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I found this old helmet in an antique store, and I was wondering where it is from.
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Swedish M26 Army Helmet seems to be the one,
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Heres some info on it.
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[
"The Canterbury Helmet is an Iron Age helmet found in a field near Canterbury, Kent, England, in December 2012. Made of bronze, it is one of only a few helmets dating from the Iron Age to ever have been found in Britain. The helmet currently resides in the British Museum, and is undergoing conservation work. It was found by an anonymous metal detectorist, who found it together with an iron brooch and a pin, and it is thought to have contained a bag with cremated human remains.\n",
"The helmet was discovered during peat digging in the parish of Witcham Gravel, Cambridgeshire, perhaps during the 1870s. It was said to have been found \"at a depth of about four feet\", although the exact findspot within Witcham Gravel is unknown; at the time, the parish comprised about 389 acres. The helmet was first published in 1877, when, owned by Thomas Maylin Vipan, it was exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of London. When Vipan died in 1891, the British Museum purchased it from his estate. It remains in the museum's collection, and as of 2019 is on view in Room 49.\n",
"The helmet was made around 1460, during the period of English civil conflict known as the Wars of the Roses, and the armourer's marks suggest that it was made by an artisan originating from Italy. During the 19th century it was used in Coventry’s Godiva Procession. For a period it was kept on display at St Mary's Hall, Coventry, and is now shown at the city's Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.\n",
"Overlooked at first, the helmet quickly gained notice. Even before all the fragments had been excavated, the \"Daily Mail\" spoke of \"a gold helmet encrusted with precious stones.\" A few days later it would more accurately describe the helmet as having \"elaborate interlaced ornaments in silver and gold leaf.\" Despite scant time to examine the fragments, they were termed \"elaborate\" and \"magnificent\"; \"crushed and rotted\" and \"sadly broken\" such that it \"may never make such an imposing exhibit as it ought to do,\" it was nonetheless thought the helmet \"may be one of the most exciting finds.\" The stag found in the burial—later placed atop the sceptre—was even thought at first to adorn the crest of the helmet, in parallel to the boar-crested Benty Grange helmet. This theory would gain no traction, however, and the helmet would have to wait out World War II before reconstruction could begin.\n",
"The provenance of the helmet is unknown, but on stylistic grounds it is thought likely that it comes from the north of England, in the area of Britain controlled by the Brigantes tribe. The helmet is first recorded as part of the collection of arms and armour accumulated by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783–1848), and so must have been discovered some time before 1848. It is possible that the helmet came from the Stanwick Hoard of about 140 bronze objects that was found some time between 1843 and 1845 near Stanwick Camp in North Yorkshire, which may have been the \"oppidum\" of the Brigantes. After Meyrick's death the helmet and other items of Iron Age armour, such as the Witham Shield, were left to his cousin, Lt. Colonel Augustus Meyrick, who disposed of them between 1869 and 1872. The helmet was purchased by Augustus Franks, an independently wealthy antiquarian who worked for the British Museum. Franks donated the helmet to the British Museum in 1872.\n",
"The helmet was dredged from the bed of the River Thames close to Waterloo Bridge in 1868, and in March of the same year it was given on loan to the British Museum by Thames Conservancy. In 1988 its successor body, the Port of London Authority, donated the helmet to the British Museum.\n",
"The helmet was discovered by 71-year-old Ken Wallace, a retired teacher and amateur archaeologist. He and other members of the Hallaton Fieldwork Group had found fragments of Roman pottery on a hill near Hallaton in 2000. He visited the site with a second-hand metal detector late one afternoon and found about 200 coins, which had been buried in a series of small pits dug into the clay. He also found another artifact, which he left in the ground overnight. The following day he returned to examine his discovery and found it that it was a silver ear. He reported the find to Leicestershire's county archaeologist, who called in the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) to excavate the site. The dig took place in the spring of 2003.\n"
] |
When/how did human started cooking?
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The modern human gastrointestinal tract is evolved to digest cooked food. That takes a long time. Here is a peer reviewed article that argues that control of fire was achieved nearly two million of years ago by some of the first members of the Homo genus:
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Because of the time needed for our current digestive systems to have evolved and also corresponding archeological evidence of controlled use of fire (ancient radiomatrically dated firepits) it's now the general consensus that control of fire (and it's use for cooking) must have occurred no earlier than 400,000 years ago:
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Irrefutable evidence of cooking fires has been dated to 125,000 years ago. But this is not really a possible timeline for when control of fire began due to the evolutionary evidence of our guts: Our species, Homo sapiens, must have evolved in a population that had control of fire and used it to cook food, which means control of fire and cooking must have begun half a million years ago at the earliest.
Edit:
It's impossible to answer the second part of your question. Humans would have experimented with cooking the variety of foods available. I don't see how you could get a specific timeline of the integration of spices and other cooking ingredients; it would all be highly variable and probably a subject of debate with many of the wild varieties. For instance we have no idea when humans started eating garlic, it's really difficult to get an accurate date of pre modern (read pre writing) things like this.
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[
"Phylogenetic analysis suggests that human ancestors may have invented cooking as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, has provided evidence supporting control of fire by early humans there by 1 million years ago. There is evidence that \"Homo erectus\" was cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago. Evidence for the controlled use of fire by \"Homo erectus\" beginning some 400,000 years ago has wide scholarly support. Archaeological evidence from 300,000 years ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are found across Europe and the Middle East. Anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago, when hearths started appearing.\n",
"The origins of culinary began with primitive humans roughly 2 million years ago. There are various theories as to how early humans used fire to cook meat. According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, author of \"Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human\", primitive humans simply tossed a raw hunk of meat into the flames and watching it sizzle. Another theory claims humans may first have savored roasted meat by chance when the flesh of a beast killed in a forest fire was found to be more appetizing and easier to chew and digest than the conventional raw meat.\n",
"BULLET::::- History of cooking – no known clear archeological evidence for the first cooking of food has survived. Most anthropologists believe that cooking fires began only about 250,000 years ago, when hearths started appearing.\n",
"The use of fire became widespread for the first time in human prehistory during the Middle Paleolithic and humans began to cook their food c. 250,000 years ago. Some scientists have hypothesized that hominids began cooking food to defrost frozen meat which would help ensure their survival in cold regions. Robert K. Wayne, a molecular biologist, has controversially claimed, based on a comparison of canine DNA, that dogs may have been first domesticated during the Middle Paleolithic around or even before 100,000 BCE. Christopher Boehm (2009) has hypothesized that egalitarianism may have arisen in Middle Paleolithic societies because of a need to distribute resources such as food and meat equally to avoid famine and ensure a stable food supply.\n",
"Although gathering and hunting comprised most of the food supply during the Middle Paleolithic, people began to supplement their diet with seafood and began smoking and drying meat to preserve and store it. For instance the Middle Stone Age inhabitants of the region now occupied by the Democratic Republic of the Congo hunted large long catfish with specialized barbed fishing points as early as 90,000 years ago, and Neandertals and Middle Paleolithic \"Homo sapiens\" in Africa began to catch shellfish for food as revealed by shellfish cooking in Neandertal sites in Italy about 110,000 years ago and Middle Paleolithic \"Homo sapiens\" sites at Pinnacle Point, in Africa.\n",
"Humans built masonry ovens long before they started writing. The process began as soon as our ancestors started using fire to cook their food, probably by spit-roasting over live flame or coals. Big starchy roots and other slower-cooking foods, however, cooked better when they were buried in hot ashes, and sometimes covered with hot stones, and/or more hot ash. Large quantities might be cooked in an earth oven: a hole in the ground, pre-heated with a large fire, and further warmed by the addition of hot rocks.\n",
"Evidence of hominin use of fire and cooking in the Middle East dates back as far as 790,000 years, and prehistoric hearths, earth ovens, and burnt animal bones were spread across Europe and the Middle East by at least 250,000 years ago. Excavations of the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri unearthed stone supports for skewers used before the 17th century BC. In ancient times, Homer in the Iliad (1.465) mentions pieces of meat roasted on spits (), and the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian text, also mentions large pieces of meat roasted on spits.\n"
] |
How long did it take a skilled armourer to make chainmail armour during medieval times?
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My own area of study is the armour of high and late medieval Europe. So my answer will focus on that, not on the Early Middle Ages. I mention this caveat because the economics and social organization of Europe were very different between 600 and 1450, and this effected things like how armour was made, which in turn effected the time it took to make it.
My source for this is Alan Williams' The Knight and the Blast Furnace.
A mail shirt might have between 28,000 and 50,000 links, depending on the size of the links and the length of the skirt an sleeves. Some mail was made of alternating riveted and solid links (IE, something like a washer). This was quicker to make, and modern estimates suggest it would take around 750 man-hours to manufacture. If a single laborer worked 10 hour days, this would take 75 days to make (not including sundays and feast days). However, laborers often didn't work alone, and workshops would include division of labor to speed up the process. So the actual time to manufacture a shirt would often be less than 75 days, even if it represented 750 hours of labor - how many people worked on a shirt, and how well they collaborated would determine the actual time of manufacture.
From the 14th century onwards, mail is increasingly made of all rivetted links, perhaps because it allows a tighter weave with thicker links and thus makes mail more protective. Rivetting all those extra links would add around 250 man-hours of labor, for a total of 1000 man-hours.
This made mail rather expensive, as you can imagine. In the beginning of the 14th century mail shirts bought in Bruges in Flanders were the equivalent of 60-130 days wages of a common soldier on campaign. In the early 15th century mail shirts bought from the Westphalia region of Germany were the equivalent of around 25 days wages, which is a good deal more affordable. At least some of this reduction in price may have been due to the re-use of mail - mail is easy to recycle, alter, cut up and repurpose. Many surviving mail shirts shows signs of alteration from decades or more after they were first made, and smaller pieces of mail armour like standards (collars), sleaves, skirts and gussets (underarm guards) may well have been made from older mail shirts that were cut up. So a lord buying mail shirts for his retinue might not be buying new mail, but 'remanufactured' mail.
As a final aside, the first step to making mail is making some form of wire or at least some thin piece of metal that can be bent into a ring. The quickest way to do this is to draw it - basically pulling an iron rod through a series of hole in a 'draw plate', creating a wire of a given thickness. This process is first mentioned by Theophilus in the 11th century, but mail with links of fairly even thickness dates as early as the 8th century. Some medieval mail is made from 'wire' of less even thickness, which may have been made through other processes like cutting strips from flat pieces of metal and then twisting them. I mention the manufacture of wire because while it isn't included in the calculations above, it is important to keep in mind that this was labor that needed to be performed before mail could be made - even though it wasn't necessarily performed in the mailmaker's workshop by the mailmakers themselves. Improvements in making wire made mailmaking faster and mail more affordable.
EDIT: A final note is that mailmaking and making plate armour were different crafts, and at least in larger cities like London were represented by different guilds.
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[
"During 12th century chainmail armour is first introduced in the Indian subcontinent and used by Turkic armies. An reference of chainmail armour was found in the inscription of Mularaja II and also at the Battle of Delhi where it was used by the armoured war elephants\n",
"Chainmail was the prominent form of armor during the 13th century. A precursor to plate armor, chainmail protected its wearer from opponents while allowing mobility, and was extremely effective against edged weapons and thrust attacks.\n",
"The most common type during the 11th through the 16th centuries was the Hauberk, also known earlier than the 11th century as the Carolingian byrnie. Made of interlinked rings of metal, it sometimes consisted of a coif that covered the head and a tunic that covered the torso, arms, and legs down to the knees. Chain mail was very effective at protecting against light slashing blows but ineffective against stabbing or thrusting blows. The great advantage was that it allowed a great freedom of movement and was relatively light with significant protection over quilted or hardened leather armour. It was far more expensive than the hardened leather or quilted armour because of the massive amount of labor it required to create. This made it unattainable for most soldiers and only the more wealthy soldiers could afford it. Later, toward the end of the 13th century banded mail became popular. Constructed of washer shaped rings of iron overlapped and woven together by straps of leather as opposed to the interlinked metal rings of chain mail, banded mail was much more affordable to manufacture. The washers were so tightly woven together that it was very difficult penetrate and offered greater protection from arrow and bolt attacks.\n",
"In Europe, the concept of the finery forge may have been evident as early as the 13th century. However, it was perhaps not capable of being used to fashion plate armor until the 15th century, as described in conjunction with the waterwheel-powered blast furnace by the Florentine Italian engineer Antonio Averlino (c. 1400 - 1469). The finery forge process began to be replaced in Europe from the late 18th century by others, of which puddling was the most successful, though some continued in use through the mid-19th century. The new methods used mineral fuel (coal or coke), and freed the iron industry from its dependence on wood to make charcoal.\n",
"The lorica hamata is a type of mail armour used by soldiers for over 600 years (3rd century BC to 4th century AD) from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. \"Lorica hamata\" comes from the Latin \"hamatus\" (hooked) from \"hamus\" which means \"hook\", as the rings hook into one another.\n",
"Throughout the Medieval period and into the Renaissance the armour of the man-at-arms became progressively more effective and expensive. Throughout the 14th century, the armour worn by a man-at-arms was a composite of materials. Over a quilted gambeson, mail armour covered the body, limbs and head. Increasingly during the century, the mail was supplemented by plate armour on the body and limbs. In the 15th century, full plate armour was developed, which reduced the mail component to a few points of flexible reinforcement.\n",
"Chainmail is a medieval miniature wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Gygax developed the core medieval system of the game by expanding on rules authored by his fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) member Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly. Guidon Games released the first edition of \"Chainmail\" in 1971 as its first miniature wargame and one of its three debut products. \"Chainmail\" was the first game designed by Gygax that was available for sale as a professional product. It included a heavily Tolkien-influenced \"Fantasy Supplement\", which made \"Chainmail\" the first commercially available set of rules for fantasy wargaming, though it follows many hobbyist efforts from the previous decade. \"Dungeons & Dragons\" began as a \"Chainmail\" variant, and \"Chainmail\" pioneered many concepts later used in \"Dungeons & Dragons\", including armor class and levels, as well as various spells, monsters and magical powers.\n"
] |
if utilities infastructure was created through taxpayer dollars, then why do people have to pay private companies for their utilities?
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In most cases where facilities were built by the public and then privatized, the company either had to pay the government for the facilities, or agree to repair or improve the facilities at their own expense, thus effectively paying a bill that would have been the government's bill.
