body but just sits on my legs. It doesn't even help with the ash. You can see the ash under the oil if you look closely. | [
"Many health organizations advise against the consumption of coconut oil due to its high levels of saturated fat, including the United States Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, American Dietetic Association, American Heart Association,... |
If stars emit light and planets don't, how do we discover new planets? Their reflection of their nearest stars? | [Wobble and transit.](_URL_0_)
In the first one, the gravitational effects of a planet-sun coupling cause a "wobble" that permits detection from afar.
In the second one, the planet's orbit is such that it goes between the distant star and the observer; this 'transit' blocks some of the light on a regular basis. | [
"Planets are extremely faint light sources compared to stars, and what little light comes from them tends to be lost in the glare from their parent star. So in general, it is very difficult to detect and resolve them directly from their host star. Planets orbiting far enough from stars to be resolved reflect very l... |
Why do objects in space tumble when rotated on a certain axis? | Objects will appear to "tumble" if they are not being rotated about one of their three "principle axes." If you rotate an object about some arbitrary axis, then the angular momentum vector will not, in general, be in the same direction as the rotation vector. Because the angular momentum vector must be conserved, the rotation axis changes to keep the angular momentum vector pointing in the same direction and the object appears to "tumble." If you happen to rotate the object about one of its principle axes (such as the deck of cards at the beginning of the second video), then the rotation and angular momentum vectors are aligned and the object does not "tumble." | [
"This is a list of tumblers, minor planets, comets and natural satellites that rotate on a non-principal axis, commonly known as \"tumbling\" or \"wobbling\". As of 2018, there are 3 natural satellites and 198 confirmed or likely tumblers out of a total of nearly 800,000 discovered small Solar System bodies. The da... |
why does it seem like coca cola is sold in nearly every country of the world, even underdeveloped ones, but bottled water seems hard to come by? | Bottled water is available there also, but you hardly hear about it because bottled water doesn't have the marketing budget of a small country like Coca Cola pumps into marketing for it's Soft Drinks. | [
"The U.S. is the second largest consumer market for bottled water in the world, followed by Mexico, Indonesia, and Brazil. China surpassed the United States to take the lead in 2013. In 2016, bottled water outsold carbonated soft drinks (by volume) to become the number one packaged beverage in the U.S. In 2018, bot... |
Why does traditional Japanese architecture only rarely use stone structures? | hi! additional input is welcome, but meanwhile, you may be interested in responses to these earlier questions
* [Why are Japanese castles built of wood as opposed to stone?](_URL_5_)
* [What military value did Japanese castles have, compared to European castles?](_URL_3_)
* [Why didn't Asians build castles like the Europeans?](_URL_1_)
* [Why didn't Europe adopt Japanese castles?](_URL_2_)
* [Why don't we restore ancient ruins?](_URL_6_)
siege warfare in Japan
* [What were some defense tactics used in castles?](_URL_4_)
* [How did the Japanese lay siege to their castles?](_URL_0_) | [
"Japanese architects have designed a way to build temples, furniture, and homes without using screws or nails. To keep the piece together joints are constructed to hold everything in place. However, more time consuming, joints tend to hold up to natural disasters better than nails and screws, which is how some temp... |
what is depression and how do i deal with a friend that has it? | I dealt with depression for a while and to be honest it was worse than any other physical pain I've ever experienced. It is something that is definitely overlooked or seen as not a big deal by a large part of our society because people don't understand it.
While you will need to take what I say with a grain of salt, depression and the feelings and side effects vary enormously between cases so there is no, "do this and that" to make it better. Depending on the type of depression your friend is dealing with, there are different things they may want or not want, but overall, **just be a good friend.**
Here are a few things related to my specific bout with depression that I felt and wanted:
* First and foremost, do not treat them like there is something wrong with them. It is probably the worst thing you can do by treating them any differently because you know there is something wrong with them.
* I was very cynical and negative about everything because I just couldn't see how anything good could happen to me. I didn't feel like I was making progress in my life while everyone else moved on around me.
* I couldn't make friends. I probably could have had I actually tried but my persistence in the matter wasn't exactly very high which only perpetuated my thoughts that I just wasn't "friend material."
* I had little to no motivation to do anything. Everything was boring and dull to me, like walking around a gray world looking for those sparks of colors that never seemed to appear. I lost interest in all my old hobbies and couldn't seem to pick up any new ones. I had no future even in my sights because I didn't know what I wanted and didn't have any motivation to find out what that might be.
* I wouldn't really cry very much (I'm not really that kind of person) but when I did it was always about things other people had that I felt like I would never experience. Things like having a best friend or finding a girl to love and marry. I didn't have these things because I was subconsciously expecting it to just fall in my lap. I wanted the experiences but didn't want to do any work to fulfill it.
* I didn't have very strong will power. Sure I wished things would be different but I didn't have the will power to actually make things any different. I got stuck in a rut of complacency and didn't even care to get out although I said I wanted to.
While there were several things that I definitely could have done, there were a few simple things I wanted from other people:
* If we make plans, don't cancel on me for something else you think is more fun. If someone is in depression, going out and doing something in public with other people is a big deal to them. With me personally, if I made plans to go out with someone to do something it was because I **really** wanted to do it. When they would then casually cancel on me or worse, just not show up, I took it personally and prevented me from even making plans again for another month because of the fear of that personal rejection.
* Make an effort to listen. I am a rather soft spoken person and when I would say something in a group of people it was sometimes lost on the group. It would get to a point I would say something and I would see they knew I said something but didn't know what it was but they didn't care enough to even ask me "what?" I felt like no one even cared what I had to say, that I was just there to make the group bigger. Also aside from physically listening, listen to the content of what it is. There were just too many times I was completely dismissed and mocked that I simply stopped talking because it only brought more hurt to me.
In my opinion the best thing you can do for your friend is to treat them like a friend. Return their phone calls and text messages, ask their opinions on small things (politics and religion would be big things, probably shouldn't talk about these unless you know you are both comfortable with it). Treat them like they matter, like they are a part of your life and you want to keep them there. Invite them out to things you think will interest them, it may be difficult as they probably won't want to do anything but keep in mind forcing them can also be bad. On the flip side, make sure they know you are there and would love to hang out or go anywhere with them and that they only need to ask.
Feel free to ask me anything you might want to know! | [
"Depression is a symptom of some physical diseases; a side effect of some drugs and medical treatments; and a symptom of some mood disorders such as major depressive disorder or dysthymia. Physical causes are ruled out with a clinical assessment of depression that measures vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, and horm... |
Is the expansion of Soviet influence and creation of the USSR considered imperialism? | It's generally (though not universally) accepted that the Soviet Union behaved in the manner of a traditional empire, however calling the Soviet Union 'an empire' is a bit of a loaded statement-- especially in the context of the 20th century when the British Empire and French Colonial Empire were either alive and well or living in the not-so-distant memory of the peoples of the world. Thus, the short answer to this question is yes-- the Soviet Union is (rightly) considered to have been an imperial power but no-- the term "Soviet Empire" is not appropriate to throw around without qualification. I talk about the USSR's transition from its revolutionary origins to a more traditional international actor in [this answer](_URL_3_) which I think provides a good lead-in to the kinds of issues that need to be understood when answering this question, I'd recommend you give it a read-- the following excerpt summarizes the key point though which is this:
> \[A\]t its inception the Soviet Union tried to style itself as a sort of 'post-nation-state' nation-state but was forced to behave more and more like a traditional international actor as time progressed.
There are plenty of examples of the Soviet Union evincing traditional imperialist tendencies, no matter how much they tried to dress it up as Revolutionary Internationalist policy or how loaded the term 'empire' may be. This is a country (or collection of countries) which:
* Expanded its borders by force, against the will of those whom it was absorbing.
* Established puppet regimes in areas not contiguous to its quote-unquote natural borders which acted at the behest of their Soviet overlords' faraway capital.
* Used [propaganda](_URL_1_) to define and beatify a 'Soviet way of life,' as a model which could (and more importantly, *should*) spread the across the globe. (Translation of the poster text: *Leninism is our banner-- the future is on our side!*)
Those are the big ones, and just to be clear-- I'm defining 'imperialism' in the most reasonable way I can here using Harrison M. Wright's guidelines for doing so in his 1967 essay *Imperialism: the Word and its Meanings*^(\[)[^(1)](_URL_2_)^(\]): the process by which a nation uses military force, coercion, and propaganda to gain territory and influence. If you have a *very specific* expression of imperialism that you want to understand with respect to Soviet policy, I'm all ears and will try my best to answer any follow-up questions.
If you don't have time to read Wright's whole essay linked above, allow me to summarize: the author talks about the inherent pitfalls of using words like 'imperialism' in the post-imperial modern world when the word has become a pejorative and its meaning has been obscured to the point of near-ambiguity and certainly diminishing returns on any actual substantial definitional power, which is why I'm spelling it out so explicitly-- it doesn't come from a place of condescension or abject pedantry.
All that disclaimed though, this conversation becomes infinitely more interesting when you start asking *why* the Soviet Union behaved imperially. Here, there are two conflicting schools of thought which I'll personify with Professors Robert Service and Richard Pipes (RIP). Service argues that the impetus for Soviet imperialism lay within communism (and to a lesser extent Marxism) itself and therefore Revolutionary Internationalist policy is an inevitability in any nation which claims to be striving toward those outcomes. Pipes argues that there was something authentically Russian about the expansionary policy of the Soviet Union and the banner of Marxism-Leninism was more like a placeholder than a rallying ideology-- that is, maybe communism was nominally the justification Moscow was using to push its borders further and further west, but in fact, that desire was rooted in Great Russian territorial ambitions to the core.
Neither Service nor Pipes is 100% in either camp-- of course. They are just convenient proponents for each of these respective hypotheses so I've chosen to use them in that manner.
From Pipes' *Survival is not Enough* (1984):
> The decisive factors \[for Soviet authoritarianism\] are not the ideas but the soil on which they happen to fall.
Compared to a 1993 political opinion piece Service wrote for *The Independent*:
> \[T\]he Orwellian maxim that he who controls the past also controls the present still holds true. \[...\] historians who once lauded Lenin now proclaim that he was a mass murderer. The entire Marxist-Leninist experiment is denounced. The blame for all Russia's ills is placed squarely on the Communist Party. \[...\]
>
> Yeltsin and his supporters are not totalitarian in aspiration; but they recognise that, in Russia's present turmoil, a new identity has somehow to be formed. The main problem is that, until recently, Russians were encouraged to think of themselves as the main constituent segment of 'the Soviet people'. This was Stalin's way of conferring a quasi-imperial role upon them.^(\[)[^(2)](_URL_4_)^(\])
But what about contemporaneously? Both of these historians are looking backward and assessing the events after the fact. Can we know what the Soviets were thinking at the time? *Why did they* think they were expanding?
At this point, the most valuable contrast to answer this question is the one between Lev Trotsky and Iosef Stalin. Trotsky, the inveterate revolutionary, is going to play the role of Service here (that is, the USSR is expanding to further the cause of worldwide communism) and Stalin, the inveterate pragmatist, is going to be our Pipes (that is, the USSR is expanding to further its superior Russo-centric culture and/or 'protect' Russia proper). I'm going to use the Winter War as the backdrop for this conversation since we can almost all agree that the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939 was about as pure an act of imperialist expansionism by the Soviet Union that you're going to find (which doesn't seek to belittle the invasions of Poland, Afghanistan, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, China, Iran, or any others-- I just find this example to be the most fitting for my own purposes here).
From Trotsky's *Balance Sheet of the Finnish Events* (Trotsky gets a gold star for euphemism on that title):
> \[T\]o approach the question of the fate of small states from the standpoint of 'national independence,' 'neutrality,' etc., is to remain in the sphere of imperialist mythology. The struggle involves world domination. The question of the existence of the USSR will be solved in passing. \[...\] So far as the small and second rate states are concerned, they are already today pawns in the hands of the great powers. The sole freedom they still retain, and this only to a limited extent, is the freedom of choosing between masters.^(\[)[^(3)](_URL_0_)^(\])
His justification for the invasion of Finland (in which he played no part remember, Trotsky is writing here from exile in Mexico) is, 'well they've got to be someone's lackey so they may as well be ours because communism has the best interests of the working man in mind.' That opinion in and of itself epitomizes the imperialism of 20th century grand narrative: the 'inevitability' of the subordination of small nations to their more powerful neighbors as justification for their subordination to their more powerful neighbors was the generally agreed upon talking point that the great powers used to more or less arbitrarily adjudicate the lines on the map against the will and without the consent of entire nations of people. | [
"Cervetto Arrigo theorized \"Unitary Imperialism,\" starting with the\"Imperialism\" of Lenin, as opposed to the common vision of a bipolar world divided into two camps, Soviet socialism and the American Capitalism. Cervetto states that both powers were imperialists and capitalists, and that the unequal economic de... |
we’re all told that using phones while they’re charging is bad. can anyone of the good people here tell me why? | Who told you that? It increases the amount of time it takes to charge, but is otherwise fine. | [
"In a number of cases it has been shown that bans on mobile use while driving have proven to be an effective way to deter people from picking up their phones. Those violating the ban usually face fines and points on their licence. Although an initial decrease/alteration in driving habits is to be expected. As time ... |
Searching for books about Current Elites in Korea (~ < 50 yrs) for research. Any recommendations? (x/post /r/korea) | I've done research on Korea from an economic perspective (looking at how political changes and actions were central to development), but there's some overlap with you want so here's a few papers that might be a good starting point. If you are looking for specific individuals then these papers won't be much help, but if you want an idea of what sort of groups elites belonged to then I think they will be helpful. The links are mostly about how economic and political elites were both focused on growth and development, with political favorites and corruption being part of the relationship.
