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if i touch a puddle that has an electrical cable in it, i'll get shocked. if i throw an electrical cable into the sea, why will not everything in the entire ocean become shocked? | When you are shocked it's from electrons flowing through your body. Electrons on a finite thing. There are only so many of them. The amount of electrons that can be drawn from the outlets in a typical building are way way way more than are needed to kill a human.
However the Ocean is really really really big. Whatever powercord your throw into the ocean eventually leads back to a circuit breaker. The amount of electrons that can be drawn into the ocean depends on what that circuit breaker is rated for. Even if it's a huge break, say 600 amps, that's no where near enough to hurt everything in the ocean.
Modeling something like this is tricky because there are a lot of things we don't know. To start with pure water doesn't conduct electricity. However dissolved minerals in the water do. The ocean is salt water and does conduct electricity. However the saltiness of the water isn't the same in every drop so some patches of water might conduct electricity better than others.
If you compare the end of the electrical cable with the ocean, the cable will have a much higher concentration of electrons so yes, the closer you are to the cable the more likely those electrons will try to go through you and hurt you. So yes the voltage does dissipate with distance. | [
"Besides boats and dockside power hookups, several other potential causes exist. Lightning strikes over or near water have caused electric shock drownings. Faulty hydroelectric generators or damaged underwater power lines can cause leakage currents, potentially creating a hazard. In general, anything electrically a... |
What is taught about Stalin in Russia? | As someone who has had Russian history and currently still posesses a book called 'The Book for Future Admirals' (aimed at 10-14 year old kids, part of the school history 'recommended reading list' as per 1994), I can only answer what was said in the book and my limited personal experience with the history lessons. The book covers the period from before WW2 to the end of 1970, and mostly focuses on the military aspects.
Stalin is being portrayed as a good leader and a very powerful authority figure, and his government as a strong leadership who helped bring the war to a succesful end. The massacres and gulag sendoffs are not explicitly mentioned but often inferred during the book. There are stories of how the war commanders like Zhukov had to fight Stalin to get what they wanted, or how his negative decisions affected them and the war. By accounts of many generals in the war, he often asked the impossible from his people, but was not completely unreasonable when given mass rebuttal(the infamous and very short lived order to shoot retreating soldiers in the back is an excellent example. Very few commanders actually did it and forced him to back down from it.) Overall, he is posed as someone who did a lot of good for the country and brought a measure of stability to it. But there is certainly a hanging sidenote of 'horrible person' permeating every good deed he did.
TL:DR: There is praise for his accomplishments in bringing the country together, but always with an undertone that he was a horrible person. Maybe not on the same level as Hitler, but a good second.
*If mods want proof of me having the book, dated 1976, I can provide a photo. I'm otherwise purely a military enthusiast with no historical degree. My experience here comes from reading and researching the many wars in the world.* | [
"Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar is a 2003 history book by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It primarily deals with the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's life and that of those around him from the late 1920s through to his death in 1953, through the period of collectivization, the Moscow show trials, the purges, World War I... |
I have a blanket that's fuzzy on one side and slick on the other side. When I lay under it fuzzy-side down, is it really keeping me warmer, or is it just my imagination? | An important aspect to heating and insulation is 'dead air' which is trapped air. Air is a pretty good insulator and will trap heat effectively as long as it cannot move around. Comforter blankets are puffy for this very reason. While I can't say anything specific about your blanket, the fuzzy side might on average sit higher above your body allowing more air to act as insulator. | [
"Typically, but not always, the blanket sleeper consists of a loose-fitting, one-piece garment of blanket-like material, enclosing the entire body except for the head and hands. It represents an intermediate step between regular pajamas, and bag-like coverings for infants such as buntings or infant sleeping bags (T... |
Could/does epigenetics cause changes in genetic sequences over time? | Epigenetics is more of a function of regulating gene expression, rather than making changes to the base pair sequences themselves.
In order for changes to be inherited, as you suggested above, it would indeed have to happen in gametes. However, there is evidence that epigenetic marks can influence sites of homologous recombination. This may not be what you think of in terms of mutation, but unchecked HR at certain fragile sites can cause structural variants and INDEL mutations. This probably wouldn't cause an observable phenotype though. | [
"Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. By the first decade of the 21st century it had become accepted that epigenetic mechanisms were a necessary part of the evolutionary origin of cellular diffe... |
What are the effects of solar radiation or solar storms on electronics in space? | Radiation causes two main types of issue in space electronics, each with several sub-categories. Broadly speaking, radiation can cause a temporary failure to occur (a "soft error") or it can cause permanent damage (a "hard" failure). There are several techniques to try to deal with each. I'll just mention some of the more common ones that I know about.
When a charged particle passes through a semiconductor, it can leave a path of broken bonds and/or charged particles in it's wake, leading to a current leakage path. This path can cause the discharge/charge of circuit nodes and cause their state to "flip". Such a temporary upset is a soft error. It is possible for a path to be created that will lead to a parasitic SCR circuit to form that will go into a positive runaway condition, called "latch-up". That can be temporary (until the power is removed) or it can destroy part of the chip.
In addition, particle damage can affect the semiconductor crystal lattice and/or the interfaces between semiconductor and insulators in a permanent fashion. Such damage is usually small but accumulates over time. Eventually, it can result in a permanent leakage path forming and thus lead to device failure.
For soft errors, a simple mitigation strategy is to replicate circuit elements three (or more) times, and let the correct output be decided by majority vote. That way a transient upset of one part of the circuit won't be used, since the other two parts of the circuit will still get the correct result. A more sophisticated method that can be used is to encode each state machine within a circuit as multibit, and ensure that transitions between states require more than one bit to change. In addition, the fabrication technology can be made more (or less) robust against soft errors.
For permanent damage prevention/mitigation, there are also multiple strategies. Shielding the electronics from radiation is of course the first line of defense. There are also manufacturing technologies that can be used to fabricate the chips that are less prone to damage than others. And like soft errors, redundancy can be used, but usually at a higher system level...for example, multiple circuit cards can be used so that if one fails, another takes over.
This is just a quick overview, there are many ways of dealing with soft and hard failures. And it is typical to not use just one strategy, but many different ones together. Overall, it can be very expensive to deal with this issue. A single chip that might cost $100 for a commercial, Earth-bound version can easily cost $10,000 or more for a space hardened version. | [
"Solar cells, integrated circuits, and sensors can be damaged by radiation. Geomagnetic storms occasionally damage electronic components on spacecraft. Miniaturization and digitization of electronics and logic circuits have made satellites more vulnerable to radiation, as the total electric charge in these circuits... |
When did American sports teams become so intricately connected to geographic regions? | What gives you that impression? While I confess I'm not quite that up on sports organization outside of the US-Canadian leagues, my understanding of sports leagues in most regions is that they are far more geographically grounded than you see in the United States, where teams are essentially treated as businesses, and the owners are quite willing to move them when it is in their financial interest (or at least to use the threat as leverage for public funding).
The National Football League, for example, only just saw several teams change cities or announce plans to within the next few years. But even if we keep it solely to before the 20 year rule, there are a number of examples in the major American sports leagues of teams shifting about. The most infamous would be the departure of the Baltimore Colts for Indianapolis following the 1983 season, but for the NFL, a quick finger-math tally would indicate that roughly 1/3 of the teams are playing in a different city than where they started, with several moving multiple times, such as the Cardinals who started in Chicago, went to St. Louis, and finally ended up in Phoenix. The list would further increase if we count moves such as the Giants and Jets from NYC, to the suburb of New Rutherford, NJ.
Moves aren't limited to Football though. Washington, DC, has seen several teams come and go at this point with *both* the Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins beginning life as iterations of the Washington Senators, and the city's current team of course was once the Montreal Expos. The New York Yankees were once the original Baltimore Orioles, while the current Orioles were known as the St. Louis Browns once upon a time, and before *that* they were the first Milwaukee Brewers (the current Brewers played their first season as the Seattle Pilots before quickly fleeing town). As for the NBA, well, there aren't many Lakes in L.A., nor is Utah particularly known for its Jazz scene last time I heard.
So anyways, I could list more examples of teams picking up and leaving town, but it would belabor the point. The main thing I was simply looking to demonstrate is that there is a flaw in your premise. American sports teams are not particularly famous for their ties to geographic regions as far as I can see it. Some, certainly, have remained firmly rooted in their hometowns since the beginning, and become integral parts of the local culture there, but that is not the hallmark of American sports, nor hardly unique to the American scene, as I have a much harder time imagining Manchester United or Chelsea leaving town than I could for just about any American sports franchise (Except the Pats! GO PATRIOTS!). | [
"Professional sports leagues as known today evolved during the decades between the Civil War and World War II, when the railroad was the main means of intercity transportation. As a result, virtually all major league teams were concentrated in the northeastern quarter of the United States, within roughly the radius... |
How do we know that the first homo sapiens emerged in Africa and didn't just all move into Africa from Europe or the Middle East and then back out again? | the species homo sapiens itself emerged from Africa. there were older, archaic populations in Europe and the middle east, but modern humans replaced them (and interbred with them in the case of neanderthals). This has been shown with genetic evidence. the most genetically diverse populations of humans are found in Africa. it is only one branch that replaced the european and middle eastern populations. therefore, we can see genetically that all humans are more closely related to each other than they are to African populations(who don't have any neanderthal DNA). if they had actually evolved in the middle east/europe, then they would have had to evolve in the same places as neanderthals and homo erectus, and then somehow ALL go to africa to make sure the genetic diversity was accounted for.
you might also consider Occam's Razor - the most simple explanation (ie one migration out rather then one out and then back in) is the most probably | [
"The fossil record shows \"Homo sapiens\" lived in southern and eastern Africa anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 years ago. Between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, their expansion out of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern humans. By 10,000 BCE, \"Homo sapiens\" had spread to all corners of the wor... |
how were the adaptation of 5.56 nato rounds political? | After WW2 different countries started looking into assault rifle rounds. It was a promising development for infantry arms. The Soviets had quickly developed their own 7.62x39mm in 1943 and were working hard to make it their mainstay.
NATO countries looked at developing their own round. The US testing known as SALVO looked at several options, including a focus on flechettes but that option never fully worked so the program switched to conventional bullets. Later, this program and its data is what would drive the adoption of 5.56mm in the US. Until that later time however the US leaders mainly looked at continuing to use full power rounds and making them controllable in full auto. All the countries in NATO wanted to work toward a standardized round so to share with each other.
The British came up with the promising 6.25mm round but it was veto’d by the US. The US leadership that was in favor of assault rifles/small caliber development was over ruled for the time by traditional thinkers who pushed the 7.62x51mm round. The US traditional thinkers got their way and the US adopted the M14 to succeed the M1, which killed the British 6.25mm caliber. Allied countries adopted their own 7.62x51mm rifles.
Then in 1961 the US was like “lol just kidding” and adopted the homegrown 5.56mm round and rifle. Being that the US was the big dick in NATO, the 5.56mm round started to become widely used alongside the 7.62x51mm used in battle rifles. This switch drove allies to follow and by the 1970s NATO has standardized on 5.56mm.
The reason for adoption of the 5.56mm and M16 was an effort spearheaded Army General name Wyman and using the data from SALVO. There was a lot of pushback by internal Army testing centers and leaders who were not convinced that such a small bullet would be effective, and there are noted cases of the rifle being sabotaged to fail tests.
Eventually though the rifle was accepted, although early wide issue service models used out of spec parts and the “self cleaning” function of the was grossly misinterpreted leading to it being issued without cleaning kits at first. This lead to a lot of lasting bad impressions.
As well there was politics around ArmaLite having to sell their design to Colt since Colt was a government contractor who could actually get a realistic chance to convince the government to buy the rifles. | [
"In the wake of World War II, the NATO \"Rifle Steering Committee\" was formed to encourage the adoption of a standardized NATO rifle. The Committee and the US interest in the FAL proved to be a turning point in the direction of the FAL's development. The U.S. and NATO interest in small arms standardization was the... |
How do you build large structures in violent water? | Concrete sets underwater, so from that perspective submarine and terrestrial construction techniques are very similar, provided the seabed is sufficiently stable. Piles can be driven traditionally, or by vacuum driving hollow piles into softer substrates. Work areas can be isolated with seafloor caissons if necessary. Otherwise work is conducted from barges where weather permits, or from jack-up platforms (minimal water plane area) if the sea is consistently heavy. | [
"In 1988, a method of using water to control flooding was discovered. This was accomplished by containing 2 parallel tubes within a third outer tube. When filled, this structure formed a non-rolling wall of water that can control 80 percent of its height in external water depth, with dry ground behind it. Eight foo... |
How does current Amish culture differ from very early Amish culture? | That's somewhat difficult to answer, because [the Amish are very diverse](_URL_0_), especially if you throw in their Anabaptist cousins the Mennonites. People generally believe these folks want to preserve a certain era, but it's more that they are wary of new technology because of its unknown effects on a community. Whether and how a new technology is acceptable according to the church is usually settled by a group of bishops. As you can imagine, this process has led to a lot of disagreement and schisms over the years, to the point that some communities will only have one community telephone in case of emergencies, some will allow phones on the edge of their property, and some just allow phones in the home. In short, yes, Amish communities have changed, but the degree to which they have changed varies from place to place. | [
"\"The Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers\" (2010) is a Channel 4 television documentary series which focuses on five young Amish who traveled to the UK during their Rumspringa as part of an arranged cultural exchange. In each episode the group stays with British families of varying socio-economic levels, living in ... |
how many combinations are possible for the unlock screen 9 dots on a droid phone. | [According to Google engineering ](_URL_0_) there are **389,112** total sequences. Sequences are a minimum of 4 in length:
> Not only are nodes connected by adjacency and knight's moves; they can also connect via 2 steps along a line, or a peg jump, if the middle point is already used. That means the connectivity changes depending on what points have already been used.
