question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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how does a radiation meter work? | There are different types of radiation detectors
* Geiger tubes: A tube filled with an inert gas at low pressure, when radiation enters the tube it knocks electrons off of the gas and creates a brief pulse of current that can be detected.
* Scintillation counter: Uses a material that releases light upon being struck with radiation. The light is usually detected with a photomultiplier tube, which can detect extremely low levels of light.
* Semiconductor detector: When radiation strikes a semiconductor it produces a brief pulse of current that can be detected. | [
"Any radiation detector is a relative instrument, that is to say the measurement value can only be converted to an amount of material present by comparing the response signal (usually counts per minute, or per second) to the signal obtained from a standard whose quantity (activity) is well known.\n",
"\"Radiation... |
why does the moon look huge in the distance when poping over a mountain but small on a picture or a video? | The short answer is it's an optical illusion. This is mainly caused by having something to compare the moon's scale too (mountain, building, etc).
Many people belive its due to being lower to the horizon and the atmosphere "magnifies" it, however this is incorrect.
To test this optical illusion for yourself, hold up an object at arms length to the moon when it is low on the horizon and looks larger. Compare the scale of the moon to the object. Then, later when the moon is higher in the sky and looks normal size, hold the same object at arms length again. You will see its the same size. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Finally! Why the Moon Looks Big at the Horizon and Smaller When Higher Up\" by Don McCready, Professor Emeritus, Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Revised 10 November 2004, retrieved 31 October 2015\n",
"A full moon at perigee appears roughly 14% larger in diameter than at ... |
difference between a think tank and a lobbyist | Lobbyists generally work on the behalf of a specific entity, be it a company or some other interest group. Basically, you tell them what your goals are, and they'll go argue for you for a fee.
Think tanks tend to be more dedicated towards a specific ideology or cause, rather than just lobbying for the desires of whoever pays them.
But I think it's fair to say that the line between them can be rather blurry at times. | [
"A think tank or policy institute is a research institute which performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most policy institutes are non-profit organisations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada pro... |
why doesn't the government build hospital's with the medicare budget instead of acting as insurance? | Because the issue being addressed isn't "there are not enough hospitals".
There are *plenty* of hospitals in the US. The issue is that not everyone can afford medical care. Medicare/Medicaid are intended to help remedy that issue. | [
"However, various private insurance plans such as Medicare, Medicaid, and HMO will take care of the costs of hospice care, helping it be less detrimental on the family. This helps avoid more trauma to the family by reducing the enormous medical bill necessary to support their loved ones who are fighting the illness... |
why do carbonated drinks hurt us when we drink too fast? | Carbonated drinks contain dissolved carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide naturally reacts with water (in the drink) to produce carbonic acid (a weak acid). Weak acids such as citric acid (lemon juice) or acetic acid (vinegar) have a sour taste, so carbonating drinks changes their taste along with giving them an interesting texture.
If you guzzle down a soda the carbon dioxide bubbles collect in your stomach and eventually you burp up almost pure carbon dioxide. If you happen to exhale the burp through your nose then the carbon dioxide can react with the water on the surface of your nasal passage to form carbonic acid. Your nose is sensitive to things like acids to protect you from breathing in nasty things, so having an acid suddenly form on the inside of your nose sets off pain receptors and gives you an eye watering sensation. | [
"Mixing alcohol with normal soft drinks, rather than diet drinks delays the dizzying effects of alcohol because the sugary mixture slows the emptying of the stomach, so that drunkenness occurs less rapidly.\n",
"A Brazilian study conducted in 2006 found that combining an energy drink and alcohol \"appears to show... |
Why did people pay money to buy officers commissions in the army? | Just to clarify, are you asking why an army would allow people purchase commissions, or why someone would bother paying money for an officer's commission? | [
"The purchase of officer commissions in the British Army was the practice of paying money to be made an officer in the cavalry and infantry regiments of the English and later British Army. By payment, a commission as an officer could be secured, avoiding the need to wait to be promoted for merit or seniority. This ... |
how have actions such as the head nod and head shake become universally understood in contrast to languages. | They haven't really. Lots of places won't know what you mean if you shake your head. In India they do a side to side wobble instead of nodding. Stuff like hand signals can mean completely different things in different places, like the OK sign is seriously rude in Thailand. | [
"An early survey of head shake and other gestures was \"The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals\", written by Charles Darwin in 1872. Darwin wrote to missionaries in many parts of the world asking for information on local gestures, and concluded that shaking head for \"no\" was common to many different gr... |
What was the vikings' knowledge of contemporary mathematics? (What kind of number system did they use, etc?) | This is a bit of a problematic question, because these theoretical issues are not typically captured in writing of the time period (which is more concerned with narratives and events). We only have the material evidence to go on (the archaeology), and for that it is hard to determine, as noted, what is derived from 'trial and error' (or what I would call craftsman's experience), and what from deliberate theoretical planning. As Norse shipbuilding is very traditional (designs hardly change over centuries, there is very little experimenting), I suspect tradition is the primary source of technologically advanced designs, rather than deep theoretical insight. And yes, this includes the incorporation of things like geometry and hydrofoils.
This changes at the rule of Harald Bluetooth, Denmark in the 970s. Particularly the Trelleborg fortresses seem to have been built according to a fixed plan, rather than the ad-hoc forts that are common before that time. It even incorporates a standard length measure (120 meters and variations of it), which also recurs in both aristocratic land measures and, particularly, the monument at Jelling. Numbers (particularly fractures, such as fifths) here play a very important role in the setup of the complex, but the whole 'breaking of tradition' aspect of Harald's monumentality to me is even more evidence that such systematic application of number systems was not in place before that time.
There are some standard weights found at the marketplace at Hedeby, though, but these point to little more than 'counting', and are not evidence of a mathematical system.
Finally, I could refer you to [this website](_URL_0_); the Viking Answer Lady here provides an excellent overview of numbers on runestones and inscriptions (I am not aware of any such overview from scientific literature). | [
"Knowledge about military technology of the Viking Age (end of 8th- to mid-11th-century Europe) is based on relatively sparse archaeological finds, pictorial representation, and to some extent on the accounts in the Norse sagas and laws recorded in the 14th century.\n",
"Viking Age Scandinavians had a variety of ... |
why do human babies take years to raise while other animals like puppies or antelopes take only a few months? | Partially because of life-expectancy - a human lives 75 years, whereas a dogs life-expectancy is more like 10 years.
Also, humans traded instinct for a more advanced brain. Animals instinctually know how to do a lot more than we do, but our learning curve beats everything else. | [
"Their 160-day gestation period (typically from November to March) results in the birth of a single young. Offspring are considerably large and well developed (newborns weigh over 200 g and are about a quarter of the weight of the mother) and develop rapidly. Within six weeks, they eat solid food, and at three mont... |
home buying terms | > What are points and origination fees?
The origination fee is like an upfront payment to the lender for creating the loan. It is usually a percentage (0.5%, 1%) of the loan amount. _URL_1_
> Is earnest money basically just a deposit? Does it get factored into the sale at all?
This is also called "good faith" money. It is like a deposit - it shows that you and the seller have taken the first step to put the house under contract, that you intend to buy the house (pending any serious findings from an inspection), etc. If you go through with the sale, then that money will go towards the final cost of the house, like part of an early deposit. If you as a buyer do not go through with the purchase because the inspection found a ton of mold or meth damage that wasn't previously disclosed (or other previously non-disclosed issues) then you should be entitled to the money back. If you do not go through with the purchase because you got cold feet/changed your mind, then you would not get the money back. If the seller changes his/her mind then you would get the money back.
> What is a short sell and why do lenders ask if a house is a short sell?
A short *sale* usually happens when the seller is having financial problems and the house is about to be foreclosed. They are trying to sell the house for less money than what their current loan amount for it is (for instance, they might owe $200,000 still but are trying to sell it for $160,000). Or it could be when the property of the value has fallen lower than what the owner owes and the loan holder might recover *some* money from the sale of the house in its current state.
It just requires more paperwork and more agreements on everyone's part to get a short sale through, since the bank that owns the title on the house has to agree to sell it at a loss basically.
I would also caution you about short sales and just advise you to assume the worst possible scenario, which is that the person couldn't make financial payments, which means they probably couldn't pay to keep the house up so there might be some serious problems that you'll want to check for during an inspection (and some problems might even be self-evident when you do the initial walkthrough).
> Is the interest rate different than the APR? If so, how are they different? If not, why are both terms used interchangeably?
APR = annual percentage rate, it is the more technical term for "interest rate". They're used interchangeably because they're equally common terms for the same thing. Sort of like how someone might say "soda" and someone might say "pop", or "gas" and "fuel".
> What is mortgage insurance and what is covered by it?
Also called "Private Mortgage Insurance" or "PMI". It's generally activated when a buyer does not put down at least 20% deposit off the purchase cost. It's basically a way to protect the lender and help ensure the lender's investment in you is covered in case you stop paying the mortgage / fall behind on your payments. Some loans require it by default, others don't. You can read more about it here: _URL_0_
> What happens in the time between going under contract and when you close?
If the loan isn't secured yet (ie, you were pre-approved so you could make the offer but the loan wasn't fully processed), they would fully process it. You would have licensed home inspectors come and check everything for issues (make sure the outlets work, make sure the appliances work, make sure the air conditioning and heat work, check for structural damage, make sure there aren't any gas leaks or unmitigated radon risks, stuff like that); once these inspections are done you get a report of the issues, and you can even go negotiate with the seller to get some of them fixed as part of a bargaining tool. You'll get homeowner's insurance set up. You can pay to get the title of the property inspected and secured so you don't have someone trying to make a claim against you ten years down the road that the property is part of their great-great-great-grandfather's inheritance that they just received. Stuff like that.
**Since it's your first time buying a house, do research online about what benefits your state might offer you**. In some states there are first time home buyer benefits you can get access to that can help alleviate a little bit of the cost or grant you access to certain loans with better benefits.
edit: If you live in Maryland I know a great guy > _ > I don't want to advertise here, PM me but this agent hooked me up with one of the hardest working lenders and insurance agents I'll probably ever meet. | [
"Another form of Intermediate Rent is known as \"Rent to HomeBuy\". This is where an applicant will be able to live in a property at a discounted rent for a period of three to five years at a subsidised rent, whilst keeping an option to purchase a percentage of the property at any point during the tenancy (typicall... |
What causes flesh to rot? | Microbes.
Without them you'd just dry out into leather.
This is why preservation works.
Basically things will eat you unless you can defend and rebuild yourself.
The causes could also be internal. Like perforated bowel or infection.
Then you got tooth rot, primarily that's the bacteria strep. mutans. The same one that causes strep throat.
Without microbes nothing would rot and decay as we know it. | [
"Soft rots are those where the pathogen breaks down the host cell walls, resulting in the exudation of juices from the infected tissue. The organ becomes mushy or pulpy and a foul smell often develops due to colonization by secondary invaders. Many fungi and bacteria cause soft rots on several fruits and vegetables... |
Celtic Warfare | Does your assignment require you to use primary written sources?
Our knowledge of the Celts comes mainly from Greek and Roman writers, from myth and legends ostensibly based on oral traditions and from archaeological evidence.
If you are permitted to rely heavily on using secondary and tertiary written sources and archaeology you should be okay, but if your assignment marking scheme is focused on your use of primary sources I would not tackle this at this juncture. It feels to me like a post-grad topic rather than an undergrad topic.
Having said that - if you have the freedom to tackle things from an indirect angle you can sink your teeth in to understanding how historians have interpreted the opaque Celtic world through indirect evidence. I would start by asking for pointers on evidence of battle scenes and warfare over at r/archaeology. A big picture approach runs the risk of getting you bogged down so I'd try to either narrow down to a particular region and period or to look at the development and spread of a particular weapon or tactic.
| [
"The best known Roman source for descriptions of Celtic warfare is Julius Caesar in his \"Commentaries on the Gallic Wars\" (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) in which he describes the methods of warfare of both the Gauls and the Britons.\n",
"Celtic tribes fought amongst each other and sometimes they allied themselv... |
Is is possible to regrow half of your liver? | _URL_1_
Shorter answer: yes.
[Oh hey, the wikipedia article 'liver'](_URL_0_) says it grow from as little as 25%, though not in the original shape, but expansion from what's left to the same size and function as the original. | [
"There are two events in which the liver has the capability to regenerate, one being a partial hepatectomy and the other being damage to the liver by toxins or infection . The processes described below deal with the pathways triggered after a partial hepatectomy.\n",
"The human liver is particularly known for its... |
why do newtonian physics break down at a quantum level? | It's not so much that they break down, rather it's that Newtonian physics is an approximation of how the world works that is not totally correct, but in many cases is accurate enough to be incredibly useful. In such circumstances (like the ordinary motion of a baseball), the inaccuracy is so low as to be practically imperceptible, though it is still there. When things become very small, very large, or very fast, however, the Newtonian model is very inaccurate. | [
"BULLET::::- Newtonian mechanics was extended by the theory of relativity and by quantum mechanics. Relativistic corrections to Newtonian mechanics are immeasurably small at velocities not approaching the speed of light, and quantum corrections are usually negligible at atomic or larger scales; Newtonian mechanics ... |
Could an "electromagnetic black hole" exist? | The answer is no. There are a couple of features of gravity that make it unique and the only candidate force to produce black hole-like phenomena.
1. Gravity interacts with everything on the same way (it's very democratic). And everything is everything, including itself. This is an important ingredient because as soon as some particle was blind to gravity then it could scape from the black hole as it wouldn't even notice there was one.
2. And it's always attractive. Which is important in order to form a black-hole in the first place.
In the case of the electromagnetic force same charges repel (positive repels positive and viceversa) and opposites attract. What this means in practice is that it is very hard to create configurations with a large amount of charge as they would start to repel each other and will start attracting more strongly opposite charges that would try to neutralize it. An example of this are the atoms, which have a positively charged nucleus (held together by nuclear forces) and then as many electrons as necessary to make it neutral. In fact, this qualitative property affects every Spin 1 theory which covers electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces.
