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the g20 summit. | It's the biggest 20 industrial and threshold nations coming together and arguing about the most important current and future challenges. How we're going about globalisation, what we're going to do about North Korea, what we're going to do against climate change. It's all discussed there in those few days. It's nothing obligatory, but more a chat what we could or could not do to reach the goals we have or not have. There's also G7, formerly G8 before Putin got kicked out of annexing Crimea, which is essentially similar but smaller. | [
"The 2010 G20 Toronto summit was the fourth meeting of the G20 heads of state/government, to discuss the global financial system and the world economy, which took place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during June 26–27, 2010. The summit's priorities included evaluating the progre... |
How did ancient Asian steppe warriors fight each other? | I'm loving the questions this week. I'm gonna have some fun with this and go into everything from warfare to military equipment. I'll mostly be using the Scythians, Alans, and Huns as examples, but much of this applies to other cultures and I'll expound on that some.
Information on Steppe Warfare is primarily gleaned through second or third hand accounts of battles, and as a result is rather generic. For example, Ammianus Marcellinus, writing on the Huns from a presumably Gothic source, who himself had never actually seen a Hun and was merely reiterating the tales of fighting them, writes:
> They also sometimes fight when provoked, and then they enter the battle drawn up in wedge-shaped masses, while their medley of voices makes a savage noise. And as they are lightly equipped for swift motion, and unexpected in action, they purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, rushing about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific slaughter; and because of their extraordinary rapidity of movement they are never seen to attack a rampart or pillage an enemy's camp. And on this account you would not hesitate to call them the most terrible of all warriors, because they fight from a distance with missiles having sharp bone, instead of their usual points, joined to the shafts with wonderful skill; then they gallop over the intervening spaces and fight hand to hand with swords, regardless of their own lives; and while the enemy are guarding against wounds from the sabre-thrusts, they throw strips of cloth plaited into nooses over their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs and take from them the power of riding or walking.
Ammianus, *Res Gestae*, 31.2
This description is a prime example of what we can expect to hear about the warfare of Steppe nomads or mounted horse archery, which the Romans typically perceived as a "devious" style of warfare. It is also a classicizing *topos* that basically copies older descriptions of Steppe nomads, such as Herodotus' description of the Scythians. This has led many authors to make generalizations about Steppe warfare, particularly the Huns, without addressing the literary or archaeological evidence. E.A. Thompson was one of the first to note that the Huns could not possibly have conquered half of Europe with bone arrows and armor. Thankfully, we have both archaeology and accurate descriptions from other sources that allow us to reconstruct steppe warfare. The one I'm most acquainted with is the *Strategikon* of Pseudo-Maurice, which tells of "Dealing with the Scythians: That is, Avars, Turks, and others whose way of life resembles that of the Hunnish peoples", written probably in the 590's AD. The other one tells of the ways of war of another people, and that is the 2nd century AD *Ektaxis Kat Alanon* of Flavios Arrianos or Arrian, translated as "Array against the Alans." And I'll talk about Alan warfare and why it's different and notable in a little bit. But first let's start out with some overview.
Mounted Cavalry warfare by and large stems from the inventions and innovations of people living on what is now the Eurasian Steppes, and its development correlates with the rise of Pastoral Nomadism. This begins with the domestication of the horse, a process that may have begun as early as 3500 BC in the Botai Culture, in the Akmola region of North Kazakhstan between the Caspian and Aral seas, just south of the Ural mountain range. The evidence for this comes from archaeological remains of horse bones which show evidence of breeding of animals for corralling, and mare's milk residue on fragments of pottery. It's believed that from the wild horse (Tarpan, or *Equus Ferus*) they bred the Mongolian Steppe/Dzungarian Horse, known as Przewalski's Horse, while the Domesticated Horse (*Equus Ferus Caballus*) may have originated slightly further west in the Pontic-Caspian steppes. It's possible horse domestication may even be older, as domesticated sheep and goats are known from the Khvalynsk culture around 4800 BC, but there remain many uncertainties.
What is known is that domesticated horses used for transport and warfare first emerged around 2100 BC in the Shintashta culture, formerly a subgroup of the Andronovo culture, who were proto-Indo-Iranians and from whom the Indo-Iranian language originated. In the Transcaucasia region (the area north of the Caucasus, including the Kuban, Ossetia, Dagestan, Astrakhan, and other regions between the Black and Caspian Seas), the wheel had first appeared about the same time as domesticated horses, around 3500 BC, and the wheel and axel was first developed around 3150 BC. By 2100 BC, we find Shintashta culture chariots and drawn carts in burials known as Kurgans, indicating the invention of chariot warfare.
Mounted warfare and horseback riding is a bit more difficult to discern. Although bits and bridles appear to have been invented by the Botai culture, there's no evidence of saddles, tack, or spurs for another 2500-3000 years afterwards. Camel blankets and camel tack are, as far as we know, invented first, with camels having been domesticated in South Arabia or Ethiopia around 3000 BC, and in Bactria (Afghanistan) around 2500 BC. Camel Blankets and Saddles both appear around 1200 BC, and the idea may have spread to be applied to the horse. However, the first horse blankets are depicted in Assyrian art around 700 BC, and the first saddles appear in the graves of the Indo-Iranian Pazyryk culture, a Scythian people in Novosibirsk Oblast in the north-west Altai mountains, around 500-400 BC. These were padded treeless saddles, and they lacked a stiff frame to keep the rider in place, but were a major improvement over riding blankets. The necessary tack to control the horse would soon follow, and around 300-200 BC, the high-back steppe saddle was invented, which had a solid wooden frame combined with padded elements. This was followed by the Roman four-horned saddle between 200 BC-100 BC, although it may have had Celtic origins. Finally, around 302 AD, the first evidence of stirrups appear: a further innovation which would affect mounted warfare.
In the series of comments will discuss how some of these changes dramatically affected mounted warfare in the Eurasian steppes.
(1/?) | [
"The steppe peoples quickly came to dominate Central Asia, forcing the scattered city states and kingdoms to pay them tribute or face annihilation. The martial ability of the steppe peoples was limited, however, by the lack of political structure within the tribes. Confederations of various groups would sometimes f... |
why does it seem the larger any particular group get, the more stupid it becomes. are human beings just naturally inclined to be dumb? | Human beings, like many species, are highly social animals. We are strongly driven to ensure we "fit in" with the larger group. This has advantages of course, which is why we do it, but it also has huge disadvantages, including the ability to stop thinking clearly and go along with the herd because of the misguided sense of, "everybody thinks this way, or is doing it, so it must be right."
When we're acting alone, this drive doesn't apply, so our brains are free to use other methods to ascertain what to do in a given situation.
| [
"Stupid people are seen as a group, more powerful by far than major organizations such as the Mafia and the industrial complex, which without regulations, leaders or manifesto nonetheless manages to operate to great effect and with incredible coordination.\n",
"Carlo Maria Cipolla, an economic historian, is famou... |
Is there any evidence that being put under anesthetic permanently alters your behavior, personality, or mental health? | It is well established that some patients (especially older people) show temporary signs of delusion, halllucinations, memory loss and other mental and cognitive changes after surgery involving anesthesia.
This condition is known as postoperative delirium or postoperative cognital dysfunction and although anesthesia isn't alone responsible for it, for all we know it is a major factor. Usually those affected recover after a few days, but there are studies showing that in some cases this can take much longer (1+ year) and might in some cases even be partly permanent.
*source: _URL_0_
For very young patients whose brain structures aren't yet properly developed, every major intervention holds a risk of causing lasting effects. But given the fact that at this age brain structure, behavior and personality continually changes anyway, it is very hard to pinpoint cause and effect with certainty. Controlled studies are hard to do or to justify and you just try to keep every medical intervention to a minimum, no matter if it is surgery, anesthetics or any other drug.
Also it is safe to assume that every potent anesthetic drug will alter your brain chemistry in some way, otherwise it woulnd't be effective. And there is a certain risk involved in any substance that is capable of this. That is the reason general anesthesia should only be given in controlled environments (operation rooms) and by qualified experts (anesthesiologists) and the whole process is closely monitored. Our brain is a finely tuned organ that doesn't like outside interference. | [
"Very rare causes of awareness include drug tolerance, or a tolerance induced by the interaction of other drugs. Some patients may be more resistant to the effects of anesthetics than others; factors such as younger age, obesity, tobacco smoking, or long-term use of certain drugs (alcohol, opiates, or amphetamines)... |
why do so many animals, excluding humans, have retractable 'male genitalia'? | Most animals are much closer to the ground than we are, and dragging your frank and beans around would damage them. Other than that, they also have to consider the target that blood-vessel rich genitals present in a fight.
Mostly though, I suspect that you'll find distance of abdomen from the ground correlates to smaller/retractable genitalia. | [
"Because of the strong sexual selection affecting the structure and function of genitalia, they form an organ system that evolves rapidly. A great variety of genital form and function may therefore be found among animals.\n",
"A lack of research on the vagina and other female genitalia, especially for different a... |
in computer software, what is the difference between a program, service, thread, process etc.? | A program is a very general term for any piece of software. Your internet browser is a program. Your word processor is a program. iTunes is a program. Each app on your smart phone is a program.
A process can be thought of as a program that is running. On the same computer, you can have the same program running multiple times. Each instance of that running program is known as a process. For example, Minesweeper is one program, but you could have multiple games of Minesweeper (processes) running at the same time. In general, each process on your computer runs in isolation from other processes on your computer. One process should not be able to interfere with the function of another process.
A thread is an independent sequence of operations that your computer performs. Every process on your computer has at least one thread, but it may have more threads. The main difference between a thread and a process is that threads within the same process can interfere with each other. This can add a lot of complexity to a program, but it can also be very useful.
Depending on what a program does, a thread can get stopped for any number of reasons. For example, a thread might try to send a message across the internet, and wait until it gets a message back. If a program only has one thread, the the whole program gets stuck waiting for the message to get back. However, if the program has more than one thread, when one thread gets stuck waiting for something, the other thread can keep chugging along doing its thing.
A service is any program that is used by another program for something. | [
"The term \"software system\" should be distinguished from the terms \"computer program\" and \"software\". The term computer program generally refers to a set of instructions (source, or object code) that perform a specific task. However, a software system generally refers to a more encompassing concept with many ... |
suppose I dropped you in constantinople in 659 and then in 1167, what differences would you expect to see? | Any answer is inevitably going to be patchy. Our knowledge of the seventh century is much poorer than what we have for the twelfth. We are much better informed about religious foundations than the demography of housing, for example. For a general and highly readable account of the city at the end of the twelfth century (although using many elements from earlier for the sake of illumination) by a a scholar in the field see Harris, Jonathan. *Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium.* London: Continuum, 2007.
Between these two dates, the city will have changed in a number of ways, visually, at least. The degree to what effect these changes had on patterns of life in the city in a whole different topic. A visitor in 659 probably would think that the population of the city was much too small for its size. We do not have demographic figures, but in 618 the government ended the free bread dole, as the loss of Egypt to the Persians had made it unsustainable (*Chronicon Paschale,* anno 618). The Avars had also cut the main aqueduct in 626, which was only restored in the eighth century (Theophanes, *Chronographia*, AM 6258). By the twelfth century the population had rebounded. Although this again by a reflection of our patchy source material, you would probably see a larger variety of foreigners, particularly those from the medieval west, in the twelfth century. The establishment of a Muslim quarter is hard to judge, but there was certainly was one after the 1180s, and there is good evidence for Muslims coming to trade in the city from the tenth century (Reinert, Stephen W. “The Muslim Presence in Constantinople, 9th-15th Centuries: Some Preliminary Observations.” In *Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire,* edited by Hélène Ahrweiler and Angeliki E. Laiou. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1998, 137-142.)
A concern about violence would not have been far from the mind of someone living in 659. Constantinople had been besieged by the Arabs in 654 (following Pseudo-Sebeos rather than the Greek tradition, see O’Sullivan, Shaun. “Sebeos’ Account of an Arab Attack on Constantinople in 654.” *Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies* 28, no. 1 (2004): 67–88.) The city had also been besieged by the Avars in 626 and would again be besieged in 669 by the Arabs (for the new dating, see (Jankowiak, Marek. “The First Arab Siege of Constantinople.” *Travaux et Mémoires* 17 (2013): 237–320.) The people in 659 would be seeing their emperor making preparations to depart the city, as Constans II spent 660 in the Caucasus rallying allies. This is in stark contrast to 1167. Although the passage of the Second Crusade had certainly aroused fears and was within living memory, the city was secure and had not faced an existential threat probably since the last big Rus' naval raid of the mid-eleventh century. Perhaps the Sicilians firing arrows into the palace ca. 1153 from ships counts, but I wouldn't tend to say so (Niketas Choniates, trans. Magoulias, p. 57).
In terms of buildings, a lot changed. The praitorion in 659 did not yet have a mosque for visiting Muslim dignitaries. Justinian's church of Hagia Eirene (near Hagia Sophia, now inside the Topkapi walls) had been destroyed in an earthquake and the present structure was rebuilt in the eighth century. One of the more visible changes would have been the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator, a Komnenian foundation. The topography of imperial power had shifted. In the seventh century it was based in the imperial palace near the Hagia Sophia, whereas in the twelfth century the house of Komnenos spent a lot of time in the Blachernai quarter in the NW of the city.