>
> So for example, if the nodes are labeled as
>
> 1 2 3
>
> then (1 2 3), (2 1 3), (2 3 1), (3 2 1) could all be valid. (Note that these are all too short, since the minimum length is 4 points.)
>
> The output of the code below is:
>
> Sequences by length: [0, 0, 0, 0, 1624, 7152, 26016, 72912, 140704, 140704]
> Total number of sequences: 389112 | [
"Depending on the quality of the lock, some single-dial combination locks can also be defeated relatively easily. Typical padlocks are manufactured with generous tolerances, allowing two, three or even more digits of 'play' in the correct access sequence. Given a 60-number dial with three cams and three digits of p... |
why can't i draw mohammed? | > Where is it written that Mohammed should not be drawn?
It's written in the [Hadith](_URL_0_), which I suppose you can think of as the [*Silmarillion*](_URL_2_) to the Quran's *Lord of the Rings*. Here's the wikipedia article for [Aniconism in Islam](_URL_1_), which is the prohibition of images of the divine.
> Why can't I draw Mohammed?
You can. You can draw Mohammed and you can miss church on Sundays and you can eat bacon on Passover. Only very misguided people would hold you to religious laws which are not your own. | [
"In Islam, although nothing in the Quran explicitly bans images, some supplemental hadith explicitly ban the drawing of images of any living creature; other hadith tolerate images, but never encourage them. Hence, most Muslims avoid visual depictions of Muhammad or any other prophet such as Moses or Abraham.\n",
... |
how is the wired transmission of data different than the wired transmission of electricity/power in terms of the physical properties of what is actually "sent" down the line? | Transmitting electricity in order to power homes/devices can be done as either Alternating Current (AC) or Direct Current (DC). DC means the electricity only flows one way. AC means it quickly switches direction, usually 50 or 60 times per second depending on the country.
AC is typically used for widescale power distribution because it's more efficient over long distances and when converting to higher or lower voltages. Many home appliances use AC where possible to match this, the less converting you do to electricity, the more efficiently you can use it. Whereas DC is used for modern electronic devices, because many electronic components need a constant direct supply of electricity and are difficult, expensive or impossible to design to support alternating current. Basically, DC is used when the effort of converting AC to DC is less than the effort of using components that support AC.
So ignoring AC, let's say we want to compare a wire transmitting 5 Volts of DC power, vs a wire transmitting data at 5 Volts. **In terms of physical properties, there's no difference.** Both are sending electrons down the wire, a material that is good at conducting electricity. What's different is that where the power line is a constant stream of about 5V, the data line will switch between about 5V (high voltage) and about 0V (low voltage). The border where you cross between high and low voltage is determined by the design specifications of the circuit, for various reasons it may not be exactly 0V.
Somewhere in the circuit there will be a clock that will tell the data receiving component when to measure the signal on the data line. If the signal is close to 5V, it's a "1". If it's close to 0V, it's a "0". Do this thousands of times a second and you can transmit lots of ones and zeroes, which is computer data. Now you can begin to see one reason why components use DC - if you took a measurement while your 5V AC was switching direction, you might read a low voltage instead. | [
"A transmission line is a set of electrical conductors carrying an electrical signal from one place to another. Coaxial cable and twisted pair cable are examples. Transmission line is capable of transmitting electrical power from one place to another. In many electric circuits, the length of the wires connecting th... |
Are there any energy sources that are known to us and exist within our planet but didn't get harvested yet? | Thorium would make an excellent fuel for nuclear reactors, but no one has worked out all of the details of using it. India is working on the problem, I believe. The reason it would be great to use is that it is much harder to use the process and byproducts to create weapons.
So when you have a country like North Korea or Iran that is saying they're researching nuclear power and enriching Uranium for power plants, other countries get nervous and try to keep a tight eye on them, to make sure they're not using the nuclear fuel to make weapons. Then you get all the meddling and posturing and sabre rattling. If they were using Thorium, it would be a lot less worrisome.
Thorium is 3 to 4 times more abundant that Uranium, at the Earth's crust anyway, also making it a better choice.
The problem, of course, is just like trying to get people to use alternative fuels in their cars: all the infrastructure is already there for another fuel, gasoline. In the case of nuclear reactors, we have Uranium enrichment, storage, and power plants already in place.
The reason we did all the research on Uranium first was because the Manhattan Project in the 40's WAS trying to produce a weapon for an ongoing war, and atomic power was an afterthought.
| [
"The most important non-terrestrial resource is energy, because it can be used to transform non-terrestrial materials into useful forms (some of which may also produce energy). At least two fundamental non-terrestrial energy sources have been proposed: solar-powered energy generation (unhampered by clouds), either ... |
why is it so hard to understand when multiple people talk on things like skype or google hangouts but easy to understand when in person. | You can determine the source of the sound when it's "live", but you cannot when you're listening to people talking through their microphones. They all talk at about the same volume as well. | [
"Users can communicate as if they are speaking to one another in real life. This \"like reality\" attribute makes it easy for users to form a virtual community, because chat rooms allow users to get to know one another as if they were meeting in real life. The individual \"room\" feature also makes it more likely t... |
What is the evolutionary explanation for having a network of neurons in our gut? | The digestive system is actually the more primitive and evolutionarily ancient of the nervous systems. The most simple multicellular life forms such as jellies have neuronal networks around their digestive tracts. Basically we all started out as wormlike with our bodies just a surrounding and support matter for our digestive systems. The most important thing at that point was making sure digestion worked properly. As you start seeing with some flatworms, there starts to be a trend called 'cephalization' where you start getting stuff going to the 'head' including neurons which over hundreds of millions of years ended up increasing in complexity and evolving into a brain. The basic original reason for the digestive neuronal network never went away though, so we still have our enteric nervous system since that was the original nervous system. | [
"The brains of many molluscs and insects also contain substantial numbers of identified neurons. In vertebrates, the best known identified neurons are the gigantic Mauthner cells of fish. Every fish has two Mauthner cells, located in the bottom part of the brainstem, one on the left side and one on the right. Each ... |
why does the red cross have so many restrictions on blood donations that involve travel to europe? i thought most european countries had a better healthcare system than the us. | Because of outbreaks of mad cow disease that occurred in the UK, from 1986-1998, which killed hundreds of people and is pretty much impossible to detect if you're a carrier. | [
"Bloodless medicine appeals to many doctors because it carries low risk of post-operative infection when compared with procedures requiring blood transfusion. Additionally, it may be economically beneficial in some countries. For example, the cost of blood in the US hovers around $500 a unit, including testing. The... |
Why is it that animals, such as gorillas, can gain large amounts of muscle mass naturally. Whereas humans need to physically make an effort to "get bigger"? | Because humans and gorillas aren't the same species. Their muscles are adapted for force where ours are adapted for fine, precise control. | [
"Researchers are still debating whether the more noticeable muscles are larger in size as well. It should be clarified, though, that muscle mass is not the same as muscle strength. Some say that human growth hormone will build muscle mass through raised insulin-like growth factors levels leading to heightened prote... |
What's the highest decibel sound we could possibly create? | At 1atm background pressure, the highest sound pressure level possible is a little over 214 dB. This happens when the nulls in the pressure wave form a vacuum. If you exceed the energy needed to create such a sound, it will travel as a shock wave and not sound.
There are plenty of things in the world that reach that level, like explosives and sonic booms.
Krakatoa was a unique acoustic phenomenon mostly because the sheer amount of energy that was released into the atmosphere, creating a massive noise at sustained levels in addition to the shockwave. On top of that, flat ocean water absorbs very little acoustic energy and the waves will actually reflect off the surface creating constructive phase interference, which can carry a sound wave much further across water than land, meaning you don't have as many losses.
If I had to put my finger down on something, the Castle Bravo test was probably the loudest thing mankind has ever done, accounting for how far the sound would have traveled with minimal losses like Krakatoa.
If you expand the question a bit to beyond atmospheric sounds, things can get crazier. Military sonar is in the range of 160 dB, but details on modern technology similar to it and the sound level is difficult to find. | [
"BULLET::::- dB SPL: dB SPL (sound pressure level) – for sound in air and other gases, relative to 20 micropascals (μPa) = , approximately the quietest sound a human can hear. For sound in water and other liquids, a reference pressure of 1 μPa is used. An RMS sound pressure of one pascal corresponds to a level of 9... |
I've heard about western movies where the horses were deliberately injured or killed, and other mistreatment of animals. Does anyone have any examples of this, with specific movies/shows? | The classic example of this was the 1939 film *Jesse James*.
One scene in the film involved sending a hoarse over a cliff. This scene ended up killing the horse (not from the fall, but rather the horse later drowned before it could be rescued from the body of water it had fallen into). This triggered condemnation from the American Humane Association (AHA) who ended up working with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) to establish a code of animal welfare and to monitor said code.
In the 60's the group that the Humane Associated had been working with disbanded and they lost their access to movie sets.
This triggered a 2nd wave of animal cruelty which lasted until 1980 when the movie *Heavens Gate* allegedly killed several horses during it's production including one being blown up (and several other non-horse issues making it into the film). This eventually pressured Hollywood to allow the AHA to monitor films.
The AHA actually keeps a decent website outlining their cruelty accusations. [For example here is the entry for Heavens Gate](_URL_0_) | [
"The film was marred by accusations of cruelty to animals during production. One assertion was that live horses were bled from the neck without giving them pain-killers so that their blood could be collected and smeared upon the actors in a scene. The American Humane Association (AHA) asserted that four horses were... |
how can lottery winners go broke having assets to sell? | They probably DO sell their assets during their spiral back into poverty. People who regularly play the lottery are often not that fiscally responsible and are often harassed by both family and strangers due to their very public windfall (several have been killed over disputes with family who felt shafted). Some may start mortgaging their mansions to keep their extravagant lifestyle going, rather than prudently cutting back. | [
"In April 2014, the bank was convicted in one case because of falsely advising lottery winners. A married couple had won more than €6 million from Westlotto and invested them with Merck Finck & Co. The bank persuaded the couple to invest in so-called closed-end funds, which turned out to be uncertain, so that the c... |
does a fireplace give of any adverse effects? | > Does this mean the fireplace in my living room is heating the room due to thermal radiation?
Assuming there's a fire in it, yes, at least in part. So are you, by being in the living room.
Everything above absolute zero (in other words, everything) gives off thermal radiation. This is not an ionizing radiation, it's not going to give you cancer. You yourself are giving off thermal radiation right now.
Your typical fire is not hot enough to give off ultraviolet radiation, which is what triggers a tanning response in humans. | [
"Organizations like the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology warn that, according to various studies, fireplaces can pose a significant health risk. The EPA writes \"Smoke may smell good, but it's not good for you.\"\n",
"The Rumford fireplace created a sensation ... |
why does water soak upwards, appearing to ignore gravity? | So you understand that gravity is pulling it down. The 'problem' is that it isn't obvious what exactly is pulling the water up!
Your answer is the capillary effect. In a very broad sense, water molecules have a negative end and a positive end. Opposite (charges) attract, so all those water molecules want to line themselves up so their positive end is next to another water molecule's negative end.
This desire to rearrange molecules to have the neg-pos-neg-pos pattern is actually a little stronger than gravity sometimes! The molecules desire to have that arrangement pulls them up against even gravity. | [
"The effect is caused by resonances in a body of water that has been disturbed by one or more factors, most often meteorological effects (wind and atmospheric pressure variations), seismic activity, or tsunamis. Gravity always seeks to restore the horizontal surface of a body of liquid water, as this represents the... |
what exactly does the "black box" from a airplane do or tell us? | It gives us all of the data about the aircraft (location, speed, heading, altitude, systems performance/problems, etc.) and a recording of the voices in the cockpit for all of the time leading up to and through the crash.
Basically it's a huge piece of the "what the hell happened" puzzle.
If you want more specifics on the black box (also called the flight data recorder), then both here and Google are good places to search. | [
"Inside the box, towards the rear, is a white stick or fluorescent tube, which appears to move from one side of the slot to the other as the viewer moves closer, although it is in fact fixed and the effect is merely due to perspective (see parallax). Above and/or below this slot will be markings in white or yellow,... |
why do computers use red, green, and blue to create any color when the primary colors in "real life" are red, green, and yellow? | **TL; DR: computers and TVs are about emitting the colors we want. Paintings are about absorbing the colors we don't want from the white light around us in order to get the colors that we want**
What color we see is based on what frequencies of light hit our eyes. The different frequencies are represented by the colors of the rainbow. White is what we see when we see a combination of all frequencies and black/dark is what we see when there are no photons (no light at any frequency)
So what causes light to hit your eyes? Well, some things emit light such as lightbulbs, the sun, your computer screen. But we also have light that hits our eyes after it bounced off an object. So that blue car on the street? It's not emitting a blue light, but white sunlight is hitting that car, and blue light is bouncing off of it into our eyes.
Why did the white light change to blue light when it bounced off a blue object? Because light can be absorbed, and all of the frequencies in the white light (which remember, white is a combination of everything in the rainbow) got absorbed except blue.
So there are two ways to create colors: emitting frequencies you want and absorbing the frequencies you don't want.
If you start with nothing (black/darkness), you can create any color you want by adding together red, green, blue light frequencies (additive). If you start with everything (white) you can get any color you want by subtracting/absorbing red, yellow, blue (subtractive).
