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How Integrated circuit are designed ? | They are written in programming languages that specify the logical operations.
Then Synthesis is performed by (a usually very expensive) piece of software to map the
logic to the transistors.
[Some example code](_URL_1_)
In the old days chip designers were drawing huge masks with some kind of cutting
equipment and rulers, [like for the 6502](_URL_0_). | [
"Integrated circuit design involves the creation of electronic components, such as transistors, resistors, capacitors and the interconnect of these components onto a piece of semiconductor, typically silicon. A method to isolate the individual components formed in the substrate is necessary since the substrate sili... |
how does the technology that sees if tennis balls are in or out work, and how come it hasn't completely replaced linesmen? | I know more about this than a lay-person should, but that's perhaps because I'm considering starting a business in this area. On this, you can AAMA - I know quite a bit.
I also know this is _way_ more info than you actually care about, and nobody is going to care about this, but I enjoy talking about it, so, here goes:
The system you're talking about in tennis is called [Hawk-Eye](_URL_1_) and the first time I saw it in use was during a cricket match being shown in the UK where the broadcaster had brought it in to understand very subtle decisions almost impossible to judge by eye (cricket has a rule called "LBW" which in particular, is hard to get right sometimes by sight), and it quickly got engrained into the top tier of the game.
There are other systems as well. Ever wondered how "they know" your favourite soccer player has run 18.2km this game? That's almost certainly from the [ChryonHego](_URL_2_) Tracab system.
When it comes to pass completion, shots on goal, etc. that data is probably coming from another system called Opta. That relies on a mixture of camera tracking and human event classification (they have people at games saying "that frame was a pass, that frame was an attempt at goal, etc."
In Rugby the players are often wearing positional tracking devices that also track heart rate and letting coaches know how players are performing in real-time. I believe NFL does this too. Basketball has a mixture of systems, and in cricket, they have even more toys (I'll come back to that).
You are probably also aware that in motorsports, the objective has become "a driver moving as large a collection of sensors as possible around a track as quickly as possible", because the more sensors you have, the better you are at managing the data, the more likely you are to win. Hilariously, just this weekend, one F1 team has shown that their [positional analysis is easy to fool and can lead to stupid decisions](_URL_0_).
The positional tracking systems all have similar concepts: film something, then analyse each frame. In the case of Tracab and Opta, they're happy with 25 frames per second, the same as most broadcast TV systems. I would argue it's a little too low for accuracy.
Hawk-Eye is a much higher frame rate (500-1000 frames per second) that should aid with the accuracy. Each frame is broken down in terms of object recognition: here are the lines, here's the ball. Now look at the relationship between them and produce a data frame. The data frame will have x, y, z co-ordinates of a ball in relation to a line or some other aspect you care about, and can be fed into a piece of software that can call "foul" or "goal" or whatever you need.
Now, why has it not all replaced officials? It's obviously already used to augment officials. In some tennis competitions you can actually hear Hawk-Eye make a noise on fouls that is effectively taking the place of a linesman. In EPL games, goal line technology using something like Hawk-Eye (not ChyronHego, I believe), is used to let a referee know the ball just crossed the line in case it's not obvious to them.
For some scenarios then, it is being used to replace linesmen. There are three reasons it hasn't yet succeeded in removing them completely, I think.
Firstly: cost. It's not cheap. There are a lot of problems they have to take into account in getting this far. Wind, light, shadows, floodlights causing multiple shadows, they all need to be dealt with. That has led to R & D costs being quite significant.
They are proprietary systems that cost a fortune to develop, and it's a bit of a closed-shop monopoly. Setup requires a fair bit of work and there is normally a team of people running it behind the scenes at each game where this technology is deployed.
That cost is not a problem with the top tier, but the top tier of every sport normally knows its future lies in lower rungs and "grass roots" forms of the game. It's important that even the second division (where these systems can't be used), look and feel like the top tier. And ideally, it should be possible to play the game on a Sunday afternoon down your local park without it seeming to be futile.
Human judges aid with that. They signal "you can do this". The sports in which that's not possible (F1), still have alternatives, and there are some measurement systems (timing, speed, etc.) that are accessible to teens with a desire to soup up their Corolla.
Secondly: not all in-game events can be tracked using these systems. Hawk-Eye can track a ball near a line being foul or not, but it can't easily tell whether a player's foot is over the line it should not be when serving, for example.
Even in cricket where Hawk-Eye first made its reputation, detection of foul balls (when a bowler steps over a line) has to still be done by umpires and video review. Whether the ball hit a bat or not is done by audio detection (snick-o-meter), and heat-sensitive camera (as the ball brushes the bat, the friction warms it up enough to show as white hot on an appropriate camera). The technology isn't quite there yet to make it possible for these events to be done through camera analysis alone.
Thirdly: accuracy. It's pretty damned good in some scenarios but less so in others. I competed in the Manchester City hackday in July 2016 (was in the winning team, too) where we got access to Tracab and Opta raw data from some historical games. In some of those frames we were seeing the football travelling - according to their systems - at 1,500m/s - which is about Mach 5. It clearly didn't actually do that (I mean, I think Yaya Toure is _great_, but he's not _that_ good), so where did the error creep in?
That casts doubt, and to my mind, just enough to not allow it to be determining the outcomes of games on which millions of pounds and entries in history books are determined.
Hawk-Eye's higher frame rate is likely to make it much more accurate, so you can see it making more inroads into official calls. It makes most sense in contexts of positional review (cricket, tennis, goals in soccer), and ideally in phased-play games where there is a lot of stop-start and reviews can be done without disrupting play.
Tennis lends itself to all this perfectly, so the only honest answer I can give you as to why it's not everywhere is quite simply cost and the fact some in-game events can't be done through hawkeye so they need the official anyway. They'll defer to humans allow Hawk-Eye on review where it has the time to churn the data rather than in real-time. | [
"In informal games, either a rubber ball or tennis ball is used as an alternative. The rubber ball is not suitable for the variety of surfaces made use of in informal games; it is too bouncy on cement and concrete and barely bounces at all on grass or soil. An unmodified tennis ball is light, but it is incapable of... |
Are the Burmese Way to Socialism and the Khmer Rouge related? | I am not as familiar with Burmese history as I am with Cambodian but funnily enough I am currently writing a thesis which examines ethnic cleansing in each area. So, far from an expert analysis on the subject I will give you some thoughts which might constitute an answer for you.
If I understand correctly your question is about the relation between KR ideology and the 'Burmese Way', as in.. do they share common roots? Which is a fair assumption given the numerous parallels between Cambodia and Burma.
To give you a short answer it would be; yes, they are in a sense 'related', but maybe more like distant cousins \- or maybe a better analogy would be 'convergent evolution' where two different species evolve similar traits due to their environment. The big difference, among many, I would say is their relationship to the Cold War and their foreign policy. The two states certainly 'look' similar, but some of the parallels are more superficial than relating to the same common ideological roots. The CPK were far more 'communist' than the leaders of Burma. They were aligned with China in a fairly explicit way. I would go as far as to say that Burma never had a revolution to the extent that Cambodia did either, and the revolution that the KR implemented was far outside the scope that the Burmese ever attempted. Likewise the Burmese have always been pre\-occupied with preserving the Union of Burma in regards to dismantling the states along ethnic lines \- this has had a huge effect on their ideology, most notably the relationship that has been fostered between Theravada Buddhism and the military junta. In cambodia the opposite was true, even when you consider the links between some buddhist concepts and KR ideology ([see an earlier answer about buddhism/Khmer Rouge ideology](_URL_0_)) and the CPK was keen to tear down Cambodian's relationship to the past. Cambodia's foreign policy was highly impacted by its relationship with Vietnam and the eventual war between them (and internal purges of the CPK in an attempt to ward off a supposed plot by the Vietnamese).
I've worked on three different answers to this question and I end up deleting them. You seem to be aware of the ideological palimpsest in Burma and Cambodia under the KR, as well as the relative similarities in history between the two countries... and there are some similarities to be sure. But in effect, these similarities provide quite different outcomes and are dependent on different structures. A lot of this stems from the condition each country found itself in following WWII. Its actually what I've come up against a bit when writing my thesis, I noticed lots of the similarities you have mentioned (and more when you look at the Rohingya/Cham minorities treatment) but like I said some of these parallels are just that \- 'they never touch'.
I know this has basically been a meandering non\-answer so I will give you one thing that directly relates to your question!
You say that you are unaware of any contact between the two, and wonder if you are missing something. Well you are! Burma was one of the few governments to that had a foreign ministry in Phnom Penh during DK. And as the CPK looked to broaden their international support in 1977 Burma's Ne Win became the first foreign head of state to visit Phnom Penh. So, I'm sorry but that is just about all I can offer you.
Maybe I can offer you a better answer when I have finished my research. | [
"The Burmese Way to Socialism has been described by some as anti-Western, neutralist and socialist in nature, characterised also by an extensive dependence on the military, emphasis on the rural populace, and Burmese (or more specifically, Burman) nationalism. In January 1963, the Burmese Way to Socialism was furth... |
What is the environmental and long term climate impact of the recent Chile volcano eruption? | Locally a big impact mostly from falling ash an air pollution. However globally, I doubt we'll see much impact unless this continues for several months. It is located around 41 S, so not near the tropical regions. For volcanoes to have a global cooling effect, they usually need to be erupting in the tropical region.
> Above the tropics, the stratosphere's circulation features rising air, which pulls the sulfur-containing volcanic aerosols high into the stratosphere. Upper-level winds in the stratosphere tend to flow from the Equator to the poles, so sulfur aerosols from equatorial eruptions get spread out over both hemispheres. These aerosol particles take a year or two to settle back down to earth, since there is no rain in the stratosphere to help remove them. However, if a major volcanic eruption occurs in the mid-latitudes or polar regions, the circulation of the stratosphere in those regions generally features pole-ward-flowing, sinking air, and the volcanic aerosol particles are not able to penetrate high in the stratosphere or get spread out around the entire globe.
_URL_0_ | [
"The eruption of the Chilean volcano Puyehue significantly affected the surrounding environment. The temperature of the Nilahue River rose to and killed an estimated 4.5 million fish with an economic impact on fish farming in the area. The cattle economy was also damaged.\n",
"Forests near the volcano have been b... |
Everyone's worried about the radiation but can we harness the energy from solar flares? | It's not really feasible to construct an elaborate and expensive generator which is powered by relatively rare and extremely powerful events. When it comes to harnessing energy you want a steady and consistent supply as that is the manner it is used in and won't have to be stored. We already have solar panels to capture radiation from the sun, and building something to be powered by mass ejections would be akin to building a structure to be powered by a tornado instead of just building a windmill.
That being said if we had some reason to need a lot of energy all at once and didn't have to store it we might be able to make use of huge solar flares. For example if we had a spaceship powered by a durable enough solar sail and wanted to get some major acceleration we might be able to ride it thereby harnessing the energy. | [
"A solar flare is an explosion in a solar atmosphere and was originally detected visually in the Sun. Solar flares create massive amounts of radiation across the full electromagnetic spectrum from the longest wavelength, radio waves, to high energy gamma rays. The correlations of the high energy electrons energized... |
Advice on how to effectively study science? | Draw diagrams until you can make them from memory. | [
"Researchers may seek advice on a wide range of subjects concerning their research. One of the major tasks of the methodological advisor is to help his clients think about what they really want to accomplish. This may involve helping them to (re)formulate the research question and relatedly, the research hypothesis... |
How do denatured proteins in cooked food get absorbed and "used" in the body? | You already solved it - proteins are made from amino acids. Denaturing a protein just changes the conformation (shape) irreversibly. Your body would do that when you eat it. You need 22(?) essential amino acids in your diet that your body can't produce. Your body breaks down those amino acid chains and reconfigures them as needed.
EDIT - 22 total amino acids in human nutrition. 9 essential ones that cannot be synthesized from others. Thanks to /u/n00bz0rd | [
"When preparing proteins for consumption, there are three ways of denaturing the proteins: heating, acids, and mechanical force (e.g. whisking eggs). All three methods have the same result: hydrogen bonds in the proteins are broken allowing the proteins to \"unwind\". When the proteins are unwound, they have been a... |
What did the Founding Fathers do for fun? | [terrible one-line answers about marijuana and sex]
Please stop posting these. People come to AskHistorians for in-depth, comprehensive and *factually accurate* answers. Please take the time to review our rules - our [section on in-depth answers](_URL_0_) in particular - before commenting. | [
"According to the Olympic Club's official website, \"giving back to the community is a tradition that has endured since the Olympic Club's earliest days.\" The Olympic Club has a long history of philanthropy, dating back to its origins in 1860. In December of that year, the Club held its first public exhibition, in... |
which consequences of a dam being built lead to environmental change/damage? | One problem is that the dam floods the valley behind it, turning it into a lake. This kills virtually everything that was previously growing in the valley. | [
"Dams are considered \"installations containing dangerous forces\" under International humanitarian law due to the massive impact of a possible destruction on the civilian population and the environment. Dam failures are comparatively rare, but can cause immense damage and loss of life when they occur. In 1975 the ... |
Where are we in the current Milankovitch cycle? And when would the next ice age be (if there was no human cause climate change)? | Firstly, there isn't a single Milankovitch cycle. Milankovitch cycles describe a set of different cyclical changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and rotational axis. Whilst this is a simplification, there are three main cycles that respectively control changes in eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, the tilt/obliquity of the Earth's rotational axis, and the precession of the Earth's orbit. These cycles in turn control the distribution and seasonal cycle of solar radiation across the Earth.
