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27xv2e | how come books don't have age restrictions? | Specifically Novels / Short Stories etc. Thanks for the responses :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27xv2e/eli5how_come_books_dont_have_age_restrictions/ | {
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"I think some do. Although I think it's at least a lot more relaxed because it is left to the reader's imagination of how bad it really is.",
"Because for the most part sexually graphic novels and short stories aren't marketed towards children, so children aren't the ones buying them. Whereas adult movies pretty much market themselves to everyone.\n\nAnd those that are meant to be shown in schools often aren't explicit and imply things more than anything.",
"Usually more mature literature will have more complex vocabulary and thus younger audiences are less likely to read it",
"Because books are rarely blamed for school shootings or rapes, unlike movies or video games.",
"[From a recent article...](_URL_0_) Children often don't truly grasp the implications of what they are reading, so if they come across something they don't understand, they just read over it and move on.",
"Who calls for restrictions on movies, games, TV & music?\n\nPrimarily the religious right.\n\nWhat would happen if they tried to restrict the content of books?\n\nPeople would point out that anything they call to ban is already in the Bible. It's full of wars & murder & rape & sex and all the other 'naughty' stuff.\n\nThe religious right would never stand for restrictions on distribution of the Bible so they shut the fuck up about books."
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1kexg3 | if humans a diurnal (opposite of nocturnal) then why is it so hard for me to go to sleep at night and so hard to wake up in the morning? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kexg3/eli5_if_humans_a_diurnal_opposite_of_nocturnal/ | {
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"You can condition yourself to sleep at certain times through habit. Also, if you use a computer or other electrical lighting, you are tricking your body into thinking that it's still light out, and therefore not time to sleep yet.",
"There are a million possible reasons for this. Modern technology has done an excellent job of messing with our natural sleep cycle: you could be inundating yourself with light, maybe your sleep hygiene is bad, and maybe you are looking at a TV/computer screen too close to bedtime. Any of these or other factors can cause parts of your brain (usually the visually stimulated parts) to become over active, leaving you wide awake in bed",
"Depends on your age, teenagers are closer to nocturnal than diurnal. Your sleep cycles naturally change over the course of your life."
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13s37i | Why can't we have household refrigeration systems that utilise the energy transfer in useful ways (eg: to heat water)? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/13s37i/why_cant_we_have_household_refrigeration_systems/ | {
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"Because the cost of electricty/gas isn't high enough that the energy savings would make up for the added cost of a more complicated refrigerator.",
"The simple answer is that it is not worth it.\n\nYou could set up a system where water runs by your refrigerator and the refrigerator pumps some heat into the water. The water wouldn't be hot enough (or you wouldn't have enough hot water) so then the water would then run to the hot water heater to be heated the rest of the way. \n\nThis system would require a specialized refrigerator and plumbing system. It would make maintenance more difficult on both the refrigerator, and would have only a small benefit.\n\nYour water heater and your refrigerator don't run all the time. Each only runs when the internal temperature outside of a particular range. When your refrigerator warms up to too high a temperature it turns on. The chances of that being the same time that the water heater needs some new water are quite low. The water warmed by the refrigerator would then sit in the pipes and cool before it enters the heater. \n\nTL;DR: You could do that and maybe we should but everything would need to be much more complicated and expensive for a small energy savings. ",
"I don't know if there is a canonical answer, but I can think of two reasons it would be less useful than you'd expect. The first is that it would mean you'd have to have some sort of connection between the refrigerator and, say, the hot water heater. These are usually completely separate systems in different places in a building.\n\nThe second problem is that \"utilising the energy transfer in useful ways\" would mean (in all cases I can think of) concentrating the heat output in one place. This would raise the temperature of the hot end, causing the efficiency to drop. I couldn't say for sure, but its possible this efficiency loss would actually be enough to cancel out the effect of using the energy instead of throwing it away.\n\nThat said, in the winter it does serve a useful purpose since the heat adds to the heat of the building.",
"I've seen systems that run swimming pool water through the AC coils to heat pools.",
"And arguably we do during winter months when the heat generated by your refrigerator's coils takes a small portion of the climate control burden off your heater.\n",
"Mep engineer here. Short answer is it wouldnt be worth it financially. You could install a water source heat pump for an AC system, and use the condenser side to preheat domestic water, but installing the system costs a lot (1000s) and would save much less than 100 a year. \n\nConsumer product manufacturers dont make water source heat pumps6 in refrigerators because they would REQUIRE significant additional system (piping pumps etc) that would not be wanted by a significant portion of the market. ",
"This would reduce the efficiency of the refrigerator because of the necessary increase in the compression ratio to achieve a higher temperature in the condenser coils.\n\nThe easy way to understand this is to remember that the ideal efficiency of a heat pump increases as you reduce the difference in temperature between the two sides. This is why we can get much better coefficients of performance from air conditioners than refrigerators.\n\nThe equation predicting ideal efficiency of a heat pump is as follows:\n\nEff = T_c/(T_h - T_c)\n\nWe see that this is a linear relationship, and so we can conclude that super positioning applies. This means that if I had two heat pumps connected in series I could get the same efficiency as a single heat pump covering the entire gap! Admittedly there is a small overshoot required by the heat exchangers at both ends of a heat pump which mean there will be a small increase in efficiency from building a single large heat pump instead of two smaller ones but this inefficiency is quite marginal in most applications.\n\nBecause we can get nearly the same efficiency from two pumps as from one we might ask why not use two pumps instead of one? The main reason not to do this is hardware redundancy but when applications are mismatched: like water heating and food refrigeration which scarcely happen in equal proportions a redundant system becomes necessary to extract the optimal system energy efficiency.\n\nSince you still need a heat pump for your hot water, and since you're only gaining the efficiency contribution of a few degrees for the heat exchanger it becomes clear why the heat pumps of your refrigerator and home heating equipment are not linked.\n\nI hope that helps!",
"Air conditioners typically reject heat at anything between 30-45°C depending on ambient conditions. It's very hard to find a use for heat at these temperatures.\n\nYou could use it to heat water, but the costs are restrictive. You'd need a heat exchanger connected to the condensator and extra piping. Given that the temperature differrences (LMTD) are very small, the heat exchanger would probably be very big and, of course, expensive. \n\nTL;DR: The second law of thermodynamics is the limiting factor here. There's too much entropy in a low-temperature heat transfer.",
"Same reason \"grey water\" isn't recycled into toilets or sprinklers: it isn't economically practical, even though it's less wasteful.",
"[Einstein Refrigerator](_URL_0_). Uses a heat source to cool the fridge. I would imagine it could be coupled with a hot water heater, both systems using the same heat source.",
"You just described the bread and butter of a chemical engineer. Your question is a very important step in industry and is called heat integration. A neat synopsis is given here: [Pinch Analysis](_URL_0_). \n\nEssentially, if you have hot streams you can have a heat exchanger and use that heat to do work or heat other parts of the system. This becomes economically and energetically useful when you have \"high quality heat\" sources. Conversely if your laptop is hot, you could theoretically use that heat but that's low quality heat.",
"Something very similar to this exists, and it's called the Ice Bear.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nVariations on it are used in green buildings to reduce energy usage. Basically when it heats something, it's making ice in the box, and when it cools something, it's blowing air over ice in the box. It wouldn't be super difficult to expand this to be a fridge, oven, and air conditioner, but it might run afoul of patents.\n\nOther commenters here make arguments for why this wouldn't exist, so I'll rebut them now that I've noted it does exist:\n\n* Market: The cost savings in energy is too low. This really depends on the market. In most of the US this is true although I bet it's cost efficient at Burning Man. But the Ice Bear guys negotiate around that by engaging directly with energy utilities here in the US, and negotiating a conservation discount for utility customers that install an Ice Bear. They seem to be doing well despite market arguments to the contrary, because as an individual consumer I was too small for them to bother with when I reached out.\n\n* Complexity: The fridge example is clearly more complex than a heater/AC unit. I agree with that much. But just like the Ice Bear guys found a way with the market hurdle, I think complexity can be solved as well. The technical challenge would seem to be making it modular, so you can expand its size like an array of solar panels, and easily hook more devices to the system as you go. The alternative would be a custom install job every time, basically insulating the heck out of a section of basement with Tyvec or something, and installing everything according to predicted highs, lows and seasonal averages for the next 30 years, not only for weather but also device usage (” We make more coffee in winter”). The increased cost of custom work will likely keep the cost too high. \n\n* Limited Usage: Again this depends. If you cook a lot in LA (me) you're basically running the AC to stay cool while running the oven to heat something up, both wasting electricity when plausibly a very cheap heat exchanger could be doing both for a tenth the energy. I mutter to myself every time I do this. Basically any restaurant kitchen has this problem from open to close and I think someone stands to make a lot of money selling a solution to them.\n\nTL;DR: Something like it exists and is successful.",
"If one day when the price of electricity and/or oil increase ten fold (meaning it's more rare), we might use those kind of system.\n\nMaybe we could heat up water to 40 degree C for the sake of taking a shower, having a smaller cumulus reservoir at higher temperatures for other uses.\n\nAgain, there are many ways to transfer heat or to have colder air/water.",
"To add to OP's question, how about your shower drain to transfer heat back to the \"clean water\" pipe?",
"Interesting enough I just had to do my final project in Thermodynamics about the feasibility of using a waste heat recovery system in a residential home, it went a little something like \" investigate the economic feasibility of using a waste heat-recovery heat pump for domestic water heating that employs ventilation air being discharged from a dwelling as the source. Assume typical hot water use of a family of four living in a 2200-ft^2 single-family dwelling in your locale. Write a report of your findings.\" The end result is not surprising, the feasibility is just not there for homes, waste heat is more geared towards large industrial sized operations that has a significant amount of wasted heat that could be recovered for better use. ",
"HVAC Engineer here. As others have said, it's not an economically useful amount of heat to reclaim. However, larger refrigeration systems do reject useful amounts of heat. For instance, there are air handling systems specifically built for indoor pools in which the heat from the refrigerant condenser (the thing rejecting the heat, analogous to the outdoor unit of your house AC system) is transferred into pool water being pumped though the unit. That way sensible heat being removed from the air, *and the latent heat from all that humid air* is being used to heat the pool water. Pretty cool!\n\nThere are also water-source heat pumps, which use the same basic principle: You pump a loop of water around the building to various small, water-cooled AC units. Instead of rejecting their heat to the air via an outdoor unit, they reject their heat to the water. And conversely, they can provide heat by running the refrigerant cycle backwards, *drawing* heat from that same water loop and putting that heat into the building air. And interestingly, some units can be cooling while others are heating, so you're essentially moving heat from where it's not wanted and putting it where it's needed. You then have a central boiler and central cooling tower that will add or reject heat from that water loop as necessary to keep the loop temperature within a certain range.",
"EDIT: Sounded like an idiot.\n\nI don't have time to read all the garbage on this thread and it's old but i wanted to add that this is a big thing, and it's coming in more places than you think.\n\nFirst of all you need to understand your biggest energy wasters, first is your Air conditioning system, second would be your water heater, then other appliances such as washing machine, refrigerator, drier, dishwasher, microwave, garbage disposal, not to mention lights..etc not necessarily in that order but close enough for this, the point being that we shall dissect the worst, first, then go to the least wasteful.\n\nThe air conditioning system is for most homes the giant hog that uses electricity in your home, varying slightly for climate/comfort differentials. First there are air to air systems, which means the air that cools your home, has the heat absorbed by an air cooled coil, and removed by air to the great heat abosorber in the sky, outside. This method has a poor coefficient of performance, and is entirely wasteful, you can reduce the energy consumption with variable speed motors that control the refrigerant and air flow over the coils and result in higher heat transfer and lower bills, but it will produce nothing else. But if you change over to a geothermal heat pump system, this heat is transferred by air in the home much the same way, but it's rejection is absorbed by direct contact with a liquid in a pipe to the earth, by direct contact. The advantage of this is near constant year round temperatures much cooler/warmer than the air changes outside, but that is not all with this method it is much simpler to also run the water in your hot water tank thru a heat transfer coil (hot discharge gas known as a desuperheater) as long as the unit is running, thus providing you with (they call it free) hot water. This results in an efficiency boost as it removes heat from hot gas in so the unit can subcool somewhat better, and it provides hot water for the home, resulting in less, or sometimes no run time for your water heater, based on demand. Couple by removing your current tank water heater, and go with an expansion tank, and a tankless water heater and you can reduce even more of your carbon footprint, with baby steps and some knowledge, and an honest contractor this can be affordable, in the future it will be even more so, and add a solar water heating system and forget about it, on the fact of ROI this is more economical in new construction than retrofit but not impossible because my company has done it, made a profit, and saved people money. But it's not always about roi it's about comfort, with the benefits of geo you get fewer temp fluctuations when done properly, which will prevent mold build up, prolong building material lifespan, etc. ...I'm afraid I have rattled on to long my family needs me\nif still interested can go on, if not hang in there little camper. We have top men working on it..top men.",
"Commercial Refrigeration Engineer here. Don't forget that in most Domestic applications of Refrigeration (and self contained commercial applications) the superheat is removed and by running the discharge pipe and some of the condenser through the Evaporator condensation drain pan and using this heat to evaporate the mass of water. This in itself requires a lot of energy and allows portability of a Fridge due to not needing to plumb the drain. This only leaves the subcooling process left in the condenser as the only heat rejection still available. Which is minimal, in fact you can barely feel it when touching the condenser."
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4h5q4d | if my fingerprint was never recorded, how can i be ided? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4h5q4d/eli5_if_my_fingerprint_was_never_recorded_how_can/ | {
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436qqq | why do jobs that are very important get less pay than jobs that are less important? | For example, why does an actor have an average salary of $65,000, while an electrical engineer's average salary is $64,000, and a financial analyst has an average salary of $75,000. Especially considering 2/3 require a bachelor's. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/436qqq/eli5_why_do_jobs_that_are_very_important_get_less/ | {
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"the $65000 number suprised me so I googled...\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > According to the most recent SAG statistics, the average member earns $52,000 a year, while the vast majority take home less than $1,000 a year from acting jobs.\n\nthat aside, \"importance\" is a subjective term. And putting that aside, there is a matter of supply and demand. Teachers are very important, but their job is not particularly difficult. So there is a large pool of applicants. ",
"Capitalism...Salaries are based on how much money you are earning other people, not hour important your job is. ",
"I think you're getting confused on alot of factors. First would be the salary figures. \n\nIn Detroit $50,000 is a pretty average salary. If you get into engineering you'll get hired out of school for $50,000. \n\nThe equivalent salary in San Fran is $165,000 _URL_0_\n\nDoesn't matter what job you have. If you earn $50,000 in Detroit. You would need to earn $165,000 in San Fran to be equivalent. I have a friend who was earning $70,000/year and only had to work 30hours per week in Detroit. Went to Palo Alto earning $125,000 and was bragging. He wasn't bragging after I told him he took a huge pay cut. \n\nSo when you're looking at these averages. It's really not measuring anything well at all until you specify which city those numbers are coming from. Because $64,000 EE in Detroit is way way way better paid than $65,000 in hollywood. \n\nA followup to your question though.\n\nWhy does a MD doctor earn like $400,000/year saving the world but an actor or sports person typically earns millions a year. \n\nInfact there's a general rule. The more people your job affects the more you can earn. Bill gates is very very rich because practically everyone in the developed world has microsoft in his life. \n\nA popular actor reaches a ton of people and therefore earns much money.\n\nA doctor who cures your sniffles doesn't meet that many people. \n",
"Highly paid jobs are typically those where having the very best creates much better outcomes than the average.\n\nIf you're paying for a plumber, a mediocre plumber will plug a leak just as well as the best plumber in the world. The mediocre plumber will be a bit slower than an excellent plumber - but that leak will still get plugged. The excellent plumber can perhaps make twice as much by doing things much quicker - and you might pay him a bit extra because the job looks nicer. But you probably won't pay too much more.\n\nFor say, an actor - having the best makes a much bigger difference. Millions of people will watch a movie with Leonardo DeCaprio in it. Those people would likely not watch the movie if a slightly less talented/famous actor was involved. Since DeCaprio can bring in an additional 10 million in revenue - it's worth it to pay him that much."
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4bdtmd | why is it that some cultures have a lot of restaurants while others have a tradition of eating at home more? | In my city there are many Chinese and Sushi restaurants. The newspaper said that Chinese have a long tradition of going out to restaurants for meetings and family gatherings.
On the other hand, there are only two West African restaurants in the metro area. I asked the owner why it's so hard to find African Restaurants and she said "In West Africa, people like to make and eat food at home" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bdtmd/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_cultures_have_a_lot_of/ | {
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"Growing up Vietnamese, when it was only my immediate family, we would eat at home. For large family gatherings, events, or holidays we would go out to eat, but we would always support local Asian restaurants. For family gathers where 15 people are around, it's much easier to just pay a restaurant to cook and then you don't have to worry about the clean up. Plus it helps the Asian community. Where I grew up, we had Asian neighborhoods with shopping centers that were owned by Asians. You had a Chinese grocery store, tailor, bakery, etc. Any money that we could give back to the community to help it thrive is a big reason I think most Asians go out for large gatherings."
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9860cy | how do gas and electric companies get their product to your house if they all use the same systems like gas mains or long streched of wire? also how is this detectable or easily changable via signing up for them, or ending your buisiness with them? | Please correct me because I'm probably very, very wrong about this, but I thought that all electricty that goes to your house is sent over big electrical cables that eventually go into your house, similar to gas mains or pipes. I also thought that the only way that they could tell that you're using the resource is via a meter that does a science thing to detect how much is being used, but I don't understand how the companies could detect whose gas/electricty it is.
So reddit, how far off am I with this one and how do things actually work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9860cy/eli5_how_do_gas_and_electric_companies_get_their/ | {
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"Well firstly utilities know where their meters are and for a long time and this still happens in some places there are people whose jobs it is to drive to each meter once a month and read the number. Nowadays most meters communicate wirelessly though. Also not all utilities are connected, there isn't one giant gas system or water system at least not in the way you are thinking. For gas there are pipelines that lead into smaller systems. The utility knows from a huge meter how much gas they are getting from the pipeline and can check their meters to see who uses what. Electricity gets a little more complicated because it's mostly a bunch of \"smaller\" grids some of which sell electricity to each other. But a similar concept applies.",
" > I also thought that the only way that they could tell that you're using the resource is via a meter that does a science thing to detect how much is being used, but I don't understand how the companies could detect whose gas/electricty it is.\n\nThis one has a simple answer. There's a separate meter for each customer, so your meter only reports how much you use. The meter is usually attached to the customer's house or building.",
"Before modern meters that send the information electronically to the company, companies employed meter readers who literally went from house to house checking the meter each month. ",
"The simplest answer is by measuring inputs as well as outputs. \n\nIn NZ we have a regulated market with 3 types of electric companies, producers, retailers and lines companies. \nProducers own the power plants mostly hydro and geothermal plus wind and gas and a little coal for base load. \nLine companies own the power lines in an area. \nRetailers market it to households and usually differentiate offers by price and add on services or bundle discounts like internet services ( which is a similar market model)\nProducers can also be retailers. But I don’t think lines companies can be either of the other two. \nProducers sell on spot market \nRetailers mostly sell at fixed prices, but some do spot price plus margin. \nWhen demand is high spot price goes up so producers with more expensive generation can produce and sell to the grid to increase supply e.g. diesel powered stations. \nThe lines companies charge a day rate or a tariff per unit which is usually passed on to consumers\n\nAll of the inputs and outputs are measured by an independent body which controls the flow so the system remains stable and each company gets revenue for producing or retailing. Some retailers will also offer the spot rate to home producers, with deductions for line input charges. \neg excess solar to sent to the grid",
"As far as gas, different companies own different lines, and they aren’t connected. \n\nI work for a gas company",
"It all comes down to the book keeping.\n\nYou are correct in saying that all the energy is fed into one overall grid - so multiple power companies will be generating electricity and all feeding it into the same wires, and then on the other end multiple users will all be taking a supply from the same wire, whoever their supplier actually is.\n\nIt all works because the amount of energy generated and used is tallied up - so it is known how many watts a companies users have consumed, and that company then have to ensure they are supplying that amount of energy into the grid."
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cbrzvn | Why do lobsters, crabs, crawfish, mussels, etc. need to be kept alive during transport, sale, and up to boiling, but shrimp do not? | It would make these delicious shellfish a lot cheaper if they could just be filleted up after being caught, and sold like fish are, but why isn't it done like this?
Also, as a bonus question, do shellfish have similar Mercury levels as fish do? Is it safer to eat asinine amounts of clams or crab than it is tuna? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/cbrzvn/why_do_lobsters_crabs_crawfish_mussels_etc_need/ | {
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2a5b2v | Can the expansion of space be proved in other ways than the observation of distant things moving away? | I took IB HL Physics (Highschool AP equivalent), and what I know is that Edwin Hubble discovered that distant stars, galaxies etc were moving away faster than the speed of light(measured with the Doppler effect), and things further away were moving faster proportionally. My question is that does this constitute proof of the expansion of space? Or is there other proof?
**Additionally:** Is there room for the alternative hypothesis that as distance increases there is an enhancement of the Doppler shift by some other factor, possibly some relation between space and EM waves that is insignificant at distances we can measure without it?, that explains the measured velocity of these distant objects?
| askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2a5b2v/can_the_expansion_of_space_be_proved_in_other/ | {
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"Remember that there's no proof in science - all we can do is accumulate more and more evidence for something.\n\nAn expanding universe is implied by a pretty wide range of observations today, like the irregularities in the [cosmic microwave background](_URL_1_), the formation of structure like galaxy clusters, and the [primordial abundances of light elements](_URL_0_). These things would look very different (and disagree with observations) if the universe weren't expanding. Thankfully we're long past the days when we could only probe the history of the Universe using the measurements of galaxies moving away from us!"
