Camp courses.
in the camp.
personnel from the camp." }, { "question": "since venus' atmosphere is mostly co_2, making it too hot for human life, what is preventing us from introducing high tolerance plant life to convert the co_2 into oxygen, to make it inhabitable?", "answer": "The CO2 atmosphere is the least of your worries. Temperature on Venus is hot enough to melt lead, one day is 243 earth days, clouds made of sulphuric acid and a pressure 90 times greater than that on earth's surface. It would be hard to conceive of a single celled organism that could survive the conditions on Venus, let alone complex plant life.", "support_docs": "
carbon dioxide would trap incoming solar radiation. Because the raised temperature would add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the two processes would augment each other. Carbon dioxide alone would not suffice to sustain a temperature above the freezing point of water, so a mixture of specialized greenhouse molecules might be manufactured. Venus Terraforming Venus requires two major changes; removing most of the planet's dense 9\u00a0MPa (1,300\u00a0psi) carbon dioxide atmosphere and reducing the planet's 450\u00a0\u00b0C (842\u00a0\u00b0F) surface temperature. These goals are closely interrelated, because Venus's extreme temperature is thought to be due to the greenhouse effect caused by its dense atmosphere.
A number of approaches to terraforming are reviewed by Martyn J. Fogg (1995) and by Geoffrey A. Landis (2011). Eliminating the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere The main problem with Venus today, from a terraformation standpoint, is the very thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. The ground level pressure of Venus is 9.2\u00a0MPa (1,330\u00a0psi). This also, through the greenhouse effect, causes the temperature on the surface to be several hundred degrees too warm for any known lifeforms. Basically, all approaches to the terraforming of Venus include somehow getting rid of practically all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Biological approaches The method proposed
organic molecules would quickly be converted to carbon dioxide again by the hot surface environment. Venus would not begin to cool down until after most of the carbon dioxide has already been removed.\nAlthough it is generally conceded that Venus could not be terraformed by introduction of photosynthetic biota alone, use of photosynthetic organisms to produce oxygen in the atmosphere continues to be a component of other proposed methods of terraforming. Capture in carbonates On Earth nearly all carbon is sequestered in the form of carbonate minerals or in different stages of the carbon cycle, while very little is present in" }, { "question": "martin heidegger's \"dasein\" concept", "answer": "To understand Dasein, you have to understand the whole text it's featured in; Being and Time. When I was studying philosophy I used a website from time to time to help me understand things better, or to just get a laugh from time to time. That website is . Although you have to deal with broditude throughout, it does simplify things for the layman. Taken directly from the website, > think of 'Being\u2019, the essential thing we\u2019re trying to get at, like a Party, and think of 'to be\u2019, the verb, as 'to rage\u2019. Now, there are lots of people at this party - chairs, trees, pretty much everything that is. Where is this Party? In the world, which we\u2019ll call the 'house\u2019. And who do we know who rages the hardest? That\u2019s right, fucking Bros, that\u2019s who. They\u2019re the Dasein at this party, the partiers who rage with awareness and understanding. Turns out, Dasein being is a lot like a Bro raging, and Dasein understanding Being is a lot like Bros understanding the Party.", "support_docs": "
which each of us is himself\u2026we shall denote by the term \u201cDasein\u201d\" (Heidegger, trans. 1927/1962, p.27).\n\"[Dasein is] that entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue\u2026\" (Heidegger, trans. 1927/1962, p.68).\nHeidegger sought to use the concept of Dasein to uncover the primal nature of \"Being\" (Sein), agreeing with Nietzsche and Dilthey that Dasein is always a being engaged in the world: neither a subject, nor the objective world alone, but the coherence of Being-in-the-world. This ontological basis of Heidegger's work thus opposes the Cartesian \"abstract agent\" in favour of practical engagement with one's environment. Dasein is revealed
person, man, soul, spirit, or subject. Dasein, then, is not intended as a way of conducting a philosophical anthropology, but is rather understood by Heidegger to be the condition of possibility for anything like a philosophical anthropology. Dasein, according to Heidegger, is care. The world confronts Dasein with possibilities. It is not completely deterministic; Dasein has choices. But Dasein cannot choose not to face the possibilities presented by the world, including the inevitability of its own mortality. Heidegger in his existential analytic refers to this condition as being \"thrown into the world\", or \"thrownness\" (Geworfenheit). The need for Dasein to
through Being and Time.\nSome scholars disagree with this interpretation, however, arguing that for Heidegger \"Dasein\" denoted a structured awareness or an institutional \"way of life\". Others suggest that Heidegger's early insistence on the ontological priority of Dasein was muted in his post-war writings. Origin and inspiration Some have argued for an origin of Dasein in Chinese philosophy and Japanese philosophy: according to Tomonobu Imamichi, Heidegger's concept of Dasein was inspired\u2014although Heidegger remained silent on this\u2014by Okakura Kakuzo's concept of das-in-der-Welt-sein (being-in-the-worldness, worldliness) expressed in The Book of Tea to describe Zhuangzi's Taoist philosophy, which Imamichi's teacher had offered to Heidegger" }, { "question": "climategate", "answer": "It's not that big of a deal. Eight different committees from reputable research institutions have examined all the emails and none found any fraud or scientific misconduct. The people who hacked the emails selectively picked phrases from them to make them sound bad. For example, the sentence \"The fact is that we can\u2019t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can\u2019t\" was picked out by critics, but in context the scientist who wrote it was clearly referring only to short-term warming at some specific location and not about warming as a whole. Climategate was the climate change equivalent of the ACORN videos from 2008. Conservative groups got access to information they normally wouldn't have access to and didn't find any huge conspiracies, yet still selectively released information to drum up media interest and paint a biased picture. Edit: I should say that I haven't read the emails and it's entirely possible the scientists quoted in them were doing some sneakier things to make the data look like it fit better with their hypotheses. I don't think that's what happened, but even assuming it is, their hypotheses were much more limited than just \"climate change is happening.\"", "support_docs": "
and that they \"will look into it in detail\". He later clarified that the IPCC would review the incident to identify lessons to be learned and rejected suggestions that the IPCC itself should carry out an investigation.\nIn a series of emails sent through a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) listserv, apparently forwarded outside the group by an unknown person, scientists discussing the \"Climategate\" fallout considered launching advertising campaigns, widening their public presence, pushing the NAS to take a more active role in explaining climate science and creating a nonprofit to serve as a voice for the scientific community.\nA paper by
in the United States is picking up on the (University of East Anglia) emails. It's too inside baseball.\"\nThe Christian Science Monitor, in an article titled \"Climate scientists exonerated in 'climategate' but public trust damaged\", stated: \"While public opinion had steadily moved away from belief in man-made global warming before the leaked CRU emails, that trend has only accelerated.\" Paul Krugman, columnist for The New York Times, argued that this, along with all other incidents that called into question the scientific consensus on climate change, was \"a fraud concocted by opponents of climate action, then bought into by many in the
F. Hayward wrote that \"Climategate did for the global warming controversy what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war 40 years ago: It changed the narrative decisively.\" An editorial in Nature said that many in the media \"were led by the nose, by those with a clear agenda, to a sizzling scandal that steadily defused as the true facts and context were made clear\". Further release, 2011 On 22 November 2011, a second set of approximately 5,000 emails, apparently hacked from University of East Anglia servers at the same time as those in the 2009 release, was posted on" }, { "question": "in the ancient world, were heavy \"skirmishers\" ever used as a viable counter to light infantry?", "answer": "Here's an answer in the style of Vicky Pollard... Archaic Greek heavy infantry could well be described as \"heavy skirmishers\". Warriors are often shown carrying two spears, which must either both be javelins or include one javelin and one thrusting spear. In addition, even heavily armoured warriors are sometimes shown wielding a bow. In the relatively fluid fighting style of this time, neither heavy nor light infantry was separately marshalled, and ranged and close combat would have gone on between loosely organised battle lines simultaneously. However, the heavy infantry type that the Greeks seem to settle on at the end of this period was a creature dedicated to close combat. He was armed only with a thrusting spear and sword; he carried a heavy double-grip shield and took his place in a large homogenous formation that was meant to charge directly at the enemy and decide the battle by hand-to-hand fighting. There are a couple of reasons why this shift occurred. Part of it must be the fact that a swift charge into melee prevented missile combat from having much of an effect before the proximity of the enemy forced both sides to focus on their immediate self-defence. This was key to the Greek victory over the Persians. Of course, in any combat situation other than pitched battle, the hoplite was vulnerable because of his specialisation, but he still had his uses as a brute force weapon that could really only be stopped by men who fought in a similar way. Another part, though, was that this fighting style acted as a great equaliser between the upper classes and the common man. Only those with the leisure to train could become good heavy skirmishers; these men had formed the core of Archaic armies, fighting as small bands of heavily armoured warriors who had the skill to use many different kinds of weapon. But towards the end of the Archaic period, more and more Greeks began to arm themselves as heavy infantry, and this broader section of the population could not afford to take the time out to master the art of skirmishing warfare. The resulting heavy infantry formation was therefore adjusted to the lowest common denominator. While it took time and effort to master the use of the javelin, the bow, or the sling, the Greeks believed any idiot could pick up a spear and shield and give a decent account of himself in close combat. This illusion was shattered in the face of more professional troops (like mercenaries), but such troops were rare on Greek battlefields, and the large untrained citizen levies of Greek city-states could probably not be more effective in battle than as a mass of angry men running at the enemy to stab him in the face. They therefore adopted a fighting style that relied more on raw courage than skill. This is confirmed by the fact that the mass of Greek citizens who could not afford heavy armour, and were therefore forced to fight as light infantry, rarely achieved very much in battle. These people were not trained in the use of their haphazard weaponry, and could only really shine in very particular circumstances. The very effective light-armed that we hear about in the sources were often relatively small bands of specialist mercenaries, hired for the unique skills that their regional fighting styles had taught them. These specialists left the close combat to the hoplites; they themselves practised a fighting style that focused on avoiding the hand-to-hand encounter altogether. As long as both hoplites and specialist light infantry were present, and the hoplites were mainly expected to engage in melee, there was not much incentive for either hoplites to develop ranged combat skills or for light infantry to increase their staying power. There were various ways for these troop types to work together. Rather than reequipping some hoplites as archers, they could, for instance, station archers and other missile troops within a hollow square of hoplites, which allowed the two troop types to combine their strengths. The Greeks also realised that the best defence against light infantry was simply to field cavalry forces. Hoplites were never supposed to fight alone; whenever they did, it was because someone had fucked up. Any lightly armed skirmishing force would think twice about attacking a hoplite formation if any horsemen were about, as they could ride down the light infantry with impunity. In short, the tactical system developed by the Greeks in the Classical period relied on the combination of different units with different roles. They were intended to work together in varying ways depending on the situation they were in. There was therefore no need to develop a sort of \"universal warrior\" who could face any conceivable threat, and if this warrior would reduce the effectiveness of hoplites in melee (since his weapons would make him unsuitable for it), he would actually harm rather than enhance the fighting methods of the Greeks. All that said, the armies of the Hellenistic kingdoms *did* develop heavy skirmishers of various kinds to form a link between their even more specialised heavy infantry (the pikemen) and the light troops and cavalry that guarded the flanks of the phalanx. This is *probably* the nature of the Macedonian *hypaspistai* (\"shield bearers\") as well as the new infantry type called *thureophoroi* (after the Celtic shield type known as the *thureos*) that spread through the Greek world in the 3rd century BC. And of course Roman legionaries, with their throwing spears, are effectively heavy skirmishers until they engage in close combat.", "support_docs": "
obsolescence of such heavy troops, all infantry has become indistinguishable from skirmishers, and the term has effectively lost its original military meaning as a distinct class of soldier, although skirmishing as a combat role is commonplace. Ancient and Post-classical history In ancient warfare, skirmishers typically carried bows, javelins, slings, and sometimes light shields. Acting as light infantry with their light arms and minimal armour, they could run ahead of the main battle line, release a volley of arrows, sling stones, or javelins, and retreat behind their main battle line before the clash of the opposing main forces. The aims of
the Punic Wars, despite the Roman and Carthaginian armies' different organisations, skirmishers had the same role in both: to screen the main armies. The Roman legions of this period had a specialised infantry class called Velites that acted as skirmish troops, engaging the enemy before the Roman heavy infantry made contact, while the Carthaginians recruited their skirmishers from native peoples across the Carthaginian Empire.\nThe Roman army of the late republican and early imperial periods frequently recruited foreign auxiliary troops to act as skirmishers to supplement the citizen Legions.\nThe medieval skirmishers were generally armed with crossbows or longbows wielded largely by
Battle of Plataea of 479 BC, mentions that the Spartans fielded 35,000 lightly armed helots to 5,000 hoplites yet there is no mention of them in his account of the fighting. Often Greek historians ignored them altogether, though Xenophon distinguished them explicitly from the statary troops. It was far cheaper to equip oneself as lightly armed as opposed to a fully armed hoplite \u2013 indeed it was not uncommon for the lightly armed to go into battle equipped with stones. Hence the low status of skirmishers reflected the low status of the poorer sections of society who made up skirmishers." }, { "question": "why are the united states' coins and canada's coins basically the same size, shape, and color? what happened that the two countries decided this would be a good idea?", "answer": "This is pure conjecture, but perhaps it is a relic of past times when the value of a coin was tied to the value of the metal used to make it. Gold is the most valuable, so you could have a $5, $10, $20, etc coin, with the value determined by how much gold is in it. Silver is less valuable, and in the US, quarters were silver until 1965. For the smaller denominations, nickel or copper are used, these being metals of even lesser value. I would imagine a couple hundred years ago when the US and Canada started making their coins, the amount and type of metal used to make a coin of a certain value would have been similar, so the size, shape and color of each coin is the same. Now that it's all fiat money anyway, all the coins are made with less valuable materials, but the basic design of each coin has remained the same.", "support_docs": "
equal to those of U.S. coins, though this was not always the case. They have a different metallic composition and most of them are thinner, and thus weigh slightly less, than the analogous U.S. coins. The U.S. penny settled on its current size in 1857, whereas the Canadian penny was much larger (25.4\u00a0mm (1.00\u00a0in)) until 1920. Because they are easily mistaken for each other and the difference in their official value is generally small, modest quantities of U.S. and Canadian coins circulate at par in the other country, particularly near their shared border. Their differing physical characteristics prevent them from
of British North America started issuing their own coins denominated in cents, featuring the likeness of Queen Victoria on the obverse. These replaced the sterling coins previously in circulation. The Province of Canada was the first to issue decimal coins. They were based on the value of the American dollar, due to an influx of American silver. Denominations issued were 1\u00a2, 5\u00a2, 10\u00a2, and 20\u00a2. The 1\u00a2 coin was issued again in 1859, but it was very unpopular due to its extremely light weight. The coins had to be discounted by around 20% to get them into circulation. Other
being accepted interchangeably by most coin-operated machines.\nThere was formerly some correspondence between the size of Canadian coins and British coins of similar value. For example, the large Canadian penny was identical in size and value to the contemporary British half-penny, which was 25.4\u00a0mm (1.00\u00a0in) in the Edward VII version, and slightly larger during Victoria's reign. Likewise, the Canadian quarter (23.81\u00a0mm diameter) was virtually identical in size and value to the British shilling \u2013 worth 12 British pence or about 24 Canadian cents, with a 24-millimetre (\u00b9\u2075\u2044\u2081\u2086\u00a0in) diameter. The Canadian 5\u00a2 coins, until the larger nickel coins of 1922, were 15\u00a0mm" }, { "question": "why do people tend to behave more poorly on facebook despite a complete lack of anonymity?", "answer": "Anonymity is a very powerful promoter of bad behavior, but it is not the only one. Two things that help promote good behavior is consequences and our natural empathy. On facebook there are somewhat limited consequences, especially when interacting with strangers. Tom Jones from Hawaii may be able to see that you are Cindy Feldman from Florida, but there may not be any meaningful way that he can retaliate against you being a jerk with that information. To the second point, when you interact face to face there are powerful factors that are at play in most people. Seeing actual other people in pain and suffering can cause mirrored emotions ourselves. This natural empathy is short circuited not by our own anonymity, but by the anonymity of our victim. They are a random avatar on the computer screen, not a breathing person whose mom is in the hospital, whose face is twisting in pain at an insult, who just stopped to help us jump our car, etc. Faceboom turns the wold into a giant game of Sims where others are just AI that we can interact with.", "support_docs": "
not realize that restricting access to their data does not sufficiently address the risks resulting from the amount, quality and persistence of data they provide. Facebook users in our study report familiarity and use of privacy settings, they are still accepting people as \"friends\" that they have only heard of through other or do not know at all and, therefore, most have very large groups of \"friends\" that have access to widely uploaded information such as full names, birthdates, hometowns, and many pictures. This study suggests that social network privacy does not merely exist within the realm of privacy
concerns. An article titled \"Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences\" examines the awareness that Facebook users have on privacy issues. This study shows that the gratifications of using Facebook tend to outweigh the perceived threats to privacy. The most common strategy for privacy protection\u2014decreasing profile visibility through restricting access to friends\u2014is also a very weak mechanism; a quick fix rather than a systematic approach to protecting privacy. This study suggests that more education about privacy on Facebook would be beneficial to the majority of the Facebook user population.\nThe study also offers the perspective that most users do
that \"60% of teenage Facebook users have private profiles.\u201d This proves that privacy is definitely something that people still wish to obtain.\nA person's life becomes much more public because of social networking. Social media sites have allowed people to connect with many more people than with just in person interactions. People can connect with users from all across the world that they may never have the chance to meet in person. This can have positive effects; however, this also raises many concerns about privacy. Information can be posted about a person that they do not want getting out. In the" }, { "question": "who decides what the next \"superfood\" is? how did we not already know something is good for us? is it just a marketing ploy to get rid of old stock?", "answer": "Very frequently it is completely marketing, with little to no research backing up the claims. \"Superfood\" is not a regulated term, so anyone can slap it on their product, and anyone can write a blog post claiming that anything is a superfood. That said, dietary research *is* an active science, and new discoveries are frequently made. Many are not obvious; yes, \"vitamin C is good for you\" is an easy one, but other chemicals have more complex pathways and are formed from different chemicals your food gives you. For instance, new research shows that chicken eggs are excellent at helping your body produce chemicals used to develop the brain; this was not obvious previously, even though we knew a lot about the chemical makeup of eggs. Be wary of the term \"superfood\" when you see it in the world, but know that it isn't always snake oil. Don't accept health-based claims without supporting research-based evidence.", "support_docs": "
Superfood Superfood is a marketing term for food assumed to confer health benefits resulting from an exceptional nutrient density. The term is not commonly used by experts, dietitians and nutrition scientists, many of whom dispute that particular foods have the health benefits claimed by their advocates. Even without scientific evidence of exceptional nutrient content, many new, exotic, and foreign fruits or \"ancient\" grains are marketed under the term \u2013 or the related term, superfruit or supergrain \u2013 after being introduced or re-introduced to Western markets.\nIn 2007, the marketing of products as \"superfoods\" was prohibited in the European Union unless accompanied
and self-help books about fad diets, promising an enhancement to health. \"Superfood\" products were sold at a higher price than similar foods not marketed with the label. The purported health benefits and effects of foods described as superfoods are unsupported or disputed by scientific studies.\nAs of 2007, the marketing of products as superfoods was prohibited in the European Union unless accompanied by a specific authorized health claim supported by credible scientific research. The ruling was a marketing guide issued to manufacturers to assure scientific proof or evidence why a food would be labeled as extra healthy or classified as a
by a specific authorized health claim supported by credible scientific research. Definition and use of the term The term has no official definition by regulatory authorities in major consumer markets, such as the United States Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture or the European Food Safety Authority. It appears to have been first used in a Canadian newspaper in 1949 when referring to the supposed nutritional qualities of a muffin. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the term \"superfood\" was used as a marketing tool for selling specific foods, dietary supplements, foods with selected food additives," }, { "question": "orbital molecular theory", "answer": "Before I write stuff for this, can you maybe give a bit of background on how much you know about atomic orbitals themselves?", "support_docs": "
compounds, so-called four-center two-electron bonds also have been postulated. Quantum mechanical description After the development of quantum mechanics, two basic theories were proposed to provide a quantum description of chemical bonding: valence bond (VB) theory and molecular orbital (MO) theory. A more recent quantum description is given in terms of atomic contributions to the electronic density of states. Comparison of VB and MO theories The two theories represent two ways to build up the electron configuration of the molecule. For valence bond theory, the atomic hybrid orbitals are filled with electrons first to produce a fully bonded valence configuration, followed
overestimates it.\nModern calculations in quantum chemistry usually start from (but ultimately go far beyond) a molecular orbital rather than a valence bond approach, not because of any intrinsic superiority in the former but rather because the MO approach is more readily adapted to numerical computations. Molecular orbitals are orthogonal, which significantly increases feasibility and speed of computer calculations compared to nonorthogonal valence bond orbitals. However, better valence bond programs are now available.
by performing a linear combination of contributing structures (resonance) if there are several of them. In contrast, for molecular orbital theory a linear combination of atomic orbitals is performed first, followed by filling of the resulting molecular orbitals with electrons.\nThe two approaches are regarded as complementary, and each provides its own insights into the problem of chemical bonding. As valence bond theory builds the molecular wavefunction out of localized bonds, it is more suited for the calculation of bond energies and the understanding of reaction mechanisms. As molecular orbital theory builds the molecular wavefunction out of delocalized orbitals, it is" }, { "question": "how did ernest rutherford know that the the positively charged particles in a nucleus were equal in magnitude of charge to electrons?", "answer": "Rutherford was influenced by Prout's hypothesis that all atoms were made up of groups of hydrogen atoms, with the hydrogen atom being the fundamental particle. The logic was that the atomic weights known at the time were almost exactly integer multiples of the mass of hydrogen. If there were smaller particles, there would be smaller elements or elements with masses that fell in between multiples of hydrogen. Obviously Rutherford discovered that an atom wasn't just one particle but a positive nucleus surrounded by negative electrons, and then when he observed the process of nitrogen atoms releasing hydrogen atoms when bombarded by alpha particles he took this as evidence that the hydrogen nucleus is indeed the fundamental building block for all other nuclei. This was before the neutron was discovered, it was believed that the nucleus was only made of positive charges. Of course, protons are actually made up of quarks with fractional charges but there was no way to know that at the time.", "support_docs": "
not be identified with a single particle, unlike the negative electrons discovered by J. J. Thomson. Wilhelm Wien in 1898 identified the hydrogen ion as particle with highest charge-to-mass ratio in ionized gases.\nFollowing the discovery of the atomic nucleus by Ernest Rutherford in 1911, Antonius van den Broek proposed that the place of each element in the periodic table (its atomic number) is equal to its nuclear charge. This was confirmed experimentally by Henry Moseley in 1913 using X-ray spectra.\nIn 1917 (in experiments reported in 1919 and 1925), Rutherford proved that the hydrogen nucleus is present in other nuclei, a
they would behave exactly like the cathode rays.\n\u2014\u2009J. J. Thomson\nThomson imagined the atom as being made up of these corpuscles orbiting in a sea of positive charge; this was his plum pudding model. This model was later proved incorrect when his student Ernest Rutherford showed that the positive charge is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom. Other work In 1905, Thomson discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium.\nIn 1906, Thomson demonstrated that hydrogen had only a single electron per atom. Previous theories allowed various numbers of electrons. Posthumous honours In 1991, the thomson (symbol: Th) was proposed as a unit
fundamental units was more than 1,000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particle now known as the electron. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays. Thomson made his suggestion on 30 April 1897 following his discovery that cathode rays (at the time known as Lenard rays) could travel much further through air than expected for an atom-sized particle. He estimated the mass of cathode rays by measuring the heat generated when the rays hit a thermal junction and comparing this with the magnetic deflection of the rays. His experiments suggested not only that" }, { "question": "what was otto von bismarck's motivation(s) for creating a welfare state in germany during the 1880s?", "answer": "Bismarck led the creation of a welfare state for a few main reasons: * Reduce social unrest, and prevent an uprising like the Paris Commune of 1871. Bismarck wanted to reduce worker support for the socialists, and also make sure that the working classes supported the German empire project (which realistically could have dissolved following massive unrest). * Encourage workers not to emigrate, as many were leaving for the eastern USA, which was industrializing as well * He combined protectionism with new welfare policies to foster German heavy industry, which many saw to be key to both economic and military success There had also been welfare policies in place (often dealing with some kind of healthcare or pensions) in some German states, like Saxony, prior to unification, and these had proved to be *not a bad thing.* The existing models formed the base of the welfare that was provided across the German empire.", "support_docs": "
success.... No other statesman of his standing had ever before shown the same great moderation and sound political sense of the possible and desirable.... Bismarck at least deserves full credit for having steered European politics through this dangerous transitional period without serious conflict between the great powers.\" Early legislation In domestic policy Bismarck pursued a conservative state-building strategy designed to make ordinary Germans\u2014not just his own Junker elite\u2014more loyal to throne and empire, implementing the modern welfare state in Germany in the 1880s. According to Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis, his strategy was:\ngranting social rights to enhance the integration
based on internal political and economic forces; they were not his response to external pressure. At first he promoted liberal goals of free trade commercial expansionism in order to maintain economic growth and social stability, as well as preserve the social and political power structure. However he changed, broke with the liberals, and adopted tariffs to win Catholic support and shore up his political base. Germany's imperialism in the 1880's derived less from strength and instead represented Bismarck's solution to unstable industrialization. Protectionism made for unity at a time when class conflict was rising. Wehler says the chancellor's ultimate
if he has been working all the time ever so faithfully and diligently. The usual help for the poor, however, leaves a lot to be desired, especially in large cities, where it is very much worse than in the country.\nBismarck's idea was to implement welfare programs that were acceptable to conservatives without any socialistic aspects. He was dubious about laws protecting workers at the workplace, such as safe working conditions, limitation of work hours, and the regulation of women's and child labor. He believed that such regulation would force workers and employers to reduce work and production and thus harm" }, { "question": "when the distance between the gun and the target is very small, why is it called 'point blank' range?", "answer": "\u201cPoint blank\u201d comes from the French \u201cpoint blanc\u201d or the \u201cwhite point\u201d, and represents a range where you don\u2019t have to adjust your aim for gravity or other factors like wind and can just aim directly at the white center of a target to hit bullseye.", "support_docs": "
point shooting. It is described in the following excerpt from US Army Field Manual FM 23-9:\nAimed. When presented with a target, the soldier brings the rifle up to his shoulder and quickly fires a single shot. His firing eye looks through or just over the rear sight aperture. He uses the front sight post to aim at the target. Using this technique, a target at 25 meters or less may be accurately engaged in one second or less.\nPointed. When presented with a target, the soldier keeps the rifle at his side and quickly fires a single shot or burst. He
as \"sight-reliant shooting\" or \"sight shooting\".\nThe issue of using sight-reliant shooting, which relies on the use of the sights for aiming in close quarters combat situations, versus point shooting, which does not rely on the sights for aiming in close quarters combat situations, has been debated since as early as 1835. Basis for the use of aimed point shooting Aimed point shooting employs humans' innate ability to point accurately at targets in such a way that the shooter can use that ability to hit targets with a firearm.\nThe following is from Chap. 2, Sect. II, US Army Field Manual 23-25,
Point shooting Point shooting\u2014also known as target- or threat-focused shooting, instinctive aiming, instinctive firing, and instinctive shooting\u2014is a method of shooting a firearm quickly and accurately that does not rely on the use of the sights in close quarter, life-threatening situations where there is the greatest chance of being killed. Close-quarters fighting makes it difficult to apply proper marksmanship techniques, which is why point shooting advocates a less sighting-based style of shooting.\nPoint shooting is also a technique used by trained archers and marksmen to improve general accuracy when using a bow, firearm, or other ranged weapon. By developing a feel" }, { "question": "the job of a chemical engineer", "answer": "Well, I'll tell you my experience. I graduated with a ChemE degree 3 years ago, and I am currently working with lithium ion battery technology. I spent 2 1/2 years in reasearch and development, which was much more chemistry focused than engineering, and have moved to a more process engineering position this year, which basically is looking over all of electrode manufacturing for the batteries. I feel like I was prepared for both jobs with a ChemE degree. If I had to summarize chemical engineering I would probably say: thermodynamics and design. Thermodynamics is the transfer of energy in all of it's forms, and design is basically familiarizing yourself with processing equipment and how to use it and trying to improve processes to increase yield/efficiency. I feel like the major is very flexible and can be used in many different areas. Oh, and it is difficult.", "support_docs": "
established.\nIn 1924 the Institution of Chemical Engineers adopted the following definition: \"A chemical engineer is a professional man experienced in the design, construction and operation of plant and works in which matter undergoes a change of state and composition.\"\nAs can be seen from the later definition, the occupation is not limited to the chemical industry, but more generally the process industries, or other situations in which complex physical and/or chemical processes are to be managed.\nThe UK journal The Chemical Engineer (began 1956) has a series of biographies available online entitled \u201cChemical Engineers who Changed the World\u201d, Overview Historically, the chemical
with special dielectric, optical or spectroscopic properties for opto-electronic devices. Additionally, chemical engineering is often intertwined with biology and biomedical engineering. Many chemical engineers work on biological projects such as understanding biopolymers (proteins) and mapping the human genome. Employment and salaries According to a 2015 salary survey by the AIChE, the median annual salary for a chemical engineer was approximately $127,000. In the UK, the IChemE 2016 Salary Survey reported a median salary of approximately \u00a357,000, with a starting salary for a graduate averaging \u00a328,350. Chemical engineering in the USA is one of the engineering disciplines with the
engineer has been primarily concerned with process engineering, which can generally be divided into two complementary areas: chemical reaction engineering and separation processes. The modern discipline of chemical engineering, however, encompasses much more than just process engineering. Chemical engineers are now engaged in the development and production of a diverse range of products, as well as in commodity and specialty chemicals. These products include high-performance materials needed for aerospace, automotive, biomedical, electronic, environmental and military applications. Examples include ultra-strong fibers, fabrics, adhesives and composites for vehicles, bio-compatible materials for implants and prosthetics, gels for medical applications, pharmaceuticals, and films" }, { "question": "can the amazonian rainforest be \u201cre-forested\u201d? g7 want to give money for reforestation plan", "answer": "It is possible, but it\u2018s not that easy like reforesting somewhere in Europe or Northern America. The problem with the soil in rainforests is, that it can\u2018t hold minerals and nutrients very well. They are easily washed away if there are no plants that can hold them. Even worse if the ground was used for massive agriculture. If the ground has alreay lost its properties it takes a long time, but the rainforest can spread again. If you act quick and instantly after it burned down starting to replant natural flora you have quite a good chance to save as much as possible, as the burning leaves a really rich coat on the ground. (This is also why Bolsonaro would love to plant something else there, the yield would be awesome, but after 2-3 years there is nothing left and its time to burn down the next square kilometers)", "support_docs": "
the World Bank. The National Environmental Fund (Fundo Nacional do Meio Ambiente\u2014FNMA), in addition to budgetary funds, received US$20 million from the Inter-American Development Bank to finance the environmental activities of NGOs and small municipal governments. The Pilot Program for the Conservation of the Brazilian Rain Forests (Programa Piloto para a Prote\u00e7\u00e3o das Florestas Tropicais do Brasil\u2014PPG-7) was supported by the world's seven richest countries (the so-called G-7) and the European Community, which allocated USD $258 million for projects in the Amazon and Atlantic Forest regions. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), created in 1990, set aside US$30 million for Brazil,
reais) per year would be required from international sources to compensate the forest developers and establish a highly organized framework to fully implement forest governance and monitoring, and the foundation of new protected forest areas in the Amazon for future sustainability.\nNon-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as WWF have been active in the region, and WWF Brazil formed an alliance with eight other Brazilian NGOs who aimed to completely halt deforestation in the Amazon by 2015. However, deforestation continues; in 2019, the rate reached a four-year high. Under Jair Bolsonaro's government, elected to power in January 2019, policies surrounding deforestation have relaxed.
is a tribute to her courage to push against the tide of destruction and is a significant initiative from Brazil on climate change mitigation\". Her land-use planning policies saved 250,000\u00a0km\u00b2 of conservation areas\u2014the equivalent of 75 percent of protected forests in the world. \nFrom August 2012 to July 2013, the rate of deforestation increased by 29% in the Amaz\u00f4nia Legal (Legal Amazon), and from 2013 to 2014, it rose by 358%. With Teixeira as Environment Minister, Brazil has also refused to sign the anti-deforestation pledge that aims to reduce deforestation by 2030, dealing a blow to the Climate Change summit" }, { "question": "what is a joke, how do you classify a \u201cjoke\u201d?", "answer": "(Written for a 7 year old) A joke is a little bit of talk or writing that makes people laugh in a specific way. They aren\u2019t laughing at the person who tells/wrote it, because she sounds weird or is making a silly face. With a joke, it\u2019s the words themselves that make people laugh. Why do they laugh? This is a tricky question. Sometimes what is funny to one person is not funny to another. But most of the time, people laugh because the joke makes them imagine something in a surprising new way. Maybe a word is used to mean something that it usually does not. Or the joke might be a little story that you think will turn out one way\u2014 but it turns out some other way, and you have to quickly figure out why it happened like that. It\u2019s like a little puzzle, and the listener gets a feeling of happiness when they figure it out. People usually only find a joke funny if they\u2019ve never heard it before! So new ones are always being made. But since it isn\u2019t easy to make up funny jokes, lots of people memorize ones they read or hear.", "support_docs": "
Joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is not meant to be taken seriously. It takes the form of a story, usually with dialogue, and ends in a punch line. It is in the punch line that the audience becomes aware that the story contains a second, conflicting meaning. This can be done using a pun or other word play such as irony or sarcasm, a logical incompatibility, nonsense, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:\nA joke is a
end. In the case of riddle jokes or one-liners the setting is implicitly understood, leaving only the dialogue and punchline to be verbalised. However, subverting these and other common guidelines can also be a source of humor\u2014the shaggy dog story is in a class of its own as an anti-joke; although presenting as a joke, it contains a long drawn-out narrative of time, place and character, rambles through many pointless inclusions and finally fails to deliver a punchline. Jokes are a form of humour, but not all humour is a joke. Some humorous forms which are not verbal jokes
jokes. A verbal joke or cartoon is emailed to a friend or posted on a bulletin board; reactions include a replied email with a :-) or LOL, or a forward on to further recipients. Interaction is limited to the computer screen and for the most part solitary. While preserving the text of a joke, both context and variants are lost in internet joking; for the most part emailed jokes are passed along verbatim. The framing of the joke frequently occurs in the subject line: \"RE: laugh for the day\" or something similar. The forward of an email joke can increase" }, { "question": "why did portugal not declare war on japan when japan invaded portuguese east timor in the 2nd world war", "answer": "Because Portugal did not have the capacity nor the inclination to fight Japan. The Portuguese East Timor garrison consisted of an understrength colonial battalion of one colonial company, a very small militia force and a mounted border police unit, a grand total of 282 men with 4 light and 6 heavy machine guns and no artillery at all. East Timor had already been invaded, under local Portuguese protest, by Australian forces who recognised that the island could not be held by only defending the western (Dutch) part on the 17th of December 1941. When Japan invaded on the 19th of February 1942, there was a convoy heading for East Timor carrying two companies of Mozambique colonial troops and artillery, but this force was not allowed passage by the Japanese, and the Portuguese troops which had intended to replace the Austrialian and Dutch East Indees troops - a force of about 800 men with a battery of artillery had to turn around and head back for Portuguese Mozambique.", "support_docs": "
Indonesian invasion of East Timor Background East Timor owes its territorial distinctiveness from the rest of Timor, and the Indonesian archipelago as a whole, to being colonised by the Portuguese, rather than the Dutch; an agreement dividing the island between the two powers was signed in 1915. Colonial rule was replaced by the Japanese during World War II, whose occupation spawned a resistance movement that resulted in the deaths of 60,000 people, 13 percent of the population at the time. Following the war, the Dutch East Indies secured its independence as the Republic of Indonesia and the Portuguese, meanwhile, re-established
East Timorese. The Japanese eventually drove the last of the Australian and Allied forces out. However, following the end of World War II and Japanese surrender, Portuguese control was reinstated.\nFollowing the 1974 Portuguese revolution, Portugal effectively abandoned its colony on Timor and civil war between East Timorese political parties broke out in 1975.\nThe Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) resisted a Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) coup attempt in August 1975, and unilaterally declared independence on 28 November 1975. Fearing a communist state within the Indonesian archipelago, the Indonesian military launched an invasion of East Timor in December 1975.
exports becoming significant in the mid-nineteenth century. As was often the case, Portuguese rule was generally neglectful but exploitative where it existed.\nAt the beginning of the twentieth century, a faltering home economy prompted the Portuguese to extract greater wealth from its colonies, which was met with East Timorese resistance.\nDuring World War II, first the Allies and later the Japanese occupied Dili, and the mountainous interior became the scene of a guerrilla campaign, known as the Battle of Timor. Waged by East Timorese volunteers and Allied forces against the Japanese, the struggle resulted in the deaths of between 40,000 and 70,000" }, { "question": "leviticus in the bible", "answer": "Well from what I can recall from my old high school religion teacher, Leviticus is basically 'the rule book' of the Old Testaments. It sets out the guidelines and the practices that all good Jews/Christians should follow in the belief that adherence to these principles will allow harmony to exist with God. They're harsh because you have to remember these were written thousands of years ago where tribal-based societies were predominate. Keeping control over your population was important, especially given the difficulties in day-to-day life. Make it harsh to act as a deterrent against disobedience. As for whether it applies today...well, like everything else in holy scriptures, it's mostly up to the individual. The Vatican has nulled some things like the dietary laws (hence why Christians don't eat Kosher) and you're not going to find anybody giving you grief over wearing a garment made up of two types of fabric. But you'll find plenty of people who still use it as a 'proof' that homosexuality is against God's will.", "support_docs": "
are instructions for peace offerings (5-8), food aid for poor people and foreigners (9-10), and various instructions relating to ethical treatment of others (11-18) and agricultural practices (19). The chapter penalises adulterous relations between a free man and a married female slave (20-22), and restricts the use of fruit from young trees (23-25). The chapter closes with a variety of other regulations on several subjects (26-36) and a general instruction to obey all of God's commands (37). \nThe laws of Leviticus 19 are put in no obvious order, and as a result scholars tend to think that the chapter includes
Leviticus 19 Text The original text of Leviticus 19, like the rest of Leviticus, was written in Hebrew. Some of the more ancient Hebrew sources for this chapter, are the Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Samaritan Pentateuch. There is also a Greek translation known as the Septuagint, from the 3rd century BC. Since the introduction of chapter divisions in the late medieval period, this chapter is divided into 37 verses. Synopsis The chapter begins with God giving Moses a message for the Israelites about the need to be holy, to respect parents, and to avoid idolatry (verses 1-4). Next
the house, or bought with money of any foreigner, that is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken My covenant.\nAlso, Leviticus 12:3 provides: \"And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.\"\nAccording to the Hebrew Bible, it was \"a reproach\"" }, { "question": "question about the advance of allied troops in western germany during ww2", "answer": "Hi there, I was interested by your question so I did a little superficial research for you. First, yes the Allied forces did advance into the area where your ancestor's mill was located in April 1945. Check out this map and you can see in the Northeast, near Uelzen, was the limit of the Allied advance by April 19 1945. This other map also demonstrates how far the Allies got in April 1945, and then how far they went into May 1945. I did some quick web searches to answer your question. I found two interesting sites referring to fighting in the area you indicated on your map. One is this site, which has the Report on the Commitment of the Panzer-Division Clausewitz. I don't know if it's accurate, but using the information about that one Panzer Division, I made up a map demonstrating some of the battles that they recount taking place 14 April-18 April 1945. The red dot is roughly where your mill was located. So fighting was taking place in and around the area. Another document I found discusses European theatre of operations for the US Airforce in February 1945. If you do a ctrl-F for \"bodenteich\" you can find that on 14 February 1945 > 3. 375 B-24s are sent to hit an oil refinery at Magdeburg but are unable to attack due to weather; 340 hit the secondary, the marshalling yard at Magdeburg; targets of opportunity are Emlicheim (1), Meppen (1), **Bodenteich** (1) and other (1); 1 B-24 is lost, 2 damaged beyond repair and 16 damaged; 9 airmen are MIA. 253 of 273 P-51s escort; they claim 10-0-3 aircraft; 2 P-51s are lost (pilots MIA). Bodenteich, if you look at that map I made, is called Bad Bodenteich on it (between Uelzen and Wittingen). I think the names are interchangeable... So there was bombing in the area of the mill in 1945. Though not at the same time as troop action, large scale bombing offensives had been suspended as of 16 April, 1945. Still, it's possible your mill was bombed by inaccurate bombing (it was never really 'accurate' in any sense). This may be the source of your story, especially if there was bad weather north of Magdeburg as well that impeded even the illusion of accurate bombing. I also found this site telling the story of British Dragoons that also talks a bit about taking Bodenteich from the south (presumably around late April 1945). I unfortunately don't know why Bodenteich may have been a target. Nor do I know if fighting actually took place in the exact area you mark on the map. Also this is all from quick research, so I can't really say it's absolutely true, but I hope it's a good start.", "support_docs": "
Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine Background German forces had been routed during the Allied break-out from Normandy. The Allies advanced rapidly against an enemy that put up little resistance. But after the liberation of Paris in late August 1944, the Allies paused to re-group and organise before continuing their advance from Paris to the River Rhine. The pause allowed the Germans to solidify their lines\u2014something they had been unable to do west of Paris.\nBy the middle of September 1944, the three Western Allied army groups; the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery) in the north,
should be launched against the German forces whilst they were still organizing their defences, and Comet was based on this principle; Allied forces under Montgomery's overal command would be able to move through the Netherlands over the river crossings captured by the airborne forces, outflank the Siegfried Line and enter the North German Plain, ultimately heading for Berlin. Battle of the Bulge With the ultimate failure of Operation Market-Garden, the Allied advance came to a halt to be replaced by several months of almost static combat against defending German forces, with no Allied airborne operations being planned or executed. This
Allied airborne operation to cross the River Rhine in support of the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group that would take place during March.\nBy March 1945, the Allies had advanced into Germany and had reached the River Rhine. The Rhine was a formidable natural obstacle to the Allied advance, but if breached would allow the Allies to access the North German Plain and ultimately advance on Berlin and other major cities in Northern Germany. Following the 'Broad Front Approach' laid out by General Eisenhower, it was decided to attempt to breach the Rhine in several areas. British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery," }, { "question": "the cultural history and overlap of greek and middle eastern foods.", "answer": "Until almost 200 years ago, Greece was part of the Ottoman empire. Before that, Greece was part of the byzantine empire, which was the last remnant of the Roman Empire. Before the Romans, Greece was part of the hellenic world, which was the territory of the successors of Alexander the great. Before that, western Turkey was settled by Greeks. So the connection between Greece and what's now the middle east goes back to the beginning of Greek history, and it's only been separated since its independence.", "support_docs": "
oil: modern recipes from Kavala to Kastoria and Kozani offer lamb with quince, pork with celery or leeks.\nThe arrival of Greek refugees from Asia Minor and Constantinople in the early 20th century brought also Anatolian and Constantinopolitan elements in the cuisine of the region. \nSome current specialties are trahanas with crackling, phyllo-based pies (cheese, leek, spinach) and meat plates (such as pork, wild boar and bubalus). \nFavourites are tyrokafteri (Macedonian spicy cheese spread) and soupies krasates (cuttlefishes in wine). Unlike Athens, the traditional pita bread for the popular souvlaki usually is not grilled but fried. (Information included from 'Greek Gastronomy',
Greek Macedonian cuisine Ancient and Byzantine periods The letters of Lynceus of Samos include reference to a Macedonian dish organized by Lamia of Athens for her lover Demetrius I Poliorcetes. Constants on menus across the centuries have been seafood and meats. At the wedding feast by Caranus referred to in Hippolochus's letter, around the 4th or 3rd century BC, grilled fish, eggs, oysters, orioles and a host of roasted delicacies were served. Ottoman and Modern periods A continuation from ancient days are dishes such as lamb cooked with quince or various vegetables and fruits, goat boiled or fried in olive
on spread to the rest of the population.\nMuch of the cuisine of former Ottoman territories today is descended from a shared Ottoman cuisine, especially Turkish, and including Greek, Balkan, Armenian, and Middle Eastern cuisines. Many common dishes in the region, descendants of the once-common Ottoman cuisine, include yogurt, d\u00f6ner kebab/gyro/shawarma, cac\u0131k/tzatziki, ayran, pita bread, feta cheese, baklava, lahmacun, moussaka, yuvarlak, k\u00f6fte/keft\u00e9s/kofta, b\u00f6rek/boureki, rak\u0131/rakia/tsipouro/tsikoudia, meze, dolma, sarma, rice pilaf, Turkish coffee, sujuk, kashk, ke\u015fkek, manti, lavash, kanafeh, and more. Science and technology Over the course of Ottoman history, the Ottomans managed to build a large collection of libraries complete with translations" }, { "question": "why is the u.s. sanctioning venezuela?", "answer": "Over the past 20 years Venezuela socialized their industry and began running the government very poorly. One instance is that they started setting rules on how much stores could charge for food so that everyone could afford it. The stores couldn't afford to sell anymore so they restricted how much the farmers could charge. Then the farmers could no longer make a living so Venezuela stopped producing much of their food. Fortunately for them, they had a lot of oil and it sold for a lot of money and the government could subsidize imports. Unfortunately, there is something called a resource curse in which governments get rich and corrupt at the expense of their people. When the price of oil dropped the country fell into turmoil but the government would not deal with the rampant corruption. Hugo Chavez, the president who made all these changes, died in 2013 and put vice president Maduro in charge. In the midst of these struggles he outlawed opponents and won the next election. Many of the people of Venezuela, many countries around the world, and most of the Western Hemisphere including the US believe the elections were fraudulent and are calling for Maduro to step down. Maduro has not taken this well and the country is getting worse. Aid trucks were sent in to help, but the convoy was blocked. During the ensuing riot the supplies were destroyed. It looks like one of the people protesting the government accidentally started it with a poorly thrown Molotov cocktail (the burning rag fell out of the bottle while being thrown), but that the situation could even exist shows there is a problem between the government and the people. The problem is that the industries are nationalized so whatever money goes in through exports like oil goes to him. His supporters will be supplied while the average people suffer. Edit: Additionally, Venezuela also appears to be working with Russia in making threats against the US. So, another part of Cold War II", "support_docs": "
huge real exchange rate and other relative price misalignments, to maintain expensive fuel subsidies while monetizing a double-digit budget deficit, and to persecute the private sector for responding to relative price signals all contributed to making Venezuelans\u2019 lives miserable under Maduro.\u201d\nHe has also said that \u201cabundant evidence of serious human rights abuses during [2014] protests\u2026merit an international investigation to determine the potential complicity of high-ranking members of government.\u201d\nAt the same time, Rodr\u00edguez is critical of economic sanctions on Venezuela, which he argues have not forced Maduro out but have contributed to deepening Venezuela's economic crisis. \u00a0In a 2018 article, he
Argenis Ch\u00e1vez Sanctions In November 2017, Canada sanctioned Ch\u00e1vez and other Venezuelan officials under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, stating: \"These individuals are responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, have committed acts of significant corruption, or both.\"
showed that the rate of decline of Venezuelan oil production accelerated rapidly after the imposition of financial sanctions by the United States. While cautioning that this observation could not be taken as \u201cdecisive proof that sanctions caused the output collapse\u201d because of inherent difficulties in establishing causality using non-experimental data, he argued that the findings were \u201csuggestive enough to indicate the need for extreme caution in the design of international policy initiatives that may further worsen the lot of Venezuelans.\u201d\nIn this regard, Rodr\u00edguez has proposed the creation of an oil-for-food program under UN auspices and under the supervision of the" }, { "question": "how did east timor come to exist?", "answer": "You assume right. The (whole) island of Timor was first conquered and administered by Portuguese colonialists, from the 16th century onwards. They set up both commercial outposts and catholic missions. From the 17th century onwards, the Dutch came over and conquered nearly all of Indonesia, including Western Timor. However, they faced resistance from the Portuguese, and Topasses - native Timorians of Portuguese descent -, and Eastern Timor remained under Portuguese administration. Fast forward real quick to 1975. Portugal has just gotten rid of its dictatorship following a revolution, and its government decided to disengage from its remaining colonies in Asia. Independentists in Timor unilaterally declared independence, virtually unopposed **by the Portuguese Government** However, Indonesia attacked, occupied and annexed East Timor right off the bat, in 1976. Note that East Timor's government was left-leaning, and with the Cold War and all, the US & co. favored Indonesia in this war. :) Indonesian occupation was nightmarish from a Human Rights point of view, you got that right. UN mediation finally led to a solution to the crisis, and eventually East Timor became independent in 2002. Here is a recap I found on Google Books. TLDR : Shitty colonialism + shitty neighbour. **Disclaimer** - I'm no historian, nor remotely Timorese (?) - I just have too much time on my hands. Feel free to correct me.", "support_docs": "
Indonesian invasion of East Timor Background East Timor owes its territorial distinctiveness from the rest of Timor, and the Indonesian archipelago as a whole, to being colonised by the Portuguese, rather than the Dutch; an agreement dividing the island between the two powers was signed in 1915. Colonial rule was replaced by the Japanese during World War II, whose occupation spawned a resistance movement that resulted in the deaths of 60,000 people, 13 percent of the population at the time. Following the war, the Dutch East Indies secured its independence as the Republic of Indonesia and the Portuguese, meanwhile, re-established
East Timorese. The Japanese eventually drove the last of the Australian and Allied forces out. However, following the end of World War II and Japanese surrender, Portuguese control was reinstated.\nFollowing the 1974 Portuguese revolution, Portugal effectively abandoned its colony on Timor and civil war between East Timorese political parties broke out in 1975.\nThe Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) resisted a Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) coup attempt in August 1975, and unilaterally declared independence on 28 November 1975. Fearing a communist state within the Indonesian archipelago, the Indonesian military launched an invasion of East Timor in December 1975.