A theorist might wonder, what could happen if existed some unknown force mediated by a Spin 0 massless particle? Could it create a black hole? Well, this theory has the property that it doesn't repel same charges as electromagnetism. So that's good. But it doesn't attract light! In fact, this theory is some sort of relativity Newtonian gravity. And has been ruled out as incorrect through observation, it also predicts the wrong Mercurian perihelium precession.
So we have ruled out... Spin 0 (as it doesn't attract light), Spin 1 (as same charges repel and also doesn't attract neutral particles). Next step would be a Spin 2 massless theory but that is essentially General Relativity. And it turns out there can't be interacting theories of massless higher spin fields for some technical reasons regarding conserved charges and symmetries. | [
"General relativity predicts the smallest primordial black holes would have evaporated by now, but if there were a fourth spatial dimension – as predicted by string theory – it would affect how gravity acts on small scales and \"slow down the evaporation quite substantially\". This could mean there are several thou... |
What if you took some simple scuba gear, maybe a weight, and applied a hydrophobic layer? | What stops you from sinking is not friction, but buoyancy. The water pressure supports you with a force equal to the weight of the water you displaced. Having a layer of hydrophobic material doesn't really change this - it's no different to having a layer of clothing or whatever, it's just another surface that the water pressure propagates through. If anything, it may make it slightly *harder* to sink, because the hydrophobic material will repulse the water a little, and increase the volume of water you displace.
The big thing is the weight. Humans are pretty close to neutrally buoyant, which is why can float without much effort, but also dive under the water without being immediately forced to the top. But if you've got a weight belt or whatever, you can easily get much heavier than the water around you, and sink. The more weight you have, the faster you'll sink. | [
"Some fins designed for surf use have integral straps which can neither be replaced nor adjusted, but are simple and have no projections which can snag or scratch the swimmer's legs. They are much like full foot pocket fins without the back part of the sole, but do not trap as much sand when used in the surf.\n",
... |
why the vitamins are named like they are. why do we have 12 vitamin b's but no vitamin j? is there a vitamin b9? | There used to be more vitamin letters, but we later learned that these weren't right, or were the same as others. So, we stopped calling them by things like vitamin J.
All of the vitamin B vitamins were once thought to be a single vitamin. When we learned more about them and their different sources, we broken them down into sub-vitamins. | [
"B vitamins are a class of water-soluble vitamins that play important roles in cell metabolism. Though these vitamins share similar names, they are chemically distinct compounds that often coexist in the same foods. In general, dietary supplements containing all eight are referred to as a vitamin B complex. Individ... |
How should we remember Captain James Cook? | Really there's nothing stopping him from being both. He did have significant navigation/cartographical skills, sailing thousands of miles that he had no maps for.
That said he was an English sailor under the British Navy at the start of British imperialism. His voyages were basically commissioned to see if Australia existed and to see if there was an opportunity for new outposts for the Empire. He named landings and places he surveyed and we continue to use those over the Indigenous names.
Also he did try to kidnap a Hawaiian chief, which got him killed. So not the best guy. | [
"Captain James Cook, FRS, RN (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European discovery of eastern Aust... |
why can’t you hum while holding your nose? | You can if you open your mouth. The air that carries the sound from your vocal cords has to go somewhere. | [
"The usual first difficulty is to inhale through the nose while blowing out air stored in the cheeks. To some this may be a big hurdle, to others it is no problem at all. This technique may be practiced by holding a finger in front of a thin air stream out of the lips and listening to the wind sound.\n",
"To get ... |
Is it possible to navigate without GPS and satellites using the earth's geomagnetic field instead (like birds do)? | > Now, I've heard about Compasses
You are probably thinking of regular old cheap compasses. But there are high accuracy electronic compasses which is what you appear to be talking about. [Like this one.](_URL_0_) | [
"Inconsistencies of atmospheric conditions affect the speed of the GPS signals as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere, especially the ionosphere. Correcting these errors is a significant challenge to improving GPS position accuracy. These effects are smallest when the satellite is directly overhead and become ... |
why do separate drops of cooking oil tend to drift towards each other when on water? | Gravity. Water is polar so it forms a strong surface tension, the oil is less dense so it sits on top. Gravity makes the oil naturally tend to "puddle" on top of the water. | [
"The boundary layer of water vapor again serves the purpose of preventing interactions between the oil and the surface of the food. Even as the boundary layer of water breaks down, the initial interactions between the oil and the batter will be minimal. The oil will move into the vacancies left in the batter by the... |
How much gasoline is actually wasted at a stop sign? | 0.00314248 gallons, or 0.0118956 L.
Assumes: car must accelerate to 25 mph after stopping. Car weighs 2000 kg. Efficiency of engine is 30%. Gasoline energy density is 35 MJ/L. No other energy losses during acceleration (e.g. no friction).
My work in Mathematica: _URL_0_ | [
"As the average vehicle of the time consumed between two and three liters (about 0.5–0.8 gallons) of gasoline (petrol) an hour while idling, it was estimated that Americans wasted up to of oil per day idling their engines in the lines at gas stations.\n",
"Gasoline theft (sometimes known colloquially as fill and ... |
could a nuclear submarine survive in space? if so, for how long? | It is strong in compression, in tension it's less clear. | [
"BULLET::::- Submarine, a ship capable of remaining underwater for extended periods. Submarines in the world wars could stay under for less than a day, but development of nuclear reactors and air-independent propulsion allows submarines to stay submerged for weeks, even months at a time, with food supplies as the o... |
Rhodesia | You might find interesting the following previous answers:
* [Why does the story of Rhodesia attract so many racists?](_URL_2_) answered by /u/swarthmoreburke
* [What was Rhodesia's end game during the Bush War?](_URL_1_) answered by /u/profrhodes
* [The Rhodesian bush war is heavily romanticised by certain groups - was this true at the time?](_URL_0_) answered by /u/profrhodes
* [How developed were the white areas of Rhodesia?](_URL_3_) answered by /u/profrhodes | [
"The term \"Rhodesia\" was first used to refer to the region by white settlers in the 1890s who informally named their new home after Cecil Rhodes, the Company's founder and managing director. It was used in newspapers from 1891 and was made official by the Company in 1895.\n",
"Southern Rhodesia became a self-go... |
United States officials and politicians grossly overstated Soviet military capabilities in the cases known as the "bomber gap", "missile gap" and "cruiser gap". Did Soviet officials ever have similarly overestimated any U.S./NATO military equipment levels and technologies? | Yes, very much. One example that comes to mind is the "military-technical revolution" of the late 1970s and 1980s. Soviet military leaders during the Reagan years in particular were fairly spooked by Western advances in precision weapons, reconnaissance methods, and other technologies which we would now call 'C4ISTAR,' ISR, or some combination thereof: Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Recon. In plain English: all the technologies and methods used to detect a target, see exactly what and where it is, and tell someone to shoot it before it moves. In modern Western defense circles this is now called the *sensor-shooter system* or *network*. The Soviets (and now the Russians) describe this integration as the *reconnaissance-strike* or *reconnaissance-destruction complex.* In the 1980s, the United States began working on this concept under the general heading Assault Breaker. The Assault Breaker program as a whole was designed to combine airborne radars (E-8 JSTARS, Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System), computerized command posts, long-range guided missiles (ATACMS, Army Tactical Missile System), and advanced artillery systems like guided anti-tank cluster munitions (DPICM, Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition). Assault Breaker was designed to find and destroy Soviet formations "in the depths," that is, far behind the front lines. The Soviets assessed Assault Breaker, and generic recce-strike systems like it, as *comparably destructive to tactical nuclear weapons*. They weren't entirely *wrong*, either, in many observers' analysis: precision-strike weapons like ATACMS would have been used on targets like armor concentrations, supply depots, second echelon and reserve forces, command posts, and so on, which previously would have been prime targets for small nukes. However, the Soviets undertook serious efforts to counter this program, probably disproportionate to how effective Assault Breaker as a whole turned out to be. JSTARS, ATACMS, and DPICM all turned into complete products, but lots of the other systems were either delayed or nonfunctional, such as the Brilliant Anti-Tank munition.
EDIT: [Here is a concept sketch of the Assault Breaker network](_URL_2_), as a visual aid.
For further reading:
David Glantz, *The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver: Spearhead of the Offensive*, particularly the first two chapters.
Van Atta et al, "[Transformation and Transition: DARPA’s Role in Fostering an Emerging Revolution in Military Affairs](_URL_0_)," Ch. IV
Larry A. Brisky (1990) "The reconnaissance destruction complex: A Soviet operational response to Airland Battle," *The Journal of Soviet Military Studies*, 3:2, 296-306, DOI: 10.1080/13518049008429985
Milan Vega,["Recce-Strike Complexes in Soviet Theory and Practice,"](_URL_1_) Soviet Army Studies Office, 1990.
Viktor Reznichenko, Тактика (*Taktika - Tactics*), Moscow: Voenizdat, 1984. (Recommend MJ Orr's translation for RMA Sandhurst's Soviet Studies Research Centre if Russian isn't your strong suite.) | [
"In the US, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with its own (a lack of military parity). The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals did not exist except in exaggerated estimates, made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and in ... |
how do nature documentaries capture audio? | > I can't help but be bugged by wondering how they manage to capture such pristine audio.
Take along a really good microphone with a cover, or even a microphone within a parabolic dish to get audio from far away. Or of course you can dub it in later from audio captured elsewhere in similar fashion. | [
"Radio documentary is a spoken word radio format devoted to non-fiction narrative. It is broadcast on radio as well as distributed through media such as tape, CD, and podcast. A radio documentary, or feature, covers a topic in depth from one or more perspectives, often featuring interviews, commentary, and sound pi... |
When did people start realizing that the Soviet Union was going to imminently collapse? | > Reviewing the history of international relations in the modern era, which might be considered to extend from the middle of the seventeenth century to the present, I find it hard to think of any event more strange and startling, and at first glance more inexplicable, than the sudden and total disintegration and disappearance from the international scene, primarily in the years 1987 through 1991, of the great power known successively as the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. –George Kennan, 1995
The collapse of the USSR blindsided many of the foreign policy experts, diplomats, and Kremlinologists in 1991. For example, Paul Kennedy’s 1988 bestseller *The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers* asserted that while Soviet decline was palpable and visible, a collapse was highly unlikely. Kennedy toyed with notions of a Soviet retreat into its own ethnic base in the end of his section on Soviet power, but discounted such a possibility as ahistorical given that all historical precedents of a retreat only came after defeat in a great power war. Kennedy’s myopia is instructive given that many commentators in this period tended to treat both *glasnost* and *perestroika* as evidence of reform and as ushering in a new period of Soviet history not unlike the post-Stalin Thaw. What blinded many public intellectuals was what they only later came to see later: Gorbachev’s reformism were a symptoms of the failures of the late Soviet system.
The crux of the matter is that the conventional wisdom of 1989-1991 did not seriously entertain the thought that the Soviet elite would voluntarily disestablish its own power base, the Soviet state. Although the Communist Party was no longer had as many barriers to its membership as in earlier Soviet periods, belonging to the Party still was the major glue within the state and administrative apparatuses of the USSR. To democratize the Soviet political system would be to end this monopoly on power. Again, historical precedents made this option seem very unlikely. The 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown led many commentators to believe that the Communist systems were predicated upon force if put to the wall. In a 22 December 1990 *New York Times* editorial, Richard Pipes incorrectly maintained that Gorbachev had sided with Communist hardliners within the military and KGB:
> The right-wingers -- that is, the generals, the K.G.B. establishment and the nomenklatura of the party -- are moving into a position of authority and forcing Gorbachev to choose, and he has chosen to go with them. If they win, we will see great restrictions on freedom in the Soviet Union and deterioration in foreign relations, combined with increased military activity. The Soviets will put impediments in the way of concluding and implementing various arms-reduction agreements. The Soviet military budget is likely to increase rather than diminish. *Perestroika* has been finished for some time. Perestroika has achieved its goal, which is to dismantle a totalitarian regime, but it failed in putting anything in its place.
The collapse of the Warsaw Pact states bolstered this pessimism about the Soviet leadership’s commitment to continued reform and democratization. Again, the conventional wisdom held that the Kremlin had seen what happened when there was too lax of an attitude towards open displays of dissidents. The Baltic states’ votes for independence created less confidence that the Soviet government could manage democratic reforms. The *Wall Street Journal* ran an editorial “Tiananmen in Vilnius” in 27 March 1990 which asserted wither Gorbachev will crackdown or face the destruction of the Soviet state. The use of Soviet special forces in Lithuania in January 1991, which resulted in 13 deaths, seemed to confirm this suspicion. Even the conciliatory attitudes towards Gorbachev were predicated on the common logic that there was a limit to Soviet democratization its leadership would not pass. The *New York Times*’s 8 April 1990 editorial “Lithuania Is Not Tiananmen Square” emphasized that:
> Mr. Gorbachev may or may not be willing to go along with Lithuanian independence at some point. It is obvious that whatever his inner feelings, he has no choice but to oppose Lithuania's unilateral declaration of independence. No Soviet leader's power could survive the destruction of the Soviet empire at this time. But he is a far better bet to allow independence, in time, than any of the Russian nationalists, generals and secret police who probably would succeed him.
Running throughout many of these editorials is the notion that in some form, the Soviet state would continue, either as a federation or under a Deng-like repression mixed with free-market reforms. The third option, dissolution, was invoked only as the *least* likely alternative that would happen only if the Soviet leadership did not act.
After the collapse of the USSR, it became a common trope among some Kremlinologists and Soviet specialists to play the “historians should never predict the future” card. However, there also was a subset of public intellectuals that would retroactively claim an acute foresight, especially those on who fell under the rubric of conservative opposition to the Soviet system, such as Pipes. While there is some truth to this claim, their predictions of the bankruptcy of the Soviet system are there in their writings, it misses the forest for the trees. Rereading the conservative analyses of the Soviet Union, two major elements stick out. One, the Soviet state is militarily far more powerful than it was in reality. Secondly, the conservative critiques presuppose that the USSR’s leadership was far more ideologically united and were bound together by a belief in Communist dictatorship. Both suppositions are pretty far off the mark of Soviet reality; although its military was vast, it was not a pliant instrument and was riven with its own institutional conflicts, and the Soviet leadership was far less cohesive in this period. To acknowledge these prescient insights into Soviet collapse, one has to ignore the statements of shrill pessimism that surround them.
