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Steven Hawking's, in In To The Universe, just claimed that 10 minutes after the big bang the cosmos was already thousands of light-years in diameter; how can this be possible? | Expansion isn't measured in speed. The distances between two galaxies may increase due to expansion at such a rate that from Galaxy A's perspective, Galaxy B recedes at a "velocity" greater than the speed of light, but the key here is that it's not a real velocity. Nothing is actually moving. It's just the distance between them increasing, and therefore there is no limitation on the rate of expansion.
As for the video, it's probably talking about only the observable universe (the portion of the overall universe that we can directly observe) when it mentions "the cosmos." A good portion of the scientific community believes the universe is likely spatially infinite, and so it would have no finite diameter (and never would have). | [
"In 2010, Penrose reported possible evidence, based on concentric circles found in WMAP data of the CMB sky, of an earlier universe existing before the Big Bang of our own present universe. He mentions this evidence in the epilogue of his 2010 book \"Cycles of Time\", a book in which he presents his reasons, to do ... |
why are ahmadiyya muslims, who appear in the news when they are either helping a community or being murdered, hated by the muslim community? | Because Ahmadiyya represents a threat to the status quo and to the powers of the mullahs and politicians who use their false interpretations of islam for personal gain. Ahmadis are utterly peaceful and are only shown violence and oppression by the rest of the muslim world. Right away any rational person can see who would be following the true and real islam since islam is always said to be about peace. We have ahmadi's being murdered, and exiled and not lifting a finger in return, while on the other hand we have the rest of the muslim world raging and becoming very violent. Ahmadi's believe that the messiah of all religions has come, while other muslims still believe he will float down from the sky and perform magic. One is more rational than the others. It's scary for Ahmadi's that is why they are fleeing the regions of instability and going to places that respect the freedom of religion, while the oppressive countries are literally breaking apart from their own corruption and violence. It is like a sign that they don't see. | [
"Both Muslims and Jews have been targets for assault, discriminatory treatment, hate speech, and vandalism. Muslim organization leaders have asserted that many members of their community do not bother reporting anti-Muslim incidents because they do not believe that the police would address them seriously.\n",
"In... |
when did blue became the standard color for ball pens? | It really isn't the standard, but there's many reasons why it could be preferred by companies that manufacture pens. Here are some explanations.
For one, blue ink is distinguishable. If you're printing out a paper in greyscale, blue ink will stick out on the paper. This is especially important for official documentation such as what you get in the doctor's office. The color on the paper makes the person who's looking at it know exactly what you wrote without having to scan through the paper.
Also, blue ink makes an original document visible from copies. Since most copy machines use black and white printouts, the blue color of the pen makes the original document (the one scanned) easy to identify.
Another explanation is that blue ink writes better. The composition of the ink allows the pen to flow better on the paper.
And finally, there might not be a reason. It's likely that when different colors of ink were developed that people naturally developed a preference for blue. Like black ink, it's legible but unlike red ink, still easy to read. This is probably the more likely explanation. | [
"The use of blue as the second kit color dates from the 1930s, but it became the permanent second choice accidentally in the 1958 World Cup Final. Brazil's opponents were Sweden, who also wear yellow, and a draw gave the home team, Sweden, the right to play in yellow. Brazil, who travelled with no second kit, hurri... |
how do we know anything about the unobservable universe? | Strictly speaking we know NOTHING about the unobservable universe but we have no reason to think it's any different from what is observable.
Also an interesting fact about the rapid expansion of the universe billions of years means that the part of the universe that is observable is constantly increasing (and will continue increasing for billions more years until stuff starts to slip out of view), so we can "universalize" our current theories based on the new stuff that is slowly coming into view. | [
"The observable universe is one \"causal patch\" of a much larger unobservable universe; other parts of the Universe cannot communicate with Earth yet. These parts of the Universe are outside our current cosmological horizon. In the standard hot big bang model, without inflation, the cosmological horizon moves out,... |
how do ventilators help people breathe and are they complicated to manufacture? | They work by forcing air in and out of the lungs. Ventilation can be made using a machine or manually using a bag-valve-mask (BVM) device.
The main idea is to keep a good flow of air in and out and to ensure that a sufficient amount of the lungs is actually in use to allow the transfer of oxygen and carbon dioxide between to and from the blood.
The machines are simple in that all they have to do is pump air in and pump air out. The complex part is making sure that the lungs are not overinflated, not stressed and sufficient air/oxygen/carbon dioxide is supplied and exchanged. There are other factors as well but these are the main points.
As an example of a complicating factor, the rate at which air enters and leaves the lungs is not just constant in, then constant out, but follows a quite complex curve - not sure if you've seen the respiration flow traces on one of the monitors.
There are a number of mode of operation of these devices to assist not just in the flow of gasses but also to ensure that the speed of gas flow is correct, that "resting" periods take place and so on. In fact the air flow into the lungs is extremely complicated.
A very simple device but with many components to make it safer and more effective to use - this is what makes them complicated. Then there's all sorts of interesting issues regarding medical compliance, testing, certification and so on.
Hope this helps.
& #x200B;
Edit: received my first gold - thank you kind anonymous redditor! | [
"A medical ventilator (or simply ventilator in context) is a machine designed to provide mechanical ventilation by moving breathable air into and out of the lungs, to deliver breaths to a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently.\n",
"Ventilators come in many different styles and m... |
If heat and sound are both vibrations of molecules, what's the thing separating them? | There isn't really a clear dividing line, but heat energy is more random and represents energy that has spread out among all possible vibration modes, while a traveling sound wave will be more organized and concentrated in specific vibration modes. As sound dissipates into heat the energy spreads out into other modes of vibration until it is diluted as much as possible. | [
"Since sound waves are produced by a vibrating body, the vibrating object moves in one direction and compresses the air directly in front of it. As the vibrating object moves in the opposite direction, the pressure on the air is lessened so that an expansion, or rarefaction, of air molecules occurs. One compression... |
Historically, have we ever hit a "peak oil" like situation with other commodities? What should we expect? | The belief in peak 'x' has been very common in history. However what actually occurs isn't 'peak x', it's that innovation drives the search for substitutes and/or making the original issue irrelevant.
For instance, here's an extremely well written essay from Victorian times about their concept of peak coal:
[The Coal Question](_URL_2_) 1865
[The Limited nature of Coal in Great Britian](_URL_4_) 1798
[A general view of the coal trade](_URL_5_) 1812
> It chanced one day that Spilett was led to say, "But now, my dear Cyrus, all this industrial and commercial movement to which you predict a continual advance, does it not run the danger of being sooner or later completely stopped?"
> "Stopped! And by what?"
>
> "By the want of coal, which may justly be called the most precious of minerals." …
>
> "Oh! the veins of coal are still considerable, and the hundred thousand miners who annually extract from them a hundred millions of hundredweights have not nearly exhausted them."
>
> "With the increasing consumption of coal," replied Gideon Spilett, "it can be foreseen that the hundred thousand workmen will soon become two hundred thousand, and that the rate of extraction will be doubled."
>
> "Doubtless; but after the European mines, which will be soon worked more thoroughly with new machines, the American and Australian mines will for a long time yet provide for the consumption in trade."
>
> "For how long a time?" asked the reporter.
>
> "For at least two hundred and fifty or three hundred years."
>
> "That is reassuring for us, but a bad look-out for our great-grandchildren!" observed Pencroft.
>
> "They will discover something else," said Herbert.
>
> "It is to be hoped so," answered Spilett, "for without coal there would be no machinery, and without machinery there would be no railways, no steamers, no manufactories, nothing of that which is indispensable to modern civilization!"
>
> "But what will they find?" asked Pencroft. "Can you guess, captain?"
>
> "Nearly, my friend."
>
> "And what will they burn instead of coal?"
>
> "Water," replied Harding.
>
> "Water!" cried Pencroft, "water as fuel for steamers and engines! water to heat water!"
>
> "Yes, but water decomposed into its primitive elements," replied Cyrus Harding, "and decomposed doubtless, by electricity, which will then have become a powerful and manageable force, for all great discoveries, by some inexplicable laws, appear to agree and become complete at the same time. Yes, my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable. Some day the coalrooms of steamers and the tenders of locomotives will, instead of coal, be stored with these two condensed gases, which will burn in the furnaces with enormous calorific power. There is, therefore, nothing to fear. As long as the earth is inhabited it will supply the wants of its inhabitants, and there will be no want of either light or heat as long as the productions of the vegetable, mineral or animal kingdoms do not fail us. I believe, then, that when the deposits of coal are exhausted we shall heat and warm ourselves with water. Water will be the coal of the future."
>
> "I should like to see that," observed the sailor.
>
Jules Verne, [The Mysterious Island, ch. 33 ](_URL_1_)
While I'm on the subject of coal, early coal adoption itself was a response to the growing scarcity of wood in pre-industrial Britain. There weren't enough resources to support academics with peakesque theories back then, but if there had been there would undoubtedly been numerous papers outlining the vital problem of 'peak wood'.
To answer your question, while we have many, many fears of 'peak' like events occuring for various commodities ('Peak' Salt, Cotton, Indigo, Tin, Copper, Gold, and etc,) there never has been an actual coming true of the fearful predictions. I'd recommend you read [The Prize](_URL_0_), the Pulitzer winning history of the oil industry, to judge for yourself how likely the predictions of global doom as a result of 'peak oil' is.
More recently, Paul Ehrlich's 70s bestseller 'The Population Bomb' predicted peak just about everything. He was predicting peak copper, tin, grain, etc etc. Just as an example, he was predicting food riots in Kansas by 1985, and 'Great Britian will have ceased to exist as an entity' by 1990. His bet with Roger Simon, or the [Simon-Ehrlich bet](_URL_3_) proved rather disastrous for his own peak theories. But he's back, and peddling a remixed version of the Club of Rome's 1950s version of 'peak everything' last I heard.
| [
"In 2014, oil prices collapsed because of over-supply. In 2018, energy analyst Michael Lynch observed, “A decade ago the media was filled with stories about peak oil…even The Simpsons mentioned it in an episode…Now, the topic is largely forgotten.”\n",
"Major oil companies hit peak production in 2005. Several sou... |
common themes in latin american colonialism | The comparison between the late 20th century and the early 16th century is quite difficult to make. For earlier periods, there are individual cases (such as William Walker in Nicaragua in the 1850s) where so-called "filibusters" behaved almost exactly like conquistadors. They came from abroad with a small but well equipped military force, tried to overthrow the existing political structure. None of them were nearly so successful or enduring as the original Spanish conquest, but the behaviours and general strategy were not so different. In the early 20th century, the US more officially occupied many Central American and Caribbean nations, ostensibly in order to force the repayment of their bonds, but also to install US-friendly governments, force unequal treaties, and in one case, build a strategically and economically relevant canal through the Isthmus of Panama. This is the era of gunboat diplomacy and the Roosevelt Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine. But none of this very direct intervention is in the time period you asked about.
Post-WWII, the United States has made plenty of attempts to influence the government of Latin America ranging from subtle pressure to direct military and intelligence support for a coup d'etat, either in the style of Pinochet overthrowing Allende in Chile, or the Bay of Pigs invasion (See: John Coatsworth, "Liberalism and Big Sticks" for a good overview). However, it has refrained in basically all cases from either direct invasion with American troops or direct governance of any Latin American territories. Insofar as what the conquistadors did was show up with an army, use a combination of violence and manipulating local politics to establish control, then rule in perpetuity as the new colonial elite, this is not something that has happened anywhere since WWII.
If one were to try and draw similarities, I suppose one could say that supporting one friendly local faction against another rival faction by giving them the advantages of cutting-edge (literally, in the conquistators' case) weaponry and tactics is common between both eras. Otherwise, the ways in which the United States exercised its influence in the region is almost entirely distinct from how the conquistadors did it five hundred years ago. Indeed, many of the most important channels of US influence (intelligence, debt negotiations, trade negotiations, foreign investment, military advisers) were basically unknown or irrelevant at the time of conquest. Overall, I would be very hesitant to make this comparison at all.
Edit: It is worth noting that there are a few exceptions here: the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the intervention in the Dominican civil war in the 1960s, and the US occupation of Haiti in the 1990s. All of these were relatively brief interventions, and were justified to the world as humanitarian in nature. And, of course, the US never did stop governing Puerto Rico, which remains a US dependency today, though it was not acquired in the late 20th century. | [
"Latin America experienced independence revolutions in the early 19th century that separated the colonies from Spain and Portugal, creating new nations. These movements were generally led by the ethnically Spanish but locally born Creole class; these were often wealthy citizens that held high positions of power but... |
why do dogs have random patches of differently colored fur? | The hair color is determine by two different genes and when the genes are differenr both of the genes get expressed fully (e.g. black and white spots vs gray) | [
"During evolution of the dog from their wild wolf ancestors, coat colors in dogs were probably the inadvertent outcome of some other selective process (i.e., selection for tameness), and were not likely initially selected for intentionally by humans. Research has found that tameness brings associated physical chang... |
Did the U.S. have any election irregularities in its early days? | The Broad Seal War comes to mind. In the election of 1838, there was a difficulty with the election results from New Jersey. At the time, elections for New Jersey congressional representatives were determined by vote taken from the entire state. NJ had no congressional districts and no electors. The election results that year for the US House of Representatives between the Democratic ticket and the Whig ticket were very close--something like only 100 votes.
It was discovered later that the one of the county clerks in NJ threw out the election results for a couple of towns (thus favoring the Whigs) because they hadn't been properly sealed by the town clerks--some said he threw them out on a technicality that would normally be overlooked and others claimed that the votes had been opened and tampered with.
So when it came time to seat the members of the House of Representatives in December, the clerk began to call the roll and then everything got into an uproar when he reached New Jersey and he couldn't figure what names to call because both delegations from the Democrats and the Whigs had come to the House to be seated. Not counting the NJ delegation (6 seats), the House consisted of 119 Democrats and 118 Whigs. Needless to say, the NJ delegation would tip the balance of power.
The dispute grew so heated that the House was unable to organize itself and couldn't even manage to elect a speaker of the house for a couple of weeks--business that's usually over and done the first day of the session. Once the House finally organized, neither NJ delegation was seated while the matter was investigated. Basically, NJ remained unrepresented in the House until March when the NJ Democrats were seated and served the remainder of their terms.
So, in that case, anyway, there wasn't anything like an international observer around, and it doesn't seem that there was wide-spread national irregularities, but apparently the actions of relatively few people within a single county in New Jersey had a significant national consequence in the election of 1838.
[Source (warning, pdf file)](_URL_0_). | [
"In the 1876 election, disputes regarding 20 electoral votes in four states, along with multiple allegations of vote fraud, sparked an intense political battle and effectively invalidated the election. This constitutional crisis was resolved only two days before the scheduled inauguration through the Compromise of ... |
the period between donating blood | Based on averages and to be safe.
