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10ijez | why do google/microsoft/firefox care if i use their browser or not? | What do they get out of it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10ijez/why_do_googlemicrosoftfirefox_care_if_i_use_their/ | {
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"Ad revenue. Firefox gets millions of dollars a year from Google for using their search engine for the Firefox start page and as the default search bar at the top right. Google increases it's own revenue by doing the same on Chrome, and Microsoft is pushing IE more now that they have Bing. ",
"Influence. Writing a major web browser gives you some control over the direction web standards evolve. Setting a default search engine gives you shitloads of ad revenue."
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25szuu | the process of video game development and why kickstarters need so much money for them. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25szuu/eli5_the_process_of_video_game_development_and/ | {
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"Generally, you have to hire a few rather qualified people. People like money, nay, need money to survive.\n\nIn the case of a full fledged game, they can require a staff of five to fifty people to get a product to market in a reasonable timespan. If you're planning to get it out within the year, you could easily be expecting production budgets in the multiple millions to pay for staff and hardware.\n\nPredominantly, kickstarters are made to birth studios, not just a single game. As a result, the kickstarter is usually funding more than the first game.",
"Expensive workers using expensive tools.\n\nSuppose you have five workers earning $20/hour? That's over $5,000 for every week of development! \n\nSuppose you have some really passionate developers willing to work poverty wages? Paying two people $5/hour for two years is still $20,000.\n\nThis is before we even cover other costs. Hardware and tools may cost over $3,000 per employee, and there are taxes and legal fees. Don't forget that Kickstarter takes a cut, and that many projects lose a huge chunk of funding, maybe as high as 30-50%, to backer rewards.\n\nAnd *marketing*. Do you really think it's reasonable to spend forty grand making a game, and market it without spending a dime? Looking at major publishers, marketing is sometimes just as much of a cash drop as the development, itself.\n\nIf anything, the question isn't why their budgets are so high, but why they are so low.",
"To add on to what has already been posted, game engines require years to design or they require lots of money to license. While there are engines that have licenses for as low as $99 to $1,500 the big league ones like Unreal can cost well over $1,000,000 to license.",
"Indie developers can build games somewhat cheaply by keeping the scope low and doing the work in their spare time. However for games that are intended to compete with big titles the economics change quite a bit.\n\nSay I want to build a game that has a 3D character that can perform certain kinds of attacks and special moves and I need it to look at good as the latest games on the market. *For the purposes of the below you can assume a typical developer at this level costs $2500-$3500 per week.*\n\n1. First the initial concept needs to be created for the character by a professional game designer. This is just the basic *idea* of the character and what he/she will do. This process can easily take several weeks.\n\n2. Next we have a 2D concept artist draw the character. This is a multi-stage process where we start with *thumbnail* sketches to find the basic look we want and then iterate on or more designs, getting more detailed as we go. Feedback from designers and any investors cause more iteration until we get a final full color concept that usually has callouts to show specific things like what materials the clothing is made of. This process will take weeks and possible more than a month of concept artist time. It also required small chunks of designer, animator, and 3D artist feedback time.\n\n3. Now we need to create a 3D model and texture. It can take 2 months to fully model and texture a next-gen character. If we outsource this to China a typical character can cost $5000, if we do it in-house it can cost more than twice that. Additionally we need to setup the character material (what is shiny on the texture and what is dull, how does light affect it?) and this takes about a week of a technical artist's time.\n\n4. Now we have a character but he doesn't move. So the next thing we do is called *rigging*. This is where we create virtual skeleton inside the model, where virtual bones are *skinned* to the polygons of the model so they move when we animate the skeleton. This process is an art in itself and can be take over a week to complete. It takes even longer if the character has cloth or special features like wings or tentacles.\n\n5. Now the animators take over. For a leading character we may need to animate over a hundred different moves. Even a simple walk cycle needs several animations to handle transitions, turning, reactions, etc. We may have 2 or 3 animators on one character for a few weeks so the cost really adds up. Motion capture doesn't save much time either because of the cleanup time and initial cost and setup.\n\n6. Now we have our character and it can move around but it need special effects. Blood, dust, smoke, magic, etc. This can vary depending on the game but can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.\n\n7. We can't forget audio either. In AAA games each character may have its own unique footsteps sounds. Every surface the character touches may have a unique sound attached to it for dirt, metal, wood, etc. All the abilities have sound effects and then you have voice. Voice recording at this level requires hiring professional actors, even if all you are doing are grunts and effort sounds. (Trust me, there are people who are professional at grunting and the difference is quite noticeable). Sounds effects for one character can take a couple weeks not including voice. Voice can more than double that and that is assuming we're not recording for a long cut-scene.\n\n8. After all that, none of it is going to work until we have a programmer write the code to determine how it behaves, how it moves, when it attacks, etc. This process happens at the same time as the above steps but often requires *months* of multiple programmers working with one or more designers.\n\nOverall, if you include all the design and production managing this process it can cost $100k-$250k *for a single character*.\n\nThe above is just the directly relevant people and just for making a single character in the game. It doesn't include the enormous task of building next-gen quality levels, designing and coding the game rules, building an AI system, creating all the user interface and HUD art, creating cinematic cut-scenes, composing music, camera design, employing an army of game testers to find every bug, *fixing* every bug, producers managing the process, and bizdev people managing the marketing and investors. We also need to pay overhead which covers employee benefits like medical insurance, free food and drinks, office space, etc. \n\nSo something like FTL can be made at tremendously lower cost because it could be potentially made a by just few people working for themselves and doing all the coding and artwork, but something like Star Citizen will need millions.\n\n**Source: I am the owner of a AAA game development studio**",
"Most really successful Kickstarter funding goals are usually not just met, but they're exceeded. [Hover: Revolt of the Gamers](_URL_0_) set a goal of around $38,000 and surpassed $100,000.\n\nGames like this set goals after they're been funded indicating what kind of time of money they'll need to add in most things.\n\nMost independent game developers have the hardware and software they need to make video games. Some have to pay for a license from a game engine, but that's all baked into the Kickstarter price.\n\nFor the most part Kickstarter money goes to the salary and wage of the developer or developers. Developers are expected to make between $50,000-$75,000 a year. That might be peanuts in money, but it's what they need to really survive while making video games. They're going to be putting in 12-14 hours a day into making that game so they're going to need money to order take out a lot of long nights.\n\nThe fact is if the opportunity is not there to make a lot of money off of their baby.... why would they ever want to do it?\n\nFor the record Hover isn't a game where they're making crazy money off of. Split between the three developers they're getting $30k to finish up the game in hopes of getting a lot more when it releases. Considering small indie games don't generally get a lot of sales.... that could really be all they get out of it after Steam/XBLA/PSN takes their ridiculous cuts.",
"I may be able to help a little bit on this one.\n\nThere are many costs when making a game and it takes a long time. The high costs of developing a game starts at day 1 with hardware. Lets say you have a team of 10 people to make a small game, that is 10 computers you will need. They will also have to be high end computers for modelling and rendering etc. \n\nNext is the software costs for the team, 3ds max has a licence to use for a small office which would fit in with a small team, you also need a game engine where prices vary but lets say they want to make a unity game, that will cost them 1500 or 75/month. There are cheaper alternatives though which they could use. \n\nYou also have to take into account payment for employees which is VERY expensive for 3d modelers and sound people, you will also need coders, artists, writers and more. Lets say a 50k average payment a year for all of them to save time. If the game takes a year to make which is fairly decent time for a good game it adds up soon. \n\nAdvertising can be done fairly cheaply now with youtube/reddit and other social media websites however it can become expensive if you want to reach a large audience, this I am not so good at as I haven't looked into it as much but large AAA games spend MILLIONS on advertising alone\n\nCost of computers - 1000 each / 10 000 for all \nModelling software - 3675 this is for 3ds max which is arguably the best on the market. \nGame engine - 1500 OR 75/month for unity. \nEmployees - 50k a year for everyone\n\n\nThere are a few things I have left out like renting a office and other stuff like that but you get the general idea.\n\n",
"programming, 3d modelling, animating and texturing take a lot of time. You gotta hire people or you wont be done in 5 years.",
"I can't explain it myself, but I do remember Skullgirls had an Indiegogo campaign for a single DLC character where they broke down exactly where the $150,000 would be going.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Indie game developer here. Most development cost for games is LIVING EXPENSES. While there's always an argument to be made for having a second job to cover living expenses, usually people doing a kickstarter are doing it so they can work FULL TIME on their game.\n\n2 people x 2 years dev time x 30k/yr [pretty low baseline for living expenses] = 120k total.\n\nMost people doing a kickstarter for less than that are covering the rest of the expenses in other ways.",
"Ex Industry Professional Here\n\nI am not even going to go into the Lawyers, the Marketing and the rest of the nonsense that could come up (building costs etc).\nWhen I worked in a small studio there were 60 of us Employed from Writers, Artists, Riggers, 3D Modelers, Animators, Programmers, Art Directors. etc etc etc\nIt takes all of these people to make a game (50-100 people on average are employed in a small studio). They will cost you (the owner) between 30 and 70k a year. These people have worked for years to learn their skill. One person can not do multiple jobs (well they can but most will be piss poor at it, or there is just no time to do so anyways)\n\n\nThe Process? Man I don't have all night but.... it starts with a lot of arguing and then writing a proposal and then throwing money at the problem by hiring workers (who are hopefully good at what the do) \n\n\nThe Art Director tells concept artists what to draw and works as the liaison between the technical side and the artistic side.\nThen the 3d modeler models the final design,\nthe Rigger adds \"3d bones\"\nThe texture artists strips the model then paints the model\nthe animator then takes those bones and makes them move.\n\nOn the other side, the writers write (a lot) and make many many iterations. \nThey then write the game, they write what will be said in game as well\n\nThen on the other side the programmers will work in a very costly game engine and in a nut shell take all those assets and make it work together.\n\nThen you hire guys to test it, and test it and test it and test it.\n\nThen pay a lot of $$$ to get it off the ground.\n\n\nHope this helps",
"Former MMO developer here.\n\n1) Hardware costs.\n\n2) Software license costs.\n\n3) Employee Salary (most of which demand a hefty price for their very highly skilled labor).\n\n4) Terrible executive oversight: This is perhaps the single largest contributor to video game development costs for multiple reasons.\n\nA) Poor Planning: Most executives I've worked with are neither particularly intelligent, skilled, nor well educated. Most of them have been \"socially promoted\" through the ranks, and their increased power promotes what I call, \"the Executives Disease.\" One of its primary components is impatience. Another is a lack of knowing what you want but only knowing what you don't like. Because of this, most projects have nearly zero direction and just a vague set of, \"Let's make this thing that is awesome.\" This is a terrible way to go about creating anything.\n\nFor instance, I worked on a game that was originally intended for 8 to 16 year-old boys and girls. No one that worked on that project (until I got moved onto it 3 years after development began) had any experience with child development. That demographic does **not** exist. The average 16 year-old girl might as well be an alien compared to the average 8 year-old boy. By the way, in the United States at least, that average 8 year-old boy is who is functionally illiterate.\n\n3 years after development started they completely changed how the combat mechanic of the game worked... for the 4th time! And these aren't minor changes. These are changes that completely monopolize the time of the most skilled coders on the team for months or years at a time.\n\nAnd this often leads to the next issue...\n\nB) Feature Creep: This is a common term in development. Feature creep is when a developer has already been giving a list of objectives to accomplish to create a specific thing, and then hours, days, weeks, or months later, a new, major, feature is added into the demands. Again, this can bloat development time immensely.\n\nC) Dropped Projects: I can't tell you the number of projects or features that get planned, have significant development time invested in them, and then are dropped with little or no warning.\n\nAt one point I was tasked with creating a training program for developers to learn Flash. I spent 3 months making this program. However, about 2 months into it, the executives laid off about 50% of our work force, and reassigned about another 25% to a new project.\n\nWe got a \"new\" producer in who lasted about a month, and then he was reassigned. By the time the next producer came in and finally had time to meet with me, he was like, \"What the fuck have you been doing?\" When I told him that I'd made this training program he was like, \"Yeah, we're not going to do that.\"\n\n3 months of work. Gone.\n\nAnd this wasn't the worst of it. I'd seen YEARS of other peoples' work just completely destroyed because of poor planning and poor oversight.\n\nTL;DR: It's expensive to make games, but the worst part is that the people financing and overseeing the projects have no idea what they're doing and answer to investors that know even less of what they're doing.\n\nThe best games and the best game companies are the ones with the fewest executives and/or management and with the largest number of \"skilled contributors.\"",
"Kickstarter-er here who ran a campaign that raised 18k but then went on to raise another 600k from investors...\n\nIt was myself + 2 full time developers working 24/7 for two straight years and we burned through the $600k. This is considered an ultra slow burn rate as we really stretched our budgets out and cut corners wherever we could. \n\nImagine that a really great iOS developer costs 120k on the cheap. Now imagine that x2.\n\nYou have a lot of overhead costs that people don't think about. \n\nOffice space? 2k a month\n\nOh ya you're a corporation now, means that you have to supply medical coverage for your employees. Oh your one developer has a wife and kid? That's another 23 grand a year in medical care. \n\nLegal fees, just to incorporate and deal out your shares internally is 5 grand. That was considered cheap.\n\nThere's a lot of realities to building a game. \n\np.s. heres our old game: _URL_0_",
"I am professional game developer and I also own a few websites on the topic; Let me see if I can explain as my skills are more back end server development for large scale MMO's, but I am lucky enough to have a wife who does things on the art/client side so I know that as well.\n\nIts an expensive and skill intensive process, skills that most people do not WANT to learn. Its also math intense at times, meaning that its hard and most people would rather not try.\n\nThink about all the things you have in a video game. Lets just focus on this aspect alone, just building the game.\n\nYou have sound:\n\n* Environmental Ambient Sound Effects\n* Environmental Music\n* Game Credits Music\n* Game Intro Music\n* NPC Voice Dialog\n* PC Voice Dialog\n* Non-Player-Character Specific Ambient Sound Effects for every NPC and creature/thing.\n* Player Character Specific Ambient Sound Effects\n* Player Character Specific Voice Dialog for every voice type a player could select.\n* NPC Sound Effects (Interacting with them, bumping them, etc)\n\n.. and that not the full list of sound work you need in most games.\n\nYou have the Graphics used by the Graphics Engine:\n\n* Models - A dragon is an entire model (or possibly a mesh) with multiple textures possible. Somebody has to sit down and mold it using tools like ZBRUSH. And if it is set to allow jointed moment - like your skeleton - it will take a lot more work to build. That can be very expensive.\n* Meshes - Multiple Models working together.\n* Textures - You see that tree log block in minecraft? It uses multiple textures, one for each side that looks different.\n* Banners - Images placed facing the user at all times. Sometimes generated automatically by the graphics engine, or \"hung\" in the air at fixed points either manually - takes a lot of work -or using tools to make trees and plants look realistic. The tools that do this are EXPENSIVE because they have a corner on the market and they do not need to compete with many other tools due to how specialized they can be.\n\n.. and thats all work that needs to be done separate from your graphics engine (the motor of your game that shows you things), but your graphics engine must support it first!\n\nSo somebody - usually multiple people - have to sit down and either make a new graphics engine, or learn and use another one that was built already. These are available, but they are also expensive and also come with legal restrictions. For example it snot uncommon for the prebuilt ones to have rules that say if you the gamer wants to hand the game developer $10 for making a game you enjoy, that they the game developer has to give the people who built the game engine a part of that. I have seen it be as high as 50% - so if you give them a$1 they have to hand over $0.50 - years ago, but the numbers are dropping more and more now as the technology becomes available to more developers. Still, most indy developers build their own rather than use a pre-built engine for exactly this reason.\n\nSo what about input and controls? Adding joystick/controller support is better these days but its still a pain if you are doing it all yourself. As a result that is extra development time and money that needs to be spent.\n\nWhat about multiplier? Well in this case the game just got BIG because now you have to re-engineer the entire system to support thousands of people at once. Any MMO that has at least 200k-300k subscribers is considered a success these days, but the top ones have millions of people at once. This brings a lot of technical issues and that means more work, more people, and more cost. Not to mention, the server infrastructure, the sheer number of computers they need to host these systems, costs a lot of money.\n\nAnd if you want a game that updates? The Content Delivery networks cost a lot of money to host your files, but first you ahve to pay a developer to give you a loader/updater that will use them. So you need them active even before you have a game.\n\nSo we have covered sound, graphics, input, and multiplier and update. What about local save games? Well that's work on its own because if you want to be cross platform and allow yourself to be able to debug issues, you need to have a way to make things secure for players but open to the developers. This usually means creation of internal tools to unpack and tweak save files to do things, and that is more work.\n\nSo now you have graphics, sound, save game, multiplier, and input taken care of. Did we miss anything? Well yes we did.\n\nIn addition to paying for our developers, sound engineers, artists, we also need to do QA (testing) and Planning (Program Managers) as well as the normal people who do accounting and HR or the janitors that keep the place clean. Oh and if you want office space, that going to cost you as well. What you want internet and power in the office building?Taht costs you as well. Oh you want source control so people can work and save their work without worrying about the other guy deleting their file by mistake? That is going to cost you.\n\nAnd these people are all expensive. They have skills companies NEED, and these same companies are willing to spend a lot of money to get them. This means that when a kickstarter is happening, the Indy dev company is competing head to head with the gaming giants of the world for the same people. Often, its in the best interest of the gaming giants to pay their people VERY WELL simple yo keep them out of the free market so they don't go create a game or game franchise that would compete with their own business. So kickstarters are in a very real sense a danger to companies like EA because if they can get funded well then the best people are taken from the armies of the big old game developers and given to the armies of the new, young developers with ideas. And if they do not get funded, well no lose for the game developer as they always have work and companies willing to pay them.\n\nThat is what makes funding indy developers worth it, in my humble opinion.\n\nOh and now that you have your team of 30 or so people for a bare bones minimal MMO project, you have to fund marketing as well. Then hosting, the cost of that will spike after release and then smooth out, but you need to make sure you get new people playing and paying to do so in some way, so it goes up (and so does your costs!). You need a buffer for that or that sudden spike in users can KILL a game as costs increase and the money they pay is up to a month away.\n\nSo you have paid for the development, the marketing, the infrastructure, that is it right? Nope.\n\nYou now have players and that means you are in the \"Gamma Testing\" Phase of Software development; the users will find bugs your QA team never dreamed of, and abuse them ruthlessly to have an advantage over everybody else.. or even just so they can sell the stuff to people for real world money. Yes, RMT (real Money Trading) in games is ilegal and its banned every game due to that, but ti still happens because the bad guys like the money more than they like playing by the rules. So now you have to pay Customer Service Reps to deal with the accounts that are abusive, and Game Moderators (GM's) to protect the game by acting as roving cops looking for bots to kill. Oh wait, not all the accounts running bots are the spammers, they may be accounts broken into that are owned by your good players.. so the tools you need to handle this are intense and expensive.\n\nOh and lets not forget that devs now have to spend time and money fixing these bugs.\n\nOk so we have covered development, keeping the lights on, server farms, marketing, support, abuse, defects. Anything else? Yup. Legal.\n\nLegal is a huge thing because now you have to defend yourself form other big bad companies that simply do not want you to exist. The sheer fact you exist at all makes them angry because that means a customer you have could be playing their game, giving them the money, instead. So you need to hire expensive lawyers to not only cover your ass from the start, but stay around to cover your butt from things as they happen. That spammer that is spamming the local area chat? Yea he is run by a rival game company and just wants to fingerprint your user demographics for competatie analysys to figure out if you are big enough to defend yourself rom a lawsuit he files for no reason at all other than to drain your resources. Or mayb its the irate cusotmer that was stupid and used \"password123!\" as their password, so now the entire republic of korean gold spammers is ruthlessly abusing the account and has already cleared it of anything valuable before changing the password and sending it off to market their spam before it gets killed. Now the customer is pissed thier now empty account is banned and has sued YOU when its not you fault they shared their account in clear violation of your terms of use... but its still going to cost you money to defend yourself.\n\n\nOk so we have covered development, keeping the lights on, server farms, marketing, support, abuse, defects, and legal. Anything else? Yup. There is always something else.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
"Oooh lots of stuff! I'm a small \"indie\" dev. Here's what I use. \n\nUnity - there's a free version and then there's the highly recommended \"Pro\" version. That'll set you back for around $1500 for a permanent license. \n\n3DS Max - For modelling. Pretty essential. This shit will cost you around $4000+. Oft.\n\nPhotoshop - Absolutely essential. Another $500.\n\nPremiere - For those promos you know? Another $500-ish. \n\nFL Studio - To make sexy ass music. That's around $100. It's the plugins that will fuck your wallet though.\n\nPlatform licenses - Oh dear. Around $100 for an Apple publishing license per year. $25 for a Google Play license. Around $75 for a Steam Greenlight license I think? Console publishing costs considerably more... I won't be touching that for a while. \n\nThen there's the other stuff.\n\nMarketing - For AAA publishers? They have millions to splash out on TV spots, billboards, online banners. For Indie devs? Ehh... word of mouth, obnoxious video postings on forums, conventions etc. It's hard to get off the ground. I made the mistake of not advertising my Kickstarter and it failed miserably. Even with the small goal. Don't make that mistake!\n\nLabour - That's right. You have to pay the lovely people who are working on your game. The rates vary depending on position/company etc. And it's common for developers to pay for outsourcing. No point in hiring an animator/actor/whatever for the whole development process when they might not be utilised the entire time right? \n\nUpkeep - Doesn't matter if you're working in a small or large office space. You've got to pay them bills.\n\nIt's fucking insane. ",
"The game business model is one of a long period of high fixed costs, preceded by a huge spurt of revenue and minimal costs thereafter. \n\nThe fixed cost period can last 1-3 years and typical costs include employees (in-house and outsourced), software kits and subscriptions, hardware, supplies, rent on office space, license/registration fees, legal fees, and the list goes on. And then there are advertising/marketing costs, which are usually substantial relative to the rest of the budget. The biggest cost is probably labor. \n\nA lot of indie developers have cleverly offer \"alpha\" and \"beta\" stage pre-releases as a way to generate cash flow to fund the fixed cost stage of development. \n\nWhen the game finally is released, most revenues will occur within the first few months, so there is this huge spurt, and then there will be a geometrically declining sales curve from there. There is a huge amount of \"execution risk\" around the time of release. Any bad bit of press can fuck things up. Someone releasing a similar game at the same time can fuck things up. Poor execution on the marketing/advertising can fuck things up. Or if your game just isn't well received by gamers, it can fall through as well. \n\nGames are a volatile business. Nintendo is notable for carrying a HUGE amount of cash on their balance sheet. They could totally screw up a whole console cycle, make no money, and still have enough in the bank to survive until the next console cycle. That is a sign of just how tough the business can be in terms of that execution risk. ",
"This sums it up quite well: \"Eidos president Ian Livingstone said one developer spent two years programming Batman's cape, using over 700 animations and sound effects to make it move realistically\"",
"I'm a software developer. I make around $60/hr, and I'm around the middle of the pay bracket for what I do. If you want _real_ talent, you tend to pay more. If you don't care if you've got empowered script kiddies, you tend to pay less.\n\nGame development often takes a small team of developers - people specialized in physics software, interaction design and implementation, gameplay, logical design patterns, and an architect. Call it five skilled people at a minimum for an A class game.\n\nIt also takes designers - most at least as well-paid as I am. Sounds, graphics, characters, etc. Call it another five humans.\n\nIf the game is capped at 1000 hours of work (about 6 months), that's at least $600,000 to develop a game - not counting what you pay for bean counters and marketing.\n\nNow, you _can_ make a game with one person and a few weeks - it might actually be fun, too - but if you want end-to-end quality, top-notch graphics, deep storyline, etc - you're getting into the area of $1e5-7, depending on who's willing to work for what, how long it takes, and how ambitious the game is.",
"Because everyone that works on the project is going to be paid full-time money. Money that is used to live one's life for up to, or at least 1 full year. Tis a lot of money for even just one person.",
"It's expensive to keep a person alive who has a very high skill set. If you're an indie game developer such as myself you have to make sure you can eat and live. Since you can either spend a small amount of time making a simple game that could go unnoticed or you could make a bigger one and run the risk of running out of money. \n\nKickstarters ask for a lot of money since it will go toward living expense for the developers to work on a game full time and for the tools needed. If you're on a Wii U (I have a dev license for this but not the other consoles) you need to pay for the dev hardware which costs a few thousand dollars. \n\nSo it either costs money or time which both are a premium.",
"As a dev who is about to post up a kickstarter, here's how we determined the amount we're going to ask for:\n\n1) living expenses for the team for long enough to start selling the game\n\n2) External contractor bills\n\n2a) sound studio\n\n2b) voice acting\n\n2c) character modeler\n\n(there would be a 2d for the writer, but we've already paid him in full out of pocket)\n\n3) software! It's really easy to get up over $5,000 per person for basic programs and tools. \n\n4) Advertising. We try to get the most out of small amounts of money by going to conventions, but it's still several thousand dollars per con to get a table and present for a couple days.\n\n5) hardware. We're mostly using our personal computers for development, but we're having to buy Oculus dev kits, a mac (so we can release on macs & iphones), laptops to present on, a mic for recording quick stuff we don't want to send to the contractors, etc. We also have to rent dev kits for consoles and handhelds.",
"Devpacks are expensive and stupid project managers are even more expensive.",
"Here's an great example I read a while back giving an idea of how complicated rather simple things in game design can become.\nSource: [Liz England](_URL_0_)\n\nThe Door Problem\n\nI like to describe my job in terms of “The Door Problem”.\n\nPremise: You are making a game.\n\nAre there doors in your game?\nCan the player open them?\nCan the player open every door in the game?\nOr are some doors for decoration?\nHow does the player know the difference?\nAre doors you can open green and ones you can’t red? Is there trash piled up in front of doors you can’t use? Did you just remove the doorknobs and call it a day?\nCan doors be locked and unlocked?\nWhat tells a player a door is locked and will open, as opposed to a door that they will never open?\nDoes a player know how to unlock a door? Do they need a key? To hack a console? To solve a puzzle? To wait until a story moment passes?\nAre there doors that can open but the player can never enter them?\nWhere do enemies come from? Do they run in from doors? Do those doors lock afterwards?\nHow does the player open a door? Do they just walk up to it and it slides open? Does it swing open? Does the player have to press a button to open it?\nDo doors lock behind the player?\nWhat happens if there are two players? Does it only lock after both players pass through the door?\nWhat if the level is REALLY BIG and can’t all exist at the same time? If one player stays behind, the floor might disappear from under them. What do you do?\nDo you stop one player from progressing any further until both are together in the same room?\nDo you teleport the player that stayed behind?\nWhat size is a door?\nDoes it have to be big enough for a player to get through?\nWhat about co-op players? What if player 1 is standing in the doorway – does that block player 2?\nWhat about allies following you? How many of them need to get through the door without getting stuck?\nWhat about enemies? Do mini-bosses that are larger than a person also need to fit through the door?\nIt’s a pretty classic design problem. SOMEONE has to solve The Door Problem, and that someone is a designer.\n\nThe Other Door Problems\n\nTo help people understand the role breakdowns at a big company, I sometimes go into how other people deal with doors.\n\n* Creative Director: “Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.”\n* Project Manager: “I’ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.”\n* Designer: “I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.”\n* Concept Artist: “I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.”\n* Art Director: “This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.”\n* Environment Artist: “I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.”\n* Animator: “I made the door open and close.”\n* Sound Designer: “I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.”\n* Audio Engineer: “The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what d irection they are facing.”\n* Composer: “I created a theme song for the door.”\n* FX Artist: “I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.”\n* Writer: “When the door opens, the player will say, ‘Hey look! The door opened!’ “\n* Lighter: “There is a bright red light over the door when it’s locked, and a green one when it’s opened.”\n* Legal: “The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don’t want to be sued.”\n* Character Artist: “I don’t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.”\n* Gameplay Programmer: “This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.”\n* AI Programmer: “Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.”\n* Network Programmer: “Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?”\n* Release Engineer: “You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.”\n* Core Engine Programmer: “I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.”\n* Tools Programmer: “I made it even easier for you to place doors.”\n* Level Designer: “I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.”\n* UI Designer: “There’s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.”\n* Combat Designer: “Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.”\n* Systems Designer: “A level 4 player earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.”\n* Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”\n* QA Tester: “I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to the door. I threw grenades at the door.”\n* UX / Usability Researcher: “I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop up.”\n* Localization: “Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte. Tür. Dør. Deur. Drzwi. Drws. 문”\n* Producer: “Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?”\n* Publisher: “Those doors are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.”\n* CEO: “I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.”\n* PR: “To all our fans, you’re going to go crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet”\n* Community Manager: “I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming patch.”\n* Customer Support: “A player contacted us, confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.”\n* Player: “I totally didn’t even notice a door there.”\n\nOne of the reasons I like this example is because it’s so mundane. There’s an impression that game design is flashy and cool and about crazy ideas and fun all the time. But when I start off with, “Let me tell you about doors…” it cuts straight to the everyday practical considerations.\n",
"Manpower is expensive, video games take manpower.\n\nLet's say one of your people $50,000 a year on average. Just five of them cost you $250,000 for the year. That's without any overhead for rent, software licenses (which certainly aren't cheap), their computers, dev kits, ect. 5 people is a super small indie team.",
"I'm currently in the process of starting up a small indie games company in Australia, there are a lot of costs and skills that go into making a game, from the people who write the software we use, to contractors that we have to hire to fill the gaps. \n\nTo give some idea of what we are spending on our first game below is a list that is by no means comprehensive.\n\nWe need 3 copies of unity for our programmers, which is about $1,500 each.\n \nThe art program we we're taught in costs around $6,000 for one year per artist so we have had to go with less desirable options. \n\nWe don't have anyone who knows sound in the team so we are hiring a musician and will probably have to hire a sound engineer as well. \n\nPaying a marketing firm will cost us about $3,000 per month.\n\nLuckily we are all studying in a specialized business course that helps companies like ours get off the ground and included in the fees are things like internet and office space, as well as the chance to go to some conventions and get our game out there, but that course costs about $20,000 each. \n\nIn Australia we all get some money while we study which is what we are living off for now but next year we will be on our own and to make ends meet we will need a minimum of $12,000 per person, plus the costs of office space if we don't want to be working out of a garage (which may well happen).\n\nThe dynamic of video game development has changed drastically in the past few decades, where before a team could get a publisher to cover the cost of development once they had a cool demo to show, nowadays publishers wont touch a game until it is almost finished and put some of their marketing power behind it for a large percentage of the money that the games make.\n\nBut with all that in mind we are all together taking a shot at the career that we want, making games that express what we want. So even if I end up dirt poor in a gutter somewhere at least I'll have tried."
