question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
|---|---|---|
how do websites, such as _url_0_, that have no advertisements and provide a free service stay in operation and even grow larger? | Businesses and car dealerships pay to post ads. I think other groups pay as well. | [
"The sites make money through advertising or charging for premium services such as increased downloading capacity, removing any wait restrictions the site may have or prolonging how long uploaded files remain on the site. Premium services include facilities like unlimited downloading, no waiting, maximum download s... |
Why is mathematics -- something humans develop in their own heads -- so effective when it comes to describing the external, physical world? | This is sort of like asking why language is so good at describing the physical world—it's because **we develop the mathematics we need**. Mathematics is a formal tool for studying anything that obeys rules; physics obeys rules, so math is useful for studying it. | [
"Another unique aspect of human culture and thought is the development of complex methods for acquiring knowledge through observation, quantification, and verification. The scientific method has been developed to acquire knowledge of the physical world and the rules, processes and principles of which it consists, a... |
why is "w" pronounced "double u" and not "wee"? | Because historically it was a ligature (single graphics shape combining two or more letters) of two U/V. And U and V was the same letter in ancient Latin. Let's start with the classical Latin alphabet:
ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ
There are no J as I and J were just graphical variants of the same letter. There is also no U or W as U was just different graphical variant of V and W is just double U. Then in middle ages the Latin alphabet started being used to write other European languages. It was needed to somehow distinguish sound "U" from "V" and therefore latin U/V evolved into three separate letters "U", "V" and "W" ("I" and "J" separated too). Also some of the other ligatures eventually became letters on their own. Following ones made it to present times:
* V + V = W
* E + T = & *("et" is latin for "and")*
* A + D = @ *("ad" is latin for "at")*
* /100 = %
* S + S = § *(also: ſ + s = ß in german; where "ſ" is the long s, a letter not used nowadays)*
And many other not used in english, like "Œ" or "IJ" (this one may render as "IJ" or as non-continuous "U" depending on font). | [
"Many imported words beginning with \"w\" in English have cognates in French that start with a \"g\" or \"gu\". This is because the English word was not borrowed directly from French or Old French, but from some of the northern langue d'oïl dialects such as Picard and Norman, where the original \"w\" sound was pres... |
How correct is it to say that the IRA practically invented modern urban guerrilla warfare? How did the lessons learned by their struggle against the British affect other urban insurrections around the world? | Adapted from an old answer of mine:
The influence of Michael Collins and the pre-Irish Civil War IRA on post-1920s guerrilla campaigns is low and reached its peak in the late 1940s. Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of the Stern gang (or more officially, Lehi) and Vladimir Jabotinsky (who founded Irgun) were both influenced by Michael Collins in their campaigns against the British. However, this made perfect sense for Shamir and Jabotinsky (and, without any solid confirmation, Menachem Begin) since he too was fighting a war of anti-British colonialism. Shamir and Jabotinsky are not the only examples. Subhas Chandra Bose urged his followers to study the IRA. Irish texts were even translated into Burmese during the 1930s and were read by men like Ba Maw.
The truth of the matter is that there was nothing that particularly special or groundbreaking about the campaign carried out by the IRA. Collins himself was a student of and clearly influenced by the Boer commandos during the Second Boer War (1899-1902) and in particularly of the Boer general Christiaan de Wet, which he based the IRA flying columns on. There are some who claim that he 'invented' urban guerrilla warfare, overlooking the fact that theories had been printed on this since the late 19th century. The main reason for his influence, as we can see above, is that he fought a relatively successful guerrilla war against the British and was involved in anti-British activities. This clearly brought him and his methods to the attention of those also looking to combat the British, but certainly not all of them. It is interesting to note that the guerrilla campaigns during the Irish War of Independence also influenced the creation of the Special Operation Executive during WWII, which makes sense since this would have been the most accessible and recent guerrilla warfare campaign to be studied by the British.
By the 1950s, his influence appears to have vanished as insurgents the world over searched for and adapted to new theories. These theories, ranging from Mao Zedong's theory on guerilla warfare to the Guevara Foco theory, were only the basics for insurgents who adapted their strategies to a world of mass media and international discourses that the IRA of the late 1910s and early 1920s wouldn't have been able to predict. | [
"The IRA's initial strategy was to use guerrilla tactics to cause the collapse of the government of Northern Ireland and to inflict enough casualties on British forces that the British government would be forced by public opinion in Britain to withdraw from the region. This policy involved recruitment of volunteers... |
Could we deplete the earth's core of heat? | > Could we deplete the earth's core of heat?
No. Not in any realistic scenario. We are too puny. Also, the geothermal energy is slowly dissipating in space even without our help.
The equation you are using is about *ideal* gases, and the Earth core is neither of those.
More importantly, pressure by itself does not sustain heat.
It is the change in pressure that produces heat. So if you had some air and compressed it, it would heat up, but it would start cooling down as soon as you started compressing it (usually slower than you are heating it up. So, once it is compressed and some times has passed the air would have cooled down. | [
"The early formation of the Earth's dense core could have caused superheating and rapid heat loss, and the heat loss rate would slow once the mantle solidified. Heat flow from the core is necessary for maintaining the convecting outer core and the geodynamo and Earth's magnetic field, therefore primordial heat from... |
what happens when someone declares bankrupcy in us. | Don't know about people. When companies go bankrupt, it actually can help. This is an ELI5 of what happens:
0.) **why does it exist?** - the issue in bankruptcy is that there's not enough money left (in terms of assets) to pay off all of the debts the company has or is about to have at 100% of their value. So, since everyone is going to sue to get their share, they created a system to try and distribute what is left as fairly as possible.
1.) **company files for bankruptcy** - Company goes to a bankruptcy court and submits a paper. Instantly they get bankruptcy protection, meaning no one can sue them to collect debts individually.
Sometimes the company will go into *chapter 7* bankruptcy, which is just a liquidation of the company. Assets are sold, the money is collected, and then divided up. Different kinds of debtors (people the company owes money to) get money in a different order, depending on the type of claim they have. After that, the company disappears.
2.) **Make a plan** - the company comes up with a bankruptcy plan. This is when the company is going for *chapter 11.* The idea of chapter 11 is that the company can pay of all its debtors more if it stays in business then if it liquidates. But, it needs to convince the debtors that this is true. So it makes a plan, explaining what it will do, and how much different classes of debtors will get paid.
So, for example, imagine if Amtrak went bankrupt. They don't have many assets, since they just own the trains and the track, which won't sell for much. So they come up with a plan saying that rather than everyone getting say, 1% of their debts, everyone will get 50% of the profits of the company for the next 10 years, which will be way more than 1% of the debts.
3.) **have a vote** - all the different debtors look at the plan, and then they vote. If every class of debtors agrees, then the plan goes forward. If some groups of debtors disagree, than you can have a *cramdown*, where if at least one other group agrees, and the judge decides that everyone is better off than if there's liquidation, the plan happens anyway.
4.) **the judge approves** - the judge hears objections, and may or may not send the plan back for revisions.
5.) **the end** - If the plan isn't approved then the company liquidates. If the plan is approved, the plan gets followed. Usually when a company is in bankruptcy---like with a person---it will become much harder for them to borrow. | [
"On March 11, 2013, the United States designated the bank as falling under US executive order 13382, which applies to \"proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters\". The order freezes all assets, and prohibits any transactions between US entities and the bank.\n",
"In 1998, the Bank ordered... |
Did armies ever send out one champion from each side to battle it out and winner takes all, instead of having everyone fight? | Judicial duels in Russia known for a long time. According said the Arab writers, X century Amin Razi and Mukaddezi depicting tradition Russes, "when the king decides to dispute between two litigants, and they remain unhappy with his decision, then he says to them sort it out with their swords - whose sharp, that and win." The Slavs duel was called "field".
The first mention of the field in the Russian sources refer to XI-XII century. According to one version of the chronicle evidence of war sometimes, resolved single combat of two elected from different parties. The competition is going to mean both enemy armies. Outcome it was taken to be an immutable verdict of the divine will, which is equal to obeyed and those on whose share remained victory, and those that had to has pleaded convicted.
| [
"Instances of single combat are known from Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The champions were often combatants who represented larger, spectator groups. Such representative contests and stories thereof are known worldwide.\n",
"Typically, it takes place in the no-man's-land between the opposing armies, w... |
How come Ireland adopted the language of England, but not its religion, while Finland adopted the religion of Sweden, but not its language? | I can't speak to Finland and Sweden, but in Ireland, English was pretty heavily enforced as a language by the British colonists. Irish was prohibited in British National Schools, and the famines hit the rural areas, where Irish was a majority language, much harder than urban areas where English was more popular. There's also the fact that English naturally presented more opportunities as a high-esteem language.
Religion pretty much was adopted from Britain in Ireland. Roman Catholics brought it over in the 5th century. The English reformation was just much harder to enforce later on, as Catholicism had become a large part of the Irish identity. It's much harder to convert people when they don't speak your language, and while many English speakers in Dublin (and obviously Ulster) were Protestants, Irish speakers remained Catholic.
Daniel O'Connell is a pretty famous Irish historical figure who championed Catholic Emancipation during the 19th century. He founded the Catholic Association which campaigned for and succeeded in getting the Catholic Relief Act passed in 1829. The act allowed Roman Catholics to sit in Westminster and generally signalled the turn of public opinion against the persecution of Catholics in previous centuries. | [
"Swedish became Sweden's main official language on July 1, 2009, when a new language law was implemented. The issue of whether Swedish should be declared the official language has been raised in the past, and the parliament voted on the matter in 2005 but the proposal narrowly failed. The Swedish language also has ... |
how do music/video editing programs isolate vocals, frequency, pitch, etc.? | It’s pretty complex but I think what you don’t understand is that the editing softwares are not meant to isolate anything, they’re meant to take the isolated vocals and turn them into a final product. So with each recording you can edit its pitch and frequencies and do whatever other mixing you wish to do, and then you mix everything together so it’s one big composition. Basically like a puzzle. | [
"As mentioned in the Automatic music transcription section, some commercial software can roughly track the pitch of dominant melodies in polyphonic musical recordings. The note scans are not exact, and often need to be manually edited by the user before saving to file in either a proprietary file format or in Stand... |
Why does happy instrumental music sound happy to us? | Because you have seen similar music used in contexts that were happy or meant to evoke happiness, like in movies where the protagonists experience joy. You now subconsciously associate those instrumental features with positive emotions. This sounds like a circular argument, but the process is self-amplifying, and so it could have started with a single composition used to accompany a joyful dance many hundreds of years ago. | [
"Limb also investigated the relation of emotion to creativity. He asked jazz musicians in the fMRI to improvise music they felt corresponded to the emotions in photos of a sad, neutral, and happy woman. He found that when musicians responded to happy photos, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex deactivated much more ... |
In the early days of firearms (16th and 17th centuries) how did one go about treating gunshot and cannon wounds? | Hi, not discouraging other contributions here, but you might be interested in some earlier answers
* /u/xRathke provides an overview of medical thought in [What did pre-germ theory people think was going on when a cut got infected?](_URL_2_)
* /u/staples11 in [During the buccaneering era of piracy (1650-1680), was pistol use commonplace for pirates? If one was shot during a seabattle, could the ship surgeon really do much to heal you back to full health after, or would you generally be considered a goner?](_URL_0_)
* /u/jhd3nm steps through later advances in battlefield treatment in [US Military History: I made it back alive, but I've been shot in the thigh. What sort of medical attention do I receive and what are my chances for survival in 1862, 1917, 1944, 1968, and 1991?](_URL_1_) | [
"Treating a wound was and remains the most crucial part of any battlefield medicine, as this is what keeps soldiers alive. As remains true on the modern battlefield, hemorrhaging and shock were the number one killers. Thus, the initial control of these two things were of the utmost importance in medieval medicine. ... |
if your pouring molten steel into a cast, what prevent the cast from melting or distorting? | By having a different melting temperature than the metal that is being poured into it. | [
"Casting removal - After the molten metal has cooled, the mold can be broken and the casting removed. Trimming and cleaning processes are required to remove any excess metal from the feed system and any sand from the mold.\n",
"Molten steel is cast into large blocks called \"blooms\". During the casting process v... |
how do they get the caramel in the caramilk? | First they form the top of the bar. Looks like an ice cube tray. They then turn it over and fill the depressions with caramel. Then they place a chocolate slab on top (and that is the bottom).
Look at the bar and you can see the seam
You owe me a carmilk now because I now crave one | [
"Crème caramel (), flan, caramel dessert, or pudim (in Portuguese speaking countries) is a custard dessert with a layer of clear caramel sauce, as opposed to crème brûlée which is custard with an added hard clear caramel layer on top.\n",
"Salted caramel is a noticeably salty variant. It was invented in 1977 by t... |
In whaling times, how were organic products preserved on board long enough to make it to market? | Whale oil itself will not mold or rot and even is fairly resistant to rancidity (more so even than most vegetable oils). This shouldn't be too surprising as it exists naturally in large volumes inside the whale and if it required a lot of upkeep or immune activity to maintain it would be very biologically costly. Typically a whaling vessel would process whales not long after they were killed and either extract the oil (from sperm wales) or butcher the whale and render the blubber into oil where it was then stored in a vessel in the ship. For blue whales the whalebone was kept as well as the oil, otherwise the rest of the carcass was left abandoned. One of the major selling points of whale oil was precisely its incredible stability in a variety of temperatures and its resistance to spoilage.
For other kinds of organic products from other sources the typical methods of preservation were used: salting, drying, and curing meat; use of stable foods like olive oil and honey; use of fermented or preserved foods like cheese, wine, dried fruits, etc. | [
"Wooden casks of various sizes were used to store whale oil on ships in the age of sail. Its viscous nature made sperm whale oil a particularly difficult substance to contain in staved containers and oil coopers were probably the most skilled coopers in pre-industrial cooperage. Olive oil, seed oils and other organ... |
Did all land-dwelling creatures evolve from one, the first and only, amphibious creatures? | The answer is no. Tetrapods, insects, crustations (several times), arachnids, meriopods, velvet worms, molluscs (several times), etc all invaded land separately.
> But I find it hard to believe that one amphibious creature gave rise to every land-dwelling creatures, especially when other species of fish were faced with the same problem of poorly oxygenated water.