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2skg3n | There is a new documentary coming out about new evidence that the exodus happened as recorded in the bible. What evidence could he be referring to? | _URL_0_
_URL_1_ | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2skg3n/there_is_a_new_documentary_coming_out_about_new/ | {
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"Color me skeptical that some random Christian filmmaker has managed to overturn decades of archeology.\n\nThis [review](_URL_0_) suggests that Mahoney wants us to believe that there is a 200 year chronological error in Egyptology. It's not my field, no more than a hobby of mine, but I seriously doubt that.\n\nAlso, if he's just mustering the same circumstantial nonsense has Rohl did 20 years ago then he's just pilfering the pockets of the faithful.",
"I don't think we can know what evidence he claims w/o someone watching the movie.\n\nThe clip I watched seemed very excited about there being evidence of Semites ('cause that's *Jews*!) Around Avaris, by the map flashed. This seems old hat because Avaris was the last stronghold of the Hyksos, mostly of Canaanite origin and ruling as the 15th Dynasty, often called \"the Shepherd Kings\" because of their origin as nomad herders.\n\nThere is, in fact, a school that argues that any historical basis for Hebrews in Egypt is not the piteous victims of Exodus. Rather, the many tribes represented by Joseph and his brothers are the Hyksos, ruled Egypt rather than being its slaves, and were eventually driven out to the east and the Sinai. Then they had to find somewhere new to conquer. "
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eie7TaCS_Ok"
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3jxm7g | how do "blackheads" get this big? or is this more than just a buildup of dirt? warning! may be graphic. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jxm7g/eli5how_do_blackheads_get_this_big_or_is_this/ | {
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"Its wax, oils and dirt from your skin and pores that gets clogged up and forms that giant ball\n\nIf left unattended, more and more matter will ball up and result in something like that",
"I should probably be ashamed to admit that I got tingly all over from watching that... but then my husband came over to see what I was watching and he felt the same way. Lucky for us he has keratosis pilaris and delights in our regular \"pick-pick\" sessions. \n\nOn topic: I work in the cosmetics industry, and I specialize in dermatological skin care... in 13 years I've never seen a blackhead that big. That looks more like a desiccated cyst."
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[],
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2cvj9f | why don't engines create max hp at max rpm? | I like cars and motorbikes and as such have a decent understanding of this area (I like to think so anyway). Although I have always just accepted that combustion engines produce maximum horsepower before the end of the rev range like [this](_URL_0_)(although it is more signifcant in other cars) and never questioned it until now, why is this though? Logically it would make sense to produce more power the higher the rpm, seeing as the combustion cycle is happening more per minute. Anyway thanks for reading this and I hope to receive some interesting answers :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cvj9f/eli5why_dont_engines_create_max_hp_at_max_rpm/ | {
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"Horsepower is a measure of work which is force over time. Assuming that each cylinder produces the same amount of force every 4 stroke cycle, the more cycles you can pack into a given amount of time, the more work.\n\nSo your gut feel is mostly correct. Because the rpm keeps increasing, but the cylinders are still producing the close to the same amount of force, the peak hp is up near the red-line.\n\nThere are other forces at play which can cause the peak hp to be somewhere else like increased friction at very high piston speed or pumping losses due to trying to get air through a fixed size hole (the valves are the restriction in most cases) at increasing speeds. Those other factors can eventually overcome the gain from additional cycles as rpm increases."
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[]
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61mqob | Why did the ancient world view the Samaritans with disdain? | Almost people know the parable of the Good Samaritan and how the Samaritans were viewed as vile people. Why was this? Was it only the Jews that hated the Samaritans? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/61mqob/why_did_the_ancient_world_view_the_samaritans/ | {
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"It was largely just the Jewish people who viewed the Samaritans with disdain.\n\nSo let's talk about who the Samaritans were (and actually still are). They were a group of people who were descended from the residents of the ancient kingdom of Israel. They claim to be primarily descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.\n\nAfter the Assyrians conquered Israel around 740 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser III started a series of forced relocations of the Israelites. Over 20 years much of the population was moved to different parts of empire. This was intended to pacify and assimilate the moved population.\n\nThe Samaritans were the people who were left behind when everyone else was dragged off, perhaps mixed with people who were moved into the area. \n\nA century and a half later, the Judean kingdom centered on Jerusalem had pretty much the same thing happen to them, and they were carted off to Babylon. But in the case of the Jews the exiles were eventually allowed to return. These exiles mixed with the Jews who stayed behind, and the resulting culture and religion basically became what we know as Judaism today.\n\nThe Samaritans weren't included in this new culture. They were close cousins, but with some significant differences. They worshiped YHWH. But they didn't believe in the temple. Their center of sacrifice was Mount Gerizim, not Mount Zion in Jerusalem. They also had a separate version of scriptures which eventually became the Samaritan Pentateuch. To the Samaritans the Jews were heretics corrupted by their time in Babylon. And the Jews considered them heretics right back. For the next several hundred years the two groups competed for who would define what was proper YHWH worship. It became an ethnic and religious rivalry that more than once broke out into violence. \n\nFor an equivalent, imagine that Jesus had been born in 18th century London. He may have entitled his parable, *The Good Irish-Catholic* or maybe *The Good Papist* rather than the Good Samaritan."
]
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[]
] | |
9jg7sj | [Meta] How best to approach economic history | I'm a masters student in Utrecht and one of my modules is very heavily focused on economic history. When I understand it, I absolutely love it but I feel that I fall down in some areas like properly understanding what an isoquant graph is. I was wondering if there are any AskHistorians who might be able to offer literature recommendations for those interested in economic history who don't come from an economic background. With a view to improving my overall abilities in the field. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9jg7sj/meta_how_best_to_approach_economic_history/ | {
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"If you just need to understand stuff like isoquant graph just go down to the undergrad economics department and pick up course notes or a standard 2nd/3rd year microeconomics textbook. That's all you really need to know.\n\nEconomic history is very different from economics which is taught almost entirely in mathematics nowadays. Economic history is a lot like how economics was taught before the Lucas critique and there's very little Math you need to understand for it."
]
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[]
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bfaryu | What is the inside of Europa like? | I know the core is heated due to gravitational friction with Jupiter, but does the liquid water ocean touch the ice shell? What temperature is the water? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bfaryu/what_is_the_inside_of_europa_like/ | {
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"Europa likely has a metallic iron core with a very large liquid water \"mantle\" and an icy crust. Like the Earth, there's likely a temperature gradient where temperature is highest at the core and decreases outward. The water almost certainly touches the ice shell, and the temperature at the interface would be at the freezing point of the ice/water. Local fluctuations in heat would cause local freezing or melting at the interface, but the temperature would not change unless there were also local changes to pressure or impurities which would raise or lower the freezing point.",
"Hi, this is my research field. The water does touch the ice shell, and as a result it must be at the freezing point there. The freezing point might be a bit colder than 0 degrees C, due to salts or ammonia dissolved in the water.\n\nEuropa's ocean is likely to be salty -- maybe saltier than Earth's ocean. But exactly what the salts are we don't know yet.\n\nBelow the ice/water contact point, the temperature might climb a little bit due to the heat coming up from the core, but since warm water is usually less dense than cold water, the warm and cold waters will exchange and mix, so the temperature difference is likely to be very small. Simulation suggest that the whole ocean may be within a fraction of a degree of the freezing point.\n\nThe only way you could sustain a big difference in temperature in Europa's ocean is if there were a big change in salt content to compensate for the density difference. Some scientists think there might be a thermal/haline stratification like this; others think it can't be sustained over the long haul.\n\nOcean currents will also be created by the slightly-warm water rising up from the core. These will take the form of \"convective cells\" of rising and sinking water. This motion will also drive some east-west currents, but exactly what form those take is a matter of scientific debate."
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1nfbrk | what is bitcoin mining and why isn't it profitable? | Overly asked question on ELI5, of course, but I can't understand why it isn't profitable. Wouldn't everybody be mining if it were? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nfbrk/eli5_what_is_bitcoin_mining_and_why_isnt_it/ | {
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"In order to make an outright profit you have to be able to buy all of the materials to mine, *get* the materials to mine (i.e. shipping time), then pay to run them (electricity). At this point the vast majority of the mining power in the Bitcoin network is made up of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs)--small processors that implement the mining program at the silicon level. They are just about as fast and efficient as is possible. Due to the large number of ASICs in use right now it is not even worth the electricity to try to mine with a regular computer (e.g. CPU or GPU).\n\nSo, when it is said that \"it is not profitable,\" that statement is to say that if you bought mining hardware today then you would never make enough income off of it to offset the cost. However, there are lots of people who already bought hardware. For those people the best course of action is to keep mining--the hardware is making an income in excess of its cost to run (electricity). Some miners in this situation are trying to limit their losses and recover some of the money they spent on the mining hardware, while others have had their mining hardware long enough that they have paid off the purchase price and are mining at a profit. In either case, though, they make more money by mining than not.\n\nTL;DR: Mining with purpose-built hardware you have is more profitable than not mining, but buying hardware to mine with will never recover the initial cost of the hardware (given certain assumptions about future mining difficulty and Bitcoin price). "
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2u4jvs | How does THC react on a neuron? | As far as I undestood, THC "connects" itself with certain cannabinoid-receptors (comparable with acetyl-choline-receptors?). They work as a competitive neurotransmitter to endocannabinoid. Thus, Ca2+ -channels are blocked, whereas K+ -channels are opened. Additionally, certain proteins are inhibited, too. So the neuron becomes more electro positive and you could say that it results in a weak muscle paralysis. Is that right?
My second question is why it builds up in lipid places if it is liposoluble? Wouldn't it be degraded quickly? And why can you prove it in saliva only 24 hours, whereas you can prove it in urine or blood up to 1 month? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2u4jvs/how_does_thc_react_on_a_neuron/ | {
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"So you're right about a few things, and confused about some others. Firstly there is no special receptor which cannabis and only cannabis acts on. Why would the receptor exist in the body if it served no natural purpose, and historically never did? Cannabis acts on the same receptors as a group of neuromodulators called endocannabinoids. The receptors are CB1 and CB2, and are activated by endogenous (made within the body) compounds including anadamide, and 2-arachadonyl glycerate. CB2 receptors have more to do with inflammation and immune function, but are also present in the brain. CB1 receptors are generally more likely to be found in specific regions of the CNS, such as the limbic cortex, hippocampus. amygdala, cerebellum, and several regions of the striatum. \n\nYou are correct in that receptor activation blocks calcium influx. The only way in which you would consider them competitive to endocannabinoids is that they work on the same receptor, but the receptor is what controls the downstream events, not the ligand which activates it. In this sense, cannabis is an agonist. \n\nI'm not sure that there are any direct effects on K+ channels; blocking calcium channels may alter the membrane potential, but really the inhibitory effects are due to decreased release of neurotransmitters in general, but especially glutamate, as it is a principle excitatory neurotransmitter. Post-synaptic neurons being overstimulated by glutamate synthesize an endocannabinoid which diffuses back to the presynaptic neuron to reduce the amount of glutamate being released.\n\nThe key component here is that calcium is required in order for neurotransmitter-filled vesicles to fuse with the pre-synaptic membrane, which releases neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft. CB1 receptor activation closes calcium channels = less calcium available for this process. \n\nYou asked about muscle paralysis. That isn't really what's going on here. The reason people who smoke feel slow is because of the action of cannabis in some of the brain regions I mentioned, especially the cerebellum and regions of the striatum. \n\nYou asked about lipid solubility and detection in urine over extended periods. As you mentioned, THC is lipophillic, and fairly hydrophobic. This means that it cannot exist in high concentrations dissolved in water, or it would precipitate out as a solid. It CAN exist in much higher concentrations in lipids, which is where it hangs out. When you smoke, the drug quantity gets distributed amongst the various parts of your body, but not necessarily in equal quantities. Imagine an empty glass of water, and an empty swimming pool. Say it rains for 10 minutes. Obviously, more water is going to end up in the swimming pool. Please ask if you want more detail on this concept.\n\nYou asked about drug testing. THC is metabolized in the liver to a large degree, often by hydroxylation reactions, and also by carboxylation. Both of these make THC more water-soluble, but it is still largely excreted in feces. The increased hydrophilicity as a result of hepatic metabolism allows the drug to be excreted in urine as well, although this is not the major route of elimination. As the drug is eliminated from the bloodstream (as described via metabolism and excretion), the concentration of drug in the blood falls. This creates a concentration gradient, which pulls more of the drug out of the fat where it has been hanging out, since it is more fat soluble than water soluble. \n\nI hope that wasn't too verbose and answered your questions. This is an area of research that I am currently working on (actually with mice who lack the CB1 receptor via genetic engineering) so hopefully I got that right :) \nHere is a [paper](_URL_0_) you can check out as well.\n\n"
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1rqa1q | how can the power company remotely shut off power to a single house? | After years of being a Reddit lurker, I finally created an account to ask this very question. How can the power company remotely disable power to a single house? If this is possible and seemingly so easy, how come they can't also monitor usage remotely? Why do we still have meters and meter readers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rqa1q/eli5_how_can_the_power_company_remotely_shut_off/ | {
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"I work for an electric company and currently we are installing Smart Meters on everybodys house. These meters will be somehow read 48 times a day (every half hour) and people who have the smart meters will be able to check their usage when ever they want through a website given by their power supplier, and yes they will be able to turn off the power remotely if the customer hast paid their bill. also they will be able to tell when you loose power for faster recovery time and it will be on a grid system so they know exactly where the problem is. they will also be able to tell when people are trying to tamper with their meter. Meter readers are slowly being not needed and are being absorbed into the company via promotions, but even when every houe system wide has a Smart Meter there will still be a need for meter readers because some state laws still require meters to be read by a person every so often\n\nEDIT: added more about meter readers\n"
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3knr4b | Does temperature AND/OR CO2 concentration effect the rate of photosynthesis? | Just want to settle an argument between a few people.
_URL_0_
Looking at the above graph, the Y axis would be the rate of photosynthesis, and the X axis is the one in question. Which would be more appropriate for the X axis, temperature or co2 concentration? Would both be correct?
Thanks! | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3knr4b/does_temperature_andor_co2_concentration_effect/ | {
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"The graph would show CO2 content, assuming CO2 was a limiting factor in this system. If CO2 was a limiting factor as its concentration increased the rate of photosnythesis would increase. Eventuly you would reach a point where CO2 wasn't the limiting factor, and increasing the concentration would do nothing (where your graph levels off).\n\nTemperature would look [like this.](_URL_0_) As temperature increases there are more collisions and thus more reactions caused by the enzymes in plants. However above a certain temperature (depends on the plant) enzymes start to become denatured. The active site of the enzyme (the part where the reaction is housed) starts to become deformed at high temperatures. This is why the rises and then falls.",
"They both affect the rate of photo synthesis.\n\nIf you increase the concentration of CO2 in the environment of a plant the rate of photosynthesis will increase until it is limited by another factor. (such as rate of diffusion of CO2 into the stomata or rate of chemical reaction)\n\nIf you increase the temperature in the environment of a plant the rate of photosynthesis will increase until limited by another factors. (Such as too high a temperature causing enzymes to denature or lack of availability of CO2 or water)\n\nToo high a temperature will actually decrease the rate of photosynthesis so the graph will only be relevant to CO2. [here](_URL_0_) is a graph representing the relationship between temperature and rate of photosynthesis."
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zy7wv | What are the oldest myths/stories known to us and when do we believe they date from? | I understand that there are many things like creation myths that predate recorded history. Is there any evidence for stories that are really old, like predating homo sapiens?
Can we derive any knowledge of these kind of beliefs/stories from the remains of proto-humans? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/zy7wv/what_are_the_oldest_mythsstories_known_to_us_and/ | {
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"I've read that Native American creation myths involving a beaver or other animal diving down and collecting mud (which then becomes land) are similar to creation myths among the Chuckchi and other Siberian tribes. This might represent a story origin that predates human migration across Beringia, which would make the story at least 12,000 years old. I'm sorry, but I can't find a source.",
" > Can we derive any knowledge of these kinds of beliefs/stories from the remains of proto-humans?\n\nShort answer: \n\nWe can only guess, and will never really be able to know, the beliefs and stories from early hominids, or even relatively recent hominids like Neanderthals or early anatomically modern humans.\n\nLong answer: \n\nWe can make some guesses about the beliefs of our hominid ancestors based on material remains. Paleoanthropologists point to evidence like [intentional burial of the dead](_URL_2_), [cave paintings](_URL_0_), and recurrent artifacts like [Venus figurines](_URL_1_) to suggest a relatively human-like consciousness and capacity for belief perhaps starting as early as 60,000 years ago. \n\nWe don't know what they were thinking but Neanderthals in modern-day Iraq were the first to intentionally bury their dead with associated grave goods 60,000-80,000 years ago. Using caves as places for artwork, possibly associated with rituals, began 40,000 years ago, and then grew much more common around 20,000 years ago. The caves housing these paintings show signs of habitation, and continued use, but we don't know the meaning behind the paintings or ceremonies. Also near that 40,000 years ago mark we see the emergence of similar iconography in artifacts, the most famous example is the Venus figurines found across Europe and into Siberia. Again, we don't their significance, but we know these figures were somehow important enough to warrant careful design, and repetition of the basic pattern across a wide geographic area.",
"One of the older myths I'm aware of is the Flood myth, aka Noah's Arc (And many others)\nIn the case of Noah's arc the myth may correspond with a massive flood at the end of the last ice age when the black sea greatly increased in size. ",
"As far as written stories/myths, the Epic of Gilgamesh, as far as I remember, is the first. That one is believed to have been written down around 2000BCE.\n\nUpon rereading your question I see that this doesn't really answer your question, yet I am too lazy to hit the delete button....sorry for wasting your time reading this.",
"Probably that the stars were the heavens",
"There's this one;\n\n > The Ngadjonji told stories that would describe volcanic activity, changes in sea-level, and changes in vegetation. One of these stories explains that two newly-initiated men broke a taboo and angered the rainbow serpent, major spirit of the area. As a result 'the camping-place began to change, the earth under the camp roaring like thunder. The wind started to blow down, as if a cyclone were coming. The camping-place began to twist and crack. While this was happening there was in the sky a red cloud, of a hue never seen before. The people tried to run from side to side but were swallowed by a crack which opened in the ground. This explained volcanic eruption. \n\nThis story was linked to nearby volcano, which had been dated to 12 000 years old. [Link](_URL_1_)\n\nDisclaimer; I'm not a historian, I just asked this question somewhere long ago and got this story as the answer; I just know briefly googled it so you wouldn't have to trust solely my memory.\n\nEDIT: [Better link of the same subject](_URL_0_). This seems more credible and has more data. It also dates the story as \"only\" 10 000 years ago.",
"I remember looking this up a few months ago. What is the oldest story we have? Well I looked on wikipedia and found the [Legend of Etana](_URL_0_). 2600 BC.\n\n > A Babylonian legend says that Etana was desperate to have a child, until one day he helped save an eagle from starving, who then took him up into the sky to find the plant of birth. This led to the birth of his son, Balih.\nIn the detailed form of the legend, there is a tree with the eagle's nest at the top, and a serpent at the base. Both the serpent and eagle have promised Utu (the sun god) to behave well toward one another, and they share food with their children.\nBut one day, the eagle eats the serpent's children. The serpent comes back and cries. Utu tells the serpent to hide inside of the stomach of a dead bull. The eagle goes down to eat the bull. The serpent captures the eagle, and throws him into a pit to die of hunger and thirst. Utu sends a man, Etana, to help the eagle. Etana saves the eagle, but he also asks the bird to find the plant of birth, in order to become father of a son. The eagle takes Etana up to the heaven of the god Anu, but Etana becomes afraid in the air and he goes back to the ground. He makes another attempt, and finds the plant of birth, enabling him to have Balih.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"_URL_0_\n\nIt doesn't predate homo sapiens, but The Epic of Gilgamesh displays humanity's quest for immortality. This is entirely applicable to modern man and entirely relatable. \n\n_URL_1_\n\n^ earliest texts we have."
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6s122b | why are video game communities so prone to breeding a toxic environment? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s122b/eli5why_are_video_game_communities_so_prone_to/ | {
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34t4yf | Between the Prophet Muhammad's time and Jesus Christ's time, where there other people in nearby areas who were treated as Prophets but their religion did not last? | I heard that 'propheteering' was rather common in the Middle Eastern areas during those times but most didn't inspire a religion that would become as widespread as Christianity or Islam. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/34t4yf/between_the_prophet_muhammads_time_and_jesus/ | {
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"Sure! To take one example, Mani (216-274) was a Prophet of Iranian origin, who was the progenitor of Manichaeism, a Gnostic religion based on a single, all-powerful God, an eternal conflict between light and darkness (in which Light was slowly being subsumed), and a dualistic religious approach. Manichaeism was for a period of time between the third and fifth centuries the main rival to Christianity, and attracted a significant number of adherents across the Roman empire; Rome itself was largely under the influence of Manicheans in the late 4th century, for example; and even Augustine of Hippo, perhaps the greatest theologian in the history of the Church, was himself a Manichean in his youth. Manichaeism eventually died out in the fourteenth century in China, but was largely extinct by the seventh, around the time of the rise of Islam.",
"The only one who comes to mind for me is Mani, a man born in modern-day Iraq in 216 AD. Following a revelation he had at a young age he formed the Manichaean religion, which had Mani as the final prophet in a line which includes Adam, Buddha, Jesus and Zoroaster.\n\nThis religion was formed, as seen with the diverse heritage of the prophets, from aspects of many religions (syncretism). The religion characterised itself with its gnostic beliefs. There is a divine spark of knowledge which the prophets receive, and which should be shared with the people. This knowledge is what helps people free their sacred spirit from the evil material world we live in. \n\nThe history of this religion is intriguing in many aspects, but especially because of its proselytising ways. Mani encouraged the translation of his works in order to convert more and more people. He was very succesful in this, as Manichaeans could be found all the way from Western Europe (Spain, Gaul) to China. The conversion of the Uyghur Khan and his people to Manichaeism by Iranian priests in 762 is a testament to the amazing reach of this religion. \n\nManichaeans were persecuted by many empires over the years, it was swept from the Roman Empire in the 5th and 6th centuries, and later it was purged from China in the 8th and 9th centuries and the Middle East in the 10th and 11th centuries. It is difficult to find sources on this religion due to the harsh persecution, but every now and then we find a gem such as at Turfan, an important hub in the Silk Road, where a mass of Christian, Muslim and Manichaean texts was found. [This is a great article about it.](_URL_2_)\n\nSources: \n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_ (Sorry for using wikipedia, but the relevant articles are excellently sourced!)\n\nUniversity course on Mesopotamian Religions",
"This is not an answer to OP's question, but a request for information that is relevant to it:\n\nDuring a course I took on early Christianity (from 50 - 450 CE), the professor mentioned a messiah figure who is called \"the Egyptian\" by Josephus (I think it was Josephus anyway). The professor kind of mentioned it as an aside, so I didn't feel comfortable asking about it, but I really wish I had. I can't find any information about this figure. The professor mentioned that the Egyptian was a contemporary of Christ (and of numerous other messiah figures), allegedly performed miracles, and had a much larger following than Christ had. \n\nDoes anyone have any information about someone who fits this description? \n\nEdit: [This](_URL_1_) is the guy, but it doesn't mention anything about any supposed miracles. The full list of messianic claimants published on that site is [here](_URL_0_) (Moses of Crete is particularly interesting from a modern perspective, given the similarity to some modern \"Doomsday prophets.\").\n\nFrom the section's introduction, it seems like this is the kind of list you seek, though I have no expertise/authority to determine the credibility of the source:\n\n > Although we cannot be certain whether a person in Antiquity was indeed called a Messiah (and by whom), the list of messianic claimants in modern literature seems endless. At the moment, it seems a common idea that ancient Judea and Galilee were crowded with Messiahs. It may have been so, but we simply cannot know. The main problem is that our most important source, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, felt a strong dislike for messianism and knew that the Romans shared this dislike. Consequently, he refused to use the title, except for Jesus of Nazareth. Modern scholars, however, suspect that several people mentioned by Josephus were in fact called Messiah, but it is of course tricky to try to know it better than the ancients. The following men, however, are likely candidates.",
"To play off of OP's question, can anybody explain why Christianity, Judaism, and Islam survived, while the religions of prophets such as Mani, Mazdak, etc. all but died out? Is there something about the present monotheistic faiths that make them more tenacious than the others, or could their survival be attributed to pure luck?",
"This is more of a followup question, I'm no expert on religion but I do remember reading about Apollonius of Tyana who had a similar story than Jesus. (Although this was just before Jesus's time.)\n\nWhat reasons were there that his following did not last?",
"A man that might fit your description is the Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana who lived in the 1st century AD. Most of what we know about him comes from a narrative written by Philostratus at the behest of Julia Domna, the wife of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus some time after 210 AD. We don't know a lot about his followers though the fact his memory persisted for well over a century shows it more than a passing fad. Philostratus' story immortalized him in words though many times it ventures into the realm of the fantastic with mentions of dragons with other stories bearing a striking resemblance to Paul and Jesus in the New Testament. In the 4th century AD, Diocletian used Philostratus' biography as a counterclaim to the validity of Christianity during his persecution of that religion.\n\nThe best place for further information on Apollonius is still [Philostratus book](_URL_1_) which has survived to this day. Just keep in mind that it is not a history book. I haven't found anything recent that is still in print but enjoyed [Apollonius of Tyana by G. R.S. Mead](_URL_2_). Both books are also online at _URL_0_",
"So they didn't end up forming distinct religions, but there were many Jewish claimants to the title of Messiah after Jesus. \n\nThe most notable was Simon Bar Kokhba, known mostly as Bar Kokhba (died 135). He led a revolt against the Roman occupiers, known as the Bar Kokhba Revolt or the Third Romano-Jewish War.\n\nBar Kokhba fought an initially successful guerrilla campaign against the Romans. He was declared to be the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva (Rabbi Akiva was the preeminent Jewish scholar of the time, and made contributions to Jewish philosophy that are still relevant today). In other words, Bar Kokhba's role to his followers was no less than Jesus's role to his own followers.\n \nThis initial success allowed the Jewish state a degree of independence. During this time, many Jews believed that the \"world to come\" had arrived. However, in short order Rome gathered troops from throughout the Empire and invaded. After a few years of fighting, Rome was successful, the rebellion was crushed, and Bar Kokhba and Rabbi Akiva were both killed.\n\nAs a consequence, the destruction of Judea that had begun in 70 CE was taken further. Over 500,000 Jews were killed, Jews were banned from Jerusalem (which was renamed Aelia Capitolina), and the majority of the surviving Jews were enslaved or exiled. The Romans even renamed the province of Judea to \"Syria Palaestina\" to remove any association between the land and the Jewish people.\n\nBar Kokhba was similar to Jesus in that they were both Jews, they were both considered to be the Messiah by their followers, and they both were killed by Rome. The important difference is that Bar Kokhba's believers either changed their mind (his failure was seen as proof of him not being the Messiah), or were killed."
