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On YouTube I can watch extremely detailed videos of ancient Roman battles that show what each section of the army did and at what time. How is this known, exactly? Was there just a scribe sitting on a hill recording the battle? | Well yes, there were always reporters for the [*Novum Eburicum Tempora*.](_URL_0_)
But seriously, it is worth just looking at the source material for this. The reconstruction of Teutoberg is more complicated than most in part because batlefield archaeology has actually played a role in shaping our understanding of it, so instead I will use Cannae as one of the most famous battles of the ancient world and one that tends to feature in these sorts of battlefield reconstruction. From Polybius' *Histories* 3.113-116:
> Next day it was Terentius' turn to take the command, and just after sunrise he began to move his forces out of both camps. Crossing the river with those from the larger camp he at once put them in order of battle, drawing up those from the other camp next to them in the same line, the whole army facing south. He stationed the Roman cavalry close to the river on the right wing and the foot next to them in the same line, placing the maniples closer together than was formerly the usage and making the depth of each many times exceed its front. The allied horse he drew up on his left wing, and in front of the whole force at some p281 distance he placed his light-armed troops. The whole army, including the allies, numbered about eighty thousand foot and rather more than six thousand horse. Hannibal at the same time sent his slingers and pikemen over the river and stationed them in front, and leading the rest of his forces out of camp he crossed the stream in two places and drew them up opposite the enemy. On his left close to the river he placed his Spanish and Celtic horse facing the Roman cavalry, next these half his heavy-armed Africans, then the Spanish and Celtic infantry, and after them the other half of the Africans, and finally, on his right wing, his Numidian horse. After thus drawing up his whole army in a straight line, he took the central companies of the Spaniards and Celts and advanced with them, keeping rest of them in contact with these companies, but gradually falling off, so as to produce a crescent-shaped formation, the line of the flanking companies growing thinner as it was prolonged, his object being to employ the Africans as a reserve force and to begin the action with the Spaniards and Celts.
> The Africans were armed in the Roman fashion, Hannibal having equipped them with the choicest of the arms captured in the previous battles. The shields of the Spaniards and Celts were very similar, but they swords were entirely different, those of the Spaniards thrusting with as deadly effect as they cut, but the Gaulish sword being only able to slash and requiring a long sweep to do so. As they were drawn up in alternate companies, the Gauls naked and the Spaniards in short tunics bordered with purple, their national dress, they presented a strange and impressive appearance. The Carthaginian cavalry numbered about ten thousand, and their infantry, including the Celts, did not much exceed forty thousand. The Roman right wing was under the command of Aemilius, the left under that of Terentius, and the centre under the Consuls of the previous year, Marcus Atilius and Gnaeus Servilius. Hasdrubal commanded the Carthaginian left, Hanno the right, and Hannibal himself with his brother Mago the centre. Since the Roman army, as I said, faced south and the Carthaginians north, they were neither of them inconvenienced by the rising sun.
> The advanced guards were the first to come into action, and at first when only the light infantry were engaged neither side had the advantage; but when the Spanish and Celtic horse on the left wing came into collision with the Roman cavalry, the struggle that ensued was truly barbaric; for there were none of the normal wheeling evolutions, but having once met they dismounted and fought man to man. The Carthaginians finally got the upper hand, killed most of the enemy in the mellay, all the Romans fighting with desperate bravery, and began to drive the rest along the river, cutting them down mercilessly, and it was now that the heavy infantry on each side took the place of the light-armed troops and met. For a time the Spaniards p285 and Celts kept their ranks and struggled bravely with the Romans, but soon, borne down by the weight of the legions, they gave way and fell back, breaking up the crescent. The Roman maniples, pursuing them furiously, easily penetrated the enemy's front, since the Celts were deployed in a thin line while they themselves had crowded up from the wings to the centre where the fighting was going on. For the centres and wings did not come into action simultaneously, but the centres first, as the Celts were drawn up in a crescent and a long way in advance of their wings, the convex face of the crescent being turned towards the enemy. The Romans, however, following up the Celts and pressing on to the centre and that part of the enemy's line which was giving way, progressed so far that they now had the heavy-armed Africans on both of their flanks. Hereupon the Africans on the right wing facing to the left and then beginning from the right charged upon the enemy's flank, while those on the left faced to the right and dressing by the left, did the same, the situation itself indicating to them how to act. The consequence was that, as Hannibal had designed, the Romans, straying too far in pursuit of the Celts, were caught between the two divisions of the enemy, and they now no longer kept their compact formation but turned singly or in companies to deal with the enemy who was falling on their flanks.
> Aemilius, though he had been on the right wing from the outset and had taken part in the p287 cavalry action, was still safe and sound; but wishing to act up to what he had said in his address to the troops, and to be present himself at the fighting, and seeing that the decision of the battle lay mainly with the legions, he rode along to the centre of the whole line, where he not only threw himself personally into the combat and exchanged blows with the enemy but kept cheering on and exhorting his men. Hannibal, who had been in this part of the field since the commencement of the battle, did likewise. The Numidians meanwhile on the right wing, attacking the cavalry opposite them on the Roman left, neither gained any great advantage nor suffered any serious loss owing to their peculiar mode of fighting, but they kept the enemy's cavalry out of action by drawing them off and attacking them from all sides at once. Hasdrubal, having by this time cut up very nearly all the enemy's cavalry by the river, came up from the left to help the Numidians, and now the Roman allied horse, seeing that they were going to be charged by him, broke and fled. Hasdrubal at this juncture appears to have acted with great skill and prudence; for in view of the fact that the Numidians were very numerous and most efficient and formidable when in pursuit of a flying foe he left them to deal with the Roman cavalry and led his squadrons on to where the infantry were engaged with the object of supporting the Africans. Attacking the Roman legions in the rear and delivering repeated charges at various points all at once, he raised the spirits of the Africans and cowed and dismayed the Romans. It was here that Lucius Aemilius fell in the thick of the fight after receiving several dreadful wounds, and of him we may say that if there ever was a man who did his duty by his country both all through his life and in these last times, it was he. The Romans as long as they could turn and present a front on every side to the enemy, held out, but as the outer ranks continued to fall, and the rest were gradually huddled in and surrounded, they finally all were killed where they stood, among them Marcus and Gnaeus, the Consuls of the preceding year, who had borne themselves in the battle like brave men worthy of Rome. While this murderous combat was going on, the Numidians following up the flying cavalry killed most of them and unseated others. A few escaped to Venusia, among them being the Consul Gaius Terentius, who disgraced himself by his flight and in his tenure of office had been most unprofitable to his country.
From this account you can get most of the details you will see in videos like the one you posted: the weak Carthaginian center that fell back to allow the double envelopment of the Roman lines, the cavalry action on the sides, the screening by the skirmishers, etc. What you *don't* see is the conceptualization of the army into neat "blocks" that tend to dominate [popular representations of battles.](_URL_1_) The Romans did organize their army in a way that could sort of allow that as the armies were dvided into named legions (~5000), cohorts (~600) centuries (~80) and conturbium (~10),^1 but it is very rare to see that reflected in battle literature unless a subdivision of the army did something remarkable (such as Cato's detachment during the Battle of Thermopylae). That is largely a modern convention, and someone more familiar with the development of modern military theory can probably comment on that better than I can.
^1 These numbers are *very* approximate and vary across time and space, and the *conturbium* may not have been thought of as a tactical unit. | [
"Little is known about the actual battle from historical texts save from its context which has been well documented. Much of what is known including troop positions and movements has been gleaned from archaeological work at the site of the battle.\n",
"The two main sources on the battle are the \"History of Rome\... |
When surgeons "run the bowel" is there a specific strategy to how it's pulled out, and how it's put back in? | Mercifully, real intestines aren't completely loose--they're tethered by tissue, called mesentery, which keeps them in some degree of order. You can pull bowel out to an extent, but it's not like one big loose rope the way it sometimes looks in movies/TV.
That said, bowel twisting on itself (volvulus) can still be an issue sometimes, particularly in the non-fixed parts of the colon. | [
"When the resection is complete, the surgeon has the option of immediately restoring the bowel, by stitching or stapling together both the cut ends (primary anastomosis), or creating a colostomy. Several factors are taken into account, including:\n",
"Surgical procedures to lengthen dilated bowel include the Bian... |
why doesn't a lightbulb act as a short circuit? | Well, it does, kinda.
A light bulb has a very thin wire. You might think that filament is about a millimeter wide, but the filament is actually a coil of a coil of the actual wire. The wire is much finer than a hair.
Pushing electric current through that wire is hard. So only a small amount of electric current can flow. Pushing that current through the wire takes effort - work -Energy - and this energy ends up as heat. The filament gets hot, really hot, until it glows brightly. | [
"Incandescent light bulbs consist of an air-tight glass enclosure (the envelope, or bulb) with a filament of tungsten wire inside the bulb, through which an electric current is passed. Contact wires and a base with two (or more) conductors provide electrical connections to the filament. Incandescent light bulbs usu... |
why do some toothpastes produce a lot of foam and some produce non at all? | Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. It is a detergent. It produces foam which carries off debris you scrub off your teeth. It also tastes kinda like mint and blocks all your sweet receptors which causes your OJ to taste bitter. | [
"Foams consist of two phases, an aqueous phase and a gaseous (air) phase. Foams have been used in many forms in the history of cooking, for example: whipped cream, ice cream, cakes, meringue, soufflés, mousse and marshmallow. It has a unique light texture because of the tiny air bubbles and/or a different mouthfeel... |
Is there a benefit to building aerodynamic Spaceships? | In a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or close to any planet with an atmosphere, there is still a thin trace of gases. Sometimes it's called "residual atmosphere". For most practical purposes it's a vacuum: you can't breathe and water boils at room temperature, but it can still cause drag on vehicles moving at high speed. This is not negligible because satellites in LEO move really fast, 7.6 km/s. This drag causes orbits to slowly decay over time.
The GOCE satellite was only intended to be in space during its planned mission lifetime. But it had a particularly low orbit at 250 km. This required a very aerodynamic design, so it was sometimes called "the Ferrari of space".
In a much higher orbit, like geostationary, or in interplanetary space, it doesn't really matter. | [
"The spaceship of the film is very obviously not aerodynamic as it is not made for planetary exploration. It flies through the cosmic void, not through air. In the void there is no resistance and therefore no need for aerodynamics. It is designed for only one purpose, says Nicolas Bazz, interstellar travel, as fast... |
how did currency exchange rates form in the very beginning? | Countries often initially had their currencies locked to a precious metal (typically gold or silver). For example pound sterling (GBP) derives its name from when 20 shillings was literally a pound of sterling silver, under Anglo-saxon rule. These are pretty easily exchangeable because the international value of that coin is its metal content. | [
"The exchange rate has been linked to the US dollar since the 1950s. Several regimes were adopted including initially the conventional peg in the sixties, regular crawling peg in the seventies and the eighties and crawling bands in the nineties. Over that time period, there were several exchange rate markets includ... |
How exactly does the rabies virus control human beings (stop them from drinking)? | Rabies infects neurones that control respiration and swallowing.
There is an automatic cycle you usually don’t notice around breathing and swallowing.
The rabies infection of the neurones controlling that cause it to become unreliable.
An infected person starts to have trouble swallowing and the negative reinforcement of trying to swallow and choking causes an involuntary anxiety or fear around doing it. | [
"After being taken up at the synaptic terminal or axon of the target neuron, the rabies virus is enveloped in a vesicle which is transported towards the cell body via axonal dynein. In the wildtype rabies virus, the virus will continue to replicate and spread throughout the central nervous system until it has syste... |
why is nationalism bad? | Because it’s moved past nationalism, and into jingoism.
Nationalism isn’t bad until it starts coming at the expense of others.
Edit: had to double check definitions, and I was describing PATRIOTISM. I guess nationalism is defined as extreme patriotism coming at the expense of others. | [
"Nationalism is inherently divisive because it highlights perceived differences between people, emphasizing an individual's identification with their own nation. The idea is also potentially oppressive because it submerges individual identity within a national whole, and gives elites or political leaders potential ... |
why is beef tenderloin so expensive? | [Here](_URL_0_) you have a chart showing where different beef cuts comes from.
The more a muscle has worked in its lifetime the tougher the beef cut tends to become and the tenderloin hasn't done much work in compared to to the rest of the cow. You can serve it very rare and nice tenderloin will still almost fall apart in your mouth.