You may also want to check out Byzantium 1200, a very good visual reconstruction of the city at the end of the twelfth century.: _URL_0_
| [
"After the Fall of Constantinople, the quarter was renamed after Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Eyüp in Turkish), a companion (\"Ansari\") of Muhammad who fell in the First Arab Siege of Constantinople in 674–678. In 1581, Christians were prohibited from living there.\n",
"BULLET::::- 1453 Constantinople falls to the Ottom... |
Could we replace eating with nutrient injection intravenously? | Yes, [Total Parenteral Nutrition](_URL_0_) is a reasonably common intervention, used when for whatever reason a patient cannot tolerate oral food. Its normally used only in the short term (weeks/months) but it can replace normal digestion indefinitely. There are a number of important side effects, especially an increased tendency to infection, and it needs careful monitoring including frequent blood tests.
Your small bowel tends to atrophy if its not used - so after just a week or two on TPN there are marked changes which can be seen under the microscope indicating loss of function. People who have been on TPN long term can have problems trying to adapt back to normal food. | [
"B taken in a low-solubility, non-chewable supplement pill form may bypass the mouth and stomach and not mix with gastric acids, but acids are not necessary for the absorption of free B not bound to protein; acid is necessary only to recover naturally-occurring vitamin B from foods.\n",
"Work done by scientists i... |
Did British military officers during the Napoleonic Wars receive training? | Please bear in mind that Cornwell is a novelist and is trying to create an atmosphere in which his "working class hero" can be seen to be particularly successful. A dilettante officer wouldn't last long on active service in the field, so although they existed, they weren't as significant as Cornwell would have us believe. Many officers did buy their initial commissions, but there were promotions from the ranks, and many were promoted, once commissioned, on merit. John Shipp, for example, was promoted from the ranks twice. First in 1805, a field commission. He sold his commission in 1808, and subsequently rejoined the army as a trooper in the 24th Light Dragoons, and was again given a commission in 1815.
Artillery officers were very well trained at the Royal Artillery school at Woolwich. | [
"After the fall of France the British Army went through a period of reorganisation, and anti-aircraft units of the Royal Artillery trained on the site, as well as a reconnaissance battalion of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. The camp then became a Battle Training Camp, staffed by a cadre of officers and non-com... |
why does the water in the coffee pot *refuse* to pour neatly from the spout, no matter how slowly i pour, dribbling down the front instead until it's half empty? | Surface adhesion, which is closely related to surface tension, which is basically water's property to cling to surfaces. A rougher, more coarse surface is easier for water to adhere to (more surface area). But what you actually need to do is pour faster...pouring slowly makes it more likely to cling and dribble down the side. | [
"The desired quantity of water is poured into the water chamber of the pot and the desired amount of a fairly coarse-ground coffee is placed in the top chamber. It is important that the water level be below the bottom of the coffee chamber.\n",
"When the lower chamber is almost empty, bubbles of steam mix with th... |
How does a charged particle not lose all of its energy even though it constantly generates an electromagnetic field? | The electrostatic field of a charge *has* or *carries* a certain amount of energy and information. It does not need a *constant input* of energy or information from the charge. It does not "emanate" or "flow" outwards from the charge.
It's like a dress, not a waterfall. You don't need to constantly produce fabric to have a dress on. | [
"This does not mean that individual positive and negative charges cannot be created or destroyed. Electric charge is carried by subatomic particles such as electrons and protons. Charged particles can be created and destroyed in elementary particle reactions. In particle physics, charge conservation means that in r... |
why can't we harness the vaporized fossil fuel from engine exhaust and use it again? | The exhaust from a standard combustion engine isn't "vaporized fossil fuel"; the fuel doesn't vaporize, it combusts, which converts the fuel into energy and then chemical byproducts. Those byproducts are what is exhausted.
None of those byproducts are particularly energy dense like gasoline is, so recapturing them wouldn't be of much use. Carbon Monoxide and Dioxide, for example, are both fairly inert; there are no simple processes we could do to them that would release useful energy. | [
"Natural gas is a fossil fuel, and when it burns to create heat it adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. But the additional concern is that natural gas releases less carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than oil does - especially heavy oil, or synthetic crude. So, a relatively clean non-renewable fossil fuel... |
why has it become virtually impossible for politicians on either side to work across party lines? why has "bipartisan" become such a dirty word? | It gives their voters the illusion that they’re fighting for what they want, but the rival party won’t let them get any new laws passed. In reality, they all work together and pass whatever the lawmakers want. | [
"Bipartisanship has been criticized because it can obscure the differences between parties, making voting for candidates based on policies difficult in a democracy. Additionally, the concept of bipartisanship has been criticized as discouraging agreements between more than two parties, thus exercising a tyranny of ... |
the different types of logical fallacies | There's tons so off the top of my head, and like you're five:
Strawman: Arguing with a self-constructed and more simplified assertion than the one your debate partner is actually making. Tantamount to building a scarecrow Hulk Hogan then beating it up and claiming you kicked Hulk Hogans ass, hence the title.
Appeal to Force: Getting someone to agree to a conclusion by implicit or explicit threat, i.e. "All the little Hulkamaniacs should take their vitamins, after all im sure that if they didn't they'd find themselves wishing they did after what happens to em"
Appeal to Pity: Similar to Force; "I know you don't think Hulk Hogan deserves the championship belt this year because he lost, but just think, if you don't give it to him, the Hulkamaniac nation will be heartbroken! Children's tears!"
Ad Hominem: Trying to invalidate a persons claim by attacking the person rather than the claim. "Hulk Hogan cheated on his wife so what would he know about global warming." Note that this one is often overused, because it's sometimes not fallacious to question the speaker if the grounds are relevant, i.e. "Hulk Hogan is a known liar, how can we trust his testimony."
Slippery Slope: Arguing against something on dubious grounds that it will necessarily lead to something worse. Not always a fallacy, but often one. "If we let Hulk Hogan marry Hacksaw Jim Duggan, suddenly we'll have people marrying toasters and animals."
Red Herring: Diverting the attention of your audience away from the arguers actual point to a different one. "My friend Hulk Hogan claims that unregulated pesticides on crops are harmful to all the little Hulkamaniacs, but what he fails to realize is that fruits and vegetables are a great source of vitamins. There is no better source of vitamin c than a grapefruit for example"
Appeal To Ignorance: Taking a lack of conclusive evidence and drawing definitive conclusion from it. "No scientist has ever found evidence that disproves that Hulk Hogan's skin turns plaid when no one is looking at him, therefore we can only infer that it is true"
False Cause: A conclusion drawn from a cause/effect connection that is dubious at best. "Most violent crime happens in the night time hours after 10pm, when Hulk Hogan is asleep. In order to reduce crime we must make Hulk Hogan change his sleeping schedule"
Begging the Question: Like a false cause but drawing a conclusion based on leaving out certain premises or just marginalizing them as assumed to be true. "A blonde mustache is the trademark of a murderer, therefore Hulk Hogan is a murderer". Of course this leads you to wonder "Wait How do we know blonde mustaches are murder traits"?
NOTE: There's also a second form of begging the question which is even more devious, it basically involves your conclusion being a restating of your premise without proving it: "Hulk Hogan is naturally the best wrestler in the world because there is no wrestler better than Hulk Hogan"
False Dichotomy: "Either you agree that Hulk Hogan is the best wrestler of all time or you're not a real American. Surely you're a real American, therefore it follows that you'll agree with me that Hulk Hogan is the best wrestler of all time". This one is actually not a fallacy but the truth. | [
"Fallacies are commonly divided into \"formal\" and \"informal\". A formal fallacy can be expressed neatly in a standard system of logic, such as propositional logic, while an informal fallacy originates in an error in reasoning other than an improper logical form. Arguments containing informal fallacies may be for... |
If fish can remove oxygen from water, then why can't (or haven't) we created SCUBA gear that can do the same? | Fish are cold blooded, so they need much lesser oxygen than humans (hot blooded).
In water, the dissolved oxygen content is approximately 8 cm^3/L compared to that of air which is 210 cm^3/L.
An average diver with a fully closed-circuit rebreather needs 1 L (roughly 1 qt) of oxygen per minute. As a result, at least 192 litres (51 US gal) of sea water per minute would have to be passed through the system. Imagine the kind of machinery needed to process that much water in 1 minute.
Source:
_URL_0_ | [
"If used underwater, the liquid-oxygen tank must be well insulated against heat coming in from the water. As a result, industrial sets of this type may not be suitable for diving, and diving sets of this type may not be suitable for use out of water. The set's liquid oxygen tank must be filled immediately before us... |
If the testes are on the outside of the body because they need to be at a temperature lower than the body temperature, how come men living in deserts or other hot climates aren't sterile? | Sweaty balls. In hot climates your balls can still be lower than body temperature because sweaty balls. Your surface temperature can drop lower than body temperature with the cooling effects of sweat. Hotter balls do result in lower fertility though. | [
"The male reproductive system contains two main divisions: the testes where sperm are produced, and the penis. In humans, both of these organs are outside the abdominal cavity. Having the testes outside the abdomen facilitates temperature regulation of the sperm, which require specific temperatures to survive about... |
How do brass instruments work? | Not just brass, but from my simple understanding, the vibrations from the mouthpiece/reed are amplified as they pass through the instrument. The shape of the instrument affects the tone and pitch. | [
"A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called \"labrosones\", literally meaning \"lip-vibrated instruments\".\n",
"Brass instrument valves are valves used... |
what does a pilot see when they say turbulence is to be expected for the next x duration of the flight? how do they know how rough it is going to be? why can't they just go higher or lower than whatever the weather is? | It depends where it is.
Sometimes it's possible to see bad weather visually - large cumulus clouds are nearly always turbulent. Other times it shows up on the weather radar - a device which sends out a radar signal that bounces off of water droplets and shows how big the droplets are.
Clear Air Turbulence is the one that's most hard to spot. Mostly, pilots rely on reports from other pilots ahead of them on the same route. This is especially true on routes like the North Atlantic, where communication with Air Traffic Control is difficult. In other, more populated areas, Air Traffic Control might collate information from pilots.
And finally, there is often turbulence near the ground, either due to the wind being mixed up as it blows across trees, buildings or mountains, or due to the thermal effect of the sun heating the ground, and the ground heating the lowest layer of air, which then starts to rise. But usually you'd have your seatbelts on for take-off or landing anyway, so no special action is required to warn you of that. | [
"Once an aircraft enters conditions under which the pilot cannot see a distinct visual horizon, the drift in the inner ear continues uncorrected. Errors in the perceived rate of turn about any axis can build up at a rate of 0.2 to 0.3 degrees per second. If the pilot is not proficient in the use of gyroscopic fligh... |
In medieval warfare, did all soldiers have shields with their lord's coat of arms or is that just a Game of Thrones thing? | Okay, so you're kind of mixing two concepts up a bit here: heraldry and livery. Soldiers have basically always decorated their equipment, but after heraldry became fully established in the 13th century, to bear a coat of arms, whether on shield or surcoat or whatever, was to claim nobility. The specific arrangement of symbols signified your personal identity. Yours was slightly different than your brother's, or your father's, or your uncle's. A common soldier simply wouldn't have a proper coat of arms on anything.
Livery is another matter. We do know that lords, at least by the 14th-15th century, would often try to equip their *personal retainers* with matching clothing that reflected their attachment. But this is a lot less elaborate than a coat of arms - basically, it's just buying your guys red or blue or green coats. Note the emphasis on personal retainers. Most soldiers weren't directly and permanently attached to a great man's household. Mercenaries, levies (which were falling out of use as heraldry came into being, but that's another story), contracted men: these guys almost certainly would provide their own equipment and look very different from the personal servants of kings or lords. Your shield would be painted however the hell you wanted it.
It's a common trope in medieval fiction - movies and television shows, I mean - to write the present back into the past. Modern armies wear uniforms; so let's put the English in red and the French in blue, or give everybody on a side matching shields. It helps the audience figure out what's going on. But that kind of uniformity is a distinctly modern thing, a product of the nation state and the permanent standing army. Medieval armies just weren't that organized. They were, as a rule, assembled from disparate parts for a limited duration - a campaign season or a crusade - and then disbanded once they were no longer needed.