Many species of fish have evolved to deal with low O2 by gulping air (gar, bowfins, electric eels, *Betta* fish, lungfish, arapaima, etc). There would have been several species of 'amphibious' fish during the early evolution of tetrapods - there certainly are several now (for example walking catfish and snakeheads can move overland during rainy nights, Reedfish can actually hunt on land, and mudskippers and Pacific Leapiing Blennies move around on land on the shore of tidal areas). Anyway, once one lineage diversified onto land it made it much less likely that other less well adapted groups could move into niches they already occupy. | [
"There were many genera, and some of these are very well known (e.g., \"Rodhocetus\"). Known protocetids had large fore- and hindlimbs that could support the body on land, and it is likely that they lived amphibiously: in the sea and on land. It is unclear at present whether protocetids had flukes (the horizontal t... |
why do all animals, even insects, seem to go nuts over the red dot? | > Felidae (all kinds of cats from large to small) brains and eyes are geared to a) notice motion and b) play with their prey. Playing with prey is the best way to kill possibly dangerous animals... especially things like venomous snakes. Dodge in, bat the hell out of it before it can strike, dodge out. After 5 or 6 repetitions of this, the snake is bleeding to death and/or has massive internal injuries. The same thing goes for any other animal that might fight back, like a cornered rat or mouse.
> Lasers are BRIGHT. You don't think of the little red dot as very bright because it's so small... but if you measure its brightness, it's usually much brighter than the average lightbulb.
> So laser light is a intensely bright spot of color (despite the fact that cats don't see red well. It looks mostly green to them) and motion, much brighter and more intense than anything it would be exposed to in nature. It hits all those feline eyes and brain cells like a ton of bricks and kicks their 'play with the prey' instincts and emotions into full gear.
> The cat will happily exhaust itself chasing the laser dot in circles.
> Imagine yourself watching a really good, suspenseful, action movie that gets your emotions up and makes you want to cheer. It's probably more intense than anything you'd experience in real life.
> Same exact emotions and feelings, but kitteh gets it from running itself ragged chasing the dot.
_URL_0_ | [
"Up to 5% of some populations of \"Cephalotes atratus\" suffer from an infection by the tetradonematid nematode \"Myrmeconema neotropicum\". It causes the ant's abdomen to turn from black to bright red, strikingly resembling a red berry. In addition, the ant then holds it up most of the time, and it is easily rippe... |
Are Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells as advantageous as Embryonic Stem Cells, research wise? | Short answer is no. While iPS cells have a lot of potential, they simply are not as undifferentiated as ES cells. This means ES cells can be used for a wider variety of purposes more effectively. Potentially we could find a way to program them like ES cells, but it's kind of a ridiculous step when ES cells are merely a moral problem to fundamentalists. There are other issues, including that some of the hacks we use to reprogram the cells can sometimes make them oncogenic. Needless to say, they're useful, but they really don't hold a candle to ES cells yet.
Interesting review
_URL_0_ | [
"The ethical debate about use of embryonic stem cells has stirred controversy both in the United States and abroad; although more recently these debates have lessened due to modern advances in creating induced pluripotent stem cells from adult cells. The greatest advantage for use of embryonic stem cells is the fac... |
How effective would a stirling engine that is orbiting the sun be? | It is possible. The main problems are that stuff with moving parts generally need a lot of maintenance, and that stirling engines involve gas, which is hard to keep hold of in space. It would also have to radiate the heat away from the heat sink, which isn't a fast process, but this is a problem with heat pumps in general and it's not like you could get around it by using solar panels.
That said, the massive temperature difference isn't as helpful as you might expect. The low temperature people quote is how low it would get if you waited long enough without heating it. But it only cools through radiation, which happens at a rate proportional to the fourth power of the temperature. So as it cools down, cooling further gets drastically slower. You could produce an extremely efficient heat pump, but only by processing very little heat. Since light is free, this is pointless. You're better off running the heat sink at a higher temperature and absorbing all you can. And in any case, having a low-temperature heat sink is only so helpful. The maximum efficiency is 1-T*_C_*/T*_H_*. If the heat sink is at half the temperature of the source, it will run at 50% efficiency.
So, long story short, you could run a heat pump at high efficiency. But the limiting factor is how much solar power you can get, and how long your pump will last. You could make something that's several times more efficient than solar panels, but it won't last long, and it will be much heavier. It's not really worth it. | [
"The higher conversion efficiency of the Stirling cycle compared with that of radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) used in previous missions (Viking, Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini, New Horizons, and Mars Science Laboratory) would have offered an advantage of a fourfold reduction in PuO fuel, ... |
why are there so many atheists on reddit? | Reddit appeals to a younger demographic, and younger people tend to be less religious (a trend which has been ongoing for many decades). For example, 20% of Millennials (those born in 1981 or later) are not religious. [[source](_URL_0_)] | [
"Globally, some atheists also consider themselves Agnostic, Buddhist, Hindu, Jains, Taoist, or hold other related philosophical beliefs. Some, like Secular Jews and Shintoists, may indulge in some religious activities as a way of connecting with their culture, all the while being atheist. Therefore, given limited p... |
Why do some scientist think that in multiverse theory, the laws of physics would be different to our own universe? | There are many multiverse theories, but the most popular one right now is eternal inflation.
In eternal inflation the inflaton field, which is postulated to have driven the postulated inflation in the very early universe, a period of extremely rapid expansion, has spontaneously decayed to its current vacuum value. This decay ends up producing all the fields which make up the universe in quantum field theory: Electron, photon, quark etc.
But the decay ends up defining the value of the fundamental constants in physics. These values could be randomly assigned, and so will be different if other parts of the pre-decay universe has decayed into their own universe bubble. This leads to radical changes in the laws of physics. | [
"Since the current laws of physics are only known to be valid in this universe, it is possible that the laws of physics are different in parallel universes, giving a God-like entity more power. If the number of universes is unlimited, then the power of a certain God-like entity is also unlimited, since the laws of ... |
what (if any) is the practical biological purpose of my beard? | To keep you warm.
To keep dirt from you face, mouth, nose.
To act as a social signifier of post-pubescent
To make you look cool. | [
"A beard is the unshaven hair that grows on the chin, upper lip, cheeks and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, usually only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. Some women with hirsutism, a hormonal condition of excessive hairiness, may develop a beard.\n",
"A relatively small numb... |
Why is Nicolas II of Imperial Russia perceived as an incompetent ruler? | Like most topics in history, its a multi-faceted issue:
As /u/RyanGlavin stated below, he was seen as an incompetent military ruler. Not only was there the debacle with the Russo-Japanese war, but there was also his insistence to join the war effort personally as grand marshal of the troops.This was a horrible idea for two reasons: first, good ol' Nick was lacking as a strategist. Secondly, but arguably more importantly, by joining the war effort, he made himself personally responsible for the outcome of battles. Whereas other heads of state could simply scapegoat generals for the failures of a war, Nicolas II was now liable for every set back.
Also, there is the private nature of his lifestyle. Whereas other monarchs understood that one of the many roles as head of state was to fraternize with the public, Tsar Nic and his wife the Grand Duchess Alexandra led very private lives. The heir to the throne was extremely sick with hemophilia and yet the Tsarist family tried their best to hide this issue.
However, this is not to say that there havent been incompetent rulers in Russia`s past at all.. Monarchist Russia has survived poor rulers before. However, the case with Tsar Nicolas II is one that is a bad mix of a incompetent ruler, poor advisers and a time of turmoil and anxiety where Russia needed neither of the above two.. | [
"However he was critical of the monarchy in Russia. He believed that Nicholas II was to a large degree the one responsible for the collapse of Imperial Russia in 1917. His abdication and the subsequent abdication of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich were crucial mistakes which led to the abolition of monarchy and c... |
"Spin" of elementary particles | [Searched](_URL_2_)
Relevant [discussion](_URL_0_)
Original question by [pryomancer](_URL_1_)
> What is meant by the spin of an elementary particle?
Top comment courtesy [mufusisrad](_URL_4_)
> Spin, at least with respect to elementary particles, has no simple classical counterpart. Classically, the intrinsic angular momentum of a body is found by considering the angular momentum it has due to rotation about an axis that passes through it. This is 'like' spin, but in so far as an elementary particle has no internal structure (as far as we know it is point-like), an elementary particle cannot rotate about an axis passing through it. However, in some sense, elementary particles will still interact with something like a magnetic field as if they had such a motion. A charged body spinning on its own axis will have a magnetic moment that can be tugged on by a magnetic field, so will a spinning elementary particle. There isn't really a nice, convenient classical picture, for the spin of elementary particles, though - so a lot of this analogizing is partially incorrect. It is fundamentally a quantum mechanical property.
> Spin must be quantized in integer or half integer multiples of Planck's constant (i.e., it can only take on these values). Further, the 'total' spin of an elementary particle is a fixed quantity, which has tremendous consequences for many-body quantum systems behave. What I am referencing is the spin statistics theorem - the basic idea is that particles with half integer spin have wave functions that are constrained to behave in one way, and particles with integer spin have wave functions that are constrained to behave in another. The physics of magnetic materials, Bose-Einstein condensates, superfluids, and superconductors are all very much influenced by this. In high energy/nuclear physics, it places serious constraints on the manner in which identical particles collide with one another. These are just a handful of the reasons that it is "important".
Relevant follow-up courtesy [dantastical](_URL_3_)
> In Quantum Mechanics, the fundamental particles are described by wavefunctions - if you want to know where a particle is likely to be, or its probable energy, the wavefunction will tell you the probability of the particle being in such a state.
> There is a very fundamental divide between the basic particles - particles with half integral spin (1/2, 1 1/2 etc) (called fermions) have antisymetric wavefunctions, whilst those with integral spin (0 1 2 etc) (called bosons) have symmetric wavefunctions. The impact of this, is that if you want to find the probability of 2 identical fermions in the same place, because their wavefunctions are antisymetric, they cancel out and the probability is 0. Thus you cannot have 2 identical fermions in the same state - this is the pauli exclusion principle, and is massively important! Bosons are not subject to this restriction though.
> Spin has other important qualities of course but this is one major one. | [
"\"Spin\" is a non-classical property of elementary particles, since classically the \"spin angular momentum\" of a material object is really just the total \"orbital\" angular momenta of the object's constituents about the rotation axis. Elementary particles are conceived as concepts which have no axis to \"spin\"... |
how come people in america need $15/hr jobs if people from asia can apparently live off ridiculous wages like $2/hr? | Accepted standards of living, and societal expectations of what you will be capable of doing.
Our standard of living requires that everyone have enough food for 3 meals a day, electricity in our homes, running water in our homes, plumbing in our homes, air conditioning, entertainments (books, tv, cable, internet, video games, etc), communication devices (e-mail, physical mail, telephone, instant messaging, texting, skype, etc), personal transportation, medications, and many other things. The reason people in Asia can pay so little is that they do not have these same basic standards of living. To them those things are luxuries.
We also require people to be accessible. Many jobs require you to be able to transport yourself to your work or to travel fairly significant distances on your own. Many jobs require you to have a cell phone or at minimum a landline phone. Many jobs require you to have regular access to e-mail. Without these things it can be difficult to get a job or keep one. | [
"However, not all Asian groups in the United States have such high wages; certain Asian groups have fared better than others in the United States labor market. East Asians from Hong Kong,Taiwan, China, Japan, and Korea have higher median wages and household income than Southeast Asian refugees from Laos and Vietnam... |
what is the difference between disk capacity and density with a ssd? | Capacity is what you really want, that's how much total storage the drive provides
Density is about how much storage we can fit in one flash chip. Higher density chips enable higher capacity drives in the same size, or drives with the same capacity but fewer chips
Density matters in the long run, it's what has enabled us to go from 256 GB 2.5" SSDs to 2 TB 2.5" SSDs; but when you're building a machine you only care about what you can get right now and that's capacity | [
"Areal density is used to quantify and compare different types media used in data storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical disc drives and tape drives. The current unit of measure is typically gigabits per square inch.\n",
"\"Single density\" (SD or 1D) describes the first generation of floppy disks that... |
Why have Argentine and Chilean political cultures been different? | I would say Chile's geographic isolation had a key role. Have a desert in the north and a frozen wasteland to the south tends to place the heart of the populace in the center. That eliminates the problem of regionalism that other countries at the time had. Chile never really had a caudillo problem because of that too. That allowed a more "conservative" regime to have more control by the 1830s and for decades afterward. Argentina was one of the more wealthy colonies, Chile never shined 'til after independence, so less attention was placed on them during the colonial times.
I'm not sure what you mean by an "inferiority complex" though? | [
"The culture of Chile reflects the population and the geographic isolation of the country in relation to the rest of South America. Since colonial times, the Chilean culture has been a mix of Spanish colonial elements with elements of indigenous (mostly Mapuche) culture, as well that of other immigrant cultures.\n"... |
If the M14 was readily available and known to be a good weapon then why was the M16 used in Vietnam? | The development and testing of the m16 is one fraught with bureaucracy and was generally mishandled by people who either: 1) had little experience with small arms design (ie generals) and 2)Those that simply wanted a rifle similar to the m1 garand with full power rifle ammo. Much of this story goes back to the initial trials and the formation of NATO. The idea was that this newly formed cooperative military organization would have a standard rifle with standard ammo for all nations involved. Many were hoping to see an intermediate caliber rifle fielded after noting the effectiveness of the "Sturmgewehr" assault rifle the German's developed toward the end of WWII.
This was an opinion held in Europe, but many in the US also saw this as the way forward. The majority (or perhaps, those with the most internal authority) within the US military, however, still wanted a full rifle caliber rifle, particularly one that was very similar to the m1 garand. This sets the tone of the environment the m16 was to be birthed in. Rifles of the time were still steel and wood, firing something that's very similar to a typical hunting caliber. The m16 was made of aluminum and plastics and was also very light, with the m16a1 weighing about 6lbs, so it's toy like feel and appearance likely didn't help. An early prototype's barrel also blew up in a an officer's hands, but essentially it was a very new and radical design. One of the earliest adopters of the rifle was the us airforce, which allowed the design to get it's foot in the door for further military procurement. The earliest adopters of the m16 were military advisers and other special forces troops who enjoyed the lighter weight and better ergonomics of the m16 along with its lighter and lighter recoiling ammo.
Ok, so lets get into the issues now that we have the backstory. The main cause of the m16's issues was the army's switch to a different powder type. Not to get into too much technical detail, but a gas operated firearm needs the proper mount of force when cycling the weapon to ensure proper feeding and, more importantly to this topic, must not be so intense that it causes premature wear on parts. This is essentially what occurred with the m16 as is discussed by it's lead designer, [James Sullivan](_URL_0_) . In addition, there were other reasons for less than reliable initial performance, namely a lack of chrome plating on the internal parts. Many soldiers in the field were also not properly instructed on the new weapon when the army replaced the m14 and cleaning kits were often not issued. Chrome is very slick and corrosion resistant which would help immensely in a jungle environment. The m16 was, and is a precision made, modern firearm. I sourced this information from an author and expert on the subject, [Chris Bartocci](_URL_1_) .