]
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/midgarstudio/hover-revolt-of-gamers?ref=discovery"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-skullgirls-growing"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/turf/turf-geography-club-an-iphone-game"
... | ||
431k7v | if you eat a pie and then a salad, do you digest better than if you were to eat a salad and then a pie? | How does this affect your weight? Would you gain more weight if you ate the pie second? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/431k7v/eli5_if_you_eat_a_pie_and_then_a_salad_do_you/ | {
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"It doesn't matter. Your GI tract doesn't know which food you ate first. Whether it's before or after salad, eating an entire pie is going to make you gain the same amount of weight. \n\nThere's no real causal link between weight gain and the time, or order, of consumption. All the cultural wisdom about the best times of day to eat, or what order to eat food in, is really about affecting behaviors that will result in you consuming more or less food."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2hwyaj | when you leave your car in the sun, why does heat get trapped inside? | ^ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hwyaj/eli5_when_you_leave_your_car_in_the_sun_why_does/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckwr2g7"
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"text": [
"~~Visible light is able to travel easily through glass, which means energy goes into the car. When it hits the seats or other surfaces, some of that energy causes the object to heat up, essentially turning into infra-red light. That light is not able to as easily travel through the glass. So for each chunk of energy that pours in, some of it isn't able to come back out, and so it builds and builds.~~\n\nEdit - It appears my explanation was mostly wrong, please read FoolishChemist's correction below."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
29klvi | the gentleman sport of cricket | I've been spending the past few days II. Europe, and when the soccer(football) isn't on I've seen some highlight reals for cricket and realized I have no idea at all what's going on. Someone help the uncultured American out, | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29klvi/eli5_the_gentleman_sport_of_cricket/ | {
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"Each team has 11 players. Every player bats and fields. Like baseball they take it in turns to bat and field, however there are only 2 innings for each team. This is because unlike baseball the innings isn't over until all but one of the batsmen are out.\n\nWhen a team is in bat they have 2 batsmen in at any one time. One of these will be batting and the other waiting to run. When the ball is bowled the batter will try to hit the ball. If they miss it and it hits the wooden stumps behind them they're out. If the ball hits their body when it was about to hit the stumps they're out. If they hit it and are caught without it bouncing they're out. If they hit the ball and exchange places with the other batsmen then that's a run. If they hit it to the white boundary across the floor that's 4 runs. If they hit the ball over the boundary without it bouncing that's 6 runs.\n\nFor the fielders, you have a wicket keeper (like a backstop) and a bowler (like a pitcher). The rest of the team field to limit the number of runs scored.\n\nDepending on the type of match there are a different number of balls bowled. There are 6 bowls in an over. For a T20 match each team gets 20 overs to score as much as possible. For an ODI each team gets 60 overs. For a test match there isn't a limit on the number of overs, just that the match lasts 5 days. For a team to win a test match they must get more runs than the opposition and have gotten the opposition completely out in both of their innings."
]
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[]
] | |
8lumyi | what actually is that sinking feeling you get when you realize something aint right? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lumyi/eli5_what_actually_is_that_sinking_feeling_you/ | {
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"It has to do with the fight or flight reflex. Your body doesn't know the difference between a difficult phone call and being chased by a tiger, so in both stressful situations the body gets ready to run for its life, releasing hormones, tightening the blood vessels, protecting vital organs, possibly releasing the bladder or bowels."
]
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[]
] | ||
bhrl8y | How do antibacterial medicines work on a cellular/molecular level? | I've always been told that antibiotics kill bacteria, but I've never really understood how they work. Also, if they are made to kill cells, what stops them from killing our own tissue cells?
Thanks! | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bhrl8y/how_do_antibacterial_medicines_work_on_a/ | {
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"I'm definitely no expert, but from what I understand they function by interfering with the bacteria's essential structures or processes. Breaking apart its cell membrane, preventing it from making proteins, etc. And they don't affect human cells because the functional parts of the antibiotic are very specific, and only interact with a certain molecule or structure which human cells don't have.",
"Antibacterial (or antimicrobials {there is an important difference}) have four main ways of working. Some kill bacteria, some stop bacteria from growing or dividing.\n\nDisrupt bacterial cell wall\nBeta-lactams (like the first discovered antibiotic penicillin)\nPolymixin\n\nDisrupt bacterial cell membrane\nGlycopeptides\n\nDisrupt bacterial protein synthesis\nMacrolides\nAminoglycosides\nLincosamides\nTetracyclines\n\nAffect bacterial DNA synthesis\nQuinolone\nImidazoles\n\nAntimicrobials have selective toxicity for prokaryotic cells (bacteria). Bacteria have a number of differences to eukaryotic cells (such as animal cells). Cells walls which eukaryotes don’t have can be targeted and different size ribosomes to synthesise proteins are targeted too."
]
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[],
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2dblzm | How strongly affected are different plants by microgravity? | There have been a number of experiments over the last 5 decades looking at plant behaviour in low earth orbit. Given that geotropism has a strong effect on a lot of root and stem growth, what are the main effects seen in plants grown in space? Most of what I have seen stuff for are salad leaves, which obviously haven't got lengthy stems or root systems.
Have experiments been conducted looking at trees or at least long-stemmed plants like wheat? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2dblzm/how_strongly_affected_are_different_plants_by/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjnyohi"
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"score": [
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"The influence of gravity may not be as necessary as you may think. [This](_URL_0_) article looked at Arabidopsis and found that the pattern of root growth was extremely similar to those found on Earth, with skewing (roots slanting as they grow out, long thought to be gravity dependent) occurring pretty much the same as Earth-grown plant roots. They did note, however, that this was with a continuous light source, and that the overall growth of the plant was less than control plants.\n\n[Russians](_URL_1_) have grown dwarf wheat on the ISS back in the '90s, with apparently good results and biomass, and although their wheat was sterile, they assumed it was due to ethylene in the atmosphere of the ISS rather than something caused by gravity. When one of their initial trials had problems with the lighting not working, the plants just grew vegetatively (faster growth to reach flowering stage) and did not flower, likely they stopped growing at the booting stage. So plants seem to be able to adapt to microgravity quite well with sufficient light, they just don't grow exactly the same as they do on Earth."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2229/12/232/abstract",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11542291"
]
] | |
3bo8w1 | How much of what we know about Nero has been exaggerated over the years? I've never heard anything good about his rule, sometimes I wonder why there were not massive riots given the fact he was so inept and sadistic. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3bo8w1/how_much_of_what_we_know_about_nero_has_been/ | {
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"It is rather a question of how much of what we know about his principate is coined negatively by our sources. \nAfter the [principate](_URL_1_) has been established, the senators lost the greatest part of their political power as the senate itself became more or less powerless against the institutionally strong position of the emperor. Furthermore the nobility misses its struggle for public offices because the [*cursus honorum*](_URL_0_) that determinated a senator's ambitions in republican times faded increasingly to a state of insignificance. \nEmperors that appear as \"good\" ones in our sources, are those who did not point out how mighty they were and how much they stood above everybody else. Augustus for instance struggled his entire life as *princeps* with keeping the illusion of the restored republic (\"*res publica restituta*\") in which he just served to defend it (with shining success). In his extremely effective propaganda he did not take any offices nor any honours, he was officially given these by the senate. \nFrustrated senators who still wanted to profile themselfes, searched for other fields of competition and found one very important in producing different styles of art and literature - one of them (one of the most important too) is writing historiographic texts that are mainly our sources for political history in the principate's epoch in Roman history.\nTo cut a long story short: \"Bad\" *principes* always failed in keeping the illusion of balanced power relations. Nero for example declared himself winner of artistic competitions in Greece before anyone even started to play. His disinterest in political affairs and his concentration on his beeing as an artist without any real concurrence simply has to be seen as a scandal for the nobility. \nNevertheless we hear positive voices of Nero's rule: He was seen as an fair judge and especially his close relation to [Seneca](_URL_2_) was seen positively. Later in his principate (when he breaks apart from Seneca too) this changes and the negative image coins Nero's reception until now. \nAnother point you might think about is the topos of the crazy emperor burning down Rome and chasing Christians. Both is historically at least **strongly discussed**. The fire was much rather an accident and the persecution of Christians is most commonly seen as a result of searching a scapegoat. Tendencies against Christianity existed and were by no means brought up by Nero himself."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_honorum",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principate",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger"
]
] | ||
kb8ed | what is going on with wisconsin and republicans? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kb8ed/eli5_what_is_going_on_with_wisconsin_and/ | {
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"Even though 70-90% of workers would prefer to work under a collective bargained contract. It is the goal of the wealthy and powerful to chisel away at worker democracy. \n\nThough it seems unbelievable. Bringing down wages has been the goal of the wealthy elite for some. The US has/had some of the highest middle class wages in the world. Bringing down wages opens up competition in world markets. \n\nThe left (actually most people) believe that the growth of collective bargaining in the 1930-60's built the middle class, leading to greater wealth, State funding for technology. Leading in technology led the world towards a tech. economy. \n\nRepublicans think that the economic growth of the 1940 forward was because of free markets. They feel Unions hinder progress and every would be better off if the wealthy were free to get richer. \"Trickle down economics\"\n\nThe average worker has not seen their pay increase in 10 years in the US and Canada.",
"Even though 70-90% of workers would prefer to work under a collective bargained contract. It is the goal of the wealthy and powerful to chisel away at worker democracy. \n\nThough it seems unbelievable. Bringing down wages has been the goal of the wealthy elite for some. The US has/had some of the highest middle class wages in the world. Bringing down wages opens up competition in world markets. \n\nThe left (actually most people) believe that the growth of collective bargaining in the 1930-60's built the middle class, leading to greater wealth, State funding for technology. Leading in technology led the world towards a tech. economy. \n\nRepublicans think that the economic growth of the 1940 forward was because of free markets. They feel Unions hinder progress and every would be better off if the wealthy were free to get richer. \"Trickle down economics\"\n\nThe average worker has not seen their pay increase in 10 years in the US and Canada."
]
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[],
[]
] | ||
9aqvto | if hospitals have to by law treat you when you enter the e.r. what's the point in paying the bill since next time you go they will still have to treat you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9aqvto/eli5_if_hospitals_have_to_by_law_treat_you_when/ | {
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"This is why it's so classic that homeless people go to the emergency room for \"small\" issues that don't require immediate Care, and the rest of the people get mad that they're taking up a spot on the waitlist.",
"They will report your failure to pay to a debt collection company. This will hurt your credit. Bad credit means you might not be able to buy things you want/need later in life.",
"If you don't pay your bill, it will go to collections and potentially tank your credit score. Your wages can be garnished by court order if you refuse to pay your debts.",
"It's fine, if you're homeless. If you own stuff, the hospital's debt collectors will find out and then they will take your stuff to pay your bill.",
"The hospital can still try to collect on the debt, and having hundreds of thousands of dollars in delinquent medical debt can have a huge impact on one's credit history (speaking from personal experience). \n\nPlus if you have insurance, even if they don't pay for the hospital visit, providers will be far less willing to negotiate/forgive debt."
]
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6onq60 | What's the implication of the mass of a proton? | [According to a recent paper in Physical Review Letters](_URL_0_) the proton may weight less than we thought.
What are some implications of this difference in how we understand the universe?
| askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6onq60/whats_the_implication_of_the_mass_of_a_proton/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"[arXiv](_URL_0_)\n\nWhile technically correct, \"proton mass measurement\" is a bit misleading. At this level of precision, the uncertainty of the relation between different mass units has to be considered. What they actually did is a comparison between the mass of a proton and the mass of C-12. The latter happens to be used in the definition of the atomic mass unit by a historical accident. Instead of a proton mass measurement, you could also call it a better calibration of the atomic mass unit. If the measurement can be repeated, and the deviation and smaller uncertainty turns out to be accurate, then it will make the uncertainty in unit conversions smaller. Nice to have for precision measurements. It won't change how we understand the universe. Measurements that can do that (e. g. antiproton to proton mass ratio) have larger uncertainties from elsewhere (e. g. the antiproton mass), they just rely on very accurate units to avoid uncertainties from that side."
]
} | [] | [
"https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.033001"
] | [
[
"https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.06780"
]
] | |
1plryx | why do some parts of the world have a tropical climate while other parts along the same longitude are desert? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1plryx/why_do_some_parts_of_the_world_have_a_tropical/ | {
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"Firstly some parts on that longitude could be near the equator, so a lot of rainfall happens there. Just above and below this area around the equator one would find tropical areas with your typical palm trees and sandy beaches. \n\nFrom there going even further North or South you'll find inland dry places such as hot deserts. But since this is mainly inland away from the coast there is little rain or any precipitation. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
57ll7r | Is there much weight behind any of the Titanic ships alternative / conspiracy stories? | I've been reading online a good bit lately about how the RMS Titanic could've been swapped for the RMS Olympia as a means of an insurance scam.
The more I ponder it the more it adds up. That being said just becaxie I can tick 10 boxes doesn't mean it happened.
[**Here**](_URL_0_) is a wiki article about it. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/57ll7r/is_there_much_weight_behind_any_of_the_titanic/ | {
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"It seriously irritates me that the most persistent of the theories is propped up on Wikipedia with absolutely no effort put into refuting it. The other ones have rather extensive explanations in relation to their propositions, so why doesn't this?\n\nShort answer is absolutely not. Having wasted so much time on it, I can assure you that the theory is based on facts mangled beyond recognition and even outright fabrications.\n\nIt all comes from two people that everyone else cribs notes from. Robin Gardiner first came up with the theory in [1995] (_URL_5_) that he has since [updated] (_URL_0_) [3] (_URL_4_) [times.] (_URL_9_) Dan Van der Vat was on the first edition but not in later editions as he dismissed it. As far as I can tell, Gardiner has written 3 separate books with the other two being a [history of the White Star Line] (_URL_7_) and the [White Star Line in picture postcards.] (_URL_6_) The White Star Line operated the Titanic.\n\nThe second is John Hamer who takes Gardiner's theory and runs with it to add on his own crap about the Federal Reserve.\n\nIt would take way too damn long to go over everything, so I'll just leave you with the \"smoking gun.\" (Incidentally, I despise it when documentaries pull that nonsense.)\n\nThe theorists claim that [*Titanic*'s name was riveted onto the hull and Father Time caused *AN* to fall off and reveal *MP* underneath (from *Olympic*).] (_URL_8_) Well, it's a total lie. [Here's footage from 1987] (_URL_1_) when the letters were first uncovered. [Here's footage from the early 2000s.] (_URL_2_) The name's engraved. No MP. Go back to the MP footage and it's pretty clearly CGI.\n\nThey resort to straight-up lying to the audience on a piece of evidence that would have proved beyond a doubt that the swap happened. That's the level of integrity you're dealing with here. I've gone through it all before (as I've previously stated) and there really isn't any aspect that doesn't receive similar treatment.\n\nAs for the Federal Reserve crap, it's all just baseless speculation that uses a whole lot of nothing to make wild claims. It's every bit as useful and intellectual for me to accuse you of being in on Benghazi based on nothing in particular other than what pops into my head. Just the basic question of how on earth there would be any guarantee that three separate first class men would die on Titanic is enough to dismantle that one. Both of these used to share a page with the curse of Amun-Ra which is the level of dignity they deserve.\n\nIf you have more specific questions about that, I can help you out. Or if you want, you can read [Hall and Beveridge's book] (_URL_3_) that deals directly with it. Or [Mark Chirnside's dissertation.] (_URL_10_)\n"
]
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic_alternative_theories"
] | [
[
"https://www.amazon.ca/Titanic-Conspiracy-Cover-Ups-Mysteries-1996-03-02/dp/B01K17OE4O/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476538631&sr=1-2",
"https://youtu.be/Cp1Jqi_PhUg?t=5m26s",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wKaTNLBc1Q",
"https://www.amazon.ca/Titanic-Olympic-Which-Ship-Sank/dp/075... | |
xypyr | Why is the lifetime of the neutron so long? | A free neutron decays via the charged weak current. I was under the impression that articles whose decay is mediated by weak force typically live for about 10E-10 s (except the top quark, faster because it can decay into an on-shell W+b). But, a neutron lives for about 10-15 _minutes_ ... what is the reason for that? I've read something about it being related to the mass difference between the neutron and proton being small, but nothing clearly explaining why that might play a role.