By the by, Game of Thrones is a *really* unreliable source for anything other than George R.R. Martin's imagination. It's about as accurate a portrayal of the Middle Ages as Animal Farm is a portrayal of the day to day working of an English pig farm :D. | [
"Older writers trace origins of supporters to their usages in tournaments, where the shields of the combatants were exposed for inspection, and guarded by their servants or pages disguised in fanciful attire. However, medieval Scottish seals afford numerous examples in which the 13th and 14th century shields were p... |
definition of a parsec for an amateur astronomer | 3.26 light-years or the distance of an object where the orbit of the Earth around the sun creates a visual **P**arallax of one **ar**c**sec**ond
Parallax is the difference in apparent position of an object viewed from two different spots like how an object shifts a bit when you look out just your left eye is just your right eye. You can measure the difference in the angle when seen from both spots to determine the parallax angle. The smaller this angle the further away an object is(this is how we tell distance with our eyes at short to medium range)
For a Parsec, these two measurements are opposite sides of the sun, exactly 2 AU(Earth's orbital diameter) apart. If you can set the angle difference between these two measurements to be 1 arc second then they're focused on an object 1 Parsec away (~3.26 ly) | [
"The parsec is defined as being equal to the length of the longer leg of an extremely elongated imaginary right triangle in space. The two dimensions on which this triangle is based are its shorter leg, of length one astronomical unit (the average Earth-Sun distance), and the subtended angle of the vertex opposite ... |
why do languages from far away cultures have similarities? | They are literally copying the word. Japan did not have cake until the idea was brought there by Westerners. Similarly they call bread *pan,* the Portuguese word, because that's who introduced baked bread to Japan. | [
"When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Through sustained language contact over long periods, linguistic traits diffuse between languages, and languages belonging to different families may converge to become more similar. In areas where many... |
how can detectives and others match someone's handwriting to a specific person? | The answer is they can't enough for it to hold up in court. They can use it as a detective tool but it is sort of like the lie detector, it doesn't hold up in court. | [
"BULLET::::- Graphology – psychological test based on a belief that personality traits unconsciously and consistently influence handwriting morphology—that certain types of people exhibit certain quirks of the pen. Analysis of handwriting attributes provides no better than chance correspondence with personality, an... |
what happens in your body when you take antidiarrheal medicine? | The most common antidiarrheal medicine is an opioid drug, like morphine, but it doesn't get absorbed from the GI tract very much at all. Opioid drugs really slow down your intestines, so much that addicts often have issues with chronic constipation. When you take this medicine, it basically slows down your gut so that you can absorb more water out of your poop and make it firmer. However, for most diarrheal illnesses, it's not recommended to take these medicines. Ask your doctor before taking any of these drugs. | [
"Antimotility drugs such as loperamide and diphenoxylate reduce the symptoms of diarrhea by slowing transit time in the gut. They may be taken to slow the frequency of stools, but not enough to stop bowel movements completely, which delays expulsion of the causative organisms from the intestines. They should be avo... |
why are some people so prone to cavities? | There is no such thing as 'soft teeth'. With the exception of some rare disease the composition of human enamel is more or less the same.
There are 3 things that contribute to cavities:
1) Something to cause decay - usually food. Fermentable carbohydrates and acid foods are the main contributors. This is why people that drink a lot of soda can be prone to decay.
2) Oral bacteria. Different people have different compositions of bacteria in their mouths. Not all the bacteria in the mouth causes decay but this is where the family tie-in comes. The types of bacteria in your mouth is typically established by the time you are one and colonized from familial sources.
3) Buffering ability of saliva. Your saliva is a buffer. Activities that overcome saliva's ability to buffer will cause you to be prone to decay. The worst offender here is snacking. Every time you eat it effectively lowers the pH of your mouth and it can take several hours for it to come back. Teeth begin to decay when oral pH is under 5.5 and so if every 2 hours you have a snack that lowers the pH of your mouth below 5.5 you are going to have a bad time.
It takes a little bit of all of these to cause cavities. But an imbalance in one area can make you more susceptible. | [
"Another factor which affects the risk of developing cavities is the stickiness of foods. Some foods or sweets may stick to the teeth and so reduce the pH in the mouth for an extended time, particularly if they are sugary. It is important that teeth be cleaned at least twice a day, preferably with a toothbrush and ... |
Why do we work so hard to keep dandelions out of
our yards in America? Are they harmful somehow? | Dandelions are actually good for gardens. They draw nutrients into the soil and attract pollinators. Visually, they can be unappealing, however.
[Source](_URL_0_) | [
"Urban gardens are generally created to make a positive contribution to their communities. However, some arguments have been made that urban gardens promote gentrification because they are placing their needs above those of the underrepresented groups in their community. Urban gardens could be used as a “gentrifica... |
lenz's law | So it starts with electromagnetic induction. Simply put, a changing or moving magnetic field generates an electric field, and a changing or moving electric field generates a magnetic field. This is simple enough - it's how electromagnets work, and how we generate electricity using spinning turbines.
You can set up two circuits held close to each other in the same plane (like your hands just before you clap), one attached to the AC mains and one with no power source at all.
* The AC power going into the first circuit creates a constantly changing current in the first circuit
* This changing current generates a changing magnetic field around the current in the first circuit
* This, in turn, generates an electric current in the second circuit
* This induced current generates its own magnetic field around the current in the second circuit
Lenz's Law simply states that the magnetic field generated by the induced current in the second circuit will oppose the magnetic field that was produced by the first circuit. This also means that any induced current in the second circuit will move in the opposite direction to the original current, because the magnetic field generated by a current moves in a predictable way around that current (give a thumbs up sign with your right hand - if the current moves in the direction of your thumb, the magnetic field that it generates *always* follows the path of your fingers around the current).
It's all tied up in conservation of energy - if the two fields moved in the same direction, they would constantly reinforce each other and you'd have free energy. | [
"Gauss's law describes the relationship between a static electric field and the electric charges that cause it: The static electric field points away from positive charges and towards negative charges, and the net outflow of the electric field through any closed surface is proportional to the charge enclosed by the... |
How can fluid pressure only be dependent of density, height and gravitational pull? | It sounds like the first figure is the one that bothers you (the narrow column of water on top of the larger tank of water).
Let's instead think of it as a single tall column of water (extended all the way down from the top to the bottom of the tank). This single column of water is surrounded by other stuff (for the top half it is surrounded by walls and on the bottom half it is surrounded by more water).
Following just this single column from top to bottom you should be able to see that P = (rho)gh applies to the water inside of it the same way it would if the walls extended all the way to the bottom. In fact, if it helps you to draw walls that extend ALMOST all the way to the bottom of the tank (leaving a small gap at the bottom), feel free to do so: It won't change anything.
Now you're still looking at this and saying "but when I move away from the column of water, the surrounding water is much more shallow, shouldn't the pressure be lower there?" That would be true IF that part of the container were open to the atmosphere, but it isn't. The "ceiling" itself is applying pressure on the rest of the water in the tank.
How much pressure? Just enough to keep the system stable (just like how the floor you're standing on applies just enough force to keep you from falling through, but not enough to push you up and off of it). It will apply just enough pressure to maintain the "equal pressure at equal depths" condition. If it didn't the container wouldn't be in equilibrium and water would be flowing somewhere or another. | [
"The pressure of a static fluid does not depend on the shape, total mass or surface area of the fluid. It is directly proportional to the fluid's specific weight – the force exerted by gravity over a specific volume, and its vertical height. However, a fluid also experiences pressure that is induced by surface tens... |
why do volcanoes contain lava, or do they make it by melting rock or something else? maybe better asked as, where does lava come from? | Molten rock is what is in the centre of our earth where it's very, very, hot. Pressure within the volcano builds and eventually erupts. No one "makes" lava, it's a natural product | [
"Lava is molten rock generated by geothermal energy and expelled through fractures in planetary crust or in an eruption, usually at temperatures from . The structures resulting from subsequent solidification and cooling are also sometimes described as \"lava\". The molten rock is formed in the interior of some plan... |
How were the Watergate hearings, and Nixon's resignation, covered in Soviet media? | As a followup, how was Nixon covered prior to that? Was he mentioned often at all? | [
"On August 5, 1974, the White House released a previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented the initial stages of the cover-up: it revealed Nixon and Haldeman had conducted a meeting in the Oval Office where they discussed how to stop the FBI from cont... |
How is it that a 1.3 gig torrent file can support 1080i but because DVD's were inadequate blueray had to be created? | The codecs you'll find used for popular torrents are more lossy than the codec used for Blu-Ray. For videos with equal resolutions, the smaller one will have a lower bitrate, which can mean more compression artifacts, less color accuracy/depth, and/or a lower frame rate. Some Blu-rays us a lossless audio codec, but any smaller torrent will be lossy. It will also take more processing power to decode the smaller file real time. | [
"In the past with the first two types, the digital copy files based on existing files included only the main audio track (often only stereo) and no subtitles, compared to the multiple audio tracks and multiple subtitle options available from DVD and Blu-ray. Also, the quality was limited by the bitrate used to enco... |
what's the joke behind r/circlejerk now only allowing gawker links? | A guy on Gawker published violentacrez's real name, which caused a lot of subreddits to ban all Gawker links. | [
"BULLET::::- Rickrolling – A phenomenon involving posting a URL in an Internet forum that appears to be relevant to the topic at hand, but is, in fact, a link to a video of Rick Astley's \"Never Gonna Give You Up\". The practice originated on 4chan as a \"Duckroll\", in which an image of a duck on wheels was what w... |
how do employees of marijuana dispensaries in the us handle their taxes if their income is based off the sale of marijuana? | They report that their employer paid them to operate a retail shop. The IRS wants to know what you got paid, not what the shop sells. OK, there are some banking issues, so your boss had to pay you in cash. From the IRS perspective, also not a problem, they want to know how much you got paid, not how it was paid to you.
Of the many legal snarls surrounding pot, employee income taxes isn't one of them. | [
"Because the distribution and use of marijuana is illegal on a federal level, budtending salaries vary per state. However as of 2014, the general hourly income for a budtender is $11–12 per hour. One of the perks of being a budtender is that many dispensaries give discounts of their product to their employees. Budt... |
why in many nations some people want civil unions on top of state-sanctioned marriages? what are the differences supposed to be? | Because marriage carries certain connotations that people may not want.
You said that you can get not religious marriages, but marriages are still viewed as being explicitly religious to a vast majority of people, so it still has religious connotations. | [
"Of the countries that recognise and perform same-sex marriages some still allow couples to enter civil unions, e.g. Benelux countries, France and the United Kingdom, whereas Germany, Ireland and the Nordic countries have terminated their pre-marriage civil union legislation so that existing unions remain but new o... |
Can a white dwarf gain material and become a neutron star? | That's what leads to one kind of supernova: the star gains enough mass from a companion star to collapse into a neutron star - or rather, it would if it didn't go supernova in that instant.
The problem is that a white dwarf consists of carbon (mostly), and carbon can undergo fusion if pressure and temperature are high enough. While it's gaining mass, pressure and temperature rise, until just when it's ready to collapse into a neutron star, ***BOOM.*** Think "star-sized H bomb" and you get the picture.
Now, if we could feed the star a more inert material than carbon (say, iron), we could avoid the supernova and make the star collapse - at least in theory. | [
"If a white dwarf is in a binary star system and is accreting matter from its companion, a variety of phenomena may occur, including novae and Type Ia supernovae. It may also be a super-soft x-ray source if it is able to take material from its companion fast enough to sustain fusion on its surface. A close binary s... |
vector graphics | Do you mean the old oscilloscope-style vector graphics or the modern of vector graphics? | [
"The term \"vector graphics\" is mainly used today in the context of two-dimensional computer graphics. It is one of several modes an artist can use to create an image on a raster display. Vector graphics can be uploaded to online databases for other designers to download and manipulate, speeding up the creative pr... |
why newly discovered stars or planets or any celestial bodies were given "code-like" name? for example wise 1828+2650 | They're systematic names and indeed encode information. For example, WISE indicates that the object was found by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, a space telescope. The numbers specify coordinates in the sky relative to Earth's equator: the right ascension is 18h 28m and the declination is 26° 50'. It's more informative to name celestial objects like this rather than give it a catchy-sounding name like Rigel or Vega. | [
"In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few stars, and the most easily visible planets had names. Over the last few hundred years, the number of identified astronomical objects has risen from hundreds to over a billion, and more are discovered every year. Astronomers need to be able to assign systematic designa... |
how do live football field graphics appear beneath the players? | You had the right idea already. It is indeed chroma key. The cameras are simply good enough that they can distinguish between the green of the grass and the green in uniforms. They actually need to continually reset the chroma key as the color of the grass changes as the sun moves or when shadows show up on the field. | [
"In all three games, the game always kept the same visual style: the main screen is a bird's eye view of the stadium facility (where clicking on the grass brings the squad selection screen or in the stands for the stadium builder) and all screens are presented like the player was inside an office (\"TCM 2004\" used... |
Historians of Reddit, during the time of slavery in the USA, (or slavery in any country/civilization) was there anything that was frowned upon from one slave owner to another? | In early 19th-century North Carolina judicial opinion about this question, of the limits of a master's authority over his slaves, was largely divided in two. While several judges were reluctant to admit that a slave had any rights whatsoever, others found that a master did not have the power to murder a slave for either sport or punishment.
In State v. Boon (1802, 1 N.C. 191) Judge Hall wrote: "a slave in a pure state of slavery has no rights...Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries, Vol. I., 423, define pure slavery to be, that whereby an absolute power is given to the master, over the life and fortune of the slave...Slaves in this country possess no such rights; their condition is more abject; they are not parties to our constitution; it was not made for them."
This sentiment was echoed by Justice Ruffin in State v. Mann (1829, 13 N.C. 263), who acknowledged a theoretical bound on the master's power, but declined to have the courts draw any enforceable line. "That there may be particular instances of cruelty and deliberate barbarity, where, in conscience the law might properly interfere, is most probable. The difficulty is to determine, where a Court may properly begin...We cannot allow the right of the master to be brought into discussion in the Courts of Justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible, that there is no appeal from his master".
A mere five years later, in State v. Will (1834, 18 N.C. 121), Justice Gaston moved the North Carolina Supreme Court in another direction by reiterating the rule that a master may not deliberately kill his slave, even as part of a slave's punishment. "[U]nlimited power is, in general, the legal right of the master. Unquestionably there are exceptions to this rule...There is no legal limitation to the master's power of punishment, except that it shall not reach the life of his offending slave."