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"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/362167/Manichaeism",
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692yao | gutters | I've recently moved to a new place, and for the first time thought about the gutters, since one is broken.
What are they for? Why is it advantageous to keep water away from the wall of the house? Especially since it only really keeps it away from the top? Wouldn't it be helpful to wash the walls and windows in the rain? Is it just the dirt from the roof? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/692yao/eli5_gutters/ | {
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"It helps direct water off of the roof and away from the base of the house. By doing so I reduces the amount of water at the foundation of the house. If too much water enters the foundation, it can rot your foundation, flood your basement, etc. basically causes lots of issues. Typically houses are graded (land slopes away from house) so water flows away from the base of the house even at the ground level."
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2fi568 | what is the psychological reason or phenomenon in which parents truly believe their children are attractive even if most people would find them ugly? | I've met parents who truly believe that their ugly or below-average child (or teenager) is good looking.
I'm wondering why. Is this some kind of evolutionary adaption? By being exposed to their children so much do they unconsciously ignore their children's flaws? Or maybe they love their teen so much that they can't perceive the flaws (kind of what happens when people are dating).
I know that looks are subjective, but there is usually some agreement. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fi568/eli5what_is_the_psychological_reason_or/ | {
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"Probably as an in-group bias.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Babies are a lot of work. A lot. Have you had one? Seriously, fuck babies. \n\nNo woman in her right mind would want children given what she goes through, with childbirth and then having this screaming shit machine waking her up at all hours of the night for food or to change a bit of fabric full of shit, for years, and having gone through it once, why would she do it again? \n\nThe reason is that when a child is born, there are a lot of complicated hormones that are released that bond the mother and child, and to a smaller extent, the father and child. These hormones make the mother experience pure bliss after it's over (and when those fade, post-partum depression can set in coming off the high), and more able to deal with no sleep, poop, puke, crying, and everything else babies and children do for 18 years. \n\nThese hormones turn into a Pavlovian thing - when the baby smiles at Mom, Mom gets a shot of happy drugs, and it makes it all worthwhile.\n\nMeanwhile, the rest of us are looking at the screaming, stinking, drooling baby thinking \"isn't a Tamagotchi easier?\""
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2wl9mv | Since Earth loses 3 kg of Hydrogen per second to outer space, will we eventually run out of hydrogen? When? Does Earth gain hydrogen? | And how much hydrogen do we have on earth? (I know it's 3/4 of the universe, but I can't seem to find solid info about Hydrogen on Earth).
^Sources ^are ^much ^appreciated. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2wl9mv/since_earth_loses_3_kg_of_hydrogen_per_second_to/ | {
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"According to some quick math I just did, the oceans have about 1.52e20 kg of hydrogen.\n\nWe should be good for a while, and by a while I mean three billion times longer than the current age of the universe assuming constant rate of loss (which is probably terribly unrealistic billions of years in the future but we'll be dead or robots by then).\n\nHydrogen is the [eighth most abundant element](_URL_1_) on Earth by number of atoms. In addition to water on the surface and in Earth's crust, we also have tons and tons of hydroxide minerals and [minerals that incorporate water into their crystal structure](_URL_0_). These are called *hydrated* minerals. The formula for gypsum (drywall, big white crystals) is CaSO4 • 2 H2O and if you heat it enough you can drive off the water and turn it into *anhydrous* calcium sulfate (used to coagulate tofu and to absorb water). You can also find hydrogen as hydrogen sulfide and hydrocarbons (breaking down waste from the petroleum industry actually where we get most industrial hydrogen).\n\nSo basically we're really, really set on hydrogen. If we need more for some reason then there's comets and water-rich asteroids and gas giants that [formed far from the sun](_URL_2_)."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line_%28astrophysics%29"
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1x0q0o | Is it possible to convert the signals that travel down a nerve into a digital signal? | And if you where to reverse the process, if you where to directly simulate the nerve using the stored digital signal, would it behave just like the signal was coming from a sensory neuron? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1x0q0o/is_it_possible_to_convert_the_signals_that_travel/ | {
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"I'm a neuroscience student, and I've actually just finished a project working on this exact thing. It was a pilot study looking into the possibility of developing a prosthetic arm capable of giving amputees tactile feedback, so they can actually feel the objects they are touching.\n\nWe generated synthetic neural inputs (through a lot of computational neuroscience that I won't go into as its very maths heavy and not relevant) and delivered these digital inputs to subjects as a pilot study. \nThe subjects reported that the inputs felt nothing like anything they had previously felt. There is currently work being done to improve these signals to create a more 'normal' sensation. Try researching Paul Bach y rita, who has done a lot of work in this area. \n\ntl;dr: Stimulating neurons with stored digital signals creates a sensation unlike anything else, and research is being done to make it feel more normal."
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fnattc | How did the Illuminati, a historical liberal Bavarian society, become the catch-all term for secret cabals and conspiracies? | The Illuminati, as far as I understand, were shut down in the late eighteenth century. However, as long as I can recall, they have always been the target of accusations of modern-day conspiracies. How did the historical Illuminati evolve into the Illuminati of modern folklore?
Thanks for your time and help.
EDIT: thanks to everyone who responded for helping us readers become more... illuminated. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fnattc/how_did_the_illuminati_a_historical_liberal/ | {
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"First some background on the political environment at the end of the Eighteenth Century: The actual Illuminati was a group derived from a power struggle among Freemasons in Bavaria in the 1770s. The members of the Illuminati desired to move their Masonic brethren toward the Radical Enlightenment, which promoted democracy, egalitarianism, and spinozist materialism. The Radical Enlightenment was largely unsuccessful in Germany, but radicals did find success in France. The increasingly extreme French revolutionary ideology under the Jacobins made the term “Jacobin” a pejorative throughout Europe and America. Radicals existed elsewhere including the infant United States and Great Britain. Anyone supporting democratic ideas were labeled as Jacobins, and assumed to really want anarchy and atheism.\n\nConspiracy theories involving the Illuminati became popular in the 1790s. It was in response to the French Revolution. Conservatives, particularly in Britain, used Robespierre’s Reign of Terror to scare the people from considering democratic reform or revolution. Part of their counter-revolutionary argument was a religious appeal. They argued the French revolutionaries dismantling the Catholic Church was fundamentally atheist and even demonic. The Thermidorian Reaction and the French Directory reigned back the revolution, but the conservatives still needed a boogeyman to maintain the fear in the common folk. In 1798, Augustin Barruel, a French Jesuit who had fled to Britain, wrote *Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism*, which described an elaborate conspiracy of several Radical Enlightenment organizations attempting to demolish Western Civilization as they knew it and replace it with a new world order. At the same time, John Robison mirrored Barruel’s assertions with his *Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe*. Also occurring at this time, was the Irish Rebellion which was instigated by the United Irishmen, another secretive organization. Initially, these theories were not taken seriously. The Anti-Jacobin, the most prominent counter-revolutionary periodical in Britain at the time, was dismissive of them. However, only a year later *The Anti-Jacobin Review* (which had succeeded the original *Anti-Jacobin*) was more willing to reference Barruel and Robison. The conspiracy theories became more elaborate to include the Knights Templar and the Occult. Demonic imagery was already being used with the Jacobins so it wasn’t that big of a leap.\n\nI do not know much about the growth of the Illuminati conspiracy theories through the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, but Eighteenth-Century British propaganda was extremely effective and lasted in our collective cultural memory.\n\nMain source: Taylor, Michael. “British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797-1802.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 47, no. 3 (Spring 2014): 293-312. _URL_0_\n\nMore on the Illuminati and the Radical Enlightenment: *A Revolution of the Mind* by Jonathan Israel"
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bhetw6 | Throughout the history of the Earth, which land areas have shifted the least and the most? | We (hopefully) all know that Earth used to be a single continental landmass that has since separated and drifted apart immensely. What land masses have shifted the least over these few hundreds of millions of years. And what are the implications (climate-wise, biological, cultural, etc) of experiencing a large shift versus a small shift? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bhetw6/throughout_the_history_of_the_earth_which_land/ | {
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"For reference, the 'single continental landmass' is called a [supercontinent](_URL_0_). As you indicate, many peoplae are familiar with the most recent one, Pangea, but it's important to realize that there have been [multiple supercontinents](_URL_4_) throughout Earth history (though when we're talking about some of the earliest ones, there is sparse evidence and legitimate debate about the exact timing and/or existence, etc). Supercontinents form and break up in a [cycle](_URL_0_#Supercontinent_cycles), though here in calling it a cycle it does not mean that (1) the timing is periodic or (2) that the processes and end results are always the same.\n\nIn terms of individual, long-lived continental portions of plates, e.g. [cratons](_URL_5_), on a long enough time scale, all of them have moved around a fair bit. You can pick your favorite craton and track their positions through time using paleogeographic maps, [like these](_URL_1_). Most cratons have periods of time where they're not moving much and other times where they are. For example, Laurentia (north eastern part of the present day North American plate) hangs out at the equator for ~150 million years (between the late Cambrian and early Carboniferous) and then starts to move north, generally towards its present day position. For a more fancy view (but only from the break up of Pangea to today), you could play with visualizations of plate reconstructions like [this one](_URL_2_). \n\nIn terms of the influences of plate motion on climate, biology, etc, they are certainly significant, but you have to remember that all of this is proceeding VERY slowly. Extremely fast rates of plate motion are a few cm/year. So something like the movement of the Indian craton from high latitude at ~100 million years ago to an equatorial position ~50 million years ago (which was pretty fast in the terms of plate motion) of course had huge implications for the climate and organisms living on that craton, but the changes occurred over ~50 million years. \n\nAt a more global scale, plate tectonics is extremely important for both the evolution of organisms (e.g. gateways being opened and closed by plate motion allowing for mingling of or causing separation of organisms) and climate (e.g. changing ocean circulation patterns by opening and closing gateways, changing atmospheric circulation by building mountain ranges), but most of these processes aren't that sensitive to the differences in rates of plate motion (there may be some exceptions, e.g. potential relation between rates of plate motion and size of mountain range systems that develop which might modulate the relative size of the climatic influence exerted by mountain range development, etc).",
"This question is less straightforward than you might think. We can measure north-south motion by looking at the magnetic field preserved in the rocks, but we can only infer east-west motion based on the contact points between continents, so we can only guess at the east-west position of a free-drifting continent. Also, we can only infer *relative* east-west motion: we may be able to tell that continent A is moving away from B, but we can't tell whether A is stationary and B is moving west, or B is stationary and A is moving east. There's no good definition of \"stationary\" in the east-west direction.\n\nSo if you'll allow me, I'll re-interpret your question as \"which continental plates have moved the farthest north-south?\" And I'm also going to limit it to the last 540 million years (the Phanaerozoic), since before then the data is patchy.\n\nThe land region with the least motion is probably either the western US or northeast China. Both have migrated between the southern subtropics and their current location, but neither has visited the poles in the last 540 My. Australia may also be a contender. For the most latitudinal motion I'm going to give the prize to parts of Scandinavia and northwestern Russia, which were near the south pole 540 My ago.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_"
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"http://scotese.com/earth.htm",
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supercontinents",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... | |
11wvcl | Why is carbon capture and storage not used more often? | It seems like a very promising technique, allowing us to continue using old cheap technology such as coal or gas, whilst removing most of the co2 produced, so why does it remain largely unused? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/11wvcl/why_is_carbon_capture_and_storage_not_used_more/ | {
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"Well the whole reason to use Carbon Capture to to reduce the CO2 emissions of fossil fuels, so there's no reason for the private sector to do it unless they're trying to earn good PR. It's not good business to voluntarily deal with your own externalities, that's why they're externalities in the first place. So then you'd need some sort of government regulation pushing it which runs into the problems associated with the energy lobby and all that.\n\nBut the real reason is that it's really expensive, both in the capital you need use that has nothing to do with the actual production of energy, and in energy itself.\n\nMy opinion is that it's not a solution. It's going to just be easier to just find other sources of energy than to dig the carbon out of the ground, burn it for energy and then use a good portion of that energy to pump the carbon back underground. But in the meantime, people stand to make more money if they convince people that clean coal is feasible so that's going on."
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ddcwph | how does a company just “shut off the internet” within its borders? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ddcwph/eli5_how_does_a_company_just_shut_off_the/ | {
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"A country you mean?\n\nInto and out of every country there are surprisingly only a few high bandwidth fiber optic cables. These are used for everything: phone, cell/wireless, internet data you name it (everything gets converted to IP packet switched behind the scenes nowadays anyway). These lines and the junction point/switches and routers where they break out into smaller connections to go the last mile to your house or work are consolidated in one or two data centers at the telcos in your country. Not only that, but usually just one or two telcos actually went and laid the cables, the others in your country just lease bandwidth from those. \n\nSo when President Junta decides to cut off Facebook because the Rebels posted a picture of him having sexual relations with a burro, the head of the police just has to call one or two telcos and say \"Cut off the internet or we cut off your head.\"... from there, the folks in the network operations center really just have to click a few clicks to disable the links with the outside world.\n\nExample: this is the [worldwide submarine cable map.](_URL_0_) These are the fiber optic cables that run along the sea floor and connect countries via the oceans. Zoom in - quite a few countries are only connected to one, or two of these massive internet backbone/telecommunications cables. Literally if you were to know where to look, there'd be a thickly sheilded cable running up out of the ocean and up the beach to a little shack with a bunch of network gear in it (its a little more complicated than that, but not by much.)... There are terrestrial and satellite links too, but the principal is the same: its expensive to set these international internet/telecom cables up, so they're done surprisingly infrequently. Thanks to the wonder of switched internet packet protocols, if one link goes down (some idiot with a back-hoe), traffic will re-route to another available connection, but its always possible to disconnect an entire country's set of internet connections.\n\nedit: and by disable links, usually nothing gets unplugged. All you have to do is disable the routing protocols that allow data traffic to flow in/out of the country.",
"Internet traffic is more like myriads of children running along the paths and through the gates, not like the freely flowing water in the river.\n\nYou just close the gates and kids stay in, and no kids from the other side can get through either.\n\nSure, it's much more nuanced than that, but ELI5 it's like this.",
"for how decentralised internet is to the end user, it is surprisingly held up by only a few cables. no point in building more. hence, you can cut off access quick and easy if you have the resources of a major world government.\n\n\ni don't know how exactly the ban you are inferring to happened or what it was, but i know that most UK bans on websites (_URL_0_ etc.) are just mandates from the government to local DNS services (and ones big enough that they have to bend over backwards) to stop properly indexing said bad websites. they're insanely easy to circumvent.",
"I work in telecom. To shut off say... Alaska. All you’d need to do is unplug 4 cables. It’s really scary to think about considering how vulnerable a lot of places would be without communications.",
"If you mean country then you typically don't, there are dozens of undersea cables (speaking from the perspective of the USA) which connect countries together. For people who say 'there are only x many...' they are wrong. There are publicly known ones, private lines, military, and government. Some governments can come compel ISPs to turn off the internet, they typically do that by removing routes from their borders (not country border, BGP border routers) which make whole networks go dark. The internet is very literally designed to prevent one person or country to simply turn off the internet. Even if you remove routes from public BGP, many companies run private BGP between their internal networks. While undersea cables contain the majority of traffic, governments and MNCs have access to satellite internet as well. The world wide web is just that, a web of interconnected networks.",
"Every communication on the internet from point A to point B goes through several nodes before reaching its destination.\nThe path (in term of nodes to traverse) to use is decided by algorithms called Routing algorithms.\nA governments can decide to tweak these routing algorithms on every node of the internet residing on its territory (i.e. nodes used by its citizens) to make any destination on the internet unreachable (or limit the capability of its nodes to allow only national websites)",
"ELI5 (niece practice): \n\nThe stuff you see on the Internet move around the world by wires, mostly. The wires are controlled by electronics that people control.\n\nTo \"shut off the Internet\" somewhere, these people just have to use the electronics so the wires in these areas stop working. Now stuff from the rest of the world can't use these wires to move Internet information into these areas because they're not working anymore."
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32vq6v | how the hell bb8(new starwars robot) works? | I guess some kind of magnets involved. But please ELI5. For those who don't know what BB8 is [here](_URL_0_) is a video which might help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32vq6v/eli5how_the_hell_bb8new_starwars_robot_works/ | {
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"It's impossible to know exactly without seeing the inside of the robot but I'll try.\n\nMoving ball robots are actually something that exist. You can find dog toys that are just a ball that has a weight inside that is slung around to make it move. \n\nMore complex robots (e.g. [this](_URL_1_), though I think this one can only move back and forth) have the weight placed on the bottom of the mechanism and moves by spinning itself. Imagine standing inside of a ball and walking forward. You shift the weight forward and the ball moves with you. \n\nThe head is moved via an arm with two magnets on the end. The magnets are polar opposites so that it can line up with two magnets on the head without being backwards and it just moves and spins the arm around to move the head.\n\nThe thing is there's multiple ways to accomplish movement and we don't know how they did it in the video without cracking the thing open and showing us. I would guess that the mechanism is in a fixed position and it uses a 360º wheel on the bottom to move the ball since that would make it easy to animated the head.\n\nI know I'm pretty shit at explaining stuff and I'm also pretty shit at drawing stuff but maybe if I do both it'll make more sense. [Mail in degree worthy picture](_URL_0_)"
]
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fd0k8c | what is back pressure, and how does this relate to centrifugal separators/purifiers? | I've recently qualified as a marine engineer, but am a bit stumped when it comes to understanding back pressure and how it's used to make the separation process of heavy and light oil more efficient. All the explanations I've read are all related to cars or bikes, which isn't helpful.
If there's anyone who has worked with oil purifiers, and can explain this, would help a lot.
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fd0k8c/eli5_what_is_back_pressure_and_how_does_this/ | {
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"Back pressure is maintained by the gravity disc and is used to limit flow of separated water holding the water inside the purifier. If the hole diameter is larger then back pressure decreases and more water flows out of the purifier and the oil/water interface will expand outwards. If the hole diameter is smaller then the increased back pressure will push the oil inward and the oil/water interface will contract inwards. If your gravity disc is too small then water will start coming out from the purified oil side causing a \"leaking purifier\". If your gravity disc is too large then oil will come through the water outlet causing an \"overflown purifier\"."
]
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[]
] | |
6vj3r9 | Were there any honor-bound rules in European early 18th century warfare? | I mean specifically when two armies clashed on the battlefield, marching towards one another to inevitable bloodshed. Would the infantry lines allow one side to fire the first volley, then proceed to be allowed to fire their volley afterward? Or would they fire their volleys at the same time then charge?
The reason I ask this question is that in movies (The Patriot, The Sovereign's Servant; Battle of Poltava) it seems like both sides opt to fight a 'clean' honorable battle in which both sides are allowed to fire a volley while the other side simply stands and wait to receive it after firing their own volley. It seems counter-intuitive, as one would think to charge right after you fired your own volley to prevent the enemy from firing theirs.