So you have a small amount of very nice and tender beef from each cow which of course drives up the price. | [
"The tenderloin is the most tender cut of beef and is also arguably the most desirable and therefore the most expensive. The average steer or heifer provides no more than 500 grams of filet mignon. Because the muscle is not weight-bearing, it contains less connective tissue, which makes it tender. However, it is ge... |
Hydrogen used as a energy storage system? | I'm not an expert on hydrogen production, but I have looked at industrialised hydrogen production for future nuclear application. Assuming the same processes would be applied I can answer the question, but obviously my answer is based on nuclear rather than solar energy sources.
The main problem seems to be that the industrialised production of hydrogen is currently based on the sulphur-iodine cycle, steam electrolysis or some hybrid of these. Each of these is a cycle which, as you say, splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The problem is that they all rely on high temperatures and pressures to be industrially viable, and the *most promising* requires concentrated sulphuric acid to be heated to over 1000C. Materials in contact with sulphuric acid at that temperature have a very real problem is sticking around for any feasible length of time. When i originally looked at this a couple of years ago now, the 'record' was a 10 minute demonstration run, based on a rig fabricated from silicon carbide and teflon. | [
"Methods of hydrogen storage for subsequent use span many approaches including high pressures, cryogenics, and chemical compounds that reversibly release H upon heating. Underground hydrogen storage is useful to provide grid energy storage for intermittent energy sources, like wind power, as well as providing fuel ... |
why do ships sink vertically? | Its only if the breach in hull is only on one end or another. So when water start to fill up the ship one side gets heavier and goes down first. If the breack in the hull was all along one of the boards the ship would tilt towards that side before sinking and not vertically | [
"Instability is caused by the centre of mass of the ship rising above the metacenter resulting in the ship tipping on its side or capsizing, which is often referred to as \"foundered\" or \"foundering\". This can lead to a sinking if the openings on the upper side are not watertight at the time of the capsize. To r... |
basic beliefs of taoism | Taoism can be summed up pretty generally as it all focuses pretty much around nature and being a natural and forefilling person;
Daoism (Taoism) 道統 (Daoism and Taoism are the same thing)
- A way of life (in China may be referred to as a religion)
- 'To go with the flow', be positive, to agree with most things, to enjoy - life to the fullest, to life the high-life.
- Dao - translates to Way/A Way
- Daoism is Chinese because it originates in Chinese culture and it is most clearly understood through the Chinese language and views of being.
- Daoism is considered a 'religion' because it involves an orientation towards and relationship with, 'the sacred'.
- Fundamental Daoist ideas/concerns include:
~Wu wei : Effortless action, to behave in a completely natural and uncontrived way
~Ziran: Naturalness
~Zhenren: realized/perfected person, to be enlightened and aware of the world
~Dao: Way, path, route, such as choosing the right path to take in life
| [
"Taoism is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the \"Tao\" (, literally \"Way\", also romanized as \"Dao\"). The \"Tao\" is a fundamental idea in most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the principle that is the source, pattern ... |
Why aren't sunrises fiery colors too? | Not an expert, but I remember hearing a lecture about this. I'm not sure I'd characterize sunrises as less fiery or bland, but there are certain atmospheric changes that make sunrises and sunsets different. Firstly, there are some physiological changes that may contribute. Sunsets can darken the sky faster than our eyes can adjust to the change in light. At sunrise, our eyes were adjusted for night vision, and this may contribute to observing fainter changes in the sky's color. Secondly, atmospheric effects from pollution accumulated throughout the day can make the sky at sunsets seem more colorful by dulling the orange/reds. | [
"Sunset colors are typically more brilliant than sunrise colors, because the evening air contains more particles than morning air. Sometimes just before sunrise or after sunset a green flash can be seen.\n",
"Near sunrise and sunset, most of the light we see comes in nearly tangent to the Earth's surface, so that... |
how come when you crack your knuckles underwater, it is incredibly loud, but when you try and scream underwater, the sound is muffled to a whimper? | Water transmits sounds quite well, so if an action vibrates the water to make a sound, you'll be able to hear it clearly in the local area. However, sound does not cross mediums very well. When you're trying to talk (or scream) underwater, the sound is being generated by vibrating air in your vocal chords. When this hits the water just outside your mouth, only a little of that energy is transmitted into producing underwater sound waves. The rest is lost, reflecting back into your mouth. | [
"Most hydraulophones sound continuously for as long as a finger hole is blocked. However, the WaterHammer hydraulophone produces sound from impact (water hammer) that dies down after being initially struck, thus sounding more like a piano than the more typical \"underwater pipe organ\" hydraulophone.\n",
"It has ... |
why is there such a large amount of rain falling across australia, when it is meant to be an el nino year and be very dry? | El Nino is the summer part of the phenomena. In winter it becomes El Nina and brings more rain. I would guess that in the southern hemisphere the season are reversed. | [
"The tropical areas of northern Australia have a wet summer because of the monsoon. During \"the wet\", typically October to April, humid north-westerly winds bring showers and thunderstorms. Occasionally, tropical cyclones can bring heavy rainfall to tropical coastal regions, which is also likely to reach further ... |
If honeybees are non-native to North America, won't the original (or other) pollinators flourish and fill in the gaps left behind by the decreasing population? | [Apparently it's a bit of a myth that honey bees are non-native](_URL_2_).
But that could just be a red herring and I get your point.
[This online handbook on insect pollination of cultivated crops](_URL_1_) mentions the loss of native pollinating insects. So does [this article](_URL_0_). So it's not just honey bees that we are losing, but all insect pollinators. It's a "pollination crisis" not just a honey bee crisis.
| [
"Honey bees, which have traditionally been emphasized as important crop pollinators in Canada, did not exist in North America before they were introduced there by humans. In Western countries including Canada, honey bees have recently become prone to colony collapse disorder, which threatens the production of many ... |
the uploader has not made this video available in your country. | Its likely the video contains material that is not licensed for worldwide use. International licenses are significantly more expensive than licenses for a specific region. | [
"These videos could also be found in local video platforms in China, where YouTube is blocked, including Tencent, Youku, and iQiyi. Tencent have set up a specific team to monitor its video platform, and permanently shut down 121 accounts and blocked more than 4,000 search keywords by January 2018. The Ministry of P... |
Why is spacetime a Minkowski space and not a Euclidean space? | Euclidean space doesn't have a way to build a causal structure like Minkowski space does. In Minkowski space you can have vectors with positive, negative, or zero length. This allows you to define events that are timelike separated and which are therfore causally connected, events that are spacelike separated and therefore are not causally connected, and events that are lightlike separated and so sit on the path of a light ray. In Euclidean space all vectors have positive length so you can't make this classification.
EDIT: Experimentally, because of length contraction and time dialation we know that euclidean length is not conserved when we move from one frame to another, while the minkowskian length is. | [
"Minkowski space is closely associated with Einstein's theory of special relativity and is the most common mathematical structure on which special relativity is formulated. While the individual components in Euclidean space and time may differ due to length contraction and time dilation, in Minkowski spacetime, all... |
how for example, gun laws are so different from state to state and why they just cant be the same all over the country | > The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution (part of the Bill of Rights) specifically says that, outside of the powers *specifically* granted to the Federal government, the states are responsible for making laws. | [
"Gun laws in the United States regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition. State laws (and the laws of the District of Columbia and of the U.S. territories) vary considerably, and are independent of existing federal firearms laws, although they are sometimes broader or more limited in scope t... |
Why did Saddam's forces succeed in fighting the Kuwaiti forces, then lose to the American/coalition forces? | Leaving aside the enormous issue of the obvious disparity between Kuwaiti and Coalition forces (both in scale and quality), Iraq's successful invasion of Kuwait benefited greatly from the experience of the Iran-Iraq War. Although the Iraqi military did not cover itself in glory in that conflict, the armed forces gained a modicum of experience and competency in carrying out specific missions. The Republican Guard had been retooled from an elite praetorian formation (and this was still an important component of their duties) into a force capable of both combined arms and night attacks. Although the Guard formations were not as proficient at these operations as Western forces, it was enough to overwhelm Kuwaiti forces. The prior war also underscored the need for accurate intelligence and the Iraqi Air Force's MiG-25s conducted extensive overflights over Kuwait in July 1990 and the regime disseminated the aerial photographs to ground units. Commercially available tourist maps also contributed to the Iraqi success.
The swift victory in Kuwait masked many of the flaws of the Iraqi armed forces. One of the fundamental problems of Iraqi military effectiveness was the compartmentalization of its armed forces into various satraps. Iraqi naval, army, and air forces often operated in the dark as to what other branches were doing. The Army operated under the assumption that the Iraqi Air Force would provide an air umbrella for its operations. However, the Air Force assumed that its attacks on Kuwaiti airbases would suffice and it kept a number of units on alert over Iraq itself to prevent any repeat of the Israeli 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant. The Kuwaitis did mount some airstrikes against Iraqi forces much to the consternation of Republican Guard commanders. The swift occupation of Kuwaiti airbases ended this threat, but the inability of the left hand to know what the right was doing was a precursor of the later disasters in 1991. The successful invasion of al-Qulayah Navy base by elements of the Iraqi Navy showed that the Iraqi forces were capable of acting with initiative and daring. The Iraqi commander Colonel Muzahim Mustafa occupied the harbor despite losing one missile boat and suffering equipment malfunctions. Yet Mustafa's bold tactical leadership was atypical of Iraqi forces; crucial mission leaders were often kept in the dark about their operations until the last minute. Air mobile helicopter pilots only had rudimentary training and were assured that the Air Force would eliminate Kuwait's Hawk missiles. The Air Force's failure to do so led to high helicopter losses and the rudimentary training in night formation flying also led to a large number of crashes. The Iraqi approach to operational planning inhibited tactical initiative as frontline troops barely knew the basic plan and had to focus great efforts on carrying it out, so improvisation when the plan went awry was less likely.
Ultimately, these defects were not as much of an issue given that the Kuwati response to Iraq was much more passive than it could have been. Civilian refugees prevented the effective deployment of Kuwaiti armed forces. The speed of the Iraqi assault prevented the Kuwaitis from exploiting the Mutla Pass as a defensive line, which was one of the few natural barriers in Kuwait. The result was that the Kuwaiti response was often in penny-packets that the Iraqi's could quarantine. Again, defects within the Iraqi command and communication system meant that Iraqi troops were often unaware sister unit's status, so it was up to the unit being attacked to deal with the Kuwaitis alone. Coalition forces would exploit this disjointed command structure in 1991 as they destroyed the Iraqi forces in a piecemeal fashion.
In short, the Iraqis were competent enough to take Kuwait, but lacked the ability to hold Kuwait against a military
foe like the United States.
*Sources*
Al-Marashi, Ibrahim, and Sammy Salama. *Iraq's Armed Forces An Analytical History*. London: Routledge, 2008.
Woods, Kevin M. *Iraqi Perspectives Project Phase II. Um Al-Ma'arik (The Mother of All Battles): Operational and Strategic Insights from an Iraqi Perspective, Volume 1* (Revised May 2008). Ft. Belvoir: Defense Technical Information Center, 2008. < _URL_0_;. | [
"In 1991, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and was quickly routed by the United States in the First Gulf War (also called \"Operation Desert Storm\"). In the aftermath of the Iraqi army's defeat, rebellions broke out in Iraq; first in southern Iraq on March 1, and in the northern Kurdish region a few days later. By Ma... |
philosophy, what is it and why do people study it? | **What is philosphy?** If you were to take a course an Intro to Philosophy course in college, you would learn about major schools of thought regarding human purpose, ethics, and rationality. The foundation of most of today's philosophy is based in Greek Philosophy -- the ideas of ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. Their timeless writings are still relevant and debated to this day. Their work has been built upon for many years and have gone in many different directions. Some of these schools of thought are in direct conflict with one another, such as utilitarianism (the ends justify the means) and deontology (the ends do NOT justify the means; it is about the best moral choice).
~~Philosophy is considered a "soft" science, similar to sociology. This is different from a "hard" science like biology or physics because it deals in intangible social issues: things that are difficult to measure and prove with hard data.~~ Philosophy is full of a lot of debate and semantics (determining the exact meaning of a word -- such as "morality") that don't always end with conclusive answers.
**Why do people study it?** People study philosophy to better understand the human condition. People want to better understand not only individual purpose (self), but collective purpose (all of humanity). People also want to better understand ethical issues, and argue for what they believe are the most moral choices. An example of a classic ethics debate is whether or not the "needs of the many outweight the needs of the few." Such questions are not easy to answer because they heavily depend on the context.
Nonetheless, people spend a lot of time contemplating these questions. Anyone can sit around and read about and contemplate these questions--most people do at some point in their life. But academically (at Universities), it has to be more than wayward contemplation. Therefore, like anything in academics, it requires a deep knowledge of past and current writings on the topic to provide a foundation of supporting concepts and ideas. This creates a web of supporting data to transition and progress into new or modified ideas.