Ruffin, edging back somewhat from his earlier position five years after that in State v. Hoover (1839, 20 N.C. 500), elaborated then on the restriction on killing in relation to punishment. "But the master's authority is not altogether unlimited. He must not kill. There is, at the least, this restriction upon his power: he must stop short of taking life...If death unhappily ensue from the master's chastisement of his slave, inflicted apparently with a good intent", the court would attempt to excuse the master's conduct. But a death resulting from "[p]unishment...immoderate and unreasonable...accompanied by other hard usage and painful privations of food, clothing and rest" would suggest that the master intended murder, and be unacceptable to the courts. | [
"Many Native American tribes practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. The arrival of the Europeans ushered in the Atlantic slave trade, where Africans were sold into chattel slavery into the American conti... |
how exactly did they calculate age during the old testament? | The story of the old testament spans thousands of years. But Humans have known what a "year" was for long before that. People noticed seasons, and counted time by them for aeons - before Human history started.
No, they weren't as... accurate as we are now, but -- roughly speaking -- a year was still one rotation of the Earth around the sun (even if they didn't know the Earth moved around the sun!)
Now, as for why biblical figures lived for hundreds of years, well. They also fought angels, turned into pillars of salt, turned sticks into snakes, as well as directly communicating with an omnipotent deity. If you accept all that, then it's not a huge step to someone living for hundreds of years. | [
"Genesis 5 and 11 include the age at which each patriarch had the descendant named in the text and the number of years he lived thereafter. Many of the ages given in the text are implausibly long, but would have been considered modest in comparison to the ages given in the Sumerian King List and similar accounts th... |
why is it that a person can't take a large amount of over the counter pain relievers, like tylenol or ibuprofen, to get the same effects as stronger pain killers like vicodin or hydrocodone? | Different method of action. Opioids like hydrocodone and Oxy work by binding to neuroreceptors(neuro means brain) which send a depressive signal, which basically means that the signal numbs your central nervous system.
I don't remember the exact MoA of the others so to just put it simply, ibuprofen and aspirin work by reducing inflamation in your body, and Tylenol works by simply cutting off the pain signal on its way to your brain | [
"Over-the-counter drugs, like acetaminophen, aspirin, or NSAIDs(ibuprofen, Naproxen, Ketoprofen), can be effective but tend to only be helpful as a treatment for a few times in a week at most. For those with gastrointestinal problems (ulcers and bleeding) acetaminophen is the better choice over aspirin, however bot... |
Why, in a history point of view, is Germany called Allemagne/Alemania in latin languages, Germany in English and Deutschland in German | The name *Deutschland* (German) and other similar names (like *Duitsland* in Dutch and *Tyskland* in Danish) is derived from the Old High German word *diutisc*, which meant 'of the people'. This in turn comes from a Germanic word meaning 'folk' (leading to Old High German *diot*, Middle High German *diet*), and was used to make a distinction between the speakers of Germanic languages and the speakers of Celtic or Romance languages. Ultimately, those words come from the Proto-Indo-European word *teuta*, which meant 'people'. Through the PIE root, *Deutsch* is related to the Lithuanian word *tauta*, the Old Irish word *tuath* and the Old English word *þeod*, all of which mean 'people' or 'folk.'
The name Germany and other similarly sounding names (like *Germania* in Italian, *An Ghearmáin* in Irish and *Германия* in Russian) is derived from the Latin term *Germania*, which was first used in the third-century BC. The origin is uncertain, but it's probably that *Germania* is of Gaulish origin, as it was the Gauls who first referred to the people who crossed east of the Rhine as the *Germani*, a name which the Romans adopted.
The name *Allemagne* (French) and other similarly sounding names (like ألمانيا in Arabic, *Yr Almaen* in Welsh and *Alemanha* in Portuguese) are derived from the name of the *Alemanni*. The *Alemanni* were a loose confederation of Germanic tribes that were also known as the *Suebi* who lived primarily in what is today the region called Alsace in France and the German Bundesland (Federal State) of Baden-Württemberg. The word *Alemanni* has it's origins in the Proto-Germanic word *Alamanniz*, which has two possible meanings, depending on the origin of the prefix *Al-*. The first possibility is that *Al-* means 'all,' which would mean that *Alamanniz* means 'all men.' This suggests that the Alemanni were a diverse confederation of different tribes instead of a unified group. The other possibility is that *Al-* comes from the Latin term *alius*, which refers to 'the other.' In that case, *Alemanni* shares a root with the English word 'alien' and means 'foreign men.'
Finally (and to answer /u/hecklad's question), the name *Niemcy* (Polish) and other similarly sounding names (like *Németország* in Hungarian, *Німеччина* in Ukrainian and نمسا which refers to Austria in Arabic) are derived from the Slavic exonym *nemets*, which is itself derived from Proto-Slavic *nemcy*, which means 'mute' but came to refer to 'those who do not speak like us' or more simply 'a foreigner.' This usage is related to the Proto-Slavic autonymical term *slovo* which means 'speech.' The Proto-Slavic tribes referred to themselves the 'speaking people', as opposed to their Germanic neighbors, who they referred to as 'mutes.' This mirrors the Ancient Greek term βάρβαρος (barbaros) which referred to all non-Greek speakers and roughly means 'those who speak gibberish.'
***
***Sources***:
John Joseph Gumperz and Dell Hathaway Hymes, *The ethnography of communication*. 1972
Mary Fulbrook, *A Concise History of Germany*. 2004
Kurt F Reinhardt, *Germany: 2000 Years*. 1961 | [
"\"Germania\" was the Roman term for the area east of the Rhine and north of the Danube and up to the islands of the Baltic Sea (its namesake originates from Julius Caesar, who used it in his treatise on the Gallic Wars, \"Commentarii de Bello Gallico\"). The Germanic core area, \"Magna Germania\", was located in a... |
Do individual atoms move in the wind? | Wind is convection that is caused by weather and the sun. The actual air molecules are moving around due to the interaction between pockets of air having different qualities and the heating/cooling of the surface of the Earth throughout the night/day cycle.
| [
"The forces between the atoms are assumed to be linear and nearest-neighbour, and they are represented by an elastic spring. Each atom is assumed to be a point particle and the nucleus and electrons move in step (adiabatic approximation):\n",
"Atoms are constantly moving in one of four different ways. Atoms can s... |
why humans are born with parts we can live without (appendix, wisdom teeth, male nipples, etc) | Evolution doesn't craft a perfect organism from scratch, it has to work with the parts it had from the previous iterations.
Sometimes useless pieces get left in because there's no real reason to remove them. | [
"Human infants are also almost always born with assistance from other humans because of the way that the pelvis is shaped. Since the pelvis and opening of birth canal face backwards, humans have difficulty giving birth themselves because they cannot guide the baby out of the canal. Non-human primates seek seclusion... |
How does premature birth affect development throughout life (epigenetics?) | First of all be aware of correlation and causation - your ADD may or may not be related to premature birth.
Secondly, epigenetics usually refers specifically to traits that occur due to chemical modifications of DNA that don't involve a change in the sequence, and that are heritable. I.e. epigenetics specifically refers to changes in germ line cells. It may also refer to the actual process of DNA modification without changing nucleotide sequence. But either way the majority of problems arising from preterm births will be due to pathophysiological effects as opposed to genetic ones.
I'm happy to go into the pathophysiology of preterm birth disorders if you want, but I really don't think there's much to say on the genetic front. | [
"Epigenetics has a strong influence on the development of an organism and can alter the expression of individual traits. Epigenetic changes occur not only in the developing fetus, but also in individuals throughout the human life-span. Because some epigenetic modifications can be passed from one generation to the n... |
how does spilled water left alone dry at room temperature? | Molecules in a liquid bounce move around inside the liquid. If you make the liquid hotter, the molecules move faster, and if you make the liquid colder, the molecules move slower. Water molecules that are near each other form weak bonds, kiiiind of like magnets pulling on each other (but not exactly). That's what causes two drops of water on a windshield to stick together when they hit each other. But if the water molecules are moving fast enough, they break these bonds.
When you boil water, you're speeding up the molecules until all of them have enough energy to break the bonds. But what about your spilled water? It's not hotter than the boiling point! Well, in any pool of liquid, some of the molecules are moving fast, and some are moving slow. The average speed of the room-temperature spilled water is less than the average speed of a pot of boiling water, but some of the spilled water molecules will be fast enough to break their bonds. If one of these fast-moving molecules is near the surface of the water and moving in the right direction, it'll escape the puddle into the air. This is called evaporation. If you spread out the puddle more, you'll see faster evaporation, because you're giving more fast-moving molecules the chance to escape. Given enough time, all the molecules will eventually separate and the puddle will dry up.
| [
"Dry water, an unusual form of \"powdered liquid\", is a water–air emulsion in which tiny water droplets, each the size of a grain of sand, are surrounded by a sandy silica coating. Dry water actually consists of 95% liquid water, but the silica coating prevents the water droplets from combining and turning back in... |
How were the christian kingdoms in the iberia able to beat back such a dominant muslim force ? | Note that this isn't an answer to the whole scope of your question, but only for a certain period of the whole Reconquista.
By 1009, [Spain was divided between Al-Andalus and the christian Kingdoms (León, Pamplona, Aragón and the Coumty of Barcelona).](_URL_0_) The other half of Iberia was governed by the Caliphate of Cordoba, an independent muslim state. By 1009, the Caliph Hishan II was forced to abdicate. Afterwards, the Caliphate broke into a period of high inestability, with many small kingdoms claiming independence from the Caliphate, and creating the kingdom of Taifas. By 1031, the Caliphate of Cordoba disappeared, and the muslim part of Iberia wasn't unified, but divided in many small kingdoms who fought each other.
The christian kingdoms took advantadge of this situation, and pushed south to gain more land against the weakened mulsim kingdoms.
By the time that the muslim kingdoms had been reunified again, the christian kingdoms already had the upper hand in the Reconquista.
---
(I'm not an expert, and I may have missed/forgotten some key information). | [
"In Iberia, the Christian states, which had been confined to the north-western part of the peninsula, began to push back against the Islamic states in the south, a period known as the \"Reconquista\". By about 1150, the Christian north had coalesced into the five major kingdoms of León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, an... |
Hypothetically, if we could blow Venus out further from the sun, could it harbor life? | Isnt the main problem with Venus the fact that its atmosphere is so thick and made up largely of greenhouse gases? So even if we somehow blew Venus out into the habitable zone, we would still need to introduce micro-organisms to change the composition of the atmosphere to be less toxic and to curb the greenhouse effect.
And it is my understanding that we could, theoretically, already introduce these micro-organisms without somehow shifting the orbit of an entire planet.
Regarding your second question, I dont think we can speculate if we could at some point in the distant future develop the technology required to move planets. | [
"When Turner and Snead finally reach Venus, they are furious and threaten to assault their supervisor. The latter explains that if they had read the written instructions he gave them, they would have known that they could adjust the intensity of the Deflection Field, thus allowing some solar radiation through and k... |
Helicobacter pylori? | In 1989, RNA sequencing showed that it did not belong in the *Campylobacter* genus, so it was placed in its own genus, *Helicobacter*.
[Source](_URL_0_) | [
"Rhodanobacter panaciterrae is a Gram-negative, aerobic, non-spore-forming and non-motile bacterium from the genus of \"Rhodanobacter\" which has been isolated from soil from a ginseng field from Liaoning in China.\n",
"Helicobacter pylori, previously known as Campylobacter pylori, is a Gram-negative, microaeroph... |
Did Catholic Kings and Emperors go to confession? Do we know what they might have confessed, or if they ever had to do 'Hail Marys' as punishment, and so on? | Medieval kings and emperors were very much obliged to go to confession and perform penance as needed. They were baptized and thus members of the Christian community bound to receive all the sacraments the laity received. They would confess to ordinary priests or bishops as they desired, though, just as other laity, if they committed certain sins, these could only be absolved by a bishop or the pope. The idea that kings were divine and exempt from human law—the “divine right of kings”—is a notion only forwarded in the 17th century. Medieval kings were bound both by human and divine law.
There are some very famous cases of penitent rulers. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, excommunicated the Emperor Theodosius I after he sacked Thessaloniki in 390 and killed several thousand people. He was forced to do penance for a few months. The two most famous examples of royal penance were Gregory VII’s excommunication of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV in 1076. Henry had to petition the pope for forgiveness. He traveled to Canossa in northern Italy where Gregory was staying; he wore a penitential hair-shirt on the way and some say he walked part of the way barefooted. He stayed outside the castle in Canossa for three days before Gregory admitted him and absolved him. In 1170 over-eager knights in the retinue of Henry II of England murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in his cathedral. Henry had to make a penitential pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1174 where he publicly confessed his sins (an action somewhat rare by this time) and received symbolic lashes with a rod from the assembled bishops and the 80 monks connected to the cathedral.
King Louis IX (d. 1270), later made a saint, regularly confessed his sins and received symbolic lashes from a whip by his Dominican confessor.