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[
"Although utilities are regulated industries, they are typically privately owned and must therefore attract private capital. Accordingly, because of constitutional takings law, government regulators must assure private companies that a fair revenue is available in order to continue to attract investors and borrow money. This creates competing aims of capital attraction and fair prices for customers. Utility companies are therefore allowed to charge \"reasonable rates,\" which are generally regarded as rates that allow utilities to encourage people to invest in utility stocks and bonds at the same rate of return they would in comparable non-regulated industries.\n",
"Public utilities can be privately owned or publicly owned. Publicly owned utilities include cooperative and municipal utilities. Municipal utilities may actually include territories outside of city limits or may not even serve the entire city. Cooperative utilities are owned by the customers they serve. They are usually found in rural areas. Publicly owned utilities are non-profit. Private utilities, also called investor-owned utilities, are owned by investors, and operate for profit, often referred to as a rate of return.\n",
"In the US, public utility districts (PUD) have similar functions to Municipal utility districts, but are created by a local government body such as a city or county, and have no authority to levy taxes. They provide public utilities to the residents of that district.\n",
"Some utility companies are for-profit companies, and their prices will include a financial return for shareholders and owners. These utility companies can exercise their political power within existing legal and regulatory regimes to guarantee that return and reduce competition from other sources like distributed generation. \n",
"In some situations, a local government may be legally allowed to transfer utility fee or charge proceeds to the general fund of the local agency to thereafter be spent at the discretion of local politicians. Such situations may include controversial reimbursements to the general fund for services and/or other benefits provided by the local government to the utility and legally allowable return on investment (“profit”) utility fee overcharges for electrical or gas service which are not subject to the cost of service constitutional protections under Proposition 218. \n",
"A public utility (or simply \"utility\") is an organization or company that maintains the infrastructure for a public service or provides a set of services for public consumption. Common examples of utilities are electricity, natural gas, water, sewage, cable television, and telephone. In the United States, public utilities are often natural monopolies because the infrastructure required to produce and deliver a product such as electricity or water is very expensive to build and maintain.\n",
"The traditional definition of the term public utility is \"an infrastructural necessity for the general public where the supply conditions are such that the public may not be provided with a reasonable service at reasonable prices because of monopoly in the area.\" Conventional public utilities include water, natural gas, and electricity. In order to secure the interests of the public, utilities are regulated. Public utilities can also be seen as natural monopolies implying that the highest degree of efficiency is accomplished under one operator in the marketplace.\n"
] |
after accomplishing something very challenging why do we sometimes feel empty and emotionless about it immediately after?
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Because the challenge is gone.
Possibly.
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[
"Emotionally unpleasant experiences have the tendency to come back and haunt us, even after frequent suppression. Such memories can be recovered gradually, through active search and reconstruction, or they can come to mind spontaneously, without active search.\n",
"In time, emotional exhaustion may set in, leading to distraction, and clear thinking may be difficult or impossible. Emotional detachment, as well as dissociation or \"numbing out\" can frequently occur. Dissociating from the painful emotion includes numbing all emotion, and the person may seem emotionally flat, preoccupied, distant, or cold. Dissociation includes depersonalisation disorder, dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder, etc. Exposure to and re-experiencing trauma can cause neurophysiological changes like slowed myelination, abnormalities in synaptic pruning, shrinking of the hippocampus, cognitive and affective impairment. This is significant in brain scan studies done regarding higher order function assessment with children and youth who were in vulnerable environments.\n",
"This sequence of events serves as a reinforcement, causing the cycle to remain in motion. With every cycle, feelings of perceived fraudulence, increased self-doubt, depression, and anxiety accumulate. As the cycle continues, increased success leads to the intensification of feeling like a fraud. This experience causes the individual to remain haunted by their lack of perceived, personal ability. Believing that at any point they can be 'exposed' for who they think they really are keeps the cycle in motion.\n",
"Aside from this, a need for attention or a feel good sensation can ultimately cause this behavior. A prime example of this would be addiction to drugs or alcohol. In the beginning stages, people have the tendency to ease their way into these unhealthy behaviors because it gives them a pleasurable sensation. However, as time goes on, it becomes a habit that they can not stop and they begin to lose these great feeling easily. When these feelings stop, self-destructive behavior enhances because they aren't able to provide themselves with that feeling that makes mental or physical pain go away. \n",
"How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett for a rigorous discussion. One’s crying is not planned, unless one is an actor, then we are able to tap into the mechanism that causes tears to flow. Otherwise it just happens outside of out awareness of causing it by thinking. The brain has patterns of neurons that once activated generate physiologic responses that happens up to 10 seconds before we are aware. (Koch, Christof. 2012. “How Physics and Neuroscience Dictate Your “Free” Will”. Scientific American: April 12.) and many others.\n",
"Self-conscious emotions enable social healing. When an individual makes a social error, feelings of guilt or embarrassment changes not just the person’s mood but their body language. In this situation the individual gives out non-verbal signs of submission and this is generally more likely to be greeted with forgiveness. This has been shown in a study where actors knocked over a supermarket shelve (Semin & Manstead, 1982). Those that acted embarrassed were received more favorably than those who reacted in a neutral fashion.\n",
"In depression, exaggerated all-or-nothing thinking can form a self-reinforcing cycle: these thoughts might be called \"emotional amplifiers\" because, as they go around and around, they become more intense. Here are some typical all-or-nothing thoughts:\n"
] |
Does having houseplants at home provide any sort of measurable benefit to ones health?
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[They can help reduce indoor pollutants](_URL_0_)
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[
"The Healthy Homes program was made possible through a grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development via a Healthy Homes Demonstration Program (HHD). The grant allows the Healthy Homes program to address environmental triggers that contribute to illnesses, conduct education and outreach that furthers the goal of protecting families from environmentally induced illnesses.\n",
"In general, over 15% of the household expenditure and around 50% of disease morbidity in the region were directly attributable to poor housing conditions, most of which were avoidable. Keeping these issues in view, the Building and Construction Improvement Program (BACIP) set out to improve the living condition by developing several home–improvement products that mitigated the negative impact of planning and building inefficiencies on these traditional households and lessened the burden on the surrounding environment. BACIP also attempted to reduce the cost and increase the affordability of better housing conditions.\n",
"\"In addition to the distress it causes families who cannot find a place to live, lack of affordable housing is considered by many urban planners to have negative effects on a community's overall health.\"\n",
"Others benefit indirectly. Families of Householders speak of the reassurance that their loved one has someone in the house, looking out for their welfare. Public services benefit too, as homeshare can delay the need for costly services such as residential care.\n",
"Major factors that should be considered when caring for houseplants are moisture, light, soil mixture, temperature, humidity, fertilizers, potting, and pest control. The following includes some general guidelines for houseplant care. Specific care information may be found widely online and in books.\n",
"The Healthy Homes Project is a joint research initiative between the Columbia University Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH). The project targets the unequal exposure of environmental hazards faced by children in minority or low-income communities and works to educate families on a number of known risk factors such as \"cigarettes, lead poisoning, drugs and alcohol, air pollution, garbage, pesticides, and poor nutrition\". Educating parents on environmental health risks, can protect children from developing asthma or cancer or from experiencing growth or developmental delays, among others.\n",
"The direct benefits to a Householder include; help with daily living, companionship and the security of having someone in the house, especially at night. There are even recorded instances of homesharers saving lives; for example a German homesharer called the emergency services when the householder had a heart attack. Other benefits include: breaking down the barriers between generations and different cultures, fostering mutual understanding and tolerance. For instance, in an Australian program, an elderly Italian lady successfully shared her home with a Pakistani Muslim homesharer.\n"
] |
What is the difference between German Blitzkrieg strategy and Soviet Deep Battle doctrine?
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First of all, the Germans never used the word 'Blitzkrieg' themselves and did not have a specific doctrine around deep penetration or strategic battle - as you can see from from them turning back from Warsaw to deal with the Polish counterattack at Bzura 1939-09-09, the halting of the armoured units in front of the Dunkirk pocket 1940-05-17 and 1940-05-24 and diverting the armoured units from *Heeresgrupp Nord* and *Heeresgruppe Mitte* to help form the Kiev pocket 1941-09-16.
The Germans had a strong tactical focus, with their *auftragstaktik* and were extremely flexible tactically, allowing them to penetrate enemy lines and advance on the depth. However, they did not have any specific strategic doctrine other than the traditional military ideal of the dual pincer cut-off, famous ever since Hannibal did it in the Battle of Cannae.
The Germans never managed to get mroe than about 17% mechanisation of their forces - most marched on foot and pulled their heavy weapons with horses, and the difference in speed of these two different kind of units was a constant headache, and was exploited by the allies and Soviets multiple times. As the German armoured units attacked the suburbs of Warsaw 1939-09-08 (losing 70 tanks in the process and learning that tanks were not very good in urban warfare), the untouched Polish Poznan and Pomorze armies gathered at the Bzura River and attacked the German *30. Infanterie-division* that was the only stretched-out flank protection of the German advace. The Germans had to pull back from their attack of Warsaw, go after the Poles and the campaign lasted for another two weeks.
**In essence, the Germans had no blitzkrieg, they were flexible tactically and strived for encirklement strategically, and had severe problems with the armoured and motorised units outrunning the foot infantry.**
The Soviets did develop a doctrine of deep penetration, but essentially abandoned it during the 1937-1938 purges. While the purges mostly killed off generals and colonels and left the non-senior officers in place, it did freeze the Red Army in place. No-one dared do anything without orders, and tried to replace tactical flexibility with zeal and discipline, which was a recipy for disaster - which the defeat of the Spanish Republican Army (organised along Soviet lines in late 1936 and early 1937) and the performance of the Red Army in the Finnish Winter War 1939-1940 and early in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1942 shows.'
The Red Army slowly got better at knowing what it was good at and what it was bad at, and how to use what it was good at and compensate for what it was bad at. It created massive breakthough artillery units, shifting them to where they were needed. They knew they could never match the Germans in tactical flexibility, and instead created an operation doctrine, where they would rely on firepower of pre-calculated artillery barrages and massed use of tanks and assault guns to achieve penetration of the enemy lines. Massive reserves would be ready to attach to any attack that showed promise, and attacks that failed was stopped and their best forces moved to reinforce the attack that did well. Once penetrating, the Red Army focused more on destroying the enemy supply, communication and weaker rear units (destroying tank repair shops, supply services, traingin depots, etc.) and capturing important transportation hubs. Other so far untouched enemy units would be forces to retreat to not be cut off, and once out of their entrenchment and unprotected by artillery, they could be an easy prey for another massed attack. Flexibility on a larger scale, it was very effective against the Germans once their ability to conduct large scale armoured warfare had been ground down. The skill in *maskirovka*, the art of camouflage, hiding own forces and making it look like there were substantial forces where there were almost none was also important. The Red Army mastered this art.
**In essence, the Red Army could not match the Germans in tactical skill, and thus built up flexible reserves to quickly shift to any breakthrough. Combined with *maskirovka* this allowed them to decisively defeat the Germans on the eastern front.**
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[
"During the 1930s, the resurgence of the German military in the era of the \"Third Reich\" saw German innovations in the tactical arena. The methodology used by the Germans in the Second World War was named \"\"Blitzkrieg\"\". There is a common misconception that \"Blitzkrieg\", which is not accepted as a coherent military doctrine, was similar to Soviet deep operations. The only similarities of the two doctrines were an emphasis on mobile warfare and offensive posture. While the two similarities differentiate the doctrines from French and British doctrine at the time, the two were considerably different. While \"Blitzkrieg\" emphasized the importance of a single strike on a \"Schwerpunkt\" (focal point) as a means of rapidly defeating an enemy, Deep Battle emphasized the need for multiple breakthrough points and reserves to exploit the breach quickly. The difference in doctrine can be explained by the strategic circumstances for the USSR and Germany at the time. Germany had a smaller population but a better trained army whereas the Soviet Union had a larger population but a more poorly trained army. As a result, the \"Blitzkrieg\" emphasized narrow front attacks where quality could be decisive, while Deep Battle emphasized wider front attacks where quantity could be used effectively.\n",
"German operational doctrine emphasized sweeping pincer and lateral movements meant to destroy the enemy forces as quickly as possible. This approach, referred to as \"Blitzkrieg\", was an operational doctrine instrumental in the success of the offensives in Poland and France. Blitzkrieg has been considered by many historians as having its roots in precepts developed by Fuller, Liddel-Hart and von Seeckt, and even having ancient prototypes practiced by Alexander, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. Recent studies of the Battle of France also suggest that the actions of either Rommel or Guderian or both of them (both had contributed to the theoretical development and early practices of what later became blitzkrieg prior to World War II), ignoring orders of superiors who had never foreseen such spectacular successes and thus prepared much more prudent plans, were conflated into a purposeful doctrine and created the first archetype of blitzkrieg, which then gained a fearsome reputation that dominated the Allied leaders' minds. Thus 'blitzkrieg' was recognised after the fact, and while it became adopted by the Wehrmacht, it never became the official doctrine nor got used to its full potential because only a small part of the Wehrmacht was trained for it and key leaders at the highest levels either focused on only certain aspects or even did not understand what it was.\n",
"The traditional meaning of blitzkrieg is that of German tactical and operational methodology in the first half of the Second World War, that is often hailed as a new method of warfare. The word, meaning \"lightning war\" or \"lightning attack\" in its strategic sense describes a series of quick and decisive short battles to deliver a knockout blow to an enemy state before it could fully mobilize. Tactically, blitzkrieg is a coordinated military effort by tanks, motorized infantry, artillery and aircraft, to create an overwhelming local superiority in combat power, to defeat the opponent and break through its defences. \"Blitzkrieg\" as used by Germany had considerable psychological, or \"terror\" elements, such as the \"Jericho Trompete\", a noise-making siren on the Junkers Ju 87 dive-bomber, to affect the morale of enemy forces. The devices were largely removed when the enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940 and instead bombs sometimes had whistles attached. It is also common for historians and writers to include psychological warfare by using Fifth columnists to spread rumours and lies among the civilian population in the theatre of operations.\n",
"Blitzkrieg (, from \"Blitz\" [\"lightning\"] + \"Krieg\" [\"war\"]) is a method of warfare whereby an attacking force, spearheaded by a dense concentration of armoured and motorised or mechanised infantry formations with close air support, breaks through the opponent's line of defence by short, fast, powerful attacks and then dislocates the defenders, using speed and surprise to encircle them with the help of air superiority. Through the employment of combined arms in manoeuvre warfare, blitzkrieg attempts to unbalance the enemy by making it difficult for it to respond to the continuously changing front, then defeat it in a decisive (battle of annihilation).\n",
"BULLET::::- Blitzkrieg – lightning war; quick army invasions aided by tanks and airplanes. A form of attack generally associated with the German armed forces during the Second World War. \"Blitzkrieg\" tactics were particularly effective in the early German campaigns against Poland, France, and the Soviet Union.\n",
"Despite the term \"blitzkrieg\" being coined by journalists during the Invasion of Poland of 1939, historians Matthew Cooper and J. P. Harris have written that German operations during it were consistent with traditional methods. The Wehrmacht strategy was more in line with \"Vernichtungsgedanken\" a focus on envelopment to create pockets in broad-front annihilation. Panzer forces were dispersed among the three German concentrations with little emphasis on independent use, being used to create or destroy close pockets of Polish forces and seize operational-depth terrain in support of the largely un-motorized infantry which followed.\n",
"The strategy, operational methods and tactics of the German Army and \"Luftwaffe\" have often been labelled \"\"Blitzkrieg\"\" (Lightning War). The concept is controversial and is connected to the problem of the nature and origin of \"\"Blitzkrieg\"\" operations, of which the 1940 campaign is often described as a classic example. An essential element of \"\"Blitzkrieg\"\" was considered to be a strategic, or series of operational developments, executed by mechanised forces to cause the collapse of the defenders' armed forces. \"\"Blitzkrieg\"\" has also been looked on as a revolutionary form of warfare but its novelty and its existence have been disputed. Rapid and decisive victories had been pursued by armies well before the Second World War. In the German wars of unification and First World War campaigns, the German General Staff had attempted \"Bewegungskrieg\" (war of manoeuvre), similar to the modern perception of \"\"Blitzkrieg\"\", with varying degrees of success. During the First World War, these methods had achieved tactical success but operational exploitation was slow as armies had to march beyond railheads. The use of tanks, aircraft, motorised infantry and artillery, enabled the Germans to attempt \"Bewegungskrieg\" with a faster tempo in 1940, than that of the slow-moving armies of 1914. The internal combustion engine and radio communication solved the problem of operational-level exploitation.\n"
] |
[META] Wide-scale revisions to the official rules
|
> [W]hile this is a public forum it is not an egalitarian one; not all answers will be treated as having equal merit.