At the end of the day, people who study philosophy hope to understand themselves and their world a little better than they did before. There are not a ton of career options tied to philosophy -- many who specialize in it often become professors of the subject, or move onto higher education that is more focused on something like law. The study of law is often intertwined with philosophy due to its connection to morality/ethics. Therefore, a background in philosophy is not a bad stepping stone into law.
More often, philosophy as college curriculum is taken as a minor degree, or a class or two in supplementation to a seemingly unrelated degree. Example: someone who is specializing in biological engineering may be forced to take classes in science ethics, which is rooted in basic philosophical principles. This is so they are able to better make choices in a career field that is full of difficult, complex moral dilemmas that cannot be answered with a microscope. They are questions that require subjective introspection.
**TL;DR- 42.** | [
"Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. It is the discipline searching for a general understanding of reality, reasoning and values. Major fields of philosophy include logic, metaphysics, epistemology... |
Is James McPherson too critical of George McClellan? | Ethan Rafuse made a creditable attempt to defend McClellan in his 2011 biography *McClellan's War,* and while somebody other than I could better assess him as a tactician, strategist, or battlefield commander, I think Rafuse does manage to debunk some of the McClellan myths. The famous incident where Lincoln called on him and was turned away, for example, was much more likely to have been due to an attack of the malaria McClellan picked up during the Peninsula Campaign, not him being an egotistical snob. His supposed failure to pursue Lee after the Battle of Antietam is a great exaggeration: his army was exhausted, and the reconnaissance in force he sent across into Virginia after Lee was decisively repulsed.
There is a real problem with biography: we like stories of people to run like film scripts. An egotistical, snobbish, well\-bred and incompetent McClellan makes a great contrast to a modest, progressive Lincoln or a hard\-working, unassuming Grant, and Rafuse does show this is another case where the characters are not quite that simple. Grant was quieter than McClellan but no less ambitious, and also made mistakes that cost a lot of lives. And we have to also avoid a presentist bias: McClellan's Whig politics are now way out of line with what we would feel to be correct, but his compromising attitude towards the South was shared by a lot of Northerners, and would certainly be seen again after the War when the North abandoned the freedmen and Reconstruction. | [
"McClellan's experiences in the war would shape his military and political life. He learned that flanking movements (used by Scott at Cerro Gordo) are often better than frontal assaults, and the value of siege operations (Veracruz). He witnessed Scott's success in balancing political with military affairs and his g... |
how are babies born with "hardcoded" reflexes that they can do first time, without practice? | Hardcoded is the exactly correct word to use.
They are born with neural pathways in their brains that will automatically respond to stimuli, residing in a more primitive part of their brain.
For many animals, that more primitive part of their brain is almost all that they have, so all of their behavior is hardcoded, and they have very little capacity to learn. For humans, the primitive brain is small, with most of their brain devoted to learned behavior. | [
"Newborn babies have a number of other reflexes which are not seen in adults, referred to as primitive reflexes. These automatic reactions to stimuli enable infants to respond to the environment before any learning has taken place. They include:\n",
"Primitive reflexes are reflex actions originating in the centra... |
how do people who suffer from epilepsy safely drive? | They can’t. Exceptions not withstanding (minor cases, controlled by medication,etc) Licenses can be denied over medical issues. | [
"Those with epilepsy are at about twice the risk of being involved in a motor vehicular collision and thus in many areas of the world are not allowed to drive or only able to drive if certain conditions are met. In some places physicians are required by law to report if a person has had a seizure to the licensing b... |
purpose of the f keys on the top of your keyboard. | Back in the bad old days, there was no such thing as a "mouse"- all you had was your keyboard. But some software still needed the "menus" that we take for granted in most every program we use today.
So, the F keys were implemented as a quick and easy way to access those menus. Programs could draw those menus across the top of the screen, along with the name of the key that would pull that specific menu up- and you could use the arrow keys, or letter shortcuts to navigate from there.
Nowadays, they're typically not used at all, except for shortcuts for advanced users. For example, F12 in Chrome brings up Developer Tools, allowing you to look at the base level of what each part of HTML code on the page you're viewing is responsible for. | [
"The Fn key, short form for \"function,\" is a modifier key on many keyboards, especially on laptops, used in a compact layout to combine keys which are usually kept separate. It is typically found on laptops due to their keyboard size restrictions. It is also found on many full-sized \"multimedia\" keyboards as th... |
What is the prevalence of assassinations in historical conflicts? | As required, I will provide a lengthy answer.
In the past assassinations were often an option, though like today most had some sort of security detail. An example of which (though perhaps an extreme one) can be found in the Mongol Empire, where Genghis Khan had a private defensive force called the Kheshig. The force was sizeable, being thought to be around 10,000 plus by the time Genghis died. This is perhaps why no Khan of Khans (leader of the mogul empire) was ever assassinated.
In less militaristic nations, or in nations with a smaller security detail, leaders often were assassinated. A prominent example being in Julius Caesar, though here it was his friend, Brutus who murdered him, and it was not for a war, but rather for political gain. The religious wars in the Middle Ages also claimed many monarch's lives.
The Order of Assassins or Hashshashin was an islamic group which terrorised the islamic world for the better part of two centuries until it was eradicated by the Mongols on their way through the Mohammedan Empire. Whilst they were still around, though, their ruling was generally accepted, and though many tried to defeat them, most feared that they would be assassinated should any move be taken against the great Hashshashin.
Thus in this respect, perhaps enemy leaders could be simply assassinated, and as history has shown, it can be an effective method if the leader can actually be reached.
However, in modern times it is much harder to assassinate any leader of a major nation such as America, due to not only the massive security details and defences, but also because of the intelligence agencies which play a huge role in the protection of leaders. Obviously there are exceptions, such as the Kennedy ordeal, but such exceptions are just that.
(Speculation) In terms of ending wars it is unlikely to do so in the modern age. This is mainly due to the fact that unless the enemy country in question is a dictatorship, monarchy or any kind of totalitarian state the influence of assassinations is probably minimal. This is because new leaders can be quickly appointed. Totalitarian leaders who feel under threat of assassination are probably less likely to continue fighting. In addition, in such totalitarian states the leader is often the one powering the war. Although, in many cases, even in such nations, a new leader with similar ideals and qualities (if not worse) is quickly appointed, as seen in General Gaddafi and Libya. | [
"Murders were carried out throughout the whole war with a varying degree of intensity. For example, in the district of Fougères, in conflict between some Chouans and a fluctuating number of Republicans, 219 people were assassinated or executed by Chouans and 300 by Republicans. This did not include deaths during fi... |
Why wasn't the Holy Roman Empire ever centralized? | I think I give a thorough answer, here:
_URL_0_ | [
"The Holy Roman Empire was a highly decentralized state for most of its history, composed of hundreds of smaller states, most of which operated with some degree of independent sovereignty. Although in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, under the Salian and Hohenstaufen emperors, it was relatively centralized, as ... |
What alleged psychodellic property or ingredient of nutmeg makes people high? | Myristicin, an anti-cholinergic.
Like other anti-cholinergic drugs it will cause dry eyes/mouth, confusion, headaches and nausea. In certain doses it can cause mild hallucinations.
The effects vary widely from person to person and can last for 2-3 days. I've frequently heard a nutmeg high being described as like a bad flu. I've only known one person to do it twice.
Interestingly, Myristicin doesn't fully explain nutmeg's effects according to some literature. Elemicin, also in nutmeg, is potentially psychoactive as well. Some of nutmeg's effects may come from how myristicin alters the metabolism of other compounds found in the nutmeg seed. | [
"Nutmeg has deliriant and hallucinogenic effects as well due to some of its psychoactive chemicals, such as myristicin, which may be anticholinergic like the tropane alkaloids of the nightshade plants, or as suggested by Alexander Shulgin, partially metabolized into the \"empathogen-entactogen\" MMDA.\n",
"The pr... |
why do objects in space tend to orbit in a disc-shaped pattern? | Conservation of angular momentum, basically.
Imagine a big cloud of particles, each moving with some random velocity. The cloud will have some well-defined center of mass, obviously, so each particle that makes up the cloud is going to be in orbit about that center of mass, the orbit determined by where the particle starts out and what its initial velocity is.
Every body in orbit around another body has some angular momentum. If you were to compute the angular momentum of every single particle in the cloud, you'd be able to add them all up. Many of the individual momenta would end up canceling out; there's a particle here that's moving this way with such-and-such angular momentum, but there's another particle on the other side moving in pretty much the opposite way, so those two momenta cancel out almost exactly.
But once you've added up all the angular momenta, you'll find that it doesn't *all* cancel out exactly. Instead, there's some *net* angular momentum. We can say that's the angular momentum of the whole cloud.
Here's the thing about angular momentum: It *never goes away.* It moves around, adds and subtracts, and it can cancel out under the right circumstances, but it never just *disappears from the universe.* So if the cloud starts out with some net angular momentum, then it will *keep* that net angular momentum *forever.*
So if you let the particles move around for a while, you'll notice that they start interacting with each other. This one bumps into that one, these two graze each other, whatever. In each interaction, angular momentum *moves around* — this particle gains a little, that particle loses a little — but it *never just disappears.* Maybe occasionally a particle will bounce off another in such a way as to get knocked out of the cloud entirely; when that happens, it'll carry a tiny amount of angular momentum away with it. But in general, the total angular momentum of the cloud remains constant.
As the particles interact with each other over a long span of time, these interactions will have a net normalizing effect. That is, every particle in the cloud will tend to have its angular momentum "nudged" closer and closer to the net angular momentum of the cloud, divided by the number of particles. That's because a particle with *more* than the average angular momentum will tend — statistically, I mean — to interact with another particle in such a way that it gives up angular momentum. Particles with less than the average angular momentum will tend to gain angular momentum from their interactions.
So over a very long time, the particles will tend to get "averaged out," so they approach uniform angular momentum.
That means they end up settling into orbiting in the same direction, and *in a plane.* Particles that are orbiting outside the plane of the cloud's net angular momentum will tend to get pulled back toward it by their interactions with other particles.
So that's why planetary systems, like our own solar system obviously, tend to form planes. Because the huge gas cloud that existed here before our solar system condensed out of it had a net angular momentum, and because angular momentum is conserved, the solar system that exists today has *pretty much* exactly that same angular momentum.
Dark matter doesn't tend to form disc-like structures, though, because dark matter particles *don't interact* with each other at all. They're completely transparent to each other, passing through each other like they're not even there. Without interactions to average out the angular momenta of the particles, clouds of dark matter tend to say … well, *cloud-like,* forming the galactic halos we observe when we look out into the night sky. | [
"In a flat disk of objects with eccentric orbits a small initial vertical perturbation is amplified by the inclination instability. The initial perturbation exerts an vertical force. On very long timescales relative to the period of an object's orbit this force produces a net torque on the orbit due to the object s... |
why do we combine words together accidentally when speaking? | Your brain forms sentences by trying to put together words that represent what you're thinking. Sometimes your brain knows the words, but doesn't send the signals to the muscles in your face quick enough for your mouth to form each individual word correctly, so you blend a couple words together, and people wonder why you just said 'wice' instead of nice water. | [
"I had noticed that when people talk, they talk \"over\" one another, especially people who talk fast or who are arguing or describing something. So we wrote the dialogue in a way that made the beginnings and ends of sentences unnecessary; they were there for overlapping.\n",
"Merge can also operate on structures... |
how do rape kits/paternity tests work if sperm only has 50% of the father's dna? | Each sperm only has 50%.
There are many many millions of sperm.
The odds that all of them miss any part of the father's DNA is essentially zero. | [
"DNA profiling is also used in DNA paternity testing to determine if someone is the biological parent or grandparent of a child with the probability of parentage is typically 99.99% when the alleged parent is biologically related to the child. Normal DNA sequencing methods happen after birth, but there are new meth... |
Why is recent history often excluded or extremely rushed in history classes? | Historian James Loewen attends to this question in his book for popular consumption: "Lies My Teacher Told me". The short answer is: the recent past in too well known, and therefore too controversial. he studies the number of pages in history text books dedicated to to recent past, first in books from the 1980's, then a second sample from the 00's in order to compare how many pages they dedicate to the recent past.
"On average, the textbooks [from the 1980's] give forty-seven pages to the 1930's, forty-four to the 1940's, and fewer than thirty-five pages to each later decade. Even the turbulent decade of the 1960's -- including the civil rights movement, most of the Vietnam War, and the murders of Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evans, Malcolm X, and John Robert Kennedy -- got fewer than thirty-five pages."