The long and the short of it is most public intellectuals did not really appreciate the Soviet Union was collapsing and only recognized so after its dissolution was a fact. | [
"There were few, if any, who believed that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse by 1985. The economy was stagnating, but stable enough for the Soviet Union to continue into the 21st century. The political situation was calm because of twenty years of systematic repression against any threat to the country ... |
What was the system for giving African American Slaves or Ex-Slaves second names? | Howdy!
The first census of the United States that attempted to count slaves precisely was the 1850 census. The census wanted the name, age, sex, and color of each person (among other things), which would have us to find the name of slaves in each household. For thirty years before that, there were just numbers. However, a counter-amendment scrubbed that, and only age, sex, and color of each slave was mandated.
Now, there was no system! Long before the United States became a country there were slaves with different surnames from their masters or former masters. Post-Civil War some would choose Lincoln or Freedman, or other educated sounding names. However, the easiest route was the former master's last name, which lead to that becoming the most common option.
If you didn't choose a surname and were forced to write one down, they would often write the surname of your last master. This was especially true for the Army.
I wish I had a reputable source and not a blog to give to you, but my information comes primarily from institutions and museums in and around the Deep South, especially in Louisiana. In addition, [this](_URL_0_) is a very good source book, albeit expensive unless you buy used. | [
"African Americans, most of whom are descendants of slaves, often used, or were given, the name of their owners. In some Southern states, between one-quarter to one-third of slaves after the American Civil War adopted the surnames of their last owners.\n",
"Many African Americans have their origins in slavery (i.... |
what will pot businesses look like in washington and colorado? | Coloradan here. The dispensaries, or medicinal marijuana stores, here are not weird or shady places. Many neighborhoods have multiple dispensaries. The recreational marijuana stores will be modeled after dispensaries. In fact, current medicinal dispensaries will have first dibs on licenses to open recreational stores. A customer will walk into the store and wait in a waiting room until they are next to be served. An employee will make sure the customer is over 21 years old by checking ID. An employee, perhaps the same one, who knows a lot about marijuana use will help the customer determine what product or products they want to buy. Customer A gets a half ounce of marijuana to use over a few weeks because they already know what they want. Customer B gets a recommendation for a specific strain of weed to help him or her fall asleep easier at night. He or she gets a quarter ounce of that and also buys a new vaporizer model to vaporize and inhale the marijuana.
These recreational stores will be different from a street dealer or buying from your neighbor because there will be dozens of strains of product available with slightly different effect and there will also be pipes, marijuana-infused baked goods, marijuana drinks, hash (a condensed, smokeable marijuana product), and a number of other marijuana and lifestyle products. When it's time to pay, there will be a 25% excise tax on the price of the recreational marijuana that is in addition to the sales tax of 7 to 8%. A half ounce of medical marijuana is around $90 for premium product here. The recreational marijuana policy makers want the experience to be similar to shopping in a liquor store for marijuana with personalized help. | [
"Colorado is now 1 of 8 states that have legalized both medical and recreational marijuana, allowing them to tax the product. As of July 2014, six months after recreational shops began sales of marijuana in Colorado, the state has enjoyed a tax revenue of 45 million with 98 million expected by the end of the calend... |
watts vs va | For a purely resistive load, like a light bulb or heater, volts times amps equals watts. But many loads are not purely resistive; they can also be capacitive or inductive. By far the most common of the two is inductive: most motors, for example, are inductive loads. These loads consume power but "return" some of it without using it. So there's a thing called a "power triangle" that shows the relationship between the "real" power (measured in watts; this is the actual amount of power consumed), the "reactive" power (measure in volt amps reactive; this is the power that gets "returned"), and the "apparent" power (measured in volt amps: for a purely resistive load, this will match the real power). | [
"The P Scale or Psi Scale is a method of measuring telepathic power used by the Psi Corps with lower ratings being more common than higher ones. However, the stronger the telepath's P-level, the more control and discipline is needed, as it becomes much harder to block out the random thoughts and voices of others; a... |
Do alcoholics develop kidney stones as often as non-drinkers? | Good question, I googled and found this:
& #x200B;
> While no direct causality has been found between drinking alcohol and the formation of kidney stones, alcohol can contribute to increased risk for the formation of stones through a variety of avenues. Beer and grain alcohol have an especially high purine count. Purines are chemical compounds that can result in uric acid kidney stones. Uric acid is normally released from the body in the urine, but the presence of excessive purines can lead to the accumulation of the acid and eventually result in a kidney stone.
& #x200B;
You can read [here](_URL_0_) | [
"There are no conclusive data demonstrating a cause-and-effect relationship between alcoholic beverage consumption and kidney stones. However, some people have theorized that certain behaviors associated with frequent and binge drinking can lead to dehydration, which can, in turn, lead to the development of kidney ... |
if a nuclear bomb were being tested, and it didn't go off... how is it approached and dismantled? | Chances are they'd shoot another (small and conventional) bomb at it to blast it into tiny, no-longer explodable pieces, then pick those up and dispose of them. | [
"Five of the six nuclear bombs have been successfully installed, but during the installation of the sixth, an earthquake occurs, and a warhead is lost. Nolan tries to set it manually, but is pinned by the warhead.\n",
"Only Germany, the US and Russia may research the atomic bomb, and this takes several stages, in... |
Will bacteria always find a way to become resistant in the end? | > Is it scientifically possible that this method could create plasma resistant bacteria?
I assume you are referring to [this](_URL_1_) article, or a similar one.
Quote from the article:
> Importantly we have shown that plasma is able to kill bacteria growing in biofilms in wounds, **although thicker biofilms show some resistance to treatment**
So, given this statement, I might ask you: if this actually becomes a regularly used treatment, what do **you** think will happen?
__________________
Also, as far as I can tell, the treatment could only be used for surface infections where you can physically get the torch in position over a localized infection. Perhaps you could go in surgically for internal infections? I'm decidedly not a medical doctor, so I really don't know.
If it is the case that you could only use it for infections that are easily accesible from without, then that seriously cuts down the number of applications this technology has. This could also mean that the selection pressure exerted by the treatment might be a lot smaller than that exerted by antibiotics, and thus it could take a lot longer for resistance to evolve.
*edit: My obvious implication above was that if thicker biofilms offered some resistance, then thicker biofilms would evolve, and the bacteria could become resistant to the treatment. In [this](_URL_0_) article, however, one of the researchers is alleged to have claimed that bacteria could not develop resistance. The relevant quote:*
> *Eventually, plasma treatments could represent a better option than antibiotics, because microbes will not be able to build up resistance, Ermolaeva said.*
*Perhaps that's true. Then again, one should always be wary when researcher make claims about how effective their solutions to certain problem are, **especially** in medical contexts. I don't really know myself, but I would never count evolution out. It's absolutely unbelievable some of the adaptations living things have come up with.* | [
"However, due to selective pressure, bacteria can develop resistance through mutations in the porin gene. The mutations may lead to a loss of porins, resulting in the antibiotics having a lower permeability or being completely excluded from transport. These changes have contributed to the global emergence of antibi... |
what causes bond interest rates to fluctuate? | The more you want a bond, the less the government has to pay you in interest to buy it. How much do I have to pay you per day to pick up dog poop? A lot. Now how much do I have to pay you per day to pet kittens? Very little, because everyone wants to pet kittens! If everyone wants a 10-year bond, they don't need to lure you into buying it by promising a huge interest rate - they already have your excitement to have one.
To take your question a step further, WHY does someone want a 10-year bond? Or a 2-year bond? It's a safe place to store your money and still get paid some interest in the process (as opposed to a bank account or under your mattress, which pays you essentially nothing). The problem is that more people want a bond that lasts for 10 years than one that lasts for 2 years. Crazy, right? Why would you rather have a bond that doesn't pay you back your original amount for 10 years than one that pays you back in two years? Because more and more, people are convinced that the economy will be terrible in two years, but will be back to normal in 10 years. By buying 10 year bonds, they're guaranteeing themselves that nice little interest rate for 10 years, rather than just two - in case things turn bad in two years and there are no more good interest rates available. | [
"Interest rate changes can affect the value of a bond. If the interest rates fall, then the bond prices rise and if the interest rates rise, bond prices fall. When interest rates rise, bonds are more attractive because investors can earn higher coupon rate, thereby holding period risk may occur. Interest rate and b... |
why doesnt your soda get "shaken up" when it falls out of the vending machine? | Two reasons that both contribute:
1) The vending machine acts as a fridge, and at a colder temperature the CO2 gas requires more force to seperate from the liquid
But more importantly:
2) The "drop" you see in these machines isn't as dramatic as you may think. There are [columns](_URL_0_) of each different type of drink and the bottom drink (the one next in line when the consumer selects that drink) has a 5-10cm fall to the slanted surface that brings the drink to them.
The ~~kinetic energy~~ forces acting upon it during the 5-10cm fall and sliding down the slant is barely more than how much you impart when you put the drink down, so it doesn't get shaken up that much. | [
"The gas pressure in a siphon drives soda water up through a tube inside the siphon when a valve lever at the top is depressed. Commercial soda siphons came pre-charged with water and gas, and were returned to the retailer for exchange when empty. A deposit scheme ensured they were not otherwise thrown away.\n",
... |
What is the evolutionary background behind Temperature Dependent Sex Determination? | Let me preface that while I'm a grad student of evolutionary bio, my understanding of the topic is relatively shallow and half of what I'm saying is just an educated guess.
Why mostly reptiles? Well, consider the environment of the developing embryo. TSD would make sense for organisms that develop at variable temperatures. This rules out mammals that develop within a constant-temperature environment (inside the mother). Birds can be ruled out too, as birds are homeothermic, so eggs are incubated at a constant temperature. Reptiles don't incubate eggs and thus develop in a variable environment that could allow evolution of TSD.
How did it evolve? Systems of sexual differentiation are evolutionarily flexible. All it takes is the introduction of a new mechanism to cause differential activation of the developmental pathways that lead to "male" or "female" development. For reptiles, even if sex chromosomes existed ancestrally, a new system could be take over if it's epistatic to the first.
But why would TSD be more fit than genetic sex determination? (otherwise it wouldn't be likely to become fixed)? I don't think there's a specific consensus about that. It could be that sex-specific fitness is correlated with the environment, and temperature can be a cue. The following is just an example, not based on anything specific: Say it's more beneficial to be born early in the season (when it's cooler) if you're a male, so you can grow larger before competitors, but better to be a female later in the season (when it's warmer) when predators are rarer. This could favor TSD where males develop at cooler incubation temperatures, and females at warmer incubation temperatures.
Why is it opposite in turtles? No clue. I remember reading about red-ear slider turtles and how TSD is correlated with epigenetic changes (methylation I think) to promoters (I think?) for aromatase, which converts testosterone to estrogen. Opposite patterns could easily be achieved by these changes occuring in silencers vs promoters/enhancers, so that the same temperature cue in one organism results in either constitutive (or enhanced) aromatase expression, or silencing of expression. | [
"It is unknown how exactly temperature-dependent sex determination evolved. It could have evolved through certain sexes being more suited to certain areas that fit the temperature requirements. For example, a warmer area could be more suitable for nesting, so more females are produced to increase the amount that ne... |
What are the chances that a ray, if projected outwards in a random direction, will hit a planet before it exits the observable Universe? | Let's say that there's a planet every 5 light years (an overestimation, certainly), and let's say that planet is the size of jupiter. For objects much smaller than their distance away, the angular size is approximately the diameter of the object/distance to the object. So let's take the infinite sum (diam/dist+diam/dist\*2 +diam/dist\*3 +...) = diam/dist( 1 + 1/2 +1/3 +...). Now the following sum is divergent (meaning it doesn't terminate if there are infinitely many terms), so let's assume that we stop counting planets within the radius of our galaxy (and assume that additional planets represent a finite series of truly pointlike sums (thus summing to no additional angular area). So 250,000 ly/5ly = 50,000 terms in the series, which is the 50,000th Harmonic number, about 11.4, so diam/dist*11.4
Now the solid angle subtended by that angle is 2\*pi(1-cos(theta)). Now for these ridiculously small angles, cos(theta) ~ 1-theta, so 2\*pi(1-1+cos(theta)~ 2\*pi\*diam/dist\*11.4.
So throwing that into wolfram alpha, I get about 2.1 \* 10^-7 steradians. A whole sphere is 4 pi steradians, so with these **vast** overassumptions, we show that planets cover about (5/3)\*10^-8 of the sky, so ***no more than about .000001667%*** | [
"Our star will likely not be directly affected by such an event, but the Earth may be easily affected by a nearby collision. Astronomers say that if a stellar collision happens within 100 light years of the Earth, the resulting gamma-ray burst could possibly destroy all life on Earth. This is still very unlikely th... |
what is the rationale behind kicking out a business from a strip mall/shopping center and leaving the space to sit for months/years? | If it’s empty, they get tax write offs. Maybe they want to empty out the whole place and sell it for multi-family housing development. | [
"In 2012 a community theater, Central New York Playhouse, opened. This was part of a trend in which local businesses and community groups filled some of the space created by the loss of national retail tenants. Between 2015 and 2016 the mall lost three of its four anchor tenants, Macy's, Dick's Sporting Goods, and ... |
how does a game like call of duty have practically no online delay at all while when playing a game like nba 2k17, multiplayer modes experience about a full second of delay between when the button is pressed and when the game responds? | Err. I haven't noticed this to happen in any online game so thought I'd start with that.
Video games online don't use much bandwidth so getting a faster connection doesn't really impact them that much. (Unless it comes with better latency)
Games are mostly impacted by latency or ping, this is how long it takes for a piece of information to get from your computer to the host.
Some games select a player with a good connection as a host and others use a central server.
The graphics are rendered locally with just the information about what movements the players are making sent back and forth.