I also don't know how much basic info you have about the Park government but I would definitely start by researching the dramatic changes Park introduced into the country and economy because they form the basis of Korea in the second half on the 20th century.
[Corruption and NIC development: A case study of South Korea](_URL_1_) Looks at how corruption between Korean conglomerates (the Chaebol) and the government was intertwined with development.
[Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines](_URL_2_) Compares crony capitalism in the two countries. Useful because the corny capitilists were the economic elties, andf worked with political elites.
[The Treatment of Market Power in Korea](_URL_0_) About how Chaebols are entrenched in Korea, and how they were even more entrenched previously. Shows the entrenchment of the economic elites who head them.
I don't have time to track any more links down now but if you let me know what specifically you are looking for or are interested in I can check again later and hopefully find some more relevant sources for you!
| [
"The \"Daehan Gyenyeonsa\" (A History of the Final Years of the Empire of Great Han of Korea) is, as the title indicates, a history of the final forty years of Korea's Joseon dynasty (after 1898 known as the Empire of Great Han). It was penned by a minor government official and member of the Korean enlightenment mo... |
even if we could terraform mars, wouldn't its lack of magnetic field mean cosmic radiation would continually bombard whatever is living on the surface? | Radiation doesn't just blast the surface with cancer rays, it also whisks away the atmosphere. Mar's atmosphere is very thin and complex life that we have on Earth cannot survive (it is called the Armstrong Limit). | [
"In 1965, the Mariner 4 probe discovered that Mars had no global magnetic field that would protect the planet from potentially life-threatening cosmic radiation and solar radiation; observations made in the late 1990s by the Mars Global Surveyor confirmed this discovery. Scientists speculate that the lack of magnet... |
Did the U.S. experience any diplomatic fallout due to non-Japanese casualties of the atomic bombs? | I haven't really looked into the diplomatic fallout, though the issue did surface from time to time in the press. I know of nothing specific on this, but that doesn't mean anything (other than, maybe, the idea that it isn't something that has been written a lot about — but that doesn't mean it didn't exist).
As for "third-party nations" — the main non-Japanese victims of the bombs that come to mind are POWs (British, American, and Dutch), Koreans (laborers), and Germans (the Jesuits at Hiroshima, and maybe others). Of these groups, the ones most represented in American media are the Germans, who were featured quite prominently in John Hersey's _Hiroshima_, among other sources. The Koreans were by far the largest group of victims, of those groups. | [
"After the use of the bombs, American journalists traveled to the devastated areas and documented the horrors they saw. This raised moral concerns and the necessity of the attack. The motives of President Harry Truman, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), and the United States Navy came under suspicion, and th... |
How does your body remove excess salt from your body on a physiological level? | Excess salt doesn't really go into your cells, because you have a pump that pumps it out in exchange for pumping potassium into the cell. If large quantities of excess salt went into the cell, osmosis would, in fact, pull water into the cell causing it to swell and eventually burst.
Instead, the salt remains in your plasma, where it reaches the kidneys. Your kidneys have various mechanisms for adjusting the salt concentration in your urine. For example, there are cells in the kidney that can detect high levels of salt in the blood, which ultimately prevents your kidneys from reabsorbing salt back into your body. You can think of it as your body maintaining a certain salt concentration - if you have too much salt, your kidneys will "use" extra water to remove it. There are other mechanisms as well - for example, taking in a lot of salt increases your thirst drive, trying to dilute the salt that's in your body to maintain the proper concentration.
I realize that this wasn't too specific, but the main point is that it would be very bad if a lot of salt were permitted to enter your cells, so your body has mechanisms to keep that from happening. The kidneys are the primarily regulators that maintain a proper concentration of salt in your system by controlling how much salt you pee out. | [
"Salting out (also known as salt-induced precipitation, salt fractionation, anti-solvent crystallization, precipitation crystallization, or drowning out) is an effect based on the electrolyte–non-electrolyte interaction, in which the non-electrolyte could be less soluble at high salt concentrations. It is used as a... |
Does anyone have book recommendations covering the Battle of the Aisne (WW1)? | The Aisne is at the center of my research, and I feel your pain. There's not much out there.
In the grand scheme of things, overviews of the 1914 campaign tend to view the Aisne as the final stage of the Marne. To historians of the French and British armies, it represents the Entente's inability to exploit the gap between German First and Second Armies. Some trenches were dug, and the battle stabilized before both sides started swinging around the northern flank. To German historians, the Aisne often comes off as Moltke's last act and the final death of the Schlieffen Plan. He ordered his forces do dig in, and then he was out. Falkenhayn picked up and turned his attention to the northwest.
I've found one English-language book on the Aisne: Paul Kendall's *The Aisne 1914: The Dawn of Trench Warfare.* It's not very good, and it's not an academic history by any means. There are lots of pictures, lots of talk about operations and the movement of units, and short biographies of some of the British officers, but it breaks no new ground in terms of what it says about the battle. Yes, the Aisne was the start of trench warfare (for the British), but it doesn't drive at what the battle says about the army, its preparedness, or its ability to cope with the demands of the fighting in 1914.
If you want to know the operational side of the battle, the first volume of the British official history is still your best bet (Edmonds, *Military Operations: France and Belgium 1914*, volume 1). You can download it for free, I believe, on _URL_0_. Though a bit stale and lacking interpretation or critical assessment, the narrative is richly detailed and dense.
If you are more interested in analysis of the battle, Nikolas Gardner, in his *Trial by Fire,* has a chapter on the Aisne that I'd highly recommend. Gardner addresses the operational hazards of the Aisne and how the British army adapted to the changing nature of the fighting there. It's a proper academic study that actually looks at the Aisne in the context of the army's performance and development in 1914.
Along those lines, my paper (Dykstra, "'To Dig and Burrow Like Rabbits': British Field Fortifications at the Battle of the Aisne") looks at how the British army handled the transition from mobile to trench war at the Aisne from the defensive perspective. There isn't a ton of operational info in there, but it gives a good sense of how the army prepared for defensive trench war and how its trench systems performed at the Aisne. It's due to come out in October 2018, but Chapter 2 of my MA thesis has much of the same info. You can get that [here](_URL_1_).
Other than that, the Aisne, like I said, is usually glossed over as being either an addendum to the Marne or the first stage of the Race to the Sea. Personally, and this is probably because I've spent most of my academic life studying it, I think that the Aisne was an important moment for the British army: the point at which it learned, for the first time, the true power of modern artillery, particularly howitzers. The battle also conditioned the army to large-scale entrenchment and afforded commanders the opportunity to refine their field fortification system, something that helped, to some extent, later at Ypres.
Happy to answer any follow-up questions you have. | [
"Derek Robinson's novel \"War Story\" is about the fictional Hornet Squadron flying the F.E.2b, and later the F.E.2d, giving an account of flying the fighter in the months leading up to the Battle of the Somme.\n",
"The book is a description of the battlefield front-line from which the British Army attacked on th... |
When Did Black Canadians Gain the Vote in Canada? | I've found a bunch of sources saying it was on the 24th of March 1837, at least for Lower Canada, but none of them tie into usable links, actual documents or even elaborate... | [
"Following the abolition of slavery in the British empire in 1834, any black man born a British subject or who become a British subject was allowed to vote and run for office, provided that they owned taxable property. The property requirement on voting in Canada was not ended until 1920. Black Canadian women like ... |
How did the KKK become anti-semitic? I've read before that older members of the KKK claim that it wasn't anti-semitic initially, but that became part of the organisation's ideology over time. How and when did this happen? | Follow up question:
Could this have been influenced by Nazism? | [
"Vehemently anti-Catholic, the 1915 Klan had an explicitly Protestant Christian terrorist ideology, basing its beliefs in part on a \"religious foundation\" in Protestant Christianity and targeting Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities, as well as people who engaged in \"immoral\" practices such as... |
why have some languages like spanish kept the pronunciation of the written language so that it can still be read phonetically, while spoken english deviated so much from the original spelling? | English did not originally have fixed spelling. People would spell words however they thought it sounded. This means that spelling varied from person to person and region to region. Also, due to being made of bits of several languages all smushed together often retaining parts of the original language's rules, there's no consistency as to how words are pronounced or where you even get the spelling from. A man named Samuel Johnson eventually wrote a dictionary in which he spelled the words however he wanted to and because of how popular it became, that became the fixed spelling. Johson liked stuffy fancy spellings rather than simple phonetic ones and he set the idea of telling people the "correct" way to write instead of telling them how words were normally used. Webster eventually did something similar for American English, although he preferred simplified spellings, hence some of the differences between American and British spelling. | [
"However, some Spanish speakers are concerned that this proposal is unlikely to be adopted, since the Spanish language does not distinguish and from and respectively, and most of its speakers would therefore not even notice a difference in pronunciation.\n",
"Peculiar to Spanish (as well as to the neighboring Gas... |
Why were most of the popular ancient literature written in verse? | I think there is a flaw in your question, or at least several problematic assumptions about literature, ancient and modern.
Let's take your examples. Firstly, the Bible contain significant portions of poetry (Psalms, large portions of the Prophetic books), but it is not all poetry, and it is not even mostly poetry.
Homer's Iliad is verse, because it emerges in the context of a pre-literate society. Generally, highly oral cultures tend to maintain a high value on poetry and song, because those forms of composition do indeed lend themselves to memorisation. It's much harder to memorise long prose texts, and it's much less interesting to hear long prose texts "performed". Sticking with ancient Greek literature, though, plenty of non-verse material was produced. Herodotus, Thucydides, etc.. The prose genre of history, among others, was "popular". You just have selected a poetic example.
A very similar thing could be said about Ovid's Metamorphoses. Yes, it's poetry. But Romans produced plenty of prose literature - philosophy, for-publication epistles, history - that was popular. At least as much as poetry was.
Dante, I will skip, since it's much later than your other examples of "ancient" literature, and the context of its composition is a different literary world to antiquity.
I think the flaw in your question can be demonstrated simply by reversing the examples: "why was so much prose written in ancient times? The Bible, Livy, Herodotus?"
> Verse nowadays seems confined to music, theater and poems.
Which is exactly the same. Your examples are all poetry, that's why they are written in poetic forms. Similarly, plays tend to be written in verse as well (in antiquity). Songs, too, obviously, though our knowledge of ancient melodies is severely limited. | [
"The Greeks created poetry before making use of writing for literary purposes. Poems created in the Preclassical period were meant to be sung or recited (writing was little known before the 7th century BC). Most poems focused on myths, legends that were part folktale and part religion. Tragedies and comedies emerge... |
How long before a nuclear weapon is incapable of producing a nuclear explosion? | So the uranium 235 bombs required 56 kg of uranium. For an actual nuclear weapon (not a dirty bomb) about 85% of uranium must be weapons grade (not decayed).
Soo.. Using formula N(t) = N e^ (-(half life)(t))
where N(t) = 85% * 56 = 47.6
N = 56
half life constant = 9.72*10^-10 atoms per year
t = 1.67201x10^8 years! A loooong time. Easier to disassemble the nukes than to wait for them to expire. | [
"Meanwhile, Pryce investigated how long a runaway nuclear chain reaction in an atomic bomb would continue before it blew itself apart. He calculated that since the neutrons produced by fission have an energy of about this corresponded to a speed of . The major part of the chain reaction would be completed in the or... |
When did people start to identify more with skin color rather than language/culture. | Hi there -- you may be interested in [this recent answer](_URL_0_) from u/sowser, in which they go into some detail about how race is constructed through the experience of the Transatlantic slave trade. The whole thing is worth a read, but constructions of race are in part 4. | [
"The historical context for the emergence in the Americas of racial identities based upon skin color was the establishment of colonies which developed a plantation economy dependent upon slave labor. Before that, the British identified themselves as Christians rather than white. \"At the start of the eighteenth cen... |
If you were to theoretically use a microwave to heat a freeze dried food product in an environment with 0% humidity, what would the outcome be? | A microwave oven will cause any molecule with dipoles to 'vibrate.' This includes water but also includes fats and sugars, so it would still heat up. | [
"Microwave ovens are frequently used for reheating leftover food, and bacterial contamination may not be repressed if the safe temperature is not reached, resulting in foodborne illness, as with all inadequate reheating methods. While microwaves can destroy bacteria as well as conventional ovens, they do not cook a... |
it takes 11 minutes of hypoxia for the brain to die, but yet you can kill a man by strangling him much less. how come? | Strangling someone where pressure is put on the blood vessels in the neck can cause feedback to the heart which can cause it to go into cardiac arrest (gentle massage to the carotid is used to slow down rapid heartbeats). If done properly that can be done in only seconds. The person still takes a while to die but they have no heart beat. | [
"At the onset of clinical death, consciousness is lost within several seconds. Measurable brain activity stops within 20 to 40 seconds. Irregular gasping may occur during this early time period, and is sometimes mistaken by rescuers as a sign that CPR is not necessary. During clinical death, all tissues and organs ... |
How far does the effect of time dilation "spread" from an object traveling at relativistic speeds? | No, it doesn't affect your clock at all (except an incredibly tiny amount of gravitational time dilation, which I don't think is what you're talking about and certainly isn't important for the discussion.)