Relating these changes to climate is not trivial. For approximately the past million years, glacial-interglacial cycles (calling them ice-ages is technically incorrect as geologically, an ice-age is simply when permanent ice-sheets exist on Earth) have followed the ~100,000 year eccentricity cycle. However, this certainly was not the case for much of the geological record - at different times in Earth's past, the key frequencies the Earth's climate has been sensitive to appears to have changed.
There is very good evidence that Milankovitch frequencies do indeed modulate glacial-interglacial cycles throughout geological history, but it's important to understand that it is nowhere near as simple as simple as simply going "We are at phase X in frequency Y, therefore we are in a glacial/interglacial". The actual changes in solar radiation involved in Milankovitch cycles are small and whilst they do indeed appear to _pace_ glacial-interglacial cycles, it is other geological and climatological processes that amplify these cycles to actually create the large changes in the Earth's climate.
**To strictly answer the question "Where are we in the current Milankovitch cycle"**, take a look at [this graph](_URL_1_). The first green line is the eccentricity cycle which is the dominant pace-maker of glacial-interglacial cycles at the present and as you can see, we've just passed a local maximum. If you compare the first green (eccentricity) line with the brown and green lines at the bottom (which for the sake of this explanation you can read as being related to global temperature), you'll see that the peaks in the eccentricity curve do indeed correspond fairly well with the peaks in the climate curves. However, aside from this, they are very different and this is precisely because of what I mentioned before: Milankovitch cycles are only one part of the story, and it is other processes that transform these cycles into the actual climatic effects we observe.
**So when would the next glacial have been?** If you scroll to Table 2 in [this paper](_URL_0_), you can see a range of estimates for the duration of interglacials throughout the past 800,000 years, including the present interglacial (MIS1). You can see that the typical interglacial duration is around 10-20,000 years, and we're currently about 12,000 years into the current interglacial. We therefore might have expected the current interglacial to end within the next ~10,000 years, possibly significantly less. Of course, anthropogenic carbon emissions may have changed this significantly. For example, [this](_URL_2_) paper suggests that we may have delayed the next glacial by ~100,000 years. | [
"There is strong evidence that the Milankovitch cycles affect the occurrence of glacial and interglacial periods within an ice age. The present ice age is the most studied and best understood, particularly the last 400,000 years, since this is the period covered by ice cores that record atmospheric composition and ... |
why people need to be raised and schooled to live well as a person, but my cat, who's not around other cats, knows how to live well like a cat? | One of the trade offs we made in our evolution for more powerful brains that take up a quarter of our blood supply was that it takes us longer to come online. Our brain starts as a plastic bin of parts that grow together and adapt to our culture as well as the tasks we demand of it to live in a society. As our society progresses, this changes and we need to change how the brain is programmed to keep up with those changes to be successful. | [
"Cats like to organize their environment based on their needs. Like their ancestors, domestic cats still have an inherent desire to maintain an independent territory but are generally content to live with other cats for company as they easily get bored. Living alone for a longer time may let them forget how to comm... |
How much authority did Kaiser Wilhelm II actually have during the First World War? | Hi, I'm a student of German and politics rather than history directly. I can't provide a hyper detailed account of Wilhelm II's role in the First World War but what I can do is give some background to the constitution of the German empire - especially how it relates to the Kaiser - and some of the background leading up to in the Bismarck period (as constitutions and Bismarck are some of my areas of interest).
*the constitution:* the constitution of the German Empire was a lot like the constitution of the later Weimar Republic (for those of you aware of it) except with far fewer rights.
There are three important actors in the constitution for our purposes here. The Kaiser, the Chancellor/Prussian first minister, and the Reichstag (parliament). Unlike in other Western European states of this time, the hereditary Kaiser was arguably the most important individual in government. This is because he had the power to appoint (and remove) the chancellor, who was effectively head of government. The parliament's consent was needed in order to pass legislation and budgets, but the parliament could not dismiss the chancellor and so didn't necessarily have the ability to intervene in day to day governance.
During the early period of the German Empire whilst Wilhelm I was Kaiser the Kaiser typically left most affairs of state to the first minister. The Kaiser would simply set out broad objectives. In accordance with this Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck chancellor who is one of Germany's most effective leaders ever. Bismarck stayed on this job for decades and drove his own policy agenda.
After Wilhelm I died - and 100 days later the crown prince also died - Wilhelm II took the throne. Wilhelm II was a very involved Kaiser. He had personal disagreements with Bismarck and so dismissed him as chancellor after decades of service shortly after acceding the throne. Wilhelm II made a string of foreign policy announcements which have been considered by diplomatic historians as wild and inconsistent - even getting the name 'zigzag diplomacy'. This included trying to court Britain to join their bloc in the upcoming war whilst also announcing road building projects and colonial ambitions that threatened British colonial interests.
As for the war itself I am no expert so can't speak on that. But given that the German constitution afforded Wilhelm II huge political and legal powers and influences, and given the character of Wilhelm II as an involved monarch it likely he continued playing an important role. And as for the lead up to the war Wilhelm II is more responsible than any other individual, maybe even more so than the assassins in Sarejavo.
Sources
Preusens Könige: ein Leben zwischen Hoffnung und Revolution ( Heinz Ohff)
Bismarck, (Korb)
Various trips to the Deutsches Historisches Musuem
| [
"During World War I, the Kaiser increasingly devolved his powers to the leaders of the German High Command, particularly future President of Germany, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and \"Generalquartiermeister\" Erich Ludendorff. Hindenburg took over the role of commander–in–chief from the Kaiser, while Ludendor... |
Does the surface of the Earth "flatten out" to any extent due to space-time curvature? | The answer is yes or no depending on exactly how you phrase the question. Let me explain:
Let me just specify first that these effects are *minuscule*. Basically Earth's mass curves spacetime, sure; the components of curvature relating time and space are pretty large and are what gives you the gravitational force, etc etc. But there's also space-space curvature, meaning that at every given instant in time, space is curved itself too. But this is a very, very small effect. It's only perceptible in the context of precision experiments. But let's talk about it anyway.
Let's assume Earth is perfectly spherical and smooth, and is not rotating.
So you want to know about the curvature of the surface of the Earth, which is a sphere, a 2d surface. Curvature in general is indubitably complex to quantify and explain, but for surfaces becomes very simple: it's describable completely by a single number, the gaussian curvature K. When K > 0 at a point, your surface looks sphere-y, when K=0 it looks flat, and when K < 0 it looks hyperbolic-y.
The Earth is as we said spherically symmetric and so whatever the value of K, it has to be constant over the Earth.
The fundamental piece of math I am going to use is called the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. For our specific case, it tells you that if you have a surface of constant curvature K, of area A, then this formula holds:
A * K = 2π * χ
χ is an integer called the Euler characteristic of the surface. You can look up what it is (it's easy!) or you can also not and I'll just tell you the sphere has χ = 2.
So we know that our curvature has to be
K = 4π/A
No escaping this. Even though space can be severely curved, this relationship has to hold. It's a theorem and bears a very important person's name, so yeah. Note that A is the area as measured by someone living on the surface. If you use a tape to measure the length of the equator, you can also compute A (divide by 2π, square, multiply by 4π).
Now, if space was flat, we would use A = 4π R^2 and so conclude K = 1/R^(2), which is the usual formula for the curvature of a sphere. However, A = 4πR^2 is **false** in curved space. R would be the proper radius, that is the actual distance from the centre of the Earth to the surface, measured by actual rulers. Freaky but true. A is actually a bit less than 4πR^2 iirc.
So here we have this situation. Let's say you define an "effective" radius r through A = 4π r^(2). As we said R=/=r. The curvature is then K = 1/r^(2). Your question could be phrased as "if we add the effects of general relativity, does the Earth gets a variation in curvature as compared to what we would expect?".
Well, *what* do you expect? You cannot fit the normal flat-space Earth, with A=4π R, in the curved space created by its own gravity - you need to change something. Either you keep the radius fixed and make the surface area smaller than 4πR^2 to accomodate, or you keep the surface geometry fixed and increase the radius.
In case one the area gets smaller so K gets bigger, so the Earth would be *less* flat than usual, not more. In case number two, K is unchanged. As you can see, it's really just a question of defining what you want to keep unchanged. | [
"The flatness problem (also known as the oldness problem) is an observational problem associated with a Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric (FLRW). The universe may have positive, negative, or zero spatial curvature depending on its total energy density. Curvature is negative if its density is less than the ... |
Do nerve cells/nerve systems work like actual circuits? | I don't know too much about electronics yet so bear with me and let me know if I make a mistake. Neurons work very differently than our electronics. They're vastly more complicated and more simple at the same time. For one, each individual neuron works kind of like a simple transistor. It has two states: either on or off (firing or not firing).
On the individual level, neurons switch on and off by opening specific channels that let in potassium or sodium. The fired vs. not fired state depends on if there is a higher concentration of sodium or potassium in the head of the neuron. This is different than transistors (I believe) that allow for either the flow of current or the interruption of current. Neurons are also an all or nothing kind of thing. I hear there are transistors now that take into account how much current that is being applied to it as a way of storing data. The brain's neurons either fire fully or not at all. You can think of them as a transistor with a wire sticking out of it that connects to another nerve cell.
Neurons also have the capability to tell other neurons to fire (this is called a synapse), something I do not believe is present in electronics. The channels that block synapses from happening are voltage gated and only open when a specific set of situations happens. The closest I could come up with (with my limited knowledge of electronics) would be an integrated circuit. The brain also has the ability to form new neural pathways. For example, when you're learning a new language there's a specific pattern that your neurons are firing in. The brain remembers that specific way to fire the next time a situation comes up.
As for the specifics like resistors, capacitors, inductors, etc... the nervous system doesn't really have anything comparable. The way that we use electricity is we can control and modify voltage, resistance, and current to suit our different uses. The nervous system doesn't really do that. What it does is that it just has tons of different pathways that it can choose to fire neurons. I can't think of anything that would be similar to capacitor where it stores charge for later use and fires it when needed. I suppose if you want to go extremely technical, neurons are like that in a sense because they're constantly ready to fire being that the gradient for potassium and sodium are kept out of balance purposefully so that when the channel opens, the sodium and potassium will flow based upon concentration gradients.
For the power supply, the neurons are bathed in it. They use glucose (and a ton of it too) to power themselves. They uptake glucose from the surrounding fluids and they create ATP. ATP is a molecule whose bonds are unstable and give off lots of energy when broken. ATP is used as a catalyst in biochemical reactions in order to give a cell energy. | [
"The nervous system is the system of neurons, or nerve cells, that relay electrical signals through the brain and body. A nerve cell receives signals from other nerve cells through tree-branch-like extensions called dendrites and passes signals on through a long extension called an axon (or nerve fiber). Synapses a... |
what the hell is the deal with bronies? | They are fans of the show My Little Pony, similar to how Trekkers are fans of Star Trek and Browncoats are fans of Firefly. | [
"A Brony Tale (originally titled Brony) is a 2014 Canadian-American documentary film directed by Brent Hodge. The film explores the brony phenomenon, the adult fan base of the children's animated show \"\" that arose shortly after its premiere in 2010. The film is structured around the journey of Ashleigh Ball, one... |
If infrared is just another "place" on the spectrum that includes visible light, can something be painted infrared? Or is the "visible light spectrum" different in some way apart from the fact that we can only see that? | Yes. Although when you say "painted" you're defining the spectrum as what you can see. A blue object reflects blue light and absorbs light from all other colors in the visible spectrum. But a what you call a blue object may also reflect infrared light. So to an animal that has the ability to see some of the infrared spectrum, it's more of a blue-infrared color. We don't really have a name for that color because it's not particularly useful or convenient for us to discuss things in those terms. I can give you a common example, though: X-rays are also part of the light spectrum. Lead has the property of absorbing X-rays, your skin is X-ray invisible (clear), and your bones reflect X-rays. So in a way, to a hypothetical animal that only sees in the X-ray spectrum, your skin is like glass, your bones are black, and lead is like a bright X-ray screen. This is why X-rays cameras can see your bones against a lead screen.
Edit: as TsuDoNihmh alluded to, this also assumes you're shining a light source that produces all wavelengths of ~~visible~~ light equally. Just as if you shined a blue light on a white object it would appear blue, you'd have to shine an X-ray light to see X-ray colors.
Also, I think I may have reversed lead/bone colors. Someone can correct me. | [
"Infrared radiation with wavelengths just longer than visible light, known as near-infrared, behaves in a very similar way to visible light, and can be detected using similar solid state devices (because of this, many quasars, stars, and galaxies were discovered). For this reason, the near infrared region of the sp... |
Was the Roman legal system the most modern and developed legal system during ancient times? | You're almost assuming that the derivation of western legal traditions in large part from Roman law was a conscious choice or decision over other alternate systems that were less "developed".
It's basically tautological, but the reason for the Latinisms in modern western legal language is simply that they were derived in part from Roman law. Legal traditions and systems generally don't emerge overnight or immediately, and even important watersheds like the Juris Civilis or the Code Napoleon are built on existing legal traditions.
This isn't because other legal systems or traditions were 'inferior' or 'less developed'. Modern Western legal systems might be said to be a mix of Germanic and Roman systems more than anything else.