Having played NHL, Madden, and NBA 2k I have never noticed long delays. Are you playing one of these games on a computer and the other on TV? Delays in console gaming especially can be very long if your TV isn't in "game mode"
Most modern TVs put a 1/2 second delay on what they show so that they can upscale, and insert additional frames to make things look smoother- this obviously negatively impacts gaming.
| [
"Combat time in V2 is run on an expanding scale, something unique to EABA. In most RPGs, time in combat is broken down into small manageable chunks: a combat turn in GURPS is always one second, for example. A combat round is EABA starts at one second, the next is 2 seconds, then 4, 8, 15, 30, and one minute. The go... |
how does saudi arabia make sure all of their expats like engineers, businessman, and english teachers follow their religious laws? | It only 'counts' inside the country. If you hang out with Arabs, you quickly learn they are all hypocrites and will happily travel to a less restrictive country where they get to drink and party. | [
"Saudi Arabia allows Catholics and Christians of other denominations to enter the country as foreign workers for temporary work, but does not allow them to practise their faith openly. As a result, Catholics and Christians of other denominations generally only worship in secret within private homes. Items and artic... |
mountains are brown, yellow, and green and definitely not blue or purple, yet they look purplish-blue from far away. why is this? | Because if they are far away, there's more stuff i.e. atmosphere between you and the mountains and thus it gets a slight bluish tint. It's the same reason why the sky is blue. Blue wavelengths are scattered less easily than red ones so they 'dominate'.
You'll notice that not only mountains appear bluish at a distance but really everything does. | [
"The area is called \"Blue Mountains\" based on the fact that when atmospheric temperature rise, the essential oil of various eucalyptus species evaporates and disperse in the air, then visible blue spectrum of sunlight propagates more than other colours. Therefore, the reflected landscape from mountains seems blui... |
now that mother teresa is saint teresa, how does her image change in the minds of christians? | Catholics and Christians already held Mother Teresa in a Saint like regard, so her getting actual Sainthood doesn't actually change very much.
As for her position, technically she isn't "worshiped", but she will be prayed to for people seeking guidance, and she now has a "Feast Day" (September 5th) where Catholics Bishops can decide to hold a feast in her honor.
No Church is actually obligated to host a feast for her, the Catholic Church currently has [810 saints](_URL_0_) and celebrating all of the Saint feast days would mean having a multiple feasts on every single day of the year, so the Bishops pick and choose which saints will celebrate which feast days are and are not celebrated. | [
"In \"Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?\", Gëzim Alpion explores the significance of Mother Teresa to the mass media, to celebrity culture, to the Church and to various political and national groups. Drawing on new research on Mother Teresa's early years, Alpion charts the rise to fame of this pioneering religious... |
Why are peasant rebellions so present and successful in Chinese history as opposed to European history? | I think the success is an impression. Because of China's myriads of historical peasant rebellions, only two can be called successful - the Red Turbans who overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty and established the Ming Dynasty, and the communist revolution which established the PRC (and even that one, you can argue either way because the PRC did not start as a peasant based organisation, it just became that way when the shift in communist support happened after the White Terror).
The other famous peasant based rebellions - the Yellow Turbans, the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace, the Chen Sheng rebellion at the end of the Qin Dynasty...did not eventuate in stable dynasties.
As for why they're so present, I don't know of established historical theories so I'll let others take a shot at it first. I'm trying to formulate an argument about how the difference between mandate of heaven vs. divine rights of kings may affect this.
edit: okay I've come back and am forced to conclude that the mandate of heaven system and relative meritocracy of feudal China vs. medieval Europe *must* have a role. Particularly, the mandate of heaven is a system which means that the Emperor rules by the will of heaven but this will is not eternal and can be withdrawn. This is usually tied up in the Confucianist system of morality where the personal virtue of the Emperor/his predecessors affected the mandate of Heaven.
So basically things like natural disasters, hardships etc. are a sign that the mandate of heaven for the dynasty has been withdrawn, and uprisings can in the eyes of rebels be justified that way. The Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian records that the anti-Qin rebels found a fish with a message in its gut saying that the Qin Dynasty must be overthrown. Records of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou also records the Yellow Turban rebels claiming portents etc. for the end of the Han Dynasty, and these claims/rebellions generally coincide in times of hardship/misrule. So this fallibility of the Imperial clan is one factor which leads to rebellions being seen as okay.
The second factor then is that starting from the Eastern Han Dynasty there really wasn't that much in China in the way of nobility - ie. princes, dukes, barons and what have you. There were wealthy land owning families, scholar families (the gentry), merchant families etc. but really you couldn't call them feudal nobility like you could with the European aristocracy. So with this kind of semi-meritocratic society there is no need as there is in Europe to find alternative monarchs based on bloodlines and claims etc. Of course it generally *helped* if you could claim you were from a better family. eg. in the Three Kingdoms era the three competing dynasties had their founders descend respectively - from the adopted son of a eunuch (not something very respectable), basically a commoner (who had ties to the royal family like a century ago) and from a merchant (again, not very respectable). | [
"Chapter 3 analyzes the situation of the peasantry and its contribution to the great Revolutions. Attention is given to the conditions for and against peasant insurrections. Skocpol states that societal political crises alone were not sufficient enough to produce social-revolutionary situations in France, Russia, a... |
What is alcohol actually doing to our brains when we drink? And why does it improve moods so quickly? | Ethanol (common drinking alcohol) is a drug that interacts with a variety of neurotransmitter systems; most importantly GABA-a, but also serotonin and NMDA receptors.
Your body produces a molecule called GABA(gamma aminobutyric acid), which acts as a neurotransmitter. Neurons with GABA receptors are ubiquitous throughout your body; GABA acts as the major inhibitory transmitter in your body. When GABA binds to it's receptor a gated ion channel opens, releasing Cl- ions across the neurons membrane. This drops the neuron's membrane electrical potential, and inhibits any further action potentials to neighboring synapses. ~~The molecular structure of ethanol has similar steric (it can fit inside the receptor) properties as GABA. When it binds to GABA-a receptors, it elicits a different response~~* (this can be generalized to any molecule/drug with similar chemical structure to a neurotransmitter. Compare the chemical structure of serotonin and the trpytamine class of hallucinogenic drugs for an obvious example.)
* This is wrong. See /u/ADplusP 's comment below
As /u/callmemateo points out, the limbic system and frontal cortex are two of the functional brain areas effected by alcohol intoxication which give rise to the subjective effects.
| [
"Alcohol can be a depressant which slows down some regions of the brain, like the prefrontal and temporal cortex, negatively affecting our rationality and memory. It also lowers the level of serotonin in our brain, which could potentially lead to higher chances of depressive mood.\n",
"Alcohol also impairs and al... |
When and how did the names for aircrafts go from being nouns (Hurricane, Spitfire) to alphanumeric codes (F-16)? | You’re confused. The two planes you listed with names are British. The British have retained the name only system (e.g. the Eurofighter Typhoon).
Meanwhile the US Army air corps/air Force has used a type-number designation since after the First World War (e.g. the F-16, B-52). The letters stand for the type of aircraft it is f - fighter, b-bomber.
In addition to the type-number designation US planes also have a name (the F-16 is the “fighting falcon”, the B-52 is the “stratofortress”). | [
"During the First World War no official standards existed for the naming of aircraft and so all designations at this time were assigned by the original manufacturer and both numbers and names were used.\n",
"By 1950, tropical cyclones that were judged by the US Weather Bureau to have intensified into a tropical s... |
uk vote on leaving the eu - brexit | * What is a referendum?
A referendum is when the electorate (general public who can vote), or the parliament (although usually MPs can't vote, but not in this specific referendum), vote on a specific issue, such as, for example, a law.
Usually, it's basically that you choose "yes" or "no" on a particular law, for example, but sometimes there can be multiple choices as well.
* What is the European Union?
A political and economic union (or actually the economic part is only in the European Economic Area) between multiple countries, and most of them are usually located within Europe. Currently, there are 28 member countries. The idea of it is that basically those countries can work together, make laws which apply to all of them, have a unified trading market, have the same currency (the euro, of which 19 member countries currently use it), etc.
* What is going to be asked in this UK referendum?
The exact question is "*Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?*"
* Is the parliament only the people who can vote on that question?
Nope, if you're a UK citizen who's over 18 years old, or you're a UK citizen who's living abroad but have done so for less than 15 years, or a commonwealth citizen residing in the UK, then you are able to vote.
* Should the UK leave the European Union?
Some people say that yes, it should, because they say that the European Union has too many rules for businesses, and they also say that even though the UK pays lots of money as membership fees, they don't get much stuff in return. They also want to reduce the number of people coming to the UK for work (as to basically get to control the borders and not have "free movement", which is a thing in the European Union wherein you don't need a visa to go to from one member country to another), etc.
Some people say that no, it shouldn't (and that includes the UK prime minster, David Cameron, as well), because then it's easier to trade between other member countries, and that also that the immigrants who're coming for work actually help to boost the economy.
* So, should the UK leave or not?
It depends, as there are plently of arguments on either side saying yes, it should, and no, it shouldn't. | [
"Following the referendum result and the verdict of the R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union case in January 2017 the UK Government led by Prime Minister Theresa May passed the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 which legally allowed the UK to formally begin the process a... |
Do babies remember their parent's faces and voices before four months? | I haven't read it in a while and don't have a copy to answer your question directly, but a fantastic book called "The Self Illusion" by psychologist Dr. Bruce Hood goes into great detail about this topic. If someone doesn't answer the question to your satisfaction then I highly recommend checking it out. Very readable book. Super interesting. | [
"If day-old babies are presented with their mother's voice speaking normally, abnormally (in monotone), and a stranger's voice, they react only to their mother's voice speaking normally. When a human and a non-human sound is played, babies turn their head only to the source of human sound. It has been suggested tha... |
Explain to me the science behind something I witnessed this morning in my water bottle | You most likely experienced a [supercooling](_URL_0_) phenomenon. This happens, simplistically, when the liquid has nothing to grab onto (a bit of dust, something like that) to form crystals or other ordered structure like ice. When you took it out, you probably agitated it enough that it found something to form crystals around, and those ice crystals are what you saw (they're like snow, of course).
Pretty cool that you watched it happen! | [
"BULLET::::- A dowser, Forrest Bayes, claimed that he could detect water, even in a bottle inside a sealed cardboard box. He was shown twenty boxes and asked to indicate which boxes contained a water bottle. He selected eight of the boxes, which he said contained water, but it turned out that only five of the twent... |
What evidence is there, that Carthage sacrificed humans? | Historically, the practice of child sacrifice is attested by Greek historian Plutarch, and Carthaginian Christian historian Tertullian, and Orosius, Philo, and Diodorus Siculus. Some scholars contend that these records are exaggerated remembrances and propaganda by the Romans against their arch-nemesis.
However, archaeologically, there is a vast graveyard of cremated human remains, mostly infants and children. It is referred to as the "Tophet", after the word for such a thing found in the Hebrew Bible. Some scholars have contended that it wasn't a religious ritual, but rather a graveyard for infants and children who died of natural causes. This is the official view of Tunisia, the modern country where Carthage is located (mostly because it's not exactly savory to be host to a massive child sacrifice cult site). However, I believe the archaeological evidence points to ritual child sacrifice. There are an estimated 20,000 urns filled with cremated child remains in the Carthage tophet alone, and there are a couple other Tophet-like sites in other Phoenician/Canaanite cities around the Mediterranean.
The remains do include some small animals, and the argument goes that if the animals were sacrificed, then it is logical that the children were too. There is also a correlation between the rate of cremated children and the well-being of the city. When the city is in dire straits from war or natural disaster, the rate of cremated children in the Tophet skyrockets.
Another argument from Patricia Smith is that the infant bones are from children aged two months, which is not usual for infant mortality as previously reported, indicating sacrifice. The original round of skeletal analyses were very contradictory, and the original scholar who performed them (Schwartz) has contradicted himself and his own results several times, and has not produced a consistent aging of the cremated children, despite making several attempts to do so. His efforts were so inconsistent, the directors of the excavation actually removed him from the project and brought in other scholars. Despite this, he continues to publish studies on the Tophet. Personally, given that I know most of the scholars involved, I would not trust Schwartz's work on the Tophet, but rather would look to Pat Smith and Sherry Fox for much better analysis. The most recent work (done by Sherry Fox and Patricia Smith) has indicated that the children were healthy at the time of death, and of an age when infant mortality is not usual. The fact that so many children are of the same age at death, when this age is not associated with infant mortality indicates a purpose behind the deaths and cremations. There are just too many children, over a long period of time, all of a similar age (and not fetuses, but children who have survived the first few months), all bearing no skeletal signs of deformity or disease or injury that would have indicated death from some other method. This coupled with the historical accounts of child sacrifice are the evidence.
Why did they sacrifice children? Notice I mentioned before that the rate of child sacrifice is inversely proportional to the wellbeing of the city. Great distress requires great sacrifice, according to Carthaginian religion. When your city is in extreme peril, and you need to get the god's attention, you make a sacrifice. For them, the greatest possible sacrifice was a child. It was not undertaken lightly, but was the most visceral, last-ditch effort to call to their god for help.
It's a controversial and divided subject, to be sure. But the majority of scholars who have worked on it who are unaffiliated with the country of Tunisia are of the opinion that child sacrifice took place. The major opponents to this have not done particularly exemplary work on the subject. I have heard lectures by the major excavators of the site, and they would agree. Unfortunately, due to the sensitive nature, some of this is unpublished or in the process of publication. Most of the published research is by Schwartz, who was removed from the project by the directors for producing inconsistent results with age distribution of the remains, and generally poor scholarship, but he took his data with him and continues to publish, for better or worse.
Some sources:
Paolo Xella, Josephine Quinn, Valentina Melchiorri and Peter van Dommelen (2013). Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet. Antiquity, 87, pp 1199-1207.
