Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
how does not wearing warm clothes in winter get you sick	Its false. You get sicker in winter likely due to being in close quarters with people more frequently due to weather/temperature. Cold, dry air irritates your nasal lining, and as a result, your nasal glands produce excess mucus to keep the lining moist. So people tend to have more bacteria/viruses on their hands in c...	[ "Everyone has the essential right to life, as confirmed under Article 3 of the UDHR. However, if people are not adequately clothed, they are far more exposed to the elements. Without warm clothing, a person may well die from hypothermia during a cold winter; clothing that is inappropriately warm, on the other hand,...
why do some american bridges have little roofs on them?	Protection from the elements is the correct answer. I would like to highlight the fact that covered bridges are no longer built, unless serving as a preservation or aesthetic endeavor. The technology dates back to a time before there were other practical/economical ways to protect the wood. The cost of the extra materi...	[ "The bridge rested on concrete and fieldstone footings at each end. As typical for covered bridges, it was a frame structure with a gabled roof that covered with creosote shingles. Its construction is of the through-truss type, and the trusses are completely sheathed on the outside with rough pine boards. The floor...
What was Robert E Lee's opinion on slavery?	While you're waiting for an answer, there are several other threads on /r/AskHistorians about Lee, here is one example: _URL_0_	[ "On August 15, 2017, McDaniel claimed on his Twitter account that Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, was opposed to slavery. (Lee accepted \"the extinction of slavery\" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but believed slavery was good for black people, publicly opposed racial equality, a...
Complex question on covalent bonding, what do the factors to it mean?	These kinds of questions are pretty hard to answer in a conceptually satisfying way. In classical physics you can answer questions like this by saying things like "well, at distance D the forces of attraction and repulsion cancel out, and so things are stable!", but in quantum mechanics it's generally difficult to do t...	[ "The main difference between covalent and non-covalent forces is the sign of this expression. In the case of chemical bonding this interaction is attractive (for certain electron-spin state, usually spin-singlet) and responsible for large bonding energies—on the order of a hundred kcal/mol. In the case of intermole...
what is the difference between cannabis/hemp/marijuana	As far as I know. Cannabis is the medical term. And hemp is all the parts of the plant that are not psychoactive agents	[ "Marijuana or marihuana (herbal cannabis), consists of the dried flowers and subtending leaves and stems of the female \"Cannabis\" plant. This is the most widely consumed form, containing 3% to 20% THC, with reports of up-to 33% THC. This is the stock material from which all other preparations are derived. Althoug...
Did Romans add, subtract, multiply, and divide with roman numerals or did they use a different system all together to solve mathematical equations?	I found some previous answers to similar questions: * [How did Romans do math without a decimal based number system?](_URL_0_) - /u/cespinar discusses multiplication. * [What mathematical symbols (ie + and -) were used in the Roman Republic and Empire? Did they change?](_URL_1_) - /u/kohatsootsich discusses computatio...	[ "Though the Romans used a decimal system for whole numbers, reflecting how they counted in Latin, they used a duodecimal system for fractions, because the divisibility of twelve makes it easier to handle the common fractions of 1/3 and 1/4 than does a system based on ten On coins, many of which had values that were...
all these facebook ads where you get their product for free and 'only' pay the shipment fee	Because you have to pay more for the shipping than the product is worth. They still make a profit.	[ "In February 2011 a federal class action was filed accusing Provide-Commerce and Clarus Marketing Group of defrauding online shoppers by enrolling them in a membership program that costs $9 to $15 a month if they click on ads offering free shipping with a purchase.\n", "Unlike classified advertising, the merchant...
In which ways would the Earth's climate be altered if the seas were open along the whole equator?	It would likely have a massive impact on climate. Major changes in ocean circulation of any sort have very strong impacts on regional (and even global) climate. The opening and closing of equatorial waterways is well correlated with warming and cooling in Earth's history. For example, the [Tethys Sea](_URL_0_) in the ...	[ "On a global and annual basis, the dynamics of the atmosphere (and the oceans) can be understood as attempting to reduce the large difference of temperature between the poles and the equator by redistributing warm and cold air and water, known as Earth's heat engine.\n", "Warming or cooling of the equatorial ocea...
the business behind gps?	To supplement what My_Empty_Wallet [said](_URL_0_): it's worth noting that the satellites aren't complicated flying space computers and don't tell you when to turn. They're just atomic clocks with radios and a bit of laser rangefinding gear. Your satnav/phone/whatever has a radio receiver that picks up the clock signal...	[ "Since the first experimental satellite was launched in 1978, GPS has become an indispensable aid to navigation around the world, and an important tool for map-making and land surveying. GPS also provides a precise time reference used in many applications including scientific study of earthquakes, and synchronizati...
in space, what opposing force keeps orbiting entities, like planets/satellites, orbiting against the constant pull of gravity?	There is no opposing force. Orbiting is when something is falling due to gravity, but it continually misses its target. > but how can it go on forever It doesn't because nothing goes on forever. In the context of the universe at large, it's very important to make the distinction between "Forever" and "For an unthi...	[ "Gravitational forces from third bodies can cause perturbations to an orbit. For example, the Sun and Moon cause perturbations to Orbits around the Earth. These forces are modeled in the same way that gravity is modeled for the primary body by means of Direct gravitational N-body simulations. Typically, only a sphe...
How and why did banks start numbering themselves (e.g. First National Bank)?	For much of U.S. history banks were organized under state law, but beginning with the National Banking Act of 1863, the patchwork system of state banks was supplanted in importance by newly allowed nationally chartered banks,which enjoyed superior legal privileges and were (at that time) capable of issuing currency. Na...	[ "First National Bank was a bank in Philadelphia. Chartered in 1863, it was the first national bank created under the Civil War banking reforms that began to define the modern U.S. banking system, and the first commercial bank to issue a federal banknote. It operated independently until 1955, when it was merged into...
