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Tuesday Trivia | Crazy Cartography: Historical Maps! | I think I'll take this opportunity to highlight what is generally considered one of the greatest infographics of all time, Charles Minard's [Flow Map of Napoleon's Campaign into Russia.](_URL_0_) Although it is in French, it should be easily decipherable to the viewer in its portrayal of the size of the army as it traveled into, and the out of, Russia.
The image is simple, but conveys a wealth of information. Beginning with a force of 422,000 men, Minard shows it slowly winnowed down to a force of 100,000 in Moscow, and then the brutal retreat with a mere 10,000 reaching the Niemen river. Rivers and major locations are depicted to provide geographical context, and with the retreat, the corresponding temperature is shown as well (although it is in the Réaumur scale, whatever that is...) to give a sense of the Russian winter.
| [
"The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is one of the world's largest private map collections. It has over 150,000 maps and cartographic items. The collection was created by David Rumsey who, after making his fortune in real estate, focused initially on collecting 18th- and 19th century maps of North and South ... |
how can people just tell which direction they're going? | Well, there are a few ways. But most importantly, road signs should tell you which direction highways go. Also, it's all about learning how to orient yourself. Use the sun as a guide. It rises in the East and sets in the West. Looking into the sun in the morning? You're headed East. Sun to your left in the evening? You're going North. | [
"We get our sense of direction when we match up spatial maps we have stored in the hippocampus, to the pattern of firing neurons when we are trying to find our way back or trying to find our car in the parking lot.\n",
"Many puzzles ask for the direction from one city to another. These directions always fall betw... |
How crucial was the Army's role is the pacific campaign? | The bulk of the troops in the Pacific were actually Army, not USMC. By my count 22 Army divisions saw combat in the Pacific: Americal, Philippine, 6th, 7th, 24th, 25th, 27th, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 37th, 38th, 40th, 41st, 43rd, 77th, 81st, 93rd, 96th, 98th, 11th Airborne, and 1st Cavalry. Several other Army divisions were allocated to the Pacific but didn’t make it to the theater or at least didn’t see any combat in theater. In contrast the Marines only had six divisions (all of which saw combat).
This rough 3 to 1, army to marines, ratio existed for most of the war. So while a lot of the Army divisions were only arriving in theater in 1944 or 1945, the same was true of the Marine divisions. 5th Marine and 6th Marine only arrived in time to fight on Iwo Jima and Okinawa respectively; although it should be said many of the individual men had fought earlier as members of one of the other Marine divisions. So late formed Army divisions like the 96th saw about as much combat (Leyte and Okinawa) as a late formed Marine division like the 6th Marine (Okinawa). While an early formed army division like the 7th (Attu, Kiska, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Leyte, Okinawa) saw similar amounts of combat as an early Marine division like the 2nd Marine (Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa).
In practice each battle/campaign tended to have their own blend of forces. Iwo Jima was fought by three Marine divisions with no Army ground units, but with heavy support from US Army Air Force Support. Shortly after, Okinawa was invaded by the remaining three Marine divisions along with four Army divisions. In contrast the Philippines campaign (which was still ongoing during Iwo Jima and Okinawa) was fought with 14 army divisions (although not all 14 at the same time) with no Marine participation. So in early to mid 1945 the major fights were either entirely Marines, entirely Army, or a mix. Most smaller island attacks were combined Marine/Army affairs. Most larger fights like New Guinea or the Philippines were largely or entirely Army operations.
It should also be pointed out that the Australians generally had several army divisions engaged at most times serving in New Guinea, the Solomons, and later in Borneo. For the Salamaua–Lae campaign for example MacArthur was leading one American division and four Australian divisions. It’s an under-appreciated fact that the “American” forces relied heavily on these Australian units, particularly in 1942 and 1943. So there were at times as many *Australian* soldiers operating under US command as there were US Marines.
So while the Marines were a vital force in the Pacific war, they were only a small minority of the troops engaged in the fighting. | [
"As early as mid-1943, the United States Army had recognized that, once victory was won, bringing the troops home would be a priority. US soldiers were scattered across 55 theaters of war worldwide. Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall established committees to address the logistical problem. Eventually orga... |
Why is there things like depression that make people constantly sad but no disorders that cause constant euphoria? | Academic psychiatrist here. First off, depression doesn't "make" people sad. Rather "depression" is a description of a person's experience. It is often used to describe the symptom of depression, but there are broader clinical entities such as a "major depressive episode," which have operationalized definitions.
As for the question of constant euphoria, it certainly exists. Although it doesn't necessarily warrant clinical attention (people don't complain to me of "wellbeing"), people with extended periods of mood elevation often also experience periods of dark lows as well as too-high highs. The bipolar spectrum is not well characterized, but many researchers have dedicated their lives to exploring this. Periods of inappropriately elevated mood are described as hypomania (generally still functional) or mania (no longer functional). Without treatment, they can last for days to months at a time. However, some people tend to have a "hyperthymic temperament" or "hyperthymic personality," by which we mean that their mood (-thymia) tends to be elevated (hyper) in a chronic fashion. Still others have chronically undulating moods over the course of years, which is described as cyclothymic disorder.
Should also add that "mixed states" exist where dysphoria and excessive energy co-occur. These are particularly dangerous and are associated with risk of suicide. The mood here tends to be profoundly irritable.
For an interesting read, here is a study that explored a broader definition of bipolar spectrum illness in the community: Fassassi S, Vandeleur C, Aubry JM, Castelao E, Preisig M. Prevalence and correlates of DSM-5 bipolar and related disorders and hyperthymic personality in the community. J Affect Disord. 2014 Oct;167:198-205.
TL;DR: Periods of chronic euphoria exist. | [
"In addition there is increasing evidence that inflammation can cause depression because of the increase of cytokines, setting the brain into a \"sickness mode\". Classical symptoms of being physically sick like lethargy show a large overlap in behaviors that characterize depression. Levels of cytokines tend to inc... |
During the Battle of Moscow (1941), the Soviet Union moved a big amount of units from Siberia and the Far East to fight in Moscow. Couldn't it has been a good moment to start a second front in the east by the Japanese Empire? | Absolutely not Japan was in no condition to start another war with Russia as it was already moving to strike at the US and European Pacific colonies. By the start of Battle of Moscow, Japan was planning its attack on the US and to wipe out the Pacific Fleet. Japan was by this time starved of resources, the US, UK, and Dutch started an embargo on exports to Japan in 1940. They relied heavily on imports for things like iron, copper, rubber and especially oil, oil from the US made up about 80% of Japan’s import of oil.
This embargo was due to Japan’s aggressive expansion in China and its annexation of French Indochina. The west was scared that the Japanese would eventually invade into their colonies, so to prevent further expansion they embargoed Japan. The terms were that Japan would pull out of China and French Indochina and stop its aggressive actions. But this would be disastrous for the Japanese. If Japan would pull out, this would let the Chinese regroup and recover from its war with Japan. China would not let the years of rape, pillaging, and murder across their country go unanswered and they would attack the Japanese.
However the Japanese could not further its advances in China as it would run out of resources. It needs to ship supplies and men on ships to the mainland, while also ship resources back to the home islands. Alongside of fueling its massive navy and its army the Japanese would use up the rest of its resources in a matter of months and would have no choice but to fall back or be stuck in a hostile China surrounded by Chinese forces.
The last option was to take the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya and its vast resources that would fuel the Japanese war effort. However the big threat was the US fleet as any attack on these territories would force the US to attack the Japanese. So Japan planned its attack on the Pacific fleet on Pearl Harbor and knock out the fleet. With that Japan had a free hand for now in the Pacific.
Now you might ask what does this have to do with Japan not attacking Russia during the Moscow campaign? Well that’s just it, it’s already planning an invasion of the Dutch Indies and British Malaya, alongside a fleet attack on Pearl Harbor, not to mention its ongoing war in China, it does not have enough troops and resources to be everywhere. If it attacks Russia would it benefit the Japanese? No, it needs resources that Russia does have on the other side of the country. But there was no way Japan could even get 1/4 of the way there. It would also have to pull troops from China and its other fronts to cover a front that wide. So Japan would gain almost nothing from this invasions, have no resources and would still be in its same situation like before but even worse, and holding a wide front in some inhabitable lands. Japan gained nothing and would never go for attacking Russia. That and it already faced Russia in its disastrous border skirmish in Mongolia.
Japan in 1939 started a border conflict with Russia in Mongolia around Khalkin Gil and Lake Khasan. The Japanese army faced down the Red Army and was completely humiliated. In 1941, Japan would sign a neutrality pact with Russia, this was meant so Japan could focus its attention to the south and the US. It shows how outclassed the Japanese Army was compared to an actual army. Japan was prepared to fight the Chinese, other Asian armies and European garrison troops. These troops are usually not well trained, not well equipped, and lack heavy equipment like tanks and heavy artillery. And much of the European troops would be reliant on supplies and reinforcements from the home countries that would have to be shipped by sea. Seas that would be controlled by the Japanese navy that would be the dominant naval power in that area. The Japanese Army while well trained and well equipped were not ready for a well trained European or US army. Any and all supplies needed to be shipped across the ocean to troops in mainland Asia or any of the Pacific islands. This meant every ton counts and having 40-50 ton tanks being shipped across the water was a huge waste, having lighter tanks saved space to ship more of them across, but in doing so cut down on firepower and armor. Or shipping heavier and longer artillery pieces would take up too much space and fewer could be sent to the troops, while lighter guns could be easily shipped and be brought up in sand without sinking. The US also had this problem when designing weapons, but had better designs and infrastructure to support its merchant ships. The Japanese compensated the lack of heavy weapons in their infantry divisions by having more men in them than an average US or German division. I’d like to mention that the Japanese were fighting in Asia and not Central Europe or France, they were prepared to fight here and not prepped up to fight in the open steppes of Russia or the freezing ground of Siberia.
Japan has no desire to attack Russia during the attack on Moscow. While it did have plans to attack Russia if it fell into complete chaos, Russia never collapse, not even at the height of Moscow campaign. Japan knew it was no match for them, and so pursued its own objectives for it’s survival. And even if it did attack Russia, when Russia recovered and was at full strength, it would beat the overstretches and undersupplied Japanese back to Manchuria and push them back to the Home Islands.
Sources:
Mawdsley, Evan, et al. The Cambridge History of the Second World War. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Drea, Edward J. In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. University of Nebraska Press, 2003. | [
"The Soviet Army counter offensive for \"removing the immediate threat to Moscow\" started on December 5 on the North-Western Front (the area around Krasnaya Polyana and Lobnya North West of Moscow). The South-Western Front and Western Fronts began their offensives on December 6. The German forces were driven back.... |
Why do cast iron frying pans turn black? | It's mostly from iron oxide (FeO) forming due to reaction with oxygen in air. The oxide is normally a dark grey colour but even a tiny amount of absorbed oil will turn it dark black. | [
"Cast iron cookware is slow to heat, but once at temperature provides even heating. Cast iron can also withstand very high temperatures, making cast iron pans ideal for searing. Being a reactive material, cast iron can have chemical reactions with high acid foods such as wine or tomatoes. In addition, some foods (s... |
why is it so universally accepted that dinosaurs roared? is there any way paleontologist know what kind of sounds that actually would have made? | Paleontologists can use the features, shapes, and dimensions of the nasal cavities and other parts of the skull to determine what kinds of sounds dinosaurs might be able to make. In recent decades, we have found mummified dinosaurs with enough fossilized soft tissue to help with this kind of investigation.
In the case of cartoons and fairly non-scientific videos, the sounds we hear might be exaggerated in some ways, or even just made up. But more scientifically-grounded shows often do a good job of making sounds match what the scientists think they should be.
Like all science, paleontology is constantly refining its knowledge, so new fossils will no doubt come to light in the future which will continue to improve our understanding of dinosaur sounds.
I'm not a paleontologist, but I love dinosaurs, and have been following the research for most of my 60-odd years.
Edit: A good way to demonstrate this to a 5 year old might be to get a tin whistle, recorder, or kazoo, and show them how covering different holes and blowing into the instrument will make different sounds. | [
"In 2016 she speculated that based on her research she felt it was unlikely that dinosaurs roared. She proposed that it was much more likely that they made noises that were similar to those made by a modern pigeon.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Dinosaur: big but not too bright—a sort of sauropod with spinal plates like a ... |
Did industrialization and urbanization see an increase in mental illness? | Hi OP, while this question might get answered here, it sounds more like the domain of /r/AskSocialScience or /r/AskPsychology . You might consider x-posting to one of them. | [
"Institutionalization would continue to improve throughout the 19th and 20th century due to work of many humanitarians such as Dorethea Dix, and the mental hygiene movement which promoted the physical well-being of the mental patients. \"Dix more than any other figure in the nineteenth century, made people in Ameri... |
As a segment of the population, did European nobility in the Medieval, Early Modern and Modern eras die disproportionately in war? | Yes, at least in many instances. I know that David Cannadine has demonstrated that WWI took a disproportionate human toll on the British aristocracy. I know his purpose in relating that is to make the point that even as late as 1914 the aristocracy were still committed to a warrior class ideal and that this ideal's existence had usually meant the aristocracy died disproportionately in war. At this very moment while I slack off at work I can't provide precise citation of statistical proof of this for earlier wars, but maybe I'll be able to add something on that later. | [
"Few noble houses were extinguished during the wars; in the period from 1425 to 1449, before the outbreak of the wars, there were as many extinctions of noble lines from natural causes (25) has occurred during the fighting (24) from 1450 to 1474. The most ambitious nobles died and by the later period of the wars, f... |
Was Marxism So Rampant In Academia Back During Much Of The Cold War? | Note- continental European academia has different intellectual traditions and specific contexts, so will be kept out of the discussion.
Assuming the OP is giving an accurate picture of the poly sci prof's position the characterization that Marxism was "rampant" in the Anglo-American academy is both inaccurate and a gross oversimplification of the actual Marxism that was present inside the ivory tower.
Firstly, there is an enormous problem of periodization of the 1950s-1980s because between the 1950s and mid-1960s, the climate of universities was incredibly hostile both to Marxism and the Soviet Union. In the US, the climate of McCarthyism led to both loyalty oaths and the purging of faculty with perceived pro-Soviet biases. Furthermore, there was significant pressure from within the university faculty themselves to conform to the American side of the Cold War. For example, Armin Rappaport's appointment to Berkeley was held up because the chair of the department was concerned that he might "have some of the ultra left wing tendencies so common to the New York Jewish intelligentsia," and would only countenance accepting Rappaport into the faculty after he had given his word that he was not an opponent of American foreign policy. Nor was the administration of universities open to Marxist perspectives in this period. When in 1964, Berkley's history department unanimously invited the CPUSA member and academic Herbert Aptheker to address a graduate colloquium the administration denied funding for his appearance and refused him to speak on campus, forcing the history department to have him speak off campus with funds out of pocket.
It is not a coincidence that this early period of the Cold War saw the formation of some of the most virulently anti-communist interpretations of Soviet history and society. Not only did Hannah Arendt's notions of totalitarianism (i.e. that Communism and Fascism were largely indistinguishable tyrannies) find wide spread currency within the academy but so to did other anti-Soviet paradigms find fertile soil. Richard Pipes's 1954 book *The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism* argued that the Soviet Union was a stalking horse for Great Russian hegemony and that instead of liberating the various nationalities, the Soviet state acted as a "prison of the peoples" for non-Russians. This interpretation, which dovetailed with ideas that the USSR was as expansionist and exclusionary as its tsarist predecessor, gained a lot of traction in academia and was one of the dominant interpretations in the west on the Soviet nationalities problem almost through the end of the Cold War. Nor was such anti-communism the sole preserve of the right. Left-leaning faculty could hew to the Cold War liberalism as exemplified by Arthur Schlessinger, jr. Cold War liberalism did not take a knee-jerk hostility to communism, but did champion initiatives to ensure that the Third World would remain favorable to free market capitalism. Overall, there was a consensus inside the academy in this period, with the exception of a few outliers, that containment of the USSR was necessary and that the Cold War was a zero-sum game; the Soviets' loss meant America's gain and vice-versa.
Marxist-influenced thought did not make much of a comeback in the academy until the advent of the New Left in the late 1960s, but it was often a form of Marxism that was not immediately recognizable compared to its forebears of the interwar period. In the field of history, some of the pioneering work done in the UK by the Communist Party Historians Group who pioneered an examination of history "from below' in the 1950s. The New Left could be myopic about the USSR's development and tended to take a pro-Soviet line in the Cold War. The Polish emigre Leszek Kolakowski famously engaged in [a dialogue](_URL_0_) with E. P. Thompson where he perceptively argued that the New Left presented. "whatever bad happens within the "capitalist system" is by definition the product of capitalism; whatever bad happens in "the socialist system" is by the same definition the product of the same capitalism." Despite these tendencies to explain away the faults of the Soviets as highlighted by Kolakowski, the Soviet Union clearly lacked the allure that it had enjoyed in the interwar period as a mythical worker's paradise.