In special relativity, time dilation is not a 'field' or localized effect. It's just a thing that happens to objects that are moving *relative to you*. Importantly, from the spaceship's point of view its clock is totally normal and your clock is the one going slow. It doesn't matter how far away the ship is or whether or not you can see it. | [
"Relativistic time dilation means that a clock (indicating its proper time) that moves relative to an observer is observed to run slower. In fact, time itself in the frame of the moving clock is observed to run slower. This can be read immediately from the adjoining Loedel diagram quite straightforwardly because un... |
During the height of the Cathar movement, what were gender relations like among the Cather Christians? Did their theology translate into women having a more equal status in society? | Catharism is a well-studied topic, and while you are waiting for fresh responses to your question, it is well worth reviewing [this earlier thread](_URL_0_), led by u/sunagainstgold, which looks at the the history and historiography of the supposed heresy, and points out that our understanding of "Catharism" is really a construct imposed by the outsiders who persecuted it, adding that "medievalists today are pretty unanimous that there was no such thing as 'Catharism' in southern France in the 12th-13th century."
Sun does also touch on the specific area of gender relations in the time and place that you're interested in.
Meanwhile, and in the same thread, u/idjet (who was writing a dissertation on the Cathars) pushes back in posts that argue for something more approaching the old standard view of Catharism as a distinct set of real beliefs. | [
"Sociologist Linda L. Lindsey says \"Belief in the spiritual equality of the genders (Galatians 3:28) and Jesus' inclusion of women in prominent roles, led the early New Testament church to recognize women's contributions to charity, evangelism and teaching.\" Pliny the Younger, first century, says in his letter to... |
Why does the reflection in a shallow pond change depending on the viewing angle? | The answer you seek lies in [Fresnel Equations](_URL_0_). While Snell's Law (n1 Sin[theta1] = n2 Sin[theta2]) will tell you about the angle of refraction compared to the angle of incidence, you need Fresnel equations to tell you *how much* light is refracted vs how much is transmitted.
Take a look at [this image](_URL_1_), which shows reflectance and transmittance as a function of incident angle (in this case, specifically in regards to light transmitting between air and glass). You can see in the graph on the left - light in air striking a surface of glass - that when the angle of incidence is close to zero, there is a very low reflection coefficient, which means that *most* of the light that hits the surface will transmit rather than reflect. As that angle of incidence increases, the proportion of light that is reflected only increases. Eventually, the brightness of the reflected light will outstrip the brightness of any transmitted light coming from inside the glass/second material.
This same thing applies to seeing a reflection in a pond. At low angles of incidence (looking straight down), very little light reflects so most of what you see is transmitted from under the water out into the air. At high angles of incidence a lot of light reflects so that reflected light is most of what you see. | [
"A similar effect can be observed by opening one's eyes while swimming just below the water's surface. If the water is calm, the surface outside the critical angle (measured from the vertical) appears mirror-like, reflecting objects below. The region above the water cannot be seen except overhead, where the hemisph... |
the process and significance of "making partner" in a law firm | It takes anywhere from 2 to 10 years to make partner at an average law firm (sometimes longer). In order to be considered for a partner position (while working as an associate), you usually need to work very hard and contribute a lot to your firm's business. It helps if you can pull a lot of all-nighters, find new clients through connections, publish articles in law journals to gain prestige for your firm, or show great talent in a particular field of law that your firm works in.
In some firms, once you've gained enough experience, you're given a big, important client or assignment. If you succeed, you are promoted to partnership. A partner usually owns a share in the company, which means that they automatically make money every year by receiving a portion of the company's profits. There is also less pressure on a partner to work hard, because they've already "made it". So as a partner, you can take it easy unless you're really into your work or want to make even more money. An associate at a big law firm makes around $100,000 per year. A partner at the same law firm will make anywhere from $300,00 to over a million. In small firms that only have a couple of partners, your last name will also be added to the firm's name. So if your name is Johnson and you work at Anderson and Smith, your firm may be renamed to Anderson, Smith and Johnson once you make partner. | [
"4) Partners are Mutual Agents.The business of firm can be carried on by all or any of them for all. Any partner has authority to bind the firm. Act of any one partner is binding on all the partners. Thus, each partner is ‘agent’ of all the remaining partners. Hence, partners are ‘mutual agents’. Section 18 of the ... |
the corruption in illinois. | If you're looking for a simple answer, you're not going to find one. The various motivations and relationships between corruption, politics, and power is an extremely complex issue that can be interpreted through multiple lenses. Aside from what you can easily read on the relevant Wikipedia articles, there's a deeper story about the history of Illinois politics vis-a-vis the history of Chicago.
I was born and raised in Chicago; much of the historical corruption here is a result of the city's rise as an industrial powerhouse in the late 1800s and its foundation as both a nexus of immigration and as a labor/union stronghold. Chicago was the first uniquely "American" city - unlike Philadelphia, NYC, and Boston, it does not have its roots in the colonies. As such, it has its own set of unique cultural and sociological identifiers that differentiate it from other urban metropoles.
Chicago was a huge destination for Irish, German, Polish, Russian, and Italian immigrants (to name only a few) during the industrial era... these ethnic groupings paved the way for Chicago's [political machine](_URL_0_) that sought to protect the interests of ethnic immigrants by trading votes for patronage. Being the two primary nodes of political power in the state, Springfield (Illinois' capital) and Chicago have historically maintained a very close relationship as well.
Although the era of the ethnic political machine has passed, elements of machine politics are still very much prevalent today. While this does not provide an explicit answer for the contemporary corruption in Springfield (Blago, Ryan, et cetera), I feel that the history of Chicago provides a lot of context to why the game of politics is played just a bit differently here than in other places. It really is a fascinating story. | [
"Corruption in Illinois has been a problem from the earliest history of the state. Electoral fraud in Illinois pre-dates the territory's admission to the Union in 1818, Illinois was the third most corrupt state in the country, after New York and California, judging by federal public corruption convictions between 1... |
why do phone carriers (verizon, etc) have a say in the release of updates for android phones, but not iphones? | iPhones are a locked ecosystem. The software & hardware is produced by them and therefore updates are pushed out whenever they want independent of the carrier.
Android is an operating system that runs on other peoples hardware ... The hardware manufacturer has a deal with the carriers, the carrier sells their phones if they add in / lock the phone to that carrier and add their proprietary apps with backdoor access.
Therefore google launches an updates, but until the hardware manufacturer configures it for the phone and hands it to the carrier and then the carrier rolls it out ... You are stuck in the middle. | [
"The continued top popularity of the iPhone despite growing Android competition was also attributed to Apple being able to deliver iOS updates over the air, while Android updates are frequently impeded by carrier testing requirements and hardware tailoring, forcing consumers to purchase a new Android smartphone to ... |
What did Paul Mattick mean when he said that Marx was a Socialist and not an economist? | I am not Marxian nor Marxist in anyways so my views would not be reflective of these sorts of views. That being said... the context of this quote and of the author is important.
> It is often asserted that while Marx's theory transcends bourgeois economic theory in order to solve "economic problems" that cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by bourgeois price theory, it must, for that reason, be as empirical as any other science. It is assumed, in brief, that Marx's Capital is a better part, but still a part, of the "positive science" of economics, whereas it is actually its opposition. Marxian theory aims not to resolve "economic problems" of bourgeois society but to show them to be unsolvable. Marx was a socialist, not an economist. In Marxian theory the concrete phenomena of bourgeois society are something other than they appear to be. Empirically discovered facts have first to be freed of their fetishistic connotations before they reveal empirical reality. The abstract generalizations of value theory disclose the laws of development of a system that operates with a false comprehension of the concretely given facts. The inductively won data do not correspond with, but camouflage, the real social relations of production. Bourgeois economy is not an empirical science but an ideological substitute for such a science; a pseudo-science, despite its scientific methodology.
In other words: the author argues that despite the perception that Marx's work Das Kapital was a work of economic theory (compared to for instance Smith, Ricardo, Keynes, and others), Marxist thought rejects outright the constraints of economics. In effect the author argues that economics is a false discipline with no basis in reality. Incidentally, Paul Mattick Jr, the son of the more famous Paul Mattick Sr, is the one that made this quote.
Essentially, modern economics relies on two key ideas: a) people in aggregate are rational (meaning that they will seek (in the aggregate) to pursue their best interests) and b) that we can use math and statistical data to help model these out. Mattick Jr. rejects the use of math as he argues that the assumptions that economics rely on are false and are a construct of our "money-based" society.
Now whether or not his allegations have any actual basis behind them is uncertain, but suffice to say that this was published in 1983 and economics is still going strong. If anything, the discipline has become even more quantitative. Make of that what you will. | [
"After arriving at his new professorship in Atlanta, Du Bois wrote a series of articles generally supportive of Marxism. He was not a strong proponent of labor unions or the Communist Party, but he felt that Marx's scientific explanation of society and the economy were useful for explaining the situation of African... |
Do all species eventually face extinction? | So I hesitate to answer your question, because it enters more of a philosophical realm to truly answer it. What you're asking is basically:
1) Can species remain indefinitely?
2) Are all species subject to extinction?
I break these up because they require different answers, which are:
1) sorta
2) Yeah
When we see radial speciation happen (as with Darwin's finches) at what point does the ancestor cease to exist? This question is philosophical as much as it is biological. Certainly we can use the biological species concept to differentiate between species, but from a strictly taxonomical standpoint, the ancestor and it's daughter species are part of the same lineage and sometimes the distinction between the nodes of the evolutionary tree of life becomes a little arbitrary. A descendent never ceases "being" it's ancestor, which is why birds are dinosaurs and humans are amphibians (if we're being technical). If we considered the species merely a lineage over time, then yes there have been lineages that have last since life began 3.5 billion years ago.
For the second answer, all species will eventually go completely extinct, with the exception of small amount lineages that are continued on. Van Valen gets at this with the Red Queen hypothesis: at some point the environment in which an organisms lives will change to the point where the organism cannot adapt and will drive it to extinction. The central idea behind this is **constraint**. Both genetically and physiologically, most species are limited in their capability for diversification, and more often than not, the environment proves too much for the organism driving it to extinction. These timescales are very large, on the order of millions of years. | [
"There are a variety of causes that can contribute directly or indirectly to the extinction of a species or group of species. \"Just as each species is unique\", write Beverly and Stephen C. Stearns, \"so is each extinction ... the causes for each are varied—some subtle and complex, others obvious and simple\". Mos... |
when drinking water, what is the mechanism that decides if the water will go to the bladder or be absorbed? | The water is absorbed.
The water that goes to your bladder is excreted by the kidneys as it filters your blood. | [
"As water is pumped out, the bladder's walls are sucked inwards by the partial vacuum created, and any dissolved material inside the bladder becomes more concentrated. The sides of the bladder bend inwards, storing potential energy like a spring. Eventually, no more water can be extracted, and the bladder trap is '... |
how can they prove paedophilia, such as rolf harris, decades after the offences? | They usually take statements and try to corroborate them with accused testimony alibi.
I watched a case link to Jimmy Saville where the women described a wall covered in graffiti where she was raped, years later they took new wall paper down and it was still there, all names of underage girls and their phone numbers.
Then it's usually put forward to a jury for them to decide. | [
"On 30 July 2014, the board of the National Trust of Australia (NSW) voted to remove Rolf Harris from the list after his conviction on 12 charges of indecent assault between 1969 and 1986 and to also withdraw the award. Harris had been among the original 100 Australians selected for the honour in 1997.\n",
"The S... |
Is it possible that our universe exists within something else? Where can I find more information about this? | There are a few things you should know:
1. Science is based on **observation**, not conjecture. An idea is worthless if it has no evidence to uphold it.
2. We observe things that are very far away by detecting the light they emit.
3. For things that are very, very, very far away (say, at the other edge of the universe), the light we use to observe them has been travelling for billions of years, close to the age of the universe itself.
4. We can't observe anything that's more than about 14 billion light-years away, because the universe came to be about 14 billion years ago. The light we use to observe such objects would have had to travel for longer than our universe has existed.
All these things come together to support one fact: Not only do we not know what's outside our universe, it seems we *CAN'T* know what's outside our universe. It would violate the laws of physics. | [
"\"There are clear unknowables in science—reasonable questions that, unless currently accepted laws of nature are violated, we cannot find answers to. One example is the multiverse: the conjecture that our universe is but one among a multitude of others, each potentially with a different set of laws of nature. Othe... |
why do people constantly encourage others to vote, when 90% of the public are uneducated about the topics they are voting about? | You are right, in principle, that people probably shouldn't vote if they don't know what they're doing. But obtaining a basic overview of issues and candidates is not hard--someone who is encouraged to vote is more likely to educate themselves in this way than someone who does not vote. Besides, a great many people who *do* have basic civic knowledge do not vote.