Any takers? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/xypyr/why_is_the_lifetime_of_the_neutron_so_long/ | {
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"Someone will probably tell me if I'm wrong, but the rate of decay between two quantum states is exponentially proportional to the energy difference between them. The free neutron and its decay products are very close in energy, so the rate will be slow.\n\nI think.",
"Nice question. The answer is that for a random event, like the decay of a particle, the probability of the event happening is proportional to the phase space, that is, the number of different ways the event can take place. So the probability of rolling a number higher than 4 is less than the probability of rolling a number higher than 2, on a six-sided die.\n\nAnd the probability of something happening is inversely proportional to the average number of tries it takes to get that event: you will probably need to roll a die many times before getting a 5 or 6, whereas you probably won't have to roll it for very long to get a 3, 4, 5, or 6. Thus the larger the phase space of the event, the less time it takes for the event to happen.\n\nThis idea is reflected in quantum mechanics via [Fermi's Golden Rule](_URL_0_). To get the transition rate, you have to multiply the quantum mechanical matrix element (which corresponds to the strength of the underlying interaction) by the size of the final-state phase space.\n\nWhat does phase space mean in the context of particle decay? Well, the final states are labeled by the 3-momenta (and spin, but that's more or less irrelevant here) of the daughter particles. These are constrained by conservation of energy and momentum, which altogether eliminate four of the final state's independent variables. So the allowed region of final states for decay into N daughter particles is a (3N-4)-dimensional cavity in momentum-space, with size given by the kinetic energy available to the final state, that is, the mass difference. The mass difference is the crucial number because the larger the energy available for final-state kinetic energy, the more the final-state momenta can vary, and so the larger the phase space.\n\nUm, if that makes sense.\n\nSo anyway, because the mass difference between the neutron and its decay products (proton + electron + neutrino) is so small, the final-state momenta are restricted to a tiny sliver of phase space, and this, by Fermi's Golden Rule, inflates the neutron decay time to a value far higher than the \"typical speed\" of the weak interaction."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%27s_golden_rule"
]
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9saauz | why do cars normally have front wheel steering instead of rear wheel steering and why do some cars like the forklifts have rear wheel steering? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9saauz/eli5_why_do_cars_normally_have_front_wheel/ | {
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"Its more stable at speed to have front wheel. Im not sure if youve ever gone fast in reverse and turned, but it is very easy to go too far. The forklift requires a very small turn radius that is more easily accomplished with rear steer.",
"Forklifts have rear steering wheels for a few reasons but the most important is the working load at the front. If the front wheels steered then it would be very hard to position the pallets precisely and almost impossible to position them close to walls. Just like you can't parallel park a car in a tight space other than by reversing into it.\n\nCars have their steering in the front because it's easier to stabilize the vehicle in a lane. The driver sees the effects of his wheel turning immediately because the front turns first. They just keep the visible front in the lane, the rest of the vehicle follows. They also don't run the risk of hitting something with the back of the vehicle on a tight turn (which can happen easily in a forklift). Sure, they could scratch the side instead, but that is easier to see.\n\n & #x200B;"
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3ye4af | How often could early European colonists in the Americas expect to be visited by a ship from Europe? | I was wondering how often colonies such as Jamestown and the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean could expect resupply and news from Europe. What sort of thing these ships would bring, what if anything the colonists sent back. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ye4af/how_often_could_early_european_colonists_in_the/ | {
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"The Spanish missions in New Mexico and Florida received regular resupply courtesy of lump payments made by the Spanish Crown used by the Franciscans to pay for materials to support the missions. The official wagon caravan from Mexico City to New Mexico arrived every three years, while the more accessible Florida missions were resupplied three times a year.\n\nAfter the excesses of cruelty seen in the initial years of contact, the 1573 Comprehensive Royal Orders for New Discoveries, placed missionaries at the forefront of exploration and pacification of new lands. The frontier missions stated purpose was to provide a spiritual harvest for the Catholic faith. A secondary role was to provide an economically expensive, but vital, frontier presence against encroachment from other European nations, and protect interests further south. New Mexico and Texas provided a supportive buffer for the lucrative mining enterprises in Northern Mexico, and Florida provided a safe haven and support for ships crossing the Atlantic. French pirates and corsairs targeted the ships returning to Spain laden with silver. Between 1556 and 1600 the Spanish Crown’s revenue from the New World fell to less than half of the previous years, with much of the loss stemming from French pirates. Settlements in Florida helped protect this silver trade by presenting a small, but important, military presence, providing safe haven for shipwrecked mariners, offering a convenient location to resupply or fix damaged vessels, and a place to salvage the treasure from Spanish wrecks. \n\nOver the course of the 17th century, New Mexico cost the Crown 2,390,000 pesos, while Florida cost three times as much. The colonies were worth the expense as it was thought missionaries could pacify lands at less cost, and with more lasting impact, than soldiers. Franciscans in New Mexico were given an annual lump-sum payment from the viceroy for purchases needed in the missions, and caravans of 32 oxcarts loaded with good arrived traveled the *Camino Real* up to New Mexico every three years. Florida was resupplied more often, with supply runs arriving three times every year, but it is important to remember both colonies were poor frontier outposts on the northern extreme of an expansive empire.\n\nThe Crown’s supply trains to New Mexico departed Mexico City every three years, courtesy of large, heavy duty, iron-rimed wagons capable of pulling two tons and pulled by eight oxen each. The journey from Mexico City to Santa Fe took six months. The wagon train was accompanied by an armed escort, and was flanked by livestock. The oxcarts carried hardware needed to build and maintain the missions like nails, hinges, and latches, as well as the supplies needed for Catholic rituals like sacramental wine and oil, candle sticks, and bells. Clothing for the padres included sandals, sackcloth, and hats, as well as other needed items like medicine, cooking utensils and musical instruments. Foods not available in New Mexico, like almonds, raisins, flour, sugar, saffron, pepper and cinnamon were also added to the shipments. \n\nAnyone journeying to New Mexico would join the caravan. Newly appointed officials and settlers joined the wagon train, as did their supplies, mail bound for the colony, and any private merchandise that could not be made in New Mexico. On the six month return journey the empty carts could be commandeered or leased to the governor, or other officials, as well as citizens wishing to send goods back to Mexico City.\n\nSources\n\nKessel *Spain in the Southwest*\n\nWeber *The Spanish Frontier in North America*"
]
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[]
] | |
5ssnip | how is it that antibodies against some diseases last longer than others? | A person that contracts chickenpox has close to zero chances of developing it a second time (except for the Zoster variant), while a person with brucellosis doesn't get such a 'strong' and 'long-term' immunity. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ssnip/eli5_how_is_it_that_antibodies_against_some/ | {
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"All antibodies last the same amount of time. The difference in resistance is in the diseases themselves. Some diseases mutate faster than others, allowing them to take on new forms we don't have an immunity to in a shorter time.\n\nIn your particular examples, Chickenpox is caused by a single virus, but there are 4 species of brucellosis that can infect humans.\n\nThis is why you need a new flu shot every year. It's not that you lose your immunity to the flu, but that there are many kinds of flu and you can continue to encounter new ones after gaining immunity to the old. It's also why they say we can't cure the common cold. The \"common cold\" is actually many different things, so no matter how many you get, there will always be more you aren't resistant to. "
]
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[]
] | |
73om3q | how can junk food have so much salt in it, but not taste extremely salty? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73om3q/eli5_how_can_junk_food_have_so_much_salt_in_it/ | {
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"text": [
"The sodium in salt binds with other elements in ither ingredients and creates new properties, including different flavors."
]
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d60545 | Does a planets mass affect it’s period of revolution? | I am absolutely terrible at science but my science teacher asked us to do an experiment using a string and putting it at longer distances. When we finished our teacher said at home replace the individual variable being distance and replace it with mass or anything else, but I decided to do mass. Does it really affect the planetary orbit in some sort of way? I know I should just do the experiment and I will but I’d just like to know. Thanks | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/d60545/does_a_planets_mass_affect_its_period_of/ | {
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"No it does not. There are two types of mass, inertial mass and gravitational mass. Inertial mass is a measure of how difficult it is to move something, the heavier, the harder to move. Gravitational mass is a measure of how gravity affects the object. You've probably never seen this distinction, because it turns out there the exact same. This is the reason all objects fall at the same rate under gravity (without air resistance) independent of their mass .\nBecause they are the same concept the motion of objects where gravity is the only force does not depend on mass. \nOther forces don't have this quirk, so if there was something like air resistance acting on a planet, the mass would influence the motion. To first approximation, the only force on a planet is gravity, so the mass does not impact the orbital motion.",
"Yes but it is likely to be a small effect (negligible in the short term).\n\nT = sqrt((4*pi^2 a^3 ) /mu)\n\nwhere mu = G*(m1+m2)\n\na is semimajor axis. G is the gravitational constant. m1, m2 are the mass of the primary and secondary. To first approximation the primary mass > > secondary mass and so we can approximate mu = G*m1.\n\nSo this then depends on the timescales you are looking at. In the short term (up to something like 1Myr, maybe less) this is not too bad. Once you start considering long term you have to worry about the evolution of the orbital period. Now mass does play a role as mass has an important role of the composition of the planet and hence the rate of evolution (through tidal interactions, wave excitation, Roche overflow etc). Then things become at the level of current research."
]
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[],
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3hessp | what makes some people beyond allergic to mosquito bites while others get a small red dot? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hessp/eli5_what_makes_some_people_beyond_allergic_to/ | {
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"In the most ELI5 way (from my understanding):\nPeople with small mosquito bites have an immune system that says ok, there is a wound here and chemicals that I don't like, lets inflame (swell )it and heal it up.\n\nThen there are the people who are crazy allergic. Their immune system says \"Holy Crap WTF IS THIS.. ITS KILLING YOU\" and makes you swell up to fight the infection. But it goes overboard and well bad things happen.\n\nTo my understanding: Histamines are chemicals that trigger inflammation."
]
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[]
] | ||
2fvps4 | why does it still feel like i'm wearing my watch on my arm when i haven't worn it for days? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fvps4/eli5_why_does_it_still_feel_like_im_wearing_my/ | {
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"Hmm. I get the opposite feeling. If I don't have it on I feel like I'm missing something or a little but naked. Unless I have deliberately taken it off. ",
"Ghost watch syndrome."
]
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[],
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8cmqi3 | why does stormy/rainy weather cause your sinuses to get clogged/messed up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cmqi3/eli5_why_does_stormyrainy_weather_cause_your/ | {
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"text": [
"Changes to the air pressure. Storms are lower pressure causing your sinuses to expand slightly, the opposite happens on a high air pressure day."
]
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12yxrh | Can a brain scan "see" intelligence? | If you were to record an intelligent person and an unintelligent person's brain activity, would they be different? How so? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12yxrh/can_a_brain_scan_see_intelligence/ | {
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"The use of fMRI can reveal brain activity related to [general fluid intelligence](_URL_1_). These differences would probably be most clearly revealed in a working memory task or an interference task (such as the [Stroop task](_URL_0_)). Individuals with higher intelligence would likely show a greater difference between high and low load (or between high or low interference) than those with lower intelligence. This activity would probably be localized within the frontoparietal control network, which consists of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the dorsal anterior cingulate, and a portion of posterior lateral parietal cortex. There are also structural differences in these regions associated with intelligence. That said, behavior is the ultimate test: regardless of their neural activity, if someone still performs well on [RAPM](_URL_2_) it would be difficult to argue that they are not highly intelligent."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices"
]
] | |
6fvuyv | How does a circuit breaker detect a problem? | Like when the breaker jumps. How does it detect that there's too much electricity or something (probably not electricity, I don't know what it it). | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6fvuyv/how_does_a_circuit_breaker_detect_a_problem/ | {
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"Breakers will generally trip when you have an overcurrent environment, be this if you're trying to power too many devices, draw too much load, or have a short to ground (which will peak current usage).\n\nIn residential applications you generally have either a calibrated bimetallic strip or an electromagnet to trip the breaker. With a bimetallic strip, this functions not dissimilar to a flasher relay in a car: As current is applied, the strip bends at a known rate. When too much current is applied the strip bends and physically separates the contactor of the breaker, thus tripping the switch.\n\nAn electromagnetic breaker works by inducing a magnetic field through a winding. Electricity and magnetism are necessarily interrelated, and in fact are the same type of force viewed through different frames of reference. When you pass current through a conductor it always creates a magnetic field; similarly, when you pass a magnetic field through a conductor it creates electricity. In this case, as current is increased through the windings of the electromagnet the magnetic field grows at a known rate. When the magnetic field reaches a threshold it will then attract the opposite pole of a magnetic device attached to the contactor and physically open the terminals (and trip the lever) so electricity cannot flow.\n\nThere are many other types of breakers but low-voltage residential/commercial breakers are the types most commonly seen, and those you're probably asking about.\n\nThere's no magic (or particularly high-tech sensors) in a breaker, just the utility of understood electromechanical principles. \n\nIt might help to think of electricity not just as electricity, but as its common components: Volts, amperes, and ohms. Detailed descriptions can be found online easily, but in summation we use \"volt\" to describe a unit of electrical pressure, an \"ohm\" to describe resistance to electrical flow, and \"ampere\" (or \"amp\") to describe how much electricity (or \"current\") is flowing. \n\nFor the scope of this discussion we won't worry about ohms as resistance of circuits is not what we need to know. We do need to know about how volts, amps, and watts play with each other. If you're in North America, your residential power service probably operates at 120 volts and your outlets (and associated breakers) are probably rated at 15 amps. The \"watt\" is the product of volts and amps and describes the total power consumed; for instance, if you're using a 1500 watt hair dryer and you know your line voltage is 120 volts, 1500/120 = your amperage draw (in this case 12.5A). \n\nSince this hair dryer is pulling 12.5A you know that power is flowing through the breaker relatively near its cutoff point of 15A; if it's a bimetallic breaker the bimetallic strip is bending at a known deflection, and if it's an electromagnet you could deduce the applied magnetic field.\n\nLet's say you're running that 1500W hair dryer and you know it's pulling 12.5A of current through your outlet and your wife decides it's time to vacuum the lamp shades so she plugs in a vacuum cleaner. If the vacuum cleaner draws more than 2.5A of current (or, since we know you have 120V, 2.5*120 = 300W -- or quite a small vacuum cleaner!) then the breaker will trip. The bimetallic strip will expand far enough to open the contactor and trip the lever or the magnet will pull the plunger of the solenoid up enough to trip the contactor, and you'll have to reset the breaker and examine your electrical needs on that circuit.",
"They use magnetic and/or thermal effects. When current flows through a conductor heat and a magnetic field are generated. The heat can be used to cause something like a bimetallic strip to change shape and break the circuit. The magnetic field can be used to attract metal and break the circuit.\n\nTypical household breakers use both effects. Heat is used for gradual, long term high currents across the breaker. The magnetic effects are used to deal with sudden, high current surges."
]
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1xrnth | How can I reconcile the concepts of entropy as disorder, as Q/T, and in the equation for Gibb's free energy? | Hi! I'm currently studying thermodynamics in AP Chem, and I've been a little confused by all of the different definitions for entropy I've seen. Furthermore, especially since I've been taught for so long that entropy is a measure of disorder, it's been difficult for me to conceptualize entropy as a scientific quantity (like connecting the units, J/(mol*K), with "disorder"). I've seen 3 major definitions/applications of entropy:
1.) As a measure of disorder, or energy/matter dispersal. Entropy increases because it is statistically more favorable to find energy spread out rather than in ordered, tightly locked arrangements.
2.) Entropy as S = Q/T, where S is entropy, Q is heat capacity, and T is temperature. Here, entropy was simply defined as the ratio between an object's temperature and its heat capacity. There was something [here](_URL_0_) about the efficiency of engines and harnessing energy flowing from hotter substances to colder substances, but I failed to see how this related to entropy.
3.) delta G = delta H - temperature * delta S. This one bothers me the most. I get that both changes in entropy and enthalpy influence the spontaneity of a reaction, but putting this together into the equation is a bit confusing for me. I recognize that delta H and delta S should be components, by why is delta S multiplied by temperature, and why is that quantity subtracted from delta H? Furthermore, why are the units for entropy in terms of J/(mol*K)?
In essence, I think I understand the concept of entropy as energy/matter dispersal and why it is always increasing, but it's been difficult to see that concept fit together with concept 2.) and 3.) If anyone could explain this to me, I would be **incredibly thankful**. Have a great day and thanks so much for reading! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1xrnth/how_can_i_reconcile_the_concepts_of_entropy_as/ | {
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"One of the ways that I like to think about entropy is that it is the amount of unusable energy in a system due to molecules or atoms vibrating, rotating, etc. The higher the temperature, the more the atoms and molecules vibrate and rotate, thereby increasing the overall unusable energy in a system.\n\nlets spell out some formulas\n\ndU=dq+dw\n\ndH=dU+d(pV)\n\ndG=dH-TdS\n\ndS=dq/T\n\ndH=QdT\n\nwhere w=work, q=heat, G=free energy, T=temperature, and Q=heat capacity (at constant pressure)\n\nso assuming that no p-V or any sort of work is done, then we can say that H=U=q, or dH=dq\n\nso plugging in, dS=dH/T\n\nupon rearranging, TdS=dH\n\nso what does this mean? It means that when the free energy is equal to zero (i.e. G=0) then the amount of total energy (H) is equal to the amount of unusable energy (TS) in a system.\n\n\nOne of the major turning points in my thermo classes was when I treated entropy as the amount of unusable energy, and I think it does help tremendously. \n\n------------------------------\n\nNow, allow me to actually answer some questions\n\n\"This one is bothers me the most. I get that both changes in entropy and enthalpy influence the spontaneity of a reaction, but putting this together into the equation is a bit confusing for me.\"\n\nOkay, so we have dG=dH-TdS (let d=delta). So what that means is that the change in free energy of a system is equal to the change in total amount of energy of a system minus the amount of unusable energy in a system. In other words, the free energy is the amount of energy available for the sample to actually do something.\n\nSo lets say that our dH=200 J/mol and let our temperature be 273K (remember that it is always kelvin and always positive) and our dS=1 J/mol-K\n\nso we'll have dG=200 J/mol - 273K(1 J/mol-K) the temperature cancels out leaving dG=200 J/mol - 273 J/mol = -73 J/mol\n\nwhat this means is that the change in free energy is negative, meaning that the system is losing energy (aka exothermic).\n\n\"I recognize that delta H and delta S should be components, by why is delta S multiplied by temperature, and why is that quantity subtracted from H? Furthermore, why are the units for entropy in terms of J/(mol*K)?\"\n\nthe amount of entropy in a system is proportional to the temperature of the system. See above. Again, H is the total energy and S is the unusable energy\n\n\"why are the units for entropy in terms of J/(mol*K)?\"\n\nsince Entropy is proportional to the temperature, you need to multiply together to get the amount of unusable energy.\n\n\nHopefully I cleared some stuff up, but if not, feel free to reply back or PM me and i'll try my best.",
"So this may not be perfect as I don't have any of my thermo or stat mech notes with me, but I'll do what I can from memory/wikipedia:\n\nEntropy is somewhat tricky. The definition generally taught in most chemistry classes that is the closest to coming from real physics is that \n\nS=k\\*ln(*Omega*), where k is the boltzmann constant and *Omega* is the total number of microstates (at a certain energy), which is where this idea of disorder comes from. Microstates are all of the available arrangements of particles at whatever energy you are looking at. For example, in a gas, there are microstates for every possible position of all of the gas molecules, possibly with some combinatorial magic to get rid of repeated identical arrangements as the molecules are indistinguishable, but I can't remember the math of the top of my head.\n\nAnyway, this is just one definition for entropy. If you dig through statistical mechanics long enough, you can derive some of the rest of these relationships you know in thermodynamics. I won't derive anything here, but essentially as the number of particles gets large (what we call the *thermodynamic limit*) the equations of statistical mechanics become identical to the ones of thermodynamics, which is important because thermodynamics works, and stat mech wasn't developed until we had a pretty good idea of the atom and molecule nature of matter, which classical thermo doesn't depend upon.\n\nI should note that this isn't the only definition of entropy. It can also be defined as k\\*ln(*w*), where *w* is the intgrated number of states, i.e. all the states at the energy at *or below* whatever energy you are at in the system. This is the Gibbs definition, and is generally better, but often not bothered with by most classes. [It's actually still a recent matter of discussion in physical chemistry, with a discussion of this topic published in nature in 2013.](_URL_0_) (sorry for the paywall)\n\nBut as far as relating it back to Gibbs free energy or the integral of dq/T, you have to derive it through statistical mechanics, which is not something I want to do at 10pm after a glass of bourbon. It may not be entirely satisfying, but hopefully it helps. I'm guessing from this question that you're currently learning chemistry, and I hope I don't scare you away from it. It really is fun despite the math (or because of it for some people)."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.science20.com/train_thought/blog/entropy_not_disorder-75081"
] | [
[],
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"http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v10/n1/full/nphys2815.html"
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79032k | Why was Australia colonized? What motivated people to travel so far only to settle in such a dangerous place? | First of all, I don't wish to offend any Australians- I know that it's not all desert and poisonous stuff. I'm just thinking from an explorer's perspective. If I were a European settler, the very last place I'd want to settle in- especially without modern conveniences- would be a vast desert that's easy to get lost in, far from Europe, and filled with dangerous animals. Even if the distance wasn't an issue, it seems like the Philippines and the various islands in the Indian Ocean would've been a better place to settle, similar to how the Europeans settled in certain areas of Africa.
What exactly motivated settlers to go there? Was it the minerals? Political reasons? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/79032k/why_was_australia_colonized_what_motivated_people/ | {
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"In 1787, when the final decision was made to send the First Fleet to Australia, the English knew remarkably little about Australia full stop - they had *no idea* about the desert interior of Australia. James Cook's expedition reached Australia in 1770, and was, more or less, the entire basis of English knowledge about the east coast of Australia. Cook only landed at three spots on the Australian east coast - a) Botany Bay in modern day Sydney, b) what is now a town called Seventeen Seventy between Gladstone and Bundaberg in Queensland, and c) modern day Cooktown, in far north Queensland. Cook and his men spent a total of seven days in Botany Bay, and were in Cooktown for seven weeks making repairs to the ship after it had hit a reef. Cook never ventured close to anything remotely resembling desert.\n\nAs to the poisonous animals that visitors to Australia might encounter, the Eastern brown snake and the tiger snake that the *Endeavour* crew perhaps could have encountered in Sydney were not scientifically described until the 1850s-1860s. The redback spider and the funnel web spiders (the most dangerous Australian spiders) only seem to have been scientifically described in the 1870s. While I'm sure the local indigenous people in Botany Bay, the Eora, could have told the *Endeavour*'s biologists that these things indeed existed, they didn't stay long enough for the Eora to communicate with the English about all these poisonous snakes and spiders. The Eora spent most of their time telling these strange pale people to go away - no doubt if they could speak English they would have told them about the snakes and spiders in order to further convince them to go away? And [Joseph Banks' journals](_URL_1_) mention several encounters with sea snakes while at sea off the coast of Australia, but he doesn't mention land snakes at all.\n\nJospeh Banks, the botanist on the *Endeavour* spoke in favour of establishing a colony in Botany Bay in parliamentary hearings, and it was largely on his word that a fleet of colonists were sent out to Botany Bay; when they arrived in the area, they were dismayed to find that Botany Bay was not the fertile agricultural ground that Banks had imagined it to be, but Botany Bay was not far away from more hospitable areas (such as their eventual location for a colony, Sydney Cove, now located smack bang in the middle of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge).\n\nSo why would English colonists go over to the other side of the world to start a new life in a place that they had no idea about? Well, because the English authorities explicitly wanted to get rid of people. The aim was that the people they would send over to the other side of the world would stay there and not bother them again. In other words, the initial First Fleet of English people that was sent to Australia was full of people who had no other choice - convicts. \n\nAccording to Robert Hughes' *The Fatal Shore*, the British classes that played a role in politics were basically entirely dismayed to occasionally be accosted with the existence of what they considered a large 'criminal class', made up of hundreds and thousands of people whose living was made by criminal endeavours. Barely understanding at all the depths of poverty that many city-dwellers were in, and with little empathy for their situation, the British political classes thought they were just naturally criminals. They simply wanted them gone. \n\nPartly because of this view about the criminal classes, the death penalty was regularly given in the 18th century for surprisingly trivial offenses against property. British jails were exceedingly full, to the point that they had begun to house convicts in rotting ship hulks along the Thames. There was some unease about this, with mercy - imprisonment instead in one of the rotting hulks, rather than death - regularly being given by judges. And in the wake of the American Revolution, the British could no longer condemn their convicts to indentured servitude in America to get rid of them.\n\nWith this situation, a decision was made in the 1780s to transport large amounts of the 'criminal class' across to somewhere so far away that they'd likely never come back - 'out of sight, out of mind', basically. The priority was more to get rid of the people in the rotting hulks rather than to turn the colony into a viable outpost of the British Empire. \n\nSo when Arthur Phillip was given the role of Governor of the new colony, he was basically a retired, bored, naval officer who they chose because he was basically good enough to do the job of administration, but that nobody would miss terribly much if it all went wrong. He was very much *not* the charismatic star governor with ambitions to make Australia into the crown jewel of the Empire or something like that. \n\nAnd official disinterest in the colony was the bane of Arthur Phillip's life in the preparation for the First Fleet; he was constantly trying to find funding and official approval for enough provisions to make the colony workable before they set sail - unlike those administrators in London, he actually had to live in the Australian colony. Additionally, as an index of just how little thought was put into making the colony workable, nobody bothered to bring architects or farmers to the colony, and once they were in Sydney, Phillip basically had to choose the couple of convicts who happened to have a little experience with things remotely resembling those skills and hope they could do something equivalent (according to Hughes he had enough trouble convincing the Crown to send him prisoners who weren’t old or infirm - and who would be deadweight in a struggling new colony). The lack of experience here led to famines in the early years of the colony before they were able to find appropriate farmland and learn appropriate farming techniques (which the local Eora people presumably would have found quite puzzling while they kept their bellies full using their traditional hunting and gathering techniques).\n\nAs to why they chose Australia rather than somewhere else, to quote a section of [my previous post on the legal idea of 'Terra Nullius'](_URL_0_): \n\n > [a 2005 paper by Stuart] Banner points out that Botany Bay was chosen as a spot for a convict colony in the 1780s primarily because Captain Cook had described Australia as being sparsely inhabited and because they therefore would not need to expend lots of money or bullets in taking over the area (Joseph Banks predicted that the native inhabitants \"would speedily abandon the Country to the New Comers\"). Other choices for the convict colony that ended up in Sydney, Australia included Lemane Island, 400 miles up the Gambia River, and Das Voltas Bay in present-day Namibia. But the British could not come to an agreement with 'the Principal Men of the Country' to rent or purchase Lemane Island. And Das Voltas Bay was rejected in the end; while the British thought that Das Voltas Bay could be purchased from the natives, they believed that Australia was too sparsely populated to justify needing to purchase land from natives.\n\nSources: \n\n* Robert Hughes' 1985 *The Fatal Shore* (still the definitive account of Australia in the convict era)\n\n* Stuart Banner, 'Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law In Early Australia', in the Spring 2005 edition of *Law And History Review*",
"As a possible follow-up question, is there any written accounts by Europeans about their experience seeing a kangaroo for the first time?"