Your second assertion I would have to disagree with simply on a technical point. A firearm with an open action, like the m14, will be inherently more exposed to the elements than one that is sealed, such as the m16. This open action often makes them less reliable. The m16 family as a whole tends to be more inherently reliable than the m14 family.
*edits for bad content and grammar and added small additional bits of info on it's reception/development | [
"The M14 remained the primary infantry rifle in Vietnam until it was replaced by the M16 in 1967, though combat engineer units kept them several years longer. Further procurement of the M14 was abruptly halted in early 1978 due to the U.S. Department of Defense report which had also stated that the AR-15 (soon to b... |
eli:5 - what is with the giant outrage of texas demanding id for voting? | Because some people argue that as these IDs require money and time to acquire, it constitutes a poll tax, which is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause as determined by the case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966). | [
"In July 2016, a federal appeals court found that Texas's voter ID law discriminated against black and Hispanic voters because only a few types of ID were allowed; for example, military IDs and concealed carry permits were allowed, but state employee photo IDs and university photo IDs were not.\n",
"A 2014 Rice U... |
How accurate is Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper from what people at the time would have visualized the Last Supper as? | Da Vinci's The Last Supper is a special portrayal of the biblical event because it was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, to be placed in the dining hall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery, which the Duke had recently had renovated. The reason this makes it special is because Sforza requested that the scene be painted as if the monks, whom would be eating beneath this painting daily, were dining with Jesus and his apostles, which is why they are all portrayed to be sitting on the same side of the table.
In real life, this would be a very awkward way to set a dining table, as it would be hard to make conversation with those at the far end of the tables. In portraying the dinner in this awkward way, Da Vinci was able to make the monks feel as if they were truly dining with Jesus and his apostles, as well as easily paint every member of the dinner with such striking detail that, even after the painting fell to ruin in ten years due to a failed experiment by Leonardo, who, instead of painting in the fresco method of painting on wet plaster, painted directly onto the wall, the details were still sharp and discernible, allowing them to survive to this day.
How this differs from what people at the time would have visualized the last supper as being, of course depends on the person. The bible provides little detail as to the setting of the supper, and rather focuses on the dialogue and intrigue of the dinner. However, as we can see by [other](_URL_5_) [representations](_URL_1_) [of](_URL_3_) [the](_URL_4_) [event](_URL_2_), there are many different artistic portrayals of this famous biblical scene. While we will never know how this looked exactly, any of these works can be a guess as to how it actually looked.
Sources:
* Kenneth Clark.Leonardo da Vinci, Penguin Books 1939, 1993, p144
* "The Last Supper". _URL_0_. Retrieved 2014-06-24
* "DaVinci". The Mark Steel Lectures. Series 2. Episode 2. The Open University. 7 October 2003. BBC. Retrieved 2014-06-24
* "Leonardo's Last Supper". Smarthistory at Khan Academy. Retrieved 2014-06-24
| [
"\"The Last Supper\" has been the target of much speculation by writers and historical revisionists alike, usually centered on purported hidden messages or hints found within the painting, especially since the publication of Dan Brown's novel \"The Da Vinci Code\" (2003), in which one of the characters suggests tha... |
how can the fbi seize a website? | The website is stored on a server which is physically located somewhere. If it's located in the United States then the FBI can get a warrant to take possession of it (or at least the section of it that the website is on) to shut the service down. If it's located in another country then they have to cooperate with the local authorities and come up with an agreement to take the site down. In some cases the authorities in the other country won't cooperate because they don't care. | [
"The FBI's Investigative Data Warehouse contains an \"Open Source News Library\". This library contains news gathered by the TIDES program. The information is collected from dozens of public websites all over the world, such as Ha'aretz, Pravda, the Jordan Times, The People's Daily, \"The Washington Post\", and oth... |
What would a explosion look like in space? | im by no means an expert on the subject, but I have a couple links that may interest you. look into [Starfish Prime.](_URL_1_) it was part of a series of High Altitude Nuclear Tests carried out by the US. This one in particular was conducted 400km above Earth. The highest ever recorded nuclear test was also conducted by the US during Operation Argus at an altitude of 540km. Also, for [your viewing pleasure.](_URL_0_) | [
"Carolyn Porco of NASA was consulted on the planetary science and imagery. The animators realistically recreated what an explosion would look like in space: short blasts, which suck inward and leave debris from a ship floating. For shots of an imploding planet, the same explosion program was used to simulate it bre... |
Does plastic deteriorate/lose integrity over time? | Yes, and it really depends on the plastic.
Some plastics react to moisture or oxygen in the atmosphere and will break down over time. These are fairly rare and not used as commodity plastics yet, but occasionally you'll come across that biodegradable cup where this applies.
Most plastics will degrade upon exposure to UV light. Over time the bonds in the actual polymer chains will break and the mechanical integrity of the plastic will slowly become compromised.
Additionally, many plastics contain small molecules along with the long chains as part of their design. These can be added to promote flexibility or other desired material properties. However, over time they can break down, evaporate/sublimate out, or be leached out of the plastic. When enough of these small molecules are gone the plastic can also lose its mechanical integrity and become brittle or other bad things.
The 5 year safety rating probably has a hefty safety margin. but yes the plastics in a car seat would lose some structural integrity over the years. Things like the foam inside the seat (likely also a polymer) could also become compressed to the point of not offering shock protection anymore, which would not be a chemical degradation but a physical one. | [
"The cause of deterioration regarding plastics can be linked to age, chemical composition, storage, and improper handling of the objects. Conservators are in place to slow down the processes of deterioration by considering the 4 leading caused of deterioration:\n",
"Biodegradable plastics have become an issue bec... |
does it rain over all the oceans and seas? are any areas over an ocean or a sea classified as deserts? | There are definitely bodies of water which get rained on more or less depending on where they are. The amount of precipitation which falls in the arctic is very small compared to that which falls in a tropical region. Areas of ocean which are downwind from deserts also get very little direct precipitation.
Oceans and seas which can accept ocean water can maintain their water levels because the water will slosh around to roughly even things out. If a body of water gets cut off from oceans, then the area which it can draw water from becomes a lot smaller and this sea is now going to be much more affected by local weather than the larger oceans. All surface water bodies evaporate and most seep into groundwater as well and many lose water to creatures (particularly humans in recent timse), but if the water isn't being replenished fast enough, then the water level will drop and eventually disappear, but many water bodies surrounded by land are able to find a balance point for a long time where their levels stay within a particular range across the seasons. | [
"Desert areas situated along the west coasts of continents at tropical or near-tropical locations characterized by frequent fog and low clouds, despite the fact that these places rank among the driest on earth in terms of actual precipitation received are labelled \"BWn\" with the n denoting a climate characterized... |
How do NASA scientists take such clear long exposure photographs of Nebulas and galaxies, if the Earth is constantly rotating itself and around the sun? | Telescopes are motorized to track a location in the sky as the Earth rotates under them.
The [Wikipedia article on equatorial mounts](_URL_0_) has a bunch of examples and pictures of telescope mounts.
Even relatively small backyard telescopes can have motorized mounts, for amateur astronomers who want to take long duration photographs.
| [
"NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope includes instruments for obtaining both images and spectra of light emitted by PAHs associated with star formation. These images can trace the surface of star-forming clouds in our own galaxy or identify star forming galaxies in the distant universe.\n",
"The astronomers use observ... |
How does cocaine get into the hair structure through use and environmental exposure? | > is water soluble, why isn't it coming out in the water? Why is permeating the hair further?
I can't answer your other questions, but keep in mind there is a lot of water in the human body, inside cells and tissue and bodily fluids etc. Just googling it hair is apparently 10 - 13% water. Might be wrong but I think anything water soluble that enters your bloodstream is liable to be transported to other areas of your body as your blood does its thing, transporting oxygen and nutrients and such. | [
"Human hair is composed largely of keratin protein, which has a negative ionic charge, giving hair a negative ionic charge as well. As chemistry dictates, oppositely charged compounds attract and compounds with the same charge repel each other. Most hair dyes are positively charged, helping them attach to the negat... |
Could a hydrogen car have a water dispenser inside the car? | The water produced by this process would be pure, and would need to have minerals added to it to make it safe for regular human consumption _URL_0_ | [
"In June 2008, Japanese company Genepax unveiled a car it claimed ran on only water and air, and many news outlets dubbed the vehicle a \"water-fuel car\". The company said it \"cannot [reveal] the core part of this invention\" yet, but it disclosed that the system used an onboard energy generator, which it called ... |
Why can't herbivores eat meat, and why can't carnivores eat plants? | Depends. The difference is very rarely psychological. The main difference is the digestive systems in place and the energy demands of the animal.
Deriving energy from plants is hard work thanks to cellulose and a whole heap of other barriers including poisons. Herbivores therefore either need to be specialists and focus on a handful of specific vegetation, or have most of their body devoted to processing nutrient poor but numerically plentiful food. The first strategy you can apply to, for example, squirrels, and the former to cows. In order for these systems to work they need specific enzymes to break down the food they are eating, and in the cow’s case several stomach portions and a whole regurgitating system for further breakdown. To further drive their food needs, their physiology has evolved to need energy and vitamins in proportions to what they typically eat. Even if meat is nutritionally more dense, a cow wouldn’t receive a great deal of benefit from it because a)
Wrong enzymes to break down the food and b) the meat will have vitamins and minerals in wrong forms and proportions.
To add a further hurdles, having a multi-chambered, enormous digestive system, or other herbivore digestive demands such as grinding teeth, mean that you are poorly suited to catching prey.
Same goes for carnivores. They lack the enzymes or indeed the sheer length of digestive tract needed to break down plant matter, and their bodies require nutrients and minerals that can be obtained from prey. For example, cats have practically all their dietary demands in near perfect proportions in the form of mice.
What about omnivores? Well they have a grab bag of enzymes that can eat *some* plant matter but this is usually very easily digestible, such as berries or nectar. One of the earliest pre-requisites for civilisation was the design and harvesting of easily digested plant matter in the form of fruits, vegetables, and grain. Omnivores
can also exploit meat thanks to enzymes, and their bodies are not so devoted to eating vegetables that they are hampered by the digestive systems. Omnivores tend to either need a heap of energy due to behaviour and size (such as overland migration) and be in areas where both plant and meat isn’t particularly plentiful. Occasionally you have omnivorous scavengers who simply exploit what they can. | [
"Herbivores form an important link in the food chain because they consume plants in order to digest the carbohydrates photosynthetically produced by a plant. Carnivores in turn consume herbivores for the same reason, while omnivores can obtain their nutrients from either plants or animals. Due to a herbivore's abil... |
How did elite Westerners entertain long-term visitors before the twentieth century? | This is right at the end of the 19th century, in the Gilded Age in America, but [The Biltmore Estate](_URL_0_) gives you a good idea of how the tippiest-top of the elite would entertain. I visited about a year ago so it's on my mind.
While you were staying with the Vanderbilts you could expect:
- formal dining every night, including dressing for dinner, all in all you'd have to change your clothes several times a day while a guest
- walking their estate (a relatively common entertainment)
- looking around the greenhouse
- riding their estate
- outdoor sports like tennis, croquet
- partaking of their state of the art gym
- reading in the library
- swimming in their indoor swimming pool (pretty uncommon)
You'd have a fair amount of free time to do these things, but you'd be expected to dine with your host/ess every night. You might find some fruitful reading in [*Manners and social usages* by Mrs. John Sherwood](_URL_1_) (1877) especially Chapter 50 on house guests (which is stubbornly not letting me link directly to it). It's written by a lady for ladies, but it lays down the expectations that both host and guest would have around that time. | [
"The Western adventures of famous figures, like Theodore Roosevelt, were made available to paying guests from cities of the East, called \"dudes\" in the West. In the early years, the transcontinental railroad network brought paying visitors to a local depot, where a wagon or buggy would be waiting to transport peo... |
why is it ok to insult religion in name of freedom of speech, yet not ok to be a racist? | Being racist is also protected by free speech.
It is illegal to discriminate based on race or ethnicity, but you are fully allowed to think, speak, draw or do anything you like that is racist so long as you do not directly harm or call other to harm someone. | [
"Critics claimed the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 could hinder freedom of speech. Leaders of major religions as well as non-religious groups such as the National Secular Society and English PEN spoke out in order to campaign against the Bill. Comedians and satirists also fear prosecution for their work. How... |
Historians who read languages for which there is no known pronunciation, or for which there are large gaps in pronunciation, how do you do it? | This is exactly what I work on (and I mean *exactly*). Most Egyptian texts are written in a phase of the language called Middle Egyptian. Middle Egyptian was only spoken until the mid second millennium BCE, but the written language continued to be used for formal writing for the remainder of Egyptian pharaonic history. Because most Middle Egyptian texts were written during a state of diglossia (the formal and vernacular languages did not match), it's difficult to say much about how this language was pronounced. By the time we get good information about pronunciation in Coptic, 2000 years passed. Most words do not survive into Coptic. Even when they do, the specific grammatical form is not attested, because the grammar of the language changed as well.
Add to that the fact that many Egyptologists never learn Coptic at all, and the result is that we almost never know how to read a hieroglyphic word aloud. The solution generally adopted is to put e's (phonetic [ɛ]) between the known consonants, and to treat some consonants as though they represented vowels. This is done to deliberately mark the fact that we don't know how it would have been pronounced.
You've probably seen this happening in practice without realizing it. The name "Ra" is known from Coptic as ⲣⲏ ([re]), so his name should always be rendered as "Re", but people pronounce it as "ra" because the hieroglyphic spelling is 𓂋𓂝𓇳 (*rꜥ* in Egyptian transliteration, [r_ʕ] phonetically). Names like 𓇋𓏠𓈖𓊵𓏏𓊪, "Amun is satisfied", may be rendered as "Amunhotep" from Coptic ⲁⲙⲟⲩⲛ+Ϩⲱⲧⲡ or Imenhetep based on Egyptological convention.
The key thing to recognize there is that "Imenhetep" is *deliberately* wrong. It couldn't possibly be the word's true ancient pronunciation. If you ever see a piece of pop culture where people speak Egyptian, they've probably misunderstood what Egyptologists are trying to accomplish by pronouncing things this way. The list includes [Philip Glass's Akhenaten](_URL_2_) and [Assassin's Creed: Origins](_URL_3_).
So this is what we do when we read for the most part, we mispronounce things on purpose to show that we don't know. People who are obsessed with vocalization, like me, tend to use the Coptic pronunciation or the various Coptic-based vocalizations. That's a minority practice to be sure. I always read [Demotic](_URL_0_) with Coptic pronunciation in my head, but I know many highly-competent Demotists who don't know any Coptic whatsoever. It's pretty flexible in practice.