The cost, time and effort to take exactly the maximum safe amount of blood at the soonest possible time would be inefficient. | [
"The campaign has clarified that donating blood is a permitted and, in fact, a recommended act in Islam. Some eminent religious scholars have issued information regarding the donating of blood and shown support for the campaign.\n",
"A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for t... |
why doesnt black absorb all light? | Black obsorbs all colours equally, but not 100% of everything. "blacker" black obsorbs more.
Also a surface can have texture that changes how it reflect light, compare a shiny black glass vs a slightly rippled textured black keyboard vs really matte black paint. | [
"Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in th... |
how does a turtle’s shell grow while the turtle grows? what is it made of? | The shell is made up of panel-like things called scutes. With most types of turtles, these scutes shed periodically to allow bigger scutes to form. They are made out of keratin - same as human hair & nails.
Source: I’m a turtle fan. | [
"The turtle shell is a highly complicated shield for the ventral and dorsal parts of turtles, tortoises and terrapins (all classified as \"turtles\" by zoologists), completely enclosing all the vital organs of the turtle and in some cases even the head. It is constructed of modified bony elements such as the ribs, ... |
Can there be incomplete annihilation? | Protons and neutrons contain more than just 3 quarks. There are gluons holding them together, gluons interacting with other gluons, and gluons can spontaneously form temporary quark-antiquark pairs (called "sea quarks").
The 3 permanent quarks are called valence quarks. They give the particle its properties.
This is also true for all baryons and other hadrons, e.g. mesons are more than just a quark-antiquark pair.
Proton-antiproton annihilation is a very messy process because of this. It's not only possible for the annihilation to be 'incomplete', as you put it, it's pretty much guaranteed. | [
"In particle physics, annihilation is the process that occurs when a subatomic particle collides with its respective antiparticle to produce other particles, such as an electron colliding with a positron to produce two photons. The total energy and momentum of the initial pair are conserved in the process and distr... |
the difference between adverbs and adverbials. | An adverb is a word, an adverbial is a group of words, phrase or clause which acts as an adverb. | [
"In English, adverbials most commonly take the form of adverbs, adverb phrases, temporal noun phrases or prepositional phrases. Many types of adverbials (for instance: reason and condition) are often expressed by clauses.\n",
"In grammar, an adverbial (abbreviated ) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an a... |
difference between marxism and cultural marxism? | **Marxism** - The ELI5 version is that economics dominates and explains human society. Specifically, by looking at how capital is distributed you can explain and predict how society will be organized. It also predicts, based on history and a particular view on how technology will develop, that one day the world will end up at a point where there are no economic "classes" and everyone jointly owns everything, working according to how they can, and getting what they need.
**Cultural Marxism (actual)** - Is an offshoot of Marxism saying that to understand society, especially western society, you need to look not just at how capital and money is distributed but also at the cultural systems that maintain society a certain way. So, for instance, a regular Marxist might say that you have slavery because it's a society with a certain level of land ownership and technology that makes slavery worthwhile and that as technology develops (say that makes land easier to work) slavery, and the cultural things that justify it, will go away. A cultural Marxist would say that underestimates the sttenght of those cultural things, so, for instance, better technology might make slavery less profitable, but it will hang around because some religion associated with slavery, that made everyone believe slavery is okay, will keep social roles the same even as technology shits.
Ultimately, it's not really that different, it's more a matter of emphasis and timing. In the West, a Cultural Marxist is different from a Marxist, because the Cultural Marxist focuses on talking about how the cultural keeps classes around, rather than about how economics explains everything. So a "cultural Marxist" professor in the 1970s when it was very popular might teach a class saying that poverty exists in part because the belief that the individual work ethic is important inhibits people from sharing what they produce with others who are less able to work.
**Cultural marxist (as heard on TV) ** - This is basically used to mean anyone more to the left on the political spectrum the the speaker. It is meant to carry the connotation that they are someone who not only disagrees about some policy---say, they support the minimum wage or they think that prayer in school shouldn't be mandatory---but who also hates Western society at a fundamental level, thinking that it is inherently bad for poor people or all people. Ultimately, at this point, it's really just a bad sounding word that means "anti-work" or "anti-religion" or "anti-american." | [
"Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation, analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development and takes a dialectical view of social transformation. While it originates from the works of 19th centur... |
why do cities and towns "stagger" stoplights so that no matter your timing you'll always be caught at a light? | Background: Served on Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for a major Canadian city. Involved in design/implementation of roadworks, including intelligent stoplight systems.
Some background on stoplights:
There are multiple kinds of stoplights, the most basic just running on a simple timer-based system. Every so many seconds, the lights change, but there is no awareness of the traffic conditions.
Some more advanced stoplights contain vehicle sensors embedded in the roadway at or before the stop line. These sensors feed information into the light control system, allowing it to make intelligent decisions. For instance, if you have a minor road intersecting a major road, there may be sensors placed on the minor road, so that the lights only cycle when there is a car waiting to cross. Sometimes they are used to signal a preemptive left turn light. The civil engineers will space out two sensors 4-5 car lengths apart, and if both sensors are covered it means there are at least that many cars queuing, and the advance left will allow those cars to proceed first. Most major intersections have at least a few roadway sensors.
The most advanced systems allow the lights to communicate and can be timed to allow waves of traffic. In my city, there is an Intersection Control Centre, with live feeds from cameras at each intersection, and the ability to adjust intersection timings on the fly. Priority routes are identified, along with traffic flows during certain times of the day. The stoplights along these priority routes are then synchronized, taking into account the relative speed of the traffic and the speed limits. If you're going with the priority flow of traffic, you'll hit at most one red light, after which point you'll be synchronized with the traffic flow, and you should hit all greens, as long as you drive the speed limit. If you drive too fast, you'll hit each red just as it turns green.
If you're hitting all the reds, you might be going in the wrong direction, or you're just really unlucky. I highly doubt that your city is specifically engineering the light cycles to slow you down. If anything, they'd be aiming to speed you up.
EDIT:
So this blew up overnight. I'll try to answer a bunch of questions that people have had.
I'm not an industry professional, I've just been in the scene with them for awhile. I work in IT, not traffic engineering.
0. There's no big "Traffic Engineering" bible that every engineer uses. Different cities can do wildly different things, and all we can do is speculate. There's no way to answer "My road is optimized for exactly 42mph at 11am, why is that?"
1. People are really good at finding patterns where there aren't any. Conspiracy theorists abound! If the lights in your city are messing with you, they probably aren't. Having said that, weirder things have happened. *shrug* It's certainly possible for clever engineers to slow traffic down or to speed traffic up. I'd bet dollars to donuts that they do this in Vegas, as many people have mentioned. A few people have also mentioned that the lights are used to prevent speeders, another plausible possibility. It really depends on your city and the engineers.
2. "aiming to speed you up" is meant within reason. I'm talking about a jam packed 6 lane road where coordinated light cycles can mean the difference between 40km/h and 50km/h. At night, the lights probably ARE optimized to dissuade people from speeding/racing.
3. Buses and emergency services usually have preemtion devices to allow them to hold a green or switch to a green (usually respectively. I know that buses where I live aren't able to force a red to a green, but fire trucks can)
4. The roadway sensors use magnetic induction to detect when a large chunk of metal is above them, e.g. your car. It's not by weight or pressure, you don't need to hit them exactly or run them over, you just need to get your car near them. The preemption devices mentioned above use special strobe lights (or wireless in higher-tech systems), so flashing your high beams probably isn't gonna do dick, unless you can flash your high beams 20 times per second. | [
"A modest steady light at the intersection of two roads is an aid to navigation because it helps a driver see the location of a side road as they come closer to it and they can adjust their braking and know exactly where to turn if they intend to leave the main road or see vehicles or pedestrians. A beacon light's ... |
how does “night mode” work for iphone pictures? | It keeps the shutter open a little longer to allow more light in. It mixes that with some digital brightening that makes some noise, so depending on the situation, it takes 2 or a few photos and combines them and it puts those photos on top of each other and the artificial intelligence does its thing to best reduce noise. Imagine a checkered board and in this boxes, there are many different shapes. You memorise some of those shapes and position and your friend memorises a few more and another friend memorises the last few.
So put together all your work and you have the complete checkerboard. If you were doing this alone, you'd try to fill in this empty boxes with whatever you think is right. Those things you think is right are actually wrong and that is the noise you get when you take photos at night without night mode. | [
"The iPhone 3GS's camera app features a slider which allows users to switch between capturing photos and recording videos, a tap-to-focus feature which allows users to tap on an area of the camera image to auto-focus on, 5x digital zoom (iOS 4 or later), auto focus and auto exposure lock when holding an area down (... |
Why are so many organic molecules yellow or orangish? | In my limited experience (Chemistry undergrad, BioPhysics grad school work), the smaller ring structures and smaller conjugated bond paths absorb larger amounts of energy (the blue, purple, green, etc), which means that the energy that passes through the solution is what's left, (the orange, red, yellow, etc).
I can't confirm, and I don't have a source, but that was the way it was explained to me once. | [
"Melanophores contain eumelanin, a type of melanin, that appears black or dark-brown because of its light absorbing qualities. It is packaged in vesicles called melanosomes and distributed throughout the cell. Eumelanin is generated from tyrosine in a series of catalysed chemical reactions. It is a complex chemical... |
Were stone carvings in ancient, medieval, or renaissance sculptures painted or colored? | Frequently, yes.
Ancient sculptures were almost always painted. Here's an article about how traces of this paint can be detected scientifically: _URL_3_
Here's a reconstruction of what classical sculptures might have looked like originally, when painted: _URL_4_
And here's an older article with some history about the rediscovery of paint on ancient sculptures: _URL_0_
This holds true in the middle ages as well.
For example, the stone crosses you see in parts of England from the anglo-saxon period were entirely painted, and fitted with metal and glass inserts to add sparkle as well as color.
Here's a good article about one such cross: _URL_5_
And here's a reconstruction of the paint on another cross: _URL_2_
Sometimes traces of the medieval paint survive. More frequently, they were cleaned off of medieval buildings and sculptures because, as the paint aged and started to flake, people decided it was unattractive. Sometimes paint was stripped from a decorated building because it was thought to have been a later addition, and the building would look more 'original' without the paint (sometimes, original medieval paint was removed by such well-meaning restorations!).
There are a few interesting restoration projects in the UK right now which are repainting medieval sculptures and buildings their original colors (when evidence survives) - [Stirling Castle](_URL_1_) in Scotland is great example. The result looks very different from the grey middle ages we usually imagine! | [
"Ivory carvings, often for book covers, drew on the diptychs of Late Antiquity. For example, the front and back covers of the Lorsch Gospels are of a 6th-century Imperial triumph, adapted to the triumph of Christ and the Virgin. However they also drew on the Insular tradition, especially for decorative detail, whil... |
Would it be possible to build a predictive model of chemistry? | Density functional theory (DFT) does this quite well by solving the quantum mechanical calculations for molecules or materials. Often it is predictive, but not perfect in most cases.
_URL_0_ has a huge database of material compautations, and works towards predicting performance in batteries, Thermoelectrics, and photovoltaics.
There are several other examples of these materials genome project type computational databases.
In fact, there is a whole field on computational chemistry working to do exactly what you are asking.
| [
"Second, semi-empirical models solve rate equations that are calibrated using experimental data. Semi-empirical models reduce computational costs primarily by simplifying the chemistry in soot formation and oxidation. Semi-empirical models reduce the size of chemical mechanisms and use simpler molecules, such as ac... |
how are you supposed to know if a self diagnosed mental illness isn't just the placebo effect? | Its easy...a self diagnosed mental illness isnt the placebo effect. It cant be. The Placebo Effectis a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.
Now you could mean....
Hypochondria
somatic symptom disorder
or maybe even...
Munchausen syndrome
Take your pick,
the answer to your question is STOP SELF DIAGNOSING. Go see a professional.
| [
"The presence of self-disorders may have predictive power for whether those with an at risk mental state will develop psychosis; the risk of suicidal ideation and suicide by people with schizophrenia, though depression would also be an important factor; predicting initial social dysfunction in people with either sc... |
how do people die from strangulation but wake up from being choked / knocked out? | Because when you choke someone out in a martial arts setting, or knock them unconscious, you immediately cease the attack and allow them to recover. I promise, if you continued your choke for even a fairly short period of time after they pass out, you are likely going to kill them or severely injure them at the least. | [
"In a \"short drop\", the victim may die from strangulation, in which the death may result from a lack of oxygen to the brain. The victim is likely to experience hypoxia, skin tingling, dizziness, vision narrowing, convulsions, shock, and acute respiratory acidosis. One or both carotid arteries and/or the jugular v... |
What is located in the area that would otherwise be a uterus if a man were a woman? | The base of the penis is where the vagina would be, the prostate is roughly where the cervix would be and the bladder is where the body of the uterus would be (the male bladder is larger).
The non pregnant uterus is not that big, about the size of a clenched fist. | [
"The uterus (from Latin \"uterus\", plural \"uteri\") or womb is a major female hormone-responsive secondary sex organ of the reproductive system in humans and most other mammals. In the human, the lower end of the uterus, the cervix, opens into the vagina, while the upper end, the fundus, is connected to the fallo... |
why do modern ultraportable laptops only have a 32/64gb ssd, when netbooks, which were even smaller, commonly had 120gb hard drives? | Those larger hard drives were mechanical drives which compared to SSD's, are very slow and more prone to damage since it's getting bumped around all the time.
SSD's of the same size (or higher) go up significantly in price.
It's a mix between improving speed and keeping costs low. | [
"Most laptops can contain a single 2.5-inch drive, but a small number of laptops with a screen wider than 15 inches can house two drives. Some laptops support a hybrid mode, combining a 2.5-inch drive, typically a spacious HDD for data, with an mSATA or M.2 SDD drive, typically having less capacity, but a significa... |
since it's illegal for children to purchase cigarettes, why isn't forcing 2nd hand smoke on them also illegal? | It's not illegal for children to buy cigarettes. It's illegal for shops to sell cigarettes to children. In other words, you can't make money off of children consuming tobacco.The difference there kind of defeats the parallel you were drawing. | [
"BULLET::::- Even though all sales of tobacco products are prohibited to minors since 1 September 2007 the sale of smoking accessories such as bongs, hookahs, cigarette papers, lighters, pipes or herb grinders is not regulated, and thus sale is permitted to minors. However, in Bavaria the sale of lighters is prohib... |
what makes guitars that expensive? | Guitars are actually among the cheapest, most mass-produced instruments. Beginner flutes *start* at around $500. Beginner tubas... oh my god please don't let my child get interested in the tuba. Guitars are much more affordable as they are a very popular instrument, and competition is fierce among guitar manufacturers. Thusly, you can find excellent beginner guitars in the $300-$400 range that may last many decades if treated well. I have 6 guitars and still have the MIM Stratocaster I learned on that was $350. Still plays great even though I've moved on to more advanced axes.
Cost of the guitar stems from many things:
-Popularity. A "normal" cut guitar like a stratocaster will be cheaper because they are tremendously mass produced. The company can pump out thousands of bodies and slap different hardware into them, and that's 2/3 of their entire product line. This brings costs down tremendously. A guitar with a unique shape requires a different process, or may need to be hand crafted.