"History is a set of lies agreed upon." What you think of this quote?	One could easily come up with examples of lies being promoted as truth by authority figures, or a convenient fiction becoming popular among the public, but to say that that's what history is is just ridiculous. As long as we live in a free society that allows inquiry, we will always learn more about history, we'll be...	[ "BULLET::::- Often denies that there is such a thing as historical truth, clinging to the extreme skeptical notion that only what is absolutely certain can be called 'true' and nothing is absolutely certain, so nothing is true\n", "The book description reads as follow: There is absolutely nothing more fun than ly...
if part of wwii's explanation is germany's economic hardship due to the treaty of versailles's terms after wwi, then how did germany have enough resources to conduct wwii?	Multiple factors, roughly in chronological order: * Stopped paying reparations which caused a huge influx of money into the economy * Borrowed lots of money from banks * Devalued currency to drive exports * Nationalized businesses, allowing the state to direct them towards state goals (e.g. weaponry) * Confiscated...	[ "Germany was defeated in World War I, and the Treaty of Versailles placed punitive conditions on the country, including significant financial reparations, the loss of territory (some only temporarily), war guilt, military weakening and limitation, and economic weakening. Germany was humiliated in front of the world...
why is it taking so long to develop gene therapies to address all our health issues? we have giant computers, and a fully sequenced genome for over 15 years.	The computers aren't big enough. They're nowhere near big enough. They're so far from big enough it's not even funny. It takes the world's most powerful supercomputers hours or days to simulate seconds of the effect of a single gene and a few tens of thousands of molecules folding a protein, doing so for any sign...	[ "Since the completion of the human genome, new projects are now attempting to systematically analyze all the gene alterations in a disease like cancer rather than focusing on a few genes at a time. In the future, large-scale data will be integrated from different sources in order to extract functional information. ...
Who is history's biggest fraud?	This submission has been removed because it violates the [rule on poll-type questions](_URL_0_). These poll-type questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focussed discussion. “Mos...	[ "By the end of 2003, it was estimated that the company's total assets had been inflated by about $11 billion. This made the WorldCom scandal the largest accounting fraud in American history until the exposure of Bernard Madoff's $64 billion Ponzi scheme in 2008.\n", "Fraud is a 2016 conceptual documentary film di...
why do people's moods and emotions change when seasons transition?	In winter the amount of daylight is reduced. When it is dark a chemical (also known as a neurotransmitter) in the brain called melatonin is produced from another chemical called serotonin. Melatonin's job is to make you get ready to go to sleep. However, if serotonin levels become deplete it can lead to low mood. So in...	[ "Seasonal affective disorder may occur as a result of deficiencies in zeitgebers (such as light) during the winter months that stimulate the , resulting in a depressed mood. Some studies have pointed to the hormone melatonin, which is regulated by circadian rhythms, as a possible mechanism. Because circadian clocks...
how is social security not a ponzi scheme?	In order to be a ponzi scheme,you recruit new people to hide the fact that you're losing money (to pay anyone who pulls out). SS is different because it's more or less fully funded,and it can go on _URL_1_ also doesn't promise fraudulent returns. Edit: I found this link when responding to another comment. I have to ...	[ "One criticism of the analogy is that while Ponzi schemes and Social Security have similar \"structures\" (in particular, a sustainability problem when the number of new people paying in is declining), they have different \"transparencies\". In the case of a Ponzi scheme, the fact that there is no return-generating...
what are the differences between cigarettes and cigars?	A cigar is shredded tobacco wrapped in a tobacco leaf. A cigarette is finely shredded tobacco wrapped in paper. Cigars are more expensive because wrapping a cigar is still a manual process, whereas cigarettes are produced by the millions by machines.	[ "The term \"cigarette\", as commonly used, refers to a tobacco cigarette but is sometimes used to refer to other substances, such as a cannabis cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping, which is typically white. Cigar wrappers are ty...
why does it seem like people of jewish descent are so common in so many areas of life, when there are relatively few of them? surprisingly many scientists/comedians/actors/businessmen are jewish or of jewish descent.	That's hardly many areas of life, they're just common in some high-end jobs, typically business, media, law, medicine. You don't see Jewish plumbers or Walmart employees, because their culture places a lot of importance on education and they have the money and connections to get places, because Jews are very, very nepo...	[ "A genome-wide genetic study carried out by Need et al. and published in 2009 showed that \"individuals with full Jewish ancestry formed a clearly distinct cluster from those individuals with no Jewish ancestry.\" The study found that the Jewish cluster examined, fell between that of Middle Eastern and European pop...
why am i scared of spiders and not ants?	As a biologist that researched both spiders and ants, I always wondered this. Orb weaving spiders are among the most docile, gentle and chill creatures you'll ever see, and people freak the fuck out when they see them. In several years of handling them in the field I've never once been bitten. Ants are some of the most...	[ "Some predators (including larger jumping spiders) eat jumping spiders but are averse to attacking ants, as ants aggressively defend themselves. \"M. melanotarsa\" takes advantage of this aversion by mimicking the ants. Spiders of the genera \"Menemerus\" and \"Pseudicius\" have been shown to flee, leaving their eg...
How did the adoption of RADAR by German forces affect the insertion of allied agents and supplies to resistance by air prior to D-Day?	The adoption of radar by German forces happened before the war; in December 1939 British Wellington bombers were detected by radar on the way to attack the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven, resulting in more than half of them being shot down in the "Battle of Heligoland Bight". Following the invasion of France, radar stat...	[ "The jamming of German radar installations by the Allies both from the air and the ground took on such proportions that the greater part of the sets needed for operation were rendered temporarily useless and Germany's own Fighter Control was interfered with accordingly. For this reason, a German air surveillance ra...
can bugs hear? i was at a loud symphony yesterday and there was a moth just flying around. i also heard that for humans, a sound so loud can cause like a heart or lung embolism. is the same true for insects?	Im not sure about all bugs but female crickets are attracted to the song of males before they mate. Mute males even detect the vocal males and can intercept their potential mate by hanging close by lol	[ "Many insects have good ultrasonic hearing, and most of these are nocturnal insects listening for echolocating bats. These include many groups of moths, beetles, praying mantids and lacewings. Upon hearing a bat, some insects will make evasive manoeuvres to escape being caught. Ultrasonic frequencies trigger a refl...
Was Chaucer a Lollard?	This is something the academic community has been going back and forth on for a few decades now, pretty fiercely from time to time (i.e., them's fightin' words). Terry Jones--yes, the Monty Python guy--wrote an entire book arguing that yes, he was, and it's very good and accessible reading if you're up for it. But he c...	[ "After a long list of works written earlier in his career, including \"Troilus and Criseyde\", \"House of Fame\", and \"Parliament of Fowls\", \"The Canterbury Tales\" is near-unanimously seen as Chaucer's \"magnum opus\". He uses the tales and descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait...
why do children tickets cost less than adult tickets? for example at the movies etc...	It's usually done as a courtesy. Most kids obviously don't have a source of revenue. It also encourages parents to bring their kids if they know they can get them in for cheaper.	[ "The effect on child fares has been to make shorter (and lower-priced) journeys cheaper, but longer journeys more expensive. The \"pivot point\", where the child fare with the new version of the Railcard is the same as it was under \"flat fare\" conditions, occurs where the adult fare for a journey is £10.50, as sh...
why is it sometimes (on a 3g phone connection) a better idea to refresh a page rather than waiting for it to load?	Your browser send a request for data, and it received a response that data would be send, but never actually received the data (it got lost somewhere along the way), the browser keeps waiting until it times out, in the event of the time out, it either tries again, or displays an error. When you refresh, you just insta...	[ "The messaging on the page reinforces the reason for their click, reducing or removing confusion and therefore increasing conversion rates. This improves overall user experience and reduces the bounce rate (individuals leaving the site without converting or navigating to another portion of the site) for the page. G...