There is also a problem with the idea of 'Roman legal system' - which one do you mean? Roman law was not some monolithic unchanging system that existed for a thousand years, and itself developed and changed over time. The image of Roman law given through say the Juris Civilis isn't necessarily reflective of Roman law or legal practice throughout Roman history, but a deliberately crafted rationalisation of Roman law created in the 6th century. | [
"BULLET::::- Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome. The development of Roman law covers more than one thousand years from the law of the twelve tables (from 449 BC) to the Corpus Juris Civilis of Emperor Justinian I (around 530). Roman law as preserved in Justinian's codes became the basis of legal practice... |
why is it called "surfing" the web? | Language left over from channel surfing on TV. | [
"The word \"surf\" is polysemous; having multiple, related meanings. \"Surfing\" the World Wide Web is the act of following hyperlinks. The phrase \"surfing the Internet\" was first popularized in print by Jean Armour Polly, a librarian, in an article called \"Surfing the INTERNET\", published in the Wilson Library... |
How "woman-friendly" was early Christianity, at least for its place and time? | So, I think it's important to note that Christianity being "women-friendly" should not be strictly identified with allowing women to be priests/deacons/whatevs. After all, the vast majority of Christians do not become priests and I worry that concentrating so much on the priesthood imports both modern notions about what constitutes "proper" gender roles and a clericalism which is, I don't think, not present during the time period (incidentally I don't think there's any real evidence that the ordination of women was ever widely accepted in the early Church).
Instead, I think it's better to think about this question in terms of how Christianity understood the roles of women compared to the prevailing culture. This is a pretty complicated question, because we're talking about hundreds of years and a large empire and Christian opinion was never exactly uniform (nor, of course, was pagan thought). Thus, I'll be brief. I'd recommend Peter Brown's *Body and Society* for an excellent overview of Roman attitudes towards sex and gender in this time period, especially as it relates to sexual renunciation. Nicola Denzey's *The Bone Gatherers* is also a good source, although not a general survey it is written for a more general audience and very interesting (also, if you look closely in the acknowledgments there's an excellent young scholar, who happens to be a very handsome r/askhistorians poster in his spare time, who gets a shout out).
Ok, all that said, Christianity does seem to have appealed very much to women in the time period, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one of the most important was that it allowed women to break free from the basic duties of the Roman women (i.e. get married, have as many babies as possible, try not to bleed to death during childbirth) by supporting institutions such as consecrated virgins and widows. This allowed women considerably more autonomy than was normal, and women were able to attain positions of considerable import within the Church. For examples, check out the correspondants of Jerome such as Macrina, fabulously wealthy women [allowed to keep their money, since Christianity allowed them to forgo remarriage] who founded monateries and were vital to the creation of the Vulgate. Also, see Ambrose's writings on virginity to see how prized virgins were by Church officials. There's also the character of the Christian mother facilitating her son's conversion, Monica and Helena being the most famous exemplars, which becomes a bit of a trope and is an interesting phenomenon in its own right (and I believe [although am less certain on this point) does not have an easy parallel in non-Christian writings of the time).
I feel like this has become a bit scattered, but I hope I've shed some light. You may also want to check out early Christian hagiography and similar type texts, the sayings of the Desert Mothers, the life of St. Mary of Egypt, and especially the Acts of Paul and Thecla (which should be easy to find online with little effort). Thecla's life was both quite early and enormously popular, it's also a pretty fun read. Hope that helps! | [
"During the early centuries of Christianity, there is evidence of a great deal of activity by women in the life of congregations. Women served as deacons and ladies of means like Lydia of Philippi acted as financiers. Women probably constituted the majority of Christians. Blainey notes that by around AD 300, women ... |
If you were standing on the surface of Pluto (or one of the outer planets), how much illumination would the sun actually provide for you to see with the naked eye? | The amount of sunlight is decreases by a factor of roughly the square of the distance. So if you are 10 times further away the sun is 100 times dimmer. Pluto is over 30 times further away than the Earth is from the sun, so the sun is about 90 times dimmer than it is on Earth.
The thing is the Sun is very very bright, even at Pluto the noon day sun would be hundreds of times the brightness of the full moon.
In fact it would be roughly as bright as the lighting in most office buildings. | [
"From Pluto, the Sun is point-like to human eyes, but still very bright, giving roughly 150 to 450 times the light of the full Moon from Earth (the variability being due to the fact that Pluto's orbit is highly elliptical, stretching from just 4.4 billion km to over 7.3 billion km from the Sun). Nonetheless, human ... |
what is poison? | Really, a poison is something that will harm or kill you if taken into your body in an amount you're likely to encounter. Technically, water or caffeine (or anything) will kill you if you take enough of it, so that's why I added the "in an amount you're likely to encounter" part of it.
Since your body is really just a very complicated series of chemical reactions all going on, there are lots and lots of ways to throw a wrench into things and, well, kill you. cyanide or carbon monoxide, for example, bind incredibly strongly to your blood cells and prevent them from carrying oxygen to your cells, starving them of energy.
Strychnine binds to receptors on neurons that normally are for neurotransmitters. In particular, it causes your neurons to be triggered to go off more easily, which causes muscle spasms and death by asphyxiation. | [
"In biology, poisons are substances that cause death, injury or harm to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when an organism absorbs a sufficient quantity.\n",
"The term \"poison\" is often used colloquially to describe any harmful substance—particularly corrosive sub... |
why are there so many different electrical outlets in this world? | I would say because there are so many countries. Theoretically, a mass summit could create a universal wall plug that countries could then opt into, but no one really has any incentive to do that. The economy will barely benefit from such a change, and might even take a dip, because all the people selling wall plug conversion kits will be out of a job. It's a wonderful idea in theory but only benefits end users. It's just like how cell phones have their own dongles everywhere, because each phone set manufacturer doesn't have a large enough incentive to conform to any standards | [
"Mains electricity by country includes a list of countries and territories, with the plugs, voltages and frequencies they commonly use for providing electrical power to appliances, equipment, and lighting typically found in homes and offices. (For industrial machinery, see Industrial and multiphase power plugs and ... |
why is there so much media attention on the jodi arias case? | Attractive white girl + violent crime = media frenzy | [
"On May 9, \"The Republic\" commented: \"The Jodi Arias trial has been a social-media magnet. And when Arias was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder, Twitter and Facebook exploded with reaction. Much of it was aimed at Arias, though plenty of people tweeted at the media coverage, such as the antics of HLN ho... |
How the bloody hell did an old italic alphabet reach scandinavia and became the runic alphabet used by germanics ? | There is a large debate on the origin of runes. Simply because we do not know 'exactly when, where, why or by whom runes were first created' (Findell 2014:6).
Barnes (2012: 9-10) lays out four basic points that runologists agree upon concerning the origin of runes:
1. The oldest runic inscriptions are dated from AD c. 150-200 and one artefact, the Meldorf fibula from northern Germany, may have a runic inscription, but may also be roman is dated to around AD c. 50.
2. 'The centre of earliest documented runic activity is the area that comprises modern Denmark, southern Norway and southern Sweden'. A small number have been found in northern Germany and eastern Europe. In addition, all of these finds have been on portable objects. This is important because it means that these objects are found far from the places that they have been discovered.
3. Runes are part of the Mediterranean (phoenician-greek-etruscan-roman) alphabetic writing tradition. Runes are based on the same principles as these alphabets and 'number of runes are identical or virtually identical to characters in one or other, or several, of these alphabets (especially the roman and those of northern Italy, derived from Etruscan). They nevertheless shoe more than a little independence of the Mediterranean tradition'. For instance, the roman alphabet goes abc, runic alphabets go fuþark.
4. Runes were certainly derived in an area of contact with but not part of the Roman empire.
Obviously, these points are not answers, but they provide guidance when evaluating proposals on the origin of runes.
As pointed out by Barnes (2012) the majority of runologists believe that runic and various Mediterranean alphabets cannot be due to chance (10). Cultures intermixed widely during this time period and it is reasonable to assume that Germanic script derives from Mediterranean script as Germanic speakers and those who spoke with southern European tongues interacted. The arguments emerge around which alphabet runes stem from and views have changed over each decade based on new evidence. I wish I could give you a more exciting answer than Germanic peoples thought writing was a good skill and brought it back home after their travels, but this is likely the case.
I can attempt to explain some of the arguments if anyone is interested, but I am not a linguist or philologist, which are the field runology aligns more with.
Barnes, M., P. (2012) Runes: A Handbook. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.
Findell, M. (2014). Runes. London: The British Museum.
Also, this is my first post. If I did anything wrong please let me know and I will correct it. | [
"From roughly the 2nd century AD, certain speakers of early Germanic varieties developed the Elder Futhark, an early form of the runic alphabet. Early runic inscriptions also are largely limited to personal names and difficult to interpret. The Gothic language was written in the Gothic alphabet developed by Bishop ... |
what exactly causes the sickly gross-tasting burps that occur after overeating? | A pocket of air is always present in your stomach (and visible on a standard chest X-ray).
When eating, some more air gets in through swallowing.
The stomach doesn't immediately empty itself when eating, so imagine all you have eaten starting to be digested by stomach acid and enzymes and floating in what you've drunk.
So, the air in your stomach normally comes out with burps, but it stayed in this bag full of nasty stuff for a while, so it takes its smell up and out.
It actually smells like vomit because it is vomit, it just doesn't come out.
You're welcome. | [
"Gibbing is the process of preparing salt herring (or soused herring), in which the gills and part of the gullet are removed from the fish, eliminating any bitter taste. The liver and pancreas are left in the fish during the salt-curing process because they release enzymes essential for flavor. The fish is then cur... |
When referring to temperature, what exactly is a degree? | Temperature is really a measure the average kinetic energy of the molecules. As they gain energy (heat) they tend to move around more. Degrees are a fundamental unit, meaning they aren't a product of other units like joules or watts. The different scales like Celsius, Fahrenheit, or Kelvin, are based of different experimental values or fundamental constants. | [
"The term degree is used in several scales of temperature. The symbol ° is usually used, followed by the initial letter of the unit, for example “°C” for degree(s) Celsius. A degree can be defined as a set change in temperature measured against a given scale, for example, one degree Celsius is one hundredth of the ... |
why do my hands get clammy when i am afraid? evolutionarily shouldn't i increase my grip ability rather than losing grip with moisture? | I always remind people: evolution is a c- student. Evolution processes do just enough to help that species "pass." | [
"Frictional gripping is used by primates, relying upon hairless fingertips. Squeezing the branch between the fingertips generates a frictional force that holds the animal's hand to the branch. However, this type of grip depends upon the angle of the frictional force, thus upon the diameter of the branch, with large... |
how is blackberry still in business when no one uses one? i don't know a single person who still uses a blackberry. | How many people do you know? Let's be generous and say 500.
That's a rounding error on the population of the US. So your circle is probably not a great indicator.
There are a number of companies, organizations and agencies that had longstanding contracts with Blackberry. Many of them are working off those contracts as we speak but (for the time) they are still using them.
In addition, there are some number of people who prefer Blackberries. My understanding from them is that the physical keypad is a plus in their eyes.
Still others haven't upgraded their phone in years because they either A) don't care too or B) don't feel like paying for it.
So Blackberry is hanging on by its fingernails... but it is still a company. | [
"The primary competitors of the BlackBerry are smartphones running Android and the Apple iPhone, with Microsoft's Windows Phone platform emerging as a more recent competitor. For a number of years, the BlackBerry was the leading smartphone in many markets, particularly the United States. The arrival of the Apple iP... |
is there an architectural advantage to “the pentagon” building being shaped as a pentagon? like does it provide more security, or is it simply for aesthetics? | It's a fascinating story. The book Pentagon a History by Steve Vogel goes into it in detail. The idea was to build a building for the War department with a lot of square footage without exceeding the low building height limits of the District of Columbia. The original location was a rectangular space with one corner cut off by a river. They made plans for this location, essentially a building that completely covered the lot. Then they found that the ground wasn't strong enough to hold up the building. They moved locations, to the present site, and wanted to make up the time. Since the plans for the other site had: chunks of building that were straight, chunks of building that met at a 108˚, and chunks of a building that met at 90˚; they asked what shape could they make without redrawing those plans. It turns out you can make a regular pentagon shape that has more area inside than a square shape. Those are essentially the only shapes you can make without drawing plans for a different kind of corner. So, they reused the shapes to make the present building. | [
"Square or rectangular towers are easy to construct and give a good amount of usable internal space. Their disadvantage is that the corners are vulnerable to mining. Despite this vulnerability, rectangular towers continued to be used, and Muslim military architecture generally favoured them.\n",
"The ground plan ... |
how are amazon third-party book vendors able to offer new and recently-published books in "new" or "like new" condition so quickly? | They are lying about availability, and I can (kind of) prove it with a simplified example.
[This](_URL_0_) is an Amazon link to a manual for a calculator app that's available for Window. I'm very familiar with it because I wrote both the app and the manual. According to Amazon, there are 3 used and 8 new ones available from third party sellers.
Except that exactly zero copies have been sold. There are no used copies available anywhere in the world.