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3i480k | why are the gas pumps in cars typically in the back, furthest from the car's engine? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i480k/eli5_why_are_the_gas_pumps_in_cars_typically_in/ | {
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"I think you mean the gas tank?\nor did you mean the fuel pump, which in older cars is typically located right next to the engine but located by the gas tank in newer cars?\n\nplease clarify.",
"Because that's where there is room for a large fuel tank. Also, the weight of a full fuel tank placed away from the engine helps keep the car's overall weight more evenly distributed. ",
"Because the gas tank is usually in the back. The placement is to distribute weight and space inside the car. "
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6mugvf | how did the cameras that were used during the moon landing work? how were they able to broadcast relatively clear picture and sound from space, using 1960s technology? | I ask this because there is a group of people who think the moon landing *itself* is real but the tv broadcast was staged. I personally don't believe that the broadcast was fake, but the question piqued my curiosity and I would like to know how it worked. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mugvf/eli5_how_did_the_cameras_that_were_used_during/ | {
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"Basically, the important thing in space communications is not the size or power of the transmitter, but the sensitivity of the receiver. Once you have compensated for local issues like atmosphere, other radio sources, the rotation and revolution of the Earth, etc, then the only thing that affects the transmission is distance, and we have lots of distributed, really sensitive receivers to pick up weak signals. ",
"_URL_0_ wasn't really a clear broadcast.\n\nNASA including an erectable antenna on the Lunar Module, but that wasn't the only interesting part of the mission in regards to its live broadcast. \n\nYou should realize here that a lot of the technology was already in place aboard the LM in order to broadcast information back home. The mission crew at NASA needed to be able to communicate with the crew aboard the LM, they also needed telemetry, voice, and various computer diagnostics to be streamed back to Earth in order to monitor the mission. They used both UHF and VHF streams while they tracked over a C-band beacon on the LM.\n\nNASA also developed something called USB (Unified S-band) streaming which combined tracking, telemetry, ranging, command, voice, and television data into a single antenna. \n\nYou can read all about it on Pop Sci at _URL_1_, for all the specs and extra info. \n",
"* there is very little interference in space...if light reflected from the sun can get to the earth, so can radio signals\n* being the government, they weren't restricted by licensing or the FCC, they could use the best frequency for the job\n* the orbiter boosted, focused, and directed the signal\n* giant radio antennas, not rabbit ears, were used to receive the signal",
"Televised broadcast has been commercial since 1930. So by 1960s it's pretty well matured... So why would people think it's not possible?",
"The same tech that's behind the radio or local TV, or even WiFi today. Radio communication. \n\nYes, it is really far away. Radio waves are actually really good at going far! Radio waves can't go as far on Earth because in order for the waves to get to you, they are going through buildings and even the Earth (due to curvature). That's why you can't connect to a radio station many miles away. \n\nBut in space, you've got a straight shot all the way to home base with absolutely nothing but air in between. It makes radio communication quite easy, actually. \n",
"Yeah but how bad was the stream delay???",
"Every time this question comes up, it brings back a favorite memory...I was stationed in Dayton OH, and the local paper ran a letter asserting that space flight was a hoax. \"How can we be getting TV from the Moon,\" he said, \"when I can't even get Toledo on my TV?\"",
"Here's a good video discussing how the filmmaking technology of the late 60's wouldn't have been up to the task of making a fake video - it had to be live TV.\n\n_URL_0_",
"It's actually higher quality then what you're used to seeing. The Neil Armstrong first walk is actually a TV recording, pointed at a monitor, because they didn't have a slow scan TV adapter. The camera feed from that was recorded, but the tape of the video coming from the lander has been lost. Only the people in Australia saw it at full-quality, ever thing else is a copy. Australia boosted the signal and sent it to the US. People at NASA saw the boosted signal, and that was also recorded to make the public TV feed. See _URL_0_ for details. You can see a good photo of what the screen looked like showing the live image, and how high quality the images were.\n\nIf you're intrested in how they got the radio signal, it was picked up at the _URL_1_. That little brick building that the dish is resting on... is a 3 story building. That telescope is huge. Watch _URL_2_ If you're interested in a dramatized version of it.",
"There are many good technical answers here. I just wanted to point out one more. \n\nThe images you see on a website like NASA's are not the same [quality as what was broadcast](_URL_0_) What you see today is after the fact and NASA probably choose the best tapes from the downlink and cleaned up the image and fixed the contrast. As well the Lunar mission carried film cameras that were of much better quality and some of the images you see now might be from film rather than TV broadcast. ",
"The pictures became much better starting with Apollo 14 or 15 because of processing done in real time by a company in Hollywood that had a method for removing the static from the pictures. Apparently one of the methods was similar to that used in VCRs, where adjacent horizontal scan lines are stored in a buffer and compared and any noise (white spots or streaks) gets replaced with darker areas in the nearby lines. "
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17bg42 | Alcohol is a depressant. People say they drink because they are depressed, and this is often derided because it's a depressant. What merits are there for this claim? | I realize alcohol is a CNS depressant that is criticized for use "to reduce depression." It seems counter intuitive that a depressive drug is used for depression, but my primary question is whether the terms are used *colloquially*? Does the "depressant" term apply to the CNS factors but not psychological or both? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/17bg42/alcohol_is_a_depressant_people_say_they_drink/ | {
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" > Does the \"depressant\" term apply to the CNS factors but not psychological or both?\n\nIt does not apply to both - [CNS depressant](_URL_0_) refers to the physiological effects. Even within the psychological realm, \"depressant\" does not apply evenly across all functions. For example, you may notice that people may seem more hyper and forward after light drinking - that's when social inhibition is suppressed by alcohol.",
"\"Depressant\" and \"depression\" are terms that are not really closely related. (Yes, they are *linguistically* related, but they are not *medically* related.) So there is no contradiction here.\n\nA drug is a *depressant* if it \"lowers or depresses arousal levels and reduces excitability\".[1] And that effect does not have all that much to so with the mood disorder *depression*. In fact, depressants can be used to \"boost mood or induce euphoria\" and \"to reduce social anxiety and improve sociability\" -- effects that are heading in the opposite direction (roughly speaking) from depression.[1] Also see WP on \"depression\".[2]\n\nA drug that actually causes depression is a *depressogenic*.[3]\n\n[1] _URL_2_\n\n[2] _URL_0_\n\n[3] _URL_1_",
"Your brain has lots of excitatory (stimulating) and inhibitory (depressing) circuits and neurotransmitter systems that work together to help you experience life. \n\nSay you're taking a Xanax or a similar drug which are marketed as anti-anxiety medications. What Xanax is doing is increasing the ability of GABA (the main inhibitory neurotransmitter) to calm everything down that it normally does. This type of drug would be lumped under the \"CNS depressant\" category, but really you may feel incredibly uninhibited and generally happier. The \"depressant\" is the reduction in excitability.\n\nAlcohol (ethanol) is a bit more dirty than something like Xanax but acts very similarly to generally cause increased inhibitory function. Keep in mind the brain is highly interconnected...so in certain brain regions you actually inhibit those inhibitory circuits...achieving a stimulant effect. \n\nI really think the terms \"narcotic\" and \"depressant\" have no real meaning and are used far too often. ",
"The reason people are dissuaded from self medicating with any addictive or tolerance developing substance is multifactorial, but two big reasons are that dosage control is impaired, _and_ tolerance development supervision is impaired. \n\nIn other words, It's really easy to replace feelings with drinking and accidentally make it a long term endeavor when you're depressed. \n\nAnother reason specific to alcohol is that lowering the self preservation drive of someone who is severely depressed isn't a great idea. [Combining alchohol with suicidal thoughts is a horrible way to find out if someone is capable of following through](_URL_0_)"
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323thr | Has there been a political/voting system where people could cast more than one vote, proportionate to a worldly possession (land, property, money, family)? | I'm sorry if the question is not specific enough, but it's quite a hard topic to search for on google! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/323thr/has_there_been_a_politicalvoting_system_where/ | {
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"Yes, this was the case in local elections in the UK until 1948. Business owners got a vote as a householder but also for their business as they paid property taxes (rates) for both. The system was maintained in Northern Ireland until the 1970s.\n\nAlso the upper house in the Republic of Ireland (Seanad Éireann or the Senate) is not directly elected but has a variety of electoral panels. Graduates of Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland elect three senators each. Anyone who is a graduate of both gets two votes. The origins of the system were that the Senate was meant to represent interest groups rather than individuals though in practice it was dominated by the main political parties."
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fzzmu | If rotten meat is caused primarily by bacteria, why doesn't cooking rotten meat make it edible? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fzzmu/if_rotten_meat_is_caused_primarily_by_bacteria/ | {
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"Don't bacteria release toxins? Like you kill the bacteria, but toxic stuff is still there.",
"The bacteria emit toxins as they grow. The toxins make you sick. Killing the bacteria does not destroy the toxins already present in the meat.",
"My guess would be two-fold:\n1 - Bacteria in the meat might produce toxins that can't be cooked out.\n2 - There might be some breakdown of the meat itself.\n\nCan anyone confirm/deny these suspicions?",
"I think there's toxins :)",
"Probably similar to the reason cooked poop is not particularly palatable. Nutrients were used, chemical changes took place and toxins were produced. Not that I'm any expert; nor have I cooked poop or rotten flesh.",
"The consensus is toxic chemicals produced by bacteria (and let's not forget fungi), but there is a dearth of examples:\n\nSome micro-organisms, such as *Aspergillus flavus* produce poisonous chemicals known as aflatoxins. These compounds are poisonous at levels of 20ppb in humans, [according to the FDA](_URL_0_). They also aren't destroyed by heat. *Aspergillus* can be found as the mold in moldy peanuts. **Don't eat moldy peanuts**.\n\nAnother interesting fungal compound is that produced by *Claviceps purpurea*. I'll elaborate on it if people are interested and ask (and there are fascinating stories), but basically it can infect grain and because it's a precursor to sythesise LSD, it causes hallucinations. This is called ergotism and can occur in whole villages if they use the same grain supply.",
"Also I think the bacteria start fermenting the juices in the meat and produce by-product chemicals that are (a) not good for your stomach and (b) definitely not good for your nose.",
"Stuff like: \n[Putrescine](_URL_1_) and [Cadaverine](_URL_0_)",
"So bacteria emit toxins. 1) how come scavangers can eat rotten meat? 2) can anyone find a case of someone getting sick from eating some toxins in cooked rotten meat?"
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1wlwjt | how does the theory of evolution explain the development of adaptations, the intermediate stages of which are unlikely to be advantageous to the organism (e.g., winged flight)? | For some adaptations, like winged flight, it seems like the end "product" (wings/body type capable of flight) is beneficial to the organism but the millions of generations it would have taken to get to that end product would have been disadvantageous. Put another way, would only partially developed wings provide any evolutionary advantage, such that the trait continued to develop? Alternatively, if the wings were instead the result of a sudden, spontaneous mutation, how would the animal have known how to use them effectively? Either scenario seems unlikely, but I assume there is a well accepted answer to the question. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wlwjt/eli5_how_does_the_theory_of_evolution_explain_the/ | {
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"Every adaptation has to be slightly better than the base case or the mutation won't likely be transmitted to future generations. But \"slightly better\" is a term that contains a universe of possibilities.\n\nFor example, feathers evolved (probably) as a way for an animal to radiate heat. They became better and better heat radiators and coincidentally also became something that could help an animal glide through the air (or fall more slowly). At some point the \"wing\" qualities of feathers became more important than the \"radiate heat\" qualities, but without that first rationale feathers wouldn't have evolved.\n\nAlmost every biological system follows this pattern. The changing system produces a variety of subtlety and incrementally better changes to the base system, and at some point a new potential capability becomes possible and then evolution can act on that potential too. Evolution doesn't work by targeting an end state, it just works by selecting a slightly better version of whatever systems are currently available and sometimes those changes produce surprising new capabilities.",
"The likely intermediate step was useful either for gliding (such as a flying squirrel), or as an extended jump (like a domestic chicken). Both of those are useful for quick bursts when fleeing from a predator. From there longer, more controlled, and powered flight are all beneficial improvements, but as pointed out there are examples of living creatures today that survive with pseudo-flight.",
"The trait continued to develop because it was still advantageous, even though it was not as good as the current wing. It was advantageous all the way, that's why the trait survived.\n\nHaving wings that can help you fly 10 kilometers is worse than having winds that can help you fly 100 kilometers, but it is still an advantage. And if you go back in time even more, you might be able to fly only 1 kilometer, which is worse, but still better than not being able to fly.\n\nAnd if we go back even more, that animal might only have had some skin between its legs [like this](_URL_0_). It wouldn't be able to exactly *fly*, but it could still glide for quite a distance if it jumps from a tall tree.\n\nGoing back even more, those flaps would have been smaller. Couldn't glide as far, but still better than just walking. And before that it had just regular legs. They couldn't help you fly or glide, but were still useful.\n\nIn each step of the way that trait helped the animal."
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bjh62r | why do asian companies seem so much more versatile than american ones? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bjh62r/eli5_why_do_asian_companies_seem_so_much_more/ | {
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"Interestingly enough your example shows that Asian companies are far LESS agile/versatile than American ones. What you are describing is the old style of large conglomerates. US companies figured out that massive scale doesn't mean huge profits in the 21st century and moved away from them. GE is the single greatest example of this and the show 30 Rock spends a lot of time making fun of GE.\n\nBecause Asian companies tend to be much more resistant to change than US firms, they are stuck with an old structure that much of the world has moved on from.",
"Because American companies don't draw attention to the fact that they are parts of larger conglomerates, and present themselves are smaller than they really are."
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1tndu0 | Why are pressurized tanks cylindrical as opposed to rectangular? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1tndu0/why_are_pressurized_tanks_cylindrical_as_opposed/ | {
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"Structurally corners are the weakest point of a rectangle so if there was a massive amount of pressure being applied to the tank it would be more likely to fail at the corners if it was rectangular. A cylindrical tank bypasses this issue since pressure is applied equally on all sides of a cylinder making it less likely to fail."
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57o741 | How does file recovery software work? | There's software that can recover deleted files even after emptying the recycle bin. How does this work? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/57o741/how_does_file_recovery_software_work/ | {
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"When you delete a file, you mark the space as unused rather than destroying the file. At some point in the future the file will be overwritten, but between now and then it can be recovered.\n\nThe specifics depend on the filesystem in question, and you do get utilities that overwrite the file with noise and then delete it so even the recovered file is almost certainly useless. ~~Forensic file recovery can even get files shredded like that, but it's an enormously expensive process.~~\n\nEdit: Apparently not anymore. Thanks for the link, /u/poizan42.",
"Basically, when you \"permanently\" delete a file, you don't actually delete it from the hard drive. In fact, it remains there being unaccessed by the operating system until something writes over it. File recovery software simply takes advantage of this fact. "
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2isquo | how have we not run out of barcodes | like seriously aren't there like tens of billions of products, are there that many different combinations of black bars? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2isquo/eli5how_have_we_not_run_out_of_barcodes/ | {
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"The black bars encode the numbers below the barcode. The most common format is the 13-digit EAN number, so there are ten thousand billion combinations to use.\n\nEdit: 1 digit is a checksum, so one thousand billion.",
"Its fine, i was just wondering how many different barcodes there could be. Haven't we run out of keys though, like if I used my key on a million different houses, could i get into one?"
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5b89dp | what is rendering in video game? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b89dp/eli5what_is_rendering_in_video_game/ | {
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"\"Rendering\" essential just means \"creating the image you see on the screen\". Internally, the computer just represents the scene as a bunch of polygons and textures. Rendering is the step where the computer decides exactly what those polygons should look like when viewed from *this* precise location, with *that* exact lighting, and with *those* textures mapped onto the polygon meshes.",
"It's the procedure of taking instructions from the computer and turning them into mathematical models with shapes and textures and lights, and then turning those into pixels on a computer display.\n\nIt's very heavily math based, and requires doing a lot of the same calculation at the same time, so we use special components we call GPUs to do that."
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7y5hbv | why do dark coloured fizzy drinks like pepsi and coke have caffeine, yet other lighter coloured drinks like sprite and fanta not have it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7y5hbv/eli5_why_do_dark_coloured_fizzy_drinks_like_pepsi/ | {
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"Mountain Dew, a light coloured drink, has more caffeine than either Coke or standard Pepsi. There is almost as much caffeine in a 12oz Mountain Dew as a 20oz Coke. (55mg vs 56-57mg).\n\nThe only soft drink with more caffeine is Pepsi Zero Sugar.\n\n[Source](_URL_1_)\n\nThere goes that theory...\n\nHere is the real question... what colour would Coke or Pepsi be if they didn't [add the caramel colour?](_URL_0_)",
"The Kola Nut, major flavoring agent in the original formulas of virtually all sodas with \"cola\" in the name naturally has caffeine. The extracts from the Kola nut also happen to be dark in coloring. In fact the word cola comes from kola and was an alternative English spelling for kola at one time. \n\nBut what you are noticing is not really a hard rule. Mountain Dew which is yellowish and lemon-lime flavored has caffeine, and most root beers which are dark do not have caffeine. It is makers choice as there are people that want caffeine in their drinks and those that do not. \n\n"
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"https://cspinet.org/eating-healthy/ingredients-of-concern/caffeine-chart"
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9n7ruf | what really happens when ones heart "drops" in a startling situation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9n7ruf/eli5_what_really_happens_when_ones_heart_drops_in/ | {
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"Heart ‘drop’ typically happens when you experience a stressful event, like forgetting something important or receiving bad news. This activates a part of the nervous system responsible for the fight or flight response. This causes the blood vessels to become wider, leading to a drop in blood pressure. The heart needs to compensate and pump harder in order to bring the blood pressure back up which gives the feeling of the ‘drop’. \n\nOne will tend to notice a chill that comes along with it, as a consequence of this widening of blood vessels (vasodilation) is a short increase in the rate of heat loss. \n\nEdit: source, med student\n\nEdit2: med student who needs to review some stuff. It doesn't cause a drop in blood pressure, but there is still a stronger heart beat in response to the fight or flight response. Sorry for misleading anyone or causing any confusion.",
"The 'heart drop' feeling you experience is the sensation your body experiences when it begins to pump adrenaline into your system. \n\nA stressful or surprising event will trigger your body to respond by pumping adrenaline into your system, and that 'heart drop' you feel is the adrenaline system being kicked in, it's almost instant like a light switch.\n\nAdrenaline is the bodies way of increasing your response and reaction time to whatever situation has triggered your body to produce it. Adrenaline will literally feel like it's slowing down time because it increases your reaction time so much. (The more actions you can take while on adrenaline feels like time has multiplied.) When people are in accidents or fights and they talk about how time came to a stand still? Yeah, that's adrenaline. Great stuff!",
"Additionally, what happens to the heart during heartbreak?",
"When something startles you, your body gets itself ready for a physically demanding task. To do that, in addition to a bunch of other stuff, it makes your blood vessels bigger. The increased space means that the pressure drops. That \"drop\" feeling is your heart getting startled by the sudden drop in pressure and making one big squeeze to compensate for it."
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43odwl | how can polls be representative if only the kinds of people willing to talk to pollsters respond? | I'm pretty sure if I got a call asking me to participate in a poll or survey, I'd just hang up. My friends and family say the same. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43odwl/eli5_how_can_polls_be_representative_if_only_the/ | {
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"A good poll accounts for this--there is data available on the kinds of people that are likely to respond to polls, and the pollster should weight the results to be more representative of the population polled. For example, many polls undersample young people, so giving more weight to the young people who did respond (considering their proportion of the population) corrects this bias.\n\nThis is one reason that it is very important to check a poll's methodology before considering the results. A poll that is poorly conducted is worthless. Since it is political polling season, it is worth noting that even the best of polls are bad indicators of how people will vote--people say one thing, but when they are in the voting booth it is often quite something else. Hence why so many in the Republican field are hoping for a primary win despite polling low.",
"A scientific poll will get a lot of demographic information to ensure that the poll is accurate. Yes, you may hang up, but that just means that they'll keep calling more people with the same demographic to get the sample that they need."
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2q4c09 | why has the senate torture report created so much outrage? i thought we'd known for years that the us was torturing people at guantanamo bay. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2q4c09/eli5_why_has_the_senate_torture_report_created_so/ | {
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"It's confirmation. Until now it was just a joke that may or may not be true. People could get away with not feeling guilty about doing nothing about it. \n\nAlso, has it really been so huge a thing? It's already pretty much vanished from the news and nothings changed. Miley Cyrus has been in the news for wearing an unflattering pair of shorts for longer than this...",
"Plausible deniability. We don't like to accept information that makes us look or feel bad and will take any possible opportunity to deny or ignore it. Once we can't pretend anymore, we have to maintain the illusion that we didn't know before so we can at least pretend that we would have been perfect if we had only known."
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44gtvo | - can someone explain to me the physics behind what normally keeps huge cranes from tipping over and what could go wrong to cause a crash like the one in manhattan this week? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44gtvo/eli5_can_someone_explain_to_me_the_physics_behind/ | {
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"Long story short, Counterweights.\n\n[Take a look at this](_URL_1_), notice how the backside of the crane arm extends a little further than the \"root\".\n\nThe backside is equipped with heavy counterweights that equalize the gravitational pull on both sides.\n\nHowever, there is of course more to it, as a mechanism like this only holds the crane arm in balance at a constant mass, not when the crane is trying to lift things up.\n\nFor a more sophisticated mechanism that also balances your crane while it's operating you need a couple more counterweights at its' base.\n\n[Like you can see here](_URL_0_)\n\nNow, there are a ton of things that can happen, falsely calibrated software that doesn't balance the arm correctly, a ripping cable or the counterweights changing their masses due to environmental circumstances, this all results in the weight of the crane arm being unevenly distributed, causing it to tip over.\n\nHowever, modern cranes are quite robust and errors like these rarely happen."
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8h2k36 | if sleeping on your back is better for you why doesn’t sleeping on your back always feel better. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8h2k36/eli5_if_sleeping_on_your_back_is_better_for_you/ | {
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"Can confirm from personal experience I struggle to breathe when sleeping on my back, you probably don't feel better because you struggle with sleep apnea"
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2as3rp | How were Nazi U-boats able to operate in American waters, especially the Gulf of Mexico? How effective were they? | [A Nazi sub has been found off of the Texas coast.](_URL_0_)
How was a u-boat able to penetrate that closely to America (especially given that the positioning of Cuba between the Yucatan and Florida peninsulas provides two relatively narrow choke points) and stay supplied for a mission? Where and how would this boat have gotten replenishment fuel, food, and ammunition -- were Nazi sub tenders also coming this close, or did the boat have to make a trip back into the Atlantic to resupply?
And, how effective were they? How much shipping were they able to sink? Were they a persistent threat to American waters throughout the war? Were significant resources diverted from the main war effort to counter this new threat? What was the propaganda value of such excursions to the Germans?
Any additional info or follow up questions are encouraged, this is very intriguing to me. I knew U-boats had lurked off the American east coast, but that they had made it into the Gulf is surprising! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2as3rp/how_were_nazi_uboats_able_to_operate_in_american/ | {
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"If you have Netflix, you might watch Hitler's Secret Attack on America (currently streaming in the US); it might shed some light on your questions. My understanding from that source is that most of the fleet had been moved to the Pacific, thus leaving the Atlantic coast vulnerable."
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e7mmbg | why sparks from welding hurt our eyes and animal's eyes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e7mmbg/eli5_why_sparks_from_welding_hurt_our_eyes_and/ | {
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"Sparks from welding are very small very hot bits of metal, so it's no surprise they hurt. Electric arc welding give out high levels of UV light and this can hurt your eyes from ten metres away. The effects of UV exposure are not immediate, but show up several hours later. This condition is known as \"arc eye\"",
"The sparks from welding are tiny pieces of metal that are heated well above 1000 C. I don’t see how it’s even a question that getting a piece of white hot metal in the eye would cause eye damage? \n\nPerhaps you’re equating the sparks with why you’re not supposed to look at a welding arc without eye protection? The reason that you’re not supposed to look at it because welding requires heating the metals to very high temperatures. When substances are heated to these temperatures they emit UV light. UV light is very bad for your eyes because it damages both the proteins and small molecules in your eye that are responsible for your vision. The reason you’re not supposed to look at the welding arc is the same reason you’re not supposed to look directly at the sun.",
"When metal is heated until it's red hot and gives off light we call that \"black body radiation\". Black body radiation gives off a lot of Ultra Violet light, which you can't see, like the sun. When this intense source of UV is so close to us, we can literally sun burn our eyes by looking at it too long. The real trouble comes because we don't feel the affect of the UV right away and we keep exposing ourselves. \n\nIn the same way, one should never weld without a face mask, long sleeves, and something that shades the neck, sub burn from welding is very real and painful."
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9sq3qn | If we know what kind of bacteria causes the majority of cavities, why don't we just make an antibiotic that targets them and distribute it like a vaccine at a doctor's office? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9sq3qn/if_we_know_what_kind_of_bacteria_causes_the/ | {
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"Antibiotics that target a specific bacterium are tricky. There are a small handful that have been demonstrated, but very few, and only for research purposes. Even then, it's more of a \"kills bacteria x very efficiently, while y and z will mostly survive\" deal.\n\nThe reason is, simply, how targeting can be done. You basically pick a trait or property of that bacterium - for instance, it has a lot of receptors for a specific sugar molecule, or the cell wall is negatively charged, or something. You target that property, by for instance attaching the respective sugar to a drug molecule, and hoping that most of the dose gets taken up by your target. Some will be uptake by other cells though, as there is almost never a completely unique expression or trait.\n\nAlso, most of these types of drugs are too expensive, and not specific enough, to be commercially feasible.\nThus the various broad spectrum antibiotics, and the range of somewhat specific antibiotics that each address a niche family or group of bacteria.\n\nBeyond that, antibiotic resistance is a huge problem with overuse. Basically, let's say your antibiotic is super effective, kills 99.9999% of the target bacteria. The remaining 0.0001% is the group that was more resistant, for whatever reason. That is the group that also starts to become dominant, as we kill off the less resistant ones. Eventually, your antibiotic is no longer effective for that bacteria!\n\nThis is why we have had to formulate so many modified versions of penicillin, to keep coming up with something new that still works.\n\nGenerally speaking, it is best to limit antibiotic use to cases where it is really necessary. While you can certainly argue for it's use against cavities, it would not be a one time (or sporadic) thing like vaccinations but a regular treatment, like mouth wash. That sort of high volume, high frequency usage would give us dental versions of something like MRSA very quickly! ",
"/u/rlgl answered the question \"why don't we just make an antibiotic that targets them?\"\n\nThe kind of bacteria believed to cause *the majority* of cavities is [mutans Streptococci](_URL_0_), but they don't cause *all* cavities. There are also some respected researchers that think the role of mutans streptococci in cavities has been exaggerated by old research methods. So, even if we could kill all mutans streptococci with some kind of drug that doesn't exist yet, the other bacteria that can cause cavities would move in and take the place of the mutans streptococci.\n\nTo make matters worse, bacteria on teeth live in biofilms that are naturally resistant to antibiotics and physically difficult to remove. Even if the magic antibiotic is very effective, you might have to take it for months in order to get to all the bacteria deep down in old biofilms. Then you kiss your grandma and *OOPS* you're colonized with mutans again because over 50% of the population has it in their mouth all the time.",
"When you take antibiotics, they absorb into the intestines and enter the blood stream. There is no blood on the surface of the teeth for the antibiotic to get to the bacteria. Furthermore if you were to use an “antibiotic toothpaste or mouthwash” it would wash away as soon as you eat or drink something and kill important bacteria in your intestines, and lead to antibiotic resistance. It is much simpler and more effective to kill teeth surface bacteria by using an antiseptic such as listerine. Can also remove the sugars they are eating by chewing gum and drinking water throughout the day."