So the primary colors for subtracting light are red, yellow, blue and we use those when painting. And the primary colors for adding light are red, green, blue and we use those for computer screens and TVs. I think technically the specific shades you need to get every other color out of subtractive lighting are magenta instead of red and cyan instead of blue (and yellow is still yellow). | [
"In modern color theory, also known as the RGB color model, red, green and blue are additive primary colors. Red, green and blue light combined together makes white light, and these three colors, combined in different mixtures, can produce nearly any other color. This is the principle that is used to make all of th... |
how did eli5 go from a place to ask legitimate questions about complex topics to a place to air out one's own sociopolitical opinions like a dae question? | It didn't, and such questions are explicitly banned:
> Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view. | [
"While it is not clear how closely the organization followed the questionnaire in shaping itself, one political scientist thought it significant that the \"overwhelming source\" of U.S. political problems among questionnaire-answerers was found to be \"our attitudes and values.\"\n",
"The actual format of the dis... |
AMA - Bronze Age Archaeology and History | So the Sea Peoples... There are all kinds of theories about just who they were or where they came from. Is there any particular theory that you find to be most plausible? Are there any active theories out there that you think we just need to stop giving credence to? | [
"Archeologists uncovered remains of the Bronze Age at the northwestern slopes, overlooking the junction of two ancient international trade routes. The earliest finds are dated to the late phases of the Early Bronze Age period (3300 BCE–2100 BCE). These include an Egyptian vessel made of Diorite, which is found most... |
how exactly can the u.s. "buy" greenland? | It can't really. Both Denmark and the people of Greenland would have to agree it and both parties thoroughly don't have any reason to. It's just a situation where our idiot president is trying to figure out a way to make some positive press about himself. Plus he is a pompous toddler who thinks he can just do what he wants and get what he asks for. | [
"During World War II, when Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany, the United States briefly controlled Greenland for battlefields and protection. In 1946, the United States offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100 million ($1.2 billion today) but Denmark refused to sell it. Several politicians and others have ... |
what are the arguments for the insanity defense? | The purpose of the criminal justice system is to get justice for the victims and hopefully rehabilitate the criminal into a productive member of society. You cant rehabilitate a crazy person by shoving them into a cell. They arent gonna magically stop being crazy once their sentence ends. Its not like the insanity defense is some magic "i get to walk free argument". They will be committed into a mental facility and will hopefully get help so everyone can move on with their life. | [
"The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for his or her actions due to an episodic or persistent psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act. This is contrasted with an excuse of pr... |
why did ireland hold a popular referendum on same-sex marriage, as opposed to only passing it through parliament like countries such as the uk? | Because in Ireland it needed a change in the constitution which specially protects marriage. A constitutional change can only be made via a referendum. The UK doesn't have a written constitution, nor are there any other laws requiring a referendum in such cases. | [
"In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalise gay marriage through referendum, with yes winning by over 62% of the vote. In a total over two million adults voted, and it was found that many younger adults participated in this vote to bring Ireland into a new era.\n",
"Ireland overwhelmingly ... |
why does uploading slow down my whole internet? | Downloading stuff is essentially a fast sequence of
> "Here's stuff you need to memorize, there's thing A, then thing B, then thing C, then... ...And finally, we have thing Z. Did you get all that?"
> "Yeah"
> "Okay, so, here's how it continues, there's thing 1, then there's thing 2, and then thing 3, then... ...And finally, we have thing 10. You got all that?"
> "Yeah"
> "Okay, download complete, you got that?"
> "Yeah".
Your response time for these "yeahs" will suffer if you use your upload bandwidth to extremes, and the server doesn't want to send you stuff before it has confirmed you have received stuff. Internet inherently has potential to lose messages while they travel, so the only way to guarantee the other end has received a word of the data you wanted them to see, is for the other party to send a confirmation back once they have received the data. If you use your upload bandwidth to the max, you're probably not as quick to respond back, and that extra time you take to send "yeah" is all away from using your precious download bandwidth to download more data. | [
"BULLET::::4. Uploading: Uploading involves communities that upload and collaborate on online projects. Examples are open source software, blogs, and Wikipedia. Friedman considers the phenomenon \"the most disruptive force of all\".\n",
"The large volume implies the crawler can only download a limited number of t... |
why do you sleep in till noon even though you went to bed early? | There are a few reasons:
1. You need rest. Perhaps you have not slept enough recently. Or perhaps you are you and growing. Maybe you are sick.
2. You are depressed.
3. You aren't actually sleeping well. Your total actual sleep is not enough. This could be everything from a form of insomnia to sleep apnea. | [
"I will get up each morning as the sun rise; at night, I shall sleep late. (Or just: \"In the morning I will get up early; at night I will sleep late.\" See.) When I realize that time is passing me by and cannot be turned back, and that I am getting older year by year, I will especially treasure the present moment.... |
what is isis's endgame goal here, to terrorize people into believing muslim faith? | Islam from its very beginning has been spread by the sword. Their goal is to establish a worldwide Caliphate (nation operating under Islam), impose Sharia law on the entire world, and either convert or kill all persons.
The interesting thing is that these ideas are pretty much in line with exactly what the Koran and particularly the Hadiths teach, and how Mohammed lived, lead, and fought. This is one of the reasons why despite their acts of total barbarism, you do not see *many* mainstream Muslims going out of their way to actively oppose them. Yes, some may oppose the tactics or see some of their more heinous acts as outdated and archaic, but the fundamental beliefs of spreading Islam to the entire world, by force if necessary, and forcing all humans to live under Sharia law is congruent with basic Islamic teaching in general. While their actions *may* be very different, the foundation of faith for the ISIS member in Syria and the Muslim American in a place like Dearborn MI is actually very similar. Hence not much active opposition. It's like the line from that Chris Rock special "I'm not saying her should have killed her...but I understand". Well mainstream Muslims aren't saying they *should* cut heads off and burn people.....but they understand. | [
"ISIL, in particular, has used social media in attempts to reach young people, many of whom do not necessarily have any Muslim background at all. Two young British jihadists who travelled to Syria to join ISIL reportedly learned everything they knew about Islam from reading the book \"Islam for Dummies\". As a resu... |
How did the candle making industry respond to the invention of the lightbulb? | Gas or oil lanterns were the primary means of illumination at that time, at least at any sort of scale | [
"Despite advances in candle making, the candle industry declined rapidly upon the introduction of superior methods of lighting, including kerosene and lamps and the 1879 invention of the incandescent light bulb. From this point on, candles came to be marketed as more of a decorative item.\n",
"Despite advances in... |
what is a copycat suicide? | Copycat suicide usually refers to someone killing themselves in the same manner as someone else, similar to copycat murder. So like, if someone who wants notoriety or admires the attention the suicide victim got, hears about how they went about it, goes out and uses the same technique to end their own life, that’s a copycat suicide.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, please seek legitimate help. Even an anonymous hotline can get dark thoughts and feelings off your chest and help a lot. | [
"A copycat suicide is defined as an emulation of another suicide that the person attempting suicide knows about either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media.\n",
"These cues can lead to humans imitating harmful behaviours. Copycat suicides o... |
if most cables are just copper wire, what makes one cable different from any other? | Different numbers of wires in the cable, different wire thicknesses, and different amounts of shielding. | [
"A copper cable consists of two or more copper wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly. Electrical cables may be made more flexible by stranding the wires.\n",
"Physically, an electrical cable is an assembly consisting of one or more conductors with their own i... |
How would a peasant in medieval times learn that his king was dead? | A tag on question: Do a peasant even care that his king was dead? or Do peasants even know who their king was? | [
"In medieval England as well, those convicted of high treason were paraded through the streets in an open wagon to their executions. Originally they had been dragged by horses, but some arrived almost dead from that treatment, unable to live through the hanging, castration, disemboweling and drawing and quartering ... |
why do humans get floating spots in their eyes when they look at the sun for too long? | The cells in your eyes trigger synapses by releasing chemicals. Enough chemical gets released and it saturated the receptors leaving a lingering visual artifact that will clear once the chemical clears out. | [
"Frequent exposure to the sun can cause yellow non-cancerous bumps on the middle part of the sclera of the eye, called pingueculae. It is most common in younger people, mainly those who spend a lot of their time outdoors and do not protect their eyes from UV rays. To decrease the risk of developing pingueculae, it ... |
Were there successful tunnels connecting east and west berlin? | There were and still are: the U-Bahn. Several stations were bricked up and their tunnels narrowed so that at least one line from the west could still run under Alexanderplatz without being rebuilt.
In 1987 or so there was a TV series about subway systems in various cities -- New York, Seoul, Madrid, Toronto, London, et cetera. I had a heavy fascination with subways, so I taped them and have lo-rez VHS of them somewhere. The one about Berlin is a fascinating time capsule right before the Wall fell. The closed station turned into a beach scene sticks in my mind. | [
"Since the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 stories of escapes from the East, both failed and successful, had filled the news in the West and led to competition between US networks to record a tunnel escape. MGM decided to take advantage of the public interest with a feature film inspired by real events. This in... |
why does it take babies such a long time to learn basic motor skills compared to animals that are able to do it close within a month or even as soon as they're born? | The human brain is amazingly complicated, more so than that of pretty much any other land critter. In order for that to work, we need big heads. The problem with this is that the human pelvis is too narrow to squeeze out a baby if the baby's head were much bigger than it is, so the brain is less developed at birth for humans than for other primates. Less development in the brain means human babies need longer to learn everything they need to grow up and be successful humans. Language is literally a huge part of our brains, and it takes a long time to sort out, never mind walking on two legs besides that. | [
"Children’s motor development generally follows the pattern of sitting (around 6 months), crawling (around 9 months) and walking (around 10–16 months), with high normal variability in the ages at which various milestones are reached.\n",
"The period of the most rapid development of motor behaviors is between 2 an... |
how does expelling diplomats from your country punish the other country more than yours? | It's really more about the diplomats being, or enabling, spies. If they're not inside your country, it's a lot harder for them to do that. Also, the purpose of the embassy isn't as much about relations between the government of the UK and Russia, it's more about the businesses of the UK and Russia. That means shutting it down or reducing it hurts Russia's economy a bit. | [
"In times of hostility, diplomats are often withdrawn for reasons of personal safety, as well as in some cases when the host country is friendly but there is a perceived threat from internal dissidents. Ambassadors and other diplomats are sometimes recalled temporarily by their home countries as a way to express di... |
Supposing the human eye was capable of processing infrared light, ultraviolet light etc. what would be be seeing? | Without its natural lens, the human eye [can see ultraviolet light already](_URL_0_). | [
"His team's latest efforts indicate that repetitive 2-photon imaging of the human eye can safely reveal the visual system's subcellular architecture and that humans can detect infrared light due to simultaneous 2-photon absorption.\n",
"In mammals, the eye is the main photosensitive organ for the transmission of ... |
why are antibiotic resistant bacteria such a big deal? shouldn't the immune system be able to fight bacteria without the aid of antibiotics? | No... we should be dying a lot faster than we are.
One of the big points of civilization was that we stopped dying to disease as much as nature intended. We *killed* one of the four horseman of the Apocalypse!...
Except that we didn't... or at least the horseman is swinging back with a vengeance. | [
"The overuse of antibiotics can create antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can spontaneously arise when selective pressure to survive results in changes to the DNA sequence of a bacterium allowing that bacterium to survive antibiotic treatments. Because some of the same antibiotics are used... |
how do the currency exchange store gain profit? | You have 5 cookies.
You want 2 muffins.
Every one knows that 1 muffin = 2 cookies.
I tell you that I'll trade you two muffins for 5 cookies. You tell me the muffins are worth 2 cookies.
I explain the 5th cookie is the fee for trading.
Essentially this means that currency exchange places are not doing the real conversion, they ask for a little more than what your desired currency is worth. | [
"In 2018, the Exchange generated $386 million in earnings. Of this, Exchange shoppers contributed $223 million to installation quality-of-life programs including child development and fitness centers. In the past 10 years, the Exchange has distributed more than $2.3 billion to fund quality-of-life improvements.\n",... |
In the interviews of the first Band of Brothers episode, someone says 4 guys from his hometown committed suicide because they couldn't enlist for WWII. Was this common throughout the country? Or is there any record of this happening? | [Band of Brothers clip in question.](_URL_2_)
Aside from the overwhelming feeling of guilt one might place on themselves for not being able to fight for their country in a time of need, I've read several accounts of stigma against males who didn't go to war for any number of reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if this burden would lead some to commit suicide. Examples...
> Nobody wanted to date these boys who didn't pass their physicals, and we called them "f-Fers." Now that I think back, that was terrible. . . We all thought they were physically unfit to go and fight for our country. How awful! - [Sylvia Iwanski Chalupsky, Ord, Nebraska State Bank employee.](_URL_0_)
> "When I started college in the fall of 1944, it was like a girls' school — 95 women and only five men students. During the second semester of my sophomore year, more male students were enrolled. By 1948 when I graduated, there were twice as many men as female students. During that first year, several of the girls dated high school seniors because to us the boys on campus were '4-F.' They needed a good reason for not being in the service to be respected by the girls." - [Wanda Mowry, Bayard High School student.](_URL_0_)
> "All men, not just working-class men, felt the eyes of their neighbors upon them. The wife of a Lowell mayor recalled a man who committed suicide in part because of his 4-F status." - [The Irony of Victory: World War II and Lowell, Massachusetts](_URL_1_)
| [
"During the First World War, two American soldiers become trapped in no man's land. Expecting to die, W. Dangerfield Phelps III (William Boyd) decides to fulfill his fondest desire: to beat up his sergeant since training camp, Peter O'Gaffney (Louis Wolheim). While they are brawling, the Germans sneak up and captur... |
Is there an evolutionary/practical reason for males to have a sexual refractory period? | It's clearly not enough of a disadvantage to select against it.
Here's a guess: If I recall correctly, there are some post-orgasm hormone releases that are supposedly connected to pair-bonding, which presumably has an advantage, and it would be hard for the body to know if this was the last go or not. Interestingly only one gender needs to have a refractory period for this to work, and I think the apparent choice actually makes sense in this case if you think about it... | [
"While the primary cause of the end to menstrual cycles is the exhaustion of ovarian follicles, there is some evidence that a defect in the hypothalamus is critical in the transition from regular to irregular cycles. This is supported by at least one study in which transplantation of ovaries from old rats to young ... |
Do women have a better sense of smell than men? | This got me interested so I did a quick bit of research and found this: _URL_0_
It’s a pretty small sample size but interesting nonetheless. This doesn’t prove that women smell better than men but the fact that they have more olfactory neurons & non-neuronal cells would support this idea. This is not definitive proof however.