The other sellers are pretending to have stock, but they don't. If you order from them, they will simply buy a copy and send it on, adding their own handling charges as a way to make money.
| [
"BookFinder.com is a vertical search website that helps readers buy books online. The site's meta-search engine scans the inventories of over 100,000 booksellers located around the world. Among the books from sellers whose inventories are indexed, users can find the lowest price for a book of their choice from over... |
Does the speed of light apply as a limit to how fast something can rotate? | There's no limit on angular velocity, but there is a limit on tangential velocity at any point on a rotating body. So if something has a relatively small diameter, it can rotate very fast. However, if you start looking at rotation of very large (planet-scale) objects, where the outer edges would be moving at relativistic velocities, you'll find that the tangential velocity at any point can never exceed the speed of light, and getting any part of a giant wheel to these velocities would require massive amounts of energy. | [
"when the rotational parameter \"a\" approaches zero. In this form of solution, units are selected so that the speed of light is unity (\"c\" = 1). At large distances from the source (R » a), these equations reduce to the Eddington–Finkelstein form of the Schwarzschild metric.\n",
"For example, a strobe light can... |
Humans seem to have a universally visceral reaction of disgust when seeing most insects and spiders. Do other animal species have this same reaction? | Not sure about insects, but a study has shown that there is some correlation between the development of highly-advanced vision in primates and the amount of deadly snakes present in the areas they developed. This is known as Snake Detection Theory.
_URL_0_
The study suggests that part of the longevity of primate species is due to our evolving a highly-specialized threat detection system through our vision. It explains why primates evolved vision that is second only to birds of prey, instead of other senses (such as smell) that are a lot more common to be found highly-developed in other animal species.
> "The present study shows preferential activity of neurons in the medial and dorsolateral pulvinar to images of snakes. Pulvinar neurons responded faster and stronger to snake stimuli than to monkey faces, monkey hands, and geometric shapes, and were sensitive to unmodified and low-pass filtered images but not to high-pass filtered images. These results identify a neurobiological substrate for rapid detection of threatening visual stimuli in primates. Our findings are unique in providing neuroscientific evidence in support of the Snake Detection Theory, which posits that the threat of snakes strongly influenced the evolution of the primate brain. This finding may have great impact on our understanding of the evolution of primates." | [
"Bites from Katipo spiders produce a syndrome known as latrodectism. The venoms of all \"Latrodectus\" spiders are thought to contain similar components with the neurotoxin α-latrotoxin the main agent responsible. Most bites are caused by female spiders; the male katipo was considered too small to cause systemic en... |
How can i make colored fire? | Different chemical elements burn with different coloured flames.
See: [Flame tests](_URL_0_) | [
"To color their flames, pyrotechnicians will generally use metal salts. Specific combinations of fuels and co-solvents are required in order to dissolve the necessary chemicals. Color enhancers (usually chlorine donors) are frequently added too, the most common of which is polyvinyl chloride. A practical use of col... |
A question about the Gestapo secret police of Nazi Germany | The [Ordnungspolizei](_URL_1_) was responsible for most of the day-to-day police duties during the war, and that article suggests that they took on other duties as well, such as fire fighting. The [Kripo](_URL_0_) served as the civilian detectives, but I believe they worked closely with the SS and the Gestapo to investigate and prosecute not only crimes, but also political dissidents and similar things. | [
"BULLET::::- Geheime Staatspolizei (\"Secret State Police\"; Gestapo) was the secret police force of Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe. Formed in April 1933 by the aviation minister Hermann Göring, it was by the following year administrated by the SS and regarded as a sister organization of the SD. The Gestap... |
why are most cities "downtown" sections really shitty when they're usually a popular | Maintenance of a downtown area is a tremendous undertaking. For example, repairing the streets could mean closing down the street for days and days. Colossal traffic jam, redirecting bus routes, businesses on that street pissed off, etc. It's very expensive and difficult. Due to the location, it gets tons of car and foot traffic so maintenance is needed more often. With millions of people going through the downtown area throwing trash everywhere and generally be slobs, there just isn't the ability to pick it all up. Uptown neighborhoods generally are kept much nicer. | [
"In the United States, central business districts are often called \"downtown\" (even if there is no \"uptown\"). In most cities the downtown area will be home to the financial district, but usually contains entertainment and retail of some kind as well. The downtown areas of many cities, such as Los Angeles, Chica... |
Why can you refuel a plane mid-flight, but you can't refuel a car while it's running? | You can absolutely refill a car while it's running.
Admonishments to turn off your car while fueling are generally due to one of two situations:
-A running car in theory presents a fire or operational hazard, as if the car were to be put in gear it could propel itself forward and pull the breakaway hose out of the pump;
or,
-Removing the fuel cap on a pressurized system (e.g. your fuel tank) may result in a check engine light as the evaporative emissions system sees a sudden drop in pressure.
That being said, while prudence dictates that you turn off the engine while refueling there's no operational reason why it would be required. | [
"At most, aircraft are available every other turn. After completing a mission, they must spend one turn refuelling and rearming before they can be used again. However, aircraft being fuelled on an aircraft carrier pose an extreme fire hazard if the carrier is attacked, a vulnerability reflected by the rules.\n",
... |
Why did Truman perform better in suburbs than cities? | The easiest way to answer that would be to say that the parties in 1948 were not the parties you know today.
Both parties had a liberal wing and a conservative wing. Dewey was from the northeast, the liberal wing of the Republican party, and a lot of the issues he was running on were basically expanding parts of the New Deal. That alienated conservatives from both parties, but especially caused him to lose support among Republicans - it did gain him some support among independents, which is probably one of the contributing factors in the skewed polling data.
Truman was probably center-right among Democrats at the time, but I suspect his appeal to rural and suburban voters had more to do with personality. He was a midwesterner, grew up a farmer, was plain-spoken, direct, blunt, and engaged. This is "Give 'em hell, Harry!" and "The buck stops here." Harry Truman. This was a major contrast with Dewey, who was rich, distant, intellectual and vague. | [
"Many public housing officials in the Roosevelt Administration were progressives, and had strong convictions about the right of all citizens to inexpensive, quality housing. The provision of decent housing seemed to many of these officials to be a key to the preservation of democracy during the dark days of the Dep... |
How do we decide which stars are important enough to name? | Most of the names are historical, and the modern convention is not to assign names to newly discovered stars. This [wikipedia article](_URL_0_) and some of the others it links to give a pretty good discussion. | [
"Some independent astronomical and astrological businesses or organizations claim to sell the opportunity to \"name a star\". These names are not recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU is the most influential organization that names stars and other celestial objects; it is the only one re... |
why, when i eat terribly (pizza, cookies, chips, beer, etc) can i eat a lot, but when i clean diet, i get so full and 2k calories is hard to get each day? | **Caloric density** (the ratio of calories to the weight of the food).
Carbohydrates have around 4 calories per gram; proteins also have around 4 calories per gram; and fats have around 9 calories per gram.
When you eat "clean" foods, you are generally eating foods that have a low caloric density, but that is not all. These foods often also contain a higher amount of fiber, which increases the feeling of fullness (this is called *satiety*). These "clean" items are usually less processed foods containing unrefined carbohydrates, which take a bit longer for your body to digest. This means you feel fuller for longer.
When you eat "dirty" foods, you are generally eating foods that have a high caloric density. These foods are often heavily processed with more refined carbohydrates, meaning your body can digest it quicker. That means you don't stay full for much too long.
Sometimes we mistake the feeling of thirst for hunger, and eat a snack when we could've been satisfied with a glass of water. The next time you feel hungry, try drinking a full glass of water and waiting a few minutes. You'll see that sometimes it's just thirst. | [
"A boy buys junk food from the school canteen every day. His teacher gets annoyed, as does one of his classmates. But when he moves to a new house, he finds a spellbook; one of the spells allows him to pass his obesity to others. So every day, he eats enough junk food to make him sick; whenever someone insults him,... |
is there a possibility in the future for full immersion virtual reality gaming? | Anything is possible, someday, as long as that thing doesn't violate fundamental physical laws. And even then, who knows.
Practically though, yes, this is reasonable some day. One of the critical aspects here for experiencing this "just [sitting] in a chair" is the ability to plug our brains directly into computers.
This is still a very new thing, but we're getting better at it all the time. Cochlear implants (_URL_1_) do this, and there's a ton of new research that's very promising on doing stuff like plugging limbs directly into our nervous systems (_URL_0_).
Of course, none of this is even close to providing a fully realized experience through a wire, but we're starting to make the first baby steps on that path.
Also, this is a work of FICTION, but if you find this topic cool I highly recommend the book Ready Player One.
Edit: Some links. | [
"In 2017 the Royal Academy invited Gormley to consider the possibilities of virtual reality. In 2019 in collaboration with astronomer Priyamvada Natarajan he produced a VR experience called \"Lunatick\" which allows the viewer to seemingly travel through space to the Moon and fly over its surface, based on images f... |
The closest star to earth is 4.3 light years away. Is this par for the course in the Milky Way? | The density of stars decreases as you move away from the galactic centre. There, stars are much closer together. | [
"The nearest star to the Earth, apart from the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, which is 39.9 trillion kilometres, or 4.2 light-years. Travelling at the orbital speed of the Space Shuttle (8 kilometres per second—almost 30,000 kilometres per hour), it would take about 150,000 years to arrive. This is typical of stellar se... |
why can't we make a system similar to a human body that gets energy from food? | We could do that. We don't because it would be horribly inefficient compared to the fuels we already use, or most of the alternatives we've already devised. | [
"Relatively speaking, the brain consumes an immense amount of energy in comparison to the rest of the body. The mechanisms involved in the transfer of energy from foods to neurons are likely to be fundamental to the control of brain function. Human bodily processes, including the brain, all require both macronutrie... |
Is physical information within our universe finite? | According to (quantum) information theory, the answer to both questions is yes, since "[information is physical](_URL_0_)", as [Rolf Landauer](_URL_1_) puts it in the linked paper.
Since there is only a finite amount of matter in the observable universe, there can only be a finite amount of information. (Naturally, nothing can be said about the whole universe, unless one day we learn more about its nature.) | [
"In digital physics, the Fredkin finite nature hypothesis states that ultimately all quantities of physics, including space and time, are discrete and . All measurable physical quantities arise from some Planck scale substrate for information processing. Also, the amount of information in any small volume of spacet... |
how does online banking work without the exchange of actual money? | Most money is never actually physical money. When you get paid direct deposit, your money is not physical cash it just stays electronic. It’s just a number on a screen with codes and data that keep it secure and correct. Only when you choose to take out cash does your money become physical legal tender that you can touch or carry in your hands. | [
"Internet or online banking enables a customer to perform banking transactions and payments, to view balances and statements, and various other facilities. This can be convenient especially when a bank is not open and enables banking transactions to be effected from anywhere Internet access is available. Online ban... |
how does game streaming service (geforce now, stadia) have little to no lag, while traditional remote desktops (chrome remote desktop, microsoft remote desktop etc) having significant lags? | Whatever remote desktop program you're running has to render *and then* encode the video feed of the desktop on the computer that you're connecting to. The encoding takes a little bit of time. That little bit of time, combined with the fact that most remote desktop programs are just really quickly slapped together without any optimization means that you get a bit of lag.
GeForce Now and Google Stadia are optimized to the point that they've gotten rid of the lag involved in encoding the source video. One of the likely ways that they've done that is by running the server on a custom operating system or drivers that is set up to render video into an encoded format for streaming - essentially encoding the video for "free" from a computation standpoint rather than requiring a second process to do it. | [
"Many televisions, scalers and other consumer-display devices now offer what is often called a \"game mode\" in which the extensive preprocessing responsible for additional lag is specifically sacrificed to decrease, but not eliminate, latency. While typically intended for videogame consoles, this feature is also u... |
For lack of a better way to put it: What "sets" the speed of light? | I think you're asking why c is 3 x 10^8 m/s as opposed to some other value.
There's two answers. First, why that number - that's just units. It's 1 in natural units, 3 x 10^10 cm/s, and all sorts of other values in other unit systems.
I think what you're getting at, though, is the question "Why do massless things travel this far (gesturing with hands) in this much time (pauses and counts out some time) as opposed to that far (different gesture)?" There's no reason that we know for that. It's just a fundamental constant of the universe. Given our laws of physics, we don't know a reason for c to take the particular value that it does, just that it has to have some value.
You might be able to draw in some anthropic arguments about it, but that'd be pretty sketchy, I think. | [
"In Conway's Game of Life (and related cellular automata), the speed of light is a propagation rate across the grid of exactly one step (either horizontally, vertically or diagonally) per generation. In a single generation, a cell can only influence its nearest neighbours, and so the speed of light (by analogy with... |
Why did savory pie culture (shepherd's pie, chicken pot pie, etc.) not transfer to North America nearly as well as desert pie culture (apple pie, blueberry pie, etc.) while by comparison it thrived in Europe? | The short, simple answer to your question is that savory pies are very popular in the US, just maybe not in the part of Florida you live.
Aside from the much more well-known chicken pot pie, you also have the good ol' Natchitoches meat pie (which is actually one of the official state foods of Louisiana), and the French-Canadian meat pie popular in Quebec and New Brunswick. Also, depending on whether you define the Caribbean as North America or not, there are also Jamaican beef patties - which are also very popular here in NYC - and an array of empanadas from all across the Spanish speaking portions of the continent. And these are just a few - I'm certain that there are plenty of others in regional cuisines that I am overlooking.
So, the better question is not why are savory pies not popular in the US, but instead why are dessert pies LESS popular in Europe. And the answer, to put it simply, is sugar.
As it turns out, throughout the 1700s and into the 1800s sweet and savory pies were neck and neck in terms of popularity on this side of the pond. Sweet pies in the US exploded in popularity, however, during the early/mid 19th century when the establishment of a mainland US sugar refining industry meant the average American could easily and cheaply get their hands on as much sugar as they wanted while their European counterparts were still paying hefty import sums. This easy access to sugar led to an explosion not just in pie making, but also in the creation of jellies, jams, etc.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Hopefully this helped answer your question. If not, let me know and I'll do my best to elaborate more.