When did tax exemptions for religious institutions become commonplace?	There is a lot going on here, but I feel the key is how we define religious institutions. In modern times most charitable organizations (including religious institutions) fall into tax exemption brackets all over the world. There are of course standards and requirements nowadays that validate and verify what qualifies ...	[ "The Court held that there was no nexus between these tax exemptions and the establishment of religion, and that federal or state grants of tax exemption to churches did not violate the First Amendment:\n", "Exemptions can be quite substantial. In New York City alone, an Independent Budget Office study found that...
What was an average European child's day like pre-1900?	Pre-1900 is a long time, and children led different lives in different time periods. Please specify your question.	[ "During the European Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829. Between 1700 and 1900, Europe's population increased from about...
when a country gives financial aid to a poorer country, how does it guarantee that it is used for its intended purpose?	They don't. In any way. If they give food, they have no way to guarantee it gets to the people starving, if they give money they have no way to make sure it is directed toward the projects it is intended.	[ "However, aid also has disadvantages. Often aid does not even reach the poorest people. Often money gained from aid is used up to make infrastructures (bridges, roads etc.), which only the rich can use. Also, the recipient country becomes more dependent on aid from a donor country (the country giving aid).\n", "T...
how do explosions trigger car alarms?	Most car alarms detect movement on the car, like when someone tries to break in. If it is too sensitive, it can be set off by someone leaning on the side. An explosion sends out a massive shockwave, which shakes the car and sets off the alarm.	[ "The simplest aftermarket alarms are one-piece units with a siren and control module. The most common type of sensor is a shock sensor and two wires (12-volt constant power and ground) which are connected to the car's battery. This type of alarm is triggered by vibration transferred to the shock sensor, or by volta...
are spam/fake facebook accounts like this one (screen shots in description) automated, or controlled by actual humans, and what is the purpose of them?	Probably spam accounts. It can artificially inflate the numbers/popularity of certain groups/interests. For example, it can make it seem like a certain candidate for office has millions upon millions of followers, when that number may be much less. Plus, if these fake accounts can comment, it can make it seem like ther...	[ "Since spammer's accounts are frequently disabled due to violations of abuse policies, they are constantly trying to create new accounts. Due to the damage done to an ISP's reputation when it is the source of spam, many ISPs and web email providers use CAPTCHAs on new accounts to verify that it is a real human regi...
Did the Soviet Union receive immigrants apart from some Americans in 1930's? Did the Government have an official Immigration policy?	I can answer for Sweden, and the bottom part is that yes, people moved from Sweden to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Most of them were from northern Sweden and many of them were out of work due to the depression. A large part of them were communists or had communist sympathies, but there seem to have been at least som...	[ "The last large wave of immigration came from the Soviet Union after 1988, in response to heavy political pressure from the U.S. government. After the 1967 Six-Day War and the liberalization tide in Eastern Europe in 1968, Soviet policy became more restrictive. Jews were denied educational and vocational opportunit...
How come neutrons leave the nucleus more commonly than protons?	Nuclei do not normally decay by ejecting either neutrons or protons; if they decay, they usually eject helium nuclei (or electrons or gamma rays or positrons). If you are talking about nuclear fission of U^235 or Pu^239 or something like that, then indeed a few neutrons can get liberated together with other fission fr...	[ "However, protons are known to transform into neutrons through the process of electron capture (also called inverse beta decay). For free protons, this process does not occur spontaneously but only when energy is supplied. The equation is:\n", "Inside a nucleus, on the other hand, combined protons and neutrons (n...
who actually benefits from so many people being in jail?	> it costs a LOT of money to keep them in there That's right, but who does that money get paid to? That's who benefits.	[ "Employment rates and earnings histories of people in prisons and jails are often low before incarceration as a result of limited education experiences, low skill levels, and the prevalence of physical and mental health problems; incarceration only exacerbates these challenges.\n", "Having witnessed clients sit i...
Why is it not possible for an electron to have exact momentum and exact position at the same time?	The easiest way to understand it is to think of the electron as a wave, and remember that there's a direct relationship between momentum and frequency. If an electron has a definite single momentum, it thus has a single frequency, and ends up looking like a [regular wave](_URL_1_). This wave continues on in space fore...	[ "The Wigner–Eckart theorem works because all 45 of these different calculations are related to each other by rotations. If an electron is in one of the 2p orbitals, rotating the system will generally move it into a \"different\" 2p orbital (usually it will wind up in a quantum superposition of all three basis state...
why is music by mozart, bach, etc. considered intellectually stimulating?	saying "it's all just sound" is just garbage, the Parthenon is just a pile of stone and cement and so is the latest government-housing block of flats to go up in your city. Doesn't say anything, does it? The reason why classical music is considered more complex than typical pop music is that objectively speaking, i...	[ "Music played an important role in shaping the subjects of his work. While he later came to love the music of Bach and Mozart, during his youth he was mostly influenced by the music within the Hasidic community where he was raised. Art historian Franz Meyer points out that one of the main reasons for the unconventi...
Is there any truth to the story of native americans and the european tallships they literally couldn't see	Not to discourage any further answers, but /u/reedstilt answered this question [in this thread](_URL_0_) and /u/400-rabbits answered various claims including this one [in this thread](_URL_1_) the short answer is: no, that story is bogus.	[ "The Native peoples of North America told legends of a race of \"little people\" who lived in the woods near sandy hills and sometimes near rocks located along large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes. Often described as \"hairy-faced dwarfs\" in stories, petroglyph illustrations show them with horns on their...
how exactly does nat-traversal work?	This can mean lots of different things, so I'll assume you're referring to something like file sharing or telephony. Put simply, the P2P application you're using will be talking to a central server of some sort - this is how peers find one-another. The server is keeping track of key details for each peer, including b...	[ "Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) provides one way for an application to traverse a NAT. STUN allows a client to obtain a transport address (an IP address and port) which may be useful for receiving packets from a peer. However, addresses obtained by STUN may not be usable by all peers. Those addresses wo...