Women are better at detecting certain odours than men, specifically the smell of male body odour. Probably because this confers information which helps women to choose a mate. | [
"In general, women have a better sense of smell than men do. This advantage can be observed very early on in childhood, even as early as 4 years of age. This is evidenced by several cultures. This superiority in women also increases with age. Overall, women have a higher functioning olfactory system than men do sta... |
Did a celebrity culture exist in the Middle Ages? | Abelard (1079-1142) is one example of a medieval celebrity, at least insofar as he and his lover Heloise depict him in his *Historia calamitatum* or [*Story of My Misfortunes*] (_URL_1_) and her letters. Besides the hoards of students he attracted, he was a popular musician. He says this about his song-writing: “Of these songs you yourself well know how some have become widely known and have been sung in many lands, chiefly, I think, by those who delighted in the things of this world” (c. 6). A [letter from his lover Heloise] (_URL_0_) (and a slightly [different version here] (_URL_2_)) makes him out to be a bit of a rock star:
> What country, what city, has not desired your presence? Could you ever retire but you drew the eyes and hearts of all after you? Did not everyone rejoice in having seen you? Even women, breaking through the laws of decorum which custom had imposed upon them, showed they felt more for you than mere esteem. I have known some who have been profuse in their husbands' praises who have yet envied me my happiness. But what could resist you? Your reputation, which so much attracts the vanity of our sex, your air, your manner, that light in your eyes which expresses the vivacity of your mind, your conversation so easy and elegant that it gave everything you said an agreeable turn; in short, everything spoke for you! Very different from those mere scholars who with all their learning have not the capacity to keep up an ordinary conversation, and who with all their wit cannot win a woman who has much less share of brains than themselves.
> With what ease did you compose verses [i.e., write songs]! And yet those ingenious trifles, which were but a recreation to you, are still the entertainment and delight of persons of the best taste. The smallest song, the least sketch of anything you made for me, had a thousand beauties capable of making it last as long as there are lovers in the world. Thus those songs will be sung in honour of other women which you designed only for me, and those tender and natural expressions which spoke your love will help others to explain their passion with much more advantage than they themselves are capable of. What rivalries did your gallantries of this kind occasion me! How many ladies lay claim to them?
The unfortunate end to his love affair with Heloise (her uncle had him castrated) was a public scandal:
> When morning came the whole city was assembled before my dwelling. It is difficult, nay, impossible, for words of mine to describe the amazement which bewildered them, the lamentations they uttered, the uproar with which they harassed me, or the grief with which they increased my own suffering. Chiefly the clerics, and above all my scholars, tortured me with their intolerable lamentations and outcries, so that I suffered more intensely from their compassion than from the pain of my wound. In truth I felt the disgrace more than the hurt to my body, and was more afflicted with shame than with pain. My incessant thought was of the renown in which I had so much delighted, now brought low, nay, utterly blotted out, so swiftly by an evil chance. . . . What path lay open to me thereafter? How could I ever again hold up my head among men, when every finger should be pointed at me in scorn, every tongue speak my blistering shame, and when I should be a monstrous spectacle to all eyes? I was overwhelmed by the remembrance that, according to the dread letter of the law, God holds eunuchs in such abomination that men thus maimed are forbidden to enter a church, even as the unclean and filthy; nay, even beasts in such plight were not acceptable as sacrifices. (ch. 8)
EDIT: Added the section about the shame attached to his mutilation. | [
"The cult of personality (particularly in the west) can be traced back to the Romantics in the 18th century, whose livelihood as artists and poets depended on the currency of their reputation. The establishment of cultural hot-spots became an important factor in the process of generating fame: for example, London a... |
What society was the first to develop a financial market (stocks, securities, bonds, etc)? | As stated before, Amsterdam, the Netherland or rather the Dutch Republic developed as the first center of modern banking and commerce. To answer your second question - yes, it created a financial bubble - most likely the most awesome bubble the financial world has ever witnessed: The tulip mania! (though, because the lack of documentation or rather reliable documentation, we are not 100% sure that it was really a bubble in the modern meaning)
Basicly what happened was, that tulips rose to great popularity in europe. In amsterdam, tulip bulbs are sold at a basic spot market. At first, only available tulip bulbs are directly sold. Over time, tulip bulbs that are still under ground are being sold and then people begin to speculate - they buy tulip bulbs at a specific date without the plan to ever plant them themselves, but resell them. At this point - prices are rising and something critical happens - buyers expect that tulip bulbs will continue to constantly gain value. People are buying and reselling tulip bulbs they never actually see, at an increasing price, actually taking loans to acquire the necessary funds. Prices are quickly from the realistic value of the product and everyone who is speculating (mainly professional merchants and traders, as we now suspect not so much the common folk) expects that he can't lose a dime on this trade.
Lets recap - the product (tulip bulbs) are now sold at a market price, that is way above intrinsic value and a lot of money is invested in these products - this is essentially the bubble you are looking for.
Then, on february 3rd 1637, the bubble collapses: On one day, because traders are no longer willing to invest in this system, the prices drop by 95%. What happens next is the horror of everyone who is speculating with tulip bulbs - some have to sell products they acquired for an insane prices for basicly nothing, while others still have to buy ( bound by contract) tulip bulbs that now are worth nothing, for insane amounts of money.
One quick source: Tulipmania by Goldgar. | [
"In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch pioneered several financial innovations that helped lay the foundations of the modern financial system. While the Italian city-states produced the first transferable government bonds, they did not develop the other ingredient necessary to produce a fully fledged capital ma... |
Would the low Atmospheric Pressure on Mars make it easy to walk in heavy winds? | So for wind the force felt is a drag force, given by F = mdot*V = rho*V^2 *A. During the storm they claimed that it would hit the escape vehicle with a force of approximately 9600 N. If we assume the vehicle is about 20 times larger than them, and they have an average mass of about 70 kg, then they get hit by approximately 480 N of force that imparts an acceleration of about 6 m/s^2 . At that force, what's really inaccurate is that they can walk at all.
As for the atmosphere question, what matters isn't pressure but density. Mars' atmosphere is about 1/60th of our own according to NASA numbers I found, so yes it would require much greater wind to generate those kind of forces. Some quick calculation tells me that if we assume a .5m^2 cross section for our human it requires a wind speed of around 100 km/h on Earth. That wind speed is capable of felling trees and causing structural damage, but isn't quite hurricane force. Rerunning the calculation gives me a wind speed of about 800 km/h on Mars for an equivalent force. | [
"The Martian atmosphere is composed mainly of carbon dioxide and has a mean surface pressure of about 600 pascals (Pa), much lower than the Earth's 101,000 Pa. One effect of this is that Mars' atmosphere can react much more quickly to a given energy input than that of Earth's atmosphere. As a consequence, Mars is s... |
(thought experiment) What is the biggest possible living organism? | Here's a great paper relevant to this. _URL_0_ | [
"Given the incomplete nature of scientific knowledge, it is possible that the smallest organism is undiscovered. Furthermore, there is some debate over the definition of life, and what entities qualify as organisms; consequently the smallest known organism (microorganism) is debatable.\n",
"The largest organism i... |
if the moon has no atmosphere, why couldn't you make a satellite that orbits one inch off the ground? | Theoretically you could but "one inch from the highest point" is a very very small error margin. Small differences in the strength of the moon's gravity (for example, places with denser rock have stronger gravity) would be more than enough to deviate the trajectory enough to cause a crash. | [
"The object's Earth orbital paths occasionally take it within the radius of the Moon's orbit, and could result in eventual entry into Earth's atmosphere, or collision with the Moon. The Apollo 12 empty S-IVB, Instrument Unit, and spacecraft adapter base, had a mass of about . This is less than one-fifth of the mass... |
why are my (f) nipples censored but not male nipples? | I think its mainly down to the sexualisation of the female chest compared with the male chest. A topless man isn’t seen to be sexual, compared to a topless female. Its been that way for a long time, so it will probably take a long time before it equals its self out. Just my two cents though. | [
"Erectile tissue is also found in the nose (turbinates), ear, urethral sponge and perineal sponge. The erection of nipples is not due to erectile tissue, but rather due to the contraction of smooth muscle under the control of the autonomic nervous system.\n",
"The legality around the exposure of nipples are incon... |
how do people keep large predators as pets? | Are you referring to legally, or practically?
Legally, if you have enough money, there are ways of owning basically any animal you want. In some countries, it's far easier.
Practically, like any other animal. Train them, tame them, keep them well fed, and in a strong cage.
With that said, they're still non-domesticated and powerful predators. When they decide they want to eat you, the neighborhood kids, or other animals, there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it. Just like a gentle dog may bite one day, a gentle tiger or lion may bite one day-but they do far more damage. | [
"Many predators are powerfully built and can catch and kill animals larger than themselves; this applies as much to small predators such as ants and shrews as to big and visibly muscular carnivores like the cougar and lion. \n",
"In social predation, a group of predators cooperates to kill prey. This makes it pos... |
what is the fair trade movement and where is it headed? | Fair trade is paying labor more than the market has determined they're worth.
If it got more popular, things would get a LOT more expensive very fast, and anyone with a low skill service job would suffer immensely while low skilled labor in manufacturing and farming would probably benefit somewhat. | [
"The \"fair trade\" movement, also known as the \"trade justice\" movement, promotes the use of labour, environmental and social standards for the production of commodities, particularly those exported from the Third and Second Worlds to the First World. Such ideas have also sparked a debate on whether trade itself... |
Regarding Plank units, I just noticed an incredible pattern. Is this just coincidence or is there a deeper reason for it? | I have no idea what you're talking about. | [
"BULLET::::- D: Difference. Diversity or energy that is important to the system can help to shape patterns. Few or small differences contribute to slow and subtle pattern formation. Many or large differences may contribute to disruptions that are apparently random. Differences that are few in number, but significan... |
If you attach a running jet engine to the inside a completely sealed and indestructible box with wheels, will the box move? | It starts like this with the jet in the middle of the box:
I J I
Then the jet turns on. It pushes air to the left and moves to the right
I < ---J I
I < ---J I
I < ---J I
The Jet will be pushing on the right side of the box. The air expelled by the jet will be pushing on the left side of the box.
I < -------JI
The force on both sides of the box equals out. The force of the engine **does not move the box**, but does cause strain. Possibly, if the jet is strong enough, and the box is weak enough, this process might rip the box apart.
I < -------J _
Setting the jet free
I _ < ---J
I _ < ---J
I _ < ---J
To fly anywhere it wants, free of its prison.
Fly away, little^plane^be^free^^ < ---J | [
"The internal frames are supported on runners on two sides of the box, in a deep rebate formed by the two-piece construction of the sides. Because the boxes are square, it is possible to orient frames in two ways with respect to the entrance, either parallel to the entrance block ('warm way'), or perpendicular to i... |
What did polygamous sects/cultures do with all the "superfluous" young men? | This has been asked before.
_URL_0_
In summary, in societies where polygamy was accepted but not common, competition was kept down by a combination of
1. Only very rich men being able to afford multiple wives.
2. Men dying in war or in dangerous occupations such as mining
In societies where polygamy was the norm, such as pre-statehood Mormon Utah, competition was indeed kept down by expelling young men from the community. | [
"Polygamy (specifically polygyny) had been practised in Chinese societies for thousands of years. Since the Han Dynasty, Chinese men have been able to legally have only one wife. It was common for privileged Chinese men to have a wife and various concubines, however. For those who could afford a dowry and support a... |
In 18th century Europe, how was artillery deployed offensively during battle? | All the way back in the 17^th century Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus sort of revolutionised the usage of artillery by equipping his infantry with light and mobile pieces for direct support. Then during the latter half of the 18^th century we have another revolution in artillery, thanks to the French artillery officer Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, who introduced a new and vastly more efficient system of production, the [Gribeauval system](_URL_5_), which suddenly cut the weight of cannons by about half. In England the same system was pioneered by Dutch painter and master founder Jan Verbruggen, who invented a special [horizontal boring machine](_URL_0_) for the Royal Foundry.
By changing from casting a full cannon including bore with all its imperfections, artillery was now cast as a solid piece and the bore drilled later, which allowed bores better fitted to the munition, making the guns more effective, in turn meaning they could be made smaller and still keep their old power.
Heavy foot artillery pieces (12 and 9-pounders) still were a hassle to move, requiring lots of horse- and manpower and favorable terrain and/or weather. But those were just the big guns for dominating the battlefield. Ideally your army carried all sorts of light support artillery.
There was [horse artillery](_URL_4_), which was light enough so its crew could ride on the drawing horses, thus speeding up the deployment massively. They could move together with cavalry, unlimber in about a minute and provide support fire to break up enemy formations so the cavalry could pick them off. Very efficient for small scouting parties ahead of the army or in the rear guard covering a retreat.
You also had battallion guns, small 3 and 6-pounders that were light enough to move together with infantry. [This is a British Grasshopper](_URL_1_), a 3-pounder artillery piece that was either pulled by a single horse or just its 8 men strong crew alone if needed, with a convenient ammo supply right in that box behind the barrel. Very convenient for deployment even in bad terrain.
Not to mention [mortars](_URL_2_) (not necessarily that 12-inch one, but smaller bores) and [field howitzers](_URL_3_) that were considerably lighter to move than most foot artillery. | [
"One of the first recorded uses of coastal artillery was in 1381—during the war between Ferdinand I of Portugal and Henry II of Castile—when the troops of the King of Portugal used cannons to defend Lisbon against an attack from the Castilian naval fleet.\n",
"From the late Middle Ages onwards, warships began to ... |
why are mating rituals, such as octopuses ripping off a tentacle or a praying mantis eating the males head, passed down? do they just learn it by instinct? | First, your examples are not mating *rituals*. They are mating behaviours.