There has to be more than just the mechanical action of casting a ballot, you're right. But it makes more sense to encourage people to vote *and* to try to educate them than to discourage them from voting. | [
"One reason cited for why children and the mentally disabled are not permitted to vote in elections is that they are too intellectually immature to understand voting issues. This view is echoed in concerns about the adult voting population, with observers citing concern for a decrease in 'civic virtue' and 'social ... |
How big of a nuclear bomb would be needed to disrupt or destroy a massive wedge Tornado? | That is one of the coolest questions I've ever seen. | [
"As a comparison, the blast yield of the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb is 0.011 kt, and that of the Oklahoma City bombing, using a truck-based fertilizer bomb, was 0.002 kt. Most artificial non-nuclear explosions are considerably smaller than even what are considered to be very small nuclear weapons.\n",
... |
what was building 7? why do conspiracy theorists use it as an example? what is the "real explanation" behind its collapse? what do the theorists think happened? | The World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings. The twin towers were 1 WTC and 2 WTC. Four other buildings were on the same block, and 7 WTC was across the street.
While only the twin towers were struck by planes, their collapse caused substantial, irreperable damage to all the other buildings part of the WTC, and other neighboring buildings as well. 3 WTC immediately collapsed from the twin towers essentially falling on it. Same thing happened to a church across the street. Debris that struck 7 WTC didn't cause it to collapse immediately, but started fires that weakened the building, causing it to collapse later that day.
Conspiracy theorists think that, because the building was across the street from the WTC and its collapse wasn't *directly* caused by the collapse of the twin towers, that its collapse must have been a controlled demolition. They add to this that the building had offices of the SEC and Secret Service, theorizing that someone wanted to set back investigations into potential financial wrongdoing. | [
"The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded the accepted version was more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the buildings. NIST and many scientists refuse to debate conspiracy theorists because they feel it would give those theories unwarranted credibility. Specialists in structura... |
Why were entertainers looked down on in Ancient Rome? | First, disclaimer: Ancient Rome is not my area for this (China is) but I have dug into this a little in my reading.
Both prostitutes and actors were classified legally as *infames*in Augustus’ moral legislation. This was in part because they were viewed as faking emotions for money, and both groups also engaged in cross-dressing. The root of your question comes down to the phenomena described by Bakhtin as “the low-Other” in society which was further refined by Stallybrass and White as a commodification of desire for the low-Other by those at the top of the social hierarchy in their bid to maintain social control.
That is, prostitutes and actors were on the same social level, and playwrights took inspiration from the work of prostitutes as that of equivalent to actors and repackaged them for consumption by the masses as both entertainment and cautionary tales. The stock character in Roman Comedy of the *meretrix* is almost always either a “hooker with a heart of gold” type or “heartless man-eater only out for the money” type, and are either commended in the text of plays as support for the main male or denigrated as villainous. There were even direct comparisons between acting and prostitution as professions that fake emotion in the plays.
In Roman cities neither actors nor prostitutes were segregated from the rest of society—unlike in Renaissance England, or China and Japan. Actors could be legally subjected to being beatings in the streets by Roman citizens, though this was later restricted to only while they were on stage. That actors would satirize powerful political or social figures did make them entertaining to the general populace, but it also was extremely risky. Gladiators were also classified as *infames*, and their audience was highly entertained, but this doesn’t mean they were of high social standing like members of professional sports today. So, too, with actors and prostitutes.
And that’s what Stallybrass and White point out: the top of the social food chain will co-opt the figures of the lowest classes for entertainment value initially and then will strip those figures and art forms from that low-Other and realign them with the upper class paradigm. That the 19th century and early 20th century changed the view of acting from a low-class activity and divested it of much of its relationship to sex work and transformed it into an elite class of celebrity has more to do with the growth of capitalism and industrialization than it does the craft itself.
Sources:
Faraone, Cristopher, Christopher A. Faraone, and Laura McClure. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1995. | [
"Like gladiators, entertainers were \"infames\" in the eyes of the law, little better than slaves even if they were technically free. \"Stars\", however, could enjoy considerable wealth and celebrity, and mingled socially and often sexually with the upper classes, including emperors. Performers supported each other... |
How were the Romans able to field much larger armies than Medieval Europe? | Firstly, keep in mind that the ancient armies you are describing were fielded by what were essentially ancient superpowers. At the time of the Punic Wars, the Carthaginians held an empire that controlled the western Mediterranean, spanning much of North Africa and Spain. Similarly, when you look at the various Persian Empires, they controlled vast territories and had a large population base to draw upon (consider Thermopylae, where the smaller Greece was only able to assemble a few thousand men against the hundred thousand of Persia). The size of the ancient powers' armies was larger than those of medieval kingdoms in part because the ancient powers were simply larger than medieval kingdoms.
With the Gauls and other European barbarians that the Romans encountered, often the Romans were encountering an entire society of people who were living there (Gaul) or an entire society that had picked up and migrated (Cimbri, Teutones). The size of their armies gets blurred a bit there, since numbers may include civilians as well as soldiers.
And lastly, at least later in the Roman Republic and through the Empire, the army consisted in large part of *auxilia,* or foreign auxiliary forces drawn up from allied and conquered territories, which included most of the European countries you are comparing the Roman Army to. So, the reason the Roman Army was so much larger than the English Army is in part due to the fact that the English Army was just one part of the Roman Army. | [
"Until the time of Napoleon, European states employed relatively small armies, made up of both national soldiers and mercenaries. These regulars were highly drilled professional soldiers. Ancien Régime armies could only deploy small field armies due to rudimentary staffs and comprehensive yet cumbersome logistics. ... |
Did the UK have any options at the start of World War I other than to commit a land army? | Not really; for one thing, with Britain now at war, the staff talks with the French Army came into play, wherein the British would despatch an expeditionary force to assist them in fighting the Germans. Plus, the immediate reason for British involvement was the Invasion of Belgium, so the British could hardly be seen to sit around and do nothing while there was serious fighting taking place across the Channel.
You also have to take into account the fact that it took until November 1914 for the Blockade to actually be in place, and it wasn't until March 1915 that it became much stronger (and also borderline illegal). The British did not have the time to wait around for two months doing nothing, while their now-allies the Russians and the French bore the brunt of the fighting. It's also important to consider that a more 'material' contribution by the British, ie actually sending ground forces to fight instead of just relying on their Navy while the French and Russians absorbed casualties, would give the British greater influence in negotiations when the war was over. | [
"Such settlement plans initially began during World War I, with South Australia first enacting legislation in 1915. Similar schemes gained impetus across Australia in February 1916 when a conference of representatives from the Commonwealth and all States was held in Melbourne to consider a report prepared by the Fe... |
What's the difference between an endosome and lysosome? | My understanding is that all material that's internalised by a cell starts as an endosome. If this material is destined for degradation, it becomes a lysosome. I.e., an endosome is a step on the way to lysosome. | [
"An endosome is a membrane-bound compartment inside a eukaryotic cell. It is an organelle of the endocytic membrane transport pathway originating from the trans Golgi network. Molecules or ligands internalized from the plasma membrane can follow this pathway all the way to lysosomes for degradation, or they can be ... |
What did people think of fossils before modern archaeology and carbon dating? | Fairly insightful views were held by a few of the Ancient Greek philosophers, most notably Aristotle, who noticed the similarity between shells of contemporary sea creatures and fossilised shells he came across. He speculated that areas of former life had been turned to stone by the particularly strong petrifying forces of vaporous exhalations emanating from nearby bodies of water. Wrong of course, but Aristotle was keen to give an explanation rooted in natural processes of the Earth. There are records of at least one Ancient Greek (I forget who) making the leap that current areas of extensive land had once been underwater, using the fossil shells of marine animals as evidence.
Many explanations elsewhere centred on story telling and legend, there were (and are) countless different explanations and names for various fossils, a lot of which seems to have recognised that a fossil was once something living - many parts of Asia would call any fossilised bones dragon bones. Common finds in England include sharks teeth and ammonites, which were called tongue stones and snake stones respectively, the latter being used to protect against snakebites. Some claimed that they had fallen from the moon, or there was a popular legend that ammonites were snakes which were turned to stone by St. Hilda of Whitby (614-680). Often snake heads were carved on to the ammonites before selling them to tourists. Three ammonites are on the Whitby town shield, complete with snake heads.
A commonly accepted explanation for fossils in the Middle Ages were that they were pieces of preserved life all originating from the same event - the great biblical flood. I'm sure there were explanations linked to other religions in the non-Christian world.
The Renaissance saw a more rigorous study of many natural things and Da Vinci strongly rejected the biblical flood narrative, with the simple logic that washed up things should be all mixed up, but fossil assemblages were often found in the kind of communities you would expect to see them in during life.
Things became more illuminated with the birth of modern geology. In the late 1700's leading up to 1800 the [law of superposition](_URL_2_) became accepted, ideas that the Earth was actually very much older than a few thousand years started to be incorporated into scientific theories, and [William 'Strata' Smith](_URL_0_) joined up many of these dots when observing the different layers of the Earth and their fossil assemblages, formulating the [principle of faunal succession](_URL_3_). Further study using this principle allowed geologists to determine the *relative* time sequences in which layers were deposited, and is the means by which distinctions in the stratigraphic record are formally made.
It was also an appreciation of this huge timescale and gradual changes in preserved fauna through layers of earth and time that helped Darwin to formulate a theory of evolution.
With the advent of radiometric dating the geological timescale could be dated absolutely, providing a picture of how long ago certain life existed, although there was little change in the timing of strata and fossils relative to one another.
Carbon-14 is often used in archaeology as you say, but due to its relatively short half life of 5,730 years, it's not useful in dating anything older than about 60,000 years. Obviously this is no good for the 542 million years since the Cambrian Explosion of life on Earth, and so longer half lives of other radiometric systems (usually the uranium-lead or potassium-argon systems) are used to date the surrounding rock of a fossil rather than the fossil itself.
One last twist - sedimentary rock cannot be dated directly like this, as it would give a date that the minerals in the rock were originally cooled from igneous rock before being weathered and eventually ending up in a sedimentary sequence, which could be millions or even billions of years later! Radiometric dating must be used on igneous material at the start and end of sedimentary sequences to give an accurate (but potentially large) date range. Layers of preserved volcanic ash are particularly useful as they will have been incorporated into the strata at practically the same time they were created. Therefore using both absolute and relative dating methods together is necessary in order to build up a full picture of the fossil record and it's timescale.
Getting back to the original question on ideas of fossils before all the refinement of timescales, the story of Johann Beringer deserves a mention. A medical academic at the University of Wurzberg in Germany in the 18th Century, Beringer was interested in the serious study of fossils which were not understood at the time, and he became victim to a cruel and extended hoax started in 1725, with the creation of many fakes placed for him to discover. [Beringer's Lying Stones](_URL_1_) as they came to be known were quite fantastical, but Beringer only realised what was going on after publishing a book about them. | [
"While some geological evidence was presented to suggest that earlier fossils did exist, for a long time this evidence was widely rejected. Fossils from the Ediacaran period, immediately preceding the Cambrian, were first found in 1868, but scientists at that time assumed there was no Precambrian life and therefore... |
why do children dislike the taste of alcohol so much? | Who likes the taste of alchohol? | [
"Taste preferences and eating behaviors in children are molded at a young age by factors, such as parents' habits and advertisements. One study compared what adults and children considered when choosing beverages. For the most part, adults considered whether beverages had sugar, caffeine, and additives. Some of the... |
Are Tardigrades susceptible to viral and/or bacterial infection? Can they get ‘sick’? | In addition to the fungi u/drkirienko mentions, tardigrades also clearly act as hosts for various bacteria. However, it's more difficult to say which of these are beneficial, neutral, or antagonistic to their hosts.
This is a little tangentially related to your question, but it's an interesting story nonetheless. When the first tardigrade genome ([*Hypsibius dujardini*](_URL_2_)), was sequenced by [Boothby et al. 2015](_URL_8_), it was reported to have a [large percentage of genes with bacterial origin](_URL_0_). This was initially considered to be evidence for horizontal gene transfer on a pretty unprecedented scale, which was pretty interesting but also led to some [rather garbage science reporting](_URL_1_).
However, as you will have noticed if you looked at the Boothby paper carefully, these results have since been challenged by many. [Arakawa 2016](_URL_7_) and [Bemm et al. 2016](_URL_3_) both suggest that the bacterial DNA actually came from, well... bacteria. I.e., they think that the tardigrade samples were contaminated, which does seem like a more plausible explanation. Bemm et al. were even able to assemble the entire [genome of an unknown type of bacteria](_URL_9_) from the published tardigrade data.
Of course, those bacterial contaminants were not necessarily actually living in the tardigrades, and may have been introduced some other way. Fortunately, some other studies have looked in more detail into actual associations between tardigrades and various microorganisms. [Vecchi et al. 2016](_URL_6_) review reports of bacteria living in the heads, skin, and guts of tardigrades, and also point out that they can act as vectors for certain bacteria which infect plants such as [*Xanthomonas campestris*](_URL_5_). The same group published a more detailed study in [Vecchi et al. 2018](_URL_4_) which identified several distinct groups of bacteria. Neither of these studies were really able to say much about the exact nature of the relationship between these bacteria and the tardigrades they live in though, so it's still somewhat unclear whether they are symbiotes, pathogens, or neither. And of course, these roles may fluctuate depending on the conditions even for the same bacterial species! | [
"Parasitic infections include trichomoniasis, pediculosis pubis, and scabies. Trichomoniasis is transmitted by a parasitic protozoan and is the most common non-viral STI. Most cases are asymptomatic but may present symptoms of irritation and a discharge of unusual odor. Pediculosis pubis commonly called \"crabs\", ... |
In fiction, the gamma radiation (esp. from nuclear weapons) is usually depicted with a greenish, yellowish colour, and often makes objects glow. Does this occur in real life? | You can also look at the aurora borealis, which is caused by interaction of fast electrons (beta radiation) with the molecules in the atmosphere. The different molecules give off different colors after being excited by interaction with the electrons.