[serious] invasive animals explained?	Because in general, human civilization is invested in the natural environment staying more or less the way it is. It doesn't benefit us to have the balance of an ecosystem destroyed, and may very well harm us. > they are evolutionarily better This is a myth about evolution that really needs to die. Evolution doesn'...	[ "According to biology, invasive species are non-native animals that are introduced to a region or area outside of their usual habitat. Invasive species can either be introduced intentionally (if they have a beneficial purpose) or non-intentionally.\n", "Overabundant predators are considered harmful to local biodi...
Can anyone suggest a good book(s) on the historical development of Hinduism and the caste system?	Hi, I'd start with this one if I were you: Homo-Hierarchicus, by Louis Dumont _URL_0_	[ "Much of the book focuses on the thought of the medieval Indian philosopher, Vijnanabhiksu. The book's central concern is to show that Vijnanabhiksu provided a philosophical synthesis of diverse schools of Indian philosophy, thereby providing a philosophical unification of Hinduism long before the British colonial ...
What were the Taipings post war plans for the Qing empires territory?	The short and simple answer seems to be that we don't know, or at least that Taiping plans for the non-'18 Provinces' part of the Qing empire have not been studied in any great detail. Or at least, that's before I went on a source dive. There are a couple of instances where we get some vague indication as to the Taipi...	[ "After the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria, and by February 1932, it had captured the entire region. The last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Puyi, who was living in exile in the Foreign Concessions in Tianjin, was convinced by the Japanese to accept the throne of th...
What is the real deal with Israel? And what is the biggest misconception about it?	"Europe" did not decide to create Israel. Jewish Palestinians waged war against the British mandate at a time when Britain was exhausted and impoverished by WW II. The British were caught in a three-way insurrection (Jews vs Arabs, both vs Britain) while trying to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine in an attempt t...	[ "The truth is Israel is a terrorist state and is able to wage crimes on an innocent people because it is funded and abetted by the world's only superpower. Watching the television images of the Palestinians breaking through to freedom surely must make everyone in the world realise we are being sold a great lie abou...
How much evidence would remain from a really ancient civilisation?	35,000 years ago there were humans in Africa, the Near East, Europe, southern Asia, and Australia. People have spent their whole career arguing over it, but it's pretty well accepted that humans weren't in the New World by this point. Assuming a civilization, you've got a state society, with at least one large city, ...	[ "Similarly, in the earliest large-scale human settlements of the stone age which have been discovered, such as Çatal Höyük and Jericho, no evidence was found of the existence of a state authority. The Çatal Höyük settlement of a farming community (7,300 BC to circa 6,200 BC) spanned circa 13 hectares (32 acres) and...
why was early medieval Europe so decentralised? (migration period - early middle ages)	You are entirely right : it seems strange that Europe would have "rebooted" instead of continuing on the same lines and structures of the Late Roman Empire. Unsurprisingly, it didn't happen, and Barbarian kingdoms are largely post-imperial Roman states. While more (much more) can be said, I proposed some answers that ...	[ "At the end of the first millennium AD, Europe was experiencing the full effects of the order and advances in social structure begun during the early Middle Ages; however, the structure and development(s) characterising medieval European society were not found beyond the Carpathian Mountains, and the region of Rus'...
what happens to bullets which don't immediately hit something?	across a straight plane - the bullet will lose momentum and gravity takes over and it eventually falls to the ground	[ "When the bullet strikes, its high velocity and small frontal cross-section means that it will exert large stresses in any object it hits. This usually results in it penetrating any soft object, such as flesh. The energy is then dissipated in the wound track formed by the passage of the bullet. See terminal ballist...
What makes elements have more or less density?	No, it has to do with the crystal lattice that the atoms form, which in turn depends on the interatomic attraction. Osmium forms a hexagonally close packed lattice (atoms arranged like stacked oranges), which is mathematically the densest packing of spheres (tied with face-centered cubic). Uranium, a bigger atom than o...	[ "Since the bulk density of a solid chemical element is strongly related to its molar mass (usually about 3 \"R\" per mole, as noted above), there exists noticeable inverse correlation between a solid's density and its specific heat capacity on a per-mass basis. This is due to a very approximate tendency of atoms of...
how come water stays carbonated at normal pressure for hours?	Don't think of carbonation as just bubbles of CO2 in the water, it is actually CO2 dissolving into the soda. Basically, CO2 can dissolve into water just like salt dissolves into water. Water absorbs the most carbon dioxide when it is cold, so the beverage is chilled prior to being exposed with the gas. Once it comes ou...	[ "Modern carbonated water is made by injecting pressurized carbon dioxide into water. The pressure increases the solubility and allows more carbon dioxide to dissolve than would be possible under standard atmospheric pressure. When the bottle is opened, the pressure is released, allowing gas to exit the solution, fo...
why doesn't anybody file a claim against the nsa for violating their constitutional rights? this seems like an issue that the supreme court would be able to make judgement on.	> Is it because the NSA's actions are not based in any legal grounding? Well... they are, they are approved by the FISA court which was created by legislation. It's entirely possible the court might argue that they don't meet the rules the law sets out, but there is certainly a law which they believe gives them the...	[ "Officials like former National Security Adviser Susan Rice have argued their activities were legal under the so-called minimization rule changes the Obama administration made, and that the intelligence agencies were strictly monitored to avoid abuses. The FISA court and the NSA's own internal watchdog entity dispu...
Are Dogs and Cats closely related in genetics?	[_URL_2_](_URL_1_) is a search engine to find the evolutionary split between two taxa / species - and the example on their start page is in fact "cats and dogs". :-) [See here,](_URL_0_) they seem to have had a common ancestor some 50-60 million years ago. For comparison, cats and humans split ~100 million years, cat...	[ "As a result of the domestication process there is also evidence of convergent evolution having occurred between dogs and humans. The history of the two is forever intertwined. Dogs suffer from the same diseases as humans, which include cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and neurological disorders. The underlying dis...
What was crime like in the middle ages? What type of crime and criminals were there?	Not medieval, but I borrowed from my dad an interesting old book, the Middlesex County Records, Old Series, Volume I, 1549-1603, published by the Greater London Council, 1972, reprinted from the original edition of 1886. It's just a list of crimes from the old Middlesex County archives from the reigns of Edward VI to J...	[ "The most common serious crime was murder, which accounted for 55 to 80 percent of the major crimes described in court archives. It was largely the result of the strict code of honor in effect in the Middle Ages; an insult, such as throwing a person's hat in the mud, required a response, which often led to a death....