Indonesia declared East Timor its 27th province on 17 July 1976. The UN Security Council opposed the invasion and the territory's nominal status in the UN remained as \"non-self-governing territory under Portuguese administration\". Indonesian occupation (1975\u20131999) Indonesia's occupation of East Timor was marked by violence and brutality. A detailed statistical report prepared for the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor cited a minimum bound of 102,800 conflict-related deaths in the period 1974\u20131999, namely, approximately 18,600 killings and 84,200 \"excess\" deaths from hunger and illness, with an estimated figure based on Portuguese, Indonesian and Catholic Church data" }, { "question": "what does the black lives matter movement actually want? what is it they want to accomplish?", "answer": "There stated goal is to stop the killing of unarmed black men in cities and the suburbs. Black lives matter thinks that there have been years of systematic oppression of black people by the police causing them to be unfairly arrested, profiled, and killed. They want to make sure that people stop dying and that police officers who kill people without cause go to jail.", "support_docs": "
convening local and national groups to create a United Front\". This year long process ultimately resulted in the establishment of an organizational platform that articulates the goals, demands, and policies which the Movement for Black Lives supports in order to achieve the \"liberation\" of black communities across America. Platform The organization's platform, entitled \"A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom and Justice,\" has six \"demands\": 1) End the war on black people 2) Reparations 3) Invest-Divest 4) Economic justice 5) Community control, and 6) Political power. Each demand outlines the demands, the problem, the solution, and
for Black Lives' call for criminal justice reform and the end of police brutality resonated with many advocacy groups. In one statement, the National Council of Jewish Women stated, \"NCJW affirms that Black lives matter, including Jews of color, who are a vital part of both the Jewish and our NCJW community. We recognize that the Black and Jewish communities are inextricably linked and our struggles for social justice are connected.\"\nThe Movement for Black Lives received further support from \"Democracy for America\" following the release of its policy platform. One of the primary goals of the Movement for Black Lives
label used to describe a wide range of protests and conversations focused on racial inequality.\" Guiding principles According to the Black Lives Matter website, there are thirteen guiding principles that should apply to those who choose to become involved under the Black Lives Matter banner, among them Diversity, Globalism, Empathy, Restorative justice and Intergenerationality. Broader movement Concurrently, a broader movement involving several other organizations and activists emerged under the banner of \"Black Lives Matter\" as well. For example, BLM is a member organization of the Movement for Black Lives established to respond to sustained and increasingly visible violence against black" }, { "question": "why did pennsylvania public schools lose funding and how would this impact the schools?", "answer": "A few minutes of googling show me that the governor and legislature cannot agree on a budget. The governor vetoed the budget passed by the legislature. Schools get money from the state and if the state does not allocate money then they have none to spend. That is all that is comes down to. In this case you have a Democratic governor fighting with a Republican legislature. edit: Impact: schools shut down except in wealthy areas where local taxes can cover costs until everything is resolved. Those with the means will probably move children to a private school.", "support_docs": "
goal of the state providing 50% of district funding.\nIn December 2014, the Pennsylvania Education Funding Reform Commission conducted a hearing. Testimony was given regarding state funding at the fastest growing districts and those with the greatest decline in enrollment since 1996. The commission developed a new basic education funding formula which sets a new way to distribute state basic education dollars. It abolished the practice of \"hold harmless\" funding, which gave districts at least the same as they got the previous school year regardless of declining enrollment. The plan became law in June 2016 (House Bill 1552).\nFor the 2017-18 school
its worst-performing schools. The funds were disbursed via a competitive grant program. The Pennsylvania Department of Education has identified 200 Pennsylvania schools as \"persistently lowest-achieving,\" making them eligible for this special funding. Pennsylvania required low performing schools to apply or provide documentation about why they had not applied. The funds must be used, by the district, to turn around schools in one of four ways: school closure, restart \u2013 close the school and reopen it as a charter school. The other two options involve removing the principal. One would require at least half the faculty in a chronically poor performing
$544.4 million payment for School Employees\u2019 Social Security and $856 million for School Employees\u2019 Retirement fund called PSERS. This amount is a $21,823,000 increase (0.34%) over the 2011-12 appropriations for Basic Education Funding, School Employees' Social Security, Pupil Transportation, Nonpublic and Charter School Pupil Transportation. Since taking office, Corbett's first two budgets have restored more than $918 million in support of public schools, compensating for the $1 billion in federal stimulus dollars lost at the end of the 2010-11 school year.\nIn 2011-12, Dover Area School District received $10,032,836 in state Basic Education Funding. Additionally, the district received $191,065 in Accountability" }, { "question": "universal suffrage in hong kong", "answer": "* Hong Kong used to be a British colony * Part of the agreement handing it back to China was universal suffrage - one-person, one-vote for city leader * China has said you can have this ... but we will pick the candidates. So it's not really democracy at all * The people trying to get signatures are actually pro-Beijing stooges, attempting to get people to pledge their support for the Beijing 'universal suffrage', to prove the 'city is behind the plan'", "support_docs": "
for universal suffrage Since the handover of Hong Kong, constitutional reform remained the dominant political agenda and goal of the liberals. The Hong Kong Basic Law Article 45 promised that \"the ultimate aim is the election of the Chief Executive (CE) by universal suffrage\" while Article 68 stipulated that \"the ultimate aim is the election of all members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) by universal suffrage\". Pro-democratic politicians and activists demanded an early implementation of universal suffrage for the CE and LegCo elections from the beginning. The pro-democrats launched a protest on 1 July, the establishment day of the Special
held in Hong Kong larger than this one were the gatherings contemporarily supporting and commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen square protests, and the 2019 Hong Kong protests against the Hong Kong extradition bill.\nOn 26 April, 2004, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) issued a verdict stating that the elections of the 2007 CE and 2008 LegCo will not be decided by universal suffrage, thereby defeating the democrats' appeal for universal suffrage by 2007-2008.\nThe popularity of the liberal forces rebounded after the massive demonstration held on July 1st, 2003. In the 2004 Legislative Council election, the Article 23 Concern Group, having
government subsequently accepted the Democratic Party's modified proposals to allow ten new seats to be directly elected by Hong Kongers. The Democrats' move was seen as an \"act of betrayal\" by the radical pro-democrats. In the 2011 District Council election, the radical People Power movement split from the League of Social Democrats and ran against the established Democratic candidates in order to \"punish\" the Democratic Party for their overtures towards Beijing. The intensifying split between the moderates and radicals saw the re-emergence of localism in Hong Kong during the early 2010s. Umbrella Revolution and aftermath In 2013, legal scholar Benny" }, { "question": "america's cup sailing", "answer": "There was great article in WIRED a few months ago about it. I'm just learning about it myself and I found it very interesting: Found a 2nd article while looking for the original one online. Enjoy! Sorry I don't know much more that can help you. :)", "support_docs": "
American Challenge: A Sailing Simulation Gameplay The game, portrayed through wireframe 3D graphics, sees the player race against the computer or another player via modem on eight courses. The player controls the sail, rudder and centerboard, while the screen equipment monitor the wind speed and direction. The boat responds realistically to the player's movements. The game is fashioned after the America's Cup. Players were able to verse players at other computer via a direct serial connection, and could verse themselves to beat their own time. Players can take the American Challenge by trying to beat the Australian team. Development The
runner up. The winner of the series earned two points and the runner-up received a single point in the new America's Cup Qualifiers. The boats are similar to the AC50 that will be used in the 2017 America's Cup. Cancelled 2018 and 2020 World Series Prior to the 2017 America's Cup, several of the competing syndicates signed an agreement to hold World Series prior to the next two America's Cups, then scheduled for 2019 and 2021. These two World Series would be used as selection series to determine which teams would compete at the 2019 and 2021 Louis Vuitton Cups
game was shipped with a cassette that featured a sailing tutorial on one side and a song named 'Win Back the Cup\" on the other.\nThere was a challenge whereby if a player was able to beat Australia in the program's Cup Race, they become eligible for a contest to win a trip to Australia to watch the 1987 America's Cup races.\nThe game came packaged with a music record featuring a sailing tutorial on one side and an original song entitled ''Win Back the Cup'' on the other; The New York Times recommended players learn the ropes using the audio" }, { "question": "who is silvio berlusconi, and why is his expulsion from the italian senate a big deal?", "answer": "He is the former Prime Minister of Italy, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, and certainly in Italy.", "support_docs": "
2026. The resignation also came at a difficult time for Berlusconi, as he was involved in numerous trials for corruption, fraud and sex offences. He was often found guilty in lower courts but is alleged to have used loopholes in Italy's legal system to evade incarceration.\nBerlusconi had also failed to meet some of his pre-election promises and had failed to prevent economic decline and introduce serious reforms. Many believed that the problems and doubts over Berlusconi's leadership and his coalition were one of the factors that contributed to market anxieties over an imminent Italian financial disaster, which could have a
2016, with the coast to coast Constitution, he went on a motorcycle tour to promote the \"No\" to the referendum on the Renzi-Boschi constitutional reform. On 20 November 2017 he announced that he will not stand for re-election to the next parliamentary elections of 2018, but will remain in the 5 Star Movement. Battista accused Silvio Berlusconi of having ties with the Italian Mafia, leading to a corrupt system while he was in power, stating he has only made it more powerful.
potentially catastrophic effect on the 17-nation eurozone and the world economy. Many critics of Berlusconi accused him of using his power primarily to protect his own business ventures. Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League, a partner in Berlusconi's right-wing coalition, was quoted as informing reporters outside parliament, \"We asked the prime minister to step aside.\" Announcement CNN reported on 7 November that Berlusconi had previously denied the rumors that he was going to resign and had stated on his Facebook page that \"The rumors of my resignation are groundless.\" On 12 November 2011, after a final meeting with his" }, { "question": "new jersey granted women and racial minorities the right to vote in it's 1776 constitution. the state took away this rights in 1807. how and why did this occur?", "answer": "\"Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could,\" wrote Abigail Adams in 1776. Thirty-five years later, she might well have added \"and they're not shy about trying.\" Scholars today generally agree that the (recognized then as) unconstitutional theft of voting rights in 1807 was essentially a strategy in white male-led political parties' jockeying for power over the state. However, the specific assumptions and ideologies that made the strategy attractive and effective depended on racism, sexism, nationalism, classism, and good old-fashioned fear. Jan Lewis suggests that the voting rights of New Jersey's black women, white women, black men, and foreign-born residents were initially recognized simply out of revolutionary Americans' commitment to the underly egalitarianism of republican ideals. Irwin Gertzog is more pragmatic, arguing that the added specificity of \"he or she\", first restricted to half the state (1790) and eventually extended to the whole (1797), was already a calculated power ploy. Either way, by 1798 it's clear that the major political parties in the state, the Federalists and the Republicans, recognized especially the voting power of women. Despite the implicit and explicit restrictions on which women could vote--enslaved black women could not; free black and white women who were married could not (because under the law of coverture, they could not own property independently)--contemporary observers were daunted by the scale of potential women voters. A 1791 newspaper article was titled \"The Humble Address of Ten Thousand Federal Maids\"; in 1799, William Griffith similarly estimated, \"of widows and spinsters above twenty one, there can not, I imagine be fewer than 10,000.\" In a state where elections could be decided by hundreds or even tens of votes, 10,000 was a daunting number. Furthermore, an idea was developing that we might consider a precursor to identity politics: the belief that groups like \"women\" and \"black men\" were homogenous blocs of voting interest. (But of course white men can have their own opinions.) On one hand, this meant that each party worked *furiously* to court The Woman Voter in hotly contested elections like the Essex County legislator race of 1797 (in which this all-powerful voting bloc amounted *seventy-five* women; I have not seen statistics on their race). On the other, it meant that both parties deeply feared the potential for women, black men, and immigrants to vote for the bad guys. And naturally, *both* parties developed a conviction that women, especially, would turn out for the other. Naturally, too, these parallel developments were both motivated by classism. Federalists worried that it was easier to get women to vote in (Republican-stronghold) towns than in (Federalist-stronghold) cities; Republicans worried that the women more likely to vote were the wealthier, conservative Federalists. They also seem to have simply assumed that black men and women were Federalists, period. Or at least, the party leadership--that is, the men actively seeking to acquire and maintain power--did. A ballot initiative to strip the vote from everyone with at least 50 pounds of property and implement a white male taxpayer-based system failed *miserably* with the general population. There was a definite rift developing between the regular electorate and the power-holders, who had nervously watched the French Revolution tear down waves of political leaders and feared a similar outcome if more widespread participation in American politics. The years between the 1800 election that so focused on winning women voters and 1806-07, when efforts to restrict suffrage kicked back up, witnessed several important developments. First, The Black Voter played the role of the desperately wooed in the 1804 election that The Woman Voter had in 1800, coupled with New Jersey's passage of a gradual emancipation law. Second, newspapers were filled with two-sided worry. Women voters were more likely to commit election fraud (generally accusations that enslaved women or free married women were sneaking in a vote); women were neglecting their proper duties to get involved in politics and society was falling apart; the initial constitutional recognition of women's voting wrights was wrong. BUT it was just that: a constitutional right, so they couldn't be deprived of it without a new constitution, and that wasn't happening. Judith Klinghoffer and Lois Elkis have argued that sexist ideology (they are not really concerned with race, unfortunately) had little to no role to play in these developments; the evidence does not seem to back that up. As with the editorials arguing that the 1776 constitution and 1790/97 amendments were wrong in extending voting rights to women, gender is not silent. But it's not the *driving* or causal factor. Rather, we can see how sexist and racist ideology played into the lust for political power and control, or rather, became the field on which it played out. The assumption that all women and all black people voted the same; the belief that losses were due to election fraud and of course it was women and black people committing the fraud. (For the record: Gertzhog says it was actually mostly men, and there is evidence for this. A lot of the fraud involved keeping polls open days or weeks too long, or waiting until the ballots for an area dominated by the other party were counted and announced so they'd know how many to...scrounge up in order to win. In other words: tactics conceived and operated by party leadership, i.e. white men). But while the initial recognition of voting rights and the first efforts at suppressing them had come from inter-party conflict, it was actually *intra*-party problems that ultimately killed suffrage for property-owning unmarried free black and white women and black men. Once again, the immediate cause was electoral politics and the relentless pursuit of power by white men; the means were racism and sexism. In 1804, the Republican party split both geographically and ideologically into a \"moderate\" and \"liberal\" wing (with the Federalists occupying the other \"conservative\" pole). Among other things, the liberals actually wanted *universal* suffrage, not even connected to property ownership! But naturally, this rivalry played out as \"The Room Where It Happens.\" New Jersey needed a new courthouse, and the dominating Republicans were at war with themselves whether to put it in the liberal north or the moderate south. And a presidential election loomed. The moderates offered a compromise: we'll let you put the courthouse in (Republican) Newark if you agree to restrict voting to white male citizen taxpayers. And this will restore party unity and *we won't support the Federalist candidate.* So in this case, we know exactly what the moderates said to the liberals to get them to sell black and white women's and black men's suffrage down the river: political power. The liberal Republicans' acceptance of this bargain, thus, betrays their own racism and sexism. The desire to stay in power brought into conflict egalitarian republican ideals of equality and contemporary white patriarchy; white patriarchy won *in order for* their political power goals to succeed. Race and sex were not the cause, but were the tools. Further Reading: * Irwin Gertzog, \"Female Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790-1807,\" *Women & Politics* 10 (1990) * Judith Klinghoffer and Lois Elkis, \"'The Petticoat Electors': Women's Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776-1807,\" *Journal of the Early Republic* 12 (1992) * Robert Dinkin, *Before Equal Suffrage: Women in Partisan Politics from Colonial Times to 1920* (1995) * Jan Lewis, \"A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American Revolution,\" in *A Companion to American Women's History* (2005)", "support_docs": "
male citizens who paid taxes. This was largely a result of the Democratic-Republican Party's attempt to unify its factions for the 1808 presidential election. A faction within the party wanted to deny the vote to aliens and the non-tax-paying poor. The liberal faction within the party gave way on this, but also took the vote from women, who tended to vote for the Federal.\nNew Jersey's 30-year experiment with female suffrage ended not mainly because of open opposition to the idea of women voting, but as a casualty of party politics and backroom bartering. Another factor was the renewed push by
votes) to the said judge, or either of the inspectors, who, on receipt thereof, shall, with an audible voice, pronounce the name of such voter, and if no objection is made to the voter, put the ballot immediately into the election box, and the clerk of the election shall thereupon take down the name of such voter in a book or poll list, to be provided for the purpose. Vote Rescinded for Women, non-Whites Between 1797 and 1807 women voted in large numbers in New Jersey. But in 1807 the state's legislature ignored the constitution and restricted suffrage to white
document for the State's government for the next 68 years. Among its provisions, the document granted suffrage rights to unmarried women and African-Americans who met the requirements of possessing sufficient assets or property as \"freeholders\". The legislature was elected each year and selected the state's governor. It did not specify an amendment procedure and had to be replaced entirely in a constitutional convention. The suffrage rights in the 1776 constitution were limited by the state legislature in 1807 to restrict voting rights to white male citizens who paid taxes. Women who voted in earlier elections tended to support" }, { "question": "why are carbon monoxide alarms so unreliable?", "answer": "You're generalizing from a very small sample, and an anecdotal one at that. I've had three plug-in units in the past dozen years and they've all worked fine. So my three more than offsets your two, right? And your tech guy just wanted to sell you a new one.", "support_docs": "
will sound within a few minutes. This concentration-time function is intended to mimic the uptake of carbon monoxide in the body while also preventing false alarms due to relatively common sources of carbon monoxide such as cigarette smoke.\nThere are four types of sensors available and they vary in cost, accuracy and speed of response, listed below. The latter three types include sensor elements that typically are given a five year life by the sensor manufacturers but with a warning that they could \"fail at any time for any reason\". At least one CO detector is available which
countries, including France, and some US states and municipalities have banned the use of domestic ionic smoke alarms because of concerns that they are not reliable enough as compared to other technologies. Where an ionizing smoke detector has been the only detector, fires in the early stages have not always been effectively detected. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide detection Carbon monoxide sensors detect potentially fatal concentrations of carbon monoxide gas, which may build up due to faulty ventilation where there are combustion appliances such as gas heaters and cookers, although there is no uncontrolled fire outside the appliance.\nHigh levels of
hygienists and first responders. Digital, fast responding portable type CO detectors are usually a better choice for real time \"on the go\" applications as they respond to low levels of CO in seconds rather than minutes or hours (which is the case for UL2034 listed residential alarm). Most manufacturers recommend that portable detectors are returned for re-calibration annually. Portable detectors should be regularly bump tested with a calibrated test gas to ensure that the sensors are still operative. Wireless Wireless home safety devices are available that link carbon monoxide detectors to vibrating pillow pads, strobes or a remote warning" }, { "question": "the referee problem in the nfl.", "answer": "the NFL referees are in a union. their contract is up, and it is time to renegotiate. the referees want a retirement plan. the NFL executives said no. furthermore, the NFL executives said 'until you agree to OUR terms, we will use replacement referees. so you better do as we say.\" the replacement referees are not trained well, and not experienced enough. they are making lots and lots of mistakes in games, mistakes which are effecting the results.", "support_docs": "
forces them to behave significantly different than how they were taught to play the game. Another concern is the league's instructions to game officials to err on the side of caution, since questionable calls late in close games significantly affect their outcome. However, the medical community has supported the move, believing that it will help reduce concussions and other head injuries.\nThe league did not end up suspending any players for violent or illegal hits, however several players were fined for these types of hits within the first few weeks of the crackdown. Officiating changes Mike Pereira resigned as the league's
in Week 3, the league announced that it would consider suspending players for illegal hits, such as helmet-to-helmet hits or other blows to the head. (Previously, players could only be fined for such hits.) The league also instructed all officials and referees to have an even higher level of attention toward flagrant hits. Game officials were also instructed to err on the side of safety, and throw flags even when in doubt.\nThe crackdown has been controversial. Many defensive players have complained that the league is being too strict in their interpretation of what constitutes an \"illegal hit\", and that it
Referee (association football) The referee is the person responsible for enforcing the Laws of the Game (LOTG) during an association football match. He or she is the final decision-making authority on all facts connected with play, and is the only official on the pitch with the authority to start and stop play and impose disciplinary action against players during a match. At most levels of play the referee is assisted by two assistant referees (formerly known as linesmen), who are empowered to advise the referee in certain situations such as the ball leaving play or infringements of the Laws of" }, { "question": "when australia was being organized into a political entity, was any serious consideration given to having western australia or tasmania be separate political entities (like nz and png)?", "answer": "Yes. In the decade before the turn of the 20th century, there were six Australian colonies - NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia (Western Australia had only become a self-administering colony in 1890). In this period, Britain was encouraging its dominions to amalgamate for more efficient management, and there were constitutional conventions in 1891 and 1897-98, In order to Federate, there needed to be referenda where a significant majority of each state voted in favour of Federation, or that state would not become part of the Federation. As a result, there was a series of constitutional referendums between 1898 and 1900 in the six Australian colonies. In each of those, a majority was obtained, and Australia was duly federated. Tasmania had very high levels of desire to become part of Federation; its 1899 vote had 94.4% of voter voting in favour of Federation - so clearly Tasmanian citizens with voting rights were in favour of the benefits of Federation. You can see some campaign posters for these referenda (from South Australia) here and here. Western Australia's presence in the Federation were more contingent, and their presence in the Australian federation is to some extent an accident of history. If there hadn't been a gold rush in the 1890s in Western Australia which brought in a large amount of people from the other colonies (who ended up voting in the 1900 referendum on whether to join), Western Australia would likely not have joined the federation. Previous to the gold rush, Western Australia had done well out of exports to the other colonies (for which the state charged tariffs), and those tariffs were phased out under federation. Further, federal tariffs on agricultural products, once Western Australia had signed up, harmed the predominantly agrarian Western Australian economy in comparison to the more industrialised East. The perception that Western Australia was getting a bum rap from the Federal government culminated in a referendum of Western Australian voters in 1933, in which around two-thirds of the Western Australian public voted for secession. This was put to the British parliament, who said it could only lawfully happen with a referendum of all the other states on the matter - which never happened. Sources: * Stuart McIntyre (2004) *A Concise History Of Australia, 2nd. Ed* * Thomas Musgrave (2003) 'The Western Australian Secessionist Movement', *Macquarie Law Journal, Vol 3*", "support_docs": "
Secessionism in Tasmania Secessionism in Tasmania has been proposed several times throughout Tasmania's history. Pre-federation Before Federation, there was a lot of support for Tasmania joining the Commonwealth, though there was some opposition. The opposition argued that Federation would cause financial devastation to Tasmania, which obtained much of its revenue from customs and excise.\nMost prominently among those who were concerned about Tasmania's future in the proposed federation was state statistician R. M. Johnston, who was supported by the Tasmanian attorney-general, Andrew Inglis Clark, and Nicholas John Brown, speaker of the Tasmanian House of Assembly. Tasmanian delegates to the Australian Constitutional
this was unrealistic. and the women's non-party league of Tasmania gave support to the anti-federalists.\nIn 1928, Thomas Murdoch introduced a motion into the Tasmanian Legislative Council calling for Tasmania's secession from the Commonwealth, although it was ultimately defeated.\nAfter the appointment of the Commonwealth Grants Commission in 1933, the Commission produced a report recommending that Tasmania receive \u00a3290000 in 1934-35, which significantly reduced the Tasmanian demands for secession. 1980s In the 1980s, both Labor Premier Doug Lowe and Liberal Premier Robin Gray seriously considered secession. 1990s In the 1990s, the First Party of Tasmania was formed, which aimed for Tasmanian secession.
Conventions successfully advocated for section 87 and section 96 to be included in the Australian Constitution. Early 1920s After federation, Tasmania lost much of its revenue due to the free trade provisions of the Australian Constitution, and was constantly dependent on grants from the Commonwealth to maintain itself (though it also gained revenue from its state lottery, which was popular in other states).\nThis frustration began turning into calls for independence in the 1920s, which were supported by the Hobart Chamber of Commerce, and the Mercury newspaper - in 1922, the Mercury called for the \"complete dissolution of the Federation\".\nIn 1925," }, { "question": "infinite hotel paradox. is this a good explanation of infinity or does it violate the thought of infinity?", "answer": "The nature of infinity is such that adding to it doesn't make it larger. Subtracting from it doesn't make it smaller. So (2 * *denumerable* infinity)= *denumerable* infinity, and *denumerable* infinity+ *denumerable* infinity= *denumerable* infinity. I think the problem is that you are imagining a fluid situation that isn't fluid. You aren't \"creating\" rooms (as you have stated in your explanation). All the rooms are already there, and they aren't being created, nor being destroyed. Your example of the string is a problem. You see, we have been talking about *denumerable* infinity, not *nondenumerable* infinity, which would more accurately describe the string (a continuum, rather than something compose of individual discrete objects). The same flaw in your conception is present in that analogy. The strings aren't \"moving\". It isn't a fluid situation.", "support_docs": "
Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel The paradox Consider a hypothetical hotel with a countably infinite number of rooms, all of which are occupied. One might be tempted to think that the hotel would not be able to accommodate any newly arriving guests, as would be the case with a finite number of rooms, where the pigeonhole principle would apply. Finitely many new guests Suppose a new guest arrives and wishes to be accommodated in the hotel. We can (simultaneously) move the guest currently in room 1 to room 2, the guest currently in room 2 to room 3, and
result that is provably true. The statements \"there is a guest to every room\" and \"no more guests can be accommodated\" are not equivalent when there are infinitely many rooms.\nInitially, this state of affairs might seem to be counter-intuitive. The properties of \"infinite collections of things\" are quite different from those of \"finite collections of things\". The paradox of Hilbert's Grand Hotel can be understood by using Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers. Thus, while in an ordinary (finite) hotel with more than one room, the number of odd-numbered rooms is obviously smaller than the total number of rooms. However, in
found for any finite number of nested infinities of people, the same is not always true for an infinite number of layers, even if a finite number of elements exists at each layer.\nThe set of real numbers, and the set of guests in this example, is uncountably infinite. Because no one-to-one pairing can be made between countable and uncountable sets, rooms at the hotel cannot be made for all of these guests, although any countably infinite subset of them can still be accommodated.\nIf this variant is modified in certain ways, then the set of people is countable again. For example," }, { "question": "delaunay triangulation/voronoi diagram algorithms", "answer": "Voronoi diagram Given a set of chosen points in a plane (marked in the picture), for each chosen point the Voronoi polygon is the part of the plane that is closer to that point than to any other chosen point. For example, every part of the blue polygon in the upper left corner is closer to the marked point in that polygon than to any other marked point. One application is in computer data visualization. If each dot is a point on a scatter plot, then when you hover your mouse cursor over the plot you might want to show a tooltip next to the closest dot. But checking the distance to every dot to find the closest is inefficient, especially when the mouse is moving. So instead you compute the Voronoi polygons for each point. The point the mouse is closest to is the one whose Voronoi polygon it's in. The Delauney triangulation is related. In this image, the black dots are the points and the red lines are the Voronoi polygons for that set of points. The black lines connecting the points form the Delauney triangles. Two black dots are connected in the Delauney triangulation if those dots' Voronoi polygons share a border.", "support_docs": "
to higher dimension (as proved by Edelsbrunner and Shah), the runtime can be exponential in the dimension even if the final Delaunay triangulation is small.\nThe Bowyer\u2013Watson algorithm provides another approach for incremental construction. It gives an alternative to edge flipping for computing the Delaunay triangles containing a newly inserted vertex.\nUnfortunately the flipping-based algorithms are generally hard to be parallelized, since adding some certain point (e.g. the center point of a wagon wheel) can lead to up to O(n) consecutive flips. Blelloch et al. proposed another version of incremental algorithm based on rip-and-tent, which is practical and highly parallelized
sample points, the Delaunay triangulation gives a nice set of triangles to use as polygons in the model. In particular, the Delaunay triangulation avoids narrow triangles (as they have large circumcircles compared to their area). See triangulated irregular network.\nDelaunay triangulations can be used to determine the density or intensity of points samplings by means of the Delaunay tessellation field estimator (DTFE).\nDelaunay triangulations are often used to build meshes for space-discretised solvers such as the finite element method and the finite volume method of physics simulation, because of the angle guarantee and because fast triangulation algorithms have been developed.
intelligently picking the splitting lines the expected time can be reduced to O(n\u00a0log\u00a0log\u00a0n) while still maintaining worst-case performance.\nA divide and conquer paradigm to performing a triangulation in d dimensions is presented in \"DeWall: A fast divide and conquer Delaunay triangulation algorithm in E\u1d48\" by P. Cignoni, C. Montani, R. Scopigno.\nThe divide and conquer algorithm has been shown to be the fastest DT generation technique. Sweephull Sweephull is a hybrid technique for 2D Delaunay triangulation that uses a radially propagating sweep-hull, and a flipping algorithm. The sweep-hull is created sequentially by iterating a radially-sorted set of 2D points, and connecting triangles" }, { "question": "why is taiwan compelled to use \"chinese taipei\" as their national sporting team name?", "answer": "Taiwan is not officially recognised as independent by most countries. China claims Taiwan is part of China, and they will refuse to have diplomatic relations with any country which recognises Taiwan. Since China is the bigger and more powerful of the two, most countries choose them over Taiwan. It's further complicated by the fact that on paper, Taiwan's government claims to be the government of all of China. I don't think the actual people in government really think they should rule China, but making an official declaration that Taiwan is an independent country that isn't part of China would antagonise China. So they've avoided doing so. So when it comes to events like the World Cup or the Olympics, China would object to treating Taiwan as if it's a completely separate country to China. So as a compromise, their team is called Chinese Taipei, recognising the fact that Taiwan is Chinese, but differentiating it from China's team by adding \"Taipei\" (which is Taiwan's capital city).", "support_docs": "
which, in effect, labels it the \"Chinese Team\", in the sense of a \"team that is of Chinese ethnicity\" as opposed to a \"team from China\".\nStarting around the time of the 2004 Summer Olympics, there has been a movement in Taiwan to change all media references to the team to the \"Taiwanese Team\", and the mainstream Taiwan Television (TTV) is one of the first Taiwanese media outlets to do so. Such usage remains relatively rare, however, and other cable TV channels currently refer to the ROC as the Zhonghua Team and the PRC as the Zhongguo Team, the China team
Taipei to Taiwan. The main argument for opposing the name change was worrying that Taiwan may lose its Olympic membership under Chinese pressure, which would result in athletes unable to compete in the Olympics. Other alternative references to the Republic of China References used in the international context to refer to the Republic of China or Taiwan differ according to the type of the organization. Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu The World Trade Organization officially uses \"Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu\" for the Republic of China, but \"Chinese Taipei\" is frequently used
the National Flag Anthem of the Republic of China was chosen as the anthem of the Chinese Taipei delegation. The Republic of China has competed under this flag and name exclusively at each Games since the 1984 Winter Olympics, as well as at the Paralympics and at other international events (with the Olympic rings replaced by a symbol appropriate to the event). Translation compromise Both the Republic of China (ROC) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) agree to use the English name \"Chinese Taipei\". This is possible because of the ambiguity of the English word \"Chinese\", which may mean" }, { "question": "how does a pump work?", "answer": "It creates pressure which then provides the force to move something. Exactly how it works depends upon what type of pump you are talking about and whether it is water air or something else that is being pumped.", "support_docs": "
volume, and injection volume (i.e., throttling) is controlled by rotating the cylinders against a cut-off port that aligns with a helical slot in the cylinder. When all the cylinders are rotated at once, they simultaneously vary their injection volume to produce more or less power from the engine. Inline pumps still find favour on large multi-cylinder engines such as those on trucks, construction plant, static engines and agricultural vehicles.\nFor use on cars and light trucks, the rotary pump or distributor pump was developed. It uses a single injection cylinder driven from an axial cam plate, which injects into the
pipe [1] starts to flow under the force of gravity and picks up speed and kinetic energy until the increasing drag force lifts the waste valve's weight and closes it. The momentum of the water flow in the inlet pipe against the now closed waste valve causes a water hammer that raises the pressure in the pump beyond the pressure caused by the water column pressing down from the outlet. This pressure differential now opens the delivery valve [5], and forces some water to flow into the delivery pipe [3]. Because this water is being forced uphill through the delivery
be closed off from the atmosphere to prevent water vapor saturation. Performance improvement Pumping capacity can be improved by prepumping the system by another simple and clean vacuum pump like a diaphragm pump or even a water aspirator or compressed-air venturi pump.\nSequential or multistage pumping can be used to attain lower pressures. In this case two or more pumps are connected in parallel to the vacuum vessel. Every pump has a valve to isolate it from the vacuum vessel. At the start of the pump down all valves are open. The first pump is cooled down while the others are" }, { "question": "happy pi day everyone!", "answer": "There are plenty of algorithms that are suited for computers related to pi, but which are tractable with pen and paper? Can finding the n'th digit be done on paper reasonably?", "support_docs": "
Pi Day History In 1988, the earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.\nOn March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (111 H. Res. 224), recognizing March 14, 2009 as National Pi Day. For Pi Day 2010, Google presented a Google Doodle celebrating the holiday, with the word Google laid over images of circles and
pi symbols; and for the 30th anniversary in 2018, it was a Dominique Ansel pie with the circumference divided by its diameter.\nThe entire month of March 2014 (3/14) was observed by some as \"Pi Month\". In the year 2015, March 14 was celebrated as \"Super Pi Day\". It had special significance, as the date is written as 3/14/15 in month/day/year format. At 9:26:53, the date and time together represented the first 10 digits of \u03c0. Observance Pi Day has been observed in many ways, including eating pie, throwing pies and discussing the significance of the number \u03c0, due to a
pun based on the words \"pi\" and \"pie\" being homophones in English ( /pa\u026a/), and the coincidental circular nature of a pie. Also, some schools hold competitions as to which student can recall pi to the highest number of decimal places.\nMassachusetts Institute of Technology has often mailed its application decision letters to prospective students for delivery on Pi Day. Starting in 2012, MIT has announced it will post those decisions (privately) online on Pi Day at exactly 6:28\u00a0pm, which they have called \"Tau Time\", to honor the rival numbers pi and tau equally. In 2015, the regular decisions were put" }, { "question": "did the soviet union have intellectual property laws? if yes, how did it differ from capitalist countries?", "answer": "Yes. The early Soviet Union adopted laws protecting private property due to its desire to attract foreign investment. International protection of property rights were seen as a foreign policy issue and subordinate to foreign policy. The first such decree on intellectual property was made in 1917 and monopolized all patents and copyrights as property of the state, except for a limited six month right reserved to the authors. Between 1917 and 1931, there were frequent almost yearly changes granting rights between 15 years to the author or a five year monopoly to the State. The most consistent principal during this period was generally an acceptance of the Bern Convention of 1886. After the transition period, Soviet copyright law became generally unremarkable and closely mirrored that of civil law regimes in Europe. During the 1970's, the Soviet Union became a state party to three treaties: the Berne Convention on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works as amended in 1971; the Universal Copyright Convention (\"UCC\") as amended in 1971, and the 1971 Convention on Protection of the Interests of Producers of Phonograms Against the Illegal Reproduction of their Phonograms. On February 21, 1973, the USSR enacted a series of amendments to its own law to bring it into line with the UCC. However, despite this regime, intellectual property cases were very rare due to the realities of a state controlled publishing industry. Oftentimes, the Soviet government would be both the official copyright holder and the infringing party, rendering much of the copyright law functionally relevant to foreign works but not to domestic authors who assigned their rights to the State to get published. Source: Boris N. Mamlyuk, Russia & Legal Harmonization: An Historical Inquiry into Ip Reform As Global Convergence and Resistance, 10 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. 535 (2011) tl;dr Basically, Soviet copyright laws were pretty vanilla and mostly similar to the west after the early revolution, making for a hum drum comparative analysis. The main difference arose from the realities of state control of media and publishing, which made copyright cases exceedingly rare and mostly a moot issue.", "support_docs": "
Copyright law of the Soviet Union Revolutionary Copyright The old Tsarist Copyright law of 1911 was not immediately invalidated after the October Revolution. The old law, with its copyright term of 50 years after the author's death and its possibility of transferring copyrights in their entirety from an author to a publisher, continued to be valid initially. But the nationalizations in all areas of the economy soon considerably restricted the avenues through which an author could publish her or his work, even if her or his copyright remained initially untouched. All publishing activities were placed under the supervision of the
to the payment of the standard royalties. The government also reserved the right to forcibly nationalize any work.\nAnother characteristic that Soviet copyright law inherited from the Tsarist law was that copyright was automatic: copyright began with the creation of the work (not its completion or publication), and was not subject to registration. Copyright covered all literary and musical works as well as works of the arts and scientific works and also films by Soviet citizens, as well as works by foreign authors that were first published in the Soviet Union or, if unpublished, existed there in some objective form, irrespective
his publisher was abolished. Likewise, Soviet publishers were free to negotiate with foreign authors or publishers licenses to publish foreign works in the Soviet Union.\nAlso in 1987, a work group tasked with adapting the Soviet copyright law to a market economy was formed. In early 1990, the work group presented a draft for a revised section IV of the Fundamentals on copyright and a new section IV A on neighbouring rights. But the proposal, comprising 32 articles, remained unused; the Supreme Soviet's Committee for legislation published in March 1990 its own draft version of the new Fundamentals that ignored many" }, { "question": "how much of mongol can be considered an accurate portrayal of the early life of temudjin?", "answer": "Actually we do have a surprising amount of information for the life of an illiterate steppe-dweller. There was no tradition of history or literature beyond the oral in Mongolia pre-Genghis, but because they quickly saw the benefits of the written word when it came to ruling a huge, multiethnic empire they adopted writing in his lifetime. Our primary source is the *Secret History of the Mongols*. \"Secret\" because it was only intended to be read by the imperial family and court. It's essentially a biography of Genghis Khan/Temujin, apparently written shortly after his death by someone in his inner circle. Because of its limited audience and closeness to the actual events it's remarkably straightforward and earnest. Not all true, of course, but far from hagiography \u2013 it mentions unflattering details like Temujin being scared of dogs, for instance. I remember the film as being reasonably accurate with a few inexplicable deviations. If anything, Temujin actually got into more near-death scrapes than the film portrays. The Mongol steppe at this time was an extremely violent, fractious and generally dangerous place. But it's been a long time, so I decided to re-watch it and give you a proper answer. Here's my stream-of-consciousness historical commentary (mostly from memory, so forgive me if I make some errors of my own): * Right off the bat, Temujin was never imprisoned by the Tangut. I've no idea where this comes from. Presumably to give him an excuse for coming back later and destroying their civilization? * Temujin narrates that \"[Yusugei] stole my mother from the Merkits\". This slightly misleading: his mother (Hoelun) belonged to the Olkhunut, and Yusugei abducted her when she was on her way to marry a Merkit. * This thing about Temujin getting hitched to Borte (also of the Olkhunut) on a whim on the way to getting a Merkit bride is made up. Yusugei was taking Temujin to live with Borte's family, which was part of the marriage contract. It was traditional for the Borjigin (Temujin's lineage) to take wives from the Olkhunut, and the marriage itself was doubtless arranged beforehand. It was also very a much a political match between Yusugei and Borte's father Dai-Sechen, so I can't imagine there was a line-up involved. * Might as well clear this one up early: no the Mongols weren't scared of thunder. Apparently William of Rubrick mentions this in his later quasi-ethnography of the Mongol empire, but I've never seen it given any credence in scholarly works and it doesn't play any role in the *Secret History*. * As I just mentioned, the point of the trip was to leave Temujin with his bride's family. So he wasn't present on the return trip when Yusugei was poisoned by the Tatars (in the film they don't mention they're Tatars, just \"enemies\", but this explains Temujin's rather extreme treatment of the Tatars later in his life). The rest is pretty accurate though, for example it was a taboo to do harm to someone if you made camp together while travelling. * When Yusugei's followers are robbing and abandoning the family, Hoelun says \"my son is khan now\", referring to Temujin. This is wrong on a number of levels. First, Yusugei was never a khan, he led a small band of warriors, not an entire people. Second, power wasn't hereditary like that, it would have been absurd for his father's men to follow a child. Finally, Temujin had an older half-brother who was head of the family before him. * It's interesting that they put the \"don't kill children that aren't taller than a cart-wheel\" thing here. As far as I know, it was actually an innovation of Temujin's when he was committing semi-genocide against the Tatars (see what I mean by extreme treatment?) and later became part of his law code. There's no indication that it was a custom before then. * Most of Temujin's family are notably absent in the next sequence - his brothers, his father's other wife, and especially his eldest half-brother Bekhter. Temujin murdering him was probably the most notable event in his childhood. * It's unclear exactly how Temujin and Jamukha knew each other and came to be blood-brothers in their childhood. This is as plausible a story as any, I suppose. Temujin's early and lasting attachment to the \"sacred mountain\" (Burkhan Khaldun) is accurate; it's probably where he ended up buried. * The way he preys to Tengri for help there is a *very* simplified and westernised portrayal of Mongol religion, though. It wasn't monotheism, and it wasn't polytheism, it was animistic and shamanistic. Tengri was a personification of the sky, not a personal god, and discourse with the spiritual realm was something that had to be done through specialist mystics, you couldn't just start talking to them yourself. Genghis Khan's Empire (in common with many other steppe peoples) did come to believe it had the blessing of Tengri, but not in the direct ask-and-you-shall-receive monotheistic sense; it was more akin to the Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven (and, I'll shamelessly speculate, probably influenced by it). * Temujin was indeed held captive for a period in his childhood \u2013 not by his own clan, though, by the Tayichuud. His escape was more convoluted than the way he just runs off in the film. A sympathetic family took off his cangue when it was their turn to watch him. He ran off, but knew with his captors on horseback he'd never outrun them, so he hid in a river for a while, then doubled back and hid in the tent of the not-too-happy family that had set him free (reasoning that they couldn't turn him in without exposing their complicity) and finally extorted a horse from them. Later he came back to reward the family and their young son Chilaun became one of his foremost generals. * The second period of captivity, when he's an adult, never happened. * Genghis actually met Bo'orchu when the latter helped him chase down some horse thieves, but the gist of this encounter is accurate \u2013 Bo'orchu was a Good Samaritan and helped a down-on-his-luck Temujin, and like Chilaun went on to become one of his top generals. * Temujin was probably more interested in Borte's dowry (the famous Black Sable Coat) than the woman herself at this point. Temujin's family being so poor, this was one of their only tangible assets at this point, and giving it to his father's old blood-brother and patron Toghrul Khan was a very shrewd move that kick-started Temujin's political career. * It's strange then that Toghrul Khan is absent in the film, and his role is merged with Jamukha. I don't think this dynamic works very well. In reality, Jamukha and Temujin were equals and rivals for leadership amongst the Mongols, who were weak, fractured and subordinate to the Keraits. The Kerait khan Toghrul played them off each other for decades, until eventually he threw his lot in with Jamukha and against Temujin. It doesn't make sense to me how in the film the battle for overlordship of the steppes suddenly becomes a battle between Temujin and Jamukha. * I suppose the biggest Hollywoodism is the way the film is turned into a love story between Temujin and Borte. He was undoubtedly fond of Borte and she always had the pre-eminent position as his first wife and mother of his heirs, but at the end of the day it was an arranged marriage, Temujin took many, many other wives and the whole chivalric romance theme is just really anachronistic. Her capture by the Merkits illustrates this the best. In the film, Temujin nobly attempts to fight off the superior force with a stick, and later only leaves her when he's knocked unconscious by an arrow to the back (does this happen??) and Borte nobly sacrifices herself. In reality, Temujin and his brothers realised they had no chance of winning against the Merkits and fled as soon as they saw them coming, leaving not only Borte but Temujin's elderly stepmother behind (the latter doesn't appear in the histories after this episode). Pride and sentiment weren't really great survival strategies in the world Temujin grew up in, and this was far from the last time he adhered to the maxim \"he that fights and runs away, may live to fight another day\". Similarly, Borte's rescue was as much about Toghrul Khan and Jamukha having an excuse to plunder the Merkits as it was about Temujin's vengeance. * I like the way the Merkits are portrayed as forest people with crazy animal skin masks, but in reality they were steppe herders just like the Mongols. The depiction is more like the Buryats and Tungusic peoples that lived further north and weren't considered \"people of the felt-walled tents\" like the Mongols, Merkits, Tatars, etc. The Mongols set out to subjugate them only after Temujin became Genghis Khan. * A big sword fight, really? The film's called \"Mongol\"... where are the horses? The compact bows? * It's implied that Temujin starts to win more support amongst the men in the army than Jamukha because he's fair in giving out spoils and generally a better leader. This is the first hint in the film that Temujin did things differently from his rivals \u2013 dividing up spoils fairly and efficiently, looking after widows, disregarding tribal affiliation and incorporating defeated people into his nation as equals, his law code, etc. \u2013 and it's true all these things won him support in his long struggle with Jamukha. But the way it started was much more Machiavellian. Temujin originally became a contender for khan of the Mongols because a coalition of elders from his clan who resented Jamukha's rising power viewed him as a useful puppet. He had the right lineage, but he was a political nobody without much wealth or a power base of his own. * The film understandably has Jamukha as the villain, but really it was Temujin who broke with his allies Toghrul and Jamukha in order to contest his blood brother's position as khan. The Secret History justifies this with various slights they supposedly committed on him, but this is a recurring pattern \u2013 it often has Temujin pre-emptively betraying people who were supposedly about to betray him. People have suggested this shows the he was either slightly paranoid or in his later life not too proud of having stabbed so many people in the back. That was very much the way things were done in the steppe though. * It's accurate that Temujin was defeated by Toghrul/Jamukha at first (and on many other occasions besides), but he was never captured and sold to the Tanguts. * The laws he talks about briefly are the Yassa. It was indeed an important part of what set Mongols apart. * Having an entire army surrender to a thunder storm is of course, ridiculous. It occurs to me that there's a surprising lack of violence in this film considering its the story of how the bloodiest leader in all of history united one of the bloodiest people in all of history in a bloody, decades-long war. And again, where's the horseback archery!? * The whole timeline of the film seems really compressed, even though they do show the (correct) year on screen every now and again. Temujin was almost fifty by the time he'd defeated Jamukha, succeeded in uniting the steppe tribes and proclaimed himself Genghis Khan; in a way it was his life's work, the whole conquering-half-the-known-world thing more of an afterthought. * The Yassa did forbid men harming their masters, even to Temujin's benefit. * Temujin didn't spare Jamukha \u2013 he had his back broken with a rock. Although the fact that he didn't spill his blood was a sign of respect. On the whole, I don't think it's that bad piece of historical drama. Lots of figures and events are omitted (way more than I can list), and those that are in are compressed or altered, but there aren't a lot of outright fabrications (apart from the whole Tangut episode). Personally I feel like the original story as given in the Secret History is more than exciting and cinema-friendly enough to be filmed basically as-is, but I'm no filmmaker. I think it's also fair to say it sanitises Temujin a great deal. He was a complex figure, but by no means a nice guy. I've not commented very much on the non-story aspects, either. I can't tell you how accurate the costumes and sets are (one thing I did notice is that whenever they showed shots of camps or armies gathering there weren't many animals around, which is odd to say the least). I have read that the Mongolian spoken in the film is atrocious, because the leads aren't actually Mongolian (they're Japanese or Chinese) and it was directed by a Russian. But I can't begin to vouch for that myself (paging /r/mongolia). Still, I think it's a good film. And the soundtrack is by one of my favourite bands \u2013 you should check them out! As for sources, there are lots of biographies of Genghis Khan. I'd recommend Jack Weatherford's *Genghis Khan And the Making of the Modern World* as the most readable, thought-provoking and the best at putting the events in context (if sketchy on the details at times) or Ratchnevsky's *Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy* for a more traditional and comprehensive historical account. I'd also recommend diving into the *Secret History* itself if you're really interested, it's well worth the effort. The translation I have is by Igor de Rachewiltz and it comes highly recommended, but it's hard to get hold of and frankly scarily huge.", "support_docs": "
modern culture There have been several films, novels and other adaptation works on the Mongolian ruler. Name and title There are many theories about the origins of Tem\u00fcjin's title. Since people of the Mongol nation later associated the name with ching (Mongolian for strength), such confusion is obvious, though it does not follow etymology.\nOne theory suggests the name stems from a palatalised version of the Mongolian and Turkic word tenggis, meaning \"ocean\", \"oceanic\" or \"wide-spreading\". (Lake Baikal and ocean were called tenggis by the Mongols. However, it seems that if they had meant to call Genghis tenggis they could have
Jin to positions of power. The Jin bestowed Toghrul with the honorable title of Ong Khan, and Tem\u00fcjin with a lesser title of j'aut quri.\nAround 1200, the main rivals of the Mongol confederation (traditionally the \"Mongols\") were the Naimans to the west, the Merkits to the north, the Tanguts to the south, and the Jin to the east.\nIn his rule and his conquest of rival tribes, Tem\u00fcjin broke with Mongol tradition in a few crucial ways. He delegated authority based on merit and loyalty, rather than family ties. As an incentive for absolute obedience and the Yassa code of law,
made it easier for him to solicit help from and eventually consolidate the other Mongol tribes. Early life and family Tem\u00fcjin had three brothers Hasar, Hachiun, and Tem\u00fcge, one sister Tem\u00fclen, and two half-brothers Begter and Belgutei. Like many of the nomads of Mongolia, Tem\u00fcjin's early life was difficult. His father arranged a marriage for him and delivered him at age nine to the family of his future wife B\u00f6rte of the tribe Khongirad. Tem\u00fcjin was to live there serving the head of the household Dai Setsen until the marriageable age of 12.\nWhile heading home, his father ran into" }, { "question": "were \"geishas\" just high class prostitutes?", "answer": "No they didn't have sex for money, they did exactly as it's written on the jar, extremely sophisticated societal company for tea ceremonies and the like. The idea of them being prostitutes came post WW2 when Japanese prostitutez were dolling them selves up as Geisha in order to get clients without being actual Geisha", "support_docs": "
refer to the genre of manga and anime in which pre-pubescent or pubescent male characters are depicted in a suggestive or erotic manner. Geisha A frequent focus of misconceptions in regard to Japanese sexuality is the institution of the geisha. Rather than a prostitute, a geisha was a woman trained in arts such as music and cultured conversation, who was available for non-sexual interactions with her male clientele. Geisha differed from their patrons' wives because, except for the geisha, women were ordinarily not prepared for activity other than household duties. This social limitation was imposed on the majority of women
in traditional society and produced a diminution in the pursuits that women could enjoy. This limitation also impacted the ways that a man could enjoy the company of his wife. The geisha fulfilled the non-sexual social roles that ordinary women were prevented from fulfilling, and for this service they were well paid. That being said, the geisha were not deprived of opportunities to express themselves sexually and in other erotic ways. A geisha might have a patron with whom she enjoyed sexual intimacy, but this sexual role was not part of her role or responsibility as a geisha. Fetish scene