Patricia Smith, Lawrence E. Stager, Joseph A. Greene and Gal Avishai. Age estimations attest to infant sacrifice at the Carthage Tophet. Archaeology. Volume: 87 Number: 338 Page: 1191–1199. | [
"French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.\n",
"The religion of Carthage in North Africa was a dire... |
Scissors' effect on a molecular level | Both are happening. | [
"This phenomenon draws its name from a graphical illustration of its effects over time. Plotting time on a horizontal axis against price level on a vertical axis, with agricultural prices and industrial prices shown in two separate curves, the graph should appear like a pair of opening scissors. Historically, the p... |
How socially liberal was the Middle East before Wahhabism? | You're making the assumption that Wahabism is widely spread across the middle east. It is not, and it never was. It has always been a Saudi phenomenon, and even then not all Saudi citizens are Wahabists. The movement was founded in the Nejd region of Saudi Arabia; Bahrain (eastern Arabia) is Shiite and the Hedjaz was Hanafi for a very long time under the Ottoman empire. Wahabism has always been intristicly tied to the Saudi royal family since the movement's inception, it was never a populist ideology. | [
"In the Middle East, liberalism led to constitutional periods, like the Ottoman First and Second Constitutional Era and the Persian constitutional period, but it declined in the late 1930s due the growth and opposition of Islamism and pan-Arab nationalism. However, there were various examples of intellectuals who a... |
what does this joke mean? i've been staring at it and i just don't understand it. | The doctor is supposed to be objective and not influenced by personal opinion/judgement when dealing with patients. The fact that the doctor, whose duty is to the patient's care and wellbeing, joined the waiting room group in belittling the protagonist is where the self-deprecating part comes into play. | [
"The joke, which plays on the similarity of the phrases \"fishsticks\" and \"fish dicks\" when spoken, becomes a hit throughout South Park. When Cartman begins taking half credit for the joke, Kyle tells Jimmy he should stand up to Cartman. When Jimmy tells Cartman he feels he wrote most of the joke, Cartman fears ... |
when a sound or person wakes you up while dreaming, is it just me or is the noise always perfectly timed with an event in the dream? | Memory of what happened in dreams is quite inaccurate. Your brain can actually construct the memory afterward, for example showing you that something happened simultaneously that didn't. | [
"During the night, many external stimuli may bombard the senses, but the brain often interprets the stimulus and makes it a part of a dream to ensure continued sleep. Dream incorporation is a phenomenon whereby an actual sensation, such as environmental sounds, is incorporated into dreams, such as hearing a phone r... |
what did wells fargo do? | Imagine you went to the bank to open a checking account and the banker tried everything possible to get you to sign up for a credit card and maybe even a second checking account to "help you manage your finances" but you just kept saying no.
After you left the bank, the banker opened those accounts anyways and just never told you about them. But what about all the fees? WF employees then created transactions moving money between those fake accounts so the fees would be waived. In some cases where bankers got promoted, lost access to accounts, or were terminated, account holders then got late fees, overdraft charges, monthly fees or other penalties on accounts they never knew they had.
• Opened deposit accounts and transferred funds without customer authorization, sometimes resulting in insufficient funds fees for customers.
• Applied for credit card accounts without consumers' knowledge or consent. Customers were hit with annual fees, in addition to finance and interest charges and late fees for some consumers.
• Issued and activated debit cards, creating PINs for customers, without their consent.
•Created phony email addresses to enroll consumers in online-banking services. | [
"Wells Fargo operates under Charter #1, the first national bank charter issued in the United States. This charter was issued to First National Bank of Philadelphia on June 20, 1863, by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Traditionally, acquiring banks assume the earliest issued charter number. Thus, the ... |
What were some common phobias throughout history that don't exist today? | I wouldn't call it common, as there's only a handful of well documented cases in the literature and much of the other evidence for its prevalence is anecdotal, but I'll mention it because it's wonderfully weird...
From the 15th to the 17th century in Europe wealthy and educated people were struck with [glass delusion](_URL_1_) the belief that one is literally made of glass, or another fragile material such as porcelain, and therefore that one is at risk of shattering.
The most famous case was that of Princess Alexandra of Bavaria, who purportedly believed she had swallowed a glass Piano as a child and so insisted on walking through doorways sideways so as not to get stuck. Her case and the history of the delusion is discussed in this Stuff You Missed in History Class [Podcast](_URL_0_)
As discussed in the episode whether this was a genuine Phobia is a contested point - it was described as a 'scholars malady' that is to say a condition that people tended to self diagnose with after they heard that someone they regard as prestigious had it.
| [
"BULLET::::- Phobias Found in people of all ages. Characterized by an abnormal response to fear or danger. Persons diagnosed with Phobias suffer from feelings of terror and uncontrollable fear, exaggerated reactions to danger that in reality is not life-threatening, and is usually accompanied by physical reactions ... |
why is it that you are able to start a manual car by popping the clutch in second gear? | No-one is really addressing the *why* portion.
In short there are several ways to ignite fuel. One is by a spark, another other is by compressing the fuel/air mix. Boyle's law tells us that when you compress a gas the temperature increases. If you compress the fuel/air mix enough it will ignite, just as though the spark-plug had ignited it (this is how [fire pistons](_URL_0_) work for starting campfires).
It works because if the car is in gear there is a direct link from the crank that the pistons turn to the wheels. Normally the pistons fire, turn the crank, the engine, the driveshaft, and eventually the wheels. As long as the vehicle is in gear this process works in reverse too. This is why you downshift when going down a steep hill, you are bleeding speed off by making the wheels turn the engine.
Second gear (and reverse) have the best gear ratio to start an engine at the speed you can reach by pushing the vehicle.
| [
"Starting the car in gear with the clutch engaged causes it to lurch forwards or backwards, since the starter motor by itself produces sufficient torque to move the whole vehicle; this can be highly dangerous, especially if the parking brake is not firmly applied and can be injurious to the starter and drivetrain. ... |
how can colleges legally create "customized" textbooks and not be found guilty of unlawful monopoly/duopoly? | Your college isn't the only one offering BIO 101 or whatever the course is. It's not exclusionary because you could have chosen a different college, so they aren't doing anything anti-competitive. It's sort of like how a bank can charge you a fee that no other bank charges, but they get away with it because they can say "hey you could've picked a different bank."
I'm not saying it's right, but that's the loophole that they're dancing around in while they flip you the bird.
edit: by the way, my school is doing the same thing for one of my courses, and what they're doing is they package the lab manual (which you need your own copy of) in with the textbook, so you can't just use a library copy or something. It's highway robbery, but it's legal. | [
"In the U.S., college and university textbooks are chosen by the professor teaching the course, or by the department as a whole. Students are typically responsible for obtaining their own copies of the books used in their courses, although alternatives to owning textbooks, such as textbook rental services and libra... |
What exactly are VPN’s and how do they work? | Imagine you have to do everything by mail, and you don't feel safe sending postcards due to your post office being staffed by your overprotective mother. A VPN is like putting the postcard in an envelope to your buddy who is away at college. Your buddy opens the envelope and resends the postcard. He gets a response via postcard and puts it in an envelope back to you.
Now the benefit to avoiding your snooping mother (who is actually an ISP) is obvious, but you often hear things like "Australian Nexflix has that show, sucks to be in Canada." If your buddy (who is the VPN endpoint) is in Australia, how does Netflix know? As far as they're concerned, they're sending stuff to an Australian address.
As to how it works, it's mainly software in your PC or your router that's signed up for a service that encrypts traffic and sends it to the designated endpoint. One of the less talked about applications is very common in remote work - Companies set up VPNs so you can connect to all the internal tools as though you're on the company network by setting up endpoints within the company firewall. | [
"A VPN maintains an authenticated, encrypted tunnel for securely passing data traffic over public networks (typically, the Internet.) Other VPN types are IPsec VPNs, which are useful for point-to-point connections when the network endpoints are known and remain fixed; or SSL VPNs, which provide for access through a... |
if we die after roughly 3 weeks without eating, why do eat 3 times a day? | Eating three times a day is actually a modern invention (modern in terms of human history as a species). It wasn’t uncommon, or even unhealthy to eat once a day, or sometimes skip a day every few days. It still isn’t unhealthy to do that today, you are just so used to eating three times a day that it would be difficult.
We die after 3 weeks of not eating because we are healthy and well nourished. If you ate rarely and were malnourished you would die much quicker. We eat daily to make sure we are in top health.
| [
"There is insufficient scientific data on exactly how long people can live without food. Although the length of time varies with an individual's percentage of body fat and general health, one medical study estimates that in adults complete starvation leads to death within 8 to 12 weeks. Starvation begins when an in... |
How much 'real time control' did pre-20th century generals have over the battlefield? | Depends on when and where. Pre-20th century, after-all, covers over 2500 years. While I've not read anything explicitly stating it, it seems to me command style changed with the size of the army and battlefields.
In Classical Greece, commanders could basically only lay out a battle plan before it starts. Once all the sub-commanders have their orders and the battle starts, there's nearly no control whatsoever. This is due to the fact that the general fought as a hoplite on the front lines. So it was very hard for him to know what's going on and issue new orders. The best he can do is guide his own detachment according to the pre-set plans. With battlefields being relatively small in size and usually no reserves to speak of, it didn't really matter that much I suppose.
Just prior to Alexander, generals on horseback began to appear in Greece. But they still very much fought on the front with the cavalry. So they had more control and could respond better to situations around the battlefield and far more quickly. Alexander at Gaugamela is a well known example, but I like Pelopidas responding to battlefield situations at Cynocephelae even better.
The successor states probably eventually adopted having the commander and his bodyguard cavalry sit in reserve, so he's busy commanding instead of busy fighting. And this way he knew where to send the reserves because watching from slightly behind the lines. If the successor states didn't do it, certainly by the Roman Empires that's what was done.
It's not all that linear though. For example at Hastings long after the fall of the Western Empire when armies were smaller again, Harold was on foot in line with his housecarls, similar to the hoplite style, with no control over what his brothers did with their contingents. William on the other side fought with his Norman cavalry (though I'm not sure if he was in reserve or not, it seems he was pretty active). He had to take off his helmet to show everyone he was still alive at a point in the battle, and led a few attacks.
There are other variations too. Supposedly Mongols like to set up their commands on a hilltop instead of with the army and issue orders with horns, drums, flags, signal arrows, etc (forgot which book I read that in, was it *Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World*?) Similarly, by late Sengoku the Japanese prefer to place the commanding general and his personal troops on a hilltop slightly behind the fighting where he can see what's going on and issue command to move forward. And on the other side of the world this was also done in European battles such as Naseby, as both King Charles and Fairfax were slightly behind the battle on top of ridges, though Charles apparently didn't commit until it was too late, so ended up not committing at all.
By the 19th century (at the latest) army sizes and battlefield had grown so large that it was very difficult (or impossible) for the commanding general to see the entire battlefield. So a lot of time the general have to act on reports of aides and messengers. Since messages travelled at the speed of a horse, and you aren't seeing it with your own eyes, it could get pretty confusing. See examples in this thread. | [
"\"The Commanders\" was described by History as an \"anthology scripted series envisioned as an annual television event ranging from four to 10 hours in length. It will dramatize pivotal moments in U.S. history that defined the legacy of the men who served as Presidents of the United States — from the first one, Ge... |
Why is it better letting banks loan 10x of bonds they hold (fractional reserve banking), than letting people to spend 10x of bonds they hold? | The short answer is bank loans are generally supposed to be done in a manner which is controlled, conservative and carrying a large chance of return. Banks also usually have large diversity of revenues streams, which means they are supposed to be relatively stable in the case of minor problems in the markets - neither of these are easy to quantify for a small scale individual.
Its also worth noting that banks can only give you interest by loaning that money away, so even if only loaning the money they have, a bank run still kills them.
This doesn't exist to anywhere near the same degree in most individuals' general purchases (it also frequently does not exist in banking either for that matter), but there's nothing stopping a wealthy individual with diverse revenue streams setting up as a bank and 'spending' 10x their bonds on loans to people - it all just comes down to what you want to spend the money on and what you have coming in as revenue.
| [
"Lower interest rates may also help banks \"earn their way out\" of financial difficulties, because banks can borrow at very low interest rates from depositors and lend at higher rates for mortgages or credit cards. In other words, the \"spread\" between bank borrowing costs and revenues from lending increases. For... |
the strength of currency | You're right. It's a common misconception to say, for example, that since you get more Canadian dollars in exchange for US dollars, the US dollar is worth more. If prices were the same in both countries that would be the case, but prices are not even consistent from one city to the next within the same country, let alone across international borders.
Once US dollar is worth about 1.25 Canadian dollars. If a product that costs $1 in the US costs $1 in Canada, it's cheaper in Canada because the Canadian dollar is worth less, but if the same product that costs $1 in the US costs $1.50 in Canada, it's cheaper in the US because 1.25 is less than 1.50.
The more accurate metric is how the exchange rate changes. If exchange rate changes from 1 USD = 1.25 USD to 1 USD = 1.1 USD, that means the Canadian dollar is worth more than it used to be, indicating that the Canadian economy is growing faster than the US economy. | [
"Currency strength expresses the value of currency. For economists, it is often calculated as purchasing power, while for financial traders, it can be described as an indicator, reflecting many factors related to the currency; for example, fundamental data, overall economic performance or interest rates. It can als... |
why wont an xbox dvd work on a playstation, or computer? | its just different hardware. DVD machines are made to be able to be played on multiple different systems (theres sortof a standard), while thats just not the case for console gaming. They have no need to keep a standard so they dont.
> It would, however, destroy the whole "console exclusive" thing.
and there you have it. its not in inability, its a choice | [
"The Xbox has a specific function: Non-booting or non-reading from CDs and DVD-Rs as a method of game copy protection. Also, the Xbox is said to use a different DVD file system (instead of UDF). It has been theorized that the discs have a second partition that is read from the outside in (opposite current standards... |
How much influence had Fake News to cause the Spanish–American War of 1898? | I think this is an incredibly complex question, and really one that has gained added depth the further we have gone from the events as more has been learned.
In particular I want to focus on two areas, the reporting of pre US intervention newspapers from Cuba, and the reaction to the loss of the Maine.
Men working on behalf of Hearst and Pulitzer in particular could be shameless at times in their reporting, such as relating how brutal Spanish police violated the privacy of a young American woman's bedroom and ordered her stripped in the hunt for smuggled messages and money for the rebels. But conversely the war against the Cuban rebels DID take some brutal turns, and for almost a century American interests had been eyeing Cuba while there was a feeling of at least basic support for a local uprising against a backwards colonial holdout.