How is negative nuclear binding energy (BE/A) possible?	When the nucleons are really close together, the nuclear forces dominate, holding the particles together. When they're further away, electromagnetism dominates, pushing them apart. What takes the most energy is getting them somewhere in between. It's like if you have a bowl of marbles. Sure energy is released if the m...	[ "Nuclear binding energy is the \"minimum\" energy that would be required to disassemble the nucleus of an atom into its component parts. These component parts are neutrons and protons, which are collectively called nucleons. The binding energy is always a positive number, as we need to spend energy in moving these ...
Could someone point me in the direction of any autobiographies of the first explorers of the new world or Africa please?	You might want to check the [log book of Columbus](_URL_1_), an interesting read. (Don't know if the edition is good, though, I only read it in German) Another interesting journal is the [one from James Cook](_URL_0_). If you're more interested in Africa, check out [How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa ]( _URL_...	[ "He was the first European known to sight and enter the Congo River and to explore the West African coast between Cape St. Catherine in Gabon and Cape Cross, almost from the equator to Walvis Bay in Namibia.\n", "While in South America, Farabee traveled into very remote regions. He helped to fill in maps of locat...
how come if i scratch my head it's not as enjoyable as if someone else did?	You anticipate your own touch. It's very hard to tickle yourself as well, even when copying the movements of others that send you into hysterics.	[ "Itch (also known as pruritus) is a that causes the desire or reflex to scratch. Itch has resisted many attempts to be classified as any one type of sensory experience. Itch has many similarities to pain, and while both are unpleasant sensory experiences, their behavioral response patterns are different. Pain creat...
how is it even possible to survive multiple gunshot wounds considering the huge damage that is created inside the body? how do surgeons deal with this situations?	First you must consider the caliber of the weapon. Second, the type of bullet (JHP, FMJ, etc.). Then the size of the target. Small caliber handgun plus large target means that many of the bullets can go through soft tissue and either end there or ricochet inside but with less kinetic energy. It's not as easy as the...	[ "Surgical intervention may be required but it depends on what organ systems are affected by the wound and the extent of the damage. It is important for care providers to thoroughly check the wound site inasmuch as a laceration of an artery often results in delayed complications sometimes leading to death. In cases ...
How much wealth would 120 French livres represent during the 1660's in New France?	What are their names, pray tell? Odds are you should be able to track them down through [Cyprien Tanguay's genealogical dictionary](_URL_0_), which is pretty much the go to reference for that time and place. I happen to have roots on the Beaupré coast in that period as well, and once you get the hang of the Tanguay it...	[ "in France, as in most of Europe, the sum total of wealth was concentrated. The richest 10 percent of families owned between 80 and 90 percent of the wealth from 1810 to 1914. Their share then fell to about 60 percent, where it remained into the 21st century. The share of the top one percent of the population grew ...
why we can record sight and sound but not smell?	Sight (light) and sound are energy in different forms. You can convert energy between forms and therefore record and reproduce it. Smells are particulates in the air. You'd have to somehow convert molecules to an energy pattern, and then to "play back" the scent convert the pattern back to matter. We can analyze comp...	[ "Audio information is beneficial for many people and can be used by anyone who owns a CD player, a DAISY player or a computer. Audio enables people who are blind or visual impaired to access information through hearing, in the sense that print readers would understand it. \n", "Vision is obviously important for s...
Is there any way for a planet to have seasons that vary in length from year to year?	I think GRRM has said that it's due to magic and not astronomy, but it could happen if the planet was in a highly eccentric elliptical orbit with another large object orbiting the same star. This paper discusses it in more detail: _URL_0_	[ "On Earth, the variation in the lengths of the tropical years is small, but on Mars it is much larger. The northward equinox year is 668.5907 sols, the northern solstice year is 668.5880 sols, the southward equinox year is 668.5940 sols, and the southern solstice year is 668.5958 sols. Averaging over an entire orbi...
If you mix pure Hydrogen and pure Oxygen, do you get Water or Hydrogen Peroxide?	In a combustion reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, water is the product, as it is the lower energy product compared to hydrogen peroxide. Even if hydrogen peroxide is formed, it will decompose into water and oxygen.	[ "It just so happens that hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) are both diatomic molecules, thus we have H and O. To form water, one of the O atoms breaks off from the O molecule and react with the H compound to form HO. But, there is one oxygen atom left. It reacts with another H molecule. Since it took two of each atom to ...
What conclusion can be drawn from statistically insignificant results? (Layman question and text provided)	The example you gave is not quite enough to explain the meaning of statistical significance. You took the drug 100 times and it helped you 3 times so it worked 3% of the time and there is not much else to say about it. To use statistical significance you have to compare the drug to something. So you would also have to...	[ "If there is some relevant data, the probability of events at or beyond the range of the data may be estimated by the statistical methods of extreme value theory, developed for such purposes as predicting 100-year floods from a limited range of data of past floods. In such cases a mathematical function may be fitte...
network ping	Its the time it takes for information to go from your computer, to the server host, be processed and then come back to you. Basically your computers reaction time. It's usually measured in MS (microseconds). Anything under roughly 200 is considered a good connection, higher than that and things get dodgy. (Fun fact, I ...	[ "Ping is a computer network administration software utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IP) network. It is available for virtually all operating systems that have networking capability, including most embedded network administration software.\n", "PingER uses the data to deter...
why don’t video game companies hold the rights to gameplay videos?	They do, most do not enforce their rights and see the gameplay videos as good PR and free marketing. [Nintendo though, will certainly claim a copyright strike against videos including their property](_URL_0_) and prefer content makers partner with them and their unfavorable returns on ad revenue in exchange for the "pr...	[ "In one case, Nintendo claimed that they retain the copyright and have registered the content through YouTube's Content ID system such that they can generate ad revenue from user videos, though Nintendo would later back off of such claims, and later created its own affiliate program, the Nintendo Creators program, ...
why exactly do employers who claim to be an eeo or equal opportunity employer ask the applicant their ethnicity? what's the purpose?	In the USA, it is actually a piece of information that the government requests. So, they ask it. The US government uses this information for their statistics on race, ethnicity, gender.	[ "Employers have begun using the online reputations of job applicants to help their hiring choices. By checking a candidate's social networking profiles on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, employers gain insight into a candidate's character and suitability for a job.\n", "Federal contractors and subcon...
why does a radio start at 87.7 and end at 107.9?	Those are the radio station frequencies that are "allocated" (given) to radio stations that are designed for broadcasting consumer-based media (music, talk shows, etc.). There are a ton of other frequencies but a lot of them are reserved for other use (for instance, there are international frequencies for emergency me...	[ "87.5–87.9 MHz is a radio frequency which, in most of the world, is used for FM broadcasting. In North America, however, this bandwidth is allocated to VHF television channel 6 (82–88 MHz). The analog audio for TV channel 6 is broadcast at 87.75 MHz (adjustable down to 87.74). Several stations, most notably those j...