Octopus rips off ~~tentacle~~ arm, because that arm (called *hectocotylus*) is actually an autonomous female-seeking semen carrier (yes, octopuses are *that* freaking weird/awesome). Praying mantis female simply would eat anyone, and male have chance to mate by presenting something to stuff her mouth (or is that what spiders do?). Sometimes they get away before female finishes her meal, sometimes not. And its all good for babies, anyway - male's genes are already accounted for, so it doesn't matter what happens to him afterwards.
Now, by mating rituals they mean specific instinctive behaviour used for choosing mating partner but not leading directly to mating. Usually it is some form of dancing, fighting other males (either actually fighting or by ~~rap battles~~ contests of songs, bright feathers and such. Male mantis presenting food for female is a ritual, too.
As for why they do this from evolution viewpoint - AFAIK this still considered unsolved. There are several theories on [sexual selection](_URL_0_). One, handicap theory, says that male that can spend resources on otherwise useless things like ~~jewelry~~ bright feathers (more visible to predators) is more able at survival. Still, I heard there are some problems with this theory. | [
"In some species of spiders, such as \"Agelenopsis aperta\", the male induces a passive state in the female prior to copulation It has been hypothesized that the cause of this \"quiescent\" state is the male's massaging of the female's abdomen, following male vibratory signals on the web. The female enters a passiv... |
How 'absolutist' vs 'feudal' was the Carolingian Frankish Kingdom? | (Expanding [on this previous post](_URL_0_))
The reality of public service in Francia essentially crumbled along Merovingian collapse during the late VIIth century.
Whereas public service was more or less maintained under the strong rule of Clothar II and Dagobert I, the decline of royal authority led to a slow transformation of palatine service with tendencies of autonomisation (control over public fisc being a source of personal power, for example), regionalisations (where sub-kingdoms each had their own palatial administration even under a same king) and functional systematisation where duties and jurisdictions were carefully precised in a context of numerical devellopment of a renewed aristocracy.
Ineed, the royal faida seeimingly caused the extinction of several important families, traditionally associated with public service, and the rise of a more militarized and more regionally-minded than their predecessors : altough the kings could bypass what had technically became a law not to appoint public servants outside their region of origin, more and more of these became territorialized and entranched themselves in their jurisdiction in no small part thanks to the maintainance or creations of religious establishments.
The crisis of royal authority (attributable mostly to successive royal minorities and the loss of hegemony outside Gaul) gradually reinforced this transformation, with tendencies to irrevocability and hereditarization. This provoked several conflcits among the aristocracy : a family or a set of families that threatened to control too much of public power locally was fought against by others (with royal arbitrage), but these often ambitioned to do that for themselves. This was both true of ecclesiastical and, maybe modelled from this first situation, lay power.
This strained the capacities of the royal fisc, with endless donations to this new forms of aristocratic powers and to the church, while confiscating properties became almost impossible (less in defiance to royal power itself, and more because it would have benefited whoever dominated the royal council) with charges and revenues being diretly payed and extracted by local powers.
Eventually, it meant public service was in constant rivality with aristocratic power in Francia proper which while relatively autonomous from royal authority (or being identified to it) was too tied to their own interests and clientele to be entierely considered as public service anymore. This led whole regions to become essentially autonomous, if not independent : Aquitaine, Provence, Alsace ([with the exemple of Adalric-Etichon in this recent pos](_URL_1_)t), even Maine; while peripheral dukes/petty-kings effectively removed Merovingian dominance into turning their duchies into independent polities.
The rise of Peppinids didn't really help, in the sense they promoted an "alternative hierarchy" based on vassality and relatively exclusive relations with their own lineage. It's not so much they directly attacked a post-bureaucratic model than they made it redundant and was more political efficient as involving a direct and stabler aristocratic obedience that the palatial network (they controlled in Austrasia) couldn't bring anymore.
It was still an important ideological model in the VIIIth, the structures of the kingdom being tought in the idea of public service nonetheless; and Peppinids-Carolingians tried to re-establish it : by crushing peripheral principalties one by one, by promoting "affiliated" religious establishment and bullying autonomous or rebel ones thanks to an alliance with Papacy, and by enforcing an institutional hierarchy at their benefit and on their dependence.
Promoting a rebirth of public service along the old Frankish model, however, wasn't really possible anymore even by bullying resisting aristocracy. If the re-hierarchisation and direct interventionism of the Carolingian was a success, it didn't removed either territorialization or perenisation of local elites, just made them more susceptible of intervention. By reframing a systematized vassalic network into terms of late ancient service, Carolingians effectively concretized their fusion : counts, abbots, vassi were effectively all associated with militia, its privileges and implications of delegations and benefits from the charges; while legitimazing territorialisation and hereditarisation of nobility.
It had benefits : the use of precarii, or ecclesiastical/monastic lands included into state service being lent to lay beneficiaries (which was a really efficient way to "money laundering" confiscated or ill-gained goods) removed a good deal of fiscal pressure on Carolingians, for instance, and the inclusion of clergyen and bishops as such into palatial service provided with a safe recruitment pool. As long precarii and conquests flowed in, the aristocracy was controlled by strong kings (the Frankish nobility seems to have been fairly limited to maybe an hundred of families at this point, the other falling prey to Peppinids-Carolingian takeover)
That said, Carolingians remained effectively an aristocratic family among others that "made it" and while sacralized by their alliance with the Papacy trough blessing and a relatively superficial imperial deonomination; didn't had the same transcendental nature than their predecessors that allowed them to navigate trough changes : confiscating and removing nobles even during the early Carolingians was easier said than done; missi dominici had little effective power and were more devices of negociation and scrutiny, etc.
It's one of the reasons bishops, altough not entierely apart, along with their intellectual and ideological support for imperial display (much more Frankish and Christian than "Roman") were one of the favourite institutional devices of the empire,with immunities (basically grant of territorial privileges) being generalized to both distach them from neighbouring families and attach them to palatial service.
Even if Peppin or Charlemagne would have wanted to, they couldn't go above negotiations and council with their nobility. Regularily during the general plaids or *conventi generali* which were effectively assemblies that influenced the make up of capitulari and edicts, while presided and made by the palatial service. Irregularily with the missi dominici as envoys to "problematic" nobles. Even the...complex matrimonial policy of Charlemagne is a testimony to the needs to coming to terms with such and such lineage, while Merovingians often elected at their apogee to marry outside the kingdom.
Trends of regionalisation themselves were still as strong as ever, leading to Charlemagne's succession being originally made along Francia/Aquitania/Italia without transmission of the imperial title, before every son besides Louis died, part of the cause of the following civil wars being the tentative of Louis and Lothar to force against regional tendencies.
> *Did the magnates exercise much autonomous authority in their capacity as magnates, or was the whole realm run by the royal bureaucracy?*
"Both and neither" is a frustrating answer, but the early Peppinid-Carolingian Francia does looks as it belonged to both Late Antiquity while announciating changes of the Xth-XIth centuries. The whole public service apparatus was mostly a remodelling on the new political situation and even if Merovingians already more readily accompanied changes than fought them, there was little being strictly bureaucratic now. Rather regional nobles owning fidelity and service exclusively to the new dynasty : the collapse of Carolingia point to the fragility of what was effectively a weak state (weaker than Merovingian Francia, one could say) where direct negociation between aristocracy and the palace could be held as long you had strong kings.
You could say that what distinguished Carolingians in their hey day from the rest of imperial aristocracy was their capacity to what remained of public institutions to reinforce their own aristocratic network and systematize it in all the Empire after having dusted it off. It was really dependent on continuously held prestige and power, and if Carolingians kept for almost two centuries enough prestige and sacrality, it didn't really save what early Carolingians attempted to build-up. | [
"The Frankish Carolingian empire modeled itself after the Roman Empire and controlled much of Western Europe. However, as of 843, it was divided into three parts—East, Middle, and West Francia. Most of present-day Netherlands became part of Middle Francia, which was a weak kingdom and subject of numerous partitions... |
is there a physical example that negative numbers represent? | Elevator with underground floors. | [
"The abstract concept of negative numbers was recognized as early as 100–50 BC in China. \"The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art\" contains methods for finding the areas of figures; red rods were used to denote positive coefficients, black for negative. The first reference in a Western work was in the 3rd centu... |
why do people who plead guilty to a crime they committed serve reduced sentences/punishments? | Generally, the prosecutor of the case would rather have the notch on their belt, guaranteeing a guilty plea by offering a deal with a slight reduction in time. Compared to going to trial and being found guilty, where the judge or prosecutor could insist on maximum penalty.
For example:
You robbed a bank, you wore a mask, but they can see your car outside. There is no 100% proof you did it. The odds are, you will be found guilty at a trial and given the max sentence. We'll say it's 20 years. Now there is a small chance you could win, but the prosecutor doesn't want to risk losing this case, and you don't want to spend 20 years in jail, so they offer you 10 to say you did it. You get half the time, the prosecutor gets a win, and the case is closed. Now there is no lengthy trial, plus appeals processes, etc.
edit: I have to mention that not every single case has a plea deal. A lot of times the prosecutor would rather bring you to trial, if they had you on tape, a phone call of you admitting to it, and they found the bank money in your house. There is virtually no possible way you would win at a trial. Compare that to a case where the only evidence they have is seeing your car at the crime scene....well, somebody could have stolen your car. It might not have been you. At the end of the day it depends on the case. | [
"Mandatory sentencing laws often target \"moral vices\" (such as alcohol, sex, drugs) and crimes that threaten a person's livelihood. The idea is that there are some crimes that are so heinous, there is no way to accept the offender back into the general population without first punishing them sufficiently. Some cr... |
How is the atmosphere of a gas planet determined? The atmosphere is also gas, so...? | It can often be determined by examining the light that is given off by a given planet. Since different chemical compounds absorb, scatter, etc. at different wavelengths you can determine what is present by figuring out what light we can observe from the planet. | [
"A planet's initial atmospheric composition is related to the chemistry and temperature of the local solar nebula during planetary formation and the subsequent escape of interior gases. The original atmospheres started with a rotating disc of gases that collapsed to form a series of spaced rings that condensed to f... |
what’s the difference between “sex work” and prostitution? | Prostitution is a form of sex work, sex work is all work that incorporates sex (escorts, prostitution, stripping, cams, etc).
It's like how a not all rectangles are squares, but all squares are rectangles. All prostitution is sex work, but not all sex work is prostitution. | [
"Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual relations in exchange for payment. Sex workers are often objectified and are seen as existing only to serve clients, thus calling their sense of agency into question. There is a prevailing notion that because they sell sex professionally, prostitutes a... |
Why are scientists using Xenon to detect dark matter? | Before I get into why xenon, I'm going to spiel a little bit about how these class of detectors work. LUX/LZ is one of a number of dual phase noble element time projection chambers that are being used to search for a possible dark matter candidate called a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle). [1](_URL_0_) [2](_URL_1_) [3](_URL_3_) [4] (_URL_5_). WIMPS [5] (_URL_8_) are a hypothetical early-universe relic that are a hot candidate to explain a series of astronomical observations that get lumped into a catch-all term *dark matter*.
So how do you (directly) find a WIMP? Well, you look for evidence of a WIMP-nucleus collision. One common class of detectors used to look for evidence of these collisions are dual phase noble element time projection chambers (TPCs) [6](_URL_9_). In these detectors a WIMP undergoes a nuclear recoil with an atom in the liquid volume. When this occurs, both charge and light are liberated. The light is detected almost immediately by arrays of light detectors (photomultiplier tubes/PMTs [7] (_URL_2_) ) arranged at the top and bottom of the detector. Liberated charge is drifted (accelerated via electric field) through the liquid noble element into the gaseous region - the other phase in dual phase. As charge is accelerated through the gaseous region, it produces electroluminescence (more light), which is again seen in the PMTs. [Distribution of light in the PMTs is used to determine x-y position and the time difference between the two signals (called S1 and S2) give you the z-position. [8](_URL_10_)]
So all of that is well and good, but why xenon? Well, there are a few reasons. Firstly, you'd like to make sure that you maximize the chance of seeing a WIMP-nucleon collision also called the cross section [9](_URL_4_). It turns out that the cross section is proportional to the square of the mass of the target nucleus [10](_URL_6_) so having something with high atomic mass/density is good. Secondly, you'd like something that is non-reactive. You don't want to lose a potential signal by having electrons recombine with one another. And thirdly, you want to make sure that the light you produce is not at an energy that xenon is optically absorbing at. It turns out that xenon creates short lived dimers (Xe_2), and the energy produced from the decay of these dimers is much less than the excitation energy for xenon [11](_URL_7_). This is not a comprehensive list, but it outlines some of the main points. If you look on a chemical table for materials that satisfy these properties, you will find that xenon is a good choice (argon is also a good choice and is another popular element used in dual phase TPCs). | [
"The XENON dark matter research project, operated at the Italian Gran Sasso National Laboratory, is a deep underground research facility featuring increasingly ambitious experiments aiming to detect dark matter particles. The experiments aim to detect particles in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (W... |
why is the media trying to prove that osama bin ladens death is a fraud? | bin Laden death conspiracies have been around since even before the raid in Pakistan. Part of the reasons is that, as far as conspiracy theories go, it is pretty plausible. No body, no footage, just a quickie burial at sea, you don't have to swallow too much to believe he is in a CIA prison somewhere.