References:
Gross, Rachel E. “How Did Pie Evolve From a Medieval Crow-Meat Casserole Into America's Favorite Dessert?” Slate Magazine. Slate, March 13, 2015.
Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire a Plants Eye View of the World. New York: Random House, 2014. | [
"According to the theory, PIE became widespread because its speakers from the Kurgan culture could migrate into a vast area of Europe and Asia thanks to technologies such as the domestication of the horse, herding, and the use of wheeled vehicles.\n",
"Pies remained as a staple of traveling and working peoples in... |
how does country get richer through protectionism? | So the idea is that protectionism keeps profits inside your own country. I buy a car from Ford for $20,000, they spent $15,000 to make it, so they earn 5,000 in profit, and because they're an American company, that profit stays in America. I buy a car from Volkswagen for $20,000, they spent 15 to make it, so they earn 5,000 in profit, and that profit goes to Germany, because they're a German company. That sucks for America and is great for Germany.
Protectionism could prevent this by putting tariffs on VW cars. VW cars would be more expensive, therefore I'd naturally buy a Ford instead, keeping the profits inside the US. This helps grow American companies too.
Let's pretend Ford was an upstart company that just started making cars. For the first few years their cars will be shoddy and more expensive, because the company doesn't have experience and they need to pay off all the debt they acquired starting the company in the first place. Well no one's gonna buy these shoddy expensive cars when there's cheaper high-quality foreign cars they could buy. But if the government slaps a tariff on foreign cars, then American consumers *have* to buy the shoddy more expensive cars. This grows the American company into a mature company that can produce cheap and high-quality cars just like Germany. Then we can remove the tariff and have a free market again.
Now, all of this is the *ideal* scenario for protectionism. Sometimes it works like this but sometimes it doesn't and actually makes everything worse.
The first big problem with protectionism is *retaliation*. Go back to our previous example about the auto tariff. Germany's not just gonna lie down and take it. They're gonna slap a tariff on *our* products in retaliation. They'll put a tariff on American avocados from California. Oh no! Now most of the avocado companies are out of a business. They were an export-oriented business. So we may have done a favor for the American auto business, but we've done a disservice to the American avocado business. This tit-for-tat can theoretically go on indefinitely, to the common ruin of all. You won't import anything (good), but you won't be able to export anything either (very bad).
The second problem is that any sort of cap on the free market like a tariff is essentially a brake on economic efficiency. You're intentionally hobbling yourself. If you put a tariff on foreign cars to force Americans to buy more expensive American cars, well those Americans are that much poorer now. They spent a few extra thousand on a more expensive car, and they now don't have that money to spend on other stuff. This is a deadweight loss to the consumer. Overall and in the long run, these losses *can* be canceled out by the boons protectionism provides to domestic industry which may trickle down to all as high-wage factory jobs or investor dividends or whatever, but in the short run it hurts.
So you ask, would it be a disaster if some country from the former Eastern Bloc started to use protectionism. The answer, unsatisfying as it is, is that it depends. For a country like Russia, it would probably be a disaster. Russia is already highly industrialized and would benefit by getting their factories churning again and producing goods for export. Getting into a tariff tit-for-tat for them would be a disaster as they're already a heavily import-reliant economy. Romania was not quite as industrialized, so maybe they could benefit from some protectionism helping them grow their industrial base before they transition to a free-trade economy. | [
"There is a consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade, deregulation, and the reduction of trade barriers has a significantly positive effect on economic growth. Some scholars have implicated protectionism as the cause of some econom... |
How can we detect Anti-matter stars if they exist? | If there are pockets of the observable universe where antimatter is common, then those pockets will have borders. At the borders, a primarily matter region will be interacting with a primarily antimatter region, meaning they will be annihilating each other, which we could detect as very energetic gamma rays. | [
"In the unlikely event that dark stars have endured to the modern era, they could be detectable by their emissions of gamma rays, neutrinos, and antimatter and would be associated with clouds of cold molecular hydrogen gas that normally would not harbor such energetic particles.\n",
"Exotic stars are largely theo... |
what the current state of the marvel comics universe is | do you want spoilers? | [
"Marvel NOW! officially ended in May 2015 at the start of the \"Secret Wars\" storyline, which saw the end of the Marvel Universe. Following the conclusion of \"Secret Wars\", the universe is scheduled to be relaunched again in \"All-New All-Different Marvel\". Alonso stated that the relaunches are reminiscent of t... |
To what extent is the modern notoriety and recognition of Caesar, Antony, Cleopatra, Brutus, etc. the result of Shakespeare? | I can only speak about notoriety and recognition in the anglophone world.
Caesar, Antony, Brutus, and Cleopatra would definitely still be remembered without Shakespeare's plays. Having one of the most famous writers in history make your life into a narrative piece of theater is certainly helpful when it comes to staying in the public conscious, but these particular historic figures would probably have needed no such help. Especially Caesar himself.
These stories were already popular in England in the 1660s-70s when Shakespeare was young. Stories about the Roman Republic/Empire were considered essential parts of a good education. Latin was taught to students and portions of the works of Plutarch, Ovid, and Plautus were used as practice texts.
[Plutarch's *Lives*](_URL_1_) was first translated into English by Sir Thomas North in 1597. It was apparently a great success, as orders for a second printing were recorded later that same year. This translation was almost certainly used by Shakespeare as the basis for his play as I discussed in [a previous answer](_URL_0_).
In addition to being yet another popularizing force behind the life of Julius Caesar & company, Shakespeare also became responsible for a number of misconceptions about the story: He compresses the events of several years into 5 days. He makes the Capitol the venue of Caesar's death rather than the Theatrum Pompeium. Shakespeare makes the Triumvirs meet in Rome instead of near Bononia. The period between Caesar's victory and Antony/Octavius regaining control is a span of 3 years, not one week. Caesar's assassination and the dueling speeches of Antony and Brutus happened months apart according to Plutarch while Shakespeare places all three events on one gigantically important day: The Ides of March. Shakespeare's final battle happens on the fifth day of the play, where Plutarch sets it months after the assassination.
To sum up, the public memories of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were not in danger of fading when Shakespeare wrote his play. Indeed, he may have been responsible for as much confusion as awareness. On the other hand, Shakespeare made the character of Brutus much more interesting, conflicted, and three-dimensional than the one we read about in Plutarch. So I suppose it's safe to say that Shakespeare probably shaped the way we now view Brutus more than any other writer. | [
"Many critics have noted the strong influence of Virgil's first-century Roman epic poem, the \"Aeneid\", on Shakespeare's \"Antony and Cleopatra\". Such influence should be expected, given the prevalence of allusions to Virgil in the Renaissance culture in which Shakespeare was educated. Moreover, as is well-known,... |
why do radio stations change by region?? and how come xm is the same across america/the world? | Radio stations have an antenna and they broadcast their signal out. But the Earth is round, so most of the Earth isn't within reach of the antenna (there's a planet in the way of the signal). So you only receive the signal of radio stations near you.
It's the same reason why broadcast TV stations are local but cable and satellite TV stations are national. The broadcast only covers a short area, but by sending the signal along wires or between satellites, you can carry it all over the world. | [
"On March 29, 1941, 795 of the 883 AM stations in the United States had to shift to new transmitting frequencies, in what was informally called \"Radio Moving Day\". The moves were the result of the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA), and were primarily designed to allow ot... |
why is there such a disconnect between science and the government? | Because there is a disconnect between people and science.
The government will only change things that benefit them, or that there is enough public demand for that changing it would increase their chances of continued election.
If the majority of voters either don't know or don't care about something, the government is under no obligation to change it. | [
"Discussing science's role in policy and government, Rush Holt points out a fallacy in viewing science and politics as philosophically incompatible: \"The ethic in the profession is that you stick to your science, and if you're interested in how science affects public policy or public questions, just let the facts ... |
Floating Feature: STEM the Tide of Ignorance by Sharing the History of Science and Technology | So I get that the Soviet propaganda poster is sort of a joke, but there is an interesting Soviet tie-in to the modern study of the history of science.
One of the most impactful papers given in the 20th century study of the history of science was that given by Boris Hessen, a Soviet physicist, at the Second International Congress of the History of Science, held in London in 1931. It was a Marxist interpretation of the work of Isaac Newton, situating it within the context of 17th century England, which is to say, an economic, political, and religious context that any good Stalinist would label as "bourgeoise." This looking at the context of Newton, and showing the bridge between it and his work, had an immense influence on Western scholars, who ended up following this strain of "external" factors in the history of science to some very successful ends.
But why did Hessen give this paper? The story is quite interesting. He had been involved, in the 1920s and 1930s, in trying to defend Einstein's work, as well as the quantum physics that came after it, from accusations of being "bourgeois." In the high days of Stalin's purges, such attacks — leveled by philosophers who hated relativity theory and the ways in which it seemed to counteract the dialectical materialism of Marx, Engels, and Lenin — could be deadly for a field (Cf. Lysenkoism). Hessen was one of several brave Soviet physicists who attempted to make attempts to show that whatever the context of the creation of Einstein's theories (and that context was, indeed, bourgeois and "cosmopolitan" by Soviet standards), the work itself stood up.
How to make that defense? There were many different ways to attempt this, such as Vladimir Fok's rebranding of General Relativity as merely a "theory of gravity" (and throwing out all philosophical conundrums). Hessen's was through history: the philosophers held up Newton's laws as the ultimate expression of materialist truth, and so Hessen would show that Newton was certainly as bourgeois as Einstein et al. If he could do that, he hoped, the philosophers (or party functionaries) would perhaps accept that indeed the context could be separated from the science.
As historian of Soviet science Loren Graham writes, "the unwritten final line" of Hessen's paper "was that when Einstein wrote on religion or philosophy he also merely expressed his social context and therefore these views should not be held against physics"—what you can do to Einstein, I can do to Newton, so let's leave science to the scientists and history to the historians.
It's not clear that Hessen's paper was successful within his Soviet context; ultimately the "rehabilitation" of modern physics came when it became valuable for war, and that was just around the corner. Hessen himself was arrested by the NKVD in the late 1930s; there are conflicting accounts of his death (in one he was executed by firing squad, in another he simply died in prison). He was official rehabilitated by Khrushchev in 1956.
Outside of the USSR, "the Hessen thesis" became the spark of an entirely new line of historical inquiry — looking at how the social, cultural, economic, and religious context of scientific development influenced the context of the theories themselves — and much of this work, ironically, went to very different ends than Hessen's. Instead of being about the separability of scientific content and its context, it rather became about the inseparability. It marked, ultimately, a move away from the hagiographical and "internalist" approaches to the history of science — looking at it less as a list of discoveries or evolution of equations, and more as a realm of human society, just as fraught and complicated as any other.
For more, see: Loren R. Graham, "The Socio-Political Roots of Boris Hessen: Soviet Marxism and the History of Science," _Social Studies of Science_ 15, no. 4 (November 1985), 705-722, and Loren R. Graham, “Soviet attitudes toward the social and historical study of science,” in _Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History_ (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 137-155. | [
"Information theory was a fashionable scientific approach in the mid '50s. However, pioneer Claude Shannon wrote in 1956 that this trendiness was dangerous. He said, \"Our fellow scientists in many different fields, attracted by the fanfare and by the new avenues opened to scientific analysis, are using these ideas... |
Can an insect be “fat”? How do they store energy? | It depends a lot on the insect in question.
The most extreme example I can think of is the [honeypot ant](_URL_0_). Some members of these colonies become living food storage for the rest, hanging in place and taking in or giving out their stored reserves as needed. | [
"An insect uses its digestive system to extract nutrients and other substances from the food it consumes. Most of this food is ingested in the form of macromolecules and other complex substances (such as proteins, polysaccharides, fats, and nucleic acids) which must be broken down by catabolic reactions into smalle... |
Does a multi-decade concentration of Radon gas lead to an accumulation of lead particles in an enclosed environment (basement)? | We're talking about concentrations that would be nearly undetectable if the substances weren't radioactive. Let's run some numbers.
The highest recorded residential levels of radiation from radon and its decay products have been on the order of 100,000 becquerels of activity per cubic meter of air, where 1 Bq is defined as one atom decaying per second.
For simplicity, we'll pretend that each atom is removed from the sample as soon as it decays to lead-210, and radon is added as necessary to keep the activity at 100k Bq/m^3.
For one atom to go from radon-222 to lead-210 is a total of five decays: three alpha and two beta. Dividing our 100,000 decays per second by five decays per atom, we get 20,000 atoms of lead per cubic meter per second.
Now, applying that rate to a 50-m^3 room for 100 years (3.154 x 10^9 seconds), we get 3.154 x 10^15 atoms of lead, with a total mass of about a microgram. | [
"In 2001, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources found that street dust in the town of Herculaneum contained 30% lead. Testing the same year by the United States Environmental Protection Agency found high levels of air pollution. Test results also showed elevated levels of lead among more than half of pre-sch... |
Book suggestion for the 1933 coup, and the 1959 revolution? | You may want to specify the country in your OP: some flaired users have auto-notifications set up for certain key words | [
"BULLET::::- Describes a coup d'état organized by right wing conservatives to overthrow the popular, newly elected socialist government. While the book is technically fiction it is strongly based on the overthrow of the government of the author's cousin Salvador Allende and the dictatorship of General Pinochet\n",
... |
developing grey hair at a young age | Mine's genetic, but not as bad as my grandfather. He went completely grey by 20. Me, I'm salt and pepper right now. I don't mind though. Better to have hair than no hair. If it's that big of a deal, you could dye it.