I've been arguing forever that the absence of this crucial component of language learning hamstrings our understanding. Many people disagree. That's more of a personality thing. There are plenty of Egyptologists who are more interested in extracting meaning than they are in revivifying the spoken language of ancient Egypt. For them, being able to read the text seems separate from being able to hear it. I think they're incorrect. I did an experiment a few years ago with a Late Egyptian class where I taught one class Coptic alongside the hieroglyphs. The students who had Coptic vocalizations performed better on vocabulary quizzes, but my sample sizes were too small to be confident in the results (p = 0.54 😕). I'm hoping to try the experiment again on a larger scale.
Sources available at r/AncientEgyptian. See especially the [thread on Allen's *Middle Egyptian*](_URL_1_). | [
"Several languages are only known by mention in historical documents or from only a few names or words. It cannot be determined that these languages actually existed or that the few recorded words are actually of known or unknown languages. Some may simply be from a historian's errors. Others are of known people wi... |
was fighting in ice hockey allowed since the beginning of this sport, or was it introduced later - and if so how that happened. | It's not allowed. That's why there are penalties for fighting.
Fighting is a result, usually, of three things.
1. Get your team to raise their game. I'm willing to drop gloves and get into a fight. What are you willing to do to get our team back into the game?
2. Defend a team mate. That little a-hole just unloaded a dirty hit on my guy, I'm going to make sure he doesn't think about doing that again.
3. To pay the price. I need to fight him to atone for a bad play that hurt someone or nearly hurt. This one is a rare one.
Hockey is a sport of passion and grit. Players are tough as nails and don't like having their ice disrespected. If you allow a player from the opposing side to disrespect your team once what's to stop him from doing it again? Even worse if the ref keeps missing it or doesn't think it's a penalty. | [
"Fighting has been a part of ice hockey since the sport's rise in popularity in 19th century Canada. There are a number of theories behind the integration of fighting into the game; the most common is that the relative lack of rules in the early history of hockey encouraged physical intimidation and control. Other ... |
Why did germanic migrants lose more of their language in favour of Latin? | An answer ([Why are the spanish and french not considered Germanic](_URL_0_); u/Libertat) I posted some time ago might provide with some elements of response.
Basically, it's doubtful that each Barbarian coalition had its own "national" language, being made up from the IInd century of various (indigenous or migrating peoples) and being growingly Romanized due to their relations with Romania and the influx of slaves, fiscal refugees and deserters among them from the IIIrd century to the Vth, especially as Barbarians entered the empire. A good part of Goths, Franks, Vandals, etc. probably didn't really spoke a Germanic language at this point, while Germanophone Barbarians were more or less importantly Latinized
So, it's both a result of the resilience of Late Roman society (or its collapse in Britain and Illyricum) and the appearance of Barbarians as "peoples of the limes" then as Roman armies/groups since the IVth century.
Not that they didn't had an influence on the development of Romance language (although this is especially the case for northern Gallo-Romance and Retho-Romance languages), neither that the Germanization of the Rhineland couldn't be attributed to a stronger Germanophone presence : but we're talking of an evolution that took centuries and didn't really stabilized before the Xth century. Apart from that, actual evidences for an everyday use of Germanic speech in former western provinces are quite rare, and generally assumed to have died out as such (although preserved in ceremonial and institutional terms) by the Vth or VIth century. | [
"The demise of Vulgar Latin in the face of Anglo-Saxon settlement is very different from the fate of the language in other areas of Western Europe which were subject to Germanic migration, like France, Italy and Spain, where Latin and the Romance languages continued. The likely reason is that in Britain there was a... |
why does damage to eyes not become apparent immediately and takes time ranging from a night's sleep to years to show up? | It's like a sunburn. At first, it's just all red and painful (but your retina has no pain receptors, so it doesn't hurt). The next day, your skin is literally falling off your body. In that time, the damaged cells were figuring out that irreparable damage had occurred and that they might be cancerous. When they do, they enter mass suicide mode. | [
"Normal eyes grow during the day and shrink during the night, but occluded eyes are shown to grow both during the day and the night. Because of this, FDM is a result of the lack of growth inhibition at night rather than the expected excessive growth during the day, when the actual light deprivation occurred. Elevat... |
why does the us senate always seem so empty? | Most of them are doing their jobs. Their jobs just have very little to do with the debate floor. Think about it, how inefficient is it to have one guy speak to a room of a hundred about some issue while everyone else has to feign attention. During that time a politician could be meeting with lobbyist, working on acquiring new votes for a bill, discussing the matter with his staff, etc. | [
"The Senate is widely considered both a more deliberative and more prestigious body than the House of Representatives due to its longer terms, smaller size, and statewide constituencies, which historically led to a more collegial and less partisan atmosphere. The presiding officer of the Senate is the vice presiden... |
can someone explain the difference between a university and a technical school? | In the US, technical schools focus mainly on job training and associates degrees in specific fields. They're great if you want to be a plumber, electrician, automotive tech, or some other sort of skilled trade.
There may be a stigma against the sort of jobs you'll likely be training for. You wouldn't be able to train as a physicist, doctor, or get your MBA at a trade school (and maybe those as the aspirations those other people have for you), but the world will always need plumbers and electricians, it doesn't need another twenty something with a liberal arts or philosophy degree. | [
"University education includes teaching, research, and social services activities, and it includes both the undergraduate level (sometimes referred to as tertiary education) and the graduate (or postgraduate) level (sometimes referred to as graduate school). Some universities are composed of several colleges.\n",
... |
hare krishna | They are a branch of Hinduism that started in New York in the 1960's. Sort of.
Spiritually they try to grow closer to the Supreme Lord Krishna, through various methods.
They require members to be vegetarians and abstain from 'illicit' sex, gambling and intoxicants. They highly regard four virtues: self-control, mercy, truthfulness and cleanliness. | [
"Krishna is the son of a rich business couple (Kanta Rao and Pandari Bai). Bharathi is also a daughter of another rich man (Rao Gopal Rao). Krishna has grown up without knowing or facing any problems and gets a new car. While driving in competition with his friend Satyam (Satyanarayana), he accidentally kills Balai... |
why has no one crossed a dandelion with a carrot or parsnip, thus creating a nutritious vegetable that grows wild as a weed? | A few things. First, dandelions *are* nutritious vegetables that you can eat lots of ways.
Second, a weed is just any unwanted plant - they typically grow more aggressively than cultivated plants because they are evolved specifically for the environment in which they are found and because they don't waste any energy producing something extra for humans. For example, there are wild carrots, they just don't produce as large and tasty a root as cultivated carrots. Cultivated carrots need more support, because we've bred them to be *inefficient* as plants in order to be efficient as food. It's hard to get the weedy-ness of a weed and the wasteful extravagance of cultivated plant.
(Also, it's typically only possible to cross plant varieties of the same species or at least the same genus. Otherwise you're crossing wildly different species - it's like trying to get a chicken and a pig to successfully mate. Maybe it would produce delicious bacon flavored wings, but too bad cuz it ain't gonna happen.)
You might be interested in heirloom plants varieties, though - these are older varieties of cultivated crops that typically offer a lot more variety than more modern versions and tend to be more adapted to specific areas. | [
"There are several diseases that can reduce the yield and market value of carrots. The most devastating carrot disease is \"Alternaria\" leaf blight, which has been known to eradicate entire crops. A bacterial leaf blight caused by \"Xanthomonas campestris\" can also be destructive in warm, humid areas. Root knot n... |
Why does the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall baffle cosmologists, but not its namesake constellations? | The constellations are merely local stars visible from earth and have no relation to the galaxy structure other than direction. The galaxy structure is behind the stars that make up the constellations and hence from our observational point of view "in" those constellations the same way a distant lighthouse is in a window when you look outside. | [
"Michael Speidel associates Mithras with the constellation of Orion because of the proximity to Taurus, and the consistent nature of the depiction of the figure as having wide shoulders, a garment flared at the hem, and narrowed at the waist with a belt, thus taking on the form of the constellation.\n",
"There wa... |
How does the fact that energy is quantized explain blackbody radiation? | If you assume that EM radiation at thermal equilibrium can have arbitrary energy in each mode, you run into an ultraviolet divergence (call the ultraviolet catastrophe). The total energy goes like ω^(2), integrated from zero to infinity, which is divergent.
If you assume that radiation can only be absorbed and emitted in quanta, implying that the amount of energy in each mode can only come in integer steps of ~~h~~ω, then you resolve the issue. Instead you're integrating ω^(3)/[exp[~~h~~ω/kT) - 1] from zero to infinity, which is convergent.
[Here's](_URL_0_) some more on it. | [
"At the same time, investigations of blackbody radiation carried out over four decades (1860–1900) by various researchers culminated in Max Planck's hypothesis that the energy of \"any\" system that absorbs or emits electromagnetic radiation of frequency \"ν\" is an integer multiple of an energy quantum . As shown ... |
how does a barometer actually measure air pressure? | Inside a barometer is a sealed can, containing air. This makes it a bit like a metal balloon in that air is trapped, and can neither flow in or out of the can.
If the air pressure outside of the can changes, it'll squash the can slightly. If the air pressure drops, the can will expand. It's these changes in shape that drive the needle on a barometer. | [
"A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis to help find surface troughs, pressure systems and frontal boundaries.\n... |
Does special relativity preclude multiple time dimensions? | No, it doesn't. Special relativity admits a simple generalization to p time dimensions and q space dimensions by replacing the Lorentz group with SO(p,q), the group of transformations that preserve the line element:
ds^2 = (dt^1 )^2 + ... + (dt^p )^2 - (dx^2 )^2 - ... - (dx^q )^2
The real problem is that multiple time dimensions allow CTCs, and so timetravel; or seen from a completely different mathematical angle partial diff equations become ultrahyperbolic and so lose existence and uniqueness. Translated in human multiple time dimensions have a botched causal structure and cannot sustain any meaningful physics. | [
"where are the differentials of the four spacetime dimensions. This suggests a deep theoretical insight: special relativity is simply a rotational symmetry of our spacetime, analogous to the rotational symmetry of Euclidean space (see Fig. 10‑1). Just as Euclidean space uses a Euclidean metric, so spacetime uses a ... |
how did all matter fit into an area less than an atom at the beginning of time? | We don't know! But it probably wasn't really what we would consider to be "matter" at that point anyway as even subatomic particles wouldn't have been precipitated out yet. | [
"It is thought that the early universe began with a nearly uniform distribution (each particle an equal distance from the next) of matter and dark matter. The dark matter then began to clump together under gravitational attraction due to the initial density perturbation spectrum caused by quantum fluctuations. This... |
Is there a historical reason why, in regards to U.S. currency, the coin denominations are 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 while the dollar denominations are 1, 5, 10, *20*, 50? | The 25c denomination is historically derived from the usage of the Spanish colonial 8 reale or "Spanish Dollar" coin in British colonial America. The Spanish Dollar (and smaller denominations such as the 4 reale, 2 reale or quarter dollar, 1 reale, and half reale) is estimated by some to have comprised half the coinage in colonial America so it's importance cannot be understated. As well as being minted in smaller denominations the the 8 reale coin was cut into halves, quarters, and eights to provide smaller change. The tradition of the "quarter" continued in 1796 when the first was minted for the US and has continued to date. Interestingly the USA toyed with a 20 cent coin from 1875 to 1878 but it failed to take off. A further point of interest is that a reale was known colloquially as a "bit" and a quarter "two bits", a term the quarter is sometimes known by.
As to the denominations of the notes, the 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 notes follow the 1-2-5-10-20-50 number series. The US does have $2 note but it is not generally used. This number series uses prime factors of 10 (1x10, 2x5, 5x2, 10x1, 10x2, 10x5) which makes arithmetic easier.
A lot of other countries use this same numbering system for both their coins and notes, for example Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Euro circulating countries. Countries such as Canada and Panama still have a 25c coin but use the 1-2-5 numbering system for their bank notes.
**References**
Jordan, Lewis - Colonial Coins - Section Contents. 2016. Colonial Coins - Section Contents. [ONLINE] Available at: _URL_0_. [Accessed 24 January 2016]
Colin Bruce, 2007. Standard Catalog of World Coins 1701-1800. 4 Edition. Krause Publications
Colin Bruce, 2010. 2011 Standard Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000. Thirty-eighth Edition Edition. Krause Publications
| [
"The denomination of two dollars was authorized under a congressional act, and first issued in March 1862. The denomination was continuously used until 1966; by this time the United States Note was the only remaining class of U.S. currency the two-dollar bill was assigned to. In August 1966, the Treasury Department... |
why gas mileage goes up the slower you go | Your gas mileage depends more on the RPMs (rotations per minute) than anything. Have you ever noticed when the pedal is pushed down, the RPM meter goes up? Well, that's when more gas is spent. Because not only is gas being spent on making the wheels turn, but it's being spent on how fast the wheels turn. That's why when you put larger tires on a vehicle, it gets less gas mileage. It takes more work to get a higher RPM, because the tire is larger. | [
"The more cars there are on the road, the more pollution is emitted into the air. This is because motor vehicles are one of the main sources of pollution in the world. On the other hand, there is an inverse relationship between the moving speed of traffic and air pollution. The slower the traffic moves, the more po... |
Why is the fall of the Mississippi River considered a great blow to the Confederacy? | You are correct in the assertion that geographically, the Confederacy wasn't split in "half," but it was irreparably split. Think of the consequences had the British been successful in controlling the entire Hudson River and split New England from the other colonies. Geographically it wasn't half, but would have been a decisive blow.
Vicksburg was vital for two reasons. One, it was a southern bastion that had to be taken to effectively control the River. The Union could not simply bypass it, and they couldn't ignore it, so it had to fall. Two, the Mississippi was vitally important to the transport of goods and materiel for around ten states. The Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers, plus the Red River all flow into the Mississippi. Granted several parts of these were in seceded states, but goods moved to and from Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri all needed the Mississippi to move and obtain goods. Railroads were in place, but much of the midwest did not have easy access to the Great Lakes, mainly since the MS River was there to use (until it wasn't). Vicksburg was on a high bluff at a hairpin turn, and after New Orleans, Memphis, and Island No. 10 fell, Vicksburg was the last blockage to allowing Union forces and gunboats to move men and supplies to other vital areas much faster. And with complete control of the River, Richmond no longer had any real control over anything in a large section of the Confederacy. Texas did supply a large number of soldiers in the Confederate Armies, as well as being a vital route to funnel (i.e. smuggle) goods from ports in Mexico.