In fiction (movies) you have the problem that the viewer needs to be guided to understand that the object is somehow special without using to much screen time - a glow is easy to do and serves the purpose. Realism is usually not the first priority. | [
"A gamma ray, or gamma radiation (symbol γ or formula_1), is a penetrating electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves and so imparts the highest photon energy. Paul Villard, a French chemist and physicist, discovered ga... |
When and why did the "corporation" become the dominant business entity in America, when all of the great gilded age companies were organized as "trusts?" | I'm not sure I agree with the premise. The corporation's popularity spread with the growth of railroads: large undertakings, needing lots of investors, operating over large areas, usually with some years before any dividends would accrue—and most importantly, whose operations were inherently dangerous. Investors naturally sought to be shielded from personal liability for wrongs done by some remote employee.
Trusts arose much later, as a way to get around the early restrictions on corporations. State laws often did not allow corporations to own stock in other companies, to operate in more than one state, or to undertake activities (such as owning an office building not entirely for their own use) even slightly peripheral to the powers enumerated in their charters. | [
"Robert E. Wright argues in \"Corporation Nation\" (2014) that the governance of early U.S. corporations, of which over 20,000 existed by the Civil War of 1861-1865, was superior to that of corporations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because early corporations governed themselves like \"republics\", repl... |
Who decided that north was up? | Great answer to this question from /u/khosikulu [here](_URL_0_).
> Historian of cartography (among other things) here. The northward orientation has a great deal to do with the importance of northward orientation to compass navigation. Portolans, and later projections aimed at navigation purposes (e.g., Mercator), made note of latitude and direction much more reliably than longitude, so the coastline was easier to fit to an evolving graticule that way (plus it worked better relative to sun- and star-sighting) while the east-west features were still of uncertain size and distance. Smileyman is right that cartographers often didn't put north at the top before the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras and the flowering of European navigation, and that Claudius Ptolemy is probably a big culprit for why it's north-up and not south-up--the power of classical conventions at that moment is hard to deny. It also helps that we're very clearly north of the Equator in the European Atlantic, so that would be the first area depicted to the terminus of navigation.
>
> Have a dig in volume 1 of the monumental History of Cartography Project and you may find a bit more. Volume 3 would also discuss some of the specific developments of the Renaissance era but that's still in print only; I'm not even sure Volume 4 is close to release yet.
There's some more good threads about this topic listed in the [FAQ](_URL_1_). | [
"BULLET::::- Up is a metaphor for north. The notion that north should always be up and east at the right was established by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. The historian Daniel Boorstin suggests that perhaps this was because the better-known places in his world were in the northern hemisphere, and on a flat map these... |
what happens when i "zone out" after a few hours of being on the computer? | It's sort of like a vegetative state. You're letting your brain run on auto-pilot without paying attention to the world around you. This is why video games warn you to "take frequent breaks" these days - they reassert your grasp on reality and keep you from trancing too long.
My advice? Set something in motion _before_ you get on the computer that will "interrupt" you later and snap you out of it. Like setting an alarm in the other room, or telling a friend to come get you for a walk later. | [
"The \"end\" case is a very simple case that works to simply delay the program to allow the user enough time to check that they have received their change and picked up their item. After 5000 milliseconds (5 seconds) the wait timer is used, up and the program continues back to the start page to wait for another use... |
how do humans lose 100 hairs per day and still maintain a full head of long locks? | Because if I have 100,000 hairs and lose 100 every day it would take 1000 days for me to run out IF I wasn't making more. For hair this is about 3 years which in that time My hair would have grown an additional ~18 inches or ~6 inches per year or half an inch per month.
At that rate, you would have to be losing more than 10x that amount before you noticed your hair was thinning and even then your hairs growth rate might cover it up. | [
"In most people, scalp hair growth will halt due to follicle devitalization after reaching a length of generally two or three feet. Exceptions to this rule can be observed in individuals with hair development abnormalities, which may cause an unusual length of hair growth.\n",
"Human hair follicles are very sensi... |
How was bidirectional travel handled on the transcontinental railroad? | Many, many rail lines have only one track. Passing sidings are installed at regular intervals, and the train orders specify things like "Train #97 take siding at Danville to await passage of eastbound train #38." Unlike earlier railroads, the transcontinental was accompanied the entire length by extension of telegraph lines. Thus revised train orders—using updated info about the location of other trains on the line—could be given the conductor at any staffed station.
In earlier decades, some lines used "timetable control:" during a certain period only the eastbound train had authority to use a certain stretch of track. In later decades, electric-light signaling systems would be installed showing whether the "track block" ahead was clear, and usually the status of the block beyond that. | [
"In 1861 Congress passed the Land-Grant Telegraph Act which financed the construction of Western Union's transcontinental telegraph lines. Hiram Sibley, Western Union's head, negotiated exclusive agreements with railroads to run telegraph lines along their right-of-way. Eight years before the transcontinental railr... |
why did adolf hitler consider native americans as equal to “arians”? | Noble Savage type of thing. He was a member of the Rune Society (sp?). They believed in the restoration of the ancient Germanic way. If memory serves me, he was president of the group at one time. Some of his initial support for becoming Chancellor may have come from this association. | [
"U.S. pro-Nazi movements such as the Friends of the New Germany and the German-American Bund played no role in Hitler's plans for the country, and received no financial or verbal support from Germany after 1935. However, certain Native American advocate groups, such as the fascist-leaning American Indian Federation... |
How are gaseous elements harvested and purified? | They aren't harvesting cow burps. They are taking all the livestock dung, putting it in a huge airtight container and letting bacteria digest the organic matter. Methane is a biproduct of the bacterial digestion process. They then collect the methane, compress it, dry it and then burn it.
_URL_0_ | [
"The metal can also be isolated by electrolysis of fused caesium cyanide (CsCN). Exceptionally pure and gas-free caesium can be produced by thermal decomposition of caesium azide , which can be produced from aqueous caesium sulfate and barium azide. In vacuum applications, caesium dichromate can be reacted with zir... |
reddit, can you explain to me the relationship between megapixels, resolution, and screen size? | A screen's resolution tells you how many individual pixels or dots of light are there both horizontally and vertically.
So 1920x1080 means there's 1920 pixels horizontally on the screen and 1080 vertically. If that's spread out over a screen that's 42 inches across that just means there's more room to put each individual pixel in. But you get the same amount of pixels on a screen that's 42 inches diagonally or 4 inches diagonally.
The same goes for photos. This means that if you're looking at a very lage image, ( lots of pixels ) on a screen with a smaller resolution your screen won't be displaying all the pixels that there are in the image.
But you can zoom in on a particular part of an image to reveal the extra pixels. So the image you're viewing remains sharp. | [
"The eye's perception of \"display resolution\" can be affected by a number of factors see image resolution and optical resolution. One factor is the display screen's rectangular shape, which is expressed as the ratio of the physical picture width to the physical picture height. This is known as the aspect ratio. A... |
why if co2 is only .038% of atmospheric gases, does it have so much impact on global warming? | The most abundant gases - O2, N2, argon - don't absorb heat. CO2 and H2O do absorb heat so when you increase them, you are directly increasing the greenhouse gas effect because you are increasing the most abundant heat absorbing molecule (with H2O).
That's very crude, but it's ELI5. Also as an aside, it's somewhat of a diversion tactic to say, "it's only a small amount therefore it can't be that important." Skeptics/denialists love this tactic but it's pretty flawed. Think of it this way: It won't take but a very small amount of cyanide (less than 1% of body weight) in my body to notice it. | [
"In the 1998 paper, \"CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic's view of potential climate change\" Idso said: \"Several of these cooling forces have individually been estimated to be of equivalent magnitude, but of opposite sign, to the typically predicted greenhouse effect of a doubling of the air’s CO2 content, whi... |
How muh gear would a WWII British Commando carry into the field? Also: beret or helmet? | Not sure about the packs, but the steel helmet protects against shrapnel, not direct hits from bullets. Since the commandos were involved in small raids and unconventional warfare, it's not unreasonable that they would have preferred to save on weight when shrapnel would have been unlikely.
See this youtube video for a steel helmet penetration test:
_URL_0_ | [
"The Mk III Helmet was a steel military combat helmet first developed for the British Army in 1941 by the Medical Research Council. First worn in combat by British and Canadian troops on D-Day, the Mk III and Mk IV were used alongside the Brodie helmet for the remainder of the Second World War. It is sometimes refe... |
how do locksmiths verify that you own a key before making a copy of it? | They don't know you aren't a thief. However some locks and some keys are protected from this with security measures. Locksmiths aren't worried about copying a house key. But if you try to get a key for a high security lock copied, it's not going to happen. These keys will often have writing on them for "do not copy" and use multiple rows of pins.
The only time that a locksmith might want to verify your identity is if you are asking them to get into a locked car, house, or business. They need reasonable assurances that you are authorized to be there and to enter the premises. If it turns out that you are lying and the police get involved the locksmith has an out if they took reasonable precautions to ensure you were authorized.
Source - I'm an amateur lock smith with about 10 years experience keying, re-pinning, picking, repairing, and bypassing locks.
Locks do not keep someone from breaking in to a home or vehicle in any case. They are there to keep honest people honest, and to deter thieves to pick easier targets. If someone wants to steal from you, there is not a lot you can do to stop them short of guarding your property 24x7. However you can take reasonable precautions so you aren't the low hanging fruit when a thief wants to break in.
And if someone does want to steal, they are not going to use a locksmith who could be a witness against them. They will simply smash and grab, or con their way on premises.
And being a locksmith, if I wanted to break the law and make a key I don't need the original key to copy. I can cut my own key for most locks using a few simple tricks for pin lengths. But I wouldn't bother. Most residential locks can be opened in under 10 seconds by an amateur simply by raking. | [
"The State of California prohibits locksmiths from copying keys marked \"Do Not Duplicate\" or \"Unlawful to Duplicate\", provided the key originator's company name and telephone number are included on the key.\n",
"In master locksmithing, key relevance is the measurable difference between an original key and a c... |
If a woman's on birth control that stops her menstruating once a month, will she remain fertile for longer? | That makes sense biologically (and is why nulliparity is thought to contribute to earlier menopause). However, this is not always supported by epidemiological studies.
[This study](_URL_0_) found that history of oral contraceptive use significantly *increased* the risk for *early* menopause (defined here as prior to 49yo), while parity did not.
> Ever-users of OC in our study had a mean age at menopause of 45.7 years (SD 6.00 years) while never-users' mean age at menopause was 47.2 years (SD 5.50 years).
It goes on to explain:
> It is known that OC use and pregnancy disrupt the ovulation cycle. Whether this contributes to a later age at natural menopause is disputed. We found that ever-use of OC was significantly associated with early rather than later natural menopause. We have no obvious explanation for this finding, thus it is important that others investigate this. A Dutch cohort study found that ever-users of OC had a significantly later natural menopause than never-users (mean 51.2 years, SD 3.29 vs 50.1 years, SD 4.16; P < .01). In contrast to these findings, the Massachusetts Women's Health Study did not find an association between ever-use or duration of OC use and age at menopause. | [
"Menstrual regulation allows a woman to terminate within 10 weeks of her last period, but unsafe methods to terminate pregnancy are widespread. In response, a hotline was created for women to get information about fertility control, including menstrual regulation.\n",
"Return of menstruation following childbirth ... |
Are there any biographies available about Native North Americans who lived before 1492? | Because of the strong oral traditions in many Nations, it is difficult to find records of individuals, and the ones who do get recorded are those who have done something great, and they get wrapped into lessons and tales that it becomes hard to tell if the person existed at all.
Were you looking for a story of the life of someone, or how someone would have lived before European contact? | [
"The History of the Indian Tribes of North America is a three-volume collection of Native American biographies and accompanying lithograph portraits originally published in the United States from 1836 to 1844 by Thomas McKenney and James Hall. The majority of the portraits were first painted in oil by Charles Bird ... |
if the metric system is designed to make for easy calculations and conversions, why wasn't the 60 minute hour changed to a base 10 unit? | time is always expressed in seconds in the metric system.
or multiples, like milliseconds, kiloseconds, etc.
"Other units of time, the minute, hour, and day, are accepted for use with the modern metric system, but are not part of it."
_URL_0_ | [
"When the metric system was first introduced in 1795, all metric units could be defined by reference to the standard metre or to the standard kilogram. In 1832 Carl Friedrich Gauss, when making the first absolute measurements of the Earth's magnetic field, needed standard units of time alongside the units of length... |
how exactly is there a connection with binaural beats and lucid dreaming - | At least in my experience, first of all not all binaural beats do anything and secondly, they do not really get you to dream lucidly, they rather get you to dream more vividly, which makes it easier for you to write a dream diary (important step for lucid dreaming) and makes entering the lucid status more easily. But if you can't do it, binaural beats won't suddenly make you able to. | [
"Hobson asserts that the existence of lucid dreaming means that the human brain can simultaneously occupy two states: waking and dreaming. The dreaming portion has experiences and therefore has primary consciousness, while the waking self recognizes the dreaming and can be seen as having a sort of secondary conscio... |
Why do different viruses (HPV/Warts, Herpes) discriminate between different areas of the body? | That is called as tropism, specifically tissue or cell tropism. Usually, there is a specific receptor on certain tissue to which the virus attaches (virus attachment protein). A typical example is the human immunodeficiency virus and its affinity to the T lymphocyte cells.