But, to answer your question:
1. Stress has not been shown to increase greying (but I tend to think it does. No proof though).
2. a vitamin B-12 deficiency or problems with your pituitary or thyroid gland can cause premature graying that’s reversible if the problem is corrected.
3. Scientists aren't really sure why, but it tends to be genetic. | [
"Children born with some hair colors may find it gradually darkens as they grow. Many blond, light brown, or red haired infants experience this. This is caused by genes being turned on and off during early childhood and puberty.\n",
"Premature greying of hair, also known as canities, can have negative effects on ... |
Why did the Australopithecus become extinct? | Of all of the primate human ancestors it could be said that they met one or a combination of three fates:
* Evolve and occupy a separate niche which does not compete with what became human
* Interbreed with what became human
* Compete for resources and lose against what became human
In other words they either fought us, joined us, or ran away. | [
"\"Lystrosaurus\" survived the Permian-Triassic extinction, 252 million years ago. In the Early Triassic, they were by far the most common terrestrial vertebrates, accounting for as many as 95% of the total individuals in some fossil beds. Researchers have forwarded various hypotheses for why \"Lystrosaurus\" survi... |
Why does sand express the same properties of a non-Newtonian fluid when wet? Is it a non-Newtonian fluid? | Yes, a non-newtonian fluid acts like a solid when a force is applied because the particles of sand (or corn starch, etc) restrict the flow of water when pressure is applied. Additionally, the surface tension of the water keeps the particles bonded together as a cohesive unit. | [
"A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid that does not follow Newton's law of viscosity, i.e. constant viscosity independent of stress. In non-Newtonian fluids, viscosity can change when under force to either more liquid or more solid. Ketchup, for example, becomes runnier when shaken and is thus a non-Newtonian fluid. Ma... |
Is there a charge for the weak force? | The equivalent of charge and colour for the weak force is flavour, with a caveat (edit: more precisely, weak isospin, as corrected below). Typically, flavour refers to the 6 different kinds of quarks and the six different kinds of leptons, but they're organized in 3 groups of two, with each group, called a generation, having a "up-type" and a "down-type" quark, or a "electron-type" and a "neutrino-type" for the leptons. Really, it's the difference between up-type and down-type that is the equivalent of charge, while the difference between generations is a separate concept.
Electromagnetism has one type of charge, which can be positive or negative, while the strong force has three, each of which can be positive or negative (red/green/blue, anti-red/anti-green/anti-blue), while the weak force has two kinds which can be positive or negative (up-type/down-type, anti-up/anti-down).
The reason we don't usually think of flavour as a "charge" in the sense of electromagnetic charge and colour-charge is becuase of electroweak symmetry breaking and the Higgs mechanism. Each kind of charge corresponds to a different kind of gauge-symmetry, but in the case of the weak force the gauge symmetry is broken at this time and place in the universe. This breaking of the gauge symmetry along with the Higgs mechanism has resulted in the types of particles with different flavour-charge getting different masses, and so we think of them as different kinds of particles. With electromagnetism and the strong force, electrons and positrons have the same mass, as do quarks and antiquarks of the same flavour but different colour. So, the different charges don't change the particle type, and this is related to the fact that the gauge symmetries in those cases is unbroken. | [
"In the nuclear physics, and atomic physics weak charge refers to the standard model vector coupling of nucleons to the Z boson, namely formula_1, where \"T\" is the weak isospin, \"Q\" the charge, and \"θ\" the weak mixing angle. Thus, it is approximately -0.99 for a neutron and +0.07 for a proton.\n",
"The dist... |
what is it like behind the scenes when a major website or video game has a massive crash? | Panic from everyone non-technical and loud sighs from all of the developers/network guys.
It's usually a straight-forward fix, so the tech people see "work at off-hours that I don't get paid for because I'm salary" and all of the business people see some super complex world-ending problem that they have no idea how long will take to fix. | [
"BULLET::::- \"Crash Online\": Halfway through the year 2006, a small article was published on the Internet, listing several online PC games which were meant to be released by Sierra. Amongst them there was a mysterious project named \"Crash Online\". The game was set for a release in 2007, but a small copy of its ... |
Are there dangerous retroviruses in vaccines? | Unfortunately you may find it hard to reason with some people, even with good sources. My own father has a degree in Geography yet refuses to believe in man made climate change. Remember, for his theories such as Judy Mikovits being under duress it is his responsibility to get evidence for it.
Anyway, here are some studies:
[No Evidence of Infectious Retroviruses in Measles Virus Vaccines Produced in Chicken Embryo Cell Cultures](_URL_0_)
[No Evidence of Murine Leukemia Virus-Related Viruses in Live Attenuated Human Vaccines](_URL_2_)
Keep in mind there is evidence of finding endogenous retroviral DNA in some vaccines: these are ancient viruses that now make up the genome and come from the vaccine production in certain cell lines. In vaccines they will be attenuated as no retroviral RNA has been found in the blood serum of vaccinated people. [See this study, which found retroviral RNA in the vaccine, yet found no retroviral activity in those inoculated](_URL_1_).
Apologies as virology is not my strong suit.
It might be easier to try and explain that the ridiculously low risk of vaccination is worth it when compared to dying of a preventable disease. If however, he believes in things like Government mind control/tracking vaccines etc, it will be immensely difficult to make him see reason. Good luck and I appreciate your efforts in trying to help him turn away from the anti-vax movement. | [
"There are no vaccines against these viruses as there is little-to-no cross-protection between serotypes. At least 99 serotypes of human rhinoviruses affecting humans have been sequenced. However, a study of the VP4 protein has shown it to be highly conserved among many serotypes of human rhinovirus, opening up the... |
what happens to wildlife in a blizzard? | More deer do die during really bad winter conditions, but it's surprising how ridiculously tough they are. During the end of fall they undergo a number of bodily and behavior changes: they eat way more food to pack on insulating layers of fat, they shed their summer coats and grow a winter hide of hollow fur that traps air and insulates them further. During particularly bad weather they actively seek out shelter and herds/family groups conserve energy by not moving much. Like two thirds of their time or more is just spent bedded down sleeping.
Smaller mammals tend to go underground in the winter. | [
"Ground blizzards are common in the American great plains in the wake of snowstorms producing light, dry snowfall that is more easily picked up by strong winds. They are also common in the Canadian Prairies, Siberia, Northern China, and also Arctic and Antarctic regions during seasonal transition periods, such as t... |
why does law enforcement need a warrant to search a suspects property? and why is evidence acquired without a warrant inadmissible? | It's inadmissible so that cops won't be encouraged to do illegal searches. It's to protect innocent people from just having cops bust down their doors on the off chance that they find something. | [
"Though specific interpretation may vary, this right can often require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant or consent of the owner before engaging in any form of search and seizure. In cases where evidence is seized in a search, that evidence might be rejected by court procedures, such as with a motion to su... |
how is it economical to ship ramen packets? | It probably costs a *lot* less to ship things than you think.
Let's say it costs about $2000 to ship a 20ft container from Asia to the US. That's [1100 cubic feet of space](_URL_0_).
Let's also call a [12-count of ramen](_URL_1_) is about 0.23 cubic feet.
Doing some math, that gives 5100 cases or 61,200 packets of ramen - about 3c per packet of ramen.
You also need to keep in mind that several brands are made in the US, cutting out that cost entirely. | [
"BULLET::::- Ramen – referred to as \"curly noodles\" in North Korea. Shin Ramyun is a brand of instant noodles produced in South Korea that is nicknamed \"money ramen\" in North Korea, due to its relatively expensive pricing in North Korea at around 800 won per unit. In 2009, boxes of Shin Ramyun that contain twen... |
Is the radiation from a microwave oven considered a photon? | It's a stream of photons, yes. If the average photon has an energy of about 1.65-2.00 electronvolts (eV, a unit of energy) we call it "red light", if it's 2.75-3.26 eV we call it "violet light", if it's got 0.000001 eV to 0.001 eV we call it "microwave". There is no difference beyond that, "microwaves" are just light of much lower energy than visible. | [
"Photon radiation is called gamma rays if produced by a nuclear reaction, subatomic particle decay, or radioactive decay within the nucleus. It is otherwise called x-rays if produced outside the nucleus. The generic term photon is therefore used to describe both.\n",
"All warm objects emit low level microwave bla... |
what are the differences in antibiotics that are designed for different varieties of infection (viral, fungal, bacterial, etc.) ? | Antibiotics are *only* for treating bacterial infections. That's literally what the word means.
If you're looking at treating fungal infections, you need an antifungal. If you're looking to treat a viral infection, you need an antiviral.
They're all completely different drugs. | [
"Bacterial infections may be treated with antibiotics, which are classified as bacteriocidal if they kill bacteria, or bacteriostatic if they just prevent bacterial growth. There are many types of antibiotics and each class inhibits a process that is different in the pathogen from that found in the host. An example... |
How diverse was Bohemia during the fifteenth century? | Hi, not discouraging more info here, but FYI there was a popular thread on this a couple of weeks ago, featuring /u/commiespaceinvader among others
* [People are getting extremely upset because there are no black people in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. How accurate is this for 16th century Bohemia?](_URL_0_) | [
"Bohemia became the cultural center of Central Europe when Charles IV brought the Holy Roman Emperor's court to Prague in the 14th century. The Royal Court Workshop under the guidance of Peter Parler was one of the highlights of Gothic architecture in the Holy Roman Empire. The Hussite Wars then stopped all plans f... |
machiavellianism | Machiavelli is best known, and the term which now bears his name comes from, a book he wrote called *The Prince*. In it he explains clearly to the rulers of his day how a prince, the ruler of a city-state, should act. He gives advice on a range of topics, but in general it all comes down to a few key rules.
First: it isn't important what you do, only how you are seen. A prince must be believed to be trustworthy, faithful, and just. He need not actually be any of those. In fact he should not be.
Which brings us to the second rule: do whatever you must whenever you must. A prince takes whatever course of action best maintains or increases his power. If you see an opportunity you take it, if something is a threat eliminate it.
Third: your subjects are both the greatest power and greatest threat you have. Treat them as such. You must ensure that they will never try to remove you and that they will obey you. It is best to be both feared and loved, but if you must choose one be feared. Feared but not hated. If people hate you they will remove you, if they fear you they will obey you. To ensure fear but not hatred follow the same rule for those you must remove at home as you follow for those you must remove in war.
Fourth: both in war and at home destroy your enemies completely. Those you must destroy will hate you and seek revenge if they can. Do not leave them able to. When you finish they should have no capacity to harm you left. But do not damage in any way others, you will make new enemies that way.
Fifth: never trust others. Do not trust your allies as a state. Do not trust mercenaries as an army. Do not trust advisers as a man. Everyone has their own agenda, it is never the same as yours. Know what they want and you can use them. Never believe that they want what you want.
Sixth: above all else never get involved in a land war in Asia. | [
"Machiavellianism is the political philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli, expressed notably in his theoretical and historical writings. The word comes from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli, born in 1469, who wrote the books \"Il Principe\" (\"The Prince\"), and the Discourses o... |
if we know jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams then how is 9/11 explained? | 1) Combustion temperatures depend, amongst others, on surroundings. The 9/11 crash lead to higher temperatures than the test.
2) Things don't go from completely rigid to molten right away. As temperature heats up, the molecular structure of steel changes and it can rapidly loose it's strength.
3) Fire can and will heavily damage concrete. | [
"On August 31, 2009, the National Geographic Channel aired the program \"9/11 Science and Conspiracy\", in which the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center tested some of the claims frequently made by those who question the accepted 9/11 account. Specifically, the experiments concluded that burning jet fue... |
why are we able to predict astronomical events like eclipses and transits down to the minute but we still don't know when or if asteroids like bennu will hit earth? | A couple reasons:
A) The moon is fairly large and obvious, so it's been observed for a very long time, so we have a *lot* of data to say where it's going to be. It is also less likely to be bothered by small disturbances tugging on it (it don't care if a small rock hits it). It's so large and close, we landed on it and put a laser reflector on it so we could get even more extremely precise measurements. With lots of good data, and very minor disturbances, predictions into the future are easy.
B) Bennu is small, so getting good precise readings at the distances it's at is hard. Predicting where it will be in 20 years is hard if your readings have large variations in them. Also, small disturbances that are harder to predict (small rocks, solar wind).
C) Also, because Bennu doesn't orbit the earth, things like the gravity of other planets may throw (more like tapping) it around more, making it's path just that much harder to predict.