And eyeing it all with both some general support, but also an eye on the bottom line Hearst in response to reports of cooling tensions was quoted as saying to one of his men in Cuba.
> "You provide me with the photographs, and I'll provide you with the war"
However most evidence suggests this was apocryphal, while Hearst expected a Cuban victory and supported it, the paper was not actively engaged yet in supporting a US participation, nor were tensions particularly cooling at the time. The rebellion was still actively being fought. _URL_1_
However an actual declaration of war in support of the rebels was far from on the table, McKinley was still uninterested in military action, but sought to appease both business interests and Cuban supporters by negotiating with Spain for reforms to bring peace, however that went nowhere in the end. However Spain did recall its Governor General from Havana who had been a good deal harsher than his predecessor, but this then enflamed loyal Cubans as a sign of wavering support and led to agitation in the capital.
In response the US Consul in Havana, Fitzhugh Lee(nephew of Robert E. Lee and a former CSA cavalry officer), called for a warship to help protect US citizens and property, and thus arrived the USS Maine. 3 weeks into her stay at about 9:30 PM an explosion completely destroyed the battleship and killed 3/4 of her crew. In March a naval inquiry reached the conclusion that the Maine had been sunk by the explosion of a mine. For the weeks following the sinking Hearst and Pullitzer's papers had been demanding blood, while Pulitzer supposedly thought it ridiculous that Spain would try to mine a US warship the fact was the Maine was now sitting in the harbor mud, and Spain was the obvious culprit. Calls for concessions did little to dampen tempers and the blood of the public. While many in government too thought war was the only answer, such as Senator henry Cabot Lodge, and his confidant, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. Thus with enough support in Congress and a penned in Executive, with a public calling for blood a month after the end of the Maine inquiry, with the caveat that the US would not annex Cuba thanks to the Teller Amendment, in late April the Congress passed a bill authorizing military force by the President to liberate Cuba and war followed a few days later.
The key here is of course the sinking of the Maine, and calls to "Remember the Maine" were echoed around the nation. In years since though there has been a good deal of examination into what actually sank the ship. Most notably was an investigation in the mid 70's by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover was a no nonsense, damn near authoritarian, who was almost singlehandedly responsible for the creation and state of the modern nuclear navy even today. And his interest was peaked by the possibility, discounted at the time that a coal fire was responsible for setting of Maine's forward magazine.
He came to a conclusion that thanks to the use of more dangerous Bituminous Coal over Anthracite, combined with atmospheric conditions, and insufficient inspection and ventilation, were at least as likely as a mine. Bit coal has a dangerous tendency to self combust compared to Anthracite which could have produced the fire of sufficient heat to set off the magazine next door. In particular they noted a similar event in the USS New York shortly before the Maine's explosion where the same brand of coal that had sat for 2 weeks began to burn just 3 hours after being checked. The Maine went up 12 hours post inspection and the coal had been in that bunker for nearly 3 months!
The report that was prepared for Rickover: _URL_0_
So while modern scholarship has come around to an accident though it is not unanimous, and a few voices raised the suggestion at the time, the reporting of the papers holding Spain to account for the loss were not out of step with what the US government concluded themselves had happened, just with more gusto.
I should recommend as another fine overview on the period and the coming together of many different interests as a good first reading on the topic: *The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898* by Evan Thomas.
| [
"(1934). He stated that \"In the opinion of the writer, the Spanish–American War would not have occurred had not the appearance of Hearst in New York journalism precipitated a bitter battle for newspaper circulation.\" It has also been argued that the main reason the United States entered the war was the failed sec... |
why is the fetal position so comforting? | Simple answer: *We don't know.*
Postulation: The fetal position may be a learned response, similar to how some people sit and sway back and forth when distressed.
Since we associate the position with fetus's, or young babies, it may be a visual cue to others, expressing "I am not a threat" or a request for attention and/or comfort.
It may also serve the functions of protecting the face, head, anterior vital organs, and the genitals from attack.
Furthermore, try bending the other way... Not as comfortable, *right*? | [
"Infants whose mothers are more sensitive are more likely to display secure attachment relationships. Because the maternal figure is generally accessible and responsive to the infant's needs, the infant is able to form expectations of the mother's behaviour. Once expectations are met and the infant feels a consiste... |
How was sovereignty and colonialism different 2000 years ago? | You're talking about whether states had the same sense of external sovereignty as we do today, and the answer is generally no. The modern idea of noninterference in another state's affairs, at least in Europe, was only cemented in 1648 after the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War. Before this, the Church as well as the Holy Roman Emperor had a lot of say in the administration of their demesne and fiefdoms. After this, the HRE and the church declined, allowing each nation to continue.
So back in, say, the Roman times, there were tons of colonies. It's way out of my area of expertise though, but I can assure you that Britain, modern day Eastern Europe, into Syria and North Africa were all colonized because the Romans didn't see those barbarians as on par with them.
China preferred the system of tributaries and suzerainty in its dealings with neighboring nations, so basically economic dominance leading to cultural dominance, especially in modern day Korea, Mongolia, into Central Asia on one side and Ryukyu on the other. The cultural dominance part definitely extended into Japan and Vietnam as well. For them, this was almost on par with colonialism, because China historically weren't really conquest-oriented. They did, however, have major campaigns against the Xiongnu (who may or may not be the ancestors of the Huns today), the Yuezhe, the Scythians, the Parthans, and a whole lot of folks, but I don't think they exactly treated them like states... more like nomadic peoples who are on their territories, that's all.
| [
"The concept of sovereignty was spread throughout the world by European powers, which had established colonies and spheres of influences over virtually every society. Positivism reached its peak in the late 19th century and its influence began to wane following the unprecedented bloodshed of the First World War, wh... |
why are the front and back cameras on smartphones not the same to begin with? why do they need to differ in quality? | cost and size.
if all other variables remain constant, a bigger lens allows for better photos, as well as a bigger image sensor (the light sensing chip behind the lens). since they’re intended for different things, they just use different cameras. smaller cameras are also better at taking pictures of things closer to themselves (like a selfie) | [
"The front and rear cameras' combined standout feature is an advanced dualphotographic image camera (rebranded \"Bothie\" by Nokia), where the cameras can be used simultaneously by dividing the screen into a split-image setup, a technology Nokia calls Dual-Sight mode. Both the front and main cameras use ZEISS optic... |
Why are gamma rays so hard to stop? | > But gamma rays are extremely high energy photons, they should have enough energy to excite any electron, so why doesn't every material absorb them?
Gamma rays typically have *more than enough* energy to excite atomic electrons. They have enough energy to ionize atoms (kick electrons out of their bound states) or even excite/break apart atomic nuclei.
The energy loss of high energy photons through matter is dominated by three processes: the photoelectric effect (kicking electrons out of their bound states), Compton scattering (scattering of photons off of electrons or nuclei), and pair production (a gamma ray moving through matter with enough energy can produce and electron/positron pair).
But to answer your question, gamma rays are hard to stop because they have a lot of energy to give up, whereas visible or UV light has less energy, | [
"Because their energy is strongly focused, the gamma rays emitted by most bursts are expected to miss the Earth and never be detected. When a gamma-ray burst is pointed towards Earth, the focusing of its energy along a relatively narrow beam causes the burst to appear much brighter than it would have been were its ... |
If you flip a coin an infinite amount of times, will you also at some point have an infinite streak of heads? | For any fixed n, you will (almost surely, aka with probability 1) have a string of n heads in a row sometime; if you divide up your throws in sets of n, you have probability 2^(-n) of getting all of them heads in that set - so prob. of never getting n successive heads in k*n throws is at most (1-2^(-n))^k, and as the amount of throws (and k) increases, this approaches 0.
However, "at some point have an infinite streak of heads" means that after N throws, all the remaining coin tosses result in heads; but that happens with probability 0. | [
"However, if instead of an infinite number of flips we stop flipping after some finite time, say a million flips, then the all-heads sequence has non-zero probability. The all-heads sequence has probability formula_29, while the probability of getting at least one tails is formula_30 and the event is no longer almo... |
how does an epipen work to help severe allergies and why don’t we use it for moderate/mild allergies? | An epipen contains epinephrine, commonly known as adrenaline, one of the main hormones released by the body when PANICKING OMG THERE'S A LION.
It's great for doing things like restarting your heart, lifting a car off your child, or removing blood flow from parts of your nose and throat that might be blocked by an allergic reaction, thus allowing you to breathe, but it also removes blood flow from your digestive system until your body can filter it out which... Well, apart from the explosive diahrroea brought on by extended use, your stomach will eventually dissolve it's own lining and dump a strong acid into your bloodstream, if that lining isn't grown back.
Lack of blood flow inhibits your body's ability to grow back your stomach. Which in mediocre cases result in ulcers.
Epinephrine is healthy if released by your body occasionally. Injecting it on a regular basis isn't. | [
"Epinastine (brand names Alesion, Elestat, Purivist, Relestat) is a second-generation antihistamine and mast cell stabilizer that is used in eye drops to treat allergic conjunctivitis. It is produced by Allergan and marketed by Inspire in the United States. It is highly selective for the H receptor and does not cro... |
if oil has a finite supply and is steadily running out, why does the price per barrel fluctuate? | It comes down to basic economics of supply and demand.
The amount of oil in the ground is finite but the amount of oil that has been pumped to the surface and available for use changes on a regular basis. Currently the US, Iraq and Libya are pumping more oil than in the past. Combine that with the fact that Saudi Arabia has decided not to slow its own production and you have a large supply.
On the other side of the equation you have demand. China and Europe are currently using less oil than they were a few years ago.
When you have high supply and low demand the price tends to drop. | [
"More recently, between 2011 and 2014 the price of crude oil was relatively stable, fluctuating around $US100 per barrel. It dropped sharply in late 2014 to below $US70 where it remained for most of 2015. In early 2016 it traded at a low of $US27. The price drop has been attributed to both oversupply and reduced de... |
what causes cars to sometimes explode when they flip over in a crash? | As a 25+ years firefighter / Paramedic I have NEVER seen a car that has exploded in an accident. And have rarely even seen cars catch fire. The few that I have seen catch fire are usually because the fuel line or gas tank has ruptured, and the fuel comes in contact with hot metal (Catalytic converter or engine block) Yes these fires can consume a car (and occupants) quickly but not like in the movies. | [
"When a vehicle is hit on the side by another vehicle, the crumple zones of the striking vehicle will absorb some of the kinetic energy of the collision. The crumple zones of the struck vehicle may also absorb some of the collision's energy, particularly if the vehicle is not struck on its passenger compartment. Bo... |
What is the history of Rome's Colloseum from post-roman times through to modern time? | The emperor Honorius abolished man vs man gladitorial games in AD 404. There were some animal games (venationes) in 503, and in 508 the place suffered earthquake damage. Rome's population had plummeted by about two thirds over the previous century and although there were idle rich about, these spectacles were not cheap to put on. The last recorded was in celebration of the consulship of Anicius Maximus in 523. The Ostrogothic ruler of Italy Theodoric the Great (illegitimate some of Alaric the Goth) gave his permission, but also made it clear that [he didn't think much of the games](_URL_3_) as an occupation for respectable men. If there were others after that, we have no record.
Which left the structure, an impressive pile of second hand building material. First to go were the bronze clamps used to secure blocks, much as abandoned buildings today get stripped of copper piping. the probable culprit is Totila, who[ sacked the city in 545](_URL_1_). (Obviously the building didn't fall because of the metal being taken out, but the architects who built the thing had a large budget, so why not err on the side of safety?) Rome's population plummeted, those who remained preferred to gather by the river (no more aqueducts, and toting water is tiresome). The Colosseum went into decline, unnerving to the locals who thought it a bit creepy.
By the ninth century things in Rome were looking up again. We have evidence of people turning some of the interior space into living quarters and animal stables, and the center into a market. It must have made a nice little neighborhood, if you didn't mind the trek to the river to get water, or if you could afford the water carriers who would do it for you for a price.
Alas, 1084, Robert Guiscard comes to sack the city (see [here](_URL_0_) for more), leaving in his wake a city broken down into zones controlled by various powerful families and their bully boys (think gang turf rivalry). The Colosseum fell under control of the Frangipane family. With one brief interruption (rebelling citizens, tired of the baronial families, threw the lot of them out for the period of 1144-1159 and tried to restore an ancient Republic) that family held it until the Anabali family wrested the building from them at the end of the 12th century. They in turn had to give it over to the church in 1312.
Another serious earthquake in 1349 more or less put it out of commission for shelter. Instead it became a quarry for building material, a great source of profit for the Benedictines who held the lease hold of the place. The area continued in that role for the next hundred years; much of St Peters started life at the Colosseum.
You can see [woodcuts ](_URL_2_)of the building dating from the fifteenth and sixteen century. Much of what you see today is restoration. Serious restoration.
(I used to live about a mile from it, and have always taken an interest in the place.) | [
"Different scholars have attempted to identify the theatre described in Eclogue VII with different historical theatres in Rome. Merivale, Gibbon and (more recently) Hubbard identify it with the Colosseum (referring to the mosaics and marble walls described in Eclogue VII); Keene and Armstrong identify it with Nero'... |
why we get sleepy in situations that sleeping can kill us | The bit of your brain that decides when to be sleepy can't access higher rational thought, it's based on the brain's physiological status.
Your brain gets sleepy when the chemistry in your brain indicates that it needs to sleep, along with some hormonal inputs from the body like adrenaline which tell it that something critical is going on and you need to be awake. But the part of your brain thinking "I better not fall asleep while driving because I could crash" can't communicate that information to the part of the brain that decides when to be sleepy. As far as that part of your brain is concerned, if you are driving late at night you are sitting calmly in a quiet, dark place and you haven't slept in a while and now would be a good time.