Autobiography of a Geisha Early life As a child Masuda lived as a nurse-maid in a large farming household near Shiojiri, where she got little to eat, no education, poor sleeping quarters, and was frequently punished. She initially spent most of her time looking after the owners' young children but, after being caught taking extra melons from the field to feed herself, she was forced to do manual labor. During these years other children gave her the derisive nickname \"Crane\", as in the winter she was never allowed to wear socks and would lift one leg up and warm her" }, { "question": "what caused the flavian hairstyle for roman women to be so different from previous and future styles?", "answer": "I'll try to outline some progression between hairstyles of Roman portraiture to ultimately argue that while styles changed, there wasn't really a decline in complexity or artistic skill in these portraits. Some important points to note though in examining stone portraiture would be the types of women being depicted. Obviously, these women would have been some of the richest in the empire and many of the portraits I'll use will be of those in the imperial family since they were more widely distributed and these women were some of the few that were given portraiture. As a result, while these hairstyles do represent trends in the upper class, they certainly don't for the lower classes and even the everyday wealthy Roman. **Before the Flavian Period (Julio-Claudian)** The Julio-Claudian period is probably the earliest you can start with since primarily women from the imperial family were often the only ones able to have art made of them. They were also one of the most widely created an distributed sources of female portrayals in Roman art. So we start with Augustus's wife Livia and this portrait alone is enough to show some of the messages that artists were trying to send. The youthful appearance of Livia is completely uncharacteristic of her since she was likely past 50 at the time this was commissioned. Comparisons have even been made that compare her to depictions of Roman deities, and this is a common trend within imperial portraiture. The hairstyle as well is not entirely a simple one, and some skill was required to sculpt the folds in her hair. Continuing into the reign of Tiberius (40 years prior to the beginning of the Flavian period) you have Agrippina the Elder, a member of the imperial family. One can see the growing complexity in Roman hairstyles for women (Not so much for men at this time) especially with innovations in drilling which would become commonplace for creating intricate hairstyles (Like the portrait of the Flavian woman you linked). So while I would say the Flavian period had some of the most extravagant hairstyles during the imperial period, earlier portraiture was not a simple as the portrait you linked to of preceding art. **The Flavian Period** Now we reach the period your question focuses on. Fortunately, the bust you linked is one of the more definitive examples of Flavian portraiture so there aren't really any other examples I need to link to. And this bust merely continues the trends of increasing complexity within hair through the increased drilling that was used with the earlier portrait of Agrippina the Elder. Interesting fact though, it is very plausible that the Flavian woman's hair is actually a hair piece, which may explain why it is so extremely elaborate. **After the Flavian Period (Nerva-Antonine and Severan Dynasties)** I want to begin by stating that complexity in hair didn't necessarily decline. Portraiture of men for instance from the mid 2nd century onward became just as complex in hair as these portraits of women. This is the case with emperors like Marcus Aurelius or Caracalla (I can link more if requested). However, you are right in saying later hairstyles for women, while complex, were not as extravagant as the Flavian woman bust. That being said, the extreme complexity was not the only defining trait of the styles. Height of hair was also extremely important, and supposedly Flavian styles meant to show tallness from the front and a sharp downward slope of hair towards the back. Elements of this are still present following the Flavians with the portrait of Trajan's wife Plotina. Later on, hairstyles returned to having the front much lower and natural. Examples off the top of my head include Hadrian's wife Sabina, Antoninus Pius's wife Faustina the Elder, and Marcus Aurelius's wife Faustina the Younger. So why are these new portraits much less flamboyant in hairstyles? One could argue that the end of the *Pax Romana* is mirrored by this decline of decadence and callback to more conservative styles. However the mass instability marked with the decline began during the later years of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the beginning of the Severans, far after we see changes from the Flavian hairstyles. This argument though, does explain certain portrait characteristics in later imperial art which I can elaborate on if anyone wants to know. The best explanation though, is just that styles change. Just because the the Flavian woman's hair does appear to be more flashy than later portraits, does not mean that it was more complex or required more skill than other busts. I earlier linked Faustina the Younger's portrait and I think hers is the best example of this, her hair is certainly not as extravagant, but it's not overly conservative, represents new trends, and still required incredible skill with sculpting and drilling. Also, to represent later styles you linked to what I think is a portrait of Julia Domna (Wife of Septimius Severus). And again the artistic skill required to depict the individual curls in her hair were also incredible. In fact, I'd argue the artistic complexity in the portrait as whole is greater than that of the Flavian woman with the increased emotion shown with Julia Domna through her facial expression and carved eyes. Furthermore, the overall style of her lowered hair is also quite complex as it was a type of wig that she pioneered as a style for Roman women in the Severan Dynasty **Sources:** Fred S. Kleiner, *A History of Roman Art: Enhanced Edition* Shelden Nodelman, *How to Read a Roman Portrait* Peter Stewart, *Roman Art* Edit: Clarification, drilling is meant to refer to the sculpting practice which made depictions of these complex hairstyles possible only in the realm of stone portraiture", "support_docs": "
to juxtapose Roman modesty against Cleopatra and her flamboyance. Flavian and Antonine hairstyles Flavian and Antonine hairstyles differed greatly between men and women in real life and in the physical appearance of hair for male and female sculptures. In ancient Rome hair was a major determinant of a woman's physical attractiveness, women preferred to be presented as young, and beautiful. Therefore, female sculptures were known to have dramatic curls carved with strong chiaroscuro effects. On the other hand, most men in the Flavian period of late first century CE have their hair trimmed short on the crown like the portrait
of Domitian for example (pictured) that implied an active role in society, while a woman's connoted passivity.\nFlavian and Antonine hairstyles are perhaps the most famous, and extravagant, of Imperial Rome's styles. During this time the aristocratic women\u2019s style became the most flamboyant (cypriote curls). The styles were lofty, with masses of shaped curls and braids. The high arching crowns on the front were made using fillets of wool and toupees, and could be attached to the back of the head as well as the front. Typically, as in the case of the famous Fonseca Bust (pictured), this particular hairstyle appears
to have been popular during the Flavian period. The hair was combed into two parts; the front section was combed forwards and built with curls, while the back was plaited and coiled into an elaborate bun (Orbis Comarum). This fashion was described by the writer Juvenal as the hairstyles that made women appear tall from the front but quite the opposite from the back.\nThe later Antonine Period saw curls at the front of the head brought to a lower level than the Flavian Period. The braids coiled at the back of the head were brought further forward, instead often resting" }, { "question": "why was the \"pavlov's dogs\" experiment significant enough to warrant a nobel prize? hadn't people been training dogs and other animals for thousands of years before?", "answer": "No, it wasn't about training dogs specifically, it was about conditioned behaviors. It was a completely new branch of psychology that was sparked by these observations.", "support_docs": "
he eventually won the Nobel prize mentioned above. Pavlov investigated the gastric function of dogs, and later, children, by externalizing a salivary gland so he could collect, measure, and analyze the saliva and what response it had to food under different conditions. He noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before food was actually delivered to their mouths, and set out to investigate this \"psychic secretion\", as he called it.\nPavlov's laboratory housed a full-scale kennel for the experimental animals. Pavlov was interested in observing their long-term physiological processes. This required keeping them alive and healthy in order to conduct chronic
experiments, as he called them. These were experiments over time, designed to understand the normal functions of animals. This was a new kind of study, because previously experiments had been \u201cacute,\u201d meaning that the dog went through vivisection which ultimately killed the animal in the process.\nA 1921 article by S. Morgulis in the journal Science was critical of Pavlov's work, raising concerns about the environment in which these experiments had been performed. Based on a report from H. G. Wells, claiming that Pavlov grew potatoes and carrots in his lab, the article stated, \"It is gratifying to be assured that
1901, Pavlov was nominated over four successive years for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He did not win the prize until 1904 because his previous nominations were not specific to any discovery, but based on a variety of laboratory findings. When Pavlov received the Nobel Prize it was specified that he did so \"in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged\".\nIt was at the Institute of Experimental Medicine that Pavlov carried out his classical experiments on the digestive glands. That is how" }, { "question": "which model of evolution is more accepted by the scientific community: gradualism or punctuated equilibrium?", "answer": "Both are extremes; the reality in most cases lies between them. In general, an population of organisms will fairly quickly (in geological timescales) reach a point where it is as adapted to its environment as it can be, and it will settle into a niche. At that point, large scale changes aren't likely to happen, but there will still be mutations popping up in the genepool, creating variation. If any particular mutation isn't particularly malign, it'll stay in the gene pool for a while and might end up being useful if the environment changes again. It is also important to note that when dealing with fossil organisms, we only have very incomplete information about them. A fossil organism that appears to remain unchanged over the course of a million years would still be undergoing genetic changes at that time; it is just that all the genetic changes that don't directly show up in the fossil won't be recordable. That tends to make fossil population appear more \"punctuated\" than they really would be.", "support_docs": "
and a descendant species, unless splitting occurs. Punctuated gradualism Punctuated gradualism is a microevolutionary hypothesis that refers to a species that has \"relative stasis over a considerable part of its total duration [and] underwent periodic, relatively rapid, morphologic change that did not lead to lineage branching\". It is one of the three common models of evolution. While the traditional model of palaeontology, the phylogenetic model, states that features evolved slowly without any direct association with speciation, the relatively newer and more controversial idea of punctuated equilibrium claims that major evolutionary changes don't happen over a gradual period but in localized,
Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge to contrast with their model of punctuated equilibrium, which is gradualist itself, but argues that most evolution is marked by long periods of evolutionary stability (called stasis), which is punctuated by rare instances of branching evolution. Phyletic gradualism Phyletic gradualism is a model of evolution which theorizes that most speciation is slow, uniform and gradual. When evolution occurs in this mode, it is usually by the steady transformation of a whole species into a new one (through a process called anagenesis). In this view no clear line of demarcation exists between an ancestral species
rare, rapid events of branching speciation. Punctuated gradualism is considered to be a variation of these models, lying somewhere in between the phyletic gradualism model and the punctuated equilibrium model. It states that speciation is not needed for a lineage to rapidly evolve from one equilibrium to another but may show rapid transitions between long-stable states. Linguistics and language change In linguistics, language change is seen as gradual, the product of chain reactions and subject to cyclic drift. The view that creole languages are the product of catastrophism is heavily disputed. Buddhism and other Oriental philosophies Gradualism is the" }, { "question": "why (and how/when) did the church of england come to reject calvinism in favour of arminianism?", "answer": "I think this question is flawed because it's not the case that the Church of England ever embraced arminianism en masse. Some parts of it have been calvinist in orientation since the Reformation. While the CofE didn't embrace the kind of calvinism that dominated scotland, it never embraced arminianism per se either.", "support_docs": "
was crushed. In the same period English Arminianism existed (if at all) almost unavowed on paper, and since anti-Calvinist literature was censored, had no clear form until 1624 and a definite controversy. Footholds for Arminian views Certain churchmen are now labelled by historians as \"proto-Arminian\". These include prominent bishops of the period around 1600: Lancelot Andrewes, Thomas Dove, and John Overall. Theodore K. Rabb describes Edwin Sandys, a lay politician, as proto-Arminian.\nGeorge Abbot suspected William Laud at an early stage of his career of anti-Calvinism; and attempted to block Laud's election as President of St John's College, Oxford. Laud, however,
Arminianism in the Church of England Elizabethan anti-Calvinists The Church of England's embrace of the Elizabethan Settlement allowed for a large-scale acceptance of Calvinist views. Such intense debates as occurred on theological points were localised, in contrast to the widespread tension over church polity. Predestination Peter Baro was a Huguenot Calvinist, but also close to Niels Hemmingsen, who was in the Lutheran tradition of Philipp Melanchthon that was brought to Denmark by John Macalpine (Maccabeus); Baro preached conditional predestination. A theological controversy on his teaching at Cambridge was brought to a head by William Barret. The intervention by John Whitgift
remained subject to effective censorship. Richard Bancroft as the first Archbishop of Canterbury chosen by James acted as an enforcer against Puritan nonconformity; George Abbot, however, who took over after Bancroft's death in 1610, was an evangelical Calvinist, and agreed with James on a solid opposition to Arminianism in the Netherlands, typified by the hounding of Conrad Vorstius and the loading of authority on the Synod of Dort as an international council of Reformed churches.\nDuring the period 1603 to 1625 Arminianism took shape as a Dutch religious party, became involved by successive appeals to secular authority in high politics, and" }, { "question": "if living conditions were so horrible in victorian cities, why so many millions of people moved from the country side to the cities?", "answer": "The answer is both complex and interesting. For starters we need to understand one key concept: the Malthusian trap. The Malthusian trap is the concept that for most of human history, we have been subsistence farmers and the standard of living never rose for most humans above subsistence farming levels. We also know that the technological advances that happened before the industrial revolution mostly caused rises in *population* rather than in *standard of living*. Once we understand that key concept, we have our real answer. The Victorians (as with most of Europe, the United States etc.) broke out of the Malthusian trap. This isn't exactly an exciting answer if you exclude why they managed to break out so I'll go into that in some detail. Now, please note that the causes of the industrial revolution in Britain and abroad still remains a major source of debate between historians so I'll do my best to provide some differing opinions. The first major cause for the industrial revolution for most historians is the major fall in the mid to late 17th and early 18th century in infant mortality. Mostly because by the mid 17th century the British were starting to abandon the old medical ways. Up until this point, medicine in Britain was still, frankly, medieval. The late 17th century would see the abandonment of many of the worse of what passed for medicine at the time (Bleedings, theory of humours, etc.) for a more scientific approach. It should also be said that during this time, there was a marked increase in the quality and frequency of border controls. Prof. Paul Slack author of *The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England* points to this being a major factor in the reduction of frequency in instances of the Plague. Which means that diseases, in general, began to spread far less widely than they did in the past. This may have simply resulted in a rise in population but this time around it was considerably different because the rise in population coincided with major and numerous other advances. Which brings me to our second cause. The massive increases in both farm labour (their productivity, to be clear) and land productivity. It all starts with the rise in the enclosure of farmland which reduces the amount of common land. The Crown and the Church had always been the two major land owners in Europe since the middle ages. In England, under Henry VIII, the Suppression of the Monasteries would free up massive swaths of land for free peasantry. It would gradually ramp up the enclosure and *improvement* of farmlands in comparison to their common land equivalent. The Dutch also contributed a lot to the increase in productivity. the first major advancement used in Britain was the water-meadow. A system of pasture irrigation that isn't in use today but was a major advancement in the 16th-17th century in England. It allowed for the pasturing of livestock far earlier by keeping worked pastures in the spring damp, keeping frost off the ground and making grass grow several weeks earlier. *This has no bearing on the question but I still think it's a fun little fact, men who took care and maintained water-meadows were called drowners. Not sure where this could've fit into my explanation so I'll just put it in here...* Agriculture during the period leading up to and during the industrial revolution is also marked by the introduction of scientific selective breeding. It saw the notable creation of the Dishley Leicester, the most productive sheep of it's era, and improvement of the Dishley Longhorn, which was the first beef cattle. Many contemporary sources talk of cattle weighing twice what they weighed after Bakewell's improvement of the breed, which is a considerable amount of extra productivity in cattle alone. But let's return to the contributions of the Dutch for a moment, a notable engineer Cornelius Vermuyden, had by the end of the 17th century popularized the use of Dutch land maintenance methods. There are varying estimates about the effects of the land maintenance reform but there is no debating that it led to a substantial increase in the amount of usable arable land. Which meant that farms often increased in size. The last truly farm-based improvement was the development of the Norfolk four-course crop rotation. Farmers switched from a three field system that resulted in large parts of farmland being left unproductive every season to one where there was very little need to leave any part of their land fallow. Where the British usually had fallow fields, they now put turnips or clovers on which to graze cattle, re-nitrate the soil and keep down weeds. Combined with the new breeds of cattle I've already talked about, this was a significant improvement. So, this all meant that farms were far more productive *far more easier* than they used to be. Which meant that they could be worked by significantly less people. All at the time of a massive surge in population. The population of Britain went from around 9 million in 1800 to nearly 42 million in 1901. This was also the age where the British realized that they could transport goods inside the country far easier using industrial canals. So centralized production of goods was most definitely in. So in short, as jobs left the countryside to the cities, so did people. Sources: Harrison - *The Common People, a History from the Norman Conquest to the Present* Clark - *The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective* Kerridge - *The Agricultural Revolution* **Thank you for the gold kind stranger. This is my first gilded comment, I am very touched.** **double gilded?! Thank you again kind stranger. That just made my day even better!**", "support_docs": "
population density. Almost all pre-regulation terraced housing has been demolished through successive waves of slum clearance. History Between 1801 and 1901 the population increased fourfold, and during this period there was a migration from the land into towns (urbanisation), as the nature of work changed with the Industrial Revolution. Urban population increased tenfold, and there was a need to build houses for the urban worker. Employers built rows of back-to-back and through houses (i.e. those with front and back doors) on the ground available. In older towns they were constrained by the mediaeval street patterns and the need to fit
rivers and the housing next to the mills in the floodable low-lying ground. The particles from smoke from the steam engines' boilers descended and wrapped the adjacent housing in a layer of grime. The workers were unskilled and poor, so could pay little rent. Although their families were large, they squeezed in lodgers.\nThe rural migrants preferred employment in the city to the lack of employment where they were born. Accompanying the Industrial Revolution was one in the countryside, as agriculture was mechanised. The medieval system of guaranteed shared land was being replaced by larger farms with tied cottages for fewer
a hard time getting their first job. Men over the age of 45, if they lost their job, would rarely find another one because employers had their choice of younger men. Millions were hired in the Great Depression, but men with weaker credentials were not, and they fell into a long-term unemployment trap. The migration in the 1920s that brought millions of farmers and townspeople to the bigger cities suddenly reversed itself. Unemployment made the cities unattractive, and the network of kinfolk and more ample food supplies made it wise for many to go back. City governments in 1930\u201331" }, { "question": "memory recall", "answer": "So there are a lot factors let's start with the memory models. Encoding: Store information into our brain. Storage: Retain the information we encode. Retrieval: Store information out at a later time. Alright so first off you will have an external event occur. Such as a yellow bus passing and then a cat scratching you. Your sensory input of your eyes,ears, and smell (not all of them but for this example) then take this information into your sensory memory. Sensory memory: The immediate recording of sensory information in the memory system. From this stage your brain makes a choice in real time. Is the information you're picking up something worth focusing on or is novel information? Your brain will then encode it into your working memory (also called short term memory). Now from this point your brain has probably decided the bus is novel and the cat scratching you is worth remembering due the sensory inputs each give you. The cat scratch hurts and the bus is something you have probably seen plenty of times. Now to get something from your working memory to long term memory. You need another step of encoding. To recap. External Event > Sensory Input > Sensory Memory > Encoding of external events > events are now in working memory. Alright so we wanna remember the cat scratched us for whatever reason. The next step of encoding to reach long term memory storage where we use retrieval to remember things can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Sometimes we as humans make an effort to encode things. Such as studying for a test or not forgetting that persons name we just met. This is known as effortful processing. Things that we take in and do not process with effort are automatically processed. Think of the 100000 things you filter out when you look anywhere. From the patterns on the walls the amount of threads in the carpet. So what causes long term memories to form? Like those random or arbitrary ones from childhood? Stimulus that is new to you that you latch on to for either survival or interest. Adrenaline also has a way of carving vivid memories in ones long term storage. This why people that suffer trauma often have such intense memories and emotions of the traumatic event. If you want to study to encoding something into long term memory. Effortful processing via rehearsal, Mnemonics, and Chunking are all methods commonly used. Mnemonics. Vivid imagery associated with a memory to help us remember. Generally the more bizarre the better. I want to remember /u/hellaradmakayla so imagine those letters on a chalk board next to something I would not normally see. Like a bright blue pineapple. Chunking. Organizing information into manageable units. Remembering the numbers 18885674567 is probably hard for most people. But as 1-888-567-4567 or how we code phone numbers it becomes easier. Tl;Dr You must use effortful processing to store long term memories or the adrenaline from an event can also carve memories into it more deeply and vividly such as those that suffer traumatic events. As a young child your brain is forming rapidly and new stimulus is very common sometimes your brain decides this specific event or stimulus is important. Often at the younger ages a reason is hard to discern for these memories we have.", "support_docs": "
memory.\"
glaring inability to incorporate free recall into the model. Free recall requires an individual to freely remember some list of items. Although the very act of asking to recall may act as a cue that can then elicit cued recall techniques, it is unlikely that the cue is unique enough to reach a summed similarity criterion or to otherwise achieve a high probability of recall. \nAnother major issue lies in translating the model to biological relevance. It is hard to imagine that the brain has unlimited capacity to keep track of such a large matrix of memories and continue
In the recall process, items residing in short-term memory store will be recalled first, followed by items residing in long-term store, where the probability of being recalled is proportional to the strength of the association present within the long-term store. Another memory storage, the semantic matrix, is used to explain the semantic effect associated with memory recall." }, { "question": "how does aircraft brake to reduce speed when landed", "answer": "A combination of spoilers, engine reverse thrusters and brakes on the wheels. The spoilers are upper surface flaps that deploy and disturb the airflow on the wing. They kill the lift on the wing to prevent the aircraft from getting enough lift to come up again, and create a lot of drag to help the plane slow down. Engine reverse thrusters work exactly as the name implies. The jet plume from the engine is re-directed forwards, so the thrust acts backwards, thus slowing the plane down. Wheel brakes work more or less the same as they do in a car.", "support_docs": "
the rear of the craft, forcing the rear wheels harder against the ground, which aids the wheel brakes by helping to prevent skidding. The pilot will usually continue to hold back on the stick even after the elevators lose their authority, and the nose wheel drops, to keep added pressure on the rear wheels.\nAerodynamic braking is a common braking technique during landing, which can also help to protect the wheel brakes and tyres from excess wear, or from locking up and sending the craft sliding out of control. It is often used by private pilots, commercial planes, fighter aircraft, and
carriers, arresting gears are used to stop an aircraft. Pilots may even apply full forward throttle on touchdown, in case the arresting gear does not catch and a go around is needed.\nParachutes are used to slow down vehicles travelling very fast. Parachutes have been used in land, air and space vehicles such as the ThrustSSC, Eurofighter Typhoon and Apollo Command Module. Some older Soviet passenger jets had braking parachutes for emergency landings. Boats use similar devices called sea anchors to maintain stability in rough seas.\nTo further increase the rate of deceleration or where the brakes have failed, several mechanisms can
a method used in landing aircraft to assist the wheel brakes in stopping the plane. It is often used for short runway landings or when conditions are wet, icy or slippery. Aerodynamic braking is performed immediately after the rear wheels (main mounts) touch down, but before the nose wheel drops. The pilot begins to pull back on the stick, applying elevator pressure to hold the nose high. The nose-high attitude exposes more of the craft's surface-area to the flow of air, which produces greater drag, helping to slow the plane. The raised elevators also cause air to push down on" }, { "question": "why are switchblades illegal?", "answer": "In the 50's switchblades became associated with criminals due their portrayal in films and television. Greasers, mobsters and other thugs were commonly seen carrying them and it led to a public scare and the subsequent passing of the USA Switchblade Act of 1958.", "support_docs": "
requires permission from the prefectural public safety commission in order to possess. Lithuania According to Lithuanian law it is illegal to carry or possess a switchblade if it meets one of the following criteria: the blade is longer than 8.5\u00a0cm; the width in the middle of the blade is less than 14% of its total length; the blade is double sided. Mexico legal. Netherlands As of 2011, it is prohibited to own or possess, whether kept at home or not, any stilettos, switchblades, folding knives with more than one cutting edge, and throwing knives. New Zealand The Customs Import Prohibition
folded and locked in the closed position.\nDuring the 1950s, US newspapers as well as the tabloid press promoted the image of a new violent crime wave caused by young male delinquents with a stiletto switchblade or flick knife, based mostly on anecdotal evidence. In 1954, Democratic Rep. James J. Delaney of New York authored the first bill submitted to the U.S. Congress banning the manufacture and sale of switchblades, beginning a wave of legal restrictions worldwide and a consequent decline in their popularity. History Switchblades date from the mid-18th century. The earliest known examples of spring-loaded blades were constructed by
III of the Criminal Code defines such knives as prohibited weapons (armes d\u00e9fendues). While certain businesses can be granted a licence to acquire and possess prohibited weapons such as switchblades for use as props in movie productions, these exemptions do not apply to individuals.\nThe Criminal Code definition of \"prohibited weapons\" includes switchblades:\n\"A knife that has a blade that opens automatically by gravity or centrifugal force or by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the handle of the knife.\"\nDifferent subsections of the code describe possession offences and penalties. Belt-buckle daggers, push-daggers, finger-ring" }, { "question": "how the pci bus works", "answer": "It would help if you explained why you want to know. In other words, at what level do you want to know how it works? Basically a bus is a wire (or set of wires) between two (or more) points. When you \"put data on the bus\" all you are doing is changing the voltage on the wire(s) to a certain level. The \"read data from the bus\", you detect which voltage is on the wire(s). The PCI bus is just a bus that uses the PCI protocol to communicate data. A protocol is just a method that we all agree on so that we can understand each other: For example, high voltage means 1 and low voltage means 0. If you are designing hardware that has to interface with the PCI bus, you will obviously need more detail, but then you shouldn't be asking for ELI5 information. :)", "support_docs": "
Proprietary local buses (q.v. Compaq) and then the VESA Local Bus Standard, were late 1980s expansion buses that were tied but not exclusive to the 80386 and 80486 CPU bus. The PC/104 bus is an embedded bus that copies the ISA bus.\nIntel launched their PCI bus chipsets along with the P5-based Pentium CPUs in 1993. The PCI bus was introduced in 1991 as a replacement for ISA. The standard (now at version 3.0) is found on PC motherboards to this day. The PCI standard supports bus bridging: as many as ten daisy chained PCI buses have been tested. Cardbus, using
the PCMCIA connector, is a PCI format that attaches peripherals to the Host PCI Bus via PCI to PCI Bridge. Cardbus is being supplanted by ExpressCard format.\nIntel introduced the AGP bus in 1997 as a dedicated video acceleration solution. AGP devices are logically attached to the PCI bus over a PCI-to-PCI bridge. Though termed a bus, AGP usually supports only a single card at a time (Legacy BIOS support issues). From 2005 PCI-Express has been replacing both PCI and AGP. This standard, approved in 2004, implements the logical PCI protocol over a serial communication interface. PC/104(-Plus) or Mini PCI are
bus for computer systems to carry multiple streams of digital video without using the existing backplane bus. Apple was particularly interested in this role due to the limitations of their current NuBus systems in terms of speed. They envisioned various video cards using a second connector located near the top of the card, opposite the NuBus connector on the bottom, to talk to each other. Optionally, one of the cards would produce compressed output, which could be sent over the NuBus for storage or display. Before any commercial use of QuickRing, newer versions of PCI started appearing that offered performance" }, { "question": "who were the tunnelers in ww1 and why were they so respected?", "answer": "> Sometimes a fight would take place in a tunnel - 4 feet x 3 feet - and in the dark you didn't know who you were fighting. The only thing was to put your hand over quick to feel if the man had any epaulettes; the Germans used to have epaulettes on the shoulder and we could tell that way. The knuckle knife was very good. One of our officers invented that. It was a specially made knife with a blade about five inches long which was fitted to a brass frame over our hand and strapped to our wrist, so when our fist was closed the knife was at a right angle to our arm. It was silent in action - very handy, especially for raiding galleries. > Lieutenant John Westacott, 2 Canadian Tunnelling Company, quoted in *Beneath Flanders Fields* by Barton, Doyle & Vandewalle This quote gives a tiny snapshot of just one of the horrors faced by men of the Tunnelling Companies as they worked beneath the battlefields of WW1, and gives a hint of why they were held in respect by those who knew what their work entailed. I don't know about Churchill or the aristocracy in general, but Field Marshall Haig wrote the following message when the Companies were rapidly disbanded after the Armistice to release desperately-needed skilled labour: > A large number of men are now being withdrawn from the Tunnelling Companies for urgent work at home. > Before they leave the country I wish to convey to the Controllers of Mines and all ranks of the Tunnelling Companies, both Imperial and Overseas, my very keen appreciation of the fine work that has been done by the Tunnelling Companies throughout the last four years. > At their own special work, Mine Warfare, they have demonstrated their complete superiority over the Germans, and whether in the patient defensive mining, the magnificent success at Messines, or in the preparation for the offensive on the Somme, Arras and Ypres, they have shown the highest qualities both as Military Engineers and fighting troops. > Their work in the very dangerous task of removing enemy traps and delay-action charges... has been on a level with their work on the mines. > They have earned the thanks of the whole Army for their contributions to the defeat of the enemy. Their fighting spirit and technical efficiency has enhanced the reputation of the whole Corps of Royal Engineers. The tunnellers were essentially men working underground, best known for mining operations, but also responsible for building other subterranean works, such as key dugout complexes (some holding up to 600 men) and subways (huge shelters to move and protect large bodies of troops forming up for an attack, sometimes including concealed exits out into no-man's land which would be blown at the key moment to allow troops to pour out close to the enemy line, rather than attacking from their own trenches). But it was the mining operations that were the best known and most terrible facet of the underground war. Mining (digging under no-man's land towards the enemy trenches) was first used offensively by the Germans on their VII Corps front around Givenchy-Festubert on 20 December 1914, when they detonated 10 'small' (by later standards) explosive charges under the trenches of the Indian Army's Sirhind Brigade. This surprise was followed by an immediate and very successful infantry assault that drove the stunned Indians back 500 yards to their reserve lines. The British had already been mining defensively to protect against enemy tunnelling, but this attack prompted them to go on the offensive too. The Royal Engineers were already overstretched, so the first efforts involved scouring front-line units for men with mining experience, then looking at home for men such as coal miners, men who had worked on digging the London Underground train system, and sewer workers. In some cases these men had virtually zero military training - in one case a group of Manchester sewer workers went from working in the sewers to tunnelling on the Givenchy front in just five days, forming the nucleus of 170 (Tunnelling) Company, RE, in February 1915. Rapid expansion followed. Whole volumes have been written on the work of the Tunnelling Companies, but a quick overview of a mining operation is as follows. A deep shaft would first be sunk in the friendly trenches, with a 'shaft house' at the entrance for the air pump etc. Narrow tunnels (known as 'galleries') were then driven underground towards the enemy line. The work was complicated by the fact that it had to be done as silently as possible, as the enemy miners were driving their own galleries in the opposite direction, and each side would be listening out for any sound made whilst working. Once under the enemy position, a mine chamber would be dug out and packed with explosives, which would be fired electrically at a key moment, usually a series of them at the start of a major offensive. There were obviously huge dangers involved for the men working below ground. These ranged from the natural - such as collapses and carbon monoxide build-up - through to viscous combat with enemy tunnellers. If the other side heard you digging nearby, they might set an explosive charge, called a *camouflet*, in their own tunnel and set it off to kill or trap you underground. One side might also break into the other's tunnel system and brutal, often hand-to-hand, fighting would ensue, which again would end with charges being set off to wreck the earthworks and kill or trap the enemy miners. Towards the end of the war, as action became more mobile and less trench-bound in 1918, the Tunnelling Companies moved on to yet more dangerous work above ground, dealing with booby-traps and unexploded shells, including gas. I think, then, it is the sheer amount of danger that they faced that would earn a man involved in tunnelling great respect from those who understood what his work entailed. > Main source is *The Western Front Companion* by Mark Adkin, which features an excellent section on mining operations.", "support_docs": "
252nd Tunnelling Co attached to search dugouts and roads for booby-traps and mines, clear broken bridges wit explosives, and it also reconnoitred village wells that had been damaged by the retreating Germans.
258th Tunnelling Company Background By January 1915 it had become evident to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at the Western Front that the Germans were mining to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or underground listening devices before the war, field marshals French and Kitchener agreed to investigate the suitability of forming British mining units. Following consultations between the Engineer-in-Chief of the BEF, Brigadier George Fowke, and the mining specialist John Norton-Griffiths, the War Office formally approved the tunnelling company scheme on 19 February 1915. \nNorton-Griffiths ensured that tunnelling companies numbers 170
252nd Tunnelling Company Background By January 1915 it had become evident to the BEF at the Western Front that the Germans were mining to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or underground listening devices before the war, field marshals French and Kitchener agreed to investigate the suitability of forming British mining units. Following consultations between the Engineer-in-Chief of the BEF, Brigadier George Fowke, and the mining specialist John Norton-Griffiths, the War Office formally approved the tunnelling company scheme on 19 February 1915.\nNorton-Griffiths ensured that tunnelling companies numbers 170 to 177 were ready for deployment" }, { "question": "why wasn't lyndon johnson, the incumbent, selected to to the democratic nominee in the 1968 presidential election?", "answer": "On January 30, 1968, the day of \"Tet\" (the Vietnamese New Year), the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army launched a major military campaign that would spell the end of Johnson's presidency. The Johnson administration had, up to that point, guaranteed the American public that the United States was on the verge of winning the war (which Johnson had escalated into a full-blown American operation in 1965). The so-called \"Tet Offensive\" proved that opposition in Vietnam remained much stronger than Johnson had indicated. Video of Viet Cong soldiers storming the American embassy in South Vietnam made the nightly news. On February 27, news anchor Walter Cronkite delivered a still-famous monologue on air in which he declared that while the United States did not look like it would lose the war, it was now obvious that it could not win it either. The anti-war protest movement, which had existed for years, exploded into the mass movement which we remember today. Protesters followed LBJ around on his campaign trail, chanting \"Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?\", among other popular forms of protest. Some historians have described LBJ as being \"trapped\" in the White House at times, unable to come outside to face the protesters. In the first Democratic primary, held in New Hampshire on March 12, Johnson won--but only by a narrow margin--against the long-time anti-war Democrat Eugene McCarthy. With this near loss and the chaos of the anti-war movement continuing to escalate around him, Johnson determined that he could not win the general election that year. Nevertheless, Johnson remained president and he and he maintained a series of foreign-policy goals that he hoped to accomplish before the end of his term. He therefore announced on March 31 that he would neither seek nor accept the Democratic nomination for the presidency, and he thereafter focused on ending the war in Vietnam and continued to pursue an arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union (work that he could do outside the eye of the public, mind you). Here the story of the Democratic primaries and Lyndon Johnson's final push diverge. In short, Robert Kennedy quickly overtook McCarthy after entering the race, but he was assassinated before the convention, and the far less charismatic Hubert Humphrey ended up taking the nomination at the infamously protested Democratic National Convention of 1968. Johnson, on the other hand, made great strides towards realizing a detente with the Soviet Union, but he had to cancel an arms-reduction summit with Soviet Premier Alexi Kosygin after the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia (this details of this story are an further stain on his legacy, I have to add). In the end, the Democrats ended up with a candidate who could not win and Johnson left office without having achieved a single foreign-policy accomplishment that could compare to his enormous failure in Vietnam.", "support_docs": "
the Democratic convention could choose a candidate based on their personal preference. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and others have argued that Kennedy's broad appeal and charisma would have been sufficiently convincing at the 1968 Democratic National Convention to give him the nomination. Historian Michael Beschloss believed that Kennedy would not have secured the nomination. Humphrey, after a National Convention in Chicago marred by violence in the streets, was far behind in opinion polls but gained ground. He ultimately lost the general election to Republican Richard Nixon by the narrow popular vote margin of 43.4\u00a0percent to 42.7\u00a0percent. Nixon won by
was technically still exploring his candidacy and had not bothered to file. Just a few days later, on March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced he was entering the race for President. Johnson subsequently withdrew from the election with this Shermanesque statement: \"I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.\"\nOne minor candidate in the Republican primary was William W. Evans, Jr., a former New Jersey State Assemblyman, who received just 151 votes statewide.\nThe 1968 New Hampshire Democratic primary was one of the crucial events in the politics of that
Party's Solid South since the end of the Reconstruction era in the 1870s, the Democratic nomination for statewide office had long been considered tantamount to election. In 1948, the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator to succeed the retiring W. Lee O'Daniel was won by Lyndon Johnson, who defeated the more conservative Coke Stevenson by less than 100 votes in a bitter runoff election that included allegations of fraud.\nCarlos G. Watson initially received the Republican nomination. Watson, a loyal Republican who had run several unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate as a token candidate so that" }, { "question": "why was elected egyptian president mohammed morsi ousted so quickly?", "answer": "Egypt contrary to what the media would have told you shortly after Mubarek was taken out, was frail. They were already hurting from lack of basic supplies, gas, food, money...and when the revolution ended and Morsi stepped up to plate they expected real change. The people had thought they had forced the hand of the government and showed them they would not stand for inequality and an overall lack of livelihood. In comes Morsi, and nothing has changed. In fact it was looking rather scary as Morsi was pushing through laws that left him all but a dictator. The Egyptian people took to the streets for a second time and were successful once again in taking out their own leader. However, the control is now in the army's hands. The single most powerful entity in Egypt. Think the United States army with free roam to do whatever they want without having to take orders from the President. Also the Egyptian army has what some are calling a monopoly on jobs and job creation in Egypt. The bad part about this is those working in these factories are part of the army and aren't getting paid anything to be there. Essentially it's like Apple being owned by the US's army and the soldiers are the ones designing the next iPad but not getting paid an engineer salary, just the base army pay. A law was just passed to stop any form of protest, or gathering from happening and it seems like another revolution, the \"final\" revolution will take place in Egypt. Hopefully, for their sake and the worlds, this will be the final necessary step to truly change the country for the better. If they are successful, they could become the single most important country when it comes to influencing people in westernized countries to take to the streets and create the change they want to see. **EDIT I posted this answer when this thread was pretty much empty and since then there's been some awesome responses that go more in depth into the situation that I tried to do with this one. I implore everyone to read deeper into the thread and read some of the more detailed answers if your looking for a longer summation of what occurred**", "support_docs": "
the Army is in support of them. However, the statement was interpreted by Morsi supporters as a warning to Morsi opponents that el-Sisi would not allow an overthrow of the government. He remained in office under the new government formed after the deposition of Morsi, and led by Hazem al-Beblawi. He was also appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt. On 27 January 2014, he was promoted to the rank of field marshal. Civil uprising, coup d'\u00e9tat and transition Mass demonstrations occurred on 30 June 2013 as tens of millions of Egyptians took to the streets to denounce Mohamed Morsi. Clashes
took place around Egypt. Soon afterwards, the Egyptian Army issued a 48-hour ultimatum which aired on television that gave the country's political parties until 3 July to meet the demands of the anti-Morsi demonstrators. The Egyptian military also threatened to intervene if the dispute was not resolved by then.\nOn 3 July 2013, the Egyptian Armed Forces declared that as the political parties had failed to meet the deadline and Morsi had failed to build a national consensus for his leadership, the army had to overthrow Morsi in a coup d'\u00e9tat. The army then installed Adly Mansour as the interim head
to crack down on terrorism. While supporters interpreted this to mean that el-Sisi felt the need of the people to prove to the world that it was not a coup but the popular will, the statement was seen by opponents as contradicting the military's pledges to hand over power to civilians after removing Morsi and as indicating an imminent crackdown against Islamists.\nThe reactions to el-Sisi's announcement ranged from open support from the Egyptian presidency and the Tamarod movement to rejection, not only by the Muslim Brotherhood, but also by the Salafi Nour Party, the Islamist Strong Egypt Party, the liberal" }, { "question": "the tree of life (movie)", "answer": "Wikipedia gives a decent explanation. Terrence Malick isnt one to \"spoon feed\" people the concepts. Personally, I think his movies are a bit ahead of his time but he's still one of my favorite directors.", "support_docs": "
related to the tree of life.
of Time. The Hollywood Reporter described it as \"a celebration of the Earth, displaying the whole of time, from the birth of the universe to its final collapse.\" The film is the culmination of a project that Malick has been working on for over forty years, and has been described by Malick himself as \"one of my greatest dreams\". The film features footage shot by Malick and collaborators over the years, and expands on the footage that special effects luminaries Douglas Trumbull (2001) and Dan Glass (The Matrix) created for The Tree of Life.\nThe film was released in two versions:
The Tree of Life Malick's fifth feature, The Tree of Life, was filmed in Smithville, Texas, and elsewhere during 2008. Starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and Sean Penn, it is a family drama spanning multiple time periods; it focuses on an individual's struggle to reconcile love, mercy and beauty with the existence of illness, suffering and death. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or. It later won the FIPRESCI Award for the Best Film of the Year. At the 84th Academy Awards, it was nominated for three awards, including the Academy Award for" }, { "question": "the death toll for chernobyl ranges wildly, from a few hundred to tens of thousands. which numbers are the most believable and why? furthermore, why is it so hard to establish a concrete number for the disaster?", "answer": "The \"low\" numbers are counting people who were immediate and direct casualties from the disaster. So there were people who were exposed to enough radiation that they died in a few weeks, and some people who died in the immediate hours of the accident itself. The \"high\" numbers are extrapolations based on the amount of radiation that people were exposed to some distance from the plant, and what fatal cancers are associated with those numbers. Which is to say: some number of people died of cancer in Europe after 1986. How many of those are attributable to their Chernobyl exposure? The number is too small to directly measure (because the cancer rates can fluctuate from year to year anyway by a small amount), so it's not like the cancer rate just sky-rocketed. There are guidelines for understanding how a given exposure of radioactivity affects an individual's likelihood of developing cancer, though these can be controversial for very low doses of radiation. So this is where there is, and will probably always be, considerable uncertainty. Did someone's cancer come from Chernobyl, random genetics, cosmic radiation, other environmental factors, or what? This isn't easy to figure out, especially in the case of radiation that went fairly diffusely over a very large, highly-populated area. So ultimately this is a tricky job \u2014 radiation-caused cancers do not carry any kind of obvious and unique \"signature\" of their origins, most of the time. So you have to infer them epidemiologically (e.g., change from baseline) or sometimes purely probabilistically (if the number of cancers is relatively small). As for which number is \"believable\": this will depend entirely on what your methodology is. A very careful, honest, non-alarmist, (pro-nuclear), experienced physicist colleague of mine did a peer-reviewed literature review of all of the Chernobyl estimates for the Federation of American Scientists a few years back. He concluded that the estimates in the range of 26,000-57,000 were the most supported by our current understanding of both the radiation hazards posed by Chernobyl, our present understanding of the effect of low doses of radiation on population cancer risks, and our understanding of how many people were exposed. I find this plausible, myself. It sounds like a large number, but compared to the total fatal cancers in Europe from 1986 through the present it is actually fairly small, which is why they don't stand out from the baseline (approx. 2 million people in Europe die from cancer every year). My colleague also does a good job of discussing the uncertainty involved. His article is deliberately very readable. See: Edward A. Friedman, \"Calculating the Uncountable Deaths from Chernobyl,\" _Public Interest Report_ 69, no. 2 (Winter 2016/2017), 17-27. Personally I find the low estimates very unreliable: I just don't buy that dusting a considerable fraction of Europe, an area populated by millions, with fission products would not cause some serious damage. I do not find the hormesis (\"radiation is good for you\") thesis compelling, or supported by the data that I have looked at. But again, if you go into this with different assumptions, you will get different outcomes, because it's not something we can directly measure, only infer.", "support_docs": "
lowering levels, like at the central district of Okuma town, to 9 mSv/year, one-fifth the level of five years ago. Chernobyl disaster As of 2013 the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine was and remains the world's worst nuclear power plant disaster. Estimates of its death toll are controversial and range from 62 to 25,000, with the high projections including deaths that have yet to happen. Peer reviewed publications have generally supported a projected total figure in the low tens of thousands; for example an estimate of 16,000 excess cancer deaths are predicted to occur due to the Chernobyl accident
31 people.\nFollowing the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, dangerously high levels of nuclear contamination escaped into the surrounding area, and nearly 200 towns and villages in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus were evacuated, including the cities of Pripyat and Chernobyl. The area was so contaminated that many of the evacuees were never permitted to return to their homes. Pripyat is the most famous of these abandoned towns; it was built for the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and had a population of almost 50,000 at the time of the disaster. Disease and contamination Significant fatality rates from epidemics have produced
Dam disaster of 1975 in China.\nLarge amounts of radioactive contamination were spread across Europe due to the Chernobyl disaster, and cesium and strontium contaminated many agricultural products, livestock and soil. The accident necessitated the evacuation of the entire city of Pripyat and of 300,000 people from Kiev, rendering an area of land unusable to humans for an indeterminate period.\nAs radioactive materials decay, they release particles that can damage the body and lead to cancer, particularly cesium-137 and iodine-131. In the Chernobyl disaster, releases of cesium-137 contaminated land. Some communities, including the entire city of Pripyat, were abandoned permanently. One news" }, { "question": "why /r/the_donald posts are consistently dominating /r/all?", "answer": "The_Donald has a *huge* amount of active users, more than r/TIL, r/pics, r/funny and other default subreddits. There's simply a lot of people browsing it. The second reason is the culture of that subreddit is very, well, \"upvote happy\". Or 'high energy' as they would call it. In essence, they enjoy covering the frontpage, partly to get their voices out, but also because they know a lot of people don't like that reddit and so being able to \"dominate\" the frontpage is a win against \"the other side\" so to speak. Thus, there is great incentive for the userbase to upvote everything remotely interesting, as opposed to just posts that you truly enjoy.", "support_docs": "
a direct violation of site-wide policies regarding spam. In response, Huffman rolled out a change to the r/all algorithm; he noted that r/The_Donald was among several Reddit communities over the years that \"attempt to dominate the conversation on Reddit at the expense of everyone else.\" Ongoing problems with members of the subreddit brigading and harassing other subreddits forced Reddit staff to modify the site's software algorithms to limit the offending posts to the subreddit. The Reddit team introduced r/popular to replace r/all, which included most popular subreddits except for The_Donald, and as a result the subreddit could no longer reach
succeed in spreading alternative news to mainstream social networks.\" They also calculated that r/The_Donald hosted 35.37% of URLs from 54 alternative news sites \"like Infowars\" on Reddit. Algorithm Through the use of \"sticky posts,\" a moderation function of Reddit that allows selected posts to be artificially placed at the top of a subreddit, the moderators of the forum were \"gaming\" the algorithms in order to dominate the content on the r/all page, which is a representation of the most popular content on the website. Additionally, users are often apt to flood the website with waves of identical images or posts,
was featured in 13 of the top 25 posts on r/all, and gained over 16,000 subscribers during the weekend of the shooting. Meanwhile, r/news lost more than 85,000 subscribers. Due to deliberate manipulation by the forum's moderators and active users, the algorithm that dictated what content reached the r/all page of Reddit resulted in a significant portion of the page being r/The_Donald content. In response, Reddit administrators made changes to its algorithms on June 15, 2016, in an attempt to preserve the variety of r/all. In April 2016, jcm267, the founder of the subreddit, attributed the popularity of the subreddit" }, { "question": "what type of fabric", "answer": "is a great source for the science of fabrics. Polyester hadn't been invented yet, so the basis plant, animal fibers were used, but in very, very creative ways. cotton - Levis, seersucker; rayon, wool, silk, felt, jersey, velvet, and of course, the horribly flammable flannel. If you watch the old baseball film of the baseball greats, you'll notice there is not stretch in their uniforms because polyester hadn't been invented yet. They had no \"stretch\" elastics, etc, which is why they look so baggy. Another source is if you watch old movies on . The actresses' wardrobes are great examples of the creativity of these designers. & #x200B; edit: there was lots of rationing of cotton and wool, because the first priority was, of course, the military for uniforms, blankets, and first aid.", "support_docs": "
employed to make shirts and colonial uniforms in Tropical areas due to its incredible breathability. The fabric employed is cotton, and the weave is an English gauze in which two warp yarns are twisted around the weave and around the weft. The weight is between 150 and 250 gr/m2, but the open gauze weave makes it a quite light and breathable fabric that is excellent in presence of harsh climates such that of the Tropics. This fabric has been also employed to produce curtains.\u201d
hybrid fabric for the composites industry.
is almost always 100% cotton velvet and is dyed in different colours: red, maroon, green." }, { "question": "what is the origin of white supremacist obsession with nordic peoples?", "answer": "/u/killfile has previously answered Why was being Aryan such a big deal for the Germans? as a follow-up to a question about the swastika. /u/jan_van_bergen has previously written about the Nazi attachment to the word 'Aryan'", "support_docs": "
races: Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean, as well as their physical and mental characteristics. This part of the book ties together strands of thinking regarding Aryan migration theory, ethnology, anthropology, and history into a broad survey of the historical rise and fall, and expansion and retraction, of the European races from their homelands. It similarly connects the history of America with that of Europe, especially its Nordic nations. Nordic theory Grant's book is an elaborate work of racial hygiene detailing the racial history of the world. He draws on the scientific theories of genetics and Darwinian evolution, as well as the
European races, with the Nordics as the pinnacle of civilization.\nThe Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers, and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant character of the Alpines. Chivalry and knighthood, and their still surviving but greatly impaired counterparts, are peculiarly Nordic traits, and feudalism, class distinctions, and race pride among Europeans are traceable for the most part to the north.\nGrant, while aware of the \"Nordic Migration Theory\" into the Mediterranean, appears to reject this theory as an explanation for the high civilization features of
Nordicism Nordicism is an ideology of racial separatism which views the Nordic race as an endangered and superior racial group, most notably outlined in Madison Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race, Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain's The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. This ideology was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Northwestern, Central, and Northern European countries as well as in North America and Australia.\nThe idea of the Nordic phenotype being superior to others was originally embraced as \"Teutonicism\" in Germany, \"Anglo-Saxonism\" in" }, { "question": "in traditional primogeniture, what happens with grandchildren?", "answer": "If it follows male primogeniture, then it goes first to the King's son, then his daughter, then her son. If the rule is simple primogeniture (with no regard to sex), then it would go to the eldest child first, the daughter, then *her* son, then her younger brother.", "support_docs": "
grandchildren.