- Hardware. Pickups, for example, can vary widely in cost. Low-end guitars come with less expensive hardware, and likely a generic version made by the guitar manufacturer. More expensive guitars often have pickups from a dedicated pickup manufacturer, like Seymour Duncan or EMG, or may have an active electronic internal preamp. Note companies like Fender or Gibson make their own pickups for most of their guitars, and many of them are very high quality.
- Uniqueness. If you're just starting out and you want a cheap axe to learn on, you're not going to be dropping $1k+ on a guitar. You're also not gonna care if it has a cool paint job because a black guitar looks cool too. So when they do the sunburst flame patterns and shit, they can mark it up because they know mostly hardcore guitarists, guitar collectors, or kids with rich ass parents are going to be buying them.
Many other things to take into account... craftsmanship, materials down to the wood type used, etc. Also, some guitars are designed by famous guitarists, e.g. Steve Vai's Ibanez line, Joe Satriani's Ibanez line, Tremonti's PRS line, Kirk Hammett's ESPs, etc. These guitars may be marked up because of the unique design, and the "famousness" of the person they were designed for. That said, Tremonti's PRS is awesome and is actually cheaper than most PRSs. Also, the JS Ibanez series are excellent guitars and not outrageously expensive. | [
"Their guitars are often perceived as expensive. Some of their well-known models having expensive options, e.g., one review lists the Don Edwards signature model \"Cowboy Singer\" at (approx. as of March 2012). Other models are priced similar to equivalently featured instruments from other makers.\n",
"The compan... |
g-force - what is it and how does it injure/kill? | G-Force is just a shorthand way of referring to a force using the force of gravity as a reference.
& #x200B;
So 1G is the same as the force we feel due to gravity. This feels like almost no force at all because we feel it act on us all the time. 2Gs would be twice the normal force of gravity and 3Gs would be 3 times the force etc.
It injures you and kills you the same way force from anything else would. It crushes you causing your internal organs to compact and your bones to break. | [
"G-force induced loss of consciousness (abbreviated as G-LOC, pronounced 'JEE-lock') is a term generally used in aerospace physiology to describe a loss of consciousness occurring from excessive and sustained g-forces draining blood away from the brain causing cerebral hypoxia. The condition is most likely to affec... |
Why does Turner's syndrome have any effects at all? | Even though one X chromosome is transformed into a Barr body, some of its genes are still expressed. They're called the [pseudoautosomal regions](_URL_0_), of which there are two. The article linked contains a section on Turner syndrome and its probable pathology. | [
"Turner syndrome is caused by the absence of one complete or partial copy of the X chromosome in some or all the cells. The abnormal cells may have only one X (monosomy) (45,X) or they may be affected by one of several types of partial monosomy like a deletion of the short p arm of one X chromosome (46,X,del(Xp)) o... |
How is this possible!? | In the past there have been people who have been revived after a hour underwater. Some time ago I was watching a lifeguard show, and they claimed that once an hour pasts of a person missing in water it becomes a search and recover, not search and rescue. All I could find on the subject was this [article on a 2 year old under](_URL_0_) the water for an hour. | [
"Create Something from Nothing: A strategy to make an audience believe of something’s existence, when it in fact does not exist. On the flip side, it can be used to convince others that nothing exists, when something does exist. (Ch. 36)\n",
"Anything Is Possible is a 2017 novel of related stories by Elizabeth St... |
why does the usa still have an embargo against cuba? | The older Cuban-American generation is vehemently anti-communist and, therefore, very pro-Republican. They're adamantly opposed to lifting the embargo. They're a powerful constituency group within the Republican Party, and they happen to be centralized in a major battleground state.
TL/DR: Older Cuban-Americans are politically important and won't let it happen.
Source: I work with the GOP.
EDIT: Changed 'Cubans' to 'Cuban-Americans' to avoid confusion.
| [
"During the 1990s the ongoing United States embargo against Cuba caused problems due to restrictions on the export of medicines from the US to Cuba. In 1992 the US embargo was made more stringent with the passage of the Cuban Democracy Act resulting in all U.S. subsidiary trade, including trade in food and medicine... |
if you are short-sighted, is it better for your eyes/eyesight to wear your glasses in front of a computer screen? | Um, wut? I'd have to be 3 inches or less from the screen to read it. This is not a thing for me. | [
"Reading glasses provide a separate set of glasses for focusing on close-by objects. Reading glasses are available without prescription from drugstores, and offer a cheap, practical solution, though these have a pair of simple lenses of equal power, so will not correct refraction problems like astigmatism or refrac... |
How do cold blooded animals cope in colder climates? Do they feel such things such as brain freeze? Is there any examples any cold blooded creatures living in the cold? | Cold blooded animals are actually newly classified as endothermic organisms, such that they need to take in external energy in the form of heat in order to survive. Their blood is not cold, as the original classification would suggest. Therefore, in an absence of heat, they can not support metabolic processes and their cells would die due to the lack of function. This is not "brain freeze" which is actually more of a nerve response to the cold, but rather an inability to survive in the environment. Think about throwing you, naked, into the tundra. You wouldn't last very long and you would suffer from many medical issues leading to death secondary to hypothermia. | [
"Some animals living in cold environments maintain their body temperature by preventing heat loss. Their fur grows more densely to increase the amount of insulation. Some animals are regionally heterothermic and are able to allow their less insulated extremities to cool to temperatures much lower than their core te... |
Did the Norse colonies of Greenland make contact with any Inuit tribes? If so were there any records of interaction? Conflict? Trade? | Yes, the Norse called them *Skraelings*. The relationship between the Norse and the skraelings appears to have been mostly belligerent until the abandonment of the Greenland colonies. | [
"Although Greenland seems to have been uninhabited at the time of initial Norse settlement, the Thule people migrated south and finally came into contact with the Norse in the 12th century. There are limited sources showing the two cultures interacting; however, scholars know that the Norse referred to the Inuit (a... |
why do video games ship with unused files and portions of code? | Back when memory was a hot commodity, yes, it did take away and would've caused issues.
Today, it's easy enough to fit a whole game onto a disc (or if you're downloading it, the size only matters insofar as how much space your client has).
A lot of game companies work with pretty tight deadlines as it is, and in many software projects, not just gaming, there's always a list of things "we'd like to get to at some point". Code/resource cleanup is usually on that list, but with space being as cheap as it is nowadays, it falls to a pretty low priority.
On top of that, unless you're the person that actually included that resource into the program, there's no way to know for sure that it truly ISN'T being used anywhere without fully testing the game/application. What if that model that used to be a main character is now being referenced as some random citizen walking around? If I remove it, and the game tries to load that character, it could crash. Better to just leave it alone unless you have time to fully clean up the game folder AND retest the entire app (note: that'll never happen). | [
"“ as it is impossible to reproduce the storage of the game code from the RAM of the PlayStation console unless the console is modified with additional, reverse-engineered hardware, it is not possible for the code to be reproduced until that modification occurs. Thus, the definition of “material form” is not satisf... |
Why do some animals produce more offspring than other animals? | Animals are grouped according to their reproductive strategy by r/K selection theory. r types tend to produce a lot of offspring, hoping that a few will survive. These animals tend to be smaller, lower on the food chain, or less complex organisms. Insects, fish, and rodents are good exampes of this strategy.
By contrast, K types produce fewer offspring less frequently and spend more energy raising and protecting their young. Humans do this, as do elephants, bears, and dolphins. | [
"Animals frequently display grouping behavior in herds, swarms, flocks, or colonies, and these multiple births derive similar advantages. A litter offers some protection from predation, not particularly to the individual young but to the parents' investment in breeding. With multiple young, predators could eat seve... |
why is pirating more socially accepted than other copyright infringement crimes? | This is just a guess, but I think there's a perception amongst most folks that certain products are way overpriced, and the pirating of them is either an act of defiance or an act of desperation.
Back in the day before interney piracy was "mainstream," there were tons of people who still pirated copies of software like Photoshop because it was expensive and they didn't have a legit way to get it otherwise. Companies weren't really losing sales because for the most part people downloading weren't potential customers under the existing business plan anyway. The downloading actually sort of helped some of those companies because it increased familiarity with their products and helped them become standards in their industry.
Music piracy is what really brought online piracy to the mainstream, and that's when the defiant streak really kicked in. At the turn of the century, the record industry was really gouging the public with inflated CD prices (MSRP was around $18.99 at the time). When Napster and other file-sharing services arrived, people delighted in getting a bunch of free music and giving the industry the middle finger. For many, it didn't feel like theft when they were stealing from powerful conglomerates that had been screwing them for years; it felt like payback.
Eventually the industry was overhauled and a more sensible business model was put in place, but by then the damage had been done. The "free stuff" mentality had already taken hold and spread to just about every type of media.
I think that the current mentality is a combination of young people who grew up in an age of "free stuff" and older people who still have lingering bitterness about being gouged (or at least have sympathy for those who don't want to pay what they feel are unfair prices). Had the industries in question developed a more pro-consumer mentality earlier in the game, there probably wouldn't have been such a mad rush to steal from them when the opportunity arose.
| [
"Assigning criminal liability to copyright violations is troubling in light of the general justifications of criminal sanction to punish harms to individuals or national policies, or to foster moral behavior that implicates societal interests. In many cases what counts as criminal infringement or “theft” under the ... |
why is it that most people can hold their breath for at least one minute, but if you’re ‘choked out’, you can go unconscious from lack of oxygen in roughly 10 seconds? | a headlock restricts blood flow to your brain by blocking your artery. that has a far more immediate effect than holding your breath. | [
"If not enough oxygen is added, the concentration of oxygen in the loop may be too low to support life. In humans, the urge to breathe is normally caused by a build-up of carbon dioxide in the blood, rather than lack of oxygen. Hypoxia can cause blackout with little or no warning, followed by death.\n",
"Voluntar... |
- why a government would 'peg' a currency to, say, the us dollar, and why a less-valuable currency is better for foreign trade. | Let's say I owed you $100, and instead of cash, I try to pay you back with $100 of McDonald's gift certificates. After all, $100 is $100, right?
You probably won't like that. You could only spend that $100 at McDonald's, and if they decided to raise their prices, that $100 wouldn't get you as much as it would at Burger King.
That's what getting paid in a small foreign currency is like. It is only worth something in that country, and if they have economic problems, it can suddenly be worth a lot less.
But what if instead of McDonald's, I offer to give you a $100 Amazon gift card. You'd be much more likely to accept that, because while it isn't cash, Amazon is so big you'll probably find something you want there. Plus it is unlikely they are going to raise all their prices all at once, so the value of the gift card isn't at risk.
That's kind of what happens when you have a pegged currency. It is not US currency, but the government promises to give you US currency for it if you want. They might not be able to always make good on their promise, but it is better than McDonald's. | [
"Another, less used means of maintaining a fixed exchange rate is by simply making it illegal to trade currency at any other rate. This is difficult to enforce and often leads to a black market in foreign currency. Nonetheless, some countries are highly successful at using this method due to government monopolies o... |
regarding ice (frozen water not the drug), why is there a white centre and a clear shell? | As it freezes, air bubbles form and cause the cloudy appearance you're talking about. The bubbles come from gases dissolved in the water in its liquid state which are forced out as the water crystallizes.
It's possible to freeze ice in a clear form by boiling it first, which liberates the dissolved gases. | [
"The easiest way to envision this scenario, i.e. the advantage of using these chemistries without a MFC) is to fill two cylindrical glass containers, one with hexanes (a high vapor pressure liquid) and one with dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). As the hexane vaporizes the liquid surface is flat and the total exposed ... |
cancer cure that scientists recently claimed to be one year away | The treatment which the biotech company calls MuTaTo (multi-target toxin) is based on SoAP technology, which belongs to the phage display group of technologies.
CEO of the biotech company Dr Ilan Morad said they started with identifying why other cancer-related drugs and treatment are not working and then they looked for an effective way to counter it.
Most cancer drugs attack a specific target or on the cancer cell, but MuTaTo attacks the cancer cell's receptors from three different directions. “Instead of attacking receptors one at a time, we attack receptors three at a time. Not even cancer can mutate three receptors at one time," said Morad, to the daily newspaper.
After a successful mice trail, Morad said that the company is now preparing to try medicines on humans through this year. Following this, they will introduce the medicine in the market by next year. | [
"BULLET::::- Scientists achieve a breakthrough in finding a general cure for cancer by attaching malaria proteins to cancer cells, which appears effective on 90% of cancer types. Human trials are expected to begin within four years.\n",
"A \"Fact Sheet\" issued by the IDPH accompanying the study released on March... |
In calculating standard deviation, why do you square the variances instead of taking the absolute value of the variances? | The distance between the coordinates (a,b) and (c,d) is
* sqrt((a-c)^(2)+(b-d)^(2))
This extrapolates to any dimension really well. For example, in n dimensions, the distance between the points (a*_1_*,a*_2_*,...,a*_n_*) and (b*_1_*,b*_2_*,...,b*_n_*) is
* sqrt((a*_1_*-b*_1_*)^(2) + (a*_2_*-b*_2_*)^(2) + ... + (a*_n_*-b*_n_*)^(2))
This is nothing more than the Pythagorean Theorem. Now, let's say that we have a population and we pick n samples from it, x*_1_*,...,x*_n_*. We can think of this as the n-dimensional coordinate (x*_1_*,...,x*_n_*). Now, if, for instance, all of the x*_i_* were the same, then they would all be equal to their mean, M=(x*_1_*+...+x*_n_*)/n and the coordinate would be (M,M,...,M). The coordinates of the form (x,x,...,x) form a line in the n-dimensional space, called the Main Diagonal. Since there is no spread when the point (x*_1_*,...,x*_n_*) is actually *on* the main diagonal, a good measure for how unequal, or spread apart, the sample is would be the distance that the point (x*_1_*,...,x*_n_*) is from the main diagonal. This distance is exactly the distance that that the point (x*_1_*,...,x*_n_*) is from the point (M,M,...,M), where M is the mean. This distance is
* sqrt((x*_1_*-M)^(2)+(x*_2_*-M)^(2)+...+(x*_n_*-M)^(2))
The only issue is that this kinda depends on the size of the sample. Adding more points will increase this distance, even if the new points are within the same spread. To counteract this, we can divide the sum by the number of points in the sum (like taking the average). This will happen inside the square root. This means that a good measure of the spread of n-points, that is not dependent on n, will be
* sqrt(((x*_1_*-M)^(2)+(x*_2_*-M)^(2)+...+(x*_n_*-M)^(2))/n)
Which is exactly the Standard Deviation of a sample. This is the most geometrically natural way to measure the spread.
To reiterate, from a sample of size n, we can create a point in n-dimensional space. The Main Diagonal in n-dimensional space is the line of points whose coordinates are all equal, and so a good measure of how *un*equal the coordinates of a point in n-dimensional space are would be the distance that this point is from the main diagonal. This distance is given by the formula above, which is nothing more than the Pythagorean Theorem in n-dimensional space. We then normalize the sum by dividing by the number of terms, so that it does not depend on sample size.