The story is less about the possibility that he is alive, and more about a semi-credible journalist, Seymour Hersh, is making the claims. | [
"On May 4, the Obama administration announced it would not release any images of Bin Laden's dead body. The administration had considered releasing the photos to dispel rumors of a hoax, at the risks of perhaps prompting another attack by al Qaeda and of releasing very graphic images to people who might find them d... |
Is a running computer an efficient space heater in the winter in lieu of electric heating? | This is a great question. If it's just as efficient, all electric heaters could be replaced with computers accomplishing something useful. I'm picturing a scenario where you buy a $100 computer instead of a $30 space heater. You then sign up to be a server with Amazon MapReduce or some similar service where people buy computing power by the hour. Amazon could pay for the electricity cost of running your computer/space heater by selling your computing power to others. | [
"Heat management is a major issue in complex electronic devices and affects powerful computer systems in various ways. The thermal design power and CPU power dissipation issues in supercomputing surpass those of traditional computer cooling technologies. The supercomputing awards for green computing reflect this is... |
why don't humans eat one giant meal instead of periodically eating throughout the day? | Because it's easiest to run the digestive system consistently and slowly, and hardest to ramp it into a big workout then idle for most of the day. Imagine being asked to lift 500kg once rather than 25kg 20 times. | [
"Since the beginning of mankind, food was important simply for the purpose of nourishment. As primates walked the Earth, they solely consumed food for a source of energy as they had to hunt and forage because food was not easily on hand. By early humans fending for themselves, they had figured out that they needed ... |
The institutional targeting of blacks by lynch mobs: a myth? | This is classic racist sleight-of-hand.
Observe:
**The Setup: Start with some facts**
> "Approximately 4,742 individuals were lynched between 1882 and 1968...
Nothing much to argue with here, that several thousand lynchings in the U.S. between that time. Although the breakdown by race does obscure that [lynchings of Blacks continued long after they declined for whites](_URL_6_), which brings us the next part of the act....
**The Transition: Vague assertions and a faulty analogy**
> Now, if we recognize that lynching was a way violent crime was dealt with in rural southern areas...
Sorry, no. Violent crime may have been the excuse used for a lynching, but Southern states still had courts and juries -- completely unbiased all-white juries. Even if we accept the premise that every lynching represents an extrajudicial execution of a properly accused defendant, are we really to believe that, between 1882 and 1968, that a total of [4 white people did something "lynch-worthy," whereas 156 black people did](_URL_1_)? Is that the most likely scenario, or is it more likely that black individuals were simply [scapegoats for crimes](_URL_10_), [innocent victims in a revenge killing](_URL_8_), or killed for simply [opposing lynching](_URL_3_).
> ...we can compare this to violent crime by race in the U.S. today
No, no we absolutely cannot. First, we cannot compare extrajudicial killings for any variety of charges, real or imagined, with the conviction rate for crimes. We would compare conviction rates to conviction rates. Also, note the abrupt shift from "rural southern areas" to "the U.S. today." We're not even comparing apples and oranges here anymore. Like I said, this is basically a racist magic trick. Anyway, this brings us to to...
**The Main Event: Statistics without analysis**
> Numbers! NUMBERS!! NUMBERSS!!!!SS!1!!
This is like page 1 of the racist playbook, spit out a bunch of statistics without bothering to qualify them with regards any sociological, economic, legal, or political analysis. I can understand though, research is hard, and it's not like those cited sources just happen to have several theories on this that do not hinge on "Black = Bad."
[Oh, wait.](_URL_0_). Well that's awkward.
**The Climax: Make some shoddy assumptions**
> ...we should expect about 35% to 39% of the lynchings to have involved black people... For this reason, I do not believe blacks were systematically targeted by lynch mobs any more than the current legal system systematically targets blacks.
Unless, of course, there was a racial motivation to the lynchings.
**Rock the Denouement: Present a simplistic false dilemma**
> ...lynch mobs discriminated based on race no more than the current legal system does... Either the current US legal system is precisely as racist as the southern lynch mobs or both the southern lynch mobs and the US legal system are, for the most part, impartial when it comes to race and generally accurate.
Such a choice! Either the current judicial system is basically a lynch mob, or lynch mobs were just some folks doing some colorblind torture and murder. Which should we choose?!
Neither, obviously. Lynch mobs are not synonymous with the legal system, they are and were outside of it; they were racist in their own special murderous way. Eventually, the U.S. matured to a point where it was not OK to brutally murder someone based on mere accusation of a crime, and eventually the U.S. justice system matured to the point where overt racism was replaced with [more](_URL_5_) [subtle](_URL_7_) [forms of](_URL_2_) [discrimination](_URL_4_). That's the only real comparison point.
It's amusing that white supremacists like to tout the inevitable decline of intelligence due to "miscegenation" or "race-mixing," or whatever the scare phrase is these days, while simultaneous presenting the kind of rigged dilemmas that actively attempt to discourage nuanced thought, active learning, and critical examination of evidence. It's almost like they're using propaganda to promote their biases, instead of trying to have an honest discussion.
And hold on, wait a minute, wouldn't those mobs of white people doing the lynching also be committing a violent crime? [Castrating someone, cutting of their fingers, and then taking your time burning him alive](_URL_9_) on the basis of a coerced confession with no evidence seems a bit violent to me. Is it possible that that extreme forms of violence perpetrated by whites on (primarily) blacks was excused while even the mere accusation of crime could lead to the brutal murder of a black person? Wouldn't that undercut the whole premise of this racist copypasta?
Except wait... a 3 hour hold account spouting some stormfront talking points from a "friend," and playing the innocent ignorant? Let's not pretend we both don't know what this is.
| [
"Racially motivated violent crimes were committed in the United States as part of suppression of minorities, especially in the South. These crimes, often lynchings of black men, were rarely investigated or prosecuted by states. The killings were part of an oppressive order of Jim Crow custom and law, and lynchings ... |
who exactly were the blackfoot? | The "pieds noirs" ("blackfeet") were French (and other European) settlers living in Algeria (mostly) or Morocco or Tunisia before these countries became independent from France.
More specifically, the term is usually applied to those settlers who returned to France during or after independence (1956-1962 in the case of Algeria). The European settlers had begun arriving in North Africa soon after the French took Algeria in 1830. Generations had lived in North Africa. Not wanting to become a minority in a Muslim country, many fought against North African independence, and, when it looked inevitable, left to re-settle in France.
"Blackfoot", on the other hand ("Niitsitapi"as they call the Confedracy - meaning "original people"), usually refers to a coalition of Native American tribes in Canada and Montana, all of whom speak a common language ("Blackfoot"). | [
"The Blackfoot Confederacies reside in the Great Plains of Montana and Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The name \"Blackfoot\" came from the colour of the peoples' leather footwear, known as moccasins. They had dyed or painted the bottoms of their moccasins black. One account claime... |
I'm learning about WWI and I have a few more questions that I can fit in a title. Can someone help? | > What happened to Poland? I was confused about this because Germany was so worried about Russia on it's eastern front, and I was like "I thought Poland was a land buffer?". I know Poland existed before 1914, so why isn't it on the WWI maps I look at?
Poland was a "buffer" but it was also part of the Russian state. Think of heteronational empires like, say, the Austro-Hungarians and you're almost there. Basically they were partitioned up between Prussia, Austria(-Hungary), and Russia near the end of the 18th century/early 19th century but Russia was keen on giving them a level of autonomy; this entity is known as "Congress Poland". After the 1863-65 revolts though their internal autonomy was quashed and they were *de jure* and *de facto* incorporated as Russian territory.
> What is Prussia? In Hardcore History he keeps talking about Prussia, and I have a general understanding from high school, but throwing out all these names is a bit confusing. Was Prussia a country? Where was it located? It shared rulers with Germany?
Think of Germany as the United States for a moment and, again, you're almost there. Any serious historian of German Empire will seriously attest to this comparison if it was rigidly made, so keep in mind this is just a loose analogy to get you into the mindset here. Germany, like the U.S., is/was a federal state; that is it was composed of a bunch of States with a shared Federal government and its subdivisions, the 'states', were not unilaterally under Federal control.
That's where the buck stops though. The absolute crash course history of this (and please, if you want more explanation, don't be afraid to ask but I'll go over the basics) is that Germany for its entire existence was rather fractured between hundreds of independent states. These states were, by the 19th century, loosely held together by the Holy Roman Empire which had, at this point, Austria (the Hapsburgs) at the head; however the Empire by this point was more a ceremonial edifice than anything else but it did provide a level of internal security between these small states.
After Napoleon broke it down that internal security, this system which prevented all these states from waging war upon each other and giving mutual protection from outside invaders, there was a power void. After Napoleon's final deposing in 1814/15 the British in particular wanted to create a "Balance of Power", otherwise known as Concert Europe. The hope, with Germany, was that not one power would be permitted to dominate the German minor states and thus Prussia was given a large swathe of land in the Western parts of Germany to counteract Austrian influence. You can [see it in green here.](_URL_0_)
Long story short that was wishful thinking. Even longer story short Prussia outclassed the Austrians in the end economically and militarily leading up to what is called the Seven Weeks' War in 1866. There was this little thing created as a sort of replacement for the Holy Roman Empire and, eventually, Prussia dropped out with all her homies and fought all of Austria's homies, notably Bavaria and friends in Southern Germany. Prussia whalloped them (hence the name) and would gain total dominance over Germany. They would form the [North German Federation](_URL_1_) and would enforce rather draconian peace conditions on those Southern states of Bavaria & friends to force them under Prussian influence even further.
Imperial Germany would be formed after the Franco-Prussian War; the war being used to force Bavaria & friends in the South (who did not like Prussia) to commit to their military alliance. Further it was to crush the last hope of foreign intervention to come to the Bavarian's & friends aid; Russia was placated diplomatically, Britain was off doing its own thing, Austria was crushed 4 years prior, and now France was too. Germany would be formed with the Prussian King as its Emperor. Now you know how in the United States each state gets 2 senate seats? Think of their parliament as the same except they don't got equal representation; Prussia did not have a majority but they were unique in that they had enough to have veto power.
Bavaria notably took a lot of negotiating to get on board. They had a significant amount of seats and also sat on a council which decided, with equal representation, on foreign diplomacy decisions. She also retained control of her military (except in times of war where they could be ordered to go here or there) and some internal systems like railroads.
> They keep referring to the Serbians in the Austria-Hungarian Empire as Slavs and Serbs. Was Yugoslavia part of Serbia, or was Serbia something that came out of the break-up of Yugoslavia?
Slavs was the ethnic/national identity of the Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, and Bosnians. Yugoslavia was the concept (and eventual application) of the unification of all Slavs in these states into one country. This was one of the leading crisis' that lead to the outbreak of the war; Austria-Hungary wanted to crush Serbia because all those other states were within her own borders as sub-states and as long as Serbia stood tall the concept of a unified, free state for the Slavs existed.
> I hear a lot about Wilhelm II and Von Moltke the Younger, but I don't know hierarchy's in Europe. Who commanded who?
Willhelm II was the King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany. Helmuth von Moltke the Younger was the one in charge of Prussia's, and by extension all of Germany's, armies and was responsible for carrying out their battle plans. | [
"BULLET::::- Tucker, Spencer, ed. \"The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and Military History\" (5 vol 2005); the most detailed reference source; articles by specialists cover all aspects of the war\n",
"BULLET::::- Tucker, Spencer, ed. \"The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and ... |
maps. specifically, why is there a debate over which map is the most accurate? | Peel an orange. Now, lay it flat on a table without tearing, smushing, or otherwise mangling the skin. It's not possible. There are many different "projections" of the earth that are used to make maps, but they will always either make nice shapes (rectangles) with very distorted images of the land forms or have weird confusing shapes and be somewhat more accurate.
The Mercator projection is one you are probably familiar with. It's a rectangle, Greenland and Russia are HUGE. This is confusing to kids, who then think that Greenland or Antarctica are the biggest continents.
_URL_0_
EDIT: I love when simple explanations take off like this. Thanks, all. Love this subreddit. | [
"The fundamental trade-off between accuracy and usability of a map, particularly in the context of modelling, is known as Bonini's paradox, and has been stated in various forms, poetically by Paul Valéry: \"Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable.\"\n",
"These problems represent a chal... |
how does makeup become expired? | As my wife explains it to me, cosmetics can become subject to bacteria, a sort of spoilage. I would further speculate there are volatile compounds that will age out, go rancid, or otherwise underperform in its function - the cosmetic won't apply right, or hold, might smell, might fade, etc. Cosmetics are far more complex than just pigments and "chemicals".
Finally, you have to consider an expiration may exist as a form of liability protection. After all, what are you doing putting on something expired? That rash ain't our fault! | [
"There are a few potential dangers regarding the use of cosmetics. One such danger is the use of old mascara. Some mascaras contain an ingredient that breaks down to produce formaldehyde. The formaldehyde prevents the growth of bacteria. Aged mascara, however, may no longer be producing formaldehyde, allowing bacte... |
Are there any hypothesis/theories out there to explain why Protons always have a large mass while Electrons are small? | An electron is a fundamental particle. A proton is three quarks, bonded together. A very large proportion of the mass of a proton actually comes, basically, from the bonds rather than the quarks themselves. So it's to do with the substructure of the proton, and the lack thereof in the electron. | [
"Although protons were originally considered fundamental or elementary particles, in the modern Standard Model of particle physics, protons are classified as hadrons, like neutrons, the other nucleon (particles present in atomic nuclei), composite particles composed of three valence quarks: two up quarks of charge ... |
what sort of deals do companies such as spotify and netflix cut in order to get music/tv shows/movies? | I was featured as a vocalist in the song for a semi local band and they were saying that they really wouldn't be able to pay me because they only get like 9% royalties.
Before anyone talks shit, being featured in a band like that is payment enough to me. They helped me get my name out there. | [
"The channel co-operates directly with such companies-distributors of the musical content as Universal, Sony Music, Warner, EMI, Soyuz and the others which allows getting the new music videos in a short period of time.\n",
"In 2013, Star Recording, Inc. and Star Songs, Inc. were both merged to ABS-CBN Film Produc... |
Why are there no Egyptian sources on the first Persian Empire? | There *are* some Egyptian sources about the Achaemenid empire. For example, one of the most interesting artifacts from the Late Period in Egypt is the [statue of the physician Udjahorresnet](_URL_1_), now in the Vatican Museum. The statue describes the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses.