It's also important to remember the Mississippi River wasn't the only valuable objective. By July 1863, The Union controlled the entire Cumberland River, and the majority of the Tennessee (which is why the Emancipation Proclamation didn't cover Tennessee, as it was technically under Union control then), New Orleans, parts of North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri (which had remained in the Union officially but had many occupying Confederate forces early on). In other words, Vicksburg was one of the last major waterways the Union needed to seal the fate of the Confederacy. On its own, it wasn't quite THAT important, but taken as a whole, the Confederacy was doomed by losing its rivers, the Mississippi being one of them. | [
"No major battles were fought in or near the city, but the Mississippi River was a vital highway during the war. Divided loyalties to the Union and Confederacy caused rifts in some families in St. Louis. This divide remained consistent throughout the entirety of the war. Though many believed in the cause of aboliti... |
the usps is struggling financially and therefore eliminating saturday deliveries, while ups and fedex are doing just fine. why doesn't the usps try and model itself after them? | Got it backwards, kind of. UPS, Fedex and other carriers were modeled after the USPS.
As for why the USPS is struggling, the answer is that the USPS has an albatross around its neck that nobody else has: In 2006, the Congress — *God* knows why — passed a law requiring the USPS to shovel *vast* sums of money into a fund set aside for paying retirement benefits to workers who haven't yet retired. This is the *only* reason why the USPS is losing money. If it weren't required by law to stuff all this cash under its mattress — a requirement no other enterprise *on the planet* has, and which no sane person would ever choose to do — the USPS would be back to operating close to break-even, as is appropriate for a publicly owned enterprise. | [
"FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) directly compete with USPS Express Mail and package delivery services, making nationwide deliveries of urgent letters and packages. Due to the postal monopoly, they are not allowed to deliver non-urgent letters and may not directly ship to U.S. Mail boxes at residential and co... |
how can someone open a credit card under my name. | Did he actually open it under your name? If he did, you would see the bank summary and transactions as far as I know. He probably added you as an authorized card holder to one of his accounts. I have cards from my parents that are like that | [
"A credit card issuing company, such as a bank or credit union, enters into agreements with merchants for them to accept their credit cards. Merchants often advertise which cards they accept by displaying acceptance marks – generally derived from logos – or this may be communicated in signage in the establishment o... |
How did Werner Van Braun feel about being taken to the US? | German scientists were taken to some sanatorium at Gorodomlya island at Seligyor lake, they lived there much more comfortably than most of Soviet scientists. They actually had made a contract to work there and were allowed to take with them wives (or mistresses) and children. German engineers were paid quite well and worked in USSR till 1951-1953.
These 150 German persons helped a lot in copying V-2 rocket and building Kapustin Yar launch site. Impression of V-2 made Soviet researchers change priorities from cruise rockets to ballistic rockets (even Korolyov worked on winged cruise missiles before the war). | [
"Von Braun and members of his team decided to surrender to the United States military to ensure they were not captured by the advancing Soviets or shot by the Nazis to prevent their capture. They came to the United States via Operation Paperclip. The Army first assigned the Germans to teach German missile technolog... |
Is it possible to culture healthy gut bacteria outside of the body with the intention of reintroducing it? | There's actually a technique called "[poop transplant](_URL_0_)" where they transfer poop from a na healthy person to the patient, they do this to restore the microbic biome in the patient's guts, usually is done after something nasty happened to the patient's bacteria (example: chemotherapy). | [
"In addition to surviving within the gut of an organism, \"L.Brevis\" can also act to inhibit the pathogenic effects of certain gut pathogens and can also proliferate in the presence of additional bacteria. Some strains are resistant to certain antibiotics, specifically erythromycin and clindamycin. This antibiotic... |
how did the notion of sharing blood with family members came about in ancient and medieval times? | Even before our understanding of DNA, there was still a conception and understanding of inherited traits. At the time, the blood was considered the essence of a person's life and contained your personality.
Since offspring inherited a parent's physical and behavioral traits, it is not a big leap to suggest they inherited the "blood" of their parents. | [
"Blood brothers among larger groups were common in ancient Southeastern Europe where, for example, whole companies of soldiers would become one family through the ceremony. It was perhaps most prevalent in the Balkans during the Ottoman era, as it helped the oppressed people to fight the enemy more effectively; blo... |
Would Jesus have been educated or familiar with the teachings of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle? What do we know about the education of young Jews of his time period? | So the simple answer to this would be: probably not. The longer answer is, in order for Jesus to have studied these philosophers, even on a basic level, he would have had to have learned how to speak, read, and write ancient Greek, and while there is a legitimate chance he could have spoken greek, he likely didn't learn to read and write it. However, at the heart of this question is asking what Jesus' educational level, which Bart Ehrman addressed in his book, [Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium](_URL_0_) where he says:
> There are multiply attested traditions that Jesus spoke Aramaic. Sometimes, for example, the Gospels quote his words directly without translating them into Greek (see Mark 5:41; 7:34; John 1:42). This would make sense contextually, since Aramaic was the normal spoken language of Jews in Palestine in the first century. Moreover, there would be no reason for anyone to make up the tradition... It is also indicated in the Gospels that Jesus could read the Scriptures in Hebrew (e.g., Luke 4:16–20; see also Mark 12:10, 26), and that he eventually became known as an interpreter of them. He is sometimes, for example, called “rabbi,” that is, “teacher” (see Mark 9:5; John 3:2). At the same time, there are independently attested traditions that those who knew about Jesus’ background were surprised by his learning (Mark 6:2; John 7:15).
> **Together, these data suggest that he did learn to read as a child—that is, that he had some modicum of education—but that he was not considered an intellectual superstar by the people who knew him as he was growing up.** There are no traditions that specifically indicate that Jesus spoke Greek, although some historianshave surmised that living in Galilee, where Greek was widely known, he may have learned some. Moreover, some have suspected that he communicated with Pontius Pilate in Greek at his trial—although we will see later that it is very difficult to know exactly what happened then. At best we can say that it is at least possible that Jesus was trilingual—that he normally spoke Aramaic, that he could at least read the Hebrew Scriptures, and that he may have surmised that living in Galilee, where Greek was widely known, he may have learned some. Moreover, some have suspected that he communicated with Pontius Pilate in Greek at his trial—although we will see later that it is very difficult to know exactly what happened then. At best we can say that it is at least possible that Jesus was trilingual—that he normally spoke Aramaic, that he could at least read the Hebrew Scriptures, and that he may have been able to communicate a bit in Greek. The final point is, in my judgment, the least assured. (P. 99-100)
So we've established that he was likely literate in at least one language (which already made him elite since about 90% of the Roman occupied population during this time period was illiterate), but it was most likely primarily directed at learning and teaching about the Torah. Also, in all my studies of of the New Testament (and also classical Greece from my undergraduate degree) I've never seen anything to suggest that Jesus learned or incorporated these ideals into his teachings.
And to answer your final question, most Jews during this time period were illiterate. We know that at least two (probably most) of Jesus' followers were illiterate and uneducated as well. Next I'd like to pull in a quote from the bible, specifically the book of Acts, where it talks about two of Jesus' most important followers.
> When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (New International Version)
Now the word "unschooled" here in the majority of ancient manuscripts is: ἀγράμματοί (agrámmatoí). This word is often translated to "unschooled" or "uneducated" but typically it directly implies that they are illiterate. That said, it would then suggest that these men didn't know how to read or write, making it likely they were never taught anything of significance about Greek Philosophers.
It's also worth noting that philosophy wouldn't have generally mattered to peasants, especially for middle of no-where towns like Nazareth. These men and women of this time period were preoccupied with following Mosaic Law and following it's teachings, so learning about other philosophies could have been sacrilegious during this time period.
| [
"In another text, Josephus the first-century Romano-Jewish scholar claimed that Clearchus has reported a dialogue with Aristotle, where the philosopher states that the Hebrews were descendants of the Indian philosophers:\n",
"In responding to a series of questions by Jones as to why God would \"randomly decide to... |
Is it true that Kruschev wrote in his memoirs that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK told him that the military might overthrow him? | Hi. I'm not a historian but I am reading [Tim Weiner's *Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA*](_URL_1_). Here are a few thoughts.
* Weiner writes about an Oval Office conversation on October 27, the day before the crisis was resolved, in which Robert McNamara burst into the office to report that the U2 was shot down over Cuba. Subsequently, the Joint Chiefs "now strongly recommended that a full scale attack on Cuba should begin in thirty-six hours" (chapter 19, no page on my kindle). Weiner writes of no threats of a coup or other plans to act without Kennedy's orders.
* Kennedy may have been playing good cop (if that's an okay analogy) and trying to bluff. The goal might have been to surprise Kruschev and force him to act or else believe that the big bad US military would usurp control and strike first.
* Kennedy may have been advised by [Allen Dulles](_URL_4_) that the Soviet intelligence on the US military wasn't very good, with the goal to mislead Kruschev and persuade him to abandon any ideas of military action. (I think [Willie Fisher](_URL_3_) was the last resident Soviet agent until the late 1960s. The Wikipedia entry for the [KGB during the Cold War](_URL_2_) depicts a depleted Soviet intelligence network in the US because of McCarthyism and other internal spy hunting in the 1950s.)
Edit:
* For some more context, [here](_URL_0_) is a taped telephone recording of a conversation in which JFK called Eisenhower for advice during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither man mentions the possibility of the military acting out of order. | [
"Kennedy's Oval Office telephone conversation with Eisenhower soon after Khrushchev's message arrived revealed that the President was planning to use the Cuban Missile Crisis to escalate tensions with Khrushchev and in the long run, Cuba as well. The President also claimed that he thought the crisis would result in... |
Why is a dust particle floating upward in my room? | Air is still circulating in the room. If it weren't, then all of the air molecules would collect around the ground and there would be big troubles for us. | [
"In 1827, the British botanist Robert Brown observed that dust particles inside pollen grains floating in water constantly jiggled about for no apparent reason. In 1905, Albert Einstein theorized that this Brownian motion was caused by the water molecules continuously knocking the grains about, and developed a hypo... |
how come if a car sits for an extended period outside, the tires get dry rot, but the tires on my daily driver which sits outside all the time don't? | Because tyres work via friction on the road. Friction generates heat. Heat cycling a tyre causes chemicals used in the curing of the tyre to be released which stops them from cracking/rotting. Tyres that do not get heat cycled by driving the chemicals in the tyre remain in one place.
You can see this on motorbikes especially well. You go out for a ride and scrub the tyres in. That is to remove slippery waxy white layer that covers a tyre when it is new from the factory.
You can go hit some corners and ride like crazy and scrub your tyres down to the edge (what bikers call chicken strips). You heat cycle your tyres. Within a few days the the edges of your tyres (the bit you do not ride on) turn blue from the curing chemicals coming out from the heat cycling. Because motorbikes don't always ride up to the limit on the bit which contacts the road you can see the blueing.
Car tyres are designed to go through many heat cycles as a balance between life and grip. Racing cars and motorbikes are designed to go through limited heat cycled as they want grip. | [
"A literal flat spot can occur on car tires if the vehicle is parked without moving for some time (generally longer than a week), and the tire deformation at the bottom of the wheel becomes semi-permanent. The flat spot gradually relieves itself when the car is driven but can temporarily give similar symptoms to an... |
How and why did so many of the Buddhist monastic orders and sects that took root in Asia become divorced from meditation as a cornerstone of the religion/practice? | It was not the 'cornerstone' for many. There are other parts of the Noble Eightfold Path, after all. And there are many 'Dharma doors': devotion, faith, charity, compassion, ethical behavior, the path of study, the path of shamanism, the path of work, the path of yoga, lay and monastic paths, social and hermetic paths.
But one historical factor was that in the effort to establish, preserve, and study a ratified canon of scriptures, focus on the letter rather than the spirit of the teaching sometimes took precedence. Some radically meditative schools arose in response.
Millennia later, Zen set root in America before most other Buddhist sects, in part because western Buddhism is made in the image of the Western mind: heavy on the intellectual, light on the empathetic and physical, and always with the question "what's in it *for me*" resounding Western individualism. The vernacular by which Asian language and concepts were conveyed was, back then in the 1930s to 1960s, the terminology of psychology and to a lesser degree of atomic science.
Because Westerners are head-heavy, our concept of Buddhism is head-heavy. The common person generally thinks it's about meditation, but more fundamental concepts like compassion and faith are not widely embraced, largely because that's not what our culture recognized and glommed onto when Buddhism arrived here.
But outside of pop Buddhism, there are vibrant and authentic practice centers, and second and third generations of Western Buddhist masters unfolding a uniquely Western Buddhism without losing the grounding and lifeblood of lineage. | [
"East Asian Buddhist monastics generally follow the monastic rule known as the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya. One major exception is some schools of Japanese Buddhism where Buddhist clergy sometimes marry, without following the traditional monastic code or Vinaya. This developed during the Meiji Restoration, when a nationwi... |
How did CollegeBoard manage to get its SAT and AP tests to be such important steps in getting into most universities in the US? | The short answer to your question is that the College Board is the Old Boys Club in education made tangible.
The College Board (originally called the College Entrance Examination Board) is basically one of the first educational think-tanks in this country, founded in 1899 by educational leaders including Nicholas Murray Butler, future president of Columbia, with the explicit purpose of strengthening the connection between secondary and tertiary education. The Board would be joined in the educational landscape by others including The Carnegie Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and American Council on Education, all focused on "improving" education. Due the early leadership of Henry Chauncey, the Board gave some of their tests over to Educational Testing Services (ETS) and became a major player in the assessment of Americans - when scientific management became all the rage for schoolmen, they advocated for the new invention that was the multiple choice test. As public high schools advocated for courses for their students that would earn them college credit, similar to what some private schools did, the Board made Advanced Placement courses available to more schools. And when the gap between college acceptance criteria and high school exit skills became noticeably large, they were instrumental in making the SAT part of school culture.
AP has been around since the late 1950's when it was started by a group of private schools in partnership with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. In effect, the AP exams were about giving young men from families of means an extra leg up on their path to college. AP would expand beyond private schools and Ivy League colleges and is now a way for High School students to earn college credit. In some cases, high schools give extra weight to AP courses on a student's HS transcript, which can elevate their Grade Point Average (GPA). In addition, college admissions offices may view students who've successfully completed AP courses more favorably as it suggests they can handle college-level reading demands and rigor.
The College Board not only shepherded the Advanced Placement exams, they were also part of the evolution of the mental tests like the Army Alpha test, IQ tests, and the GRE. Chauncey, who was responsible for the College Boards' networking prowess and eventually the founding of Educational Testing Services (ETS) was deeply committed to the idea of meritocracy. Informed by the work of men like Alfred Binet and Edward Thorndike, he believed it was possible to create a test that would measure a learner's true ability and that test could help make America a true meritocracy.