The part of the Communist world that did enchant the New Left was that of East Asia and the various revolutionaries in the Third World. This spilled over into scholarship in the 1970s in the aftermath of the Vietnam War where both China and North Korea seemed to offer a proper developmental model for the rest of the Third World that would be an alternative both to Western free market capitalism and an seemingly ossified Soviet Union. Theda Skocpol's monumental *States and Social Revolutions* which examined the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions took the Maoist line of "walking on two legs,” at face value, and argued that the PRC had achieved a balanced development of both the countryside and the urban areas with a strong emphasis upon responsible leadership at local levels, emphasis upon medium and light industry, and novel techniques to prevent urban over-crowding by taking measures to send educated urban-dwellers in the 1960s into the countryside. Somewhat more embarrassingly, some in the New Left championed the DPRK's *Juche* movement as a way to fuse nationalism with socialist development and treated the emerging cult of personality around Kim il-Sung as an aberration caused by the Korean War and tensions with the ROK. While there certainly was some cause for these rosy assessments, the economic growth of the DPRK was rather strong in this period and Park Chung-hee's authoritarian government had entered into a pretty nasty period of domestic repression in the 1970s, this rather blinkered view of the East Asian communist states had a marked tendency to ignore the repression and flaws of these polities. In the 1980s, R. J. R. Kirkby’s *Urbanization in China: town and country in a developing economy* repudiated his earlier work that suggested, like Skocpol, that China had a balanced economy and contended that “our own Western susceptibility to agrarian utopian and oriental fantasy” had produced a highly skewed view of Chinese economic development during this decade. Even Eric Selbin, whose earlier work on the Maoist Yenan Way contended that Maoism had managed to shape the countryside into a potent anti-imperialist weapon, has cautiously backed away from his earlier enthusiasm for this process and called such sanguine sentiments a reflection of "a more hopeful epoch," of world history.
But not all the Marxist thought produced during the 1960s ended up in a Maoist cul-de-sac. in the field of history, scholars like David Blackbourn, Eric Foner, and Donald Worster produced incredibly valuable studies in the early 1980s that are still highly influential. The Marxist (or more accurately, Marxist-inspired) arguments they present are quite sophisticated and do not talk about crude stages or other dross that would characterize an ideologically-driven version of history.
As for the issue of minimizing the faults of the USSR, the most prominent group in the 1970s that argued for Soviet success in the 1970s was the so-called Team-B of various anti-Communist intellectuals and government officials. Lead by Pipes and other anti-communists, Team B contended that the Soviet planned economy was far more successful than the CIA's more realistic assessments on Soviet strategic capabilities. While Team-B did not deny the reality of Soviet repression, they argued that such political repression was irrelevant to Soviet strength and power projection. This alarmist view of Soviet power, which tended to take Soviet claims of growth and face value and even exaggerate them, created a *de facto* erasure of Soviet repression by assuming that the average Soviet citizen had been cowed by terror and the state to obey. The reality of the USSR was quite different and Team B helped to blind many public intellectuals to the growing apathy and dysfunction of the Soviet system. Unlike the New Left or other left-wing intellectuals in the academy, these neo-conservatives had far greater access to political power, especially with the election of Ronald Reagan. | [
"Post-Marxism dates from the late 1960s and several trends and events of that period influenced its development. The weakness of the Soviet Union paradigm became evident and Marxism faced a lack since the Second International. This happened concurrently with the occurrence internationally of the student riots of 19... |
If living bodies are constantly emitting heat, are they losing minute amounts of mass? | Even if you assume that all of the energy is coming from converting matter into energy (a la E = m * c^2 ), it'd be a really, really small amount. Assuming a basal metabolic rate of 100 W, that yields
100 / (2.998 * 10^8 )^2 = 1.11265006 * 10^-15 kilograms every second. At that rate, you'd lose about 2.8 milligrams of mass over the course of an 80 year life. | [
"Based on the preceding work on electromagnetic mass, Friedrich Hasenöhrl suggested that part of the mass of a body (which he called apparent mass) can be thought of as radiation bouncing around a cavity. The \"apparent mass\" of radiation depends on the temperature (because every heated body emits radiation) and i... |
Why did we evolve two kidneys? | This question is misleading because the question of "Why did we evolve X" is quite different from "What is the advantage of X"? The question of why we evolved something is answered in all cases by "because of mutation." We gain adaptive and maladaptive genotypes (which manifest as phenotypes like two kidneys) as a result of mutation.
Why a mutation is successful is an entirely separate discussion; sometimes we 'evolve' things which are neither useful or harmful and they are carried simply by accident of being linked with other beneficial mutations, or having no effect on our reproductive success.
Certainly responses can include the (dis)advantage of one versus two kidneys, but it is hard to say conclusively that the reason we *kept* two kidneys after evolving them is because that person was more likely to breed; it could be that he was simply stronger than his cohorts and killed them all, passing on the double-kidney mutation by sheer accident. And his children, perhaps now benefiting from the increased life expectancy of having the double kidneys had a longer lifespan to breed. Or any other of millions of possible enumerations.
The point of this pedantry is to to note that asking the question of "Why did we evolve X" is dangerous, as it seems to imply a designed evolution - e.g. we evolved this because it was beneficial. Some phenotypic variation demonstrably increases reproductive success, but oftentimes the mutation is ineffective enough at a breeding level to have no actual effect on reproductive success. | [
"Three different kidney systems form in the developing embryo: the pronephros, the mesonephros and the metanephros. Only the metanephros develops into the permanent kidney. All three are derived from the intermediate mesoderm.\n",
"Early kidney structures include the pronephros and mesonephros, whose complexity, ... |
What causes electrons to move (and also eventually slow) in a current? | At a finite temperature, free electrons are always moving due to pure thermal motion. This doesn't give rise to any current because the electrons are moving in random directions, and their net motion cancels to zero.
When an electric field exists across the material, it creates regions of high and low electric potential. The electrons move in the direction that minimizes their potential energy. This is known as the Coulomb force and causes electrons to accelerate. Since there is now a net direction of electron flow, the current is now positive.
When the current is zero, this either means that no charge exists (which is trivial) or that every part of the conductor/resistor is at the same electric potential. The electrons now have no preferred direction, so the net current is zero but the electrons don't actually stop moving. They still have thermal motion. | [
"By controlling the accelerating voltage, the speed of the electrons flowing down the tube is set to be similar to the speed of the RF signal running down the helix. The signal in the wire causes a magnetic field to be induced in the center of the helix, where the electrons are flowing. Depending on the phase of th... |
how can something like beer, a liquid, make you more thirsty? | Just because it's a liquid doesn't mean it'll provide you with water.
Drink a bottle of mercury or antifreeze...... actually don't.
Beer is a solution of alcohol and water. While it initially provides you with water, the alcohol triggers your system to use it's water store to flush out the processed alcohol toxin, leaving you with less water than you drank in the beer. | [
"Drinking is the act of ingesting water or other liquids into the body through the mouth. Water is required for many physiological processes. Both excessive and inadequate water intake are associated with health problems.\n",
"Water can often play a very important role in the way a beer tastes, as it is the main ... |
Did East Berliners dig tunnels to bypass the Berlin Wall during the Cold War? | Yes, they did. Before I dive deeper let me just clarify that it was not the Soviets who were responsible for securing the border of East Germany, but the Ministry of National Defense of the GDR. In fact the so called "Grenztruppen" (border troops) were an independent branch within the military of East Germany.
The German [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) has a (non-exhaustive) list of known tunnels. As you can see most of these were built between 1961 and 1964 and were collaborations of people in the East wanting to get out and loosely organized groups of so called "Fluchthelfer" (escape helpers) in the West (the latter usually dug the tunnels). As you can see from the fifth column there were several individuals who helped build more than one tunnel. They were indeed semi-professionals at what they were doing and some of them financed themselves through secret funds from the West German government and sometimes by selling film rights. So called "Tunnel 57" (57 for the numbers of refugees escaping through it), for example, was built this way.
How did the East German government react? For one, the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) was directing considerable resources to subvert these groups on both sides of the wall. Aforementioned "Tunnel 57" was discovered one night after it started operating on October 3rd 1964 (what a coincidence!), when a confidential informant gave notice to the Stasi. Other measures consisted in declaring the immediate area close to the border to be restricted and demolishing buildings adjacent to West Berlin (this was also done to realize the final version of the wall in 1975 which required at least 30m of cleared depth). For illustration compare the famous Bernauer Str. in [1961](_URL_1_)
and [1980](_URL_2_). The facades of the houses in that street were the actual border to West Berlin and on August 13th 1961 people could simply jump out of the window to flee. Other counter measures included installing listening devices to detect tunneling projects and the Stasi building their own tunnels along the border, expecting to intersect and discover existing or planned tunnels used by refugees.
TL;DR: Yes, there were tunnels, but there was no extensive network as such, but isolated attempts which were usually quickly discovered. With further development of the wall and an increasingly pervasive state security apparatus it became more and more difficult to build these tunnels.
| [
"Tunnel 57 was a tunnel under the Berlin Wall that on the third and fourth October 1964 was the location of a mass escape by 57 East Berlin citizens. Student and future astronaut Reinhard Furrer was among the West German escape helpers who assisted the East Berliners in escaping. During the escape, East German bord... |
why does a hard boiled egg leave me feeling full much sooner than eating a srambled or fried egg? | It has a lot to do with the fact that more of the egg protein gets denatured when frying as opposed to boiling. Remember, your body has a lower tolerance for protein than fat, so will more quickly fill up on it. This is why people on high-protein diets can eat less and still feel full. The higher temps also break down some of the nutrients, that you don't lose while boiling. | [
"Hard-boiled egg (Japanese: ハードボイルド) is cooked as its name refers, after boiling in hot water for more than 15 minutes it becomes a Hard-boiled egg. And its personality changed to calm and positive, always think about the better side of an event. Its face looks more like a mature adult with thick straight eyebrows.... |
Books on Time | A lot of questions here. Maybe you should check out "Relativity simply explained" by Martin Gardner.
Einstein's original paper was just a theory of electricity for when the electrical sources are moving. It was Minkowski who made the connection with a four dimensional geometry of space+time.
You can use special relativity to calculate the speed of an object under a constant force as a function of time. It follows a hyperbolic tangent. That means that in order for it to reach the speed of light, it must accelerate for an infinite amount of time. | [
"\"Back in Time\" is a cross between a history textbook and a multimedia encyclopedia. The app presents 50 key events since the beginning of the universe until the present day covering different timescales such as the chronology of the universe, the geological history of earth, the evolutionary history of life and ... |
If you were a human floating towards the sun, at what distance from the sun would you feel an Earth-like temperature? | tl;dr: If you're near Earth's orbit, you're already way too close. You'd need to drift outward quite a bit.
On Earth, if you leave something lying in the sun indefinitely, it will heat up until the heat it loses to the surrounding air (and the ground) is balanced with the heat it absorbs from the sun. In space, it works the same way, except that without air, the only way for an object to lose heat is by radiation (infrared, at normal body temperatures).
If we want to keep our body temperature roughly constant, the heat we radiate needs to balance out the heat we absorb from the sun plus the heat generated by our own metabolism.
I found [a page estimating our own power output as 100W](_URL_0_). Let's say we are a perfect blackbody radiator with a surface area of 2m^2 and our skin were to be 307K - we're in "spherical cow" territory here, but this should be the right order of magnitude.
The power our skin radiates is then given by the [Stefan-Boltzman law](_URL_1_) as 5.67e-8 Wm^(-2)K^(-4), or 5.67e-8 * 2 * 307^4 W = about 1000W. (So the good news is, we're losing more heat than we produce on our own, even without air-cooling. Without the sun, we'd freeze instead of overheating.)
So how much sun do we need? This one is a bit more complicated, because it depends on how we're oriented. The bigger our cross-section facing the sun, the more we absorb.
The [total power output of the sun is 3.828e26 W](_URL_2_). To get around 1000W of that, we need to capture 1 part in 3.828e23. So if we present a cross-section of about 1m^2, then our distance should be the radius of a sphere with a surface area of 3.828e23 m^2.
Result: 1.75e11 meters, or about 9.7 light minutes. To give you a picture, Earth's and Mars's orbits are about 8.3 and 12.5 light minutes from the sun on average, so we'd have to go (very, very roughly) a third of the way from Earth to Mars orbit to feel comfortable.
(Not double-checked; it's entirely possible there's a massive error in the above calculation, on top of all the ballpark guessing.)
Edit: Mind you, the ballpark guessing already introduces some *wild* inaccuracy. If we drop the cross section to 0.5m^2, suddenly we're closer to 6.9 light minutes. And we're not perfect blackbody radiators, anyway. | [
"where \"T\" is the temperature of the Sun, \"R\" the radius of the Sun, and \"a\" is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This gives an effective temperature of 6 °C on the surface of the Earth, assuming that it perfectly absorbs all emission falling on it and has no atmosphere.\n",
"or 102 °C. (Above the... |
Why can't we achieve the equivalent of a quantum computer simply by creating transistors with more than two states? | There is a big difference between an object that can exist in multiple states and an object that can exist in a superposition of states. A classical bit (0 or 1) or trit (0, 1 or 2) can still only exist in 2 (or 3) states. Its in the state 0, 1 or 2. A qbit exists in a superposition a|0 > + b|1 > , where "a" and "b" are complex numbers whose magnitude square sums to 1. The information capacity of a qbit is huge, potentially infinite (sort of). The other place a quantum computer gets its power though, is that qbits can work together in ways that classical bits can't. When you go from 1 bit to 2 bits, you essentially double the amount of information you can store. With qbits, you not only store information in the qbits themselves, but in the correlations between the qbits. This increases the "space" you have available to do the computations in exponentially with the number of qbits you have access to. | [
"In 2000 Knill, Laflamme and Milburn (KLM protocol) proved that it is possible to create universal quantum computer solely with beam splitters, phase shifters, photodetectors and single photon sources. The states that form a qubit in this protocol are the one-photon states of two modes, i.e. the states |01\n",
"I... |
why is it preferable to have illegally obtained evidence thrown out of court as opposed to keeping it and prosecuting the one who obtained it? | The Supreme Court discusses this rationale in every exclusionary case.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the Constitution does not require an exclusionary rule. But for the 4th Amendment to have any value it must have some remedy or mechanism of enforcement.
Suing the officials for an illegal search is always an option. But the cards are stacked against the defendant, who is probably already busy defending himself in a criminal trial. Further, agents of the state are a big target to take on for a private individual. If private citizens are left with the sole burden of enforcing an important Constitutional right, that right may effectively disappear.
The alternative, and the one the Court considered most likely to deter illegal searches, is to cut off the reward. An illegal search practice = inadmissible.
BUT, since the Constitution does not require the exclusionary rule, and since it more often than not lets a guilty person go when applied, the rule is only to be applied when the deterrent effect outweighs the cost to society.
Therefore, in a case where, for example, an officer made a legitimate mistake of law, or a clerical error prompted him to act in a way that turned out illegal, the exclusionary rule has little deterrent effect and the evidence should be admitted.
| [
"Overturning a conviction after dozens of appeals and petitions have been denied is notoriously difficult, though prisoners have some options at their disposal. They can still attain freedom if legitimate innocence can be proven. The most common method is by using DNA evidence to disprove a crime that happened befo... |
Is there any scientific basis behind the concept of "detoxing"? | No.
The human body is quite capable of removing most toxins itself and none of these products have been shown to have any real effect in removing "toxins." | [
"Detoxification (often shortened to detox and sometimes called body cleansing) is a type of alternative-medicine treatment which aims to rid the body of unspecified \"toxins\" – substances that proponents claim have accumulated in the body and have undesirable short-term or long-term effects on individual health. A... |
When did Mexico become a majority Spanish-speaking country (as opposed to the various indigenous languages). I thought I'd read somewhere that in the 1820s, when independence was achieved, ~50% of the country still primarily spoke an Indian language | The following is sourced from Nicholas Ostler's *Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World.*
When the Spanish conquered the territory we today (and many of its pre-conquest inhabitants) call Mexico, its people spoke a wide range of languages. Most common was Nahuatl, the Aztec language, which Ostler argues is "at best an effective lingua franca of a multinational and multilingual empire: the empire included areas where the indigenous population **to this day** speak Zapotec, Mixtec, Tarascan, Otomí, Huastec and Totonac languages, none of them related to one another or to Nahuatl" (355, emphasis added). The Aztecs themselves had not tried to eradicate the spoken languages of their new subjects (though they may have had a policy of burning their written books "to erase memories of a pre-Aztec past"), but rather "ensured that the subject peoples provided a corps of *nauatlato*, 'interpreters', to ensure effective transmission of the rulers' wishes" (354-5).
The Spanish were divided about the best linguistic policy for their new empire. A number of prominent churchmen adopted a policy of trying "to reach the inhabitants in their own languages," or at the very least to reach them in Nahuatl, also referred to as "the Mexican language." The Spanish crown, in contrast, ordered the instruction of its new subjects in Spanish in a June 7, 1550 proclamation:
> As one of the main things that we desire for the good of this land is the salvation and instruction and conversion to our Holy Catholic Faith of its natives, and that also they should adopt our policy and good customs; and so, treating of the means which could be upheld to this end, it is apparent that one of them and the most principal would be to give the order that these peoples may be taught our Castilian language, for with this knowledge, they could be more easily taught the matters of the Holy Gospel and gain all the rest which is suitable for their manner of life. (366)
"There was," Ostler notes, "immediate resistance from the churchmen called to act on it" (366) Among the chiefest arguments was a practical one: it would be far more difficult to teach the "Indians" Castilian Spanish when there was a much better option available in Nahuatl. Representative of the religious arguments made is this 1550 letter from Friar Rodrigo de la Cruz to Emperor Charles V:
> Your Majesty has ordered that these Indians should learn the language of Castile. That can never be, unless it were something vaguely and badly learnt: we see a Portuguese, where the language of Castile and Portugal is almost the same, spend thirty years in Castile, and never learn it. Then are these people to learn it, when their language is so foreign to ours, with exquisite manners of speaking? It seems to me that Your Majesty should order all the Indians learn the Mexican language, for in every village today there are many Indians who know it and learn it easily, and a very great number who confess in that language. It is an extremely elegant language, as elegant as any in the world. **A grammar and dictionary of it have been written, and many parts of the Holy Scriptures have been translated into it; and collections of sermons have been made, and some friars are very great linguists in it.** (364, emphasis added)
Aside from these arguments, some noted a vested interest in the Church's arguments. "Maintenance of contact through (*Nahuatl*) or other less accessible languages meant that the priests remained the sole effective channel between the pure-blood Indians... and the rest of the world." That said, "there is no evidence that the Church deliberately restrict access to Spanish." It was offered in all their schools. "It simply failed to catch on among Indians, largely isolated as they were in remote settlements, or in segregated communities (*reducciones*) with few non-bilingual Spaniards to talk to" (366-7).