\"regular order of primogeniture and representation: earlier line shall precede older; within the same line, closer degree shall precede more distant; within the same degree, male shall precede female; and within the same sex, older shall precede the younger\". What this means in practice, is that the Crown is passed to the firstborn, who would have preference over his siblings and cousins; women can only accede to the throne provided they do not have any older or younger brothers; and finally \"regular order of representation\" means that grandchildren have preference over the deceased King's parents, uncles or siblings. Finally, if
heir to their father's titles and estate." }, { "question": "during the 15th-17th centuries was venice a particularly \"jewish\" city?", "answer": "In contemporary European terms the Venetian Jewish population was certainly significant (as you said, many other European nations and cities had completely expelled them) which is why the Ghetto was set up in 1516. Interestingly, the buildings in the Ghetto weren't allowed to rise any higher than the homes of the Christians, which is why they were built with many very short storeys to pack as much space in for the expanding community. At various times the Jews were also locked in the Ghetto at night, and were required to wear identifying clothing. They were more 'tolerated' than being a symbiotic part of the city. Nevertheless Venice was noted, perhaps not for its 'Jewishness', but certainly as a place where a notable Jewish minority lived in a prominent Christian city. One obvious contemporary source for this reputation would be Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice,' which focusses on a Jewish moneylender. (Other places were also linked to Jews in the Renaissance imagination, however - see Marlow's 'The Jew of Malta'). It is also important to remember that even when confined into the Ghetto the Jewish community did not become contiguous - it continued to be made up of many different ethnic groups each with their own place of worship. Hope that helps.", "support_docs": "
the Venetian Ashkenazi community. Today, there are also other populations of Ashkenazic Jews in Venice, mainly Lubavitchers who operate a kosher food store, a yeshiva, and a Chabad synagogue.\nLanguages historically spoken in the confines of the Ghetto include Venetian, Italian, Judeo-Spanish, French, and German. In addition, Hebrew was traditionally (and still is) used on signage, inscriptions, and for official purposes such as wedding contracts (as well as, of course, in religious services). Today, English is widely used in the shops and the Museum because of the large number of English-speaking tourists. Ghetto today Today, the Ghetto is still a center
Venetian Ghetto The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were compelled to live by the government of the Venetian Republic. The English word ghetto is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice. The Venetian Ghetto was instituted on 29 March 1516. It was not the first time that Jews in Venice were compelled to live in a segregated area of the city. In 1552 Venice had 160,000 inhabitants, including 900 Jews, who were mainly merchants. \nIn 1797 the French army of Italy, commanded by the 28-year-old General Napoleon Bonaparte, conquered Venice, dissolved the Venetian republic, and
of Jewish life in the city. The Jewish community of Venice, that counts about 450 people, is culturally active, although only a few members live in the Ghetto.\nEvery year, there is an international conference on Hebrew Studies, with particular reference to the history and culture of the Veneto. Other conferences, exhibitions and seminars are held throughout the course of the year.\nThe temples not only serve as places of worship but also provide lessons on the sacred texts and the Talmud for both children and adults, along with courses in Modern Hebrew, while other social facilities include a kindergarten, an old" }, { "question": "atomic orbital theory, molecular orbital theory, valence bond theory.", "answer": "All three are models of the wave-particle duality of electrons in an atom, and are essentially related to one another. Atomic orbital theory is used to describe the energetic nature of electrons in a single atom; molecular orbital theory (related to VB theory) qualifies these wave interactions between multiple atoms in a molecule with mathematical equations (the shapes assumed by the orbitals) and quantifies them in terms of energy (in the form of an energy diagram). Source: student in inorganic chemistry. :)", "support_docs": "
by performing a linear combination of contributing structures (resonance) if there are several of them. In contrast, for molecular orbital theory a linear combination of atomic orbitals is performed first, followed by filling of the resulting molecular orbitals with electrons.\nThe two approaches are regarded as complementary, and each provides its own insights into the problem of chemical bonding. As valence bond theory builds the molecular wavefunction out of localized bonds, it is more suited for the calculation of bond energies and the understanding of reaction mechanisms. As molecular orbital theory builds the molecular wavefunction out of delocalized orbitals, it is
compounds, so-called four-center two-electron bonds also have been postulated. Quantum mechanical description After the development of quantum mechanics, two basic theories were proposed to provide a quantum description of chemical bonding: valence bond (VB) theory and molecular orbital (MO) theory. A more recent quantum description is given in terms of atomic contributions to the electronic density of states. Comparison of VB and MO theories The two theories represent two ways to build up the electron configuration of the molecule. For valence bond theory, the atomic hybrid orbitals are filled with electrons first to produce a fully bonded valence configuration, followed
overestimates it.\nModern calculations in quantum chemistry usually start from (but ultimately go far beyond) a molecular orbital rather than a valence bond approach, not because of any intrinsic superiority in the former but rather because the MO approach is more readily adapted to numerical computations. Molecular orbitals are orthogonal, which significantly increases feasibility and speed of computer calculations compared to nonorthogonal valence bond orbitals. However, better valence bond programs are now available." }, { "question": "why do the oak trees near me in new england produce, en masse, zero acorns every few years?", "answer": "Oak tree colonies are known for mast seeding. This means that every tree will produce seed at the same time, and then wait an interval of time (usually many years), before mast seeding again. The point of mast seeding is to saturate seed predators with food during that year. Seed predators can only eat/hide so much food, so when every tree produces seed, a large percent of seeds will remain undisturbed and can grow into new trees. During the years the trees don't produce seed, seed predators either starve, rely on hidden caches of seeds, find new food sources, or live off the fat from the last mass seeding event. Trees use the time to build up resources for the next seeding event. Trees mast seed based on a biological clock; and obviously this clock is sensitive to environmental cues such as climate. Thus, it's absolutely possible for oak trees in New England to seed every year for 3 years, and then wait a year to build up energy reserves, and then seed every year for another 3 years. After all, that's just a modified version of mast seeding.", "support_docs": "
the attractive aesthetic of this species.\nTypically, leaves are five to ten centimeters (2\u20134 inches) long and are roundly and deeply lobed. The leaf width is approximately one half its length. Each leaf is matte green with an underneath pale green appearance; moreover, the leaf is covered with abundant soft fuzz, yielding an almost velvety feeling. When a fresh leaf is rubbed or broken, an aromatic scent is exuded, evoking a forest odor. The wood is a dull brown approaching yellow, and it has not been used extensively for milling.\nOver most of the range, acorns fall in October. A variety of
mammals and birds eat them, including the acorn woodpecker, California scrub jay, yellow-billed magpie, and California ground squirrel. The acorns are also attacked by bruchid beetles, but can survive moderate levels of infestation. Surviving acorns all germinate in their first winter, and none remain by mid-winter. The acorns are medium to dark brown and range from two to three centimeters (0.8\u20131.2 inches) in length. The caps have deep stippling and are found most often as singlets, but occasionally as doublets. The Concow tribe call the acorns l\u014d-\u0113\u2019 (Konkow language).\nGlobular galls up to several centimeters in diameter are frequently attached to
12\u201325\u00a0mm long by 14\u201318\u00a0mm wide. A scaly cup covers about 1/3 to 1/2 of the nut. On average, acorn crops are produced in 3 out of 10 years.\nFoliage: The leathery, highly variable leaves are grey green to olive green, have a lustrous upper surface, and are whitish and densely hairy below. Leaves are alternate, simple, with variable shape (oblong, ovate, or elliptical), and with wavy or shallowly lobed margins. Length is 2 to 8\u00a0cm and width 2 to 4\u00a0cm.\nTwigs: Twigs are brown or grayish, 1-2.5\u00a0mm diameter, glabrous or densely covered with short grayish or" }, { "question": "family members are posting on facebook that there has been no warming in the us since 2005 based on a recent noaa report, is this accurate? if so, is there some other nuance that this data is not accounting for?", "answer": "**Edit:** As /u/joekercom points out, the 2005 date is not arbitrary. In 2005 NOAA began collecting climate data from a new network of weather stations due to criticisms about the validity of the existing weather station network. The data since 2005, from both the new and the old networks, does not show a significant warming trend. The misconception here is that this new network is more accurate than the existing network and that a lack of warming in the new network's data refutes the existing observations of warming in the USA. This is not the case. The whole purpose of the new network (called the US Climate Reference Network) was not to replace the existing network of weather stations, but to measure the validity of the existing network's data and determine whether there are baises in the data due to things such as urban development. We did not know whether the existing weather station network was accurate, but we do know that the USCRN is a \"pristine\" weather station network that should be free from bias. Here's the important point: When researchers compared the results from the USCRN with the existing climate station network, they have found that the data from both networks largely agree with each other. What this means is that as far as we can tell, the existing climate data network that NOAA has been using for decades has not been strongly biased by external factors other than genuine climate change. Thus, while the 2005 date is not arbitrary, it is neither the beginning of a new era of climate data that rejects all previous observations. It's the opposite, the climate data collected since 2005 only supports the idea that the long-term warming trend we have seen here in the US and elsewhere is a genuine climatological phenomenon, and not due to unseen bias in the data collection methods. **Another Edit:** Just a nice source from /u/kilotesla showing how the new network (USCRN) compares to existing climate data networks used by NOAA: New network USCRN vs old networks #End Edit / Original Post: They're right, but there are four things to keep in mind here: 1. The year 2005 is an arbitrary date. Over time there is a clear warming trend in the USA. Go back to 1990 and there is a demonstrable warming trend, go back to 1980 and there is a very clear warming trend. 2. US temperatures since 2005 have not been significantly rising, but they're already hot. All temperatures since 2005 have been above the historic average. If there was no warming trend, we would expect some years to be above the average and some years below. 3. Changes in local weather patterns can dominate the warming trend in the short term, and the USA is a very temperate country. For example, El Nino vs. La Nina temperature conditions in the Pacific ocean can greatly influence the USA's temperature in any given year, with two of the hottest years in the last 15 being hot El Nino years. 4. The years 2015-2018 are the four hottest years on record globally. The global warming trend is clear, and the local variations in weather that have stalled warming in the USA will not continue forever.", "support_docs": "
hampered by data set version changes, and inherent data uncertainties. These factors substantially limit the ability to draw robust and consistent inferences from such studies about the true long-term trends or the value of different data products\". Evaluation The U.S. National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program has established minimum standards regarding the instrumentation, siting, and reporting of surface temperature stations. The observing systems available are able to detect year-to-year temperature variations such as those caused by El Ni\u00f1o or volcanic eruptions.\nThe urban heat island effect is very small, estimated to account for less than 0.002\u00a0\u00b0C of warming per decade since
and trends The global average and combined land and ocean surface temperature, show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] \u00b0C, in the period 1880 to 2012, based on multiple independently produced datasets. This gives a trend of 0.064 \u00b1 0.015\u00a0\u00b0C per decade over that period. The trend is faster for land than ocean, faster for Arctic regions, and faster since the 1970s than the longer period. Warming in the instrumental temperature record Most of the observed warming occurred in two periods: around 1900 to around 1940 and around 1970 onwards; the cooling/plateau from 1940 to 1970 has been mostly
1900.\nBrooks investigated Historical Climate Network (USHCN) sites in Indiana in 2005, and assigned 16% of the sites an 'excellent' rating, 59% a 'good' rating, 12.5% a 'fair' rating, and 12.5% 'poor' rating. A 2006 study analyzed 366 U.S. surface stations; results indicate relatively few significant temperature trends, and these are generally evenly divided between warming and cooling trends. 95% of the stations displayed a warming trend after land use/land cover changes took place, and the authors noted \"this does not necessarily imply that the changes are the causative factor.\" Another study that same year documented examples of well and poorly" }, { "question": "questions regarding the asian theater during the later part of world war 2(1945).", "answer": "Hi there! Unfortunately, alternative history and 'what if' questions are not allowed in this subreddit. We would recommend that you edit question 2 and question 4 out of your post, thank you.", "support_docs": "
Pacific Theater during World War II.
occupation forces after the surrender of Japan.
1942\", \"Pacific 1942\u201345\", and \"New Guinea 1942\"." }, { "question": "why were us quarters, dimes, half dollars, and dollar coins that preceded 1965 made of 90% silver?", "answer": "Prior to that time coins got their value from the content of precious metals in them. They had that specific value (at the time of minting) of gold, silver, nickel or copper alloyed with other metals to make the coin.", "support_docs": "
to be continued after the revival of silver coinage\". Breen deemed the decision to eliminate the silver three-cent piece and the half dime, which might have directly competed with the two copper-nickel coins, a favor to industrialist Joseph Wharton, whose mines produced much of the nickel ore used in coinage. According to numismatist R.\u00a0W. Julian, the three-cent silver \"had played its part well in the U.S. monetary system, but there was no longer any need for it\". Aftermath Large quantities of the three-cent silver, including much of the production from 1863 and later, were held by the treasury and were
Three-cent silver Background Although the Mint of the United States had been striking silver coins since the 1790s, they did not always circulate due to fluctuations in the price of the metal. In 1834, for example, half dollars sold on the market at a premium of one percent. The U.S. was then on a bimetallic standard, and though Congress had slightly overvalued silver with respect to gold, enough Mexican silver flowed into the country to produce a rough equilibrium.\nBy early 1849, most of the silver coins in circulation were small coins of the Spanish colonial real, including the \"levy\"
to its value, little silver was presented for striking into that piece. As the statutes did not permit the public to deposit silver and receive it back in the form of subsidiary silver coins (the three-cent piece through half dollar), this effectively placed the U.S. on the gold standard. Despite the statutes, in 1853 and 1854, Snowden had the mint purchase large quantities of silver bullion at a fixed price, generally above the market rate, and struck it into coin. Since the subsidiary coins were only legal tender to five dollars, and could not be redeemed for gold," }, { "question": "time", "answer": "Time is a human measurement of the environment that we live through. We measure it by an arbitrary scale that we invented/derived. Basically though time is a measurement of change. Time as we think of it has existed from the big bang/creating of the universe. Time does not \"run\" at the same speed everywhere as far as we can tell. It is confirmed that time passes differently at higher/lower gravity, or at high or low traveling speed. Our satellites in outer space literally have clocks that are running at \"different\" speeds than the ones on earth. Time only goes in one direction because our consciousness only goes in one direction. We remember the past, but not the future. We can more or less easily look into the past, and know events happened in a specific order.", "support_docs": "
time.
time.
the time." }, { "question": "how are county judges in alabama refusing to grant marriage licences to gay couples when a federal court struck down the ban? are these judges breaking the law? could they be arrested/forcibly removed from their positions?", "answer": "They are breaking the law, and a motion has already been filed to have a federal court find a county judge in Mobile, Alabama in contempt, to fine him, and to order law enforcement to open the marriage license office. Source", "support_docs": "
on the recognition of same-sex marriages unconstitutional under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution. The court heard arguments on December 4. The state argued that there was \"nothing unusual\" in enforcing policies that encourage \"responsible procreation\" and the \"optimal mode of child-rearing\". Plaintiffs' attorney contended that the policy is \"based on prejudice and bias that is religiously grounded in this state\".\nOn December 20, 2013, District Judge Robert J. Shelby struck down the same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional and violating same-gender couples' their rights to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The
to cease enforcing the state's constitutional and statutory restrictions on same-sex marriage. Subsequent changes On June 27, 2016, a federal judge ruled that clerks in Mississippi may not recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on their religious beliefs. U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves said that the recusals on religious grounds granted by the Religious Liberty Accommodations Act, violated Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
wrote: \"Obergefell is the law of the land. If a clerk has issued or decides to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, there will be no adverse action taken by the Attorney General against that circuit clerk on behalf of the State.... On the other hand, a clerk who refuses to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple could be sued by the denied couple and may face liability.\"\nOn July 1, the Fifth Circuit lifted its stay and returned the Campaign for Southern Equality case to the district court where Judge Reeves ordered Mississippi and its agents" }, { "question": "external debt", "answer": "Countries owe debt to things other than countries. Like people (most retirement plans in the US are based somewhat on owning US debt). Currency used depends on the country. Debt is useful for a lot of reasons, it lets you do things right now instead of waiting until later, which is useful.", "support_docs": "
figure rises as long as the US maintains an imbalance in trade, when the value of imports substantially outweighs the value of exports. This external debt does not result mostly from loans to Americans or the American government, nor is it consumer debt owed to non-US creditors. It is an accounting entry that largely represents US domestic assets purchased with trade dollars and owned overseas, largely by US trading partners.\nFor countries like the United States, a large net external debt is created when the value of foreign assets (debt and equity) held by domestic residents is less than the value
of domestic assets held by foreigners. In simple terms, as foreigners buy property in the US, this adds to the external debt. When this occurs in greater amounts than Americans buying property overseas, nations like the United States are said to be debtor nations, but this is not conventional debt like a loan obtained from a bank.\nIf the external debt represents foreign ownership of domestic assets, the result is that rental income, stock dividends, capital gains and other investment income is received by foreign investors, rather than by U.S. residents. On the other hand, when American debt is held by
overseas investors, they receive interest and principal repayments. As the trade imbalance puts extra dollars in hands outside of the U.S., these dollars may be used to invest in new assets (foreign direct investment, such as new plants) or be used to buy existing American assets such as stocks, real estate and bonds. With a mounting trade deficit, the income from these assets increasingly transfers overseas.\nOf major concern is the magnitude of the NIIP (or net external debt), which is larger than those of most national economies. Fueled by the sizable trade deficit, the external debt is so large that" }, { "question": "how do i determine if a peptide will be a-helical or a b-sheet just by looking at the primary structure?", "answer": "If what you mean is being able to look at a given sequence predict \"by eye\" whether it will form a helix or sheet, you're going to have a difficult time. There's just too many variables at play to be able to come up with any solid, simple rules. However there are quite a bit of software methods that have been written to tackle this problem, by attempting to take all these variables into account, and/or comparing the sequence to sequences whose structure is known. link to wiki page listing some such programs", "support_docs": "
amino acids. Secondary structure Secondary structure refers to highly regular local sub-structures on the actual polypeptide backbone chain. Two main types of secondary structure, the \u03b1-helix and the \u03b2-strand or \u03b2-sheets, were suggested in 1951 by Linus Pauling et al. These secondary structures are defined by patterns of hydrogen bonds between the main-chain peptide groups. They have a regular geometry, being constrained to specific values of the dihedral angles \u03c8 and \u03c6 on the Ramachandran plot. Both the \u03b1-helix and the \u03b2-sheet represent a way of saturating all the hydrogen bond donors and acceptors in the peptide backbone. Some parts
contains intramolecular hydrogen bonds, then the protein is referred to as globular and mostly consists of alpha helices. There are also conformations that consist of a mix of alpha helices and beta sheets as well as a beta helixes with an alpha sheets.\nThe tertiary structure of proteins deal with their folding process and how the overall molecule is arranged. Finally, a quaternary structure is a group of tertiary proteins coming together and binding.\nWith all of these levels, proteins have a wide variety of places in which they can be manipulated and adjusted. Techniques are used to affect
adopt stable \u03b1-helical structure. Furthermore, crosslinks can be incorporated into peptides to conformationally stabilize helical folds. Crosslinks stabilize the helical state by entropically destabilizing the unfolded state and by removing enthalpically stabilized \"decoy\" folds that compete with the fully helical state. It has been shown that \u03b1-helices are more stable, robust to mutations and designable than \u03b2-strands in natural proteins, and also in artificial designed proteins. Experimental determination Since the \u03b1-helix is defined by its hydrogen bonds and backbone conformation, the most detailed experimental evidence for \u03b1-helical structure comes from atomic-resolution X-ray crystallography such as the example" }, { "question": "how wavefront/custom lasik is different from older versions of lasik/lasek/prk, and why it is (or isn't) better.", "answer": "It is better because it uses a superior system of measurement that takes more data into account. When your prescription is taken for standard LASIK/LASEK/PRK they are basically taking an average measurement for your entire eye. But of course your eye is not a perfect shape with a smooth surface. It's composed of organic tissues. Some of them are out of position, some of them are not as transparent as others, etc. etc. That's where Wavefront-Guided Custom LASIK/LASEK/PRK comes into play. The Wavefront technology takes measurements from many different angles (I believe I was told something like 240 measurements). This allows it to detect and adjust for tiny imperfections in parts of your eye, that could not be accounted for using traditional measurement technologies. I had Wavefront-guided PRK performed almost a year ago and let me tell you it is the single best decision I have ever made. It is the best money I ever spent. It was life-changing.", "support_docs": "
in patients with keratoconus.\nNo good data can be found that compare the percentage of LASIK procedures that employ wavefront guidance versus the percentage that do not, nor the percentage of refractive surgeons who have a preference one way or the other. Wavefront technology continues to be positioned as an \"advance\" in LASIK with putative advantages; however, it is clear that not all LASIK procedures are performed with wavefront guidance.\nStill, surgeons claim patients are generally more satisfied with this technique than with previous methods, particularly regarding lowered incidence of \"halos,\" the visual artifact caused by spherical aberration induced in the eye
PRK with the excimer laser. The addition of a flap to PRK became known as LASIK. Further research Since 1991, there have been further developments such as faster lasers; larger spot areas; bladeless flap incisions; intraoperative corneal pachymetry; and \"wavefront-optimized\" and \"wavefront-guided\" techniques which were introduced by the University of Michigan's Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. The goal of refractive surgery is to avoid permanently weakening the cornea with incisions and to deliver less energy to the surrounding tissues. Comparison to photorefractive keratectomy A systematic review that compared PRK and LASIK concluded that LASIK has shorter recovery time and less
pain. The two techniques after a period of one year have similar results.\nA 2017 systematic review found uncertainty in visual acuity, but found that in one study, those receiving PRK were less likely to achieve a refractive error, and were less likely to have an over-correction than compared to LASIK." }, { "question": "how does chemotaxis work?", "answer": "You're asking two different questions. Antibodies don't interact with antigens by chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is when an organism moves in response to a chemical stimulus in the environment (like how you might move away from an area if you smelled a skunk, or if you moved towards an area if you smelled fresh baked cookies). Are you asking about antibodies or chemotaxis?", "support_docs": "
Chemotaxis History of chemotaxis research Although migration of cells was detected from the early days of the development of microscopy by Leeuwenhoek, a Caltech lecture regarding chemotaxis propounds that 'erudite description of chemotaxis was only first made by T. W. Engelmann (1881) and W. F. Pfeffer (1884) in bacteria, and H. S. Jennings (1906) in ciliates'. The Nobel Prize laureate I. Metchnikoff also contributed to the study of the field during 1882 to 1886, with investigations of the process as an initial step of phagocytosis. The significance of chemotaxis in biology and clinical pathology was widely accepted in the 1930s,
Chemokinesis Chemokinesis is chemically prompted kinesis, a motile response of unicellular prokaryotic or eukaryotic organisms to chemicals that cause the cell to make some kind of change in their migratory/swimming behaviour. Changes involve an increase or decrease of speed, alterations of amplitude or frequency of motile character, or direction of migration. However, in contrast to chemotaxis, chemokinesis has a random, non-vectorial moiety, in general.\n\nDue to the random character, techniques dedicated to evaluate chemokinesis are partly different from methods used in chemotaxis research. One of the most valuable ways to measure chemokinesis is computer-assisted (see, e.g., Image J) checker-board analysis, which
'know' whether it is traveling up or down a gradient. Although the methylation system accounts for the wide range of sensitivity that bacteria have to chemical gradients, other mechanisms are involved in increasing the absolute value of the sensitivity on a given background. Well-established examples are the ultra-sensitive response of the motor to the CheY-P signal, and the clustering of chemoreceptors. Chemoattractants and chemorepellents Chemoattractants and chemorepellents are inorganic or organic substances possessing chemotaxis-inducer effect in motile cells. These chemotactic ligands create chemical concentration gradients that organisms, prokaryotic and eukaryotic, move toward or away from, respectively.\nEffects of chemoattractants are elicited" }, { "question": "why did the us fail to kill castro so many times? wouldn't it have been relatively easy for the cia to pull such an assassination off?", "answer": "There's a big gap between how TV, movies, and books portray the CIA (where it's handy to have a super-competent, mysterious enemy for the protagonists to struggle against) and the historical realities. The CIA was only founded in 1947, with direct antecedents only going back another few years. It was still very young in the 1950s to 1970s, growing and changing bureaucratically, gaining and losing influence depending on the Director and the current President, and trying out new types of activities (not just spying, but performing covert ops). The early success in the Iran coup gave them a lot of confidence, but probably a lot more than it should have, as there were a lot of extraneous factors that happened to line up to make that mission a 'success,' and covert ops entered the toolbox of presidents who wanted to accomplish something while maintaining deniability. Unfortunately, not very many of them went that well, in hindsight, and the Castro assassination attempts are just a few among many. There were no professional assassins in the CIA (maybe today, though I doubt it, but certainly not then), and very little to no institutional or personal experience in managing such an operation. To their credit, the CIA recognized this and tried to contract the Castro assassinations out to the 'experts' - the mob - but that didn't work out (and is a leading theory among more historically minded JFK conspiracy types for why the mob would assassinate him eventually). At that point, they were in a situation a lot like you would be if someone gave you a lot of money and asked you to manage the assassination of a foreign leader. Where do you start? Who's going to do the killing, while maintaining deniability? Where do you even go for a competent, quiet assassin? So, they tried bribing people, and sneaking poison into food, and going for technological solutions like putting explosives in a conch shell (Castro loved diving), but it's not that surprising that these fairly amateurish attempts failed, really. Meanwhile, a lot of really smart and stubborn guys in charge were getting frustrated that they'd failed and more and more wanted to make it happen, the culmination of which was the disastrous Bay of Pigs, which was not even remotely secret and had little chance for success by the start date, but bureaucratic inertia seems to have carried it onward. At any point the US could have dropped bombs or sent in the Marines, but that would defeat the whole point of using covert ops. Sources: Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only; Richelson, Wizards of Langley", "support_docs": "
the 1960s. From the seventies onwards, the attempts were most often made by Cuban exiles who had been trained by the CIA shortly after Castro took power in 1959.\nThe film also contains extensive material shot with Antonio Veciana, the Cuban exile who came close to killing Castro on three occasions over 17 years. He is found running a marine supplies store in Miami. All these men, the film claims, were supported and funded by the United States government. At one point the CIA even sought the help of the Mafia in the hope they would be able to succeed
where so many others had failed. Other characters are Cuban exile F\u00e9lix Rodr\u00edguez, the CIA operative who trained Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and who was present when the Bolivian Army killed Che Guevara in 1967 at the request of the Bolivian President at the time, and Enrique Ovares, possibly the first man to make an attempt on Castro's life after he took power. Robert Maheu is also interviewed, the Hughes associate who served as liaison between the CIA and mobsters \"Johnny\" Roselli and Sam \"Momo\" Giancana, in another plot to kill Castro, this time using
638 Ways to Kill Castro Production The film reveals multiple methods of assassination, from exploding cigars to femmes fatales; a radio station rigged with gaseous LSD to a poison syringe posing as an innocuous fountain pen. Fabian Escalante, the former head of the Intelligence Directorate and the man who had the job of protecting Castro for many of the 49 years he was in power, alleges that there were over 600 plots and conspiracies known to Cuban agents, all dreamt up to end Castro's life. Some were perpetrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, especially during the first half of" }, { "question": "did the apartheid regime in south africa consider lesotho and swaziland models for what it wanted the \"bantustans\" to be?", "answer": "I'm moving, so I just packed away most of my books, but Ill try to answer your question as best as I can! To answer your question in brief, yes and no. In this case of Lesotho, the state's geographic position meant that it was surrounded by South Africa, and thus very vulnerable to South African strong arming. Moreover, Lesotho's sovereignty was repeatedly violated throughout the Apartheid regime's tenure in power, as SADF soldiers and policemen would regularly cross the border to assassinate suspected members of the ANC; operations which generally devolved into vicious slaughter of innocents. As a result, Lesotho was seen as a model for what a Bantustans' foreign policy would be: pliant. Yet, the South African government, owing to its avowed white supremacist views, never wanted Basotho immigration into SA, even as cheap labour, as they felt that they had more than enough within South Africa. This is because the ultimate goal of the Bantustans was to keep the black populations of South Africa politically fragmented and underdeveloped, and also out of the major cities. The National Party wanted to make the major cities and significant towns white only bastions, with the black labourers commuting in and out everyday. Additionally, the Bantustans were supposed to give the South African regime some good PR, as if the black population no longer lived in SA, there would be no need for any Apartheid policies, as well as skew the demography of South Africa enough that the Afrikaners and White South Africans were no longer such a tiny minority. In contrast, Eswatini would not have been in any way a model for the South African Bantustans. Although South Africa could pressure Eswatini, and also repeatedly violated its sovereignty in cross border raids, its border with Mozambique afforded it a degree of freedom and flexibility that Lesotho simply lacked, meaning it was not so completely under the thumb of the South African government. Furthermore, the same answer above applies for Eswatini: the goal of the bantustans was to keep black africans out of \"white\" South Africa. Hope this answers your question!", "support_docs": "
grant independence to any more Bantustans.\nWith the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994, the Bantustans were dismantled and their territory reincorporated into the Republic of South Africa. The drive to achieve this was spearheaded by the African National Congress (ANC) as a central element of its programme of reform. Reincorporation was mostly achieved peacefully, although there was some resistance from the local elites, who stood to lose out on the opportunities for wealth and political power provided by the homelands. The dismantling of the homelands of Bophuthatswana and Ciskei was particularly difficult. In Ciskei, South African
politically.\nBut this goal was not achieved. Only a minority (about 39% in 1986) of South Africa's black population lived in the Bantustans; the remainder lived in South Africa proper, many in townships, shanty-towns and slums on the outskirts of South African cities. International recognition Bantustans within the borders of South Africa were classified as \"self-governing\" or \"independent\". In theory, self-governing Bantustans had control over many aspects of their internal functioning but were not yet sovereign nations. Independent Bantustans (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei; also known as the TBVC states) were intended to be fully sovereign. In reality, they had no
within the system, whilst others believed that nominal independence presented an opportunity to build a society free from racial discrimination. In general, the leaders of the Bantustans did not shy away from attacking the South African government's racial policies and called for the repeal of Apartheid laws (which were repealed in nominally independent states). A federal solution was occasionally mooted, both by the Bantustan governments and by opposition parties in South Africa. Dissolution In January 1985, State President P. W. Botha declared that blacks in South Africa proper would no longer be deprived of South African citizenship in favour of" }, { "question": "why did so many polish immigrants go to chicago rather than anywhere else?", "answer": "Try /r/askanthropology as this is a more general situation than just that group in that city.", "support_docs": "
There are approximately 70,000 Bosnian Americans in Chicago. 40,000 of them came as refugees during the 1990s and early 2000s.\nOther prevalent European ethnic groups include the Czechs, and Ukrainians. At the turn of the 20th century, Chicago was the third-largest Czech city in the world, after Prague and Vienna. There are approximately 14,000 Ukrainians living within the Chicago city limits. Chicago has a small community of Swedish Americans. Swedish Americans make up 0.9% of Chicago's population, and they number at 23,990. After the Great Chicago Fire, many Swedish carpenters helped to rebuild the city, which led to the saying
hated the Irish, and the WASPs all lived on the North Shore.\" The Irish gained entry to Chicago's Fire and Police Departments and have kept family traditions of participation in these units. The Irish laid the foundations for many of the city's Roman Catholic churches, schools and hospitals. The Irish are still very active in the city's politics.\nGermans have constituted a major portion of ethnic whites in Chicago since the beginning of the city's history. When the Great Plains opened up for settlement in the 1830s and 1840s, many German immigrants stopped in Chicago to earn additional money before moving
West to claim a homestead. Those with skills in demand could\u2014and often did\u2014stay. From 1850, when Germans constituted one-sixth of Chicago's population, until the turn of the 20th century, people of German descent constituted the largest ethnic group in the city, followed by Irish, Poles, and Swedes. In 1900, 470,000 Chicagoans\u2014one out of every four residents\u2014had either been born in Germany or had a parent born there. Although their numbers dropped because of reduced emigration from Germany and because World War I had made it unpopular to acknowledge one's German heritage, 22 percent of Chicago's population still did so" }, { "question": "what makes nuclear power so green compared to other energy sources?", "answer": "Almost no carbon emissions. Carbon emissions lead to climate change, and climate change is the most serious environmental threat facing us today.", "support_docs": "
from nuclear plants.\u201d Nuclear energy produces far less carbon dioxide than coal, 9 grams per kilowatt hour compared with 790\u20131017 grams per kilowatt hour for coal. Also, nuclear energy produces the same amount if not less greenhouse gasses than renewable resources.\nLike all energy sources, various life cycle analysis (LCA) studies have led to a range of estimates on the median value for nuclear power, with most comparisons of carbon dioxide emissions show nuclear power as comparable to renewable energy sources.\nTo better quantify and compare greenhouse gas emissions reported by researchers using many different assumptions and techniques, the US
be widely produced with basic equipment and natural processes. Wood, the most renewable and available alternative fuel, emits the same amount of carbon when burned as would be emitted if it degraded naturally. Nuclear power is an alternative to fossil fuels that is non-renewable, like fossil fuels, nuclear ones are a finite resource. Ecologically friendly alternatives A renewable energy source such as biomass is sometimes regarded as a good alternative to providing heat and electricity with fossil fuels. Biofuels are not inherently ecologically friendly for this purpose, while burning biomass is carbon-neutral, air pollution is still produced. For example,
land use, and hence emit carbon dioxide and conventional pollutants. \nNuclear energy contributes a very small amount of emissions into the atmosphere which can cause many environmental problems such as global warming. Uranium is not burned in a nuclear power plant as coal is so there are no emissions from it. All of the waste that comes from the fission of uranium stays in the plant and is therefore able to be disposed of in a safe way in which the uranium is kept out of the environment. \u201cAbout 73 percent of emissions-free electricity in the United States comes" }, { "question": "the chinchorro culture of ancient chile began purposefully mummifying their dead thousands of years before the ancient egyptians did, and did so in a highly idiosyncratic manner. what led to the development of such practices, and what ended up happening to the chinchorro people?", "answer": "So contrary to Rothammer (as discussed in u/Dondville) Marquet et al argue that the Chinchorros lead a less hierarchical lifestyle and that mummification isn't tied to status. Mummification first started because of the pure heat of the environment. Natural mummification formed when bodies were left in dehydrated environments. This discovery of natural mummies is believed to be a primary inspiration for the creation of man-made mummies. The earliest man made mummies were most often covered with black mud after the removal (and replacement with natural fibres) of inards and sectioning, then rejoining of the body. The majority of early mummies were children, which lead Arriza to note a probable correlation between infant deaths and high arsenic levels in the local water (100 times the acceptable limit) and the EL Nino phenomenon. Mummification most likely started as a result of population rising (Marquet et al) and increased infant mortality. The common theory is that mummification was undertaken during periods of social stress caused by high infant mortality and a shortage of resources. Mummies were a tool to bring the community together, and perhaps played a religious, almost sacrificial role. Many of these mummies being children is probably those children who died from arsenic poisoning, which may have had importance. It actually dissapeared for a while (or at least wasn't as popular) only to be replaced with a different type of mummification (red mummies as opposed to the older black ones). When similar birth/death rates occured. Red mummies were prepared slightly differently (different coloured mud, and incisions made to extract innards rather than dissection). Red mummies again seem to be a reaction to envrionmental pressures and have been interpreted again as sacrificial. The dying out of mummification can perhaps be seen as a sign of stability in the community and its resurfacing to be a sign of pressures returning. #Sources: Arriaza, B. (1995) \u2018Chinchorro Bioarchaeology: Chronology and Mummy Seriation\u2019 in Latin American Antiquity, Society for American Archaeology 6(1):35-55 Arriaza, B. (2005)\u2019Arseniasis As An Envrionmental Hypothetical Explanation For the Origin of the Oldest Artifical Mummification Practice In the World/ Arsenicismo, Una Hip\u00f3tesis Medioambiental Para Explicar El Origen De La Momicaci\u00f3n M\u00e1s Antigua Del Mundo\u2019 in Chungara: Revista de Antropologia Chilena, Universidad de Tarapaca 3(2):255-260 Marquet, P., Santoro, C., Latorre, C., Standen, V., Abades, S., Rivadenira, M., Arriaza, B., Hochberg, M. (2012) \u2018Emergence of Social Complexity Among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile\u2019 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, National Academy of Sciences 109(37):14754-14760", "support_docs": "
of fisherfolk existed, tucked away in the arid river valleys of the Andes, but the Chinchorro made themselves unique by their dedicated preservation of the dead. Chinchorro mummification While many cultures throughout the world have sought to focus on preserving the dead elite, the Chinchorro tradition performed mummification on all members of their society, making them archaeologically significant. The decision of egalitarian preservation is proven in the mummification of the relatively less productive members of society (meaning those who could not contribute to the welfare of others; the elderly, children, infants and miscarried fetuses). It is often the case
Chinchorro mummies The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture, found in what is now northern Chile. They are the oldest examples of artificially mummified human remains, having been buried up to two thousand years before the Egyptian mummies. While the earliest mummy that has been found in Egypt dated around 3000 BC, the oldest anthropogenically modified Chinchorro mummy dates from around 5050 BC.\nThe oldest naturally mummified mummy recovered from the Atacama Desert is dated around 7020 BC.\nShell midden and bone chemistry suggest that 90% of the people's diet was seafood. Many ancient cultures
and placed in positions of honor during major rituals and a delay in the final burial itself. Also, the bodies (which were always found in the extended position) were elaborately decorated and colored (even later repainted), and are thought to be reinforced and stiffened in order to be carried on reed litters and consequently displayed. However, since the society is a preceramic one, as well as slightly nomadic, it is somewhat difficult to determine through archaeological records the reasons why the Chinchorro felt the need to mummify the dead.\nThe representatives of the Chinchorro culture was determined by mitochondrial haplogroup A2.\nDr." }, { "question": "abstract expressionism", "answer": "Art movements are hard to pin down because they borrow heavily from each other, but I'll try. Abstract expressionism came from that growing school of thought that art should be more spontaneous, so that it could appeal more emotionally. They felt that art that simply tried to copy what things look like was not very good. This was a growing trend that is typical of modern art. So you could say that Abstract Expressionism was a product of a lot of previous movements, especially Surrealism and Cubism. The Second World War was also important. It is a special school of art because it was almost a performance. Every viewing was intended to be different. When you look for example at a huge Rothko canvas (he wasn't an Abstract Expressionist, but he's a famous example who was influenced by them), it's about what you feel while looking at the picture, not what it is physically composed of. In essence, it's meant to be more than the sum of its parts. It is meant to be spontaneous, intense and a bit anarchic. Jackson Pollock was a turning point in Abstract Expressionism. He brought forward more than anyone else the idea that the way you made the art is almost as important as the art itself. Above all he showed that it was more about pushing the boundaries. If you want to talk about eventual impact, art movements sprang up as reactions to it. Some thought it too wishy-washy, others thought it amazing. The fact that I can't be bothered to list it shows you that its impact was very important in terms of modern art.", "support_docs": "
romantic abstractions worked in a loose gestural style. These \"lyrical abstractionists\" sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting, and to revive and reinvigorate a painterly 'tradition' in American art. At the same time, these artists sought to reinstate the primacy of line and color as formal elements in works composed according to aesthetic principles \u2013 rather than as the visual representation of sociopolitical realities or philosophical theories.\"\n\"Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly techniques, the abstract works included in this exhibition sing with rich fluid color and
term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s. Many well known abstract expressionist painters like Arshile Gorky seen in context have been characterized as doing a type of painting described as lyrical abstraction. Origin The original common use refers to the tendency attributed to paintings in Europe during the post-1945 period and as a way of describing several artists (mostly in France) with painters like Wols, G\u00e9rard Schneider and Hans Hartung from Germany or Georges Mathieu, etc., whose works related to characteristics of contemporary American abstract expressionism. At the time (late 1940s),
to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general. Characterized by an overall gestalt, consistent surface tension, sometimes even the hiding of brushstrokes, and an overt avoidance of relational composition. It developed as did Postminimalism as an alternative to strict Formalist and Minimalist doctrine.\nLyrical Abstraction shares similarities with Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism especially in the freewheeling usage of paint \u2013 texture and surface, an example is illustrated by the painting by Ronnie Landfield entitled For William Blake. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed," }, { "question": "twenty years ago today, tupac shakur was shot and fatally wounded. at the time, it was implicated that the notorious b.i.g. was involved in his death. what evidence do we have now? was biggie to blame?", "answer": "The romanticism of the East Coast/West Coast feud makes lots of people want to point at Biggie as responsible, but most of the evidence seems to point to the man 2Pac and Suge jumped in the hotel lobby, Orlando \"Baby Lane\" Anderson was responsible. His uncle, Keffe D, said as much in an [interview with police] (). According to LAbyrinth, Anderson was allegedly a member of the South Side Crips who had had issues with Suge Knight's Bloods-affiliated record label dating back to an incident at an LA mall in which Death Row associate Travon Lane had his DR medallion stolen in a Footlocker. Speculation claims that Puffy paid for this, as he wanted to use the chain in a Bad Boy video mocking DR, but if there's evidence that it was more than speculation, I've never seen it. Additionally, it's fairly well documented that in the weeks following 2Pac's death there was a large scale gang war in LA, seeking retaliation for his death. MC Eiht, a longtime Compton rapper, has [gone on record] () stating he believes it was 2Pac's gang affiliation (through Suge Knight) that led to his murder. If you comb through his Death Row releases, they're full of references to Bloods, down to his repeated use of \"M.O.B.,\" a common Blood saying (Suge is also a known member of the Mob Pirus) and shout-outs to known Pirus (Neckbone, Tray,Buntry). That said, LAPD Detective Greg Kading wrote in his book Murder Rap that he believes Puffy commissioned Keffe D for the hit. It is also alleged that Biggie [paid $1 million and provided the gun] () that took out his rival. There is further speculation that 2Pac was planning on leaving Death Row, which led to Suge Knight to order his death, but remember Knight was in the car when 2Pac was shot. At the end of the day, no one really knows. Everyone involved is either dead or not talking.", "support_docs": "
criminals.\nBefore they died, rival rap music artist The Notorious B.I.G. (also known as Biggie Smalls, who was killed on March 9, 1997) and Anderson denied a role in the murder. In support of this, Biggie's family produced computerized invoices showing that he was working in a New York recording studio the night of the drive-by shooting. His manager Wayne Barrow and fellow rapper James \"Lil' Cease\" Lloyd made public announcements denying Biggie had a role in the crime and stating that they were both with him in the recording studio on the night of the shooting.\nAssistant Managing Editor of the
there was no evidence pointing to Biggie Smalls as a suspect. Also, The New York Times wrote, \" The Los Angeles Times articles did not offer any documentation to show that Wallace was in Las Vegas that night.\"\nIn her 2002 book (with a new edition in 2014), The Killing of Tupac Shakur, Cathy Scott reviews various theories, including the Suge Knight/Death Row theory of Tupac's murder before stating, \"Years after the primary investigations, it's still anyone's guess. No one was ever arrested but no one was ever ruled out as a suspect, either.\" She then wrote that one theory \"transcends
into the events leading to the crime. The series indicated that \"the shooting was carried out by a Compton gang called the Southside Crips to avenge the beating of one of its members by Shakur a few hours earlier. Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked, fired the fatal shots. Las Vegas police interviewed Anderson only once as a possible suspect. He was later killed in an unrelated gang shooting.\" The Los Angeles Times articles included reference to the cooperation of East Coast rappers including the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac's rival at the time, and New York" }, { "question": "how non-dentist teeth whitening methods such as gels and led lights work and are they safe?", "answer": "I am not a dentist, but I work in the dental field. Your teeth have layers. The outermost layer is called enamel which is a hard material that protects other layers from tooth sensitivity and decay. Generally speaking, teeth whitening is a process that removes a very thin layer of stained enamel, regardless of the method used to whiten the teeth. You need enamel to protect your teeth. But to answer your question, is it safe? If you do not whiten your teeth more than the recommended frequency for whatever method you use \\(and only use one method at a time\\), then it is relatively safe. If you have tooth sensitivity, are prone to cavities or are able to see through your teeth when you hold a light to them, teeth whitening is probably not for your. Edit: I went to the HiSmile website and the product claims to whiten teeth \"with no damage to enamel.\" While you might not technically be \"damaging\" your enamel, you are still removing a very thin layer. I suppose that's up to the consumer to decide if removing enamel falls under the same category as \"damaging.\" Edit2: If your teeth are capped/crowned/veneered, no tooth whitening product will whiten that material.", "support_docs": "
in the literature in 1995. A short history of LED curing in dentistry was published in 2013. This light uses a gallium nitride-based semiconductor for blue light emission.\nA 2004 article in the American Dental Association's journal explained, \"In LED\u2019s, a voltage is applied across the junctions of two doped semi- conductors (n-doped and p-doped), resulting in the generation and emission of light in a specific wavelength range. By controlling the chemical composition of the semiconductor combination, one can control the wavelength range. The dental LED curing lights use LED\u2019s that produce a narrow spectrum of blue light in the 400\u2013500
Dental curing light A dental curing light is a piece of dental equipment that is used for polymerization of light cure resin based composites. It can be used on several different dental materials that are curable by light. The light used falls under the visible blue light spectrum. This light is delivered over a range of wavelengths and varies for each type of device. There are four basic types of dental curing light sources: tungsten halogen, light-emitting diodes (LED), plasma arcs, and lasers. The two most common are halogen and LEDs. History In the early 1960s, the first light curing
color of teeth are hydrogen peroxide and carbamide peroxide. Oxygen radicals from the peroxide in the whitening agents contact the stains in the interprismatic spaces within the enamel layer. When this occurs, stains will be bleached and the teeth now appear lighter in color. Teeth not only appear whiter but also reflect light in increased amounts, which makes the teeth appear brighter as well. Studies show that whitening does not produce any ultrastructural or microhardness changes in the dental tissues.\nStudies show that patients who have whitened their teeth take better care of them. However, a tooth whitening product with" }, { "question": "what are the constitutional mechanisms that give congress its spending authority, and is there legal precedent around the looming clash between the presidency and congress on this topic?", "answer": "Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution enumerates specific powers of the US Congress. The first power listed is the following: > The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States The Constitution specifies that Congress has the power to *collect taxes*, and over the course of US history there has been some debate as to how that money actually gets spent. Through various debates and several related Supreme Court rulings, it was determined that the power to *raise* money implied the power to *spend* money. As to the looming clash - the Attorney General of California was interviewed by NPR today, and he and the interviewer discussed an important point. While the President has the authority to declare a National Emergency, the definition of \"National Emergency\" is vague. Therefore it doesn't really matter if Trump admitted that he didn't have to - it's still within his authority to do so. As a result, the Attorneys General of several states are currently studying the declaration to determine from which appropriations Trump intends to draw the additional funds that he wants. That will determine how they build their case against the Administration.", "support_docs": "
the 302(b) allocation. Article One of the United States Constitution, section 9, clause 7, states that \"No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law...\" This is what gives Congress the power to make these appropriations. The President, however, still has the power to veto appropriations bills.
has been passed, the appropriations subcommittees receive information about what the budget sets as their spending ceilings. This is called \"302(b) allocations\" after section 302(b) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. That amount is separated into smaller amounts for each of the twelve Subcommittees. The federal budget does not become law and is not signed by the President. Instead, it is guide for the House and the Senate in making appropriations and tax decisions. However, no budget is required and each chamber has procedures in place for what to do without one. The House and Senate now consider appropriations
Appropriations process Traditionally, after a federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year has been passed, the appropriations subcommittees receive information about what the budget sets as their spending ceilings. This is called \"302(b) allocations\" after section 302(b) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. That amount is separated into smaller amounts for each of the twelve Subcommittees. The federal budget does not become law and is not signed by the President. Instead, it is guide for the House and the Senate in making appropriations and tax decisions. However, no budget is required and each chamber has procedures in place for" }, { "question": "what exactly is going on in mexico right now in terms of the missing/murdered students? and why were they killed? what for?", "answer": "The students were studying to be teachers at a rural school that is known for protesting the corrupt actions of the local politicians. The mayor's wife was scheduled to give a speech on her accomplishments on September 26th and the mayor was advised that the students were on their way to protest the event. They were protesting discrimination regarding funding for rural schools. The mayor was not cool with students messing up his wife's self-congratulatory speech so he sent the cops, which intercepted the students that were on their way to the event. A shooting ensued, resulting in 6 dead (one of them with flayed skin and gouged eyes) and about 25 wounded. The cops then detained 43 male students and according to their later confessions, the mayor ordered them to hand the students over to a local drug gang (Guerreros Unidos). The gang members confessed to killing, burning, and throwing the students' remains into a river. It is common knowledge that the mayor, and more specifically his wife, had ties to this gang. The mayor was paid millions of pesos to bribe the officers so that they could assist with the gang's illicit activities. They eluded capture for a few days, along with the police chief. The mayor and wife have now been arrested and are awaiting prosecution. With the extreme confidence I have in Guerrero's judicial system, the mayor and his wife will rot in prison. Ok, I'm actually being sarcastic. They'll probably bribe their way out.", "support_docs": "
their college. The remaining 43 were still unaccounted for. Student activists accused authorities of illegally holding the missing students, but Guerrero authorities said that none of the students were in custody. Believing that the missing students had fled through the hills during the shootings, authorities deployed a helicopter to search for them. The 43 students, however, were never found.\nThe mass disappearance of the 43 students marked arguably the biggest political and public security crisis Mexican President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto had yet faced in his administration (2012\u20132018). The incident drew worldwide attention and led to protests across Mexico, and international condemnation.