Lowen p. 260
As you can see, when the 1960's was fresh in the minds of parents who had lived through it, history books devoted roughly 25% fewer pages covering it. However, when the 1960's faded from the recent past, textbooks began to give it a new emphasis of focus.
"Textbooks in 2006-2007 show quite a different approach. Now the 1960's are no longer recent history, so textbooks can give them the emphasis they should have received, fifty five pages. (That total is greater than for any other decade of the twentieth century.) But today's texts, published between 2000 and 2007, give short shift to the new recent past, the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Now they devote forty-nine pages to the 1930's and forty seven to the 1940's, but fewer than twenty to the 1980's and 1990's (Even tossing in the first years of the new Millennium)."
ibid
The unfortunate conclusion from this trend is to recognize that K-12 recent history will always be sterile and lackluster because of the socio-economic forces that shape the textbook publishing process. Conventional High School history is supposed to be non-political, but current events are always political and remembered as such. Textbook publishers don't want to take a side on current events because they don't want to risk alienating the parents of potential students.
"Some parents are Democrats, some Republicans, so what authors say about the impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton will likely offend half of the community."
Lowen p. 261
These political concerns, along with many others are ripe in the minds of textbook publishers as they endlessly revise their books in order to parade before skeptical school boards nation wide. This process is so politicized, and so lucrative, that the history that is allowed into K-12 history books could hardly be called history. All notes and evidence is take from James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told me, and I encourage any with an interest in american history, or the history regarding the education of history, I invite you to check it out.
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teach Told Me. New York: Touchstone, 1995, 2007.
| [
"But what made history even at school was the plots in satire, criticism and humor created by Luiz Fernando Reis where they constitute a formula that spoke Inflation have criticized politicians asked Diretas Já that please and spoke to the public. However the revisionist school, and this style, culminating in vario... |
Did 'Population: ' signs actually appear outside towns in the American West? If so what was their purpose? | American expansion always included strong elements of boosterism: wanting to believe that your town was bigger and better, or would soon be bigger and better, than other nearby towns. Because I’ve never seen any suggestion that population signs were posted for view by passing railway passengers, I believe the practice really arose in the early days of automobiles and cross-country motoring. In much of the nation, the new highway network was cobbled together from pre-existing county roads, including the section-line roads that run parallel at one-mile intervals. With so many routing possibilities, there was great rivalry among small towns to be on the new marked route that would attract motorists, and I speculate that booster clubs put up signs at junctions and crossroads touting their towns: listing the services such as hotels, repair garages, and tourist campgrounds to be found there, and also showing a population figure that would suggest a greater variety of eateries, services, and attractions. No doubt there was some inflation of those figures, and so state highway departments and their official signs noting entrance into municipalities became the trusted arbiter of such figures.
Some states also show the altitude of towns on city-limit signs, a holdover from railway days when that was a figure of interest to both the drivers of the locomotives and travelers passing through. In the early days of motoring, altitude was also a factor in engine adjustment and performance, and useful for motorists to know.
Alas, I’ve never found much in the way of sources on this topic, so its informed more by broader understanding of the rise of the automobile and civic rivalry in the early 20th century. The rivalry of towns wanting to be included on the pioneering coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway is chronicled in Drake Hokanson’s book *The Lincoln Highway: Main Street Across America.* John A. Jakle and Keith Sculle’s book *Motoring: The Highway Experience in America* gives a pretty good picture of the landscape that faced early cross-country motorists. The various papers in *Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture,* edited by Jan Jennings, give more detailed insight into various aspects of the roadside culture. | [
"Some of the first roadside signs—ancient milestones—merely gave distance measures. Hazard warnings were rare though occasional specimens appeared, such as the specific warning about horse-drawn vehicles backing up which was carved in stone in Lisbon's Alfama neighborhood in 1686. The early signs did not have high-... |
what is a w-4? | Essentially, the government requires that your employer collect your income tax on your wages and send that to the government.
In order to do that, your employer needs some way to estimate how much you'll pay in taxes. To do **that**, they need information from you about how much you expect to pay in taxes.
So you tell your employer if you're married or single, and if you have certain allowances that would be subtracted from your taxable income. (like having kids) You can tell your employer to withhold extra money, if you have special circumstances or if you're working two jobs. Your employer then uses that information to estimate your income taxes, and withholds those funds from your paycheck. | [
"The W84 is an American thermonuclear warhead designed for use on the BGM-109G Gryphon Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM). It is a derivative of the B61 nuclear bomb design and a close relative of the W80 warhead used on the AGM-86 ALCM, AGM-129 ACM, and BGM-109 Tomahawk SLCM cruise missiles.\n",
"The W82 was ... |
why do child victims of abuse gravitate towards people similar to the abuser? | Abuse is all about control. A lot of abuse involves making its victims feel worthless, like they can never do better, like they cannot find happiness or deserve happiness, etc. Control is part of how abusers keep their victims silent.
Victims of child abuse often have little exposure to healthy relationships. They also tend to have lower self-esteem, and it requires a lot of consistent help and guidance and support to help victims. Victims can also potentially develop behavioral issues and can be difficult to deal with if people don't understand or know how to deal with it. This leads to more self-esteem issues, a tendency to revert back to what they know and what they've been told by the abuser.
Helping a victim of child abuse doesn't stop with just removing them from the abuser(s)' home. | [
"Victims of manipulation and abuse frequently feel responsible for causing negative feelings in the manipulator/abuser towards them and the resultant anxiety in themselves. This self-blame often becomes a major feature of victim status.\n",
"Aside from the motive (which is to gain attention or sympathy), another ... |
how does uhaul/any other car rental company keep vehicles equally distributed across the country? | Car rental businesses hire people to drive vehicles to other locations. I’m sure Uhaul has something similar in place. | [
"In the sharing economy, transfer cars, relocation cars, or driveaways are rental cars that need to be transferred back to their original branch after a one-way rental. Rental car companies have traditionally used truck and train transporters to re-position their fleet until this model was disrupted by websites whi... |
How accurate is the Romanticized telling of the American Civil War? | "how much more complex was the civil war than simple fighting about slavery"
The short answer here is that it wasn't more complex than that. Slavery was absolutely the central political controversy of 19th century America. The southern states had enjoyed legislative and judicial power over the federal government for decades leading up to the election of Abraham Lincoln. With the loss of the White House to an avowed abolitionist, they realized that their stranglehold on the federal government was at an end so they revolted rather than honor the democratic process.
The single most poignant fact in the discussion of "whether or not the Civil War was fought over slavery" is that the Confederate Constitution banned the abolition of slavery. If the "State's Rights" argument is to be believed, then why would the Confederate government take away their own states' right to decide on slavery? After the War ended, southern apologists immediately began writing revisionist history that de-emphasized the role of slavery in their rebellion. Unfortunately their efforts found their way into many a history book and so today there is a sizeable portion of the American public who believe that the Confederate cause was one of self-determination and self-governance.
This is demonstrably false. The Confederacy formed because while males feared that their ability to own black people as property would be taken away from them, and they decided collectively that they would rather take up arms against their countrymen than let that happen. There are very few conflicts in human history where one side can be considered legally and morally in the wrong - the American Civil War is one of those few. | [
"This historical fiction novel, written by Paul Fleischman, highlights the events surrounding the first major battle of the American Civil War, the Battle of Bull Run. It is told through the first-person perspectives of 16 different characters, both Union and Confederate. .\n",
"The mockumentary \"\", which detai... |
How did the relative cost of a medieval knight compare to the cost of a modern battle tank? | I mean the very terms "medieval" and "knight" are problematic in their own right as the medieval period is not particularly closely defined and knights can be anything from Hungarian riders to great lords of England and France. The latter would obviously spend vastly more money on their equipment than the former. The same is true for the term "foot soldier" which can be anything from a hastily raised levy of spearmen to dismounted men-at-arms, both are technically medieval foot soldiers but their cost varies a great deal.
With that in mind, say you are a Lord in 15th century England and you which to equip a retainer as a mounted man -at-arms. We assume that this man owns his own weapons but little else. He will need armor and a destrier. Let's assume he has his own courser already. Let's also, just for arguments sake settle for a harness of plates that is not custom made for him but rather made for a man roughly his size and modified to fit. Say you pay 6 pounds stirling for the armor and adjustments. You pay another 5 for the destrier (prices of war horses varied a great deal with time, demand and quality, if this figure is unreasonable I hope someone with more knowledge than me, like /u/waritter, will correct me). Either way, we end up at 11 pounds sterling for horse and armor.
This is the equivalent of one year and three months of labour for a skilled journeyman, half that for the man-at-arms himself. By comparison, a Main Battle Tank costs a whole hell of a lot more. $6M is the equivalent of 100 years of median income in the US, so, by very rough estimates, fielding a single main battle tank in 2018 cost about the equivalent of 80 men-at-arms in the 15th century.
For this case I assumed that you're fielding a normal retainer as a man at arms, not a titled and landed noble. For the man-at-arms you could expect to pay about 1 shilling per day plus food and lodging. I have no idea what the running expense of an active MBT is but I expect it is significantly higher given that you would also need a crew of 3-5, mechanics, infrastructure, fuel, ammo, spare parts etc etc. The crew alone would mean, if we assume that the tank crew member makes about the same as a skilled journeyman did in the 15th century, that wages alone are twice as expensive for the tank compared to a man-at-arms.
EDIT: Pay updated, thank you /u/Rittermeister. | [
"In feudal Anglo-Norman England and Ireland, a knight's fee was a unit measure of land deemed sufficient to support a knight. Of necessity, it would not only provide sustenance for himself, his family, esquires and servants, but also the means to furnish himself and his retinue with horses and armour to fight for h... |
Did businesses really flourish in the Nazi Regime? | Many businesses enjoyed an extremely close relationship with the Reich government. The most notorious one, [IG Farben](_URL_3_), --a chemical conglomerate formed in 1925 and made up of Bayer, BASF and others-- was so deeply implicated in committing crimes against humanity--being the supplier of Zyklon B, the poison used in the gas chambers--that it was abolished after the war, and many of its [corporate officers were put on trial](_URL_1_).
Post war examination has shown that the Nazi economy --and indeed the entire [Nazi bureaucracy](_URL_0_) was a house of cards, built on the loot and plunder of conquered nations in the former, and a personality cult and backstabbing on the latter. German industrial production peaked in 1944 under the direction of Minster of Armaments Albert Speer. These improvements can be principly attributed to him untangling the mess created by other Nazis, in their effort to win Hitlers favor, carving out little bureaucratic empires for themselves. This is especially evident in the restructuring of the [Reichswerke Hermann Göring](_URL_2_), an enormous state controlled steel conglomerate, formally headed by Hermann Göring.
Sources:
Inside the Third Reich, Speer, Albert
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer, William | [
"In the 1930s, Nazi Germany transferred many companies and services from state ownership into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries were moving in the opposite direction and strove for increased state ownership of industry. In most cases, this was a return to the private sector of firms which... |
Why do American lawyers have such a bad reputation? When did disrespect toward lawyers start? | A major issue is defense laywers. People don't understand that there is a difference between due process and guilty v innocent. A defense lawyer, regardless of whether or not the jury finds him guilty has to make sure his client has their rights observed. While this can be explained by say, a public defender (I just take the cases the state gives me) it doesn't work so well for private defense lawyers who (supposedly) know their client is guilty and still defends them. People like this are seen as "without shame."
Furthermore, it seems to me at first glace that a lawyers job is largely the same job of any academic: create a theory, support it with evidence, and then present your work to a panel of peers in hopes that it is approved. The problem is that a lot of people don't see Law like this, they see it as justice, and if you turn out to be a prosecutor who's plaintiff loses, or a defense lawyer who's client is found guilty BOOM you are an evil jerk trying to get away with (or wrongly label someone with) murder.
The reality is that few lawyers are courtroom lawyers, and few courtroom lawyers regular deal with "big" cases like murder, rape, major theft, etc. Most crimes that end up in courtrooms are pretty minor, and the importance of due process, rather than whether he was guilty or not, is what is going to take up people's time.
Its the same with any sort of general case of technical skills and education are required to get a job and keep it. Those without the technical skills and education don't appreciate what you are doing, and perhaps even miss a lot of the skill. Most people don't stop and think that most Congressmen are lawyers, that all judges are lawyers, that people with their JD teach at law schools, at undergraduate schools, people who work in the Town Hall are lawyers, etc, etc. They just assume all lawyers are blood sucking defense lawyers who protect corrupt corporations, because stereotypes are fun and easy. | [
"Americans' mistrust and dislike of lawyers was a frequent topic of dissection in social problem films such \"Lawyer Man\" (1933), \"State's Attorney\", and \"The Mouthpiece\" (1932). In films such as \"Paid\" (1930), the legal system turns innocent characters into criminals. The life of Joan Crawford's character i... |
Did ancient civilizations have ancient civilizations? | One of the best and most well-known examples of this is Classical Egypt and their understanding of the Pyramids, which were well over a thousand years old by that point. As such, I will refer you to older AskHistorians posts that address that specific piece of the answer.