Thank you for taking a clear stance on this issue and not pussy-footing around it. I come to this subreddit for content and there really is a very impressive panel of historians to provide that.
As a history buff, I always get the itch to pitch in my own two cents, but refrain from doing so as there probably is someone who can provide much more accurate information. (I should clarify that I am not implying that I have never found a helpful and on topic response from a non-flaired poster. Just that posts with people speculating and postulating have been on the rise..)
To the Mods and the panel, thanks a lot for all the work that you put into this subreddit!
|
[
"There are currently 44 rules, with the latest revision having been adopted on January 24, 2013. (The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006 lobbying reform bill introduced a 44th rule on earmarks). The stricter rules are often waived by unanimous consent.\n",
"The advanced rules have been periodically updated, beginning in July 2007, with the Clarifications Document. The update introduces new concepts (such as ASW harassment and strafing penalties) not present in the original rules. Since at least one unit of the Task Force expansion set directly refers to these new rules, they are implicitly considered as part of the core ruleset, despite only having been published online to date.\n",
"The rule changes were generally favored by software companies, electronics companies and US government agencies for the reasons given above. Those that favored the rule changes felt that said changes were consistent with the laws governing continuation practice.\n",
"Effective December 1, 2009 substantial amendments were made to rules 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 27, 32, 38, 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 62, 65, 68, 71.1, 72 and 81. While rules 48 and 62.1 were added. Rule 1 (f) was abrogated. The majority of the amendments affect various timing requirements and change how some deadlines are calculated. The most significant changes are to Rule 6.\n",
"In the 21st century, more programmers started to use a formalized version policy, such as the semantic versioning policy. The purpose of such policies is to make it easier for other programmers to know when code changes are likely to break things they have written. Such policies are especially important for software libraries and frameworks, but may also be very useful to follow for command-line applications (which may be called from other applications) and indeed any other applications (which may be scripted and/or extended by third parties).\n",
"The NCAA football rules committee proposed several rule changes for 2009. Before these rules were officially adopted, the proposals had to be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel. The rule changes include the following:\n",
"The Rules, established in 1938, replaced the earlier procedures under the Federal Equity Rules and the Conformity Act (28 USC 724 (1934)) merging the procedure for cases, in law and equity. The Conformity Act required that procedures in suits at law conform to state practice usually the Field Code and common law pleading systems. Significant revisions have been made to the FRCP in 1948, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1993, 2000, and 2006. (The FRCP contains a notes section that details the changes of each revision since 1938, explaining the rationale behind the language.) The revisions that took effect in December 2006 made practical changes to discovery rules to make it easier for courts and litigating parties to manage electronic records.\n"
] |
how can i help somebody with seasonal depression feel better?
|
Phototherapy is noted to help people with seasonal depression. It involves basically shining a special lamp in your indoor space to help mitigate the lack of light that comes with autumn & winter.
|
[
"A depressed mood is common during illnesses, such as influenza. It has been argued that this is an evolved mechanism that assists the individual in recovering by limiting his/her physical activity. The occurrence of low-level depression during the winter months, or seasonal affective disorder, may have been adaptive in the past, by limiting physical activity at times when food was scarce. It is argued that humans have retained the instinct to experience low mood during the winter months, even if the availability of food is no longer determined by the weather.\n",
"A recent study analyzes time-dependent rhythms in happiness comparing life satisfaction by weekdays (weekend neurosis), days of the month (negative effects towards the end of the month) and year with gender and education and outlining the differences observed. Primarily within the winter months of the year, an onset of depression can affect us, which is called seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It is recurrent, beginning in the fall or winter months, and remitting in the spring or summer. It is said that those who experience this disorder usually have a history of major depressive or bipolar disorder, which may be hereditary, having a family member affected as well.\n",
"The elderly frequently cite depression as a notable ailment. Many researchers have linked the depression to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and seasonal mood variations have been linked to lack of light. (SAD is markedly more frequent in extreme latitudes, such as the arctic and in Finland). Light therapy in the form of light boxes are a frequent non-drug treatment for SAD. Several preliminary studies have shown that light therapy is a positive treatment for depressive symptoms for older persons although more studies need to be done in this area.\n",
"Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder subset in which people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year exhibit depressive symptoms at the same time each year, most commonly in winter. Common symptoms include sleeping too much, having little to no energy, and overeating. The condition in the summer can include heightened anxiety.\n",
"Seasonal affective disorder is hypothesized to be caused by the diminishing of the exposure to environmental light which can lead to changes in levels of the neurotransmitter chemical serotonin. Diminishing active serotonin levels increases depressive symptoms. There are currently a few treatment therapies in order to help with seasonal affective disorder. The first line of therapy is light therapy. Light therapy involves exposure to bright, white light that mimics outdoor light, counteracting the presumed cause of SAD. Due to the shifts in one's neurochemical levels, antidepressants are another form of therapy. Other than light therapy and antidepressants, there are several alternatives which involve agomelatine, melatonin, psychological interventions, as well as diet and lifestyle changes.\n",
"The summer months are especially difficult for these children, as they are in hospital undergoing treatments while their healthy friends are enjoying summer camp and other fun activities. The sick children who are undergoing painful treatments are forced to avoid summer pleasures: travelling in public areas, due to their weakened immune system (as a result of the treatments), swimming, visiting beaches, and participating in summer camps that offer a wide range of activities. To help compensate them, the Hayim Association brings summer camp into the pediatric oncology departments, where children can enjoy a wide range of special activities that cater to their special needs and limitations, uplifting the children's spirits.\n",
"Cognitive behavioral therapy and occupational programs (including modification of work activities and assistance) have been shown to be effective in reducing sick days taken by workers with depression.\n"
] |
what does the "crisper" drawer in my refrigerator do and what is the benefit to putting my veggies in there?
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Actually, the crisper is the worst place to keep vegetables. They do better with air circulation and the temps higher in the fridge. The best thing to keep in the crisper are raw meats, primarily to prevent raw meat juices from dripping and contaminating anything else. The drawers are relatively easy to remove and sanitize afterward.
|
[
"A crisper drawer (also known as a crisper) is a compartment located within a refrigerator designed to prolong the freshness of stored produce. Crisper drawers have a different level of humidity from the rest of the refrigerator, optimizing freshness in fruits and vegetables. They can be adjusted to both prevent the loss of moisture from produce, and also allow ethylene gas produced by certain fruits to escape, thus preventing them from rotting quickly.\n",
"In the UK, sources often use the term \"crisper drawer\" in conjunction with a nearby explanation, like the Vegetable Expert advice website calling them \"special compartments or 'crisper drawers' to store fruits and vegetables\", the consumers' organisation \"Which?\" calling it a \"salad crisper drawer [...] for storing your fruit and veg\", and the appliance replacement firm Partmaster.co.uk calling it a \"fridge/freezer salad crisper\".\n",
"Crisper drawers operate by creating an environment of greater humidity than the rest of the refrigerator. Many crisper drawers have a separate humidity control which closes or opens a vent in the drawer. When the vent is in the closed position, airflow is shut off, creating greater humidity in the drawer. High humidity is optimal for the storage of leafy or thin-skinned vegetables such as asparagus. When the vent is in the open position, airflow keeps humidity in the crisper drawer low, which is beneficial for storage of fruits such as pears and apples. Additionally, because some fruits emit high levels of ethylene gas, the open vent allows the ethylene gas to escape instead of causing these fruits to rot. The ability to separate low-humidity fruits from high-humidity vegetables using the different crisper drawers also prevents ethylene gas from damaging the latter.\n",
"Appliance manufacturers have reported that many refrigerator owners are unaware of the purpose or operation of crisper drawers. A 2010 survey commissioned by Robert Bosch GmbH found that 55 percent of surveyed Americans \"admit to not knowing how to use their crisper drawer controls\".\n",
"The \"VacnSeal\" is an accessory intended to be installed on the underside of a kitchen cabinet, over a countertop used for food preparation. The nozzle of the device is used to evacuate excess air from a zipper lock plastic food storage bag (e.g. Ziploc), which is said by the manufacturer to preserve food freshness for a longer period of time.\n",
"In kitchen utensils, a \"spatula\" is any utensil fitting the above description. One variety is used to lift and flip food items during cooking, such as pancakes and fillets (known in British English as a fish slice). The blades on these are usually made of metal or plastic, with a wooden or plastic handle to insulate them from heat. A cookie shovel is a specialty spatula with a larger blade, made for scooping cookies off their pan or cooking sheet.\n",
"Prepackaged products may come with a utensil intended to be consumed or discarded after using it to consume the product. For instance, some single-serve ice cream is sold with a flat wooden spade, often erroneously called a \"spoon\", to lift the product to one's mouth. Prepackaged tuna salad or cracker snacks may contain a flat plastic spade for similar purposes.\n"
] |
Can moons of dramatically different size happily co-exist?
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There's nothing distinctively different between a planet's orbit around a star and a moon's orbit around a planet--there simply needs to be sufficient distance between them where "far enough" depends on the object's sizes.
Even asteroids [can have moons.](_URL_0_)
Essentially the question you need to ask is this, can the system I want to make well approximated by a two-body system, can I ignore the parent orbit? For an Earth-Moon-Sun system, the answer is yes, we can ignore the Sun, the system is stable. If we cannot, and we *have to* describe things as a 3-body system, then we risk always ejecting one of the bodies over long times as a three body system is able to easily transfer momentum around, eventually it'll wander into the phase space that unbinds one of the objects.
So to answer your question, yes. This is why we're able to have satellites around Earth as well as satellites around the Moon. One more bit of nuance, it seems like "cheating" to ignore the third body, in principle, it can contribute to momentum transfer albeit tiny ones. Luckily for us, there is plenty of situations where the "effective stability time" blows up to values magnitudes older than our universe, the Earth-Sun-Moon system is one such example.
|
[
"An intense search conducted by \"New Horizons\" confirmed that no moons larger than 4.5 km in diameter exist at the distances up to 180,000 km from Pluto (for smaller distances, this threshold is still smaller).\n",
"Only the two largest regular moons have been imaged with a resolution sufficient to discern their shapes and surface features. Larissa, about 200 km in diameter, is elongated. Proteus is not significantly elongated, but not fully spherical either: it resembles an irregular polyhedron, with several flat or slightly concave facets 150 to 250 km in diameter. At about 400 km in diameter, it is larger than the Saturnian moon Mimas, which is fully ellipsoidal. This difference may be due to a past collisional disruption of Proteus. The surface of Proteus is heavily cratered and shows a number of linear features. Its largest crater, Pharos, is more than 150 km in diameter.\n",
"Among the other dwarf planets, has no known moons. It is 90 percent certain that Ceres has no moons larger than 1 km in size, assuming that they would have the same albedo as Ceres itself. has two moons, Hi'iaka and Namaka, of radii ~195 and ~100 km, respectively. has one moon, discovered in April 2016. has one known moon, Dysnomia. Accurately determining its size is difficult: one indicative estimate of its radius is , but on some assumptions could be as high as . The Kuiper belt object 90482 Orcus, believed to be a dwarf planet, was found in 2005 to have a natural satellite, later named Vanth.\n",
"Nineteen moons are known to be massive enough to have relaxed into a rounded shape under their own gravity, though some have since frozen out of equilibrium, and seven of them are more massive than either Eris or Pluto. These moons are not physically distinct from the dwarf planets, but do not fit the IAU definition of \"dwarf planet\" because they do not directly orbit the Sun. However, Alan Stern calls planetary-mass moons \"satellite planets\", one of three categories of planet, together with dwarf planets and classical planets. The term \"planemo\" (\"planetary-mass object\") also covers all three populations.\n",
"None of Uranus's moons would appear as large as a full moon on Earth from the surface of their parent planet, but the large number of them would present an interesting sight for observers hovering above the cloudtops. The angular diameters of the five large moons are as follows (for comparison, Earth's moon measures on average 31′ for terrestrial observers): Miranda, 11–15′; Ariel, 20–23′; Umbriel, 15–17′; Titania, 11–13′; Oberon, 8–9′. Unlike on Jupiter and Saturn, many of the inner moons can be seen as disks rather than starlike points; the moons Portia and Juliet can appear around the size of Miranda at times, and a number of other inner moons appear larger than Oberon. Several others range from 6′ to 8′. The outer irregular moons would not be visible to the naked eye.\n",
"Between \"different\" full moons, the Moon's angular diameter can vary from 29.43 arcminutes at apogee to 33.5 arcminutes at perigee—an increase of around 14% in apparent diameter or 30% in apparent area. This is because of the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit.\n",
"The sizes of both moons are calculated with the assumption that they have the same infrared albedo as Haumea, which is reasonable as their spectra show them to have the same surface composition. Haumea's albedo has been measured by the Spitzer Space Telescope: from ground-based telescopes, the moons are too small and close to Haumea to be seen independently. Based on this common albedo, the inner moon, Namaka, which is a tenth the mass of Hiʻiaka, would be about 170 km in diameter.\n"
] |
Do carbon based filters (such as brita) remove essential minerals that the human body needs?
|
First: Its important to note that Brita and similar water pitchers are not just an activated carbon pitcher. There is also an ion exchange resin present in the filter. Think of this ion exchange resin as working just like a water softener (that is, because it does work exactly like a water softener).
Activated carbon is really good at removing organic materials. Its safe to say that the vast majority of organics, you don't really want in your water anyway.
The other reason to use home-filtered water is if your water is hard -- which is where the ion exchange resin comes in. This is the part of the filter that removes any minerals. The way these resins work is that they are polymers which have counter-ions attached to them. Millions and gazillions of counter ions. The polymer is set up to have a negative charge and the counter ions are set up to be positive, typically sodium (which is why your home water softener takes salt -- ie NaCl, sodium chloride). There are more advanced water softeners and filters that will also exchange anions (negatively charged ions in water).
What happens is that as the hard water flows through the pitcher, it interacts with the polymer. The polymer is designed so that it will bind to the minerals common in hard water (calcium, magnesium etc) better than it will to sodium. So it snags the "hard" tasting ions and replaces them with sodium. Eventually the filter is depleted of sodium and so the water starts to taste funny again because the resin isn't doing a good job of removing the calcium and magnesium. Home water softeners remedy this by running a highly concentrated salt water solution over the resin to force the calcium and magnesium out and replace the sodium content.
Fluoride, however, is a negatively charged ion and is not affected by the resins commonly available for home use. This is good, because fluoride is good for your teeth.
Other 'trace' minerals that you need -- hard water doesn't contain nearly enough calcium to meet dietary needs. A lot of the other even tracer metals are poorly acquired through water. Here I'm talking about some of the ones that most people don't even think about but that [bullshit pseudo-science](_URL_0_) companies are happy to sell you at a high mark up.