The resulting outrage triggered near-constant protests, particularly in Guerrero and Mexico City. Many of them were peaceful marches headed by the missing students' parents, who come from poor rural families. Other demonstrations turned violent, with protesters attacking government buildings. Unlike other high-profile cases that have occurred during the Mexican Drug War (2006\u2013present), this case resonated particularly strongly because it highlighted the extent of collusion between organized crime and local governments and police agencies. Initial arrests and investigations On September 28, 2014, members of the Office of the General Prosecutor in Guerrero arrested 22 police officers for their involvement in the
the state government.\nOn October 22, 2014, the federal government stated that Abarca had ordered the arrest of the students in order to prevent them from obstructing a municipal event. The PGR described him and his wife as the probable masterminds of the mass kidnapping. The director of the Iguala police force, Felipe Flores, was also mentioned as one of the main perpetrators. In Mexico City over 50,000 protesters demonstrated in support of the missing students. Joining the protests in Morelia, Michoac\u00e1n, were members of Mexico's movie industry \u2013 actors, directors, writers and producers- who lit 43 candles on the steps" }, { "question": "admiral byrd's first antarctic expedition 1928 - 1929", "answer": "Some time between 25 August 1928, when she departed NY, and 26 November 1928, when she arrived in New Zealand: Apologies if you had that date range in mind already.", "support_docs": "
day when he was flying his normal air mail route from Hadley Field to Cleveland, he caught something out of the corner of his eye that looked like a skyscraper. He pulled back on the control stick to quickly gain altitude and just missed hitting the U.S. Navy airship USS Los Angeles that was in his direct path. It was a close call of just over a hundred feet. Byrd expedition In 1928, Smith was selected as a pilot for the Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1928\u20131930 from a list of over 25,000 pilots. Byrd selected Smith not only for
magazine, August 1928, featured an extensive article with photos about this flight, \"Dick Byrd\u2014 Adventurer. The Absorbing Story of the America's Flight across the Atlantic \u2013 a Valiant Escape from Death in Blinding Fog\"\nUpon return to the U.S., Byrd and Noville were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Secretary of the Navy Wilbur on July 19. On November 14, Noville and other \"Air Heroes of 1927\" were honored at the White House by President Calvin Coolidge.\nNoville once again joined an adventure with Byrd, serving as executive officer of Byrd's Second Antarctic Exploration 1933-35. Personal life and death Noville was
Byrd Antarctic Expedition Medal Appearance The medal is circular in shape and made of gold, silver, or bronze. The obverse depicts a relief of Admiral Byrd in fur lined arctic clothing. Around the depiction is the embossed wording: BYRD ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 1928-1930. The reverse bears a relief depicting the sailing ship City of New York surrounded by the text PRESENTED TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE BYRD ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION TO EXPRESS THE HIGH ADMIRATION IN WHICH THE CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HOLD THEIR HEROIC AND UNDAUNTED SERVICES IN CONNECTION WITH THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION EXPLORATION OF THE" }, { "question": "how natural gas and oil are extracted from the earth", "answer": "Oil and gas exists in deposits underground. It's most often under the ocean floor because oil is made of decomposed and compressed organic matter, a process that doesn't occur as easily on the surface of dry land. It can, but usually it's prevented by such things as weather conditions, animal consumption of the organic matter, or influence by human civilization. Not much happens on the bottom of the ocean, so dead seaweed, algae and fish form a layer which can then be sort of sealed by such things as calcified crustacean shells or sand. After millions of years under seal and pressure, this soup of rotting organic matter becomes oil. The process that turns it into oil can create natural (methane) gas, but most gas comes from marshes and such where it's easier to get and is created faster. Farts are also made of methane gas, but that would be rather difficult to collect. Oil can exist in very large deposits, and this is why it can pour out in huge quantities if the deposit is opened and not kept under control - such as the BP oil spill. The reason we're starting to run out of oil is that it takes such a long time for it to create itself - some of the oil used today could be rotten dinosaurs. When oil is discovered, a very long drill drills its way into the deposit (this can be hundreds of feet into the bedrock) and plants a pipe in the hole so it can be tapped just like the faucet on a sink. Normally an oil rig is built around this pipeline to make it safe and practical for people to work there.", "support_docs": "
(17,700 barrels per day) of shale oil. Australia, the US, and Canada have tested shale oil extraction techniques via demonstration projects and are planning commercial implementation; Morocco and Jordan have announced their intent to do the same. Only four processes are in commercial use: Kiviter, Galoter, Fushun, and Petrosix. Processing principles Shale oil extraction process decomposes oil shale and converts its kerogen into shale oil\u2014a petroleum-like synthetic crude oil. The process is conducted by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The efficiencies of extraction processes are often evaluated by comparing their yields to the results of a Fischer
Petroleum geochemistry Petroleum geochemistry is the branch of geochemistry which deals with the application of chemical principles in the study of the origin,generation,migration, accumulation, and alteration of petroleum...(John M. Hunt, 1979). Petroleum is generally considered oil and natural gases having various compounds composed of primarily hydrogen and carbon. They are usually generated from the decomposition and/or thermal maturation of organic matter. The organic matter originated from plants and algae. The organic matter is deposited after the death of the plant in sediments, where after considerable time, heat, and pressure the compounds in the plants and algae are altered to oil,
American Shale Oil, superheated steam or another heat transfer medium is circulated through a series of pipes placed below the oil shale layer to be extracted. The system combines horizontal wells, through which steam is passed, and vertical wells, which provide both vertical heat transfer through refluxing of converted shale oil and a means to collect the produced hydrocarbons. Heat is supplied by combustion of natural gas or propane in the initial phase and by oil shale gas at a later stage.\nThe Geothermic Fuels Cells Process (IEP GFC) proposed by Independent Energy Partners extracts shale oil by exploiting a" }, { "question": "if ancient humans migrated into the americas via a land bring across the bering sea then spread from north to south, why are the oldest settlements in the americas located in central america and south america, with relatively younger and less evidence of ancient peoples in north america?", "answer": "/u/400-rabbits has answered a version of this question with punny horticultural flair before. EDIT: /u/Snapshot52 has an answer about a North American \"cradle of civilization\" with links galore.", "support_docs": "
History of North America The beginning of North America The specifics of Paleo-Indians' migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. For years, the traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000\u201317,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that,
either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.\nArchaeologists contend that Paleo-Indian migration out of Beringia (eastern Alaska), ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago. This time range is a hot source of debate and promises to continue as such for years to come. The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial
the Americas, found at San Jacinto, dates to 5000\u20134000\u00a0BCE.\nIndigenous people inhabited the territory that is now Colombia by 12,500\u00a0BCE. Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes at the El Abra, Tibit\u00f3 and Tequendama sites near present-day Bogot\u00e1 traded with one another and with other cultures from the Magdalena River Valley. Between 5000 and 1000\u00a0BCE, hunter-gatherer tribes transitioned to agrarian societies; fixed settlements were established, and pottery appeared. Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Zen\u00fa, Quimbaya, and Tairona developed the political system of cacicazgos with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques.\nMost of the Amerindians practiced agriculture and" }, { "question": "what is the state of flow? is it real? does it really allow you to perform better while doing something? and how does someone induce it?", "answer": "Yes, it definitely exists. It is defined as \"the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.\" It does seem to be able to make people perform better, and practice can help to induce it. Much of my experience in the state comes from first-person shooters where you can get \"in the zone\" and even experience subjective time compression where you can play for long periods without realizing.", "support_docs": "
towards a goal. The rewards are tangible and beneficial. Disadvantages Motivation will only last as long as the external rewards are satisfying. The individual won't care about the outcome, rather just complete the task for the reward. Leads to diminishing returns. Flow theory Flow theory refers to desirable subjective state a person experiences when completely involved in some challenging activity that matches the individual skill.\nMihali Csikszentmihaly described Flow theory as \"A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it
even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.\"\nThe idea of flow theory as first conceptualized by Csikszentmihalyi. Flow in the context of motivation can be seen as an activity that is not too hard, frustrating or madding, or too easy boring and done too fast. If one has achieved perfect flow, then the activity has reached maximum potential.\nFlow is part of something called positive psychology of the psychology of happiness. Positive psychology looks into what makes a person happy. Flow can be considered as achieving happiness or at the least positive feelings. A study that was published
actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination, there is a feeling of control over the task.\nThe activity no longer becomes something seen as a means to an end and it becomes something an individual wants to do. This can be seen as someone who likes to run for the sheer joy of running and not because they need to do it for exercise or because they want to brag about it. Peak flow can be different for each person. It could take an individual years to reach flow or only moments. If an individual becomes too good at an" }, { "question": "edward snowden is living in exile in moscow. how does he make a living and cover his basic living, health, and travel expenses?", "answer": "Not sure about today, but a year ago SPIEGEL reported he was living off of a stipendium. He also probably makes some money with interviews, writing articles and stuff. So that should cover his expenses just fine I think. Source (german):", "support_docs": "
The Guardian published a nearly 10,000-word edited transcript of their Snowden interview. A year after arriving in Moscow, Snowden said he is still learning Russian. He keeps late and solitary hours, effectively living on U.S. time. He does not drink, cooks for himself but doesn't eat much. \"I don't live in absolute secrecy,\" he says. \"I live a pretty open life\u2014but at the same time I don't want to be a celebrity.\" He does not work for a Russian organization, yet is financially secure thanks to substantial savings from his years as a well-paid contractor and more recently numerous awards
and speaking fees from around the world.\nOn August 7, 2014, six days after Snowden's one-year temporary asylum expired, his Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, announced that Snowden had received a three-year residency permit. It allowed him to travel freely within Russia and to go abroad for up to three months. Kucherena explained that Snowden had not been granted permanent political asylum, which required a separate process. 2015 In May 2015, Snowden's lawyer Ben Wizner said that Snowden's main source of income was speaking fees, which sometimes exceeded $10,000 per appearance. In November 2015, Snowden said that he does not intend to
Edward Snowden asylum in Russia First contact and sequestered in the airport Russia first received information about Snowden when he was in Hong Kong. At that time, they were told that a person who wanted to fight against human rights violations wanted to seek asylum in Russia. In 2017, during The Putin Interviews with the Director Oliver Stone, the Russian president Vladimir Putin described how Russia got involved in the Snowden saga. During that time, Russia did not want to get involved as it already had a strained relationship with the United States which it did not wish to exacerbate." }, { "question": "after the collapse of the ottoman empire's incursion into eastern and central europe during the great turkish war, what happened to the turkish civilians? did they move back to anatolia, or are their native europeans today that are ethnically turkish?", "answer": "The Ottoman invasion and conquest of the Balkans, for example, resulted in Ottoman control of these regions. However, very few of the Ottomans were ethnically Turkish, so the Ottomans who remained in Europe were the same kind of ethnic mixture as obtained in Anatolia. The original Ottoman conquest of Anatolia was made up of something like 30000, in a region with a population of perhaps 4000000, so the Ottomans became largely a military ruling elite, with a population that was essentially of the same ethnicity as existed before the Ottoman conquest, the people being Greeks, Cappadocians etc etc. Similarly, the people of the Balkans remained essentially the same as before the conquest, Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Croats, Vlachs etc. Some assimilated to Ottoman society and culture more than others, so some adopted Islam, and \"turned Turk\", others remained Christian. Once the Ottoman Empire in Europe was destroyed, many of the \"Turks\" were massacred by their Christian neighbours, and many fled to the rump of the Ottoman Empire. These people were culturally \"Turks\" but not really ethnically. Misha Glenny's book on the Balkans, \"Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999\" goes into this in some detail.", "support_docs": "
the Armenian (and for some time also the Syriac) Christians, and later the Chief Rabbi for the affairs of the Jews.\nThe everyday life of the Christians, particularly the Greeks and Armenians, living in Istanbul changed significantly following the bitter conflicts between these ethnic groups and the Turks during the Decline of the Ottoman Empire, which began in the 1820s and continued for a century. The conflicts reached their culmination in the decade between 1912 and 1922; during the Balkan Wars, the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence. The city's Greek Orthodox community was exempted from the population
the time the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1922, half of the urban population of Turkey was descended from Muslim refugees from Russia. Language Ottoman Turkish was the official language of the Empire. It was an Oghuz Turkic language highly influenced by Persian and Arabic. The Ottomans had several influential languages: Turkish, spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except in Albania and Bosnia; Persian, only spoken by the educated; Arabic, spoken mainly in Egypt, the Levant, Arabia, Iraq, North Africa, Kuwait and parts of the Horn
to go to Greece in 1923 in the population exchanges mandated by the League of Nations after the Greco-Turkish War (1919\u20131922). The lingual Turkification of Greek-speakers in 19th-century Anatolia is well documented. According to Speros Vryonis the Karamanlides are the result of partial Turkification that occurred earlier, during the Ottoman period. Fewer than 300,000 Armenians remained of 1.8 million before the war; fewer than 100,000 of 400,000 Assyrians. Imprecise meaning of T\u00fcrk During the 19th century, the word T\u00fcrk was a derogatory term used to refer to Anatolian villagers; the Ottoman elite identified themselves as Ottomans, not as Turks. In" }, { "question": "swarm intelligence \"unu\"", "answer": "Here are some comments I posted in the original thread: Another difference is at the end, there is only one answer. No runners up. You don't care if your choice gets second, third, etc. You only care about who gets first. Say there are 3 choices and the one you agree with is farthest away. If you really disagree with the choice that the circle is near, but you agree somewhat with the second choice (which the circle is closer to than your choice), you'll move in the direction of the second choice because you want to influence final answer, and this is the only possible choice that you at least somewhat agree with. Basically it leads the users to compromise and change their pick when they realize the choice they most agree with doesn't have a chance, but there are other options they sort of agree with that could be selected if they pull in that direction instead. It's really a lot different than a poll. Another: How can you say it doesn't create anything? It creates a new prediction that didn't exist before the simulation. All the participants had individual opinions and the system generates a unique, collective prediction/opinion. Even if you don't think the result is meaningful or accurate, there's no way you can say it doesn't create anything. Polls don't create anything. All they do is show the opinions of the poll-takers. UNU makes them interact in a new, unique way that generates a new answer. Another: The self selection is a good criticism, but it's not a poll, and it's really not that similar to one. A poll shows you the opinions of all the individual users, grouped together. UNU makes the users interact and compromise to form a single, collective prediction/opinion. You're not asking them one question. You ask them \"Given where the circle is, which direction should you pull the circle to get to the most accurate but also most available option?\" Then the circle moves and you ask them the same question a millisecond later.", "support_docs": "
each time a network change occurs to create an optimum use of spare capacity. For more information the reader is encouraged to read [9]. Swarm Intelligence System This method is based on an intelligent system that is found in nature. It is a distributed method that relies on agents working independently, yet communicating with each other by a means of messages that are left or collected at each node which was visited by that agent. This behavior is similar to that of ants, and so called a p-cycle ant system. The aggregation of the messages left or generated by those
Swarm robotics Definition The research of swarm robotics is to study the design of robots, their physical body and their controlling behaviours. It is inspired but not limited by the emergent behaviour observed in social insects, called swarm intelligence. Relatively simple individual rules can produce a large set of complex swarm behaviours. A key-component is the communication between the members of the group that build a system of constant feedback. The swarm behaviour involves constant change of individuals in cooperation with others, as well as the behaviour of the whole group.\nUnlike distributed robotic systems in general, swarm robotics emphasizes a
large number of robots, and promotes scalability, for instance by using only local communication. That local communication for example can be achieved by wireless transmission systems, like radio frequency or infrared. Goals and applications Miniaturization and cost are key factors in swarm robotics. These are the constraints in building large groups of robots; therefore the simplicity of the individual team member should be emphasized. This should motivate a swarm-intelligent approach to achieve meaningful behavior at swarm-level, instead of the individual level. \nMuch research has been directed at this goal of simplicity at the individual robot level. Being able" }, { "question": "how does the safety of homebirth with a midwife compare to birth in a hospital?", "answer": "It's a really difficult topic to assess due to the limitations on data (a common issue in obstetrical research). Generally, studies agree that home birth leads to fewer medical interventions (c-sections, operative vaginal deliveries, episiotomies, etc). There are some variations in terms of outcomes - for example, this meta-analysis found reduced rates of maternal morbidity with increased rates of neonatal mortality. This prospective cohort study found that around 13% of women who intended to deliver via home birth ended up requiring transfer to a hospital at some stage of their delivery. This prospective cohort study noted that nulliparous (first time) women had poorer outcomes and higher rates of hospitalization compared to multiparous women. Data here are difficult to interpret because there have been few/no robust RCTs, which makes confounding a larger issue. For example, women who choose home birth tend to be white non-Hispanic, older, multiparous, native born, living in a nonmetropolitan county, and nonsmokers. Data from deliveries also tends to be compared with those hospital deliveries that are deemed 'low risk', as anybody with increased risk factors should not attempt a home birth. So is home birth for everybody? Absolutely not. But in some cases it may be a reasonable alternative to a hospital birth, but this decision should be made in conjunction with a medical professional to risk stratify. As with everything in medicine, it comes down to weighing the risks and benefits as a team and determining which values are most important.", "support_docs": "
it.\nThe State of the World\u2019s Midwifery report supports the profession, urging governments to recognize it as vital to maternal and newborn health services. It also urges governments to consider establishing a scope of practice, specified credentials for entering the profession and educational standards.\nThose who argue for the legalization of direct-entry midwifery also cite its health benefits, both to the mother and the fetus.\nWomen who give birth in hospitals experience higher risks and adverse effects than women who give birth with a midwife. Studies also show that the use of midwives in childbirth can decrease maternal and newborn mortality as well
convince the public that hospital births were the best option, while painting midwives as unintelligent, untrustworthy and criminal. However, it wasn\u2019t just physicians who joined in the campaign against midwifery \u2013 by the late nineteenth century, wealthy, pregnant women joined in because they though childbirth was less painful and safer if performed by physicians The case for legalizing certified professional midwifery Statistics show that American women want alternatives to hospital births. 20 percent of women indicated in a study in 2006 that if they have the option to have a non-hospital delivery with readily available medical backup, they would take
as stillbirths, perineal trauma, instrumental births, intrapartum analgesia and anesthesia, severe blood loss, preterm births, newborn infants with low birth weigh, hypothermia and neonatal intensive care units.\nThere are also indications that midwife assisted childbirth is safer than birth in a hospital because there\u2019s a lower chance of intervention. The case against legalizing certified professional midwifery Those debating against the legalization of certified professional midwives usually question the competence, regulation and scope of midwives. Questions regarding whether CPMs should be legally recognized as birth attendants, what their job should allow them to do, and who is responsible for their regulation surface." }, { "question": "why is the beatles\u2019 sergeant peppers considered such a turning point in the history of rock and roll, especially when revolver sounds more experimental and came earlier?", "answer": "I feel like no-one has really answered your question so far, especially in regards to the Revolver part of the question. I'll try my best as a former Beatles fanatic. As you alluded to, Revolver was quite an experimental pop record, and it was the first album where the Beatles REALLY decided to use the studio as an instrument. The wild guitar solo in Taxman played the band's bassist, the backwards guitar in I'm Only Sleeping, the raga banger that is Love You To, and not to mention the psychedelic tape-looped masterpiece that is Tomorrow Never Knows. The Beatles threw brass and string instrumentation all on this thing as well, like in Eleanor Rigby and Got to Get You. Critics and Music Pundits understand the impact and importance Revolver brings forth, and many diehards will say Revolver is their favorite Beatles record. It certainly was mine for the longest time. Sgt. Pepper, however, was a different beast. In my opinion, it wasn't as musically ambitious as Revolver. However, conceptually, it changed how the artform of the album was seen. Instead of a collection of songs, it was better taken as a whole. All the songs are thematically and musically connected (The Beatles didn't exactly /intend/ this, but intention isn't important), the album art was wildly unique and fed into the album's themes. It was the first REAL album, Pet Sounds be damned (I like Pet Sounds more than any Beatles' album, so hush). This album also came out after the Beatles retired from touring, and after the double masterpiece whammy that was Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. The hype was through the roof and the Beatles trumped even that. They also won AOTY at the Grammys, which was surreal. It's a landmark of an album. Revolver is fantastic, and I like it way more than Sgt. Peppers, but it isn't a landmark. Not like Peppers. EDIT: Umm, wow I was not expecting this sort of response! I wrote this up in about 5 minutes before I ran out to hang with friends, so I know it\u2019s quick and dirty, lacking a ton of history of what lead up to Revolver/Sgt. Pepper\u2019s. I just wanted shine light of that period, so it would easier to do future research! I did want to answer three questions I saw: > What do you mean \u201cformer Beatlemaniac\u201d? I was OBSESSED with the Beatles years ago. They were all I listened to for years straight, and I pretty much read every single thing possible about them. Now, I\u2019m way more chill, ha. Still love them to pieces. > You like Pet Sounds more than any Beatles album? Really? Yep. The compositions and arrangements of Pet Sounds are transcendent, and the performances of each song are perfect. It\u2019s a flawless album that hasn\u2019t been touched since IMO > Zappa did it first/did it better/The Beatles suck Zappa was a prolific avant-garde/experimental musician, and unlike the Beatles, he did not make music for popular consumption per se. He did not have the production/engineering chops of the Abbey Road team, and he did not prioritize making layered pop tunes. He made weird bops. He\u2019s a great musician and composer, but he and The Beatles couldn\u2019t be any more different. They affected very different circles. You can believe the Beatles suck if you want tho.", "support_docs": "
was one of the cultural revisions established by the Britpop phenomenon in the 1990s. Writing on the BBC's website in August 2016, Greg Kot identified the \"More popular than Christ\" controversy and the attention subsequently afforded the release of Sgt. Pepper in 1967 as the two factors that had contributed to Revolver being relatively overlooked. Kot concluded that the ensuing decades had seen this impression reversed, since Revolver \"does everything Sgt Pepper did, except it did it first and often better. It just wasn't as well-packaged and marketed.\"\nRodriguez writes that, whereas most contemporary acts shy away from attempting a concept
into art.\" Ascendancy over Sgt. Pepper Whereas Sgt. Pepper had long been identified as the Beatles' greatest album, since the 2000s Revolver has often surpassed it in lists of the group's best work. Sheffield cites the album's 1987 CD release, with the full complement of Lennon compositions, as marking the start of a process whereby Revolver \"steadily climbed in public estimation\" to become recognised as the Beatles' finest work. Everett also attributes the \"problem\" regarding the album's standing in the US to the \"inferior track listing\" available to Americans until the CD release. In Britain, its supremacy over Sgt. Pepper
of the album had no precedent in the context of pop music. Clayton concluded: \"if there's anything wrong with the record at all it is that such a diet of newness might give the ordinary pop-picker indigestion.\"\nRecalling the release in his book Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald writes that, with Revolver, the Beatles \"had initiated a second pop revolution \u2013 one which while galvanising their existing rivals and inspiring many new ones, left all of them far behind\". In a February 1967 review, Hit Parader declared: \"Revolver represents the pinnacle of pop music. No group has been as consistently" }, { "question": "what consisted of the wehrmacht \"mobile defence\" on the eastern front in world war 2?", "answer": "> What strategical defence ideas did the Wehrmacht adopt against the red army aside from the designated fortress ideas? The reference is being made to the 'elastic' strategic defense being conducted by Manstein between the space of time between the defeat at Stalingrad and the defeat at Kursk. The principle of Elastic Defense would remain well after 1943, but it would never be conducted with such power or skill afterwards; and the introduction of the Panther is largely transitory. In this regard the documentary is missing the point completely. Panzer Vs equipped the Panzer Brigades that took part in these 'fire brigade' defensive actions, but they were far from the key to their successes; in fact, by the time the Panther was in service, the fire brigades could do no nothing past local counterattacks, really. During the aforementioned 42-43 era of elastic defense, Manstein counterattacked with entire corps; the counterattacks were large, co-ordinated and very much capitalized on the tactical edge the Germans still possessed at that time. The result would often be the destruction of several assaulting RKKA Corps, or even Armies, with little relative loss in men or material for the Germans. The principle was not gaining the Germans any ground, yes, but it was preserving their forces and thus allowing them to grow, rather than deplete. The reason the 'elastic defense' was so important in Manstein's thinking is because of the disaster wrought by having foot and horse-laden formations attempt to fall back from the infinitely more mechanized RKKA in the event of a breakthrough; it would not happen. Rather than keep what few Panzer divisions Army Group South had with their repsective formations, they were concentrated into Panzer Corps, such as Hausser's SS Panzer Corps, and used to bludgeon back breakthroughs before the Soviets could create larger victories out of local successes. It was a tacit acknowledgement that (1) the Germans were incapable of holding the front and were stretched far too thin and (2) they were in reality (and at large) a rather backwards, unmechanized army in relation to their foes on either front.* Manstein therefore sought to keep what few mobile formations he had concentrated and ready to counterattack, rather than waste them fighting in local area defenses. As the infantry fell back, the mobile formations would roar forwards, smashing or enveloping their pursuers before a retreat became a rout. Hence the term 'elastic defense'; rather than break, the line would stretch, then rebound. *I highly recommend you read \"Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?: Horses and the German Army of World War II \" by DiNardo, which illustrates just how few units in the German army were capable of mobile operations.", "support_docs": "
World War II, the Germans had unleashed a new type of warfare, characterized by highly mobile forces and the use of massed aircraft. The German strategy concentrated upon the devotion of the Wehrmacht, or German army, to the use of tank groups, called panzer divisions, and groups of mobile infantry, in concert with relentless attacks from the air. Encirclement was also a major part of the strategy. This change smashed any expectations that the Second World War would be fought in the trenches like the first.\nAs Hitler's forces conquered Poland, the Soviet Union, under General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was acting
attacks but did not arrive before the Axis offensive. At 8:00 p.m. on 26 May, reports arrived that Axis columns behind an armoured car screen were to the south and south-east and the brigade dug in overnight.\nAt 6:30 a.m. on 27 May, Filose signalled to Messervy that the brigade was faced by \"a whole bloody German armoured division\", which turned out to be the Ariete Division and some tanks of the 21st Panzer Division. Armoured cars on reconnaissance, reported 100 tanks and 900 other vehicles south and south-east of the brigade at 6:45\u00a0a.m. and fifteen minutes later, that 40 tanks
155th Reserve Panzer Division (Wehrmacht) Area of operations France (August 1943 - April 1944)" }, { "question": "how do porcupines mate with each other?", "answer": "When a man porcupine loves a woman porcupine very much and is willing to be very careful...", "support_docs": "
some parts of the Great Basin, cougars have greatly decreased numbers of porcupines in mountainous forests through predation. However, in some cases porcupine quills have indeed killed cougars, although usually this is after the cougar has already consumed the porcupine. Reproduction Female porcupines are solitary for most of the year except during the fall when breeding season begins. At this time, they secrete a thick mucus which mixes with their urine. The resulting odor attracts males in the vicinity. Males that approach a female do not automatically begin mating. The first male that comes along typically sits in the same
tree below a female. If another male approaches, he may fight for the right to mate. Once a dominant male is successful, he approaches the female and uses a spray of his urine on the female. Only a few drops touch the female, but the chemical reaction allows the female to fully enter estrus. Once this is accomplished high in the tree, the mating process takes place on the ground. When porcupines are mating, they tighten their skin and hold their quills flat, so as not to injure each other. Mating may occur repeatedly until the female loses interest and
in its defence. The size of the home range varies depending on the local habitat and availability of food, but can range between at least 67 and 203 hectares (170 and 500 acres).\nWhen attacked, the porcupine freezes. If cornered, it turns vicious and charges to stab its attacker with its quills. Otherwise, the porcupine may retreat into its burrow, exposing only its quills and making it hard to dislodge. Reproduction Cape porcupines mate throughout the year, although births are most common during the rainy season, between August and March. Unless a previous litter is lost, females typically give birth only" }, { "question": "amazon vs hachette", "answer": "Nobody knows for sure, the details of the contract dispute are only known to Amazon and Hachette. The public comments both sides have made are most likely fairly biased towards their own side. However, Hachette is not some small publisher that Amazon is trampling over. They are owned by Lagard\u00e8re Group, a company with 7 Billion Euros in annual revenue. As best I can determine, the root of the dispute is that Hachette wants to charge more for it's e-books. Amazon wants to charge less, generally preferring to keep e-book prices at 9.99 and under (cheaper ebooks helps Amazon sell Kindle devices and therefore more Amazon content). Hachette (and its authors) are portraying Amazon as a bully, using the size of its market to retaliate against them by not accepting pre-orders for books, etc. This may be true, but it seems like a pretty legitimate tactic. If you are in the middle of a tough negotiation with a supplier it seems reasonable to show them the consequences of not coming to mutually agreeable terms. Further, the authors themselves are the biggest victims, and under the royalty models that most publishers use the authors will lot lose/gain much due to a change in pricing. Hugh Howey, an independent author who has been very successful self-publishing with Amazon, and is generally disdainful of the traditional publishing model, has written quite a bit about it.", "support_docs": "
prices offered on their websites, rather than on the full recommended retail price (RRP).\nAlso in 2008, Amazon UK drew criticism in the British publishing community following their withdrawal from sale of key titles published by Hachette Livre UK. The withdrawal was possibly intended to put pressure on Hachette to provide levels of discount described by the trade as unreasonable. Curtis Brown's managing director Jonathan Lloyd opined that \"publishers, authors and agents are 100% behind [Hachette]. Someone has to draw a line in the sand. Publishers have given 1% a year away to retailers, so where does it stop? Using authors
eliminating discounts, delaying delivery time, and refusing pre-publication orders did make physical Hachette books harder to get. Plummeting sales of Hachette books on Amazon indicated that its policies likely succeeded in deterring customers.\nOn August 11, 2014, Amazon removed the option to preorder Captain America: The Winter Soldier in an effort to gain control over online pricing of Disney films. Amazon has previously used similar tactics with Warner Bros. and Hachette Book Group. The conflict was resolved in late 2014 with neither having to concede anything. Then in February 2017, Amazon again began to block preorders of Disney films, just before
harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business. None of us, neither readers nor authors, benefit when books are taken hostage.\" At the heart of the dispute is Amazon's practice of discounting books so low that authors and publishers are unable to earn a profit. Author Ursula K. Le Guin commented on Amazon's practice of making Hachette books harder to buy on its site, stating \"We\u2019re talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, \u2018disappearing\u2019 an author.\" Although her statement was met with some outrage and disbelief, Amazon's actions such as" }, { "question": "mongolia.", "answer": "You don't hear much about it because they have so few people living there (there are more ethnic Mongolians living in China than the population of Mongolia). They have a few large metropolitan areas but other than that most of the country is very empty.", "support_docs": "
Central Asia.
Tibet.
Inner Mongolia. Ulanhu was a founding general and Vice President of the People's Republic of China." }, { "question": "have any of the people who disappeared under the stalin regime ever been found?", "answer": "Lots of them. Groups like memorial have been involved in locating and excavating mass graves all over the former USSR.", "support_docs": "
official visit to Soviet Union, Tito handed Khruschev a list of 113 Yugoslav communists who had disappeared during the Great Purge, and asked about their fate. Khrushchev promised he would answer in two days, when he found out. Two days later, Khrushchev informed Tito that exactly one hundred of the persons on the list were dead by then. Then, the remaining thirteen were located by the KGB in Siberia, and eleven of them returned to Yugoslavia. \u0160tajner was among them. Shortly before that, the Supreme Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR rehabilitated him. He traveled from Maklakovo to
are located at remote aircraft crash sites in various countries.\nBut in eastern Europe and Russia, World War II casualties include approximately two million missing Germans, and many mass graves remain to be found. Almost a half million German MIAs have been buried in new graves since the end of the Cold War. Most of them will stay unknown. The German War Graves Commission is spearheading the effort. Similarly, there are approximately 4 million missing Russian service personnel scattered across the former Eastern Front, from Leningrad down to Stalingrad, though around 300 volunteer groups make periodic searches of old battlefields to
victims of the Soviets as they retreated. The British intelligence officer and postwar historian George Malcher puts the total at 120,000 for those killed in NKVD prisons and during the Soviet flight. Stalin ordered the execution of those believed to have spied on the Soviet Union, which meant practically everyone for the secret police operatives. Soviet executions of civilian prisoners June\u2013July 1941 The Soviets left thousands of corpses piled up in prison yards, corridors, cells, basements, and NKVD torture chambers, as discovered by the advancing Germans in June\u2013July 1941. The following is a partial list of prisons and other secret" }, { "question": "why does thiamine deficiency cause beriberi?", "answer": "The citric acid cycle requires thiamine to generate ATP. Lack of thiamine causes a deficiency of the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase, since this enzyme uses thiamine as a cofactor; this leads to high levels of pyruvate, since, without pyruvate dehydrogenase, glucose cannot be broken down by the citric acid cycle. Lacking the ability to use glucose as a fuel results in neurological symptoms because the nervous system cannot use fuels other than glucose.", "support_docs": "
Thiamine Thiamine deficiency Thiamine is used to treat thiamine deficiency which when severe can prove fatal. In less severe cases, non-specific signs include malaise, weight loss, irritability and confusion. Well-known disorders caused by thiamine deficiency include beriberi, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, optic neuropathy, Leigh's disease, African Seasonal Ataxia, and central pontine myelinolysis.\nIn Western countries, thiamine deficiency is seen mainly in chronic alcoholism. Thiamine deficiency is often present in alcohol misuse disorder. Also at risk are older adults, persons with HIV/AIDS or diabetes, and persons who have had bariatric surgery. Varying degrees of thiamine deficiency have been associated with the long-term use of
Derrick Lonsdale Derrick Lonsdale (born 1924) Fellow of the American College of Nutrition (FACN), Fellow of the American College for Advancement in Medicine (FACAM) is a pediatrician and researcher into the benefits of certain nutrients in preventing disease and psychotic behavior. Thiamine is a special vitamin because as the cause of beriberi it is one of only four vitamins associated with a named pandemic deficiency disease. Of these four vitamins, only thiamine requires transport proteins to diffuse throughout the body. A thiamine derivative called TTFD is a thiamine precursor that does not require transport proteins to freely diffuse.
Sir Rudolph Peters, in Oxford, introduced thiamine-deprived pigeons as a model for understanding how thiamine deficiency can lead to the pathological-physiological symptoms of beriberi. Indeed, feeding the pigeons upon polished rice leads to an easily recognizable behavior of head retraction, a condition called opisthotonos. If not treated, the animals died after a few days. Administration of thiamine at the stage of opisthotonos led to a complete cure within 30 minutes. As no morphological modifications were observed in the brain of the pigeons before and after treatment with thiamine, Peters introduced the concept of a biochemical lesion.\nWhen Lohman and Schuster (1937)" }, { "question": "what made mithridates iv of pontus so successful against rome?", "answer": "Timing. He attacked Rome in the immediate aftermath of the Social Wars and roughly coinciding with Marius and Sulla's Civil War. Sulla certainly proved himself capable of smashing Mithridates' armies, but viewed the situation in Rome as more deserving of his attention, and so after driving Mithridates back he was content to leave well enough alone. After that, the Senate was generally more concerned with Sertorius in Spain than the chastened Mithridates. It is also worth noting that there was only about ten years between Sulla's treaty and the beginning of Lucullus' campaigns.", "support_docs": "
his brother, he allied himself with the neighboring tribes, most notably with the Siraces under Zorsines and he was able to raise an army and push out the king of the Dandaridae and established himself in his former dominions and declared a 3-day war against his brother and the Roman cohorts under Aquila.\nWhen Cotys heard of this, it is assumed that he feared that Mithridates was about to invade him, so he turned to Gaius Julius Aquila and his Roman cohorts to fight against his elder brother. Cotys and Aquila feared that Mithridates's army was larger, and enlisted the help
in 65 BC, Mithridates VI fled with a small army from Colchis to Crimea and attempted to raise yet another army to take on the Romans but failed to do so. In 63 BC, he withdrew to the citadel in Panticapaeum. His eldest son, Machares, now king of Cimmerian Bosporus, whose kingdom had been reorganized by the Romans, was unwilling to aid his father. Mithridates had Machares murdered and took the throne of the Bosporan Kingdom, intent on retaking Pontus from the Romans. His younger son, Pharnaces II, backed by a disgruntled and war weary populace, led a rebellion
his kingdom upon his death (74 BC). Forces and initial deployments, 74\u201373 BC Having launched an attack at the same time as a revolt by Sertorius swept through the Spanish provinces, Mithridates was initially virtually unopposed. The Senate responded by sending the consuls Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Marcus Aurelius Cotta to deal with the Pontic threat. The only other possible general for such an important command, Pompey, was in Hispania to help Metellus Pius crush the revolt led by Sertorius. Lucullus was sent to govern Cilicia and Cotta to Bithynia.\nThe original plan was that Cotta should tie down Mithridates' fleet," }, { "question": "how did jewish-americans become associated with progressive liberal politics?", "answer": "As with most things American Jewish history related, the origin of it is in the late 18th and early 19th century. It was a time of massive change in the American Jewish community. The population, which was composed mostly of Sefardi (Spanish) and German Jews, expanded massively with immigrants from Eastern Europe, triggered by successive waves of pogroms, beginning in 1881. Anyway, these immigrants were mostly urban, and mostly lower-class. As a consequence, they were involved in the labor and socialist movements. The best known Yiddish newspaper, *The Forward*, started out as a socialist paper. The Workermen's Circle was a socialist organization, too. And the distinctly Jewish political movement of the era (besides Zionism) was Bundism, which was expressly socialist. So, Jews were big into socialism. Over time, this lead to their inclusion in the New Deal coalition, which lead to a strong Democrat lean. This has the Jewish voting patterns in presidential elections from 1916 onwards. Note that socialist Eugene V. Debs, running from prison in 1920, who recieved 3.4% of the popular vote nationally, got a whopping 38% of the Jewish vote. And from Al Smith in 1928 after, no Democratic presidential candidate got less than 60% of the Jewish vote except for Carter in 1980. As for before that occurred, I can't find any solid data. This article says that the Jews prior to the New Deal coalition were mostly Republican. But the definite association with progressive politics is a labor movement/socialist/New Deal phenomenon.", "support_docs": "
American Jewish community\u2014native-born and immigrant, Reform, Orthodox, secular, and socialist\u2014coalesced to form what eventually became known as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. All told, American Jews raised $63 million in relief funds during the war years and became more immersed in European Jewish affairs than ever before. 1930s While earlier Jewish elements from Germany were business oriented and voted as conservative Republicans, the wave of Eastern European Jews starting in the 1880s, were more liberal or left wing and became the political majority. Many came to America with experience in the socialist and anarchist movements as well as the
by an unparalleled degree of freedom, acceptance, and prosperity that has made it possible for Jews to bring together their ethnic identities with the demands of national citizenship far more effortlessly than Jews in Europe. American Jewish exceptionalism differentiates Jews from other American ethnic groups by means of educational and economic attainments and, indeed, by virtue of Jewish values, including a devotion to political liberalism. As Dollinger (2002) has found, for the last century the most secular Jews have tended toward the most liberal or even leftist political views, while more religious Jews are politically more conservative. Modern
organizations such as The Workmen's Circle and the Jewish People's Fraternal Order played an important part in Jewish community life until World War II.\nJewish Americans were not just involved in nearly every important social movement but in the forefront of promoting such issues as workers rights, civil rights, woman's rights, freedom of religion, peace movements, and various other progressive causes. Americanization Jacob Schiff played a major role as a leader of the American Jewish community in the late 19th century. As a wealthy German Jew, Schiff made important decisions regarding the arrival of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. At a time" }, { "question": "how does ''rule against perpetuities'' actually work?", "answer": "**Background**: The Common Law Rule seeks to make sure that things get used. Why would you want a perfectly good car being held by a dead person? We have property laws to make the world more efficient not less efficient Here enters the Common Law Rules Against Perpetuities. This is a rule, not written down in a law, but rather a set of practices the court follows (common law). This set of practices deals with giving property to people (most commonly when things are given in a will) **What it deals with** When someone gives something to another person, they can put restrictions on it (eg you will get my house when I die). However, sometimes those restrictions can take a very long time to actually occur (you will get my house when man leaves the solar system). The common law rule against perpetuities tries to get people to avoid the second example **Example** So, how does it stop people from making up ridiculous restrictions: by saying that you can only give something to someone if the event occurs within the lifetime of the relevant parties (say yourself and the person who is giving you that house) plus 21 years. If, the person who is giving you the house dies, and 21 years pass (without meeting the restriction that gives the house to you) then the house is no longer yours and goes back to the estate of the person who gave it to you. **Modern Context** That said, in Canada at least, the rule against perpetuities has been modified by laws passed by the government in many jurisdictions such that it takes a \"wait and see\" approach. In the example I used that means they would just wait till you die and **then** the house would revert to the estate of the person who gave it to you. **Nuances** There is a caveat here. All of these things are looking at one's interest in property. So for instance, property given to children from their parents is said to already said to be \"burdened\" with the interest of the child. Since the interest is there, the rule of perpetuities is done with. Another example is a marital relationship. Each partner already has a interest in the property even if they don't have outright possession (physical holding and use of the property) or ownership (title to the property). Again, rule of perpetuities is not as important because the interest is there. **Conclusion** The rule against perpetuities is *not* against perpetual ownership, but rather *perpetual uncertainty.* It is not good that we don't know when someone is going to get a piece of property so the law creates boundaries. When there are boundaries then a piece of property can be used, people can bring order to their lives, and society is more stable", "support_docs": "
rule against perpetuities, an imaginative lawyer will argue (and a court must accept under the common law rule itself) that A could have a child in her 86th year and then in her 87th year all of A's other children could die, then in her 88th year A herself could die. Because the interest will not vest until her new child reaches 25 years of age, which cannot happen until more than 21 years after A and her other children (together who form the \"lives in being\" to which the rule refers) have all died, the rule against perpetuities
Illustrations of the rule against perpetuities The fertile octogenarian The fertile octogenarian is a fictitious character that comes up when applying the rule against perpetuities. The rule presumes that anyone, even an octogenarian (i.e., someone between 80 and 90 years of age) can parent a child, regardless of sex or health. For instance, suppose that a will devises a piece of land known as Blackacre \"to A for her life, and then to the first of A's children to reach 25 years of age.\" A is, at the time the will is probated, an 85-year-old woman. In applying the
years), the war that never ends (a transfer to be made at the end of a war might never happen), and other similar situations. Criticism and humor Because these hypothetical scenarios show how a reasonable gift can be voided based on so unlikely an outcome, they have generated much criticism among legal scholars, resulting in the abrogation of the rule against perpetuities by statute in many jurisdictions. Many U.S. States have adopted laws mollifying the application of the rule by requiring courts to \"wait and see\" for a period of years, sometimes as long as 360 years (which effectively negates" }, { "question": "why did latin america develop di\u00e1 de los muertos, opposed to spain who hasn't developed a similar holiday? what are the origins of \"the day of the dead\" and why did it emerge in latin america uniquely?", "answer": "There's always room for discussion, but perhaps this previous question will answer your inquiry. * How did the Day of the Dead celebrations evolve? by /u/drylaw", "support_docs": "
Souls Weekend activities choose to wear calavera-style makeup and objects, familiar to many in Tucson due to the city's location 50 miles from the US-Mexico border. After the Spanish conquest of middle America, ancient Mesoamerican rituals merged with Roman Catholic tradition along with modern cultural interests in the Americas, yielding the holiday known today as D\u00eda de los Muertos in Spanish or Day of the Dead in English. At least one writer has argued that All Soul\u2019s Weekend in Tucson represents a further step in the evolution of precolonial Mesoamerican rituals and Day of the Dead. Though there is
Day of the Dead History The Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico developed from ancient traditions among its pre-Columbian cultures. Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors had been observed by these civilizations perhaps for as long as 2,500\u20133,000 years.\nThe festival that developed into the modern Day of the Dead fell in the ninth month of the Aztec calendar, about the beginning of August, and was celebrated for an entire month. The festivities were dedicated to the goddess known as the \"Lady of the Dead\", corresponding to the modern La Calavera Catrina.\nBy the late 20th century in most regions of
Dead artifacts. Also, the Fruitvale district in Oakland serves as the hub of the D\u00eda de Muertos annual festival which occurs the last weekend of October. Here, a mix of several Mexican traditions come together with traditional Aztec dancers, regional Mexican music, and other Mexican artisans to celebrate the day. Europe As part of a promotion by the Mexican embassy in Prague, Czech Republic, since the late 20th century, some local citizens join in a Mexican-style Day of the Dead. A theater group conducts events involving masks, candles and make-up using luminous paint in the form of sugar skulls. Asia" }, { "question": "we all know that vaccines do not cause autism: are there any peer-reviewed studies showing that vaccine refusers have the same rate of neurological/immune disorders as vaccine acceptors?", "answer": "Here is a very nice review article discussing just what you're asking. Proposed mechanisms for autoimmune disorders typically say that certain molecular patterns that belong to a specific pathogen could potentially be similar enough to one of your own proteins to activate circulating autoreactive B or T cells by \"molecular mimicry.\" It is more likely however, that infection in the absence of vaccination with the wild-type pathogens themselves is going to cause tissue destruction and the release of your own self-antigens in greater quantity than vaccination would. Flaws in proposed mechanisms by which vaccines could cause autoimmune disorders are generally borne out by well-controlled epidemiological studies (meaning vaccines are not associated with an increased risk of these disorders). If I may digress, an infection may be able to spur the onset of an autoimmune disease. Ken Alibek, the former head of the Soviet Biopreperat (their bioweapons program) defected to the US in 1992, and has written about how the program purportedly modified existing viruses to do these things. Perhaps the most prominent example being the modification of variola virus (the causative agent of smallpox) to express the human gene encoding myelin. In theory, this could potentially have led to the development of multiple sclerosis in people infected with the virus who did not die from smallpox. While looking for papers addressing your question, I did happen across this one which suggests there was a statistically significant increased risk, albeit slight, of the development of Guillain-Barr\u00e9 Syndrome in the 1976 A/New Jersey influenza vaccine, but this hasn't been seen in any influenza vaccinations since then, to my knowledge. All in all though, it would definitely seem that vaccinations are incredibly safe and undoubtedly effective.", "support_docs": "
Vaccines and autism The idea of a link between vaccines and autism has been extensively investigated and shown to be false, despite many cases suggesting otherwise. The scientific consensus is that there is no relationship, causal or otherwise, between vaccines and incidence of autism, and vaccine ingredients do not cause autism. Vaccinologist Peter Hotez researched the growth of the false claim and concluded that its spread originated with Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 paper, with no prior paper supporting a link.\nNevertheless, the retracted paper and the anti-vaccination movement at large continue to promote myths, conspiracy theories, and misinformation linking the two.
evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. A systematic review by the Cochrane Library concluded that there is no credible link between the MMR vaccine and autism, that MMR has prevented diseases that still carry a heavy burden of death and complications, that the lack of confidence in MMR has damaged public health, and that the design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies are largely inadequate.\nIn 2009, The Sunday Times reported that Wakefield had manipulated patient data and misreported results in his 1998 paper, creating the appearance of a link with autism. A 2011
of a paper in the medical journal The Lancet which presented apparent evidence that autism spectrum disorders could be caused by the MMR vaccine, an immunization against measles, mumps and rubella.\nIn 2004, investigations by Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer revealed that the lead author of the article, Andrew Wakefield, had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest, had manipulated evidence, and had broken other ethical codes. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004 and fully retracted in 2010, and Wakefield was found guilty of professional misconduct. The scientific consensus is that no evidence links the vaccine to the development of autism," }, { "question": "law in scotland in the seventeenth century", "answer": "Where are you getting the idea Scotland had a change of legal system in the seventeenth century? I'm not saying its wrong as I'm not an expert on legal systems by any means but I've researched seventeenth century Scotland quite a lot. Though there certainly were a lot of changes, what with the Union of Crowns, Covenanter takeover, Cromwellian takeover, Restoration etc, I wasn't really aware of any particular decisive change in the legal system in the seventeenth century. Can you be more specific about what you're looking for? The two books on Scottish law I can immediately think of are *Law, Lawyers and Humanism: Selected Essays on the History of Scots Law* edited by Elspeth Reid and *Roman Law, Scots Law, and Legal History: Selected Essays* by William M Gordon.", "support_docs": "
punishments for the mobile unemployed and beggars. The patriarchal nature of society meant that women were directed to be subservient to their husbands and families. They remained an important part of the workforce and some were economically independent, while others lived a marginal existence. At the beginning of the period women had little or no legal status, but were increasingly criminalised after the Reformation, and were the major subjects of the witch hunts that occurred in relatively large numbers until the end of the seventeenth century. Aristocracy Early modern Scotland was a hierarchical society, with a series of ranks and
as the \"Old Poor Law\" in Scotland, which remained in place until the mid-nineteenth century, when, faced with the much greater problems of poverty caused by industrialisation and population growth, a more comprehensive system, known as the New Poor Law, was created. Most subsequent legislation built on its principles of provision for the local deserving poor and punishment of mobile and undeserving \"sturdie beggars\". The most important later act was that of 1649, which declared that local heritors were to be assessed by kirk session to provide the financial resources for local relief, rather than relying on voluntary contributions. By
Church. Whole congregations would now all sing these psalms, often using common tunes, unlike the trained choirs who had sung the many parts of polyphonic hymns. Witchtrials From late Medieval Scotland there is evidence of occasional prosecutions of individuals for causing harm through witchcraft, but these may have been declining in the first half of the sixteenth century. In the aftermath of the initial Reformation settlement, Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act 1563, similar to that passed in England one year earlier, which made witchcraft a capital crime. Despite the fact that Scotland probably had about one quarter of the population" }, { "question": "is 700,000 palestinians fleeing in 1948 an accurate number?", "answer": "I guess since this is up, I'll just answer. The number was calculated by historians over the years, as well as by the United Nations, which put together refugee camps that tallied the numbers. Numbers have ranged from 520,000 (Israeli estimate) to over a million (Arab estimate), but the total number is usually agreed on to be around 700,000 based on historical tallies of the population pre- and post-war, as well as refugee counts.", "support_docs": "
Population displacements in Israel after 1948 Population shifts in Israel after 1948 refers to the movement of Jewish and Arab populations in the wake of Israeli independence and the outbreak of the 1948 War. Arab villagers who resettled in other locations in Israel after 1948 are often referred to as internally displaced Palestinians. Many fled during the war but later returned to their homes. The Palestinians say that Israelis drove them from out while Israel says most left of their own accord. From 1948 to 1951, mass immigration nearly doubled Israel's Jewish population.
but also Palestinian refugee camp residents in Lebanon, repudiate this term, since it implies being a passive victim, and prefer the autonym of 'returnees' (a'idun). Those who left since 1967, and their descendants, are called nazihun or 'displaced persons', though many may also descend from the 1948 group. Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Palestine War During the 1948 Palestine War, 711,000 out of around 900,000 Palestine Arabs fled or were expelled from the territories that became the State of Israel. The causes and responsibilities of the exodus are a matter of controversy among historians and commentators of the conflict.\nWhereas historians
1948, around 100,000 Palestine Arabs fled. Among them were many from the higher and middle classes from the cities, who left voluntarily, expecting to return when the Arab states won the war and took control of the country. When the Haganah and then the emerging Israeli army (Israel Defense Forces or IDF) went on the defensive, between April and July, a further 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian Arabs left or were expelled, mainly from the towns of Haifa, Tiberias, Beit-Shean, Safed, Jaffa and Acre, which lost more than 90 percent of their Arab inhabitants. Expulsions took place in many towns and" }, { "question": "ba'ath parties in both iraq and syria described themselves as socialist. what exactly did the word \"socialism\" mean for baathists?", "answer": "To add to the excellent answer from DeluxMallu, socialism in Syria meant many things. It meant land reform, dividing large landed estates and reforming tenancy laws to give farmers more secure rights. It meant import substitution, with the government playing a major role in trade, investment, and industry. It included a major expansion of public services, and access to education and healthcare. Government budgets and state payrolls expanded dramatically. However, private property was respected. Members of the traditional Sunni merchant class (especially those based in Damascus) were often partners with the government. Many industrialists thrived thanks to high tariffs on processed goods. Moreover, members of Assad's clan often accumulated substantial wealth, and after an initial strongly anti-business attitude, the government became more than willing to work with businesses. Poor farmers genuinely saw better access to land and public services, but there was no wholesale attack on the traditolnal elite. The policies I have described above could apply to a lot of countries in Africa and Asia. Hafez al-Assad was always more concerned with military and geostrategic issues than economic policy, and in a lot of ways these policies were just the recieved wisdom of the times. Land Reform in Syria Ziad Keilany , The Political Economy of Investment in Syria Linda Matar", "support_docs": "
Arab socialism Original meaning Socialism was a major component of Ba'athist thought, and it featured in the party's tripartite slogan of \"unity, liberty, socialism\". However, in using the term \"Arab socialism,\" Aflaq was not referring to the internationalist strain of socialism; his conception resolved socialism with Arab nationalism. In a written statement from 1946, Aflaq wrote \"The Arab nationalists are socialists\", hence \"there is neither incompatibility nor contradiction nor war between nationalists and socialists.\" Socialism in his mind was subservient to the Arab unity project and liberty, however, he did believe that fighting for Arab liberation and unity was the
of Marxism. In the party's 1947 constitution it reads \"socialism is a necessity which emanates from the depths of Arab nationalism .... Socialism constitutes the ideal social order [for] the Arab people.\" The Ba'ath Party was founded in 1947 as the Arab Ba'ath Party, it became the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952 when it merged with the Arab Socialist Party. Later, in 1950, Aflaq defined socialism as \"not an aim in itself, but rather a necessary means to guarantee society the highest standard of production with the farthest limit of cooperation and solidarity among the citizens ... Arab society
... needs a social order with deeper foundations, wider horizons, and more forceful realization that moderate British socialism.\" A Soviet analyst on the subject of the Ba'athist movement noted \"The concept of socialist structure [as it] appeared in the articles and speeches ... [in] the period of the birth of the new movement [the Ba'ath] ... was just a hazy outline on a barely developed ideological negative.\"\nThe party constitution of 1947 called for a \"just redistribution of wealth\", state ownership of public utilities, natural resources, large industry, and transport, state control over foreign and domestic trade, limiting the agricultural holdings" }, { "question": "why do scuba divers always have snorkels attached to them even though they're useless underwater?", "answer": "Scuba divers sometimes spend time on the surface before a dive. Also, they occasionally have to swim a short distance on the surface before submerging. They use the snorkel in these instances to conserve the air in their tank. Source: I'm PADI certified.", "support_docs": "
diving over scuba are lower risk of drowning and considerably larger breathing gas supply than scuba, allowing longer working periods and safer decompression.\nSurface supplied diving systems improve safety by virtually eliminating the risk of a lost diver, as the diver is physically connected to the surface control point by the breathing gas supply hose, and other components of the umbilical cable system. They also significantly reduce the risk of running out of breathing gas during the dive, and allow multiple redundancy of gas supply, with main and secondary surface supply, and a scuba bailout emergency gas system. Use of helmets
such as the ability to maneuver effectively and resistance to damage of the equipment.\nGood buoyancy control and trim combined with appropriate finning techniques and situational awareness can minimise the environmental impact of recreational diving. Use of swimfins The basic diving skills of finning, buoyancy control, trim and breathing style work in combination for effective diving performance.\nSwimfins are far more effective and efficient for diver propulsion than arm and hand movement in the water. Swimfins are used to provide propulsion and maneuvering for divers, and may be designed and chosen specifically to emphasise one of these functions. Optimisation for one generally
them, observing from in the water at the surface, and ready to dive to the rescue if the diver loses consciousness during the ascent. Scuba diving Diving using self-contained underwater breathing apparatus was developed after surface supplied diving, and was intended as a method of improving the mobility and horizontal range of the diver who is not restricted by a physical connection to a surface gas supply. The diver has a larger gas supply than the freediver, and this allows a greatly extended underwater endurance, and lower risk of drowning, but at the cost of higher risk from decompression sickness," }, { "question": "how is the 9th circuit court's decision on concealed carry today reasonable?", "answer": "The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, but you can get in trouble for inciting hate crimes, yelling \"I HAVE A BOMB!!!\" on an airplane, etc. There are reasonable restrictions to the right to free speech. \"right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed\" does NOT MEAN \"there can be absolutely zero rules about guns\".", "support_docs": "
that the Second Amendment individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense does not prevent our elected representatives from enacting 'common-sense' gun laws to protect our communities from gun violence.\" Lawsuits On March 19, 2009, a federal judge ordered a temporary injunction blocking the implementation of the rule allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry firearms concealed within National Park Service lands within states where their permits are valid, based upon environmental concerns, in response to efforts by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the National Parks Conservation Association, and the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.
as necessary to prevent an imminent injury to person or property. Supreme Court decisions Although the Law of Justification has heretofore been considered a matter of state law, the recent Supreme Court decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 3020 (2010) may have constitutionalized some of the Common Law rules of \"self-defense\" as fundamental rights. The Supreme Court held that each of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments \"protects the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense.\" And, \"stressed that the right was also valued because
seems to formulate puts needed, reasonable, accepted, lawful, and congressionally authorized criminal investigations at serious risk in serious cases, often when law enforcement seeks to prevent the threat of violent crimes. And it places undue restrictions on the lawful and necessary enforcement powers exercised not only by the Federal Government, but also by law enforcement in every State and locality throughout the Nation. Adherence to this Court\u2019s longstanding precedents and analytic framework would have been the proper and prudent way to resolve this case.\nAlito wrote in his dissent,\nI share the Court\u2019s concern about the effect of new technology on personal" }, { "question": "dan bilzerian", "answer": "Some go there just to be with him because he has money (and want to party lavishly) and sometimes they are paid. Dan Bilzerian has MASSIVE insecurity issues.", "support_docs": "
Dan Bilzerian Early life Bilzerian was born in Tampa, Florida, the son of corporate takeover specialist Paul Bilzerian and Terri Steffen. He is the brother of fellow poker player Adam Bilzerian. He is of Armenian descent through his father. His father was a corporate raider on Wall Street who set up trust funds for both of his sons. Bilzerian entered the Navy SEAL training program in 2000; however, after several attempts, he did not graduate. He was reportedly dropped from the program for a \"safety violation on the shooting range.\" Bilzerian subsequently enrolled at the University of Florida, majoring in
moved to Bel Air, Los Angeles from Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles.\nOn March 9, 2011, Bilzerian raced and beat Tom Goldstein for a wager of $385,000 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with Bilzerian racing a 1967 AC Cobra and Goldstein behind the wheel of a Ferrari 458 Italia.\nBecause of his lavish lifestyle and heavy drug abuse, Bilzerian reportedly suffered two heart attacks before the age of 32.\nIn October 2016, American rapper T-Pain released a song named after Dan Bilzerian. Legal issues In 2014, Bilzerian sued the producers of the film Lone Survivor. His lawsuit states that although he loaned the production
woman attacked Bilzerian's female companion. Castano stated, \"There were two girls standing next to me at the table that were fighting. People started getting shoved and I tried to separate them. Then Dan pushed me off the banquette and once I fell he kicked me in the face.\" Castano later filed a lawsuit against Bilzerian for her injuries. It was also reported that Castano has asked Bilzerian for US$1 million to settle the suit citing the possibility of greater punitive damages based on his income if the suit went to trial.\nIn December 2014, Bilzerian was embroiled in a legal matter" }, { "question": "digital millennium copyright act (dmca)", "answer": "The DMCA does a couple things: * Makes it illegal to break copy-protection (for example, if you download a song that has DRM protection, you have to \"obey\" the DRM.) * Makes DRM-breaking tools illegal * Makes you responsible for these illegal things, instead of innocent bystanders like your Internet company or websites like Facebook and Reddit.", "support_docs": "
public, without authority, works or copies of works knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.\" United States In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (\"DMCA\") has implemented the treaty provisions regarding the circumvention of some technological barriers to copying intellectual property. Circumvention of Access Controls Section 103 (17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)) of the DMCA states:\n\nNo person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.\nThe Act defines what it means in Section 1201(a)(3):\n(3) As used in this subsection\u2014\n(A) to \"circumvent a technological measure\" means to
the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).\nIn response to widespread Internet postings of the key, the AACS LA issued various press statements, praising those websites that complied with their requests for acting in a \"responsible manner\" and warning that \"legal and technical tools\" were adapting to the situation.\nThe controversy was further escalated in early May 2007, when aggregate news site Digg received a DMCA cease and desist notice and then removed numerous articles on the matter and banned users reposting the information.\nThis sparked what some describe as a digital revolt or \"cyber-riot\", in which users posted and spread the
Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act Three-tier System The DPRA categorizes services under three tiers, based on the service\u2019s potential impact on record sales. First, non-subscription broadcast transmissions are exempt from requirements to pay license fees. Second, non-interactive Internet transmissions are required to pay a statutory license established by the Copyright Board. Third, Interactive Internet transmission services are required to negotiate a license agreement with the copyright holder.\nThe DMCA modified the requirement and framework for the statutory license. Criticism While the DPRA expanded the sound recording\u2019s performance right, performers have still criticized the DPRA\u2019s comparative inequity because composers still" }, { "question": "where exactly is a woman's g-spot located, and how do you find it?", "answer": "Straight in, stick to the top, two o clock (yes always) until about the second bend in your fingers, if you've hit your knuckles that's way too far. It all generally feels the same to you but it has sort of an interesting texture. So I know perhaps you've always been told to do the \"Come here\" motion but it's actually okay to be a little bit rougher than that, nearly all the nerves are located outside and in the clitoris. So use your dominant hand for entry and place the other hand palm down thumb towards you, gently but firmly across the lower pelvis. Use your two fingers with dominant hand to move entire fore arm in a controlled vibration sort of motion. Check with female on pressure and intensity. Use clitoral stimulation at your discretion. Hope that makes sense!", "support_docs": "
G-spot Location Two primary methods have been used to define and locate the G-spot as a sensitive area in the vagina: self-reported levels of arousal during stimulation, and stimulation of the G-spot leading to female ejaculation. Ultrasound technology has also been used to identify physiological differences between women and changes to the G-spot region during sexual activity.\nThe location of the G-spot is typically reported as being about 50 to 80\u00a0mm (2 to 3\u00a0in) inside the vagina, on the front wall. For some women, stimulating this area creates a more intense orgasm than clitoral stimulation. The G-spot area has been described
of a G-spot using surveys, pathologic specimens, various imaging modalities, and biochemical markers, and concluded:\nThe surveys found that a majority of women believe a G-spot actually exists, although not all of the women who believed in it were able to locate it. Attempts to characterize vaginal innervation have shown some differences in nerve distribution across the vagina, although the findings have not proven to be universally reproducible. Furthermore, radiographic studies have been unable to demonstrate a unique entity, other than the clitoris, whose direct stimulation leads to vaginal orgasm. Objective measures have failed to provide strong and consistent evidence for
the research team asked several women to stimulate themselves in a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) machine, brain scans showed stimulating the clitoris, vagina and cervix lit up distinct areas of the women's sensory cortex, which means the brain registered distinct feelings between stimulating the clitoris, the cervix and the vaginal wall \u2013 where the G-spot is reported to be. \"I think that the bulk of the evidence shows that the G-spot is not a particular thing,\" stated Barry Komisaruk, head of the research findings. \"It's not like saying, 'What is the thyroid gland?' The G-spot is more of a thing" }, { "question": "today the leaders of the eastern and western churches have met for the first time in nearly 1000 years. why did the attempts at healing the schism, at lyon in 1274 and florence in 1439, previously fail? a similar proposed meeting between john paul ii and alexy ii likewise collapsed?", "answer": "Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is not the first meeting of the eastern and western churches. This is the first meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has existed for around 400 years.", "support_docs": "
discussions about reunion to be held again, this time at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. After several long discussions, the emperor managed to convince the Eastern representatives to accept the Western doctrines of Filioque, Purgatory and the supremacy of the Papacy. On 6 June 1439, an agreement was signed by all the Eastern bishops present but one, Mark of Ephesus, who held that Rome continued in both heresy and schism. It seemed that the Great Schism had been ended. However, upon their return, the Eastern bishops found their agreement with the West broadly rejected by the populace and by civil authorities
Schism, which had been going on for nearly seventeen years, with no signs of resolution. Over 150 letters of summons were issued. The consensus of the meeting was that the \"Way of Cession\" (resignation of both contenders and election of a new pope for both Obediences) was the most efficient solution. The three royal dukes, Berri, Bourbon and Anjou, who had in fact inspired the meeting, were sent to lead a delegation to discuss the matter with Benedict XIII in Avignon. Conferences with the Pope took place at the end of June in Villeneuve, where the Pope was staying at
the Eastern and Western halves of the Church had frequently been in conflict, particularly during the periods of iconoclasm and the Photian schism. The Orthodox East perceived the Papacy as taking on monarch type characteristics that were not in line with the church's historical tradition.\nThe \"official\" schism in 1054 was the excommunication of Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople, followed by his excommunication of papal legates. Both groups are descended from the Early Church, both acknowledge the apostolic succession of each other's bishops and the validity of each other's sacraments. Though both acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Eastern" }, { "question": "what models of carcanos were most widely issued to the italian army during wwii?", "answer": "No panic. Couple of options, this guy below got all manufacturing details, models and years for the different versions of the rifle. Have a look and even drop him an email, he seems well informed. Last resort, get in here, this is the official page of the Italian Army and like most western armies they have a historical section, I suggest you try the 8th link \"Museo della Fanteria\" this is Infantry Museum. You would be surprised how much these guys are often willing to help. Besides the military history side they are not overwhelmed with work (no offence) so a small challenge is normally welcomed. You seem to be pointing to a specific Division in the Sicilian Front which is a better approach I think, you may ask about the std issued equipment instead of the rifle models themselves. The only last thing I can think about is that you try some of the manufacturers historical records from the 1st link I provided. I only recognize there Beretta as still alive but they should have a good historical archive too, they are the Ferrari in the arms manufacturing in Italy. Not a long shot give it a try.", "support_docs": "
Italy and northwestern Europe 1943-45 In 1943, the armoured car regiments were removed from the armoured divisions and used as corps-level reconnaissance assets with one regiment assigned per corps. In this role, they achieved their final organisation of a headquarters and four squadrons with 767 men. Each squadron had five troops of two Dingo scout cars and two Daimler Armoured Cars. The heaviest armoured cars in the regiments, the AEC Armoured Cars, now mounted 75-mm cannon, a far cry from the original armoured car armament of one machine gun and one antitank rifle of 1940. Commonwealth and
Mortaio da 260/9 Modello 16 History After the independence and unification of Italy, the Italians were not self-sufficient in arms design and production. Foreign firms such as Armstrong, Krupp, Schneider, and Vickers all provided arms and helped establish local production of their designs under license.\nAlthough the majority of combatants had heavy field artillery prior to the outbreak of the First World War, none had adequate numbers of heavy guns in service, nor had they foreseen the growing importance of heavy artillery once the Italian Front stagnated and trench warfare set in. Fortresses, armories, coastal fortifications, and museums were
supplied to the infantry divisions of the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies in October 1942.\nNine divisions of the Italian 8th Army had an anti-tank battery of six guns assigned to its artillery regiment in 1942. The Italian designation was Cannone da 75/39.\nBy November 1942, the Hungarian 2nd Army fielded 43 Pak 97/38s." }, { "question": "when we\u2019re scared of something, why does the brain make you think about it more rather than less?", "answer": "Evolution logic. If something is a threat to your life, you should invest all the resources you can in order to avoid it, so it takes first priority in your brain. Imagine a rabbit getting hunted who would stop mid-chase to eat: his genes would not go very far.", "support_docs": "
Fear processing in the brain Many experiments have been done to find out how the brain interprets stimuli and how animals develop fear responses. The emotion, fear, has been hard-wired into almost every individual, due to its vital role in the survival of the individual. Researchers have found that fear is established unconsciously and that the amygdala is involved with fear conditioning.\nBy understanding how fear is developed within individuals, it may be possible to treat human mental disorders such as anxiety, phobia, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Neuronal fear pathways In fear conditioning, the main circuits that are involved are the
fear are the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex. In the processing of emotional stimuli, studies on phobic reactions to facial expressions have indicated that these areas are involved in processing and responding to negative stimuli. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been said to influence the amygdala by monitoring its reaction to emotional stimuli or even fearful memories. Most specifically, the medial prefrontal cortex is active during extinction of fear and is responsible for long-term extinction. Stimulation of this area decreases conditioned fear responses, so its role may be in inhibiting the amygdala and its reaction to fearful
to fearful stimuli occurs through the process of fear conditioning. Similar to classical conditioning, the amygdala learns to associate a conditioned stimulus with a negative or avoidant stimulus, creating a conditioned fear response that is often seen in phobic individuals. In this way, the amygdala is responsible for not only recognizing certain stimuli or cues as dangerous but plays a role in the storage of threatening stimuli to memory. The basolateral nuclei (or basolateral amygdala) and the hippocampus interact with the amygdala in the storage of memory, which suggests why memories are often remembered more vividly if they have emotional" }, { "question": "the difference between priest, pastor, vicar, minister, bishop etc.", "answer": "It will depend on the religion and/or the denomination. As generically as possible: A **priest** is any person ordained by the religious authority to perform religious services. For example, all male members of the Catholic religious hierarchy are priests, whether they are \"simple\" priests or bishops or popes or what have you. In the following explanations I'm using the term \"priest\" generically, not in its more common technically Catholic sense. (One could also use the term \"cleric\" instead of \"priest.\") **Pastors** are typically low-rung priests, especially among Protestant denominations. A \"pastor\" is a \"shepherd\" of a congregation \"flock.\" Pastors are usually priests of smallish congregations. **Ministers** are also basically pastors, though among some Protestant denominations they can also be priests over larger communities. The term \"minister\" refers to the idea that this priest manages the religious affairs of congregation similar to the way a political minister manages the political affairs of his or her division/ministry. **Vicars** are essentially ministers as well, and are found especially within Catholicism. \"Vicar\" comes from the word that gives us \"vice-\" as in \"vice-admiral\" or \"vice president.\" So, someone who is in a high position of authority but not at the top. The Catholic Pope is the \"vicar of Christ\" - he's Jesus' deputy. Bishops are frequently associated with vicars who are priests slightly lower in the hierarchy than themselves. A **bishop** is a priest who has authority over multiple congregations, and usually authority over multiple priests (pastors, ministers, etc.). Bishops are found in some but not all Protestant denominations, and are typically associated with Catholicism. The term \"bishop\" is a rough translation of the Greek word \"episkopos\" which means \"overseer.\" So, a bishop is an overseer of other priests/congregations. Sometimes but not always a bishop will have his or her own congregation. Episcopalians (that is, U.S.-based Anglicans - Church of England - and note how the name comes from the same Greek word) use bishops as their main authority title. Within Catholicism, bishops are the heads of a \"diocese.\" An **archbishop** is an overseer of overseers, and is found primarily in Catholicism as the head of an \"archdiocese.\" Another related term that you didn't mention is **presbyter**. This comes from the Greek \"presbuteros\" and means \"elder.\" Some Protestant denominations (e.g., Presbyterians) have presbyters in bishop-like positions of authority. Catholic priests are technically presbyters, but this is not a common usage among most English-speaking Catholics. There are also **deacons**, who are typically lay religious authorities. What this means is that they're not ordained (they're not priests), but they still carry some responsibilities involved in running day-to-day operations within a church congregation. A **reverend** is a priest along the same lines as the pastor and the minister. Typically \"reverend\" is used as a naming title rather than as an actual title, so we have, for example, \"Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.\" - who was an ordained minister, and had a religious doctorate (I believe a Th.D. but I'm not certain). A **monk** is, within Catholicism (and some Protestant denominations, such as the Lutherans), a person (typically male, sometimes a priest) who does not have a congregation and is *typically* separated from general society within a monastery. Catholic monks are known as \"brothers.\" Historically, not all monks have been priests; I believe most are actually not ordained, and within Catholicism are not authorized to give communion for precisely that reason. **Nuns** are the female equivalent (and are definitely *not* priests within Catholicism because Catholic women cannot be ordained); they are called \"sisters.\" Catholic monks are not strictly speaking \"ordained\" but they are also not \"lay\" members of the religion. A **preacher** is someone whose priestly duties are understood primarily to be preaching-related (speaking in front of the congregation). \"Preacher\" is a term preferred by a lot of small, hierarchy-lite traditions/denominations as a way of distancing themselves from other terms that, to them, seem to be prideful. This is not, however, the exclusive use of the word. In all of this, though, bear in mind that each denomination is going to have its own quirks about nomenclature. And that these terms are *generally* not found outside of Christianity. So, for example, the primary term for a priest within Judaism is \"rabbi\", and within Islam a priest is an \"imam.\" These are terms that are *roughly* equivalent to pastor/minister within a Christian context, although they have different responsibilities and their positions within the overall hierarchy of the religious tradition may be different. This has been a broad overview and I am aware that some specific details are fudged for the sake of simplicity. Others are welcome to \"correct\" my explanation but bear in mind that this is eli5, not askscience.", "support_docs": "
Clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the terms used for individual clergy are clergyman, clergywoman, and churchman. Less common terms are churchwoman and clergyperson, while cleric and clerk in holy orders both have a long history but are rarely used. \nIn Christianity, the specific names and roles of the clergy vary by denomination and there is a wide range of formal and informal clergy positions, including deacons, elders, priests, bishops, preachers,
for instance, is almost without exception a cleric, but a cardinal is not a type of cleric. An archbishop is not a distinct type of cleric, but is simply a bishop who occupies a particular position with special authority. Conversely, a youth minister at a parish may or may not be a cleric. Different churches have different systems of clergy, though churches with similar polity have similar systems. Anglicanism In Anglicanism, clergy consist of the orders of deacons, priests (presbyters) and bishops in ascending order of seniority. Canon, archdeacon, archbishop and the like are specific positions within these orders. Bishops
secure tenure but holding a bishop's licence is termed a priest in charge, temporary curate or bishop's curate.\nIn the rest of the Anglican Communion, most parish priests are called rectors or incumbents. However, in some member churches where mission societies have been instrumental in their continuing development, parish priests are called chaplains. In some provinces, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, a rector is the head of a self-sustaining parish, while a vicar is the head of a mission sustained from diocesan funds. Assistant or associate clergy After ordination most clergy serve as assistants to" }, { "question": "i have read that the demise of streetcars in the u.s. was due to a conspiracy by gm and other auto manufacturers. i've also read that this is an urban legend. what's the truth?", "answer": "I'm going to illustrate this using the example of Los Angeles, because it's what I know best. (I'm currently writing a book on the subject.) In general, American streetcar systems reached their height in the 1920s, and began to decline thereafter. This is due to a combination of three factors: (a) the automobile's increasing popularity made many streetcar lines simply uneconomical to operate; (b) most streetcar companies like the Red Cars in Los Angeles or the Key System in the San Francisco Bay Area operated their streetcar systems to promote their real estate developments, and not the other way around, (c) the bus was actually a technological improvement in mixed traffic over the competing streetcar. If you check out my (redrawn) map of Los Angeles's Pacific Electric streetcar system near its height in 1926, there's lots of things that are incredibly unusual to modern eyes. First, the streetcars go *everywhere.* You could take a train way out to places which are considered the periphery of Greater LA even in modern times. These are places like San Bernardino, contemporary population 37,000, or Riverside, population 29,000. This kind of network is only economically viable if there are literally no other transportation alternatives available. And the Pacific Electric was infamous for exploiting its transportation monopoly to the limit. Once the motor bus was invented, and automobile competition arrived in earnest, large-scale abandonment began. If you check out this significantly-less-clear map from 1947, nearly all passenger service to outlying areas has been abandoned or replaced by buses. You have to remember that the Pacific Electric and similar systems were operated by real estate developers. The owner of the Pacific Electric, Henry Huntington, was a real estate magnate who made his money by building suburban subdivisions - places like Huntington Beach, Huntington Park and San Marino were all developed by Huntington money. In the Pacific Electric's case, the streetcar system actually operated at a loss for much of its life, and it was the real estate development that kept the trains running, not the other way around. (Similarly, in Northern California, the Key System streetcars were actually owned by a company called the \"Realty Syndicate\".) Finally, there's the technological question. One-car streetcars running in mixed traffic are technologically inferior to diesel buses, because they can't be rerouted for construction, and if something blocks the tracks, there's not much the streetcar driver can do except wait. In the Pacific Electric's case, many of their routes ran down busy thoroughfares, and they didn't have dedicated lanes the way that the modern L.A. Metro's trains do. And buses are cheaper to run per-passenger on low-capacity routes - there's no overhead wires or tracks to maintain. Trains really shine when they have dedicated right-of-way (i.e., their own dedicated lanes or tracks), and it's a high capacity route - a three-car train of streetcars, like the modern Expo Line, can handle 600 passengers per train with a single driver, which is equivalent to five buses. But one-car trains of streetcars running in mixed traffic have both the disadvantages of a train (can't detour) and the disadvantages of a bus (limited capacity). Because of this it made a lot of economic sense to abandon streetcars for buses. GM and National City Lines took advantage of this process to sell buses, but it was a decades-long trend that began long before the alleged conspiracy began in the late 1930s.", "support_docs": "
result of public preferences, technological change, the relative abundance of natural resources, and other impersonal phenomena or influence, rather than the machinations of a monopolist.\"\nGM published a rebuttal the same year titled \"The Truth About American Ground Transport\". The Senate subcommittee printed GM's work in tandem with Snell's as an appendix to the hearings transcript. GM explicitly did not address the specific allegations that were sub judice. Role in decline of the streetcars Quinby and Snell held that the destruction of streetcar systems was integral to a larger strategy to push the United States into automobile dependency. Most transit scholars
General Motors streetcar conspiracy The notion of a General Motors streetcar conspiracy emerged after General Motors (GM) and other companies were convicted of monopolizing the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and its subsidiaries. In the same case, the defendants were accused of conspiring to own or control same transit systems, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust act. The suit created lingering suspicions that the defendants had in fact plotted to dismantle streetcar systems in many cities in the United States as an attempt to monopolize surface transportation.\nBetween 1938 and 1950, National
clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction.\"\nIn 2010, CBS's Mark Henricks reported:\nThere is no question that a GM-controlled entity called National City Lines did buy a number of municipal trolley car systems. And it's beyond doubt that, before too many years went by, those street car operations were closed down. It's also true that GM was convicted in a post-war trial of conspiring to monopolize the market for transportation equipment and supplies sold to local bus companies. What's not true is that the explanation for these events is a nefarious plot to" }, { "question": "what was life like for the local population during the japanese occupation of indonesia?", "answer": "I have never heard about that book, but it is correct. Japan came when the people of Indonesia was suffering under Dutch, so at first their arrival and subsequent chasing out of the Dutch was welcomed as if they were Gods. On 9 March 1942, lieutenant general Ter Porten signed a declaration of (submission? surrender? ^not ^sure ^of ^the ^English ^term) to lieutenant Hitoshi Imamura in Kalijati, Subang, West Java. The declaration brought about a brand new era of... revoltingly worse colonialism. At first, Japan seemingly offered the protection that Indonesians so much craved for. Here's the list of their propaganda at the time: - Gerakan 3A (3A movement). Here's the propaganda poster at the time. Basically Japan promoted itself as the Light of Asia, Protector of Asia, and Leader of Asia (hence the three A). Here's another poster example. - Named itself as Indonesian's old sibling. - Japan came to free Indonesians from the evil *tuan kumpeni*. - Formed the PUTERA Organization. - Japan formed many troops such as Youth Troops and Homeland Protector Forces under pretense of teaching Indonesians military, but in reality used the troops to wage war for Japan. The 3A Movement was led by an Indonesian named Syamsudin KH. It was not very effective after a while, which led to its dissolution at 1943. To replace the old movement, Japan formed the Pusat Tenaga Rakyat Org or abbreviated as PUTERA (People's Power Force), led by the Big Fou which were Soekarno (first president of Indonesia), Mohammad Hatta (first vice president of Indonesia), Ki Hajar Dewantara (the education figure who opened free school for Indonesians), and Kyai rHaji Mas Mansyur (the leader of Islamic organization Muhammadiyah). Ironically, the forming of PUTERA later backfired because Bung Karno used the organization to gather nasionalists and plan for independence. During the Pacific War, Japan formed many troops in Indonesia under pretense that they would teach Indonesians military and war strategy to protect the country from further West colonialism such as: - Seinendan (Youth Troops) - Heiho (Japan Military Helper Troops) - PETA (Homeland Protector Forces) - Fujinkai (Woman Troops) - Gakutosai (Student Troops) - Keibodan (Police Helper Troops) - Jibakutai (Suicide Troops) - Kempetai (Secret Police Forces) These troops were used by Japanese to fight the Pacific War as well as to keep Indonesians in check, especially Soekarno and Hatta who slowly but surely revealed themselves as dangerous foes, which led to Soekarno's banishment to Rengasdengklok. (Although Soekarno was protected by PETA during this time. The plan for declaration of independence was created during this time.) When all propaganda more or less became rather ineffective, Japan started their true mission. First was the rules that Indonesians had to do Seikerei (saluting Japan Emperor by bowing towards the rising sun) every morning before prayer. Given that at the time most of Indonesia was Muslims, this act was considered as worshipping another entity aside from Allah. This rule resulted in several rebellions led by Kyai Haji Sainal Mustafa in West Java which lasted a year from 1943 - 1944. (KH Zainal Mustafa was arrested and executed, he was buried in Ancol area, Jakarta) Second, Japan created romusha (corvee labor). Millions of romusha forces were sent to force labor camps around Indonesia and Japan's other colonies, but the most well-documented (in Indonesia, at least) was the forced labor camps around Sumatra, mainly used to clear the thick forests and build railways. So many romusha's lives perished during the feat which earned the railways its notorious title 'The Deathly Railways'. Romushas were recruited by luring youths that they would be either educated or enlisted to Heiho / Gakutosai / Seinendan. Starting from 1943 though, Japan issued a new rule that necessitated farmers to serve as romusha for a period of time similar to conscription. One of the former romusha able to live until modern days was Suratman, who came from Wonosobo, Central Java. At eighteen, he was recruited by the Japanese. He was promised to be educated in a special Japanese school, but instead was sent to West Sumatra to build the railways from Padang to Pekanbaru, Riau Province. Equipped only with minimal supplies, the romushas were force to clear forests and scrape the many rock hills dotting Sumatra's landscape. During the process many romushas died from untreated disease, malnutrition, or accidents during work. Food for romushas were only a fistful of rice flavored with salt and nothing more for a day. The clothes they wore were made from burlap sacks and tree barks, and it had to be worn until it resembled clothes no more before being replaced another burlap sack shirt. If a romusha fell sick, he had to find for medicine himself. Any other romusha who helped the sick romusha looking for medicine was punished by beating. Romushas who seemingly worked less than the others or tried to escape but failed were tortured and executed in front of the other romushas as a warning. The book The Sumatra Railroad even stated that 80% of the romushas perished during 1943 - 1945. Not only Indonesians were made romushas, though. Data collected by George Duffy stated that about four thousands Dutch war captives, a thousand English soldiers, two hundreds Australians and fifteen Americans were also worked as romusha. From this amount, about seven hundred perished due to untreated disease. Sumatra at the time was a vast and virgin jungle who hid all sorts of maladious disease and plague within its thick foliage after all. There's a video about him who told of his experience, unfortunately it is in Indonesian. A picture of young romushas. Fun fact: a romusha story from the building of Burma - Thailand railroad was screened as The Bridge of River Kwai. Although happened in another country, the experience was similar. The romusha suffering prompted other rebellions, especially from Indramayu, West Java, led by Haji Madriyan. The rebellions were easily subdued, and for punishment, everyone involved in the rebellions were publicly tortured for warnings. Thirdly, Japan necessitated every farmer to submit most of the crops mainly rice, corn, and cattle to Japan, leaving the farmers impoverished and unable to provide food for their families. Farmers were also obliged to plant castor oil plant (Jathropa) to be used as weaponry lubricants. Fourthly, Indonesian girls were forcefully taken from their homes and families to be employed as comfort women (or rape dolls as we name it). Indonesians, if you ever read this comment, you have to read the book Perawan Remaja Dalam Cengkeraman Militer by Pramoedya AT. It is a horrifying, nauseating story comparable to the Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. During 1942 - 1945, Girls were taken forcefully or tricked into believing that they would be educated in Tokyo while in reality they were shipped to the various comfort houses to satisfy Japanese soldiers' lust. Those forcefully taken were raped in front of their family before being spirited away. Pregnant girls were forced to do abortion, while those who fell ill were let to die without care. Many died from suicide, torture, or disease. After Japan's surrender in 1945, these girls were abandoned in their posts. The author of the book traced the remnants of Javanese comfort women in Buru island, where girls who were abandoned after the war had no choice other than becoming prostitutes. Fifthly, the notorious Unit 731, whose victims weren't only Indonesians.", "support_docs": "
spread of Indonesian nationalist sentiment. Although this was done more for Japanese political advantage than from altruistic support of Indonesian independence, this support created new Indonesian institutions and elevated political leaders such as Sukarno. Through recruiting Indonesian nationalist leaders, the Japanese attempted to rally Indonesian support and mobilize the Indonesian people in support of the Japanese war efforts. The experience of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia varied considerably, depending upon where one's location and social position. Many who lived in areas considered essential to the war effort endured torture, Sexual slavery, arbitrary arrest and execution, and other war crimes. Many
out, however, by the time the Empire of Japan invaded and occupied the Indies. During the occupation, the njai and their mixed-race children were forcefully separated from European men, who were put into internment camps. After the occupation ended in 1945, Sukarno proclaimed an independent Indonesia. During the ensuing revolution, the njai were forced to choose between going with their partners to Europe, or staying in Indonesia; both choices were taken. Rights and social status The njai could be sent home with little or no warning, with or without her children. This was common when the European man prepared
school at Manado, which by 1939 had 18 students. In total, 6,349 Japanese people lived in Indonesia by 1938.\nIn 1942, the Empire of Japan invaded countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia. The Japanese seized the key oil production zones of Borneo, Java, Sumatera, and the Netherlands New Guinea (the modern day Indonesian province of Papua, which was also conveniently abundant in highly valuable copper) of the late Dutch East Indies, defeating the Dutch forces and were welcomed by many as liberating heroes by Javanese natives. Many natives saw as the realization of an indigenous Javanese prophecy. The Japanese encouraged the" }, { "question": "what is the relationship of the modern muslim brotherhood with the thought of sayyid qutb and/or hassan al-banna, and how has this changed over time?", "answer": "OP, it's the best question I've ever encountered on this sub-reddit. Unfortunately it's not my field but I've read a bit about Qutb and Maududi (I know he's not from MB [as I recall Qutb also was never a member of this organization] but a founder of Jamaat-i-Islami, however I think that we can add other fundamentalists to the discussion) and attended to a 30h lecture about Jihad so I'd like to write a word or two. I think that a visible shift in Muslim Brotherhood's actions is a result of more pragmatic stance of its leaders. They know that the only way to enforce ideas of Qutb and al-Banna is through controlling the society, legal measures and governing. They cannot be too radical or hasty - tourism is one of the most important parts of egyptian economy, they are also aware that the risk of foreign intervention would rise if they were too radical or meddled with Israeli issues too much. I think that nowadays people like Y\u016bsuf al-Qar\u1e0d\u0101w\u012b are even more influential than old thinkers and scholars like Maududi or Qutb. And his policy seems to be widely accepted among lots of islamic leaders. Also, if you could share your opinions with us, it would be awesome. I'm really interested in this topic but I don't have time to do research on my own.", "support_docs": "
Al-Jazeera in 2005:\nIslam dignifies Christians and Jews and we hope they treat us the same way. The ignorance of people is what is causing a grudge among them and not their religion.\nIn recent years, the Brotherhood has frequently called for greater democracy in the Middle East. 'Abd al-Mun'im Abu-l-Futuh, one of the middle-generation leaders who is respected both in the Brotherhood and in the Wasat Party, told the International Crisis Group in 2004:\nThe absence of democracy is one of the main reasons for the crisis here, in Egypt and the Middle East. The Muslim Brothers believe that the
out the principles of an Islamic socialism. He became the Brotherhood's most influential thinker for a time, and in 1959 the organisation's General Guide, Hassan Isam'il\nal-Hudaybi, gave him responsibility for the Brothers detained in prisons and concentration camps. Qutb attempted to interpret the situation in the camps in Islamic terms; these reflections, which he circulated as commentaries on passages from the Qur'an, came to encompass an analysis of the regime that meted out such barbarous treatment to its prisoners.\nOutside the prisons, those Brothers who had gone underground began to reorganise. In 1956, those who had been imprisoned
but not judged were released. Zaynab al-Ghazali, head of the Association of Muslim Women, organised charitable work to meet the basic needs of these now-impoverished Brothers. Along with Brotherhood leader 'Abd al Fattah Isma'il, she went on to play a key role in rebuilding the organisation. While Al-Ghazali's\nfocus was on Islamic education, other autonomous groups of Brothers also appeared, who were impatient to avenge the suppression of the Brotherhood in 1954. They found the analytical framework and political programme they were looking for in Qutb's writings, which were circulated by Al-Ghazali and in which his assessment" }, { "question": "what does it mean for a planet to be in retrograde?", "answer": "Long ago, we looked up at the stars and saw that stars traverse the sky in a predictable, somewhat linear pattern over the course of a year. But humans saw other objects in the sky. They were planets - but we didn't know what a planet was, it was just a bit of light just like a star as far as we could tell at the time. Planets, from our perspective, move back and forth, and not the same way as stars did when you track them in the sky. They don't actually change direction, it's just that they're so near to us (compared to stars), their relative position to us changes more dramatically than a star would. & #x200B; So when we see a planet \"moving\" from day to day in our field of view, and it then changes direction, we call that retrograde. I bring up their distance to us because stars would do the same thing if we weren't so far away from them. Because of that distance, we really don't see much of a difference in how they pass through our field of view.", "support_docs": "
tidal forces to slow down their rotations. Dwarf planets All known dwarf planets and dwarf planet candidates have prograde orbits around the Sun, but some have retrograde rotation. Pluto has retrograde rotation; its axial tilt is approximately 120 degrees. Pluto and its moon Charon are both tidally locked to each other. It is suspected that the Plutonian satellite system was created by a massive collision. Earth's atmosphere Retrograde motion, or retrogression, within the Earth's atmosphere is seen in weather systems whose motion is opposite the general direction of airflow, i.e. from east to west against the westerlies or from west
Retrograde and prograde motion Retrograde motion in astronomy is, in general, orbital or rotational motion of an object in the direction opposite the rotation of its primary, that is, the central object (right figure). It may also describe other motions such as precession or nutation of the object's rotational axis. Prograde or direct motion is motion in the same direction as the primary rotates. Rotation is determined by an inertial frame of reference, such as distant fixed stars. However, retrograde and prograde can also refer to an object other than the primary if so described.\nIn our Solar System, the orbits
about the Sun of all planets and most other objects, except many comets, are prograde, i.e. in the same direction as the Sun rotates. The rotations of most planets, except Venus and Uranus, are also prograde. Most natural satellites have prograde orbits about their planets. Prograde satellites of Uranus orbit in the direction Uranus rotates, which is retrograde to the Sun. Retrograde satellites are generally small and distant from their planets, except Neptune's satellite Triton, which is large and close. All retrograde satellites are thought to have formed separately before being captured by their planets. Formation of celestial systems When" }, { "question": "why does some countries require your passport to be valid for 6 months after your return?", "answer": "In case you get stuck there for some reason. You could be injured and stuck in an hospital. Or you could miss your flight and not be able to afford another ticket.", "support_docs": "
health related or impose additional documentation requirements on certain classes of people for diplomatic or political purposes. Passport validity length In the absence of specific bilateral agreements, countries requiring passports to be valid for at least 6 more months on arrival include Afghanistan, Algeria, Anguilla, Bahrain, Bhutan, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Costa Rica, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire, Cura\u00e7ao, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria,
the common requirement of having either a valid visa or a visa exemption. Such restrictions may be health related or impose additional documentation requirements on certain classes of people for diplomatic or political purposes. Passport validity length In the absence of specific bilateral agreements, countries requiring passports to be valid for at least 6 more months on arrival include Afghanistan, Algeria, Anguilla, Bahrain, Bhutan, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Costa Rica, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire, Cura\u00e7ao, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,
certain classes of people for diplomatic or political purposes. Passport validity length In the absence of specific bilateral agreements, countries requiring passports to be valid for at least 6 more months on arrival include Afghanistan, Algeria, Anguilla, Bahrain, Bhutan, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Costa Rica, C\u00f4te d'Ivoire, Cura\u00e7ao, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda," }, { "question": "indian reorganization act (america)", "answer": "I think you've grossly misinterpreted the IRA and what it means to be \"civilized\" and Native. The Five Civilized Tribes were never *not* considered Native, but were called \"civilized\" because they adopted aspects of European culture such as private property ownership, Christianity, and chattel slavery. > they had become so civilized they did not want to return to being a native? I'm not sure what you mean by this. The IRA was not a vote on whether or not Indians would still exist, but rather an overhaul of how the federal government and Indian tribes (which are recognized as domestic dependent nations) interact. Also, this question insinuates that Natives are inherently *not* civilized, which is a pretty insulting, racist thing to say.", "support_docs": "
Administration,' a little over 2,800 Native Americans were allotted less than 500,000 acres.\nWithin five years of the Report, the policy of allotment was abandoned altogether. On June 18, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Indian Reorganization Act into law. Although the Meriam report had condemned allotment and affected the Indian Reorganization Act, the Act was actually largely attributed to John Collier who had been appointed by Roosevelt as Commissioner for Indian Affairs. The new Act ended allotment and permitted tribes to organize their own governments and to incorporate their trust lands communally.