You *can* try to talk about spread using (|x*_1_*-M|+...+|x*_n_*-M|)/n, and this is called the [Average Absolute Deviation](_URL_0_). This, however, is far less useful because it is not as smooth as the standard deviation and it does not take advantage of typical Euclidean Geometry in an advantageous way.
Another important aspect of the Standard Deviation is that it is naturally related to the first and second moments, which are quantities that naturally pop out of distribution when we do calculus with them. This is extremely convenient. | [
"Squared deviations from the mean (SDM) are involved in various calculations. In probability theory and statistics, the definition of \"variance\" is either the expected value of the SDM (when considering a theoretical distribution) or its average value (for actual experimental data). Computations for \"analysis of... |
how is it possible to get doom to run on so many devices that are not even purpose built as home computers, like the gps console on someone's car for instance? | Doom is an old game. It was designed to run on the very limited hardware of the time. Even a very limited computer by today's standards can be powerful enough to run Doom.
Source code for Doom was made public in 1999, which made it possible for people to port the game to other platforms. People try to port it to unusual things like GPS consoles and printers mostly for fun - [there's even a webpage for it](_URL_0_). | [
"BULLET::::- Can it run Doom? - A common joke question with any hardware that has a CPU. It has even gotten to the point where people are developing source ports of the game to unconventional hardware such as a Canon printer, the Commodore VIC-20, the Smart Bar on the 2016 MacBook Pro, a smart fridge, an ATM, and t... |
why are monotremes considered mammals? | Mammals are not defined by live birth though. If they were then several species of snakes, several species of sharks, and a few amphibians would be mammals.
Mammals normally have live birth, but what defines them as being mammals is the production of milk to feed their young. | [
"Monotremes (from Greek μονός, \"monos\" (\"single\") and τρῆμα, \"trema\" (\"hole\"), referring to the cloaca) are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria). The monotremes are typified by structural differences in their brains, jaws, digestive tra... |
how people sell movie scripts and who decides if it's a big budget movie? | Most studios will not accept unsolicited scripts because it exposes them to high risk litigation (e.g. accusations that they stole a story). Studios will usually only take material from literary agents with whom they have an established relationship - so if you want to get your scripts made by studios you will have to get an agent first. To get an agent you need two completed scripts and a third in the works. However, getting your first script to an agent is a task in itself - you will usually need a personal introduction in order to have your query letter opened.
Once you get an approval for your spec script to be read, the agent will get one of their lower ranking employees or interns to write "coverage" - usually a single page of plot synopsis and a single page of analysis together with a chart that ranks parameters such as plot, structure, visuality etc. The reader will also provide a tagline, and one of three grades, Pass, Consider and Recommend. It's typical that about one in a hundred scripts receive a recommend because the readers have to stake their reputation on the reliability of their coverage - if they recommend too many scripts and the senior executives find themselves having to read too many sub-standard offerings they will be fired, or non-re-hired.
If your agent considers your script strong enough, they will then start the process of shopping it around to various studios (who will then do their own coverage).
You may be able to shop your script yourself (without an agent) to independent film production companies, but be aware that independents are generally looking for projects that can be made on cost-effective budgets (say between $250k and $5million), and that won't be realistic for many genres.
Other ways to get your script read and evaluated are websites like Kevin Spacey's _URL_1_ or Francis Ford Coppolas, _URL_0_ - but in order to have your script evaluated, you have to evaluate other peoples' scripts in return (which can be a useful exercise in itself). | [
"Screenwriters on the other hand were generally paid less than the top actors or directors, usually under $1 million per film. However, the single largest factor driving rising costs was special effects. By 1999 the average cost of a blockbuster film was $60 million before marketing and promotion, which cost anothe... |
Why does smoke from incense or cigarettes not (usually) set off smoke alarms? | Fire Alarm / Smoke Detector Manufacturer here.
Household smoke detectors (excluding Heat and CO) fall into two catagories, Ionisation and Photoelectric.
Ionisation smoke detectors (the detectors with the radioactive symbol on their label) are designed to detect sub-micron particals of combustion (different to thick smoke). Examples of sub-micron particles are cooking vapours (released from opening a hot oven, for example), vehicle exhaust, birthday candles, lighters, etc. Basically smoke that is the result of something burning, but you can't see. Ionisation smoke detectors in the house react well to fast, flaming fires (flash flame from a pot of oil on the stove, for example).
Photoelectric detectors simple use an infrared transmitter and receiver in a chamber in the detector. As thicker, visible smoke enters the chamber, it blocks the light and the detector registers this change. When the smoke obscures the light to a certain level, the detector goes into alarm. Photoelectric detectors react well to visible smoke (cigarette, burning meat, smouldering natural fibres, etc).
To answer your question, it's very likely you have an Ionisation type installed, and it is not detecting sub-micron particulate in the air (as cigarette smoke is greater than one mircon and the ionisation detector cannot see it).
Please read this: The majority of household fires are caused by smouldering fires (burnt out motors, rats chewing electrical wires, cigatette left on bed or couch). These fires do not immediately show flame, but smoulder away and generate smoke for minutes (sometimes hours) before flaming. In this case, Ionisation detectors are not effective in providing early warning. Photoelectric detectors are far more suitable for this purpose. Please, when you check your battery next, check it's type. If it is a ionisation detector, please consider purchasing a photoelectric as a replacement.
TL;DR - Ion detectors (ones with radioactive symbol) can't see visible smoke. Photoelectric type detectors (stated on product label) do. | [
"False alarms are also common with smoke detectors and building fire alarm systems. They occur when smoke detectors are triggered by smoke that is not a result of a dangerous fire. Smoking cigarettes, cooking at high temperatures, burning baked goods, blowing out large numbers of birthday candles, fireplaces and wo... |
Why does plaque always come out a yellowish-white color, regardless of the color of food you've eaten? | [Dental plaque](_URL_1_) is a complex structure formed when bacteria grow on the surface of your teeth. In fact, there's a lot of plaque in your mouth that you can't see as well. What we commonly refer to as "plaque" is more formally known as supragingival (above the gumline) plaque to distinguish it from the other major type of plaque which is subgingival (below the gumline).
Plaque begins to form immediately after tooth cleaning as specific bacteria adhere to the tooth. The most famous of these is *Streptococcus mutans*, the major causative agent of cavities (formally known as dental caries). However, there are literally [hundreds of species](_URL_0_) and billions of individual bacteria in your mouth at any given time to this is hardly the only player. As the bacteria grow, they synthesize molecules such as polysaccharides and proteins that anchor the cells tightly to the surface. They even recruit proteins in your saliva. The structure formed is known as a [biofilm](_URL_3_). This is what you actually see when you remove dental plaque.
So why is it yellow/white? The reason for this is because the components of biofilms are relatively uniform (at least to our eyes). They are composed of bacteria (that in the majority of cases do not produce any significant pigments *in vivo*), proteins, and polysaccharides. These molecules are typically off white or yellow. Note that this doesn't mean species composition of the biofilm is always the same - each individual will have very specific bacteria present in the oral cavity depending on multiple factors including oral disease state. It just all looks the same to use because most oral bacteria in biofilms just so happen to be a similar color.
Interestingly, the bacteria on your teeth do not necessarily even get their nutrition from the food you eat. Patients fed solely through tubes [still have bacteria in their mouths](_URL_2_) that subsist on proteins and small molecules in the saliva. | [
"Extrinsic staining, is largely due to environmental factors including smoking, pigments in beverages and foods, antibiotics, and metals such as iron or copper. Coloured compounds from these sources are adsorbed into acquired dental pellicle or directly onto the surface of the tooth causing a stain to appear.\n",
... |
For Scandinavians' and Germanics' mythology: | I can't really help with your questions, but I can definitely give you some recommendations: you'll want both the Edda and the Poetic Edda for Norse/Scandinavian mythology as well as historical epics like Beowulf and *The Saga of the Volsungs* translated by Jesse L. Byock. The prose Edda is on Project Gutenberg, though I prefer the current Penguin edition; you'll probably have to find the Poetic Edda in a library or on Amazon (I've been told Lee Hollander's translation is excellent). I recommend finding Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf if you can, as it is truly excellent, though Tolkien's translation+commentary is also really good.
For retellings of Norse myths that provide a little more ease of access, Neil Gaiman's *Norse Mythology* is amazing. I'd also recommend *The Penguin Book of Norse Mythology*, *The Norse Myths* by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Pantheon Library), *Myths of the Pagan North: Gods of the Norsemen* by Christopher Abram, and *Gods and Myths of Northern Europe* by HR Ellis Davidson. Also anything Tolkien wrote on the subject that you can get your hands on (*The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún* and "Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics" are particularly good). Actually, on a related topic, you can find out a *lot* of really fascinating things about Scandinavian mythology, the Vikings, and the Anglo-Saxons by reading Tolkien's lectures, letters, notes, and discussions on his influences for the history and mythology of Middle Earth.
Anglo-Saxon mythology's enduring legacy is Arthurian legend, which is an entire basket of books, poems, and epics all on its own (including all of the various Medieval Arthurian romances). There's...quite frankly a *ton* of Arthurian legend variants and media, as the Arthurian romances were incredibly popular in the Medieval period, but here's a quick rundown of the "big" ones:
* History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth (the first full narrative account of Arthur's life, from Uther's reign to post-Arthur's death)
* The Lais of Marie De France (particularly Lanval)
* Chrétien de Troyes' works: Erec and Enide; Cligès; Yvain, the Knight of the Lion; Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart; and Perceval, the Story of the Grail. de Troyes' "Lancelot" is the first major work to feature Lancelot as a character, and "Perceval" introduces Perceval as well as the story of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King
* Tristan and Iseult
* The Vulgate Cycle/Lancelot-Grail Cycle
* The Gawain Poet: Gawain and the Green Knight
* Le Morte D'Arthur, Thomas Mallory
In modern times:
* Tennyson's various poems ("The Lady of Shalott" and "Idylls of the King" being the most famous)
* Tolkien's unfinished poem "The Fall of Arthur"
* The Once and Future King, T.H. White
* The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
* The Dark is Rising Sequence, Susan Cooper
For History of the Kings of Britain and Marie De France, I recommend *The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period* (which has a lot of other excellent pieces besides); you can also find Marie De France's lais [here](_URL_0_). You should be able to find *Le Morte D'Arthur* on Project Gutenberg, but I'm 100% positive it would be at your local library if it's not online or in PDF form somewhere. de Troyes' works are a little harder, but there's a truly excellent Penguin edition of his works available, either in your local library or cheaply on Amazon (Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances, translated by William Kibler). "Gawain and the Green Knight" should be online, but if it's not *The Gawain Poet: Complete Works* is your best source. The rest of them can be found in various places: the Vulgate Cycle is hellishly long and unless you're *really* into Lancelot I wouldn't recommend it, but if you do want to read it I'd find Sommer's or Lacy's translations. For the more modern works, check your local library. Tennyson's poems are all available online, as far as I'm aware.
For a more scholarly look at mythology in general, I'd take a look at Edith Hamilton's *Mythology* and Joseph Campbell's *The Power of Myth*. | [
"Norse mythology is the body of myths of the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Norse paganism and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Scandinavian folklore of the modern period. The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology, Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities,... |
just saw a video where a snowmobile accelerates really quickly in a drag race setting. a commenter said part of the reason is it's cvt transmission . what is that? | Continuously Variable Transmission. Polaris has been using them for ages:
_URL_0_ | [
"They are also commonly used in snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle (ATV) continuously variable transmissions (CVT), both to engage/disengage vehicle motion and to vary the transmission's pulley diameter ratio in relation to the engine revolutions per minute.\n",
"The Snow Trac is made up largely of \"off the shel... |
What did contemporary political maps of Warlord era China look like? Did they just mark the Republic of China, with pre-warlord borders, or did they update it at all? Did this vary depending on where the map was made? | So, I wont be able to answer this question in full, mainly because anyone is gonna have a hard time finding maps of warlord-era China. It's just, as you said, a period of total chaos where China really is a failing state. I tried looking into it quickly online, but to no avail - I couldn't find any contemporary maps. I'm lead to believe that the best bet for anyone would be Japanese-based sources because, as I'll explain, Japan had a heavy hand in the chaos that engulfed China during this time. Unfortunately, I do not read/speak Japanese well enough to launch into that. That being said, I can answer parts of your question, especially the last "How much was known about internal politics by outsiders at the time?"
& #x200B;
When the Qing dynasty fell apart in 1911, the rest of the world did have an eye on China. China was a key region for European goods such as silk for clothings and soybeans for farmers, kind of like it is today. The nation with the most interests in watching this progress (and influencing it) was Japan, which for all intents and purposes by this point in history was considered Western by many Chinese nationalists. By 1922, another nation which was born into the world also looked down upon its southern neighbor with interest - the USSR. I'll break this response into two seperate parts dealing with Japanese interest and Soviet interest, and how they played an influential role in the way China would be formed.
**Japan**
In 1895, Japan defeated China for control of Korea, Taiwan, Qingdao and Port Arthur (Lushun). The event would lead directly to the outrage of a patriotic Chinese citizenry and the downfall of the Qing. From the moment the Qing fell apart in 1911 up to the beginning of WW2, Japan had a keen interest in keeping China isolated and dissolved. Japan's ultimate goal was, at this time, the unification of a pan-asian front, and China was the largest region to this ideological alliance. In the Northeast, or Manchuria, Japan directly played a role in politics by giving material aid to a bandit named Zhang Zuolin. Zhang would become the biggest puppet in Northern China for Japan until his assassination (by Japanese officers) in 1928. From there, Japan was successfully able to control the valuable soybean trade that exported massive amounts of beans to the West. In 1926, when the Northern Expedition kicked off in earnest, Japan deployed additional troops to Shanghai and Jinan, resulting in the Jinan and Shanghai Incidents (1928 & 1932, respectively), where Japanese forces attacked Chinese troops. After the KMT takeover of most of China, Japanese influence generally degrades in most areas, although in 1931 the Japanese do outright invade Manchuria. From 1928-1945, it really does become an off-and-on battle between the Republican KMT and the Japanese who are attempting to take control of China. Some speculate that later defectors of WW2, such as Wang Jingwei, may have been in contact with Japanese officials much earlier than one could assume.
**USSR**
The birth of the USSR meant the opportunity to export the revolution. Sun Yat-sen himself was somewhat of a socialist, but he never did identify fully as a communist. Most importantly though, both the USSR and the KMT were anti-imperialist organizations defending their homelands from what they saw as attacks by the West. From its founding to the end of WW2, the KMT would receive an egregious amount of materiel aid and funding from Stalin, as Stalin saw the KMT as a good way to protect Russia's flank from Japanese invasion. The USSR was also involved with direct invasions of Xinjiang after the near defeat of their puppet, Sheng Shicai, in 1934. So both the USSR and Japan, both ideologically believing to be helping China (though in very different ways) held Chinese puppets that supported their direct interests. Even after the 1928 Purge of the Communists by the KMT, Stalin continued to support the KMT as he knew only Chiang Kai-shek would be apt for the job of defending Russia's rear, which was most important to Stalin, especially after the Nazi takeover of Germany.