D) We're looking 150+ years in the future, it's going ~ 1.15 (rough orbital radius in AU)*2*3.14 AU every 1.2 years, over 150 years that's about 135 billion kilometers (over 5 light days) away, trying to aim the metaphorical bullet that far ahead is hard. (Yes, the math is very rough, on purpose) | [
"Currently prediction is mainly based on cataloging asteroids years before they are due to impact. This works well for larger asteroids ( 1 km across) as they are easily seen from a long distance. Over 95% of them are already known, so their orbits can be measured and any future impacts predicted long before they a... |
the difference between a gatling and a machine gun. | Another distinction is that classic Gatling guns were hand-cranked, while true machine guns (Maxim onwards) are self-powered:the exhaust gases from one round are harnessed to eject that casing and load the next cartridge. Thus when there is a problem with one round the machine gun stops working. In a Gatling gun the gunner would keep cranking full-speed and get some serious jams (ammunition was pretty bad back then so it was pretty common) | [
"An externally actuated weapon uses an external power source, such as an electric motor or even a hand crank to move its mechanism through the firing sequence. Most modern weapons of this type are called Gatling guns or, in reference to their driving mechanism, chain guns. Gatling guns have several barrels each wit... |
How an Aerospike engine really works ? | > I don’t understand, why, in that case, the thrust isn’t expending on the side like a normal random flow firing in all direction ? the exhaust pressure is still much higher than air….. one side of the exhaust is on the spike make a “half” bell, right, the other, exposed to air, should just go in all directions, like it happens on bell engines ?
That's what would happen at normal gas speeds, but the rocket exhaust is supersonic, and supersonic flows are not intuitive. The cold, slow-moving air surrounding the engine literally can't get out of the way of the expanding exhaust stream fast enough, so expansion pressure waves "bounce off" the outer surface of the exhaust stream, preventing the jet from expanding.
In this way, the air around the engine forms a sort of rocket bell, but one that's not solid, and changes its shape to get bigger as the rocket ascends to lower air pressure.
_URL_1_
(from _URL_0_) | [
"Early stationary engines employed a small scoop on the extremity of the crankshaft or connecting rod to assist with the lubrication of the cylinder walls by means of a splashing action. Modern small engines, such as those used in lawnmowers, use a \"slinger\" (basically a paddle wheel) to perform the same function... |
what's the difference between debt and bankrupt? | **Debt** just means you owe someone money. You're have to give it back with interest at some point(s) in the future, usually spread out.
Being **insolvent** means you have debts which you should pay back right now, but are unable to do so because you don't have any income or savings (or too little).
**Bankruptcy** is a legal procedure through which an insolvent person (or company, depending on the jurisdiction) whose financial situation is unlikely to improve anytime soon can untangle the mess and end up debt free after fulfilling certain criteria. These may include selling off assets to make partial repayments and making reduced payments for a certain time from whatever income they have.
The point of bankruptcy is not only to provide a "financial reset button" to the debtor, but also to ensure that the creditors are treated fairly and not indefinitely left uncertain about whether they'll get their money back. It also reduces the incentive to worsen the situation through lies and trickery. | [
"A debt is defined as a debt which arises from a debtor-creditor relationship based upon a valid and enforceable obligation to pay a determinable sum of money. The debt in question must also be considered worthless. This distinction is further broken down into the level of collectibles. One must determine whether t... |
if it is legal to have up to 1oz of weed, how do drug dealers keep from getting arrested since they obviously have more? | This is really a ask a legal question, not a concept question. | [
"Police Enforcement in Costa Rica (Fuerza Pública) does not have a specific protocol to deal with cannabis users, nonetheless in case of possession of \"small dosages\" (informally considered somewhat between 1 - 8 grams) they will confiscate the drugs. In the case of a larger amount they may proceed with a formal ... |
How exactly can we tell if other planets have water or water vapor in their atmosphere? | Spectroscopy. We don't just measure the overall decrease in brightness, we also measure it as function of wavelength. Water vapor preferentially absorbs some specific wavelength ranges while it lets others pass through. If we look at these wavelength ranges then the dip is deeper - the planet appears larger because its atmosphere absorbs light there, too, while in other wavelength ranges only the solid or denser part of the planet matters. | [
"Water vapor is a relatively common atmospheric constituent, present even in the solar atmosphere as well as every planet in the Solar System and many astronomical objects including natural satellites, comets and even large asteroids. Likewise the detection of extrasolar water vapor would indicate a similar distrib... |
Book covering the early 1400s to present day | I'm reading and have been quite enjoying John Darwin's *After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires 1400-2000*. | [
"The book collection consisted of around 15,000 volumes from the 19th and 20th centuries, relating to history, theology and travel. In addition there were 450 prints of the 16th–18th centuries of Western European and Polish origin. There were also seven Incunables pressed in the 15th century. Among the first editio... |
How accurate is this style of combat? | There are 15th century German fighting manuals (Hans Tallenhover's *Fechtbuch* or fight book) illustrating and showing captions that depict these kind of strikes in use. They were a technique that was apparently used by European swordsman reasonably often.
I don't know enough about the subject to explain why this particular strike is advantageous. There are a number of users on ask historians that seem to have a deep knowledge of historical european swordfighting and perhaps one of them will produce a more detailed reply. | [
"Tactical battles, which may or may not be open to the public, are fought like real battles with each side devising strategies and tactics to defeat their opponent(s). They have no script, a basic set of agreed-upon rules (physical boundaries, time limit, victory conditions, etc.), and onsite judges or referees, an... |
How did the roman military punishment of sleeping outside the camp work? | Being forced to sleep outside the camp walls was a part of the decimation punishment, though it had fallen out of use by the time of Crassus and Antony. After a unit had been decimated, the remaining members would be forced to camp outside, and were only given barley or fodder-grade wheat. It’s important to remember that decimation was a “punishment by lottery” and while one person was REALLY punished, it was the whole unit being disciplined. The forced outside camping would span the course of days.
The unit discipline would be given after a battle had been fought, or at some point in the relative safety of the encampment. The temporary banishment would not have likely endangered the soldiers, the point was to punish the men, not kill all of them. It wouldn’t do any good to have the entire cohort die.
The rations given were of a lower quality than what a legionnaire would normally be given, and would often cause gastrointestinal distresses. It’s also believed that the barley was viewed as a mark of incompetency, as new recruits were also given that until they demonstrated their ability to their superiors. After the battle of Cannae, some units were issued barley rations for seven years, but this doesn’t seem to be the norm The whole point of the exercise was to humiliate, shame, and further punish the disgraced unit.
Both of these punishments were very exceptional. Typical discipline involved flogging and fining. Decimation was reserved only for capital offenses.
Sources:
The Roman Soldier, George Ronald Watson; Cornell University Press, 1985
Roman Military Service, Sara Elise Phang; Cambridge University Press, 2008
Polybius, Histories, book 6, chapter 38
Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, book 2, chapter 59
| [
"Roman troops would construct a fortified camp, with a standardised size and layout, at the end of each day's march. Most of their adversaries would rely on camping on defensible features (such as hilltops) or in places of concealment (such as in forests or swamps). Although this practice spared troops the toil of ... |
What is the actual origin of Valentine's day? | I can't say that I can answer your question in its entirety, but who says that Lupercalia is related to Valentine's Day? As far as I'm aware February 14 was simply the feast day of Saint Valentine, with no implications of a celebration of romantic love until the late Middle Ages. Someone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that one, but that's a pretty big gap to fill to get to Lupercalia. And I can't say I see the connection with Lupercalia. Lupercalia was celebrated on February 15, but that doesn't mean much, there's only so many days in a year, festivals between cultures are bound to roughly line up. Lupercalia's rituals have very little to do with the celebration of romantic love that Valentine's Day is supposed to be in the modern west. I mean I don't see the connection between Valentine's Day and the ritual of slaughtering a dog and some goats at the entrance of the Lupercal, smearing the blood with a knife on the foreheads of two boys who were ritually obliged to laugh as it was done, and then having those two boys run around the city smacking people with thongs cut from the sacrificial goat-hides. I mean, I *guess* there's some sort of possible link there with the fact that Lupercalia is in part a fertility ritual, to ensure bountiful harvests and good offspring, but what that has to do with the romantic love of Valentine's Day I can't say I see. And the fertility ritual aspect of the Lupercalia is hardly the only, or even the most important aspect. The Lupercalia seems to have been primarily a lustration, a ritual associated with purification and aversion of evil, rather than a strict fertility ritual. Coming as it does one month before the start of the archaic new year in March, and one month to the day before the first full moon of the new year (March 15, arguably a more important festival day than the actual old new year) its status as a purifying ritual becomes kind of obvious. I'm not sure what it has to do with Valentine's Day at all | [
"There is no evidence of any link between St. Valentine's Day and the rites of the ancient Roman festival Lupercalia, despite many claims by many authors. The celebration of Saint Valentine did not have any romantic connotations until Chaucer's poetry about \"Valentines\" in the 14th century. Popular modern sources... |
why do christians celebrate jesus' birthday along with many other pagan traditions? | The Medieval calendar had a very large number of feast days - close to 30. This were set around the cycle of the farm and the seasons.
So, for example, around the time that lambs are born, you have a feast, because you have some mutton that died in childbirth and a few more lambs than you wanted to keep, so you have a meat surplus. When the Raspberries start to appear in large numbers, and the farmhands have been bringing it in, you have another feast day with raspberry pies, you make raspberry jam, and so on.
The pagan holidays in any given area were timed around these appearances for the same reason. When nature gives you a food surplus, you preserve what you can, and feast. This has been the way since prehistoric times in northern climates.
When Christianity spread, these same 'natural feasts' were still going to happen. Someone had to eat those dead sheep, you may as well cook a raspberry pie, and so on. So the church naturally took elements of the faith, like important figures and saints, and placed holidays commemorating them around those traditional feasts.
Winter Solstice is by far the darkest of these feats, because it occurs after you've taken stock of what you have for the winter, and decide what you can spare, or if there's going to be hunger this winter. The Baby Jesus naturally symbolized that time best - hope in the darkness, whether it's the hope of salvation after starving to death, the hope of making it through the famine, or the good cheer of knowing you have enough food.
In today's modern society with greenhouses and refrigerators and international food trade, these holidays make less sense, and most of the old medieval feasts have been forgotten. We've kept a few around as a means to connect with the community. Christmas is one of them. I think you're right to point out that it's not really a Christian holiday, it's a community holiday about hope and family. But I also see absolutely nothing wrong with a Christian seeing that through the lens of Christ. | [
"BULLET::::- Annual festivals listed in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 should be observed by Christians today as they were kept by Jesus, the original apostles, and the first-century Church of God, headquartered at Jerusalem. Members do not celebrate Christmas, Easter, saints' days, Lent, or other traditional Cath... |
Was the fact that companies like Kodak, Hugo Boss, Volkswagen ect were part of the Nazi war effort used against them by their competitors in the post war years? | VW was famously established as a Nazi initiative. However, this was more than balanced at the end of the war by its recovery through the efforts of [Major Ivan Hirst](_URL_1_), a British engineer from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. This started with the use of workshop facilities for the repair of British army vehicles in 1946 but Hirst saw the potential for reviving the no longer functional factory and reestablished production of the beetle. In 1949 years later it went to the German government and was run by new and presumably denazified management. However the link with Hirst and REME was kept so VW's origins were known but it was now considered unlinked to the former regime.
I guess it also helped that early VW was known for producing a basic, affordable car back in those days. This was seen to be vital for the German recovery. Also there was seen to be little high level management continuity into the postwar period (unlike some other German companies). VW did pay compensation later for the use of slave labour though much later.
Later, VW famously made fun of their origins in their co-operation with Top Gear which produced the joke slogan for a high economy car (a VW Polo "Blue): "From Berlin to Warsaw with one tank". VW did, of course, produce [military vehicles during WW2](_URL_5_), but not tanks.
This may be contrasted with companies like Deutsche Bank and Siemens [where there were stories in the press about their dealings with the Nazis and in the latter case, the use of slave labour](_URL_3_). Whether or not they were planted by rivals is another matter.
Sources:
Richter, Ralf ["HISTORICAL NOTES 4: British Officer and Manager of Volkswagen’s Postwar Recovery"](_URL_4_) [PDF Warning] Publ: Online by VW AG retrieved 19/6/15
James, Harold, "The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank" Publ: Camb University Press 2004
[Siemens Offers $12 Million to WWII Slave Labor Victims](_URL_2_) Associated Press 24/9/1998 (Retrieved 19/6/15)
Andrews, Edmund ["Volkswagen to Create $12 Million Fund for Nazi-Era Laborers"](_URL_0_) published 11/9/98 (retrieved 19/6/15) | [
"The Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933, and all German aviation development was shifted away from long-range civil aircraft types. Hugo Junkers himself was forced to transfer all his patents to the Nazis, who doubted that Junkers (a socialist pacifist) would comply with their plans. Shortly after, his hol... |
Were people living in Greece by the 10th Millenium BC? If so, would they already be speaking the Greek language? | Just double-checking, do you mean 1,000 BC, or 10,000 BC? | [
"Greece was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic period. Prior to the 2nd millennium BC, the Greek peninsula was inhabited by various pre-Hellenic peoples, the most notable of which were the Pelasgians. The Greek language ultimately dominated the peninsula and Greece's mosaic of small city-states became culturally... |
how do direction work in space because north,east,west and south are bonded to earth? how does a spacecraft guide itself in the unending space? | Spacecraft are able to determine their position and orientation through a combination of on board sensors (like star sensors) and off board trackers (like radar). Beyond that, it is typical to describe their position and velocity as an orbit. These orbits can be described using a few variables that indicate the size, orientation, and direction of the orbit. These are called "Keplerian Elements."
So, for example if you wanted to convey information about a satellite above the Earth, you wouldn't say "It's 500Km above the ground, moving 7km/s in the Northwest direction" but you could say, "The satellite's orbit has a semimajor axis of 6800km, with an eccentricity of .01, inclination of 23 degrees..."