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4z9aex | How did Vikings make their shields? | I'm looking for a fairly detailed description, as I'm trying to make a historically accurate one. All of the videos and descriptions I can find are people making them from plywood for reenactments and the like. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4z9aex/how_did_vikings_make_their_shields/ | {
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"\"The viking band, west over the Blackwater, over the bright water they carried their shields, lithsmen bore their linden to land.\" *The Battle of Maldon, AD 991* ed. Scragg (Oxford, 1991), 22\n\nAs the late tenth century English poem \"The Battle of Maldon\" recounts, the Vikings from this period were known to carry round shields made from linden wood. They were generally painted, and could bear single colour designs, symbols or more complicated heraldic devices. \n\nLinden was chosen because it was quite light and would not overly fatigue the bearer in comparison to something made of a heavier wood. Oxhide or leather was commonly used to cover the planks with an additional layer and some shields would possess metal rims on the edge for extra protection and durability. An iron boss could be attached to the middle with rivets and were engraved with patterns and designs. The grip itself could be made of iron, wood, a strip of sheet metal, or a copper cast-alloy. To give a rough sense of the size, at Gokstad we have a shield remnant that is 94 cm in diameter. Stefan Brink, The Viking World (New York: Routledge, 2008), 207.\n\nThese light shields were also quite susceptible to damage and the wooded panelling could be destroyed after a few direct blows. The changing from one shield to another in combat can be seen frequently in Viking poetry such as the Icelandic *Kormak's Saga* which describes a duel in which each man is given three shields for the duration of the encounter. *Kormak's Saga* in Vatnsdoela Saga ed. Einar Ol. Sveinsson, Izlensk fornrit VIII (Reykjavik, 1939), 234-242. ",
"[This website by a reenactor](_URL_1_) has a very good breakdown of the different components. It also, importantly, cites its sources, and draws on a lot of good archaeological research. It would be my recommended starting point, after which I would recommend looking up the sources in its bibliography to go deeper.\n\nIf you try this, be sure to use [quartersawn](_URL_0_) planks for the shield, not just any wood. Quartersawn wood has a more stable grain, and is less likely to warp and deform. I've learned through personal, tragic experience that regular boards from Home Depot, which are plainsawn, can curve and warp significantly in response to changes in moisture, ruining an otherwise lovely shield. You'll likely have to mail order it.\n\n"
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35qgut | why do "entry level positions" require 2 years of experience? | When did this become standard? The wages being offered dont even seem livable. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35qgut/eli5_why_do_entry_level_positions_require_2_years/ | {
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"It means entry level for that company. What most companies have realized is that they can ask for higher requirements for the same pay, and they'll get qualified people they can spend less time and money training.",
"Basically since the recession there is a lot of very skilled unemployed people in a lot of fields. On top of that most companies don't have the staff or resources to train *entry level* people.\n\nThe definition of *entry level* has changed significantly to be a college degree + work experience. Because currently people with that skill set will work at that level.",
"They'll take someone with less if they have to usually; they're just fishing and hoping they can get somone that needs less training. In some fields the number of unemployed folks is such that they can get someone who's desperate to work.\n\nIf nobody suitable to them was biting for these postings they'd stop putting them. ",
"Those are guidelines and if you have internships in the same field, you're well qualified. Also, randomly, anonymously applying for a job is not the best idea. Use your career services, network, LinkedIn etc and try to have some sort of referral. ",
"It will scare off potential applicants who really have no clue what they're doing, but if you have 0 experience and a degree in that field, you should apply anyways, you still have a decent shot.",
"A lot of people think that there is an endless supply of work - that if you're qualified to be a doctor, you get to be a doctor, or if you're qualified to be a software engineer, you get to be a software engineer.\n\nThe truth is that jobs are entirely a product of consumer demand. There is an absolute and set number of each job, and more people training for that job does not increase the supply.\n\nAn entry-level position is one that can be done by someone with no training or experience. However, if there are 10,000 experienced people and 10,000 jobs, then there won't be any left for inexperienced people.\n\nAs an inexperienced person, you have two and only two choices. You either find a job that no one else is willing to do, or you work for free until you're competitive enough to force someone else to take your place at the bottom.",
"Too many workers, not enough jobs. They can get away with it, so they do. \n\nPlus, classifying something 'entry level' means you get away with paying 'starting salaries'. ",
"Job titles tend to indicate responsibility and compensation rather than experience.\n\nMy first job was a web developer, meanwhile there were junior web developers.",
"Companies do this mostly because they can, economy being down means there is a greater pool of candidates and they can afford to be selective.\n\nTraining of staff is another big reason, companies want people who can step in to do the job right away at all levels, they will fund training if it is necessary but most prefers not to since it is expensive, takes away from productivity and there is no way to guarantee that the employee wont resign after being trained at the companies expense.",
"You can get those two years of experience by having internships while you are still in college. Besides, it is never 100% strict, it is also your job to convince the interviewer why even though you don't have those 2 years of experience you are perfectly capable of handling the responsibility. ",
"All experience doesn't exactly have to be dictated by time worked on a professional level. Even if it were, you could say that the 2 years you spent working as a Cashier at K-Mart would be 2 years Experience as a Customer Service and Sales Representative. Three Years working in a Call Center = Three years experience with Customer Service, IT Support, Time Management, Data Entry, maybe even Quality Assurance.",
"Because they can. I accidentally played a part in that trying to get through a list of hundreds of applicants for an internship. I found I could narrow it down to a dozen or so by looking at Masters Degree candidates with a couple years experience. ",
"The number of unemployed is now multiple times the number of jobs available in all Western economies. Everything else falls out of that; employers now have far, far too many applicants for any position even the most basic, so are adding on fairly-random and irrelevant requirements like degrees and experience for no reason other than to winnow the herd.",
"Not an answer to your question, but if you read a job listing and you feel qualified for it then apply. Even if they want someone with X amount of years. Entry level is really 0-3 years so if you're in that range apply for jobs that ask for experience between those years. Highlight where you might be able to make up for not meeting that exact requirement (i.e. specific courses you took that could directly apply to the job, a training you attended, experience from a job in a different industry that has transferable skills etc.). Any decent company isn't going to look at 2 resumes and be blown away by a 2 year applicant versus a 0 year. At least in my field it would make little difference if we were hiring an entry level employee.",
"On top of what others have said, in a great number of those cases, the ad is really kinda fake. they have a policy to put out the ads and do interviews, but really they have somebody making a lateral or upper move within the company they actually want to put there.\n\nand when you see the vague ad in the newspaper, it's really often just an excuse to find an undocumented person to abuse with threats of deportation and whatnot, and have them work severely underpaid, under the company's thumb.",
"I've always been able to find examples that add up to a few years of previous experience in an industry in just the jobs I had during college. Like working in retail helps with some sales, organization, maybe people skills. You can talk about lean production and supply chain if you were in the backroom, or making food, and assisting in the training of new employees, or training others in safety measures if you ever told the new guy what to do. That does count as a little of managerial experience, and a hiring manager would love that you went beyond the minimum in an entry level job you took in school.",
" > Why do \"entry level positions\" require 2 years of experience? ^[Citation ^Needed]\n\nMost employers hiring at the entry level PREFER people who are experienced over complete novices. The list of items on a job listing tend to be what the ideal person would have, not the absolute minimum they need, with a few exceptions. They may require specific licencing or specific tools and technologies, but that usually is not at the entry level.\n\nSaid differently: The company WANTS someone who is experienced doing the job and needs no training. They will ACCEPT someone who is completely unskilled if they cannot find what they prefer.\n\n > The wages being offered dont even seem livable.\n\nThe wages for what job? Doing what tasks? At what level of quality?\n\nJust outside my neighborhood there is a row of restaurants. I learned a few years back that they offer very different wages. One of them, the low-end chain, offers minimum wage for most workers. One offers about $1.50 over minimum wage. Another -- more of a premium sit-down restaurant than fast food -- offers about $4 over minimum wage for cooks but requires a few years of work experience.\n\nWages and jobs are not all the same. \n\nUsually it works with supply and demand, and with turnover. If you are looking at jobs that are filled in bulk requiring zero skill, anything from a call center front lines to the person stocking shelves at a big box store, anybody can do those jobs, and there is an enormous list of people *with no skills* or people *wanting a menial but easy job* willing to accept those jobs for low wage.\n\nWhen a company requires a little more experience the market is different. Re-heating meat patties in a line is unskilled labor and is increasingly being replaced by machines, the wage is as low as the market or law allows. The moment it becomes cheaper to bring in a robot rather than pay an unskilled worker, [robot burger cooks like these will be installed.](_URL_0_) This is already happening in cities where labor is more expensive. A short-order cook who can turn out everything, grilled top sirloin to salads and soups to pizzas and sandwiches, requires more skill and experience, and thus can generally negotiate a higher wage. But even those will be replaced with robots [when they can do the job more reliably and cheaply.](_URL_1_)\n\n"
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3h8yka | Can quantum tunneling be faster than the speed of light? | I'm trying to understand the concept of Hawking radiation.
I am in way over my head, but it's so fascinating!
I don't know if this is right, but if Hawking radiation is because of quantum tunneling just inside the event horizon, doesn't that mean that the particles have to travel faster than light to appear outside of the event horizon? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3h8yka/can_quantum_tunneling_be_faster_than_the_speed_of/ | {
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"Hawking radiation would be for particles just outside the event horizon, when a particle antiparticle pair is generated and one falls into the event horizon while the other moves away. No superluminal speed is necessary.",
"There is experimental evidence indicating that it does ([here](_URL_0_)) but not in a way that transfers any actual information. It's one of those phase velocity vs group velocity things."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"http://www0.egr.uh.edu/courses/ECE/ECE6340/SectionJackson/Handouts/group%20velocity%20of%20photons.pdf"
]
] | |
4d22cq | why has chicagoland and illinois' population started shrinking so fast as compared even to, say, metro detroit? | I'm talking about things like [this](_URL_0_). | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4d22cq/eli5_why_has_chicagoland_and_illinois_population/ | {
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"Basically high taxes, unemployment, income stagnation, bad schools and rising rent make it both better to leave the state and difficult to justify moving to the state. For businesses, taxes are so high that it makes almost no sense to open up shop in the area. On top of that the best candidates for employment are the ones leaving the state. The state legislature is fucking over the state even more because they can't agree on a budget. The public universities in neighboring states offer the same or better education for less. There aren't many jobs for young people. \n\nBasically there's no reason besides family to stay, and no reason to move there if you don't have family. ",
"The article sites lots of reasons. But it is also a cherry picked year. The article itself says that it was the first time the population had declined in 25 years. That was on the heals of two brutal winters in a row and a state budget crisis that has killed a lot of jobs. \n\nAlso compared to Detroit, the exodus has already happened there. Lastly, it looks like they are comparing decline in raw numbers not percentage, which makes it tough to compare across cities of different size.\n\nSo, there are a lot of good reasons someone might move out of chicago (politics, budget, weather and crime mostly).\n\nBut to say \"look at the first decline in a quarter century after two historically brutal weather years and declare the sky is falling\" is a bit disengenuous."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-population-record-loss-met-20160324-story.html"
] | [
[],
[]
] | |
1kalgn | Why did the Spanish capital move from Toledo to Madrid in 1561? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kalgn/why_did_the_spanish_capital_move_from_toledo_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cbn5w5w"
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"text": [
"According to the Madrid Mayor's Office [website](_URL_0_)\n\n1) It was a new city without social conflict that could be modeled by Felipe II without any pressures.\n\n2) It had an antecedent as a royal residence since it had often been used as the site for Court reunions since the lower Middle Ages.\n\n3) It was close to excellent hunting grounds, and for this reason had been used by Kings that were hunting aficionados since the times of Enrique III\n\n4) Strategic position at the center of the Iberic peninsula and close to several crossroads.\n\n5) The Manzanares river and an underground well system allowed it to potentially sustain a large population.\n\n6) The Moor-built Alcazar was a very comfortable palace.\n\n7) It was close to El Escorial, another palace that was being built at the time, facilitating the supervision of its construction. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.madrid.es/portales/munimadrid/es/Inicio/Ayuntamiento/Un-paseo-por-su-historia/La-ciudad-desde-la-llegada-de-la-Corte/Madrid-capital?vgnextfmt=default&vgnextoid=fbf2378305898110VgnVCM2000000c205a0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=94321cf0ceca8110VgnVCM1000000b205a0aRCRD"
]
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5i9v7q | What do we know about ancient Mesoamerican philosophy? | When we think of "ancient philosophy" in the West, we tend to think of ancient Greeks and Romans (e.g. Socrates, Plato, Euclid, Cicero, Pliny, etc.) or perhaps Chinese philosophers like Confucius and Laozi. I'm also at least aware of an ancient Indian philosophical tradition, even if I can't name any ancient Indian philosophers.
But what about another major site of ancient civilization, Mesoamerica (and South America, while we're at it)? Do we know anything about major thinkers of ancient Mesoamerica? Is there an Olmec equivalent of Socrates, or a Mayan Confucius?
| AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5i9v7q/what_do_we_know_about_ancient_mesoamerican/ | {
"a_id": [
"db710t1"
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"score": [
11
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"text": [
"Hey, this doesn't include all of Mesoamerica, but you might like this post by /u/400_Rabbits:\n\n[Just how complex was Aztec philosophy?](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pw8d0/just_how_complex_was_aztec_philosophy/cd71on9/"
]
] | |
14am4d | how do 'cop scanners' in cars work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14am4d/how_do_cop_scanners_in_cars_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7bckdb"
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"text": [
"A police scanner is just a one-way radio, tuned to the same frequency that the police use."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
7vwhzk | Why there are so many T-Shirts with Che Guevara's face on it and why are they everywhere? | I did not know much about Che Guevara and after I did some research, some people see him an icon of revolution against tyranny, while others see him as another example of a different kind of dictatorship where his involvement caused many, many deaths.
So why do we see a lot of T-shirts with Che Guevara's face on it? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7vwhzk/why_there_are_so_many_tshirts_with_che_guevaras/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Hi, there have been several quite lengthy threads on Ernesto \"Che\" Guevara in this sub. Hopefully I've pulled the ones that are most relevant to the question of why popular opinion varies so widely.\n\nAs a t-shirt icon\n\n* [Why is Che Guevara somewhat of a pop icon even though he is a Communist Revolutionary that was Castro's right hand man?](_URL_1_) - featuring /u/ainrialai\n\n* [Why is Che Guevara such a pop culture icon?](_URL_4_) - featuring /u/BlueStraggler \n\nOther\n\n* [Was it the truth behind the critical controversy surrounding Che Guevara? Was Che a murderer, a homophobe, and racist who needs to be viewed much more critically?](_URL_5_) - featuring /u/ainrialai\n\n* [Che Guevara is a hero to some and a villain to others. What factors have influenced such widely differing perspectives of Che Guevara?](_URL_3_) - featuring /u/WuTangGraham\n\n* [Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, says in a Q & A: \" I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed 'an innocent'.\" Can anyone confirm or debunk this? And how accurate are the other answers he gives?](_URL_0_) - a long discussion thread\n\n\n* [How the story is of Che Guevara is painted in U.S. schools? In South America he is like a hero.](_URL_2_) - featuring /u/ainrialai \n\nAll of these posts have been long archived, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the users, just ask here and include their username to notify them"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10gtub/jon_lee_anderson_author_of_che_guevara_a/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2o8k21/why_is_che_guevara_somewhat_of_a_pop_icon_even/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1h11pz/how_the_story_is_of_che_guevara_is_paint... | |
tmvtm | Does air temperature affect the speed at which a sonic boom is achieved? | Given that the speed of sound is lower in at a colder air temperature, does that affect the speed at which a sonic boom is created?
Furthermore, was this known back when attempts were first being made to break the sound barrier and was this knowledge utilized in their attempts? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/tmvtm/does_air_temperature_affect_the_speed_at_which_a/ | {
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"Yes the speed of sound changes with temperatures and sonic booms are generated when you exceed the speed of sound, obvious isn't it?\n\nAnd while its true that the speed of sound is roughly 100 mph lower at around 40,000 ft compared to sea level, the drag forces you're trying to overcome to break Mach 1 depend mostly on the mach number itself and not the actual airspeed so it doesn't matter as much as you'd think. What _does_ matter is that high up, the density of the air is significantly less and that makes a big difference on the drag forces.\n\nSo you fly high when you want to break the speed barrier because of density and not air temperature or the speed of sound. Also it helps to be doing dangerous flying things a long way from the ground."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
smbh9 | Why do we feel compassion for the smallest of mammals, and sometimes even reptiles? | Why do we feel sympathy and compassion for small animals? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/smbh9/why_do_we_feel_compassion_for_the_smallest_of/ | {
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"Smaller animals, to most people, appear as if they are completely helpless. Though, a lot small animals are rather strong, you'd still feel sad as if it were a small child, because in reality, people have an obviously high amount of sympathy for children...and most \"small\" animals we feel sympathy for are usually young. This question is a little unspecified, so I'm just going to assume that you're asking why do we feel worse if a small animal died, rather than a larger sized one...this isn't true for everyone. Everyone has their own feelings about certain things. I, for one, love kittens a lot more then I love cats. (Obviously they're the same species; just grown up. I'm only speaking based on the size of a kitten.)"
]
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[]
] | |
20eufj | Did the individual Roman soldier identify himself as being part of a legion or a sub category with less men? | Typically if you were to ask a modern day soldier in the United States what unit they were from they might tell you they are 10th Mountain, 3rd ID or 101st. How would a Roman soldier during the imperial period respond if asked the same question? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/20eufj/did_the_individual_roman_soldier_identify_himself/ | {
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"Both, actually! The legions were highly competitive with each other, similar to modern armies in a way (And the rivalries between the disciplines, oh MAN. I'll get to that if you'd like), but each legion was split into different sections called *cohorts* (10 cohorts of 480 men apiece, except for the First Cohort - which was said to be only composed of the tallest, most able men, and was 800 men strong), and each *cohort* was split into six *centuries* of 80 men apiece - and each *century* was divided into 10 *contubernia*, or \"tent-groups\" (8 men each). As you can expect, the subdivisions kept the unit cohesion high - the *contubernia* were as closely knit as any group of men who all live together, work together, fight together, and sleep together. They were essentially family, and they took care of each other. \n\nWhen it comes to answering your question, the best sources are generally the gravestones that these soldiers left behind. For example, [the tombstone of Titus Valerius Pudens](_URL_1_) reads...\n\n > Titus Valerius Pudens, son of Titus, of the Claudian voting-tribe, from Savaria, a soldier of the Second Legion Adjutrix Pia Fidelis, in the century of Dossennius Proculus, aged 30, of 6 year's service; here he lies. His heir at his own expense set this up.\n\nSo let's look at how this man wanted himself remembered:\n\n* Voting tribe: This was one of the hallmarks of being a Roman - it's the equivalent of declaring (If you're a part of the United States) what state you're from. The tribes voted in the Tribal Assembly of Rome, and the Tribal Assembly acted as a judiciary committee, it elected certain officials, and the Plebeian Council passed some laws. (I watered this one down a bit)\n\n* Savaria: Where he was born. \n\n* Soldier of the Second Legion *Adjutrix Pia Fidelis*: Very self explanatory - he identified himself as a part of this specific legion, rather than by a certain commander. \n\n* The century of Dossennius Proculus: This one's a bit more interesting! He doesn't identify himself by *cohort* (which notes that it probably wasn't the First Cohort), but he goes straight to the *century* and the *centurion* who was in charge of that *century*. The unit cohesion within that century was *huge* - they all marched together, worked together, and fought together. Their pay was all centralized at this tier, and each *century* had a funeral fund that the legionaries put money into.\n\n* His heir at his own expense set this up: This is actually a more common note than it otherwise might seem on Roman tombstones, and it essentially notes that the soldier's heir - most likely his son (at 70 AD in Roman history, the son would have been illegitimate at birth, due to the ban on marriage in the military - therefore, he would have been denoted as the soldier's \"heir\" rather than his \"son.\" That heir set the tombstone up on his own money - probably based from the money his father had left him. \n\n---\n\nA more famous inscription is this one on the tomb of a centurion who fell in Teutoburg Forest:\n\n > To Marcus Caelius, son of Titus, of the Lemonian district, from Bologna, first centurion of the eighteenth legion. 53½ years old. He fell in the Varian War. His bones may be interred here. Publius Caelius, son of Titus, of the Lemonian district, his brother, erected (this monument).\n\nYou might note some similarities with this one and the above! :) The only distinguisher is that this man was the \"first centurion\" - or the *primus pilus* of the 18th Legion, and therefore would identify primarily with the legion (He was the centurion of the 1^st century of the 1^st cohort - the highest ranked centurion of the legion). \n\n---\n\nOn a slightly lighter note, we also have [the perpetually entertaining graffiti at Pompeii](_URL_0_) to give us that personal note of identification from that time period - from their own mouths, as it were. Some of those include lines such as...\n\n > Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion.\n\nAnd then...\n\n > Gaius Valerius Venustus, soldier of the 1st praetorian cohort, in the century of Rufus, screwer of women\n\n---\n\nHope those helped out a bit! If you need anything else, please feel free to ask :) "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.pompeiana.org/resources/ancient/graffiti%20from%20pompeii.htm",
"https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/tombstone_of_pudens.aspx"
]
] | |
714xpw | Do the principles of relativity apply to angular velocity as well as linear velocity? | I understand the relativity of linear velocity. - I.e. all frames of reference are valid, and there is no singular universal frame of reference (e.g. It is equally valid to state that the sun moves at a given velocity relative to Earth, or vice versa - or that the solar system moves at a given velocity relative to Sagitarius A, etc.)
Does this apply to angular velocity as well? E.g. if I went into space and applied a force to put my body into a spin, would it be equally valid to make a reference frame statement that the rest of the universe is rotating around me rather than that I am rotating?
If not, why? If yes, the mental hiccup I'm having is realizing that I'd still get dizzy - implying that there is some sort of force still at play in this rotation. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/714xpw/do_the_principles_of_relativity_apply_to_angular/ | {
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"A rotating reference frame is non-inertial, meaning that light rays in such a reference frame move on curved paths, and spatially separated clocks at rest with respect to a rotating frame cannot stay synchronized.\n\nIt's still perfectly valid to consider such a reference frame in special relativity, but the laws of physics take a different form in rotating frames as opposed to inertial ones.",
"Galilean and special relativity both state that in all *inertial*, meaning non-accelerating, frames of reference the laws of physics take the same form.\n\nA rotating frame of reference is accelerating (it does not just move at constant linear velocity), therefore you get nasty effects like centrifugal and Coriolis forces in your equations of motion. This is what makes the difference between inertial and non-inertial reference frames, and it is also why you get dizzy."