He wasn't alone in this sentiment. American public schools began to adopt a philosophy of increasingly secular, liberal arts in the mid-1800's. The general goal was to provide all children (all never means all, though - mostly white children, mostly boys) could best be prepared for citizenship through a broad curriculum that touched on a variety of topics in a variety of ways, without requiring a young person commit to any particular future. This vision contrasted with the then reality of college - most East Coast colleges and universities had their own admissions exams, often very specific to the professors who worked there. By the late-1800's, the gap between college admissions criteria and high school exit skills was becoming an explicit source of frustration for schoolmen. One of the clearer examples of this involved a man who would eventually become a college president. He wanted to attend a particular university but when he arrived for the entrance exam and interview, realized his high school curriculum didn't align to what was expected and he had to spend at least a year studying with a tutor before taking their particular entrance exam. His personal experiences would be a recurring talking point at educational conferences in the early 1900's and is a compelling example of how personal a great deal of educational reform has been. This gap explicitly challenged the notion that America was a place where anyone (mostly white, mostly boys) could succeed, provided they worked hard enough.
The evolution of the SATs was the result of relationships between eugenicists and educators and there was a feedback loop between colleges, the US Army, and high schools as they developed, what they felt, were better and better tools for assessing things that were previously unknowable. Most of the leaders involved in the College Board's work were exposed to formal education from childhood, were from families with the means to provide their son with advanced education, and were white. None of the them were women. College presidents, private school headmasters, district superintendents, and leaders of groups like the College Board generally came from the same pool of East Coast educated of men, meaning those who advocated for change were typically viewing that change through a particular lens and pool of experience. That the College Board members' philosophy that tests can distinguish levels of thinking and abilities is so widely accepted today speaks to the networking that happened.
___
Further Reading:
[This](_URL_0_) is a pretty solid timeline of the SAT's evolution over time
Lemann, N. (2000). *The big test: The secret history of the American meritocracy.* Macmillan.
Riccards, M. (2009). *College Board and American Higher Education*, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
| [
"Many colleges use the SAT Subject Tests for admission, course placement, and to advise students about course selection. Some colleges specify the SAT Subject Tests that they require for admission or placement; others allow applicants to choose which tests to take. Students typically choose which tests to take depe... |
How surprising was the American military's dominance over Iraq in the Gulf War? | Well for one thing, observers were looking at what seemed to be building up to a massive scale conflict and Iraq's military was certainly nothing to sneeze at.
We have the gift of hindsight and many today seem to consider Iraq's military forces as weak, incompetent or 'not standing a chance' against US/UN coalition forces both during the Gulf War and the subsequent invasion several years later.
This can be compared to the disingenuous but fairly popular idea that French military forces or Polish military forces were 'weak' because of the results of World War II.
Admittedly, I am not expert on Iraq's military forces but I have some information that can provide some insight for you while we wait for someone more qualified to answer. In all honesty, I wrestled with whether or not I should post since my limited knowledge might not be able to fully answer all your questions, but since there hasn't been an answer yet, I'll try to fill the gap for now!
So what made Iraq's military seem a dangerous and capable enemy for the UN coalition forces??
**Well, for one thing Iraq had one of the largest standing armies in the world at the time of the conflict.** They theoretically could field upwards of a million personnel in their standing army and half again that many in various paramilitary groups. Of course, this was mainly on paper but it still stands that they drastically ramped up their conscription numbers and investment into the military, focusing on using any and all manpower they could find.
And of course numbers don't mean everything, especially in a modern conflict, but the ability to maintain, supply, equip, and sustain an army of this size certainly meant something. If nothing else, Iraq had the sophistication of doctrine and infrastructure as well as command & control capability necessary to make such a large military work smoothly.
**Iraq had also just come out of a long drawn out war with Iran.** There was no shortage of veterans and many of the officer corps leading Iraqi forces had cut their teeth in real actions during the Iran-Iraq War. Having a competent officer corps is essential for smooth operations.
The special forces and paramilitary units were considered fairly significant shock units that were deeply loyal to the Ba'ath Party and had seen action during the Iran-Iraq War. They had been expanded and given better equipment and apparently US military analysts expected to fight them to fight fiercely and inflict casualties even in the face of their own probable horrendous casualties.
And of course Iraq had tons of equipment. They had over 5000 tanks, close to 1000 combat aircraft, thousands of artillery pieces and thousands more of other various AFVs. Many of their vehicles were purchased from Chinese or Russia arms makers and they were not lacking in spare parts, ammunition, maintenance crews, or fuel. The Iraqi air force was not something they could just disregard as they had proven themselves more than capable flying many missions in previous conflicts and being well trained.
**The key worry coalition forces probably had was the vast array of effective anti air weaponry that the Iraqi military had.** The Iraqi forces had plenty of anti aircraft artillery (AAA), SAMs, MANPADs, etc. and the extensive AA network posed major threats.
**The other major worry for coalition forces was Iraq's notorious use of chemical weapons and SCUD missiles.** There was constant worry that Iraq would use one or both, the worst case scenario being SCUDs with chemical warheads. Iraqi SCUD launchers were incredibly difficult to locate and neutralize because they would operate mostly at night, 'shoot and scoot' and during the day would be hidden in extremely effective camouflage, under bridges, inside hardened bunkers, etc.
All these things added together meant that coalition forces were expecting significant casualties, especially in losing air assets as well as fears of mass chemical attacks.
So how did coalition forces inflict such a one sided loss on the Iraqi forces?
It can be summed up in three main things.
**Air superiority**
The initial air strikes that vastly reduced Iraqi ability to respond directly in the air paved the way for total aerial superiority over the skies in Kuwait. And because of the technology that the USAF fielded in stand off weaponry, it was able to negate much of the risk of flying into the extensive network of Iraqi AA defense. The effect of this cannot be overstated. Coalition air packages basically flew round the clock missions to constantly interdict Iraqi convoys, supply lines, command structures, and key infrastructure.
By the end of the conflict, many Iraqi forces simply routed because of the effect of nonstop air bombardment on morale. Many had no personal way to strike back at the aircraft and it must have felt terrifying to feel so powerless against an enemy that could blow you away with almost certainty.
**Information control**
Coalition forces had a massive advantage in battle intelligence over the Iraqis. Firstly, after air superiority was achieved, **air strikes immediately began to target known elements of the Iraqi command structure**. While the Iraqi military had a solid officer corps of upper ranking decision makers and generals, their lower rank officers were doctrinally inflexible and not prone to taking initiative.
This meant targeting communications and command units a priority for coalition forces, so as to 'chop off the head' of the Iraqi forces. They predicted that without clear, effective coordination from above, many Iraqi units would have their combat effectiveness drop drastically.
The other part of this was the integration of **GPS** as a standard for situational awareness and movement across the battlefield. This gave the coalition forces the ability to know in real time where their allies were and where Iraqi forces were situated, giving them the ability to track and engage enemy units at will.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces had to operate by maps, landmarks, and high command's coordination to figure out where they were and the location of enemy forces.
And while we talk about GPS, the final big advantage for coalition forces was **technology**.
Along with GPS, US air force weaponry, avionics, and comms were simply much better than Iraqi technology. Laser guided munitions, radar missiles that eliminated SAMs, better radar, etc.
Coalition tanks outclassed Iraqi tanks by a wide margin, which was more about the electronics than the thickness of armor or size of their barrels.
For example, M1 Abrams had excellent sights and gun stabilizers, along with GPS and their comms net allowed them to engage Iraqi tanks at distance and speed. Iraqi armor brigades were overwhelmed.
So yes, people were very surprised that there weren't a great deal more coalition casualties and they seemed to beat the Iraqis 'easily'.
Hopefully someone more informed than I comes along soon! | [
"The US role in the Gulf War was very significant. When Iraq decided to invade another Arab country, Kuwait, several Arab states decided to enter to free Kuwait; the US adopted these States, and headed the coalition forces, which gave the US the image of a liberator, especially among the rich Arab states of Saudi A... |
If I smashed my hand with a hammer, and someone cut my hand off instantly after, would I still feel the pain from the broken hand? | This question doesn't have anything to do with Phantom Pains. I'm not sure why it's the top voted comment right now. It has everything to do with how neurons conduct impulses.
When you smash your finger, the sensory neurons in that [dermatome](_URL_0_) are stimulated and send a signal of pain to your brain. You brain interprets the signal as pain and that's how you get the response. What you're asking is if you cut off your hand immediately after, would you still feel the pain from smashing your hand.
The answer is that it depends on if you cut off the hand before or after the signal has passed the point that you're cutting at. If the signal hasn't yet reached the point that you cut off, then it will not get to the brain, and will not be interpreted as pain. If it passes the point before you cut off the hand, it will still be interpreted.
It all depends on if you allow the signal to be sent to the brain. Hope this clears things up. | [
"A hammer may cause significant injury if it strikes the body. Both manual and powered hammers can cause peripheral neuropathy or a variety of other ailments when used improperly. Awkward handles can cause repetitive stress injury (RSI) to hand and arm joints, and uncontrolled shock waves from repeated impacts can ... |
why was it a trend to add 2000 and 3000 to the end of products? | There was a time when year 2000 was the future. | [
"It is quite possible that new sizes will continue to appear and disappear. One possible reason that a particular manufacturer may use a new size is to discourage use of third-party power supplies, either for technical reasons or to force use of their own accessories, or both.\n",
"The Commission concluded that m... |
Can electromagnetic radiation create sound? | Your definitions are a little hazy. On one end of the spectrum you have radio waves (which you can't hear directly...try listening now) on the other end you have gamma rays (which silently irradiate you). However if radio waves travel through the medium of a crystal radio you can definitely hear them. There is also radiation pressure which is one of the ways it interacts with matter.
| [
"Theories on the generation of these sounds may partially explain them. For example, scientists at NASA suggested that the turbulent ionized wake of a meteor interacts with Earth's magnetic field, generating pulses of radio waves. As the trail dissipates, megawatts of electromagnetic power could be released, with a... |
with websites using shortened links(reddit, youtube, twitter ect), why do they still use the full link at all? | It's just semantic. With the long URL, you can tell what subreddit it's in and what the title of the post is. You only need the thread ID to grab the thread's data, but it doesn't mean anything to any of us because we aren't relational databases. | [
"The company uses HTTP 301 redirects for its links. The shortcuts are intended to be permanent and cannot be changed once they are created. URLs that are shortened with the bitly service use the codice_3 domain or any other generic domain that the service offers. Information about any short bitly URL codice_4 is av... |
From an infantryman's perspective, what war from the beginning of the 20th century to the present has been the most horrific? | I think this will be almost a matter of taste. In chronological order, and taking no stance on which one is worst:
* The Boer war is notoriously the last in which the British Army suffered more casualties from disease than from combat. Also where concentration camps were invented, although this perhaps didn't bother the average infantryman too much.
* The Great War is perhaps not quite as bad as its reputation, but still, it was genuinely awful. Mud, rats, charging into machine guns, living in the trenches for months on end waiting for the shell that would finish you - perhaps it has been exaggerated, but still, it's all *true*. Also of note for the near impossibility of getting medical help if you were wounded between the trench lines. NB: No antibiotics, lots of muddy battlefields. Widespread use of chemical weapons by both sides.
* WWII, well, what can one say? You asked about infantrymen, so I'll leave the Holocaust out of it. But at least on the Eastern Front, things were pretty grim all around. Being taken prisoner - and let's note, neither side was that keen on prisoners - meant death by slow starvation. For the Russians, even those who survived captivity could expect some years in the Gulag. Something on the order of 80% of the Russian men born in 1923 died.
* Korean War: I can't think of any area in which this one was plausibly the worst.
* Vietnam: No support from home, or at least, none that was very obvious in the media. Perhaps the first unpopular war in which the soldiers could really *feel* that the home front didn't have their back.
* Iran-Iraq war: Unarmed teenagers charging into minefields. 'Nuff said.
Of course this is only a selection. No doubt I've missed some little hellhole in an obscure corner of Africa that's notorious for 50% of its veterans having PTSD, or something of the sort. All in all, I think I would put my money on the Great War; but there are a lot of strong contenders out there. | [
"World War II is a prime example of paramount number of military operations with a long history of military conflict involving 30 countries, lasting from 1939 to 1945 and being the deadliest wars, killing over 70 million people across the globe. There are many factors that contributed to World War II which were the... |
Do wild animals get physical addictions to substances? | They certainly *can*, though I have no benchmark for how common this is in most species.
There is plenty of documentation for various animals seeking out psychoactive substances on the semi-regular. Common ones include preferential selection of fermented fruit over newly fallen material for the purpose of getting drunk. (Or at least, that's a common conclusion for why they do it.) My understanding is that goats are especially likely to seek out anything psychoactive they can find, including hallucinogens and the like.
But these examples of drug *use* doesn't necessarily give us usable data on how many of these animals are **addicted** per se. I don't actually know of any studies that looked into that specific aspect of drug use within the animal kingdom. | [
"Animal models, especially rats and mice, are used for many types of biological research. The animal models of addiction are particularly useful because animals that are addicted to a substance show behaviors similar to human addicts. This implies that the structural changes that can be observed after the animal in... |
In the 1800s in "wild west" America were there neighborhoods that people lived in similar to today? Or were there singular houses spread out randomly? | The West is an enormous place so generalizations are difficult to make. That said, the majority of the region was and continues to be largely urban in its settlement. Since most people in the nineteenth century did not have a horse (contrary to the Hollywood-based stereotype), people had to be able to walk to work, shopping, places of worship, places of leisure, etc. This often resulted in tightly-packed houses. There was often room in the back (for an outhouse and also for a place for chickens or growing vegetables, etc., but the idea of a large yard surrounding a house and setting it away from the road is a fairly late ideal for the West. | [
"While there are houses on Fairfield Avenue that date from the nineteenth century, the majority of the single and multi-family houses in the South West neighborhood were built between the 1940s-1960s. Recognizable patterns of American vernacular architecture predominate in the South West, including small colonial r... |
Can someone elaborate on the natural gas pipelines of the Han dynasty? | [You might find this interesting.](_URL_1_) Can't say I know much more than that, but I recall Needham mentioning the same thing in one of his books on China. You can download his books [here](_URL_0_) if you're interested. Sorry for the short answer and I haven't read RKG's book, but this is something right? Maybe /u/Asiaexpert can help out. | [
"Natural gas was discovered accidentally in ancient China, as it resulted from the drilling for brines. Natural gas was first used by the Chinese in about 500 BCE (possibly even 1000 BCE). They discovered a way to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to boil salt w... |
What is Mitochondrial Decay? Is this real? | Mitochondrial DNA decay is a weak argument against evolution. Creationists are still looking at developing sciences and demanding immediate proof for "gaps" in scientific knowledge.