> The Great Chief of all foreign lands, Cambyses came to Egypt, and the foreign peoples of every foreign land were with him. When he had conquered this land in its entirety, they established themselves in it, and he was Great Ruler of Egypt and Great Chief of all foreign lands. His majesty assigned to me the office of chief physician. He made me live at his side as companion and administrator of the palace.
Udjahorresnet, perhaps wary of gaining a reputation as a collaborator, was quick to mention his defense of the Egyptian temples under Persian occupation.
> I made a petition to the majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Cambyses, about all the foreigners who dwelled in the temple of Neith, in order to have them expelled from it, so as to let the temple of Neith be in all its splendor as it had been before. His majesty commanded to expel all the foreigners who dwelled in the temple of Neith, to demolish all their houses and all their unclean things that were in this temple.
> When they had carried all their personal belongings outside the wall of the temple, his majesty commanded to cleanse the temple of Neith and to return all its personnel to it... and the hour-priests of the temple. His majesty commanded to give divine offerings to Neith-the-Great, the mother of god, and to the great gods of Sais, as it had been before. His majesty commanded to perform all their festivals and all their processions, as had been done before. His majesty did this because I had let his majesty know the greatness of Sais, that it is the city of all the gods, who dwell there on their seats forever.
At some point Udjahorresnet was sent to Persia, perhaps to tend to the medical needs of the royal court there. We learn that he was sent back to Egypt by Darius I.
> The chief physician, Udjahorresne, born of Atemirdis, he says: The majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Darius, ever-living, commanded me to return to Egypt - when his majesty was in Elam and was Great Chief of all foreign lands and Great Ruler of Egypt - in order to restore the establishment of the House of Life after it had decayed. The foreigners carried me from country to country. They delivered me to Egypt as commanded by the Lord of the Two Lands.
The biography of Petosiris dates slightly later in the Persian occupation of Egypt and hints at more unrest than Udjahorresne was willing to admit.
> I spent seven years as controller for this god, administering his endowment without fault being found, while the Ruler-of-foreign-lands was protector in Egypt.
> Nothing was in its former place, since fighting had started inside Egypt.
> The South was in turmoil, the North in revolt.
> The people walked with heads turned back,
> All temples were without their servants,
> The priests fled, not knowing what was happening.
The copy of the *Oracle of the Lamb* that survives in P. Vienna D 10000 was copied in the Roman era, but it may have been composed much earlier. Regardless, the text purports to be a prophecy from the 24th Dynasty that predicted Persian and Greek rule in Egypt. "Prophetic" texts written after the fact (*ex eventu* prophecies) are fairly common in ancient literature. The relevant part referencing the Persians:
> However, the Medes will come to Egypt ... judgment will happen to them when they place Egypt...
The prophecy is rather negative, portraying the Persian period as a time of utter chaos.
> Many abominations will happen in Egypt. The birds of the sky and the fish of the sea will eat their blood and their flesh, living with respect to them. A man will go to the water... He will not be able to drink or eat in accordance with the book and what is in it. The humble man will bring... He will seize the ... of the great men while he is present though they did not question him. A man will go before his companions; he will say to them what is..., it being in his heart, saying: ‘Who is it?’ A man will go before them to the place of judgment with his companion; they will receive property from the one stronger than them because of the way.
> Woe and abomination for the youth, small in age! They will take him away to the land of Syria before his father and mother.
> Woe and abomination for the women who will give birth to the youths small in age! They will be taken away to the land of Syria before them.
> Woe to Egypt! It will weep because of the curses that are numerous within it.
Moreover, a variety of texts were erected in Egypt by Persian rulers. A [statue of Darius](_URL_4_) was found in Persepolis but was originally erected in Egypt. The statue inscriptions with the titles and boasts of Darius I.
> This is the stone statue that King Darius ordered to be made in Egypt in order that anyone who sees it in the future will know that the Persian Man ruled Egypt.
Particularly interesting are the [lists of captured territories written in hieroglyphs](_URL_3_), including Egypt and Kush, carved into the statue base - literally trampled under the Persian king's foot. This follows a very old Egyptian tradition of listing captured territories; the [lists of captured Levantine city-states](_URL_2_) from the reign of Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE are strikingly similar. The Achaemenid kings were masters of usurping preexisting royal traditions and using them for their own advantage.
The [Shaluf stela](_URL_0_) of Darius I is arguably the most impressive Persian monument erected in Egypt. Like his statue, Darius' stela was multilingual, written in four languages (Akkadian, Elamite, Old Persian, and Egyptian). Originally approximately 3 meters tall and 2.3 meters wide, the stela commemorated the creation of a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, an ancient precursor to the Suez canal.
> A great god is Ahuramazda, who created yonder sky, who created this earth, who created man, who created welfare for man, who made Darius king, who bestowed upon Darius the King the kingdom, great, rich in horses, rich in men. I am Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian. Thus says Darius the King: I am a Persian; from Persia I seized Egypt; I ordered this canal dug, from the river Nile, which flows in Egypt, to the sea which goes from Persia. Afterwards this canal was dug as I commanded, and ships went from Egypt through this canal to Persia as was my desire. | [
"Egypt was a rich country, and the Persians had coveted it for more than a millennium. It had been conquered twice by the Achaemenids (525–404 and 343–332 BC, until Alexander's conquest), but the stable and powerful Ptolemaic Kingdom, and then the Roman Empire, kept away Persians from Egypt for much of the Greek, R... |
Would a blade cut from diamond match the strength and reliability of blade forged from steel? | Worse. While diamond is incredibly *hard*, it is not particularly *strong* (like steel). Hardness is the ability of a material to resist abrasive wear and tear, meaning that diamond is perfect for use in cutting tools and abrasive applications such as polishing. Strength is the ability of a material to resist high impacts and is clearly more important in a swordfight when you have swords clashing against eachother. I suspect that the diamond would most likely just shatter on impact. | [
"For a diamond blade, diamond segments are just the \"teeth\" of the blade. The form of the segments is an important factor which influences the performance of the blade, for example, the blade's cutting efficiency and the ratio of the diamonds' non-normal failure.\n",
"A wholly sintered diamond blade is made by ... |
Are there any good biographies on Ben Franklin? | You should start with his autobiography, and then read *Benjamin Franklin: An American Life*. However like most of the famous founders there are a multitude of good biographies of Franklin. | [
"Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed is a biography of Benjamin Franklin written by William Cabell Bruce in 1917. A \"biographical and critical study based mostly on Benjamin Franklin's own writings\", the book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1918.\n",
"Franklin's most acclaimed novel, \"Cro... |
During the Carboniferous Period, what percentage of the planet's land was covered in forests? | We don't know, frankly, because a) the fossil record is woefully incomplete, and b) we have no way of knowing whether biomass density or photosynthetic efficiency would have been exactly the same.
In addition, a lot of oxygen comes from oceanic cyanobacteria - *Prochlorococcus* ([Partensky et al., 1999](_URL_0_)), for instance. | [
"The Carboniferous spans from 359 million to 299 million years ago. During this period, average global temperatures were exceedingly high: the early Carboniferous averaged at about 20 degrees Celsius (but cooled to 10 degrees during the Middle Carboniferous). Tropical swamps dominated the Earth, and the large amoun... |
If you could see into space 'forever', would starlight completely fill the night sky? | This question dates back to 1576 and is known as Olbers' Paradox. If one considers there to be a fixed average density of stars in the universe, which extends out to infinity, with some average Luminosity, then when we sum up all of the light that hits the Earth from here to infinity then yes, the answer we get is the sky should be infinitely bright!
Obviously this is nonsense! I am going to pick apart this assumption here under the assumption that we live in a static infinite universe and will provide a modern solution at the end. There are a few assumptions that go into the above conclusion that merit discussion;
First, one assumption is that we have an unobstructed line of sight to every star in the universe, which isn't true. Stars have a finite size, and nearby stars will hide more distant stars from our view. Nevertheless, with an infinite distribution of stars, every line of sight should eventually end at a star. So the surface brightness for the sky should be equal to the surface brightness of a typical star if we live in a static universe. This new conclusion is an improvement on the infinite statement earlier, but it still isn't true.
Another possible resolution is that interstellar matter abosrbs starlight. But this doesn't work because interstellar matter would be heated by the starlight and over many billions of years would be heated to the same temperature as the surface of a star and so would emit just as much light as it absorbs and glow just as brightly as any star.
A second assumption is that the density and luminosity of stars are constant throughout the universe. A more accurate statement would be to say the product of the density and luminosity is constant as a function of the distance from Earth. However this might not be true. Distant stars might be less luminous or less numerous that nearby stars. If we exist in a clump of nearby stars of finite size then the absence of stars far away will keep the night sky from being bright. Similarly if luminosity drops off with distance then they won't contribute significantly to brightness. So the density times luminosity must fall off more rapidly than simply 1 over the distance as we go to infinity.
A third assumption is that the universe is infinite in size. This might not be true. If we set a limit on the size of the universe then the total Luminosity we observe will not be infinity, it will be capped at some maximum value related to that maximum size.
A fourth assumption is that the universe is infinitely old. This might not be true (and isn't), lets see why. The speed of light is finite! When we look farther out in space we are looking farther out in time. Just as we see the Sun as it was ~8 minutes ago, we also see Proxima Centauri as it was 4 years ago, and Galaxy M31 as it was 2 million years ago. If the universe has a finite age, the intensity of starlight we see will have some fixed value as well.
A fifth assumption is that the flux of light (amount of light passing through a given area) from a distant source drops off with the inverse square law (1/r^2 where r is distance). This assumes the source of light is stationary with respect to us and that the unvierse obeys Euclidean (flat, normal xyz) geometry, which Einstein showed is not always the case. If the universe is systematically expanding (which it is) or contracting, then this assumption is wrong. There will be a redshift (for expansion) or blueshift (for contraction). What these terms mean is that if a source is travelling away from you then whatever light it emits will lose energy in transit to your detector, or it will gain energy if the object is moving towards you, much like the doppler effect with sound.
So, the infinitely large, eternally old, Euclidean universe just doesn't make sense with observation.
The primary resolution to this paradox is that the universe has a finite age. Stars beyond some finite distance are invisible to us because their light hasn't had time to reach us yet. This suggests the universe might also be infinite, which is a commonly held belief among physicists and astrophysicists, however it has not been proven. | [
"If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and in its place is a girl.\n",
"Later, according to Halt'... |
What is happening when a text message or email isn't delivered for a long period (ie months) and suddenly is? | This can have many causes, a likely reason is that it failed the first time you tried to send it and was moved to a retry' list by your email program, but is never sent without a trigger, then one day you do something that reminds your email program "hey, I could check the retry list and try and send those again", another possibility is that there was an issue with that email in particular, an update fixed the issue and after that it can be sent. | [
"Machines that suddenly start sending lots of email may well have become zombie computers. By limiting the rate that email can be sent around what is typical for the computer in question, legitimate email can still be sent, but large spam runs can be slowed down until manual investigation can be done.\n",
"The tr... |
how is it that some illnesses like influenza or the common cold are considered “seasonal”? | 1) During the winter, people spend more time indoors with the windows sealed, so they are more likely to breathe the same air as someone who has the flu and thus contract the virus (3).
2) Days are shorter during the winter, and lack of sunlight leads to low levels of vitamin D and melatonin, both of which require sunlight for their generation. This compromises our immune systems, which in turn decreases ability to fight the virus (3).
3) The influenza virus may survive better in colder, drier climates, and therefore be able to infect more people (3).
_URL_0_ | [
"An alternative hypothesis to explain seasonality in influenza infections is an effect of vitamin D levels on immunity to the virus. This idea was first proposed by Robert Edgar Hope-Simpson in 1965. He proposed that the cause of influenza epidemics during winter may be connected to seasonal fluctuations of vitamin... |
Is the common belief that scientific grow was hindered by religion in the medieval times correct? | No it is not.
_URL_1_
_URL_0_
| [
"Modern historians of science such as J.L. Heilbron, Alistair Cameron Crombie, David Lindberg, Edward Grant, Thomas Goldstein, and Ted Davis have reviewed the popular notion that medieval Christianity was a negative influence in the development of civilization and science. In their views, not only did the monks sav... |
how does computer encryption stop snooping? | This is a great question - it seems intuitive that if A and B have never heard of each other before that there's no way they could set up encrypted communication in such a way that other people couldn't listen in.
But amazingly, it is possible, thanks to a system called private/public key cryptography.
Suppose you and I want to send secret messages.
I generate a private/public key pair. This is a process that usually involves trying a bunch of random numbers and doing some math until I find one that works.
I keep the private key secret, and send you the public key. Now *anyone* can see eavesdrop on the public key, but nobody has my private key.
What this key pair allows is two things:
* You can encrypt messages with my public key that I can decrypt, but nobody else can decrypt
* I can sign messages with my private key that anyone can verify with my public key, but nobody else can sign
So I do this, and you do the same thing.
Now I have your public key and my private key, and you have my public key and your private key.
When I send you a message, I can now encrypt it with your public key, and sign it with my private key. When you receive it, you can (1) decrypt it, since you're the only one with your private key, and (2) verify that it was sent by me, since you have my public key and nobody else has my private key.
It was quite an amazing mathematical breakthrough when this was first invented in 1977. Prior to that, the only way two people could communicate is if they exchanged encryption keys previously.
| [
"The use of encryption does not offer any true protection against memory snooping, since the software player must have the encryption key available somewhere in memory and there is no way to protect against a determined PC owner extracting the encryption key (if everything else fails the user could run the program ... |
What happens to the human body in the first week after death? | **Warning: Post contains some pics of dead bodies/gore**
In most cases, bodies are found within a few hours of dying, so the body can be treated and preserved before the nasty post-mortem changes take hold. It very much depends on temperature, but it will generally take a couple of days before a body begins to smell, but other changes take place beforehand and and these have been studied quite thoroughly as they can give a good indication of the time of death in forensic investigations.