Source: This is off the top of my head as a historian of medieval religion. I can give you some sources if you like. | [
"According to legend, the Habsburg dynasty owned a piece of the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified. Though it is impossible to prove its authenticity, the holy relic was set in gold and worn by at least two Holy Roman Emperors, Maximilian II and Ferdinand III. Ferdinand III’s last consort, Empress Eleanora, wa... |
Where did the traditional image of Cleopatra come from? | Not to discourage any further answers but you'll probably enjoy these older posts by /u/cleopatra_philopater:
[Most people see Cleopatra as an Egyptian, but she was actually Greek. What is her real story and how did we come to the legends about her?](_URL_1_)
[Where did the popular image of Cleopatra with bangs come from?](_URL_2_)
And this April Fool's post
[Cleopatra gives rare insider look at her fashion routine?](_URL_0_) | [
"Cleopatra was depicted in various ancient works of art, in the Egyptian as well as Hellenistic-Greek and Roman styles. Surviving works include statues, busts, reliefs, and minted coins, as well as ancient carved cameos, such as one depicting Cleopatra and Antony in Hellenistic style, now in the Altes Museum, Berli... |
What happens to family surnames when someone horrible becomes associated with it i.e Hitler? | Regarding the 'Hitler' last name at least, you should check out [this thread](_URL_0_). | [
"Before the birth of Adolf Hitler the family surname had many variations that were often used almost interchangeably. Some of the common variances were Hitler, Hiedler, Hüttler, Hytler, and Hittler. Alois Schicklgruber (Adolf's father) changed his name on 7 January 1877 to \"Hitler\", which was the only form of the... |
how do they name guns and what do the numbers at the end of the names mean? | It depends. Some examples:
Winchester 94AE (rifle)
Winchester is the manufacturer, gun design patented in 1894 ('94). AE stands for "angle eject", allowing the shooter to mount an optic on top of the rifle
Glock 17 (pistol)
Named after Gaston Glock, designer of pistol. 17 refers to the number of patents filed at time of production.
Taurus PT709
Manufacturer: Taurus International Manufacturing
PT: "Pistole taurus"
709: model number
caliber: .380 or 9mm short
Other Taurus Models: PT 111 (9mm) PT 145 (.45 cal) PT 732 (.32 cal)
as you can see, the numbers associated with this brand sometimes are associated with a caliber designation, and sometimes are not.
Overall, they are typically named "Brand", "Model Number", kind of like cars. (Chevy Aveo, etc, you get the picture)
Hope this helps. go to /r/guns for more information, they are real helpful. | [
"The origin of the English word \"gun\" is considered to derive from the name given to a particular historical weapon. \"Domina Gunilda\" was the name given to a remarkably large ballista, a mechanical bolt throwing weapon of enormous size, mounted at Windsor Castle during the 14th century. This name in turn may ha... |
How are we able to know of the existence of exoplanets and even categorize them as "Earth-like" when we barely have images of Pluto in our Solar System? | Its all about light wave frequency, when the planet moves in front of a star it is orbiting the light we see reflected off the surface of the plant gives off certain frequencies, which gives us an idea of its chemical make up. Also the relative position of the plant in its given system. | [
"There are known exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system that orbit a star, as of ; only a small fraction of these are located in the vicinity of the Solar System. Within , there are 97 exoplanets listed as confirmed by the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Among the over 400 known stars within 10 parsecs, 54 have be... |
If we can only see 3 dimensions how do we know theres 10? | A problem with this question is that it's not clear what 'dimension' means in a physical sense. If lots of people look at something unfamiliar, do you think they'll agree about whether something is a dimension? For example, do you think that electrical charge is a dimension? What about time?
In some situations, it turns out that the 'number of dimensions' can have physically measurable consequences. For example, in specific conditions, the way that temperature and pressure change in a gas as it expands are related to how many different ways the gas molecules can 'wiggle'. (_URL_1_)
There is an analogous relationship between 'degrees of freedom' and physically predicted values in some theories about fundamental particles, and in order for those theories to match the observed behavior of particles, there has to be a specific number of degrees of freedom. (The number of dimensions varies a bit from theory to theory. _URL_0_ )
| [
"Another analogue in higher dimensions is to find sets of points that do not all lie in the same plane (or hyperplane). For the no-four-coplanar problem in three dimensions, it was reported by Ed Pegg, Oleg567 et al, that 8 such points can be selected in a 3x3x3 grid (exactly one solution up to rotation/reflection)... |
Did Athenian males have to complete mandatory military service time? | There are two answers to the question, depending on what you mean by "mandatory military service time".
If you mean to ask whether all Athenian citizens in the Classical period were liable to military service, the answer is yes. When a male Athenian citizen turned 18, they would be enrolled in their deme registry. All the men on this registry could be called up to serve in the army until they turned 60. Since Athens had no professional military, men were called to arms when arms were needed; when war broke out, the taxiarch of each of the ten tribes (administrative regions) would be required to turn out a certain number of men for specific campaigns. If the levy was to march out in full force, every adult male citizen would be drafted.
There is some controversy over how the system of selection worked, since our sources suggest there were 2 different systems. The first, conscription *ek katalogou* ("from the list"), suggests that the taxiarch hand-picked men from the deme registries to meet his quota, probably giving preference to the physically fit or politically reliable, or those he wanted to have a share in the glory or the spoils. The second was conscription by age group. While those aged 18-59 were all liable to serve, Athenian field armies rarely contained men under 20 or over 45 years old; in order to filter out the young and the old, it had to be possible to group them by age. The most likely process (also known at Sparta) was to keep separate lists of men who had come of age in a certain year, and only call up the years you wanted. The size of the army could be determined by how many years you called up without compromising the number of young, physically fit men in the ranks (so, for a small army you might call up only those aged 20-25, but for a large army those aged 20-40, and so on). Traditionally, scholars have argued that conscription by age group replaced conscription "from the list" in the 4th century BC, but more recently it's been argued that the age groups must have existed before that time, and conscription "from the lists" does not denote some radically different system.
Failing to appear at the mustering point when you were called up to fight was a crime known as *astrateia*, draft evasion. Those found guilty of *astrateia* lost certain citizen rights: they were banned from the public square and from receiving any public honours in future. It is possible that they were stripped of their citizen rights entirely, a punishment known as *atimia* (literally "dishonour"). But people were usually only persecuted if they were already public figures, and rarely convicted.
If, instead, you want to know whether there was a fixed period in a male Athenian citizen's life when he was in permanent military service (like modern conscription), the answer is probably not, except during a brief period of about 335-322 BC.
In that period, between the defeat of Athens at Chaironeia in 338 BC and their defeat in the Lamian War of 322 BC, we have solid evidence (both literary and in the form of a huge body of inscriptions) that Athens subjected all male citizens who turned 18 to a mandatory two-year programme of military training and service. The first year was spent training with weapons of all kinds, including catapults. The second year was spent in the watch, garrisoning the extensive network of border forts and guarding the walls of the city. At the end of this two-year period, each recruit was issued a shield and spear by the state. They would then be eligible for military service until age 60 as before, but now as a trained reservist rather than an untrained militia levy.
The tricky question is whether this system existed *before* 335 BC. Scholars have debated this for decades, and a lot depends on how you want to interpret the evidence. On the one hand, we have references to an organisation with the same name as the later mandatory training programme existing in the 370s BC, and a reference to the watch as early as the late 5th century BC. Clearly the later programme didn't come out of nowhere; it probably built on an already existing system of military training for young citizens. But we also have explicit evidence from Xenophon that, as late as 355 BC, recruits in this programme weren't being paid for their service. Now, most Athenian households wouldn't have been able to just miss out on the labour and income provided by a young man for two years; Xenophon points out that these recruits aren't doing their training properly because they aren't getting paid, so they can't afford to spend as much time on it as they should. Most likely, the earlier programme was voluntary, and only the rich could take part. This means that, at best, a small minority of Athenian citizens were actually getting this training.
It wasn't until the reforms of 335/4 BC that the programme was made mandatory, almost certainly in exchange for a daily wage so that all citizens could participate without suffering a crippling blow to their household income. This would also explain why we have zero inscriptions listing recruits to the programme before 335 BC, and a huge body of them for the ensuing decade (after which they completely disappear again). The programme had changed; participation rates had exploded; and suddenly it was a matter of civic pride, not just an elite fancy, to train yourself for war. | [
"Since 2009, Greece has mandatory military service of 9 months for male citizens between the ages of 19 and 45. However, as the Armed forces had been gearing towards a completely professional army, the government had announced that the mandatory military service period would be cut to 6 months by 2008 or even aboli... |
What did Japan know about the outside world before European contact? | Japan became really isolationist only after European contact, and during the whole sakoku period (1633-1853), there was still contact with the Dutch, Chinese, Ryūkyū Kingdom (present day Okinawa) and Korea, so they got information on the world from several sources. Those interested in the outside world would be able to find some information.
Before European contact (1543), there was a lot of interaction with China and Korea, so most of the Chinese geographical knowledge would be available to the Chinese. Japanese pirates [ranged far](_URL_0_) in this era. | [
"In 1543, Europeans reached Japan for the first time when a junk belonging to the Chinese wokou pirate lord Wang Zhi carrying Portuguese traders shipwrecked on Tanegashima. The Portuguese introduced the arquebus to the Japanese during this chance encounter, which gave the Japanese, undergoing the bloody Sengoku per... |
What has changed about the way Western parents would name their children? As we go back in time, are names given based on meaning? | Giving names based on meaning is still very much in practices in the Middle-East and South Asia. Even when people are named after others, the meaning of the name is still known. For example: Muhammad meaning one who is praised, Khalid meaning one who has a long life, Ali meaning one who is elevated, etc. | [
"A child's given name or names are usually chosen by the parents soon after birth. If a name is not assigned at birth, one may be given at a naming ceremony, with family and friends in attendance. In most jurisdictions, a child's name at birth is a matter of public record, inscribed on a birth certificate, or its e... |
why are the recommend servings written on food so little? | It's a strategy by the manufacturer to show the calories per serving as small in the consumer's eyes. I've noted a package containing more than 500 calories will be split into two servings.
But if the contents are cookies or easily divided into a quantity usually consumed in a sitting then they'll base serving size on this serving size.
There is probably some variance by manufacturer as it's not a precise definition. | [
"Serving suggestion is a disclaimer used on food packaging. The phrase is used as legal fine print with a picture of the product. The picture attempts to portray the manufacturer's food in the most favorable or appetizing way possible, sometimes including other foods that the package does not contain. For example, ... |
Where battles in the middle ages just as chaotic as they seem in the movies? | See [here](_URL_0_) for a recent post of mine on this subject. The article linked ITT by /u/Silver_Agocchie is also useful, and cites extensively from Phil Sabin's "The Face of Roman Battle" (*Journal of Roman Studies* 90 (2000) 1-17) which is one of the most important publications shaping the modern understanding of how ancient battles worked.
The short version is no, they were probably nothing like what you see in the movies. The casualty rate in the sort of chaotic melee we see in movies would be far too high; no man in his right mind would be willing to face such slaughter. In reality, battles would have been far more tentative, with prolonged sporadic violence between mostly defensive formations, until one side or the other lost its nerve. | [
"The fighting styles in movies set in the Medieval or Renaissance period may be unrealistic and historically inaccurate. Most fight choreographers use a mix between Asian martial arts and sports fencing to re-enact fight scenes. This generally due to the look of the fighting asked for by the director. If the direct... |
how are restaurants able to keep soda carbonated and ready to serve? | They don't. Inside the soda machine are containers of syrup and a tank of compressed CO2. The two are mixed together at the time the drink is dispensed. On a small/home scale, you can look at a SodaStream system to see how it works. | [
"In many modern restaurants and drinking establishments, soda water is manufactured on-site using devices known as carbonators. Carbonators use mechanical pumps to pump water into a pressurized chamber where it is combined with from pressurized tanks at approximately . The pressurized, carbonated water then flows t... |
If I shut a plastic bottle full of tap water, how long will it take for the water not to be safe to drink? | Assuming the bottle of water has never been opened after factory production, bacteria are not an issue.
When it comes to the degradation of the plastic (Polyethylene), two substances may contaminate the water. The first one is acetaldehyde, which only results in a change in taste, the second one is antimony and is slightly toxic. Though normally would never appear in PET bottles in concentrations close to being harmful.
> Acetaldehyde is a colorless, volatile substance with a fruity smell. Although it forms naturally in some fruit, it can cause an off-taste in bottled water. Acetaldehyde forms by degradation of PET through the mishandling of the material. High temperatures, (PET decomposes above 300 °C or 570 °F), high pressures, extruder speeds (excessive shear flow raises temperature), and long barrel residence times all contribute to the production of acetaldehyde. When acetaldehyde is produced, some of it remains dissolved in the walls of a container and then diffuses into the product stored inside, altering the taste and aroma. This is not such a problem for non-consumables (such as shampoo), for fruit juices (which already contain acetaldehyde), or for strong-tasting drinks like soft drinks. For bottled water, however, low acetaldehyde content is quite important, because, if nothing masks the aroma, even extremely low concentrations (10–20 parts per billion in the water) of acetaldehyde can produce an off-taste.
> Antimony (Sb) is a metalloid element that is used as a catalyst in the form of the compound such as antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) or antimony triacetate in the production of PET. After manufacturing, a detectable amount of antimony can be found on the surface of the product. This residue can be removed with washing. Antimony also remains in the material itself and can, thus, migrate out into food and drinks. Exposing PET to boiling or microwaving can increase the levels of antimony significantly, possibly above USEPA maximum contamination levels.[10] The drinking water limit assessed by WHO is 20 parts per billion (WHO, 2003), and the drinking water limit in the USA is 6 parts per billion.[11] Although antimony trioxide is of low toxicity when taken orally,[12] its presence is still of concern. The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health investigated the amount of antimony migration, comparing waters bottled in PET and glass: The antimony concentrations of the water in PET bottles were higher, but still well below the allowed maximum concentration. The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health concluded that small amounts of antimony migrate from the PET into bottled water, but that the health risk of the resulting low concentrations is negligible (1% of the "tolerable daily intake" determined by the WHO). A later (2006) but more widely publicized study found similar amounts of antimony in water in PET bottles.[13] The WHO has published a risk assessment for antimony in drinking water.[12]
I don't know whether PET degradation due to heat exposure would ever lead to antimony concentrations in the liquid reaching toxic levels.