Sorry for the long question. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6vj3r9/were_there_any_honorbound_rules_in_european_early/ | {
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"So my field of interest with the era you're referring to is more around the British Regimental System, but I can at least get a decent answer started and others can add to it.\n\nAttempts to codify rules on warfare certainly predate the early 18th century, but the phenomenon you're talking about has more to do with tactical considerations and constraints rather than any codified legal requirements on combatants at the time or a desire for a \"clean\" battle.\n\nThe first thing to consider is the powder used in muskets of the era - It created a *lot* of smoke. To the point that after a volley or two a particular section of battlefield would be very easily obscured, making it very difficult to coordinate friendly forces, as well as provide accurate target indication for an enemy to your front.\n\nThis constraint not only influenced things that seem counter-intuitive to those of us now isolated from that first hand experience. A whole swathe of potential questions, ranging from \"Damn why were those uniforms so flashy... why didn't they make uniforms to blend in instead?\" to \"Why just stand there so close to one another and just take the volley on the chin?\" can be answered effectively by this aspect - once you fired a volley or two, it became damned hard to even see the men you were supposed to be killing, or at very least drive from the battlefield. Add to this the need to see where neighbouring companies and regiments were on your flanks, and things start getting complicated.\n\nThere's an additional dimension to the \"Why just stand there in a group so close to the enemy\" consideration you've referenced in your rationale and that I've just mentioned.\n\nNot just because of the obscurity caused by the smoke, but smoothbore muskets weren't terribly accurate. \n\nThe projectiles fired by these weapons were (by design) a loose fit in the barrel to enable continued firing as the weapons became increasingly fouled by more carbon build up from repeated firing (remembering the above about high fouling, smoke generating powder). Combine this with the lack of rifling in the barrel, you have a very inaccurate individual weapon.\n\nThe best way therefore to maximise the effect of your firepower is to mass it; this means that you need to present a group of such weapons in an extended line formation onto a target at relatively close range to have an optimal effect on that target, but the downside of this formation to eliminate the constraint of the inaccurate weaponry is that you're exposing your own force to your opponent doing the exact same thing.\n\nNet result, you end up with two \"nice neat lines\" shooting at each other from what appears to be a ridiculously close range. This isn't done out of a misguided sense of honour or even trying to shoot your enemy to death - more to get a few decent volleys in (and create the accompanying blow to morale that seeing large calibre pieces of lead take chunks out of your friends creates) before the smoke obscured everything, prior to making a charge with the very nasty triangular bayonets of the era in an attempt to demoralise and break the coherence of the opponent front of you.\n\nWhilst movies may seem as if one side has stoically waited to receive a counter-volley before charging, the reality is that for most muskets from the era you mention onwards, skilled soldiers could generally pump out 3-4 good volleys per minute. In a combat scenario where a line of infantry has fired, they're not waiting to receive a counter-volley to be fair to their opponent but are trying to get weapons reloaded and a further effective volley into the enemy's line before either receiving or making a charge. This inevitably means taking a counter-volley.\n\nAll that said to provide you some context, with regards to your specific question, that line infantry didn't always fire volleys before making a charge nor did they always charge after firing a volley or two. Prevailing tactical conditions would influence the decision of the unit's commander, thus the orders they'd give (although Holmes cites napoleonic era British officers as preferring a volley and charge as a typical tactic). You should note that the constraints above regarding accuracy and visibility make a prospective volley whilst charging, an ineffective tactic.\n"
]
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[]
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1dii8d | why "may day" caused riots in seattle last year. | Or rather, why Anarchists used it to cause riots. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dii8d/eli5_why_may_day_caused_riots_in_seattle_last_year/ | {
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"May 1st is [International Worker's Day](_URL_0_). It has historically been associated with Leftist groups. \n\nIn the US, Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September, namely because of IWD's association with Communism. Many of the US groups that observe it are less than mainstream. So a group of violent radicals, partially inspired by OWS, decided IWD would be a good day for a riot. "
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day"
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2lhn8g | if americans changed to medicare for all or universal healthcare, would their increase in taxes be more, less, or equal to the amount they pay for medical now? | After hearing some of the out of pocket and monthly premiums people pay, would the tax increase to fund universal healthcare be equivalent or better?
Edit: maybe I'm asking the wrong subreddit | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lhn8g/eli5_if_americans_changed_to_medicare_for_all_or/ | {
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"Almost certainly less.\n\nIn every country with a universal health care system [medical costs are substantially less than in the US.](_URL_0_) \n\nTheir [health care outcomes are better](_URL_1_) than in the US too.",
"It depends. If it were a federal universal healthcare, they'd probably try to standardize healthcare costs and minimize what they have to pay health providers. This might mean that healthcare costs come down overall and the taxes would be lower, on average, than current insurance plans or out-of-pocket costs.\n\nHowever, whenever government gets involved, you also have the added cost of the bureaucracy (i.e. the people the government hires/appoints to be in charge of the universal healthcare plan or whatever, and the overhead for whatever their department needs to function). This would likely be part of the cost in tax-dollars, so might end up balancing out on the whole, or even making it more expensive if the department is not particularly efficient."
]
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"http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/",
"http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0910064"
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63t0tj | photographic memory. | How does it work and is it something you are born with or can you acquire the ability over time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63t0tj/eli5photographic_memory/ | {
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"From what I understand; it's a fallacy.\n\nYou can have an exceptional memory, but the proof of a truly photographic memory is proving elusive.",
"The way I remember things is to recall the picture in my mind. \n\nI can write down a phone number, look at it for a few seconds, and then discard the paper and then weeks or months later recall the number without ever having dialed it.\n\nI do art for a living. When I was a kid I could draw cars, houses etc with some degree of accuracy from memory. My teachers got me excited when I did it too."
]
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[],
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3ne99h | why is google transitioning into "alphabet" and what does this mean? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ne99h/eli5_why_is_google_transitioning_into_alphabet/ | {
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"To end users it has no impact, Google will be Google. For investors they are forming a parent company with separate entities. I've seen companies do this for focus, to share costs correctly (efficiently), for reporting & to be able to sell of pieces or to add acquisitions easily. ",
"It's entirely an organizational change for Google that in no way matters to almost anyone. Nothing is changing whatsoever for the end user, no brand change, not nothing. \n",
"Google is investing in and developing many new companies and products, but their is no way to predict how successful (or not) those will be. Creating a parent company that Google is simply a part of protects the Google brand. ",
"Google has two \"branches\" of companies that do various things not related to the main Google activities. These are being moved out of Google and into Alphabet, the new company. Alphabet will manage Google and it's two \"branches\".\n\nEDIT:There aren't just two, but several branches, including Google Fiber, Google X, and more.",
"Imagine you were a company selling candy, and you called yourselves \"The Candy Company\". You start out selling chocolates, then expand into gum.\n\nEventually, you start selling things to help you make candy, like Easy Bake Ovens for brownies and some cookie cutouts and stuff. Those get SUPER popular. After that, you start selling kids toys, cause you already are selling Easy Bake Ovens, right? So you start selling bouncy balls and Legos.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nNow, you are selling all these toys, but you call yourself \"The Candy Company!\" Crap! You need to change your name so you can sell both toys AND candy. But you still want your candy division to be called \"The Candy Company\"...\n\nSo now, you make \"The Candy Company\" a division of \"The Fun place for Kids!\" which is your new name.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nThats what google is doing. Alphabet is the new overarching company so that Google can branch out of software.\n\nA quote from [alphabet's site](_URL_0_):\n\n > What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related."
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23ohic | if antibacterials kill 99.9% of germs, why haven't our bodied become almost totally populated by offspring of the .01%? | I would think that the .01% that survived would continue to reproduce unchecked since they are seemingly immune to the anti bacterial. Or is it not that they're immune, but that they just got lucky? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ohic/eli5_if_antibacterials_kill_999_of_germs_why/ | {
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"It's really late, but the short answer is that you can never get rid of what your 'normal flora' . It helps keep other organisms in check (they do not disappear with antibacterial soap).\n\nAlso, your skin serves as a huge part of your immune system and if they can't get in, they won't have the water, nutrients and moisture to survive for long periods of time. ",
"When you are talking about germs, it's important to consider orders of magnitude:\n\nIf you get a little bit of poop on your finger after going to the bathroom, that little tiny smear has thousands of times more bacteria than the bacteria that was already on your hand. When you apply sanitizer you will get 3 - 5 Log reduction (where each point of reduction equals 10 times less bacteria than before).\n\nSo plugging some hypothetical numbers in, if an area on your hand has 100,000 cfu/cm^2, and a poop smear has 100,000,000 cfu/cm^2, the total bacteria totals 100,100,000 cfu/cm^2. Reducing this number by 99.9% gives you ~1,000,000 cfu/cm^2, which is still more bacteria than you started with, but much much better than had you not washed at all.",
"I always thought it meant 99.9 of the germs on the surface and they just didn't want to say 100% to save their asses if someone managed to get something after using it.\n\nlike there's 1000 germ buddies chilling out and now 999 of them are dead.\n\nnot that it can kill 99.9% of all known type of germs"
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2bzj4y | why do we celebrate with our fists clenched? | Like this : _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bzj4y/eli5_why_do_we_celebrate_with_our_fists_clenched/ | {
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"It's a show of power. Clenched fists, loud voices, arms held above your head, maybe even stomping the ground with your feet.\n\nCelebratory shows of power have been with humanity for an extremely long time. Blind people will celebrate in the same way, despite having never seen another person."
]
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"http://imgur.com/Hdrb24z"
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5jj8ex | what does the discovery of anti-hydrogen mean in practical terms and how will it change the way we view the elements? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jj8ex/eli5_what_does_the_discovery_of_antihydrogen_mean/ | {
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"We already knew about anti-hydrogen, quite well actually, the recent discovery was that it has an identical emission spectrum to hydrogen - the caveat is that this was entirely predicted by our current model of particle physics, and so it was more a confirmation than a discovery.\n\nSo this isn't likely to change the way we view elements, but it provides more evidence for the predictive power of the standard model. "
]
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q9jsz | History of letter writing | What is the history of letter writing? Surely paper would have been very expensive. Did people print smaller to fit more text onto the paper? Was it a very big deal to receive a handwritten letter? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q9jsz/history_of_letter_writing/ | {
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"The history of letter writing is a very broad topic on a very large time frame. For example: [This is a letter and envelope from around 2037 BCE.](_URL_1_)\n\nTo generalize, writing was more or less restricted to the upper/middle class; think merchants, scribes, scholars, etc. Those that knew how to write were likely able to afford the cost of paper. Delivery was likely more of an issue then the cost of paper, depending again on which era of mail you want to look at, the postal system could be anything from runners to [Chapar Khaneh](_URL_0_). Not to mention that most postal systems were originally restricted for government/military correspondence. \n\nPrint size was most likely determined by: the message needed to be sent vs. the paper available; the writing instrument; and the eyesight of the writer/reader. (I'm sure there is more to it, but generalizations)\n\nFinally, a handwritten (typewriter 1868) letter in any point in history is something meaningful, unless it is a bill. ",
"This is not exactly related to your question, but it's a cool little story that speaks to the way that paper was used. \n\nA good friend of mine was researching Caribbean Columbia during the late 18th and early 19th century, and was in (I believe) the Spanish archives in Madrid, looking at the records of colonial towns. One town was pretty remote, and got cut off from resupply for a considerable period of time. This meant that their paper supply was cut off as well, but of course record-keeping had to continue. My friend said that a whole set of papers from this town showed what happened: the writing got smaller and smaller as their supply of paper dwindled, so that by the very end, there were things like court records that were miniscule writing completely covering sheets of paper.",
"You may find the following of interest:\n\n* H. A. Hoffner (ed.), [*Letters from the Hittite Kingdom*](_URL_2_) \n* R. Morello and A. D. Morrison (eds.), [*Ancient Letters: Classical & Late Antique Epistolography*](_URL_1_) \n\nThe first includes the text of many of the important letters surviving from Hittite records. The second is a book about letter-writing in classical antiquity; it doesn't include many letters, but gajillions of letters survive. See [Cicero's letters here](_URL_0_), for example."
]
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"http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=541&Itemid=27",
"http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=M2xiAAAAMAAJ",
"http://boo... | |
7py241 | rockets have to go straight up from the ground instead of flying high and kicking in the rockets to escape gravity? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7py241/eli5rockets_have_to_go_straight_up_from_the/ | {
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"How do they get up in the air? Something has to carry them *and* all the rocket fuel they need, which means you need a winged aircraft capable of carrying a giant load.\n\nEasier and saves money to just launch from a pad.",
"I think you are asking why don't they start off like an airplane, and then switch to rocket mode later.\n\n\nYarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why space launches always start from a stand still position? ](_URL_4_) ^(_19 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: why do space shuttles need to take off vertically and not horizontally like an airplane? ](_URL_6_) ^(_12 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why launch into space from the ground as opposed to something like a high-altitude aeroplane? ](_URL_5_) ^(_18 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do space shuttles take off vertically instead of gaining momentum like a jet on a runway and use it to help propel them into space? ](_URL_3_) ^(_20 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does NASA and other space agencies launch their rockets pointed straight up, at a dead stop? (MIC) ](_URL_1_) ^(_9 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do spaceships and rockets have to launch vertically instead of taking off like an airplane? ](_URL_0_) ^(_20 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why do Rockets launch straight up, instead of ascending like an airplane? ](_URL_2_) ^(_7 comments_)\n",
"At low altitudes, there is a lot more air, which acts against a rocket's morion. To get around this and minimize fuel consumption, a typical launch will ascend vertically through the lower atmosphere, and then turn and accelerate near-horizontally into orbit"
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/60hpum/eli5_why_do_rock... | ||
1ykmnr | why do acoustic guitars sound better with age | EG: [Trigger](_URL_0_), Willie Nelson's guitar | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ykmnr/eli5_why_do_acoustic_guitars_sound_better_with_age/ | {
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"Regular playing of a wooden instrument improves it's tone over time. People thought that it was just a marketing gimick or just snobbery, but it has actual basis in science. The vibrations over time basically stiffen the wood making it more responsive and resonant.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)",
"I know more about this from violins than from guitars, but...I suspect it's the same.\n\nThe first reason is the least romantic and the least discussed. We throw away poor sounding instruments as they get old and start wearing out. We repair and preserve those that sound good. So....if you line up 100 instruments of random ages you can bet that the old ones will in general sound better for this reason alone! \n\nBut...the one general statements can be made after a long and ardous study published in Nature magazine on this topic is that old violins that people rate as sounding great do a far better job of resonating lower octaves. We loooooove broad, strong low sounds. Equally significant was that the sound radiation is more _even_ across octaves in older, great sounding violins (that is the direction and other qualities of the sound is consistent across frequency).\n\n\n\n"
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"http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/27/science/when-violinists-play-their-violins-improve.html"
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43xiiu | how are leicester city doing so well in the epl this season | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43xiiu/eli5how_are_leicester_city_doing_so_well_in_the/ | {
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"- Emphasis on pace and counter-attacking, over holding possession. \n\n- Some very accurate passers in the midfield to get the ball forward effectively. \n\n- A very clinical finisher who is scoring a lot of his chances.\n\n- Really high fitness levels and work rate.\n\n- Some players really good at disrupting the oppositions play."
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4ksnkj | if electrons repelling each other means you never really touch something, how do different things feel differently? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ksnkj/eli5_if_electrons_repelling_each_other_means_you/ | {
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"Different configurations of electrons-repelling-you feel different. Your mistake is in assuming that you have to actually touch something to feel it- that's true for a common-English understanding of what it means to touch things, but not if you insist that touching something only counts if the atoms are knocking into each other with literally zero space between them.",
"Well technically an atom is mostly empty space so if the electrons somehow suddenly stopped repelling each other you wouldn't feel anything, if you went to touch a table your hand would pass right through it. \n\nThis would present a bigger problem however because nothing would be repelled and all of the atom's mass would be pulled towards the center of the earth by gravity and you would end up with a very dense sphere where the planet used to be. \n\n",
"Keep in mind that nerves cells are like a million (billion?) times larger than an electron. Touch has nothing to do with any individual electron interaction; rather the cumulative interactions of billions upon billions of electrons.\n\nThen of course, there is the entire nervous system and the brain to interpret all the signals into something you experience as touch.",
"Methinks Prof Moriarty would [disagree](_URL_0_) with your statement that you never really touch something. In this great video he defines touch as the point at which van der Waals attractive force is balanced by the repulsive force due to the Pauli exclusion principle. ",
"Wood feels different from steel because the electrons of wood are positioned in a different way than the electrons in steel. As a result of this, they repell your hand in a different way.",
"For your practical thinking you can basically ignore the fact that they aren't \"touching\" you feel things are different for the exact same reason you'd think you would if there wasn't a miniscule space in-between. It's not like your skin is hovering over things at a high distance, it's so small that it almost doesn't matter.\n\nEdit: Amazing highly accurate drawing\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically it's not like the top where your finger is just floating over the object. If you zoomed in an insane amount you it would kinda look like bottom where there is a tiny gap but it's so small that it doesn't matter and it's so small you can't ever see it. ",
"So if we really don't touch things this means we're all technically virgins?",
"The idea that particles have a size can be misleading. Every particle is an infinitely small point in space that projects a field that interacts with other particles, which means that technically nothing touches anything, they only interact to a certain degree due to their fields of force."
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2ar8c0 | Did Eva Braun 100% willingly commit suicide with A. Hitler? | Is there written or apocryphal evidence that she was not at least in part coerced into killing herself? I've read a translation of his dictated will & testament that said something like 'my wife and I choose death over disgrace' or something. Would Eva Braun have been arrested or prosecuted by the Allies had she survived? Was she as broken, psychologically, as AH was? I find her story fascinating. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ar8c0/did_eva_braun_100_willingly_commit_suicide_with_a/ | {
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"Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge talks about this at great length in her memoirs. She tells how on April 21 von Ribbentrop tried to get Eva Braun to persuade Hitler to flee Berlin. Braun refused and said: \"He must decide this for himself. If he thinks it right to remain in Berlin, I will stay with him.\" The next day Hitler orders the women in the Führerbunker to leave and Braun says \"But you know that I am staying with you. I am not going to allow myself to be sent away.\" On April 25 they discuss how to kill themselves and Eva says \"I want to be a beautiful corpse, I am taking poison [instead of shooting herself]. Do you think it will hurt? I am so scared of suffering for a long time. Even though I am prepared to die heroically, it should at least be painless.\" On April 26 she writes her final letters. She looks scared and tells Junge: \"Ms Junge, I am so frightfully scared. I wish it was all over already.\" The next day her brother-in-law, a member of Hitler's inner circle, calls her to urge her to flee Berlin and she replies only: \"Hermann, where are you? Come over immediately, the Führer wants to speak to you.\" She later tells Junge that she is extremely disappointed that he has abandoned Hitler.\n\nOn April 30, the day of their suicides, she gives Junge her most treasured fur coat and tells her, smiling: \"Please try to get out of Berlin and say hello to Bayern from me.\" She has put on the dress that Hitler likes best on her, has done her hair beautifully and is freshly washed. Then she goes into Hitler's study with him and takes poison."
]
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[]
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35ba7j | why did some kings get crowned by the holy roman emperor and others by the pope? | for example, the first polish king was crowned by the holy roman emperor, while in france the kings were crowned by the pope. was there some sort of power struggle going on? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/35ba7j/why_did_some_kings_get_crowned_by_the_holy_roman/ | {
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"To answer the last question you asked (regarding a power struggle between the pope and the emperor), oh yes there was. Though the Emperor was named as such by the pope, the emperors of the HRE started taking more and more power, eventually deciding by themselves who would be the next pope. The most known power struggle between the two powers is called the \"Investiture Controversy\", and was related to the fact that the Emperor was naming people bishops, while it should have been the pope. This eventually lead to a menace of excommunication from the pope Gregory VII to the emperor Henry IV. This is a very easily accessible subject, you can read a lot about it even on wikipedia, it's not some obscure historical theory or anything.\n\nBut regarding the polish king, unless I'm mistaken, he actually used to pay tribute to the emperor, so I guess Poland of the time was inside the sphere of influence of the HRE, and therefore I guess the Emperor could indeed crown him. France though was not, so if a king had to be crowned, it would be by someone else.\n\nThere's a part about your question that isn't accurate though: the french kings, such as Saint Louis, were not crowned directly by the pope, but rather by a bishop. Perhaps you were talking about a guy like Charlemagne, who recieved the IMPERIAL crown from the hands of the pope? That would be because it's the imperial crown, and therefore only the pope could give it to someone (according to Constantine's Donation, which was proven to be a fake document).",
"and also, another follow up question if it is not too much. what would happen when a holy emperor was crowned by the elector princes, but the pope did not \"recognize\" him as the legitimate emperor? did u have alot of these types of conflicts,if any at all?"
]
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[],
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2iyssd | if obama can veto bills, why doesn't he just veto the tiered net neutrality bill, and draft his own to send to congress for approval? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2iyssd/eli5if_obama_can_veto_bills_why_doesnt_he_just/ | {
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"Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe regulatory decisions like this (made by the FCC) have to be passed through congress and the president as legislation.\n\nIt's more like there is legislation granting the FCC the authority to establish a regulatory framework and Internet Service Providers are responsible for following the rules and regulations established by the FCC. If the FCC introduces a 'fast lane' system into that regulatory framework, I don't believe that requires any approval. If Congress doesn't approve, they'd have to pass legislation limiting the FCC's authority and/or specifically outlaw the FCC's proposed 'fast lane' system."
]
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[]
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3uqx8r | why do many arab countries have similar flags? | United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Western Sahara, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Sirya (Egypt and Yemen missing green though) all have black, white, green and red in the flag. I know that the black symbolises Mohammed's army flag or something along those lines, but what about the other colours?
Also some of those countries's flags have a similar layout: three colours divided horizontally and a triangle (in the case of UAE it's not a triangle but a vertical rectangle) on the left with the remaining one. Is there a reason for this too or just a coincidence?
Thanks for your attention. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uqx8r/eli5_why_do_many_arab_countries_have_similar_flags/ | {
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"Other colors are the other Arab empires. Black is for the Abbasids (not Muhammad), White for the Ummayaads, Green for the Fatimids, and Red for the Hashemites, which were the rulers of Mecca who organized an Arab nationalist movement against the Turks.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I mean when you think about it, how many western countries use red white and blue. Off the top of my head I can think of UK, France, USA, Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand etc "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Arab_Revolt"
],
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] | |
1h3kvp | how does filibustering work? why doesn't someone just interrupt them because they're rambling on? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1h3kvp/eli5_how_does_filibustering_work_why_doesnt/ | {
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"Part of the rules which make the orderly discussion of bills possible is that when you \"have the floor\" you won't be interrupted.",
"The rules say. Unless you cede the floor, you hold the floor.",
"Anyone care to explain it like I am a five year old non American? "
]
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[],
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369gjm | What were Argentina's "plans" with the Falklands if they had won the war? | They dont really have much of a legitimate claim to the island so it would pretty much be conquest, what would have it meant for the Island and its people in the short and long term?