The primary role of mitochondria is to increase the energy extraction from glucose with cellular respiration by about 16 times over anaerobic respiration. There are ~1,000 mitochondria in each cell. Each mitochondrion has its own set of DNA, which is distinct from the cell's nuclear DNA. The mitochondrial DNA is arranged in a single loop and has 180,000 times less DNA than the nuclear DNA. The mitochondria reproduce asexually, most likely by binary fission. Its DNA will change over time, just like in bacteria, and it is subject to intracellular evolution. Like some bacteria, there is evidence that mitochondria are also able to repair their DNA with DNA recombination.
_URL_0_
This is mostly edited, since I initially didn't answer the question in order to address some misconceptions (which I am leaving below).
It took several biology courses before I had a thorough and continuous understanding of evolution from base pair and codon, to proteins and traits, to the biosphere. I'll try to be as concise as possible.
During mitosis (eukaryotic cell division for growth and cell replacement), after initial corrections during DNA synthesis, DNA deteriorates (mutates) at a rate of about 1 in a billion base pairs per replication. With somatic cells, if the mutation is significant enough and is caught by the G2 checkpoint, the cell will initiate autolysis (self destruct), otherwise, it could lead to a cancer cell.
Generally, the mutations do not cause any significant impact on the function of the cell (genes not expressed, or mutation doesn't affect protein). DNA synthesis truncates the chromosome each time in most somatic cells by initially cutting off the telomeres (extra non-coding DNA). Eventually, the telomeres are cut off completely, and coding DNA is damaged, which leads to loss of function.
During meiosis (creation of sex cells for reproduction), gametes form from stem cells that add the lost pieces of telomeres to the ends of the chromosomes, but there is still the same 1 in a billion base pair error rate.
This, as well as other sources of mutation, is the root cause for both positive and negative additions of alleles to the population/species. The significant negative additions, as judged by fitness to the environment, are eliminated by natural selection. Most new alleles cause no change in fitness, but many result in lower fitness.
On rare occurrences, positive mutations are introduced (rare), which contribute to a greater fitness to the organism with the new allele compared to the existing population. This organism with the new allele is then selected for by natural selection, and this increases the frequency of the allele in future populations. This is what is referred to as "macroevolution". I use quotation marks because there are differences in how this word is interpreted. I am not a creationist, but creationists have argued that the rate of additions of beneficial alleles to a species is not consistent with the result of the proposed ~2 billion years of evolution.
Additional note: microevolution is generally referred to as the change in pre-existing allele frequency (traits) in a population. | [
"Mitochondrial theory of aging was first proposed in 1978, and shortly thereafter the Mitochondrial free radical theory of aging was introduced in 1980. The theory implicates the mitochondria as the chief target of radical damage, since there is a known chemical mechanism by which mitochondria can produce Reactive ... |
how does a website know i mistyped my card number before i even click “place order”? | Part of the card number identifies the type of card so it can tell immediately if you have tried to put a debit card instead of a credit card (or vice versa) or if that part of the number doesn't match any type of card. | [
"Marked cards are printed or altered so that the cheater can know the value of specific cards while only looking at the back. Ways of marking are too numerous to mention, but there are certain broad types. A common way of marking cards involves marks on a round design on the card so as to be read like a clock (an a... |
How do molecules such as ATP, mRNA and proteins, transport around the cell? | Proteins bind a host of other proteins that both direct their transport and physically move them throughout the cell. Freshly translated proteins are loaded into little structures known as vesicles, these vesicles are bound by 'motor' proteins that physically walk up and down long polymerised tracks known as microtubules that extend throughout the cell. In this manner proteins can be delivered to the area of the cell in which they are required. Each protein normally contains a short sequence of its amino acid sequence that acts a barcode, letting the transport machinery know where it's supposed to go. | [
"Mechanism of transport. A molecule will bind to a transporter protein, altering its shape. The change of shape or other added substances such as ATP will, in turn, cause the transport protein to alter its shape and release the molecule onto the other side of the cell membrane. \n",
"Mitochondrial membrane tran... |
The need for air conditioners to have a solid barrier between inside and outside... | An AC doesn't make "cold" out of nothing. In reality there is no such thing as making cold. What it does is separate hot from cold. So cold air comes out one side, and hot air comes out the other. If there is no barrier. the inefficiencies of the whole process would actually make the room hotter.
TL;DR - It would be like pooping on the floor instead of in the toilet - the waste has to go somewhere | [
"Some buildings designed with sustainable architecture principles may use airtight technologies to conserve energy. Under some low energy building, passive house, low-energy house, self-sufficient homes, zero energy building, and superinsulation standards, structures must be more air-tight than other lesser standar... |
why iron is considered the most 'stable' element. wouldnt helium or the inert gases be it? | It’s a different kind of stable. Helium is stable since it doesn’t react with other elements, while iron is stable in the way that if you have a single iron atom, it isn’t going to fall apart. | [
"Because of the common occurrence of those two elements in the universe, possible compounds of hydrogen and iron have attracted attention. A few molecular compounds have been detected in extreme environments (such as stellar atmospheres) or detected in small amounts at very low temperatures. The two elements form a... |
is there an actual law stating that the opposite genders aren't allowed to go into the other's restroom in a public space, or is it just a common courtesy being practiced? | I dont think there's any law. I was at Belmont a few years ago to see Smarty Jones, there was a record breaking crowd there. I am in the mens room taking a pee as some nice looking well dressed girl walks right past me, as I am standing in the urinal. Jeezus that freaked me out. I told her what the hell! and she's like "the women's room is filled"
Jeezus, just try this as a man. | [
"An area of legal concern for transgender people is access to restrooms which are segregated by gender. Transgender people have, in the past, been asked for legal identification while entering or using a gendered restroom. Recent legislation has moved in contradictory directions. On one hand, non-discrimination law... |
why is it i feel more comfortable walking around while im on phone? am i alone in this? | I do the same thing and have always wondered why. I always guessed that it was because it's a habit to move away from other people while talking on the phone as to not be rude. | [
"Due to the proliferation of smart phone applications performed while walking, \"texting while walking\" or \"wexting\" is the increasing practice of people being transfixed to their mobile device without looking in any direction but their personal screen while walking. First coined reference in 2015 in New York fr... |
What two ethnic groups are genetically farthest from each other? | I don't know which specific groups, but at least one of them, and maybe both, would be associated with sub-Saharan Africa. All of the populations associated with other parts of the world would have diverged more recently, ie. after having migrated farther away, and are therefore more closely related to each other. [Here's a diagram of pre-modern migrations based on mitochondrial DNA](_URL_0_). I can't guarantee it's up to date or exactly correct (Wikipedia, after all), but it generally conveys the out-of-Africa model. | [
"A 1994 study by Cavalli-Sforza and colleagues evaluated genetic distances among 42 native populations based on 120 blood polymorphisms. The populations were grouped into nine clusters: African (sub-Saharan), Caucasoid (European), Caucasoid (extra-European), northern Mongoloid (excluding Arctic populations), northe... |
why are spray bottles cold, instead of hot, to the touch? | 1. they aren't hot or cold when resting. If they stayed hot while under pressure then you'd have just discovered infinite energy! The bottle may _feel_ cold because it absorbs heat readily (e.g. it's made of aluminum).
2. you may be feeling the bottle after it has lowered its pressure. The bottle will become - as you mention in your post - colder when the pressure is released. (e.g. spray an aerosol can for a while and it will be cold). | [
"A spray bottle is a bottle that can squirt, spray or mist fluids. A common use for spray bottles is dispensing cool cleaners, cosmetics, and chemical specialties. Another wide use of spray bottles is mixing down concentrates such as pine oil with water.\n",
"Heavier than plastic, stainless steel or aluminum bott... |
why do we have to go through us customs in canada, but not the canadian customs in the us? | It used to be that you went though US customs in the US, and Canadian customs in Canada. Some smaller airports continue to work this way.
But then the US introduced customs pre-clearing, so instead of checking after you've arrived in the USA, the check everything before you get there. | [
"Canada and the United States have the world's largest trading relationship, with huge quantities of goods and people flowing across the border each year. Since the 1987 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, there have been no tariffs on most goods passed between the two countries.\n",
"The U.S. maintains im... |
ocams razor and the burden of proof | **Occam's razor:** The original, from William of Occam, is: *"plurality should not be posited without necessity."* This means that you shouldn't add assumptions that are not needed to explain something.
Nowadays it is used to say that, of several possible explanations, the simpler one should be preferred, because it is most likely to be true. Note that it's not true all the time, but in an argument it puts the holder of a more complex explanation in a weaker position, and puts the burden of proof on them.
**Burden of proof:** If the burden of proof is on you, it means that it's up to you to prove something, not up to other people to prove you wrong. This happens when you make a claim that strays for the default position (sometimes called the null hypothesis).
For example the default position of the existence of things is that they don't exist. If you make the claim that something exists, it's up to you to prove that it does. If I claim that there's a teapot on my desk, I can get proof: I can see it, touch it, I can take a picture of it and show it to you, etc. If I claim that there's a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars orbits, I can't prove it. You can't disprove it either, but the burden of proof is on me. In the absence of proof of its existence, we shouldn't consider that it exists.
| [
"Occam's razor is not an embargo against the positing of any kind of entity, or a recommendation of the simplest theory come what may. Occam's razor is used to adjudicate between theories that have already passed \"theoretical scrutiny\" tests and are equally well-supported by evidence. Furthermore, it may be used ... |
From your period of expertise, what is a human trait that was revered, held in high regard or even just generally accepted that would typically be looked down upon today? | There is absolutely no way that the media would have given FDR the same consideration of his disability that they did in the 1930's and 40's. Even when he was "walking" you could tell something was wrong. Many people knew he had problems, but the full extent of his disability was relatively well hidden. Also, the media ignored many sex scandals or, rather, people didn't contact the media about them (Grover Cleveland's illegitimate child being an exception). | [
"BULLET::::- Cicero questions why, despite the fact that many people have exceptional abilities, there are so few exceptional orators. Many are the examples of war leaders, and will continue to be throughout history, but only a handful of great orators.\n",
"'(He) was a remarkable person who achieved great things... |
what happens to a copyright when the company that holds it goes out of business? | The rights would be considered an asset by the liquidators and sold in order to pay creditors | [
"The Copyright Act of 1976 gives copyright owners control over most, if not all, activities of conceivable commercial value. The statute provides that the owner of a copyright has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: \n",
"The owner of copyright may assign the copyright (s. 14) or gra... |
Where did Western Europe get its natural gas during the Cold War? | If I may add a few supplementary points to u/kieslowskifan 's answer...
At the beginning of the Cold War period, natural gas was not in wide usage as a fuel in Western Europe. Coal gas was made in gasworks local to many towns and cities, then piped to homes. The USA moved from coal gas to natural gas earlier than European countries, due to domestic discoveries.
Stern:
> The modern history of natural gas in Europe began in 1959 with the discovery of the Groningen field in
the Netherlands, followed a few years later by the first discoveries in the UK sector of the North Sea. This was followed by equally substantial discoveries of gas in the Norwegian sector starting in the 1970s. But while the UK had a huge domestic market, Norway did not and created a huge export business with a number of pipelines delivering gas to both Continental Europe and the UK.
Natural gas was already known in smaller quantities from the North Sea area - it was the scale of the discoveries which was new. There were also some smaller onshore discoveries, including in France in the late 1950s. Natural gas discoveries led to infrastructure conversions (although France also strongly favoured nuclear power in its energy policy).
In Britain, the change from town/coal gas to natural gas began in 1958, and by 1971, 69% of domestic gas supplies were via natural gas (Kreitman, 1976). Major discoveries were made in the North Sea in 1965-7, showing it was a significant gas bearing area, and the change was accelerated. Dodds & Desmoullin state "In the 1960s, large deposits of natural gas were discovered under the North Sea and the UK Gas Council decided to switch the entire country from manufactured town gas to natural gas in a national program over a 10 year period."
So, alongside the import of natural gas from North Africa, Western European countries were supplying much of their own natural gas in the 1970s and 1980s than they do now.
Stern:
> Even before Dutch pipeline gas exports started to flow, the first LNG ships were arriving in the UK and France from Algeria. Over long distances or across water too deep for pipelines to be laid, LNG can be a very convenient alternative to pipeline gas. However, in the early 1960s the technology of liquefying gas to minus 161 degrees Celsius, loading it on to ships to be regasified on arrival, was both demanding and expensive. LNG-receiving terminals were built in the UK, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium, and later in Turkey and Greece, but the rate of growth of LNG in Europe was modest until the early 1990s when new developments in technology made LNG more competitive.
His paper shows the following figures for European OECD (pre-1991 member countries) gas production and demand, in billions of cubic metres:
1960: 10.4 | 10.4
1970: 79.7 | 82.2
1980: 199.1 | 235.4
1990: 196.7 | 290.1
% imports from non-OECD countries:
1960 0
1970 1.0
1980 15.3
1990 31.7
ETA (Adding this quote from p.1. Now deleted: totals figures from Stern's Table 2 which include Russian gas exports to some East European countries as well as some of Western Europe.)
> Between 1970 and 1980 deliveries of Soviet gas to Western Europe increased from 3.4 BCM to 26 BCM. By 1990 gas exports had risen to 109 BCM and Western Europe, with 63 BCM of imports, was the largest customer for Soviet gas.
Unfortunately there isn't a breakdown showing how much of the 1980s increase in imports to Western Europe occurred after Gorbachev announced reforms.
**References**
Paul E. Dodds & Stéphanie Demoullin, 'Conversion of the UK gas system to transport hydrogen', International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Volume 38, Issue 18, 18 June 2013, Pages 7189-7200.
Norman Kreitman, 'The coal gas story', British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 30, 86-93 (1976).
Jonathan Stern, Natural Gas in Europe: the Importance of Russia
Available from: _URL_0_
| [
"Although oil and gas were the primary Soviet exports to Western Europe, they represented only a small percentage of Western Europe's substantial fuel imports: Soviet oil provided 3 percent and natural gas 2 percent of the energy consumed in Western Europe. The completion of the Urengoy-Uzhgorod export pipeline pro... |
why do objects that are the same temperature as our average body temperature feel hotter than our hand when we touch them? | Because 37 degrees is the body core temperature. Your fingertips are often colder than that, especially the skin, where your thermoceptors are. | [
"When a person touches a hot object and withdraws their hand from it without actively thinking about it, the heat stimulates temperature and pain receptors in the skin, triggering a sensory impulse that travels to the central nervous system. The sensory neuron then synapses with interneurons that connect to motor n... |
Sleeping with music playing | In general, noise throughout the night is disruptive to sleep, especially if the noise level is highly variable, e.g., occasional loud noises. However, a steady background noise (e.g., white noise) can be beneficial to sleep quality if the environment is inherently noisy, e.g., [the ICU of a hospital](_URL_0_). Of course, if the white noise itself is very loud, [sleep quality is adversely affected](_URL_1_).