Herpes simplex 1 exhibits tropism towards epithelial and neural cells, papilloma virus to cutaneous tissue and mucosal cells. Oral, plantar/palmar and genital warts are caused by different sub-types of the papilloma virus. | [
"In addition, the same viruses were prevalent in multiple body habitats within individuals. For instance, the beta- and gamma-papillomaviruses were the viruses most commonly found in the skin and the nose (anterior nares; see Figure 4A,B), which may reflect proximity and similarities in microenvironments that suppo... |
What spoken language carries the most information per sound or time of speech? | [Here's](_URL_0_) a paper on information density vs speed of speech, done by the University of Lyon. I am not sure how accurate their methods are, but they seem to believe that some languages convey more information per syllable and for 5 out of 7 languages, that ones with lower information density are spoken faster. Note that the sample size was only 59 and only compared how fast 20 different texts were read out, all silences that lasted longer than 150 ms were edited out as well. | [
"Part of the phonological study of a language therefore involves looking at data (phonetic transcriptions of the speech of native speakers) and trying to deduce what the underlying phonemes are and what the sound inventory of the language is. The presence or absence of minimal pairs, as mentioned above, is a freque... |
bohr's theory of the hydrogen atom | Basically, the atom was understood like a solar system. Electrons orbiting the nucleus. Bohr suggested that the electrons could only be in very specific orbits and light was emitted when it went from a high to a lower orbit and light was absorbed when it went from a lower to a higher. | [
"Schrödinger was able to calculate the energy levels of hydrogen by treating a hydrogen atom's [[electron]] as a classical wave, moving in a well of electrical potential created by the proton. This calculation accurately reproduced the energy levels of the Bohr model.\n",
"The solutions to the Schrödinger equatio... |
Did Moses exist and was there an exodus of people from Egypt corresponding to the story? | I strongly recommend (edit: [this video lecture](_URL_1_) is better than the one I initially recommended) [this video series](_URL_10_) for a synopsis of what's currently known and believed about the exodus and the hebrews.
As for further reading, try /r/AcademicBiblical:
* [The Exodus (please help!)](_URL_13_)
* [Did Moses write the Torah and why do atheist argue he didn't exist?](_URL_0_)
* [Is the scholarly view about the authorship of the Pentateuch and Isaiah due to a bias against prophecy? Or are there valid reasons why Moses or Isaiah didn't write](_URL_6_)
* [Scholarly consensus (or majority belief) on the Bible authenticity?](_URL_2_)
* [J, P, E, D, etc. is it still the scholarly consensus of the Pentateuch's composition?](_URL_14_)
* [How do scholars determine the age and origins of Old Testament stories?](_URL_17_)
* [Isaiah was written by multiple authors. How many other Biblical texts have multiple authors or which texts do you suspect have multiple authors?](_URL_8_)
* [Was the Exodus a real historical event or how are we generally meant to understand it?](_URL_16_)
There's also a lot on /r/AskHistorians:
* [Does the Egyptian history record the ten plagues mentioned in the Bible?](_URL_15_)
* [Historicity of Moses and Abraham](_URL_11_)
* [Is there any reference to Moses, the plagues, or the Exodus in Ancient Egyptian writings?](_URL_5_)
* [It's often said that the Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is Ramses II. How accurate is this, and why is Ramses II the go-to for our conception of the historical Pharaoh in the Exodus?](_URL_18_)
* [My Orthodox Jewish Rabbis, insist that the torah scrolls they read from (five books of moses) are exactly as they were written when given to the Jews by God on Mt. Sinai. Is this possible?](_URL_9_)
* [Do we know who the 13 tribes of Israel were?](_URL_4_)
* [Besides the Bible, are there other historical records of the Jewish being enslaved by the Egyptians?](_URL_7_)
* [What is the oldest Biblical story that is also mentioned by non-Jewish primary sources?](_URL_3_)
When you search a topic, use google instead of reddit. Try "site:_URL_12_ searchterm searchterm". You'll usually get a few hits. (Obviously substitute "askhistorians" with whatever sub you're searching.) And please pop in over at /r/AcademicBiblical if you have further questions! We only bite a little. | [
"Modern archaeologists believe that the Israelites were indigenous to Canaan and were never in ancient Egypt, and if there is any historical basis to the Exodus it can apply only to a small segment of the population of Israelites at large. Nevertheless, there is also a general understanding that something must lie ... |
How did chemists explain reactions before the discovery of the atom? | To put it bluntly, they didn’t. The first attempts at explaining the states and reactions of matter led to the postulates that theorized the existence of the atom, so they were mutually dependent. Reactions such as fire and the creation of alloys were found empirically, but never studied like they are now.
There were early theories as to what composed matter, such as the idea that all matter consists of fire, water, earth, etc. But such theories never tried to “explain” reactions other than saying that things were how they were. | [
"At the turn of the twentieth century the theoretical underpinnings of chemistry were finally understood due to a series of remarkable discoveries that succeeded in probing and discovering the very nature of the internal structure of atoms. In 1897, J.J. Thomson of Cambridge University discovered the electron and s... |
How do they determine the longitude on another planet? | For a rocky planet like Venus, the prime meridian is chosen to cross through some arbitrarily chosen reference surface feature, like a crater. The direction of increasing longitude is then measured in a direction opposite to the rotation of the planet about its axis. So, for instance, if you look down at Venus's north pole, then the planet rotates clockwise. So from the prime meridian, longitude increases from 0 to 360 degrees in the anti-clockwise direction (i.e., east).
(Note that the convention of the direction of increasing longitude is for non-Earth planets only. Earth rotates anti-clockwise as seen from above the north pole. But Earth longitude also increases in the anti-clockwise direction.) | [
"Similar to latitude, the longitude of a place on Earth is the angular distance east or west of the prime meridian or Greenwich meridian. Longitude is usually expressed in degrees (marked with °) ranging from 0° at the Greenwich meridian to 180° east and west. Sydney, for example, has a longitude of about 151° east... |
why is the tea party republican? why aren't they their own party? | You and a bunch of your friends decide to vote on what to do this afternoon.
You want to play baseball.
Jimmy wants to play baseball.
Mike wants to play soccer.
Tommy wants to play soccer.
Jenny wants to play dolls.
Mary wants to play dolls.
Anne wants to play dolls.
3 people want to play dolls.
2 people want to play soccer.
2 people want to play baseball.
If everyone votes what they want to do, dolls wins.
But if the two people who want to play baseball dislike playing with dolls more than they dislike playing soccer, they can switch their vote to football and play soccer.
The Tea Party is like the boys who want to play baseball. They want to play baseball, but they will accept playing soccer over playing with dolls. | [
"The Tea Party is generally associated with the Republican Party. Most politicians with the \"Tea Party brand\" have run as Republicans. In recent elections in the 2010s, Republican primaries have been the site of competitions between the more conservative, Tea Party wing of the party and the more moderate, establi... |
Did the Japanese ever repulse an island invasion by the US during WWII? | No. After the initial Japanese victories in the Pacific War, the United States won every major campaign and battle it entered. Even those cases where the Japanese scored tactical victories were strategic losses. Japan lacked the steel to make good its naval losses, and its cadres of experienced pilots were consumed in battle, making its carriers steadily less effective. The tensest point might have been the Japanese naval victory in the Battle of Savo Island, two days after the Allied landing on Guadalcanal; however, the Japanese did not press their advantage. They might have pulled off a victory there with luck and determination. Even so: it wouldn't have delayed the war long, because a Japanese victory at Guadalcanal would have simply fed the Allied strategy of attrition.
Throughout the Pacific war, the United States brought to bear significant and growing advantages in resources and technology. Japanese air and naval forces became increasingly unable to contest American mobility and logistics. The Americans had the ability to dictate the day of battle, with combined-arms support that the Japanese simply could not respond to.
The Americans were also able to bypass or "leapfrog" many of the more difficult targets; thousands of Japanese soldiers were simply stranded across the Pacific. For instance, the island of New Britain was held by 100,000 Japanese soldiers. An invasion would have been risky and extremely costly. Allied bombers neutralized the island's ports and airfields, leaving it surrounded by a ring of air bases. Limited offensives continued throughout the war, and the Japanese bases there were bombed in training missions for new Allied aircrews. When Australian troops accepted the island's surrender at the end of the war, there were still almost 70,000 Japanese soldiers there.
*Edit: conflated Rabaul with New Britain* | [
"Japanese forces occupied the island in December 1941, days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in order to protect their south-eastern flank from allied counterattacks, and isolate Australia, under the codename Operation FS. On 17–18 August 1942, in order to divert Japanese attention from the Solomon Islands and New... |
Bacteria can only live at certain temperatures, so when I eat cooked meat, am I eating a lot of dead bacteria? If not where do they go? | Yes you are. Or at least the chemical composition or chemical products of cooking that made them up.
Cooking kills bacteria by raising their internal temperature to the point where they die.
Depending on the process and the temperature, the cell walls of the bacteria can rupture, they can carbonize and effectively turn to carbon char, they can just sit there as a dead cell, or they could be partially digested by enzyme or other chemical processes that destroy and/or dissociate the chemicals that compose them.
Some of those constituents, such as water, could boil off or be washed out in the cooking water or oil in the frying pan or "burn" into carbon dioxide, and others will simply go into your mouth and be digested same as any other food.
Finally, if you're eating leftovers or rare meat products, or eating meat that's been sitting out for a while, you're eating live bacteria too. But your body's digestive systems can easily handle most types of live bacteria without any trouble, it's only certain ones that cause problems, so that's usually nothing to worry about. | [
"Bacteria are typically killed at temperatures of around . Most harmful bacteria live on the surface of pieces of meat which have not been ground or shredded before cooking. As a result, for unprocessed steaks or chops of red meat it is usually safe merely to bring the surface temperature of the meat to this temper... |
why is it that lead in paint is harmful, but the 40% lead in solder material isn't? | Lead in solder is harmful. There just aren't many alternatives. Lead free solder does exist, but it has a tendency to "whisker" which can create shorts that damage parts. | [
"Lead paint contains lead as pigment. Lead is also added to paint to speed drying, increase durability, retain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion. Paint with significant lead content is still used in industry and by the military. For example, leaded paint is sometimes used to paint roadwa... |
what is the "cursive writing" thing i keep reading and what is the big deal about it? | Yes, that's cursive, in contrast to "print".
[Here are some examples](_URL_0_)
In the USA, kids usually learn cursive around ages 7-10, and print before that. | [
"Cursive is a style of penmanship in which the symbols of the language are written in a conjoined and/or \"flowing\" manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster. This writing style is distinct from \"printscript\" using block letters, in which the letters of a word are unconnected and in Roman/Gothic... |
What were the geographical boundaries of the "Old West?" Would we see "cowboy culture" in Canada? Mexico? The Caribbean? | I can speak for Canada a bit, having grown up in a cattle town. We have plenty of cowboy culture, especially in my home province of Alberta.
For most of the our province's history, our main industries were agriculture and ranching, and even today, they are second only to oil and gas.
Although a lot of the cowboy culture has faded, many of the values remain. Rodeo still thrives in Canada, centred around the Calgary Stampede and many other rural rodeos. We also have our own rodeo sport, chuck wagon racing, which I actually have a lot of family competing in. It's the main event here, but to my knowledge, has never caught on elsewhere.
For the most part, Canada's cowboys resemble the American variety. This is because borders were basically meaningless back in our frontier days. One big difference might have been gun laws. In Canada, the North West Mounted Police (the first mounties) enforced strict laws on where guns went. It was illegal to carry a gun in most towns, especially during the Klondike gold rush. Another difference was the lack of Mexican cultural influences, slavery, and the American civil war. The first cowboy in Alberta, the man who brought cattle to the province, was actually a freed slave from the states named John Ware.
The native population was never as violent as it is depicted in the states. They were relegated to reserves fairly early. When the Calgary stampede first opened, the natives were actually included in the festivities and events. Before that, their admission into the city was very regulated.
The gold rush in the Yukon and the whiskey trade brought a lot of 'old west' culture to Canada as well. Canadian prohibition was never as strict as it was in the states, so lots of boot leggers out west here smuggled whiskey and rye across the border to serve Americans.