**Other Powers**
The USSR and Japan were the largest influences on Chinese politics in the warlord period, but other powers were certainly aware. In fact, Germany allowed several officers to be sent to China in order to train Chinese troops on modern weapons tactics. There is a flurry of correspondence between the UK and US about Japanese aggression against China, especially as it becomes more apparent that Japan will stop at nothing to unite East Asia. Everyone knew there was a huge power vacuum in China, that the KMT was mostly corrupt and weak, and that Japan was lurking at any moment to stab China in the heart. It was a dangerous time, with dangerous consequences.
**Conclusion**
I know this doesn't answer your questions about the maps in full, and that may not be answerable on a community like this, as primary sources from this time are rarely translated into English or available. Such was the chaotic nature of China where so many crucial historical documents are unnoticed, lost, or were destroyed. However, I do hope I did a good enough job answering some of your other question, particularly on foreign influence.
So in conclusion, yes the outside world knew very well what was going on in China during this period. The two major powers influencing these politics were the USSR and Japan. But after 1937, most of that didn't matter, as China was left to face Japan on its own for four years.
Sources:
*Biography of Zhang Zuolin* by Xu Che and Xu Yue (In Chinese)
*Diplomacy and Deception: The Secret History of Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 1917-1927* by Bruce Elleman
*Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931-1937* by Parks Coble | [
"The map's accuracy is superior to that of other maps from the same era. It is assumed that some parts of China were based on \"Hwangyeocheonramdo」\", and parts of Joseon referred to \"「Dongkukjido」\" drawn by Jeong Sanggi (정상기). Japan is described in detail except for Hokkaido, and the western coast line of Taiwan... |
why do we still not have bold, italics and underlined keyboard options for typing on mobile devices? | There is no standardized method to send font styles via SMS. Apple, could for example, enable it on all their devices, but then what would happen if the user sends a bold message to an Android phone? Android wont know what to do with the extra information and it will just display it as plain text.
Emoji's on the other hand are standardized Unicode characters, the only variation between devices is in the image it displays, but the image it displays will convey the emotion that the Unicode character represents. | [
"It is commonly used in conjunction with text-messaging services. Some portable telecommunications devices (such as the BlackBerry) have bypassed the need for this by incorporating a mini-keyboard for users to type on. As of 2012, most mobile phones with fewer keys than alphabet letters offer a predictive text inpu... |
why does the world need money? | Because without money, trading usually hits a dead end. Like in this example.
> "Hey Roof Guy, my roof is broken. Can I trade you two chickens to fix my roof?"
> "Sure thing, Chicken Dude."
**Two weeks later**
> "Hey Chicken Dude, I'm really hungry. Can I have some more chickens?"
> "I don't have anything that needs fixing, go away Roof Guy."
Once you add money into the mix, Roof Guy doesn't have to starve. Each of us only has so many skills or goods to trade; money allows us to turn that skill into value that can be used now or later, even if our services aren't needed.
| [
"BULLET::::- To quote monochrom's press statement: \"Money is frozen desire. Thus it governs the world. Money is used for all forms of trade, from daily shopping at the supermarket to trafficking in human beings and drugs. In the course of all these transactions, our money wears out quickly, especially the smaller ... |
Does the temperature of the earths core contribute at all to sustaining normal/livable temperatures on the surface. If so, why or why not? | On the *surface*—well, no. Sunlight + atmosphere + surface composition = *weather*, and this is what defines temperature, humidity, winds, etc. Contribution from inside of the Earth is just too small to be measurable in the global scale.
However, if you dig a mine deep enough, you will actually feel the warmth of Earth. Several kilometers deep there are no atmospheric heat transfer and geothermal gradient takes over. | [
"Temperature within the Earth increases with depth. Highly viscous or partially molten rock at temperatures between are found at the margins of tectonic plates, increasing the geothermal gradient in the vicinity, but only the outer core is postulated to exist in a molten or fluid state, and the temperature at the E... |
why does food taste worse when you eat a lot of it at one time? | It is because of your brains reward system. If you eat the same thing over and over again then the pleasure you feel from the taste diminishes making you switch to another food source. | [
"As taste senses both harmful and beneficial things, all basic tastes are classified as either aversive or appetitive, depending upon the effect the things they sense have on our bodies. Sweetness helps to identify energy-rich foods, while bitterness serves as a warning sign of poisons.\n",
"As taste senses both ... |
How do we know Proxima Centauri is the closest star? | For very close stars, we can examine their paralax due to the Earth's orbit as seen [here](_URL_0_).
We measure where on the sky a star is and then measure where it is again 6 months later. Because the Earth is now on the opposite side of the Sun, the star will appear to have moved. We can use the angle it moved by to calculate how far away it is.
Fun fact - if an object has a **par**alax shift of one arc**sec**ond it is one **parsec** away.
So to answer your question, when preforming this measurement - Proxima Centuri happens to be the closest observed star. Astronomers have been doing this for a *long* time. If something was visible and closer than that, we'd know.
Edit: Punctuation | [
"to the Union Observatory, which Innes used in the discovery of Proxima Centauri. In 1915, he found a faint star fairly close to and sharing the same large proper motion with Alpha Centauri, which until then was believed to be the closest star system to the Sun. Innes believed, on rather slim evidence, that it was ... |
How acceptable was it to support the IRA in America around 1981? | Thanks to the strong tradition of free speech in the US, of course one *could* express any number of opinions. But I get the sense you are asking what the range of expressed opinions was.
With regard to the hunger strike itself, there was support for the hunger strikers at a relatively high level of US politics. The legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (home to many Americans of Irish descent) unanimously passed a resolution condemning prison conditions and asking the British government to recognize Bobby Sands as a political prisoner. A handful of US congresspeople from both parties signed on to a telegram asking President Reagan to urge Margaret Thatcher to action.
Other action occurred as well. The International Longshoremen's Association boycotted British ships for 24 hours after Bobby Sands' death. I don't get the sense they found many ships to boycott, but the gesture stood.
That's not to say there was unanimous support. The Boston Globe, in an editorial upon the death of Bobby Sands, noted the "American reflex to transfer automatic blame to London," but concluded that "the government in London to which Bobby Sands was elected is innocent compared to the organization in which he is a commander, the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army."
The Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein were regarded as terrorists by many in the United States. But political support for them during the hunger strikes of 1981 was a mainstream view in the US, and was freely expressed. | [
"The IRA was the most significant initiative of John Collier, who was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) from 1933 to 1945. He had long studied Indian issues and worked for change since the 1920s, particularly with the American Indian Defense Association. He intende... |
why do we continue drinking alcohol, when it continually causes problems for everyone? | Prohibition caused even more problems so they had to give the booze back. Meanwhile, special interests have been pressuring the government to control alternative intoxicants to protect their various interests for about a century which has led to so many other prohibitions. A lot of these other substances have smaller fan bases, thus making it difficult to reverse existing bans. Drug prohibition has led to much greater problems than that of alcohol and will likely be reformed soon. | [
"Alcoholism is a chronic problem. However, if managed properly, damage to the brain can be stopped and to some extent reversed. In addition to problem drinking, the disease is characterized by symptoms including an impaired control over alcohol, compulsive thoughts about alcohol, and distorted thinking. Alcoholism... |
- how doomed are we in america with the sequestration thing? | $85,000,000,000 of $3,800,000,000,000
Take 9 zeros from both sides, it's like you've got $3800 to spend and someone steals $85, and the thief promises not to steal money for food or rent. It might inconvenience you, but it probably won't kill you.
| [
"The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better is a pamphlet by Tyler Cowen published in 2011. It argues that the American economy has reached a historical technological plateau and the factors which drove economic growth for most of A... |
why some foods completely unrelated to animals contain fat (olives, nuts, avocado), please. | Fat is used by plant to store energy. Nuts have fat so the plant inside has energy to grow a stem and leafs. Once the plant has leafs it can produce it's own energy. | [
"Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and wildlife. Because nuts generally have a high oil content, they are a highly prized food and energy source. A large number of seeds are edible by humans and used in cooking, eaten raw, sprouted, or roasted as a snack food, or pressed for oil that is used... |
what are some scientific explanations for well known cases of 'supernatural' phenomena? | **Physical**
* [Carbon monoxide poisoning](_URL_5_) can cause feelings of dread, auditory and visual hallucinations and illness
* Expansion and contraction of materials in a house as it heats up and cools down throughout the day can cause noises such as creaks, groans, clicks and bangs, and can cause doors to appear to swing open randomly.
* Weather or appliances can cause vibrations or sounds that are not audible to us, but which can cause things to vibrate, move and can even cause visual artifacts.
* Drafts and convection currents can cause noises, cold feelings and can cause things to move (e.g. doors to swing open, curtains to rustle, objects to fall over)
* Sleep paralysis is a condition in which you wake up in a hypnagogic or hypnopompic state (those groggy moments just before you fall asleep or just after you wake up) during a REM cycle, when your body is paralysed. It often causes strong hallucinations, feelings of dread and sometimes a tightening of the chest, and is a common cause of reported alien abduction encounters, nightly visitations from ghosts, demons and spirits, and in the past, visits from witches.
* Electrical or electromagnetic interference from appliances, old wiring etc. can cause odd electrical behavior in other appliances and components.
* Pranks. Very common; they're all over YouTube. It could simply be your room mate messing with you.
**Psychological**
* [Mass hysteria](_URL_2_), in which a collective group of people can share in a delusion (there are many notable cases).
* [Confirmation bias](_URL_3_), in which information is selected and selectively interpreted as evidence that confirms a preconceived notion (e.g. this house is haunted), while contradictory or unrelated information is ignored or reinterpreted. In other words, we are all biased in how we try to confirm what we already think is true.
* [Selective perception](_URL_1_), the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
* The [Bizarreness effect](_URL_0_), in which bizarre seeming information is better remembered than normal information.
* [Suggestibility](_URL_4_), in which false memories can be implanted via suggestion.
---
The most important thing to remember is not to prematurely jump to conclusions. If something odd happens that you can't explain, then that doesn't necessarily mean it must be something paranormal or supernatural. It only means that you haven't figured out the explanation, which is likely to be perfectly natural.
If you're genuinely interested in figuring out the cause of some unexplained event, the best thing you can do is collect data. Set up a couple of cheap web cameras and microphones around the house. If you're able to record objects flying around the room, then you'll have some of the best video evidence that exists and can post it on Reddit for fame and karma. | [
"In the twentieth century, supernatural fiction became associated with psychological fiction. The result is that the supernatural is only one possible explanation for what has been described. A classic example of this would be \"The Turn of the Screw\" by Henry James, which offers both a supernatural and a psycholo... |
why current religious freedom laws are considered so objectionable. | The issue isn't about writing a message on a cake or some other sort of service where it's the *service itself* that the person finds objectionable. It's about doing the same thing for every customer and treating them equally.
For example, let's say that I wanted to buy a cake that said "I love Nazis" on it. A baker has every right to refuse to bake and decorate that, and that's true before or after any anti-discrimination law that's currently on the books. They would refuse to bake that cake and write the message on it to *anyone* who came through the door, so it's not a discriminating policy.
Now, I walk into a bakery and say "Can I have a cake for my wife's birthday? Please have it say "Happy Birthday, [Wife's name]." I'm a man, so the bakery provides the cake.
If Jessica the lesbian walks into that same bakery and asks for the exact same cake for her wife's birthday, and it's refused, that's discriminatory. The bakery was willing to do something for me, but not to do the same exact thing for another person. If that person was black, Chinese, or disabled, it would be illegal to discriminate like that and refuse that service. | [
"The State Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, respect for religious freedom declined due to selective legal enforcement and indifference of some government officials, which allowed societal violence and the threat of violence to restrict the ability to worship of adherents of religious groups i... |
how do sprints change your body versus jogging? | Sprinting builds cardio and explosion in a shorter amount of time, it also burns fat for longer. Whereas, long distance cardio can improve cardio but not explosiveness it also takes longer. So you can get better results, running harder sprints than longer distance. | [
"Sprinting involves a quick acceleration phase followed by a velocity maintenance phase. During the initial stage of sprinting, the runners have their upper body tilted forward in order to direct ground reaction forces more horizontally. As they reach their maximum velocity, the torso straightens out into an uprigh... |
how is it ok for the usa to try to force other nations to denuclearize even though we maintain a nuclear arsenal that is capable of destroying the world. | Nobody wants anyone to have nukes, they're bad news *but* once you get some, you can't really give them up as long as somebody else has them - it's sort of a "Mexican Standoff" where safety & peace is assured by the fact that nobody with nukes will fire them first because they know everyone else that has them will fire back.
This all gets *much* more complicated when you have somebody new trying to join "nuke club, *especially* if it's an unstable country like North Korea or Iran. So the nuclear powers do their *damnedest* to stop everyone else from getting nukes - either through friendly diplomacy ("we'll protect you if anyone fires nukes at you"), stern diplomacy ("we won't ship you any food if you keep this up") or outright threats ("we'll invade your fucking country if you don't stop now").
What makes it "OK"? It's not like there's any laws that all countries have to obey - it just boils down to what you can do without making everyone else so pissed at you that they're going to attack you. Most of the world is OK with nobody else getting nukes, making it OK for the US (and the rest of Nuke Club) to stop others from developing them. | [
"It is a very far reaching control which would eliminate the rivalry between nations in this field, which would prevent the surreptitious arming of one nation against another, which would provide some cushion of time before atomic attack, and presumably therefore before any attack with weapons of mass destruction, ... |
what on earth is wwe wrestling about | Hey... uh... you know all those movies and TV shows you watch? They're not real either. You still watch those despite knowing it's acting, don't you? | [
"Legends of Wrestling is a series of professional wrestling video games based on the best wrestlers of all time, from WWF/WWE, NWA, WCW, ECW, TNA and various independent promotions. It was developed and produced by Acclaim. It was released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2, then in 2002 for the GameCube and Xbox. In 20... |
Why did 4 year liberal arts educations become popular in the United States? | Your question actually needs to be flipped around: when did other countries *stop* insisting upon a liberal arts foundation.
The modern university system was born in the Latin (European) Middle Ages, in Paris and Bologna. The medieval curriculum was founded on the liberal arts: the *trivium* of grammar, rhetoric, logic; and the *quadrivium* of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy/astrology, and music. Only upon completion of those would a student advance to study the higher faculties: law, theology, or medicine.
For their part, the tradition of founding one's studies in the liberal arts goes back to ancient Greece.
You might be find these answers helpful:
* [How did the descriptors Bachelor and Doctor come to signify a person's completed level of education?] (_URL_0_)
* [Humanist vs. liberal arts education: were they different in the Renaissance?] (_URL_1_) | [
"The liberal arts college model took root in the United States in the 19th century, as institutions spread that followed the model of early schools like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth, although none of these early American schools are regarded as liberal arts colleges today. These colleges served as a means of spread... |
why can't i goto a doctor 2x a year and just get screened for every disease and eliminate the risk of cancer/etc? | Most tests for diseases are not 100% accurate. These tests normally don't detect the actual presence of a certain virus or bacteria, but test for certain enzymes or hormones that end up in your blood as a result of the infection. However there's always a chance these are in your bloodstream because of unrelated reasons.