Whether bacterial growth in the bottle reaches hazardous levels of course depends on how much air has entered the bottle after being opened, the presence of saliva, bacteria in that saliva.. many unknown factors.
| [
"The article quoted Erik Olson, an analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, as saying \"This is a really big deal... If schools go over 20 parts per billion, they immediately take the water out of production.\" WASA recommended that residents let the tap run for 30 seconds to one minute before using it to... |
why are interest rates set by the fed and not the banks making the loans? | The Fed does not set interest rates. That is done by the market itself. The Fed sets the rate for bank to bank loans that fall under Federal regulations. The Fed rate does have some effect on what banks charge in interest (especially long term and mortgage), but it is not a direct correlation. | [
"Federal student loan interest rates are established by Congress and listed in § 20 U.S.C. § 1087E(b). Because the interest rates are established by Congress, interest rates are a political decision. In 2010, the federal student loan program ran a multibillion-dollar \"negative subsidy\", or profit, for the federal... |
my rent keeps going up but my salary does not, what is the societal expectation or gain? | Christ said, "The poor you will always have with you." You need not worry about every neighborhood gentrifying. By the time the last ghetto is turned into chic lofts, the chic lofts of today will be the ghetto.
Generally speaking the only thing your landlord and your employer have in common is you. Your employer will pay you what he thinks your work is worth to him, and your landlord will charge you what he thinks other people would pay to use his property.
The way they find out they are wrong is by you mentioning it to them, and if they don't change, you leave. If you don't leave, you are proving that they are right.
There is no guarantee for rents or wages outside of minimum wage laws and some cities with rent control ordinances. | [
"Economic conclusions are subject to interpretation by the public. Rent control that lowers rents for some can work to raise rents for others. Is it to be deemed 'good for society' if the total benefit amount to those favored with lower rents via rent control is cancelled by the program's unintended effect of raisi... |
Does the moon/sun's gravitational pull affect how high I can jump height on earth? | Overhead and underneath are actually the same. In one case you are pulled more towards the Moon/Sun than Earth (making jumping easier), in the other case Earth is pulled more towards it than you (making jumping easier as well, as this time you jump away from them). In terms of Moon/Sun, the hardest time to jump is when they are at the horizon. This is a completely negligible effect, however.
If you want to jump high, go to the equator. The rotation of Earth both flattens the Earth (your distance to the center increases) and gives you centrifugal acceleration, in total it feels like you have 1% less weight. This might give you a centimeter in height compared to the poles.
Jumping while inside a plane flying eastwards is even better. | [
"The acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Moon is about 1.625 m/s, about 16.6% that on Earth's surface or 0.166 . Over the entire surface, the variation in gravitational acceleration is about 0.0253 m/s (1.6% of the acceleration due to gravity). Because weight is directly dependent upon gravitational a... |
Why were public executions considered entertainment in for the longest time? | The initial reason for public executions- as well as any cruel and unusual punishment- was that it was supposed to impress upon all, especially criminals, the awful consequences of crime. Displaying the bodies, or even just heads, of convicted criminals was thought to do the same. There was also a sense of retribution- that the people needed to see a criminal pay for his crime.
For England, by the later 18th century it was noticed by many that police ( a rather recent invention) reduced crime better than the threat of awful punishments: and slowly punishments became more rational. It was also noticed by reformers that public executions were often celebratory affairs, with people whooping and cheering the criminal, or threatening the guards. And they were sometimes so popular that there were disasters- on a few occasions of very notorious criminals being hanged, there was such a huge crowd and crush that [dozens of spectators were killed, suffocated or crushed](_URL_0_). In short, they weren't presenting citizens with a sobering example, they were entertaining them with violence. Between these two developments ( and with the establishment of Australia's Botany Bay colony making transportation another punishment in the later 18th c.) hangings became less common and less public. Hanging offenses were greatly reduced in 1861, and the [last public one was in1868](_URL_1_). | [
"Execution of criminals and dissidents has been used by nearly all societies since the beginning of civilizations on Earth. Until the nineteenth century, without developed prison systems, there was frequently no workable alternative to ensure deterrence and incapacitation of criminals. In pre-modern times the execu... |
what are the differences between a condo, townhouse, and apartment? | Condos (aka condominiums) are a form of ownership. There are apartment condos, townhouse condos, and even detached condos. Anyone who describes a condo as similar to an apartment simply hasn't experienced the variety of condos and doesn't understand the legal meaning. All condo means is that you generally just own outright part of the structure (typically just the interior) while you have shared ownership of the rest (exterior walls, roof, land, yards, driveways, etc.). A condo association is essentially the corporation that manages the shared areas and enforces the covenants on the private areas, with each owner being a member of the association.
An apartment is a unit in a multistory, multi-family building. Typically each apartment is entirely on one floor but there are fancier duplex apartments, with units extending two stories. Historically apartments had a single owner who rented the units out to different families, but condominium apartments started becoming popular in the last half of the 20th century.
A townhouse is a small urban home, usually two or three stories, but single family, and with walls touching the neighbors' walls. Sometimes it will be a single wall between houses, but in such cases there needs to be some legal mechanism to deal with the shared wall.
I grew up in an apartment building in NYC that was owned by a real estate company and was strictly rental. Later on, after my parents retired and moved, the entire set of apartment buildings was converted to coops (basically a NYC concept, somewhat similar to condos), with the tenants given first crack at occupying them.
In Boston, you can find traditional apartment buildings. You can find buildings that started out as traditional apartment buildings and were converted to condos. Because housing is expensive in Boston, there are many cases of taking a large 3 story Victorian house and converting it into a condo with three units, one on each floor.
My brother, out in the Bay Area (Calif.) bought, with friends, a small four unit garden apartment building. ("Garden apartment" means a two story apartment building, versus regular apartment buildings which are taller.) They removed the exterior entrances for the upstairs apartments, installed interior staircases, and converted the four rental apartments into two townhouse condominiums. This shows how slippery the definitions can be. But if you remember that condominium is a legal concept, not an architectural one, you'll never go wrong.
Edit: typo | [
"Condominium townhouses, just like condominium apartments, are often referred to as \"condos\", thus referring to the type of ownership rather than to the type of dwelling. Since apartment style condos are the most common, when someone refers to a \"condo\", many erroneously assume that it must be an apartment-styl... |
the difference between local banks, national banks, credit unions, etc and why should i care? | Generally, anyone can open an account at local or national banks. If you travel, it will be easier to get more cash from your accounts/find a bank/atm if they are with a larger chain. Think about it like your favorite local restaurant vs McDonalds. Both provide the same general services, but their actual products might be slightly different. You might get better customer service at one or there might be better deals.
A credit union on the other hand is like a food court at your place of work. If you work somewhere where people make good money, there might be better options than if you went to McDonalds because the people there could afford better meals and they don't have to cater to people who can only afford the dollar menu. They would also know what food people who work for your company are most interested in and be able to provide that. | [
"In the United States, community banks are a common institution. The US tends to follow a more traditional money-lending model in this way, but still incorporates collective ideals in that the community banks are locally owned. They remain specific to individual neighborhoods, and are thus more able to respond to c... |
How are extraordinarily high temperatures contained/dissipated ? | > How do you contain 6.6 billion degree temperatures?
Not to hijack your question, but this got me thinking: is there an "upper limit" for temperature? | [
"High temperatures due to a manifestation of viscous dissipation cause non-equilibrium chemical flow properties such as vibrational excitation and dissociation and ionization of molecules resulting in convective and radiative heat-flux.\n",
"When a gas of Bose particles is cooled down to temperatures very close t... |
how do certain types of music sound good to some and unbearable to others? | What you're really asking is, why is aesthetic subjective? | [
"According to Sevdaliza, \"I think my sound would mostly be described as pure and raw. I'm not necessarily drawn to a genre, but to a process, or towards a certain mood like melancholy. The interesting thing is that the music my music gets compared to is not necessarily music I've listened to, which makes it super ... |
why must my car be a "sauna" in winter, or else my windows are all fogged over with zero visibility? | In the winter, the outside air is almost certainly colder than the inside of your car. When the warm air inside hits the (cold) window, it cools down quickly and any water in that air condenses into a liquid form, forming fog (tiny water droplets coating the inside of the window).
Heating the windows with the defroster can make it warmer and less likely to "shock" the water out of the air. More important for defogging the windows is turning on the air conditioner (yes, even with the heat on). One of the main things an air conditioner does is dehumidify the air. Thus, you're spraying the window with dry air, which gets rid of the fog and keeps it from forming again. You can defog a window with cold air with the AC on...try it!
| [
"They are available in many designs, including accordion fold, roll up, etc. There are also permanently installed sun shades built directly into the window frame. Some vehicles can be equipped with power sun shades that move up and down with a touch of a button. Some retractable sun shades are attached with an adhe... |
how do aircraft manufacturers deliver smaller planes (that cannot fly across the ocean ) to other continents ? | 1. Ranges for passenger aircraft have large safety margins
2. Not having cargo, passengers, or even an interior increases range
3. Flying from Newfoundland to Iceland is about the same as flying from Denver to New York | [
"Aircraft carriers are warships that evolved from balloon-carrying wooden vessels into nuclear-powered vessels carrying scores of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Since their introduction they have allowed naval forces to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft... |
If Jupiter has so much mass, why is it still a gas planet and not a solid?? | > If Jupiter has so much mass, why is it still a gas planet and not a solid??
Because most of the material of which it is made is has low atomic mass and high vapor pressure. The rocky planets farther in (including Earth) are composed mainly of refractory elements that have higher atomic mass low vapor pressures and high melting/vaporization temperatures.
It's entirely likely that Jupiter has just as much (probably more, actually) refractory material as Earth, etc. -- but the body of the planet is much, much larger and the lighter elements dominate the overall structure.
| [
"Given the planet's high mass, it is likely that 47 Ursae Majoris b is a gas giant with no solid surface. Because the planet has only been detected indirectly, properties such as its radius, composition, and temperature are unknown. Due to its mass it is likely to have a surface gravity 6–8 times that of Earth. Ass... |
do chefs have to like the food they cook? | They don't have to like it, but they should be able to appreciate what others like in it, so they can make cooking decisions that reflect those tastes. | [
"Expert chefs are required to have knowledge of food science, nutrition and diet and are responsible for preparing meals that are as pleasing to the eye as they are to the palate. After restaurants, their primary places of work include delicatessens and relatively large institutions such as hotels and hospitals.\n"... |
how is it possible that extinct species are "brought back to life"? | Outside of science fiction movies, it isn't currently possible. Theoretically, you could use cloning methods to insert DNA from an extinct species into the egg of a existing close relative. | [
"There are many species that have gone extinct as a direct result of human activity. Some examples include the dodo, the great auk, the Tasmanian tiger, the Chinese river dolphin, and the passenger pigeon. An extinct species can be revived by using allelic replacement of a closely related species that is still livi... |
When a car (in movement) hits a stationed car (same type) face to face, will the damages on each car be different? | I have read the replies, and I feel I should mention the car in motion will have an engine, transmission, and tires/wheels that more in motion. It might not be much different, but certainly the wheels/tires will have angular momentum much different from the stationary vehicle. The axles, camshaft, and a few other parts will also differ. Might not be much difference, but there is more potential energy. I would think the stationary vehicle will receive slightly more damage. | [
"Road traffic accidents usually involve impact loading, such as when a car hits a traffic bollard, water hydrant or tree, the damage being localized to the impact zone. When vehicles collide, the damage increases with the relative velocity of the vehicles, the damage increasing as the square of the velocity since i... |
Did past (before 1800s) heads of state visit other nations, for whatever reason, like heads of state do today? | Sigurd I, King of Norway has his journeys chronicled in the [Heimskringla](_URL_0_). While he campaigned in Palestine, he spent many years journeying to and from the Holy Land as a guest of various kings and emperors, travelling through England, Spain, Sicily, Constantinople, Bulgaria, Hungary, Pannonia, Suabia, Bavaria, and finally Denmark before returning home.
If the saga is to be believed, he was an honored guest of these courts and was often given sumptuous feasts and gifts. The Byzantine Emperor (Alexios I, I think) threw games in his honor. Lothair III, the Holy Roman Emperor, "received him in the most friendly way, gave him guides through his dominions, and had markets established for him at which he could purchase all he required."
Historians do debate the historicity of the Heimskringla, although the Saga of Sigurd and his brothers is towards the end of the book, it was still written some 100 or more years after the events described. As far as I can tell we can't discount the Norweigan Crusades actually occurring, though, and the journeys and monarchs describe make sense in that context. | [
"Several foreign states recognized the Central Government and sent ambassadors: the United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Sardinia, Sicily and Greece. The French Second Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland installed official envoys to keep contact with the Central Gov... |
Why did WW2 ruin the economy of the British Empire but revitalize that of the United States? | -The UK had already been damaged horribly by the losses of The Great War. While the UK had lost over 2% of its population during WWI, as well as endured the most expensive war in history for 4 years, the US had only lost a little over .1% of its population from 1917-1918 and only was on a "total war" economy for a little over a year. This of course would have different impacts on the two countries in the following generation(s).
-The drain of its losses against Germany in 1940, and then the subsequently bloody Battles Of Britain, Of The Atlantic, The Blitz, all took their economic toll. The US never quite had to deal with its cities being bombed, the resulting starvation, and all the treasure it requires to make each city well defended.
-While eventually American assistance proved generous (ridiculously generous, actually) this was only after Britain had spent itself nearly bankrupt buying weapons.