why is frozen food thought of as being unhealthy?	Frozen foods are not unhealthy, but the foods you listed are. It's not the freezing. Unfrozen pizza is also not a healthy food.	[ "Frozen products do not require any added preservatives because microorganisms do not grow when the temperature of the food is below , which is sufficient on its own in preventing food spoilage. Long-term preservation of food may call for food storage at even lower temperatures. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), a tast...
why do some programs take ages to close when task manager closes them instantly?	The task manager kills things instantly and forcefully. This means the program doesn't get to do anything in response, and doesn't even know it's being closed, so it can't clean up after itself, can't ask if you'd like to save your work, etc. Closing a program the normal way sends it a message: "please close now". Th...	[ "BULLET::::- The Shutdown menu containing Standby, Hibernate, Turn off, Restart, Log Off and Switch User has been removed. This was done due to low usage, and to reduce the overall complexity of Task Manager.\n", "The \"end\" case is a very simple case that works to simply delay the program to allow the user enou...
Did King Harold have an alternative to immediately going to face William the Conqueror and his army?	Hey there! Not to preclude further discussion, of course, but you may find [this](_URL_0_) series of answers by /u/Rittermeister to be of interest to you. :)	[ "According to Orderic Vitalis and William of Malmesbury, Gyrth tried (ineffectually) to prevent Harold from engaging William of Normandy in battle, saying that he instead could lead the English forces and that he must stay in London to lead another battle and reminding him of the oath which he had sworn to William....
how to use reddit properly	Different subreddits operate by different rules. What it acceptable in one subreddit (r/ < somename > ) will probably not work in another. So lurk for a while in the subreddit of your interest and you might get the feeling for what goes and what doesn't.	[ "Reddit (, stylized in its logo as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created board...
What is the history of translation of Quran? Was there any political conflict due to it being translated or after it translated?	Medieval Western Christianity, early modern Catholicism (EMC), and medieval Islam cultivated an ideal of holy scripture in only one language (Latin or Arabic). However, the reasons for the two ideals were very different, and in all cases, the situation in practice was much more complicated. In the West, the translat...	[ "Such fallibility of the translation process has contributed to the Islamic world's ambivalence about translating the \"Quran\" (also spelled \"Koran\") from the original Arabic, as received by the prophet Muhammad from Allah (God) through the angel Gabriel incrementally between 609 and 632 C.E., the year of Muhamm...
cpu clocks.	The clock operates flip-flop circuits which increment the program counter, feed signals to the timers, execute the program instructions, load/store register values/addresses, and so on. A higher frequency means more cycles per second, resulting in more instructions being performed per second. The limits of the frequen...	[ "Clock rate of a processor chip refers to the frequency at which the central processing unit (CPU) is running. It is used as an indicator of the processor's speed, and is measured in \"clock cycles per second\" or the SI unit hertz (Hz). For basic calculators, the speed can vary from a few hundred hertz to the kilo...
the concept of cinematography.	Cinematography refers to the technical skill of the cameraman and the director in achieving a shot. It's using things like different lighting, color, and focus to achieve a particular "feel" to your movie. This video [here](_URL_0_), although computer-generated, is a fantastic example of "pure" cinematography- there's...	[ "Cinematography (from ancient greek κίνημα, \"kìnema\" \"movement\" and γράφειν, \"gràphein\" \"to write\") is the science or art of motion-picture photography and filming either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as film stock.\n", "Cinematograph...
if a crime suspect tells his defense lawyer the evidence of the crime, what should the lawyer do?	The lawyer is required by law to give his client the best defense possible. Even if they know their client is guilty, they can still defend their client based on procedural issues in the prosecution's case. For example, they could say that the smoking gun you used to murder your uncle was obtained by the police illegal...	[ "A defense attorney tries to prove the innocence of his client on a murder charge, despite witness after witness testifying against him. However, during a cross examination of a crucial witness, the lawyer is able to establish the real truth.\n", "In the context of the law of attempts, the Crown Prosecution Servi...
If the day Christmas is celebrated was chosen to replace Saturnalia, in order to ease conversion to Christianity, why do Copts celebrate Christmas on January 7th?	As I've argued a few times, the date of Christmas being on the 25th is by no means linked to Saturnalia, or at least with very little certainty, this is a very late development in terms of speculation. (here's a [thread](_URL_0_) with /u/Gadarn; [one by me](_URL_1_); [another by me](_URL_2_)). Anyway, none of these t...	[ "In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday \"Dies Natalis Solis Invicti\" and was therefore a \"paganization\" that debased the true church. It has been argued that, on the contrary, the Emperor Aurelian, who in 274 institut...
how do officers issue you a ticket when you are a pedestrian or cyclist?	They ask you to identify yourself. If you refuse, they arrest you, and if you lie, you've commuted a crime. So most people just tell them the truth.	[ "On buses, the driver checks tickets as passengers board. The metro, local trains, trams, and ferries use a proof-of-payment system: fare inspectors check tickets on randomly selected vehicles, and charge a fine of €80 and the price of a single ticket to those who do not have one. If a passenger has forgotten his/h...
What directions are used in space?	> where one planet is in relation to another For this usually a cartesian system based on the Sun is used. The X axis points to the Vernal equinox, the Y axis points 90º ahead along the ecliptic plane (the plane of Earth's orbit), and the Z axis points North perpendicularly to this plane from the Sun following the ...	[ "Laban has found a system to define the directions we can move in. This system includes 3 different levels as well as one-, two- and three-dimensional directions. The 26 directions that are in the system, are derived from the vertices of the Octahedron, the Icosahedron and the Cube.\n", "Pointing in a specific di...
What are some examples of interesting dreams from history?	The first thing that comes to mind is the story of Constantine's conversion. The story goes that right before a great battle for control of Rome where he's heavily outnumbered, Constantine has a dream. In it he sees a cross and is told "With this sign, you will counter." He paints the symbol on his troops shields and i...	[ "Parts of Lovecraft's story bear a striking resemblance to Carl Jung's famous \"house\" dream (told to Sigmund Freud in 1909, though not well known before 1925): the descent through one's historically-stratified ancestral family home to a Romanesque cellar; lifting a hidden slab; descending stone steps to a prehist...
do people with no arms/legs have less blood meaning they have more chance to die due to blood loss?	Yes. It's a ratio thing. Smaller choo choo trains have smaller gas tanks. So when they lose a gallon it's a lot more than a big choo choo train losing a gallon.	[ "Although a specific cause of death was not established, blood loss (at another location) was possible due to the lack of blood on the body and at the scene. Additionally, in some parts of the body life-threatening internal bleeding was found which could have been caused only by considerable force, such as kicking....