The Church won the initial fight, and for two centuries the status quo persisted: "Spanish in the cities, and increasingly in *[mestizo](_URL_0_)* society; but elsewhere the *lenguas generales* were in use, and failing that other indigenous languages" (367. *Lenguas generales* refers to Nahuatl and other widely used lingua francas such as Quechua in the former Incan Empire). Many of the smaller languages disappeared, but "in Mexico, Peru and Paraguay the *lenguas generales* flourished, in speech and in writing" (367). In Mexico, this was particularly the case, with Nahuatl used not only for daily use and liturgy but for poetry, literature, history and even formal administrative and legal purposes (368). In some places, Ostler notes, "the Spanish spread the *lenguas generales* beyond the range of the pre-Columbian empires that had created them... Nahuatl spread down into Guatemala, which had hitherto been a preserve of Mayan speakers" (372).
This lasted until the mid-18th Century, when — with the newfound backing of the Archbishop of Mexico — King Carlos III issued a 1770 degree urging "the extinction of the different languages used in the said domains, and the sole use of Castilian" (374). This was spottily enforced at first, and a 1782 follow-up ordering funding of Castilian instruction had similarly modest effects. But overall the linguistic picture on the ground changed with the new priority from the colonial rulers:
> All official support for education in the indigenous languages came to be withdrawn; professorial chairs in the universities were discontinued; books written in them ceased to be published. Courts in Mexico ceased to entertain pleas written in Nahuatl. (374)
As a result, Spanish spread in use almost "by default": "Indians' use of their own languages was simply wished away, as Spanish authorities increasingly addressed them in Spanish, willy-nilly" (374).
Ostler doesn't provide any specific estimates on the percentage of Mexican citizens who spoke Spanish around the time of independence in 1821. He does note that 55 percent of Mexico's 6.7 million inhabitants in 1810 were "pure-blood Indians" who he implies — but does not say explicitly — largely spoke indigenous languages, while 45 percent were "Spaniards or *mestizos* presumably speaking Spanish" (376).
Independence in the 19th Century accelerated these trends, as the independence leaders were the Spanish-speaking elites who "offered everyone an undifferentiated citizenship based on a common language, Spanish" and who saw indigenous languages as "sources of division, rather than of a unity alien to Spain" (375). He quotes one 1916 writer arguing that "the solution to the 'Indian problem' lay in... incorporating them, blending the two together, in short creating a coherent and homogenous national race unified in both language and culture'" (375).
> Paradoxically, in Mexico this view is characterized as '*indigenismo*'; it values indigenous language and culture, but only the two major prestige groupings Nahuatl and Maya, and only as a kind of national credential of past cultural glory. (375-6)
By 1995, 88 percent of Mexicans were first-language Spanish speakers (376). | [
"Mexico lost almost half of the northern territory gained from Spain in 1821 to the United States in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). This included parts of contemporary Texas, and Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, California, Nevada, and Utah. Although the lost territory was sparsely populated, the thou... |
if someone goes to jail for something that later becomes legal, are they then released? | Nothing, they still broke the law. If the law goes into affect retroactively, which is incredibly rare, they may be freed. | [
"When a person is arrested for the commission or suspicion of a crime for which the punishment is not death or imprisonment for life, such person may apply to the Area Magistrate for releasing him on bail. If the Court thinks it fit to release him on bail, it can pass such an order. After completing requisite forma... |
the community aspect of reddit | Cake day is the anniversary of the day you created your account. The developers added a feature that puts a little cake symbol next to your name on your cake day. People have started to use that as a way to encourage others to upvote an otherwise mediocre post (pet pics, often) as a way of "cashing in" their cake day.
You don't have to vote for anything, but up/down votes are the only thing that makes the flow of content interesting. It seems like most people only vote on things that stand out either positively or negatively. It's important to keep in mind the reddicuette. Votes aren't slays a matter of opinion. Upvotes are for items that add something or are on topic. Downvotes are for things that are not adding anything new, are off topic for a sub, or are spammy/trolling/incorrect. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it's a downvote. Actually, I upvote well written opinions counter to my own all the time.
Reddit gold is a "bonus mode" you get for essentially donating money to reddit. You get some extra features that haven't rolled out to everyone else yet, and access to a silly subreddit. I've been redditing for years, never had it, probably never will.
Your credibility is not your karma score. Write thoughtful (or hilarious) comments, submit fresh links, and people will take notice (or not). If you do something good/bad, keep in mind that everything you've posted or commented on is visible to everyone, so people can and will check your track record. | [
"People, in general, are social beings and are motivated by receiving direct responses to their contributions. Most online communities enable this by allowing people to reply back to others' contributions (e.g. many Blogs allow comments from readers, one can reply back to forum posts, etc.). Granted, there is some ... |
How much dietary iron could a person eat before setting off a metal detector? | No amount of dietary iron will set off a metal detector. Metal detectors operate through induction, and respond to electrically conductive materials. Dietary iron is ionic, and has completely different properties. You could wheel a few cases of iron pills through a metal detector and it wouldn't go off because they're not metallic. | [
"An American Dietetic Association study found that cast-iron cookware can leach significant amounts of dietary iron into food. The amounts of iron absorbed varied greatly depending on the food, its acidity, its water content, how long it was cooked, and how old the cookware is. The iron in spaghetti sauce increased... |
Why is the speed of light expressed as 'c'? | It was once a common letter to use for the speed or velocity of various things, from Latin *celeritas*, "speed". Enough of the founding papers on relativity used it for the invariant speed that it's become rare to see it used in any other sense. | [
"where \"c\" is the speed of light, with some authors preferring to multiply the right hand side by an overall constant formula_2, where \"ε\" is the permittivity of free space. It is analogous to the electromagnetic tensor \"F\", a 2-vector used in the covariant formulation of classical electromagnetism.\n",
"\"... |
how are the stars always in the same spot in the sky? | First, stars are really, really far away. So from our perspective it looks like they're in the same place every night...
But that's not true. Over thousands of years, stars *do* change position even from our perspective. They have in the past and will in the future. It's just that these time scales are *vastly* longer than our lifespans. | [
"A star's spherical coordinates are often expressed as a pair, right ascension and declination, without a distance coordinate. The direction of sufficiently distant objects is the same for all observers, and it is convenient to specify this direction with the same coordinates for all. In contrast, in the horizontal... |
i would love to learn about the most common (say 5-10) logical argument fallacies, but most explanations are too difficult | **Straw man** - Claiming the other person has said (or means) something they didn't, and then arguing against that thing and claiming the other person is wrong because you've just shown how stupid the thing they never said is "I think wood is the best building material" "You claim to be thinking, but maybe you're just reacting. There's a bunch of science that says people don't really think, they just react to stuff. You're just reacting. So you're wrong." (Thinking has nothing to do with if wood is good for building with).
**Ad hominem** - "I think it's better to build with cement than wood, because cement doesn't get dry rot." "Oh yeah? Well you're wrong about that because you're a big poopy head!" (Claiming that the other person is wrong because they are a terrible person, and ignoring their argument.)
**Appeal to authority** - "You're wrong about cement being better than wood, my dad the astrophysicist said so. He's a smart guy, he'd know" (The reason it's a fallacy is that even though astrophysicists are indeed smart, there is no reason why one would know anything about building. If your dad was a contractor, it might be different).
**Red Herring** - "You have not provided proof of your daddy's IQ. You're wrong!" (problem here is that it doesn't matter how smart your dad is. It only matters if he might actually have expertise in construction).
**Argument from ignorance** - "No one can prove that it's better to build with cement instead of wood. So wood is better." (problem - not being able to prove it does not mean the other option is automatically right).
**Moving the goalposts** - "Just because wood gets dry rot is no reason to not build with bricks." (There was a good reason not to build with wood, but instead of admitting the other person has a point, you claim to have been arguing about something else entirely).
**Cherry picking** - It's true that wood gets dry rot, but you didn't mention that cement can get water damaged. You've ignored the thing that doesn't support building with cement.
**Appeal to emotion** - "Trees are wonderful. The Lorax loves trees. If you love trees, you would never cut them down to build with. Cement is better!" (how you feel about trees has nothing to do with how strong a building made out of them will be).
**Slippery slope** - "If you build with cement, you have to dig up rocks to make it. If you keep digging up rocks, you'll eventually reach China (or America, if you're in China). Then people on the other side of the world will fall through. They'd be illegal immigrants. That would be horrible!" (Just because the first thing is true (digging up rocks) there is no reason why all the other things would happen).
| [
"Formal fallacies do not take into account the soundness of an argument, but rather its validity. Premises in formal logic are commonly represented by letters (most commonly p and q). A fallacy occurs when the structure of the argument is incorrect, despite the truth of the premises.\n",
"\"Fallacious arguments u... |
Why is lithium the best element to use for batteries? | This may be a shorter answer than you wanted but in summary: you want a very light, highly reactive metal. The Most reactive metals are at the very left of the periodic table. The lightest ones are at the very top. Lithium is the top-left-most metal. The only lighter elements are hydrogen and helium. And the only more reactive metals available in reasonable quantities are the 3 or 4 metals below it. The lightest of them, Sodium, is already 3 times the atomic weight of lithium and is only marginally more reactive than lithium.
Now this is a bit of a simplification since the physics and chemistry of novel experimental and theoretical solutions is really complicated. But for the relatively basic way that batteries work now, by shuffling ions between cathodes and anodes, Lithium looks like an ideal choice. | [
"Lithium is the metal with lowest density and with the greatest electrochemical potential and energy-to-weight ratio. The low atomic weight and small size of its ions also speeds its diffusion, suggesting that it would make an ideal material for batteries. Experimentation with lithium batteries began in 1912 under ... |
Was Champagne or Beer historically carbonated ? If you went back in time, what would these taste like ? | Carbon dioxide production is a byproduct of the yeast that ferments sugar to alcohol. Soft drinks are carbonated by adding CO2 under pressure, but for an alcoholic drink it's enough that it's fermented in a closed container. The in-bottle fermentation that gives champagne its carbonation is what set it apart from other wines, historically (although today 'sparkling wine' is the general term and 'champagne' only refers to those that come from that region of France. Beers could continue to ferment in their barrels, since they didn't filter out the yeast as much then.
Spring water is sometimes carbonated as well, in those cases from dissolving carbonate from rocks underground where there's high pressure, the same pressure that eventually pushes the water up to the surface, but artificially carbonated water and soft drinks are 19th century inventions.
Winemaking is very simple (it's essentially just old grape juice) and - in its essentials - has largely stayed the same, apart from improvements in quality. But those were very large improvements (and it's not one continuous tradition of winemaking around the world). Wine tasted very bad in the old days, one of the main reasons being that they couldn't store it well, and so it got vinegary. So they often added things to make it more palatable, etc. So if you go back to biblical times, their wine is very very different from what we have now. If you go back 500 years, the difference is not so great though.
Beer is more complicated, as it's made from grain that must be malted before it can be fermented, and they're normally flavored with hops if not other things as well. There are more different kinds of beers than wines, although on the other hand, in modern times beer production has achieved levels of consistency that doesn't exist for wines, and did not exist in the past. You can rest assured that next year's Carlsberg will taste indistinguishable from this year's. That's not true of wine, nor of beer that's produced with more traditional methods (in which case it's really the batch and not year that matters).
There are beers on the market that could represent many places and eras, but if I were to mention one, unflavored [lambics](_URL_0_) are perhaps the most 'primitive' tasting beers. These are beers made without any specific yeasts, just whichever wild yeasts and bacteria happen to get into the containers. It's a bit of an aquired taste, to say the least (and there's a reason most of them are flavored). They still have hops added though, making it a step or two up from the most primitive possible kind of beer. But it'll take you back to the middle ages at least.
| [
"In April 2015, nearly five years after the bottles were first found, researchers led by Philippe Jeandet, a professor of food biochemistry, released the findings of their chemical analyses of the Champagne, and particularly noted the fact that, although the chemical composition of the 170-year-old Champagne was ve... |
why do advertisers & marketing people believe it's a good strategy to make ads that are deliberately annoying, and to run them several times in a row during a commercial break? | We are all familiar with those ads on television that just scream at us to switch them off. They are just so excruciating that you can’t bear to watch them. Afterwards you ask, why did a company make such a downright irritating ad? What possible benefit can accrue to them from actively irritating their potential customers? Then the answer comes to you. You can remember the product precisely because the ad was so horrible. The old dictum that "No publicity is bad publicity" has just operated in front of your eyes. The ad that you hated so much has given, the company that sponsored it, that most valuable of all benefits to be derived from advertising; brand recognition. You might cringe when you think of the advertisement. But you will remember the name of the product. Job done for the advertiser. | [
"Targeting advertising is not a process performed overnight, it takes time and effort to analyse the behavior of consumers. This results in more expenses than the traditional advertising processes. As targeted advertising is seen more effective this is not always a disadvantage but there are cases where advertisers... |
Did America have any POW Camps in the continental US during the Second World War (besides Japanese Internment Camps)? If so, what were conditions like? What did prisoners think of them? Are there any surviving diary entries or interviews from former inmates? | Yes. The United States housed several hundred thousand POWs in the US during the war, which I've written about [here](_URL_0_). Happy to help with any follow-ups you might have, and I'd also highly recommend *We Were Each Other's Prisoners* by Lewis H. Carlson, which I mentioned in one of the follow-ups, as it is an oral history collection which includes over 100 accounts from both sides about the POW experience. | [
"The prisoner of war camps and internment in New Mexico were among the largest in the United States during World War II. Most of the prisoners were Germans that had been captured during the North Africa Campaign, although there were also some Italian soldiers. Camp Roswell, located next to Walker Army Airfield, was... |
Is there a book that retells U.S. History in an unbiased, completely truthful way? | I don't think that you will be able to get what you're looking for in less than 300 pages. That book would fall into pitfalls similar to the pitfalls of textbooks; they can't cover everything or give in depth coverage to the most important parts without cutting some peoples, places, and events. | [
"These Truths: A History of the United States is a book of American history by historian Jill Lepore. It traces histories of American politics, law, society, and technology from the Age of Discovery through the present day. \"These Truths\" was published by W. W. Norton in September 2018.\n",
"A History of the Bo... |
Why were taxes in America so high in the 40s/50s/60s? | First, taxes do not equal communism. One can support all sorts of left-wing ideas and not be a communist; in fact, you can be virulently *anti*-communist. There is no transitive property in public policy, as useful a propaganda tool as that idea may be. There are many examples of groups within the post-war American liberal coalition fracturing over the issue of Communism, such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations and, more specifically, the United Auto Workers. To look more politically, the Democratic Party split three ways in 1948, first over the issue of race, leading to Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats, and second (among many reasons) over the issue of how the United States should deal with communism and the Soviet Union, leading to Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party.
Second, American public policy changed drastically during World War II. There are several ways to pay for a war, which includes borrowing money, raising taxes, and printing money. During WWII, the U.S. government preferred the first two options, relying on significant hikes in marginal tax rates and borrowing money from the American public through War Bonds. Remember also that there are multiple types of taxes, not just the income tax they talk about in "Mad Men" (my favorite show, by the way). Corporate taxes also went up during the war, both as a method of funding and as an attempt to prevent profiteering. Many of these taxes remained in place in some form or another after the war in an attempt to bring down the debt the Government had incurred. To another degree, these taxes were also used to fund the expanded programs of the post-New Deal state, though signature programs like Social Security often had their own dedicated taxes outside of the standard income tax.
Additionally, it is important to bear in mind the difference between the marginal tax rate (and to know what marginal rates mean) and the effective tax rate. Basically, though someone's income may have put them in a bracket where part of their income was taxed at above 90 percent, through various deductions and loopholes, as well as the fact that marginal rates by definition only apply to part of one's income, the effective total rates were much lower than the highest marginal rate was. It is even more important to know that there were **many** more income brackets as far as personal income taxes were concerned. For example, in 2013, there were seven tax brackets; in 1944, there were **twenty four**. Additionally, the vast majority of these tax brackets were well above the median income; incomes in the highest brackets were also very rare. In 1947 (this is as early as Census info goes), median income was approximately $3000. This would put the median family in the *second* tax bracket, again, out of ***twenty four***, the marginal rate of which was 22 percent. The *vast* majority of Americans were not affected by the tax rates which the elite class, which "Mad Men" for the most part portrays, paid.
Now, there was always resistance to this type of policy from a traditional, conservative movement within the Republican Party which opposed such taxes and programs on principle, though would begrudgingly accept them to do things like pay off war debt. This faction of the Republican Party, however, was out of power for most of the mid-20th century. For a good history of the changing nature of American political coalitions, [see these two comments here](_URL_0_). The key was that conservatives also favored decreases in spending. New ideas in economics, however, namely E. Cary Brown's concept of a full employment budget, led to a push to cut taxes from the left. There is very bad trend of polemic history which calls John F. Kennedy conservative, for example, because he cut taxes. Kennedy did indeed pass the largest tax cut in decades, but the motivation was to fix what he called a "growth deficit" (IIRC, I can pull out an econ history notebook if I really have to) by stimulating consumer demand while maintaining levels of government spending. I think it was Paul Samuelson who Kennedy sent to Congress to plead that taxes be cut without commensurate cuts in spending. This type of demand side, Keynesian tax cut, however, focused on the lowest brackets and not only kept a large number of brackets, but kept rates within the top ones at high levels.