Would its 2k british citizens been deported? the Island repopulated with loyal argetines? Military Occupation? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/369gjm/what_were_argentinas_plans_with_the_falklands_if/ | {
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"Why were they so hotly contested? Strategic importance, or just the UK needing to not cave?",
"hi! you may be interested in this post\n\n* [What were the Argentinians plans for the Falkland Islanders after the Falklands war.](_URL_0_)"
]
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[],
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2aoq76/what_were_the_argentinians_plans_for_the_falkland/"
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f7gd1c | Are some plastics more environmentally harmful than others? | Different types of plastic have different properties. So, would the environmental damage caused by, say 10 tonnes of PET dumped in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean differ from 10 tonnes of PVC? And other than being non-biodegradable, why are plastics so bad for the environment? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/f7gd1c/are_some_plastics_more_environmentally_harmful/ | {
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"Absolutely. Some plastics break down faster than others. Some plastics are toxic when they break down while others are not. Some plastics are easy to recycle while others are difficult. _URL_0_",
"There are a number of reasons why plastic waste poses a great threat:\nPlastic waste can directly injure animals as they can get stuck in larger objects, containers, nets, etc.\nAnimals often mistakenly eat plastic waste which leads to blockage of their GI tract until they eventually starve to death.\n\nAlso, modern plastics not only consists of pure polymers but often contain additional compounds in order to adjust their physical/chemical properties. With millions of tons of plastics being collected in our oceans these additives might accumulate in animals and eventually in our food. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, it is important to keep this in mind since there are compounds known to have hormon-like (estrogen, etc.) effects under certain circumstances.\n\nDifference between plastics? Definitely. Not only obvious properties such as chemical resistance, toxicological effects, etc. differ but also other effects such as the way other compounds get adsorbed onto the plastic particle's surface which might eventually be released again."
]
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[
"https://www.google.com/search?q=how+different+plastics+break+down&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiYzs2Ch-bnAhUTtJ4KHawaBoMQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=how+different+plastics+break+down&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-img.3..33i299l2.364066.370596..372443...2.0..0.170.3887.0j33......0....1.......5..35i362i39j35i39j0j0i67j0i3j0i... | |
48e9a2 | What was life like for Amish communities in times of war, such as the Civil war, WWI & WWII? | Were they pressured by drafts? Are there documented incidents of them serving in wars? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/48e9a2/what_was_life_like_for_amish_communities_in_times/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0jamg7"
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"text": [
"On a tangent, did the Amish volunteer to fight/conscripted or were they exempt?"
]
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[]
] | |
26c7rf | if technology were capable of electronically modelling the human brain, including all synapses, chemical processes, and sensory input, would it actually be capable of learning on its own, or would we still have to tell it how to learn with programming? | Secondary question: What's the closest we've come to modelling the brain programatically? I gather it wouldn't be a very good model, considering there's a lot about the brain we don't really understand yet. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26c7rf/eli5_if_technology_were_capable_of_electronically/ | {
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"text": [
"OP specified that everything is modeled.\n\nIs a perfect model the same as the original? Functionally, yes."
]
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[]
] | |
717ytd | how does the post office know which piece of mail to forward? does someone read every piece? | Random thought. Since there's no barcode how does it get sorted? There must be a ton of names on the list. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/717ytd/eli5_how_does_the_post_office_know_which_piece_of/ | {
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"Optical scanners read the address. They do fine with machine printed addresses like from a business or your home printer. They do *okay* with neatly handwritten addresses but sometimes they can't make it out and human has to read the address then enter it into the computer system. \n\nAt that point a barcode gets printed onto the envelope or onto a sticker that is placed on the envelope and the automation system routes it to the proper address based on the bar code.",
"A computer reads every address, checks to see if there's a forwarding order and diverts if out to slap a forwarding label on it if necessary.\n\nThe USPS has some of the fastest and most competent OCR on the world, including cursive writing.\n\nEach mail scanner/sorter does 50,000+ letters per hour, including the lookups and bar code printing. "
]
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[],
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9uf124 | how do different fruits have different amounts of sugar or minerals if they grow from the same soil? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9uf124/eli5_how_do_different_fruits_have_different/ | {
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"Plants are not primarily composed of the soil in which they grow. The vast majority of the plant's structure, including the sugar in the fruit, is composed of air, water, and sunlight. Through photosynthesis the plants can react the CO2 and H2O to form things like cellulose and glucose, catalyzed by the energy input of sunlight.\n\nDifferent plants will absorb different amounts of trace minerals from the soil and incorporate them into their fruit and structure, but the soil is in most cases just to keep the plant upright, hold water for the roots to access, and that is pretty much it."
]
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[]
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32gxb0 | 1302nd Engineers Company B (US Army) in World War 2, I've exhausted my resources, anyone know anything? | My grandfather served in this company in WW2, doesn't talk about it much. He had an incredible photo album I remember looking through growing up that was stolen, photos of a concentration camp. Just lots of photos of bodies stacked to the ceiling, ovens, everything you've heard of. He wouldn't talk about it but he left it out for people to see. One day I sat with him and from the little he told me I only know that he was in Britain for a little while at desk jobs and he and a friend were getting bored and volunteered to go fight, moving across Europe and ending in Germany. I'll spare the minute details for the sake of wasting my own time but he did mention being briefly involved in the Battle of the Bulge, I found a booklet on his desk that looked like it was handed out by the Army with "Co. B 1302 Engineers, ADDRESS BOOK" with a bunch of contact information of men in the company, the only reason I even knew to search for this particular group. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/32gxb0/1302nd_engineers_company_b_us_army_in_world_war_2/ | {
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"text": [
"The Army employs historians at most of its major centers - in your case, the US Army Engineer School, Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Their staff historian and or museum director could point out resources, you might email them."
]
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268pqi | Why did the "v" hand gesture change it's meaning from Churchill's "v for victory" to the hippie era "peace" symbol? | It just occurred to me that the "v" gesture changed from a war-related symbol to the complete opposite! Any insight would be much appreciated. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/268pqi/why_did_the_v_hand_gesture_change_its_meaning/ | {
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"The counterculture of the era commonly appropriated gestures which were previously in support of war as protests against it. Examples of this include driving with headlights on (first in support of the war, then as protest, mentioned in *Grossman's On Killing*) and wearing parts of military uniforms and regalia. \n\nThe V-for-Victory gesture was used by Richard Nixon during his tenure to to signify victory in Vietnam, and started being used by protesters to symbolise peace after his resignation. "
]
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[]
] | |
4lkjy8 | How much truth is there to the saying Nero 'fiddled while Rome burned'? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4lkjy8/how_much_truth_is_there_to_the_saying_nero/ | {
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"Not all that much, honestly, even when you remember that the fiddle wasn't invented until the 16th century! He may have been plucking a lyre when it happened, though: He was giving a dramatic rendition of Troy over in Greece when the fire happened. I actually discussed the events surrounding the fire (and the aftermath) a couple of years ago [here](_URL_0_), actually! One thing to note is that, despite the quick and immediate disaster relief that Nero began, he followed it up with the monumentally stupid move of deciding to build a monstrous palace right on top of the still smoldering ruins. I'll copypaste my earlier comment here to give that context for you :) \n\nOne more quick note of context: Massive fires happened in Rome *all* the time. This one was particularly large, but they were rather common. \n___\n\nFirst off, a fire started in Rome. It could have been one of Nero's men (Our sources frequently depict Nero as insane, though that could have just been bias), or it could have been, as he claimed, a Christian (or any religious zealot really) committing an act of terror. Nero himself was out of town when it happened, rumour having it that he was giving a dramatic rendition of the Fall of Troy (Which apparently he was very bad at, our ancient sources do not treat Nero very well). Tacitus also recalls that just before the fire, Nero.... welll.........\n\n > He had a raft constructed on Agrippa's lake, put the guests on board and set it in motion by other vessels towing it. These vessels glittered with gold and ivory; the crews were arranged according to age and experience in vice. Birds and beasts had been procured from remote countries, and sea monsters from the ocean. On the margin of the lake were set up brothels crowded with noble ladies, and on the opposite bank were seen naked prostitutes with obscene gestures and movements. As darkness approached, all the adjacent grove and surrounding buildings resounded with song, and shone brilliantly with lights. Nero, who polluted himself by every lawful or lawless indulgence, had not omitted a single abomination which could heighten his depravity, till a few days afterwards he stooped to marry himself to one of that filthy herd, by name Pythagoras, with all the forms of regular wedlock. The bridal veil was put over the emperor; people saw the witnesses of the ceremony, the wedding dower, the couch and the nuptial torches; everything in a word was plainly visible, which, even when a woman weds darkness hides.\n\nThat would be what we know today as an \"orgy.\" As I said, these guys didn't like Nero much, but Tacitus does link said debauchery to Nero's insanity, the wrath of the gods, and implies it as \"one last roll before we burn the city down\" kinda thing.\n\nThe fire began in an inflammable section of the market. And considering that Rome was crammed, filthy, dry, there was a strong wind, and the buildings were wooden....it went up like a light. (I'm personally of the opinion that it was an accident, but eh.) The fire spread like...well...wildfire, causing widespread panic and riots (similar to what would happen today if such a massive fire were to break out) - Tacitus writes:\n\n > And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.\n\nThat would be a riot, or mob mentality. I'm still not convinced that Nero had told people to \"burn baby burn.\" As soon as Nero heard about the fire, he rushed back to Rome from Antium and helped the people out - despite the fact that **his own palace had burned down too.**\n\n > Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace with the gardens of Maecenas. It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and the neighbouring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to three sesterces a peck.\n\nUnfortunately for him....well....the rumour was already running around that the fire was his fault. On TOP of that, it was rumoured that he was comparing Rome to Troy over in Antium. When the fire was finally put out (by making an incredibly massive firebreak - destroying everything in the fire's path, \"so that the violence of the fire was met by clear ground and an open sky.\"), everyone breathed a sigh of relief. And then ANOTHER fire happened and they were all \"Oh what the fuck.\" \n\n > Consequently, though there was less loss of life, the temples of the gods, and the porticoes which were devoted to enjoyment, fell in a yet more widespread ruin. And to this conflagration there attached the greater infamy because it broke out on the Aemilian property of Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name. Rome, indeed, is divided into fourteen districts, four of which remained uninjured, three were levelled to the ground, while in the other seven were left only a few shattered, half-burnt relics of houses.\n\nHere's where Tacitus really implies that Nero was at fault - he gives an excellent breakdown of the damage of the city, and apparently over two thirds of the city was destroyed. That's....insane. That's worse than New Orleans ever had it during Katrina, for perspective (the city still hasn't recovered), and here, Nero embarked on possibly the worst PR campaign ever. He blamed the whole thing on the Christians. \n\n > Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.\n\nYeah, you know it's bad when *A Roman who has nothing to do with being Christian, and is used to blood sport, feels sorry for these guys* (He doesn't even LIKE them). We don't have any evidence that Christians were \"torn apart by wild beasts in the arena,\" however, being burned alive was the penalty for arson, and crucifixion was considered the cruelest possible death by the Romans. \n\nThen, to **compound that blame game**, which wasn't going over all that well (Nero was still being blamed for everything), Nero decided that he needed a new palace. And this palace was fucking *massive* and lavish on a scale that was just silly. Back to Tacitus, because you haven't had enough quotes quite yet!\n\n > Nero meanwhile availed himself of his country's desolation, and erected a mansion in which the jewels and gold, long familiar objects, quite vulgarised by our extravagance, were not so marvellous as the fields and lakes, with woods on one side to resemble a wilderness, and, on the other, open spaces and extensive views. The directors and contrivers of the work were Severus and Celer, who had the genius and the audacity to attempt by art even what nature had refused, and to fool away an emperor's resources.\n\nIn other words, he built a STUPIDLY lavish mansion over the ruins of Rome, using streets as his measurements instead of normal measurements for houses. Think of what would happen if you used \"streets\" instead of \"metres.\" The fact that he took advantage of the city being burned down....that didn't go down well at ALL, and really just pushed those rumours farther. For obvious reasons, really. And again, it wasn't the lavishness of the building that really got the Romans. It was the fact that **he was literally building this mansion right on top of the ashes of one of the burnt down districts.** \n\nTo be fair to Nero, Rome was ALSO rebuilt under him - again, a SUPER efficient task, if you really want to think about it. And not only was Rome rebuilt, it was rebuilt BETTER. And what I mean by that is that there were actually building codes - he essentially let a couple of engineers with crazy ideas go nuts. Tacitus DOES praise the post-fire Rome as being better both because it wouldn't become an inferno like the old Rome, and it was more aesthetically pleasing. Nero DID like pretty things. \n\nThe reason for the lack of clarity is because rumour, speculation, and hatred are very powerful things. "
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j7qdy/was_nero_involved_in_the_burning_of_rome_why_is/"
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2laue3 | Is the Milky Way spinning in a stable configuration? | The Milky Way is set to collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in 4 billion years. But if it didn't, (and in the meantime) would it stay in the same shape that it is now as it rotates, like a spinning top, or will it deform and change shape somehow? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2laue3/is_the_milky_way_spinning_in_a_stable/ | {
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"The milky way is a barred spiral galaxy. Galaxies of our shape occur mostly because of many interactions with other galaxies. With no further interactions the milky way overtime would most likely loose its bar. However we are in a busy corner of the neighborhood celestialy speaking. We are currently merging with a small galaxy on the other side of the milky way. These kinds of things are common and the number of globular clusters is evidence of that. \n\nThe shape of the spiral arms in the galaxy is less to do with the rotation of the galaxy itself and more to do with how gravity and dark matter are distributed throughout the galaxy. "
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5tw1w5 | What variety of Arabic would most historical sources have been written in after the decline of Classical Arabic but before the modern era? | Are our surviving Arabic texts after the 9th century still written in Classical Arabic, in a local vernacular, or something else? I'm particularly curious about the type that would have been used in the religious texts of Safavid Iran, my main area of interest, as most religious writings there were still in Arabic until the late 17th century. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5tw1w5/what_variety_of_arabic_would_most_historical/ | {
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"Cool, this question is totally my area. \nI'm not sure why you think Classical Arabic declined after the 9th century. In fact, the 9th century was the period in which the first real grammars of Classical Arabic were being produced; Sibuwayh himself only died right at the end of the 8th century, and that's pretty much the first grammar we have of Arabic. \nClassical Arabic was more or less continuously in use by Muslim scholars, both from within the Arabic world as outside until the Nahda period, i.e. the 18th century, until it was more-or-less replaced by Modern Standard Arabic. In any case, when you look at the history of Classical Arabic literature, it's obvious that more-or-less the same standard was used up until the beginning of the 18th century; al-Mas‘ūdi (9th century), Yaqūt al-Rūmī (13th century), and al-Umawi (15th century) all pretty much write in the same kind of language. In other words, this decline never really took place. \nThat being said, there is a corpus of texts written in a form of Arabic that is neither dialectal nor Classical, and which is usually called Middle-Arabic. A sizeable amount of texts, some of which were produced by authors otherwise fluent in Classical Arabic, are written in this kind of register and reflect a somewhat simplified form of Classical Arabic with a fair amount of substratal influence, both from the Arabic dialects as well as from neighbouring languages. We're still trying to figure out what the nature of these texts is, exactly, but it's apparent they do possess some kind of standard. Bear in mind that the majority of these texts can be classified as popular literature, so it would be extremely unlikely you would find texts of a religious nature amongst them. \nTo answer your question: the kind of writing you refer to, if written in Arabic, would definitely be Classical Arabic and would attempt to at least reproduce the standard used by earlier Muslim writers. \n \n**Sources** \n\nBlau, J. (2002) *A Handbook of Early Middle Arabic* \nLentin, J. (2012) \"Normes orthographiques en arabe moyen\" \nVersteegh, K. (2014) *History of the Arabic Language* "
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a65685 | Are there limits (low or high) to the frequencies that lasers can emit? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/a65685/are_there_limits_low_or_high_to_the_frequencies/ | {
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"There are technical limitations, especially if you are talking about lasers and not about stimulated emission (the physics lasers are based on). To make a laser you need a resonant cavity and an amplifying medium, both at the frequency you are making the laser. Finding amplifying mediums is very difficult at certain wavelengths, and making mirrors good enough for a cavity can be challenging too at extreme wavelengths. You can find ways to circumvent those problems, those are fields of research.\n\nAs for theoretical limits, I honestly don't know, but there may be EM frequencies for which making cavities or amplifying medium is impossible.",
"The [maser](_URL_0_) (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) predates the laser, and indeed the theory of the laser was based on the maser. Also \"masers can be designed to generate electromagnetic waves at not only microwave frequencies but also radio and infrared frequencies\" (from the same Wikipedia article)."
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176sb4 | Does an aircraft get better "gas mileage" on a cold day or hot day? | What about just during takeoff?
edit: Does the type of aircraft matter? Would the effects be more noticeable in a propeller craft versus a jet engine? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/176sb4/does_an_aircraft_get_better_gas_mileage_on_a_cold/ | {
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"Cold day. Air is denser. At least I'm pretty sure of that. \n\nDenser air has more air molecules per unit volume, so the fuel will combust more thoroughly. In hit air, you need more air to combust the same amount of fuel; conversely you would need less fuel to completely combust the same volume of air. More air molecule gives a better chance for reactive collisions. \n\nEDIT: Added content. ",
"Temperature will have two main effects, both related to the density or air decreasing with increasing temperature.\n\nFirst, air density affects the aerodynamics of how the plane flies. Less dense air means that the plane will have to fly faster to produce the same lift but also that there will be less drag at a given speed. Those effects cancel to some extent but there will still be a net increase or decrease depending on the exact design of the airplane.\n\nSecond, air density affects engine performance because you get more or less oxygen in the same volume of air. Colder/more dense air increases the engine's maximum power output but how it affects efficiency at a given power level again depends on the exact design of the engine.\n\nSo the answer to your question is that it depends on many details of the design of the airplane and engine. Your best bet would probably be to research flight performance characteristics for specific aircraft. If there is data for different altitudes that might give some insight because air density also changes with altitude.",
"As ee58 described, whether cruise efficiency gets better or worse depends on several factors, but takeoff performance is ~universally improved by lower temperatures because of the increased air density."
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33xsz2 | Do galaxies die? How many years would that take? Could some of the most distant galaxies we've observed be long gone today? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/33xsz2/do_galaxies_die_how_many_years_would_that_take/ | {
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"Well, it depends on how you define \"death\". Galaxies collide and merge with each other, so lots of the galaxies we see that are billion of years old may not be there anymore, because they have merged with nearby galaxies, and thus today they would look totally different. Their constituent stars would still be there, however, more or less, (minus any that have died since), since galactic collisions are usually pretty harmless to the stars within the galaxies, since the chances of stars colliding during such an event is extremely low due to the sheer amount of empty space in between stars in galaxies.\n\nAll things being equal galaxies will eventually \"burn out\" though, as all their stars run out of fuel and die, and slowly all the lights will eventually dim for every galaxy in the Universe. But that process takes trillions of years because even after a star runs out of fuel, it turns into a white dwarf which still glows fairly brightly for a VERY long time.\n",
"I guess it would depend on your definition of *die*. Eventually, a very long time in the future, all of the stars in any given galaxy will run out of fusable material and die meaning the entire galaxy will no longer be emitting visible light. That'll still leave the white dwarf, neutron star, and black hole corpses of all of the stars it had produced through out its life.\n\nAs for how long that will take, the smallest red dwarf stars will continue to shine for 100 billion years or more, and more of those will continue to be born for probably 100's of billions of years to come.\n\nAs for the most distant galaxies we can see, you need to remember that what we are seeing are those galaxies as they were around 13 billion years ago. None of them will have existed long enough for all of the fusable materials in the galaxy to have been used up, and they will continue to have stars shining for 100's of billions of years, yet.",
"Yes, galaxies will eventually die. You might think that the central black hole will consume all the stars, but actually only a small fraction die this way. Instead, as stars within a galaxy pass by with each other, they can gain enough energy to exit the galaxy. This is similar to how evaporation works in water: a few water molecules gain enough energy to exit as a gas.\n\nThe process is referred to as \"dynamic relaxation\" and is very slow, on the order of 10^20 years. For comparison, the last star will die in around 10^14 years. So our galaxy will consist of nothing but stellar remnants: black holes, neutron stars, etc. for a billion trillion years before the galaxy itself disperses.\n\nIf you're interested in this stuff, the book \"The Five Ages of the Universe\" is a fun read."
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2pez7d | why can't terrible teachers be fired? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pez7d/eli5why_cant_terrible_teachers_be_fired/ | {
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"Tenure: the idea that the longer you're there the more it takes for you to get fired. A lot of public school teachers are contractually protected, even if they're shitty, from being terminated for anything short of grievous misconduct. ",
"Tenure and unions.\n\nFrom there things can vary by school & circumstances.",
"I was at a teacher inservice once...learning about a grading scale...and the instructor told us tenured teachers were more likely to be struck by lightening then fired for performance reasons.",
"Teacher here. Teachers can be \"fired\". I think there is a big misconception with how evaluations and tenure work in a public school setting. Speaking from my own experience, there has been a huge shift towards data collection and goal setting in a number of areas for educators. This in part is to ensure that students are getting the best education & making growth, but also to train teachers to become reflective in their teaching. That being said, if you are a good teacher chances are this is no problem. I'm sure there are teachers that sneak by, but in time their scores or demeanor will sell them out. So due to this process, it is possible for \"terrible\" or ineffective teachers to be fired. I believe these evaluation processes have been created in part to support a PS in letting go of teachers. \n\nEdit: I should note that my state does not have a strong teacher union. ",
"Former Teacher here, now Administrator:\n\n1. To answer this, you need to know a little history. Teachers used to be fired all the time for not agreeing with their boss's beliefs. For example, they could be fired if they were democrat and their principal or superintendent was republican. They could be fired for not taking \"allegiance oaths\" swearing that they would never say anything bad about their school. They could be fired for not being the same religion. They could even be fired if they went to a bar, got their hair cut at a barber's shop, or even went on dates. Tenure was put into place to stop this from happening. \n\n2. Tenure basically means that teachers get \"due-process\" in order to be fired. They cannot be fired for no reason. This means that the Principal and / or Administration of a school has to prove that the teacher is a bad teacher AND that even with professional development, additional training and mentoring, the teacher isn't changing their behavior and improving their instruction. \n\n3. Most teacher unions also want to get rid of \"bad\" teachers. Bad teachers give the profession a bad name. HOWEVER, the union's role is to make sure that the teacher isn't being fired unjustly. They are there to make sure that the Principal and Administration actually have a really good case for firing. Good unions will work WITH the school district to provide the remedial training for the struggling or \"bad\" teacher.\n\nIn my own experience, I was a teacher in a school with a \"bad\" teacher. What she was doing put all of us under a microscope and made us all feel uncomfortable, especially because all of a sudden there were loads of administration down our hallway and we felt we were all being watched a little excessively. **NOTE** She was not doing anything illegal or putting students in danger in any way - if she had been, she would have been fired immediately as that is considered to be a just cause for termination. \n\nWe all worked with her, with the union, and with the Administration to try and help her improve her teaching, but she refused to change. By the time she was \"fired,\" the administration had enough data, documentation, and evaluations to show that she was ineffective and that she should be let-go. Which is how modern tenure is supposed to work."