How did the balance of power system change in Europe after the First World War?	The most obvious change was the vanishing of Mitteleuropa ('Central Europe'), the area where the borders of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires had met before 1914. Now, this area was home to Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), with the Soviet ...	[ "The European balance of power referred to international relations between European countries during the First World War, which evolved into the present states of Europe. The Nineteenth Century political concept emerged at the Peace of Paris in 1815. It is often known by the term European State System. Its basic te...
What were characteristics of the Native American/First Nations fighting methods, and how did they develop?	That's a tough question, and the answer would depend on your definition of a martial art. If you're using the modern definition of a competitive unarmed combat style, then I can't really say. If you're using the ancient definition of any codified fighting system, then there is some evidence. I can only speak to my area...	[ "Chichimeca battle tactics were mostly ambushes and raids on the Spanish. Some of their raids were conducted by up to 200 men, groups of 40 to 50 warriors were more common, about the size of a modern infantry company or platoon with attachments, respectively. During the war, the Chichimecas learned to ride horses a...
why do glasses always get dirty,almost greasy?do dust molecules naturally stick to the lenses even though i take care of them?	Glasses get dirty from a variety of things, most commonly from touching it. While you may take good care of them, any touch to any part of the glasses may have an affect on the lenses. If you tend to have oily, or dry and flaky skin, then your glasses will smudge and get dirty easily. Same goes for if you wear makeup...	[ "Few materials do not cause diffuse reflection: among these are metals, which do not allow light to enter; gases, liquids, glass, and transparent plastics (which have a liquid-like amorphous microscopic structure); single crystals, such as some gems or a salt crystal; and some very special materials, such as the ti...
Could the Nazis have won on the Eastern Front, had they pushed for Moscow instead of Stalingrad?	These kind of super significant counterfactuals are pretty difficult. I think if the Nazis had captured Moscow it would have certainly changed the course of the war, but the USSR was incredibly adaptable, and by no means would they have given up. For one, the USSR was committed to no capitulation. The Nazi plans for...	[ "Stalin directed the Red Army to move rapidly in a broad front into Germany because he did not believe the Western Allies would hand over territory they occupied, while he made the overriding objective capturing Berlin. After successfully capturing Eastern Prussia, three Red Army fronts converged on the heart of Ea...
how does squinting eyes change this image?	High and lo pass filtered images superimposed on each other. When you squint you lose the ability to see fine detail so the lo-pass filtered image stands out as the details (high pass filter) disappear. When you are not squinting you see the detail parts stand out because the brain likes to see fine detail more than t...	[ "As the eye shifts its gaze from looking through the optical center of the corrective lens, the lens-induced astigmatism value increases. In a spherical lens, especially one with a strong correction whose base curve is not in the best spherical form, such increases can significantly impact the clarity of vision in ...
explain being high, like im 5	chocolate chip cookies + the high point of a really good swing on a swing set	[ "Peak is the youngest, and the most reckless, of the siblings. He enjoys stunt-flying on dragon-back, which lands him in trouble, and is quite egoistical and mischievous. His name indicates \"the top\", as of a mountain or hill.\n", ", which in a martial arts context means something like \"high level\", is one of...
why is it that some kinds of radio communications dissipate right away in short distances (wi-fi) whereas others can go to another planet just fine?	Wifi is like a lamp. Radio stations and cell towers are like huge beacons. planet-to-planet communications are like lasers. Wifi is broadcast in all directions at low power. It is required by law to accept interference from other radio sources, and not cause interference, which means that it uses a tight radio spectr...	[ "At shallow incidence losses are quite small, so the radio signal may effectively \"bounce\" or \"skip\" between the earth and ionosphere two or more times (multi-hop propagation), like a rock thrown to \"skip\" across water. Consequently, even signals of only a few Watts can sometimes be received many thousands of...
How much do we know about hair? Is it really possible to cream some chemicals on it (shampoo and conditioner) and repair it?	[Please search the subreddit before submitting a question.](_URL_0_)	[ "Little research has been conducted regarding the preservation and conservation of human hair within the context of the archival world. However, much is known of the chemical structure and behavior of human hair, thanks in large part to the cosmetology industry; there is certainly a great deal of scholarship surrou...
what is the difference between "type" and "form" of government	As an example, we have a constitutional Republic with democratically elected leadwrship (type) that takes the form of two houses of congress, an executive branch with a president and vice president and a judicial branch.	[ "Government can be defined as the political means of creating and enforcing laws; typically via a bureaucratic hierarchy. Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups; this process often involves conflict as well as compromise. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within governmen...
When building a large flat structure, do they level it according to "level" or parallel to the earths curve.	Large bridges have support towers that are built with respect to the Earth's curve, not each other. For example, at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, "because of the height of the towers (693 ft/211 m) and their distance apart (4,260 ft/1,298 m), the curvature of the Earth's surface had to be taken into account when design...	[ "In the case of the pyramid one connects all vertices of the base, a polygon in a plane, to a point outside the plane, which is the peak. The pyramid's height is the distance of the peak from the plane. This construction gets generalised to \"n\" dimensions. The base becomes a (\"n\" − 1)-polytope in a (\"n\" − 1)-...
why do words like calculator, accelerator and detonator end in or instead of er?	-or is a Latin suffix used to indicate a "noun agent," i.e., a noun that is doing something, often acting as the subject of a sentence. -er, on the other hand, is a Germanic suffix that serves the same function as -or does in Latin. So. When the root word is taken from the Latin, one expects to find its no...	[ "In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with a consonant followed by an unstressed \"-re\" (pronounced ). In American English, most of these words have the ending \"-er\". The difference is most common for words ending \"-bre\" or \"-tre\": British spellings all have \"-er\" in American spel...
Was it at all possible for the average person to hunt either for leisure or subsistence during the Middle Ages or were all forests and hunting restricted to the nobility?	This was possible at least in North Europe. Hunting as a means of subsistence was widely practiced especially in the eastern parts of the Kingdom of Sweden (the region that is Finland today) and most likely similarly in North Sweden and Norway. Long winters forced peasants to find alternative ways to support themselves...	[ "In most parts of medieval Europe, the upper class obtained the sole rights to hunt in certain areas of a feudal territory. Game in these areas was used as a source of food and furs, often provided via professional huntsmen, but it was also expected to provide a form of recreation for the aristocracy. The importanc...
the current college situation in germany	It doesn't mean anything for German education or future international students. German Universities have been free for a long time and even when they weren't, the tuition they charged was only a few hundred Euro per semester. _URL_0_	[ "Since the end of World War II, the number of young people entering a university has more than tripled in Germany, but university attendance is still lower than that of many other European nations. This can be explained with the dual education system with its strong emphasis on apprenticeships and vocational school...