Let's say a test is 99.99% accurate. That sounds pretty good, right? It means that there's only a false result in 1 of 10,000 tests. But what if one in a million people have the disease? That means only 1%, or 1 of every 100 "positive" results for this 99.99% accurate test will be a true positive. The rest will be mistakes, false positives. And often treatment for diseases can be harmful. While they're less harmful than the disease they're treating, which is why they're allowed to be administered, if you're being treated on an erroneous test result and you're actually healthy, that isn't good.
It's usually a combination of tests for diseases *plus* the presence of symptoms and other indicators that doctors use to make accurate diagnoses. | [
"The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended against PSA screening in healthy men finding that the potential risks outweigh the potential benefits. Guidelines from the American Urological Association, and the American Cancer Society recommend that men be informed of the risks and benefits ... |
why do you get really thirsty after eating chocolate/sweets? | Your body uses tons of water to regulate blood sugar. This is also why a night of binging on candy will make you «hung over» the next morning, you are really dehydrated | [
"The explorer Francisco Hernández wrote that chocolate drinks helped treat fever and liver disease. Another explorer, Santiago de Valverde Turices, believed that large amounts of hot chocolate were helpful in treating chest ailments and that smaller amounts could help stomach disorders. When chocolate was introduce... |
As an enthusiast of astrophysics, and one who is out of the loop, I would love to know about quantum fluctuations. | How do you know you have a "true" vacuum? You measure the energy of a region. But uncertainty in energy measurement forms a Heisenberg pair with uncertainty in time measurement. So if you want, you can kind of think about quantum fluctuations as imprecision in knowledge of energy over very small time scales. You can't be *perfectly* sure you have nothing. | [
"\"Quantum Night\" has received positive reviews. \"Publishers Weekly\" called it a \"fast-moving, mind-stretching exploration of the nature of personality and consciousness.\" \"Winnipeg Free Press\" described the book \"a breath of fresh air and a return to classic Sawyer: big ideas, relatable people and a Canadi... |
If you were locked up and only had access to 1 litre of water, how should you comsume it in order to survive the longest? | Before drinking any of it, store your urine if it's dilute. You're probably pretty hydrated already, so you'll be losing a lot of water through there. When your urine starts to get darker(Probably only after 1 piss), stop, and start drinking small amounts of water. Concentrated urine will be very bad for you, and is counter productive for quenching thirst. When you run out of water, drink the dilute urine. It'll give you a little more emergency water.
There's not really anything you can do. Your body has you covered though. As you get dehydrated you'll begin to release hormones like ADH to help you preserve more water.
But basically, there's no magic trick to make a litre of water last you over a week. Depending on heat you'll probably dehydrate in about 4 days, provided you were properly hydrated before you started. | [
"How by means of a certain machine many people may stay some time under water. How and why I do not describe my method of remaining under water, or how long I can stay without eating; and I do not publish nor divulge these by reason of the evil nature of men who would use them as means of destruction at the bottom ... |
a bill was passed to remove internet privacy regulations today , what does that mean really ? | Basically, now American ISPs can sell the data they collect from you to advertisers without your permission. | [
"This case established the right to privacy of internet users and guaranteed the protection of basic rights while on the internet. It was established that the government does not have oversight or authority over the internet and thus cannot necessarily make mandates for it.\n",
"The Electronic Communications Priv... |
why are some classical compositions titled like standard songs (moonlight sonata) and some are... not (overture no. 2 in b minor) | The 'modern' names are often added *after the fact*, and usually have nothing to do with the actual composer.
For example, the "Moonlight Sonata" **isn't** really called the "Moonlight Sonata" at all. It's official name is "Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# Minor. Opus 27, No 2".
5 years after Beethoven died, a German poet thought it was reminiscent of moonlight shining on rippling water, so he named it that way, and - because it was catchy - it stuck. | [
"Sonatas, duos and fantasies by Franz Schubert include all works for solo piano by Franz Schubert, except separate dances. They also include a number of works for two players: piano four hands, or piano and a string instrument (violin, arpeggione).\n",
"The three sonatas are cyclically interconnected by diverse s... |
For Americans in WWII, did your geographic location determine which front you were sent to? For example, were Californians sent to the Pacific while New Yorkers sent to Europe? | Nisei (American of Japanese heritage) were regularly deployed to the European theater out of a fear that the troops would turn against the U.S. if deployed in the Pacific. While National Guard units were often kept together, everything else would routinely be pulled from all over the country. | [
"Following the outbreak of the Pacific War, the War Department demanded that all enemy nationals and Japanese American citizens be removed from war zones on the West Coast. The question became how to imprison the estimated 120,000 people of Japanese and American citizenship living in California. On February 11, 194... |
What did happen to the Lincoln Battalion survivors when they came back home in 1939? | First things first - on the question of how the volunteers were received at home, I have written [this answer previously](_URL_0_), which I think covers most of your second group of questions.
The first set of questions isn't really covered there though, and is interesting ground for me to write on because I have researched - and published for that matter - on this exact question of how low-grade discrimination actually worked, but in a British context. While I'm familiar with existing literature on the American side of things, I don't know the sources directly.
This is a problem because the available scholarship on this question in an American context is... not great. Peter Carroll is probably the best-known scholar to work on the American volunteers, and has devoted a substantial amount of his writing to documenting their treatment by the US Government in the 1940s and 1950s. Carroll, however, writes as both a scholar and as someone who has long been intimately involved in the commemoration of the American volunteers, and writes with barely-concealed disdain and fury regarding how they were treated by the government as so-called 'premature anti-fascists'. He may well be right to do so, but is to my mind a little too willing to take their version of their treatment during the Second World War at face value. Not that I think that Lincoln veterans were lying, but rather that they naturally had limited insight into how they were being discriminated against. I also suspect - and this reflects my own research in a British context - that there is an important question of source representation here. Simply put, the Lincoln veterans whose discrimination is best-known and whose stories appear most prominently in Carroll's account tend to be those who were heavily involved with the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB), and tended in turn to also be heavily involved in the Communist Party of the USA. In other words, it can be difficult to disentangle the discrimination faced by Spanish veterans with the discrimination faced by prominent communists.
The other side of the literature has its own problems. Carroll's narrative has been challenged particularly by John Haynes and Harvey Klehr, two more conservative scholars of American communism. They attacked the 'premature anti-fascist' narrative in a very literal sense - they question the origins of the phrase, arguing that rather than being a label used by the government to identify and discriminate against Lincoln veterans, it was made up by them in the 1940s as an ironic label and as a way of securing sympathy, noting that no official documents actually using the phrase in this period have ever been found. The whole thing was a ruse, according to Klehr and Haynes, to disguise the fact that between 1939 and 1941, the communist-aligned Lincoln veterans had changed tack in line with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and opposed US involvement in the Second World War, a position they equate to pro-fascism.
As noted subsequently by Carroll, the lack of documents bearing the phrase is not conclusive proof (most military personnel records were lost due to a fire in the 1970s, and the FBI and other intelligence agencies aren't exactly forthcoming with releasing these kinds of documents). However, his own rejoinder - based on some scattered allusions to the term made by sympathetic politicians and veterans in 1945 - is hardly all that convincing either.
This historiographical diversion aside, how did the discrimination actually work? Owing to the lack of records it's hard to say for certain, but like any large organisation, the military is concerned with human resources, and keeps tabs on its members. NCOs and commanders could be notified of any 'problem' soldiers under their command, and could restrict their duties and opportunities accordingly - either willingly, or as ordered to. They might not be trusted, for instance, to receive certain types of training (one reported being refused radio training, for instance) or the opportunity for promotion or field service. They might even be rejected for service or not drafted in the first place. Naturally, of course, bureaucracy is fallible - plenty of Lincoln veterans fell through the cracks and served in any number of capacities, or managed to pull strings to get reassigned where they wanted to be.
How far this made sense is an inherently subjective question. The whole 'premature anti-fascist' label became popular as it seemed to epitomise the ridiculousness of not trusting the group of people who had shown the greatest desire to confront fascism before the war. However, reality is, as ever, somewhat more complicated. Most Lincoln veterans were members of the CPUSA, who up until mid-1941, were officially against the war effort (though individual veterans naturally had their own, widely-varying views). There was a not-unreasonable suspicion that communists in the military would try to sabotage or subvert their units, or carry out espionage for the Soviet Union. Even after 1941, where communists became very keen on fighting fascism again, there was a lingering suspicion of their motives, and the institutions involved - the military and the FBI in particular - hardly needed much encouragement to view communists and communist sympathisers with suspicion. While there may have been some rational basis for the original suspicion, that it lasted so long is testament to the ingrained anti-communist cultures of certain American government agencies.
Interestingly, one area where this didn't apply was in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the agency that would later become the CIA. Its founder, William Donovan, sought out Lincoln veterans with experience of guerrilla campaigns in Spain, to act as both agents and trainers, proving crucial in setting up the OSS's guerrilla warfare school. Not only were these veterans some of the only people in America with recent experience of irregular warfare, many were European immigrants who spoke relevant languages, making them ideal for the role. Moreover, as Spanish veterans were often very prominent in resistance movements in occupied Europe, their time in Spain made for some useful connections, particularly in North Africa, Italy and Yugoslavia. While those recruited by the OSS were only ever a tiny minority of the Lincoln veterans, their skills and knowledge were certainly appreciated in this context at least. | [
"Most of the survivors were back at the British lines by 12:00; the whole affair had lasted no more than 20 minutes. For those that returned there was a mixture of elation and anger, and questions as to what had happened to the Heavy Brigade. \"And who I ask is answerable for all this?\" wrote Troop Sergeant Major ... |
What animals have an Amygdala? | All vertebrates have roughly the same set of cortical organs, and many vertebrate brain structures have homologs in invertebrates.
The harder part of answering your question is what you mean by "larger." This gets into very complicated comparative anatomy. Do you mean "has more cells," "has more mass," "has more connections," "has more influence on brain processing?" or something else?
For most animals the answer will be "we don't know," good comparative brain anatomy between species is rare, and has been completed for very few species. | [
"The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae; also \"corpus amygdaloideum\"; Latin from Greek, , \"\", 'Almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in th... |
What causes sunscreen to lose potency over time after application? | It has always been my understanding that over time it is washed off or worn away by water/sweat/rubbing (like wiping your eyes to get water off takes a little sunscreen with it).
My dad (the protective doctor) has always recommended re application every 3-4 hours if you are just outdoors and every 2 hours when swimming. Also allow 15 minutes for sunscreen to dry before swimming (duh). | [
"The principal active ingredients in sunscreens are usually aromatic molecules conjugated with carbonyl groups. This general structure allows the molecule to absorb high-energy ultraviolet rays and release the energy as lower-energy rays, thereby preventing the skin-damaging ultraviolet rays from reaching the skin.... |
how do astronauts travel between the earth and the iss? | Currently only the Russian Soyuz spacecraft transport astronauts to and from the ISS (Prior to 2011 the Space Shuttle also fulfilled this role for the US, and in the next few years SpaceX and Boeing will provide US with manned spaceflight capabilities again.) The Soyuz carries up to 3 astronauts to the ISS, and is onlt used once. After launch, it docks to the space station and stays there while the astronauts complete their roughly 6 month stay.
When it's time to come home, they board the same Soyuz that brought them to the station and return to Earth. Only one of the three modules of the spacecraft land with the astronauts as it's the only part with the heat shield; the other 2 burn up in the atmosphere. Once the capsule has landed back on Earth, its job is over and isn't used again. | [
"The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. Th... |
Artisans in the early middle ages | Military equipment crafting is definitely something that didn't die out because of the necessity, even in places like Britain where civilian production of what was previously common items like wheeled pottery disappeared. The increasing militarization of society in all levels in Europe and the needs of the social economy dictated the survival of particular crafted goods. The need for elites to provide for the defense of themselves and their warbands/retinues never declined though the need for say, monumental building construction did.
A rough contemporary analogy can be made with Afghanistan in the aftermath of its civil wars but before the US invasion, in that there were still workshops producing and repairing AK-47s (on a rather crude but functional basis) even though they weren't manufacturing much else as a primarily agrarian economy.
However for other artisanal manufacturing, the question is still up in the air. For example, the restart of church construction in Italy in the 8th century points to a surviving artisan community which could furnish those churches with mosaics, light fixtures, decorative work, as well the knowledge of how to build new churches in stone (most new buildings were built out of wood at this time in Italy). However the more than 100 year gap between new church construction raises the question of how exactly those artisans survived that dormancy. One possibility being they may have been imported from the eastern empire, or they may have come from merovingian france, but those are just possibilities. No one is quite sure who those artisans were or where they were from, whether they were in fact local or foreign.
tl;dr - Don't assume technological decline was uniform in all things. The skills that were needed by the society of that day flourished. Those that weren't, withered.
Sources:
* Christie, Neil. The Lombards: The Ancient Longobards. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995.
* Ward-Perkins, Bryan. The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. | [
"In the Middle Ages, Vianden's craftsmen were recognised for their skills as tanners, drapers, weavers, barrelmakers, masons, locksmiths and goldsmiths. In 1490, they created guilds for their various trades. Over the years pig-farming and leathermaking became the major industry with the establishment of two tanneri... |
what happens to old crinkly dollar bills? | Stores will send them to a bank. Then that bank will give old and damaged bills/coins to the mint/bill printing place. The coins and bills will get destroyed and new one will be made to replace them. | [
"After his wife's death, Juettner had limited financial means. In 1938, Juettner began using ten to twelve homemade counterfeited bills a week in select stores in the neighborhoods of Manhattan. Over the following ten years, Juettner continued to use his counterfeited bills sparingly, never repeating storefronts or... |
why do companies like verizon work so hard to limit customers internet usage? | Money. They don’t want to invest in infrastructure so they throttle customers to save costs. | [
"AT&T joined the group because HomeRF was designed for high-speed broadband services and the need to support PCs, phones, stereos and televisions; but last-mile deployment occurred more slowly than expected and with slower speeds. So it was natural that the home networking market focused more on multi-PC households... |
the difference between shifting gears on an automatic and on a manual. bonus: how does it relate to bicycle gears? | For automatic, going faster makes the car automatically increase gears. In manual, you increase it yourself with a gearstick as you get higher revs.
The main advantage of automatic is you only have to focus on the road really, not gear switching(althougha fter a few months of manual driving the gear changing is second nature). The main advantage of manual is that you get to decide the power of the car. This is where bike gears come in.