This is not entirely terrible, it makes it harder for you to sleep-depriving yourself to a dangerous extent. And it's not like your conscious mind can't override sleepiness for a long time. But the modern world has a lot of situations where it would be a bad idea to be sleepy but there are no obvious cues the sleepiness part of your brain is adapted to interpret, and this causes problems (like, you aren't going to be sleepy if there's a large predator staring at you, because you are innately going to be adapted to respond to that. But there's no innate adaptation to staying awake while driving). | [
"However, in a subset of cases sleep deprivation can, paradoxically, lead to increased energy and alertness and enhanced mood. This effect is most marked in persons with an eveningeness type (so called night-owls) and people suffering from depression. For this reason it has sometimes been used as a treatment for ma... |
Why was Henry 1 Charter of liberties largely ignored by monarchs until the issuing of Magna carter? | To answer the question in depth we first have to look at the circumstances of the charter. After William II. Rufus died on August 2nd of 1100, Henry hurried first to Winchester - to secure the royal treasure - and then to Westminster, where he was crowned king on August 5th, despite only a handful of nobles being present and both archbishops of the kingdom unavailable. This haste was necessary though because Henry's oldest brother, Robert Curthose, also had a very good claim to the throne of England, even though during this time he was still on his way back from the first crusade.
So, either on the day of his coronation or a few days after (there is no consensus on this, but for this question it can be ignored) Henry issued the charter, which was largely based on the threefold coronation oath common at the time, and had it distributed in the kingdom. It's not entirely sure if the initative to the charter came from Henry himself or if Henry was pressed by the nobles, as many of the points in the charter discussed the relation between king and nobles, especially the status of heirs and widows. In any case the charter can be seen as a token to secure Henry's reign which wasn't very stable in its first years. The charter was confirmed again by Henry when his brother Robert set sail in 1101 to gain the english throne which he laid claim on. In the end Robert could be paid off by Henry and the first rough part of his reign laid behind him.
So, why is this important? The monarchs following Henry simply had more support in the nobility than Henry had in his first years. Stephen, at least in the beginning of his reign in England, had the support of the nobles while Mathilda and Geoffrey of Anjou were busy in Normandy until 1144. In 1154 Henry II could wait six whole weeks between the death of Stephen and his own coronation because he didn't have to fear anyone taking the throne in the meantime. And Richard even had the support of the french king Philipp August, even though that friendship broke apart quite soon.
Despite this I wouldn't say that the charter was forgotten. Stephen and Henry issued coronation charters themselves, and the charter of liberties was nothing else before it became the charter of liberties (the name was applied later on). Both of them even referenced the coronation charter of Henry I, even though their charters weren't as long as Henrys. Henry II basically wrote *I give you all the good laws that my grandfather Henry gave*. So while the contents may have been ignored or simply not enforced, a tradition of distributing the oral coronation oath in written form seems to have taken hold in England. Henry II was later on even confronted by Thomas Becket who explicitly referred to Henry II's coronation charter.
The charter then got new gravitas when Stephen Langton used it as a blueprint for Magna Carta. This may have been caused by a rising interest in justice and law. J. C. Holt, Magna Carta, 3rd ed., Cambridge 2015, p. 25, writes on this:
> [...] there were many copies of Henry I's Charter in circulation in the early years of the thirteenth century, and [...] they were studied intensively – which is what has always been apparent from the chroniclers, inaccurate though some of the details of their accounts have been judged to be.
This may be the cause why the charter comes up again more than a century later. In the events preceeding Magna Carta the charter of liberties came in handy for the barons and especially Stephen Langton.
I hope this answers your question at least partly. Feel free to ask further. I have to admit though that my strong side at the moment is the time of Henry I and not really the time of Magna Carta.
Here is some further reading.
On the Charter of Liberties:
Teunis, Henry B., The coronation charter of 1100: a postponement of decision. What did not happen in Henry I's reign, in: Journal of Medieval History 4/1 (1978), pp. 135–144.
Dalton, Paul, The Accession of King Henry I. August 1100, in: Viator 43/2 (2012), pp. 79–109.
On Henry I in general still:
Hollister, Charles Warren, Henry I (Yale English Monarchs), New Haven 2001.
On Magna Carta:
Holt, J. C., Magna Carta, 3rd ed., Cambridge 2015.
Carpenter, David, Magna Carta, London 2015.
edit: English is not my mother tongue, so please be kind. | [
"In England, Henry I's proclamation of the Charter of Liberties in 1100 bound the king for the first time in his treatment of the clergy and the nobility. This idea was extended and refined by the English barony when they forced King John to sign \"Magna Carta\" in 1215. The most important single article of the \"M... |
For those who know a bit about the Arthurian legends.. | The Arthurian stories have been retold and recycled for centuries (if not over a thousand years - it depends on how we date the Welsh Arthurian stories). Thus they have amalgamated into a mish-mash of features. Any tatoo or image of Excalibur will not be historical but only representative of one particular tradition or one particular story (*Le Morte Darthur* is by no means archetypal in its treatment of the Arthurian story).
Ultimately you might want to ask yourself what kind of Arthur you want depicted. The Post-Roman Arthur, the knightly Arthur, a modern Arthur. They're all equally valid and equally flawed. Accuracy is an illusion in this kind of endeavour.
1) Excalibur
I had a look at Kenneth Hodges's *Forging Chivalric Communities* because I remembered he noted something odd about Excalibur. Apparently there are two of them in *Le Morte*. The first is taken from the stone, the second is bartered away from the Lady of the Lake:
> The first Excalibur, the sword in the stone, appears after a consultation of Merlin and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but it appears outside of the church instead of on the high altar and Arthur draws it one his own, alone, without receiving it from the bishops. After it breaks, he receives a new one, not by purchasing it from the church, but by bartering for it with the Lady of the Lake. Finally, after Morgan steals the sword, he reclaims it in combat with the assistance of Nyneve.The multiple providers of the sword reflect the multiple sources of authority: personal prowess, supernatural worthiness,women’s good will.
> Hodges, K., *Forging Chivalric Communities in Malory's* Le Morte Darthur, (Basingstoke, 2005), p.36.
Of the second Excalibur, the scabbard is more important than the sword in Malory's *Le Morte Darthur*:
> Sir, said Merlin, look ye keep well the scabbard of Excalibur, for ye shall lose no blood while ye have the scabbard upon you, though ye have as many wounds upon you as ye may have. So after, for great trust, Arthur betook the scabbard to Morgan le Fay his sister, and she loved another knight better than her husband King Uriens or King Arthur, and she would have had Arthur her brother slain, and therefore she let make another scabbard like it by enchantment, and gave the scabbard Excalibur to her love; and the knight's name was called Accolon, that after had near slain King Arthur.
> [Source](_URL_1_), Ch. XI.
2) Seats: Virtues
No, they are not. You may be mixing this up with the 'Perilous Seat' which would only be sat by the most virtuous and worshipful of Arthur's knights. This was, of course, Galahad.
I haven't investigated (and honestly have no desire to!) how many knights constituted the Round Table, so I offer [this](_URL_0_) with the warning that it might be wrong. At any rate, there are a few too many to fit on a hilt.
3) Inscription
Like I've said, it doesn't really matter. Find one, pick one, and be happy with it. Neither of those phrases appear in Malory's *Le Morte Darthur* verbatim but if you scrawl through the source I've provided you might be able to find one. | [
"Most of the events in the book take place in Britain and France at an unspecified time (the historical events on which the Arthurian legend is based took place in the late 5th century, but the story contains many anachronisms and makes no effort at historical accuracy). In some parts, the plot ventures farther afi... |
What is the biochemical origin of caffeine dependence? | Caffeine is a nonselective adenosine receptor antagonist, acting at A1, A2a, A2b, and A3 receptors (it also binds to a few other receptors, but we’ll ignore those for simplicity’s sake). From knockout studies in mice, it appears A2a is critical for the stimulating effect of caffeine. In the brain, Adenosine levels fluctuate as the day passes with the highest levels at night. Higher levels of adenosine produce a drowsiness effect. When you consistently apply an antagonist to a cell, a common response is the cell will upregulate the particular receptor that is being antagonized. As such, consistent caffeine intake can result in an upregulation of adenosine receptors [1]. When you do not intake caffeine, you thus experience a heightened response, or a sensitization, to adenosine, and thus feel an increase in drowsiness.
1. Cell Mol Neurobiol. 1993 Jun; 13(3): 247–261. | [
"Caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine), the substrate in the above reaction, is a purine alkaloid found in a variety of plant species, such as coffee, cacao, cola, and tea leaves. Caffeine has also been used as a cardiac, neurological, and respiratory stimulant. Because of its prevalence in the modern world in the for... |
Is there more oxygen in water or air? | I am not sure of the question, but if you mean whether an equivalent volume of air or water holds more oxygen, the answer is (under typical conditions assuming the dissolved oxygen is at equilibrium with the air) the air. Oxygen only dissolves to the extent of a few milligrams per liter of water (around 8mg/L at 20C). On the other hand, the density of air is around 1200mg per liter. Since the air is about 23% oxygen by mass, this means there is approximately 276mg of oxygen per liter of air. | [
"A high surface area is crucial to the gas exchange of aquatic organisms, as water contains only a small fraction of the dissolved oxygen that air does. A cubic meter of air contains about 250 grams of oxygen at STP. The concentration of oxygen in water is lower than in air and it diffuses more slowly. In fresh wat... |
A couple universe related questions from a layman - can you explain any of these things? | Couple corrections that weren't made.
The universe does not create new dark matter as it expands. It appears you are confusing dark matter and dark energy, two largely unrelated concepts. Overall dark energy increases because the energy density of empty space is constant. New space has as much energy density as old space and does not "dilute" with expansion.
The universe's energy appears to be net zero from observations of town curvature | [
"The question is posed comprehensively, rather than concerning the existence of anything specific such as the universe or multiverse, the Big Bang, mathematical laws, physical laws, time, consciousness or God. It can be seen as an open metaphysical question. \n",
"One reason this is plausible is that there are ma... |
how can a single pixel on a tv screen change to so many different colors? | You remember mixing paint colours when you were a kid? A single pixel is made up of a tiny blue light, a tiny red light, and a tiny green light. It can be any colour just by controlling how strong each of these colours shines inside it. More modern screens (e.g., Liquid Crystal Display) have fancier technology but let’s stick to ELI5. | [
"Many display and image-acquisition systems are not capable of displaying or sensing the different color channels at the same site. Therefore, the pixel grid is divided into single-color regions that contribute to the displayed or sensed color when viewed at a distance. In some displays, such as LCD, LED, and plasm... |
if insects and arachnids don't have feelings, than what would trigger them to act if in danger? | Because reflexes and involuntary reactions often have little to do with emotion. Just like when a doctor hits you in the knee with the rubber mallet or when you stub your toe in the dark. Your reaction is to make a jerking motion but it doesn't necessarily trigger any significant emotions. Except maybe you'll get pissed off after stubbing your toe.
Also, studies suggest insects do in fact feel emotions such as fear and pain.
_URL_0_ | [
"The hostile aliens (known as \"Xenos\") come in different forms. There are \"Eggs\" (similar to the eggs in \"Alien\"). If an Egg hatches, it creates a \"Critter\" which can attach itself to the player and drain health. If a Critter is not killed, it eventually matures into a \"Roller\" (a cross between a lizard, ... |
the us and why israel is important to the us. | After the Holocaust in the 1930s-40s, it became clear that the Jewish people needed a homeland that could protect their culture and their people in the event that another group decided to attempt to exterminate them. Many began returning to their ancestral homelands near Jerusalem, which was part of a British colony known as Palestine. Because many of them began an armed revolt against the British control of the land, the US and Great Britain, under the auspices of the United Nations, carved out a piece of Palestine and set it aside as the Jewish homeland. Since it is a piece of land that was disputed for over a millennium, and was at the time occupied by Muslims, Israel has needed the military muscle of the US to back it in order to ensure it's existence. While the US has never officially become militarily involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have been supplying the Israelis with armaments and other support for decades, at the same time attempting to broker peace between the two factions, with little success.
So one could say that the reason Israel is important to the US is because we created it. It's existence was intended to protect the Jewish people and culture and allow them the freedom to practice their religion which many other countries had denied them. Some Americans view Israel as part of the Christian faith, believing that the prophesied return of Jesus Christ will begin when all 12 tribes return to the holy land. Others simply believe that such a place needs to exist to protect the Jews. Still others believe that we need Israel to ensure that there is at least one friendly government in the region, since most of the others don't like America very much. Overall, it's an extremely complex issue that will probably never be solved to everyone's satisfaction. | [
"In 2011, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a think tank founded by \"a small group of visionary Americans committed to advancing U.S. interests in the Middle East\") argued that the U.S.-Israel relationship is \"A Strategic Asset for the United States.\" In discussing their report, Walter B. Slocombe ... |
Which (living) professor or scientist do you find most inspiring? | RobotRollCall. Seriously.
As far as public personalities, a number of people inspired me to go back to school: Dean Kamen, Tyson, and Sagan. | [
"Prof. Elad appeared in the for the years 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, published by Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thompson-Reuters). These lists include the ~3500 world’s most influential minds in science, covering various disciplines, from Immunology and Agriculture, through Chemistry and Physics, all the way to C... |
how is tesla able to improve the efficiency or performance of their cars with over-the-air updates? | It's the future, man. Nowadays, computers control every aspect of cars from running the engine to turning on the interior lights when you open the door. Electric motors are controlled by changing the voltage and current running to them. More voltage means more torque (twisting force) and more current means faster speed (less current is less speed). Engineers use complex equations to decide *when* to change the current and voltage that go to the motors, both of which combine to form the 'power' of the engine or battery. For example, there may be a lot of voltage when accelerating from a stop, but much less of it at a constant speed--these things are controlled by the computer. What Tesla has done is tweaked various variables inside the computer program that relate to how and when electricity is distributed to the wheel motors. The computer program(s) that control these things are updated over the air, just like your phone. By constantly modifying the programs that run on the Model S, the engineers can figure out what combinations of voltages and currents work best in different scenarios. Sometimes they completely change the program itself. | [
"In February 2008, Tesla reported improved plug-to-wheel efficiency after testing a validation prototype car at an EPA-certified location. Those tests yielded a range of and a plug-to-wheel efficiency of 199 Wh/km (32.1 kW·h /100 mi).\n",
"Since the 1980s, manufacturers of HVAC equipment have been making an effor... |
I'm looking for video footage of 1919-1946 Germany, Can anyone help? | You may want to look into ripping DVDs of classic german art films?
edit: HA! I found it!