-The world wars as well as a changing world culture made maintaining a large far flung Empire more difficult. In exchange for assistance from its increasingly independent-minded colonies, Britain made promises of greater autonomy. This would prove to be among the reasons of the death of British India, which was its prized possession. Also, in exchange for greater help from the United States, the British had made promises of decolonization and greater openness to US companies within the British Empire and Commonwealth. Some have argued that lend-lease was something of a deal of large amounts of aid during the war in exchange for the US taking a chunk out of the economic benefits of the British Empire after the war. The US on the other hand didn't have these headaches of governing a large empire with all that goes with that (the exception being The Philippines.)
-The British defeats during the early years of the war dealt a huge blow to the prestige and myth of British power. This became apparent to Churchill in the later conferences with Roosevelt and Stalin. He found himself the junior of the Big 3. Since the US and USSR had obviously done most of the work winning the war, and had emerged from the war two vast military powers, it made the British look all that much weaker and forced them into a position of trying to keep up to the shrinking table of world powers. It was also harder to justify maintaining a large amount of people under British subjugation/influence when they had just spent the last few years stopping Hitler and Japan from building their own great empires and enslaving millions of people.
-The biggest reason, however, is probably that the US had just been a much richer country than the UK was for decades by the 1940s. Even during the darkest days of the Depression in the US had had the largest economy in the world. WWII was also the perfect kind of war for the underachieving, sleeping, industrial giant United States to fight. WWII was a war of tanks, ships, planes, guns, bullets, atomic bombs. The US with its large factories, auto plants, bright scientific minds, was perfect for this type of conflict as they could easily transfer this industrial base and great pool of minds from making cars and inventions for civilian life to making war materials and inventing military technology. That isn't to say Britain couldn't build anything or didn't have bright scientists of their own, they obviously could and did, but I would say the US was in a much better position to meet these war needs. | [
"After the end of World War II, the British economy had again lost huge amounts of absolute wealth. Its economy was driven entirely for the needs of war and took some time to be reorganised for peaceful production. Britain's economic position was relatively strong compared to its devastated European neighbors - in ... |
Was Alaska considered a colony by the Russians? And if so, then what did they produce/extract from there? | **Yes. Furs.**
Through the end of the Russian era, the principal product of Russian America (Alaska) was the fur trade. Of paramount value were sea otters, and the Russian-American Company traveled across the Pacific Ocean in pursuit of these otters, ranging as far as southern California to find them.
The sea otter trade was a largely triangular trade. Furs from Russia were sold in China, where proceeds purchased Chinese products including porcelain and fine luxuries. These were then shipped back to Russia (or Europe at large), where they were sold for large profits. Some of these profits were then put back into the Russian-American company, paying expenses incurred in Alaska.
The triangular trade wasn't an exclusively Russian thing. British, French and particularly American traders made quite a bit of money from it. This had a lot to do with politics. Russian ships were all but barred from trading in Chinese ports, which meant furs had to travel to Okhotsk (Vladivostok was not established until the very end of the Russian period) before being transported overland to Kiahkta, the isolated trading post that was one of the few places where European-Chinese trade was allowed.
From there, Chinese goods had to travel overland the length of Russia to reach Europe. Similarly, supplies had to travel the length of Russia the opposite direction to reach Alaska, where the Russians were almost perpetually near starvation until Americans began arriving on the west coast of North America in significant numbers.
Once the Pacific Coast of North America began to be settled, supplies could come from California. Furs could also be sold in California, but transporting them to markets like New York and Philadelphia wasn't much easier than shipping them to St. Petersburg. Instead, **ice** was a hot seller (pun intended) in San Francisco. In the 1850s, ice harvested from the Kodiak archipelago was the largest product shipped from north to south.
***
And if you want to argue it, there's a case to be made that Alaska remained a colony for most of the American period as well ...
If you're interested in this topic, I recommend *Russians in Alaska: 1732-1867* by Lydia Black and Ilya Vinkovetsky's *Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire*. I feel the latter is inferior to Black's work, though. For fur-specific books, try *Furs and Frontiers in the Far North* by John Bockstoce or *Fur Traders from New England: The Boston Men in the North Pacific*. | [
"The territory that today is the U.S. state of Alaska was settled by Russians and controlled by the Russian Empire; Russian settlers do not only include ethnic Russians, they also include Russified Ukrainians, Russified Romanians (from Bessarabia), and native Siberians, including Yupik, Mongolic peoples, Chukchi, K... |
the idea of silver/gold/platinum | Reddit gets money, poster gets a false sense of achievement, and the giver gets to feel good about themselves for spending money | [
"\"Silver and Gold\" is a song recorded by American country music artist Dolly Parton. It was released in June 1991 as the second single from the album \"Eagle When She Flies\". The song reached number 15 on the \"Billboard\" Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. The song was written by Carl Perkins, Greg Perkins and... |
why do flies gather around the eyes of cows and horses but not around human eyes? | We have hands to rub excess mucus away and prevent buildup of globs of it in which bacteria could turn that lovely eye snot into a super cheesecake for flies. Cows and horses cannot do this so they have essentially fly dinner plates under their eyes. | [
"Stalk-eyed flies, as the name implies, typically possess eyestalks (in all but the two genera listed above). Their eyes are mounted on projections from the sides of the head, and the antennae are located on the eyestalks, unlike stalk-eyed flies from other families. Though both males and females of most species ha... |
do euro countries still keep track of there old currencies? why or why not? | what do you mean? do european countrys that are in EU and use euros as official currency keep the tract of the previous currency they used? the answer is no becouse you cant keep track of somthing that no longer exists. | [
"Some governments have abandoned their national currencies in favour of the common currency of a currency area such as the \"\"eurozone\"\" and some, such as Denmark, have retained their national currencies but have pegged them at a fixed rate to an adjacent common currency. On an international scale, the economic ... |
What is the prevailing opinion on "Why the West Rules... For Now" here on AskHistorians? | [I liked it](_URL_0_). And I think you are misunderstanding his point at the last chapter, I don't remember him ever saying that in 2070 Germans will in unison cast Goethe into the fire in favor of Chinese novels. He does say that the lopsided cultural balance between West and East will start altering, which I think is objectively true, but his claim about the East "overtaking" the West is mostly based on GDP projections--it is a pretty narrow claim related purely to his chart, really (I understand in his follow up book he went a bit wild with it, but I haven't read it).
That being said, both of those are a bit outside of the twenty year rule (unless the twenty year rule is an absolute vale, so we can talk about 2037 and on? Need mod weigh in!). I found his account of the Industrial Revolution to be actually pretty conventional, basically a shortened version of Pommeranz. | [
"His 2010 book, \"Why the West Rules—For Now\", compares East and West across the last 15,000 years, arguing that physical geography, rather than culture, religion, politics, genetics, or great men, explains Western domination of the globe. \"The Economist\" has called it \"an important book—one that challenges, st... |
How do particle accelerators sync with the particles? | The particles are often bunched before injection into a series of accelerating cavities. So you can tune the frequency of the cavity to the desired value, and have the buncher pinch off bunches of particles in synch with the RF in the cavity.
Then you also have the advantage of [phase stability](_URL_0_), where whether a particle arrives a little bit early or a little bit late, there is a restoring force which pushes it towards being in phase with the rest of the bunch. | [
"Particle accelerators routinely accelerate and measure the properties of particles moving at near the speed of light, where their behavior is completely consistent with relativity theory and inconsistent with the earlier Newtonian mechanics. These machines would simply not work if they were not engineered accordin... |
why are some nfl teams generally better than others over extended periods of time? aren't new teams drafted every season? | New players are drafted not teams. The teams with the best draft strategy over several years normally end up being better. Many players that are drafted are not as good as hoped and others are better than expected. Basically it's a crap shoot. The best teams have good front office management (drafting, hiring staff, etc), good coaches and good players. | [
"The National Football League (NFL), despite being considered the most generous in its revenue sharing and the strictest with its salary cap, has had far more difficulty bringing expansion teams up to par with their more established brethren: since the AFL–NFL merger. The soonest that any of the six expansion teams... |
What's the origin of Irish gypsies/ travellers and do they have any relation to Romani gypsies? | A very good question that—would that I had a better answer for it.
I have had little cause to study any theoretical ethnogenesis, unfortunately. I *can* tell you Traveller origins are not well understood, with many competing hypotheses; ranging from the pre-Celtic, to Cromwellian or Famine displacements. However, those that point towards origins in prehistorical or non-indigenous groups do not appear to be supported by genetic analysis:
> Comparison with other European, Roma, and Indian populations shows that the Travellers are genetically distinct from the Roma and Indian populations and most genetically similar to Ireland, in agreement with earlier genetic analyses of the Travellers. However, the Travellers are still genetically distinct from other Irish populations, which could reflect some external gene flow and/or the action of genetic drift in a small group that was descended from a small number of founders.^1
Whatever its origins, Traveller culture is quite venerable. A ready anecdote to illustrate is that when the brilliant and prolific music collector Tom Munnelly chanced to meet a Traveller singer named John Reilly in 1965, Reilly would sing a song for Munnelly he called [*The Well Below the Valley*](_URL_0_). Munnelly, awe-struck, recognized the ballad as version of one that had been lost to the settled oral tradition for *one hundred fifty years*.
Traveller singing traditions were particularly vibrant, making them [ideal sources for musically inclined collectors](_URL_1_) like Munnelly—though unfortunately those traditions have faded considerably today.
***
^(1 • Relethford, J. H. and Crawford, M. H. *Genetic drift and the population history of the Irish travellers*. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol., 150: 184–189.) | [
"Genetic evidence has shown that the Romani people (\"Gypsies\") originated from the Indian subcontinent and mixed with the local populations in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. In the 1990s, it was discovered that Romani populations carried large frequencies of particular Y chromosomes (inherited paterna... |
How many mechanisms are there in the brain that induce sleepiness? | Free adenosine's the major endogenous signalling molecule. As an organism stays awake, levels increase and this makes you sleepy. Caffiene is an antagonist at this receptor, hence why it makes you less sleepy.
Ambien's an agonist at GABA, similar to benzodiazapenes and alcohol. It increases inhibitory nuerotransmission globally, so it effects the same regions that adenosine inhibits, but also other regions. Hence why such drugs result in motor function issues, cognitive deficits, and even breathing problems.
Antihistamines are not sedatives, however, some of the first generation ones like diphenhydramine(benadryl) are also anticholinergics. Rather then increasing activity of a major inhibitory transmitter, it decreases activity of an excitatory one. These drugs really aren't that good of sedatives at all.
All sleep aids or sedatives rapidly lose effectiveness over time. | [
"The majority of sleep neurons are located in the ventrolateral preoptic area (vlPOA). These sleep neurons are silent until an individual shows a transition from waking to sleep. The sleep neurons in the preoptic area receive inhibitory inputs from some of the same regions they inhibit, including the tubermammillar... |
How do irregularities (such as sunspots) develop in the Sun? | The cause of sun spots is due to the charged surface of the sun swirling around and allowing a magnetic field to be created similar to [eddy currents](_URL_0_). Each sun spot is produced in pairs and when these pairs come into contact with one another a process called [magnetic reconnection](_URL_2_) occurs and a [coronal mass ejection](_URL_1_) is the result. | [
"Solar faculae are bright spots that form in the canyons between solar granules, short-lived convection cells several thousand kilometers across that constantly form and dissipate over timescales of several minutes. Faculae are produced by concentrations of magnetic field lines. Strong concentrations of faculae app... |
How was Trudeau compared to Mulroney, more beneficial to Canada? | I disagree with the premise of the Question. I don't think you can really say that Trudeau was very beneficial to the country while at the same time Mulroney was not beneficial to the country. Yes, Trudeau enacted the Constitution Act of 1982 and the charter of rights and freedoms, but at the same time his economic mismanagement placed the country in a very difficult situation and his National Energy Policy greatly alienated Western Canada and made the "winning coalition" for the Liberal Party that much more challenging to achieve, as well as creating a divisive wedge issue in Canadian politics that still exists to this day.
At the same time Brian Mulroney, though misjudged with his mega-constitutional political gambles and reinvigorated Quebec separatism, almost leading to Quebec leaving in 1992; the genesis of this anti-federalist sentiment pre-dated Mulroney and can even be somewhat blamed on Trudeau not getting Quebec's signature on the constitution.
As for positives Mulroney did some great things for Canada. His environmentalist legacy has been quite beneficial for the country (see the Canada-US Acid Rain treaty, which helped abate the Maple Die-back that Ontario and Quebec were facing); The GST in future decades will be seen as a necessary economic measure that helped he next Liberal Governments (Chretien and Martin) help fix the economy; and last of all the FTA and NAFTA were important measures for the Canadian economy and the manufacturing sector of Ontario.
Each Prime Minister had his strengths, weaknesses, and failings, but neither one was objectively better -- or greatly more beneficial to the country -- than the other. | [
"Trudeau remains well regarded by many Canadians. However, the passage of time has only slightly softened the strong antipathy he inspired among his opponents. Trudeau's strong personality, contempt for his opponents and distaste for compromise on many issues have made him, as historian Michael Bliss puts it, \"one... |
what is the format of the afl/nfl from the start of season to the superbowl? | AFL isn't a thing anymore; it merged with the NFL many years ago.