**Algor Mortis**
Immediately after death, the body starts cooling down. It's generally quite a steady decline of 1°C per hour until it matches the ambient temperature of the surroundings.
**Livor Mortis**
As soon as the heart stops beating Livor mortis or blood pooling will be setting in. When you die your heart's no longer pumping blood around the body and the blood will begin to settle in the lowest points of the body. This results in a pink or purple discoloration of the skin (lividity) ([PIC](_URL_3_)). Areas exposed to pressure will not show lividtiy as the blood vessels are mechanically compressed preventing blood flow. After around 10-12 hours the Livor mortis in the skin begins to fix as the blood hemolyses and sets inside the blood vessels, so now the discoloration will no longer shift if the body is moved.
**Rigor Mortis**
After around 6-12 hours and as the body is depleted of oxygen Rigor mortis sets in. This is where cellular respiration no longer occurs and through a complicated series of biochemical reactions the muscles begin to contract and stiffen ([PIC\)](_URL_4_). Rigor mortis first develops in the jaw, then is followed by the upper and lower extremities. It then tends to subside after 36-48 hours.
**Tache Noire**
After around 7-8 hours, parts of the eyes that remained open dry out forming a brown-black band of discoloration called tache noire ([PIC](_URL_6_)).
**Decomposition**
Decomposition will start as soon as the person dies, but it is not particularly obvious in it's early stages. As the cells are deprived of oxygen their structure begins to break down and they begin to be digested by their own enzymes. This is a process known as autolysis and initially appears as small blisters on the skin, but can eventually lead to the break down of entire organ systems.
As well as autolysis, the body is simultaneously being decomposed by bacteria is a process called putrefaction. This initially occurs the the abdomen where bacteria in the lower intestine begin to proliferate and decompose the gut, but will eventually spread around the whole body. There are 5 general stages of decompositon: Fresh, Bloat, Active decay, Advanced Decay, and Dry/skeletal ([PIC](_URL_5_)). You can read more info on the five stages [here](_URL_2_). After a week, I'd expect a body to be at the bloated/active decay stage.
The whole process is speeded up if insects are added to the mix, especially blowflies. Flies are able to find a corpse and lay their eggs on it within hours of death and the resulting maggots can decimate a corpse much quicker than bacterial degradation alone.
**Sources:**
[Bautista, R. - Survey of Biological Factors Affecting the Determination of the Postmortem Interval](_URL_0_)
[Presnell, S. - Postmortem Changes on Medscape](_URL_1_) | [
"Ten to twenty minutes after exposure, the body's muscles begin to spasm, starting with the head and neck in the form of trismus and risus sardonicus. The spasms then spread to every muscle in the body, with nearly continuous convulsions, and get worse at the slightest stimulus. The convulsions progress, increasing... |
how do scientists "discover" planets ? do they have some powerful telescope that can zoom in a million times and "see" a planet in view as if you saw the earth looking from the moon? | They watch the star.
For some planets they detect them by seeing them pass in front of the star and watching the star dim, but this only works for planets that pass directly in front of their star and are large enough to block out a measurable amount of light
For many others they watch the star wobble, as the planet orbits it pulls the star towards it, if you were to watch our own star you'd see it wobbling about as jupiter and saturn orbit and pull it significantly, but you'd also see smaller wobbles from the inner planets
We don't have a telescope remotely big enough to actually see a distant planet. You would need a mirror on the order of hundreds or thousands of meters to resolve a jupiter sized planet around Alpha Centauri | [
"If a planet cannot be detected through at least one of the other detection methods, it can be confirmed by determining if the possibility of a Kepler candidate being a real planet is significantly larger than any false-positive scenarios combined. One of the first methods was to see if other telescopes can see the... |
if you can represent yourself in court, why can't you have anyone you want represent you? | Well you can, but they'd have to agree to represent you, and be qualified to represent you. You don't have to be qualified to represent you, but you're a unique case... mind you a judge can still decide that you *need* representation and assign you a public defender anyway.
I mean, you *could* ask for Bon Jovi to represent you, but why would he, even if it would be allowed? | [
"A third party may assert the rights of another person in order to vindicate them when the other person is unable to do so. For example, the US Supreme Court has held that a white person bound by a restrictive covenant not to sell realty to a black person may assert the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment rights of black... |
The Great Emu War, what sparked it? | TL;DR: Emus. Lot and lots of emus, eating farmers' grain.
Longer version:
After the First World War, Australia gave a lot of previously unfarmed land to veterans to farm. This meant that many farms were now in areas previously grazed by emus. To make things worse, there was a drought, reducing the grazing (do emus graze? I'm not a biologist) area of emus further. This meant that the huge birds were increasingly bothersome to the farmers, destroying their crops.
The farmers requested weapons (particularly Lewis machine-guns) from the government to kill the emus. Being veterans, they knew how to use them and imagined they would be very effective against massed emu herds. The government, perhaps not trusting the veterans (who were disgruntled over lack of promised subsidies and other government policies) with machine-guns, instead sent a detachment of soldiers.
Long story short, the soldiers were largely ineffective. The emus, when fired upon, scattered at high speeds, making it almost impossible to kill many at a time. The operation became a favorite target of the media, and even the military leaders made tongue-in-cheek observations about what a mighty foe the emu is. One famous quote from Major C. W. P: Meredith goes:
> If we had a division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. They can face machine-guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop.
(From [this](_URL_0_) newspaper source.)
Though a few emus were killed, a lot of ammunition and other resources were largely wasted. The emus continued to be a menace for decades, though farmers (without direct help from the government) killed hundreds of thousands.
[Here](_URL_1_) is a good article, written for a general audience, on the subject. | [
"By December 1932, word of the Emu War had spread, reaching the United Kingdom. Some conservationists there protested the cull as \"extermination of the rare emu\". Dominic Serventy and Hubert Whittel, the eminent Australian ornithologists, described the 'war' as \"an attempt at the mass destruction of the birds\".... |
what is the said hoax between manti te'o and his girlfriend? | Manti Te'o is a one of the best college football players in the country. Some of his fame has come from the inspirational story of him overcoming tragedy, such as when he dealt with the pain of his grandmother and girlfriend both both dying within a day of one another. Following those events, Te'o played very well, thereby overcoming an amazing challenge considering the emotions he must have been facing.
The only problem is that recent investigation has suggested that the dying girlfriend in the story does not appear to exist. This may seem unimportant (and granted, it's not the most important issue in the world), but Te'o is one of the best athletes ready to join professional football. If he was lying, that suggests major character issues. If he was telling the truth, that reinforces his reputation as an amazing football player capable of overcoming any obstacles in his way.
[Here](_URL_0_) is a news report from the week when Te'o's girlfriend allegedly passed away.
[Here](_URL_1_) is a timeline of the entire incident. | [
"On the same day the Deadspin article was published, Notre Dame issued a statement that \"Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically ... |
how hackers 'jailbroke' apples ios software? | From a technical perspective, there's really no difference between illegal hacking and jailbreaking your IOS device. In either case, you need to use a creative trick (called an "exploit") to get the target system to run some code you want it to run (typically, to disable any other security it has in place).
The most common type of exploit is a [buffer overrun](_URL_1_). A buffer is a place where a computer stores data. If a hacker injects more data into this buffer than it can hold, the additional data he injected could overwrite program data and get executed as if it were the program itself.
So typically, the hacker will inject a [NOP slide](_URL_0_), essentially a lot of data that says:
* Do nothing, go to the next instruction
* Do nothing, go to the next instruction
* Do nothing, go to the next instruction
* Do nothing, go to the next instruction
* (Many, many instructions later)
* Hacking instruction
| [
"Since its initial release, iOS has been subject to a variety of different hacks centered around adding functionality not allowed by Apple. Prior to the 2008 debut of Apple's native iOS App Store, the primary motive for jailbreaking was to bypass Apple's purchase mechanism for installing the App Store's native appl... |
When did modern infantry begin wearing body armor? | Body armor has been around for centuries; however, its use by modern infantry didn't become widespread until the onset of World War I. "The first official attempt to outfit military members came in 1915 from the British Army Design Committee, in particular a 'Bomber's Shield' for the use of bomber pilots who were notoriously under-protected in the air from stray bullets and shrapnel. The Experimental Ordnance Board also reviewed potential materials for bullet and fragment proof armor, such as steel plate. A 'necklet' was successfully issued on a small scale (due to cost considerations), which protected the neck and shoulders from bullets traveling at 600 feet per second with interwoven layers of silk and cotton stiffened with resin. The Dayfield body shield entered service in 1916 and a hardened breastplate was introduced the following year" [\(Bull 12\)](_URL_0_).
Check out the [Wikipedia entry for ballistic vests](_URL_1_). It has a pretty thoroughly detailed and well-sourced development history section. | [
"The standard form of body armor was chainmail. There are also references to the practice of wearing two coats of mail (\"dir’ayn\"), the one under the main one being shorter or even made of fabric or leather. Hauberks and large wooden or wickerwork shields were also used as protection in combat. The soldiers were ... |
what do scientists actually mean when they talk about the "holohgraphic universe" | A hologram is a two dimensional projection of a three dimensional object. Stephen Hawking was the one who came to the realization that the event horizon of a black hole could act as a hologram, preserving information about all of the material that’s gotten sucked inside. More specifically, the surface area of the event horizon is directly proportional to the entropy of the black hole, and thereby its contents. The same sort of math, it turns out, can actually describe any point in the Universe, meaning that the entire content of the Universe can be viewed as a giant hologram, one that resides on the surface of whatever two-dimensional shape will enclose it.
For those significantly beyond 5+, see references to holography [here](_URL_0_) and the holographic principle [here](_URL_1_). | [
"But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of struc... |
how do people get roles for tv shows, movies, etc? | You start at a casting agency as a background actor or something. I used to be signed up to one where you pay a membership fee. The more you paid, the more exclusive deals they could get you. Then it all depends on your talent. So pretty much: be good at acting -- > have $$ -- > Pay casting agent/ agency -- > Be good.
Then at one point you get bigger roles, and make more money. | [
"Some voice actors, such as Billy West, are highly critical of using movie stars for voice roles in animated feature films. A particular point of contention is the practice of bringing on veteran voice actors (who are generally capable of greatly altering their voices and inflections in order to create personalitie... |
why can we eat some leaves (salad, basil, mint...) and not all like herbivores ? | Eating leaves is not the same across all leaf eaters. For example, Koala Bears and Cows are both herbivores, but Koala Bears can eat eucalyptus leaves which cows cannot digest. Getting the same amount of nutrition from grass is done differently from species to species. Rabbits for example, will eat grass and then eat their own droppings to complete the process of getting all the nutrition from the grass, cows have 4 stomachs to process the grass they eat. So to answer your question, we don't have the stomach to extract the nutrition from "all leaves" just some of them, we can get around this by cooking a lot of the leaves we cannot consume raw. | [
"The leaves and flowers are edible, and can be eaten in salads, as potherbs, or brewed as tea. These plant parts are high in vitamins A and C. However, the rhizomes, fruit, and seeds are poisonous to humans and can cause upset stomach, intestinal problems, respiratory and circulatory depression.\n",
"Nearly one t... |
how is it that when you are muscle sore, even moving is a big deal but when lifting again it is fine? | Your sore muscles are like a lazy roommate. They whine and complain over the smallest actions. But as soon as they think shit hits the fan, they feel fine and act like they can do anything. Your body does the same, but with some natural painkillers | [
"The soreness is felt most strongly 24 to 72 hours after the exercise. It is thought to be caused by eccentric (lengthening) exercise, which causes small-scale damage (microtrauma) to the muscle fibers. After such exercise, the muscle adapts rapidly to prevent muscle damage, and thereby soreness, if the exercise is... |
why was japan's railway system not nationalized? | If i recall, I asked this when i went for a visit. The japan railway was initially started by private companies covering certain portions of the map. Eventually, they integrated and interconnected but the whole system is one big mess of several railways.
Amazingly they still run it like clockwork but with the rails under private companies, it will likely not be nationalized into one big railway.
| [
"In Japan, the Railway Nationalization Act of 1906 brought most of the country's private railway lines under public control. Between 1906 and 1907, of track were purchased from seventeen private railway companies. The national railway network grew to about of track, and private railways were relegated to providing ... |
Conspiracy nuts saying the Japan reactors could go nuclear explosion. How possible is this? | None. It's none-possible. | [
"In April 2011 the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that some of the core of a stricken Japanese reactor had probably leaked from its steel pressure vessel into the bottom of the containment structure, implying that the reactor damage was worse than previously thought. If molten fuel has \"left the ... |
How common was the reutilisation of Ennemies arms during WWII ? | As I understand in the Battle of the Bulge the US Army captured a King Tiger tank and proceeded to paint US stars on it. Here is the photograph here. _URL_0_ According to the page it was 'From the 2.Kompanie/schwere Panzer Abteilung 506 captured by American troops. 15 December 1944.' The extent of its use in combat is unknown to me as the image could have been a mere publicity stunt. | [
"Once in German hands, the AAC-1937 were used in Operation Barbarossa. The photographic references say that they were even used in the Battle of Moscow, and a lot of them were destroyed by the Red Army.\n",
"Early in 1939, after Nazi Germany had invaded Czechoslovakia, Roosevelt lobbied Congress to have the cash-... |
If the French lost their holdings in North America after the Seven Years War, how did they later sell it in the Louisiana Purchase? Did they some how get their land back between 1763 and 1803? | Although egavactip has indeed outlined the situation, the name of the treaty that gave it back specifically was the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. (Technically the third treaty of that same name) This was a secret treaty, and its discovery by Jefferson is in part what would push him to have Robert R. Livingston negotiate for the Louisiana Purchase. | [
"The Louisiana Purchase was by far the largest territorial gain in U.S. history. Stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, the purchase doubled the size of the United States. Before 1803, Louisiana had been under Spanish control for forty years. Although Spain aided the rebels in the American Re... |
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