To wrap up, any biologist who knows better is welcome to correct me on this, but basically: No, there are no health benefits or hurts.
|
[
"Carbon ion therapy (CIRT) uses particles more massive than protons or neutrons. Carbon-ion radiotherapy has increasingly garnered scientific attention as technological delivery options have improved and clinical studies have demonstrated its treatment advantages for many cancers such as prostate, head and neck, lung, and liver cancers, bone and soft tissue sarcomas, locally recurrent rectal cancer, and pancreatic cancer, including locally advanced disease. It also has clear advantages to treat otherwise intractable hypoxic and radio-resistant cancers while opening the door for substantially hypo-fractionated treatment of normal and radio-sensitive disease.\n",
"BULLET::::- Economical: Bioleaching is in general simpler and, therefore, cheaper to operate and maintain than traditional processes, since fewer specialists are needed to operate complex chemical plants.\n",
"The same capability of natural organic matter that helps with water retention in soil creates problems for current water purification methods. In water, organic matter can still bind to metal ions and minerals. These bound molecules are not necessarily stopped by the purification process, but do not cause harm to any humans, animals, or plants. However, because of the high level of reactivity of organic matter, by-products that do not contain nutrients can be made. These by-products can induce biofouling, which essentially clogs water filtration systems in water purification facilities, as the by-products are larger than membrane pore sizes. This clogging problem can be treated by chlorine disinfection (chlorination), which can break down residual material that clogs systems. However, chlorination can form disinfection by-products.\n",
"BULLET::::- Fertilizing nutrients: Human excreta contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other micronutrients that are needed for agricultural production. These can be recovered through chemical precipitation or stripping processes, or simply by use of the wastewater or sewage sludge. However, reuse of sewage sludge poses risks due to high concentrations of undesirable compounds, such as heavy metals, environmental persistent pharmaceutical pollutants and other chemicals. Since the majority of fertilizing nutrients are found in excreta, it can be useful to separate the excreta fractions of wastewater (e.g. toilet waste) from the rest of the wastewater flows. This reduces the risk for undesirable compounds and reduces the volume that needs to be treated before applying recovered nutrients in agricultural production.\n",
"A very small number of dietary and nutritional supplement companies are currently pioneering the benefits of this unique science towards this new application. This new direction and employment of liposome science is in part due to the low absorption and bioavailability rates of traditional oral dietary and nutritional tablets and capsules. The low oral bioavailability and absorption of many nutrients is clinically well documented. Therefore, the natural encapsulation of lypophilic and hydrophilic nutrients within liposomes has made for a very effective method of bypassing the destructive elements of the gastric system and aiding the encapsulated nutrient to be delivered to the cells and tissues.\n",
"In the chemical industry, these enzymes have allowed the development of new detergents and washing-up liquids; in the paper industry they play a very important role in bleaching processes, minimizing toxicity and being more economic; and in biotechnological research, the use of the cellulose binding domains from fibrolytic enzymes has allowed the purification of recombinant proteins.\n",
"Mass-consumption disposable products such as diapers necessitate development of biodegradable HMAs. Research is being performed on e.g., lactic acid polyesters, polycaprolactone with soy protein, etc.\n"
] |
why don't credit cards just use 19 digits instead of 16 digits plus 3 digit "security code"?
|
The CVV is separate from the card number, so if people record your card number (such as a card skimmer), they don't have access to the 3 digit security code.
If you made it 19 digit, then 1 swipe and they have all they need to literally take all your cash.
|
[
"The international standard for financial services PIN management, ISO 9564-1, allows for PINs from four up to twelve digits, but recommends that for usability reasons the card issuer not assign a PIN longer than six digits. The inventor of the ATM, John Shepherd-Barron, had at first envisioned a six-digit numeric code, but his wife could only remember four digits, and that has become the most commonly used length in many places, although banks in Switzerland and many other countries require a six-digit PIN.\n",
"Two-digit codes are used with eight-digit subscriber numbers, three-digit codes with seven-digit numbers, and four-digit codes with six-digit numbers so the full telephone number is always ten digits.\n",
"In addition to the main credit card number, credit cards also carry issue and expiration dates (given to the nearest month), as well as extra codes such as issue numbers and security codes. Not all credit cards have the same sets of extra codes nor do they use the same number of digits.\n",
"An analysis of user-selected PIN codes suggested that ten numbers represent 15% of all iPhone passcodes, with \"1234\" and \"0000\" being the most common, with years of birth and graduation also being common choices. Even if a four-digit PIN is randomly selected, the key space is very small (formula_1 or 10,000 possibilities), making PINs significantly easier to brute force than most passwords; someone with physical access to a handset secured with a PIN can therefore feasibly determine the PIN in a short time.\n",
"The standard specifies that PINs shall be from four to twelve digits long, noting that longer PINs are more secure but harder to use. It also suggests that the issuer should not assign PINs longer than six digits.\n",
"6-digit codes are commonly provided by proprietary hardware tokens from a number of vendors informing the default value of \"d\". Truncation extracts 31 bits or formula_1 ≈ 9.3 decimal digits, meaning, at most, \"d\" can be 10, with the 10th digit providing less extra variation, taking values of 0, 1, and 2 (i.e., 0.3 digits).\n",
"An encrypted credit card number is susceptible to brute-force attacks because not every string of digits is equally likely. The number of digits can range from 13-19, though 16 is the most common. Additionally it must have a valid IIN and the last digit must match the checksum. An attacker can also take into account the popularity of various services: an IIN from MasterCard is probably more likely than an IIN from Diners Club Carte Blanche.\n"
] |
why are the brussels and paris attacks so publicized and mourned over when others, like the current pakistani bombings, kill more and do more damage?
|
It's pretty much accepted that that part of the world is basically a warzone. Nobody's too surprised if something explodes or people die there.
However if it happens in a modern major city, that IS a nasty shock. That kind of thing isn't "supposed" to happen in a "civilised area".
Remember in the Dark Knight how the Joker talked about nobody panicking when things went "according to plan" even if the plan is horrifying? That's exactly it. You expect bombs to go off in a warzone, you don't expect them to go off in the middle of a major European city.
|
[
"The perpetrators belonged to a terrorist cell which had been involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks. The Brussels bombings happened shortly after a series of police raids targeting the group. The bombings were the deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium's history. The Belgian government declared three days of national mourning.\n",
"Governments, media outlets, and social media users received criticism in some media and academic analysis for their disproportionate emphasis placed on the attacks in Brussels over similar attacks in other countries, particularly in Turkey, which occurred days before. Similarly, reactions to the November 2015 Paris attacks were viewed as disproportionate in comparison to those of earlier bombings in Beirut. According to Akin Unver, a professor of international affairs at Istanbul's Kadir Has University, being \"selective\" about terrorism is counterproductive to the global counterterrorism efforts.\n",
"Brussels has been on high alert since the November 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Brussels bombings. The Brussels police conducted major police operations in early 2016 against terrorism suspects. Salah Abdeslam and other suspects were arrested in these raids. Because of the police raids the Belgian crime rate has dropped but the illegal weapon trade, number of armed robberies and terrorism-related incidents in Brussels have significantly increased.\n",
"Before the bombings, several Islamist terrorist attacks had originated from Belgium, and a number of counter-terrorist operations had been carried out there. Between 2014 and 2015, the number of wiretapping and surveillance operations directed at suspected terrorists by Belgian intelligence almost doubled. In May 2014, a gunman with ties to the Syrian Civil War attacked the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. In January 2015, anti-terrorist operations against a group thought to be planning a second \"Charlie Hebdo\" shooting had included raids in Brussels and Zaventem. The operation resulted in the deaths of two suspects. In August 2015, a suspected terrorist shot and stabbed passengers aboard a high-speed train on its way from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels, before he was subdued by passengers.\n",
"BULLET::::- : Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said that what happened in Brussels disasters and is horrified by these events, but believes Europe and the world will be able to find the best response to the terrorist attacks.\n",
"From 21 November to 25 November 2015, the government of Belgium imposed a security lockdown on Brussels, including the closure of shops, schools, public transportation, due to information about potential terrorist attacks in the wake of the series of coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on November 13. One of the perpetrators of the attack, Belgian-born French national Salah Abdeslam, was thought to be hiding in the city. As a result of warnings of a serious and imminent threat, the terror alert level was raised to the highest level (four) across the Brussels metropolitan area, and people were advised not to congregate publicly, effectively putting the city under lockdown.\n",
"BULLET::::- : President Hassan Rouhani has \"firmly condemned\" terrorist bomb explosions in the Belgian capital city of Brussels: “Firmly condemn terrorist attacks in Brussels. Deepest condolences to the government and people of Belgium, especialy those who lost loved one“, saying Rouhani in his Twitter account. Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hossein Ansari also condemned the twin blasts in Brussels, stressing the importance of adopting all-embracing efforts to fight terrorism which is threatening the entire world.\n"
] |
where and how does all the energy created by power plants get stored? or is the power being generated as it's needed?
|
The latter, mostly. In the case of plants that use some sort of fuel, the energy is *already* stored in whatever fuel that is being used. Generating energy from the fuel first, and then storing it back inside something else to be extracted later is a *huge* waste of everything. When you have too much power, you use less fuel. When you have too little, you use more, it's generally as simple as that.
In case of solar plants and such however, it gets interesting. Storing large amounts of energy is one of the biggest problems of today's engineering and there is considerable research being done about this very issue. There are some ways of storing the energy that a solar plant generates during the day, but they aren't exactly ideal. It usually revolves around conversion of electricity into some other form of energy. Like using the power from a solar plant to pump very large amounts of water uphill, which is essentially converting electrical energy into potential energy. You later let the water flow downhill and turn some turbines to generate electricity again. Or you could use the power from your soalr plant to pump air inside a huge tank to create pressure, and when needed you let the highly pressurized air out and, again, turn turbines with it. Obviously there are considerable losses involved in such techniques, but energy storage technology is still a developing one. We're getting there.
|
[
"Grid energy storage (also called large-scale energy storage) is a collection of methods used to store electrical energy on a large scale within an electrical power grid. Electrical energy is stored during times when production (especially from intermittent power plants such as renewable electricity sources such as wind power, tidal power, solar power) exceeds consumption, and returned to the grid when production falls below consumption.\n",
"Many individual energy storage projects augment electrical grids by capturing excess electrical energy during periods of low demand and storing it in other forms until needed on an electrical grid. The energy is later converted back to its electrical form and returned to the grid as needed.\n",
"One grid energy storage method is to use off-peak or renewably generated electricity to compress air, which is usually stored in an old mine or some other kind of geological feature. When electricity demand is high, the compressed air is heated with a small amount of natural gas and then goes through turboexpanders to generate electricity.\n",
"The pumped-storage power plant will operate by using two reservoirs to generate power, an upper and a lower. During periods of high energy demand, water is released from the upper reservoir and sent to the power station to generate electricity. After power generation, the water is discharged into the lower reservoir. When energy demand is low, such as at night, water is pumped back up to the upper reservoir as stored energy. The process repeats as needed and the pump-generators serve the dual-role of both pumping and generating electricity. Forming the lower reservoir will be a tall and long concrete-face rock-fill dam (CFRD). Its storage capacity will be of which is active (or 'usable') for pumping. The upper reservoir will be formed by a CFRD as well, this one will be tall and long, withholding a man-made lake. The normal elevation of the lower reservoir will be and the upper . This difference in elevation affords a rated hydraulic head of . The power station will be located underground near the bank of the lower reservoir and contain six 300 MW Francis pump turbine-generators.\n",
"As a pumped-storage power plant, it uses two reservoirs to produce electricity and store energy. The upper reservoir stores water (energy) for periods when electricity demand is high. During these periods, water from the upper reservoir is released down to the power plant to produce hydroelectricity. Water from the power plant is then discharged into the lower reservoir. When energy demand is low, usually at night, water is pumped from the lower reservoir back up to the upper reservoir. The upper reservoir can be replenished in as little as 7.2 hours. The same turbine-generators that are used to generate electricity reverse into pumps during pumping mode.\n",
"In addition to electrical production, they may also be used for pumped storage, where a reservoir is filled by the turbine (acting as a pump) driven by the generator acting as a large electrical motor during periods of low power demand, and then reversed and used to generate power during peak demand. These pump storage reservoirs act as large energy storage sources to store \"excess\" electrical energy in the form of water in elevated reservoirs. This is one of a few methods that allow temporary excess electrical capacity to be stored for later utilization.\n",
"Some forms of storage that produce electricity include pumped-storage hydroelectric dams, rechargeable batteries, thermal storage including molten salts which can efficiently store and release very large quantities of heat energy, and compressed air energy storage, flywheels, cryogenic systems and superconducting magnetic coils.\n"
] |
Has anyone ever taught a computer to code?
|
You might be describing something a bit like [genetic programming.](_URL_0_) I believe these still require someone to determine the fitness of each program, but if you have some desired output and a set input, you can have something compare what the program produces to what you want the output to be and the algorithm will fix itself, maybe. Disclaimer, I'm just a student and don't know a ton about computer science just yet! So that could all be wrong. First thing that popped into my head though on reading this post.
[Here's a program](_URL_1_) that can write music based on previous works and a human teacher for its output.
Hah, and [here's the album](_URL_2_) it wrote. Ridiculous.
|
[
"The first computer codes were specialized for their applications: e.g., Alonzo Church was able to express the lambda calculus in a formulaic way and the Turing machine was an abstraction of the operation of a tape-marking machine.\n",
"John Mauchly's Short Code, proposed in 1949, was one of the first high-level languages ever developed for an electronic computer. Unlike machine code, Short Code statements represented mathematical expressions in understandable form. However, the program had to be translated into machine code every time it ran, making the process much slower than running the equivalent machine code.\n",
"The computer could be programmed using an assembly language system called QUIKOMP(TM), but its simple machine language instruction set and slow operation speed encouraged many programmers to code directly in machine language.\n",
"The program STUDENT, written in 1964 by Daniel Bobrow for his PhD dissertation at MIT is one of the earliest known attempts at natural-language understanding by a computer. Eight years after John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence, Bobrow's dissertation (titled \"Natural Language Input for a Computer Problem Solving System\") showed how a computer could understand simple natural language input to solve algebra word problems.\n",
"However, the first computer program is generally dated to 1843, when mathematician Ada Lovelace published an algorithm to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, intended to be carried out by Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. \n",
"Codes and information by machines were first conceptualized by Charles Babbage in the early 1800s. Babbage imagined that these codes would give him instructions for his Motor of Difference and Analytical Engine, machines that Babbage had designed to solve the problem of error in calculations.\n",
"Machine code is the only language a computer can process directly without a previous transformation. Currently, programmers almost never write programs directly in machine code, because it requires attention to numerous details that a high-level language handles automatically. Furthermore it requires memorizing or looking up numerical codes for every instruction, and is extremely difficult to modify.\n"
] |
Historically, how long have Arabs been the dominant ethnic group in the Middle East?
|
Unfortunately I don't think this an answerable question. "Arab blood" does not define Arabness. Arabness is at least partially a linguistically defined ethnicity. That's why dark-skinned dark-eyed [Anwar Sadat](_URL_2_) is just as much an Arab as light-skinned blue-eyed [Bashar al-Assad](_URL_0_) is an Arab.