You know how when you ride your bike uphill, you want a lower gear? That's because lower gears have a lot more power. Forcing yourself uphill in 2nd gear is way, way easier than forcing yourself uphill in 5th gear. Similarly, holding down the accelerator in a car while you're in second gear will give you a significantly faster acceleration than when you're in third gear at the same speed. In the automatic car, the acceleration speed is pretty much fixed. In a manual, you can, for example, stay in third gear during a 20MPH zone, very rapidly accelerate to 55MPH to match traffic, then pop it in fifth to coast. You don't get that control in an automatic. | [
"Manual transmissions have generally offered a wider selection of gear ratios. Many vehicles offer a 5-speed or 6-speed manual, whereas the automatic option would typically be a 4-speed. This is generally due to the increased space available inside a manual transmission compared with an automatic, since the latter ... |
when watching a live sports broadcast, why does radio tend to deliver audio feeds a few seconds before transmitted via television? why are they not equally quick? | _URL_0_
Gives the broadcaster time to delete nudity, profanity, or anything else they don't want going to air.
With radio, it's just the play by play guys on the microphone. Far less likely for something unwanted to go to air, so they don't need to worry about it. | [
"Live broadcasts (news, sports, important events) are usually captured at 50 Hz. Using 25 Hz (de-interlacing essentially) for live broadcasts makes them look like they are taken from an archive, so the practice is usually avoided unless there is a motion processor in the transmission chain.\n",
"In radio and tele... |
If I have a direct line of light to a galaxy that is on the edge of our observable universe, what would I see as time progresses? | It depends on the precise expansion rate of the Universe. For some Universes (such as those dominated by matter or by radiation), we can see more and more distant objects as time goes on. For other Universes (mostly those with accelerating expansions, so this includes our present situation) closer and closer objects are at the edge, so after a certain point in time (when we say the galaxy "leaves the horizon") you'd just see it disappear. To be a little more realistic, you'd see it dim over many thousands of years as different pieces of the galaxy leave the horizon, since galaxies have thickness. You'd also see it get progressively redder and redder.
To address your second question, in a Universe where photons from certain galaxies will never reach us, the photons from those galaxies will always be moving, but the expansion of space will in a way "outrun" the photons. There is a certain distance that the photons can go, but will never reach - it will get closer and closer infinitesimally to that point, without ever actually getting there. So it never stops or "ends up" anywhere. It's more sort of (loosely speaking) like the paradox where you're at point A, go halfway to point B, then halfway from there to B, then halfway again, etc. | [
"This puzzle has a bearing on the question of whether light from distant galaxies can ever reach us given the metric expansion of space. The universe is expanding, which leads to increasing distances to other galaxies, and galaxies that are far enough away from us will have an apparent relative motion greater than ... |
how can a 64-bit minecraft world seed create an infinite world? | Although as others have said the Minecraft world isnt actually infinite, there isnt actually anything stopping it from being in regards to the seed at least.
A random seed is only the "starting point" for a random number generator, once you've started it you can get as many pseudo-random numbers as you want out of it.
The only limitation the 64 bit seed is that there are only 2^64 different possible sequences of those random numbers (and thus only 2^64 different possible minecraft worlds.) | [
"In video games using procedural world generation, the map seed is a (relatively) short number or text string which is used to procedurally create the game world (\"map\"). This means that while the seed-unique generated map may be many megabytes big (often generated incrementally and virtually unlimited in potenti... |
china's ghost cities | When I visited several years ago I asked the same question and got a somewhat satisfactory answer. Basically the Chinese Government has built these modern cities for business to operate in along with all the apartments and amenities needed to live in the city. The problem is no one wants to leave their families behind to pay to live in a city with no one they know. What ends up happening is people commute in to the cities to work during the day and then go home at night leaving the city empty.
That's how my "Courrier" explained the cities to me. I am sure there is someone here that knows more information. | [
"This is a list of property developments in China, which are currently mostly unoccupied and which are sometimes referred to as \"ghost cities.\" They are also frequently referred to in the international media as \"ghost towns\", but this usually refers to abandoned places rather than new ones that have failed to a... |
how could a world without money function. | Basically everyone in this thread is wrong. Don't listen to them. There have been many, many different kinds of societies without money and they have functioned many, many different ways.
Barter is a spot trade of one good for another. I give you chickens, you give me a cow, and we walk away. There has never been an example of a pre-monetary society which used barter for everyday transactions in either the historical or anthropological record. It simply has never existed and there's no evidence that money emerged from this non-existent system. Barter does not lead to money.
In fact, to the extent that barter exists at all, it seems to be what happens when people who are already used to dealing with money have no access to it—as happens in prisons or POW camps. For people who have never had money before, barter only really happens between strangers (because there's really no reason for spot trades between neighbors) and is often not really a separate economic activity. Rather, barter usually takes place amid feasting, dancing, fucking, and mock-warfare (that sometimes devolves into actual warfare).
As for how non-monetary societies actually *did* function, there's really quite a range. Many societies used a system of gift-giving. If you wanted something, all you had to do was praise it. Your neighbor would simply give it to you and it would be an unspoken understanding that you'd owe them one. Usually these kinds of systems were accompanied by a hierarchy of different kinds of stuff—a cow, a canoe, or a necklace might all be roughly equal to each other but not equal to a chicken.
Another common practice was to keep everything in a common storehouse to be distributed on the authority of the village assembly, a council of women, or even the state (in the case of the Incas, a state society with no money or market).
In the 1930's, during the Spanish Civil War, the anarchists attempted to remove money from their territories as much as they could, keeping in line with their communist ethics. They did have to interact with the outside world though, so they couldn't completely abolish money. They did, however, employ aspects of both of the above-described systems as well as a form of non-circulatory vouchers and labor notes. One cool thing they did was federate the gifting process upwards, having whole communes grant goods to communes which were less well-off.
There have been so many other ways that non-monetary societies have functioned that it would take an anthropologist to do it justice. [Here's a video of one](_URL_0_). [And in print](_URL_1_). | [
"In his much later book, \"Maitreya\", Raël says the road to a world without money is capitalism and globalisation, as opposed to communism. Capitalism would allow those who contribute much to society to also contribute to its scientific and technological development. Under capitalism, society would produce as much... |
what are the main reasons for most of the worlds population (non british colonised countries) wanting to learn english? | I think what OP means how it become a global language. Not why people wanting to learn it today because thats pretty obvious (mentioned in other comments).
Mean reasons are that the British Empire expanded a large portion of the world. Basically they were everywhere. America for example, a lot of people migrated there and there were many languages. Eventually English became dominant and the main language (forced by a ban on other languages).
Some parts of the world the British Empire was mainly there for trade and not many people settled. Like Asia the language did not stuck.
| [
"However, knowledge of English is helped by the large Cypriot migrant communities in the UK and Australia, leading to diffusion of culture and language back to their country of origin, and negative sentiments towards the UK have waned or disappeared. There is now a large British expatriate population, in addition t... |
why does my apple iphone require that i have at least 4.5 gb of storage available in order to update? | The files you download in the update must be decompressed before being permanently installed. A 500 MB download could easily decompress into a couple of gigabytes or more. | [
"The iPad was released with three capacity options for storage: 16, 32, or 64 GB of internal flash memory. On January 29, 2013, Apple announced a 128 GB model of the fourth generation iPad, which was released on February 5. All data is stored on the internal flash memory, with no option to expand storage. Apple sel... |
How do you calculate the amount of rocket fuel needed for a specific weight? | > The problem that I am encountering is that the more fuel (liquid or solid) I end up needing more fuel to compensate for the pervious amount of fuel added.
That's because that's exactly how it is. I can't remember exactly what it's described as, but it's a well known problem with rockets.
You might be able to use the [Tsiolkovsky rocket equation](_URL_0_). The difference between m_0 and m_1 (m_0-m_1) would be the fuel mass.
Disclaimer: Physics student here... I have touched on this before, but it is not my area of expertise.
EDIT: By "I can't remember exactly what it's described as", I meant that it's so well known, it has its own description. Somehting something "The tyranny of the rocket equation" or something, I think. | [
"where g is the gravity constant of the planet (which is Earth in most cases). This also enables the volume of storage required for the fuel to be calculated if the density of the fuel is known, which is almost always the case when designing the rocket stage. The volume is yielded when dividing the mass of the prop... |
Why does hot water rapidly cool when poured into a glass that contains salt? | Enthalpy of dissolution is the energy required to dissolve something in a solvent. This energy is taken from the surroundings thus cooling the solution.
There is also a lattice energy iirc and this releases energy so there would be a sum. | [
"As a molten salt it can serve as a coolant which can be used at high temperatures without reaching a high vapor pressure. Unlike sodium or potassium metals, which can also be used as high-temperature coolants, it does not violently react with air or water. FLiBe salt has low hygroscopy and solubility in water.\n",... |
Did the British paratroopers use a different helmet than regular infantry during WWII? | British airborne forces did indeed use a different helmet design, starting with a small number of ["P" Type helmets] (_URL_2_) in 1942 followed by the "[Helmet, Steel, Airborne Troops Mark I] (_URL_4_)" and [Mark II] (_URL_0_).
(Photos from ParaData, which has [a page on airborne headgear] (_URL_1_) including other examples such as the 'Flash Gordon' safety helmet used in training.)
The British helmets were similar in design to the [German M1938 paratroop helmet] (_URL_3_), in both cases cut-down brimless helmets better suited to parachuting than the more cumbersome standard infantry helmets. They didn't offer quite as much protection, though, particularly around the side and the back of the head, hence not being adopted army-wide. | [
"The M42 Duperite helmet was a paratrooper helmet issued to Australian paratroopers during WW2. The helmet got its eponymous name from the shock impact-absorbing material it was composed of. It was similar to the first of the British dispatch rider helmets.\n",
"A Paratrooper helmet is a type of combat helmet use... |
At the beginning of WWI, why was the German army so much more professional/organized/effective than the French or English armies? | There's no denying the efficiency of the German mobilization which is likely what you're referring to. To understand this you have to understand the Schlieffen Plan. The Schlieffen Plan was the plan created out of necessity because of Germany's position in the early 20th century. They were essentially encircled. British blockades to the North, French to the West, and Russians to the East. Their only plan, or rather their best, in the event of war was a quick strike. According to Schlieffen the German army would have to mobilize and strike out France through Belgium within 900-950 hours (~40 days) before the Russians would be mobilized and attacking East Prussia -- the heartland of German and Prussian culture and nobility.
The speedy mobilization that was organized down to the 't' was born out of necessity, basically. They were on such a tight time frame that Schlieffen, who already had quite the eye for detail, planned said mobilization and attacks to the minute. This culminates in 1.6 million soldiers of the west army -- almost 1000 infantry battalions -- rolling across the Rhine River at the rate of 560 trains of 54 cars per day. Another form of the swiftness of the mobilization was the public support. Abysmally small numbers of men dodged conscription. I do not have precise numbers for the Germans in front of me but for the French the number was 1.2% of the 1914 conscripts failed to report for duty. That gives you an idea of what I mean by "abysmally small". It went so well that Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg was allowed to shelve multiple plans to arrest unpatriotic dissenters, mostly Socialists. The Social Democrat Party, one of the major anti-war parties in Germany, even voted to give large amounts of funds to the mobilization effort.
This is a bit of a loaded question though. It tries to paint that the Germans were inherently superior to the French (who I'll be focusing on particularly) during the onset of the war which is patently false. The Germans fell into the same trap as the French, believing that infantry were the primary fighting force still. Charles Repington of *The Times of London* in October 1911 said after watching German military maneuvers that *"No other modern army displays such profound contempt for the effect of modern fire."*^[1].
Another glaring area of neglect was modern communications. This is something I really want to emphasize here -- the Germans had nothing short of contempt for electronic communication. During their tenures and even during the war for the latter Schlieffen and Moltke alike were content to deliver orders manually via horseback. On the outset of the war the Germans only had a planned 40 telephone companies but most were still being created so their reserve of 21,000 carrier pigeons were used in their stead. Yes, on a modern battlefield.
Where the German success' come is not in an inherent German advantage but an inherent French disadvantage -- the cult of the offensive as it is commonly called. For example, in December 1913 regulations it said *"The artillery does not prepare attacks, it supports them."*^[2] Less mobile artillery was thrown out for things like the 75mm rapid firing field gun which was used because it could keep up with rapid infantry maneuvers. I do not think I can stress enough about the French's war plan of offensive first before anything else. It was ingrained in their military doctrine and as we'll see later it costs them dearly.
This was born out of General Joffre's vow to never allow the French army to be encircled and destroyed as it was in the Franco-Prussian war just decades earlier which allowed the formation of Germany. *"The French Army, returning to its traditions,"* he wrote in the aforementioned regulations, *"accepts no law in the conduct of operations other than the offensive."*^[3] Few officers appreciated the gravity of the situation that the 120 75mm guns in the French arsenal might get outmached in an all out offensive slugfest against the Germans armed with 108 77mm guns, 36 105mm guns, and 16 150mm guns.
A few days after the declaration of war, the French attacked the city of Bonneau in the Alsace-Lorraine region -- their shared border with Germany. On the 9th of August the counter attack from the Germans commenced. The orderly, shoulder to shoulder advance quickly fell into absolute chaos. Fighting ensued in a heavily wooded vineyard and fighting was close quarters. Heat and exhaustion were primary combatants. Men were dropped off in roadside ditches. Men fought in building to building fighting and many companies fired off over 15,000 rounds blindly and friendly fire among the Germans and French alike was rampant. Night warfare was something very new but something that would become very prevalent in this upcoming war.
The Germans, who were unique in that they used their reserve troops on the front lines, sent their troops in against the French at the Rhone-Rhine Canal. The French unloaded on the Baden Landwehr (reserves/militia, basically) with machine guns. Retreating got so bad that Major Otto Teschner only stemmed the tide by threatening to shoot deserters on sight. From this point on the Germans would also face a familiar foe -- francs-tiereurs. Regular people with hunting rifles firing on the Germans from concealed positions, and it ravaged them. To the point where the Germans were going around burning down villages, executing civilians, and holding priests hostage.
The German early war was one plagued with incompetence. The Southern forces on the shared border with France and Germany near Alsace-Lorraine served one purpose -- defense. They were to hold the French in place while the Hammer swung down through Belgium and surrounded the French. That was their job. Well, Von Moltke the Younger would learn that the strategy of allowing a loose command structure became less plausible on the modern field with hundreds of thousands of men over a multiple hundred kilometer wide front.
General Krafft and Crown Prince Rupprecht, the leaders of the Southern forces, were insistent on taking matters into their own hands. They intentionally retreated onto German territory to goad the French into a pocket and try and encircle them. When it did not work they told the central command, *"One either lets me do as I want or one gives me concrete orders"* in regards to their request for a direct offensive into French territory. What's even worse is that not only did they do this with their own men, the campaigns in Belgium were going so well Von Moltke even diverted troops down to the Crown Prince to assist his offensive which would only bleed and distort the German plan even more. They would be later explicitly blamed with taking Bavarian noble interests over the interests of the German people as a whole and those accusations would not be far from the truth.