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248ylo | if the recession ended five years ago, why does the economy still seem so bad? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/248ylo/eli5_if_the_recession_ended_five_years_ago_why/ | {
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"Because we haven't fully recovered from the recession.\n\nThink of it like your house burning down. The fire stopped months ago, but you still aren't in a new house and all your clothes smell like smoke.",
"The recession did not end five years ago."
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1ix7f5 | how do they film tv shows/movies that take place in big cities? | When they're making TV shows that take place in Chicago or LA or New York City, how do they film on the streets? Do they just film around people, or do they block off the section they want to use? They can't just shut down part of a city to film there, so how do they do it without getting interrupted? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ix7f5/eli5_how_do_they_film_tv_showsmovies_that_take/ | {
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"Some options:\n\n* They block off streets on weekend mornings.\n* They film on a set and digitally composite with computer graphics.\n* They film in Vancouver.",
"Sometimes yes they actually do shut down streets and such. It costs a lot of money to do that in a big city, and cities are happy to take their money. Occasionally they just do shoot around people as well.\n\nOften times though, other cities, or sets will take the place of another city. They could easily film say a street in Vancouver or Toldeo, Ohio and say thats LA or NY or chicago, you'd probably never know the difference because of how narrow they shoot it, they are experts at it.\n\n",
"- For TV productions, sometimes sets are built that look like an actual street. They're then reused over and over, with minor changes (like rotating store windows) to keep them looking fresh. This is what you saw on Seinfeld, and on movies that have really elaborate street scenes like Back to the Future. (If you ever get the chance, try to visit one of these sets. They're eerie, because they're incredibly detailed and real-looking yet everything is empty and built into walls. Feels like an episode of The Prisoner or something.)\n\n- For high-budget productions, they'll actually pay the city to shut down a block or two for a while. This is expensive as hell.\n\n- In recent years, it's become more common to send a skeleton crew to a city centre -- just one camera, no sound equipment, little to no lighting, bare minimum personnel -- to shoot a 'plate'. They just shoot scenes in the city, 10 minute segments of footage at key locations, with nothing in them, no performers. Then the actors perform their scenes in front of a green screen and are digitally composited onto the plate. This is a lot cheaper than actually shutting down blocks to keep performing scenes, because that tiny crew can shoot the plate quickly, easily, and cheaply without interfering with other people. You'd be surprised just how common this is for non-special-effectsy shows like 30 Rock and Ugly Betty.\n\n- If your show has a *ton* of outdoor content, you pay to shut down blocks and streets -- but you do it in a much smaller cheaper city/town, and edit in aerial shots of the city you're *pretending* to use. Psych, for example, is set in Santa Barbara, USA but is actually filmed around Vancouver and other British Columbia, CAN towns. They sent a helicopter to Santa Barbara, filmed an hour of aerial footage, and just splice it in a few times an episode to make it look like they're in the USA. (If you ever watched The X-Files, they shot the first half of the series in small Canadian towns and the second half in Los Angeles, which is why there's a sudden stark shift from overcast gloom and foggy villages to sundrenched suburbs about halfway through.) It's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to shut down a few blocks in Ashcroft than to shut down 5 metres of Brooklyn.\n\n",
"Most of the time, they fake it: _URL_0_",
"Captain America is being filmed in Cleveland Ohio because it looks like a small New York, \n\nMeaning that they can block of roads with a smaller traffic jam. ",
"There's plenty of real film operations that go on in New York. There are several film studios, and the city gives tax subsidies and additional help to production companies that want to film here. A lot of productions end up taking over a ton of space wherever they need to set up. There's been filming in my neighborhood a few times since I moved here and I hate it.",
"Production companies will often close streets for complex shots, usually in parts of the city that look appropriate, but aren't actually busy.\n\nAs well, they might close a street in the morning or evening when there's less traffic. The scenes for deserted London in 28 Days later were shot just after sunrise (which still pissed off a mess of commuters).\n\nOf course, famous landmarks can be shown in an establishing shot, then the film might cut to a scene shot in a particularly urban area of Podunk, Ohio to imply that it is the same location. This is much more cost-effective as a smaller city will charge less for a longer shutdown.\n\nOf course CGI can do anything!",
"I've seen parts of streets blocked off in downtown LA, the public can usually still pass though, as long as they're not in the middle of a shot. I've also seen lots of NYC taxi cabs in LA, as well as Wilshire being redressed to look like Tokyo for one of those Fast and Furious movies.",
"Check out this video _URL_0_",
"Glasgow has been used in a couple of movies lately and made out to be another city. I know World War Z had a few scenes recorded in Glasgow and was made out to be a US city, and I'm sure the latest Fast and Furious movie had some scenes recorded in Glasgow but made out to be London."
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1k3513 | the proof behind the existence of black holes. | The proof used to know about their existence before they were captured on camera. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k3513/eli5_the_proof_behind_the_existence_of_black_holes/ | {
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"To understand it, first you have to understand escape velocity.\n\nIf you throw a ball straight up, depending on the velocity the ball it has some velocity. It will be dragged on by the gravity of the Earth to slow it down and eventually it will stop and then fall back. However, the farther the ball gets from Earth, the weaker the gravity. If you throw the ball fast enough (faster than you can throw) gravity will get weaker faster than it can slow down the ball and in that case, the ball will never stop and fall back, it will just get slower and slower and slower forever. The minimum speed to achieve this from some distance from a gravity well is the escape velocity. The stronger the gravity, the faster the escape velocity.\n\nWe already had evidence for super-dense stars which we would later call neutron stars. The question just became, what would happen if a star was so heavy and so dense that the escape velocity from its surface was greater than the speed of light? Even light would be unable to achieve escape velocity, so anything which passed this 'event horizon' would be lost from the rest of the universe forever.",
"I don't know if we actually had any proof before we finally captured them in action. I think before that they were mostly theoretical.\n\nHowever, I believe there was a good amount of evidence based on observations of objects that are visible. I'm not a cosmologist or anything, but I believe that they were better able to make sense of galaxies by assuming a super-massive black-hole in the center. Without it, I don't think that the movements or shapes that were observed made sense.",
"Well, before we actually found some, we just figured that if you put enough mass in one spot, there would be one."
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6n1i51 | how does after shave work and why is it important to use it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6n1i51/eli5_how_does_after_shave_work_and_why_is_it/ | {
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"Aftershave (one word) is a liquid compound that generally contains an antibacterial agent like denatured alcohol (to disinfect any cuts/microabrasions), an astringent like witch hazel (to reduce skin irritation), and a numbing agent like menthol (to reduce pain in cuts/microabrasion or from the alcohol). They also often contain fragrance or essential oils (to create a unique scent). \n\nIt should be noted that aftershave is not a necessary or even recommended for use after a shave."
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5jg181 | how do pharmaceutical companies ensure each pill contains the right dosage and that none randomly have more or less than others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jg181/eli5_how_do_pharmaceutical_companies_ensure_each/ | {
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"They design the mixing apparatus and procedures to blend properly and they test to make sure there are no spots in the mix which are not properly blended. Ingredients are chosen to be compatible in the blending process.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"I work in a soil/water lab where we use a Malvern Mastersizer 3000 which is a laser particle size analyzer. I learned these are often used in the food and pharmaceutical industry to test whether the particles are evenly distributed, determine size, shape, etc. The machine allows companies to analyze if an ingredient is evenly distributed/blended properly within the pill. If a pill has 75% of the active ingredient on one half of the pill, it will often be recalled due to the risk of people cutting them in half and expecting the same dosage. ",
"I worked in the industry before, although not in manufacturing. The other replies pointed out using certain instruments in the process.\n\nEven before they start manufacturing, a formulation (you could say recipe) is developed. This formulation gets tested for things like homogeneity (even distribution of all the ingredients) and stability (how long it will last). After they determine the correct formulation, they can manufacture.\n\nDuring the manufacturing process there are various people involved in testing and ensuring that the drugs meet various standards such as homogeneity. If a batch or lot is found to not meet standards, those won't go to the market. Also, there are audits of the process by internal QA, external QA, clients, and regulatory agencies.\n\nOf course it's a little more complex than this, but the important points are:\n1) the correct formulation is developed\n2) countless checks during manufacturing help ensure a product meeting proper standards"
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9ok3rj | how is this new camera that captures light at 10 trillion fps able to do that? | And wouldn't you think that 10 trillion frames per second would warrant faster than light speed? What sort of method is this camera using? [Here is a link](_URL_0_) to one of many articles about this camera. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ok3rj/eli5_how_is_this_new_camera_that_captures_light/ | {
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"Can't say I know how many photons hit an area the size of the sensor per second, but I'd imagine it's more than the FPS of this camera by a long shot. All its doing is measuring photons hitting a sensor at a faster rate than normal. It just so happens that the speed is unimaginably large",
"Short answer: complex math. Long answer:\n\nThere is an ultrafast imaging technique called a streak camera. This captures a pulse of light as a streak across a sensor, with time. Various ways to do this, from a mirror across a fairly normal sensor to a simple photodiode that controls the output of a cathode ray tube that scans across a sensor.\n\nThis is combined mathematically with a more normal image taken at the same time. Because the position of the streak camera’s focus is known, it’s possible to use the same math as what a CT scan uses to determine what made that light pulse show up on the streak camera in that way."
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1moa4o | How did masters of foreign slaves deal with the language barrier? | I'm particularly thinking of the first waves of such slaves into a society, before there would have been a lingua fraca or contact shared by slaver and enslaved society. E.G. perhaps the first German slaves that Rome conquered. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1moa4o/how_did_masters_of_foreign_slaves_deal_with_the/ | {
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" Generally, communication was pretty simple - go there, clean that, harvest this, etc. As a result, slaves were really only required to know a very basic and limited section of a language - until they could learn the words for even the basest of tasks, one might expect gestures or demonstrations to be used. \n Theoretically, one slave would be taught the routine (if the task required many slaves) and would teach the rest how to accomplish it. More realistically, however, a sort of pidgin would be established, wherein a low-grade dog Latin combination of the languages would form the base of communication between the two in a similar fashion to a French-speaking tourist visiting a town in America.",
"I don't understand these kinds of questions. They crop up frequently. A similar one is, \"How did Europeans and Native Americans communicate upon first contact?\" Anyone who has spent a week in a foreign country knows how they communicated, with a lot of hand gestures, shouting, facial expressions, and modeled behavior. Within an hour you could probably learn enough vocabulary to make yourself understood. Within a month or two there would be no more language \"barrier.\" I just don't know how to historicize this question, since it deals more with basic human capabilities.",
"Though Carol_White believes that in a matter of one or two months a European could learn a non-Indo-European language to such fluency that there \"would be no more language 'barrier'\", this is being overly generous to colonists (to put it lightly). \n\nFor an example of the difficulties that arise when languages are in contact, see Peter Hulme's discussion of the word \"cannibal\" as it arose in the context of Spanish colonization of the Caribbean. If you are interested in etymology and the historical trajectories of language, his discussion of \"cannibal\" arising from \"Carib,\" which Columbus misunderstood to mean anthropophagus (eaters of human flesh), is especially helpful in understanding Shakespeare's character Caliban (a metathesis of cannibal) from *The Tempest*.\n\nThere were a number of strategies that developed for communication between different language groups. Both the English and the Spanish produced Amerindian grammars to facilitate language learning, especially among the clergy. While the English effort was only a fraction of the Spanish (who documented 400+ Amerindian languages by the 19th century), John Eliot's work in New England is regarded highly. In fact, his translation of the King James Bible into Algonquian was the **first** bible published in the English colonies.\n\nSee: \nGray and Fiering, *The Language Encounter in the Americas, 1492-1800*\nZwartjes and Hovdhaugen, *Missionary Linguistics/Lingüística misionera*\n"
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24r6c9 | who is paying for the search for malaysia m370 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24r6c9/eli5who_is_paying_for_the_search_for_malaysia_m370/ | {
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"Primarily China, Australia, and the US, the three wealthy countries with citizens on board.",
"Generally the expense (and primary responsibility for coordination) is borne by the closest country to the crash site, in this case Australia, although other countries are lending both financial and practical aid.",
"Probably not Malaysia"
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6urlko | Girlfriends Grandparent's have negatives of Mussolini's death and post mortem body. How valuable are pictures like these to historians? | My girlfriend came back from visiting her grandparents and according to her they own a set of negatives that were taken by a family friend for intelligence purposes who later passed them to her great grandfather for keeping. I doubt the family would ever want to donate them or sell them to a museum at a low price due to their lower socioeconomic background.
What type of value do pictures like these have today to historians? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6urlko/girlfriends_grandparents_have_negatives_of/ | {
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"This is fascinating. Do you have more details on how they came to be in her possession? The relationship between the photographer and Mussolini? What kind of \"intelligence\" were they involved in? What kind of condition are they in? A full story would really help. ",
"Even without the originals, with some idea of provenance (the story of how the photographs were taken and the negatives passed), a short term loan to a museum for a high quality scan would be useful. If you were planning to do this, find one that has interest in the period. If you state which country you are in, that may help people make suggestions."
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61zkyk | why is 36.7 degrees celcius the perfect temperature for a shower, but 30 degree weather is too hot? (if you're irish like me that is) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61zkyk/eli5_why_is_367_degrees_celcius_the_perfect/ | {
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"You shower for maybe twenty minutes at a time, which is enough to warm your outer body temperature and it feels warm and comfortable but not enough time to hugely affect your internal temperature. If you spend too long in the hot water, you might notice how you'll start feeling tired and weak. That's because your body is overheating, and you might even feel a little dizzy if you overdid it too much. That's one of the very first signs of heatstroke, and if you stayed in hot temperatures too long you'd start seeing more serious signs too.\n\nBut if you're outside, you're spending longer periods in hot weather and breathing in hot air, which itself raises your internal temperature faster. Your body will start sweating to cool itself down, which can leave you feeling dehydrated. This makes it harder for your body to cope with the stress of heat, and your body will start making you feel uncomfortable as one of the first warning signs to tell you to get to somewhere cooler."
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3zoirr | why was the 6th commandment often ignored by christians throughout history? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zoirr/eli5_why_was_the_6th_commandment_often_ignored_by/ | {
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"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Romans 3:10-11 \n\n\n",
"Well, other parts of the old testament call for execution for certain crimes. The general interpretation of the \"thou shalt not kill rule,\" is that you shouldn't murder, you shouldn't unjustly kill. Killing in war? OK, at least sometimes. Killing someone because you had an argument with them? Not OK, that's murder.",
"The Qur'an also prohibits the enforcement of Islam or the use of force to spread its ideals, but we have ISIS and Al Qaeda. People as a group are terrible regardless of religion or lack thereof. Only as an individual can anyone truly be good.",
"Hypocrisy is probably the easiest explanation. Christians follow the Bible and it is riddled with contradictions, there are enough passages urging followers to kill one another to appease God who/which I strongly believe is actually a strict adherence to a particular set of norms that hopes to make life peaceful but ends up enriching some and disadvantages a lot more in a most brutal way. I like George Carlin's breakdown of the 10 commandments. He gets to the 6th around the 4:50 mark. Its comedy but I like his way of getting at it.\n_URL_0_",
"The commandment is not \"shall not kill\" despite often being inaccurately described or translated that way. The most accurate English translation of the commandment is \"shall not murder\", and murder is slightly different from killing."
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3e8ymk | if your mail can't be searched without suspicion how do most people get caught shipping drugs? | If someone was sending pot, or cocaine, or whatever and there was no smell or visible evidence how would they be caught? Is there a process of screening packages that is legal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3e8ymk/eli5_if_your_mail_cant_be_searched_without/ | {
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"because the drug sniffing dogs or the xray machines detects what could be drugs, so that gives reasonable suspicion. ",
"People who are caught shipping drugs are caught because there is reasonable suspicion their package contains drugs. Keep in mind that while a human can't smell or detect the presence of drugs within a package, a dog may be able to, and if a drug dog alerts the handler that there is a suspicious material within that package, that's reasonable suspicion to search the package. \n\nAdditionally, the DEA frequently investigates suspected drug dealers. They will have evidence that suggests someone is dealing drugs that is independent of what they mail or ship, and intercept packages that they suspect are filled with drugs. Once this package is intercepted, they will dress as a delivery person and attempt to deliver the package, then taking down the recipient and arresting them."
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wz964 | Catholic persecution in Poland during Hitler's invasion | I just read on wikipedia that:
"Catholicism in Poland, the religion of the vast majority of the population, was severely persecuted during World War II, following the Nazi invasion of the country and its subsequent annexation into Germany. Over 3 million Catholics of Polish descent were murdered during the Invasion of Poland. Among them was Saint Maximillian Kolbe. In 1999, 108 Polish Catholic victims of the invasion of Poland, including 3 bishops, 52 priests, 26 monks, 3 seminarians, 8 nuns and 9 lay people, were beatified by Pope John Paul II as the 108 Martyrs of World War Two."
Is this more of a 3 million poles died that happened to be Catholic, or did Hitler actually have it out for Catholic Poles? If so, did he do the same in other countries, and tell me more | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wz964/catholic_persecution_in_poland_during_hitlers/ | {
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"Not a specialist, but reporting based on what I've read:\n\nThe Nazis had it out for Polish Catholics, primarily because the Catholic Church was even at that point one of the support structures holding Polish society together. It was an alternative source of authority; it was a source of unity; and it was a source that (in some cases) publicly opposed German actions against either Catholic or Jewish Poles. Hitler's goal was to completely subjugate the Polish state and Polish civil society to further fulfill Germany's wishes and desires, and attacking the infrastructure of the Catholic Church was one way to do so. \n\nI am somewhat more familiar with Maximilian Kolbe. He was a Catholic priest who used Church infrastructure to shelter Jews, was arrested, and died in Auschwitz after volunteering to take the place of a young Catholic Pole who had been chosen to be publicly executed in a 10-man vengeance stunt. Was he killed because he was Catholic? Yes-no. You cannot argue in good faith that anyone was specifically trying to annihilate Polish Catholics because they were Catholic, but I think it's fair to state that the Germans had it in for the Poles, and often were exceptionally targeting those Poles who were prominent parts of Polish civil society. Which meant (quite often) prominent Catholics. Does that distinction work for you?",
"Beware of wikipedia articles. People often insert their political or ideological agenda, and right-wing nationalist Poles are one of the more active 'cabals'.\n\nNazi occupation of Poland was very harsh. Many victims would have been Catholic but that's because vast majority of Poles were and are Catholics. I think run85 hit the nail on the head in the second paragraph of his post here.",
"The Nazis wanted to do away with the Poles as a whole. They sought to decapitate the \"elite\", which included the aristocracy, university professors, officer corp, and the clergy.\nHitler had it out for the Poles regardless of their religion."
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a5ya3o | Did the Romans know that the Great Pyramid of Giza was 2500 year old? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a5ya3o/did_the_romans_know_that_the_great_pyramid_of/ | {
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"Here's a link to a previous thread that asks a similar question.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The Greeks, and through them the Romans, were aware that Egyptian civilization and its monuments were very ancient. Their sense of just *how* ancient, however, was quite vague.\n\nHerodotus, the father of history, devotes the second book of his Histories to Egypt. His sources (he claims) were Egyptian priests - but since he was forced to communicate with them through an interpreter (and acquired a great deal of hearsay from other sources), his narrative often presents a rather garbled version of Egyptian tradition. Still, Herodotus came to understand the depth of Egyptian history:\n\n\"Next, the priests read to me from a written record the names of three hundred and thirty monarchs, in the same number of generations, all of them Egyptians except eighteen...\" (2.100)\n\nHerodotus' account of the Great Pyramid (where he seems to have been the victim of an unscrupulous tour guide) is, however, chronologically displaced - he makes Cheops (Khufu) a grandson of Proteus (2.112ff), whom he describes as a contemporary of Helen of Troy - that is \"about 800 years before my time \\[c. 430 BCE\\]\" (2.145).\n\nDiodorus Siculis (a Greek historian who wrote in the first century BCE) presents a detailed account of ancient Egypt in his first book. Like Herodotus, he was aware of (and in fact exaggerates) the depth of Egyptian history:\n\n\"Some of \\[the Egyptian priests\\] give the story that at first gods and heroes ruled Egypt for a little less than eighteen thousand years, the last of the gods to rule being Horus, the son of Isis; and mortals have been kings over their country, they say, for a little less than five thousand years down to the One Hundred and Eightieth Olympiad, the time when we visited Egypt and the king was Ptolemy, who took the name of The New Dionysus \\[Ptolemy XI, r. 80-51 BCE\\]\" (1.44.1)\n\nLike Herodotus, Diodorus makes Khufu (whom he calls Chemnis) a descendant of Proteus - whom, again like Herodotus, he dates to the time of Trojan War (1.62.1). He actually makes Khufu/Chemnis even more recent than Herodotus, describing him as having reigned nine generations (i.e., almost three centuries) after Proteus.\n\nThe Greek geographer Strabo, also working in the first century BCE, describes the Pyramids at Giza (17.33), but provides only vague details about their dating. The Pyramid of Menkaure he calls the \"Tomb of the Courtesan,\" and associates with a woman named \"Doricha, the beloved of Sappho's brother Charaxus.\" Since the poetess Sappho flourished in the late seventh century BCE, Strabo thus radically underestimates the date of at least this pyramid.\n\nIn his compendious *Natural History* (a sort of encyclopedia), Pliny the Elder (first century CE) briefly discusses the Great Pyramid. But he doesn't know how old it is, and frankly doesn't much care. In fact, he isn't even sure who built it:\n\n\"The largest Pyramid is built of stone quarried in Arabia: three hundred and sixty thousand men, it is said, were employed upon it twenty years, and the three were completed in seventy-eight years and four months. \\[The Pyramids\\] are described by the following writers: Herodotus, Euhemerus, Duris of Samos, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Alexander Polyhistor, Butoridas, Antisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles, and Apion. These authors, however, **disagree as to the persons by whom they were constructed;** **accident having, with very considerable justice, consigned to oblivion the names of those who erected such stupendous memorials of their vanity**.\" (36.17)\n\nPliny also repeats the story about the Pyramid of Menkaure being dedicated to a courtesan - in his account Rhodopis, a fellow-slave of the Aesop (traditionally said to have flourished in the early sixth century BCE).\n\nWhy were these Greeks and Roman authors so misguided? They were certainly in a position to know better - Manetho, a Greek-speaking Egyptian priest, had composed a relatively accurate chronology of the Egyptian pharaohs' reigns in the third century BCE; and the many wealthy Romans who visited Egypt could have consulted with learned Egyptians during their tours. \n\nThere seem to be two sources of misinformation in the sources quoted here. First, Herodotus, whose work was a widely-read \"classic\" by the Roman era, had established an account of Egypt that some authors (and especially those who never visited Egypt themselves) regarded as definitive; Herodotus and other members of the literary tradition he established were simply imitated. Second, and I think more importantly, the Greeks and Romans (but especially the Greeks) had a habit of explaining every other culture's history and norms with reference to their own. Fitting Khufu (as Cheops or Chemnis or some other name) into a familiar Greek chronology as the descendant of a figure referenced in Homer may have simply been too intellectually tempting to resist."