]
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[],
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] | |
ag3gn0 | can brushing too hard actually destroy enamel? is it irreparable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ag3gn0/eli5_can_brushing_too_hard_actually_destroy/ | {
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"text": [
"No, it can however damage your gums and over time it can only be repaired by a gum graft or a gum and bone graft since receding gums will cause the underlying bone to recede as well."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
9rkdnc | When celebrities/athletes got drafted during WWII, did they actually fight on the frontlines? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9rkdnc/when_celebritiesathletes_got_drafted_during_wwii/ | {
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"This is a question which has as many different answers as there were celebrities or athletes drafted. Some served in direct front line units, others served in training posts, or in units that benefited from their training or experience.\n\n\nSome notable examples include Jimmy Stewart, who earned his pilot's licence and commercial rating a few years before war broke out. He was drafted, and initially rejected for being underweight for his height. Initially enlisted, he applied for a commission and flew in non-combat roles and did propaganda and recruiting work before arranging an assignment to a combat unit due to deploy to Europe. He eventually flew combat missions over France and Germany, and finished WW2 as a colonel in the USAAF, before becoming a reservist. His rank of colonel was made permanent in 1953, and was later promoted to brigadier general in 1959, remaining current as a intercontinental strategic bomber pilot in the B-36, B-47 and B-52 as an officer in the USAF Reserve. He even flew as an observer on an Arc Light bombing mission during the Vietnam War in 1966.\n\n\nFrank Capra was another example from Hollywood who served, albeit in a non-combat role, having volunteered as a 44 year old after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Capra was commissioned as a major and did all his service in the US Army making films, perhaps most notably the series Why We Fight.\n\n\nAs to athletes, Jackie Robinson is one notable example - a semi-pro footballer before the war, he was drafted and assigned as an enlisted man to the armoured cavalry, before applying for a commission and assigned to the 761st Tank Battalion. He missed combat entirely, due to having been court martialed over a racial segregation incident stateside. He was acquitted and honourably discharged after the war, returning to his sporting career.\n\n\nOthers used loopholes in the draft regulations to avoid combat duties. Ted Williams was initially classed 1-A (available for unrestricted service) before an appeal reclassed him as 3-A (deferred for hardship to dependents), which was unpopular and caused him trouble with sponsors. There was later service with the USMC as a Naval Aviator, and also in the Korean War.\n\n\nBorrowing an example from Australia's contributions, Keith Truscott was a promising cricketer and Australian rules footballer (he played in the 1939 and 1940 VFL Grand Finals) before joining the Royal Australian Air Force and training as a pilot, flying Spitfires in Britain racking up 20 confirmed and 5 unconfirmed kills over his career before being killed in a training accident in Australia in 1943.\n\n\n\nAs the brief examples listed show, there were different outcomes for different cases. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
22yrjh | When I decide to move my arm, what is the first moving part in the process of neurons firing and whatnot? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/22yrjh/when_i_decide_to_move_my_arm_what_is_the_first/ | {
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"The 'command center' for motor movement is the [motor cortex](_URL_1_). There are currently several scientific research groups that are able to use only firing information from specific parts of the motor cortex of monkeys to [allow them to control mechanical arms with their thoughts.](_URL_5_). This is currently the strategy the has been used to allow a handful of [paralyzed humans to control prosthetic arms](_URL_2_) as well. Actually, I believe the quadriplegic woman shown in this article did an AMA a year or so ago...\n\nBasically, the motor cortex sends its 'commands' down to the specific region of the spinal cord controlling whatever limb/digit it is responsible for controlling. These spinal cord neurons in turn relay that command to peripheral motor neurons that innervate muscles and depolarize them in the correct sequence/intensity to execute the motor command. Interestingly, there is a 'map' of your whole body in motor cortex. That is, 'mapped' parts of the cortex are responsible for controlling specific structures in the motor system of your body. The researchers above were all able to 'read' desired arm movements by recording from the part of motor cortex specifically responsible for controlling an arm/hand's movement.\n\nEDIT: Here's an old (but cool) video of a [monkey moving a mechanical arm controlled by his motor cortex](_URL_3_)\n\n\nEDIT 2: Confirmed, that was the same lady. [Here's the AMA](_URL_0_)\n\nEDIT 3: [Here's a cool 60 Mins episode](_URL_4_) about her and the field in general. Actually amazing stuff.",
"There is some controversial research indicating that the relevant neurons begin firing before you consciously decide to move.\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_0_)\n\n[Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action \\(PDF\\)](_URL_2_)\n",
"It's probably easier to start at the last neural step of motor control and work backward. Motoneurons in the spinal cord fire action potentials in response to input and these action potentials (electric pulses) travel down the axons of the motoneurons. When they reach the end it trigers the release of [acetylcholine](_URL_4_) (ACh) from the motoneurons into the [neuromuscular junction](_URL_3_). Special receptors in the muscle allow sodium ion entry in response to ACh, which triggers an action potential in the muscle. The change in voltage as a result of this muscle action potential causes voltage gated calcium channels to allow calcium ions in. These calcium ions then interact with the muscle fibers causing them to contract.\n\nSo, what activates the spinal motoneurons? Motoneurons receive input from a number of other regions in the central nervous system including locally from spinal interneurons and from sensory neurons within their spinal segment. Side note: [this circuit](_URL_5_) from muscle receptors to the ventral (sensory part) spinal cord to the dorsal motor pools back to the muscle is what a doctor is checking when she taps your patellar tendon in your knee with a rubber hammer. Additionally motoneurons receive input from nearby segments further up or down the spinal cord, as well as from the cerebellum (which is important for making your limbs actually do what you want) and brainstem nuclei (especially the [red nucleus](_URL_0_) which is important for walking). You asked specifically about volitional movements though, so you're probably most interested in the pyramidal tract.\n\nThere is a region of the cerebral cortex called primary motor cortex (M1 or area 4^*). M1 is [shown here](_URL_1_) labeled somatomotor cortex for some reason. M1 contains special neurons called Betz cells that send axons down to the motor pools in the spinal cord through a pathway called the [pyramidal tract](_URL_6_). Activity in M1 causes the Betz cells to fire action potentials that then propagate down their axons along the pyramidal tract to the motoneurons. It is, in fact possible to [predict what movement you're making from M1 activity](_URL_2_).\n\nPrior to M1 becoming active the cortical region just anterior (toward your nose) from that is active and remains so throughout the movement. This region is called dorsal pre-motor (PMd) cortex. PMd appears to become active before and predict upcoming or planned movements. It is generally believed to be a major source of motor planning, where you figure plan to grab something, or aim a fly swatter before you activate the movement itself.\n\nPrior to PMd, higher level pre-frontal cortex areas (as well as many others) are involved in making decisions. Do I grab the blue pill or the red one? It does so in response to sensory input coming through many different sensory areas and associative areas. That's how it knows the left pill is blue and the right pill is red as well as what happened to you the last time you took the red one.\n\nDetermining the *first* part in the process of moving your arm is tricky and plagued with philosophical problems that become inextricably intertwined with discussions of free will and original causes. For example, if you're reaching to pick up a candy that you see on the table in front of you, was the movement caused by the visual neurons? What about the neurons of the person who placed it in front of you?\n\nOne additional important caveat is that while I've described each cortical region as having a discrete function, the brain is not quite that clean cut. The regions share some of each others functions and there's even some debate about whether there are hard boundaries at all.\n\n^* strictly speaking M1 is a functional area and area 4 is a histologically defined area, but they basically overlap.\n\n**TL;DR** There's no \"first\" part. Prefrontal cortex decides to move, premotor cortex plans the move, primary motor cortex sends signals to the spinal cord to execute the move, and the spinal cord neurons activate the muscles."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/15oa8w/i_can_control_a_robotic_arm_with_the_power_of_my/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_cortex",
"http://www.livescience.com/25600-quadriplegic-mind-controlled-prosthetic.html",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnWSah4RD2E",
"http://www.youtube.com/... | ||
1wb7ul | how does a stock repurchase program work and how does it "return money to the investors"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wb7ul/eli5_how_does_a_stock_repurchase_program_work_and/ | {
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"Say you start up a company and decide that you want to go public to raise money. You issue 1,000,000 shares at $10 apiece and let the public buy them. Initially, that means you have a \"Market Capitalization\" of $10 Million - the number of \"Outstanding\" shares multiplied by the stock price.\n\nAs time goes on, your company does well, with the stock price rising to $100 per share. But sales are slowing, and it's becoming harder to grow - kinda like what's happening in Intel and Microsoft these days. They are still making tons of money, but a home OS or CPU market isn't growing much anymore. What do you do?\n\nYou take the money that the company is sitting on and re-buy the shares that you issued earlier from the public. Let's use an extreme example - you want to buy back 500,000 shares. You pay 500K * $100 = $50 million. Now there are only 500,000 outstanding shares available to the public.\n\nBefore you rebought those shares, your company's market capitalization was $100 million (remember, shares * price). Now there are only half as many outstanding shares. Since the value of your company hasn't changed, the stock price will jump up to around $200 to keep the market cap the same. The people that sold their shares to the company had money returned to them - and even the ones that DIDN'T sell had money returned to them (as their shares are now worth twice as much!)\n\nAgain, this is extreme. Normally buybacks are for under 1% of the outstanding shares. The concept is the same - by reducing the number of shares available and keeping the company value constant, the stock price rises.",
"It's probably not the best means of returning money to shareholders though. If you believe companies do stock repurchases when times are good, then it stands to reason the stock price is high as well. It would be a better use of cash to buy when times are bad and the stock price is depressed. You would get more hang for your buck that way."
]
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[],
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] | ||
6ht42q | Are there any scholarly texts that have focused on the concept of historical revisionism and it's impacts on our current understanding of history? | I'm interested in understanding historical revisionism in the context of, specifically, if there have been attempts to document
when major revisions took place, what topics were changed and how those changes have affected historical understanding, both pre and post revision. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6ht42q/are_there_any_scholarly_texts_that_have_focused/ | {
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"The subject is called historiography and yes, if you look up the historiography of any subject--say the historiography of the Cold War or something--in Amazon books or just google scholar. You should be able to find a ton of studies by historians looking at the way other historians in the past have written about the subject, how current events impact historical narratives about the past, and theories on why our perceptions of the past change over time and why some narratives win out over others. In fact, it's usually a requirement for history majors and PHD students to study historiography, so there's just a lot out there. It's a pretty fascinating subject, especially since historical revisionism happens ALL the time. Everybody's got an opinion... :) "
]
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[]
] | |
f00hz6 | What methods/equipment do lab doctors use to test blood? | I am interested in the journey that blood goes on once it is drawn by a phlobotomist.
What machines or methodologies are used to test blood for a given condition or result. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/f00hz6/what_methodsequipment_do_lab_doctors_use_to_test/ | {
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"This is what I do on a day to day basis. It's a whole field of Pathology known these days as Blood Sciences, which encompasses Chemical Pathology, Haematology, Transfusion science and Immunology. Chemical pathology is the biochemical investigation of substances dissolved in blood, Haematology is the study of the cellular components of blood and also of coagulation, Immunology concerns the antibodies present and Transfusion science covers blood grouping and the handling blood products from the donor to recipient. These disciplines can be rolled together in one blood sciences lab, which as I understand it is how most labs in the US handle it, or kept as specialist but related lab services as in my workplace. I should point out that most laypeople probably think that Pathology is all about the dead, but mortuary services are just one part of a service/science that also includes Blood Sciences, Histopathology, Cytology, Clinical Genetics and Microbiology. The vast majority of diagnoses made by doctors rely on pathology results.\n\nThe methods used are really varied and depend very much on what test you are doing. In my lab we offer dozens of different assays, with hundreds more available in other labs that we can call upon. Firstly, the way that blood is collected differs between tests. The blood tubes used contain additives that can stop all metabolic activity, promote clotting, or stop clotting either temporarily or permanently.\n\n[Blood tube chart](_URL_3_)\n\nMany of these tubes will be centrifuged upon arrival in the lab to separate the serum or plasma from the cells and stabilise the sample.\n\nMost tests are carried out on automated analysers these days, especially in chemical pathology, but people do still do stare down microscopes on a day to day basis. There is usually more than one way to do a specific test as well, different equipment providers do things in different ways. These is usually a reference method as well which provides a \"gold standard\" result but is too complex/expensive to use in the average hospital lab, but which quality control standards are related back to.\n\nI'll focus on Chemical Pathology as it is what I work in personally and it is the specialty which most tests come under.\n\nAs already said, the basis of a lot of tests is spectrophotometry, where reagents are added to serum or plasma and either a colour change occurs or the sample becomes cloudy. Different assays look at the endpoint absorption at a single or range of wavelengths or look at the rate of change. Very stable light is produced by a specialist bulb, passes through a diffraction grating to split the wavelengths, on through the sample which is held in a transparent cuvette submerged in a water bath at body temperature. The light that passes through is then picked up by a detector. These analysers can be very high throughput machines, able to carry out many hundreds of assay per hour. All the pipetting of reagents and samples is carried out at high speed by robotics. These are the real workhorses of the lab. The assays that you might find on a platform like this are cholesterol, glucose, liver enzymes etc. These are all present at relatively high levels in the blood (mg/liter to g/liter) so a chemical method can be used.\n\nIf the test is for something much more dilute then immunoassays are used. Typically this would be for hormones, some drugs, vitamins, cardiac markers etc.. All of the hormones you mentioned would be measured using this method. \n\nIn these tests an antibody to the specific analyte is linked to a reporting system which provides a measurable signal. This varies in how it is done but most methods are a version of an ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbant assay). The version I work on is ECLIA (Electrochemiluminecent immunoassay) which Roche analysers use. This uses a Ruthenium complex as a reporting system. Antibodies are used to bind both a magnetic particle and a ruthenium containing molecule to the analyte molecule. A magnetic field then holds the complex in place while the rest of the sample is washed away. A strong electric field then excites the Ruthenium atom to a higher energy state. When the field is removed the atom drops back to ground state and emits a photon which is then detected bu a photomultiplyer tube. The concentration of the analyte is proportional to the light signal. These assays can measure down to a few picogrammes per litre.\n\n[Tutorial on how ELISA works](_URL_8_)\n\n[Method datasheet for an ECLIA assay](_URL_0_)\n\nFlame spectroscopy used to be used to measure levels of electrolytes like sodium and potassium, in fact I think it may be the reference method, but these days we just use electrochemistry. There are ion specific electrodes that only allow one sort of ion to interact with them. Basically we create a half cell using an ISE and compare the voltage to a known standard solution.\n\nIn our lab all the above techniques are combined on a modular platform made by a company called Cobas. This is a joint venture between Hitachi and Roche, with Hitachi building the hardware and Roche developing the reagent pack, test methodology and software.\n\n[Cobas 8000 overview video](_URL_1_)\n\nOur lab is only a county general hospital lab rather than a major teaching hospital in a city, even so, our workload is huge. To physically get enough samples onto the analysis platform to get through our work the pre-analytical stage of our workflow is also automated. Samples are centrifuged, uncapped, sample volumes checked, split into tubes to be sent to other labs (aliquotting - a special lab word I say every hour at work bu have never heard outside a lab!), those tubes labelled, and stored in an automated sample repository.\n\n[Heres a gloriously over the top animation on our pre-analytics](_URL_7_)\n\nThe skill of the operator of this kit is in keeping all the assays running in an \"accurate\" manner. These platforms will drift out of true for many reasons so we need to be sure, using internal quality control, calibration and external quality assurance that we are providing quality data. There is also a requirement to maintain the systems and optimise their setup to allow the most efficient workflow. Urgent samples are required to be processed within an hour, and as some assays take 40 minutes time is tight. The operator must also recognise when spurious results have been produced, which is done by detecting wild shifts in results, picking up results that are \"incompatable with life\" and recognising the signs of sample contamination, degradation and poorly taken samples.\n\nWe also do more esoteric tests on an automated immunoassay platform using ELISA assays. This is basically a programmable robotic pipettor that uses plastic 96 well plates specific to the assay and contains a camera with image recognition to read the results. Each plate has antibodies specific to the analyte bound to the bottom of 96 little wells. The method varies by test but simply put sample and reagents are pipetted into each well, with wells reserved for quality control and calibration purposes. Once the analyte is bound to the surface an enzyme causes a chemical colour change proportional to the quantity of analyte present which is read off by the camera system. In our lab this is mainly used for faecal sample analysis.\n\n[DS2 ELISA system](_URL_2_)\n\nWe use HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) to do a monitoring test for diabetes called HbA1c. Whole blood has its cells burst to release the haemoglobin and is is forced through a ceramic column at high pressure. The outflow from the column passes through a detector. Initally haemoglobin that has become glycated sticks to the media in the column while the rest passes through and gives a peak on the detector. A sugar solution is then pushed through the column and kicks off the remainder of the haemoglobin, creating a second peak. The ratio of the areas of the two peaks is our result. This technology can be used for several other tests such as detecting haemoglobinopathies such as sickle cell.\n\nLarger labs usually will have a mass spectrometer for esoteric tests and a wider test repertoire than us. As an example of the scale of some of the larger hospital labs in the UK [here's](_URL_4_) a virtual tour of the Gateshead pathology hub, which serves several hospitals and scores of GP surgeries. I believe in the US it is common to fly samples from all over the country to massive central facilities, with local labs offering more urgent testing.\n\n[Our professional body in the UK](_URL_6_)\n\n[A very good reference website for the layperson on lab tests](_URL_5_)"
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"https://www.roche.de/res/content/7854/progrp_factsheet.pdf",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTl72zWpo8E",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYffk0Oukz0",
"https://www.gbo.com/fileadmin/user_upload/0724003R2_Tip_card_noPSN_Rev2015_FINALWeb.pdf",
"http://www.thepathologycentre.org/about-qe-gat... | |
5rrs66 | Are there any instances of POWs held captive long after the war in the modern age? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rrs66/are_there_any_instances_of_pows_held_captive_long/ | {
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"Oddly enough, the BBC News site ran a feature on a case of this sort earlier this week. [It concerns a Chinese soldier, Wang Qi](_URL_1_), who has been prevented from leaving India (though not formally imprisoned) ever since the Indo-Chinese war of 1963. I've [made a fairly detailed study of cases of long imprisonment](_URL_2_), and this is by some distance the most unusual such case that I have come across to date.\n\nIn the aftermath of the Second World War, the USSR held onto more than a million German, Japanese and German allied POWs for up to a decade, many of whom died while still incarcerated; [in one case that I know of](_URL_0_), a former Japanese PoW named Uwano Ishinosuke remained living in the USSR, and then Russia, as late as 2006, having never returned to Japan; he had been held captive in a Russian camp until 1958. \n\nThe position of German soldiers in the gulags is still a pretty hot political topic in some circles, and a lot of the most accessible online sources are highly dubious ones hosted on far right websites – so, as is not my area of expertise, I'm hoping a better-informed contributor can supply some details in due course."
]
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[
"https://mikedashhistory.com/2015/09/15/final-straggler-the-japanese-soldier-who-outlasted-hiroo-onoda/",
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38715056",
"https://mikedashhistory.com/2010/07/24/a-prison-curiosity/"
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75id9g | Why/how does having full electron orbitals make an atom more stable? | Intuitively, it would seem that adding electrons to fill an orbital would increase repulsion within the orbital, so why do atoms become less reactive when they fill/empty an orbital? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/75id9g/whyhow_does_having_full_electron_orbitals_make_an/ | {
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"Well first you have to realize we're talking about a very relative kind of stability here. Consider for instance the reaction of moving an electron from a sodium atom to a chlorine atom: Na + Cl -- > Na^+ + Cl^- . From what most of us learned in grade school that the right-hand side of that equation has filled shells, so it is more stable. \n\nIt is not. Two _isolated ions_ by themselves in a vacuum are not stable compared to the neutral atoms. (The ionization energy of sodium is 496 kJ/mol and the electron affinity of chlorine is -349 kJ/mol, so you're short 150 kJ/mol). It's _in water solution_ that the two ions are stable, thanks to the additional stabilizing interaction with the water molecules. As a rule, the neutral form of a pair of atoms/molecules is almost always more stable than an oxidized/reduced pair, even if they get to have filled shells. It's only when you form an ionic bond or a introduce a stabilizing solute that ions become stable. \n\nSo there are a lot of competing effects here. Just from a Coulomb's Law guesstimate, it clearly should require twice as much energy to remove a second electron from a positively-charged ion, three times as much to remove the third. (This assumes the electrons have the same energy other than the potential charge from the nucleus) Now look at the first three ionization energies for the [nitrogen atom](_URL_2_). They're 1402, 2856, 4578 kJ/mol. So this shows that it actually follows that trend, roughly. But only that far - the fourth ionization energy is 7475. This goes for them all, for instance Magnesium: 738, 1451, 7733 kJ/mol. As soon as you start pulling electrons out of a lower shell, there's a dramatic jump in the amount of energy required. Which is to be expected, since those electrons have a different amount of energy entirely. \n\nIt works the same way for the electron affinity. If acquiring another electron requires moving it into a higher shell, the affinity (amount of energy en electron loses by being added to the atom, relative a free electron) will be significantly lower.\n\nNow, you're not wrong in pointing out that the electronic repulsion increases. It does. However, you're overestimating its effects. Consider Helium for instance. The ground-state electron energy of a [hydrogen-like atom](_URL_1_), in Hartree units, is -Z^(2)/2. Which means the H ground state is -1/2 Hartrees, and the He^+ ground state is 2^(2)/2 = -2 Hartrees. Now introduce a second electron that _doesn't repel the first one at all_ and the ground state energy for your two non-interacting electrons is simply twice that, or -4 Hartrees. The [actual ground state](_URL_3_) energy is -2.903... So the electron-electron repulsion is indeed quite significant, increasing the ground-state energy by 27% compared to fictional noninteracting electrons.\n\nHowever, this is once again making the 'mistake' of looking at the absolute numbers and the energies as compared to a free electron. Again in these 'stability' discussions you're interested in the _relative_ quantities, so the amount of e-e repulsion you're interested in is really the relative amount of repulsion in the orbital an electron is leaving relative the orbital the it's entering. \n\nNow when you consider electrons in different orbitals in the same subshell (px vs py vs pz for instance), then those orbitals don't actually overlap that much more than any other ones. And all else being equal, electrons should and do ( per [Hund's rule](_URL_0_)) first spread out evenly to minimize e-e repulsion^*. Filling a complete shell or half-shell, however, gives spherical symmetry and increases the effective nuclear charge per electron (Unsöld's Theorem), lowering the energy and making filled (and half-filled) shells particularly stable. You can see these things compete in the copper-silver-gold group of metals, where one of the formerly lower-lying s-orbital electrons is promoted up to fill the d-shell, because the gain of closing the d shell is relatively great while the electron repulsion is relatively high in the s shell.\n\nSo in short, there are many competing things going on and it's, to say the least, rather complicated to explain. \n\n(\\* Wikipedia and Levine's book claim that Hund's rule isn't because of e-e repulsion and was only formerly believed to be so. It was a few years ago but I've read the actual research articles on that though and have a different view, namely that both explanations are valid, as they're made within different approximations/models that account for the energy in literally different terms)\n"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hund%27s_rule_of_maximum_multiplicity",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-like_atom",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen",
"https://arxiv.org/abs/math-ph/0605018"
]
] | |
1eqd48 | how did the Romans put newly minted money into circulation? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1eqd48/how_did_the_romans_put_newly_minted_money_into/ | {
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"They actually did sell them. If citizens wanted money, they would get their coins through the official money-changer. It would then circulate as all currency does.\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\nEdit: This would be at a local level, generally with small coinage, the government paid its debts with minted coins as well, and in this way circulated the money.",
"Unfortunately, the exact details are a bit murky, and a matter of quite a bit of scholarly inquiry. Probably one of the biggest ways was with the army: if we say there were about 300,000 legionaries, all getting a salary of 300 denarii a year, that is a total of 90 million denarii flowing almost entirely to the frontier regions every year, which would be far increased when we factor in the amount of supplies the army was purchasing from nearby areas. One scholar has even called the army a method for wealth to flow from the imperial center to the periphery, and in my personal opinion the salaried professional army is arguably the key factor in distinguishing the Roman empire from so many other ancient ones. There are also other ways currency could flow from the center: a few examples could be the voracious grain demands of Rome itself, imperial, legate, an proconsular public projects, and of course the general integration of the Mediterranean economy (although the last is a bit of a chicken and egg).\n\nSo that is how money would circulate between regions, how did it circulate within them? One view holds that this is a none-issue, and that the Romans already came into thoroughly monetized economies. The problem with this is that by all accounts the Roman empire was far more monetized than even the already monetized Hellenistic kingdoms--and of course this leaves the northwest provinces unexplained. Perhaps the most interesting suggestion is that the Roman tax policy precipitated monetization. The Romans, and the Hellenistic kingdoms to a lesser extent, largely demanded their taxes in coinage rather than in kind (partial exceptions being Sicily and Egypt, that I know of), in contrast to, say, the Achaemenid Empire which demanded tribute. This policy induced monetization of the local economy, because communities needed to gather coinage in order to pay their Roman masters. In this way, coinage entered into the local community. And of course there is another school of thought that this is a phenomenon that needs no explanation, as monetization went hand in hand with economic integration caused by the *pax Romana*.",
"Did the Roman economy suffer from inflation? How did they decide the rate of minting new money?"