Their attack disintegrated into a mess almost immediately. Although they routed the French back to their defensive fortifications at Nancy, the attack was still a blunder of epic proportions. Low level guerrilla warfare by francs-tieruers dominated German morale. Hills and vineyards and hills and fallen trees became holes for marksmen to pick off hundreds of Germans. Paul Pouradier of the 58th RID infantry brigade describes the chaos: *"The wagons bump each other and collide. Shafts splinter. Horses spook and collapse. Oaths and agitated cries ring out into the arkness. One artillery piece even falls into the stream alongside the road. Suddenly, shots rang out. Now, the disaster is complete. Whoever has a rifle or can lay their hands on one begins to shoot about wildly."*^[4] It took several hours to restore order.
So basically, the Germans weren't any more inherently organized or professional than the French. Sure they were drilled and marched in lockstep but at the end of the day everyone was taken by surprise by the devastation of the First World War. The French charged into artillery with their smaller, maneuverable cannons and cavalry thinking maneuver warfare was still the key and the Germans marched shoulder to shoulder in line formation into French machine guns at Morhang-Saar, Luneville, and the Siege of Liege.
Were they more organized? Well that argument can certainly be made for the *mobilization and deployment*, in the execution and the combat itself I don't think that would be a fair generalization to make. Unfortunately, for both the Germans and your claim that they were 'more effective', when you plan everything down to the minute when anything goes awry things get thrown into quite the mess right away. Fortunately for the Germans, the French were even more disillusioned about warfare because of men like Joffre and also charged headfirst into artillery and machine guns and completely ignored the idea of a German invasion through Belgium until it was too late.
By the time the Germans had rolled over Belgium and were tearing apart Northern France and Joffre realized that the German attack would not be coming through the center it was too late and the French would be forced to retreat until they reached a collection of rivers that would empty into a larger river named the Marne where they would dig in, fortify, and beat the Germans back and send the war into what we now know as "trench warfare".
**tl;dr:**
The reasons for German effectiveness in the war was the French insistent on maneuver warfare gave them a significant disadvantage in the artillery department which would come to dominate the war. Joffre's obsession with the cult of the offensive sent the French into unnecessary meatgrinders, weakening them with their already significantly lesser manpower reserves and perhaps most importantly the General Staff's refusal to take any action against the German advance in Belgium until it was far too late.
The German being more 'professional' and organized was born out of the Schlieffen and later Schlieffen-Moltke plan which called for a rapid defeat of the French combined with Schlieffen and Moltke's obsessive attention to detail. Other than that however I do think it's unfair to classify the Germans as somehow inherently more organized, professional, or efficient than the French.
It was the Germans who sent wave after wave of Landewr militia troops against French machine guns. It was the Germans, never the French or Belgians, who responded to defeat by burning entire villages and punishing guerrilla's by slaughtering and deporting thousands of French civilians and committed what is now known as the "Rape of Belgium." (for very good reasons) They were not robots of professionalism. They were human beings just like you and me and they acted on emotion and fear and anger once the bullets started flying.
--------
Notes:
[1] Hew Strachan, *The First World War*, p.239
[2] Robert Doughty, *Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War* p. 27
[3] *Ibid* p.26
[4] Deuringer, *Die Schlact in Lothringen*, p. 544
Everything else: Holger Herwig, *The Marne, 1914: The Opening of World War I and the Battle that Changed the World* and the aforementioned Robert Doughty, *The Pyrrhic Victory*.
| [
"Although the UK had increased military spending and funding prior to 1939 in response to the increasing strength of Germany under the Nazi Party, its forces were still weak by comparison, especially the British Army. Only the Royal Navy – at the time the largest in the world – was of a greater strength than its Ge... |
how much do views from services like hulu and netflix count toward helping a show stay on air? | It doesn't really help at all.
In order for a show to stay on the air, it has to be profitable for the network that orders the show.
So, if there's a show called "Americas Next Top Wizard", produced by Sony, and aired on CBS, then CBS needs to make enough money through advertising revenue to order more episodes from Sony. If they can't get good advertising revenue, they won't order new episodes (that is, cancel it), and since Sony doesn't have a customer to purchase the show, they'll stop making it.
It really doesn't matter how many people watch it later on Netflix or Hulu. | [
"In addition to viewing exclusive original series, subscription to Dropout allows users to view all other videos produced by CollegeHumor 72 hours before they are released to the public. There is also access to an exclusive Discord server where subscribers are allowed to chat with cast members and producers of the ... |
Why was Nestorianism so readily accepted by Churches in the East, yet rejected to the West? | This is a great, but really big question! I'll attempt an answer here, but with the understanding that the acceptance and rejection of Nestorianism goes along lines both theological and political.
Firstly, some background for those unfamiliar. Nestorios was installed as Patriarch of Constantinople in 428 by the Emperor Theodosius II. He had previously lived as a monk and was a student of Theodore of Mopsuestia, one of the most famous Antiochene theologians.
Nestorios entered into a controversy that was already live by the time he got to Constantinople (Grillmeier, *Christ in the Christian Tradition*, Vol. 1, 451). The controversy was over whether it was appropriate to call Mary the θεοτόκος (*Theotokos*, 'God-bearer' or, less literally, 'Mother of God') or the χριστοτόκος (*Christotokos* or 'Christ-bearer'). This may seem like a distinction without a difference, but it was one that had major theological implications. For one, if Jesus Christ is fully God (as the Nicene Creed of 325 affirmed) and is a single person, then we must affirm that Mary is the Theotokos, or else we sacrifice either His divinity or unity of person. Nestorios isn't so interested in defending this - though he claims he affirms both Christ's divinity and that He is not two persons - but is rather more interested, like the Antiochenes in general, in defending the Middle Platonist conception of the impassibility of God (cf. O'Keefe, "Impassible Suffering? Divine Passion and Fifth-Century Christology," *Theological Studies*, 58 (1997): 39-60). But Nestorios here makes a mistake, I think, in that he forgets that the ultimate subject in a rational being is the person, not the nature. So when he wants to protect the impassibility of the Logos *in His divinity* (a perfectly orthodox statement to which all parties involved in the Nestorian controversy would agree), He makes the divinity - the nature - the ultimate subject of attribution and thus constrains his own ability to speak about Christ as a single person who is both fully God and fully man.
Now, Nestorios later says later in the *Book of Heraclides*, which he wrote after his exile in 431, that he never had any issue with the term *Theotokos*, but we know this is untrue as we have a sermon of his dating from 429-430 where he explicitly takes issue with the word (cf. Loofs, *Nestoriana*, Sermon 9).
I think what appealed to the East and not the West with respect to Nestorianism is the sort of soteriology put forward by Nestorios. Donald Fairbairn in his *Grace and Christology in the Early Church* splits Christologies up into two camps: those who see Christ as the one who comes and saves us from the muck and mire of our sins and thus stresses the presence of God with us in the person of Jesus Christ; and a Christology that sees salvation as a work of human effort in which God assists and cooperates (p. 12). The more pessimistic theological anthropology is characteristic of Western soteriology. One only needs to do a cursory read of St. Augustine's writings to see a representative example. But the East tended to have a more positive theological anthropology. Man was not thought of as so damaged and thus was more capable of virtue, even salvific virtue (for an example, look to Gregory of Nyssa's *De Hominis Opificio*).
What's all this got to do with Nestorianism? Nestorios' Christ, according to his critics (like John Cassian), at least, is one who merits his identity. The Logos knows beforehand how virtuous the human Christ will be and thus cooperates with him in order to achieve salvation (which, again according to Nestorios' critics, is primarily by way of example - and thus verges into Pelagianism)(cf. Nestorios' teacher, Theodore of Mopsuestia, *De Incarnatione* 7 for this teaching explicitly - cited in Fairbairn 181). The West had already rejected Pelagianism, in large part due to its theological anthropology, and so a Christology which lent itself to a Pelagian soteriology was already suspect. Rather, Cyril of Alexandria (Nestorios' most prominent Eastern opponent - for a good overview, cf. John McGuckin, *St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy* - and the Western Fathers (Leo, Cassian, etc) stressed the fullness of God's presence in the person of Christ and the impact the Incarnation had on human nature without any prior merit or virtue. If Nestorios could not say that Mary gave birth to the mother of God, could he say that God became man (as Athanasius) or that God died on the cross? If not, then his soteriology would be radically different from that espoused by both Eastern and Western fathers up to that point.
Someone else ought to field the political side of this question, but I know the Church of the East (often dubbed 'Nestorian' erroneously, as they are considerably more Theodorean than Nestorian) thrived in the Persian Empire if only for the fact that they were anti-Roman.
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"The Church of the East was associated with the doctrine of Nestorianism, advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 – 431, which emphasized the disunion between the human and divine natures of Jesus. Nestorius and his doctrine were condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, leading to the Nestori... |
What was Nazi Art and Architecture like in the 1930's? | Architecture was an important part of the representation, with a goal to impress by ever larger plans, most of which never saw fruition due to the start of the war.
Hitler was especially interested in architecture and formed a close bond with Albert Speer (who would later become a cabinet member in charge of coordinating the war effort), who would design buildings in a classicist style with a dash of Renaissance whose impressions of monumental size would often be amplified by very muted, almost nonexistent, decoration of the facades. Prime examples of finished buildings can be found by googling for the Neue Reichskanzlei (New Reich Chancellory) or the (partly finished) Reichsparteitagsgelände (Party Rally Grounds). Plans for the "Welthauptstadt Germania" (World Capital Germania), fundamentally transforming Berlin, never went out of the planning stages; one of the few remains is a massive concrete Cylinder designed to test in situ the stability of the ground and its feasibility for monumental buildings.
Architecture was also used to represent Germany and its new political direction on the international stage. Most famous is probably the German pavilion at the World Fair 1937 in Paris (see [here](_URL_0_) to the left and [here](_URL_2_)), especially considering the striking contrast to the Weimar-era German pavilion of 1929 (see pictures of a reconstruction [here](_URL_1_) and [here](_URL_3_)).
There is ample literature available, especially about the buildings and plans designed by Speer. I'm not sure I can suggest anything in particular, but if you have a large library close by, it's probably worth a try just hitting their catalog for photobooks or heavily illustrated books on the topics of Albert Speer, any of the buildings named above, or Nazi architecture in general.
I'll leave the question of other art for other people to answer who are more knowledgeable than me. I will simply point out that the favored style of sculpturing likewise followed a classically-inspired style. You can see a couple of examples in the picture of the pavilion above. Searching for works produced by Arno Breker between the mid-1930ies and 1945 will give you a rough idea. | [
"The building was constructed from 1933 to 1937 following plans of architect Paul Ludwig Troost as Nazi Germany's first monumental structure of Nazi architecture and as Nazi propaganda. The museum, then called \"Haus der Deutschen Kunst\" (\"House of German Art\"), was opened on 18 July 1937 as a showcase for what ... |
it's so dark near pluto, how was new horizons able to take a picture? | Believe it or not, it's not actually that dark near Pluto. The sunlight is very weak compared to what we are used to, but in terms of brightness it's around 250 times brighter than a full moon on earth.
Check out [This Article](_URL_0_) for a run down of the basic maths involved. | [
"In July 2015 NASA published photographs taken as the New Horizons space probe passed within 7000 miles of Pluto. A photo of Pluto's largest moon, Charon, shows a large dark area near its north pole. The dark area has been unofficially called Mordor Macula.\n",
"On February 12, 2015, NASA released new images of P... |
Had a question in Physics class; I got one answer, teacher got another. Can someone explain where I am wrong? | You can put it very simply using just the first postulate. The boat travels at 6m/s relative to the water so the water moves at -6m/s relative to the boat.
Imagine you turned the engine off and just drifted. The water would be still relative to the boat. Then you start moving and you have 6m/s motion relative to the water. It is immaterial what the land is doing meanwhile. | [
"BULLET::::- If everyone gets the same answer they can assume the answer is correct. If not, all members need to discuss to see if someone did something wrong and help that student to see what they did wrong.\n",
"According to many students and professors, a major problem with the first edition of the book was ho... |
Are battle depictions of one or two extremely skilled swordsmen that kill dozens of men, while thousands of poorly trained infantrymen that usually die true? | The most important things to remember about battles is that if you're alone you're dead. Skill definitely plays a role, but so does morale, equipment and luck. The last two I think are most important - a good armour allows one to face many opponents and deal with them. And will save you when a bunch of people start hitting you at the same time.
Rober De Clary describes such an event in his account on the fall of Constantinople. There one of the crusader ships manages to latch on a tower and assault it. The first person over the wall is a venetian man who is quickly slaughtered by the defending Greeks. The second person however is a well armed knight. The Greeks bring him to the ground and shower him with blows. Our fella being well protected by his shield and helm manages to get up and drive the defenders away.
On the other hand - if you are overwhelmed and cannot make a good use of your armour and skill you get killed. Examples are the Battle of Odrin from 1204, where the Latin emperor Baldwin managed to get separated from his main forces and overwhelmed by the forces of Ioannis of Bulgaria.
It seems that the overall skill and resolve of the army is way more important. For example in the battle of Philipoppolis in 1207 the Latins managed to defeat the Bulgarian army that outnumbered them vastly. The battle of Azincourt is a famous example of what happens when you cannot make a good use of the situation - the french knights got so bunched up that they could barely fight effectively and managed to get slaughtered by the English... | [
"The one-eyed, one-armed swordsman is a fictional character in Japanese literature, cinema and TV. The loyal Sōma clan samurai Tange Samanosuke is attacked and mutilated as the result of a betrayal, losing his right eye and right arm. He then begins to lead the life of a nihilistic ronin, using the pseudonym Sazen.... |
why do i never have to poop when i'm on vacation or camping, but as soon as i come home, i'm taking the biggest shit of my life within minutes? | I'm no poop expert but I think it's a territorial thing. Think about our evolutionary ancestors. They were comfortable and safe pooping in familiar territory. If they were on a hunt for a Wooly Mammoth or something, the act of pooping would put them in a vulnerable position. | [
"Why don’t you stay in the wilderness? Because that isn’t where it is at; it’s back in the city, back in downtown St. Louis, back in Los Angeles. The final test is whether your experience of the sacred in nature enables you to cope more effectively with the problems of people. If it does not enable you to cope more... |
how can people lose consciousness when a cabin or area depressurizes? can't you hold your breath for several minutes if you need to? | You can hold your breath in normal air pressure, but not really in low pressure environments. | [
"Any failure of cabin pressurization above requires an emergency descent to or the closest to that while maintaining the Minimum Safe Altitude (MSA), and the deployment of an oxygen mask for each seat. The oxygen systems have sufficient oxygen for all on board and give the pilots adequate time to descend to below .... |
what is light, wavelengths, and how do we see colour? | The eye contains cells called "rods" and "cones" that sense certain wavelengths of light. The brain interprets those signals as color, depending on the wavelength determines what color you see...
An interesting thing is the colors Pink/Maroon in that area don't actually exist in nature. they are a combination of multiple wavelengths that your brain interprets as pink/maroon. if you look at a rainbow/prism you will see there is no pink.... | [
"Visible light, a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, encompasses wavelengths between 380-750 nanometers, which humans perceive as the colors of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Light behaves according to a well-defined set of rules: it travels in straight lines, unless... |
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