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78x5jy | If money was no object, how fast could I get from San Francisco to New York City in 1860? | Say it's me and a couple dozen of my buddies, and we're lugging around stuff in crates too. We're super rich and we need to cross the country ASAP. I assume their isn't a railway that links the two cities, so would we have to alternate between rails and stagecoaches and boats and horses and stuff? PS I get that the Civil War is around the corner, but for the sake of argument let's say nobody bothers us for the duration. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/78x5jy/if_money_was_no_object_how_fast_could_i_get_from/ | {
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"In 1860 you would have a few options.\n\nThe slowest overland route would be to hire a staff of guides and teamsters to guide your wagon train. Depending on time of year you’d either take the northern route through Salt Lake and then following the Humboldt River across northern Nevada. Total transit times could vary wildly based on travel conditions but 3 months would be typical. The northern route was faster, but because of the problems with mountain passes, especially through the Sierra Nevadas, it was only viable during the summer. You wanted to be done by October unless you maybe want to eat your friends. \n\nThe southern route was open year round. It followed the overland trail from Missouri down to Santa Fe, across to LA and then up the coast to San Fransisco. It would add another 600 miles and several weeks to your journey. Regardless of route, you have to add another 5 days or so for the train time from New York to Missouri. \n\nBy 1860 commercial service had opened up. The Butterfield Stagecoach Service was operating along the southern route. 596 hours of travel time, or 25 days. But the coaches only carried 9 passengers and *very* limited cargo so you’d have to reserve a lot of coaches, you wouldn’t exactly be traveling with your friends. But you could replicate the system, and travel in a train of coaches instead of wagons. \n\nAt best (no expense spared) you’re looking at at least a month of travel, and more likely something closer to 3 months.\n\nBut that’s only overland travel. You can also go by ship. In a lot of ways it’s a far more convenient way to travel, and with your crates it’s a lot more practical. Here again you have some options. For passengers and light goods the preferred option was to sail to Panama, portage across the isthmus and then board a new ship to sail up to San Francisco. This was a reasonably fast trip. As a lieutenant in 1852 Ulysses Grant made this trip in 43 days, even faster trips were possible, depending on weather. \n\nOf course his unit crossed during a cholera outbreak. Out of 700 fellow travelers only 450 boarded the ship to San Fransisco. The rest were dead or at least recuperating from cholera and unable to continue with the unit. So your rich friends might not find that an acceptable risk just to get to San Fransisco faster. That said in 1855 the cross-Panama Railway had been built. So you’d likely only spend a few days in country not 18 like Grant had to do.\n\nPanama also restricted heavy goods. The military had to send heavy stuff like artillery via the longer route around the tip of South America. Such journeys could take 5-6 months. And once the Railway was built, they became much rarer.\n\nAll told you’re looking at least a month sailing to and from Panama, or a month in coaches crossing the southwest deserts. ",
"One option would be to take a steamer from San Francisco to Seattle, travel overland from there to Fort Benton on the Missouri River, take a paddle wheeler downriver to St Louis and finish the trip by train to New York. \n\n.\n\n\n39 hrs - San Francisco to Seattle -810 miles. \n\n\n17 days - Seattle to Fort Benton - 680 miles\n\n\n58 hrs - Fort Benton to St Louis - 1500 miles\n\n\n48 hrs - St Louis to New York - 950 miles. \n\n.\n\n\nRounding numbers up it would be concievable for a person to complete the water and rail portions of travel in 150 hours. Assumptions made are that the steamships have enough coal on board so that they don't have to stop for fuel, average speed is 19 knots and the Missouri River flows at 10 mph. \n\nThe distance from the coast to Fort Benton on the Missouri is a bit of a wild card but it should be conceivable that this party would be able to travel 40 miles per day by 1860. \n\nSo theoretically a person should be able to make the trip with a large party and supplies in around 27 days. "
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5gi1wr | What happened to Prussia after World War I? Was it dissolved like the Holy Roman Empire, or was its territory conquered by various powers during/after World War I? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5gi1wr/what_happened_to_prussia_after_world_war_i_was_it/ | {
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"After World War I, the Kingdom of Prussia was abolished, along with the rest of the German Empire. In its place was the Free State of Prussia, which included most of the territory of the old Kingdom of Prussia, minus the bits that were lost to Germany after the war.\n\nPrussia continued to exist as a state of Germany until 1947, when it was abolished by the Allied Control Council via Control Council Law No. 46. "
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37jar5 | why vevo is like a "subreddit"' on youtube? why don't they just make their own website and feature the artists there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37jar5/eli5_why_vevo_is_like_a_subreddit_on_youtube_why/ | {
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"I'd imagine it is much cheaper to piggy back on someone's established work(coding, marketing and of course it's established name in popculture) than to venture into a competing website starting from scratch. ",
"Why reinvent the wheel? Youtube has a lot of exposure/publicity and is willing to handle all of the technical aspects (hosting, support, Q & A, etc.) of the website in exchange for a cut of the ad revenues (more likely, the other way around; Vevo gets paid part of the ad revenues earned on their videos by Youtube). This arrangement makes Vevo's job very easy. All they have to do is sign the artists and upload the music/videos.\n\nSetting up their own website would simply force them to compete with Youtube, which is a losing proposition for both parties."
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2o9pwg | what are the pros and cons of s free trade agreement between the eu and the united states? why are some people opposing the deal? | I've been under the impression that free trade agreements are usually good for everyone involved. Why wouldn't people want this deal to go through? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2o9pwg/eli5_what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_s_free_trade/ | {
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"Free trade agreements are absolutely not good for everyone, though many economists agree that they're better for most people. \n\nThe main two pros of a free trade agreement are that they reduce regulatory burden/arbitrage, and that they ensure better allocation of resources. The first one is hard to explain, but the basics of it are this, if the US requires you to label your product one way, and the EU requires you to label your product another, you need to have two labeling facilities, and estimate how much you'll need for each jurisdiction. Under a free trade agreement, the US and EU would attempt to make their labels conform, so you'd only need one labeling facility, and you'd only have to estimate total demand. \n\nThe second is best explained through an example. Imagine there are two countries, country A and country B. In A, they have lots of good, high quality sand with which to make glass, but their only heat source is wood, which means they have to use a lot of inefficiently burning wood to get the temperature hot enough. In B, they have lots of oil for heating, but only poor, low grade sand for making glass, which means they have to expend a lot more oil to get the temperature up and purify everything to make glass, 5 times more than if they had A's sand. If A and B charge tariffs on trade, they're going to be more incentivized to use their own inefficient resources to make glass. If there's free trade, the A will trade good quality sand to B in exchange for oil, and A can save it's wood for things wood is better-used for, and B can save significantly on oil, even though it's trading some away, because it can make so much more with glass.\n\nNow, for the downsides. The traditional downside is that A's woodchoppers now have fewer jobs, and B's oilmen and sand diggers now have fewer jobs. In addition, with current trade deals, there are huge concerns about how those deals will impact the ability of countries to regulate there own markets and resources. For instance, the US once agreed to open up its service sector, including its digital services sector, and ensure that foreign companies had equal access to the US as domestic ones. The US then got sued, because some states allow online gambling, but only by companies regulated in those states. Antigua and Barbuda, which is home to a lot of online gambling sites, said \"hey, there's US companies offering these digital services to US customers, why cant our companies offer them? This is unequal treatment. Antigua and Barbuda went to the WTO and won. Of course, nothing really happens when they win, they get to put tariffs on some of our goods to them and the like, but that's it. \n\nThe real new concern is about what's called, \"Investor-State Dispute Settlement.\" This legal structure, a part of some of the ongoing negotiations, allows for a private individual to sue a country for violations of international trade law, rather than it being limited to just countries suing each-other. The target is to get at when countries tell investors \"hey, come build factories and power plants on our soil, then you can sell to our people and make lots of money\", then when the investors build it, saying \"sorry, we've decided we don't want this industry here, we're making it illegal to own this stuff privately\" and takes all the stuff those investors brought over. ISDS will allow those investors to sue that country and get paid for the stuff it brought over and the work it did. Sounds ok, right? The fear is, what if those investors buys up a bunch of land to do something that's currently legal, like, say, hydrofracking. Then, lets say the science finds conclusively that hydrofracking is really really bad, and for legitimate environmental reasons, the government decides to ban it. Will the government have to pay all of those foreign investors in order to make what is a legitimate regulatory decision? Suddenly, instead of congress just being told \"in order to ban this, we'll have to accept x economic loss from the activity\", they'll have to be told \"in order to ban this, we'll have to accept x economic loss from the activity, and we'll have to pay out y to foreign companies that are in the industry here.\" That has a lot of people concerned. "
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8x28wz | why do heights feel taller when looking from the top down than from the ground up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8x28wz/eli5_why_do_heights_feel_taller_when_looking_from/ | {
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"It's a lot more than just the height differences. It's your sense of danger kicking in coupled with your enhanced ability to actually perceive height because there's more to compare it to.\n\nWhen you're on the ground, you are not in danger. When you are leaning over a precipice looking down, you are. Your brain instantly kicks in with a big \"Do not go any closer!\" message that some people can easily overcome due to being accustomed to it, and others can never handle. That sense of fear makes the distance look enormous.\n\nThen there's the ability to comparatively measure. When you're up high looking down, you can easily tell that you're relatively high by comparing the size of stuff at ground level as you see it from your perch versus what size it is when you're down there next to it. Climb a radio tower, look down and see ant-sized people, and you instantly know you're REALLY high. But when you are on the ground looking up, there's nothing to compare it to, only the sky (or ceiling if indoors)... and so it's really hard to gauge distance.\n\n(Sidebar note: this is also why full moons on the horizon look enormous compared to how large they appear when up in the sky. The horizon gives you something to compare the size of the moon to, but the open sky doesn't, so the moon appears much smaller.)\n\n",
"Not to mention, let’s say you’re six feet tall. From the ground, the diving board doesn’t look that tall because your eyes are nearly six feet off the ground. When you’re on top of the board, the ground looks that much farther away because your eyes are nearly six feet above the board. That’s a difference in perception of almost 12 feet there!",
"Because when you are at the top you adding you own height and the contrary when you are at the ground just my two cents "
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35oi55 | how do people intercept data when you're using public wifi? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35oi55/eli5_how_do_people_intercept_data_when_youre/ | {
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"I would say it's more like they eavesdrop on it than intercept it. Your data is still reaching the router like they weren't there. \r\r\rThe WiFi router and your device just broadcast the data out there in all directions. It's freely out there. Now that said, it is encoded so you need to know how it is encoded. That's why with secure networks you cant access the data.\r\r\rBut when you are on the same WiFi network, all the devices know how to encode it. They all receive all the data from each other, they are all within range. The router and devices just know what data is meant for them by IP addresses. All they have to do is tell their computer to stop ignoring the data with IP addresses indicating it's to/from you. ",
"Everything that is sent over the Wi-Fi is sent over the air, so anyone who is within listening range can \"hear\" what your computer is doing at anytime. This is why encryption is so important; instead of your computer saying \"My username is KillerBoi97 and my password is TotallySecurePassword\", encryption will make it sound like \"FJEOITJEDMNGVOQW$J@)VMNBVN QAO$T)(HGJ2345JOLAJO$T09tjajg\" to other people. They cannot decode the message without your encryption password. Luckily, most computers have to be in a special mode to be able to \"monitor\" the air, and only certain chipsets support this function.\n\ntl;dr everything is sent over the air, so everyone can see it"
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b8nvh7 | What recreational drugs, aside from alcohol, were available in 1500s Europe? | and what was the cultural perception of them (including alcohol)? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b8nvh7/what_recreational_drugs_aside_from_alcohol_were/ | {
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"Very little other than alcohol in widespread use in 1500. By the mid-17th century, you've got tobacco and coffee.\n\nPsilocybin-containing and other \"magic mushrooms\" were always present, and there's some suggestion of use as far back as 6000 years ago in Europe. Psilocybes and *amanita muscaria* grow wild, and were presumably eaten by accident and perhaps on purpose, but evidence of intentional ingestion is very rare. If you were in 1550 Prague and asked the equivalent of \"how can I get high\" -- perhaps some herbalist would have known which mushrooms to pick, but they weren't \"available\" in the sense of being sold for that purpose, nor do you find commentary suggesting their use for this purpose.\n\nFungus infecting grains -- notably ergot -- could have psychoactive properties, and there are disputed suggestions that ergotism from rye was responsible for hallucinations and the Scottish witch hunts of the early 16th century, these suggestions are similar to those for the 17th century Salem witch trials. This remains an interesting and controversial historical argument; what we can say for certain is that while perhaps may have happened, it was not widespread, and there was no hallucinogen \"available\" to be purchased.\n\nLaudanum -- tincture of opium- - is sometimes attributed to Paracelsus, though his laudanum was apparently substantially different in its ingredients from the later drug of the same name that flourished after the mid 17th century. Whatever Paracelsus' recipe was, it does appear that he's the first European to begin to explore the powers of opium and its derivatives. That said, this was not anything that would have been known or \"available\" to the average European in 1500.\n\nSo if you're thinking of 16th century Europe, alcohol is the premier psychoactive substance. Its also a time when drink is getting much stronger. In 1500, Hieronymous Brunschwig publishes his *Liber de arte destillandi* (The Book of the Art of Distillation), the first book on the subject, although knowledge of distilling had existed since about the 13th century. Up until that time, the strongest drink available would be beer and wine.\n\nThere's the possibility of some mild psychoactive effects from spices-- notably nutmeg, which was an expensive and rare luxury good in the 16th century. Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum of 1640 mentions nutmeg as a cure for various ailments, but doesn't mention psychoactive properties.\n\nWith respect to cultural reception, in 1500 alcohol is the only \"recreational drug\" in widespread use in Europe, and the full range of sentiments with respect to alcohol are present, from celebration to denunciation, although outside the Muslim world prohibition is rare. Christians typically celebrate alcohol as a gift from God in this period, neither side in the Reformation is anti-alcohol, though Calvin and Zwingli both attack drunkenness. Later, there are condemnations of both coffee and tobacco, which are largely ignored.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nSources\n\n[A Prehistoric Mural in Spain Depicting Neurotropic Psilocybe Mushrooms?](_URL_8_)\n\nSIGERIST, HENRY E. “LAUDANUM IN THE WORKS OF PARACELSUS.” *Bulletin of the History of Medicine*, vol. 9, no. 5, 1941, pp. 530–544. *JSTOR*, [_URL_3_](https://_URL_3_).\n\nDuncan, Kirsty. “Was Ergotism Responsible for the Scottish Witch-Hunts?” *Area*, vol. 25, no. 1, 1993, pp. 30–36. *JSTOR*, [_URL_2_](https://_URL_2_).\n\nWeil, Andrew T. “Nutmeg as a Narcotic.” *Economic Botany*, vol. 19, no. 3, 1965, pp. 194–217. *JSTOR*, [_URL_5_](http://_URL_5_).\n\nBowers, John M. “‘Dronkenesse Is Ful of Stryvyng’: Alcoholism and Ritual Violence in Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale.” *ELH*, vol. 57, no. 4, 1990, pp. 757–784. *JSTOR*, [_URL_1_](_URL_0_). \\[Earlier than your date, but Chaucer gives a good picture of attitudes towards drunkenness in the late medieval period, his family were in the wine and tavern business, so he's a very good first person view from someone familiar with the subject\\]\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;"
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"www.jstor.org/stable/2873084",
"www.jstor.org/stable/20003209",
"www.jstor.org/stable/44440627",
"https://www.jstor.org/stable/44440627",
"www.jstor.org/stable/4252602",
"http://www.jstor.org/stable/4252602",
"https://www.jstor.org/stable/20... | |
1jkn82 | could a human survive temporarily being swallowed by a large animal like a shark or whale? what would the process of death be like, and could they survive if they weren't bitten/crushed in the mouth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jkn82/eli5_could_a_human_survive_temporarily_being/ | {
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"The first thing that would kill someone who is swallowed alive is probably lack of oxygen. Assuming you're a scuba diver being swallowed by a whale, if you can avoid being forced into the whale's digestive track and stay in the mouth, you can live as long as your oxygen holds out and you aren't crushed by the mouth. As far as being digested to death, just imagine rolling around in acid and letting it slowly dissolve you, starting with your skin and muscles.",
"Yes, but only for a very short time. You've got to think of the environment you'd be in - no oxygen, caustic chemicals, likely poisonous gases. If you survived the mouth my guess is you'd be unconscious and or suffocated within a minute or less.",
"No. There was actually a lot of news stories in late 19th century about people surviving in whale stomachs. \n\nAlso survival depends on the animal. For example, a whale contains more than 1 stomach. The first stomach doesn't secrete any digestive juices, but the pressure inside it would crush a human. \n\nI would recommend reading Gulp by Mary roach. There's a few chapters in it, about this ",
"Man survived being swallowed by a [hippo](_URL_0_)",
"Did you happen to watch \"Sharknado\" before asking this question?"
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a2pkpi | Is there a material which reflects or absorbs radio waves in a way that is visible to the human eye? | Coming up short in my searches, I have a feeling I'm asking a stupid question or one that's too ignorant for Google to figure out for me. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/a2pkpi/is_there_a_material_which_reflects_or_absorbs/ | {
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"Well for one, the human eye *can't* percieve radio waves, so there's no way for us to tell whether they've been reflected.\n\nIf they are absorbed, by definition, the human eye can't see it either since they are no longer there.\n\nThere could be a case where a wave was absorbed by a material and re-emited at a visible frequency. This is the case of fluorescent materials which absorb light (usually UV) and re-emit some of it in the visible spectrum (visible to us). The energy which went missing in the process is converted into heat.\n\nNote that this process can't occur in your particular situation where you have radio waves hitting the material. Radio waves have very long wavelenghts and therefore are not very energetic. Visible light on the other hand, is a lot more energetic, and couldn't be emitted from this process since that'd mean more energy leaving the material than feeding into it, thus violating energy conservation.",
"Probably not, but you're not too far off in thinking that. Nonlinear materials can be used (this is still an area of active research) to mix two EM waves to higher frequencies. \n\nSimilarly, if a strong enough radio wave passes through a nonlinear dielectric, the polarization field will saturate and produce higher frequency EM waves. The harmonic frequencies will be smaller in amplitude the further they are from the original frequency and given the large difference in frequency between visible light and radio waves, the harmonics probably wouldn't be large enough to be detectable. \n\nAs far as mixing two radio waves together, I don't think there is enough bandwidth in the radio/microwave spectrum to mix two radio waves to the visible band.\n\n",
"You can heat something to incondescence using microwaves or IR so that it glows in the visible. Also, IR viewers convert long wavelength emissions into visible emissions. But under ambient conditions without specialized detectors, one would not expect to see visible emissions as the result of radio wave absorption.",
"Does creating sparks in antennas count? Aluminum foil in a microwave does it, with suitable intensity and antenna size you can do the same with longer wavelengths as well."
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8c1xai | why do chinese "lions" not look anything like actual lions? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8c1xai/eli5_why_do_chinese_lions_not_look_anything_like/ | {
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"Here's what I remember from my art history days...\n\nIn Chinese art there is a \"right\" way to do pretty much everything from holding the brush to applying ink to paper. This is easily controlled because artists were all from guilds(forget the Chinese word for it) and the artists that made the most well known lions were all part of the royal artists guild. This leads to highly uniform stylized art. That's why all \"foo dogs\" look the same. They are all emulating the work of an agreed upon master. Also many sculptures are not made by one person so having standards made it a lot easier. The Chinese are by no means unique in this respect. ",
"Mostly because lions are not native to China. Imagine this: one person saw it, and tries to describe it in text, and the artisans tries to create something from the text, pretty much what Chinese lions looks now is what we get. Then newer generations simply copy and add their own interpretations, similar to Burrito is kinda of American food instead of Mexican food.\n\nThis compares to how tigers, which is native to China, are accurately depicted. ",
"i believe you’re talking about sculptures of lions usually seen outside temples and such. i was taught that they weren’t meant to be representations of the animal, but rather as guardians of the location. they are more “stylized” in order to frighten demons or evil spirits. ",
"From my understanding, and feel free to correct me, is that they kinda based them of Tibetan Mastiffs. Which were kinda bred to like lions"
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37wavl | how is it legal for certain movies/mini series to show child nudity? | I am finishing up the mini series based on Herman Wouk's novels "The Winds of War" and the sequel "War and Remembrance." (I HIGHLY recommend everyone viewing these films at the earliest possibility, they are incredibly well produced and very historically accurate.) There comes a point at Auschwitz where the prisoners are forced to strip before being gassed, during this time there are a lot of people naked and the camera shows several little children, some boys and some girls, totally nude. Full frontal exposure. These children cannot be older than 6 years old. It was my understanding that this sort of thing is terribly illegal. How can it be in the film? Please explain!
Edit: I should add, this movie was made in 1988, this could have some bearing on the answer? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37wavl/eli5how_is_it_legal_for_certain_moviesmini_series/ | {
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"Child nudity is illegal if it appeals to the prurient interest -- that is, for sexual gratification. Child nudity is legal if it is for a legitimate artistic, educational or scientific purpose.\n\nSo, what you're describing clearly falls into the category of artistic.",
"It's non-sexual nudity. It's not gratuitous. It's relevant to the plot. If someone is getting turned on by naked 6 year olds in Auschwitz, they are the ones with the problem, not the film makers or censors.\n\nAlso, I imagine, the children's parents were on hand at all times, and there a procedures and laws that have to be followed for children on film, even when those children are keeping their clothes on, so I doubt those children were in the least bit traumatized by their experience.",
"Child pornography laws work in a similar way to regular pornography laws, where it depends on the context and contents of the picture. This is unfortunately an arbitrary line which leads us to the whole \"I know it when I see it\" bit when describing porn vs. art, but such is life.\n\nConsider, for example, a parent who takes a picture of their kid in the bathtub, or a picture of a toddler being a toddler and running around naked. I don't think anyone would call that child pornography, despite the fact that it obviously has nudity.\n\nThe idea is that they are not showing nude children for the intent of sexual arousal. While someone who's *truly* fucked in the head could probably get aroused by it, it definitely was not the intention of the artist and free speech says that they should be allowed to do it.",
"so the answer people are giving is that it has to be non sexual, but isn't there still an issue of being able to consent?",
"The depiction of child nudity in a non-sexual context has become as unusual/taboo as it is only fairly recently. The Blue Lagoon (1980, I think) is a good example — the first half hour or so the protagonists are children, and they're pretty much naked all the time. Utterly inconceivable today in a big Hollywood movie. Back then, no one batted an eyelid."