When you put your thumb over the end of a straw that's submerged and then pull the straw out (while keeping your thumb on the straw), what force(s) opposing gravity are keeping the liquid in the straw?	At all times, 1atm of air is pushing down on surface of the water in the cup and the water in the straw (while it's in the cup). When you cover the hole of the straw with your thumb and take the straw out of the water, the pressure of the trapped air side inside the straw is less than the pressure of the air outside th...	[ "Internal water pulses from the straw (into the drop) and air movement around the suspended solution drop, can cause the rafts to spin swiftly around the drop surface. If there is almost no air movement around the suspended drop, then after approximately 12 minutes or more, the micro rafts may join up and form a la...
If we are walking around with the weight of all the air above us on our heads and shoulders, then why don't we feel lighter when we walk under an enclosed structure?	The weight of depth in a gas or a liquid is experienced as pressure from all directions on surfaces exposed to it, not as an exclusively vertical force. This is because gases and liquids are fluid, and distribute gravitational force depending on depth in the entire column, not just the depth uninterrupted by a hor...	[ "The effect of ground elevation depends on the density of the ground (see Slab correction section). A person flying at 30 000 ft above sea level over mountains will feel more gravity than someone at the same elevation but over the sea. However, a person standing on the Earth's surface feels less gravity when the el...
why aren't snow melters a more common solution for snow removal?	Melting ice/snow actually takes a LOT of energy. It takes 144 BTU to melt a pound of ice. A gallon of gas would only melt an volume of snow 4 feet by 10 feet, 2 feet deep. It's just not efficient.	[ "Snow melters are in some ways more environmentally friendly than gritters, as they do not spray hazardous materials, and pollutants from the road surface can be separated from the meltwater and disposed of safely. In addition, because the snow is melted on board, the costs of transporting snow from the site are el...
Are all electrons identical in shape or is each electron slightly unique?	They are completely and totally identical. Electrons don't have a shape though.	[ "The shapes of atomic orbitals in one-electron atom are related to 3-dimensional spherical harmonics. These shapes are not unique, and any linear combination is valid, like a transformation to cubic harmonics, in fact it is possible to generate sets where all the d's are the same shape, just like the and are the sa...
why have unattractive humans not gone extinct through natural selection?	Virtually everyone is a perfect 10...compared to our primitive ancestors. You have disease free skin and all of your teeth, you are a supermodel to them. The problem is that beauty is about exclusivity, which will always make it a relative thing. The population becomes healthy, more attractive, and better groomed,...	[ "I have further shown cause for the belief that direct selection, after the fashion of the horticulturist and the breeder, neither has played, nor can play, any important part in the evolution of society; apart from other reasons, because I do not see how such selection could be practiced without a serious weakenin...
Africa, christianity and imperialism	Here are a few books that speak to this topic to one degree or another from the perspective of the French Empire : * A. Conklin, Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France & West Africa, 1895-1930 * O. Abi-Mershed, Apostles of Modernity: Saint-Simonians & the Civilizing Mission in Algeria * Dau...	[ "Of all the areas of the world that scholars have claimed to be adversely affected by imperialism, Africa is probably the most notable. In the expansive \"age of imperialism\" of the nineteenth century, scholars have argued that European colonization in Africa has led to the elimination of many various cultures, wo...
Historians: What would you consider the top 3 best and top 3 worst history books you've read.	I can only give one answer for this - 1066: The Year of the Conquest, by David Howarth, is my favorite history book that I have ever read. It's well-researched and well-documented, with a complete bibliography and references to it throughout; but at the same time he includes his own narrative structure and makes it suc...	[ "The book is number 71 on the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. The Modern Library placed it number 20 on its list of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century. \"Time Magazine\" also included the novel in its \"TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 192...
how does a large team logistically manage simultaneously working on a complex project like the iphone for example? how do they keep in loop of each others day to day activities / advancements that may affect their specific tasks?	I have some experience in this area as I have worked as a software architect and have been pretty heavily involved in some mid-sized complex projects. Essentially on the projects that go well there are clearly defined parts of the project which can be worked on in parallel without having to coordinate details between ...	[ "Able to manage multiple projects; able to determine project urgency in a practical way; uses goals to guide actions; creates detailed action plans; organizes and schedules people and tasks effectively.\n", "Effective project management is best achieved using an adaptive approach focused on effective decision-mak...
; what is the shimmer mirage like waves you can see on roads on hot days or coming off anything hot?	It's called a heat haze. The convection currents cause the temperature of the air right above the road surface to vary, and that variation, between the hot air right above the road and the cooler air above it causes a gradient in the air's refractive index, causing the light rays to bend as they pass through the g...	[ "Air temperature variations close to the surface can give rise to other optical phenomena, such as mirages and Fata Morgana. Most commonly, air heated by a hot road on a sunny day deflects light approaching at a shallow angle towards a viewer. This makes the road appear reflecting, giving an illusion of water cover...
A planet with no orbit	I don't see why not, supposing the planet is at one of the Lagrange points with respect to the two stars. (_URL_0_) You seem to be referring to the L1 point, which if a planet was at such a point, the idea of 'night' would be a rather new concept to any inhabitants of such a planet.	[ "The only parameters of the planet's orbit that are currently available are its orbital period, which is about , and its inclination, which is approximately 90°. From Earth, the planet appears to make a transit across the disk of its host star. It has an eccentricity of 0, meaning its orbit is circular.\n", "Terr...
the war of the roses	It was a dynastic war in England, between the descendants of different sons of Edward III. The House of Lancaster (symbolized by the red rose) were descendants of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, Edward III's third son. The House of York (symbolized by the white rose) were descendants of Edward III's fourth son ...	[ "The Wars of the Roses were a series of English civil wars for control of the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the House of Lancaster, associated with a red rose, and the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose. Eventually, the wars eliminated...
How can cheese be "aged" so long, but when it's in my fridge for longer than a few weeks it goes mouldy?	Aged cheese wheels have something called a "rind." Rinds are most obvious on a cheese like brie. Some cheeses are also waxed on the outside (think Gouda.) It's basically an outer dehydrated shell that is maintained by the cheesemakers, and either one certain type of edible mold is allowed to flourish on it (like brie,)...	[ "The cheese is typically aged between 12 and 52 weeks in rectangular blocks of , coated with a bacterial culture. The culture is washed off at the end of the aging cycle, and the cheese is packaged for retail sales.\n", "During the aging process metal rods are quickly inserted and removed, creating air channels t...

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