Smaller populations and in turn less government and industry meant that the cowboy era in Canada started and ended a little later than in the states, but it was basically a branch of the same tree. It was all the frontier 'old west', and then somebody drew a line through it. | [
"As settlers from the United States moved west, they brought cattle breeds developed on the east coast and in Europe along with them, and adapted their management to the drier lands of the west by borrowing key elements of the Spanish vaquero culture.\n",
"Cultures combine and collaborate in the Pacific Southwest... |
How did the Native American tribes in the western portion of the U.S. get firearms, and when did these tribes first come into contact with firearms? | With the exception of the unwieldy, unreliable early firearms that might have been brought to the Plains by the Coronado *entrada*'s [search for Quivira in 1540-1542](_URL_0_), the Plains nations would have started to regularly see firearms in the mid-seventeenth century. While horses flowed up from Mexico, or through mission communities in New Mexico, the Spanish tended to avoid supplying their Native American neighbors with firearms. When Iroquois raids caused the westward Algonkian-Huron diaspora, the refugees and their French allies brought firearms to the Upper Mississippi watershed. The French provided firearms to the Algonkian and Huron, who then used them to carve out some territory among the Quapaws, Poncas, Omahas, and Eastern Sioux. While the Sioux naturally fought against the Fox, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Kickapoo, and Miami immigrants, the Hurons tried to stem the flow of firearms to the Plains in an effort to maintain their advantage. They nurtured hostilities between the Plains nations and the French to maintain their favored trading status, though gradually the weapons made inroads into the interior of the continent.
Further south the Osages, pushed west by the reverberations of contact, remade themselves as the trade middlemen on the doorstep of the Plains. They used an alliance with the French to secure firearms, then used those weapons against Wichitas, Pawnees, and Caddos further west to raid for horses and captives. They blocked the westward expansion of firearms, in 1719 a visitor to the Wichita saw only half a dozen firearms even though the residents were eagerly trying to purchase more. The Osage were so powerful they even started attacking French traders when they encroached on their lands. When the Comanches-Wichita-Pawnee peace was struck in the late 1740s they were able to purchase weapons and go on the offensive against the Osage. The overall access to firearms on the frontier decreased during the Seven Year's War, but many of the shocks of contact, including the introduction of the horse, the gun, and the displacement of nations to the east, were already transforming the Eastern Plains.
Obviously, this is just a brief introduction to the politics of trade on the doorstep of the Plains. Calloway's *One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark* is a great resource if you would like to learn more. | [
"The earliest known historical Native American occupants, the Tonkawa, were a flint-working, hunting people who followed the buffalo on foot and periodically set fire to the prairie to aid them in their hunts. During the 18th century, they made the transition to a horse culture and used firearms to a limited extent... |
why can we use controllers with pcs but not keyboard and mouse with consoles? | Consoles can use a mouse and keyboard. Almost any USB mouse/kb will plug in and function with modern consoles. You can type messages, browse the web, etc.
Some games do support kb/m on console: Counterstrike and War Thunder for example.
Many games don't just because it takes extra effort to program for, and the kb/m has a distinct advantage in many game types that makes it unfair.
TL;DR: It's extra work and an unfair advantage, but kb/m can be used on consoles and on certain console games. | [
"Virtually all personal computers use a keyboard and mouse for user input. Other common gaming peripherals are a headset for faster communication in online games, joysticks for flight simulators, steering wheels for driving games and gamepads for console-style games.\n",
"Unlike the PlayStation, which requires th... |
Why does there seem to be such a lack of emphasis on the Pacific Theater of WWII in American pop culture and History? | I would wager it has partially to do with the different racial components of the two theaters, and the subsequent disparity in the "goodness" of the war in each.
The fight against the Nazis has been continuously held up since the 1940s as the epitome of a "good war." American soldiers fought and died to liberate Western Europe from a Fascist anti-democratic foe, which has been consistently depicted in propaganda and pop culture as evil incarnate (an example of the latter might be the frequency with which Nazi soldiers are the bad guys in FPS video games, whose deaths in the games are never controversial). The eugenicist and genocidal practices of the Nazis lend greater support to this idea of the European theater being a fight between the forces of good and evil (this is helped by the fact that American eugenicist and anti-Semitic policies in the 1930s and 1940s are largely unknown or under-known by Americans today).
Meanwhile, the American war in the Pacific is not nearly so easily depicted in stark moral terms. Although the war was initiated by a sneak attack carried out by Japan on the US, the American response to that attack was to corral the West coast's Japanese American population, citizens and noncitizens alike, into concentration camps. Furthermore, American propaganda throughout the war depicted the Japanese in explicitly racist terms; while the war in Europe was depicted as a fight between freedom and fascism, the war in the Pacific was depicted as a fight between white democracy and Oriental despotism. Finally, anti-Japanese sentiment lingered for decades after the war ended, while anti-German sentiment almost immediately disappeared at the beginning of the Cold War.
In short, it has been relatively easy to depict WWII in Europe in terms of stark moral and political contrast (good vs evil, democracy vs fascism, liberty vs tyranny), while America's war with Japan was much more controversial, both in terms of its conduct (concentration camps, racist propaganda) and its aftermath (lingering anti-Asian sentiments and violence). Given this state of affairs, pop culture more readily focuses on the European Theater while paying much less attention to the Pacific. | [
"Part of the reason why \"South Pacific\" is considered a classic is its confrontation of racism. According to professor Philip Beidler, \"Rodgers and Hammerstein's attempt to use the Broadway theater to make a courageous statement against racial bigotry in general and institutional racism in the postwar United Sta... |
Can someone with a weakened immune system receive a vaccine? | It depends on the vaccine and illness.
Live vaccinations tend not to be given to persons with compromised immune systems (e.g. yellow fever vaccination), whereas some inactivated viral vaccinations may be given to those with weakened immune systems (depending on their clinical condition).
For example, it might be preferable for someone on long term immune modulating drugs to receive a flu vaccine to prevent them developing full on flu.
In the UK we use "the green book" for vaccine requirements and contraindications as well as taking into account an individual's clinical picture. | [
"Some people cannot be fully protected from vaccine-preventable diseases by direct vaccination. These are often people with weak immune systems, who are more likely to get seriously ill. Their risk of infection can be significantly reduced if those who are most likely to infect them get the appropriate vaccines.\n"... |
Could we in theory create Saturn style rings around the Earth, for shits and giggles. | Some people theorize that the Earth may have had a ring or two in it's past, and that they caused massive climate changes. Because of the Earth's significant tilt, a ring would cause winters to be far colder due to the increased shade. It is also thought that the Earth could not hold on to a ring for more than a million years or so due to solar wind and interference from the moon.
Source: [Sandia National Laboratories](_URL_1_)
[Astroscience](_URL_0_) | [
"Rings of Saturn is an American deathcore band from the Bay Area, California. The band was formed in 2009 and was originally just a studio project. However, after gaining a wide popularity and signing to Unique Leader Records, the band formed a full line-up and became a full-time touring band. Rings of Saturn's mus... |
In the American Civil War, was the Union victory at Vicksburg of equal, lesser, or greater significance than Antietam and/or Gettysburg were to ending the war? | This is a good question and difficult to asses still nowadays.
First Antietam, I believe it was never considered a big victory like Vicksburg or Gettysburg. It was still considered a victory, and good enough for Lincoln to issue his Emancipation declaration, but for the public in general it was obscured by the fact it was the bloodiest day of the war up to then, and Lee left the field by extricating his troops over night which made a Union victory for the standards of the time. But it was an inconclusive victory anyway.
Reaction to Vicksburg and Gettysburg was quite different. On one hand Vicksburg was well documented and expected, Grant had put the city under siege for months and everyone expected the outcome, the campaign was well covered by the newspapers.
Gettysburg on the other hand just happened, and engagement was foreseen sooner or later as soon as both armies were set in motion, they should clash at one point.
Reaction to both victories varied however. Grant's victory was much praised, Meade's victory in Gettysburg however seems to have received some criticism specially from President Lincoln himself. Meade was criticized for not counterattacking and pursuing Lee's army to destroy it. Pemberton's army at Vicksburg collapsed and surrendered, the place was lost and the Mississippi river closed to the Confederacy. Gettysburg on the other hand represented no territorial gains, Lee's army retreated (with heavy losses and never to regain the initiative) but kept its cohesion to fight again for 2 more years, the Union army of the Potomac was heavily battered too after 3 days of fighting, and overall the South did not seem to have perceived it as a major defeat. Yes, Lee was repulsed and it was a setback but he was not bowed.
At the end after all these battles nobody could see a clear end to the war, and they were right as the war went on for 2 more years. Professor Gary Gallagher argues around it extensively.
Answering your question, Vicksburg seem to have had a greater impact on the American public in terms of victory perception. Vicksburg would also precipitate the rise of Grant as military commander in chief of all Union armies bringing a much needed change in the chain of command and a badly needed change in the Eastern theater and the overall Union strategy.
| [
"The Confederate and Union armies met at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1. The battle, fought over three days, resulted in the highest number of casualties in the war. Along with the Union victory in the Siege of Vicksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg is often referred to as a turning point in the war. Though the ba... |
please explain utilitarianism to me like i'm 5. | There's this Cookie Monster, and he's obsessed with getting cookies. Whatever gets him the most cookies is what makes him the happiest. So if by taking a cookie from someone, the Cookie Monster can get two cookies, even though the person you took the cookie from is losing a cookie, there's still a net gain of one cookie.
Utilitarianism is that idea on a grander scale. Whatever causes the greatest worldwide happiness is the best thing to. | [
"Utilitarianism (from the Latin utilis, useful) is a theory of ethics that prescribes the quantitative maximization of good consequences for a population. It is a form of consequentialism. This good to be maximized is usually happiness, pleasure, or preference satisfaction. Though some utilitarian theories might se... |
what do ionizers in airpurifiers do? | It introduces a mild charge to the small particles in the air, which makes them stick to things in the room rather than float around forever.
But on a practical level with consumer devices...i cant actually tell when they're on or off so i don't think they do much. I leave mine off for the most part. I wouldn't factor the ionizer into your decision at all.
I have cats, but I'm allergic to cats, so my allergy symptoms are a decent indicator of whether something works or not. | [
"Air ionisers are often used in places where work is done involving static-electricity-sensitive electronic components, to eliminate the build-up of static charges on non-conductors. As those elements are very sensitive to electricity, they cannot be grounded because the discharge will destroy them as well. Usually... |
how exactly are compounds named? | -ide is the suffix of any negatively charged anion, eg. the anion of chlorine (Cl) is called chloride (Cl^(-))
---
-ate and -ite are the suffixes of some polyatomic ions. That's a really messy topic to get in to and some of the naming isn't always logical.
Nitr**ate** is NO*_3_*^(-), nitr**ite** is NO*_2_*^-
Chlor**ate** is ClO*_3_*^(-), chlor**ite** is ClO*_2_*^- (also there is **per**chlor**ate** which is ClO*_4_*^(-) and **hypo**chlor**ite** which is ClO^(-)...)
Sulf**ate** is SO*_4_*^(2-), sulf**ite** is SO*_3_*^(2-)
Phosph**ate** is PO*_4_*^(3-), phosph**ite** is HPO*_3_*^(2-)
Which is which sort of just has to be memorised, sorry...
---
-ous and -ic have been depreciated but some syllabuses haven't been updated
-ous is the lower of two oxidation states, -ic is the higher, and this gets applied to the latin name eg. ferrous is iron(II) and ferric is iron(III), cuprous is copper(I) and cupric is copper(II). Like I said, this system has been depreciated, IUPAC recommends everyone uses names like iron(III) chloride instead of ferric chloride.
---
peroxide denotes an oxygen-oxygen single bond, hydrogen peroxide looks like this: H-O-O-H
permanganate is another polyatomic ion like the other -ate ones above...it is MnO*_4_*^- not to be confused with just regular manganate which is MnO*_4_*^(2-)...
---
As above the latin names have been depreciated, but you'll still have to learn them...
The modern way is to write the oxidation state in brackets immediately after the metal. | [
"The chemical names are the scientific names, based on the molecular structure of the drug. There are various systems of chemical nomenclature and thus various chemical names for any one substance. The most important is the IUPAC name. Chemical names are typically very long and too complex to be commonly used in re... |
I've read a little bit about the affects of THC on Cancer. Is any of this research substantial or is it just not known enough? | The research done in this paper was done to cell lines so it was not quite *in vivo*.
> One possible drawback could be that use of select CB2 agonists to kill tumor cells may also cause immunosuppression. Thus, further studies are necessary to address the relative sensitivity of normal and transformed immune cells to CB2 agonists in vivo.
The pathway they are testing here is very specific, so the researchers need to test it in a living specimen to see if they will get the same results. A lot can change from *in vitro* to *in vivo*. But it still is a cool study on THC. It was published in 2006 so there may be more modern articles | [
"While the mutagenic and genotoxic effects of TCDD are sometimes disputed and sometimes confirmed it does foster the development of cancer. Its main action in causing cancer is cancer promotion; it promotes the carcinogenicity initiated by other compounds. Very high doses may, in addition, cause cancer indirectly; ... |
why can dishwashers both wash and dry dishes, but clothes washers cannot wash and dry clothes? | Because clothes can't be tried as easily by just making them super hot like a dishwasher does. Since dishes don't absorb water, and they also don't burn.
Dual machines for clothes can and do exist, but they're more expensive, and more prone to failure. Since the two jobs are really quite different (and plenty of clothes can be machine washed but not machine tried) it just makes more sense to buy them separate. | [
"Dishwashing or dish washing, also known as washing up, is the process of cleaning cooking utensils, dishes, cutlery and other items to prevent foodborne illness. This is either achieved by hand in a sink using dishwashing detergent or by using a dishwasher and may take place in a kitchen, utility room, scullery or... |
Are there waves of air on top of our atmosphere like waves of water on the surface of the ocean? | Well, sort of.
There's no real top to our atmosphere the way there is a surface of the ocean - it just sort of gradually thins out.