]
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"http://www.forumancientcoins.com/historia/de-basement/economy.html"
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1jc6zf | why is spending in the last week of a month important to businesses? | I'd like to know because I continually get reamed for spending before EOM and I cannot see why it is so important | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jc6zf/eli5_why_is_spending_in_the_last_week_of_a_month/ | {
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"Imagine it's November. Your parents tell you that the more chores you do before Christmas, the more presents Santa will bring you.\n\nTo start with, you do a few chores, thinking you'll get loads of presents. But you soon get bored, and go back to cleaning your room once a week (and only because you can't find your favourite comic book, so you clean your room hoping to find it).\n\nBut then, a week before Christmas, you realise that you haven't done many chores, and Santa won't bring you many presents. You decide to spend the last week doing as many chores as you can, so you can get as many presents as possible.\n\nIt's a bit like that with businesses. With the Santa scenario, you have a deadline of Christmas, and as the deadline approaches you go all-out to meet get your chores done. Well, businesses analyse their spending and income on a monthly basis, so as the end of the month draws near, everyone goes all-out to sell as much as they can and spend as little as they can, so the monthly figures look as good as possible.",
"Let's say that you are 5 years old and you want to open up a lemonade stand. Mommy and Daddy give you $10 for supplies, but you end up spending only $9. If you go back to Mommy and Daddy with $1 left after you bought the supplies then they will only give you $9 next summer. This means that will want to spend that dollar so Mommy and Daddy think you spent all $10 so they will give you another $10 next summer. The leftover money is called a surplus.",
"Okay so while some of these answers are correct depending on the situation the business is in (government entity) For medium size business this is why they spend in the last quarter. With all the forecasts done they are now able to accurately determine realized profits. However most companies will either give out bonus or put money back into the company to lower their profits. Why would somebody want to lower their profits you ask? With a lower amount of profit comes a lower amount of taxes. Alot of the spending has to do with tax planning for the next fiscal year. ",
"Don't know how it works in other countries, However in Australia, most business's run a budget over a twelve month cycle. Also, they tend to set certain criteria for payment of creditors (i.e: 30 days, 60 days, etc). Together with marketing and production, they also work on a certain dollar amount of income (cash flow).\n\nSo when expenses exceed cash flow, this means that they may have to use line of credit or overdraft and will actually cost the business money.\n\nSo lets pick two months, March and April, OP has ordered all sorts of supplies in the first two weeks of March, (and say payment terms of thirty days), payment to the suppliers will be due mid April.\n\nHowever, income from sales has only been averaged out across the four weeks of March, and may not be enough to meet the creditors invoices, so, ta da, use of overdraft, thereby costing money.\n\nAnother probably more simpler analogy, is consider you get paid your wage monthly, say on the 1st of the month. It goes in the bank and looks like a lot, so you pay the rent, utilities, put food and alcohol in the fridge, maybe go out a bit. By the end of the 3rd week, there is not much left in the bank. \n\nThat's ok, payday is in a week, all things are cool, just tighten the belt a little. THEN, your car breaks down, and you need it to get to work. So what do you do, max the credit card out (remember the interest/overdraft) , hit the oldies for a loan? Which they give you provided it is paid back as soon as you get paid. \n\nAnyway, the 1st comes around again, you pay the money back, but, now are a little short for this month, because you don't have the same amount of income to meet expenses that you had last month. \n\nEdit1: And so the cycle continues, until either your income improves or you go broke.\n\nHope this was reasonably understandable.\n\nEdit2: Also end of financial year can provide a totally different scenario.\n\n\n\n\n\n"
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tuw7t | planetary orbits within our solar system... | So I was thinking about every planet's orbit in our solar system. They're all elliptical, because they are conic sections, because of differential calculus. So sayeth Sir Isaac Newton, as evidenced by Neil Degrasse Tyson in his now famous "We've got a badass here" pose.
In every diagram I've seen, the planets are always aligned on one axis, let's call it the x-axis. Is that their alignment in real life? I always imagined space was more chaotic and that planets would orbit the sun wherever, within the 360* possible (or more, depending on how 3D we'll take this model), some on a y-axis, and some on a slope of the x/y axis.
Is the model wrong and just showing things for simplicity, and the planets really are orbiting all over (like the lines drawn around an atom) or did the planets really align nearly perfectly. Either way: what is the current theory for why this happened? Admittedly, if the planetary orbits are actually all over, random chance is a pretty good explanation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/tuw7t/planetary_orbits_within_our_solar_system/ | {
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"Most stuff in our system is in roughly one plane. Pluto is a bit skewed, but not dramatically (by 17^o ). \n\nAt the beginning of the solar system, our Sun started forming in a cloud of gas and dust. Some object (distant star, asteroid, spaceship, giant marshmallow) passed by our cloud and nudged it a bit with gravity. The cloud started spinning around its centre. As it was collapsing, stuff was gaining speed and eventually started orbiting. \n\nThink of it as a blob of pizza dough that started spinning. "
]
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[]
] | |
7wv1u9 | How much credibility do historians give oral traditions? Are they considered anything close to a 'good source'? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7wv1u9/how_much_credibility_do_historians_give_oral/ | {
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"So, the answer to this will probably vary greatly depending on who you talk to and what their area of study is. There isn't one clear resounding answer as to whether or not Historians agree. Some accept only documented datable primary sources as accurate and consider all other evidence only useful in terms of the context of available evidence while others are far more trusting of written and oral traditions. In my \"field\" (Indian religions) much of what we have are oral traditions, or at least began as such. The language of many of these oral traditions is actually what we use to date when they came from and give us some idea of the time when they were written, but there is disagreement over the exact centuries and the reliability of the account. For instance, the Ṛg Veda probably began composition sometime in the 16th century and was codified around the tenth. This gives us some important contextual evidence for the society and culture of the early Indo-Aryans and their culture. We also can glean some political and other general historical knowledge from the hymns, but not much. The reliability of this is often called into question, but the analysis of the language and comparison with archeological finds tends to line up, if not exactly, with the hymns which were preserved through specialized memorization techniques and passed down word for word, even when Vedic Sanskrit was long out of fashion. That said, there are some hymns and verses that are challenged as later interpolations, such as the (in)famous \"Hymn of Man\" in the tenth mandala. So we need to take these hymns with a grain of salt and compare them internally and externally to get a proper picture.\n\nFor a second look, we turn to the Pāli canon, one of the main Buddhist canons. For around three to four centuries, the canon was entirely oral, and thus diverged from the original meaning to some extent. However, many assert that they are a fairly reliable picture of early Buddhism. We see this when we compare the Pāli Canon with other texts, such as the Chinese Āgamas, we see a picture start to emerge that gives us not only information about the practice of early Buddhism, but also the culture and politics of the 5th century Northeast India. All of this is disputed by some scholars, who assert that we can know nothing about Buddhism or Indian politics before the 5th century CE when we have the early extent texts, or at the very least before Aśoka. However, we do have other corroborating evidence, like inscriptions and reliefs. \n\nAs far as living oral traditions, the process is similar. Internal and external comparison, philological analysis, and \"textual\" analysis for consistency. How much stock we put in them depends on the narrative type and story. Some are obviously folklore or myth, but others have a grain of truth to them and are very old. We tend to say that living memory is around 100 years or so, but in actual fact, it varies significantly by culture and some cultures record events much farther back."
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4cbtmb | if there is first and third party, what is second party? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4cbtmb/eli5_if_there_is_first_and_third_party_what_is/ | {
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"The first two parties are the two original people involved in a transaction. A third party is anyone who isn't part of that original transaction. In your example, you and Sony are the first and second parties. ",
"**You** are the second party.\n\n\"First party\" and \"third party\" are analogous to the first person and third person in grammar. The first person is \"me\", the second person is \"you\", and the third person is \"he/she/it\".\n\nWhen someone refers to \"a third party\" in a conversation, sale, or negotiation, they are referring to any random person not involved in that conversation. So from Sony's point of view, there is a transaction (you buying the PS4) between the first party (Sony) and the second party (you). Anyone not involved in that sale is a \"third party\"."
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3sg8r1 | Where does the ray of a gamma-ray burst come from? | I understand that a GRB is created as rotating matter falls into a newly forming black hole, but why would this process create a beam along the axis of rotation? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3sg8r1/where_does_the_ray_of_a_gammaray_burst_come_from/ | {
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"This is due to the black holes [magnetic field](_URL_0_) which is perpendicular to the plane of rotation. Supernova are also a source of GRB and the direction of those burst are determined by magnetic fields.\n",
"GRBs come from hypernovae. When extremely massive, low-metallicity, rapidly spinning stars collapse into black holes they sometimes form a hypernova. As the star contracts to an extremely small volume it compresses the magnetic field lines as well as the matter of the star and through various processes ends up shooting out axial jets of superheated matter at speeds very close to that of light (99.9% or so). This results in relativistic beaming which intensifies the light coming from the jets (which comes from a combination of heat and synchrotron radiation) in the direction of motion due to the effects of relativity and blue shifting."
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"http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen/opo9943e.jpg"
],
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] | |
7oxuks | why almost all candy, cereal, chips, etc. bags are only about half full? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7oxuks/eli5_why_almost_all_candy_cereal_chips_etc_bags/ | {
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"text": [
"There needs to be air in the bag to prevent the chips/candy/etc from getting crushed into pieces.\n\nThings like pringles don't do this because they have sturdier packaging."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
dix2l9 | how can web browsers securely store passwords, if other browsers can import them easily? | For example, I save passwords for web sites on Google Chrome, and installing Firefox offers to import those passwords. If Chrome was storing them securely, surely Firefox shouldn't be able to access them so easily? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dix2l9/eli5_how_can_web_browsers_securely_store/ | {
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"text": [
"They are not stored securely. But, they are stored conveniently. If your security risk is from someone with physical access to your computer, **you are screwed**. \n\nIf your security problem is some script kiddie in Belarus, then the key is to have long, random, unique passwords. This is the problem for 99.4% of the people on the Internet, so that's the problem the browser folks set out to solve."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
4ljwk8 | How much energy is required to alter earths orbit away from the sun? | I just read about the red giant phase of sol, where earth would be inhabitable. So lets say we make a ring around the equator line or on a pole during summer so we could "move" the earth. Is that possible with fusion energy etc.? (this is far into the future, so technology is there, and we have all the time in the world) | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4ljwk8/how_much_energy_is_required_to_alter_earths_orbit/ | {
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"According to the virial theorem, the average kinetic energy of an object undergoing bounded motion in a 1/r potential (like Newtonian gravity) is -1/2 times the average potential energy. So the total mechanical energy is: \n\nE = K + U = -U/2 + U = U/2.\n\nWhere technically K and U are *average* kinetic and potential energies respectively (if the orbit is circular, each kinetic and potential energy is separately conserved and averaging becomes unnecessary).\n\nSo U is the Newtonian gravitational potential energy -GMm/r. So that means that the total mechanical energy of the orbiting body is:\n\nE = -GMm/(2r).\n\nThis is a function only of the center-to-center distance between the sun and the Earth. If the orbit is non-circular, just replace the instantaneous distance with the average distance. So if you want to move the Earth to a higher orbit, this equation tells you how much energy the Earth would need as a function of r.\n\nTo move from orbit 1 to orbit 2, you'd need to supply an energy of:\n\n-GMm(1/r*_2_* - 1/r*_1_*)/2.",
"[Here's a page on Earthmoving.](_URL_0_) The most cost-effective way to do it is to use gravity assistance. If you orbit asteroids between the planets, you can move energy and momentum between them, transferring it to Earth. Theoretically you could do this with an arbitrarily small amount of energy, but realistically due to the chaotic nature of orbits you'll have to correct the orbit constantly. Normally the Lyapunov time for orbits is huge, but I have a feeling it will be a lot smaller if you're trying to pull off something like this."
]
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[],
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"https://qntm.org/moving"
]
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75531h | why is the word "volume" used for referencing a three dimensional area, and the sound output of a device? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75531h/eli5_why_is_the_word_volume_used_for_referencing/ | {
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"\"Volume\" has referred to the amount or loudness of sound since a published review of a music performance in 1784.\n\n[source](_URL_0_)\n\nThe idea is that a certain \"quantity\" of sound is coming out, and since sound feels like it fills a concert hall, the metaphor felt apt.",
"It means the amount or quantity of something, which applies both to area and the strength of a sound. It originated from referring to the rolled content of a scroll and more generally to a mass of quantity of something."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-term-volume-used-in-sound"
],
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] | ||
3knlk1 | what does jeremy corbyn mean for labour and british politics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3knlk1/eli5_what_does_jeremy_corbyn_mean_for_labour_and/ | {
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"I see two potential outcomes over the next five years. The first is that because he polarises opinion, the Labour vote will become fractured. Of course you can't be certain but I can't see how the Labour party would move into power barring a far left wing renaissance in the UK. The other outcome is that a re-election is called, it would be incredibly difficult for the party to remove him as leader but as politics goes, there's usually a way which lies between the lines of good and evil.",
"It's good for British politics and bad for Labour, at least in my opinion. \nCorbyn is more left wing than than Labour have been in decades, so it signifies a great change for them, and their supporters, who seem to be sick of sharing the middle, with Tories and Lib Dems. This is good for British politics as a whole as it will result in more left-right debate, as opposed to fighting over the same ground and every party being much the same, as has been the standard in modern times. Having parties that oppose each other ideologically can only be good for politics as it offers the voters a clear and distinctive choice, other than policies only differing slightly. I feel that it will make politics more engaging and will interest would be voters, so good for British politics.\n\nHowever on the flip-side of that I don't think it necessarily a good thing for Labour. As mentioned previously Corbyn is very left wing, think Sanders and just keep going left, and while being exciting he doesn't offer Labour the stability they need after such a heavy loss. He is strong in his conviction and has been saying the same things for many years, but he is very easy to attack, from a Tory point of view. For perspective his predecessor was nicknamed Red Ed, for his supposedly left wing views. Now Milliband was far from being left wing, but he was still perceived that way, and was attacked for. So just imagine what opposition could to do someone with actually left wing credentials. I think when it comes down to it he is just to left and too divisive a figure to win an election. In fact the last time Labour went this left was 1983, and their manifesto that years was nicknamed 'The longest suicide note in history', by a Labour MP, and I feel that unless he tones down his ideology this is the way, Labour are heading.\n\nTL:DR: Good for politics, more right-left debate, bad for Labour, too left and to polarising to win election ",
"Its compleatly unpredictable, most press sources seem to believe that he is unelectable but they don't really know that. Its just a scaremongering slur right now. ",
"It means we Will have a conservative 3rd term because honestly he just won't give the middle classes a reason to vote for him.\n\n\nLiz was the best possible candidate because she would have given the middle classes an incentive to vote Labour.\n\n\nHe needs either to follow a Blairite playbook ( he could do this by making Liz director of policy ) or convince Murdoch to back him somehow perhaps by offering to Privatize the BBC or allow all T.V. to have a slice of the license fee.\n\n"
]
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164wq9 | Historians of Reddit: How can I find my families' coat of arms? | I've been told my a number of sources that my family's name has been traced all the way back to the Domesday Book in Great Britain. My grandfather has shown me what he thought was our family coat of arms, but It honesty looks like one of those you get from those sites that generate a random one. I can't really afford to pay any of those sites like _URL_0_ or similar ones, and if I could, I'm not necessarily sure how much I trust them either.
Anyone have any thoughts? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/164wq9/historians_of_reddit_how_can_i_find_my_families/ | {
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"Care to supply your surname and/or give us an idea of where the name comes from at least? I could help if it's Scottish and I'd assume others could aid also.",
"you might have better luck in [r/heraldry/](_URL_0_)",
"The first thing to understand is that it is **highly** unlikely your family has a coat of arms. [Most arms in England were awarded to individuals rather than families](_URL_0_). \n\nSo, even if a direct ancestor of yours was awarded arms at some point, it wouldn't be 'yours' any more than if he/she'd been awarded the Victoria Cross. That is to say, awards such as the VC do often stay in families and ancestors of VC winners (rightly IMO) display the medals with pride, but the understanding is that the awards belong to the person, not the family.\n\nThat said, if you wanted to find out if any ancestors were awarded arms at some point, you would need to know their names and where they lived. It will be expensive to find out for sure.",
"Heraldry in England takes place under the auspices of the [College of Arms] (_URL_0_), so if you believe you have a valid coat of arms, they may be able to help you. On the other hand, given that they are entirely self-funded, they may try and flog you a coat of arms instead..."
]
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"ancestry.com"
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[],
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]
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mmisn | How can we prove that the blue I see, is the same blue you see and not the red I see (or any other color I see) to you? | How do I know we are seeing the same colors since your blue may be my red? And if we can't prove it, do you think it is occurring?
| askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mmisn/how_can_we_prove_that_the_blue_i_see_is_the_same/ | {
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"text": [
"This is a _very_ common question that pops up frequently. Please use the search function first.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_3_",
"This is a _very_ common question that pops up frequently. Please use the search function first.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_3_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mfvnf/is_it_possible_that_when_you_see_a_certain_color/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lxyoe/is_it_possible_to_prove_the_red_i_see_is_the_same/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lwvep/how_can_we_be_sure_that_the_color_im_seeing_... | |
bxp4k0 | what is an engineer? all i think of is someone that builds stuff. | A lot of my friends are majoring in electrical, industrial, or mechanical engineering, but I honestly have no idea what a professional engineer actually does. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxp4k0/eli5_what_is_an_engineer_all_i_think_of_is/ | {
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"Engineering is a very broad term, essentially it means applied science. \n\nSo engineers take very specific scientific principles and apply them to life. Ie designing bridges by using physics and materials science. Or like oil production by using geology, chemistry, and physics.",
"An engineer designs and plans things, not builds them. Theye will do all the math and science to design a bridge that can handle super intense traffic in the worst conditions, but they aren't the one laying the concrete. \n\nAn engineer is a problem solver. Electrical, structural, or mechanical it's all about the same. The engineer is going to try and design something that fixes the problem.",
"I am a mechanical engineer. Retired. I designed assembly line jigs and fixtures(explosive items). I designed and built computer networks. Developed computer models to calculate reliability of missiles and bombs. I designed tests for reliability testing of hardware and electronics. \nMy whole career was based on my Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering. (ODU)\nI was hired because of my success in college. I progressed because of the other engineers I worked with on the variety of projects assigned. Sharing and Learning was a career long process.",
"Engineers apply science to do useful things. When you start nit picking the line between science and engineering can become blurry, but generally scientists seek to increase knowledge for the sake of knowledge whereas engineers take knowledge and use it to do things. For most branches of the hard sciences, there is a corresponding branch of engineering. Electrical engineers understand electromagnetics to design power systems, motors, computers, etc. mechanical engineers understand materials science, classical physics, fluids, etc to design pretty much everything. A very clean example of the line is a chemist versus a chemical engineer. (Very generally) A chemist works in a small lab trying to figure out how to synthesize some new molecule or how to do it better; a chemical engineer designs a system to take that process and scale it up to industrial production quantities.\n\nThe jobs of engineers vary greatly too. Engineers oversee the entire process of a product’s lifecycle from conceptual design to disposal. Some engineers design the thing, some oversee manufacturing, some oversee operation of complex machinery/systems, some do research and development. Pretty much everything man made thing you have ever seen or touched was designed by an engineer and manufactured under the supervision of an engineer."
]
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6t44la | Did any ancient cultures have archaeologists? Greeks or Romans uncovering relics of earlier civilizations and recording it? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6t44la/did_any_ancient_cultures_have_archaeologists/ | {
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"If I may piggyback on this question, I'm also curious as to which ancient civilization had the best awareness of its own cultural origins or predecessor. For example, I know that there were Romans who studied the Etruscan language until the early imperial period, implying that they understood the Etruscans' role in shaping their civilization. Was any other civilization doing anything like this?",
"[This question has been asked previously](_URL_0_), so you may want to go read some of the answers there as well. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"http://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/52khwd/did_the_ancients_have_their_own/"
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2kbyjb | when i rotate\flex my jaw, what is that popping\grinding noise? am i broken? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kbyjb/eli5_when_i_rotateflex_my_jaw_what_is_that/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"TMJ issues, most likely. The cartilage disk is probably ruptured or slipped out.\n\nTalk to a dentist."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
zhb7u | presidential campaigns bring in millions of dollars. where does it all go? | What are the most important outlets for these funds? What requires so much money? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zhb7u/presidential_campaigns_bring_in_millions_of/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Political ads are enormously expensive. In 2008, the political campaigns combined to spend over 800 million dollars. Just on ads."
]
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1upwg0 | Holocaust definition | By definition, a holocaust is "destruction or slaughter on a mass scale" (definition from [google](_URL_2_))
Is there any reason in particular that we only generally use the word to describe either nuclear destruction or the killing of Jews during WWII? Stalin killed many more of his own countrymen. What about Mao?
This is inspired by a [post on the front page today](_URL_1_) that uses the word holocaust to describe what's going on in North Korea. Wouldn't it, then, be appropriate to use the word to describe all of the other atrocities that resulted in dozens of millions of deaths from dictators like Stalin and Mao? Or is it inappropriate to compare what's going on in North Korea to the Final Solution?
[I found an old post](_URL_0_) on /r/askhistorians asking a similar question, and the top comment was that the WWII holocaust was a systematic, intentional destruction of a race of people, and that's what sets it apart from the likes of Stalin et al. How is modern day North Korea different from USSR Stalin? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1upwg0/holocaust_definition/ | {
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"The word holocaust actually comes from a Greek word which means 'wholly burnt'. This refers to an ancient animal sacrifice in which the animal is completely burnt (an example being Noah sacrificing lambs in the Hebrew Bible).\n\nWhilst the word is now synonymous with the systematic killings by the Nazis, it isn't the only term used. Jews refer to it as the 'calamity' (Shoah) to differentiate it with the sacrificial holocaust of the Bible.\n\nAs seen in the source below (New York Times, May 23, 1943 - Page 12) the writer refers to it as the 'Nazi holocaust'. This is one of, if not the, first recorded instance where the Holocaust bears it's common usage.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nFast forward time to the late 70s, where the critically acclaimed series 'Holocaust' was on the TV and here we see the word truly become synonymous with the Nazis' Final Solution as the word is named by Spiegel the 'word of the year'. Quote is in German but translated through google - _URL_1_\n\nHope this answers your question well :)",
" > Is there any reason in particular that we only generally use the word to describe either nuclear destruction or the killing of Jews during WWII? Stalin killed many more of his own countrymen. What about Mao?\n\nI think you're confusing the meaning of a holocaust with the Holocaust. Words for general things can also refer to specific things in the right context. The best example is that *a* moon (lowercase) is a natural satellite of a planetary body, but *the* Moon (uppercase) is earth's natural satellite. The other comment already here explains a bit about how the Holocaust came to be the proper noun for one particular mass killing.\n\nIn a theoretical way there's nothing wrong with using a holocaust as a general term for mass killing. But since it goes against most common modern usage (edit: which uses term only for killing during WW2 or nuclear war, as you said), there isn't any reason to either.",
"The definition of \"destruction or slaughter on a mass scale\" is a relatively new one, and became prominent because it was used to refer to the genocide of Jews in Europe. As someone else mentioned, \"holocaust\" originally referred to complete destruction by fire of a sacrifice. So the reason that the term isn't generally used to refer to Stalin or Mao's killings, is that once this relatively obscure word came to be used to refer to the Shoah, it became closely identified with that event and seemed out of place in other contexts. Plus the Shoah and nuclear destruction both involve fire, which was a key component of the definition of the term originally. Whereas \"genocide\" seems more generic, to be used for more situations. You can see in this Google Ngram viewer how the word grew in popularity after WWII: _URL_0_\n\nAs a side note: I believe the reason why people have started to use \"holocaust\" to refer to the situation in North Korea is that the North Korean detention camps are very very similar to Nazi concentration camps, so the parallels are obvious. The deaths that occurred under Stalin and Mao's watches differed in many respects from the Holocaust, even though they involved massive numbers of dead people. So an evocative word like \"Holocaust\" can end up being misleading if used in those contexts. ",
"Part of the issue is that the Holocaust has too much historical connotation to a given event (the Holocaust by the Nazis in Germany)\n\nI think the word genocide has a better use here, not only because it covers the literal discussions of mass murder and extermination, but it also includes cultural genocide as well.\n\nIn this way, the Canadian government's treatment of native people is seen by many historians, myself included, as cultural, and in some cases, biological genocide. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gcg01/i_understand_the_holocaust_was_a_terrible_event/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1upimm/til_shin_donghyuk_is_the_only_man_in_recorded/",
"https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aholocaust&oq=define%3A&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i5... | [
[
"http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3022901/posts",
"http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/23795/ein_jahr_ein_un_wort.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3DEin%2BJahr,%2Bein%2B%28Un-%29Wort!%2B1977%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a... | |
j8klh | how is it that space is curved or saddle shaped? how do we know? | I always imagined the universe as a giant sphere. I'm apparently wrong. If the universe is expanding out from one single point, why is it these weird shapes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j8klh/eli5_how_is_it_that_space_is_curved_or_saddle/ | {
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"It's not expanding out from one point, it's expanding everywhere. The probable reason you think of it as as sphere is because when people want a simple example to talk about expansion they use a sphere. In fact, the best data we have suggests that the universe is infinite and not curved at all one way or the other. It just goes on forever.",
"It's not expanding out from one point, it's expanding everywhere. The probable reason you think of it as as sphere is because when people want a simple example to talk about expansion they use a sphere. In fact, the best data we have suggests that the universe is infinite and not curved at all one way or the other. It just goes on forever."
]
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ds9xje | air temperature vs water temperature | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ds9xje/eli5_air_temperature_vs_water_temperature/ | {
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"Basically, it's because of the speed that each of them can absorb energy and how much energy it takes to change the temperature of each.\n\nWater is harder to warm up than air, and it can absorb energy much faster than air. This meant that at the same temperature, water will feel further from comfortable than air will.",
"It's because your body doesn't measure absolute temperature, in other words your body doesn't say \"It's 68F\" it says \"I'm gaining heat\" or \"I'm losing heat\". How fast that happens is how hot or cold you feel. \n\nWater, as /u/RogerGodzilla99 says is far faster at absorbing heat than air is. So as long as the water is cooler than your body is, which at 68F (20C) it absolutely will be, it'll feel colder than air at the same temperature will because your warmer body will be transferring heat into it faster. Your body feels that faster loss of heat as being colder. \n\nSame reason a wooden spoon will feel warmer than a metal spoon when they've come out the same drawer in the same kitchen, so obviously must be the same temperature."