If you really want me to talk about the way Reagan type conservatives cut taxes with supply side justifications (though Reagan's rhetoric, if not policy, often echoed demand side reasoning), I will consider it. That period of time is the genesis of modern attitudes about taxes as well as the drastically reduced number of brackets. | [
"During the Great Depression in the early 1930s, Americans throughout the United States formed thousands of taxpayers' leagues to protest high property taxes. In some cases, these groups illegally withheld taxes through tax strikes and other forms of resistance. The largest tax strike was in Chicago and led by the ... |
the difference between a dual-core 1400 mhz and a quad-core 1400 mhz mobile phone processor. | I think what your asking what's the purpose of multicore processors. The 1400 MHz is clock speed which is the max frequency at which transitors can switch. The higher the frequency, the faster the processing for a single core.
The purpose of cores is to split up tasks. With most applications on a phone or tablet, they do single threading, which is using just one core. Multithreading tasks use multiple cores meaning the task is split up so that certain processes can be done simultaneously. All cores will have a max of the clock speed, 1400 MHz.
That's the basic difference. However there are a bunch of subtle difference like how certain processors do single threading and multithreading, gate size, psuedocore vs real cores, caching, integrated graphics, etc which can be more critical information about the processors performance that number of cores and clock speed. | [
"The processor line has models running at clock speeds from 1.0 GHz to 2.26 GHz . The models with lower frequencies were either low voltage or ultra-low voltage CPUs designed for improved battery life and reduced heat output. The 718 (1.3 GHz), 738 (1.4 GHz), and 758 (1.5 GHz) models are low-voltage (1.116 V) with ... |
Need help finding a word | I think you mean "Anschluss", which was the annexation of Austria on 12 of march 1938 by Nazi Germany | [
"Word searches each have a certain category (i.e. \"animals\") that determine what kind of words the player will be searching for. Like a normal word search the word may appear forwards, backwards, or diagonally. The player touches the starting letter of the word, and drags the stylus to the ending letter of the wo... |
Why was Jesus of Nazareth crucified? | Echoing the answer provided by /u/brojangles, most scholars agree that the most likely charge was that he was being hailed as "King of the Jews." Interestingly, in his most recent book, [How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee](_URL_0_), New Testament Scholar Bart Ehrman sheds a little more detailed light on his (and many other) scholarly opinions on why Jesus was crucified. Here is a great quote from his book:
> ...when the authorities arrested Jesus and handed him over to Pontius Pilate, the consistent report is that the charge leveled against him at his trial was that he called himself the king of the Jews. If Jesus never preached in public that he was the future king, but this was the charge that was leveled against him at his trial, how did outsiders come to know of it? **The simplest answer is that this is what Judas betrayed.**
> Judas was one of the insiders to whom Jesus disclosed his vision of the future. Judas and the eleven others would all be rulers in the future kingdom. And Jesus would be the king. For some reason— we’ll never know why— Judas became a turncoat and betrayed both the cause and his master. **He told the Jewish authorities what Jesus was actually teaching in private, and it was all they needed. They had him arrested and turned him over to the governor. Here was someone who was declaring himself to be king.** [Page 121-122]
Of course being King did no refer to being king on this earthly realm. As most Christian scholars believe, Jesus was an Apocalyptic Rabbi (like John the Baptist and many other of their time) who preached that the end of the world was near, and it was of this next world that Jesus most likely preached that he would be king.
It's also worth noting is that Pilate had a history of dealing with sedition in very harsh measures. In one of Josephus' writings (Antiquities 18.3.2), he writes about how Pilate had no problems putting an end to insurrectionists with violence and hostility. He was known as a governor whom had little respect for Jewish customs and religion and did not value the lives of the people whom he ruled over.
| [
"According to all four gospels, Jesus was brought to the \"Place of a Skull\" and crucified with two thieves, with the charge of claiming to be \"King of the Jews\", and the soldiers divided his clothes before he bowed his head and died. Following his death, Joseph of Arimathea requested the body from Pilate, which... |
When you lose fat in your body, are you breathing out the carbons or are do you urinate the carbons? | You breathe out the carbons.
Fat breaks down into ketone bodies like actylacetate and beta-hydroxybutarate, which is transported to our cells and made into acetyl-CoA, which then enters the TCA cycle, producing CO2, which is then transported to your lungs.
Nitrogen waste products (urea) from protein catabolism is excreted by urine. | [
"Carbon dioxide (CO) is produced by the metabolism in the human body and can cause carbon dioxide poisoning. When breathing gas is recycled in a rebreather or life support system, the carbon dioxide is removed by scrubbers before the gas is re-used.\n",
"Prolonged skin contact with the liquid can result in the re... |
I read that the reason alcohol became popular in Europe was because they didn't have clean water. But alcohol dehydrates you. How would this have helped? | it's badhistory.
_URL_1_
we will see if this causes /u/eternkerri to hulk smash
and here is the wiki section which debunks this
_URL_0_ | [
"At times and places of poor public sanitation (such as Medieval Europe), the consumption of alcoholic drinks was a way of avoiding water-borne diseases such as cholera. Small beer and faux wine in particular, were used for this purpose. Although alcohol kills bacteria, its low concentration in these beverages woul... |
the physical characteristics of the planets in our solar system | In order from the sun:
* **Mercury** - The smallest planet, no atmosphere, made of rock, very hot days, very cold nights.
* [**Venus**](_URL_1_) - Slightly smaller than Earth, made of rock, has an acidic and thick atmosphere, hot because the greenhouse gases trap the heat.
* [**Earth**](_URL_4_) - Largest rock planet, only one to have liquid water & amp;amp; life (as far as we know!).
* [**Mars**](_URL_2_) - Red rock planet, is red because of the iron oxide (rust) in the ground, about half the size of Earth.
* **Jupiter** - The largest planet, 320 time heavier than Earth, made of gas (Hydrogen and Helium), is famous for its perpetual storm called the [Great Red Spot](_URL_0_) which is itself more than double the size of Earth! Has many rocky moons, the most interesting of which (in my opinion) is Europa, which probably has a liquid ocean underneath its Ice surface.
* **Saturn** - the second largest "gas giant", famous for its [huge rings](_URL_3_) which are made of chunks of Ice that range from microscopic to meters across. We've actually landed on one of saturns many moons, [Titan](_URL_5_).
* **Uranus** - Another gas giant, odd because it is 'on its side.' Its poles face the sun unlike every other planet where the equator does.
* **Neptune** - the smallest gas giant, and the most distant (30 times further from the sun than Earth) and coldest planet (-200 C).
These are the 8 'major' planets. There are in fact another 5 'Dwarf Planets' which ~~aren't round~~ are smaller and exist in asteroid belts. These are (from the sun):
**Ceres** (Between Mars and Jupiter) and **Pluto**, **Haumea**, **Makemake** and **Eris** (all beyond Neptune). Of these Pluto is the most famous but Eris is actually the biggest, which is why Pluto used to be a major planet but was downgraded. All the dwarf planets have no atmosphere, are very cold, ~~aren't round~~ and are made of rock. | [
"All terrestrial planets in the Solar System have the same basic type of structure, such as a central metallic core, mostly iron, with a surrounding silicate mantle. The Moon is similar, but has a much smaller iron core. Io and Europa are also satellites that have internal structures similar to that of terrestrial ... |
How much of impact did the Knights actually had? | I'm really not sure what you're asking about. Could you explain a bit? What knights, where, and when? | [
"With the knights' exploits growing in fame and wealth, the European states became more complacent about the Order, and more unwilling to grant money to an institution that was perceived to be earning a healthy sum on the high seas. Thus a vicious cycle occurred, increasing the raids and reducing the grants receive... |
Did Cold War politics ever play a role in the Northern Irish conflict? | The Cold War was really just a side point to the Troubles(As the Irish call it). The only time there was any real direct involvement was when the Soviet Union supplied arms to the Official IRA through the KGB starting in 1972 - a KGB operation known as Operation SPLASH. The Communist Party of Ireland, which was Marxist-Leninist and within the Soviet sphere, acted as an intermediate. The whole thing was authorized by Yuri Andropov, who at the time was head of the KGB, not the President or General Secretary.
This relationship developed far enough that the OIRA eventually even established links with North Korea and Czechoslovakia in regards to acquiring arms and even military training.
The Soviets chose the Officials due to their Marxist tendencies, and they were much more pliable to manipulation - in the words of O'Riordan(Leader of the CPI) in regards to the IRA, "they unfailingly accept our advice”, though we can't really know if he was a reliable commentator.
In terms of the narrative of the conflict, class warfare and Communist/Socialist politics was definitely something that was a theme of the conflict. One of the leading Provisional IRA commanders, Brendan Hughes, was an ardent Socialist and believed he was fighting for a Socialist Republic, and you'll note that all the Republican parties in the North have a left-leaning tendency(For example, Sinn Féin, the political wing of the PIRA, was an advocate of Democratic Socialism), though the non-violent SDLP is less radical in this regard.
In regards to it tying into geopolitics as a motive - not really, no. The various derivatives of IRA throughout its existence aligned with virtually anybody that would support their cause, from the Germans in World War I, to the Soviets in the 20's, then to the Nazis during World War II, and so on.
Geopolitics as a factor only came into it insofar as aligning with those that opposed the British Empire/United Kingdom. It is undoubtedly the case that many members of all sections of the IRA during the Troubles had radically leftist tendencies, and should the conflict have swung in their favour, the geopolitical position of a Socialist Ireland could've been very pro-Moscow, but that wasn't really a part of the conversation, nor was it ever really seen as spreading the Socialist international revolution, but there were very strong tones of class struggle against what was seen to be a Protestant, Unionist Elite class.
The weapons themselves were of generally non-Soviet origin in order for there to be plausible deniability, and were used for a myriad of different things - including against other Republican paramilitaries such as the Provisional IRA or the Irish National Liberation Army(Which was also a very far left group).
In terms of sources, they're actually somewhat difficult to dig up. Most of what I just said there is from memory from my brief readings on the subject, but there has been leaked intelligence from Russia in the 90's that pretty much outlined the KGB's actions in Northern Ireland and the IRA's relationship with the Communist sphere.
Operation SPLASH and other related interactions with the Republican Paramilitaries during The Troubles is outlined in *The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB*, a book written by Christopher Andrew(Co-Authored by Vasili Mitrokhin, who was a senior archivist for the Soviet Union foreign intelligence service). | [
"From the 1960s The Troubles afflicted Northern Ireland, as British Unionist and Irish Republican paramilitaries conducted campaigns of violence in support of their political goals. The conflict at times spilled into Ireland and England and continental Europe. Paramilitaries such as the IRA (Irish Republican Army) ... |
how come child prodigies usually have adhd? | I'm willing to bet that most of these child prodigies don't actually have legit adhd, its just that they get bored with simplistic shit more quickly than most kids. But God help everyone nearby when they find something that they actually find interesting, like quantum physics or something. | [
"Children suspected of having ADHD are subject to a postcode lottery. In some areas diagnosis is prompt. In more areas there is a wait of months or even up to two years while children's school performance and life chances suffer.\n",
"Twin studies indicate that the disorder is often inherited from one's parents w... |
Being Columbus day, this article detailing how awful Christopher Columbus was has been making the rounds on social media. How accurate is it? | [There is a very popular thread](_URL_0_) from a year back on this very topic which I am sure you will find interesting. | [
"Columbus's letter on the first voyage is the first known document announcing the results of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus that set out in 1492 and reached the Americas. The letter was ostensibly written by Columbus himself, on February 15, 1493, aboard the caravel \"Niña\", while still at sea, on the re... |
if the sentinelese people have been isolated for the past 60k years is it possible that they have become their own sub species or have their own unique evolutionary adaptations? | They could very well be slightly adapted, but 60,000 years is not enough for major physical changes. definitely very distinct culture and religion, but probably very similar in a physical sense. | [
"The Sentinelese have been widely described as a Stone Age tribe, with some reports claiming they have lived in isolation for over 60,000 years. But Pandya speculates that the Sentinelese arose either from a deliberate, more recent migration or from drifting off the Little Andaman.\n",
"The Sentinelese, also know... |
how much does fitness potential decrease with age? | Medically I read somewhere it declines by 10% each decade. Most people are never actually fit, or if they ever were they stop putting in the same work the older they get. Also, they don't eat a proper diet to sustain. Proper diet is a huge part of the body being healthy. | [
"Young/prime adulthood can be considered the healthiest time of life and young adults are generally in good health, subject neither to disease nor the problems of senescence. Strength and physical performance reach their peak from 18–39 years of age. Flexibility may decrease with age throughout adulthood.\n",
"In... |
It is possible to charge iPhones with either 1 amp or 2 amp chargers. They come with 1 amp chargers. Will using a 2 amp charger damage battery life? | It's fine, but also causes issues.
USB has a standard of 5 Watts, 5 Volts at 1 Amps.
A 2 Amp Charger is non-standard and in a lot of cases will void your warranty if you admitted to using one that is.
With iPhone and iPad it may be different with their policy on the matter.
To find out why people have these polcies is pretty simple; you are harming your battery.
A battery is not designed to last forever(Though we couldn't design one to last forever anyway) but are designed to retain at least 80% of their capacity after X charges. How fast you are charging it, factors into that. More amperage, means more heat. A 10 Watt iPad Charger uses twice the energy and amperage, these causes heat, expansion, contraction, extra wear on the cells etc.
That being said, 10 Watt charger for an iPhone or any phone really isn't going to cause many issues other then replacing your battery quicker.
Think of it like this. You design your battery to recharge and retain 80% of it's capacity after 1,000 full discharges. Someone using a 10 Watt charger may fail at 600-800 full discharges. So they'll need a new battery much quicker.
This isn't a inherient problem with the battery or charger, but electricity. The wires in those batteries are supposed to handle 5 Watts, 5 Volts, 1 Amp safely, without to much heat left off. If you design a battery to handle the higher amperage, and those batteries were used you really wouldn't have those issues as much.
Now there are some real dangers about altering a charger.
As an example, I altered a charger to deliver around 25 Watts.
I now have a Samsung Note which is charcoal. | [
"Apple designed the charger so that the batteries draw less energy from the national power grid than other comparable chargers; as a result, energy efficiency is improved. According to Apple, at 30 mW, the standard power usage of the charger is ten times better than the industry average.\n",
"The iPhone features ... |
What does brain activity look like for people with ADHD? | Around a year ago, there was a research done about this. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rfMRI),researchers have uncovered disrupted connections between different brain areas in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The team found that the boys with ADHD had altered structure and function in certain areas of the brain, such as the orbitofrontal cortex - an area involved in strategic planning. Such alterations were also found in the globus pallidus. This brain area plays a part in executive inhibitory control - the ability to control inappropriate behaviors or responses.
You can reach the article here:
_URL_0_ | [
"Several neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and glutamate may be both involved in ADHD and working memory. Both are associated with the frontal brain, self-direction and self-regulation, but cause–effect have not been confirmed, so it is unclear whether working memory dysfunction leads to ADHD, or ADHD distractibi... |
What else do electrons interact with besides protons? | Well technically, the electrons don't interact with the protons directly. Electrons interact with *photons* (electromagnetism) that then interact with protons. Electrons also interact with W^+/- and Z^0 bosons in particle decays. While it seems like a bit of pedantry, it's really the key to your question. Because whatever else photons and W and Z bosons couple too are all of the things electrons can interact with.
Outside of forces *per se* it's also important to note that energy of any kind carries a space-time curvature with it, and that gives rise to gravitational effects (though on a single-electron basis, this is largely negligible). Electrons are also fermions, so they obey Pauli exclusion principle and thus can't have more than one electron in the same state. | [
"However recent evidence indicates that quantum coherence of electrons and protons does indeed occur in some (maybe all) enzyme reactions in living cells, such as those involved in photosynthesis and may even be responsible for the huge catalytic enhancement of reaction rates provided by enzymes.\n",
"Interaction... |
Did the Chinese Communists introduce simplified Chinese characters as a way to eradicate traditional Chinese culture and make it impossible to read older literature? | For most of China's history in the 20th century, its literacy rate was ridiculously low, [and hovered around 20% in 1950.](_URL_6_) In addition, many Chinese intellectuals at the time blamed the complexity of traditional Chinese for holding the country's progress back. As a result, numerous proposals were were written to address the problem from 1911 to the mid 1950s, which included:
* [Replacing Chinese with Esperanto](_URL_3_)
* [Replacing Chinese characters](_URL_1_) with some form of latin-based romanization such as [*hanyu pinyin*](_URL_5_)
* Simplifying Chinese characters
Eventually, [simplifying characters](_URL_0_) won out, but the Communists were not the first ones to do it- the Kuomintang (Nationalist) government had actually tried to introduce 324 simplified characters as part of a wider spelling reform planned to begin in 1936, but this probably didn't happen because of the [war](_URL_2_) that broke out the year after that. After the People's Republic was founded in 1949, character simplification was introduced in three rounds: first in 1956, then in 1964, and finally, a third round in 1977 that was retracted in 1986 due to unpopular demand.