they settled on, in other cases they settled on public land. Starting in the early twentieth century, the federal government began establishing Indian trust territories for the colonies on public land. \nFollowing the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, many of the Indian colonies gained federal recognition as tribes. Many of the tribes formed this way are unusual in that they include members from different nations. For example, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony has members with Washoe, Paiute and Shoshone heritage.
by granting small parcels of land to individual tribe members. In some cases, for example, the Umatilla Indian Reservation, after the individual parcels were granted out of reservation land, the reservation area was reduced by giving the \"excess land\" to white settlers. The individual allotment policy continued until 1934 when it was terminated by the Indian Reorganization Act. Indian New Deal (1934\u2013present) The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, also known as the Howard-Wheeler Act, was sometimes called the Indian New Deal and was initiated by John Collier. It laid out new rights for Native Americans, reversed some of the earlier" }, { "question": "who are hamas? what do they believe in and what are their long term objectives?", "answer": "Hamas is an Islamic-fundamentalist political party that came into existence as a rival to the more secularized Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1987. At its inception Hamas was not militarized, and as a result they were allowed to organize without intervention from Israel because they were seen as an alternative to Yasser Arafat (the leader of the PLO). This ended in 1989 with Hamas' armed involvement in the First Intifada, which was a Palestinian uprising in response to Israeli occupation in the Palestinian Territories. Since that time, Hamas has engaged in many terrorist attacks on civilians in a response to the Israel's existence. They gained political power in 2007 from the Palestinian Parliament and currently control the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories. The short term objective is to gain control of the remaining West Bank and establish these territories as a recognized nation. The long term objective is to battle for control of all of current Israel. Currently, Europe, the U.S. and Israel consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization while most Arabic nations do not. This is very simplified, and I placed emphasis in some areas while not delving into particulars in others to paint the picture.", "support_docs": "
Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and the traditions of Muslims rulers and scholars noted for their piety and dedication.\nAl-Qassam Brigades aims to liberate all of Palestine from what they describe as Zionist occupation, and to achieve the rights of the Palestinian people that were robbed by the occupation, and it consider itself part of the movement of a project of national liberation. Leadership and structure Hamas inherited from its predecessor a tripartite structure that consisted in the provision of social services, of religious training and military operations under a Shura Council. Traditionally it had four distinct
functions: (a) a charitable social welfare division (dawah); (b) a military division for procuring weapons and undertaking operations (al-Mujahideen al Filastinun); (c) a security service (Jehaz Aman); and (d) a media branch (A'alam). Hamas has both an internal leadership within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and an external leadership, split between a Gaza group directed by Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook from his exile first in Damascus and then in Egypt, and a Kuwaiti group (Kuwaidia) under Khaled Mashal. The Kuwaiti group of Palestinian exiles began to receive extensive funding from the Gulf States after its leader Mashal broke
Hamas Etymology Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic phrase \u062d\u0631\u0643\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0642\u0627\u0648\u0645\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0627\u0633\u0644\u0627\u0645\u064a\u0629 or Harakat al-Muq\u0101wama al-Isl\u0101miyya, meaning \"Islamic Resistance Movement\". The Arabic word 'hamas' (\u062d\u0645\u0627\u0633) means \"courage\" or \"zeal\". The Hamas covenant interprets its name to mean \"strength and bravery\". Aims Hamas, as its name (Islamic Resistance Movement) implies, aims to liberate Palestine from the Israeli occupation by resisting it. And according to Hamas armed branch Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades:\nTo contribute in the effort of liberating Palestine and restoring the rights of the Palestinian people under the sacred Islamic teachings of the Holy Quran, the Sunnah (traditions) of Prophet" }, { "question": "i heard it said once that: 'the pilgrims left for the americas not for their own religious freedom, but for the freedom to not live among those who didn't believe as they did' is there any truth to this claim?", "answer": "Let me deal with the part about religious freedom here first. The claim you have heard is true. The Pilgrims at Plymouth and the Puritans who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony wanted to practice their own faith. They did not support any wider concept of religious freedom. Other religious groups were barred from the colony and they had laws against blasphemy that were used to protect their version of theology Baptists were persecuted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1640s, and explictly banned by law in 1645. Punishments could be harsh. In 1651 for instance a group of three Baptists were arrested in Lynn, Massachusetts and convicted of re-baptizing adults (Baptists did this because they did not believe infant baptism was valid). All three were fined, one was whipped. Quaker fared worse than Baptists. In the 1650s Quakers who visited Massachusetts were branded, whipped or mutilated. Puritans who converted to Quakerism had their property seized. In 1659 and 1660 Massachusetts executed four Quakers; Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson, Mary Dyer, and William Leddra. The Puritans would have likely killed more Quakers, but they were commanded to stop by royal command in 1661. Puritans also tried to purge dissenting theology within their own ranks. Puritan Minister Roger Williams claimed that the Puritans had illegitimately occupied native lands, which resulted in him getting tried for sedition and heresy. He was banished from the colony in 1635 and ultimately founded what would become the Colony of Rhode Island. Rhode Island allowed for religious toleration. In 1638 the Puritans tried Anne Hutchinson in what is now called the Antinomian Controversy. The theology here is a bit complicated, but it resulted in the Massachusetts expelling Hutchinson and a number of other dissenters from their churches and banishing them from the colony. The Puritans were more repressive than England, but it was matter of degrees. In England it was not until the 1689 Toleration Act that dissenting Protestants, who were not members of the Church of England, could worship freely. This provided religious toleration to Baptist, Quakers and Puritans, but did not allow such freedom to Roman Catholics, atheists, or non-Christians. That said, how much repression dissenters actually faced in England could vary a lot, both Quakers and Baptists still spread widely during the seventeenth century. Quakers and Baptists were sometimes arrested, but they were not killed like they were in Puritan New England. The idea that society should tolerate of many religious views is a comparatively new one, it was only becoming common in Europe at the end of the seventeenth century. In the American colonies only Pennsylvania and Rhode Island would allow significant religious freedom for their residents. The Puritans were harsher than the England in enforcing their state religion, but both groups made religious dissent a crime.", "support_docs": "
the anti-Catholicism of Oliver Cromwell, the Commonwealth of England, and the Penal Laws against Catholics and others who did not adhere to the Church of England.\nOne of the results of the persecution in England was that some people fled Great Britain to be able to worship as they wished \u2013 but they did not seek religious freedom, and early North American colonies were generally as intolerant of religious dissent as England; Puritan Massachusetts, for example, did not allow standard Church of England worship. Some of these people voluntarily sailed to the American Colonies specifically for this purpose. After the American
have never been more proud of our country\u2019s heritage and more concerned about our future.\"\nAmericans United for Separation of Church and State's Joseph L. Conn wrote \"The theme of the movie seems to be that the Pilgrims came to America seeking religious liberty, and they set up a model Christian community that we ought to emulate today,\" and continued \"Well, here\u2019s some news, Kirk and Company. The Pilgrims and Puritans did come here seeking religious liberty, but they set up a regime that gave freedom only to themselves, denying it to others. In keeping with its religious viewpoint, Plymouth
formulas of the Book of Common Prayer; the imposition of its liturgical order by legal force and inspection sharpened Puritanism into a definite opposition movement.\nThe later Puritan movement were often referred to as Dissenters and Nonconformists and eventually led to the formation of various Reformed denominations.\nThe most famous and well-known emigration to America was the migration of the Puritan separatists from the Anglican Church of England, who fled first to Holland, and then later to America, to establish the English colonies of New England, which later became the United States.\nThese Puritan separatists were also known as \"the pilgrims\". After establishing" }, { "question": "the economics of c.h. douglas' theory of social credit", "answer": "I've always struggled to understand social credit theory as well. Here in Alberta, Canada the social credit party formed the government for 34 years straight. They were a highly socially conservative christian party which left much of the social credit reforms unaddressed. For a time they issued \"prosperity credits\". These were essentially currency that decreased in value each week. They were designed to keep people from hoarding money during the great depression. They were extremely impractical at the time though and were barely used. The Socreds also tried to reform banking in the province, but I've never read how. It ultimately failed because a province doesn't have enough authority over banking practices to enact these changes. Ultimately, from my interpretation, think of socialism as government programs funded by taxes, and social credit as laws that see workers paid a a minimum wage that they can live and grow with. It's goal wasn't financial equality so much as it was a guaranteed minimum standard from which people can flourish. I could be wrong though, my understanding is limited to the historical sentiments of one (failed) case study. Probably not the best perpective. Hope it lends a bit of insight at least, I'm probably going to look up more now.", "support_docs": "
among former UFA supporters who, following Aberhart's instructions, began to form local social credit \"study groups\". Brownlee argued against social credit on the basis that its application by a provincial government would be unconstitutional and that it would do nothing to create markets for Alberta's unsold wheat, which he viewed as the source of Alberta's woes. The legislature held a series of hearings to investigate the theory, and both Aberhart and C. H. Douglas, the theory's originator, testified at them. Brownlee questioned both on how the introduction of \"credit certificates\" issued by the Alberta government could help
Alberta Social Credit Party Origins William Aberhart, a Baptist lay-preacher and evangelist in Calgary, was attracted to social credit theory while Alberta (and much of the western world) was in the depths of the Great Depression. He soon began promoting it through his radio program on CFCN in Calgary, adding a heavy dose of fundamentalist Christianity to the Social Credit theories of C.H. Douglas. The basic premise of social credit is that all citizens should be paid a dividend as capital and technology replace labour in production; this was especially attractive to farmers sinking under the weight of the Depression.
the United States to give all possible energy to Public Credit, by a firm adherence to its strictest maxims, and yet to avoid the ills of an excessive employment of it, by true \u0153conomy and system, in, the public expenditures, by steadily cultivating peace, and by using sincere, efficient and persevering endeavors to diminish present debts, prevent the accumulation of new, and secure the discharge within a reasonable period of such as it may be matter of necessity to contract. \u2019T will be wise to cultivate and foster private Credit by an exemplary observance of the principles of public Credit," }, { "question": "what usually happened to soldiers listed as mia in ww2? where they ever found or just assumed dead?", "answer": "The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a Defense Department Agency, is charged with searching for, recovering, and identifying Americans from past conflicts, from WWII through the end of the Cold War. For this time period, they are not assumed dead until their remains are recovered. That said, their family members have received benefits. But they are searched for to this day.", "support_docs": "
Missing in action Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave has been positively identified. Becoming MIA has been an occupational risk for as long as there has been warfare. Problems and solutions Until around 1912, service personnel in most countries were not routinely issued with ID tags. As a result, if someone was killed in action and his body was not recovered until much
MIAs from the First World War, it is a routine occurrence for the remains of missing personnel killed during the Second World War to be periodically discovered. Usually they are found purely by chance (e.g. during construction or demolition work) though on some occasions they are recovered following deliberate, targeted searches. As with the First World War, in western Europe MIAs are generally found as individuals, or in twos or threes. However, sometimes the numbers in a group are considerably larger e.g. the mass grave at Villeneuve-Loubet, which contained the remains of 14 German soldiers killed in August 1944. Others
for from the war, which constituted less than 4 percent of the total 58,152 U.S. service members killed. This was by far the smallest proportion in the nation's history to that point.\nAbout 80 percent of those missing were airmen who were shot down over North Vietnam or Laos, usually over remote mountains, tropical rain forest, or water; the rest typically disappeared in confused fighting in dense jungles. Investigations of these incidents have involved determining whether the men involved survived their shootdown and, if not, efforts to recover their remains. POW/MIA activists played a role in pushing the U.S. government to" }, { "question": "how does a check scam work?", "answer": "When you cash a check, you do it at **your** bank, not the bank which issued the check. Your bank is essentially lending you the money; they say \"OK, this piece of paper looks like a valid IOU. I'll give you the $100, and we will contact the bank which issued this check and they will repay us that $100.\" Unless the check is very obviously fake, your bank will assume it's good and give you your money. If the check is invalid, then the bank which issued it (if there even is one) will not pay your bank the $100. Your bank will then ask for the $100 back from you (usually by deducting it from your account).", "support_docs": "
Schemes based solely on check cashing usually offer only a small part of the check's total amount, with the assurance that many more checks will follow; if the victim buys into the scam and cashes all the checks, the scammer can steal a lot in a very short time. Bogus job offers More sophisticated scams advertise jobs with real companies and offer lucrative salaries and conditions with the fraudsters pretending to be recruitment agents. A bogus telephone or online interview may take place and after some time the applicant is informed that the job is theirs. To secure the job
some small fee (insurance, registration, or shipping). Once the victim sends the fee, the scammer invents another fee.\nThe fake check technique described above is also used. Fake or stolen checks, representing a part payment of the winnings, being sent; then a fee, smaller than the amount received, is requested. The bank receiving the bad check eventually reclaims the funds from the victim.\nIn 2004, a variant of the lottery scam appeared in the United States: a scammer phones a victim purporting to be speaking on behalf of the government about a grant they qualify for, subject to an advance fee of
order that for some reason cannot be redeemed locally. In one cover story, the perpetrator of the scam wishes the victim to work as a \"mystery shopper\", evaluating the service provided by MoneyGram or Western Union locations within major retailers such as Wal-Mart. The scammer sends the victim a forged or stolen check or money order as described above, the victim deposits it\u2014banks will often credit an account with the value of a check not obviously false\u2014 and sends the money to the scammer via wire transfer. Later the check is not honoured and the bank debits the victim's account." }, { "question": "question about the demise of the tokugawa shogunate", "answer": "Commodore Perry came to Japan in 1853, the Shogunate fell in 1867. This is a span of 14 years, hardly overnight. What happens in those 14 years (known as the Bakumatsu years)was a complicated and convoluted affair involving revolutions, reforms, rebellions, foreign relations, and age-old grievances. The whole summary can be gleamed from the very long Wikipedia article on the Bakumatsu. In short, to answer your questions generally, Commodore Perry did use force to coerce the Shogunate, but it was not to force them out of power. The Western world wanted to trade with Japan, but the Shogunate kept them out due to their policy of isolation. When Perry came, he threatened the Japanese government with gunboats, and the Tokugawa knowing full well that they could not go against American firepower, capitulated to his demands to open up for trade. The concessions given to the Americans, and later the rest of the Western power, dismayed the samurai greatly. A group of reform-minded samurai, called the isshin isshi, reasoned that the weakness of the shogunate allowed the foreigners to have free reign over Japan, thus the shogunate must be abolished and replaced with a modern government with the Emperor restored to power. At the other end of the ideological spectrum was the traditionalist shogunate supporters, who preferred the current system and believed that Japan's weakness was only temporary. The issue was settled with the Boshin War of 1868, which saw all of Japan subsumed in war from Kyoto up to Hokkaido, and resulted in the collapse of the Shogunate. So, it was civil war that brought down the shogunate directly, but it was Commodore Perry that got the ball rolling in the beginning.", "support_docs": "
the shogunate By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the shogunate showed signs of weakening. The dramatic growth of agriculture that had characterized the early Edo period had ended and the government handled the devastating Tenp\u014d famines poorly. Peasant unrest grew and government revenues fell. The shogunate cut the pay of the already financially distressed samurai, many of whom worked side jobs to make a living. Discontented samurai were soon to play a major role in engineering the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate.\nAt the same time, the people drew inspiration from new ideas and fields of study. Dutch books
1868 convinced the young Emperor Meiji and his advisors to issue a rescript calling for an end to the Tokugawa shogunate. The armies of Ch\u014dsh\u016b and Satsuma soon marched on Edo and the ensuing Boshin War led to the eventual fall of the shogunate. Meiji period (1868\u20131912) The Emperor was restored to nominal supreme power, and in 1869, the imperial family moved to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo (\"eastern capital\"). However, the most powerful men in the government were former samurai from Ch\u014dsh\u016b and Satsuma rather than the Emperor, who was fifteen in 1868. These men, known as the Meiji
usurped power from those who had usurped it from the Emperor, descending from Emperor K\u014dk\u014d, who usurped it from the children of Emperor Seiwa. The new regime nonetheless proved to be stable enough to last a total of 135 years, 9 sh\u014dguns and 16 regents.\nWith Sanetomo's death in 1219, his mother H\u014dj\u014d Masako became the shogunate's real center of power. As long as she lived, regents and sh\u014dguns would come and go, while she stayed at the helm. Since the H\u014dj\u014d family did not have the rank to nominate a sh\u014dgun from among its members, Masako had to find a" }, { "question": "american football", "answer": "Try this animated video.", "support_docs": "
football.
Football.
women's football\"." }, { "question": "decmber 7 1941", "answer": "hi! just a heads up that this sub is inundated with April Fools content right now, so if your post gets lost in the shuffle and is left unanswered, do resubmit when normal service has been resumed in a couple of days.", "support_docs": "
on 16 April 1940.
on 14 December 1946.
March 1940." }, { "question": "in 1938 neville chamberlain came back from munich with the agreement and claimed it was \"peace for our time\". did he really believe that? did people believe him when he said it?", "answer": "Britain never had any serious intent of fighting for Czechoslovakia, even if the Munich Conference hadn't happened, and Germany went to war with Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain deep down probably still would not have gone to war over the country. The British cabinet debated on how to respond to the German overtures towards Czechoslovakia, Germany wanted permission to attack the whole of Czechoslovakia, but Britain said that they would only support the annexing of the German populated, Sudetenland. So this is when the Munch Conference happened, as both sides felt if they could meet face to face (rather than through intermediaries and diplomats) that they convince the other to see it their way. On the issue of Czechoslovakia, the British foregin minister Sir Alexander Cadogan wrote in his diary: > Foreign Policy Committee unanimous that Czechoslovakia is not worth the bones of a single Grenadier. And they\u2019re quite right too!\u201d So its important to establish that Chamberlain did not believe that Hitler would at all be satisfied by the Sudetenland, or even the whole of Czechoslovakia (which Hitler would take months after the Munich conference). As soon as Chamberlain returned home, he ordered all relevant industries to begin re-arming for war, France too sped up their re-armament, which had started in 1936. Neither nation's military was really ready for war, France was in a decent position being that they had started re-arming earlier, but they were still short of crucial armaments like artillery, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and aircraft. Britain's military was an even in worse position, and to compound British military problems, many of the dominions, such as Canada and South Africa had made it clear that they weren't ready for a war, and would not be able to support Britain. Now the British public as a whole was relieved, as no one really wanted, what in most people's minds, a repeat of World War One. However, the issue of appeasement and the way which Chamberlain went about it divided the British public. For Chamberlain's supporters appeasement was a time honoured British tradition of keeping peace on the European continent. Britain was used to this system of \"give and take\" as a means of keeping the peace. It also represented a way of bringing stability to Europe, which would allow Britain to focus on its Empire, which was in danger from an ever expanding Italy and Japan. However, there were those who bitterly opposed the policy of appeasement. Churchill and his supporters denounced it as cowardly and weak. Churchill was a big fan of putting Germany back in its place. The left wing was offended by the abandonment of the principles set out by the League of Nations (such as self-determination). Far Leftists saw appeasement as a tool of capitalism, and they argued that countries like Ethiopia, the Spanish Republic, and Czechoslovakia, were being given up to fascist countries because fascism would eventually devour the USSR (the only real communist state at the time). Chamberlain's fatal flaw was that he kept naively thinking that war could be postponed until Britain was absolutely ready. On March 15th, 1939 Hitler invaded the rump state of Czechoslovakia, and annexed the Czech parts, while setting up a Slovakian puppet state under a catholic priest named Joseph Tiso. Mussolini was not far behind and invaded Albania on April 7th. In the face of this aggression and violation of the Munich Treaty, Britain and France guaranteed that Poland would be protected from any German aggression. Chamberlain wasn't the biggest fan of this policy and kept thinking that there was a way to postpone war, even when it was clear that war was right around the corner. Sources: The Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Lawrence James 1938: Hitler's Gamble by Giles Macdongh", "support_docs": "
none at all.\nThe Munich Agreement, engineered by the French and British governments, effectively allowed Hitler to annexe the country's defensive frontier, leaving its industrial and economic core within a day's reach of the Wehrmacht. Chamberlain flew to Munich to negotiate the agreement, and received an ecstatic reception upon his return to Britain on 30 September 1938. At Heston Aerodrome, west of London, he made the now famous \"Peace for our time\" speech and waved the Anglo-German Declaration to a delighted crowd. When Hitler invaded and seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain felt betrayed by the breaking of
that German armament priorities were being shifted towards preparing for a war with Britain. In particular, Chamberlain was concerned with information that Hitler regarded the Munich Agreement as a personal defeat, together with hints from Berlin in December 1938 that the Germans were planning to renounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, regarded in London as the \"barometer\" of Anglo-German relations in the near-future. An additional factor that influenced Chamberlain was the reports relayed by the German opposition of Hitler's secret speech of 10 November 1938 to a group of German journalists complaining that his peace propaganda of the previous five years
that members had to freely express their opinions. Moyne was there on 29 September 1938 when the bad news came of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's capitulation to Hitler at Munich. Also present were Brendan Bracken, Lloyd George, Bob Boothby, Duff Cooper, J.L. Garvin, editor of The Observer, and Walter Elliot. \"Winston ranted and raved, venting his spleen on the two government ministers present and demanding to know how they could support a policy that was 'sordid, squalid, sub-human and suicidal.'\" At that time, they still shared the minority view in parliament; the majority agreed with Moyne's cousin-in-law 'Chips' Channon MP," }, { "question": "[question] are aesthetics mostly subjective?", "answer": "You should read a book called 'Emotional Design' by Donald Norman in which he explains the 3 levels (visceral, behavioral, reflective) of how we react to certain objects. I can't really answer your question, because I don't know enough about the psychology of design. However I might be able to help you answer it by asking a question instead. What even is objective good design? Isn't what we view as pleasant mostly related and heavily influenced by our environment?", "support_docs": "
claiming that the former is the study of beauty while the latter is the study of works of art. However, most commonly Aesthetics encompasses both questions around beauty as well as questions about art. It examines topics such as aesthetic objects, aesthetic experience, and aesthetic judgments. For some, aesthetics is considered a synonym for the philosophy of art since Hegel, while others insist that there is a significant distinction between these closely related fields. In practice, aesthetic judgement refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object (not necessarily an art object), while artistic judgement refers to the recognition,
corrects his terms and reminds him to say instead: It is agreeable to me,\" because \"Everyone has his own (sense of) taste\". The case of \"beauty\" is different from mere \"agreeableness\" because, \"If he proclaims something to be beautiful, then he requires the same liking from others; he then judges not just for himself but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things.\"\nViewer interpretations of beauty may on occasion be observed to possess two concepts of value: aesthetics and taste. Aesthetics is the philosophical notion of beauty. Taste is a result of an education
often saw African sculpture as ugly, but just a few decades later, Edwardian audiences saw the same sculptures as being beautiful. Evaluations of beauty may well be linked to desirability, perhaps even to sexual desirability. Thus, judgments of aesthetic value can become linked to judgments of economic, political, or moral value. In a current context, one might judge a Lamborghini to be beautiful partly because it is desirable as a status symbol, or we might judge it to be repulsive partly because it signifies for us over-consumption and offends our political or moral values. \nThe Context of its presentation also" }, { "question": "why do many of the craters on mercury have a secondary \"dimple\" in the almost direct center?", "answer": "Nice. Several people have posted and nobody has bothered to answer the question. Complex crater formation is unsurprisingly not well understood but here are the basics: **wrong answer** : When a meteor hits the ground it causes the ground to behave like a fluid, and if it is a sufficiently powerful impact the ground will move down and out. It then will undergo an elastic rebound, moving back in and up and causing a dimple in the center, much like dropping a stone into water. **Right Answer** : When the meteor hits the ground, if the impact is powerful enough it will cause a deep crater with steep sides. The rock making up the crater will be hugely reduced in strength, making it very brittle. Gravity will quickly equalize for this new shape, and this, along with how brittle the rock has become, will cause the sides to collapse and they will move in and fill the basin of the crater. At the same time, this may also cause rock from deep beneath the impact zone to uplift through the basin of the crater (why the uplift happens is actually debatable). This uplift is partially covered by the debris from the collapsing sides, and the result is a central peak. Couple things to point out: If it were as simple as elastic rebound then the central peak would be composed of the same stuff as the rest of the crater, and not material from deep beneath the floor of the crater, as is often the case. Also, the point at which craters behave like this seems to depend mostly on the gravity at the surface of the body where the crater formed and not just on the size of the crater. I.e. different planets have different complex crater thresholds. This would also not be the case in the water analogy were true. This may seem to be an outrageous claim and it is hard to find sources to back this up online since most of the sites either use the water analogy or refer to gravitational equilibrium without further explanation. Here is a pretty sweet explanation of how craters form though: Here is a neat nasa memorandum from 1982 in which, among other things, the conclusion is reached that the central peak is a function of gravity", "support_docs": "
its small size and very early segregation into core and crust, Mercury has seemingly been a dead planet for a long time\u2014possibly longer than the Moon. Its geologic history, therefore, records with considerable clarity some of the earliest and most violent events that took place in the inner Solar System. Crater and basin materials As on the Moon and Mars, sequences of craters and basins of differing relative ages provide the best means of establishing stratigraphic order on Mercury. Overlap relations among many large mercurian craters and basins are clearer than those on the Moon. Therefore, we can build up
many local stratigraphic columns involving both crater or basin materials and nearby plains materials.\nOver all of Mercury, the crispness of crater rims and the morphology of their walls, central peaks, ejecta deposits, and secondary-crater fields have undergone systematic changes with time. The youngest craters or basins in a local stratigraphic sequence have the sharpest, crispest appearance. The oldest craters consist only of shallow depressions with slightly raised, rounded rims, some incomplete. On this basis, five age categories of craters and basins have been mapped. In addition, secondary crater fields are preserved around proportionally far more craters and basins on Mercury
long 52\u00b0 W.) Rupes are the most prominent examples in the quadrangle. Vostok transects and foreshortens the crater Guido d'Arezzo, which suggests that arcuate scarps are compressional tectonic features (thrust or high-angle reverse faults). Melosh and Dzurisin have speculated that both arcuate scarps and the global mercurian lineament pattern may have formed as a result of simultaneous despinning and thermal contraction of Mercury.\nPlanimetrically irregular scarps on the floors of many plains-filled craters and basins are the youngest recognized structural features in the quadrangle, as they cut both the smooth plains and intermediate plains materials. Their occurrence inside only smooth-floored craters" }, { "question": "since the creation of coffeehouses followed the siege of vienna, why aren\u2019t coffee products globally described in german, rather than italian? how did italian become the language of coffee products?", "answer": "> Since the creation of coffeehouses followed the siege of Vienna Where can I learn more about this? I've never heard this before.", "support_docs": "
in German homes it was still called Milchkaffee. The Italians used the term caff\u00e8 latte domestically, but it is not known from caf\u00e9s like Florian in Venice or any other coffee houses or places where coffee was served publicly. Even when the Italian espresso bar culture bloomed in the years after WW2 both in Italy, and in cities like Vienna and London, espresso and cappuccino are the terms, latte is missing on coffee menus.\nIn Italian latte ([\u02c8latte]) means \"milk\"\u2014so ordering a \"latte\" in Italy will get the customer a glass of milk.\nIn Spanish the phrase caf\u00e9 con leche (coffee with
term caff\u00e8 e latte was first used in English in 1867 by William Dean Howells in his essay \"Italian Journeys\". Kenneth Davids maintains that \"...breakfast drinks of this kind have existed in Europe for generations, but the (commercial) caff\u00e8 version of this drink is an American invention\". The French term caf\u00e9 au lait was used in caf\u00e9s in several countries in western continental Europe from 1900 onward, while the French themselves started using the term caf\u00e9 cr\u00e8me for coffee with milk or cream.\nThe Austrian-Hungarian empire (Central Europe) had its own terminology for the coffees being served in coffee houses, while
Latte Origin Coffee and milk have been part of European cuisine since the 17th century. Caff\u00e8 e latte, Milchkaffee, caf\u00e9 au lait and caf\u00e9 con leche are domestic terms of traditional ways of drinking coffee, usually as part of breakfast in the home. Public caf\u00e9s in Europe and the US seem to have no mention of the terms until the 20th century, although Kapuziner is mentioned in Austrian coffee houses in Vienna and Trieste in the 2nd half of 1700s as \"coffee with cream, spices and sugar\" (being the origin of the Italian cappuccino).\nAccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the" }, { "question": "the libyans! what was going on in 1985 that would have made libya the go-to reference for doc brown's illicit plutonium sourcing in back to the future?", "answer": "During the 1980s, Libya (having tried and failed to buy nuclear weapons from other countries) tried to get access to uranium and plutonium alike for the purpose of building weapons. It completed a research reactor (with Soviet help) back in 1979, that gave it the opportunity to produce plutonium, and evaded IAEA safeguards during that time. They also attempted to buy nuclear material from black market sources throughout this period. You can read more about their plans for nuclear weapons at the links below:", "support_docs": "
2003, Gaddafi made a surprise announcement of his intention to dismantle Libya's WMD programs. The Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials were quoted \"Libya had bought nuclear components from various black market dealers\", and provided the various designs of centrifuges to U.S. officials and gave the name of its suppliers.\nAmong the list of suppliers included the revealing role of A.Q. Khan, a notable and famed scientist of Pakistan. Events in Libya led to the debriefing of A.Q. Khan in 2004 by the Government of Pakistan while the United States, aided by IAEA and Interpol, apprehended the former Libyan nuclear
Eastern media) that NATO's 2011 intervention in Libya (which led to Gaddafi's overthrow and killing at the hands of the Libyan rebels) would make Iran, North Korea, and possibly other countries more reluctant to give up their nuclear programs and/or nuclear weapons due to the risk of being weakened and/or double-crossed as a result.\nOn 22 September 2011, near Sabha, Libya, toward the end of the Libyan Civil War, anti-Gaddafi forces discovered two warehouses containing thousands of blue barrels marked with tape reading \"radioactive\" and plastic bags of yellow powder sealed with the same tape. The IAEA stated, \"We can confirm
Tony Blair about Libya's willingness to dismantle its nuclear program. Subsequently, at Gaddafi's direction, Libyan officials provided British, Russian, and U.S. diplomats with documentation and additional details on Libya's chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile activities. Libya reportedly allowed Russian, U.S., and British officials to visit 10 previously secret sites and dozens of Libyan laboratories and military factories to search for evidence of nuclear fuel cycle-related activities, and for chemical and missile programs.\nIn October 2003, U.S. intelligence agencies raided a cargo ship and seized a consignment of centrifuge-related equipment bound for Libya in a northern Mediterranean port. The U.S. investigations" }, { "question": "were \"greasers\" anything like the gangs of today, or was it just a fashion fad?", "answer": "They were not organized gangs in the way we use the term today. Greaser was more of a label that was used in the same way that hipster is used today, a categorization coined by outsiders. It is my understanding that greasers did not refer to themselves as such. Modern gangs like the Bloods and the Aryan Brotherhood display a pretty rigid hierarchy, are often national and even international, and usually assemble in the first place to engage in some sort of illicit activity. The Hell's Angels, for example, started as a M.C., but evolved into a bonafide syndicate with specific \"business goals\". That's not to say that greasers didn't engage in certain illegal activities, but it was not necessarily an implicit goal in the way it is within modern organized gangs. Just because you looked like a greaser, didn't mean you were in an organized gang. Yet I wouldn't really say that the greaser thing was merely a fashion statement, either. They were in many ways the American equivalent to British rockers: kids from working-class families that sort of stayed within their social group, and adopted a certain look. *West Side Story*, *The Outsiders*, etc. sort of created this image around the way these kids dressed. *West Side Story* in particular creates a real Hollywood caricature, it's not going for historical accuracy or really any sort of commentary on what was really a more complex social identity. Greasers and rockers were originally just poor kids who really couldn't afford nice clothing, so they'd wear their work clothes all the time. Tank tops and tee shirts weren't considered appropriate clothing to wear in public, but they were perfectly fine for factories, auto shops, etc. Denim was cheap and utilitarian, and the now-iconic cuffed jeans started because these guys usually had to buy pants that were a few sizes too large, or had belonged to their older brother, etc. It was certainly an image that evolved over time, with both greasers and rockers wearing this \"uniform\" with a certain degree of pride (suspenders were also big among rockers) as time went on, sometimes to explicitly identify with a group. Rockers and greasers are also often associated with motorcycles and that culture, and this too stems from bikes being cheap, available, and easy to maintain, as odds were at least one guy in the group worked as a mechanic, or was at least mechanically-inclined, something you just didn't see as much within groups of clean-cut teenagers from wealthier backgrounds. Same goes for getting away with smoking and drinking. And I guess fighting in public if you had to look out for your friends. Asserting yourself within a group has always meant something different for every social class around the world. TL;DR: Not like the organized gangs of today, but not merely a fashion statement, although the look became iconic. Rooted in working class culture and developed from there. **EDIT** Got my wires crossed. Suspenders were more of a skinhead thing. Also an interesting counterculture. If you're interested in this stuff, there's lots of great stuff out there on greasers, rockers, mods, skinheads...sixties youth counterculture in general is pretty fascinating. Here's a cool photo someone submitted to /r/historyporn a few months back. English skinheads and hippies.", "support_docs": "
own interest clubs or publications. As such, there was no business marketing geared specifically towards the group. Their choice in clothing was largely drawn from a common understanding of the empowering aesthetic of working-class attire, rather than cohesive association with similarly dressed individuals. Some greasers were in motorcycle clubs or in street gangs (and conversely, some gang members and bikers dressed like greasers), though such membership was not necessarily an inherent principle of the subculture. Regardless, greasers were often associated with and assumed by the mainstream public to be members of street gangs (often ethnic-based gangs) or motorcycle gangs. \nEthnically,
later used to refer to mechanics. It was not used in writing to refer to the American subculture of the mid-20th century until the mid-1960s, though in this sense it still evoked a pejorative connotation and a relation to machine work. The name was applied to members of the subculture because of their characteristic greased-back hair. Origins of the subculture and rise to popularity The greaser subculture may have emerged in the post\u2013World War II era among the motorcycle clubs and gangs of the late 1940s, though it was certainly established by the 1950s. The original greasers were aligned by
a feeling of disillusionment with American popular culture, either through a lack of economic opportunity in spite of the post-war boom or a marginalization enacted by the general domestic shift towards homogeneity in the 1950s. Most were male, usually ethnic and working class, and held interest in hotrod culture or motorcycling. A handful of middle-class youth were drawn to the subculture for its rebellious attitude.\nThe weak structural foundation of the greasers can be attributed to the subculture's origins in working-class youth possessing few economic resources with which to participate in American consumerism. Greasers, unlike motorcyclists, did not explicitly have their" }, { "question": "in 1517 egypt was conquered by the ottoman empire. how complete was this conquest? did the mamlukes continue to hold any significant political power in the following centuries?", "answer": "I'll try to answer your question, sorry if it doesn't satisfy you. The conquest of Egypt is more or less completed militarily in 1517, however the Ottomans hadn't consolidated their power in the region yet and faced many problems, mainly from the Egyptian Arab populace and the many of the Mamluks that wanted to restore the sultanate. They eventually managed to consolidate their power in 1525 The Ottoman conquests initially brought many changes and difficulties to the Egyptian populace. Ottoman conquests brought economic distress, as the Ottoman control of their subject's property was strict and those who didn't satisfy the supervisor or failed to follow bureaucratic procedures lost their rights. Shopkeepers were ordered to replace the Egyptian weights and measures with those used in Istanbul. New debased coins were put into circulation, causing the public to lose up to a third of the value of its money. Regulations concerning exchange rates and prices were issued frequently, resulting in inflation, the closing of markets, and general dissatisfaction and uneasiness. The Ottoman legal traditions also conflicted with the Egyptians. There was much resentment against the Kanun, and the notions of Ottoman justice were different to those of the Egyptians. For example, a Jew sued a Mamluk emir for a sum of money. When the emir refused to come to the court, the Ottoman judge arrested the emir and remained so until he can satisfy the Jew's demands, something that was unthinkable under Mamluk rule. The same judge had also ruled in favour of a woman who sued her husband, an influential emir. While the Ottomans were pleased on how everyone was equal before the Ottoman court, the people are hostile to the judicial system. The Egyptians were also shocked by the *s\u00fcrg\u00fcn,* that caused hardships and sufferings to the Egyptian people. While in time the Ottomans corrected their mistakes and they and the Egyptians became accustomed to each other, this was the case during the early years and it developed tension between the Ottomans and Egyptians With the death of Selim I and Khai'r Bey, Mamluk governor installed by the Ottomans the Mamluks started to rebel. In May 1523, Janim al-Sayfi and Inal, two provincial governors of Middle Egypt rose up and led the first Mamluk revolt supported by many Mamluks and Arabs, including the powerful Arab ruler of Upper Egypt, Ali ibn Umar. Eventually the revolt was crushed, but the rebellion further strained the relations between the Mamluks and the Ottomans. Many Mamluks that had joined the rebels were killed, and those who remained loyal reportedly fought with little enthusiasm. A year latter, Ahmet Pasha, the governor of Egypt instigated a revolt which was a serious challenge to Ottoman rule. He had become the governor of Egypt in September 1523 and prepared the revolt soon after. He confiscated the Janissaries\u2019 muskets, expelled the Kapikulu to Istanbul, wooed the Mamluks and pardoned many who participated in the rebellion. he also forcefully extort money from the merchants and requisitioned many beasts of burden. He also raided the Nubian territories to create his own black slave-soldiers and training them to use firearms. The pasha rebelled against Istanbul in 1524 and quickly massacred what remained of the janissaries. He claimed the title of sultan, and ordered coins bearing his name to be minted and decreed that his new title be recited publicly during the Friday hutbe. To legitimize his position, Ahmet invited the four chief qadis and the Abbasid caliph to the Citadel at the beginning of each month to greet him as had been the custom under the Mamluk sultans. However, his rule only lasted a few months. Janim al-Hamzawi, a loyalist Mamluk emir with his army managed to surprise him and he escaped to Sharqiya, where he was captured and beheaded on March 6. Even though the rebellion of Ahmet Pasha failed, Egypt remained unstable because the revolt had stirred up the Arabs throughout the country. The bedouin Arabs believed that the Ottomans in Egypt were exhausted and could be defeated easily. The Arabs however were disunited and their arms and discipline were inferior. With fresh reinforcements arrived in Egypt the province was finally subdued. On April 2, 1525, S\u00fcleyman\u2019s famous Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, came to Egypt and restored Ottoman authority. During his stay in Egypt, he consolidated Ottoman rule in Egypt and its administration. He promulgated the edict codifying the administrative practice of the province, the Kanunname-i-Misir which laid the foundations of the military administration in force for the next three centuries. The edict assigned responsibilities to provincial rulers to maintain the irrigation system, maintaining security, and supervising tax-collection. Long passages are devoted to how the peasantry are to be treated and their taxes collected. Cadastral surveys, fallow land, land not reached by the Nile floods, waqf foundations, granaries, seaports and the mint are also treated in the code. Finally, the code also officially recognized the Mamluks. The Mamluks were reorganized into a regiment, pensions and titles from Mamluk times were maintained, Mamluk emirs were recognized, and many Mamluks were appointed as bureaucratic staff. Later on the Mamluk beys did indeed hold high positions, even de facto ruled Egypt. For a brief overview, see my earlier answer **Sources**: \"*Egyptian Society Under Ottoman Rule\"* by Michael Winter *\"Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire\"* by Bruce Masters et al", "support_docs": "
the city wall still survive today in the old city. Even though the Portuguese were successfully repelled from the city, fleets in the Indian Ocean were at their mercy. This was evidenced by the Battle of Diu between the Portuguese and the Arab Mamluks. The Portuguese soldiers' cemetery can still be found within the old city today and is referred to as the site of the Christian Graves. Ottoman Empire In 1517, the Ottoman Turks conquered the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria, during the reign of Selim I. As territories of the Mamluk Sultanate, the Hijaz, including Jeddah and
expanded the Empire's eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Persia, in the Battle of Chaldiran. Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea. After this Ottoman expansion, a competition started between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire to become the dominant power in the region.\nSuleiman the Magnificent (1520\u20131566) captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman\u2013Hungarian Wars, and, after his historic victory in the Battle
quality were produced without interruption, and enameled glass became another important craft.\nIn 1250, the Mamluks seized control of Egypt from the Ayyubids, and by 1261 had managed to assert themselves in Syria as well their most famous ruler was Baibars. The Mamluks were not, strictly speaking, a dynasty, as they did not maintain a patrilineal mode of succession; in fact, Mamluks were freed Turkish and Caucasian slaves, who (in theory) passed the power to others of like station. This mode of government persevered for three centuries, until 1517, and gave rise to abundant architectural projects (many thousands of buildings were" }, { "question": "i know many cultures have different calendars, but what about different clocks or subdivisions or days?", "answer": "Asking a question that's been asked before is fine. Mentioning previous answers is intended as a quick starting point, not to discourage further discussion. Follow-on questions, information, and debate is more than welcome. You might find interesting \"How were our current units of time agreed upon?\" at , answer by /u/kookingpot .", "support_docs": "
whole number, a solar calendar must have a different number of days in different years. This may be handled, for example, by adding an extra day in leap years. The same applies to months in a lunar calendar and also the number of months in a year in a lunisolar calendar. This is generally known as intercalation. Even if a calendar is solar, but not lunar, the year cannot be divided entirely into months that never vary in length.\nCultures may define other units of time, such as the week, for the purpose of scheduling regular activities that do not easily
of day together specify a moment in time. In the modern world, timekeepers can show time, date and weekday. Some may also show lunar phase. Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the de facto international standard, and is used almost everywhere in the world for civil purposes. It is a purely solar calendar, with a cycle of leap days in a 400-year cycle designed to keep the duration of the year aligned with the solar year.\nEach Gregorian year has either 365 or 366 days (the leap day being inserted as 29 February), amounting to an average Gregorian year of
History of calendars The history of calendars, that is, of people creating and using methods for keeping track of days and larger divisions of time, covers a practice with ancient roots, [starting from the oldest Calendar created by the mankind: 'SrishTyaabda' according to which presently it is SrishTyaabda 1 972 949 119 which depicts that 1 972 949 119 years ago the first living being was born on the Earth: \nArcheologists have reconstructed methods of timekeeping that go back to prehistoric times at least as old as the Neolithic,[Archeology, Anthropology are not applicable everywhere, particularly in India, since in" }, { "question": "discovery of the electron", "answer": "The electron was discovered with a cathode ray tube, which is an evacuated chamber that carries a light emitting beam when a voltage is applied to it (used for old TVs and monitors). If you put a magnet near the tube, the beam deflects from a straight path, in the same way that a wire with electricity running through it is attracted or repelled by a magnet. Using basic physics, one can calculate parameters of the beam by the way it bends. For example, if the particles composing the beam are very heavy, they will not bend as strongly. What JJ Thompson showed was that the particles in the beam had to be of an extremely small mass, much smaller than even than lightest known atom (Hydrogen), indicating a new particle.", "support_docs": "
variety of subjects, and achieved considerable popularity as a textbook.\nA series of four lectures, given by Thomson on a visit to Princeton University in 1896, were subsequently published as Discharge of electricity through gases (1897). Thomson also presented a series of six lectures at Yale University in 1904. Discovery of the electron Several scientists, such as William Prout and Norman Lockyer, had suggested that atoms were built up from a more fundamental unit, but they envisioned this unit to be the size of the smallest atom, hydrogen. Thomson in 1897 was the first to suggest that one of the
they would behave exactly like the cathode rays.\n\u2014\u2009J. J. Thomson\nThomson imagined the atom as being made up of these corpuscles orbiting in a sea of positive charge; this was his plum pudding model. This model was later proved incorrect when his student Ernest Rutherford showed that the positive charge is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom. Other work In 1905, Thomson discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium.\nIn 1906, Thomson demonstrated that hydrogen had only a single electron per atom. Previous theories allowed various numbers of electrons. Posthumous honours In 1991, the thomson (symbol: Th) was proposed as a unit
fundamental units was more than 1,000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particle now known as the electron. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays. Thomson made his suggestion on 30 April 1897 following his discovery that cathode rays (at the time known as Lenard rays) could travel much further through air than expected for an atom-sized particle. He estimated the mass of cathode rays by measuring the heat generated when the rays hit a thermal junction and comparing this with the magnetic deflection of the rays. His experiments suggested not only that" }, { "question": "did ferdinand marcos, from the philippines, forged an attack in manila to justify martial law?", "answer": "The **Martial Law Era** of **Former President Ferdinand Marcos** is a complex period in our history. Different kinds of people had different kinds of experiences. Those who *took up arms against the state, or were sympathetic to them*, naturally had different narratives compared to those who *lived through the period as* *compliant, obedient citizens*. And in between are others who had different stories to tell, some positive, some negative, and many others that are mixed. Of course, each side had reasons to stay in theirs, and many, were due to *political beliefs*. Communism in the Philippines has failed (Had he succeeded in his younger years, **Jose Maria Sison** would have established something similar to what the Kim family did with North Korea because *he believed that* he was the **Filipino Mao Zedong**), but they're trying to actively forward their political agenda on two frontlines: the legal front (the National Democratic Front), and its armed insurgent wing, (the New People's Army). The legal front is mostly dependent on exploiting the people by introducing such concepts to them, most popular is their *hiding behind* ***student activism and activism in general,*** which gave both a bad name and a reputation for being defenders of the communists, and the traitorous sympathisers of the Huks (which is true, for most part now, in modern times). Some were latecomers, and the rest were the originally persuaded by the beliefs. Many of them didn't believe that communism was the answer to the problems plaguing the Philippines (for the rich, it was obvious why, but for the ones who managed to honestly uplift their socio-economic standing, it was ridiculous, because a lot of them were also people who weren't helped and people who led hard lives, but learned to be dependent on themselves without having to rely on the government too much), and neither was armed struggle, even more. Many had simply done their best in different fields the way the South Koreans did when they experienced their hardships. For students, it was different. Many of them genuinely were sympathisers for the exploited, but for the others, it was different. For all its fearful reputation even at that time, the \\[Communist\\] Party \\[of the Philippines\\] was merely a ragtag band of hubristic fantasists who thought replicating the Chinese revolution was a cinch. I can conclude that he definitely wasn't the one behind the Plaza Miranda Incident, or the bombings that followed afterwards. The Plaza Miranda Incident, was confirmed by one of the Party's Founding Fathers, Ruben Guevarra, the Head of the CPP Military Commission and a member of the CPP Central Committee, circa late 60s all the way to the 70s, to have been perpetrated by the Communist Party's very own Dante Cordero, acting with others in the series of bombings, but starting with the Plaza Miranda Incident, otherwise known as Operation Plan Big Leap Forward, the first in a series of campaigns that the CPP launched against the government. Watch the Ideolohiyang Pilipino Dokyu of Sambayanan, in partnership with the UP Diliman Social Sciences Third World Research Department. You can't find anything completely factual as to official statements released by any officials or opposition at the time because, the tumultuous political atmosphere. Much of anything you can find are either in the form of physical documents, dead people or those who know about it because they were involved in it. Therefore, I don't suggest reading anything from the PRWC official information board \\[it's heavily biased and contrary to the things I know they did\\] about things relating to the time, or common google searches for news articles of today. For example, as the of the time of writing this, I'm actually reading on the CIA declassified documents about anything politically-related or anything related to the Philippines at all. It offers a different perspective because they're the third party.", "support_docs": "
present. As a result, Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus to arrest those behind the attack. He rounded up a list of supposed suspects, Escabas, and other undesirables to eliminate rivals in the Liberal Party.\nBased on interviews of The Washington Post with former Communist Party of the Philippines Officials, it was revealed that \"the (Communist) party leadership planned -- and three operatives carried out -- the attack in an attempt to provoke government repression and push the country to the brink of revolution... (Communist Party Leader) Sison had calculated that Marcos could be provoked into cracking down on his
and is a partner in the things I do, bright children who will carry my name, a life well lived \u2014 all. But I feel a discontent.\n\u2014\u2009Ferdinand Marcos\nThough it was claimed that Martial law was no military take-over of the government, the immediate reaction of some sectors of the nation was of astonishment and dismay, for even it was claimed that the gravity of the disorder, lawlessness, social injustice, youth and student activism, and other disturbing movements had reached a point of peril, they felt that martial law over the whole country was not yet warranted. Worse, political motivations were
been staged; Enrile himself admitted to the assassination attempt to have been staged but he would later retract his claim. Rigoberto Tiglao, former press secretary and a former communist incarcerated during the martial law, argued that the liberal and communist parties provoked martial law imposition. Enrile said that \"The most significant event that made President Marcos decide to declare martial law was the MV Karagatan incident on July 1972. It was the turning point. The MV Karagatan involved the infiltration of high powered rifles, ammunition, 40-millimeter rocket launchers, rocket projectiles, communications equipment, and other assorted war materials by the CPP-NPA-NDF" }, { "question": "kierkegaard's ideas", "answer": "Any specific questions you have in mind? Kirekegaard is a pretty big philosopher. Let's start with Either/Or. I'm probably least familiar with this work, but it basically says that there are three \"spheres\": the religious, the ethical and the aesthetic. I haven't actually read Fear and Trembling either, but it analyzes Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac. Ethically, it's pretty wrong to try and sacrifice your son, but Kierkegaard says you can't approach this situation ethically. The sphere of the religious is beyond the ethical. That's the \"teleological suspension of the ethical\". It also describes Knights of Faith in the world Oike Abraham) who empathically believe and put their faith in God, while Knights of Infinite Resignation (like Socrates) are always striving but never really reach true faith. (asymptotic striving in non-eli5 terms). The Sickness Unto Death describes the relationship between despair and sin. First, Kierkegaard describes the self as \"the relation that relates itself to the self\" (or something along those terms: I read SUD a while ago). This is a kinda complicated sentence, but what he's saying is that the self is recursive. Everyone is a combination of dichotomies/contradictions. We're both infinite and finite, powerful and powerless, etc. The self is the thing that is constantly synthesizing/combining these opposites to renew itself. Kierkegaard then says, but wait! If the self renews itself, how did the self come to be in the first place? Kirkegaard says God first created it. But since the self tries to synthesize everything that has ever had a relationship to it, it tries to incorporate God with the rest of itself as well. The problem is that it's a one-sided relationship. God created us and then poof! He's gone. The self tries to connect with God, with its origins, but it just can't reach. If God exists, I can't see him. He doesn't talk to me, he doesn't seem to care about me, so why the hell should I care? There's no response when thes elf reaches out. The self can't integrate God. This makes the person unhappy and in despair. Ultimately, this despair, this acceptance of futility, this not bothering to even try to connect with God, is sin. This is where things start to smell existentialist. In order to complete your self (and yourself), you have to take a leap of faith. You have to trust in God. You think it's futile to try and connect to God, but it doesn't matter because you do it ANYWAY. That's how you escape sin and despair. It doesn't make logical sense, but that doesn't matter. The religious sphere transcends everything.", "support_docs": "
left hand. Kierkegaard wrote in 1848, \u201cI had made up my mind before God what I should do: I staked my case on the Two Edifying Discourses; but I understood perfectly that only very few understood them. And here for the first time comes in the category \u2018that individual' who with joy and gratitude I call my reader.\u2019 A stereo typed formula which was repeated in the Preface to every collection of Edifying Discourses. Now he holds out these two discourses of 1844 with his right hand and hopes for better results. He says in his dedication to \"that single
English, the Philosophical Fragments, appeared only five years ago. Since then some eight or ten of his more important books have been published in English, with a prospect for more in the future. As a result of this tardy recognition, English interpretations of Kierkegaard's thought and commentaries concerning it, have been practically non-existent, a condition which is bound to alter rapidly as he becomes better known, since his ideas are not only thought-provoking but frequently controversial in content.