There's a preseason, but results there don't affect a team's progression. The season proper starts with the "regular season." Each of the 32 teams plays 16 games over a 17-week season. The teams are organized into two conferences (AFC and NFC) of 16 teams each, and each conference has 4 divisions of 4 teams each. A team's regular season games are as follows:
* 2 games each against the other three teams in their division
* 1 game each against all four teams in another division in the conference (the divisions are paired up, so all four teams in one division play all four in another)
* 1 game each against the teams in the two remaining divisions in the conference who had the same division rank last year. That is, if the NFC North division is paired with the NFC East division this year, then the team that won the NFC North last year plays the winners of the NFC West and NFC South divisions from last year.
* 1 game each against all four teams in a division in the *other* conference. Again, divisions are paired up, so every team in one division plays every team in another division.
* Lastly, one bye week where they don't play a game.
------
After the regular season, it goes to the playoffs. The playoffs are done by conference; a team won't play anyone from the other conference until the Super Bowl. The team with the best record in each division goes to the playoffs; also, each conference has two *wild cards*, which are the teams in the conference with the best records who did *not* win their division. The teams are seeded in each conference; the division winners are seeded as 1-4, and the wild cards as 5 and 6, according to records (it is actually quite common for the wild cards to be better than the worse division winners; if you're second place in a good division, you're probably better than the winner of a bad division). Then, the 3 seed in each conference plays the 6 seed, and the 4 seed plays the 5 seed in the first playoff round (1 and 2 seeds have a bye). The losers are eliminated. The 1 seed then plays the lowest-seeded team remaining, and the 2 seed plays the other remaining team. Again, the losers are eliminated, and the winners of this round play for the conference championship.
After the conference championship is decided, the champions meet in the Super Bowl, which is the NFL championship game. | [
"The leagues' owners chose the name \"AFL–NFL Championship Game\", but in July 1966 the \"Kansas City Star\" quoted Hunt in discussing \"the Super Bowl — that's my term for the championship game between the two leagues\", and the media immediately began using the term. Although the league stated in 1967 that \"not ... |
what are raw photos? | A RAW image refers to the proprietary file type from some camera's manufacturer. It is a non-compressed digital image that contains all image data captured by that camera. In other words, the data for *each and every pixel* is preserved during storage, with no compression or editing. That means that an image taken with a 20 megapixel camera (20 million pixels) will be quite large (perhaps around ~50 MB in size)
Most cameras also save to JPEG, which is a compression method often used in digital imagery. It is a lossy-type compression, which means data is lost every time you compress an image into a JPEG (and why JPEGs get that pixelated look after having been compressed multiple times). Essentially large groups of similar-color pixels are grouped together during compression, making our final file-size much smaller. A 20 megapixel image might only be ~4-8MB when saved to a JPEG, for example, especially if a decent amount of the image is similar in color (i.e. a blue sky taking up much of the background). | [
"RawTherapee is computer software for processing photographs. It comprises a subset of image editing operations specifically aimed at non-destructive post-production of raw photos and is primarily focused on improving a photographer's workflow by facilitating the handling of large numbers of images. It is notable f... |
What can politicians do to help scientists? | * stop others from trying to legislate truth
* pay school teachers more
* fund science, basic research with minimum strings attached EXCEPT force the results to be free and accessible to everyone | [
"Political scientists study matters concerning the allocation and transfer of power in decision making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behaviour and public policies. They measure the success of governance and specific policies by examining many f... |
what is the benefit of having the large hadron collidor? | Scientific understanding is it own benefit. Other benefits will follow once the science is better understood.
No scientist working on all the underlying physics thought about medical imaging technology at the time, but yet, x-ray, CAT Scan, PET scan, MRI, fMRI... are all the result of studying cutting edge physics. QM understanding makes all the micro electronics of the world possible, at the time that was not the goal.
Cutting edge science serves its own purpose, others will exploit the technology at a later time. | [
"The Large Hadron Collider is very prone to multipacting due to the tight spacing (25 ns) of its proton bunches. During Run 1 (2010–2013) science operation mainly used beams with 50 ns spacing, while 25 ns beams were only employed for short tests in 2011 and 2012. In addition to using a ribbed beam screen designed ... |
why are the lights inside buildings, skyscrapers, etc... always on at night? are they actually used by people or is the a requirement to make the night skyline look good? | They aren't always on. However yes many of the buildings are still used by people at night. Cleaning crews. Security. Renovations. People just working late. Etc. | [
"Natural light is maximised by the orientation of its living rooms with bedrooms located on the inner or courtyard side of the building to minimize noise from the street. Each apartment has a balcony with louvred screens on rollers to provide shade and privacy. They are designed to be an extension of the living spa... |
My Great Grandfather was killed in WW1. | I was able to find a letter he wrote, dated August 31st, 1918. I'm not an expert on battles but if it helps anyone who might be able to help there aren't that many battles after that. I don't know how long he would've lingered after being wounded but the battles leading up to November 7th with about a months worth of wiggle room are: Battle of Ypres (1918), Pursuit to the Selle, Battle of Coutrai, Battle of the Selle, Battle of Valenciennes, Battle of the Sambre, Passage of the Grande Honnelle. They're all in France and Flanders and involve Canadian troops. Hope that helps. | [
"Henry Weston Farnsworth (August 7, 1890 – September 28, 1915) was one of the first Americans killed as a soldier in World War I. He was a \"newspaper correspondent, world traveler, adventure-seeker, avid reader, and member of the French Foreign Legion.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- Nathan Bedford Forrest III (1905–1943), b... |
Why does light bend when it refracts? | Because of two things: 1) as you say, the speed of light is different in different media and thus the wavelength must be different in different media, and 2) because energy and momentum must be conserved at an interface. As a result of this conservation you cannot have any "kinks" in a wave, and a peak in the first media must still be a peak in the second and a trough a trough (i.e. you can't magically have peaks turning to troughs or something at the interface as this would imply pulling energy out of thin air).
The only way to simultaneously meet these criteria is to [bend](_URL_0_).
EDIT: I'd add, for the sake of interest, that energy and momentum conservation at such an interface can play out in interesting ways and, for example, that since light has momentum and since that momentum is being bent by entering the material, the material itself will also feel a reaction force in the opposite direction. In other words, refracting light PUSHES the material doing the refraction in the opposite direction that the light is being bent. This is how we can make things like [optical tweezers](_URL_1_) that can hold a transparent dielectric material in place within a laser beam like a miniature "tractor beam". | [
"When light enters a material with higher refractive index, the angle of refraction will be smaller than the angle of incidence and the light will be refracted towards the normal of the surface. The higher the refractive index, the closer to the normal direction the light will travel. When passing into a medium wit... |
When we say a chemical is odorless, do we mean that it is odorless to humans, or that it is truly odorless? | When we talk about odorless we are saying that the human nose is unable to detect it.
Typically compounds that have an odor have a small amount of vapors which come off the compound. When these compounds enter your nasal cavity it interacts with the sensors there giving you the sense of smell; however, your nose is only calibrated to sense certain molecular configurations. Anything which does not bind to your sensors is odorless and thus your body can't detect it.
But different animals have the ability to smell things we do not (Dogs in particular have a great sense of smell) and also we can create machines which detect molecules our noses can't. | [
"There is also a specific anosmia to the odor in some humans; they are unable to smell specific odors, but have, otherwise, a normal sense of smell. However, this should, by no means, be regarded as indicative for being labeled as a pheromone, as it is true of over 80 olfactory compounds.\n",
"Although all indivi... |
why is it bad to plug extension cords into one another? like i know it’s bad, but why? | Extension cords are designed to carry a certain amount of current over a fixed distance (length of the cord). Daisy chaining cords (plugging cords together) increases this distance and thus increases the extension cord’s resistance.
Without getting into the mathematics and physics of it, essentially this results in greater heating of the cord and possible damage to the insulation – this may be associated with a risk of fire and electrical shock. (commonly known as I2R or Joule heating)
Secondly, you have the chances of the interconnection of plugs coming loose or pulling apart, resulting in a loss of power.
Thirdly, there is less current available to operate the load (although this is marginal and negligible). A fault furthest away from the source, in a daisy-chained arrangement, may result in the breaker failing to trip.
Finally, if the interconnection comes loose gradually, it could likely create a spark and that is once again a risk of fire (just through a different failure mechanism).
- OSHA
to add, the longer you make the cord the less power will reach the end. the loss is added to by each connection(plug) adding even more resistance. as resistance goes up so do heat and chance of failure or fire. | [
"The plug sides are shaped to improve grip and make it easier to remove the plug from a socket-outlet. The plug is polarised, so that the fuse is in the side of the supply. The flexible cord always enters the plug from the bottom, discouraging removal by tugging on the cable, which can damage the cable. Rewireable ... |
Why did the Nazis devote resources to accelerating the Holocaust as they were losing the war? | The proposition that the Third Reich doubled down on its genocide as it started to lose the war is a very popular one, but it is not one that exactly fits the chronology of genocide. For one thing, the first steps to envisioning a Jew-free Europe were broached amidst German victory. The German Foreign Ministry came up with the abortive Madagascar Plan, for example, which would have been a genocide via neglect, in the wake of the victory over France. There were other schemes in German-occupied Poland to work its Jewish population to death via corvee labor. The first major Rubicon in which thoughts of mass murder translated into concrete deeds was during the invasion of the USSR where *Einsatzgruppen* expanded shooting operations to destroy whole Jewish communities. One of Ian Kershaw's notable phrases on this period is "genocide was in the air," by the last quarter of 1941. Older ideas of working the Jews to death still percolated around the Nazi leadership, but the *Einsatzgruppen* did demonstrate the appeal of cutting the Gordian knot of what to do with Europe's Jews.
/u/commiespaceinvader has a good [post of theirs](_URL_0_) on when was the deadliest phase of the Holocaust. Although "deadly" is somewhat subjective, he concludes:
> So basically, when narrowing down, the most deadly phase, it is probably this time frame between June 1942 and October 1943 when the Einsatzgruppen, the Reinhard Camps and for parts of it, Auschwitz Birkenau were in operation.
While it is possible to see with hindsight that Germany was losing the war in 1942, things were not so clear-cut at the time. Germany after all still had control over Western Europe and a sizable chunk of the western USSR even after Stalingrad. While some more level-headed individuals understood that it might be possible that Germany would lose, the reality was Germany was still in control of a good chunk of the continent.
This is why it is something of a trap to think that those who implemented genocide were somehow behaving irrationally in light of an obvious truth that Germany was losing. As absurd and morally offensive as it might sound, the German leadership that planned and carried out the Holocaust saw the removal of Jews as a logical step to win the war. Jews were not only ideological enemies of National Socialism, it was unthinkable that they would have a place in a postwar Europe where Germany had won. The fact that Barbarossa did not end in a triumphal collapse of the USSR likely encouraged more genocidal thinking as murdering Jews within the German sphere of influence would free up the resources used to feed them, allow for their property to be cycled back to the Reich, and remove a potential Jewish fifth-column from Germany (remember, many within the Third Reich's leadership believed the stab in the back legend). The Reinhard camps themselves were fairly efficient at their job, they arguably made a profit and did not demand too much manpower and resources, unlike ghettos and the police that guarded them. The SS's WVHA office also proved quite adept at organizing the labor of camp inmate, Jews and non-Jews, towards productive labor that had incredibly high wastage rates. Many of WVHA's activities ticked off two boxes: they strengthened the German war effort and they eliminated the racial enemies of the state. Even the mass operations clearing out Hungary of its Jewish population in 1944 was justified in the sense that this was a region of strategic importance to Germany and the shrinking Eastern Front meant it was soon to be a battlefield.
While there certainly was wastage and WHVA's various plans did not always result in the most productive use of KZ labor, those who planned and facilitated the Holocaust often did see their work as a necessary component of the war effort. Not only was genocide conceptualized in middle of German victories, but continuing genocide was often framed as a means to stave off defeat. | [
"In 1978, Sebastian Haffner wrote that in December 1941, Hitler began to accept the failure of his primary goal—to dominate Europe, after his declaration of war against the United States, and his withdrawal—was compensated for by his secondary goal: the extermination of the Jews. As the Nazi war machine faltered du... |
Do we have any journals from Europeans were marooned at sea during the age of exploration? | Indeed we do, albeit the ones we do have come along towards the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. In fact, the fictional story of Robinson Crusoe is thought to be based off of the real story if Scottish buccaneer and self-inflicted castaway [Alexander Selkirk](_URL_0_). He was rescued, much like his fictional counterpart, after voluntarily marooning himself on an island with only his personal items. I don't know if he kept a journal per se, but his story was a popular one in Europe when he came back so there's a lot of post-hoc documentation of his feat. | [
"The first Europeans known to visit the Green Head coast were Dutch sailors in the 1600s, sailing to Indonesia for trade. Several Dutch ships were wrecked on the Western Australian reefs, among them the \"Vergulde Draeck\" (Gilt Dragon). Abraham Leeman and crew from the \"Waeckende Boey\", while searching in the sh... |
I am a high school student and I have a few questions for anyone that works in a field related to history. | These links should not discourage further replies, but here are some recent threads, which may be of interest:
_URL_0_ with answers from u/restricteddata, u/Dire88, u/alriclofgar and others
_URL_4_ by u/uncovered-history and others
_URL_5_ by u/itsallfolklore, u/restricteddata, u/hesh582, u/alriclofgar and others
_URL_3_ by u/sunagainstgold and others
_URL_2_ u/abettine
There are also some older answers in the FAQ here: _URL_1_
| [
"Summit high school offers a variety of programs in history, including World History. Instructors emphasize the importance of understanding how people in past times thought about their situation, and encourage students to see the multiplicity of factors underlying historical events as well as how individuals change... |
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