Aside from that definitional issue, our earliest sources, including biblical references, are to "Saracens", not Arabs. It's not at all clear who is being referred to when these classical sources are referring to Saracens. For instance while some sources might be using it in the sense that we mean of "ethnicity", and therefore define the area of territory occupied by Saracens broadly, others are using an unusually narrow definition, where, for instance, Saracens are the people who live in one very specific place. [This can easily be misrepresented by Arab nationalists](_URL_1_) in cumulative fashion as suggesting that some huge portion of the Middle East was meaningfully "Arab" from a very early period. Maybe. I'm hugely, hugely skeptical.
Most of the writers we're relying on for these descriptions in the classical era have never been to the Middle East, have no idea who lives there, and the picture will remain fuzzy until the Arab conquests themselves.
I think the best we can probably do is to say that there were strong tribal connections throughout the region. Quite good linguistic connections. But making definitive statements in terms of percentages for ethnic populations is just not possible.
|
[
"The earliest and most significant instance of \"Arabization\" was the first Muslim conquests of Muhammad and the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates. They built a Muslim Empire that grew well beyond the Arabian Peninsula, eventually reaching as far as Spain in the West and Central Asia to the East.\n",
"Arab nationalism, a movement toward liberating and empowering the Arab peoples of the Middle East, emerged during the latter 19th century, inspired by other independence movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. As the Ottoman Empire declined and the Middle East was carved up by the Great Powers of Europe, Arabs sought to establish their own independent nations ruled by Arabs rather than foreigners. Syria was established in 1920; Transjordan (later Jordan) gradually gained independence between 1921 and 1946; Saudi Arabia was established in 1932; and Egypt achieved gradually gained independence between 1922 and 1952. The Arab League was established in 1945 to promote Arab interests and cooperation between the new Arab states.\n",
"Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic speaking groups. Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas.\n",
"Arabization describes a growing cultural influence on a non-Arab area that gradually changes into one that speaks Arabic and/or incorporates Arab culture. It was most prominently achieved during the 7th-century Arabian Muslim conquests which spread the Arabic language, culture, and—having been carried out by Arabian Muslims as opposed to Arab Christians or Arabic-speaking Jews—the religion of Islam to the lands they conquered. The result: some elements of Arabian origin combined in various forms and degrees with elements taken from conquered civilizations and ultimately denominated \"Arab\", as opposed to \"Arabian\".\n",
"The Arabs historically originate as a Central Semitic group in the Arabian peninsula. Their expansion beyond Arabia and the Syrian desert is due to the Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) was conquered in 633, Levant (modern Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and tine) between 636 and 640 CE.\n",
"The region was not originally Arab – its Arabization was a consequence of the inclusion of Palestine within the rapidly expanding Arab Empire conquered by Arabian tribes and their local allies in the first millennium, most significantly during the Islamic conquest of Syria in the 7th century. Palestine, then a Hellenized region controlled by the Byzantine empire, with a large Christian population, came under the political and cultural influence of Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties, including the Kurdish Ayyubids. From the conquest down to the 11th century, half of the world's Christians lived under the new Muslim order and there was no attempt for that period to convert them. Over time, nonetheless, much of the existing population of Palestine was Arabized and gradually converted to Islam. Arab populations had existed in Palestine prior to the conquest, and some of these local Arab tribes and Bedouin fought as allies of Byzantium in resisting the invasion, which the archaeological evidence indicates was a 'peaceful conquest', and the newcomers were allowed to settle in the old urban areas. Theories of population decline compensated by the importation of foreign populations are not confirmed by the archaeological record Like other \"Arabized\" Arab nations the Arab identity of Palestinians, largely based on linguistic and cultural affiliation, is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins. The Palestinian population has grown dramatically. For several centuries during the Ottoman period the population in Palestine declined and fluctuated between 150,000 and 250,000 inhabitants, and it was only in the 19th century that a rapid population growth began to occur.\n",
"The dominance of the Arabs came to a sudden end in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuq Turks, migrating south from the Turkic homelands in Central Asia. They conquered Persia, Iraq (capturing Baghdad in 1055), Syria, Palestine, and the Hejaz. This was followed by a series of Christian Western Europe invasions. The fragmentation of the Middle East allowed joint European forces mainly from England, France, and the emerging Holy Roman Empire, to enter the region. In 1099 the knights of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which survived until 1187, when Saladin retook the city. Smaller crusader fiefdoms survived until 1291. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the armies of the Mongol Empire, swept through the region, sacking Baghdad in the Siege of Baghdad (1258) and advancing as far south as the border of Egypt in what became known as the Mongol conquests. The Mongols eventually retreated in 1335, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuq Turks. In 1401, the region was further plagued by the Turko-Mongol, Timur, and his ferocious raids. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the Ottomans.\n"
] |
what exactly is that steamy-looking stuff that comes out right after a beer bottle is opened?
|
Water vapour condensed out of the air due to the sudden drop in pressure in the neck of the bottle would be my guess.
|
[
"\"Beer\" consisted of a cylindrical metal container in diameter and long containing seven or eight half-pint bottles. Each bottle was a SIP grenade - it contained white phosphorus, benzene, water and a strip of raw rubber, long, which dissolved and formed a layer. After a delay caused by a slow burning fuse, the metal container was tipped open and its contents allowed to fall out. Around the neck of each bottle was a small metal sleeve that held a heavy ball about in diameter. The ball was attached to a strip of canvas; this ensured that when the bottles dropped they fell the right way round. The SIP grenades would spontaneously ignite on shattering.\n",
"There have been various explanations for the use of the name \"steam beer\". According to Anchor Brewing, the name \"steam\" came from the fact that the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name. Another explanation is that the carbon dioxide pressure produced by the 19th-century steam-beer-making process was very high, and that it may have been necessary as part of the process to let off \"steam\" before attempting to dispense the beer. It is also possible that the name or brewing process derive from \"Dampfbier\" (literally \"steam beer\"), a traditional German beer that was also fermented at unusually high temperatures and that may have been known to 19th-century American brewers, many of whom were of German descent; Dampfbier is an ale, however, not a lager.\n",
"When the can is opened, the pressure in the can quickly drops, causing the pressurised gas and beer inside the widget to jet out from the hole. This agitation on the surrounding beer causes a chain reaction of bubble formation throughout the beer. The result, when the can is then poured out, is a surging mixture in the glass of very small gas bubbles and liquid.\n",
"The two-liter bottle is a common container for soft drinks, beer, and wine. These bottles are produced from polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET plastic, or glass using the blow molding process. Bottle labels consist of a printed, tight-fitted plastic sleeve. A resealable screw-top allows the contents to be used at various times while retaining carbonation.\n",
"The first step in bottling beer is \"depalletising\", where the empty bottles are removed from the original pallet packaging delivered from the manufacturer, so that individual bottles may be handled. The bottles may then be rinsed with filtered water or air, and may have carbon dioxide injected into them in attempt to reduce the level of oxygen within the bottle. The bottle then enters a \"filler\" which fills the bottle with beer and may also inject a small amount of inert gas (usually carbon dioxide or nitrogen) on top of the beer to disperse the oxygen, as oxygen can ruin the quality of the product via oxidation. Finally, the bottles go through a \"capper\", which applies a bottle cap, sealing the bottle. A few beers are bottled with a cork and cage.\n",
"The bottle is partly filled with water and sealed. The bottle is then pressurized with a gas, usually air compressed from a bicycle pump, air compressor, or cylinder up to 125 psi, but sometimes CO or nitrogen from a cylinder.\n",
"From the cooker, the mash heads to the fermenter where it is cooled to 60–70 °F and yeast is added again. The yeast is fed by the sugars in the mash, producing heat, carbon dioxide and alcohol. Called \"distiller's beer\" or \"wash\", the resulting liquid (after filtering to remove solids) looks, smells and tastes like (and essentially is) a form of beer. The wash is pumped into a column still where it is heated to over 200 °F, causing the alcohol to turn to a vapor. As the vapor cools and falls it turns to a liquid called \"low wine\", which measures 125 proof or 62.5% alcohol. A second distillation in a pot still heats and condenses the liquid into \"high wine\", which reaches 135 proof (67.5% alcohol).\n"
] |
What would need to happen in order for it to be called the LAW of evolution?
|
There's nothing weak about the word theory. For instance, quantum field theory is the most accurate description of nature that we have.
As for laws and theorems in physics:
*Bell's theorem
*Newton's law of gravity, laws of motion, law of heating and cooling
*Kirkchoff's laws
*Kepler's laws
*Laws of thermodynamics
Are a few
|
[
"The statement is often misinterpreted as claiming that evolution is not reversible, or that lost structures and organs cannot reappear in the same form by any process of devolution. According to Richard Dawkins, the law is \"really just a statement about the statistical improbability of following exactly the same evolutionary trajectory twice (or, indeed, any particular trajectory), in either direction\". Stephen Jay Gould suggested that irreversibility forecloses certain evolutionary pathways once broad forms have emerged: \"[For example], once you adopt the ordinary body plan of a reptile, hundreds of options are forever closed, and future possibilities must unfold within the limits of inherited design.\"\n",
"To explain the presence of such a universal \"law\" Peirce proposes a \"cosmological theory of evolution\" in which law develops out of chance. The hypothesis that \"out of irregularity, regularity constantly evolves\" seemed to him to have decided advantages not the least being its explanation of \"why laws are not precisely or always obeyed, for what is still in a process of evolution can not be supposed to be absolutely fixed.\"\n",
"This \"Borel's Law\" is actually the universal probability bound, which when applied to evolution is axiomatically incorrect. The universal probability bound assumes that the event one is trying to measure is completely random, and some use this argument to prove that evolution could not possibly occur, since its probability would be much less than that of the universal probability bound. This, however, is fallacious, given that evolution is not a completely random effect (genetic drift), but rather proceeds with the aid of natural selection.\n",
"BULLET::::- Dollo's law: \"An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors.\" Simply put this law states that evolution is not reversible; the \"law\" is regarded as a generalisation as exceptions may exist.\n",
"Creationists argue against evolution on the grounds that it cannot explain certain non-evolutionary processes, such as abiogenesis, the Big Bang, or the meaning of life. In such instances, \"evolution\" is being redefined to refer to the entire history of the universe, and it is argued that if one aspect of the universe is seemingly inexplicable, the entire body of scientific theories must be baseless. At this point, objections leave the arena of evolutionary biology and become general scientific or philosophical disputes.\n",
"In 2007, Behe's book \"The Edge of Evolution\" was published arguing that while evolution can produce changes within species, there is a limit to the ability of evolution to generate diversity, and this limit (the \"edge of evolution\") is somewhere between species and orders.\n",
"Another objection is that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. The law states that \"the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium\". In other words, an isolated system's entropy (a measure of the dispersal of energy in a physical system so that it is not available to do mechanical work) will tend to increase or stay the same, not decrease. Creationists argue that evolution violates this physical law by requiring a decrease in entropy, or disorder, over time.\n"
] |
why hockey refs fake a puck drop during a face off?
|
So that players who try to anticipate the drop and thus start their swing faster don't get an advantage. They are supposed to wait until the puck is dropped to start their swing.
|
[
"BULLET::::- In amateur ice hockey, intentionally icing the puck, lining up at the wrong face-off dot, or shooting the puck over the glass (in professional hockey, the team that ices the puck is not allowed a line change, while shooting the puck over the glass leads to a two-minute penalty).\n",
"A team which shoots the puck forward from their half of the ice over the opposing team's goal line in an effort to stonewall is guilty of icing, and the puck is brought to the other end of the ice for a face-off. The rule is not in effect when a team is playing shorthanded due to a penalty. Additionally, a player (usually a goalkeeper) may be charged with a minor (two-minute) penalty for delay of game for shooting the puck over the glass and out of play.\n",
"In ice hockey, if the puck gets knocked out of play (such as into the player's benches, over the glass, or into the netting), a face-off shall be conducted at the nearest face-off dot to where the puck had gone out of play. However, if the puck is directly shot out of bounds over the glass deliberately by a player such as a goaltender or any defensive player within their own defensive zone, a delay of game minor penalty shall be assessed on the offending player.\n",
"During a faceoff, a player may be judged to be in an offside position if they are lined up within 15 feet of the centres before the puck is dropped. This may result in a faceoff violation, at which point the official dropping the puck will wave the centre out of the faceoff spot and require that another player take their place. If one team commits two violations during the same attempt to restart play, it will be assessed a minor penalty for delay of game.\n",
"BULLET::::- The practice of dropping the puck from a few feet up at faceoff rather than placing it directly on the ice, which limited player contact with the referee's shins and ankles during faceoffs.\n",
"Prior to the puck being dropped for a face-off, players other than those taking the face-off must not make any physical contact with players on the opposite team, nor enter the face-off circle (where marked). After the puck is dropped, it is essential for wingers to engage the opposing players to prevent them from obtaining possession of the puck.\n",
"Directly as a result of the rat trick craze, the NHL amended its rules prior to the season to prevent a recurrence of this phenomenon and delays to the game that followed. Per the rule, if fans throw debris onto the ice, the referee can have the public address announcer warn the fans to stop. After a warning, the referee can then issue a delay of game penalty to the home team. The league, however, created a special exemption for articles \"thrown onto the ice following a special occasion\", specifically excluding the traditional tossing of hats onto the ice following a hat trick goal from subjection to the penalty.\n"
] |
why are cans in hawaii shaped differently than regular soda cans?
|
This is an older design of common cans. Let this guy shed some light on it in the most interesting can-related video ever produced:
_URL_0_
|
[
"Cans come in a variety of shapes: two common ones are the \"soup tin\" and the \"tuna tin\". Walls are often stiffened with rib bulges, especially on larger cans, to help the can resist dents that can cause seams to split.\n",
"The American mechanical engineer and inventor Nathaniel Wyeth first patented PET in 1973 and soda companies soon started using PET to package their drinks. Over the past 20 years or so, PET bottles have become the most common material to package beverages, replacing glass and metal. Especially water and soda was starting to be packaged in PET bottles. This is because PET has certain material properties that make it more favorable than glass or metal cans. Most importantly, PET is lightweight and difficult to break. Further, PET is clear and has \"good barrier properties towards moisture and oxygen\". Because of these qualities, PET has replaced glass bottles and metal cans in many instances, with PET bottles also being used for energy drinks, beer, wine, and juice. The introduction of PET bottles marked the final stage in the change away from reusable bottles to \"one-way\", nonreturnable bottles.\n",
"Most cans are right circular cylinders with identical and parallel round tops and bottoms with vertical sides. However, cans for small volumes or particularly-shaped contents, the top and bottom may be rounded-corner rectangles or ovals. Other contents may suit a can that is somewhat conical in shape.\n",
"In the past, \"khanom la\" was made from coconut shell because formerly, there were no cans. People will made in the coconut shell several small holes. In Thailand we call coconut is “Kala”(). Now, they use the canned drilling small holes into device instead of coconut shell.\n",
"Because it is easy and inexpensive to make, it is often served as a punch. At its simplest, it is a bottle or two of plain or coconut-flavored light rum, a bottle of blue curacao, a can of pineapple juice, and a bag of ice, mixed together in a punchbowl. The Blue Hawaii is seasonal, often considered a summer or warm weather drink. Occasionally, because it contains yellow pineapple juice, the Blue Hawaii will have a green coloration instead.\n",
"During the war, soldiers frequently requested that the cylindrical cans be replaced with flat, rectangular ones (similar to a sardine can), comparable to those used in the earliest versions of contemporary K rations, because of their compactness and packability; but this was deemed impractical because of the shortage of commercial machinery available to produce rectangular cans. After 1942 the K ration too, reverted to the use of small round cans.\n",
"Can design and shape have changed drastically. The earliest cans were simple in terms of graphic design and were often corrugated in the middle two-thirds of the can. Cans with straight steel sides appeared next, finally settling on a more modern shape. Like the earlier cans, this type also starts as a flat sheet that is curled and seamed. Extruded steel is also used extensively. Aluminum coffee cans are almost non-existent, although UCC Black is a notable exception.\n"
] |
Would an ancient Roman be able to read and understand the Latin Wikipedia?