[_URL_0_](_URL_1_)
[_URL_3_](_URL_2_)
I expect that Chinese history from the same time period would offer additional good examples, but that is not something I'm very familiar with. Fingers crossed that someone with that expertise follows up with this post, because I'm interested in that as well. | [
"Sumerians were the first people to develop complex systems as to be called \"Civilization\", starting as far back as the 5th millennium BC. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh. Mesopotamia was home to several powerful empire... |
if you wore an oxygen mask that simulates the elevation of 5,000 feet, would it make breathing at 6,000 feet easier, the same, or harder? | I assume by "oxygen man simulating 5,000 feet" you are actually talking about a tanker full of normal air that has been pressurized to match that elevation, and not a tanker full of just oxygen. It would be easier. That is what any pressurized container meant for human life is trying to do. Airplanes are pressurized so they simulate ground-level pressure vs. the atmosphere at 20,000 feet up. Submarines are pressured so they simulate ground-level pressure vs. the ocean at 5,000 feet down. | [
"Oxygen masks are used by climbers of high peaks such as Mt. Everest. Because of the severe cold and harsh conditions oxygen masks for use at extreme altitude must be robust and effective. The oxygen storage tanks used with the masks (called oxygen bottles) are made of lightweight, high-strength metals and are cove... |
the movie "primer." | In short: multiple time lines running parallel to each other. In long: See this image _URL_0_ | [
"\"Primer\" is of note for its extremely low budget, experimental plot structure, philosophical implications, and complex technical dialogue, which Carruth, a college graduate with a degree in mathematics and a former engineer, chose not to simplify for the sake of the audience. The film collected the Grand Jury Pr... |
Why can't the core of a star be "more" than iron? | A star is held up by the equilibrium between the inward force of gravity and the outward pressure of fusion energy. However, fusing iron or any heavier elements than iron doesn't produce a net output of energy, but rather extracts energy from the environment. So when that sort of reaction occurs in stars, it cannot sustain the equilibrium, and the star quickly collapses and undergoes a supernova, leaving behind a neutron star or black hole. | [
"The core of a star is kept from collapsing by the heat generated by the fusion of nuclei of lighter elements into heavier ones. At various stages of stellar evolution, the nuclei required for this process are exhausted, and the core collapses, causing it to become denser and hotter. A critical situation arises whe... |
How did the Soviet Union attempt to domestically and internationally justify plainly different standards of living between party leaders and ordinary citizens? | Followup and/or related question: how aware would the average soviet worker have *been* of the standard of living differences? | [
"According to communist ideologists, the Soviet political system was a true democracy, where workers' councils (\"soviets\") represented the will of the working class. In particular, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 guaranteed direct universal suffrage with the secret ballot. Practice, however, departed from princip... |
Why do deep sounds seem to travel further? | Low frequency waves are long. Quite long. Some take as much as 20-30 ft to fully develop. They go right through most walls, whereas high frequencies (very short wavelengths) get stuck in a pillow. It's the same reason why it takes so much more power to drive bass speakers than treble & midrange. | [
"At equator and temperate latitudes in the ocean, the surface temperature is high enough to reverse the pressure effect, such that a sound speed minimum occurs at depth of a few hundred metres. The presence of this minimum creates a special channel known as Deep Sound Channel, previously known as the SOFAR (sound f... |
Why did all of the reptilian megafauna of the seas disappear? | Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was severe enough that highly specialized animals died out. Mammals survived because they were scavengers and could survive on a very broad died. Of course, other factors come into play. Large size always seems to be selected against during extinction events. Also, it is important to know that whales evolved [after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.](_URL_0_) | [
"The deep-sea extinctions are difficult to explain, because many species of benthic foraminifera in the deep-sea are cosmopolitan, and can find refugia against local extinction. General hypotheses such as a temperature-related reduction in oxygen availability, or increased corrosion due to carbonate undersaturated ... |
why when lying on my side, my brain prefers to watch parallel to the floor instead of parallel to my eyes? | Your brain knows that you are lying on your side. It expects things to look rotated for the eyes. If they are not something is wrong. | [
"The brain's ability to see three-dimensional objects depends on proper alignment of the eyes. When both eyes are properly aligned and aimed at the same target, the visual portion of the brain fuses the forms into a single image. When one eye turns inward, outward, upward, or downward, two different pictures are se... |
How close could a person get to the sun, realistically? | I know the closest you can get to the sun on earth is mount chimborazo its not the tallest mountain in the world but it is the tallest one on the equator. | [
"BULLET::::- Jeremiah Horrocks: Astronomer who calculated that the distance between Earth and the sun was 59,000,000 miles – though well short of the actual distance of 93,000,000 miles, his estimate was more accurate than any other calculations of his time.\n",
"Following Pappus and Ptolemy, Swerdlow suggested t... |
how exactly do we move our limbs and why don't we mimic our movement in robots? | In order to move a muscle, we need to send a signal to a primary motor neuron. This specialized neuron controls groups of muscle fibers in one particular muscle, causing them to contract. When you want to consciously move a muscle you directly send a signal to the appropriate motor neuron which causes the action. We do it this way because we have other signals we want to control muscles; like reflexes or autonomous control.
The reason we don't make robots like this is because we already have motors that spin around an axis, but we don't have ones that constrict like muscles. We could build motors that function that way, but theres not a lot of incentive because the current system works as it is. I'm not an engineer or robotics expert so I can't get any more specific with this part of the question. | [
"Legged robots, or walking machines, are designed for locomotion on rough terrain and require control of leg actuators to maintain balance, sensors to determine foot placement and planning algorithms to determine the direction and speed of movement. The periodic contact of the legs of the robot with the ground is c... |
How do we determine when a common ancestor
lived? | Using [molecular clock](_URL_4_) genetic dating methods, generally following [coalescent theory](_URL_5_). It basically works like this. If we take a chunk of DNA from a human and the same chunk of DNA from a chimp then the differences in these two strands of DNA is an approximation of the time depth of the ancestor of the two species. This difference is proportional to the rate of evolution of that chunk of DNA.
Now, if we have some way of calibrating that rate of evolution we can turn this into a time estimate. There are two common ways of doing this. First is to use a fossil that dates some part of the family tree that neighbors the species we're interested in. So, for example, the next closest species to humans/chimps are Gorillas and then Orang-utans. If we have a fossil Orang at (from memory) 10-13 million years ago, and there are, say, 1000 changes in the DNA strands between humans and orangs, then we have a rate of about 1 mutation per 10,000 years. If we see 500 changes between chimps and humans then we can take the rate and extrapolate it.
The other alternative is to use a well-studied molecule where we have good estimates of the rate of molecular evolution. [Mitochondrial DNA](_URL_1_) is the most commonly used one for animals, and we have good evidence suggesting that it evolves at around one [transition mutation](_URL_2_) every ~6764yrs. So then it's just a matter of counting the changes.
Things get much more complicated than that though, most people these days use some form of [Bayesian phylogenetic methods](_URL_0_) with a number of different "relaxed" clock models that handle variation in rates of change between sites in the DNA, or different rates across species, etc.
(and we [do have fossil chimpanzees](_URL_3_), for the record). | [
"Given any gene in the body of an organism, we can trace a single chain of \"ancestor organisms\" back in time, following the lineage of this one gene, as stated in the coalescent theory. Because a typical organism is built from tens of thousands of genes, there are numerous ways to trace the ancestry of organisms ... |
Why do you think people use the term "Native American" instead of referring to tribes individually? Is this fair? | I've taken to using the terms indigenous peoples or indigenous tribes when I'm not referring to a particular tribe or nation. This choice came after the realization that "Native American" was just as much a Euro-centric term as "Indian." That being said, sometimes American Indian or Native American are simply the best terms to use because they can be easily recognized by a wider audience. | [
"Other objections to \"Native American\"—whether capitalized or not—include a concern that it is often understood to exclude American groups outside the continental US (e.g., Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico), and indigenous groups in South America, Mexico and Canada. The word \"American\" is sometimes questioned be... |
astronomy question | Inverse square law-
The inverse-square law, in physics, is any physical law stating that a specified physical quantity or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. The fundamental cause for this can be understood as geometric dilution corresponding to point-source radiation into three-dimensional space.
_URL_0_ | [
"Astronomy provides a spectacular demonstration of the effect of the Pauli principle, in the form of white dwarf and neutron stars. In both bodies, atomic structure is disrupted by extreme pressure, but the stars are held in hydrostatic equilibrium by \"degeneracy pressure\", also known as Fermi pressure. This exot... |
What rules of the english language came into play when determining that some words had no plural form- e.g fish, deer, etc? | Any "rules" of the English language are artificial constraints created a posteriori. English is the way it is because some people spoke that way and it became a *custom* (rather than a rule).
This becomes clearer when implementing [speech recognition and machine translation](_URL_0_). Rule based systems are brittle and don't work as well, while statistical approaches do much better. Statistical approaches basically work by compiling a huge database of how people actually talk and computing how common words and phrases *are* used (rather than how they are supposed to be used). | [
"The tradition of using \"terms of venery\" or \"nouns of assembly\", collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals, stems from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages. The fashion of a consciously developed hunting language came to England from France. It was marked by an extensive pr... |
In The Communist Manifesto, it's fairly accepted that Marx imagined the workers revolution to start in heavily industrialized nations. Yet the majority of former Communist States when their Revolutions happened were in primarily agricultural societies, why did this happen? | I answered a [similar question](_URL_0_) a few months ago which talks about Marxism's application in the Russian Empire.
The short answer is that the October Revolution was almost entirely orchestrated in the nation's industrial capital, Saint-Petersburg (then called Petrograd) so Marx was right to a certain extent. Despite this, very few early Marxist thinkers (including Lenin himself) predicted that the socialist revolution would occur in Russia because of its largely agrarian society-- as you mention.
Lenin combated this diversion from Marxist orthodoxy by implementing certain language like 'rural proletariat,' to bring those outside the actual cities under the purview of his revolutionary aims. When that wasn't totally effective, the Bolsheviks just reverted to type and socialized the countryside by violence and coercion. There's several responses in that question beyond the initial answer that talk about this in pretty excruciating but I'm happy to answer any follow-up questions you might have. | [
"Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto in February 1848, with little attention. However, a few days later the French Revolution of 1848 broke out, which replaced the monarchy of Louis Philippe with the Second French Republic. In June 1848, Paris workers, disenchanted with the new government, built barricades ... |
how alcoholic must your breath be to catch fire, and why does it even work? | 80 proof and above is generally flammable. Although I really don't see how this could happen, this would require actually inhaling some embers, which doesn't really happen when you smoke.
Further more, its going down different "tubes" the alcohol is going down through your stomach.
Smoke goes through the respiratory system to your lungs, there wouldn't be much if any alcohol in your respiratory system to catch fire. | [
"Fire breathing is typically performed with a high flash point fuel, such as lamp oil (liquid paraffin), while fire eating is performed with low flash point fuels, such as white gas or naphtha. Highly purified fuels are preferred by fire performers due to their minimized toxicity, but other, more dangerous fuels ma... |
why can't we capture light? | "why can't we take a perfectly round ball with mirrored insides and "capture" light."
This was posted before in some science subreddit, and you could probably find it with a bit of searching. Even if you put light into a perfectly spherical mirror, it wouldn't be 'captured'. Some of the light energy would inevitably be converted to heat.
You can't beat the laws of thermodynamics. | [
"Since light is deflected in a gravitational field, it is possible for the light of a distant object to reach an observer along two or more paths. For instance, light of a very distant object such as a quasar can pass along one side of a massive galaxy and be deflected slightly so as to reach an observer on Earth, ... |
What is the benefit to making new elements in labs? | > Is it simply for the furthering of knowledge or is there another reason?
Is that not enough?
We learn about nuclear structure, nuclear reactions, etc. If we can study them chemically, we can learn about atomic structure as well. These extremely heavy elements could have very interesting chemical properties. | [
"Finding rare earth elements is only the first and some argue the easiest step. Other steps towards manufacturing such as refining is controlled by China and Japan with the previously dominant United States having lost all of its producers and much of its fundamental technological ability with the number of scienti... |
active reading and why it's important to a reader | "Active Reading" is simply reading, but with an emphasis on paying attention to content and critically analyzing the text as you read, instead of just reading the words and moving on.