number of fine studies in recent years that attend to the second literature, there is room for further reflection on the inner logic and character of the upbuilding and \u201csecond literature.\u201d This study is an attempt to contribute to that reflection. What lies behind this is a conviction that finally, the audience Kierkegaard\u2019s literature addresses consist of not simply, or even first of all, philosophers or literati (whether of 19th-century Denmark or today) but persons attempting to be human beings and, perhaps Christians. Kierkegaard as religious thinker, By David Jay Gouwen, p.\u00a013\nMankind has many different conceptions of what the soul" }, { "question": "what the heck is a feed-in tariff when speaking about energy and electricity?", "answer": "It is the rate the utility pays for you to feed energy into their grid, rather than your normal consumption tariff.", "support_docs": "
Feed-in tariffs in the United Kingdom Feed-in tariffs in the United Kingdom were announced in October 2008 and took effect from April 2010. They were entered into law by the Energy Act of 2008. It closed to new applicants on March 31, 2019.\nA feed-in tariff is when payments are given by energy suppliers if a property or organisation generates their own electricity using technology such as solar panels or wind turbines. Year one feedback A new study from the University of London has assessed the first year of the UK FIT scheme through interviews with both users of the scheme
such as wind farms or solar thermal power stations. Gross vs. net FIT schemes Some schemes are based on a gross feed-in tariff model while most are based on a net tariff.\nNet feed-in tariff schemes have been criticised for not providing enough incentive for households to install solar panels and thus for not effectively encouraging the uptake of solar PV. They have been described as a \"fake feed-in tariff\". Critics of net FIT argue that gross tariffs conform to the normal definition of a feed-in tariff, and provide a more certain financial return, paying for all electricity produced, even if
Feed-in tariffs in Australia Feed-in tariffs in Australia are the feed-in tariffs (FITs) paid under various State schemes to non-commercial producers of electricity generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) systems using solar panels. They are a way of subsidising and encouraging uptake of renewable energy and in Australia have been enacted at the State level, in conjunction with a federal mandatory renewable energy target.\nAustralian FIT schemes tend to focus on providing support to solar PV particularly in the residential context, and project limits on installed capacity (such as 10\u00a0kW in NSW) mean effectively that FITs do not support large scale projects" }, { "question": "how does echolocation work?", "answer": "It's the use of sound to figure out where an object is. So you send out a sound, it bounces off of that object, and the time it takes for the sound to reach you again is how far away the object is. Someone'll probably have a more scientific explanation.", "support_docs": "
\u2018echolocation clicks\u2019 with reverberations and would seem to be used for simple, close range spatial orientation. In contrast to bats, shrews use echolocation only to investigate their habitat rather than additionally to pinpoint food.\nThere is evidence that blinded laboratory rats can use echolocation to navigate mazes. Echolocation jamming Echolocation systems are susceptible to interference known as echolocation jamming or sonar jamming. Jamming occurs when non-target sounds interfere with target echoes. Jamming can be purposeful or inadvertent and can be caused by the echolocation system itself, other echolocating animals, prey, or humans. Echolocating animals have evolved to minimize jamming; however,
Animal echolocation Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is the biological sonar used by several species of animal.\nEcholocating animals emit calls out to the environment \nand listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects. Echolocation is used for navigation and for foraging (or hunting) in various environments.\nEcholocating animals include some mammals and a few birds; most notably microchiropteran bats and odontocetes (toothed whales and dolphins), but also in simpler form in other groups such as shrews, one genus of megachiropteran bats (Rousettus) and two cave
narrow beams and many receivers to localize a target (multibeam sonar), animal echolocation has only one transmitter and two receivers (the ears) positioned slightly apart. The echoes returning to the ears arrive at different times and at different loudness levels, depending on the position of the object generating the echoes. The time and loudness differences are used by the animals to perceive distance and direction. With echolocation, the bat or other animal can see not only where it is going but also how big another animal is, what kind of animal it is, and other features.\nAt the most basic level," }, { "question": "was the bagrationi dynasty founded by a georgian or armenian?", "answer": "The Bagrationi dynasty is/was descended from ethnic Armenians, that is true. Unfortunately I don't have the sources on hand with me, but I can give you the means to find them and read more on it (see the end here). However just because the Bagrationi's originally came from Armenia doesn't really make them any less Georgian. They ruled over Georgia for some seven centuries (depending on how you want to count \"ruled\"), and married local families, so by the end of independent Georgia in 1801/1810, they were thoroughly Georgian. But the short answer to your question is, yes, the Georgian Bagrationi dynasty was founded by an Armenian. I will admit here though that I am not that well-read on medieval Georgia, which is in part because my focus has been on the twentieth century era, and because honestly there is not a lot of scholars in English who write about (for lack of a better term) pre-annexation Georgia, so any material that is out there is usually rather old (and likely dated), or just not in any serious depth. Further reading: * Ronald Grigor Suny, *The Making of the Georgian Nation* (1988, 1994): this is the standard survey text in English of the history of Georgia. It is more focused on the modern (read Russian-dominated) era, but does give some context to the historic eras, and is full of further sources in the bibliography. * Donald Rayfield, *Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia* (2012): Rayfield's book isn't quite as well-regarded as Suny, but he goes into a lot more detail about medieval and ancient (read pre-Russian annexation) Georgia. If you want a decent overview of the rise of the Bagrationi family, I'd highly suggest this, as he looks into the very question you are asking, and the relationship between the two places. * You may also want to search the works of David Marshall Lang. He is effectively the godfather of modern English study of Georgia, in that he founded the British institute that begat the modern efforts to research the country. I do believe he wrote about that era of Georgia when he was active in the 1960s, though the name of the title escapes me. However his name should show some relevant results.", "support_docs": "
time, he became involved in a dynastic feud among the numerous posterity of Erekle II and George XII. In November 1800, Bagrat was one of the commanders of a combined Russo-Georgian force that defeated the joint invasion by the Avar khan Umma and Bagrat's own paternal half-uncle Alexander on the banks of the Iori in Kakheti. Life in Russia After George XII's death in 1800, the arrival of the Russian rule brought the Bagrationi rule to an end. The members of the Georgian royal family were deprived of their estates and deported to Russia proper. Unlike many of his royal
Prince Bagrat of Georgia Life in Georgia Bagrat was born in Tbilisi into the family of Crown Prince George, the future king George XII, and his first wife Ketevan n\u00e9e Andronikashvili. In 1790, Bagrat, then aged 14, received a princely domain in the Ksani valley after his reigning grandfather, Erekle II, dispossessed the defiant Kvenipneveli dynasty of the duchy of Ksani, dividing it into three parts. Other parts of the duchy were granted to Bagrat's elder brother Ioann and uncle Iulon. In addition, during the reign of his father George XII (1798\u20131801), Bagrat received Kakheti in possession. Around the same
several areas in northern Armenia, which was ruled, under the authority of the Georgian crown, by the Mkhargrdzeli, a prominent Armeno-Georgian noble family. Mongol invasions The kingdom of Georgia flourished during the 10th to 12th centuries, and fell to the Mongol invasions of Georgia by 1243, and after a brief reunion under George V of Georgia to the Timurid Empire. Ottoman and Persian domination By 1490, Georgia was fragmented into a number of petty kingdoms and principalities, which throughout the Early Modern period struggled to maintain their autonomy against Iranian (successive Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties) and Ottoman domination until" }, { "question": "how countries like costa rica can just abolish their military and manage to live without an army for so long time??", "answer": "Who lives right next door to Costa Rica? - The USA. The same USA that has made it absolutely clear that nobody... NOBODY picks a fight with the people in our backyard (except us). The same USA that spends more money on military than the next 10 countries on the list combined. Costa Rica doesn't need an army... they have the US military.", "support_docs": "
the effectiveness of the measure and consider that Costa Rica's abolishing of the army was in name only, and that for all effects Costa Rica still has a pseudo-military on the Public Forces, which are not only used for internal repression like any other army, but also get involve in both domestic and international US-lead military operations. \nThe opposite criticism come mostly from far-right circles who question the decision of not having an army and advocate for its re-installment.
Article 12 of the Constitution of Costa Rica The Article 12 of the Constitution of Costa Rica abolishes Costa Rica's army as a permanent institution, making Costa Rica one of the first countries in the world to do so as the current Constitution was enacted in 1949. Costa Rica is one of the few countries not having armed forces and, alongside Panama, one of the few that is not a microstate. However, like Panama, Costa Rica does have limited military capacities with its Public Forces which have both police and defense functions and had taken part in military operations since
1949. \nContrary to popular belief, the article does not really completely abolish the army, it only establishes that the army cannot be a permanent standing organization The article does establish that Costa Rica may create an army for national defense or for international cooperation, but also clarifies that it will always be submitted to civilian authority. \nThe date of the abolition of the army is celebrated in Costa Rica as a national holiday. Text of the article Se proscribe el Ej\u00e9rcito como instituci\u00f3n permanente. Para la vigilancia y conservaci\u00f3n del orden p\u00fablico, habr\u00e1 las fuerzas de polic\u00eda necesarias. S\u00f3lo por" }, { "question": "how did the lm connect to the csm in apollo era missions?", "answer": "If you look at the drawings and pictures of the LM (I have a pile of them from the NASA servers in my images directory) you see a rather large flat space around the top hatch on the LM and some hard points for them to clamp on. What they did was grabbed on to the LM then pulled it tight to seal a gasket against the mating surface around the hatch. When you see images from inside you'll see that there are two doors (one on the CM, one on the LM).", "support_docs": "
the crew in the command module safely away from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch emergency.\nThe design was based on the lunar orbit rendezvous approach: two docked spacecraft were sent to the Moon and went into lunar orbit. While the LM separated and landed, the CSM remained in orbit. After the lunar excursion, the two craft rendezvoused and docked in lunar orbit, and the CSM returned the crew to Earth. The command module was the only part of the space vehicle that returned with the crew to the Earth's surface.\nThe LES was jettisoned during launch upon reaching
the CSM away, rotated it through 180 degrees, and came back for docking.\nThe LM was connected to the SLA at four points around the lower panels. After the astronauts docked the CSM to the LM, they blew charges to separate those connections and a guillotine severed the LM-to-instrument-unit umbilical. After the charges fired, springs pushed the LM away from the S-IVB and the astronauts were free to continue their trip to the Moon. Launch escape system (LES) The Apollo launch escape system (LES) was built by the Lockheed Propulsion Company. Its purpose was to abort the mission by pulling the
modes after this point would be accomplished without the LES. The LES was carried but never used on four uncrewed Apollo flights, and fifteen crewed Apollo, Skylab, and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flights. Current locations of spacecraft The disposition of all command modules, and all unflown service modules is listed at Apollo command and service module#CSMs produced. (All flown service modules burned up in the Earth's atmosphere at termination of the missions.)\nThe disposition of all lunar modules is listed at Apollo Lunar Module#Lunar modules produced." }, { "question": "comet ison, purportedly will be 15 times the brightness of the full moon in the sky, visible near the end of 2013. can any astronomers clear up the nebulous information that we've been getting from the media?", "answer": "1) Predicting peak brightness of comets is notoriously unreliable. You can get some idea (if it's bright far away, it's *probably* going to be bright when it comes near. Lot of unreliability comes from the fact that during their perihelion comets often get very near the sun and can get destroyed or greatly reduced in mass. 2) The peak brightness can be astonishing, but it invariably happens very near the Sun, which will make the comet appear much less brilliant. 3) It's possible for a comet to be binary or multiple objects, but that's not that common. The other possibility are gas/dust jets: as comet approaches the sun, it warms up and various volatile components start to evaporate and can sometimes form something like a geyser.", "support_docs": "
Comet ISON will certainly be one of the greatest comets in human history.\" As recently as October 2013, a Daily Mail columnist described Comet ISON as \"the Comet of the Century\" and said it was \"hoped to be 15 times brighter than the Moon.\"\nAstronomer Karl Battams criticized the media's suggestion that Comet ISON would be \"brighter than the full Moon\", saying that members of the Comet ISON Observing Campaign did not foresee ISON becoming that bright.\nComet ISON has been compared to Comet Kohoutek, seen in 1973\u20131974, another highly anticipated Oort cloud comet that peaked early and fizzled out.
the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams identified the object as an asteroid, and it was listed on the Near Earth Objects Confirmation Page. Follow-up observations by independent teams were the first to report cometary features. Therefore, under the International Astronomical Union's comet-naming guidelines, Comet ISON was named after the team that discovered it, rather than the individual discoverers. Media coverage After it was discovered in 2012, some media sources called Comet ISON the \"Comet of the Century\" and speculated that it might outshine the full Moon. An Astronomy Now columnist wrote in September 2012 that \"if predictions hold true then
by the forward scattering of light. Originally, media sources predicted that it might become brighter than the full Moon, but based on more recent observations, it was only expected to reach around apparent magnitude\u00a0\u22123 to \u22125, about the same brightness as Venus. In comparison, the brightest comet since 1935 was Comet Ikeya\u2013Seki in 1965 at magnitude\u00a0\u221210, which was much brighter than Venus.\nOn 29 November 2013, Comet ISON had dimmed to magnitude\u00a05 in the LASCO images. By the end of 30 November 2013, it had further faded below naked-eye visibility at magnitude\u00a07. After perihelion In a February 2013 study, 1,897\u00a0observations were" }, { "question": "explain like i'm five: american telecoms", "answer": "There are 2 basic technologies used in broadcasting phone information. GSM and CDMA. Sprint/verizon use CDMA, while AT & T and T-Mobile use GSM. More specifically, though, they use different bands of those technologies for their high speed networks. Part of why the iPhone took so long to get on another carrier is that Apple had an exclusive contract with AT & T, which meant they were the only ones allowed to carry the iPhone for a certain period of time. Since the carriers all operate on different bands, you need to design a phone that works on that band, so there'd need to be 4 different types of iPhones to work on all of the 4 networks.", "support_docs": "
of telecommunications.
telecommunications.
the transition from primarily monopoly provision to competitive provision of telecommunications services: The conference report refers to the bill \u201cto provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition....\u201d Likewise, the Act created distinct regulatory regimes for these service-specific telephone networks and cable networks that included provisions intended to foster competition from new entrants that used network architectures and technologies similar to those of the incumbents. The deployment of digital technologies in these previously distinct networks has" }, { "question": "why if at all are tanning beds more dangerous than sunbathing outside when it comes to skin cancer?", "answer": "If you spend 30 seconds googling it the top result from The Mayo Clinic: Are tanning beds safer than natural sunlight? Answer from Lawrence E. Gibson, M.D. Tanning beds don't offer a safe alternative to natural sunlight. Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation damages your skin, whether the exposure comes from tanning beds or natural sunlight. This damage increases the risk of skin cancer and premature skin aging. In fact, most tanning beds emit mainly UVA rays \u2014 which may increase the risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. If you'd like the golden glow of a tan without exposure to damaging UV radiation, consider using a sunless tanning product. Avoid tanning beds, and use a broad-spectrum sunscreen whenever you're outdoors.", "support_docs": "
antidepressants, antibiotics, antifungals and anti-diabetic medication, can cause photosensitivity, which makes burning the skin while tanning more likely. This risk is increased by a lack of staff training in tanning facilities. Young people Children and adolescents who use tanning beds are at greater risk because of biological vulnerability to UV radiation. Epidemiological studies have shown that exposure to artificial tanning increases the risk of malignant melanoma and that the longer the exposure, the greater the risk, particularly in individuals exposed before the age of 30 or who have been sunburned.\nOne study conducted among college students found that awareness of the
as PUVA. A concern with the use of commercial tanning is that beds that primarily emit UVA may not treat psoriasis effectively. One study found that plaque psoriasis is responsive to erythemogenic doses of either UVA or UVB. It does require more energy to reach erythemogenic dosing with UVA. Skin cancer Exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR), whether from the sun or tanning devices is known to be a major cause of the three main types of skin cancer: non-melanoma skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma) and melanoma. Overexposure to UVR induces at least two types of DNA
The commercial use of tanning beds was banned entirely in Brazil in 2009 and Australia in 2015. As of 1\u00a0January\u00a02017, thirteen U.S. states and one territory have banned under-18s from using them, and at least 42 states and the District of Columbia have imposed regulations, such as requiring parental consent.\nIndoor tanning is a source of UV radiation, which is known to cause skin cancer, including melanoma and skin aging, and is associated with sunburn, photodrug reactions, infections, weakening of the immune system, and damage to the eyes, including cataracts, photokeratitis (snow blindness) and eye cancer. Injuries caused by tanning devices" }, { "question": "why didn't england demand calais back after defeating napoleon?", "answer": "Several reasons. First, notice that nobody else demanded any of what we might call France's \"core territory\" either; there was a dispute on where the exact borders of France should be, but there was no impulse to actually dismember it as a state. Second, after 250 years, what sort of interest group could you muster for repossessing a city that was not particularly important, spoke the wrong language, would have had to be extensively garrisoned, and was a guaranteed instant loss in the next war? The French possessions were always dynastic, not imperial - that is, they benefited the king, not the oligarchy that ran England in the early 1800s. The English kings had wanted rich agricultural land; the English oligarchs wanted trading access, naval bases, investment opportunities, and to some extent markets. (The last being more important later in the nineteenth century.) Do note that the time between the loss of Calais (1558) and the Congress of Vienna (1815) is longer, at 257 years, than the time from the independence of the US (1776) and today, which is only 237 years. Internet humour aside, I think Queen Elizabeth is a bit unlikely to try to repossess the thirteen colonies at this late stage, and that's without them speaking a foreign language. Finally, England made plenty of gains elsewhere, especially India - notice they entered the war more or less co-equal with France in the subcontinent, and exited as its undisputed masters. Check out this contemporary cartoon: showing Pitt and Napoleon slicing up the world - notice that in spite of Napoleon's frenzied expression, Pitt is getting the bigger slice! There was some feeling on the continent that England had paid gold and everyone else had paid blood, and then England had got the mastery of the oceans on top of that; if they'd tried for continental possessions as well they'd have faced the united opposition of all the other Powers at Vienna.", "support_docs": "
within reach for a week, signalled that they were on the verge of surrender. That night the French army withdrew. On 3 August 1347 Calais surrendered. The entire French population was expelled. A vast amount of booty was found within the town. Edward repopulated the town with English settlers. Subsequent activities As soon as Calais capitulated, Edward paid off a large part of his army and released his Flemish allies. Philip in turn stood down the French army. Edward promptly launched strong raids up to 30 miles (48\u00a0km) into French territory. Philip attempted to recall his army, setting a date
which it still holds. Calais was finally lost by the English monarch Mary I, following the 1558 siege of Calais. The fall of Calais marked the loss of England's last possession in mainland France. Memorials In 1880, Calais commissioned a statue by Auguste Rodin of the town leaders at the moment of their surrender to Edward. The resulting work, The Burghers of Calais, was completed in 1889. An account by the contemporary chronicler Froissart claims that the burghers expected to be executed, but their lives were spared by the intervention of England's queen, Philippa of Hainault, Froissart's patron, who persuaded
division of Burgundian interests in the Low Countries between France and Spain meant that, in 1550 when England surrendered the area around Boulogne, which Henry VIII had taken in 1544, the approaches to Calais were opened.\nThe Pale of Calais remained controlled by England until lost by Mary I to France in 1558 when, following secret preparations, 30,000 French troops, led by Francis, Duke of Guise, took the town of Calais. Its loss was recognised under the Treaty of Cateau-Cambr\u00e9sis (1559). In England there was shock and disbelief at the loss of this final Continental territory. The chronicler Raphael Holinshead reported" }, { "question": "what is vojvodina and why it is oftenly depicted as 'seperate' from serbia?", "answer": "(Worked for a defense team in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia). Vojvodina was an ethnically mixed (1/3 Hungarian, 1/3 Austrian/German, 1/3 Serbian) Hapsburg territory that was annexed to Serbia following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire following WWI. Compared to the other Yugoslav territories, it had a much larger proportion of non-Southern Slavs (Bosnians, Croations, Kosovars, Macedonians, Serbs, ect) and very strong ethnic pluralities that did not belong to a Yugoslav nation. Since those ethnic pluralities belonged to large nations with irrendist goals, Vojvodina had to be granted a large amount of autonomy in order to ensure peace. This state of affairs continued onwards from this foundation, especially as Yugoslavia began to fracture and its *raison d'etre* as a non-ethnic Southern Slav communist nation failed. Serbia is a small country and Vojvodina made up a large chunk of its territory, agricultural output and 1/4 of its population. As such, it couldn't afford to have it either be too powerful or in open rebellion. Milosevic was able to remove much of its independent political power, and some Serbian ultranationalist groups did undertake ethnic based attacks against \"Hungarians\" (catch all term for non-Yugoslavs in Vojvodina), but he was never in a position of sufficient power to completely wipe outs its autonomy, especially as he was surrounded by far more pressing enemies to deal with.", "support_docs": "
other (mostly northern) parts of the region, while southern parts remained under military administration. The eastern part of it was held by the Ottomans between 1787\u201388, during the Russo-Turkish War. In 1716, Vienna temporarily forbade settlement by Hungarians and Jews in the area, while large numbers of German speakers were settled in the region. From 1782, Protestant Hungarians and ethnic Germans settled in larger numbers.\nDuring the 1848\u201349 revolutions, Vojvodina was a site of war between Serbs and Hungarians, due to the opposite national conceptions of these two peoples. At the May Assembly in Sremski Karlovci (13\u201315 May 1848), Serbs declared
two channels, RTV1 (Serbian language) and RTV2 (minority languages), and three radio frequencies: Radio Novi Sad 1 (Serbian), Radio Novi Sad 2 (Hungarian), Radio Novi Sad 3 (other minority communities). Transport There are many important roads which pass through Vojvodina. First of all, the motorway A1 motorway which goes from Central Europe and the Horgos border crossing to Hungary, via Novi Sad to Belgrade and further to the southeast toward Ni\u0161, where it branches: one way leads east to the border with Bulgaria; the other to the south, towards Greece. Motorway A3 in Srem separates the west, towards the neighboring
Croatia and further to Western Europe. There is also a network of regional and local roads and railway lines.\nThe three largest rivers in Vojvodina are navigable stream. Danube River with a length of 588 kilometers and its tributaries Tisa (168\u00a0km), Sava (206\u00a0km) and Bega (75\u00a0km). Among them was dug extensive network of irrigation canals, drainage and transport, with a total length of 939\u00a0km (583\u00a0mi), of which 673\u00a0km (418\u00a0mi) navigable. Tourism Tourist destinations in Vojvodina include well known Orthodox monasteries on Fru\u0161ka Gora mountain, numerous hunting grounds, cultural-historical monuments, different folklores, interesting galleries and museums, plain landscapes with a lot of" }, { "question": "how is ptsd or other psychological experiences passed down to offspring?", "answer": "PTSD is not heritable. There is evidence that some genetic predispositions (does NOT equate to ACTUAL EXPRESSION) are heritable.", "support_docs": "
one study found transmission of DNA methylation patterns from fathers to offspring during spermatogenesis. More specifically to mental illnesses, several studies have shown that traits of psychiatric illnesses (such as traits of PTSD and other anxiety disorders) can be transmitted epigenetically. Parental exposure to various stimuli, both positive and negative, can cause these transgenerational epigenetic and behavioral effects. Parental exposure to trauma and stress Trauma and stress experienced by a parent can cause epigenetic changes to its offspring. This has been observed both in population and experimental studies. Holocaust An epidemiological study investigating behavioral, physiological, and molecular changes in the
expressions of small non-coding RNAs that were altered in sperm cells of the fathers. Stress effect reversal Additionally, exposing fathers to enriching environments can reverse the effect of early life stress on their offspring. When early life stress is followed by environmental enrichment, anxiety-like behavior in offspring is prevented. Similar studies have been conducted in humans and suggest that DNA methylation plays a role. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a stress-related mental health disorder that emerges in response to traumatic or highly stressful experiences. It is believed that PTSD develops as a result of an interaction
completed her postdoctoral training in Biological Psychiatry in the Psychiatry Department at Yale Medical School.\nShe has authored more than 250 published papers, chapters, and books in the field of traumatic stress and the neurobiology of PTSD. Her current interests include the study of risk and resilience factors, psychological and biological predictors of treatment response in PTSD, genetic and epigenetic studies of PTSD and the intergenerational transmission of trauma and PTSD. She has an active federally funded clinical and research program that welcomes local and international students and clinicians. Her research has focused on the children of Holocaust survivors and" }, { "question": "how do they make those glass bottles with the little wooden model sailboats in them?", "answer": "Very carefully. You use a special set of tools that are very long and skinny to literally build the boat piece by piece inside the bottle. Often, you can assemble sections outside the bottle before inserting and connecting them to the rest of the ship. It is very hard and very delicate work. As for the companies that produce them en masse? I'm guessing that they cheat and build a bottle around a pre-constructed ship.", "support_docs": "
a bottle There are two ways to place a model ship inside of a bottle. The simplest way is to rig the masts of the ship and raise it up when the ship is inside the bottle. Masts, spars, and sails are built separately and then attached to the hull of the ship with strings and hinges so the masts can lie flat against the deck. The ship is then placed inside the bottle and the masts are pulled up using the strings attached to the masts. The hull of the ship must still be able to fit through the
souvenir. They are mass-produced using glassblowing techniques, by placing a coin inside a semi-molten glass cup, and then reshaping the open end into a narrow neck and mouth, completing the bottle. Non-metallic objects need to be protected from the hot glass to prevent scorching, for example with an asbestos cloth.
opening. Bottles with minor distortions and soft tints are often chosen to hide the small details of the ship such as hinges on the masts. Alternatively, with specialized long-handled tools, it is possible to build the entire ship inside the bottle.\nWith the exception of a single Dutch example from the beginning of the 19th century, ships in bottles appear to date from after 1860. This may have been due to the introduction of mass-produced bottles with clearer glass.\nA significant collection of ships in bottles is the Dashwood-Howard collection held by the Merseyside Maritime Museum. Small objects that expand naturally One" }, { "question": "is violence ever humanizing? (fanon, colonialism, and expression)", "answer": "First of all, excellent choice of reading material. Fanon is a really interesting scholar. If you haven't already, *The Fact of Blackness* by Fanon is another very worthwhile endeavor and speaks to a lot of the contemporary issues you are referring to obliquely. It sort of discusses how a \"black person\" is a multiply constructed social idea that is necessary to support the kinds of legitimized violence you talk about in the third point. Additionally, you do a really nice job of summarizing Fanon! As I understand his work, it seems like you have a really good grasp on it. To answer your question, there is certainly a degree to which his analysis is spot on. A lot of post-colonial literature focuses on the ways in which colonized people are silenced by colonization. Particularly, as you touch on in the 2nd type of violence, colonization has the tendency to erase the indigenous history of colonized people is part of reinforcing that dichotomous paradigm of savage/civilized and a-historical/historical. Why history is so important is that it gives a people a sense of agency in that they can dictate their future course by virtue of having been able to dictate the course of their lives in the past. By erasing their history, colonial powers are attempting to erase the agency of the colonized as a byproduct, or at least the ability to conceive of themselves as people with agency. On the converse, colonizers also suffer form their own propaganda to a degree in that they come to think that the colonized legitimately do not have agency. That the colonized could enact violence against colonizers, disrupting the facade of tranquility and order you discuss in the third point, is to a degree an inconceivable thought by the colonizers. Consequently, violence becomes necessary to remind the colonizer that the colonized are active agents in their own lives and not passive recipients of colonial violence. In this way, it is certainly a humanizing endeavor in restoring the agency of colonized people. There is maybe no more powerful act in asserting your agency as a human being than enacting violence. I'm not sure how aware you are of the historical background to Fanon's writing, but he is living in France during the Algerian revolution which is what really leads to a lot of his thinking about violence. I'm not even close to an expert on the Algerian Revolution, so hopefully you can get another user to give some more details about that event and the use of violence against the colonial French state in that case. Another avenue to explore, which I have already touched on, is the Haitian revolution. In the case of black slavery in the Americas, this notion of violence is very appropriate. Everything I talked about as far as denying the colonized agency is very explicit in the kind of plantation, chattel slavery practiced in the Americas were people were conceived of as property. The conclusion to draw about how much agency they have on their own lives based on their existence as property seems obvious. If you liked Fanon, I would strongly recommend the book *Silencing the Past* by the Haitian historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot. It really discusses the issue from the side of the colonizer in that the Haitian revolution - as a successful slave rebellion - was what Trouillot calls an \"unthinkable history\" in that Europeans had difficulty in conceiving of black slaves in the Carribbean having enough agency to enact violence against their colonial overlords. This consequently produces cognitive dissonance between colonial *perceptions* of the colonized and the newly lived *reality* of violence by the colonized, and so that history becomes lost or poorly understood in order to resolve that cognitive dissonance. The erasure of the Haitian revolution from popular imagination and understanding of history is, Trouillot argues, the product of trying to resolve that dissonance. An attempt to resolve that same dissonance is perhaps a good way to think about media portrayals of riots and other civil violence in the U.S. I know this is perhaps a bit less specific than you were hoping for, but I hope it at least gives you something else to work with. If you could find some users with expertise in the Algerian or Haitian revolution to comment more, I think those would be very good places to start in discussing the place of violence as being humanizing as it relates to the structures of power.", "support_docs": "
National Culture\", in which Fanon highlights the necessity for each generation to discover its mission and to fight for it. \"On Violence\" The first section of Fanon\u2019s book is entitled \u201cOn Violence.\u201d It is a detailed explanation of violence in relation to both the colonial world and the process of decolonization. Fanon begins with the premise that decolonization is, by definition, a violent process without exception. The object of that process is the eventual replacement of one group of humans with another, and that process is only complete when the transition is total. This conception of decolonization
an historical reality waiting to be uncovered in a return to pre-colonial history and tradition, but is already existing in the present national reality. National struggle and national culture then become inextricably linked in Fanon's analysis. To struggle for national liberation is to struggle for the terrain whereby a culture can grow, since Fanon concludes a national culture cannot exist under conditions of colonial domination.\nA decisive turn in the development of the colonized intellectual is when they stop addressing the oppressor in their work and begin addressing their own people. This often produces what Fanon calls \"combat literature\", a writing
of its release in 1961, still-colonized nations of Africa. Rather than depending on an orientalized, fetishized understanding of precolonial history, Fanon argues a national culture should be built on the material resistance of a people against colonial domination. Fanon narrates the essay with reference to what he calls the 'colonized intellectual'. The return to precolonial history For Fanon, colonizers attempt to write the precolonial history of a colonized people as one of \u201cbarbarism, degradation, and bestiality\u201d in order to justify the supremacy of Western civilization. To upset the supremacy of the colonial society, writes Fanon, the colonized intellectual feels the" }, { "question": "what are heat shock proteins and how are they good for your body?", "answer": "So heat shock proteins are a group of proteins. They are regulated by transcription factors called Heat Shock Factors. During cell stress, this family of proteins is made to help the cell cope with the stress. So these proteins normally \"chaperone\" other proteins by helping them fold correctly. Proteins have different structures they fold on top of themselves and heat shock proteins make sure that they fold right. They also act in the immune system as antigen presenters, so they can kind of hold out \"bad\" bacterial or viral proteins to immune cells and say \"hey, kill this thing\". :)", "support_docs": "
Heat shock response The heat shock response (HSR) is a cellular response that increases the number of molecular chaperones to combat the negative effects on proteins caused by stressors such as increased temperatures, oxidative stress, and heavy metals. In a normal cell, protein homeostasis (proteostasis) must be maintained because proteins are the main functional units of the cell. Proteins take on a defined configuration in order to gain functionality. If these structures are altered, critical processes could be affected, leading to cell damage or death. With the importance of proteins established, the heat shock response can be employed under stress
to induce heat shock proteins (HSP), also known as molecular chaperones, that help prevent or reverse protein misfolding and provide an environment for proper folding. \nProtein folding is already challenging due to the crowded intracellular space where aberrant interactions can arise; it becomes more difficult when environmental stressors can denature proteins and cause even more non-native folding to occur. If the work by molecular chaperones is not enough to prevent incorrect folding, the protein may be degraded by the proteasome or autophagy to remove any potentially toxic aggregates. Misfolded proteins, if left unchecked, can lead to aggregation that prevents the
protein from moving into its proper conformation and eventually leads to plaque formation, which may be seen in various diseases. Heat shock proteins induced by the HSR can help prevent protein aggregation that can lead to common neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, or Parkinson's Disease. Induction of the heat shock response With the introduction of environmental stressors, the cell must be able to maintain proteostasis. Acute or chronic subjection to these harmful conditions elicits a cytoprotective response to promote stability to the proteome. HSPs (e.g. HSP70, HSP90, HSP60, etc.) are present under normal conditions but under heat stress, they" }, { "question": "india vs. pakistan", "answer": "The two countries were united for a time during British colonial rule, but after the Second World War when the UK started granting independence on a wide scale, British India was split up to reflect the *religious diversity* that existed and still exists. Religious Map of British India - 1909 Other factors played into the split, such as slightly *different cultural and ethnic backgrounds*. The reason such animosity exists today was largely because of the *violent partition* and also the *border disputes* that followed shortly after, notably in the Kashmir region which is claimed by both countries but in reality China, India, and Pakistan all administrate their own bit. In conclusion, it's a whole lot of reasons. Before the British came to colonise India, the whole region was even less united than it is now and was host to a large variety of countries.", "support_docs": "
against India.
wicket in either match.
in the series were drawn, the first such occurrence in test history).\nThe team is considered strong but unpredictable. Traditionally Pakistani cricket has had players of great talent but limited discipline, making them a team which could play inspirational cricket one day and then perform less than ordinarily another day. Over the years, competitions between India and Pakistan have always been emotionally charged and provide for intriguing contests, as talented teams from both sides of the border elevate their game to new levels to produce high-quality cricket. Pakistan's matches against India in the Cricket World Cup have seen packed stadiums and" }, { "question": "the difference between diversifiable risk vs non-diversifiable risk", "answer": "Diversifiable risk is risk linked to that specific security, while non-diversifiable risk refers to the market as a whole. Let's say you have three clothing stores in town. If you only invest in one of those clothing stores, any number of events could occur that would lead to that particular store suffering a downturn. However, if you invest in all three, the only risk you're incurring is the risk that people will stop wearing clothes. With diversifiable risk, you're essentially defining an industry which presumably acts as a zero-sum game. When one company suffers, another gains. So investing in the entire industry - diversifying - compensates for the individual risk of each company. With non-diversifiable risk, you can't make this sort of distinction. No matter how your portfolio is structured, you're not going to win if an asteroid strikes the Earth and society collapses.", "support_docs": "
the assets are uncorrelated is which is increasing in n rather than decreasing. Thus, for example, when an insurance company adds more and more uncorrelated policies to its portfolio, this expansion does not itself represent diversification\u2014the diversification occurs in the spreading of the insurance company's risks over a large number of part-owners of the company. Diversifiable and non-diversifiable risk The capital asset pricing model introduced the concepts of diversifiable and non-diversifiable risk. Synonyms for diversifiable risk are idiosyncratic risk, unsystematic risk, and security-specific risk. Synonyms for non-diversifiable risk are systematic risk, beta risk and market risk.\nIf one buys
all the stocks in the S&P 500 one is obviously exposed only to movements in that index. If one buys a single stock in the S&P 500, one is exposed both to index movements and movements in the stock based on its underlying company. The first risk is called \"non-diversifiable\", because it exists however many S&P 500 stocks are bought. The second risk is called \"diversifiable\", because it can be reduced by diversifying among stocks.\nIn the presence of per-asset investment fees, there is also the possibility of overdiversifying to the point that the portfolio's performance will suffer because the fees
outweigh the gains from diversification.\nThe capital asset pricing model argues that investors should only be compensated for non-diversifiable risk. Other financial models allow for multiple sources of non-diversifiable risk, but also insist that diversifiable risk should not carry any extra expected return. Still other models do not accept this contention. Corporate diversification strategies In corporate portfolio models, diversification is thought of as being vertical or horizontal. Horizontal diversification is thought of as expanding a product line or acquiring related companies. Vertical diversification is synonymous with integrating the supply chain or amalgamating distributions channels.\nNon-incremental diversification is a strategy followed" }, { "question": "how well can we produce neuroprosthetics?", "answer": "It's definitely possible to use neuron ensembles as the driving force for neuroprosthetics. The most basic example is a cursor-control device, which is just one or two degrees of freedom. I believe there are some labs (Schwartz or Donoghue) working on control in multiple degrees of freedom. Cortical control of a neuroprosthetic device like you've mentioned would essentially be an extension of these. If you can decode activity from the motor cortex using electrodes, you can make it work for a short amount of time (months? I don't actually know the time scale). One of the most promising bits of research in the past year was in Lee Miller's lab at Northwestern; they decoded signals from the motor cortex and used the activity to drive implanted stimulators in a paralyzed monkey's arm. They were able to restore grasp when the system was on. This is great news for cortical control of neuroprosthetics. I can't think of a single motor neuroprosthesis that's readily available to patients which uses activity in the motor cortex. That's not to say it's not going to happen, the field is just too much in its infancy yet. I believe the Deka 'Luke' arm is probably the furthest in terms of clinical devices, but it uses targeted muscle reinnervation (transplanting the nerve from the amputated limb to a region on the torso) and EMG activity.", "support_docs": "
Neural engineering Overview The field of neural engineering draws on the fields of computational neuroscience, experimental neuroscience, clinical neurology, electrical engineering and signal processing of living neural tissue, and encompasses elements from robotics, cybernetics, computer engineering, neural tissue engineering, materials science, and nanotechnology.\nProminent goals in the field include restoration and augmentation of human function via direct interactions between the nervous system and artificial devices.\nMuch current research is focused on understanding the coding and processing of information in the sensory and motor systems, quantifying how this processing is altered in the pathological state, and how it can be manipulated through interactions
as SU-8 and SLA polymers which have led to the development of in vitro and in vivo microelectrode systems with the characteristics of high compliance and flexibility to minimize tissue disruption. Neural prostheses Neuroprosthetics are devices capable of supplementing or replacing missing functions of the nervous system by stimulating the nervous system and recording its activity. Electrodes that measure firing of nerves can integrate with prosthetic devices and signal them to perform the function intended by the transmitted signal. Sensory prostheses use artificial sensors to replace neural input that might be missing from biological sources (He 2005).
Nanoneuronics Overview Nanoneuronics is a new discipline of engineering that aims to harness the collaborative power and knowledge of nanotechnology, neuroscience, electrical engineering, neural engineering and ethics for the design and development of advanced medical interventions with the nervous system. Although non-invasive approaches to the nervous system have been effective for diagnosis and therapy in many treatments, an overwhelming number of severe neurological conditions will likely require invasive approaches for effective therapY. History The term \u201cnanoneuronics\u201d was coined in 2006 by Prof. Richard Magin, at the time the head of the Bioengineering Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago." }, { "question": "why do some mrna have poly-a tails while others do not?", "answer": "All mRNAs have a poly-A tail except for a few mRNAs that specify replication-dependent histones (the structures that wrap DNA). They, instead, have a weirdo stem-loop structure on their tail end that recruits several specific factors and mediates the cutting of the mRNA. I'm not sure what the reason for this is - there are other histones expressed throughout the cell cycle that DO have polyadenylation. My guess it is has something to do with controlling the timing of replication.", "support_docs": "
It therefore acts on transcripts encoding cytokines, growth factors, tumor suppressors, proto-oncogenes, cyclins, enzymes, transcription factors, receptors, and membrane proteins. Poly(A) tail The poly(A) tail contains binding sites for poly(A) binding proteins (PABPs). These proteins cooperate with other factors to affect the export, stability, decay, and translation of an mRNA. PABPs bound to the poly(A) tail may also interact with proteins, such as translation initiation factors, that are bound to the 5' cap of the mRNA. This interaction causes circularization of the transcript, which subsequently promotes translation initiation. Furthermore, it allows for efficient translation by
called the poly(A) tail to the end of the mRNA transcript. Poly(A) binding protein (PABP) binds to this tail, contributing to regulation of mRNA translation, stability, and export. For example, poly (A) tail bound PABP interacts with proteins associated with the 5' end of the transcript, causing a circularization of the mRNA that promotes translation. The 3'-UTR can also contain sequences that attract proteins to associate the mRNA with the cytoskeleton, transport it to or from the cell nucleus, or perform other types of localization. In addition to sequences within the 3'-UTR, the physical characteristics of the
the product of translation. For example, there are two different polyadenylation signals present within the 3'-UTR that signal the addition of the poly(A) tail. These signals initiate the synthesis of the poly(A) tail at a defined length of about 250 base pairs. The primary signal used is the nuclear polyadenylation signal (PAS) with the sequence AAUAAA located toward the end of the 3'-UTR. However, during early development cytoplasmic polyadenylation can occur instead and regulate the translational activation of maternal mRNAs. The element that controls this process is called the CPE which is AU-rich and located in the 3'-UTR as well." }, { "question": "football's financial fair play", "answer": "If I remember correctly, a club has to live within it's means. Meaning it can't spend more than it is taking in. They are also supposed to look into kit deals/stadium deals that seem a little too sweet, like that Etihad airlines deal for City. If you're a Chelsea or Manchester City fan, it means your owner won't just be able to bankroll you a new squad every year. You need to turn a profit.", "support_docs": "
UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations Background A 2009 UEFA review showed that more than half of 655 European clubs incurred a loss over the previous year, and although a small proportion were able to sustain heavy losses year-on-year as a result of the wealth of their owners, at least 20% of clubs surveyed were believed to be in actual financial peril. The reasons for this are well summarised in the 2010\u201312 House of Commons report on Football Governance:\nClub owners are generally over optimistic about their management abilities and vision for a club. With ample academic evidence that there is a
also impacts upon the right to free movement of capital, to free movement of workers and to the free availability of services. Financial fair play will further increase the gap between big clubs and smaller teams. I mainly work with the latter, hence my concerns. I don't know whether other agents share my opinion or whether clubs will follow my example, but I'm confident about the outcome.\"\nUEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino dismissed Dupont's claim, saying, \"We are not worried about it. First, because we have the best lawyers working for us but also because FFP has been agreed by all
FFP. The next stage of the process was due to be heard by a Brussels court in April 2015, where an initial judicial ruling would be delivered on whether FFP was deemed to be against EU competition law. A statement by the Supporters' Club read, \"Our members are consumers of the football product and it is as such that they denounce the EU competition law infringements caused by the UEFA break-even requirement. Far from implementing a true 'financial fair play,' this rule is in fact a prohibition to invest that prevents ambitious owners to develop their clubs, that therefore shields" }, { "question": "could you please eli5 college.", "answer": "You need to contact a local college and set up an appointment with either a counselor in the animal science department, the registrar (deals with registration among other things), or the financial aid office. They will sit down and explain a lot of your questions better than anyone here can. Plus it's the first step towards your future education. They will meet with you even though you aren't a student, so don't worry about that. Your goal Tuesday morning is to make the call to setup and appointment. Explain exactly what you've said here and you will be on your way. Best of luck :)", "support_docs": "
College.
College.
College." }, { "question": "what exactly does \"too big to fail\" mean?", "answer": "\"Too big to fail\" is a term that is applied to an industry or company that is so large and important to the economy that allowing it to fail would have grievous consequences for the economy as a whole that simply are not acceptable.", "support_docs": "
Too big to fail The \"too big to (let) fail\" theory asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the greater economic system, and that they therefore must be supported by government when they face potential failure. The colloquial term \"too big to fail\" was popularized by U.S. Congressman Stewart McKinney in a 1984 Congressional hearing, discussing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's intervention with Continental Illinois. The term had previously been used occasionally in the press.\nProponents of this theory believe that some institutions are so important that they
should become recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from governments or central banks. Some economists such as Paul Krugman hold that economies of scale in banks and in other businesses are worth preserving, so long as they are well regulated in proportion to their economic clout, and therefore that \"too big to fail\" status can be acceptable. The global economic system must also deal with sovereign states being too big to fail.\nOpponents believe that one of the problems that arises is moral hazard whereby a company that benefits from these protective policies will seek to profit by it, deliberately
during 2013. Too big to fail tax Economist Willem Buiter proposes a tax to internalize the massive costs inflicted by \"too big to fail\" institution. \"When size creates externalities, do what you would do with any negative externality: tax it. The other way to limit size is to tax size. This can be done through capital requirements that are progressive in the size of the business (as measured by value added, the size of the balance sheet or some other metric). Such measures for preventing the New Darwinism of the survival of the fittest and the politically best connected should" } ]