With that said, though, both experience the same kind of [gravity waves](_URL_0_). Note these are not at all the same as *gravitational* waves you'd see around a black hole - similar name, very different phenomena. Gravity waves are essentially waves driven by a buoyancy force. In the ocean, you see them manifest as surface waves; in the atmosphere, they can sometimes be seen as undulations in clouds.
Gravity waves in the ocean break when they hit the beach. In the atmosphere, they tend to propagate upwards, breaking when the air gets so thin that it can't really carry them any more. There's good evidence to show that quite a few upper atmospheres are warmer than expected due to gravity waves breaking and depositing their energy at those locations. | [
"Most people think of waves as a surface phenomenon, which acts between water (as in lakes or oceans) and the air. Where low density water overlies high density water in the ocean, internal waves propagate along the boundary. They are especially common over the continental shelf regions of the world oceans and wher... |
If computers/electronics short circuit due to water damage, and if pure water does not carry current, could an electronic technically run under pure water? | Yes it's technically possible, but the hazard that water poses extends beyond simply shorting circuits. Water can be corrosive to a lot of the different metals and chemical on a circuit board and it can especially react when exposed to metal containing flowing current. However, a circuit would most certainly be able to survive much longer in distilled water than it would tap water.
One interesting fact about distilled water is that it is still slightly conductive! Even with 100% pure water, it will still be slightly conductive due to a thing called hydronium, however I'm not sure if this would be conductive enough to short any circuits. | [
"Water has been shown not to be a very reliable substance to store electric charge long term, so more reliable materials are used for capacitors in industrial applications. However water has the advantage of being self healing after a breakdown, and if the water is steadily circulated through a de-ionizing resin an... |
Why do wireless electronics only use 2.4 and 5ghz bands? | The relevant regulation can be found [in this Wikipedia page for ISM Band](_URL_0_). Your short range consumer electronics are designed to operate in the ISM band because it does not require a license.
The Wikipedia page for [frequency allocation](_URL_1_) will also give you an idea of what the other bands are used for. | [
"Because DECT specifications are different between countries, developers who use the same product across different countries have launched wireless headsets which use 2.4GHz RF as opposed to the 1.89 or 1.9 GHz in DECT. Almost all countries in the world have the 2.4 GHz band open for wireless communications, so hea... |
When was the last time a president was elected who was "filled in" during local ballots? | Just to clarify, as I think I understand what you're asking about, but I want to be sure, you're talking about a 'straight ticket' ballot [such as this one](_URL_0_)? | [
"The 1852 United States presidential election in Arkansas took place on November 2, 1852, as part of the 1852 United States presidential election. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.\n",
"The 1856 United States presidential election ... |
does the music you listen to in your childhood affect your future personality? | I truly think it has a great affect. I grew up listening to a lot of 60s and 70s rock, I still listen to it and it's shaped a lot of who I am and how I see the world. I love the lyrics, sound, expressionism and aesthetic. And I don't think I couldve gotten through the dark periods of my life without the wisdom those songs installed in me throughout my whole childhood. I sometimes feel as though I'm from that eras but reincarnated lol. Long live the hippie movement ✌️ | [
"Enculturation affects music memory in early childhood before a child's cognitive schemata for music is fully formed, perhaps beginning at as early as one year of age. Like adults, children are also better able to remember novel music from their native culture than from unfamiliar ones, although they are less capab... |
Did the people actually believe that World War I would be over by Christmas when it started or is that a common myth originated after the war? | Not my area of particular expertise, but the answer to this is, perhaps annoyingly: "yes and no."
To my reading the "no" camp-- that is, those who thought that a great power conflict in Europe would be a long, protracted conflict-- was relatively small but included some incredibly influential people involved in war strategy and planning on all sides including Kitchener, Haig, Falkenhayn and Joffre.
Those who thought the war would be over quickly, I think, have actually been widely misunderstood. "Over by Christmas" was not some pie-in-the-sky, chauvinistic belief in victory for one's own side; it was the necessary outcome given the strategies and assumptions employed on all sides about the consequences and nature of the coming conflict.
The German strategic necessity for a short war is perhaps the best illustration of this. The logic of the German Schlieffen plan was that the war *had* to be over quickly. That Germany *had* to knock out France and then pivot to knock out Russia because a protracted two-front conflict implied a German defeat once its much larger neighbors were able to reach full mobilization. Adding Britain to the side of the entente made that logic even clearer. A British naval blockade of of Germany would not be sustainable.
The assumptions of British war planning was a precise mirror image of that German concern. British war planners believed that a kind of "economic warfare" would devastate Germany. That lack of access not only to global shipping but to global *capital* out of the city of London would rapidly leave Germany impotent.
Thinking from a more global perspective there were also influential thinkers who thought that the devastation involved in a great power conflict would be so great as to not be possible to continue for more than a few months. British Admiral Beatty wrote:
> There is not sufficient money in the world to provide such a gigantic struggle to be continued for any great length of time.
He thought the war would be over by winter.
Jan Bloch's *The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic and Political Relations*, the abridged English translation of which was titled *Is War Now Impossible?* argued among other things that a great power war would bring about a kind of financial and economic apocalypse, and therefore couldn't be sustained.
(Mind you, he wasn't entirely wrong on that front. Britain had to back away from aspects of economic warfare plans when it became clear that it would be economic suicide. The outbreak of war nearly destroyed global financial markets and easily ranks alongside 1929 as one the great financial crises of the 20th century.)
In that sense many British thought that the war would be short, but knew that the longer it went on the more assured of victory they would be.
Politically, as Hew Strachan writes in his chapter on "The Short War Illusion":
> Both armies feared that general mobilization would give rise to strikes and demonstrations. They expected domestic disaffection to deepen rather than dissipate. After all, in the 1880s Engels had anticipated with relish the possibility of a war lasting three to four years precisely because it could create the conditions for the victory of the working class."
Logistically it was not thought that basic supplies could be long enough maintained. Strachan again:
> [The German general staff's] focus was less on the raw-material needs of the war industries than on the maintenance of food supplies. The initial involvement of the general staff in the issue of economic mobilization was motivated by the need to feed the army. Of related concern were the problem of liquidity (as cash was needed to buy food, fodder, and horses), and the interruption to civilian transport.... The possibility of domestic opposition to, and disruption of, its plans for war fed on the fear of socialism.
I'm less familiar with the popular understanding of a short war at the soldier's level, but Strachan writes that it was pervasive, and actually continued throughout the war, such that the end to the war was perpetually thought to be only months away even years into the conflict and that this attitude was nearly universal. This was not the result of kind of war enthusiasm or innocence that was then supplanted by disillusionment, however, so much as popular inability to conceive of the long war.
I think you'll agree that it's easy to see how many of these arguments might have seemed compelling, so I think it's also worth examining why they were wrong. As I already mentioned, one reason was that actually going ahead with total economic war nearly proved to be economic suicide for Britain and could not actually be carried out. German access to capital was reduced, but still possible via banking houses in neutral countries, which thrived during the war. Likewise, British shipping to neutral countries which then ultimately ended up in Germany was extensive.
Virtually all of the "knockout" war plans or battles on all sides failed, including the Schlieffen plan, the British attempts to force the Straits at Constantinople, the confrontation between the British navy and the German High Seas Fleet, and so on. In the case of the Ottoman campaigns which I'm most familiar with, the British simply constantly underestimated Ottoman capabilities and overestimated their own.
Michael Neiberg also makes what I think is a [great point](_URL_0_) which is that because virtually all sides viewed the conflict as defensive, there really were no clearly articulated strategic goals in the conflict. In Germany the scale of the conflict meant that in order to compensate for its losses, its war aims had [ballooned to such proportions that only a total defeat of the enemy could possibly accomplish them](_URL_1_) and made compromise impossible. It also explains why virtually every socialist party in Europe actually backed the war, thus delaying or averting the socio-political socialist nightmare that conservative war planners so feared.
Source wise:
Hew Strachan's *The First World War*, specifically as I said the section on the short war illusion.
Nicholas Lambert's *Planning Armageddon*, and his lecture ["The Short War Assumption".](_URL_2_)
That Michael Neiberg lecture that I linked too is excellent and that entire YouTube channel, the WWI Museum and Memorial, is great.
| [
"Traditional narratives of the war suggested that when the war began, both sides believed that the war would end quickly. Rhetorically speaking there was an expectation that the war would be \"over by Christmas\" 1914. This is important for the origins of the conflict since it suggests that since it was expected th... |
why is it impossible to fold a piece of paper in half more than eight times? | For a regular A4 at eight folds its 256 layers thick and since the paper is so small at that point the amount of space needed to make a fold in each of the 256 layers there isn't enough room.
However if you just get a bigger paper then you can, even though you are folding it by half each time.
_URL_0_ | [
"The maximum number of times an incompressible material can be folded has been derived. With each fold a certain amount of paper is lost to potential folding. The loss function for folding paper in half in a single direction was given to be formula_4, where \"L\" is the minimum length of the paper (or other materia... |
if lockpicking guides and tools are available widely, why are so few houses lockpicked into? | Its far easier and more efficient to break a window or kick in a door. | [
"Posession of lockpicking tools, such as a bump key, are highly regulated by criminal law in four states in the United States, and are considered prima facie evidence of a crime in another four states in the United States. They are generally legal in the remaining states within the U.S.\n",
"In some countries, su... |
Does light accelerate to the speed of light, or is it instantly the speed of light as soon as it is released from an electron? | They don't start off at zero, and there's no acceleration. They start off at c and always travel at c. This is because, due to special relativity, any massless particle can only ever move at c, any other speed isn't allowed physically. Source: [adamsolomon](_URL_0_) | [
"According to Einstein's theory of special relativity, as an electron's speed approaches the speed of light, from an observer's point of view its relativistic mass increases, thereby making it more and more difficult to accelerate it from within the observer's frame of reference. The speed of an electron can approa... |
when i'm hungover why do i always crave greasy foods like pizza rather than foods that are better for me? | Your body is depleted of various electrolytes and calories since alcohol zaps your blood sugar levels, and dehydrates you, fatty salty food is an efficient albeit unhealthy way to replenish those stores. | [
"Everyone relieves his weary limbs by partaking of dinner, but not to excess - for being filled to excess, even with bread on its own, gives rise to dissipation - rather, everyone receives a meal according to the varying condition of their bodies or their age. They do not serve dishes of different flavours, nor ric... |
why does this camera distortion happen? | That is buffeting. Something is shaking the back of a digital video camera. You're seeing the effect of that vibration beat frequency interacting with the camera's 50-60Hz frame rate. | [
"BULLET::::- Distortion is an aberration that causes straight lines to curve. It can be troublesome for architectural photography and metrology (photographic applications involving measurement). Distortion tends to be noticeable in low cost cameras, including cell phones, and low cost DSLR lenses. It is usually ver... |
what do car fog lights *actually* do? | Fog lights produce a short but wide beam spread which illuminates the road close to the front of the vehicle. The driver can then see the edges of the road and slightly ahead without the blinding glare primary headlights would create during a heavy fog.
My guess is only those who have been in a very thick fog or snowstorm appreciate the value of having fog lights -- the rest just have it for show. | [
"The respective purposes of front fog lamps and driving lamps are often confused, due in part to the misconception that fog lamps are necessarily selective yellow, while any auxiliary lamp that makes white light is a driving lamp. Automakers and aftermarket parts and accessories suppliers frequently refer interchan... |
is it true that consuming your own species' flesh can cause madness? | I think you’re thinking of Kuru. Here’s the definition:
Kuru is a very rare disease. It is caused by an infectious protein (prion) found in contaminated human brain tissue. Kuru is found among people from New Guinea who practiced a form of cannibalism in which they ate the brains of dead people as part of a funeral ritual. | [
"Although the dynamic of violent fantasy in lust murders is understood, an individual's violence fantasy alone is not enough to determine if an individual has or has not engaged in lust murder. Moreover, to conclude that an individual is a violent psychopath because they have drawn multitudes of violent images is o... |
does a person who has unprotected sex for 15 seconds have the same exposure to sti's that a person who has unprotected sex for 15 minutes? | No, person B has much more exposure to the STI. However, depending on the STI and whether the other person is actively showing symptoms, 15 seconds and 15 minutes might not make much of a difference in terms of whether or not the person gets infected. | [
"Lloyd Kolbe, director of the Center for Disease Control's Adolescent and School Health program, called the STI problem \"a serious epidemic.\" The younger an adolescent is when they first have any type of sexual relations, including oral sex, the more likely they are to get an STI.\n",
"Recent analysis suggests ... |
nyquist theorem perfect signal reproduction | The key element you are missing is the Nyquist limit. For perfect reconstruction the signal must have all frequencies at less than half the sampling rate. This limiting of the frequencies guarantees that only one continuous wave could have produced those samples. In the case you mentioned of sampling a sine wave at the peaks and troughs (which doesn't actually quite meet the Nyquist limit) cannot have been produced by a saw tooth wave. This is because a saw tooth wave would have very frequencies exceeding the Nyquist limit. A saw tooth wave isn't continuous either for that matter. | [
"A Nyquist plot is a parametric plot of a frequency response used in automatic control and signal processing. The most common use of Nyquist plots is for assessing the stability of a system with feedback. In Cartesian coordinates, the real part of the transfer function is plotted on the X axis. The imaginary part i... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.