Of course, there are other ways of keeping track of and describing these, but that's one of the most basic ways. | [
"More unusually, the Dymaxion map does not have any \"right way up\". Fuller argued that in the universe there is no \"up\" and \"down\", or \"north\" and \"south\": only \"in\" and \"out\". Gravitational forces of the stars and planets created \"in\", meaning \"towards the gravitational center\", and \"out\", mean... |
how do people grow pot on tv without getting arrested? | Are you asking about fiction shows or TV as in documentaries? In the case of the documentaries some places it is completely legal to grow. Others, well it’s not hard to hide really if you have the right setup. The hardest part is covering up smell. Some induction fans or blower fans with charcoal filters connected to the exhaust take care of smell very well. Also electrical use gets people caught. Some people wire past their electrical meter so it doesn’t register the use. As far as going on TV with a grow op, that’s an extremely stupid move. Every grower I know that has been caught was caught because they ran their mouth about it. Going on TV is like that but much worse. | [
"On September 3, 2003, during routine structural checks, officials discovered someone had been secretly growing marijuana near the mall's ceiling. No plants themselves were found but growing lights, gardening pots, and seeds were found in the roof space above one of the tenants. The amount of marijuana that had bee... |
Does time flow differently in other galaxies? | Well, let's first take a look at time itself. What do we know about it? Well, it's relative. Meaning, our perception of time is dependent on several factors, it isn't a single thing that is independent from our understanding of physics. Time is also bounds by these laws.
One of the major things that affects the rate at which time flows forward is gravity. In short, the greater mass an object has, the faster it will age.
This can be modeled with 2 humans of the same age. If one goes up into space for an extended period of time, the space human will have experienced a slower time than the one that remained on earth. Keep in mind this difference would be astronomically small.
**And now we get to your question.** In short - yes, but relatively. If the overall mass is different, which it more than likely will be, then yes, the average time will be different. A galaxy with more mass will have a quicker average spacial time. A galaxy with less mass will have a slower average spacial time. | [
"One more important step being left out of the standard model, Wiltshire claimed, was the fact that as proven by observation, gravity slows time. Thus, a clock will move faster in empty space, which possesses low gravitation, than inside a galaxy, which has much more gravity, and he argued that as large as a 38% di... |
programing question | Yes, you can. The compiled executable and the uncompleted text files have nothing to do with each other. You can change the code while the program is running, and changing the code will not magically alter a running program. | [
"Programming by permutation, sometimes called \"programming by accident\" or \"by-try programming\" or \"shotgunning\", is an approach to software development wherein a programming problem is solved by iteratively making small changes (permutations) and testing each change to see if it behaves as desired. This appr... |
when you turn the ac on, turn the speakers louder or turn on a subwoofer in a car, does fuel economy decrease in order to create more power? | 1 hp is about 750 watts. The alternator is in the ball park of 70 % efficient. Your AC compressor will take 2 or 3 hp mechanically from the engine. Take your electric load, divide by .7 and divide by 750, this is the load your placing on the engine.
A modern car engine will have a fuel consumption of .4 to .5 pounds of fuel per horsepower per hour.
This is the extra fuel your burning for accessories.
ETA: double checked my numbers, some new cars are getting fuel consumption down into the low .3s. Didn't think they could go that low. | [
"When the vehicle is turned on with the \"Power\" button, it is ready to drive immediately with the electric motor. In the North American second generation Prius, electric pumps warm the engine by pumping previously saved hot engine coolant from a coolant thermos before the internal combustion engine is started. Th... |
why are people who run onto football fields so aggressively tackled? | They want to discourage it so that it doesn't become more common.
They have a game to play (and televise, and sell advertisements for, etc) and don't want it to be frequently interrupted by people running around on the field. As well, if people were to run onto the field while a play were actually going, they could get really hurt. If the punishment were just a slap on the wrist, there'd be a lot of drunk college students willing to just run out there for a laugh, so they make the punishment harsh to try to keep that from happening. | [
"To protect players from potentially catastrophic injury, there are some restrictions on tackles and blocks. At no time may a defensive player tackle an offensive player by grabbing the facemask of their helmet; doing so incurs a 15-yard penalty and the victimized team is awarded a new set of downs. Although spear ... |
could we reproduce the mechanics of what powers the earth's magnetic field, and miniaturize it to protect spaceships from radiation? | Yes. You just have to figure out how to avoid a strong-ass magnet from interfering with all the equipment. | [
"Furthermore, without Earth's surrounding magnetic field as a shield, solar radiation has much harsher effects on biological organisms in space. The exposure can include damage to the central nervous system, (altered cognitive function, reducing motor function and incurring possible behavioral changes), as well as ... |
how do those cables they string across the road measure your vehicle speed? | if I am thinking about the same cables you are thinking about they aren't used to measure speed they're used to count how many cars are going across the road they use it to know how much maintenance or if they need to expand the road to handle more traffic. | [
"BULLET::::- Platooning, which allows vehicles to closely (down to a few inches) follow a leading vehicle by wirelessly receiving acceleration and steering information, thus forming electronically coupled \"road trains\".\n",
"In one scheme, the roadway has magnetized stainless-steel spikes driven one meter apart... |
how do people not feel effects from thc and other substances if they're still present in our systems for up to days/weeks/months enough to show up on drug tests? | Two reasons: First, much of the substance is excreted out of your body. They are testing for what small amounts are left over. The concentrations in your body are very very small, and not enough to make you feel any effects, but can still be detected.
Second, depending on the drug, they are not always testing directly for that drug, but its byproducts. You're body will break down the chemicals in the drug, but the byproducts of that process can hang out in your system for a long time. | [
"Testing for metabolites of THC, versus the actual THC intoxicant, can result in DUID convictions of users who aren't actually impaired. According to National Institute on Drug Abuse, \"the role played by marijuana in crashes is often unclear because it can be detected in body fluids for days or even weeks after in... |
why is scrotal skin so different from other skin? | Because it has a very particular job that other skin doesn't.
Your testicles have to be kept at a certain temperature, one that's lower than the rest of your body. So your scrotum needs to be able to adapt to temperature and then respond by raising or lowering the testicles, becoming thicker, or thinner and shrinking or expanding.
So basically because your balls need to stay cool/warm. | [
"The scrotum is an anatomical male reproductive structure that consists of a suspended dual-chambered sack of skin and smooth muscle that is present in most terrestrial male mammals and located under the penis. One testis is typically lower than the other to avoid compression in the event of impact. The perineal ra... |
why is there seemingly only 5000 species of mammals on earth yet seemingly endless minute variations in insects/birds/reptiles etc? | Smaller reproduction times and lifespans means you can have more generations and a higher rate of mutation. | [
"It is estimated that the annual use of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from tens to more than 100 million. In the European Union, vertebrate species represent 93% of animals used in research, and 11.5 million animals were used there in 2011. By one estimate the number of mice and rat... |
WWII - How much did the Axis powers know about the Allied invasion plans on D-Day-1? | It depends. Rommel is on record claiming that the Allies would come at high tide to minimize casualties crossing the (narrower) beach. This ruled out the 6th of June since it was generally acknowledged that the attack would commence at first light, and first light at June 6th had the low tide. That would mean the assaulting troops would have to cross a wide beach under fire, which didn't mesh well with the observed Allied straategy of minimizing casualties. German defenses were accordingly designed around an attack at high tide (the beach obstacles you can see in Saving Private Ryan etc. would have been underwater had the attack happened at high tide).
Furthermore, German weather experts predicted poor weather for most of early June. Allied weather experts did much the same, except for a small break on June 6th, which Eisenhower gambled on.
However, German radio intelligence had intercepted allied transmissions to the French resistance, which included codewords to start actions in support of an invasion in the next 24 hours. The Germans knew what this meant and passed it on. The officers in charge of the actual defenses responded that the Allies surely won't announce the invasion via the BBC and did not act. Even when the airborne invasion started, many still thought it was a diversion or a raid.
So no, they weren't really expecting it except in the most general term that they knew the invasion would come during 1944. | [
"In 1943 Allied high command decided that the following year would see the invasion of Europe, with Normandy chosen as the landing site. The LCS vied with Ops. B (another deception agency, set up under the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Commander Allied Forces). On 14 July Bevan published a paper entitled \"First Th... |
why can't you cut all the wires in a bomb to prevent it from detonating? | EOD Tech here. I wanted to chime in because the top replies are mostly wrong.
First of all, to answer your question simply:
- Some "firing circuits", that is, the circuit in an electrically initiated explosive device(i.e., it contains a battery and electric detonator) **can be interrupted in literally any fashion to "render safe" the device.** Firing circuits can be as complex or as simple as **any other type of circuit**. Think of a detonator as a lightbulb, and the device "initiator" as a switch(this can be anything, a cellphone, a pressure plate, a suicide switch, whatever). The only other thing you need to complete the circuit is a power source(a battery, for example) In this type of circuit, **you can cut any wire** and the device **cannot work**. There's still explosives present, and there's still measures that need to be taken for that, and you still have to get rid of it, but **the device will no longer function as designed**. It's simple electronics. For the record, this type of device is very common.
- Now, obviously, someone with a lot of electrical know how can design a much better firing circuit. This is where the skill set of the EOD tech comes into play. It's important to diagnose a circuit completely before taking any action. The most straight forward type of circuit **that cannot simply be interrupted at any point in the circuit** is called a **collapsing circuit**. There are several ways to build a collapsing circuit, including using relays, semi-conductors, and various other electrical engineering techniques. I won't explain this further. Suffice to say it's possible to booby trap a circuit so that if a wire is cut, the device will function. This is a much rarer type of device, but one that EOD tech's still train to handle
- Then, as another commenter has mentioned, there are lots and lots of types of explosive devices that don't use electronics of any kind, and therefore there are no wires to cut and other steps have to be taken depending on the type of device.
**TL;DR**: There is a lot more than one type of explosive device. Sometimes, any wire can be cut. Sometimes it can't. Sometimes there are no wires.
**addendum**: Generally speaking, an EOD tech will exhaust all other possible measures before physically interacting with a device in any way. We have a lot of tools and techniques at our disposal, and if possible, we won't go anywhere near a device until it's as safe as we can possibly make it remotely.
edit: speeling.
editedit: Thank you very much for supporting reddit by providing me with gold. It's pretty awesome of you. | [
"It is possible to insert wiring without the proper tool, but this requires great care to avoid damaging the connectors. For example, pushing a screwdriver down the middle of the block is a bad practice as it forces the two blades of the terminal post apart, leading to bad contacts. It is also possible to punch-dow... |
Who was the first U.S. President to have his photograph taken while in office? | Based on what I've been able to find out, the earliest *surviving* photo of a president in office is [of James K. Polk.](_URL_2_) However, [this one](_URL_3_) (of his cabinet) and [this one](_URL_0_) of he and his wife might have been taken in any order but they were almost certainly taken while he was in office because he died just three months after leaving.
Those are the earliest surviving (in digitized form, you'd be surprised what you can find in books) photos of a sitting President. Yet there is this mysterious photo of John Tyler. Wikipedia says that Polk was the first to be photographed in office (without citation) but has [this photo of Tyler](_URL_4_), purportedly taken by Anthony, Edwards, & Co. A press release from March 17, 1845 in the New York Herald talks about an exhibition of pictures taken by Anthony, Edwards, & Co. and mentions a portrait of 'ex-President John Tyler'. The portrait is not described and neither is the date on which it was captured. Another press release mentions the gallery on March 13, implying that it was a multi-day event. Tyler only left office on March 4. It is possible that a photo of Tyler was indeed taken while he was still in office. Further corroborating this is a brief blurb [here at the Encyclopedia Virginia](_URL_1_) which mentions an advertisement from 1844 from Anthony, Edwards, & Co. claiming to have photographed Tyler. It is as yet unclear when exactly the existing daguerreotype of Tyler was taken, though I conclude that it is certainly possible for him to have been photographed in office. | [
"Yoichi R. Okamoto (July 5, 1915April 24, 1985) was the second official U.S. presidential photographer, serving Lyndon B. Johnson. He was fondly known as \"Oke\", and was given unprecedented access to the Oval Office. He captured images of the President of the United States, more candid than had been previously acc... |
what is cherenkov radiation? | In a nutshell, it’s like a sonic boom, but instead of going faster than sound, it goes faster than light. Instead of going BOOM, it’s a flash of light/radiation. Nothing goes faster than light in a vacuum. However, through a medium like water, light slows down so some subatomic particles can go faster than it. Usually, they’re trying to find neutrinos when you’re talking about Cherenkov Radiation. Since neutrinos don’t really interact with anything, what they do is fill a huge room with water and light detectors. Then they wait and hope one of the quadrillions of neutrinos passing through the room interact with the water causing a brief flash (Cherenkov Radiation) | [
"Cherenkov radiation is commonly used in experimental particle physics for particle identification. One could measure (or put limits on) the velocity of an electrically charged elementary particle by the properties of the Cherenkov light it emits in a certain medium. If the momentum of the particle is measured inde... |
is there a reason spicy things become less spicy after being refrigerated? | Cold numbs your taste buds. So it's not less spicy your mouth just doesn't register the capsaicin like it would if the wings were hot. | [
"Although the consumption of spicy food can cause pain, people in many cultures ascribe a high hedonic value to it. Psychologist Paul Rozin puts forth the idea of \"benign masochism\", a learned tendency that overrides the typically aversive stimuli because of the risk-taking or thrill-seeking associated with overc... |
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