In conclusion, character simplification did not have any other meaning than increasing literacy- the first two rounds of simplification on the mainland (which are still used today) were completed two whole years before the 'Four Olds' came into existance, and has been attempted long before the Communists came to power. And the program appears to have worked- China's literacy rate [is around 95% now](_URL_4_). Finally, it should be noted that most Chinese characters remained untouched or slightly modified during simplification, and remained recognizable in the context they were written in. [](_URL_0_)
Edit: some spelling | [
"In the Philippines, the use of simplified characters is getting more and more popular. Before the 1970s, Chinese schools in the Philippines were under the supervision of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China. Hence, most books were using the Traditional Characters. Traditional Characters remained prev... |
A Reading List for the History of Iraq(excluding the last 30 years if possible) | "Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East" by Karl Meyer looks at how the French and British reorganized the Middle East after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. "Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell" by Janet Wallach looks more closely at Iraq than "Kingmakers" does. | [
"Four Centuries of Modern Iraq is a historic book authored by Stephen Hemsley Longrigg published first time in United Kingdom on 1925. It covers events in Iraq between early 16th century to early 20th century when Iraq was a neglected part of the Ottoman Empire. Few books have been written about Iraq in that period... |
Does history as a discipline have goals? Does it "make progress" (e.g., as in physics, medicine)? | This is a pretty subjective question, so keep that in mind.
I would say a great many historians see a certain progress in history as a discipline. Historical methodology has made great strides in the last 200 years. We have a greater appreciation for how to properly critique sources; history is no longer (in the Western tradition) simply a series of dates related to political events and wars, but rather encompass the poor, women, and racial minorities; history is no longer simply a tool for the state to legitimize itself and its interests, etc.
Historians also have access to a great deal of resources that would have been unimagined. The work of archaeologists can now help give us an idea of how many people were living in a given area at specific periods of time, for example. The advances in DNA tests and carbon dating have rocked previous estimates for the age of numerous civilizations, as well as their genetic ancestry.
Things are a great deal easier for us than they were for historians just a decade or two ago. We can scan documents and review them, at home, at our leisure. We can download books whose copyright has ended, fresh off the internet in a nice PDF.
There are still major problems. One of them is simply defining what history is, what it should and can be used for, etc. Another is that there does not seem to be any sort of unified historiographical theory. There are a great many approaches, but we seem no closer to consensus than in times long passed. In fact one of the really big schools, Marxism, has largely collapsed after the fall of the USSR.
If you were to ask me what the purpose of history was, I would say it is to define where we came from and why things are the way that they are, so as to help individuals and communities understand the true context of the realities they face (as well as aid them in defining their identities), and finally help humanity project where we want to be in the future. History will always be an attractive target for interested parties to manipulate people's view of themselves so as to be better controlled. Governments do this, private interests do this, even revolutionaries do this. The role of the historian, the historian's real responsibility, is to try to give the closest reflection of the past as s/he is capable and to try to remain above petty politics. We are the Watchers on the Wall, the Shield that guards the Memories of Men. | [
"The organization &HPS (Integrated History and Philosophy of Science) has set forth a program for a unified discipline: \"Good history and philosophy of science is not just history of science into which some philosophy of science may enter, or philosophy of science into which some history of science may enter. It i... |
How are HIV positive individuals "reinfected" by other positive individuals? | One of the hallmarks of HIV is an extremely high mutation rate; even if you have one strain, it's very easy to get a second strain which may be more drug-resistant, more fast-acting, or otherwise worse than the strain you currently have. | [
"The People With AIDS (PWA) Self-Empowerment Movement is a social movement by those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS which grew out of San Francisco in the early 1980s. The PWA Self-Empowerment Movement believes that those diagnosed as having AIDS should \"take charge of their own life, illness, and care, and to minimize de... |
why are scams so common as ads on webpages? | Well my common sense says money, i.e Ads provide money if you can advertise anything then why not and small websites will have more scams. These scammer's make enough money to pay the little amounts of fee to advertise and the people who rent servers out to smaller websites don't care where money is coming from as long as they make money so they get a lot more scammers then legit ads. That's why big sites don't have scamming ad's now you may ask about facebook that's based from your cookies sometimes you get ads on facebook that are scams but if you look closely it says underneath ads not by facebook that generally means you have a malware of some sort.
I am not sure if this is the main reason though there may be other reasons to this problem. | [
"Scam baiting emerged in response to e-mail based frauds such as the common Nigerian 419 scam. Many websites publish transcripts of correspondences between baiters and scammers, and also publish their \"trophies\" online, which include videos and images scam baiters have obtained from scammers.\n",
"Many scams in... |
why do successful transplants fail | > Why?
Because the body is very effective at identifying and attacking foreign objects, organisms, viral agents and other intruders. The only reason transplants are successful in the first place is the discovery of powerful immunosuppressive pharmaceuticals, drugs that cause the immune system to stop working.
However, over time the body will still reject the organ even from a relative. Perhaps monozygotic/single egg twins wouldn't have this problem since their DNA is or is almost identical, but I don't know enough about that to make any statement.
> Is there anything that can be done to increase this?
There is significant research going on into extracting stem cells from the patients themselves and growing organs in a laboratory. This could potentially make the organs as functional as the 'original'.
In case you don't know, stem cells are a sort of *cell factory* that can divide almost indefinitely - and will adapt to their surroundings to produce the appropriate type of structures. Thus, they can be 'convinced' to make organs that are in near all respects identical to the individual they're extracted from. | [
"Ovary transplantation, giving rise to successful pregnancies, will result in children who will have the genetic inheritance of the organ donor and not the recipient; it has so far only been carried out on identical twins. Use of an ovarian transplant from a genetically identical donor prevents rejection of the don... |
Were King David or other Biblical characters real, historical, verifiable people, or were they mostly legendary figures? | Somewhere in-between. In most ancient civilizations (Egypt, China, etc), as time goes forward we have more and more confidence that people were real. The earliest characters are allegorical/legendary, and later people were recorded in their own time. Ancient Israelite civilization is the same way.
It's interesting that you focused on David. From Biblical chronologies, he lived around the 11th century BCE. We don't have much of *anything* written from that period. However, we do get references to King David in the form "the House of David" (*b[.y].t.d.w.d.*, which would be vocalized and pronounced in Modern Hebrew as *bayit David*) as the ruling dynasty in Judah (the Southern Kingdom; the name Israel refers to the Northern Kingdom and the United Kingdom that Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over) as early as the 9th century BCE. There's one possible reference to the House of David in the c. 840 BCE [Mesha Stele](_URL_2_) and a pretty definite reference in the c. 800 BCE [Tel Dan Stele](_URL_3_).
This "house of (dynastic founder)" is a common way to refer to ruling families and at times even the states they control. For instance, the Ottomans were known in Turkish as the *Osmanlı* after their founder, Osman (Osman is the Turkish version of the Quranic name Uthman). Indeed, in the Mesha stele, there's a clear reference to Israel (the Northern Kingdom) being led by "the House of Omri", after one of the leaders of Israel mentioned in the Bible, [King Omri](_URL_1_).
It's *possible* that David could be a mythic founder unconnected with history and invented at some point in the intervening one hundred to hundred years before his supposed life and his appearance in the historical record (it's worth mentioning that neither of these are Israelite sources--Mesha is Moabite and Tel Dan is in Aramaic, probably left by the King of Damascus); however, I don't think it's particularly likely. I think the case that David was real is much more compelling than the vague possibility that he wasn't (there's nothing to suggest he was a mythic figure so doubters argue for the possibility of his being legendary, not that there's some clear mismatch between sources that suggests he was legendary). However, the degree to which the David recorded in the Hebrew Bible matches the historical David is impossible to judge, given the paucity of sources.
But yes, there's fairly good (all things considering) archeological and other evidence for David and many of the later Biblical leaders (particularly from the 9th and 8th centuries BCE onward). There's pretty meager evidence outside the Hebrew Bible for leaders before David. The best evidence we have is perhaps for a historical Moses and a historical Aaron based on much, much later priests who claimed descent from one of the two o them (see Friedman's *Who Wrote the Bible*) but it's nothing like the evidence we have for David. Earlier people and events (especially the conquest of Israel as told in the book of Joshua) in the Hebrew Bible tend not to fit into contemporary secular historical understandings. David may well be the earliest fairly well attested specific Israelite in the historical record. Wikipedia has a fairly good "[List of artifacts in biblical archaeology](_URL_0_)", though keep in mind that most of these artifacts are valuable because they preserve some written record of the period. | [
"In this inscription, which dates to around 800 BCE, Biran believe that a king from the House of David is mentioned as being struck down in the battle with the Arameans. This is the only extra-Biblical source ever found to date that mentions the existence of the Davidic dynasty and it indeed is an extra-Biblical so... |
Question about nuclear missiles and asteroids | Breaking up asteroids is not the best idea, since it's unpredictable. And could still lead to most of the mass of the asteroid impacting the Earth anyway.
Rather, if you don't have enough time to use a more subtle method of diverting an asteroid (decades) then you can use nukes as a means of propulsion. The trick is you explode the nuclear warhead at some distance above the surface of the asteroid. In space there will be very little blast from the explosion due to the lack of atmosphere, instead the nuclear warhead will be like an extremely bright x-ray light bulb which will bathe the surface of the asteroid with a high intensity of "soft" (comparatively lower frequency) x-rays. This energy will be absorbed in the upper few centimeters of the asteroid's surface and will deposit more than enough energy to vaporize the rock and regolith, this is called ablation. The vaporized rock will only have one direction to go (it can't penetrate deeper into the asteroid, it has to fly away from the surface), this generates thrust on the asteroid. Overall it's very similar to nuclear pulse propulsion (project Orion) except that instead of a pusher plate the body of the asteroid itself is used.
Since nuclear warheads can release an enormous amount of energy (4.2 petajoules per megaton) this turns out to be a way to generate an incredible amount of thrust. With a string of explosives you can continue the process and generate even more thrust. | [
"Analysis of the uncertainty involved in nuclear deflection shows that the ability to protect the planet does not imply the ability to target the planet. A nuclear explosion that changes an asteroid's velocity by 10 meters/second (plus or minus 20%) would be adequate to push it out of an Earth-impacting orbit. Howe... |
Was Richard III a disliked king during his reign or is his repuptation mostly fabricated by Tudor writers? | The Tudors definitely smeared him. But at the same time in the 20th century there has been a little too much in the other way. I thoroughly approve of the reevaluation of him. But sometimes people are a little too quick to credit him. Things like deposing his own nephew are excused as realpolitik today but that was absolutely not looked upon well in most of England at the time.
We only have a few things to go by if we want to completely divorce ourselves from post-Bosworth work:
Most significantly, Richard III faced a rebellion by former Yorkists in 1483 led by the Duke of Buckingham and it gained a substantial following. The fact that they were Yorkists is crucial, of course, because he is a Yorkist. This was not just aftershocks of the War of the Roses, it was his own party. The original goal of this was to place Edward V back on the throne. Only when the rumor that he was dead got around did they decide on Henry Tudor. Now facing a rebellion doesn't mean much (Henry Tudor had to put down rebellions too) but it certainly doesn't suggest overwhelming popularity either. And the base of the rebellion was fairly large, which is a significant point. There was definitely still unrest in the kingdom which had been mostly at rest under Edward IV's second reign.
His principle advisers, Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovell, were widely detested. There were such widespread rumors about him (that he poisoned his wife, that he had people murdered) that he had to demand that anyone who uttered them be arrested. This is not a good sign. All kings have rumors but it suggests these were either widespread or particularly troubling that he actually had to address them and demand the gossipers be arrested.
On the other hand, he was widely beloved in the North, where he spent most of his career. And he was remembered for being a smart and fair lawgiver well after his death. He was without a doubt an able commander, personally brave, and very intelligent (and say what you will about that wicked Tudor propagandist William Shakespeare I think all of those qualities shine in his Richard III and I often wonder if for all of the OTT villainy and propaganda in the play there wasn't more than a kernel of truth in this charismatic, intelligent, and funny character). I think he was probably a very good king in many ways. In many ways he was truly the last Plantagenet. He was capable of tremendous self-serving wickedness but also had a serious mind to justice and fair law giving (which was true of Henry II, John, Edward I).
Whether he murdered his nephews has become kind of a huge distraction in the discussion of Richard III, in my opinion. Of course, it's significant and goes toward his character. But the fact is he had no more legal right to the throne than Henry VII. The evidence of the princes not being rightful heirs because Edward IV married someone else was flimsy, at best. And didn't arise until well after Edward had died. He was a usurper. At least Henry VII took his crown in battle and married Edward's daughter. And, while they absolutely smeared him thoroughly, the Tudors didn't have to do much to make that unpalatable. Young Edward V retained loyalty and sympathy. Then again, Henry IV was a usurper. Edward IV, his own brother, was a usurper. It is worse to do that to a child but it's hardly an unforgivable sin in the English monarchy.
I'm completely laying off of the murder of the princes issue. It's become too much of a hotbed. And I think it's absolutely impossible to know the truth or even what people thought was the truth. It's been too smeared with the later Tudor accounts. As I said above, I think it's something of a distraction anyway. Taking their throne was the crucial thing.
Sources: The Winter King by Thomas Penn (on Henry VII but goes into much of this); War of the Roses Dan Jones; War of the Roses Alison Weir (I know, I know but it's very accessible). | [
"The \"History of King Richard III\" was written and published in both English and Latin, each written separately, and with information deleted from the Latin edition to suit a European readership. It greatly influenced William Shakespeare's play \"Richard III\". Contemporary historians attribute the unflattering p... |
if we pointed a radio telescope at earth from space, what would we see? | It depends on what frequency you choose. Unless you stay in the [Water Hole](_URL_0_ ) you only see an opaque ball. There is also a narrow optical band where you can sometimes see some of the surface, but that's not a radio telescope.
In the Water Hole (between 1.42 and 1.67 GHz), you don't see much unless something happens to be pointed at you having just passed some satellite. Then you'd see highly structured data, in a short burst before the planetary rotation sweeps the signal off you. It would be an indicator of technology, but it wouldn't tell you much in that short burst, without any context. Just enough that you'd mark the place "inhabited" on your species' star charts and go someplace else with your interstellar spaceship. | [
"The radio telescope would consist of a lander vehicle that would deploy dipoles across a 300-400 m area. The dipoles, which receive the cosmic radio signals, would be deployed either by a dispenser or by a team of small mobile robots. The South Polar location would ensure permanent sunlight and direct communicatio... |
Japan historians: What would Japanese soldiers have on their person in WWII? | THey would have wore in flight the following
: a flight helmet either a Type 2 soft or type 3 with hard earphones
flight googles clear made of glass later anti fog and heated were experimented with.
A muffler and flight suite
A float vest
Gloves some were even heated
yes they did wear parachutes with harness
Hey also wore flight insignia and carried a flight computer
Japanese pilots were captured carrying handguns, daggers and yes even Katana swords
here is a a standard avaitor _URL_0_
I am not sure if they had something like a locket. I do know that the Japanese military held itself in high regard in terms of duty and honor to the emperor and were fierce fighters who believed in death before defeat that is why one would fight many years after being separated from his unit. | [
"The practice within the Imperial Japanese Army during World War 2 was described by an anonymous American soldier, who had been forced to work as a truck driver while held as a prisoner of war, and who came into daily close contact with Japanese soldiers.\n",
"In Japan, a variety of new evidence was published, in... |
doesn't my "right to refuse service for any reason" make bills like indiana's "religious protection act" redundant or unnecessary? | Much like a plaque that says "we have the right to shoot you in the face for any reason" those don't really carry any legal weight. Also, race, gender, and in some states sexuality, are considered protected classes which means "for any reason" doesn't apply so even though as a business owner you have the right to for example fire someone for any reason, "any reason" does not include those things. | [
"Indiana Senate Bill 101, titled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), is a law in the U.S. state of Indiana, which allows individuals and companies to assert as a defense in legal proceedings that their exercise of religion has been, or is likely to be, substantially burdened.\n",
"Several law professors... |
What was the siege of Vicksburg like for the civilian population of the city? | As might be expected, life for civilians was not particularly pleasant. Some lived in caves along the bluffs to escape the constant, terrifying, shells. However, the bombardment did little damage to property and few civilians were killed or wounded. The bombardment certainly took its toll on morale, but slowly in conjunction with the realization no one was coming to help the city.
But the worst hardship was caused by lack of food and water. Grant methodically stripped the area of excess food and cut off Vicksburg's routes of supply. Civilians were forced to eat horses, mules, dogs, and according to one popular antidote birds, same as the soldiers. The army had its own problems, so civilians were largely on their own. People horded food and shopkeepers were accused of profiteering. Scurvy was also a problem. When the Union finally took over the city, they shared their rations will the starving residents.
I can't offer any direct evidence to your bonus question, only say I personally have not seen any Northern denouncements of the treatment of Vicksburg. | [
"The siege of Vicksburg (May 18 – July 4, 1863) was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. In a series of maneuvers, Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and drove the Confederate Army of Mississippi, led by Lt. Ge... |
why does sound changes pitch when moving away? | Doppler effect.
Think of sound as being invisible waves emitting from the source. Imagine an engine sitting still 100 yards away. It emits 1 wave per second. This is the "normal" sound.
When the engine is traveling towards you, it is still emitting 1 wave per second, but between each emitted wave it is getting closer to you, so you end up getting hit by 1 wave every 0.8 seconds. This makes the pitch of the sounds higher in our ears.