|
Post this to r/latin--I think they'd get a kick out of it. :)
|
[
"Roman authors, such as Sallust, allude to some books written in the Punic language, but none have survived except occasionally in translation (e.g., Mago's treatise) or in snippets (e.g., in Plautus' plays). The Cippi of Melqart, a bilingual inscription in Ancient Greek and Carthaginian discovered in Malta in 1694, was the key which allowed French scholar Jean-Jacques Barthélemy to decipher and reconstruct the alphabet in 1758. Even as late as 1837 only 70 Phoenician inscriptions were known to scholars. These were compiled in Wilhelm Gesenius's \"Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta\", which comprised all that was known of Phoenician by scholars at that time.\n",
"An intensive program with PhD level professors of Latin who impart grammar, syntax, and vocabulary through related readings of poetry and prose from various moments in Rome's history. Students also engage with Latin as a spoken language. Morning classroom teaching is followed with afternoon walks through the city reading ancient authors in the locations where history happened, as well as inscriptions in their original locations.\n",
"There is even a Latin Wikipedia, although discussions are held not only in Latin but in German, English, and other languages as well. Nearly 200 active editors work on the project. There are nearly 100,000 articles on topics ranging from to , , and . Those in particularly good Latin, currently about 10% of the whole, are marked.\n",
"Even though science continued under the Roman Empire, Latin texts were mainly compilations drawing on earlier Greek work. Advanced scientific research and teaching continued to be carried on in Greek. Such Greek and Hellenistic works as survived were preserved and developed later in the Byzantine Empire and then in the Islamic world. Late Roman attempts to translate Greek writings into Latin had limited success, and direct knowledge of most ancient Greek texts only reached western Europe from the 12th century onwards.\n",
"Wheelock's Latin (originally titled Latin and later Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors) is a comprehensive beginning Latin textbook. Chapters introduce related grammatical topics and assume little or no prior knowledge of Latin grammar or language. Each chapter has a collection of translation exercises created specifically for the book, most drawn directly from ancient sources. Those from Roman authors (\"Sententiae Antiquae\"—lit., \"ancient sentences\" or \"ancient thoughts\") and the reading passages that follow may be either direct quotations or adapted paraphrases of the originals. Interspersed in the text are introductory remarks on Ancient Roman culture. At the end of each chapter is a section called \"Latina Est Gaudium — Et Utilis!\", which means \"Latin Is Fun — And Useful!\" This section introduces phrases that can be used in conversation (such as \"Quid agis hodie?\", meaning \"How are you today?\"), and in particular comments on English words and their relation to Latin. Originally published in 1956 in the Barnes & Noble College Outline Series, the textbook is currently in its seventh edition. The 6th edition has been translated into Korean (2005), with a Korean translation of the 7th edition pending; the 7th edition has been translated into Chinese (2017).\n",
"The Latin Wikipedia () is the Latin language edition of Wikipedia, created in May 2002. As of 2020, it has about articles. While all primary content is in Latin, in discussions modern languages such as English, Italian, French, German or Spanish are often used, since many users (\"usores\") find this easier.\n",
"The full, critically edited Latin text is to be found in the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (MHSI), \"Constitutiones\", vol.1, Rome, 1934, pp. 24-32. Also in Reich, \"Documents\", pp. 216-219, and a condensed version in Robinson, \"European History\", ii. 161-165.\n"
] |
how have members of the bush admin not been charged with committing war crimes yet?
|
This is bull they by definition did commi war crimes facts are not opinions
|
[
"Bugliosi argues that, under the felony-murder rule, the resulting deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians (as of spring 2008) since hostilities began can be charged against Bush as second-degree murder. He said that any of the 50 state attorneys general, as well as any district attorney in the United States, had sufficient grounds to indict Bush for the murder of any soldier or soldiers who live in their state or county\n",
"On May 12, 2012, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found Yoo, along with former President Bush, former Vice President Cheney, and several other senior members of the Bush administration, guilty of war crimes in absentia. The trial heard \"harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan\".\n",
"He also believed that George W. Bush should have been charged with the murders of more than 4,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq since the American-led invasion of that country, because of his belief that Bush launched the invasion under false pretenses. In his book, \"The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,\" he laid out his view of evidence and outlined what questions he would ask Bush at a potential murder trial. Bugliosi testified at a House Judiciary Committee meeting on July 25, 2008, at which he urged impeachment proceedings for Bush. The book formed the basis of a 2012 documentary film, \"The Prosecution of an American President.\" \n",
"The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder is a 2008 book by Vincent Bugliosi, a former prosecutor in Los Angeles. He argues that President George W. Bush took the United States into the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses and should be tried for murder for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. \n",
"With the War Crimes Act in mind, this ruling presented the Bush administration with the risk of criminal liability for war crimes. To address these legal problems, the president requested and Congress passed the Military Commissions Act.\n",
"In early 2004, \"Chronicle\" reporter Lucas Wall interviewed the family of Leroy Sandoval, a Marine from Houston who was killed in Iraq. After the article appeared, Sandoval's stepfather and sister called into Houston talk radio station KSEV and said that a sentence alleging \"President Bush's failure to find weapons of mass destruction\" in Iraq misrepresented their views on the war and President George W. Bush, that Wall had pressured them for a quotation that criticized Bush, and that the line alleging Bush's \"failure\" was included against the wishes of the family.\n",
"Bugliosi argues that, under the felony-murder rule, the resulting deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi civilians (as of spring 2008) since hostilities began can be charged against Bush as second-degree murder. He said that any of the 50 state attorneys general, as well as any district attorney in the United States, had sufficient grounds to indict Bush for the murder of any soldier or soldiers who live in their state or county. Bugliosi said as a prosecutor he would seek the death penalty. He said that an impeachment of Bush (as discussed by other opponents) would be \"a joke\" because of the scale of Bush's alleged crimes.\n"
] |
what does board mean in room and board?
|
If someone is offering "room and board", they are offering to house and feed you (generally). This sometimes is forgotten, but that's what it means.
|
[
"Room and board describes a situation where, in exchange for money, labor or other considerations, a person is provided with a place to live as well as meals on a comprehensive basis. It commonly occurs as a fee at colleges and universities; it also occurs in hotel-style accommodation for short stays.\n",
"The \"floor\" is the name for the full assembly, and a \"committee\" is a small deliberative assembly that is usually subordinate to the floor. In the United Kingdom, either chamber may opt to take some business such as detailed consideration of a Bill on the Floor of the House instead of in Committee.\n",
"A floor model is a piece of equipment placed in a retail shop's sales area for display purposes. Floor models are taken out of their packaging and displayed how they would be used. In the case of furniture, stores will arrange pieces as they may be placed in the home. Appliances, such as microwaves, refrigerators, and washing machines, are typically put into rows so customers may compare the different models. Consumer electronics are typically plugged into an electric outlet, cable or satellite television feed, or local area network as appropriate. In all cases, floor models allow customers to test the quality of the displayed merchandise, or compare between different models of a certain type.\n",
"Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. Both terms are used interchangeably but floor covering refers more to loose-laid materials.\n",
"A \"board\", which is an administrative, managerial, or quasi-judicial body. A board derives its power from an outside authority that defines the scope of its operations. Examples include an organized society's or company's board of directors and government agency boards like a board of education.\n",
"The board is a square divided into seven rows and columns. The outer centre squares on each side of the board are specially marked. They are the starting squares for each player, and also function as \"resting squares\".\n",
"A floor trader is a member of a stock or commodities exchange who trades on the floor of that exchange for his or her own account. The floor trader must abide by trading rules similar to those of the exchange specialists who trade on behalf of others. The term should not be confused with floor broker. Floor traders are occasionally referred to as registered competitive traders, individual liquidity providers or locals.\n"
] |
If an atom emits a photon when an excited electron returns to ground state, can that happen without the atom being heated up?
|
There are many ways that can happen - basically every method of lighting that isn't incandescent light is an example.
[Light-emitting diode](_URL_5_) uses electricity to push electrons to a high energy state, and at the junction the electron falls to a lower state and emits a photon.
[Fluorescent lamp](_URL_11_) also uses electricity, but in this case electrons are fired between the electrodes. They impact mercury vapour in the fluorescent lamp, which excites the electrons within, and when they relax they emit a photon. One further step involves this emitted photon exciting electrons in the coating, which when relaxed emits a photon in the visible range. The phenomenon of exciting an atom with incident light and emitting a photon that way is [fluorescence](_URL_9_).
A similar phenomenon is [phosphorescence](_URL_0_), which also involves photoexcitation, but the relaxation occurs at a much longer timescale as the excited electron goes through [intersystem crossing](_URL_2_) before emitting a photon. You may have encountered this in many glow-in-the-dark toys or paint.
Speaking of glow-in-the-dark, back in the days, before the dangers of radioactivity was discovered, [radium](_URL_7_) was widely used in glow-in-the-dark paint. During radioactive decay, ionizing radiation is emitted, one of which are beta particles - energized electrons. The idea is the same as the above example of fluorescent lamp - you can harness the energy of those electrons by using a fluorescent coating. This is known as [radioluminescence](_URL_12_). Nowadays, [tritium](_URL_3_) is the safe radioluminescent source.
You also have [chemiluminescence](_URL_8_), where a chemical reaction produces a product with an excited electron, which then relaxes and emits a photon. This is the principle behind glowsticks, and also [luminol spray](_URL_6_) used to detect blood in crime scenes. When the chemical reaction is biological in nature (like in fireflies), we call this [bioluminescence](_URL_10_). In many biology labs an enzyme used in bioluminescence, [luciferase](_URL_1_), is used to track transcription.
A relatively recent and not-yet-fully-understood discovery is [triboluminescence](_URL_4_), where mechanical stress on the material causes charge separation and emission. Some famous examples are the emission of x-rays when unrolling Scotch tape, and glowing of mint [Life Savers](_URL_13_) when crushed.
So there are quite a number of ways to excite electrons without using heat. Many of these are already widely used, in household lighting, monitor displays, etc.
|
[
"If the atom is in the excited state, it may decay into the lower state by the process of spontaneous emission, releasing the difference in energies between the two states as a photon. The photon will have frequency \"ν\" and energy \"hν\", given by:\n",
"If an atom is already in the excited state, it may be agitated by the passage of a photon that has a frequency ν corresponding to the energy gap Δ\"E\" of the excited state to ground state transition. In this case, the excited atom relaxes to the ground state, and it produces a second photon of frequency ν. The original photon is not absorbed by the atom, and so the result is two photons of the same frequency. This process is known as \"stimulated emission\".\n",
"If a single photon approaches an atom which is receptive to it, the photon can be absorbed by the atom in a manner very similar to a radio wave being picked up by an aerial. At the moment of absorption the photon ceases to exist and the total energy contained within the atom increases. This increase in energy is usually described symbolically by saying that one of the outermost electrons \"jumps\" to a \"higher orbit\". This new atomic configuration is unstable and the tendency is for the electron to fall back to its lower orbit or energy level, emitting a new photon as it goes. The entire process may take no more than 1 x 10 seconds. The result is much the same as with reflective colour, but because of the process of absorption and emission, the substance emits a glow. According to Planck, the energy of each photon is given by multiplying its frequency in cycles per second by a constant (Planck’s constant, 6.626 x 10 erg seconds). It follows that the wavelength of a photon emitted from a luminescent system is directly related to the difference between the energy of the two atomic levels involved.\n",
"Alternatively, if the excited-state atom is perturbed by an electric field of frequency \"ν\", it may emit an additional photon of the same frequency and in phase, thus augmenting the external field, leaving the atom in the lower energy state. This process is known as stimulated emission.\n",
"If the electron absorbs a quantity of energy less than the binding energy, it will be transferred to an excited state. After a certain time, the electron in an excited state will \"jump\" (undergo a transition) to a lower state. In a neutral atom, the system will emit a photon of the difference in energy, since energy is conserved.\n",
"When the electrons in the atom are excited, for example by being heated, the additional energy pushes the electrons to higher energy orbitals. When the electrons fall back down and leave the excited state, energy is re-emitted in the form of a photon. The wavelength (or equivalently, frequency) of the photon is determined by the difference in energy between the two states. These emitted photons form the element's spectrum.\n",
"Specifically, an excited atom will act like a small electric dipole which will oscillate with the external field provided. One of the consequences of this oscillation is that it encourages electrons to decay to the lowest energy state. When this happens due to the presence of the electromagnetic field from a photon, a photon is released in the same phase and direction as the \"stimulating\" photon, and is called stimulated emission.\n"
] |
Why did cavalry during the U.S. Civil War operate almost exclusively as dragoons?
|
> Yet both Union and Confederate cavalry corps operated almost exclusively as dragoons. Why was this? To what extent was this affected by the duties of pre-war US cavalry, and/or the lack of a European-style military establishment?
The ways in which Union and Confederate cavalry came to operate during the war depended a lot on the availability and quality of mounts, the terrain on which the fighting took place, and the quality of training. The quality of Union remounts was appalling at the start of the war, with unbroken horses and those too young or old to ride effectively among other issues, being purchased en masse and poorly taken care of. Until George Stoneman took over as Chief of US Cavalry in 1863, and Sheridan as head of the Union Cavalry Corps, the situation didn't really improve. By the estimates of one French military attachee, Union Regiments went through up to 6 horses per annum per trooper, in the first 3 years of the war. The Confederates were somewhat better mounted initially, the horses often being personal mounts from home, these were irreplaceable and scarce by the later part of the war, 1864-65. So on both sides, poor quality mounts constrained the chances for mass adoption of shock tactics when these were appropriate. Shock action also required a good deal of training, as well as skillful execution to ensure success. Stephen G. Starr indicates that units that enjoyed initial success with the saber were more likely to continue with using it than those who were met with failure. For example, The 17th Mounted Infantry charged Bedford-Forrest's dismounted troopers at Bolger's Creek on April 1st, 1865, despite being raised and designated "mounted infantry." Most units appeared to favour firearms simply due to the ease of training and their being easier to obtain.
The lack of quality mounts, and the difficulty in training men for shock action compared to dismounted fire action, were further compounded by the terrain in which much of the war was fought. Stephen Badsey lays out the problem quite well:
> The main theatre of war, in Virginia, was by European standards
heavy ground, hilly, sparsely populated, with large virgin forests. This was scarcely ideal for the charge. The Western Theatre, far larger, saw considerable variation in terrain, but even there, so Colonel Duke of the Confederate Cavalry wrote: "The nature of the ground on which we generally fought, covered with dense woods or crossed with high fences, and the impossibility of devoting sufficient time to the training of the horses, rendered the employment of large bodies of mounted men to any good purpose very difficult."