It's important as it gets a person to focus on the content of the text, it lets them identify unknown words or grammatical concepts to research further, it can arguably be helpful as a memorization tool since you are concentrating more on it, etc. | [
"Birkerts, in his book \"The Gutenberg Elegies\", stated \"Reading, because we control it, is adaptable to our needs and rhythms. We are free to indulge our subjective associative impulse; the term I coin for this is deep reading: the slow and meditative possession of a book.\" Birkerts' emphasis on the importance ... |
socialism vs. capitalism (and right-wing vs. left-wing) | Socialism is when the 'means of production' (factories, land, raw materials) are owned cooperatively. Either by groups involved in the production, or by the state on behalf of the people. either the products or the profits from their sale are distributed according to the group's plan.
Capitalism is when the 'means of production' are privately owned. the product or the profits from its sale are distributed according the owner. | [
"The term right-wing socialism is a term used by some free-market right-libertarian movements and politicians to describe paternalistic conservatism as they see it supporting paternalism and social solidarity as opposed to individualism, commercialism and \"laissez-faire\" economics. They argue that paternalist con... |
How does acidosis ( lactic, metabolitic etc) cause some one to go in to a coma? | I've looked into this for you, and the conclusion is this is poorly understood.
With that said, there are a quite a few apparent effects of acidosis that would likely contribute to neurological impairment, which I'll detail for you.
The first (and in my opinion most important in this case) effect of acidosis is on the heart, not the nervous tissue. There is a wide body of evidence that notes that blood pH falling below 7.2 results in a reduced cardiac contractility, and also bradycardia. This fall in the activity of the heart frequently doesn't meet the criteria for cardiogenic shock, but is an important factor. Compounding the decreased cardiac activity is systemic arteriodilation with hypotension. This leads to a circulatory collapse over the period of a few hours in a manner not attributable to shock.
Following this circulatory collapse, acidotic patients are at risk of developing cardiac arrhythmias which would further decrease cerebral perfusion.
The factors discussed so far explain a reduction in cerebral blood flow, but the actual oxygen delivered by each unit of blood may be compromised, too. An increase in hydrogen ions and CO2 both shift the oxygen dissociation curve of haemoglobin to the right; they decrease the amount of oxygen bound to haemoglobin at a given partial pressure of oxygen. In practical terms, this means that haemoglobin is less able to carry oxygen to the tissues.
This paints the picture of inadequate oxygen delivery to the brain. In addition to this, it's likely that the brain is less able to generate ATP. The brain's primary source of energy is glucose, which is broken down by glycolysis. One of the key enzymes in this process is phosphofructokinase. The activity of this enzyme is pH dependent, and an acidic environment significantly slows its action.
Finally, the excitability of neurones is decreased by an acidic environment. Putting all these factors together results in the brain receiving inadequate oxygen, inadequate nutrients, slow metabolism and then an inability to use what energy it has quickly. This surely results in impaired cognition and potentially lethargy and coma. | [
"Lactic acidosis is typically the result of an underlying acute or chronic medical condition, medication, or poisoning. The symptoms are generally attributable to these underlying causes, but may include nausea, vomiting, Kussmaul breathing (laboured and deep), and generalised weakness.\n",
"Lactic acidosis resul... |
How much Western pop culture (movies, music, etc.) was allowed in the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries? | I remember a thread about music in the USSR - _URL_0_ | [
"Russian-language market of popular music began to grow with the increase of Soviet influence in the world arena. In addition to the nearly 300 million Soviet citizens living in the 13% of the world landmass in 1990, Soviet pop music has become popular in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, especially in the S... |
why do hdr videos require more processing? | HDR is more information between the darkest and brightest points. The greater information per-frame means it takes longer to load, and better hardware to process. | [
"Non-HD videos are re-encoded at a maximum of 30 frames per second, but suffer in image quality, which is inline with the low bit rate for videos in the 640×360 size. Usually, the video content is re-encoded to bit rate below 0.5 Mbit/s. This is not enough to reproduce the fine details that can be captured from a c... |
Does California's sinkhole problem magnify its precarious position on the fault lines as well as being in the subduction zone in speeding up its descent into the ocean? | I'm not sure I understand the question... what subduction zone do you mean? And where in the article is any reference to fault lines? California is not descending into the ocean.
The drought might impact the San Andreas fault slightly as water can work as a lubricant in [strike-slip faults](_URL_2_) so there are more, but weaker earthquakes, which might mean fewer but larger earthquakes in the case of such a heavy and deep reaching drought.
Furthermore, the water depleted valleys sink in relation to the surrounding mountains, but due to [isostatic response](_URL_1_), the region of the plate floats, so overall, California gets deeper valleys where the groundwater is depleted and the danger from flooding (due to heavy rains and snow melt) increases in these areas but the region will not sink into the ocean from it. Near the coast, there is also [saltwater instrusion](_URL_0_) that refills the aquifers with water that cannot be used in agriculture so those areas won't sink much from the missing groundwater. They might be flooded, however, by sea level rise one day.
Source: Geohazards lecture a few years ago, so feel free to correct me. | [
"Unlike most of the other faults in California, slip on the Garlock Fault is left-lateral; that is, the land on the other side of the fault moves to the left from the perspective of someone facing the fault. Thus, the terrain north of the fault is moving westward and that on the south is moving eastward.\n",
"The... |
how does hydraulic fracturing work? and what are the pros and cons of the process. | You drill a hole into a rock formation containing tiny pockets of trapped natural gas. Then you pump a mixture or water, solvents, and tiny bits of sand into the hole. You pressurize the liquid at high pressure, fracturing the rock and wedging the little bits of sand into the cracks. When you let the pressure off, the natural gas comes out, and you capture that and sell it. It pushes the liquid out, so you store that and then pump it in again and again until you've cracked all the rock and release/harvested all the gas. | [
"Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is a process used to extract oil and natural gas. The process to extract oil and natural gas begins with thousands of gallons of water, mixed with a slurry of chemicals, some of which are undisclosed. This liquid mixture is then forced into well casings under high pres... |
If I replace multiple light bulbs at the same time why do they burn out at different times? | Light bulbs are made to last within a certain tolerance.
Example: 100 light bulbs are manufactured to last 1000 hours. But in reality most of those light bulbs won't last 1000 hours. Some will last more, some will last less. So you might get 90 of those light bulbs that last between 950 to 1050 hours. The other 10 are outliers.
It is nearly impossible to produce all light bulbs as equals. And even if you could they would have to fall within a certain range of "hour life", as statistically it can be proven that they chance of every light bulb lasting exactly 1000 hours is zero. | [
"While it might seem astonishing that so many longest-lasting light bulbs have been so infrequently turned off, this is the precise reason for their longevity. Most of the wear and tear that leads to burnouts in incandescent light bulbs is caused by turning them on and off, not by burning them. Each time the bulb i... |
are all physical traits “inherited”, or are some of them random? | Some of them are random - that’s actually how evolution works.
The way your body grows is defined in a set of rules stored in each cell, which is your DNA. When your body makes new cells (as you’re growing, or when you need to heal a wound), that DNA has to be copied to the new cell. Sometimes errors occur during this copying process, and these are known as ‘mutations’.
Some mutations are good, such as an immunity to a deadly disease. Some mutations are bad, such as those which result in cancer. | [
"Inherited characteristics, by definition, are characteristics that are gained or predisposed to by an organism as a result of genetic transmission from its parents and will be passed to the organism's offspring. Therefore, every condition an organism does not gain or develop because of inheritance of its parents' ... |
would an airplane be affected if it flew over land that was experiencing a massive earthquake (i.e. over 9.0)? | Speaking as a pilot, and I am, the simple answer is NO. As soon as the plane is off the ground, the ground can shake all it wants. The air will be not be affected by the ground enough to cause any issue with the plane. So far the answers have been over thinking the basic question. | [
"In March 2011, Dr. Christie and his wife were traveling via airplane from Los Angeles to Bangkok. Midway during the flight, he suffered a stroke. When pilots attempted to divert the flight to the nearest airport, which was Tokyo, Japan, they were told they could not land due to the earthquake that was happening at... |
Does the discovery of the Higgs help create a better defenition of mass | Not really, for a couple of reasons: The Higgs field provides a mechanism for fundamental particles to have mass, but it says nothing about why diffenent particles have the masses they do. That has to be added by hand. Also, the Higgs field is not the only source of mass, and most of the mass of everyday things comes from QCD binding energy, not the Higgs field. | [
"The possibility of discovering a Higgs-like boson played a crucial role in the conceptual design of CMS, and served as a benchmark to test the performance of the experiment. In 1990 Virdee and a colleague, Christopher Seez, carried out the first detailed simulation studies of the most plausible way to detect the S... |
How hard would you have to press your fingertips together to kill the bacteria between them through sheer pressure? | If you had a perfectly smooth surface, I don't see any reason why you couldn't crush them. However, what looks smooth to us is probably not smooth on the size scale of bacteria — most of them would probably be slid out of the way into crevices in the surface — think trying to crush M & Ms with a slotted spoon. | [
"As an example of varying pressures, a finger can be pressed against a wall without making any lasting impression; however, the same finger pushing a thumbtack can easily damage the wall. Although the force applied to the surface is the same, the thumbtack applies more pressure because the point concentrates that f... |
What are the largest animal populations on Earth? | Many insects have numbers in the trillions, and biomasses far surpassing ours. We have much greater numbers than any other large mammal. A few birds also outnumber us. | [
"In sheer numbers, they are reputed to be one of the most abundant of all macroscopic animals, with estimates of 100,000 individuals per square meter of ground, essentially everywhere on Earth where soil and related habitats (moss cushions, fallen wood, grass tufts, ant and termite nests) occur. Only nematodes, cru... |
what is going on inside my phone that causes it to freeze? | There are a lot of different things, but basically it's the same reason computers occasionally freeze - lack of system resources or a critical error in core code. Because we keep pushing technology forward towards more features and more power, we never have time to optimize code and operating systems to remove ALL of the bugs that are in them, for perfect reliability. Intermittent issues that can be solved with a reboot is a price that consumers have shown they're willing to pay, so companies have little to no incentive to perfect systems. | [
"The Windows Phone 8.1 update introduced an issue for some Lumia 1020 and 925 users where their phones would freeze randomly on a regular basis. Microsoft has been working on the issue since September 2014.\n",
"Fitz found the Cold Phone in his icebox, ringing with a rattle. When Fitz questioned Rhoda about it, i... |
There's an episode of ST:TNG where Picard tells Wesley that before Marco Polo most people in Europe didn't know whether or not China really existed. That's not true ....right? | Codswallop. Marco Polo's father and uncle had been to China before him; Venetian and other Italian traders had dealt in Chinese goods for centuries. Marco Polo was the just the first to write about it, exposing his travels to a wider audience. However, the popularity of his book also has to do with the fact that he made a lot if things up (admittedly, he also did some fairly remarkable things when he was there).
Further, as posters have noted below, some, sporadic knowledge of China had existed since Roman times. | [
"The book was written in Old French by romance writer Rustichello da Pisa, who worked from accounts which he had heard from Marco Polo when they were imprisoned together in Genoa. From the beginning, there has been incredulity over Polo's sometimes fabulous stories, as well as a scholarly debate in recent times. So... |
What is the biggest earthquake the Earth is capable of producing? | The largest earthquake every recorded was about a magnitude 9.5. Magnitude is largely controlled by the maximum stress rock can sustain. Higher magnitude quakes aren't really possible because the rocks will break before the stresses can build high enough to make a larger quake.
This topic was covered in detail in [this thread](_URL_0_) about 6 months ago. | [
"On March 11, 2011, an earthquake categorized as 9.0 M on the moment magnitude scale occurred at 14:46 Japan Standard Time (JST) off the northeast coast of Japan, one of the most powerful earthquakes in history. Units 4, 5 and 6 had been \"shut down\" prior to the earthquake for planned maintenance. The remaining r... |
what happens in my brain when i get inspired? | i don't know for sure, but it would make sense to me (again no idea on the science), but synapses fire that trigger parts of the brain that release endorphins which make you feel good and happy about it. the more inspired, the more synapses fire the more endorphins released | [
"Inspiration (from the Latin \"inspirare\", meaning \"to breathe into\") is an unconscious burst of creativity in a literary, musical, or other artistic endeavour. The concept has origins in both Hellenism and Hebraism. The Greeks believed that inspiration or \"enthusiasm\" came from the muses, as well as the gods ... |
why do domestic trailers have less material than international ones? why not just use the international trailer for foreign and domestic audiences, especially when youtube exists? | Trailers are often made to appeal to a specific audience.