But as soon as the engine passes you, the engine is still emitting 1 wave per second, but between each wave it's getting further from you, so each wave hits you every 1.2 seconds. This makes the pitch of the sound lower in our ears. | [
"Pitch shifting is a sound recording technique in which the original pitch of a sound is raised or lowered. Effects units that raise or lower pitch by a pre-designated musical interval (transposition) are called \"pitch shifters\" or \"pitch benders\".\n",
"A special type of pitch often occurs in free nature when... |
Why was there only one abiogensis on Earth and why isn't it happening today? | Who says it isn't? | [
"It is unlikely that habitable planets exist around 40 Eridani B because they would have been sterilized by its evolution into a white dwarf. As for 40 Eridani C, it is prone to flares, which cause large momentary increases in the emission of X-rays as well as visible light. This would be lethal to Earth-type life ... |
what's the point of having nerve endings in our teeth, when all it can do is hurt for the rest of your life, as they won't heal themselves or grow back if they get a cavity | To let you know if a living thing is living inside of your tooth eating away at your flesh under the tooth. | [
"Any peripheral nerve or nerve root can be damaged, called a mononeuropathy. Such injuries can be because of injury or trauma, or compression. Compression of nerves can occur because of a tumour mass or injury. Alternatively, if a nerve is in an area with a fixed size it may be trapped if the other components incre... |
How many people can one tree sufficiently make oxygen for? | The exact number will depend of course on the location, size, species, and maturity of the trees, etc. However, I found one study^(1) where researchers estimated the number of trees needed to offset the average oxygen consumption of a single person in various North American cities. [Here is the full table](_URL_2_), where you can see that in an average city (e.g. Philadelphia) you need about 20 trees to provide enough oxygen for one person.
That may sound like a lot of trees, but fortunately the oxygen we breathe doesn't need to be produced locally. Forests all over the world continuously pump oxygen that is mixed into the atmosphere and spreads across the globe. Moreover, trees are not even the biggest source of oxygen on Earth. That honor goes to [phytoplankton in our oceans, which collectively are responsible for the majority of the world's oxygen supply](_URL_0_).
1. Nowak, D., et al. Oxygen Production by Urban Trees in the United States. Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2007. 33(3):220–226. [link](_URL_1_) | [
"On an average, a single tree emits 260 pounds of oxygen annually. Similarly, a fully-grown tree is sufficient for 18 human beings in one acre of land in one year stressing the importance of tree plantation for mankind. Aniruddha’s Academy of Disaster Management (Mumbai, India) carries out numerous projects to plan... |
how do carats for diamonds work? | Carats are a unit of mass equal to 200mg. Carat comes from carob, a seed used to determine diamond mass. | [
"In the wholesale trade of gem diamonds, carat is often used in denominating lots of diamonds for sale. For example, a buyer may place an order for of , D–F, VS2-SI1, excellent cut diamonds, indicating a wish to purchase 200 diamonds ( total mass) of those approximate characteristics. Because of this, diamond price... |
how are laws passed in the us? | [Here you go.](_URL_0_) This is how actual 5-year-olds learn this stuff! | [
"At the federal level of government in the United States, laws are made almost exclusively by legislation. Such legislation originates as an Act of Congress passed by the United States Congress; such acts were either signed into law by the President or passed by Congress after a presidential veto.\n",
"At the fed... |
Why do we call the United States "The Union" when referring to the Civil War? | > Why do we call the United States "The Union" when referring to the Civil War?
The "Union" was a reference to the "more perfect union" referred to in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution. This phrase was itself a reference back to the less-than-perfect union under the Articles of Confederation, which explicitly defined the union of the states as "perpetual". This was the legal basis for the argument the U.S. government was making that secession was illegal (hey!) and would not be recognized as a legitimate act. "Union" wasn't just a cutesy nickname, but was literally the Constitutional basis that the U.S. was fighting for.
The Confederates argued differently, that the Constitution was not perpetually binding, under a legal argument that is usually referred to as "Compact Theory". It was a contract, or compact, made not by the people of the United States, but by thirteen states, and any of those parties to the compact could leave at any time. This was a legal theory that had [never had much legal support before the war](_URL_5_), and the federal courts had given every indication would be rejected if tested. So instead of testing it, the Confederates tried to enact their interpretation of the Constitution through a war instead of a lawsuit.
In Abraham Lincoln's [Inaugural Address](_URL_0_) weeks before the war broke out, he had directly talked about this legal rejection of "Compact Theory" and the Constitutional interpretation of the "Union" at length. The whole section is worth reading in full for a good summary of the legal argument being made for the perpetual "Union" at the time, but I'll just quote the first paragraph of the relevant section here:
> "I hold that **in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.** It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself...."
This echoed James Buchanan's final State of the Union address (actually, ["Message to Congress"](_URL_4_) in those days) from a few months earlier, which said in part:
> "...[I]t has been claimed within the last few years that any State, whenever this shall be its sovereign will and pleasure, may secede from the Union in accordance with the Constitution and without any violation of the constitutional rights of the other members of the Confederacy; that as each became parties to the Union by the vote of its own people assembled in convention, so any one of them may retire from the Union in a similar manner by the vote of such a convention.
>
> "In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States...
>
> "**It was intended to be perpetual, and not to be annulled at the pleasure of any one of the contracting parties.** The old Articles of Confederation were entitled "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States," and by the thirteenth article it is expressly declared that "the articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual." The preamble to the Constitution of the United States, having express reference to the Articles of Confederation, recites that it was established "in order to form a more perfect union." And yet it is contended that this "more perfect union" does not include the essential attribute of perpetuity.
>
> "But that **the Union was designed to be perpetual** appears conclusively from the nature and extent of the powers conferred by the Constitution on the Federal Government..."
And both these speeches echoed Andrew Jackson's ["Proclamation Regarding Nullification"](_URL_3_) during the 1832-33 Nullification Crisis that almost erupted into a civil war between South Carolina and the U.S. then. South Carolina had [passed a law](_URL_2_) declaring secession legal, and secession would be their next step if the U.S. wouldn't allow them to ignore a tariff they didn't like ("The Tariff of Abominations"). Jackson's speech during the crisis read in part:
> "The most important among these objects, that which is placed first in rank, on which all the others rest, is "to form a more perfect Union."..**.I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.**
>
> "The States severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. It has been shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members of a league, they surrendered many of their essential parts of sovereignty...
>
> "The unity of our political character...commenced with its very existence...We were the UNITED STATES under the Confederation, and the name was perpetuated and the Union rendered more perfect by the federal Constitution. In none of these stages did we consider ourselves in any other light than as forming one nation..."
And all of them were really echoing [George Washington's Farewell Address](_URL_1_) in 1796, where he talked about the perpetual Union that he wished to see maintained:
> "In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me...
>
> "Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that **your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained**; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing...
>
> "**To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute**; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice...containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. **The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.** The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government."
To address you other two questions:
> Considering it was the side with the legitimate US government, why don't we just call them the United States, like we do when discussing the period before 1860?
Some people *do* do that, but the logic behind not doing so is that the Confederate government was considered illegitimate. So calling only one side "the United States" carried with it the implication that the other side was *not* the U.S., as though it were a legitimately separate country. Then again, calling them the "Confederacy" can also be argued to add legitimacy to their claim as the C.S.A.
> Did the US refer to itself as the Union as well before the Civil War?
As demonstrated above, yes, and there are many more examples besides. In 1901, the former Secretary of State, John W. Foster, [rebutted a claim in the *New York Times*](_URL_6_) that the Civil War had been instrumental in altering the "United States" being considered a singular rather than plural noun. In fact, this didn't develop until several decades after the war had ended, and in Foster's study, he determined it was more of a "grammar nazi" thing of olden days rather than a result of the war. "States" was plural, so earlier presidents and politicians used the plural, so as not to sound unlearned. But they still often wanted to convey ideas of a singular national nature, and when they did, they tended to use the word "Union" instead, so they could talk about "it" and "its" people and ideas. In the late 1880s and after, the vernacular began changing. | [
"In the context of the American Civil War, the Union is sometimes referred to as \"the North\", both then and now, as opposed to the Confederacy, which was \"the South\". The Union never recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacy's secession and maintained at all times that it remained entirely a part of the Unit... |
how do suppositories work? | Word of warning in case anyone reads this and is stupid enough to try it: don't try and get ba-dunk-a-drunk with bum rum/a brown-eye mai tai/anal colada/mint poolep or any other type of drink in the stink, because you have a good chance of getting alchohole poisoning. | [
"A suppository is a solid dosage form that is inserted into the rectum (rectal suppository), vagina (vaginal suppository), or urethra (urethral suppository), where it dissolves or melts and exerts local or systemic effects. Suppositories are used to deliver medications that act both systemically and locally.\n",
... |
when you turn down or up the volume on devices with either a wheel or button, what actually happens that allows it to sound quieter or louder? | A volume knob or wheel is an example of a device called a *potentiometer*, which is a device that adjusts the voltage going down a wire by increasing or decreasing the electrical resistance.
If the resistance increases (if you turn the volume knob down), then less voltage makes it to the speaker, the cone vibrates less intensely, and the sound is quieter. The opposite is true if you turn the volume up. | [
"Volume is adjusted by a wheel on the unit's right side, using a digital mechanism (it can be turned indefinitely). It also is possible to click or push the wheel, which pauses playback and turns the unit off after about one minute. When the unit is powered off and the wheel is pressed for a few seconds, playback r... |
I've heard that the current value of diamonds is due to a marketing campaign in the 40s, but when looking at jewelry from the 1800s, diamonds seems incredibly popular. Does this mean that diamond jewelry was considered cheaper and less impressive than pieces with other stones in those days? | In antiquity, diamonds were extremely rare and extremely valuable. In Pliny the Elder's *Natural History*, book 37, he refers to them in this way:
> The substance that possesses the greatest value, not only among the precious stones, but of all human possessions, is adamas; a mineral which, for a long time, was known to kings only, and to very few of them.
(There's some disputation about what exactly "adamas" refers to - it seems to be a range of clear, crystalline stones, including but not limited to diamond.)
At that time and through the sixteenth century, Europeans and Near Easterners had only one source for them: India, where they were first largely found in deposits in the Penner, Karnool, Godvari, and Makhnadi rivers, and eventually mined. Thought to have been formed by a hardening liquid - how else could they be so pale and clear? - they were prized for their ability to glitter in the light and throw rainbows around the room. They were evaluated roughly the same way that they are now, in terms of color (water), clarity, and size, with an unblemished and uncolored stone being the most valuable. In the European middle ages, there is evidence of diamonds being used in betrothal and marriage rings, contrary to the story that DeBeers entirely invented the idea: why not use the most valuable and indestructible stone to show the strength of your future relationship? Making that symbolism almost explicit, a poem written on the marriage of Constanzo I Sforza and Camilla D’Aragona in 1475 stated, "Two wills, two hearts, two passions are bonded in marriage by a diamond". There are extant diamond rings with loving inscriptions, and the 1505 will of Marion Chamber of Bury specifically lists a gold ring set with a diamond and a ruby as a "maryeng ryng". (Other rings made in this fashion may therefore also be wedding rings, possibly with the diamond symbolizing the groom and the ruby the bride.) By the seventeenth century, there are even fictional references to diamond rings for marriage in Cervantes and Voltaire.
Diamonds were found in eastern Brazil in 1725, and a relatively short frenzy began as people determined to strike it rich began digging everywhere to get more. Many didn't believe it, because it had been "known" for so long that Diamonds Are Found In India - but within a few years, Brazilian mines were shipping a dozen times as much diamond material back to Europe than the Indian mines were producing at that time. The Indian mines were beginning to slow down a lot at this time (although some continued to be operated, and there are some large diamond reserves there still), so finding new sources wasn't just, "woo hoo, I've got some diamonds!" but, "woo hoo, I can control the diamonds!" - this gave an even greater urgency to the search for the Next Big Find. By the beginning of the next century, Brazil was the leading source, and another boom occurred in the northern part of the country around the 1850s.
The next boom occurred in South Africa in 1870-1871, along the Orange River; after an initial mistaken pooh-poohing of the area's potential for exploitation by a British investigator, it was proven to yield *a lot* of diamonds. If you are a Frances Hodgson Burnett fan, which is statistically unlikely for this sub's userbase, this is where and roughly when Sara Crewe's father's friend struck it very big by discovering a new, deep vein. In real life, this is where the DeBeers syndicate comes in. A significant amount of diamonds were mined in Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And after that, Russia - a few stones were found on their own in the nineteenth century, and then larger deposits in rivers, indicating the presence of good veins somewhere, leading up to the Revolution, which sort of put a spanner in the works. It wasn't until after World War II that effective mining of these began, but in the end this region became the second largest source in the world, so well done, lads.
But we're talking about price and popularity. As early as the first Brazilian diamond boom, there was a recognition that flooding the market was leading to reduced prices. The Portuguese made strong efforts to restrict the flow to other countries in order to keep the floor from dropping out, and it's highly possible that diamonds were being panned for and mined earlier than 1725, and sold in Goa to enter the market as "Indian diamonds". And because of these booms, the availability of diamonds did go way up, even if the prices didn't drop so far as to seriously devalue the stones: really large and elaborate diamond jewelry began to be found in royal courts, ballrooms, and opera houses across Europe (eighteenth century queens and their ladies in waiting might have entire stomachers set with diamonds). Diamonds were still highly valued for their own properties, but they were not seen as so excessively more special than rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Rubies in particular were known to be much rarer and cost as much as diamonds at the time, and late nineteenth century articles on popular jewelry trends in trade magazines, like [this one](_URL_0_) in *The Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review*, 1884, neither put diamonds on a pedestal alone nor consider them cheap and boring.
As far as I can tell, the Diamond Syndicate did not really start heavily engineering the market until Sir Ernest Oppenheimer became the chairman of De Beers in 1929. Diamond mining had always been extremely exploitative of its workers - the Brazilian and African mines ran on slave labor, or the next thing to it, and we shouldn't be surprised to learn that De Beers was started by Cecil Rhodes - but under Oppenheimer, De Beers and its syndicate began to exploit the market as well, releasing only a trickle of stones to dealers per year, in order to keep the value high. And because they created a stockpile by doing this, they didn't face any problems due to natural shortages or labor strikes, and could continue to do business at exactly the same volume.
In 1947, the ad copywriter Mary Frances Gerety came up with the line "a diamond is forever" for De Beers, now a classic. This has been made out to be part of the invention of the diamond engagement ring, but as mentioned before, the concept is much older. Well, both the concept of a diamond engagement ring, and the symbolism of diamond = forever = our love. *However*. Nineteenth century sources do not show engagement rings as *having* to be set with diamonds the way they are now. *Ward and Lock's Home Book* (1882) says that they can be plain gold, engraved with a word, or set with stones that form a word in acrostic; a story in Peterson's Magazine in 1875 uses a pearl engagement ring. But I would note that the same article in *The Jewelers' Circular and Horological Review* linked above notes that the diamond solitaire is the most popular engagement ring at that time, and a later article in the same volume says that while turquoises and pearls are generally popular, diamonds are "the rage" with those who could afford them. The shift to everyone expecting diamonds has as much to do with post-war prosperity and upward aspirations as it does De Beers itself.
Sources:
*Diamonds: A Early History of the King of Gems*, by Jack Ogden (Yale University Press, 2018)
*Diamond Deposits: Origin, Exploration, and History of Discovery*, by Edward I. Erlich and W. Dan Hausel (Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, 2002)
*The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World*, by Stefan Kanfer (Macmillan, 1995) | [
"The value of diamonds as an investment is of significant interest to the general public, because they are expensive gemstones, often purchased in engagement rings, due in part to a successful 20th century marketing campaign by De Beers. The difficulty of properly assessing the value of an individual gem-quality di... |
1917-18, the Germans had 'won' in the East and transferred millions of men west, and they hadn't lost any (or only a little) actual German territory. Considering this, why did they agree to such harsh peace terms? How desperate was the situation for Germany prior to Versailles? | ***This is my first time commenting on this subreddit, sorry if it doesn't meet all the requirements***
Very desperate indeed. The men from the Eastern front had been used in the Michael Offensive in early 1918. This offensive had been very successful tactically, but failed to capture any strategic objectives and cost the Germans well over a million casualties. By contrast the allies had in fact more men on the Western Front at the end of the offensive than they did at its onset, and overall enjoyed a substantial advantage in resources and manpower over the Germans.
Americans were arriving in substantial numbers and the Hundred Days Offensive leveraged improved tactics and massive resource advantages to push the Germans out of all the territory gained during Michael and eventually back to the Hindenburg Line. Moral in the German Army was incredibly low. There were reports of regiments returning from the front harassing the men sent to relieve them, calling them "linebrakers" (scabs) and accusing them of allowing the war to continue. Men were surrendering en-mass almost daily. There was even a mutiny in the Navy. The fact that the German Army was able to mount an effective defense, even mounting counterattacks at strategic points, is a testament to it's quality. Nevertheless, the Hundred Days Offensive made daily progress, and eventually the German high command came to the inevitable conclusion that the army had come to the end of its ability to prosecute the war. By 1918 Germany had exhausted its manpower reserves, its lines of credit, and its willingness to continue fighting.
| [
"This offensive on the Western Front failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough, and the arrival of more and more American units in Europe was sufficient to offset the German advantage. Even after the Russian collapse, about a million German soldiers remained tied up in the east until the end of the war, attempting ... |
why can you use any amount of water to cook pasta but you need a certain amount for grains? | The reason being is pasta is processed and just needs to soften with little absorption. Grains on the other hand need to absorb liquid to become soft, but the can only take in so much liquid. This is why it must be precise with grains and not pasta. | [
"Pasta provides carbohydrates, along with some protein, iron, dietary fiber, potassium and B vitamins. Pasta prepared with whole wheat grain provides more dietary fiber than that prepared with degermed flour.\n",
"Dried pasta can also be defined as factory-made pasta because it is usually produced in large amount... |
Why didn't the Republic of Srpska merge with Serbia during the Bosnian Wars? | Because such an act, at least if done unilaterally, would have been flagrantly illegal and would likely have brought about international intervention and huge retribution on Serbia.