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3iqzi7 | why presidential candidates are never scientists or doctors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iqzi7/eli5_why_presidential_candidates_are_never/ | {
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"There are multiple people from the medical field running in the US presidential election right now.\n\nThe sciences tend to contribute relatively few people to politics because it is a less straightforward path than it is from some other careers.",
"The personality and lifestyle required to be a scientist or doctor are not highly compatible with those required to be a world-leading political candidate. It would be a very uncommon combination of personal attributes.",
"There have been a few, for example Ron Paul is a doctor, he ran for president in 1988, 2008, and 2012. His son Rand is also a doctor and running this year. ",
"That's what advisors are for, it takes a special kind I'd personality to be a winning politician and as for me and a lot (not all) of other scientists and engineers we are not very good at winning over the hearts of people and so it's best for us to give advice from the shadows",
"The presidency, hell, pretty much any elected office, is a popularity contest. The talking head tells us a beautiful story about all the magical things that they will do, if only we'd give them our vote. Then we get strung along just long enough to reelect them and they proceed to do whatever the heck they originally wanted to do for the last years in office. \n\nScience is, generally, a truthful thing. The personality that enjoys discovering new facts and sharing them with the world doesn't mesh well with the give and take of politics.\n\nSure, I'm bitter, probably wrong, but this is the reality I see from year to year.\n\nedit: typos",
"Ben Carson and both Rand and Ron Paul are MD's. Carson was amongst the most highly regarded fetal surgeons in the world. \n\nThough in my experience dealing with MD's, most don't seem like the type of people who would normally be attracted to politics. ",
"Scientists work with truth, objectivity and evidence.\n\nPoliticians work with soundbites, easy answers and good teeth... Fuck, they really are gonna elect Trump, aren't they...",
"People from those specific fields fill the cabinet roles. The president is a leader, she uses the advice of experts to make decisions. ",
"Politics and business are actually incredibly similar fields, though. They both involve a lot of networking, charisma, leadership, and people skills. Think about it, though - politicians don't really worry about their credentials. A lot are businesspeople and lawyers (since I suppose it's loosely tied to legislature), but most of the time it's about the *person* and not what the person *is*.\n\nI, for example, have no clue what Obama did before government. Or Angela Merkel. Or David Cameron. Hell, in my country, our president never even finished high school. But who cares, because we vote them in for their policies and stances. If I were firmly in favour of candidate B over candidate A, finding out that A is an engineer while B was a schoolteacher isn't really going to sway me.\n\nAlso, science fields tend to attract more reserved, bookish people, who don't usually aspire to being in front of crowds or \"acting\" in the way politicians do. They're also usually no bullshit types, which doesn't gel at *all* with politics.",
"Highly educated types might not want to deal with the avalanche of bullshit that being a politician entails. It's a lot of work, lots of stress, people want to kill you for stupid reasons, and at the end of the day half of your constituents or more hate your ass just because you did your job.\n\nFuck that noise.",
"Scientists and doctors are far too busy actually improving the world to spend all their time promising to do it. ",
"This is speculative, but here goes. The kind of person who gets a PhD and the kind of person who is successful in politics are largely different. \n\nFor starters, unlike a bachelor's or masters, a PhD is a career path itself. Most people who get phds do so in order to go into academia or research. So already phds are self selecting away from public service. \n\nFurther, think about the kind of person who is interested in government and law. Those kinds of people usually become lawyers or study government at University. A JD is a terminal degree, so usually no need for a PhD. And in things like government or political science, you often don't need a PhD unless you're going into academia. \n\nLastly, the fact that someone is intelligent enough to get a PhD is a specific field does not make them intelligent in other areas, or good at politics. They are an expert in one very specific field, and you should be wary of trusting them on other matters simply because they have a PhD. Witness Ben Carson, Republican candidate and widely respected surgeon, who IMO has some incredibly stupid views on government and is clearly not a skilled politician. "
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b9skq8 | why do drinks like pepsi, wine and other natural/food colored stuff turn to the same color when we pee? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b9skq8/eli5_why_do_drinks_like_pepsi_wine_and_other/ | {
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"The things you drink are broken down by acid and enzymes in your gut, and the components absorbed in to your blood, which is immediately run through your liver, where further chemical breakdown takes place. There is no \"wine\" or \"pepsi\" at this point - there is water, and sugars, and fats, and proteins, and some other metabolites in small quantities. The blood is then circulated, use made of the various components as required, and then it goes to your kidneys, where some water and unwanted metabolites (including urea, a yellowish by-product of protein breakdown) is pulled out into the bladder, where you pee it. Tldr; the pee isn't the stuff you put in. It's excess water and unwanted stuff. ",
"Remember - everything you Pee - came out of your blood. Not everything you consume ends up in the bloodstream... "
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39123q | To what extent is the idea of an ancient "Proto-Indo-European" pantheon supported today? | Hello scholars! I'm not certain this is necessarily a "history" question, but I'll shoot anyway.
So, as an amateur enthusiast in myths and ancient religions, I just spent the last day or so reading up on the idea of a "Proto-Indo-European" pantheon; a synthesis of the ancient religions of all Indo-European peoples, meant to emulate what the folks that came before all those disparate peoples split ways actually believed.
But, I couldn't find anything that felt solid or widely supported.
Websites like _URL_3_ seemed jumbled and incomplete, despite offering a non-patriarchal model, which I would think would be the more modern approach.
and _URL_2_ whilst presenting a more coherent picture, seemed to be more concerned with practical applications for modern worship and revival of the religion, which struck me as off.
And [the Wikipedia page](_URL_0_) is a complete mess. So many of the deities mentioned as candidates for the various categories of PIE Gods are little more than stubs, if that.
The best I could find was [this Reader on the topic from the University of Zagreb](_URL_1_), but some of the stuff there didn't quite sit right with me for some reason.
If this was widely accepted theory, I'd have expected a nice chart that compares the qualities and names of all 12 or so Indo-European Linguistic Families' pantheons all organised on the Wiki page, with a nice page to describe each of the general PIE archetypes ("sky father", "grain goddess", "thunder-guy", "horse twins" etcetera).
So, should I leave this idea of shared commonalities between ancient Indo-European religions in the dust as a seductive yet outdated simplification,
or is this just a case of academics not presenting their findings well on freely available internet sources? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39123q/to_what_extent_is_the_idea_of_an_ancient/ | {
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"I mean, it's a theory that is supported by the thinnest strands of similarities between stories told by Indo-European language groups. Not every group has the same stories, but there are similar enough stories to postulate that they might share a common pantheon. But the biggest issue is that the historical record ends far before most of these stories were written down. Again, the PIE Pantheon is a theory at best, but a damn interesting one. ",
"Benjamin Fortson's book, *Indo-European Language and Culture: an Introduction* (2004) is a pretty solid (to the best of my understanding) overview of Indo-European studies, mostly linguistics but it has sections on culture as well. Regarding a PIE religion, Fortson says the following: \n > \"Nothing like a complete picture of PIE religious beliefs and practices is possible; in what follows, we can only give a sampling of the major divine figures, myths, and a few elements of religious ritual. On the whole, few divine names can be confidently reconstructed. Most of the familiar Greek and Roman gods, for example, have names of unknown etymology, and some (like Aphrodite) are known to be of Semitic provenance. Others, like Venus and the Germanic god Woden [Odin], have names that derive from Indo-European roots, but there are no deities in other branches with cognate names. Clearly the daughter traditions have undergone considerable change and evolution.\"\n\nHe does, however, identify a few reconstructable deities and divine figures: Father Sky (corresponding to Vedic Dyaus Pitar or Latin Juppiter), a male Sun deity, a god of thunder and lightning (Germanic Thor or Slavic Perun, although these names are not cognates of each other), a goddess of Dawn (Vedic Usas, Greek Eos, Latin Aurora), and a pair of divine twins (Castor and Pollux, Baltic Dieva Deli, Vedic Ashvins). He seems pretty confident that these figures can be reconstructed, and a lot less confident about names and details. Honestly most of the Pantheon section of the Wikipedia page you linked seems to follow Fortson pretty well, although it's written worse and doesn't adequately convey how speculative this is. This is a pretty recent work (not bleeding edge, obviously, but only a decade old), and so are some of the other works listed on the Wikipedia page, although I'm not familiar with the other recent sources."
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"http://piereligion.org/"
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45a6x8 | why is marijuana bad for your sleep when some people use it to relax/fall asleep. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45a6x8/eli5_why_is_marijuana_bad_for_your_sleep_when/ | {
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"Short answer is it affects your deep sleep, so it's kinda like only taking a light nap, for your entire sleep duration. Sure, you have been resting the whole time, but you haven't effectively been truly sleeping, which is what your brain needs. This is why if you smoke often before sleeping, you'll find you have a harder time wanting to get out of bed, because you did not get \"A good night's sleep\".",
"Well for me personally i began smoking with friends back in high school just as recreational thing, never really got tired from it. as i got older i dont know why maybe it was the kind of weed i was smoking or what but i would just get tired and my girlfriend at the time would get horny. and we would have sex (with her doing most of the work lol) and i would just pass out. after we broke up i would smoke and use it to fall alseep. it wasnt til i stopped because i was looking for a new job and wasnt allowed to smoke because of drug tests i would have to do to get the job, i realized i couldnt sleep. i feel as i became dependent on it to fall asleep so maybe thats why its bad for sleep, but then again i never slept better when i was smoking. So from my experience being dependent on it to fall asleep is the only bad part, not saying thats everyone but for me thats how it kind of went.",
"All I know is after I stop smoking (for two or more days after daily use) my dreams become SUPER vivid and weird. "
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362zpo | why do we have lawns? wouldn't it be better if we all had gardens instead? | I understand it's aesthetically pleasing but it is such a waste of water and space. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/362zpo/eli5_why_do_we_have_lawns_wouldnt_it_be_better_if/ | {
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"Simple reason is that gardens are far more effort. Flowers, herbs, vegetables, etc require far more micro-management.\n",
"This would be good question to ask over at r/historians. Lawns haven't actually been around for very long. They evolved in victorian times as a status symbol of the elite classes. Only in the last 50-100 years did the technology for maintaining a lawn drop in price enough that everyday folk could afford it. Now of course, they're still a status symbol (for keeping up with the joneses) but we've also found recreational use for them, especially families with children. Long story short, lawns are a symptom of western societies many excesses, and yes, of course we'd be better (and healthier) if we all had produce gardens instead. ",
"Gardens take a shitload of work to maintain. Grass is super resilient and just needs water. Also the purpose of lawns is so children can play on the property. Not doable with gardens.",
"Funnily enough we don't differentiate between 'lawn' and 'garden' here in the UK. They're all just called gardens."
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39byp2 | What do we know would have been the consequences or implications of Germany winning the Great War/World War I? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39byp2/what_do_we_know_would_have_been_the_consequences/ | {
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"[Did Germany have a Treaty in mind if the Allies surrendered?] (_URL_2_)\n\n[If the Schlieffen Plan had succeeded, what were Germany's plans for France?] (_URL_1_)\n\n[What were the territorial objectives of the Central Powers?] (_URL_0_)\n\nI've answered similar questions in the past. Essentially France was to be neutered as an independent state, Russia driven back to the borders of 1720 and a series of satellite states established, with most of Europe drawn into a customs union with Germany, called *Mitteleuropa*, to ensure German military and economic hegemony on the Continent.\n\nThe Germans also had eyes on Belgian Congo, as well as Dahomey, French Equatorial Africa, Angola and Mozambique, to form a contiguous African colonial empire or *Mittelafrika*. The German Navy was involved in discussions on War Aims, and French and British bases in the Western Hemisphere were on their 'shopping list' so to speak; thru implications of this for America and the Monroe Doctrine go without saying.\n\nThe consequences of a German victory would have been dire, although admittedly this is in the realm of speculation. Military action and sabre-rattling had 'delivered the goods' for Germany in the past, be it the Wars of Unification or the Moroccan Crises. Had Germany emerged victorious, then the greatest military-diplomatic coup in German history, the achievement of hegemony via war stemming from the July Crisis, would only have further emboldened the Kaiser and his coterie of statesmen and generals. Again, pure speculation, but *Heute Europa, Morgen die Ganze Welt* springs to mind..."
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[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/34v81a/what_were_the_territorial_objectives_of_the/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/33258e/if_the_schlieffen_plan_was_successful_what_would/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2x92cm/did_the_german_empire_have_a_similar_... | ||
42si8s | why do well call countries spain and germany when they call themselves espana and duetchland | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/42si8s/eli5_why_do_well_call_countries_spain_and_germany/ | {
"a_id": [
"czcq6n2"
],
"score": [
4
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"text": [
"Different language origins and culture. \nThe polish name for Germany translates to \"the mute ones\" because Poland could never really communicate with them (as opposed to other slavs). The german name for Germany comes from the old german word for \"people\" so it's basically \"land of the people\". English name \"Germany\" comes from the roman belief of the \"germanic tribe\".\n\nDifferent countries don't care for how the countries call themselves. They create the names that suits them best, which they can use best in communication."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
5zpwu8 | What's the point of quantum teleportation, if you need to physically move an entangled particle to the desired end location? Couldn't you simply move the original particle instead? | I just watched [minutephysics' video on quantum teleportation](_URL_0_). One question I've always had it doesn't answer is: why bother? You need to physically move a bunch of matter to the location you want to teleport to, why not just move the thing you wanted there instead? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5zpwu8/whats_the_point_of_quantum_teleportation_if_you/ | {
"a_id": [
"df01mlc",
"df0u8ee"
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"score": [
18,
3
],
"text": [
"The point is that you are able to send a quantum state to me *without* sending me any quantum objects, only classical signals, which is exceptional considering neither you nor I can *know* the quantum state.\n\nThe puzzle it answers is this: you have received an unknown quantum state. If you measure it, you ruin it and only obtain partial info about it. You want to send it to me, but you cannot send me any quantum systems (idk, they are too fragile, whatever) but only classical signals. How do you do it?",
"The point is that moving particles spoils their quantum state. We don't really mind spoiling the state of the entangled pair because all that matters is that they are (maximally) entangled. Then you do teleportation and transmit the information you actually care about without having to worry about noise or interference from the fibre optics."
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxQK1WDYI_k"
] | [
[],
[]
] | |
exzsg2 | Why do we fossil records of sharks if their skeletons are mostly cartilage? | Are the conditions for preserving an ancient shark skeleton the same as for other prehistoric species? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/exzsg2/why_do_we_fossil_records_of_sharks_if_their/ | {
"a_id": [
"fgekj2f",
"fges6zn"
],
"score": [
29,
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],
"text": [
"You're incorrectly assuming shark skeletons won't preserve as fossils at all because they're not bone.\n\nWe have fossil traces of very soft forms of life from well before sharks existed. There are impressions of 2.1 billion year old \"colonial\" life forms - [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) that had no bones at all. \n\nBut sharks came along much later at around 400 million years ago.\n\nThe reason why bones are often found is because bones fossilize easier than cartilage. They're firmer and are harder to rot away, so there's often more time for them to get completely replaced by other minerals.\n\n But that doesn't mean cartilage, or even skin or feathers, can't make fossils under the right conditions. They're just a little rarer to get absolutely right, and are often more about imprints in mud layers than actual preserved cartilage itself, same as the tiny replaced bones or even carbon layers of some smaller preserved fish.",
"Agree with u/the_original_Retro's answer, but just wanted to add that many extinct species *are* only known from the parts which fossilize most easily. While sometimes we do get lucky and find relatively complete fossils even of softer body parts ([this *Hybodus*](_URL_6_) is a good example), this is not necessary to describe a new species.\n\nFor example, the famous [*Helicoprion*](_URL_2_) (actually more closely related to [chimaeras](_URL_4_) than sharks, but close enough) is pretty much only known from it's [really weird tooth whorls](_URL_3_). Pretty much everything else about it is speculation based on what we know about its relatives, though there are some rare fossils which preserve a bit more of the skull (see [Tapanila et al. 2013](_URL_5_)).\n\nAnd even though it only went extinct a few million years ago, almost everything we know about Megalodon is from its [relatively common teeth](_URL_1_) (and a few vertebrae as well, but these are much rarer; e.g. see [Bendix-Almgreen 1983](_URL_0_))."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.wired.com/2010/06/early-multicellularity/"
],
[
"https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Carcharodon-megalodon-from-the-Upper-Miocene-of-%2C-%3A-Bendix-Almgreen/b6e4c05710ce241b12d83754024e1693809ea08d",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Megalodon_teeth.png/800p... | |
4cut7s | Why did other countries even bother with navies, when it was clear they couldn't come close to beating the British? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4cut7s/why_did_other_countries_even_bother_with_navies/ | {
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"d1lm1oz",
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"d1ln1ak",
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"text": [
"Indeed, it is still a mystery to me why the Kaiser even bothered with the time and effort into building a fleet for battle just to see it turned away again and again by the war fighting spirit of my battlecruisers. If it weren't for those dastardly submarines, scrounging the oceans for victims, I surely would have swept them from the seas by 1917 entirely. ",
"I do not know of the tribe called the Britioi that you mention. Are they renowned for their naval skill? Do they have great reserves of silver to crew their fleet? How many swift triremes can they launch? If they live far to the west, have they, perhaps, acquired some of these new quadriremes that I hear the Syracusans have invented?\n\nI will be honest - I doubt these Britioi could really stand against the naval might of the Athenians. We rule the sea. We have more experience, more skill, and better discipline than the sailors of any other city. I myself have had the honour of leading Athenian fleets to war, and even the Syracusans were no match for me; at Kerkyra, I captured 10 of their ships without the loss of even a single one of mine. Now tell me, can your Britioi match such skill, such sound preparation?\n\nI'm sure you will say that the days of our thalassocracy are behind us. That the Spartans destroyed our fleet and that their nauarch Lysander brought us to our knees. But have you not heard of the battles we fought since then? Of Knidos, and Naxos, and Alyzeia? Three times the Spartan fleet was defeated. Now the Athenians rule the seas again. And while we used to demand that our subjects pay for the upkeep of our ships, we have since learned humility and justice, and now we pay for our fleet ourselves, so that no one can take it away from us. Every year we build more ships. We will soon have more than even Perikles commanded. Who could challenge the Athenians now?",
"I'm sure our belligerent Prussian naval enthusiast /u/Kaiser_WilhelmII will be along shortly to give his uniquely Teutonic view on things. But the view from Admiralty House is that other countries have their own reasons for having a navy. For any country with interests overseas, not having a navy would be the acme of an ass!! Take France - colonial possessions scattered all over the globe. While we might not have designs on them, the Germans, Italians or even the Japanese might. They need a navy not to challenge us, but to defend themselves from anyone weaker (or to take things off the weaker). Spending money on a navy can also boost a nation's economy - supporting steel industries, shipbuilding, arms manufacturers.\n\nWhile any one nation might not be able to defeat the glorious Royal Navy alone, together two or more might. While the French and Spanish tried this disastrously at Trafalgar, in the modern world, where one of my splendid dreadnoughts costs millions of pounds and nearly a year to build, it's a lot more likely. We're officially on a 'Two-Power Standard'; we have enough ships to fight off the two nations with the biggest fleets. You add a third or fourth, and while the balance of professionalism and training's on our side, the balance of numbers is on theirs. Of course, we might be able to defeat them in detail, but if they were able to concentrate things might be touch and go!",
"Estimado señor Cook, \n\nMy name is Arturo Prat, a captain in the fleet of the Republic of Chile. I can offer but a grassroot perspective on your question which I hope you will accept. La Marina Real Británica is a majestic fleet, one to be admired the world around. In fact, in my nation, we celebrate your Lord Cochrane for his role in securing the independence of our great nation by leading the nascent Chilean fleet to victory. Your nation's formidable shipyards has brought the most beautiful and modern of ships, ironclads, to the arsenal of mine. I simply can not be more grateful for it. Many of our naval officers have gone through training on your beautiful ships. Unfortunately, I was not one of them.\n\nIt is here that I would like to speak about the present situation. 14 years ago, the Spanish navy descended upon my beautiful nation, seemingly determined to conquer it once again. After first attacking Peru, Spain unleashed itself upon us and bombarded the beautiful city of Valparaiso. Can you imagine the pain in seeing those once wonderful *cerros* burning? Our navy then was no match to the Spanish navy and in our desperation, we had to join forces with Peru to beat Spain back. During this fateful period the corvette that I am currently captain of, the *Esmeralda*, inflicted a defeat on Spain at the battle of Papudo. As recorded history tells us, Peru inflicted a defeat on the Spanish navy after their attack on the port of Callao. I would believe that this resulted in a victory for our brief alliance as Spain retreated shortly thereafter.\n\nThese events led us to ordering ships from your shipyards and to strengthen our navy so that the events of the mid-1860s do not happen again. We would never be vulnerable again! Yet this has led to some unfortunate consequences; it appears that Peru found itself threatened by our increasingly powerful navy and when a territorial dispute with Bolivia flaired up into war between us, it was revealed that Peru and Bolivia had entered a military alliance together. As I am writing to you, we find ourselves at war and my ship, the *Esmeralda*, is blockading the Peruvian port of Iquique while the strongest elements of our fleet is heading to Callao to face the Peruvian navy in a decisive battle.\n\nI can only hope for victory.",
"My dear /u/Captain_J_Cook_FRSRN, why even bother, you ask?\n\nI detect that you don't have a firm grasp of what true *Weltpolitik* means. You see, even though Germany is the most recent of the world's venerable empires, she is already one of her most advanced and prosperous -- rivalling even Britain herself! For a nation of Germany's size a fleet of adequate power is imperative, don't you agree? If Germany is Britain's equal in all manners, in numbers as in virtues, it is self-evident that she can maintain a fleet of similar size. As I used to say to my dear Prince Heinrich -- grandson of your Queen Victoria -- on his first naval command: \"Imperial power means sea power, and sea power and imperial power require each other, so that one cannot exist without the other.\"^1 -- Haven't you read [Mahan](_URL_0_), my friend?\n\nAlready German trade, German merchants, German ships travel around the world! Does it not befit Germany that she can protect her interests, her children overseas? What kind of empire would that be that relies on other nations to assert sovereignty?\n\nWith that in mind, I'm sure you'll agree that Germany has the right, no, the duty to share Britain's responsibility in policing the world -- as the developed nations do. I assure you, all that I, all that we want is our rightful place in the sun *alongside* our English cousins. This is not directed at the Englishmen themselves, I surely have no quarrels with their people.\n\nYours sincerely,\n\nHis Imperial and Royal Majesty William II\n\n____________________________________________\n^1 Ernst Johann, edit., *Reden des Kaisers: Ansprachen, Predigten und Trinksprüche Wilhelms II.* (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1977), p. 75."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan"
]
] |
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