For the most part, trailers for western countries will all be the same, but you may see some difference in trailers for Japan and China, as those audience have different tastes for films and content then western audiences, and if the film contains asian actors, they would often be incorporated more into the trailers, while they may not be given any additional time in the western ones.
Other than that, if you do see other differences in western countries, they will be very minor, and again, just made to appeal to the audience who its target at. | [
"In the United Kingdom, \"trailers\" are commonly known as static caravans, and are generally used for one of two purposes: firstly as holiday homes, designed for short-term living; and secondly as retirement homes for the elderly, designed for long-term occupancy. Both types of trailers usually enjoy good amenitie... |
What would happen if you frayed the ends of hundreds of small wires connected to two ends of a battery, and brushed them together? | You'd be creating a short circuit, with consequences possibly including a damaged battery, melting insulation / vaporized or molten wire / fire, and a chemical hazard, depending on the battery chemistry and the exact nature of your setup.
To start with, let's say that there's only one wire attached to each end of the battery. The wire happens to be two 6" lengths of [22 AWG](_URL_2_), and is attached to the terminals of a 9 V (alkaline) battery. Looking at that table, we can see that the resistance of the wire (both pieces in series) will be 16.14 mOhms - that is, 0.01614 Ohms. [Ohm's Law](_URL_3_) tells us that V = I x R -- that the difference in electric potential (voltage) is equal to the amount of electrical current flowing multiplied by the resistance.
In this situation, V and R are known, and I can be calculated. In addition to the wire resistance, the 9 V battery has some internal resistance - about 1 Ohm, which saves us from complete disaster. So I = V / R, and the current is about 9 Amps. Going back to the AWG table, the wire shouldn't melt or vaporize (although it will probably become noticeably hot), and might melt through the cheaper types of insulation. The battery, since it's probably [not expected to handle 9 A of current](_URL_0_), will become very hot and unhappy, possibly igniting. If the battery didn't have any internal resistance, then we'd be looking at a current of well over 500 A - ten times what it would take to melt the wire!
Pulling that much current out of a battery / through a wire causes them to heat up, as the electrons try to move and collide with inconveniently placed atoms. More current ~ more collisions ~ more heat.
All things considered, alkaline batteries are fairly safe in this scenario - they'll (more or less safely) self-destruct instead of providing a ridiculous amount of current, and you probably won't be exposed to any nasty chemicals. A car battery, on the other hand, has a smaller internal resistance (~0.01-0.001 Ohms), and can handle lots of current. With a car battery, you'd easily melt the wires - although, if you short the car battery with large enough wires that can handle the current, you'll damage the battery and probably wind up with vented hydrogen gas and a good chance of a fire / worse.
Back to your original question! Lots of tiny wires, random battery, and shorting the wires together. [Fire](_URL_1_). The wires will *probably* burn out quickly enough to avoid damaging the battery. | [
"It is possible to insert wiring without the proper tool, but this requires great care to avoid damaging the connectors. For example, pushing a screwdriver down the middle of the block is a bad practice as it forces the two blades of the terminal post apart, leading to bad contacts. It is also possible to punch-dow... |
the new memo release and what it means | > Is this release as bad as they say?
Who is "They"?
> What does it mean?
It means we know nothing we didn't already know. The FBI used in part, a democratic-funded dossier as evidence to obtain warrants to conduct surveillance against Carter Page. Related information much later was found to be false Republicans claim that the dossier was a central part of why they obtained a warrant and thus the FBI is allowing democrats to (extremely) indirectly fund surveillance against republicans. The FBI is claimng this memo willfully omits key facts - which could include anything up to and including numerous other facts they had that would have justified surveillance making the entire issue a moot point.
Furthermore, almost everyone involved in approving said surveillance was appointed by Trump so the concept that this is a Democratic plot relies on this idea that there's secret sub-organizations within the FBI so powerful that they're more powerful than the director, deputy director, etc etc etc - all appointed by Trump.
So basically the memo says things we already knew for months, and means absolutely nothing in and of itself. | [
"The memos were released to the Post and Courier in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, filed eight years previously, for information about changes to the role of the prison triggered by al Qaeda's attacks on September 11, 2001. They wrote that when the DoD's response was finally received, \"\"A Penta... |
If there are magnetic field lines are there gravitational field lines also? | Yes. Similar to how magnetic field lines give some indication of which way a dipole will orient at that location and how strongly, and electric field lines indicate the direction of force a positive charge would experience, gravitational field lines indicate the strength of gravitational force a mass would experience at a particular location.
In the case of the Earth, these gravitational field lines would point towards the center of the Earth, and converge(indicating more force) as a mass moves toward the surface.
Keep in mind these field lines are just visual depictions of the field. They aren't "real" in the way gravity is real, just representations. | [
"Magnetic field lines have a very similar representation to electric field lines. There is an analogous notion of magnetic flux. Magnetic field lines begin at north poles and end at south poles, and cannot cross. Magnetic fields arise due to the motion of charges, and also due to the alignment of the domains of mag... |
Why did some Jews get out of Germany before the WWII and others stayed behind? | Many, many reasons.
Unlike what the Nazis were claiming the "Jewish" people of Germany considered themselves to be just as German as non Jewish people considered themselves to be. It was their home. They had a stake in it. I say "Jewish" because there were laws which determined if one was Jewish or not and you didn't have to consider yourself as Jewish to be Jewish under the law.
For those who wanted to leave was the problem of being able to afford to do so, being allowed to do so and finding somewhere to take you. The US was a popular destination but the US had immigration quotas. Other countries in Europe were also in a number of ways antiSemetic (obviously not to the extent of the Nazis) and so limited the numbers of Jewish people they would take, if they would at all. | [
"Soon after the end of the Second World War, Jews began to exit Poland thanks to the repatriation agreement with the USSR. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Mandate Palestine. The exodus took place in stages. After the war, the vast majority of survivors left for several reason... |
How did gold atoms coalesce into relatively homogenous nuggets rather than mixing with other elements as the solar system formed? | _URL_0_
Those nuggets form later | [
"Gold is thought to have been produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, and from the collision of neutron stars, and to have been present in the dust from which the Solar System formed. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the gold present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary c... |
why dixon ticonderoga pencils can erase better than other pencils. | You kids should stop playing with rubbers.
Serious answer, it has to do with the composition of the rubber. I've noticed that the rubber on those erasers rolls off it into little cylinders. This is important because it increases the surface area of the rubber. Imagine wiping up a desk with a Clorox wipe. You use one side until it's black. What do you do? You flip it over and use the other side! The rolling effect of the rubber flips the dirty side and the clean side, and because the rubber is strong enough to remain connected to itself, you can roll those little suckers around and wipe up your mistakes!
On other lower quality erasers, the rubber doesn't quite hold together and just kinda breaks apart and disintegrates(not a literal disintegration, but it gets the point across). Now you have all these tiny itsy bitsy chunks which in theory have more surface area than the cylinders from before because they can use their sides and front and back and top and bottom, whereas the cylinders can only use front and back. Buuuuut, because the chunks break apart and scatter (and because there is no compression force acting upon them) they don't do shit. They don't have the structural integrity to withstand the pressure you are applying to them, so they they turn into dust and make it even more difficult to erase things. | [
"Most pencil cores are made of graphite powder mixed with a clay binder. Graphite pencils (traditionally known as 'lead pencils') produce grey or black marks that are easily erased, but otherwise resistant to moisture, most chemicals, ultraviolet radiation and natural aging. Other types of pencil cores, such as tho... |
if humans are really that bad a multitasking, how can people sing and play an instrument at the same time? | They're *good* at multitasking if the two tasks can be done with different parts of the brain.
This is why you can drive a car and carry on a conversation with ease, but you can't tap two different rhythms with your hands. | [
"Overall, Multiboxing can be considered a play style choice. Many people find the additional strategy of multiboxing to be very challenging and, with those additional efforts, very rewarding. Rather than require the collaboration and cooperation of multiple human players, people who multibox instead rely upon thems... |
What all did Einstein's theory of special relativity predict? | Einstein's special theory of relativity, which he published in 1905, said nothing about gravity, black holes, etc. That all came from the general theory of relativity, which was published a decade later.
Special relativity includes such effects as time dilation, Lorentz contraction, the relativistic velocity addition formula, simultaneity not being an absolute notion, and the notion of rest mass as a form of energy, among other things. | [
"BULLET::::- Hamming argues that Albert Einstein's pioneering work on special relativity was largely \"scholastic\" in its approach. He knew from the outset what the theory should look like (although he only knew this because of the Michelson–Morley experiment), and explored candidate theories with mathematical too... |
why does gps need almanac data? | It could, but that would mean a lot more processing. Almanac data is almost always available, so it is much more efficient to use that instead of listening to everything and then figuring things out from there. | [
"The GPS almanac, as part of the data transmitted by each GPS satellite, contains coarse orbit and status information for all satellites in the constellation, an ionospheric model, and information to relate GPS derived time to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Hence the GPS almanac provide a similar goal as the anc... |
Would it be possible to put a human into a permanent hypothermic state instead of cryogenically frozen in order to slow down ageing for hundreds of years? | this link maybe of intrest to you: _URL_0_
This is the next step in the "cooling the body for surgery" idea. This could also be a next step towards some sort of hibernation like we see in Sc-Fi film/games. Any state of 'stasis' that the human body is put in could have long term negative medical effects on the body, especially the brain. | [
"Cryonics, the practice of preserving organisms (either intact specimens or only their brains) for possible future revival by storing them at cryogenic temperatures where metabolism and decay are almost completely stopped, can be used to 'pause' for those who believe that life extension technologies will not develo... |
Physiologically speaking, how different am I from someone who lived 200 years ago? 500 years ago? | Please note that the differences mentioned here result from dietary and other health differences, not genetic differences. | [
"BULLET::::- 10,000–5,000 years ago (8,000–3,000 BC) Identical ancestors point: sometime in this period lived the latest subgroup of human population consisting of those that were all common ancestors of all present day humans, the rest having no present day descendants.\n",
"BULLET::::- Humans are a race of bein... |
[Psychology] What's the science of obsession? Questions below | I'm really surprised that no one has attempted to answer this yet.
1. Obsession is defined in the DSM-5 as the following:
* Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress.
* The individual attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, urges, or images, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action (i.e., by performing a compulsion).
2. Obsessions usually develop under a somewhat specific set of circumstances. Internalizing stress can cause a person to develop obsessions. Physical and sexual abuse in childhood have also been associated with increased risk for developing OCD, a psychological disorder marked by severe obsessions and compensatory behaviors (compulsions) designed to alleviate those obsessions.
3. The major difference is that generally addiction is pursued based on deriving some sort of pleasure from participating in the addictive behavior. Substances produce a pleasurable effect on the user, at least for some time. Obsessions are generally unpleasant in nature, causing distress (as defined by the first bullet point in my first answer).
4. There are several ways to treat disorders that include obsessions. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is commonly used. Exposure therapy is also used commonly, but some people may have adverse reactions to the therapy. Anxiolytic drugs can also be prescribed to help keep symptoms under control while the client undergoes therapy. | [
"\"Obsession\" is the thirteenth episode of the of the American science fiction television series \"\". Written by Art Wallace and directed by Ralph Senensky, it was originally broadcast on December 15, 1967.\n",
"An obsession is an \"undesired, unpleasant, intrusive thought that cannot be suppressed through the ... |
What is the difference between a scientific theory and law? | Someone asked a very similar question a few months ago, [and this is a fairly frequently asked question,](_URL_0_) so I'll copy paste what I wrote there, since that user specifically asked about 'Newton's Laws' vs 'Einstein's theory' as well.
-----------------------------------------------------
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking, "Gee, I know what the words *law* and *theory* mean. You can't break *laws*, so those must be the things that are really solid, but a *theory* is just a like some kind of guess, I can come up with my own theory right now!" So let's try to tease out why these people are wrong. To scientists, words like *law* and *theory* have very specific definitions, so we need to do some semantics.
**A law is a declarative statement, based on observation, that seems to describe some behavior of some naturalistic phenomena.** Newton's Laws are exactly that. "Objects in motion remain in motion, and objects at rest remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force." This statement seems consistent with every observation we've ever made, and it has a great deal of predictive power. Basically, a law is a statement of a fact that can be experimentally falsified. One experiment that shows a body accelerating under its own volition, for no reason and with no discernible outside force, and this is refuted.
Now for *theory*. I have a definition of theory that I like, and others are free to disagree. **A theory is a testable explanation of some set of natural phenomena that explains all the best currently available evidence.** Basically, a theory explains the laws or some bundle of them and it offers some *reason* for them. Einstein's *theory* is that we live in a four dimensional universe, and that space and time are related in some nontrivial way, and things get curvey which is the source of attraction between masses. The 'theory' provides a mechanism by which the 'laws' act.