Massed cavalry charges of divisions or more were very rare (it should be noted that this was historically the case even in Europe), but actions in troop, squadron and regiment strength were possible. A charge didn't even necessarily need to involve edged weapons; troopers with revolvers, carbines or rifles could "gallop" a position, charging up to it and dismounting to open fire. Shock action and dismounted action could also be combined quite effectively, as in the case of J.H. Morgan's charge at Shiloh in 1862, and in the clash between Pleasonton and Stuarts Cavalry in 1863.
To conclude, it might be more proper to say that American Cavalry, Union and Confederate, functioned more as 'Mounted Rifles' or 'Hybrid Cavalry', as 19th and early 20th century British (and Dominion) military writers termed them. In the former case, fire action dismounted was prioritized, but shock action could be resorted to in special circumstances, while Cavalry's scouting role was still central. In the latter case, emphasis was placed on shock action, but combining artillery and machine guns, as well as dismounted firepower. They weren't necessarily Dragoons who simply used their horses for transport, but could display great versatility in their tactics and missions.
Sources:
* "The Obsolescence of the Arme Blanche and Technological Determinism in British Military History" and "Writing Horses into American Civil War History" by Gervase Phillips
* [Fire and the Sword: The British Army and the Arme Blanche
Controversy 1871-1921] (_URL_1_) by Stephen Badsey
* "Cold Steel: The Saber and the Union Cavalry," by Stephen G. Starr
This [essay] (_URL_2_) on Civil War Cavalry from before WWI is worth a read, as is Alonzo Gray's [Cavalry Tactics as illustrated by the War of the Rebellion] (_URL_0_)
|
[
"Before the Civil War there was no light or heavy cavalry in the US army. Instead there were \"Dragoons\" (founded 1830) and \"Mounted Riflemen\" (founded c.1840). In 1861 these mounted regiments were renamed cavalry and given yellow piping.\n",
"During the American Civil War (1861–1865), cavalry held the most important and respected role it would ever hold in the American military. Field artillery in the American Civil War was also highly mobile. Both horses and mules pulled the guns, though only horses were used on the battlefield. At the beginning of the war, most of the experienced cavalry officers were from the South and thus joined the Confederacy, leading to the Confederate Army's initial battlefield superiority. The tide turned at the 1863 Battle of Brandy Station, part of the Gettysburg campaign, where the Union cavalry, in the largest cavalry battle ever fought on the American continent, ended the dominance of the South. By 1865, Union cavalry were decisive in achieving victory. So important were horses to individual soldiers that the surrender terms at Appomattox allowed every Confederate cavalryman to take his horse home with him. This was because, unlike their Union counterparts, Confederate cavalrymen provided their own horses for service instead of drawing them from the government.\n",
"Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Army's dragoon regiments were designated as \"Cavalry\", losing their previous distinctions. The change was an unpopular one and the former dragoons retained their orange braided blue jackets until they wore out and had to be replaced with cavalry yellow. The 1st United States Cavalry fought in virtually every campaign in the north during the American Civil War.\n",
"Later in the Civil War large cavalry charges became less common and the cavalry took on the role of skirmishers. Many replaced their sabers with extra revolvers, or left it in the saddle while fighting on foot with their repeating Henry rifles and Spencer carbines.\n",
"During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the Continental Army made relatively little use of cavalry, primarily relying on infantry and a few dragoon regiments. The United States Congress eventually authorized regiments specifically designated as cavalry in 1855. The newly formed American cavalry adopted tactics based on experiences fighting over vast distances during the Mexican War (1846–1848) and against indigenous peoples on the western frontier, abandoning some European traditions.\n",
"In the early American Civil War the regular United States Army mounted rifle, dragoon, and two existing cavalry regiments were reorganized and renamed cavalry regiments, of which there were six. Over a hundred other federal and state cavalry regiments were organized, but the infantry played a much larger role in many battles due to its larger numbers, lower cost per rifle fielded, and much easier recruitment. However, cavalry saw a role as part of screening forces and in foraging and scouting. The later phases of the war saw the Federal army developing a truly effective cavalry force fighting as scouts, raiders, and, with repeating rifles, as mounted infantry. The distinguished 1st Virginia Cavalry ranks as one of the most effectual and successful cavalry units on the Confederate side. Noted cavalry commanders included Confederate general J.E.B. Stuart, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and John Singleton Mosby (a.k.a. \"The Grey Ghost\") and on the Union side, Philip Sheridan and George Armstrong Custer.\n",
"Early in the war, Union cavalry forces were often wasted by being used merely as pickets, outposts, orderlies, guards for senior officers, and messengers. The first officer to make effective use of the Union cavalry was Major General Joseph Hooker, who in 1863 consolidated the cavalry forces of his Army of the Potomac under a single commander, George Stoneman.\n"
] |
why do a lot of hentai and japanese porn use rape?
|
I would theorize it comes partially from the cultural status of women in japan as submissive beings that you can force your will on, and partially from the value of purity in the sense that a women *wanting* it is slutty. As a result you get a power fantasy of forceful men and an unwanting/pure woman.
At least in hentai there is also a difference between "true" rape and corruption rape, the former has the girl remaining resistant until the end, and seems to me to remain somewhat rare - The corruption of purity on the other hand seems to be *extremely* popular, in which case the girl is reluctant *at first* and then "learns to love it". So basically, turning someone pure and innocent to corrupt and slutty is what's fetishized here more so than the actual rape.
|
[
"Traditional Japanese religions do not consider sex or pornography a moral corruption in the Judaeo-Christian sense, and until the changing morals of the Meiji era led to its suppression, shunga erotic prints were a major genre. While the Tokugawa regime subjected Japan to strict censorship laws, pornography was not considered an important offence and generally met with the censors' approval. Many of these prints displayed a high level a draughtsmanship, and often humour, in their explicit depictions of bedroom scenes, voyeurs, and oversized anatomy. As with depictions of courtesans, these images were closely tied to entertainments of the pleasure quarters. Nearly every ukiyo-e master produced shunga at some point. Records of societal acceptance of shunga are absent, though Timon Screech posits that there were almost certainly some concerns over the matter, and that its level of acceptability has been exaggerated by later collectors, especially in the West.\n",
"With the relaxation of censorship in Japan after the early 1990s, various forms of graphically drawn sexual content appeared in manga intended for male readers that correspondingly occurred in English translations. These depictions ranged from partial to total nudity through implied and explicit sexual intercourse through sadomasochism (SM), incest, rape, and sometimes zoophilia (bestiality). In some cases, rape and lust-murder themes came to the forefront, as in \"Urotsukidōji\" by Toshio Maeda and \"Blue Catalyst\" from 1994 by Kei Taniguchi, but these extreme elements are not commonplace in either untranslated or translated manga.\n",
"The Japanese Anti-child prostitution and pornography law was enacted in November 1999—and revised in 2004 to criminalize distribution of child pornography over the Internet—defines child pornography as the depiction \"in a way that can be recognized visually, such a pose of a child relating to sexual intercourse or an act similar to sexual intercourse with or by the child\", of \"a pose of a child relating to the act of touching genital organs, etc.\" or the depiction of \"a pose of a child who is naked totally or partially in order to arouse or stimulate the viewer's sexual desire.\"\n",
"In Japan, pornographic art depicting underage characters (\"lolicon\", \"shotacon\") is legal but remains controversial even within the country. They are commonly found in manga, erotic computer games, and doujinshi.\n",
"There is a popular belief that links the origin of the practice to a form of punishment for adultery on women in medieval Japan. In fact, that description of its origin is false, mainly because the actual punishment for cheating wives was decapitation. Bukkake was first represented in pornographic films in the mid to late 1980s in Japan. According to one commentator, a significant factor in the development of bukkake as a pornographic form was the mandatory censorship in Japan where genitals must be pixelated by a \"mosaic\". One consequence of this is that Japanese pornography tends to focus more on the face and body of actresses rather than on their genitals. Since film producers could not show penetration, they sought other ways to depict sex acts without violating Japanese law and since semen did not need to be censored, a loophole existed for harder sex scenes. However, popularization of the act and the term for it has been credited to director Kazuhiko Matsumoto in 1998. The Japanese adult video studio Shuttle Japan registered the term \"ぶっかけ/ＢＵＫＫＡＫＥ\" as a trademark (No. 4545137) in January 2001.\n",
"A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them.\n",
"Rape fantasy is a theme commonly found in yaoi manga. Anal intercourse is understood as a means of expressing commitment to a partner, and in yaoi, the \"apparent violence\" of rape is transformed into a \"measure of passion\". While Japanese society often shuns or looks down upon women who are raped in reality, the yaoi genre depicts men who are raped as still \"imbued with innocence\" and are typically still loved by their rapists after the act, a trope that may have originated with \"Kaze to Ki no Uta\". Rape scenes in yaoi are rarely presented as crimes with an assaulter and a victim: scenes where a seme rapes an uke are not depicted as symptomatic of the \"disruptive sexual/violent desires\" of the seme, but instead are a signifier of the \"uncontrollable love\" felt by a seme for an uke. Such scenes are often a plot device used to make the uke see the seme as more than just a good friend and typically result in the uke falling in love with the seme. Rape fantasy themes explore the protagonist's lack of responsibility in sex, leading to the narrative climax of the story, where \"the protagonist takes responsibility for his own sexuality\".\n"
] |
Why can't the immune system prevent shingles outbreaks, since it already has antibodies for the virus?
|
My professor explained it as a cellular vs humoral immunity question.
Antibodies do a great job of stopping spread in humors (blood, interstitial fluid, etc.) -- hence antibody immunity is called humoral immunity. But, Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) survives in the nerve (dorsal root ganglia, to be specific), which is an immune-privileged site -- no antibodies or T cells are getting into a nerve. So when the virus decides to come out of the nerve back to the skin cells (not well understood when or why, as CD8plus said), it can easily track along the nerve and infect adjacent cells.
& nbsp;
So, our only way of getting rid of the VZV outbreak in our skin cells (ie shingles) is for T cells to move in and purge the infected cells. This takes a while, and is very inflammatory.
|
[
"Unless the immune system is compromised, it suppresses reactivation of the virus and prevents shingles outbreaks. Why this suppression sometimes fails is poorly understood, but shingles is more likely to occur in people whose immune systems are impaired due to aging, immunosuppressive therapy, psychological stress, or other factors. Upon reactivation, the virus replicates in neuronal cell bodies, and virions are shed from the cells and carried down the axons to the area of skin innervated by that ganglion. In the skin, the virus causes local inflammation and blistering. The short- and long-term pain caused by shingles outbreaks originates from inflammation of affected nerves due to the widespread growth of the virus in those areas.\n",
"Antibodies can continue to be an effective defence mechanism even after viruses have managed to gain entry to the host cell. A protein that is in cells, called TRIM21, can attach to the antibodies on the surface of the virus particle. This primes the subsequent destruction of the virus by the enzymes of the cell's proteosome system.\n",
"As with chickenpox and other forms of alpha-herpesvirus infection, direct contact with an active rash can spread the virus to a person who lacks immunity to it. This newly infected individual may then develop chickenpox, but will not immediately develop shingles.\n",
"The causative agent for shingles is the varicella zoster virus (VZV) – a double-stranded DNA virus related to the herpes simplex virus. Most individuals are infected with this virus as children which causes an episode of chickenpox. The immune system eventually eliminates the virus from most locations, but it remains dormant (or latent) in the ganglia adjacent to the spinal cord (called the dorsal root ganglion) or the trigeminal ganglion in the base of the skull.\n",
"Shingles is due to a reactivation of varicella zoster virus (VZV) in a person's body. The disease chickenpox is caused by the initial infection with VZV. Once chickenpox has resolved, the virus may remain inactive in nerve cells. When it reactivates, it travels from the nerve body to the endings in the skin, producing blisters. Risk factors for reactivation include old age, poor immune function, and having had chickenpox before 18 months of age. How the virus remains in the body or subsequently re-activates is not well understood. Exposure to the virus in the blisters can cause chickenpox in someone who has not had it, but will not trigger shingles. Diagnosis is typically based on a person's signs and symptoms. Varicella zoster virus is not the same as herpes simplex virus; however, they belong to the same family of viruses.\n",
"When an individual is infected with this particular virus, its immune system can play a role in clearing away the virus particles. Alphaviruses are able to cause the production of interferons. Antibodies and T cells are also involved. The neutralizing antibodies also play an important role to prevent further infection and spread.\n",
"Because the production of intrinsic immune mediating proteins cannot be increased during infection, these defenses can become saturated and ineffective if a cell is infected with a high level of virus.\n"
] |
At what altitude on earth is the air pressure roughly equivalent to the surface pressure of the Martian atmosphere?
|
> The surface pressure on Mars is equivalent to the range of pressures on Earth at altitudes between ~30 km and ~60 km.
--[Math Encounters Blog](_URL_1_)
> At altitudes above 50,000 feet [_15.2 km_] man requires a pressurized suit to be safe in this near space environment.
--[A Brief History of the Pressure Suit](_URL_0_)
> At 55,000 feet [_16.76 km_], atmospheric pressure is so low that water vapor in the body appears to boil causing the skin to inflate like a balloon. At 63,000 feet [_19.2 km_] blood at normal body temperature (98 F) appears to boil. ... At altitudes above 65,000 feet [_19.8 km_] atmospheric pressure approaches that of space, that is the pressurization factors for protective equipment to be used at 65,000 feet are essentially the same as would be required for survival in a vacuum.