I present to you, "[Berlin: Symphony of a Great City](_URL_0_)". It's basically just a sort of documentary of a generic day in Weimar-era Berlin (with some pro-socialist/communist imagery thrown in for good measure.)
But you want to know the best part? It's in the public domain and you can download it right now. Resoution kind of sucks, but it at least gives you a place to start?
Edit 2: Something I should probably warn you about: this isn't an easy film to watch. It has almost no plot, no real characters, and this version does not include the score that is supposed to accompany the film.
That said, it's not just a collection of "stuff happening." When Berlin was filmed, the idea of a montage--creating meaning by juxtoposing two scenes together--was very new, and the filmmakers use it quite a bit. The classic example is when a bunch of men going to work are juxtaposed with cattle. | [
"The image archive houses a collection of preserved paper photographs, pictures, photo postcards, photo albums, picture negatives, and slides of German and international military history. Nearly one million artifacts are housed in this section which focuses on everyday life of the German armed forces. The images ar... |
If Romans relied upon local forces as auxiliaries, what language would be used on the battlefield? Were front-line soldiers required to learn Latin or were orders relayed through translators (and at what point in the chain)? | In “The Middle East Under Rome,” Maurice Sartre discusses the concept of lingua-franca in the Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Although all high ranking Roman officials were asked to learn Latin, the majority of the known-world spoke Greek due to the Hellenization that occurred during the conquest of Alexander the Great and the Seleucid-Ptolemy war. So high ranking officials spoke Greek and Latin. | [
"By the outbreak of the Second Punic War, the Romans were remedying the legions' other deficiencies by using non-Italian specialised troops. Livy reports Hiero of Syracuse offering to supply Rome with archers and slingers in 217 BC. From 200 BC onwards, specialist troops were hired as mercenaries on a regular basis... |
what is a social construct? | Something that only exists solely because a bunch of humans agree it exists. Consider the value of cash, for example. A couple of sheets of cotton and some mostly zinc coins you have in your pocket aren't of much practical use to anyone. However, because we all agree they have value, they do. | [
"Social constructions are human created ideas, objects, or events created by a series of choices and interactions. These interactions have consequences that change the perception that different groups of people have on these constructs. Some examples of social construction include class, race, money, and citizenshi... |
how can lonely cloud survive in a crystal clear sky? | In the absence of winds in the atmosphere, the "lonely cloud" would certainly dissipate. However, the rotation of the Earth and the different gradients of heating (of the soil and water) that the Sun causes, result in the atmosphere having currents of wind, and areas of higher and lower pressure and temperature.
Water molecules stay in the air based on pressure and temperature. They condense to the fog droplets that you see as "a cloud" based on pressure and temperature. And rain condenses out of a cloud based on pressure and temperature.
So, basically, the "lonely cloud" is in a "pocket" of different pressure or temperature, bordered by winds (that you can't see) that keep it in that shape. | [
"The cloud unexpectedly decelerates as it approaches and comes to rest around the Sun, causing disastrous climatic changes on Earth and immense mortality and suffering for the human race. As the behaviour of the cloud proves to be impossible to predict scientifically, the team at Nortonstowe eventually come to the ... |
when holding hands, why does it feel so much better to be the "under" hand than the "over" hand (since neither position is actually ~~physically~~ uncomfortable)? | Supposedly has to do with left and right brained. Which may or may not be a thing. For me the left thumb has to be over the right when I clasp my hands and its same for holding hands. There's a thing with preference in crossing your arms and a couple others. I'm a bad example b/c I'm evenly split on which side is dominant which is actually accurate b/c I'm analytical + creative
. decent writer, good at math, play piano. | [
"Both the Muslim and Hindu faiths somewhat abhor the use of the left hand. It is considered 'unclean'; the left hand is traditionally perceived as the hand used to clean yourself in the toilet. So when shaking hands, offering a gift, handing or receiving something, eating, pointing or generally touching another per... |
how can uranium be used for "peaceful" purposes (as iran wants to do)? | Uranium can be used to generate nuclear energy, which can be used as an alternative for fossil fuels to provide buildings with electricity. | [
"Iran states it has a legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under the NPT, and further says that it \"has constantly complied with its obligations under the NPT and the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency\". Twelve other countries are known to operate uranium enrichment facilities. Iran ... |
why do people become traumatized | Your brain is a processing center that takes various stimuli and decides what to do with it. Say you're sorting toys into various bins and every time you pick a certain one up it gives you an electric shock and you drop it. It bothers you to leave it lying there when it should be sorted, but you can't get it into the right bin without getting shocked. Touching the toy causes trauma, and eventually even the thought of touching the toy will cause distress. That's what's going on in the head of someone with PTSD. | [
"Instances of transgenerational trauma where the trauma affects a large population of people and their role in society can be identified as cultural trauma. This form of trauma results in a greater loss of identity and meaning, which in turn affects generations upon generations as the trauma is ingrained into socie... |
How big of a problem was alcohol abuse/alcoholism in the Red Army during WW2? | The atrocious conduct of the Red Army following their conquest of Eastern Europe and East Germany was largely influenced by their blatant abuse of alcohol. In fact the NKVD allegedly reported back to Moscow complaining that 'mass poisoning from captured alcohol is taking place in occupied Germany' as it was seriously limiting their combat capabilities. Additionally, "It seems as if Soviet soldiers needed alcoholic courage to attack women". They were often so drunk they could not finish rapes, and in some cases used the bottle which caused devastating injuries (Antony Beevor, *Berlin*, 2007).
It should also be noted, compared to the other armies of World War Two, the Red Army's excessive drinking was linked to Russian culture:
> [i]t was not the amount that Soviet soldiers drank that proved so disastrous for women - in comparion, for example to how much American soldiers drank - but rather the way they drank. As scholars of Russian drinking habits have repeatedly noted, Russians drink in binges, reaching a stage of intense intoxication over a period of several days, and they are quite sober before the next binge. The availability and high quality of alcohol available in Germany did not help the situation. One SDP informant recorded a hard and fast rule for dealing with Soviet troops: 'So long as he [the Russian soldier] is sober, one has almost nothing to fear Only under the influence of alcohol and also when several are drunk do the excesses begin' (Norman Naimark, *The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949*, 1995).
| [
"At the start of World War II, alcohol consumption was widespread among members of the Wehrmacht. At first, high-ranking officials encouraged its use as a means of relaxation and a crude method of mitigating the psychological effects of combat, in the latter case through what later scientific developments would des... |
What are the bones that fuse together as we become adults? | This is kind of a misconception. It's not as if babies have more bones when they're born, it's just that bones aren't completely ossified at birth, so if you took an xray (for example) you'd see some areas where there were "transparent" areas in bones that aren't there as an adult. If we don't count each little island of ossification separately, and instead count the entire bony structure, including parts made of cartilage, infants and adults have the same number of bones (more or less).
That being said, major centers of ossification that often look like separate bones at birth are the skull, elbows, knees, hips, sacrum, coccyx, possibly some levels of the spine. You could really throw in any long bone as well, so you'd include some bones of the hands and feet, shoulders, etc. | [
"Each hip bone consists of 3 sections, ilium, ischium, and pubis. During childhood, these sections are separate bones, joined by the triradiate cartilage. During puberty, they fuse together to form a single bone.\n",
"Eventually, the bones of the joint will become involved, causing arthritis, pain, stiffness, and... |
Did America's founding father's engage in acts that would be considered to be terrorist actions? | I would like to point out a quick note that things can get messy with terminology: as it was a ‘civil’ conflict at first, terms like ‘partisan group’ comes to mind. Then, after independence, anachronistic requisites would have it be that they were at war; I’d check out the letters between Germaine and Howe(authorized peace commissioner) to get a better idea of how the ‘rebels were viewed AT THAT TIME, both by the government and military of Britain.
Terrorism is in many ways a very modern concept, even if the ideas behind it are old. Its a hard term to match to 18th century ideals, where rebellion and Nationalism was fomenting all across the world.
We can stretch it, especially with the Boston Tea Party; the patriots would tar and feather loyalists, which is certainly a ‘fear’ tactic. But at no point did the British consider them to be anything more than ‘rebels’ - again, check correspondence between parliament and colonial military government, and between the king. They thought of them as upstarts, a few scruffly backwoods rebels out to seize power for themselves.
As for the patriots? They saw their actions as justified(as did many in Britain). While their techniques could be brutal - vandalizing Tory homes, ostracizing families who didn’t support the cause, aforementioned tar and feather - they had a specific goal in mind: freedom. Today, ‘terrorist groups’ and ‘freedom fighters’ are often mixed in as one. Furthermore, in some sense, terrorism has been enabled by the proliferation of a globalized world. Terrorists know and exploit that. So it’s really difficult to ascribe a term so laden with modern connotation to something from the 18th century, though it’s not impossible to see the similarities. | [
"One of the earliest groups to utilize modern terrorist techniques was arguably the Fenian Brotherhood and its offshoot the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They were both founded in 1858 as revolutionary, militant nationalist and Catholic groups, both in Ireland and amongst the emigre community in the United States.\... |
why don't any of the american ebola patients have privacy dealing with their sickness? aren't patients supposed to have medical privacy? | The medical staff protect their privacy, news teams have no such inhibitions | [
"Patients who are uninsured or with Medicaid are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced stage vaginal cancer than those with private insurance. Patients diagnosed at more advanced stages of vaginal cancer tend to have poorer survival outcomes. Studies have revealed that African Americans have a higher likelihood... |
how can hackers have more power in gta online than the makers of the game (rockstar) | It's eather two things. One is that there is so much traffic that they can't find the hackers or they don't care enough to fix it. | [
"\"Hacker II\" is more difficult and involved than the first game. In \"Hacker II\", the player is actually recruited based upon his (assumed) success with the activities in the original game. Once again, they are tasked with controlling a robot, this time to infiltrate a secure facility in order to retrieve docume... |
Given what we know about the human genome, how many genetically unique offspring is one pair of parents capable of producing? | First, each parent has two copies of each chromosome they can give you. So already we are at
2^46, or 7 x 10^13
Now let's add in crossing-over:
[This paper](_URL_0_) states that oocytes have, on average, 70 crossovers, and spermatocytes have, on average, 50 crossovers
So let's simplify and say all humans have 120 crossovers in the gametes that go on to form them.
How many unique combinations can 120 crossovers produce?
We have to make another simplification here. Let's say that crossovers can occur at any place on the genome. That means there are 3 billion potential places for crossover to occur. The number of unique crossovers is therefore the ways you can pick 3 billion things, choosing 120 at a time, or:
3,000,000,000 C 120
Which is 2.6 x 10^938.
Adding in our 23 chromosomes from earlier, we get **1.9 x 10^952 ** . Which is a really big number.
NOTE: Many of these unique genotypes will be phenotypically identical. Much of the genome is for non-coding regions, etc.
| [
"The genes can reveal from what part of the world the oldest ancestors of the paternal and maternal line of a person came from. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is present in all human beings and passed down through the maternal line, i.e. the mother of a mother of a mother etc. The Y chromosome is present only in mal... |
what exactly makes sunlight hot on a nice sunny day? is it the temperature of the sun itself radiating through space or some form of refraction of the light itself? | Sunlight hitting the atmosphere is always the same.
It's local weather conditions that change. Warm dry conditions, open sky, the sun is going to continue to warm up the already warm air. Warmth (or lack of) from previous days is stored in the ground and water and moves across the area in pressure systems. | [
"Very hot objects emit UV radiation (see black-body radiation). The Sun emits ultraviolet radiation at all wavelengths, including the extreme ultraviolet where it crosses into X-rays at 10 nm. Extremely hot stars emit proportionally more UV radiation than the Sun. Sunlight in space at the top of Earth's atmosphere ... |
Is it possible to explain magnetic fields in terms of electric fields? | Yes, but it requires a pretty solid understanding of relativity. Imagine two long string of charges, one with charge per unit length +Q/L, one with charge per unit length -Q/L. Lets say that these string of charges are right on top of one another and moving in opposite directions with velocities +v and -v. Because they move in opposite directions, there is a net current (remember, current is defined as positive flow, so negative charges moving in the -v direction constitutes a current in the +v direction).
There is a charged particle moving in the vicinity of this wire with speed u.
To a stationary observer, there is no electric force on the moving charged particle because the electric fields due to the two strings of charges at this point are equal and opposite. Let's look at things from the perspective of the charged particle. Using the [velocity addition formula] (_URL_0_), we find that the -Q line is now moving *faster* than the +Q line.
-Q: v = u - v / (1 - uv/c^2 )
+Q: v = u + v / (1 + uv/c^2 )
Because the speed of the negative line charge is greater, the spacing between the charges will decrease due to greater Lorentz contraction. Because the spacing between the charges is less, the charge per unit length increases, which means that in the frame of the moving charge, the "wire" has a *net negative charge*, and will feel an electric force. There's a bunch of algebra I'm too lazy do to prove that this electric force is equal to the magnetic force exerted on the charge in the rest frame. | [
"There are different mathematical ways of representing the electromagnetic field. The first one views the electric and magnetic fields as three-dimensional vector fields. These vector fields each have a value defined at every point of space and time and are thus often regarded as functions of the space and time coo... |
If you have a cold container (soda, water, etc.) and you place it in front of a fan, is it being cooled more/kept the same temperature by the fan or is it being warmed up faster? | A fan moves air, and heats it up slightly because the fan itself is hot. More air passes over the container due to being the target of the fan, so the container will become the temperature of the air more quickly. If the air is a lower temperature than the container, the container will cool down. If the air is a higher temperature than the container, the container will heat up. | [
"Fin fan coolers use air to cool gases and liquids. The temperature of fluid is controlled (TIC) by opening or closing dampers on the cooler or adjusting the speed of the fan or the pitch angle of the fan blades thereby increasing or decreasing the flow of air.\n",
"Attaching an internal fan to a motor is a fairl... |
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