For a start, Republika Srpska never really had any clearly defined territory until the Dayton Agreement, just territory that it controlled. That in itself made a Serbian annexation of it quite difficult.
More importantly, however, for the idea of expanding Serbia to include parts of Bosnia taken over by Srpska to have any legitimacy at all, *it needed it come from a negotiated solution to what had to been seen as a civil war endogenous to Bosnia*. I can't emphasise this enough. Milosevic, all the way through the Yugoslav Wars, maintained the line that they were civil wars, i.e. that they were conflicts between various Bosnian factions, and as such a negotiated solution was required. If Serbia and Srpska had simply united, then that line collapses - it becomes clearly simply a case of a war of aggression by Serbia against Bosnia; the appropriate 'solution' to this war would now be not a negotiated settlement between the Bosnian government and the Bosnian Serb nationalists, but the complete withdrawal of Serbian forces from Bosnian territory.
To what extent the war *was* essentially an attack on Bosnia by Serbia (and Croatia, most people forget) or a civil war between ethno-nationalist factions is still a considerable topic of debate in both politics and history, but unilateral union between Srpska and Serbia would have made it clearly the former.
On top of this, there's the role of sanctions against Serbia too. Milosevic was very keen to present himself as a moderate interested in finding a peaceful solution in Bosnia in order to get the sanctions (which were damaging both the Serbian economy and his popularity) eased or removed.
Now, books about the conflicts. As a starter in terms of the basic chronology and summary of events my main recommendation wouldn't actually be a book, but the BBC documentary series *The Death of Yugoslavia*, which is very well-informed considering it was only made in 1995. Book wise, my best recommendation would probably be Steven Burg and Paul Shoup's *The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina* - while as the name suggests, it primarily focuses on the war in Bosnia, it does emphasise the important interconnected nature of the war in Croatia as well. Valere Gagnon's *The Myth of Ethnic War* is also excellent, though I'd say it requires some familiarity with the conflicts beforehand. As for the other prominent ones, Susan Woodward's *Balkan Tragedy* is worth reading, but with a slight anti-West bias. Sabrina Ramet's *Balkan Babel* has the opposite problem, too anti-Serb to give much complex analysis. Misha Glenny and Ed Vullaimy's books aren't bad, and they speak from close personal experience, but are journalistic rather than historical accounts. Avoid the garbage that comes from Ed Herman on this at all costs. I hear Louis Sell's biography of Milosevic is pretty good, but I haven't read it yet so I'll withold judgement.
Any other questions, please either reply or drop me a message, I'm happy to talk more about this! | [
"After the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers during World War II, all of Bosnia was ceded to the newly created Independent State of Croatia. Axis rule in Bosnia led to widespread persecution and mass-killings of native undesirables and anti-fascists. Many Serbs themselves took up arms and joined ... |
How does a blastocyst determine which end will become the "front" or "back" of the organism? | grad student working with flies here, I may be wrong with the other animals...
For most animals (because insects ARE most animals), the front and back axis (anterior posterior axis) is already laid out before the egg is fertilized. In Drosophila, the mother would make RNA molecules and puts these molecules into one side of the egg. Importantly, the maternally deposited RNA will, more or less, stay on that one side where it was deposited.
Here's an example: The Bicoid RNA, which is responsible for telling the egg which end will be the front, is made by the mother and put into the anterior side of the egg. When the egg is fertilized, it will tell the embryo which side will become the front end of the animal. And if you have a bicoid mutant mother, all her embryos will be missing the head because of the lack of bicoid in those eggs.
A similar case happens in frogs where maternally deposited RNA is in the vegetal pole of the egg (yolk side).
The situation is quite different in C. elegans (a roundworm), the sperm entry site determines which side is the posterior side. Also in mammals, the extraembryonic tissues (ie. tissue in the embryo that do not contribute to the embryo proper) determines which side is anterior.
TLDR: most animals' unfertilized eggs have the anterior posterior axes already laid out. round worms and mammals do it differently. | [
"Following ingression, a blastopore develops where the cells have ingressed, in one side of the embryo and it deepens to become the archenteron, the first formative stage of the gut. As in all deuterostomes, the blastopore becomes the anus whilst the gut tunnels through the embryo to the other side where the openin... |
How far back would we have to go before educated people know more than we do about the history of Rome? | Archeology isn't that great when it comes to information about singular events, its strength really lies in uncovering the everyday life. Yes, occasionally archeologists discover inscriptions or battle sites that cast a new light on our perception of events but often very significant events (whose historicity we have no reason to doubt) elude the archeological record altogether.
So maybe we have to distinguish different classes of knowledge:
Let's imagine a member of a Roman senatorial family in the 4th century who takes an interest in antiquities (not uncommon during that time as subscriptions from extant texts show) and who has acquired copies of the 7th and 8th decade of Livy (I don't think we have a record of them still being around at that time, the Periochae were made from an abridged version, but the possibility doesn't seem unbelievable either). He would very likely have a better knowledge of the events (what battles were fought? who sided with whom? who betrayed whom? ...) of Sulla's civil wars than we do.
But when it comes to the question of how people actually lived during Sulla's times (almost 500 years before our hypothetical reader's present) his knowledge would probably be not that great (maybe some systematic information from e.g. Varro, but mostly random tidbits picked up in this or that author) and his views would often be caught between false extrapolations from his own lifestyle (the surviving 4th/5th century commentaries do frequently underestimate the distance between their world and that of the author they discuss) and romanticizing idealization. These are areas in which by way of modern archeology we might have a clearer view than he does. | [
"The single most important source on early Roman history is the Roman historian Titus Livius (59 BC – 17 AD), usually called Livy in English literature, who wrote a history known as \"Ab Urbe Condita\" (\"From the Foundation of the City\") covering the entirety of Rome's history from her mythical origins up to his ... |
How did Baroque, Classical and early Romantic composers become famous without the use of recording? | Bach wasn't very famous in his lifetime, actually, his reputation grew over time, partly because his music was used to teach theory (as it still is today), and partly because he was rediscovered and people appreciated him more the second time around. That's part of a different discussion though. As far as fame goes, there are three main ways composers became famous in the 17th and 18th century. The first is through successful live performance, don't downplay this.
Composers like Mozart and Beethoven had their works played by the top ensembles in the largest cities in Europe at a time when symphonies and opera companies were as famous and discussed as modern film and music stars. Beethoven and Mozart were comparable in star power to the biggest stars of today, and a debut of a new composition by them was greeted with the sort of anticipation moderns reserve for a new Steven Spielberg movie or album by Kanye or Jay Z.
The second way composers of that era became famous was through famous patronage. There was a pecking order in the aristocracy, with Dukes trumping Counts and Barons, and Royals trumping lesser Dukes, and Royals of richer and more powerful nations trumping royals of smaller nations. Gaining a major benefactor was in itself cause for notice. These old composers were like modern auto racing teams when it came to sponsorships. Getting a job as court composer for a Holy Roman or Austrian Emperor was the equivalent to being hired to race for the Red Bull or Mercedes Racing team, when a new guy got the job his work was under the magnifying glass. This was one of Bach's failings, he repeatedly auditioned for and failed to get important sponsors. Some of his most famous works are failed audition pieces, like the Brandenburg Concerto's, Bach's try for the position of Court Composer for the Elector of Brandenburg.
The third way, and one moderns never really think of, was through sheet music sales. Before people owned televisions, radios and computers most of them owned a musical instrument and the family band was a way to pass an hour or two in the evening. This is why so many famous composers who are known today mainly for a handful of symphonies wrote dozens or even hundreds of works for solo piano and other instruments: these were the most popular sheet music sellers and once a composer had a decent reputation music shops would stock and recommend their new works to customers.
A top flight patron meant you would have new works debuted in major palaces and concert halls in front of large audiences. You would be talked about in the press and by word of mouth afterward. And once your music started showing up in shops as sheet music people could take home and play themselves (the same as we now do with albums purchased in stores or online) you were pretty much a star. | [
"The tradition of the Baroque was more lasting in church/sacral music, which was the musical form that was systematically nurtured in numerous monasteries (especially Franciscan ones) as well as in parish and cathedral churches. The preservation of music manuscripts and prints became a widespread practice in the mi... |
What is the term for when the sea inundates a drainage basin? | The word you're looking for is transgression. The opposite is regression.
Deposits left behind by these would be termed transgressive/regressive sequences. | [
"A drainage basin is an extent of land where water from rain and melting snow or ice drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from which water dra... |
is sweden a capitalist or socialist country? | Sweden is a fundamentally capitalist country. There are, generally, private property rights and the economy is oriented around private individuals making investments with the goal of turning a profit.
Only about a quarter of Swedish economic activity is comprised of the public (state) sector. | [
"Sweden is a competitive mixed economy featuring a generous universal welfare state financed through relatively high income taxes that ensures that income is distributed across the entire society, a model sometimes called the Nordic model. In 2014 the percent of national wealth owned by the government was 24.1%.\n"... |
Hitler killed himself on April 30th. The Red Army didn't get to his bunker until May 2nd. Was it possible for him to successfully flee if he tried? | Mabye there would have been enough time to attempt to flee Berlin but there certainly wasn't a good chance to be sucessfull. Since we will never know for sure what Hitler thought there is not much sense in speculating about it. [u/commiespaceinvader](_URL_0_) wrote an excellent op-ed about questions in the manner of "What did Hitler thought about....?".
German Historian Joachim Fest writes about the last days of the war and possible reasons for Hitlers suicide in his book 'Inside Hitlers Bunker' (OCLC Number: 52720633). Based on the recollection from Hitlers adjutants Heinz Linge and Otto Günsche, Joachim Fest comes to the conclusion that Hitler was shocked by Mussolinis execution on April 28th and the following abuse of his remains. According to Fest Hitler feared beeing treated in a similar fashion and wanted to avoid capture at all costs.
What we know for sure is that one day after Hitlers suicide Martin Bormann (NSDAP Party official close confidant of Hitler) and Ludwig Stumpfegger (Hitlers personal doctor) along with several others tried to escape from the Führerbunker and leave Berlin. Among them also was Hans Baur, Hitlers personal Pilot. They tried to escape on foot but failed and Bormann and Stumpfegger eventually committed suicide in the streets of Berlin. Baur was seriously wounded and became a Soviet PoW. To my knowledge, the only high party offical escaping Berlin from the Führerbunker in May 1945 was Artur Axmann (Leader of the Hitler Youth). He as arrested in December 1945 in the german city Lübeck.
Journalist P. O'Donnell claims Hans Baur offered to help Hitler escape by plane in late April 1945 but Hitler refused (from his book 'The Bunker'. OCLC Number: 1603646). O'Donnell based his book on several interviews with surving occupants of the Führerbunker. However his work remains controversial for several reasons (discussing them would go beyond the constraints of my answer).
In conclusion i hope i made clear that escaping from the Führerbunker (and the encircled city)in May 1945 was / would have been extremely difficult. There would have been a high risk of being captured and despite all speculation i think its reasonable to assume that Hitler would have tried to avoid that at all cost. Because the Allies had air superiority in Germany and Hans Baur diden't try to escape by plane himself after Hitler was dead i conclude that an escape in the air was not viable option. | [
"After Hitler's death, a briefing conference was held where prior orders were implemented that those who could do so were to break out from the Soviet Red Army ring. The plan was to escape from Berlin to surrender to the Western Allies on the Elbe or join the German Army to the North. Schädle did not join any of th... |
how sweating equals losing weight? | It doesn't. Your body sweats as a temperature regulation mechanism. Basically, when you exercise your muscles work hard, which makes them heat up. To maintain a good level of body temperature, your body starts to secrete sweat to cool yourself down. | [
"Sweating causes a decrease in core temperature through evaporative cooling at the skin surface. As high energy molecules evaporate from the skin, releasing energy absorbed from the body, the skin and superficial vessels decrease in temperature. Cooled venous blood then returns to the body's core and counteracts ri... |
What are the origins of US county boundaries? | There are currently ~3100 counties and parishes in the US, any sort of comprehensive answer on how they got their boundaries would not just be book length but series length.
For your chances of getting better answers is there perhaps a particular state or group of counties that caused you to ask the question? | [
"Counties were among the earliest units of local government established in the Thirteen Colonies that would become the United States. Virginia created the first counties in order to ease the administrative workload in Jamestown. The House of Burgesses divided the colony first into four \"incorporations\" in 1617 an... |
Is there estimated upper limit for mass of a star before becoming a black hole? Is mass the only determining factor for if a star becomes a black hole or not, or what are the other factors? | When discussing whether or not a star will become a black hole the only thing considered in most discussions is the mass of the black hole. In fact, the initial mass of a star pretty much determines that star's entire lifetime of evolution. However, there is one major assumption that we use in these discussions: when the star is formed it is formed out of primarily hydrogen, with measurable amounts of helium and all other elements (during formation, not throughout lifetime) are trace. This is a very valid assumption for the stage of universal development we're currently in- however in the future this will not be the case. At that point, the composition of the star will play a role in its development as well. | [
"The star must be one and a half times the mass of the Sun or larger to turn into a black hole. This number is called the \"Chandrasekhar limit\". If the mass of a star is less than the Chandrasekhar limit, it will not turn into a black hole; instead, it will turn into a different, smaller type of star. The boundar... |
How do objects (or atoms) transfer their temperature to each other? | You could probably answer this question in a few ways, so here is my go.
I like to think of temperature in the frame of statistical mechanics. When you tell me a temperature that means something to me. To me, a temperature is a measure of the average amount of random motion that a collection of particles has. It is the amount of microscopic jiggling back and forth that is going on.
If you put more energy in, you increase the temperature and things jiggle faster. So if you have two boxes of gas and you tell me that one is hot and the other is cold then I know that the hotter gas has a higher average kinetic energy per atom/molecule than the cooler gas.
The same is true for solids, a hotter piece of metal has atoms that are jiggling about faster than a cooler piece.
So what happens when we touch our two collections of gas atoms or our two pieces of metal together. Well we allow collisions to occur between the two groups.
Since one group has, on average, atoms that are jiggling faster then when they collide with an atom of the other group then, again on average, there will be a transfer of energy from the faster one to the slower one. This means that the average kinetic energy of the colder group will increase and the average kinetic energy of the hotter group will decrease.
Since we said that temperature is just a measure of how much kinetic energy there is then we can also say that the temperature of the hotter group has decreased and that of the colder group has increased.
Once you can see this then a lot of how heat transfer. Imagine we have a piece of metal and we apply some heat to the surface in the form of a flame.
The flame is hot because it's constituent particles have a lot of random jiggling motion. When these hot particles collide with the surface of the metal they transfer some of this jiggling motion onto the surface atoms of the metal.
The surface atoms of the metal are connected by atomic bonds (essentially little springs) to interior atoms and those are connected to yet further inside atoms still. Through these bonds the jiggling motion of the outer atoms is passed to the next layer and to the next and so on. This is how heat spreads through a solid. | [
"An object's or space's temperature increases when heat energy moves into it, increasing the average kinetic energy of its atoms, e.g., of things and air in a room. Heat energy leaving an object or space lowers its temperature. Heat flows from one place to another (always from a higher temperature to a lower one) b... |
When did we learn that sperm was the cause of our lives? | People understood the importance of ejaculate for thousands of years. Of course, people wondered how this amazing stuff worked, and ejaculate was among the first things intensely studied by [Anton Van Leeuwenhoek](_URL_1_), who is credited with inventing the first microscope.
This led to the discovery of sperm, and a subsequent debate about whether sperm are really the origin of the embryo, rather than the egg.
A nice discussion of the topic is [here](_URL_0_)
| [
"During the 18th century, Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) discovered \"animalcules\" in the sperm of humans and other animals. Some scientists speculated they saw a \"little man\" (homunculus) inside each sperm. These scientists formed a school of thought known as the \"spermists\". They cont... |
Diluted red wine changes color at a certain concentration. What's happening here? | You wouldn't be comparing against phenolphthalein - rather, you should be comparing it to [litmus](_URL_0_) - which belongs to the same class of chemicals found in your wine, known as anthrocyanins - which is red in acidic solution and blue in basic solutions.
The main concept behind a dye as a pH indicator relies on the electronic structure of the protonated and deprotonated states. Organic dyes consist of large, conjugated systems, and the general rule is the larger the system, the larger the wavelength of light it will absorb. A benzene ring generally absorbs in the UV region, and larger rings will push the absorption down to the visible range. The conjugated system will be disrupted, either from being protonated or deprotonated, thus shifting the peak absorption wavelength and producing a colour change.
For example, in [phenolphthalein](_URL_1_), in acidic solutions (excluding pH < 0) it is colourless. If you examine the structure at those pH, you'll see that the three phenyl rings are separated. However, when deprotonated, you can see a double bond on one of the rings that link to the central carbon, connecting the conjugated systems and shifting the absorption maximum down from UV to blue/violet, leaving the intense pink colour you observe. | [
"As red wine ages, the harsh tannins of its youth gradually give way to a softer mouthfeel. An inky dark color will eventually lose its depth of color and begin to appear orange at the edges, and eventually turn brown. These changes occur due to the complex chemical reactions of the phenolic compounds of the wine. ... |
What is the current consensus on the Nixon administration's involvement in the Pinochet coup? | I researched this extensively during my time at university using the declassified documents and came to the conclusion that while the United States desired the removal of Allende and actively worked against his administration, the United States was not directly responsible for the coup that saw Pinochet come to power. Now I say not directly because the CIA was very much responsible for creating the environment that led to the military coup. To explain this, I'll start from the beginning.