There have been several studies assessing the use of music to fall asleep. Most of these have involved listening to music for ~45 minutes around bedtime. For example, [this study](_URL_5_) in students with sleep complaints found that listening to classical music around bedtime could improve sleep, relative to listening to an audiobook or to nothing. [This meta-analysis](_URL_4_) found some beneficial effect of bedtime music interventions on sleep quality. However, it was based on only 5 studies in different populations, and found a relatively small effect. Many sleep/music studies have unfortunately been poorly designed, as discussed [here](_URL_3_). Note also that most studies involving music as a sleep-aid have naturally been targeted at groups that have sleep problems. [This study](_URL_2_) found no effect of listening to classical music for 45 minutes at bedtime in healthy sleepers.
I am not aware of *any* studies where participants listened continuously to music throughout the night. Based on prior results, one could reasonably expect that sleep quality would be reduced if the sound level or quality changed frequently during the night (e.g., a playlist with many different types of music or high-tempo music). It is plausible that listening to calm relaxing music (e.g., classical music) throughout the night could be beneficial if there are already noise problems in the environment or if the individual has sleep problems. But without an appropriate study, it's not possible to say for sure. | [
"\"Sleeping\" is a song by The Band, first released on their 1970 album \"Stage Fright\". It was also released as the B-side to the \"Stage Fright\" single. It was co-written by Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel. This and “Just Another Whistle Stop” are the only two songs Manuel receives credit for on the album. ... |
Why are creatures more energy efficient the larger they become? | At least for warm-blooded animals, surface area to volume, and heat loss are significant factors. Mammals, for example, keep a body temperature that is almost always warmer than their surroundings.
Imagine you have a cube mouse, 1 meter x 1 meter x 1 meter. This mouse has a volume of 1m^3, and a total surface area of 6m^2. It has a surface area to volume ratio of (6m^2 )/(1m^3 ), which works out to be equal to **6:1** (m^2 /m^3 ). It has 6 square meters to lose heat from for every 1 cubic meter of body tissue.
Now we make the mouse bigger, increasing its size to 2m x 2m x 2m. The mouse has a volume of 8 m^3, and a surface area 24 m^2. The mouse now only has to deal with 3 m^2 of heat loss for every 1 m^3 of volume, it has a SA/V ratio of only **3:1** (m^2 / m^3). Since producing heat requires burning metabolic energy, the larger mouse will be able to expend proportionally less energy in order to maintain the same body temperature, making it more efficient. | [
"For example, larger organisms find it easier to avoid or fight off predators and capture prey, to reproduce, to kill competitors, to survive temporary lean times, and to resist rapid climatic changes. They may also potentially benefit from better thermal efficiency, increased intelligence, and a longer lifespan.\n... |
How did the armies of Genghis Khan handle logistics? | First I would recommend looking at Mongol culture and lifestyle. The Mongols come from a harsh steppe, and had a strong nomadic culture. It's cold at night, and hot during the day. The land is generally pretty terrible for farming, and there aren't many forests or trees around to cut up to build stuff with. Water is pretty rare, but not quite as rare as your typical desert.
As you can predict, Mongol society around the time of Genghis Khan was based around herding livestock (goats mostly) on the Mongol plateau. Without livestock, it was practically impossible to survive on the steppe.
Thus, the nomadic Mongols traveled in nomadic clans and subclans to protect their livestock and people from raiders of enemy clans. A clan chieftain was typically responsible for politicking and providing protection for his entire clan. Regardless, all boys from a very young age learned to ride and travel by [horse](_URL_0_).
BTW, the Mongolian Domesticated Horse is one hell of a horse (especially the way they trained it). Definitely check out the link above if you have time.
They also made and practiced with their famous recurve bows from a very young age.
**Traveling and living off the land**
This harsh lifestyle made it easy for them to live off rich lands, like medieval Persia, northern India, China, and eastern Europe.
When traveling for war, each Mongol soldier had about 3-5 horses, all mares (the Mongols preferred mares for various reasons). One great utility the mares provided was milk on the go. If necessary, a mare could be slaughtered for her meat. When things got really rough, there are stories that claim the Mongols would drink the blood of their mares mixed with milk for nourishment, and survive like this for weeks.
During the time of Ghenghis Khan's conquests, conquering a nation usually involved the pillage of cities, execution of fighting-aged men, and enslavement of women, children, engineers, and other "useful" people. Sometimes slaves were also used as fodder at the beginning of battles.
Usually siege weapons, small weapons stockpiles (arrows mostly), came by supply train. The animals pulling the train needed water and food, so it wasn't a huge deal to move that stuff around as long as a route was scouted before hand (which the Mongols were masters at).
**Communication**
The Mongols created a pan-empire horse-post-relay system to send written messages around the empire, but I think you were asking about communicating during war? Coordination between multiple armies was done through horse messengers (mentioned previously). During combat, the Mongols used any combination of the following based on what most practical given the environment, geography and weather, or what the commander preferred: beating kettles, horns, flags, smoke signals, and signal arrows.
I wrote a set of rather lengthy papers a while back on the effectiveness of the Horse-mounted archer and recurve bow and its role in the rapid expansion of the Mongol Empire, so there are a LOT of sources that I'm not going to remember. I'll try to list some.
A lot of this stuff could also be wrong since it's primarily from memory of my research, and the paper is not accessible right now.
Sources:
* **[Primary Resource]:** The fall of the Jurchen Chin: Wang E's memoir on Ts'ai-chou under the Mongol siege (1233-1234)
* The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe - J. Chambers
* Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700 - E. Hildinger
* Mounted Archers of the Steppe 600 BC-AD 1300 - A. Karasulas
* The Mongols - D. Morgan
* The Mongol Art of War - T. May
* The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History: How Genghis Khan's Mongols Almost Conquered the World - T. Craughwell
There are many others, including primary documents that I can't remember right now. I'll check my papers once I get home from work and will update. In the meantime, please correct or point out any errors I've made.
**EDIT 1**: Thanks /u/screwyoushadowban for correcting me on the type of horse.
**EDIT 2**: Full list of relevant sources added | [
"Each archer had at least one extra horse – there was an average five horses per man – thus the entire army could move with astounding rapidity. Moreover, since horse milk and horse blood were the staples of the Mongolian diet, Genghis' horse-herds functioned not just as his means of movement but as his logistical ... |
how are deisel-electric engines more energy efficient than direct-drive deisel engines? | The diesel motor can run constantly at its most efficient rpm to charge the battery, rather than having to scale up and down as the vehicle accellerates. You can also get benefits from regenerative braking. | [
"When poor efficiency in a VFD powered motor has been investigated, in every case documented to date, the root cause for the loss in efficiency was either improper installation or a failure to adhere to best practices. Almost universally, a VFD increases the efficiency of a system and reduces operating costs.\n",
... |
why do i find it so hard to change my eating habits? how do i get myself to like eating something? | The way I see it is that the keyword is habit. It's amazing how closely related food and smells are to conditioning, think Pavlovian conditioning and the salivating dogs. When we eat or smell something high in fat or sugar our brain releases chemicals, most of them feel good. Seeing many of us have a choice in our food and they usually tend to be high in these we tend to get conditioned to feel good when eating them and bad when eating something else, hence we are conditioned to eat them more often. In this way a person could become a "chocoholic", but not to that extreme. Also food and smells are very closely connected to memories, this is why nostalgic food exists. This also leads back into the conditioning where you remember and associate foods. To my knowledge there is no way that you can force yourself to like another food, accept for dong exactly that. Studies have shown that if you lie to your self and generally have a good reason to you may start to believe that lie to an extent. Also if you can form a positive association with that food, eat a carrot when ever you do something you like. | [
"There are multiple parts of an elderly person's life that can affect their preferences in foods. Aspects like the environment, mental & physical health, and lifestyle choices are all contributing to the way a person decides on what foods they happen to like or dislike.\n",
"Cognitive behavioural therapy, individ... |
Was there a period in the 19th century when Portugal was essentially governed from Brazil? | You are correct. But as you might guess the situation was far more complicated than that.
In 1803 the UK and France went back to war. Portugal was a long standing ally of England, but wanted no part of war with Napoleon. So the regent João (later João VI) tried to walk a line of neutrality between them. João was in a precarious position as he was ruling on behalf of his insane mother Maria I, and not by his own authority.
In 1807 Napoleon demanded that Portugual join the continental system, close their ports to the British, and seize British property. João not wanting to piss off his British allies only did part of what Napoleon wanted, stoping short of seizing property. He hoped that would be enough to appease Napoleon while stil not upsetting the British too much. It wasn't enough and by November Napoleon had troops marching on Lisbon.
On November 29th, some 15,000 Portuguese royalty, nobility, and attendants boarded Portuguese and British ships and sailed for Brazil. On December 1st general Jean-Andoche Junot entered Portugal. Portugal was divided into three zones of occupation and the Spanish and French took over rule of the country.
The Portuguese populous didn't take too kindly to the occupation. In 1808 the locals joined in popular uprisings in both Spain and Portugal kicking off the Peninsular war. In 1809 the future Duke of Wellington arrived and drove the French out of Portugal. The French were back in country shortly after, and especially the north of Portugal was invaded and liberated several times. In 1811 Wellington was able to push out of Portugal for good, and the rest of the Peninsular war was fought exclusively in Spain. During these first few years it's hard to say anyone was ruling Portugal, let alone the Portuguese court in distant Rio. Rule either fell to whatever local politicians could hold, or to whichever military officer happened to be closest.
Before long the British officer, William Beresford was made Marshal and commander in chief of the Portuguese army, in March of 1809. He also acted more or less as the military governor of Portugal throughout the rest of the Napoleonic wars. As time passed this role was made more and more official, but it was largely just the Brazilian court recognizing the power he had already just simply seized. As the years passed, even after the war ended, he made trips every couple of years to Rio where he was consistently invested with more and more power.
The Portuguese were very unhappy with this turn of events. Once the war was over they had expected to see the court return to Lisbon. They wanted a return to preeminent status in the empire, and they wanted their British overlord to go away. So in 1820 when Beresford returned from a visit to the Court in Rio, he found a revolution in progress, and the locals didn't even let him off his ship. The revolutionaries demanded a return of the crown, that Brazil be downgraded back to a colony, and a constitution. By 1822 got everything they wanted.
So while nominally Portugal was ruled by Brazil for 15 years or so, in practice war and insurrection greatly limited the court's practical control. Functionally Portugal was ruled by no one or everyone depending on local conditions. Little thought was given to the opinions of the far away court in Rio. Most of all it was ruled by a British general who's authority was half appointed and half seized. It's hard to say that there was ever a point that Portugal was essentially ruled from Brazil. | [
"In 1808, the Portuguese Court was transferred to Brazil as direct consequence of the invasion of Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars. The office of Viceroy of Brazil ceased to exist upon the arrival of the Royal Family in Rio de Janeiro, since the Prince Regent, the future King Jonh VI, assumed personal control of... |
why does steam/valve insist that linux is the future of gaming? | There are several reasons for Valve pushing Linux or specifically SteamOS.
First reason is streamlined PC gaming, providing a more console like experience where everything just (usually) works. I.e. by taking all the weird crap people often have installed on their Windows machines out of the loop and instead just provide a gaming focused OS with good driver support there should be far less of the compatibility issues often associated with PC gaming.
Second, is Valve trying to optimize graphics and audio performance, although to be honest I doubt they can really do it that much better than Microsoft. You can say a lot about MS but DirectX is actually pretty good. I think the whole L4D2 working better on Linux is more about Valve wanting to create a good story for their Linux support than any inherent Linux performance edge.
Third, what I believe is the most important reason and the reason Valve don't talk about is, platform control. Valve sees what Microsoft is doing with the Windows Store in Windows 8 as a major threat. On Windows 8 RT devices, the only way to install apps is the Windows Store. Valve fears that Microsoft will eventually move in the same direction with non-RT devices, this would be a deathblow to the Steam platform. Such a move from Microsoft will take time, but Windows 8 is the first step and Valve recognized that they would need to move early to counter it.
By creating their own platform, SteamOS, Valve gains complete control. They can kiss competition from Origin and other digital game pushers’ goodbye. I can promise you that in SteamOS you only buy from the Steam platform. Using the trusted platform technology already built into many PCs today, they could also make SteamOS more resistant to game piracy, a huge incentive for game publishers to support SteamOS.
So yeah, I’m excited about SteamOS as much as most here on reddit, but I doubt it will be a huge gaming revolution for Linux distros that aren't SteamOS and don't think that Valve is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. This is a business decision, plain and simple.
| [
"During a panel at LinuxCon in 2013, Valve co-founder and executive director Gabe Newell stated that he believed \"Linux and open source are the future of gaming\", going on to say that the company is aiding game developers who want to make games compatible with Linux, and that they would be making an announcement ... |
title ll of net neutrality. how could isp's benefit from having control of internet speed on certain websites and apps? | They would get the power to censor as they see fit (we don't want you to visit site X, so we'll just restrict all data flow to and from it) and they would get the opportunity to add extra fees - an example would be to limit data speeds to the point where streaming becomes impossible, and then they'd charge you extra to raise the limit so you can watch Netflix, or have Netflix pay them extra not to do that so their customers can access their service.
| [
"On 23 April 2014, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was reported to be considering a new rule that will permit ISPs to offer content providers a faster track to send content, thus reversing their earlier net neutrality position. A possible solution to net neutrality concerns may be municipal broadba... |
how do arms deals work? | The deal is between the UK government and the Saudi government. Regulations prevent BAE Systems (or anybody else) from just selling dangerous weapons on a retail basis. They sell them to the UK government, deliver them in Saudi Arabia, and get paid by the UK government with money they got from the Saudi government.
If you just set up your own munitions factory and sell to anybody - you're a terrorist. | [
"BULLET::::- Arm – is the part of the upper limb between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. In common usage, the arm extends to the hand. It can be divided into the upper arm, which extends from the shoulder to the elbow, the forearm which extends from the elbow to the hand, and the hand. ... |
Was the collapse of Rome felt/realised in China? | I asked this question a few years ago
_URL_0_
The top comment by /u/Ambarenya states that the Chinese were at least vaguely aware of the Roman Empire's existence and had at least some limited communication. After a while the Chinese noticed that the limited communication had faded down to barely a whisper, giving the impression that something had happened to the Romans. By the 7th century the Chinese are at least aware of the Byzantine empire, which they identify as a successor to the now defunct Roman Empire | [
"Alexander Demandt enumerated 210 different theories on why Rome fell, and new ideas have emerged since. Historians still try to analyze the reasons for loss of political control over a vast territory (and, as a subsidiary theme, the reasons for the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire). Comparison has also been ma... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.