Einstein's theory explains the results of tons of experiments or makes predictions (mathematically) that are consistent with them, such as the Michelson-Morley experiment and Gravity Probe-B. The theory *explains* the facts. A bunch of laws, together, form the pillars that a theory stands on. If one of those facts turns out to be bunk, (like in Einstein's theory, that nothing goes faster than light), it will have to be modified or entirely replaced in order to account for this new evidence.
Furthermore, now that we have our definition of a 'theory' we can see that a theory is a fundamentally different thing from a law, so it wouldn't make sense to take Newton's law of inertia and try to promote it into a theory, because it's just a single statement about *one specific type of observation.*
Another good example is evolution. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is a *theory*. It explains the *fact* that organisms aren't the same as their parents, that new traits can emerge, and these traits can proliferate through the population over successive generations if they prove to be beneficial. Natural selection is the mechanism so maybe (as much as I hate the phrase) we should call 'survival of the fittest.' Species changing over time is the *evidence* from experiments and the fossil record, and Darwin's *theory* ties it all together. It's amazing that Darwin came up with his theory before DNA was even known about, but was found to be very consistent with the microbiological understanding of genes and mutations.
Bottom line: Theories don't somehow graduate into laws after they get proven, because they're different beasts entirely. Laws are statements about specific phenomena, and the laws, together with the evidence and facts, are explained in aggregate as theories. | [
"The term \"scientific law\" is traditionally associated with the natural sciences, though the social sciences also contain laws. For example, Zipf's law is a law in the social sciences which is based on mathematical statistics. In these cases, laws may describe general trends or expected behaviors rather than bein... |
why do screens use red/blue/green pixels but printers use red/blue/yellow ink? | Inks subtract color, screens add. Basic ink colors are cyan, yellow and magenta. So cyan is white minus red, but on a screen it's constructed as blue plus green. It works like this because white light goes through ink, so the color comes from what is subtracted. On a CRT or LED screen, a pixel is a tiny lamp of red, green or blue color, so the color comes from what is added to black (screen off). Also, pixels are monochromatic on LCD screens even though they absorb light. | [
"Comparisons between RGB displays and CMYK prints can be difficult, since the color reproduction technologies and properties are very different. A computer monitor mixes shades of red, green, and blue light to create color pictures. A CMYK printer instead uses light-absorbing cyan, magenta, and yellow inks, whose c... |
why don’t we have fat and muscle surrounding our brains as an added protective layer over our skulls? | Heat retention. The brain uses a large portion of our energy and the temperature range from normal to heat stroke is all of 3 degrees C. Also because of all of the blood vessels in the brain, a lot of the body's heat is pumped through your head.
Just being hot makes you think slower and make more mistakes. | [
"Moreover, a human skull with its large eye sockets displays a degree of neoteny, which humans often find visually appealing—yet a skull is also obviously dead, and to some can even seem to look sad due to the downward facing slope on the ends of the eye sockets. As such, human skulls often have a greater visual ap... |
how did fentanyl become part of the illegal drug trade and is it here to stay? | Parmacist.
Every opioid has become apart of the illegal drug trade because they all cause euphoria when abused. Causing big issues. It's as unavoidable as gravity. But they're also irreplaceable in pain treatment.
Fentanyl in particular has several forms, like mucosal sticks and long-duration patches. No other drug has these formulas. Even if there were, patients routinely complain that only one type of thing alleviates their pain. So it's continues presence is also quite certain as it is a drug medicine needs.
| [
"Illicit use of pharmaceutical fentanyl and its analogues first appeared in the mid-1970s in the medical community and continues in the present. More than 12 different analogues of fentanyl, all unapproved and clandestinely produced, have been identified in the U.S. drug traffic. In February 2018, the U.S. Drug Enf... |
Can you determine the secondary/tertiary structure of a protein based solely on the amino acid sequence? | If you know what patterns and properties to look for in the primary sequence you can make fairly accurate predictions about some features of secondary structure. Principally alpha helices. You can predict beta sheets as well, but since beta sheets, particularly parallel beta sheets, can form between amino acids that are on distant parts of the primary sequence, its much harder to accurately predict them. Additionally many proteins have loop, and unstructured regions, that are hard to predict. Many amino acids also undergo post translational modification which can affect their chemical properties. The ability to predict tertiary structure is much harder unless you have structural models of similar protein sequences to compare to. There are common domain structures like leucine zippers, zinc fingers, greek keys ect, that you could predict with a decent accuracy if you know what primary sequences to look for.
Bottom line there are features of protein structure that you can predict from the primary sequence, but you can't accurately model the entire protein structure de novo from the primary sequence. | [
"Primary structure refers to the amino acid backbone sequence. Secondary structure focuses on minor conformations that develop as a result of the hydrogen bonding between the amino acid chain. If most of the protein contains intermolecular hydrogen bonds it is said to be fibrillar, and the majority of its secondary... |
Resources on pre-modern/medieval warfare/armies in East Asia that are not in the recommended reading list? Specifically regarding Korea. | Specifically for Korea, the major event that has attracted most attention is Hideyoshi's invasion, 1592-1598. The resources resulting from that attention amount to 3 major books, and various journal articles and other books. Two of these books are in the reading list (but in the Imperial China section of the list):
* *The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China* by Samuel Hawley (2005). One of the three main English accounts of the Imjin War, perhaps the only thing that comes close to a "world war" in East Asia. This is not the most comprehensive text on the war but it gives an excellent introduction. Hawley uses mostly Korean sources for this book and writes from a Korean perspective, so the book does suffer from a pro-Korean bias.
* *A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592–1598* by Kenneth M. Swope (2009). The newest of the three books, Swope writes from a Chinese perspective and uses a lot of Chinese primary sources. Though his text has been criticized for providing flawed information, as a military historian, Swope gives an excellent account of the capabilities of the Ming military. It is best to read Hawley, Turnbull, and Swope together.
The third book, referred to in the comments on Swope above, but not in the list, is
* Stephen Turnbull, *Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592-1598*, Cassell, 2002. Turnbull depends on Japanese sources, Swope on Chinese sources, and Hawley on Korean sources. It's good to read all three.
Also useful is
* Peter H. Lee (ed), *Record of the Black Dragon Year*, Univ of Hawaii Pr, 2000. This is a translation of a contemporary Korean popular history of the war.
Two books that cover the modernisation of the Korean army as a result of the Japanese invasion in the context of wider changes in East Asian warfare c. 1600 are:
* Peter A. Lorge, *The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb*, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
* Tonio Andrade, *The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History*, Princeton University Press, 2016.
See also
* Tonio Andrade, Hyeok Hweon Kang, Kirsten Cooper, "A Korean Military Revolution? Parallel Military Innovations in East Asia and Europe", *Journal of World History* 25(1), 51-84 (2014)
There are also some sources on the US war in 1871:
* Gordon H. Chang, "Whose "Barbarism"? Whose "Treachery"? Race and Civilization in the Unknown United States-Korea War of 1871," *Journal of American History* 89(4) 1331-1365 (2003)
* Carolyn A. Tyson, "Marine Amphibious Landing in Korea, 1871", _URL_1_
Some sources on weapons and armour:
* Sang H. Kin (trans), *Muye Dobo Tongji: Comprehensive Illustrated Manual of Martial Arts of Ancient Korea*, Turtle Press, 2000. Translation of a late 18th century Korean military manual.
* Boots, J. L., "Korean Weapons and Armour", *Trans. Korean Branch Royal Asiatic Society*, XXIII, Pt. 2, pp. 1-37 (1934). _URL_0_ | [
"Samguk Sagi(“The History of the Three Kingdoms of Korea”) is the oldest extant work of Korean history and often the only written source of information about the Three kingdoms and Unified Silla periods\n",
"The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles (, abbr. \"PSRL\") is a series of published volumes aimed at... |
why microwaves don't explode with the pressure of accumulated steam from food. | It has air vents. Microwave energy is prevented from leaving the microwave due to a metal mesh that surrounds it. [This mesh is not airtight, and doesn't need to be](_URL_0_) to function properly. | [
"Closed containers, such as eggs, can explode when heated in a microwave oven due to the increased pressure from steam. Intact fresh egg yolks outside the shell will also explode, as a result of superheating. Insulating plastic foams of all types generally contain closed air pockets, and are generally not recommend... |
weed smokers of reddit: what is the advantage of smoking marijuana instead of making pot brownies? | Some of us actually appreciate the bud. We smell it. We inspect it. We look at it with magnifying glasses. We taste it delicately. We compare it to others. We seek out specific strains and specific features. We celebrate specific growers. We take notes. Ok, some of us do.
For all the reasons that some people drink wine instead of jello shots, we like to smoke finely cured buds, instead of eating sugary shit brownies filled with leaves and shake.
You're not appreciating the buds if you're just grinding them up into cake batter to get fucked up. Any crappily-grown weed or improperly cured weed gets thrown into edibles. To get a truly good *smoking* weed, the process really has to be done right from start to finish. Learning to appreciate that, and all the steps involved, is a huge part of my enjoyment.
And you don't need to "smoke" it. I use a vaporizer a lot of the time. It's instantaneous and basically harmless healthwise. You can taste all the subtle characteristics of what you're vaping. It's really easy to find your favorites using a vape.
I still hit the bong quite a bit because goddamnit, that's the way I was raised and nobody will ever convince me to give it up!
I think edibles and concentrates are a waste of time, money, and bud. They're jello shots. | [
"According to Hanuš, alcohol and tobacco should be \"black listed\" rather than cannabis, as there is a possibility of both physical and psychological addiction to the first two, while there is no possibility of physical and only limited possibility of psychological addiction to marijuana. Moreover, people under in... |
- what is preventing the us government from making voting day a national holiday? | The US has no legal holidays where all businesses are required to give all workers the day off, it's a capitalist country.
There are about 260 working days per year. Adding another federal holiday thus costs about 0.4% of productivity. While it's a small number, 0.4% of the US GDP is a really big amount of money. Spending that money on voting day isn't perceived as worth it.
When you suggest switching another existing holiday for "Voting Day", you get a lot of pushback. If you pick a day like Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day that not everybody gets off, it costs a lot of money. If you pick a day most people get off, like Thanksgiving, then you get a whole new level of angry. | [
"Most voters have work on Tuesdays. This has led activists to promote alternatives to improve voter turnout. Alternatives include making Election Day a Federal holiday or merging it with Veterans Day, allowing voting over multiple days, mandating paid time off to vote, encouraging voters to vote early or vote by ma... |
how are paintings restored? | First they study the picture to see how the painting constructed. They use X-rays and ultra violet lights to see what paints and varnishes were used.and if any repairs have been done before. Also knowledge of the artists usual technique and of the time period are important.
Once they have this info they might put a new backing on the canvas to make it stronger. Then they use solvents and knives to gently clean away old varnish and previous restorations.
They do fill in the missing areas. But they use special compounds that can be easily removed in the future. As well as detailed records of the work that was done.
Then they cover it with special non-yellowing varnish to keep it looking good. | [
"At times restoration of a piece is so extensive that the original is essentially replaced when new materials are used to supplement older ones. An art restorer may also add or remove details on a painting, in an attempt to make the painting more saleable on the contemporary art market. This, however, is not a mode... |
How do they convert electric signal to type that our brain can read? | Nervous systems already communicate with electrical signals. In fact, that's what your mechanoreceptors do: the hair cells in your ears, for instance, convert pressure changes into electrical signals which downstream neurons can then receive (the chemical synapse does utilize ligand/receptor kinetics, but all to the end of depolarization: electrical signalling).
In many experiments with neurons, a current is directly injected into the neuron to stimulate it.
Now, how the brain (or specific nuclei in the brain) interpret it depends on that particular set of neurons and how the encode information. A very common kind of coding is rate coding, where the neuron spikes faster to encode more intense stimulus. | [
"Brain-reading or thought identification uses the responses of multiple voxels in the brain evoked by stimulus then detected by fMRI in order to decode the original stimulus. Advances in research have made this possible by using human neuroimaging to decode a person's conscious experience based on non-invasive meas... |
how do game anti cheats, like battleye or gameguard work? | There are different flags that can be detected to assume someone is trying to tamper the game, such as debugging another process (the game in this case), accessing the memory mapped to that game, running the game in a virtualized environment, tampering the binary or assets and many more.
Anti-cheat try to detect those abnormal behaviors targeting the game's process. | [
"Examples of cheats in first-person shooter games include the aimbot, which assists the player in aiming at the target, giving the user an unfair advantage, the wallhack, which allows a player to see through solid or opaque objects or manipulate or remove textures, and ESP, with which the information of other playe... |
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