Salvador Allende first ran for the presidency in 1952, this first attempt was unsuccessful. He ran again in 1958. This attempt met with the same result but with one distinct difference, the United States had taken an interest in the Leftist candidate. Until 1958, the US had not seen Allende as a threat, now the threat of a communist Chile was a possibility. Salvador was gaining popularity and as a result the CIA was directed to begin spoiling operations to prevent Allende from being elected to office. These operations included the funding of the Chile's Christian Democratic Party or the PDC. Thanks largely to CIA support, which amounted to US$ 2.6 million, half of the party's official budget, the PDC was elected to office in the 1964 with Eduardo Frei as President. However, Allende maintained his presidential aspirations and ran for the presidency in 1970. Unlike his previous attempts and despite the efforts of the CIA to prevent it, Allende received the majority of votes and was elected to office on September 4. It is worth noting that the KGB was funding Allende's campaign at the time, contributing to the United States' paranoia that Chile had the potential to become another Cuba. Allende became the first 'socialist to be democratically elected to the position of president, setting a precedent the United States saw as unacceptable according to a [transcript of a conversation](_URL_2_) that took place between Dr Henry Kissinger and Secretary of State William Rogers. Two months after Allende's election, Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor to the Nixon Administration, published a memorandum outlining the position the US should take towards Chile.
In Kissinger's own words, the memorandum “considered the question as to what strategy the US should adopt to deal with an Allende Government in Chile.” However, covert operations were already in place to prevent Allende from being voted in by Chile's congress. This came in the form of Track I, the plan by the state department to install Allende's political opponent Jorge Alessandri. A hand written note by CIA director Richard Helms records President Richard Nixon's orders to ensure this. Eleven days after being elected to power by the Chilean people, Nixon ordered the CIA to “save Chile!” and made ten million dollars available for the operation. Nixon also gave the infamous order to “[make the economy scream](_URL_6_),” something the CIA would achieve later in Allende's three-year term as president. The day after Nixon issued this order, Richard Helms held a planning meeting for what would become Project FUBELT, the CIA operation to unseat Allende through a military coup and part of the Track II plan. The minutes of this meeting detail the President's orders from the day before. The [meeting set the groundwork for CIA operations](_URL_7_) against Allende including the possibility of a coup. In truth, the CIA had begun monitoring possible coups in Chile as early as 1968. This included both ill-fated Viaux Plots, one of which saw the Chilean constitutionalist army Commander-in-Chief General Rene Schneider shot and killed. Although the CIA was in contact with Viaux, a declassified Agency report states that the CIA had decided not to support the attempted coups as they had determined that such attempts would fail. However the same document states that the CIA would support a military coup if it had a chance of succeeding. All CIA operations to prevent Allende gaining office failed, [the blame for which fell on Helms and the US Ambassador to Chile Edward Korry](_URL_1_). However, the Track II plan continued in the guise of economic pressure.
Despite failing to prevent Allende's election to the presidency, The CIA nor the United States government stopped working against Allende. Henry Kissinger was the architect of the idea of an economic blockade of Chile. As Chile depended largely on the US dollar and US materials for its industries, The United States was able to cut loans, foreign aid, financing and materials, plunging Chile into an economic crisis. President Nixon's order to “make the economy scream” was becoming a reality. In August of 1972, a series of strikes began in Chile. At the head of these actions were the truck drivers. Chile had little in the way of a railway system so the vast majority of goods had to be moved by truck. The stop work action crippled the Chilean economy, stopping the delivery of food and sowing discontent amongst the population. According to a [CIA intelligence bulletin](_URL_4_), the Chilean Department of Investigation had received requests to investigate foreigners living in Chile who were manipulating the strikes. It has since been discovered that the CIA were manipulating the strikes as part of the Track II plan to cripple Chile's economy. The PDC was a strong supporter of the strikes and had been receiving funds from the CIA since Track I was put in place. These funds were passed onto the strikers, prolonging the strikes and bringing the Chilean economy to a halt. Striking truck drivers interviewed by [Time Magazine admitted that money for food came from the CIA](_URL_3_). As a result of the strike, Allende was forced to use the military to bring an end to the strikes, reopen roads and stores whose owners had joined the truckers. This hardline approach was not received well and Allende’s popularity fell as a result. It didn't help that the strikes had affected the planting of crops, causing a decrease of 16 percent in harvest forcing Chile to import more food, adding to the already mounting debt the country had. While the CIA continued to strangle the Chilean economy, the US military continued to provide arms and armament to the Chilean military.
Despite a promise from US Ambassador Korry to Allende's predecessor Eduardo Frei in 1970 that “not a nut or bolt would be allowed to reach Chile under Allende,” the US continued to provide assistance to the Chilean military in the form of hardware and training. This has been interpreted as encouragement for the Chilean military to intervene in the government. This interpretation is strengthened by the actions of the Nixon administration in March of 1970. The Chilean military presented a shopping list of weapons and vehicles to the US valued at seven million dollars. This list included recoilless rifles, helicopters, artillery pieces and C-130 Hercules aircraft. Kissinger advised Nixon to offer the requested items to the military on credit as a refusal to supply the weapons could “cause resentment in the Chilean armed forces and sever our tenuous relations with them while there is still a possibility they might act against Allende.” It is clear that the Nixon administration was planning to use the military against Allende. In direct violation of their own policy of strangling Chile's economy, the US increased assistance to the Chilean military from 3,221 million dollars in 1970 to 13,540 million dollars in 1972. Assistance from the US government to the Chilean military was not only in the form of money but in training as well. Joint naval manoeuvres were held annually with the United States Navy and the training of Chilean personnel in the Panama Canal Zone. Figures garnered from the Church report into the CIA's covert operations state that the number of Chilean personnel trained in Panama increased in each consecutive year of Allende's term. It is certain that the cooperation between the US and the Chilean military allowed the CIA to gather intelligence on possible coup plotting as well as approach Chilean officers about the possibility of organising a coup.
It had always been the desire of the Nixon administration to see Allende unseated by a coup since 1970. The US however was unwilling to carry out the coup themselves so set the groundwork for the Chilean military under General Augusto Pinochet to carry out the coup for them. In 1975, the US Senate began an inquiry into CIA operations in Chile to determine whether the US was responsible for the coup in Chile and the death of Salvador Allende. [The inquiry was headed by Senator Frank Church and the findings of the committee were published in what was called the Church report](_URL_0_). The report determined that the United States was not responsible for the 1973 coup. It is clear from a released transcript of a phone conversation between President Nixon and Henry Kissinger that the US did not have a hand in the actual September coup. However it is also made clear by Kissinger's admittance that the US set the groundwork for the coup to take place “[We \(the United States\) didn't do it. I mean we helped them. \(Omitted words\) created the conditions as great as possible.](_URL_5_)” The conditions that Kissinger alluded to in this conversation were the results of the covert operations the CIA was involved in during Allende's three year term.
Continued below...
| [
"In 1973, the CIA was notified by contacts of the impending Pinochet coup two days in advance, but contends it \"played no direct role\" in the coup. After Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Nixon that the United States \"didn't do it\" (referring to the coup itself) but had \"crea... |
What's the difference between a legless lizard and a snake? | There are a bunch of differences between the two (skeletal differences, etc.). But one of the most obvious one is the legless lizard can blink (they have "eye lids"), while snakes can't (they have a modified scale that covers their eye all the time and have no "eye lids").
EDIT: This is just a general rule, there may be exceptions | [
"Legless lizard may refer to any of several groups of lizards that have independently lost limbs or reduced them to the point of being of no use in locomotion. It is the common name for the family Pygopodidae, but often refers to other groups, such as limbless anguids, depending on the region of the world. These li... |
what is the process used to make powdered eggs? | Spray drying is the name of the [process](_URL_0_)
Basically, you splay the liquid (mixed egg in this case) into a fine mist. the mist enters a very hot chamber, causing the moisture to evaporate very quickly, but it doesn't stay long enough to actually cook the material you want to dry. this powder/gas mixture is pushed to a colder area where the powder is collected and the gas is reheated in a cycle. | [
"Only eggs are necessary to make scrambled eggs, but salt and pepper are often used, and other ingredients such as water, milk, butter, chives, cream or in some cases crème fraîche or grated cheese may be added. The eggs are cracked into a bowl with some salt and pepper, and the mixture is stirred or whisked: alter... |
why do i feel extremely sick when looking at a cell phone or screen while in the car driving on the road? | Your eyes are telling your brain that you are staying still because you are looking at a stationary object.
The part of your body that keeps track of balance and motion is telling your brain that you are moving because you are in a car.
These mixed signals cause some people to feel dizzy and nauseous.
_URL_0_
EDIT: this is a really interesting excerpt the Wikipedia page:
> The most common hypothesis for the cause of motion sickness is that it functions as a psychological defense mechanism against neurotoxins.[5] The area postrema in the brain is responsible for inducing vomiting when poisons are detected, and for resolving conflicts between vision and balance. When feeling motion but not seeing it (for example, in a ship with no windows), the inner ear transmits to the brain that it senses motion, but the eyes tell the brain that everything is still. As a result of the discordance, the brain will come to the conclusion that one of them is hallucinating and further conclude that the hallucination is due to poison ingestion. The brain responds by inducing vomiting, to clear the supposed toxin. | [
"A prevalent example of this inattention to detail due to multitasking is apparent when people talk on cell phones while driving. One study found that having an accident is four times more likely when using a cell phone while driving. Another study compared reaction times for experienced drivers during a number of ... |
things 'randomly' falling over | There are different forms of stability. Something like a pencil lying on it's side is stable, there is no lower energy state it can fall to. Metastability would be like a pencil standing on end. It's stable in a local sense in that minute disturbances just make it wobble a bit and settle back. Tip it a bit further and it falls over into the low energy state.
So it's all a matter of how much your book is tipped and how close it was to the tipping point to start with. There are always little random disturbances happening. Vibrations from people walking about in adjacent rooms, air currents, sound vibrations, temperature changes. Maybe it slides a bit against its neigbour over time under the cumulative effects of these to the point that the next one takes it over the edge. When exactly it fell would be unpredictable, but due to definite physical effects not pure luck. | [
"A fall, including rockfall and debris fall, occurs where regolith cascades down a slope, but is not of sufficient volume or viscosity to behave as a flow. Falls are promoted in rocks which are characterized by the presence of vertical cracks. Falls can also result from undercutting by running water as well as by w... |
why does the water in a glass seem to rise above the edge? | The 'surface' above water (or any other liquid) is called a meniscus. Water sticks to things, and to itself. When you see water in a cup "climb" the edge slightly, that is due to the water 'sticking' to the edge, and bringing more water with it. In many liquids, their sticking together force (cohesion) is stronger than the stick to other things force (adhesion). These liquids do not climb the edges of containers at all.
**Specifically answering you:** When water gets above the edge of the glass slightly, it's cohesion is still stronger than gravity. When you add too much water, gravity becomes strong than its cohesion, and down the outside of the glass it goes.
[phone spelling] | [
"If a sheet of glass is placed in the tank, the depth of water in the tank will be shallower over the glass than elsewhere. The speed of a wave in water depends on the depth, so the ripples slow down as they pass over the glass. This causes the wavelength to decrease. If the junction between the deep and shallow wa... |
what are the most important coding languages, why were they created, how do they work | A few of the most important programming languages today:
* assembly/machine language - the language the computer speaks internally, all other languages get translated into this at some level...difficult to program in directly
* C/C++ - a low level, efficient language that most large applications and operating systems are written in
* Java - a higher level, more portable language many medium sized and web based applications are written in
* C# - Microsoft's answer to Java, a less portal language that integrates well into Microsoft's product line
* SQL - a specialized language for querying databases
* javascript - only superficially related to java, a language that can be run from within a browser
* Perl/Python/Ruby/VBscript - scripting languages, good for writing small programs quickly, often less efficient and scalable
* COBOL - an archaic language popular with business programming, still a lot of it around on legacy systems
* FORTRAN - an archaic language popular with mathematical and scientific programming, same deal as COBOL
* Ada - a language designed by a gov't committee and mandated for US gov't projects in the 1990s | [
"One reason for coding is to enable communication in places where ordinary plain language, spoken or written, is difficult or impossible. For example, semaphore, where the configuration of flags held by a signaler or the arms of a semaphore tower encodes parts of the message, typically individual letters and number... |
Was anyone else working to describe a theory of gravity at the same time as Newton? | Goethe disagreed with Newton | [
"BULLET::::- Isaac Newton (1643–1727) built upon the work of Kepler, Galileo and Huygens. He showed that an inverse square law for gravity explained the elliptical orbits of the planets, and advanced the law of universal gravitation. His development of infinitesimal calculus (along with Leibniz) opened up new appli... |
most phones these days become slow, laggy and battery inefficient in a short while as compared to older phones. why aren't long-term issues worked upon? | Even today, you can still buy brand new "feature phones" that only do basic cell phone stuff, and they'll have a pretty amazing battery life. However, it would seem that a lot of consumers don't value this over the additional features that a smartphone can offer.
Phones getting slow and laggy is almost always a software problem. Apps get constantly updated, and features that require more resources are often added in these updates. Sometimes the features genuinely require more resources to function, but sometimes new features are also just using the phone's resources less efficiently, because it was faster (aka cheaper) for the app developer to implement a feature that way.
Battery inefficiency is a combination of new app features requiring more power, which causes the phone to consume more energy while they run, and the battery wearing out. A rechargable battery has a limited life span. They can only handle a certain number of charge-discharge cycles. When your phone goes from 100% to 20% every single day, you're using up that battery's charge cycles 5 times faster than if you went from 100% to 20% in 5 days. Combine this with new phones having batteries that aren't easily replacable, and you've got a pretty great planned obsolence scheme going on (but you're already aware of this).
New smartphones are actually able to function for a week at a time if the software just permits it. With a third party ROM, I've made a Galaxy S3 with a worn battery last 7 days on standby, but this was with almost all background processes disabled or not installed. Not even Google Play Services were installed, which are required for most apps' push notifications, and of course to let you use the Play Store. Often times, phone manufacturers don't bother with implementing good power saving features. | [
"older phones tend to draw more battery in the vicinity of iBeacons, while the newer phones can be more efficient in the same environment. In addition to the time spent by the phone scanning, number of scans and number of beacons in the vicinity are also significant factors for battery drain, as pointed out by the ... |
why can't I see the edge of my eye sight? | The only area in your field of vision that you actually can't see anything is where the optic nerve exits the eye as there are no photo receptors at this point [here's the wikipedia article](_URL_0_).
Your peripheral vision mainly consists of [rods](_URL_2_) (a photo receptor) that are more sensitive than [cones](_URL_1_), which are better for visual acuity (sharpness of vision). This is why you can see things in your periphery, but it is not in focus like the center of your vision. This is also why you can see stars in your peripheral vison that disappear when you focus on them (rods are more sensitive so they require less light for you to perceive something is there).
If you want to see where the "edge" of your periphory is, hold your arms straight out from the shoulder, and move them until you can't see your hands anymore.
EDIT: I'm thinking now you are actually asking why you can't consciously perceive exactly where your peripheral vision ends. The short answer is that your brain combines visual input with a map of your environment. Therefore, you can physically see things in front of you, but you are also aware of the objects that surround you, so your perception of the environment doesn't end with what you can physically see in front of you. | [
"A larger exit pupil makes it easier to put the eye where it can receive the light: anywhere in the large exit pupil cone of light will do. This ease of placement helps avoid, especially in large field of view binoculars, vignetting, which brings to an image with the borders darkened because the light from them is ... |
carnivorous plants | Most carnivorous plants evolved their adaptations as way of gaining more nitrogen or phosphorus than what the soil would provide. They often occur in wetland areas where the water will constantly wash away any nutrition that would normally be in the soil. Nepenthes (Tropical Pitcher Plants) do not prefer to eat small mammals. They only catch them when the mouse, shrew, or occasional monkey try to fish out the insects and get stuck in the pitcher (which is filled with digestive fluid, that drowns the poor animal). Almost every other species of carnivorous plant is specialized in catching small insects. Some carnivorous species (mostly nepenthes) have even adapted themselves to producing a laxative in their nectar to cause bats and shrews to "feed" them as they eat the nectar. These plants are called "crapivores". If you or anyone else has any questions, I'll respond for the next few hours. I grow \~65 different species of carnivorous plants.
BONUS FACT :: Venus Flytraps are misnamed. They commonly eat spiders as their main prey item in outdoor environments due to how close to the ground they grow, and only occasionally catch flies. They should be known as Venus Spidertraps. | [
"Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients (but not energy) from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bo... |
why does appetite for food seem to lessen with old age? | Your taste buds reduce and shrink with age. Therefore as you age, food will lose its flavor. If you have to eat, you would want to eat less volume of bland things if you have the option.
Also, seniors would have a lifetime of accumulated dental issues. If they have missing teeth or ill-fitting dentures, eating can be a annoying or even painful process. | [
"These physical changes can explain why someone of an older age might not be getting the nutrition they need. As taste buds change with age, certain foods might not be seen as appetizing. For example, a study done by Dr. Phyllis B. Grzegorcyzk says that as we age, our sense for tasting salty foods goes away slowly.... |
why have most consumer products come down in price against inflation? | Assuming you live in the US, the recent strength of the dollar has made importing products cheaper. Retailers then reduce the price in stores to drive up sales. | [
"Price skimming occurs for example in the luxury car and consumer electronics markets. In consumer electronics, there is a confounding factor that there is typically high price deflation due to continual reductions in manufacturing cost and improvements in product quality - for example, a printer priced at $200 tod... |
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