]
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[],
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7p6wma | how do people come up with optical illusions? is it at random, or is there an underlying method and a science to go with it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7p6wma/eli5how_do_people_come_up_with_optical_illusions/ | {
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"While I'm certain that some are arrived at spontaneously, a vast majority are simply proofs of a concept. For example, all of the ones you linked appear to move but don't actually, and are intended to take advantage of the way colors (and their wavelengths) and lines/shapes (and their relative shapes and sizes) can be combined to to create the illusion of movement. One would really have to understand colors and shapes to design a decent optical illusion, furthermore understand the science of why and how our brains perceive these images in relationship to eachother. So yes, there is an underlying method and definitely a science."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
5h6yub | Why do batteries seem to gain a slight charge when drained and then not used for a period of time? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5h6yub/why_do_batteries_seem_to_gain_a_slight_charge/ | {
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"Warning: I am a mechanical engineer, and only took basic electronics courses. \n\nI assume you mean you have a flashlight with dead batteries in it. A few days later you flip the switch and the light flashes on for a second or two. It's possible that what's happening is a [transient response](_URL_0_). This refers to a short term spike when the state changes as voltage ramps up before falling and eventually settling in to steady state. When the switch is flipped and completes the circuit, there may be a short term voltage spike that supplies enough power to light the flashlight, but not enough to keep it going once it settles back in to steady state. \n\nIf you mean like a phone that shuts off but is able to power back on for a few minutes, that's due to modern phones having circuitry that shuts it off before it discharges completely. Completely discharging a battery can permanently reduce capacity. You can get it to power on sometimes because there's still power, but it'll shut back off to protect itself quickly. "
]
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Oscillation_amortie.svg"
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1bzp8s | How "impossible" were the negotiations for Hong Kong's sovereignty for Thatcher? | Thatcher said she faced an "impossible" situation then, but voiced regret much later after the transfer. In retrospect, how was her performance and what were the odds of reaching a better (british/democratic/etc) settlement for Hong Kong?
Was Deng ever going to lengthen the lease on the New Territories?
Was there any indication that a more democratic constitutional settlement would be tolerated by Beijing?
Who "lost" the negotiations, and which side compromised more? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bzp8s/how_impossible_were_the_negotiations_for_hong/ | {
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"I was wondering this earlier and contemplated asking as well. \n\nAs far as I can tell, Hong Kong was ceded in perpetuity by the Treaty of Nanking, and again in a later treaty.\n\nHowever, it was bundled with the 'New Territories' in a later treaty, which were ceded on a 99 year lease. ",
"I'll never know why she didn't allow more immigration from Hong Kong. It would only have helped the UK, and it seems fair for those who didn't fancy living under Chinese rule.",
"IIRC, Kowloon and Hong Kong Island did not need to be returned thanks to the treaties in the wake of the First and Second Opium Wars. By the latter half of the 20th century, however, the New Territories was integral to the economic viability of the Hong Kong Territories as a whole. \n\nThe British certainly 'compromised' more, but it was a compromise of necessity. It was known and accepted by the time of the signing of the Joint Declaration in 1984 that the HKT would be far less economically valuable without the NT, and in all likelihood not really worth the diplomatic difficulties that would have ensued had only the NT been handed back.",
"[Here's](_URL_0_) an article that sums up those events pretty well (x-post from r/hongkong). The NYT did a [write up](_URL_1_) as well.",
"From a paper I did recently on the history of the relationship of the British government of Hong Kong to its Chinese citizens. Let me know if you have any more questions.\n\n > In 1984 the British government sought to meet with Communist China in order to discuss the future of Hong Kong. While the British believed that there might be some negotiations to extend the lease, the Chinese government held the position that the entire territory should be returned in 1997 and would not budge. What began as a negotiation turned into a meeting to build a framework of the return of the colony to China. The nations would agree to the handover in the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984, but while control of the territory would return to China it was agreed that the Chinese socialist system would not be put in place in the region for at least 50 years after the handover, leading to the creation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the “One Country, Two Systems” policy(1). In an attempt to assuage the fears of political oppression among Hong Kong's citizens before the handover the Chinese government would adopt the Hong Kong Basic Law, a brief constitution drafted with the input of the citizens of Hong Kong. For their part the British government would attempt to democratize the administration of Hong Kong before the handover the British government would allow LegCo to be elected by general election for the first time in 1991. Even these efforts by the British held an ulterior motive, as the Conservative government lead by Margaret Thatcher did not want to be seen as giving up too much to Communist China. \n\n1. Steven Tsang, A Documentary History of Hong Kong: Government and Politics. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995) Particularly Document V .d4\n\nAs far as who won, I'd say the Chinese, though the outcome certainly could have been a lot worse for the citizens of Hong Kong if it weren't for the British administration in the 50s-80s making a concerted effort to get the citizens involved with and on the side of the British government, as opposed to the CCP. This gave the British the single real card they had to play: the citizens of Hong Kong would be violently unhappy with a rapid shift to a planned economy and political oppression. ",
"The Hong Kong issue came into relative prominence in 1971 under the Heath government. This was the era of the anti-corruption movement and still lingering fears with the Mainland refugee problem that exacerbated overcrowding, fire dangers, and generally social problems with the triads and smuggling. Hong Kong didn't begin to democratize until the 1950s, under the tutelage of Alexander Grantham (although under the plan of his predecessor, Sir Mark Young). Prior to this, and even during the 1950s, the view was that this system of \"benevolent autocracy\" or \"salutary neglect\" was not only normal, but even desired, and there was no real demand for more representation. Increased democratization of course worried the authorities in Beijing, because it was the first step to decolonization. The usual pattern of things around the world was that the Anglophone elite would be introduced to the parliamentary system, watched over by their British overlords, until deemed ready (or fight their way out), and then have the reins handed over. \n\nSo China reacted quickly when Heath's government established normal relations with Beijing in 1971. First of their demands was for Britain to \"cut off its tail\", meaning to sever relations with Taipei. Britain acquiesced. While we don't have the best records, historians generally believe that this was the time that the Hong Kong issue was first brought up, and also the first time Beijing realized that it had more clout than it previously thought. The first item on China's agenda after gaining its seat in the UN in 1971 was to [delete Hong Kong off the list of territories that are earmarked for decolonization](_URL_0_), because the implication of that was an independent Hong Kong. Its deletion was not objected to by the British in the UN. It's clear that while some in Britain wished that by simply ignoring the Hong Kong issue it might go away, China was on the ball regarding that topic, and really, the British government had plenty of warning about that.\n\nChina kept quiet on the issue throughout the rest of the 1970s, and so perhaps unwisely, when Governor-General Maclehose visited Beijing in 1979, he brought it up. He was surprised and caught off guard to begin with because Deng immediately summoned his mission and they discussed the issue right away, first thing, and Maclehose, who was actually one of the better Governor-Generals in Hong Kong (in charge of the anti-corruption scheme that basically wiped out corruption within the Hong Kong Police within 10 years), had to basically endure a full frontal blast with Deng with little preparation and authority to rebut. \n\nDeng's platform should be familiar now: The fundamental issue was not open to negotiation, and China always had sovereignty of Hong Kong. The only thing open for debate was the terms of the handover and the timeline. Somehow the British didn't anticipate that the Chinese spent the 1970s formulating their policy towards Hong Kong, that a study of the implications surrounding the expiry of the lease had fully been studied and they had even charted the territory so that they didn't depend on any British source of information whatsoever. Yet, the British delegation failed to fully report on Chinese intentions until 1981, when China fully unveiled the \"one-nation-two-systems\" scheme in a policy document aimed towards Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong. In hindsight the British probably should have anticipated this even in the early 1970s, that the Chinese goal of reunification with Taiwan rested partly on having Hong Kong successfully integrated into China as a thriving capitalist enclave, therefore proving that the \"one-nation-two-systems\" scheme works.\n\nThatcher's idea by mid 1982 was that because of the victory over the Argentines in the Falklands, Britain would have some more clout against the Chinese in the negotiations. Thatcher's stance was hardline at first and based on the argument that the treaties ceding Hong Kong was valid under international law, but the view of Sir Percy Cradock, Ambassador to Beijing, was that China can easily stop negotiations and take back Hong Kong by force, in an era where China have not been shy in showing force to \"preserve its territorial integrity and sovereignty\", marked by border conflicts against Russia, India, and Vietnam. Thatcher went into the negotiations in September 1982 feeling like she can still extract favorable terms.\n\nHowever, pretty much the first thing Deng said to Thatcher was \"Hong Kong is not the Malvinas, China isn't Argentina\". China pretty much had anticipated Thatcher's bullish stance and came out not offering anything to negotiate at all. Deng's stance was that it wasn't really a negotiation at all, but merely putting Britain on notice that the handover was going to happen at some point, including the areas that were technically ceded instead of leased. Thatcher's stance was that perhaps Britain will hand over sovereignty in exchange for the right to administer Hong Kong, but it was rejected outright.\n\nThatcher then brought up her view as to how the treaties were historically valid, but this only angered Deng who for all intents and purposes threatened military action. The talks didn't go anywhere really, but Thatcher seemed to have forgotten that due to the proximity, Beijing's words can wreck significant havoc on Hong Kong's economy, which in this case, it did. David Bonavia of the Times wrote \"seldom in British colonial history was so much damage done to the interests of so many people, in such a short space of time by a single person.\" The stock market tanked and with it, the value of the HK Dollar as well, because there were genuine fears that the PLA would march across Shenzhen River and take over Hong Kong.\n\nAnd really it took two years to fix relations in order for Thatcher to go back to China to hammer out terms. By 1984, the damage was done and it was clear that Britain had zero clout in the affairs of Hong Kong. Their goal in September 1984 was to ensure that the one-nation-two-systems idea remained in Hong Kong, although it's clear that China had intended for that to happen all along. The Joint-Declaration really could have been written by China in the late 70s, and although Thatcher claimed it was a diplomatic triumph, there wasn't a negotiation, there was really just an acceptance of terms.\n\nThere were more stuff going on, especially in the early 90s under Patten post Tiananmen, but that had little to do with Thatcher and more to do with the lingering suspicion on both sides as to the Joint Declaration.\n\nI hope you'll excuse not using in-line citations, I'm writing another paper in another window and I'm sick of doing all those individual citations. My sources are:\n\nFrank Welsh, *A Borrowed Place*, 1993\n\nSimon Winchester, *Outposts*, 2009\n\nFelix Patrikeef, *Mouldering Pearl: Hong Kong at the Crossroads*, 1990\n\nPercy Cradock, *Experiences of China*, 1994\n\nSteve Tsang, *A Modern History of Hong Kong*, 2004\n\nSo to answer your specific questions:\n\n1. Thatcher had little wiggle room in the negotiation, but erred severely when she tried to make the point that what the British were doing in Hong Kong was beneficial to the people (even if it were, objectively) and that the treaties were valid. This killed off her entirely set of bargaining chips and she really should have listened to Cradock\n\n2. Deng was never really going to negotiate. It was, in the words of Alan Bennett (if I may), \"you're not disputing the territory. You're just negotiating over the pace of the occupation.\" Personally I think the best they could have done was to have a longer term of British monitoring after 1997.\n\n3. More democratic? Not a chance, and that fear almost ruined the whole handover in the early 90s. Beijing could have easily and readily used the rationale that Hong Kong was only given democracy in the 1950s to act as a thorn in the side of Beijing. The British had the opportunity to do better research and they should have to anticipate Chinese arguments, but they failed to do so.\n\n4. Who lost? I mean, there wasn't a real negotiation going on, but Thatcher really couldn't call it a win after being so humiliated, right? Britain basically came to the table with all of the (not well-founded) expectations and lost it all.\n\nHope that helps!\n\nEDIT: Grammar\n"
]
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[],
[],
[],
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"http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/how-mrs-thatcher-lost-hong-kong-ten-years-ago-fired-up-by-her-triumph-in-the-falklands-war-margaret-thatcher-flew-to-peking-for-a-lastditch-attempt-to-keep-hong-kong-under-british-rule--only-to-meet-her-match-in-deng-xiaoping-two-years-later-s... | |
9i3nad | Do the people who can't feel pain have surgery performed without anesthesia? | Are there any records of this happening? Would they put them under it anyway so that they don't interfere with the surgery? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9i3nad/do_the_people_who_cant_feel_pain_have_surgery/ | {
"a_id": [
"e6i8bki"
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"score": [
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"text": [
" Congenital Insensitivity to pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA), is the condition where a person is born without the ability to sense pain or sweat. This tends to lead to many instances where people can injure themselves without them fulling being aware of the injury. \n\n* In [this](_URL_2_) paper, it shows that a child chewed through her fingers which caused osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone\n\nInterestingly enough, even though they cannot feel pain, there are many who have what is known as *tactile hyperesthesia,* which indicates an increased sensitivity to touch. In this case, sedation/anesthesia is useful. \n\nRegarding the interference of the surgery, sedation/anesthesia is also used in order to prevent accidental fractures and things of the sort (just an abstract, but here's [this](_URL_0_))\n\nThing is, with surgery, there are a bunch of complications that can occur, and in patients without the ability to thermoregulate, even more complications can occur. \n\nHope I provided some info. \n\nAnother [source](_URL_1_)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11812683",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4663042/",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4738137/"
]
] | |
7lo0vt | why cleveland's population continuously dropping since 1970s? what are the push factors that causes people dont want to live in cleveland anymore? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7lo0vt/eli5why_clevelands_population_continuously/ | {
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"What’s the basis of this question? Any background or stats?",
"Cleveland is part of the Rust Belt, a part of the USA whose old prosperity was based on steel production and other very heavy industries, peaking just after World War II. These industries became old and inefficient and many companies went out of business. This led to loss of jobs, so people left."
]
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[],
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] | ||
4i7lrv | How was the early United States able to afford things like the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican Cession with no income tax? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4i7lrv/how_was_the_early_united_states_able_to_afford/ | {
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"The US government was almost entirely funded by tariffs on foreign goods. Notably in 1828, Andrew Jackson paid the entire debt by raising tariffs on British imports. This is commonly called the Tariff of Abominations. \n\nThe federal government has also raised money through land sales and excise taxes on sugar, alcohol, and tobacco. \n\nLastly, in the 1790s, the federal government was imposing taxes on land and other properties but was overturned by Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800s."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
k6n0z | why the ussr and the usa didn't remain allies | Why was it so sudden that after WWII ended the two super powers were at each others' throats, why couldn't they have continued being close allies? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k6n0z/eli5_why_the_ussr_and_the_usa_didnt_remain_allies/ | {
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"They weren't exactly close allies in WWII either, just reluctant bedfellows, due to a common enemy.\n\nIn fact, the beginnings of cold war scheming, on both sides, had already started before WWII ended.",
"Communism and Capitalism are completely opposite ideologies. \n\nCapitalism means private ownership of property, so like you and me can have our house, car, cell phone, etc. Also, it means that big companies are owned by people, and are not subject to government whim. There's a lot more that goes into it.\n\nCommunism is what's called a command economy. The government says,\"Hey make this\" and people have to do it. There is no private ownership, the government owns everything within the country.\n\nWhen these two conflicting methods came together, its just a NOPE scenario. \n\nAnd on top of that, they both wanted to be the most powerful nation on Earth, and that led to theCold war and etc etc. ",
"They weren't exactly close allies in WWII either, just reluctant bedfellows, due to a common enemy.\n\nIn fact, the beginnings of cold war scheming, on both sides, had already started before WWII ended.",
"Communism and Capitalism are completely opposite ideologies. \n\nCapitalism means private ownership of property, so like you and me can have our house, car, cell phone, etc. Also, it means that big companies are owned by people, and are not subject to government whim. There's a lot more that goes into it.\n\nCommunism is what's called a command economy. The government says,\"Hey make this\" and people have to do it. There is no private ownership, the government owns everything within the country.\n\nWhen these two conflicting methods came together, its just a NOPE scenario. \n\nAnd on top of that, they both wanted to be the most powerful nation on Earth, and that led to theCold war and etc etc. "
]
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[],
[],
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sy5yn | Are there alternatives to MRIs to do brain scans? | I read that Helium is an important component to doing an MRI scan, but apparently the price of Helium is going to skyrocket because the amount of Helium that is going to be readily available will decrease. Is there any other technology to do brain scans without having to do an MRI? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/sy5yn/are_there_alternatives_to_mris_to_do_brain_scans/ | {
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"Let me start by assuring you that while MRIs use a good bit of helium at startup, it's stored cryogenically and very, very little is lost over time. Rising helium costs are not going to significantly affect the cost of MRIs.\n\nEven if helium was completely unavailable, high temperature superconductors could be used to make MRI that only need liquid nitrogen.\n\nNow, that said, here's a list of methods for brain imaging: \n_URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroimaging#Brain_imaging_techniques"
]
] | |
5cymz6 | In the Age of Sail, how did a ship's draft affect its speed? | i.e. Would a fast warship be low in the water or high in the water? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5cymz6/in_the_age_of_sail_how_did_a_ships_draft_affect/ | {
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"Like a lot of things about sailing, it depends. I realize that's an unsatisfactory answer, so let's expand on it a bit: \n\nGenerally speaking, the fundamental determinant of a ship's speed (assuming we're talking about a displacement hull) is tied to the length of the hull. There's a formula for this: HS = 1.34 x √LWL; or to say it in English, hull speed is equal to 1.34 times the square root of the length of the waterline. In practice, though, most modern sailing hulls are capable of exceeding this -- the ratio is tied to the bow wave and stern wave a hull generates, and as a boat heels or exposes different parts of its hull to the water, those waves and their interactions can change. It's kind of useful to think of it as a minimum maximum, but the overall lesson is that as a hull gets longer, its potential speed gets greater. (Feel free to [click here](_URL_1_) for a more technical discussion.)\n\nThat of course doesn't take into account hulls that are planing hulls or [foiling hulls](_URL_0_), etc., because those didn't exist yet during the time period you're asking about. \n\nSo let's talk about what would determine speed of a ship in the Age of Sail. First off, most large warships in northwest Europe and the Mediterranean were square-rigged, that is, they had square sails on their fore- and main-masts, and often square sails atop their mizen (it wasn't unusual for the mizen to have a spanker or something similar that was gaff-rigged; the mizen was used for turning more than driving he ship). The ship would also carry fore-and-aft sails extended by its stays (staysails) and by its bowsprit (jibs and kites). This type of rig is most efficient moving downwind, but it would allow a ship to tack up into the wind or wear against the wind, to make good progress upwind (into the wind direction) by sailing on tacks against it. \n\nThis is where displacement and draft come in.\n\nGenerally speaking, square-rigged ships (like all sailing ships) suffer from leeway; that is, they are affected by the wind by being blown somewhat off course on most points of sailing that aren't directly downwind, or in front of the wind. So the speed of the ship through the water is often different than its speed \"over ground\" as it were, that is speed relative to the land. All other things being equal, ships with a greater draft will often sail with less leeway than ships with shallow draft, because the wetted surface under the water will prevent some of that leeward motion. (Dutch ships, for example, had to be built with shallow drafts to get in and out of their main ports, but this hampered them in working into the wind and up/down the Channel.) \n\nSomething else to consider is the effect of draft on the stiffness of the ship -- in this case, stiffness meaning the amount it would heel in a wind. All ships have some sort of heel, but the stiffer a ship is, that is the more its masts can stay perpendicular to the water, the more of the force of the wind can be transferred to the masts and hull. \n\nBut the main determinant of a ship's speed was the amount of inertia that its masts would have to move -- all things being equal, a frigate during the Age of Sail could spread a similar amount of sail to a first-rate, but do that on a much smaller hull, so those ships were generally faster. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHbyZrF6ehA",
"http://www.boats.com/reviews/crunching-numbers-hull-speed-boat-length/"
]
] | |
7yp5x4 | why are chin-ups considered easier than pull-ups? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yp5x4/eli5_why_are_chinups_considered_easier_than/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"I could be wrong on this, but my intuition says that you are splitting the load between two major muscle groups with chinups (bicep and back) vs one muscle group with pullups(back)."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
1o2qgh | how come bullet shells dont get stuck in the gun barrel after firing? | I'm mostly asking about old six shooters and breech loaded shotguns.
But after firing, why doesn't the shell casing expand/deform and get stuck in the barrel?
Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o2qgh/elif_how_come_bullet_shells_dont_get_stuck_in_the/ | {
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"The shell (aka \"Cartridge\") sits in the chamber (aka [\"Breech\"](_URL_0_), the open area in this picture), that is a larger diameter than the barrel. Once the firing pin strikes the primer and ignites the powder, the bullet leaves the brass casing and enters the [\"lands and grooves\"](_URL_2_) which are the start of the actual barrel.\n\nOnce the bullet is in the lands and grooves, it starts twisting thanks to [\"rifling\"](_URL_3_) in the barrel that causes the bullet to twist. This keeps the bullet stable in the air.\n\nBut back to the brass casing. Once the bullet leaves the brass and is in the barrel, a couple of different things can happen. The main idea is that the [\"extractor\"](_URL_1_) is grabbing on to the rim of the casing (see [this picture](_URL_5_)). Once the bolt carrier/bolt is charged back, it pulls the casing with it thanks to the rim of the casing. Once the bolt is all the way back, the brass casing will now fly out of the breech, because the extractor is only gripping on to one side of the casing. Imagine pulling a book off the edge of the table by grabbing it on the edge that is hanging off the table. The book is going to fly out towards the edge that you pulled. Same concept for a casing leaving the breech.\n\nBut what causes the bolt to fly back once the gun is fired? Either 1) inertia or 2) gas blow-back. Some guns simply use the force of the casing/round flying back (think of Newton's laws of motion) to bring back the bolt, and some guns (such as the AK-47 and AR-15 platforms use the gas that is leaving the barrel to push back in a tube and move the bolt. See [this animation](_URL_4_).\n\nHope that helps!\n\nEdit: some words",
"I'd like to add that brass is a popular material for cartridge casings in part because of its lubricity; that is, it has a slight inherent slipperiness, particularly relative to the steel of the chamber.",
"This question has been answered already but there is a third mode of ejection I'll mention.\n\nIt isn't common for obvious reasons, but some small pistols use *the jetfire principle* which is akin to a blowback system. But there *is no extractor.* Nothing hooks the cartridge out of the chamber. But brass expands when it is fired, this is called *fire-forming* and the change in dimension is enough to loosen it. The backward pressure of the detonating cartridge is enough to eject the brass when the slide travels to the rear.\n\nBut this is relying on the bullets to do it, and sometimes it can fail. I have a Beretta 21A, similar to the [Beretta Jetfire](_URL_0_) which uses this sytem. I actually really like it, and it does work, but it can fail.",
"When you're shooting a revolver the casing never enters the barrel, it stays within the cylinder. To extract the cartridge you have to push the extractor rod into the cylinder which forces the shell out. The shells are kinda stuck, you have to apply some force to get them out. They won't all just fall out if you invert the cylinder the way they do in videogames. "
]
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[
"http://www.ammoland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Kimber-Team-Match-II-.45-ACP-1911-Pistol-Breech-Face.jpg",
"http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/256boltb.jpg",
"http://www.firearmsid.com/Galleries/illustrations/rifling/rifling_6R.gif",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/105mm_tank_gun... | |
1dx481 | When I take antibiotics and my stomach hurts what exactly is happening? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1dx481/when_i_take_antibiotics_and_my_stomach_hurts_what/ | {
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"Depends on the drug you are taking, gastrointestinal symptoms maybe caused by different factors.\n\nLet's take for example erythromycin. This antibiotic is known to cause hypermotility (increase in peristaltic activity by being a motilin agonist, a hormone that accelerates gastric emptying) of the GI system, therefore some of its adverse effects would be abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, etc.\n\nAnother reason could be that the antibiotic your taking is also killing off the good bacteria in your GI system that regulates the normal flora of your intestines. So when the good bacteria die, the bad ones are not checked and they proliferate and may cause havoc and you experience GI symptoms like diarrhea, etc."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
ismiu | What food would humans be limited to if we didn't cook/prepare it? Would it be healthier to switch back? | . | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ismiu/what_food_would_humans_be_limited_to_if_we_didnt/ | {
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"all I have to offer:\n\n > I remember reading that the ability to eat food that was previously indigestible changed our evolution, \n\nthis was allegedly due to the introduction of cooking, which could break down food. then when we ate it we had to put less energy into digestion and that freed up energy that could have been used to from brain growth/development",
"Fruits, nuts, many root vegetables, many leafy greens, meat (beef, chicken, pork, etc.), fish, milk, mushrooms... That's all I can think of at the moment.",
"I suspect that we are past of the mark because there is so many of us. Potatoes, rice and wheat give most of our carbohydrates. If we would cut them out, I don't think we could replace them with fruits and nuts. \n\nOne reason or cooking is to get rid of bacteria. Veggies also have secondary metabolism that may produce stuff that tries to make it inedible. Even if we can eat it, it may not taste good or put our liver to work extra. Then there are many root vegetables we need to cook to be able to digest them. ",
"This is sometimes called [\"raw foodism\"](_URL_0_). ",
"In some cultures meat is still eaten when not cooked. For example, there are still tribal communities in Africa that after hunting, eat the meat without heating it.",
"There's nothing wrong with raw meat. We can chew and digest it just fine. It's the bacteria and crap that gets slathered on it from the various processing steps that is the reason you don't eat grocery store meat raw",
"Most of the plants we eat today have not existed for long. It would not be smart to revert back to old-school diets. New-school diets were created because old-school diets had the habit of being worse in every way conceivable.\n\nYou shouldn't refuse vaccines and go back to all-natural organic smallpox either, just fyi."
]
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