--[A Brief History of the Pressure Suit](_URL_0_)
|
[
"At about 28 miles (45 km, 150 thousand feet ) Earth altitude the pressure starts to be equivalent to Mars surface pressure. However, the major component of Mars air, CO gas, is denser than Earth air for a given pressure. Perhaps more significantly there is no land at this altitude on earth. The highest point on earth is the summit of Mount Everest at about 5.5 miles (8.8 km, 29 thousand feet), where the pressure is about fifty times greater than on the surface of Mars. The correct atmospheric pressure can be created by a vacuum chamber. NASA's Space Power Facility was used to test the airbag landing systems for the Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, under simulated Mars atmospheric conditions.\n",
"Atmospheric pressure at a particular location is the force per unit area perpendicular to a surface determined by the weight of the vertical column of atmosphere above that location. On Earth, units of air pressure are based on the internationally recognized standard atmosphere (atm), which is defined as 101.325 kPa (760 Torr or 14.696 psi). It is measured with a barometer.\n",
"In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point. As elevation increases, there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation. Pressure measures force per unit area, with SI units of Pascals (1 pascal = 1 newton per square metre, 1N/m). On average, a column of air with a cross-sectional area of 1 square centimetre (cm), measured from mean (average) sea level to the top of Earth's atmosphere, has a mass of about 1.03 kilogram and exerts a force or \"weight\" of about 10.1 newtons, resulting in a pressure of 10.1 N/cm or 101kN/m (101 kilopascals, kPa). A column of air with a cross-sectional area of 1in would have a weight of about 14.7lb, resulting in a pressure of 14.7lb/in.\n",
"One atmosphere is approximately equal to 33 feet of sea water or 14.7 psi, which gives 4.9/11 or about 0.445 psi per foot. Atmospheric pressure may be considered constant at sea level, and minor fluctuations caused by the weather are usually ignored. Pressures measured in fsw and msw are gauge pressure, relative to the surface pressure of 1 atm absolute, except when a pressure difference is measured between the locks of a hyperbaric chamber, which is also generally measured in fsw and msw.\n",
"The typical atmospheric pressure at the top of Olympus Mons is 72 pascals, about 12% of the average Martian surface pressure of 600 pascals. Both are exceedingly low by terrestrial standards; by comparison, the atmospheric pressure at the summit of Mount Everest is 32,000 pascals, or about 32% of Earth's sea level pressure. Even so, high-altitude orographic clouds frequently drift over the Olympus Mons summit, and airborne Martian dust is still present. Although the average Martian surface atmospheric pressure is less than one percent of Earth's, the much lower gravity of Mars increases the atmosphere's scale height; in other words, Mars's atmosphere is expansive and does not drop off in density with height as sharply as Earth's.\n",
"In thermodynamic calculations, a commonly used pressure unit is the \"standard atmosphere\". This is the pressure resulting from a column of mercury of 760 mm in height at 0 °C. For the density of mercury, use ρ = 13,595 kg/m and for gravitational acceleration use g = 9.807 m/s.\n",
"The pressure of the atmosphere is maximum at sea level and decreases with altitude. This is because the atmosphere is very nearly in hydrostatic equilibrium so that the pressure is equal to the weight of air above a given point. The change in pressure with altitude can be equated to the density with the hydrostatic equation\n"
] |
the core principles of immanuel kant's philosphy.
|
Kant answers 3 big questions:
1- what is reality?
Kant says there's a real world outside of your body. But the way you experience this world (using your senses of seeing, hearing, touching etc.) creates a map, or model, of this outside reality in your mind, which is unique to YOU. Even things like space and time are unique to you. So if you had different senses, like Superman has superhearing, you'd have a completely different model of reality.
2- what should be? (Right and wrong)
This is Kant's most famous contribution (categorical imperatives.) It means when you conclude that something is wrong, it is wrong 100% of the time, under any circumstances, and for everybody. You can't say murder is wrong then justify using it in some situations (capital punishment, war, etc.) It does not change nor does it matter where or when.
His point is that because your model of reality is unique to you, you can always come up with situations to convince yourself what you're doing isn't wrong ("it's not stealing if you're starving.") And there would be no sense of morality if enough people do that. The only way that there can be any morality is that right and wrong are universally established.
3- How should society be governed?
So since right and wrong are universal, societies should be governed by a constitution and by the rule of law. Pure democracy (rule of majority) is not the answer, because no matter how many people believe something to be right, wrong is always wrong.
|
[
"Immanuel Kant employs the term \"amphiboly\" in a sense of his own, as he has done in the case of other philosophical words. He denotes by it a confusion of the notions of the pure understanding with the perceptions of experience, and a consequent ascription to the latter of what belongs only to the former.\n",
"Immanuel Kant had a radically different view of morality. In his view, there are universal laws of morality that one should never break regardless of emotions. He proposes a four-step system to determine whether or not a given action was moral based on logic and reason. The first step of this method involves formulating \"a maxim capturing your reason for an action\". In the second step, one \"frame[s] it as a universal principle for all rational agents\". The third step is assessing \"whether a world based on this universal principle is conceivable\". If it is, then the fourth step is asking oneself \"whether [one] would will the maxim to be a principle in this world\". In essence, an action is moral if the maxim by which it is justified is one which could be universalized. For instance, when deciding whether or not to lie to someone for one's own advantage, one is meant to imagine what the world would be like if everyone always lied, and successfully so. In such a world, there would be no purpose in lying, for everybody would expect deceit, rendering the universal maxim of lying whenever it is to your advantage absurd. Thus, Kant argues that one should not lie under any circumstance. Another example would be if trying to decide whether suicide is moral or immoral; imagine if everyone committed suicide. Since mass international suicide would not be a good thing, the act of suicide is immoral. Kant's moral framework, however, operates under the overarching maxim that you should treat each person as an end in themselves, not as a means to an end. This overarching maxim must be considered when applying the four aforementioned steps. \n",
"Immanuel Kant's \"Critique of Pure Reason\", first published in 1781 and presented again with major revisions in 1787, represents a significant intervention into what will later become known as the philosophy of mind. Kant's first critique is generally recognized as among the most significant works of modern philosophy in the West. Kant is a figure whose influence is marked in both continental and analytic/Anglo-American philosophy. Kant's work develops an in-depth study of transcendental consciousness, or the life of the mind as conceived through universal categories of consciousness.\n",
"Thomas McFarland (2002), in his \"Prolegomena\" to Coleridge's \"Opus Maximum\", identifies Immanuel Kant's \"Critique of Pure Reason\" (1781) as the genesis of the thesis/antithesis dyad. Kant concretises his ideas into:\n",
"In his discussion of \"Spirit\" in his \"Encyclopedia\", Hegel praises Aristotle's \"On the Soul\" as \"by far the most admirable, perhaps even the sole, work of philosophical value on this topic\". In his \"Phenomenology of Spirit\" and his \"Science of Logic\", Hegel's concern with Kantian topics such as freedom and morality and with their ontological implications is pervasive. Rather than simply rejecting Kant's dualism of freedom versus nature, Hegel aims to subsume it within \"true infinity\", the \"Concept\" (or \"Notion\": \"Begriff\"), \"Spirit\" and \"ethical life\" in such a way that the Kantian duality is rendered intelligible, rather than remaining a brute \"given\".\n",
"Hannah Arendt stated that Immanuel Kant distinguished between \"Vernunft\" (\"reason\") and \"Verstand\" (\"intellect\"): these two categories are equivalents of \"the urgent need of\" reason, and the \"mere quest and desire for knowledge\". Differentiating between reason and intellect, or the need to reason and the quest for knowledge, as Kant has done, according to Arendt \"coincides with a distinction between two altogether different mental activities, thinking and knowing, and two altogether different concerns, meaning, in the first category, and cognition, in the second\". These ideas were also developed by Kantian philosopher, Wilhelm Windelband, in his discussion of the approaches to knowledge named \"nomothetic\" and \"idiographic\".\n",
"The thinking of Immanuel Kant greatly influenced moral philosophy. He thought of moral value as a unique and universally identifiable property, as an absolute value rather than a relative value. He showed that many practical goods are good only in states-of-affairs described by a sentence containing an \"if\" clause, e.g., in the sentence, \"Sunshine is only good if you do not live in the desert.\" Further, the \"if\" clause often described the category in which the judgment was made (art, science, etc.). Kant described these as \"hypothetical goods\", and tried to find a \"categorical\" good that would operate across all categories of judgment without depending on an \"if-then\" clause.\n"
] |
How is nuclear radiation stored in objects?
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Unstable nuclei will eventually decay and emit radiation. If something is bombarded with neutrons, some of them are captured by the nuclei, which can become unstable. In the case of water, it's possible that some could be captured to produce tritium, which is radioactive.
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[
"Since nuclear materials are radioactive, it is important to ensure that radiation exposure of those involved in the transport of such materials and of the general public along transport routes is limited. Packaging for nuclear materials includes, where appropriate, shielding to reduce potential radiation exposures. In the case of some materials, such as fresh uranium fuel assemblies, the radiation levels are negligible and no shielding is required. Other materials, such as spent fuel and high-level waste, are highly radioactive and require special handling. To limit the risk in transporting highly radioactive materials, containers known as spent nuclear fuel shipping casks are used which are designed to maintain integrity under normal transportation conditions and during hypothetical accident conditions.\n",
"In order to store the high level radioactive waste in long-term geological depositories, specific waste forms need to be used which will allow the radioactivity to decay away while the materials retain their integrity for thousands of years. The materials being used can be broken down into a few classes: glass waste forms, ceramic waste forms, and nanostructured materials.\n",
"Radiation is used to determine the composition of materials in a process called neutron activation analysis. In this process, scientists bombard a sample of a substance with particles called neutrons. Some of the atoms in the sample absorb neutrons and become radioactive. The scientists can identify the elements in the sample by studying the emitted radiation.\n",
"Cosmic radiation will produce secondary neutrons if it hits spacecraft structures. Those neutrons will be captured in B, if it is present in the spacecraft's semiconductors, producing a gamma ray, an alpha particle, and a lithium ion. Those resultant decay products may then irradiate nearby semiconductor \"chip\" structures, causing data loss (bit flipping, or single event upset). In radiation-hardened semiconductor designs, one countermeasure is to use \"depleted boron\", which is greatly enriched in B and contains almost no B. This is useful because B is largely immune to radiation damage. Depleted boron is a byproduct of the nuclear industry.\n",
"The neutron radiation serves to transmute the surrounding matter, often rendering it radioactive. When added to the dust of radioactive material released by the bomb itself, a large amount of radioactive material is released into the environment. This form of radioactive contamination is known as nuclear fallout and poses the primary risk of exposure to ionizing radiation for a large nuclear weapon.\n",
"The museum exhibits objects that were exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb. Though some materials are double-cased, display techniques generally are not tailored in any special way for the preservation of these materials.\n",
"The largest, and therefore the most radioactive particles, are deposited by fallout in the first few hours after the blast. Smaller particles are carried to higher altitudes and descend more slowly, reaching ground in a less radioactive state as the isotopes with the shortest half-lives decay the fastest. The smallest particles can reach the stratosphere and stay there for weeks, months, or even years, and cover an entire hemisphere of the planet via atmospheric currents. The higher danger, short-term, localized fallout is deposited primarily downwind from the blast site, in a cigar-shaped area, assuming a wind of constant strength and direction. Crosswinds, changes in wind direction, and precipitation are factors that can greatly alter the fallout pattern.\n"
] |
If we set off a nuke near Jupiters core....
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No. Some fusion might occur but it would not be self-sustaining.
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[
"\"Jupiter\" sank the on 17 January 1942. On 27 February 1942 she struck a mine laid earlier in the day by the as she steamed with the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDA) cruiser force during the Battle of the Java Sea. The destroyer sank off the north Java coast in the Java Sea at 21:16 hours. Initially, the explosion was thought to have been caused by a Japanese torpedo.\n",
"BULLET::::- 27 August – NASA's \"Juno\" probe makes a close pass of Jupiter, coming within of the cloud tops – the closest any spacecraft has ever approached the gas giant without entering its atmosphere.\n",
"At about 75 Jupiter radii from the planet, the interaction of the magnetosphere with the solar wind generates a bow shock. Surrounding Jupiter's magnetosphere is a magnetopause, located at the inner edge of a magnetosheath—a region between it and the bow shock. The solar wind interacts with these regions, elongating the magnetosphere on Jupiter's lee side and extending it outward until it nearly reaches the orbit of Saturn. The four largest moons of Jupiter all orbit within the magnetosphere, which protects them from the solar wind.\n",
"On June 24, 2016 the Waves instrument recorded \"Juno\" passing across Jupiter's magnetic field's bow shock. It took about two hours for the unmanned spacecraft to cross this region of space. On June 25, 2016 it encountered the magnetopause. \"Juno\" would go on to enter Jupiter's orbit in July 2016. The magnetosphere blocks the charged particles of the solar wind, with the number of solar wind particles \"Juno\" encountered dropping 100-fold when it entered the Jovian magnetosphere. Before \"Juno\" entered it, it was encountering about 16 solar wind particles per cubic inch of space.\n",
"In the present day, a rapidly moving object is detected beyond Jupiter's orbit and forecast to impact Manhattan. It is moving at 30,000 kilometers per second, enough to destroy all life on Earth. The United States government hastily assembles a group of scientists, including Dr. Helen Benson and her friend Dr. Michael Granier, to develop a survival plan.\n",
"The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded over the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia in June 1908. (This would be approximately 12,500–13,000 Megatons of TNT, over a million times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.)\n",
"More exciting for planetary astronomers was that the best orbital calculations suggested that the comet would pass within of the center of Jupiter, a distance smaller than the planet's radius, meaning that there was an extremely high probability that SL9 would collide with Jupiter in July 1994. Studies suggested that the train of nuclei would plow into Jupiter's atmosphere over a period of about five days.\n"
] |
why does squirting lemon juice over spicy food make it less spicy?
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It does reduce the spice. Spicy chili peppers contain an oil called *capsaicin* which gives the spicy flavor. Lemon juice has acids in it, and the acids neutralize the oils, which reduces the spice.
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[
"Astringency, the dry, puckering mouthfeel caused by the tannins in unripe fruits, lets the fruit mature by deterring eating. Ripe fruits and fruit parts including blackthorn (sloe berries), \"Aronia\" chokeberry, chokecherry, bird cherry, rhubarb, quince and persimmon fruits, and banana skins are very astringent; citrus fruits, like lemons, are somewhat astringent. Tannins, being a kind of polyphenol, bind salivary proteins and make them precipitate and aggregate, producing a rough, \"sandpapery\", or dry sensation in the mouth. The tannins in some teas and red grape wines like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot produce mild astringency.\n",
"After using toothpaste, orange juice and other juices have an unpleasant taste. Sodium lauryl sulfate alters taste perception. It can break down phospholipids that inhibit taste receptors for sweetness, giving food a bitter taste. In contrast, apples are known to taste more pleasant after using toothpaste. Distinguishing between the hypotheses that the bitter taste of orange juice results from stannous fluoride or from sodium lauryl sulfate is still an unresolved issue and it is thought that the menthol added for flavor may also take part in the alteration of taste perception when binding to lingual cold receptors.\n",
"Although citrus fruits do not themselves contain tannins, orange-colored juices often contain food dyes with tannins. Apple juice, grape juices and berry juices are all high in tannins. Sometimes tannins are even added to juices and ciders to create a more astringent feel to the taste.\n",
"Limonin and other limonoid compounds contribute to the bitter taste of some citrus food products. Researchers have proposed removal of limonoids from orange juice and other products (known as \"debittering\") through the use of polymeric films.\n",
"While the lemon or orange are peeled to consume their pulpy and juicy segments, the citron's pulp is dry, containing a small quantity of insipid juice, if any. The main content of a citron fruit is the thick white rind, which adheres to the segments and cannot be separated from them easily. The citron gets halved and depulped, then its rind (the thicker the better) is cut in pieces, cooked in sugar syrup, and used as a spoon sweet, in Greek known as \"kitro glyko\" (κίτρο γλυκό), or it is diced and caramelized with sugar and used as a confection in cakes.\n",
"Succade is the candied peel of any of the citrus species, especially from the citron or \"Citrus medica\" which is distinct with its extra-thick peel; in addition, the taste of the inner rind of the citron is less bitter than those of the other citrus. However, the term is also occasionally applied to the peel, root, or even entire fruit or vegetable like parsley, fennel and cucurbita which have a bitter taste and are boiled with sugar to get a special \"sweet and sour\" outcome.\n",
"Lemons contain numerous phytochemicals, including polyphenols, terpenes, and tannins. Lemon juice contains slightly more citric acid than lime juice (about 47 g/l), nearly twice the citric acid of grapefruit juice, and about five times the amount of citric acid found in orange juice.\n"
] |
if oil is ancient organic matter, then how is there so much of it?
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Hundreds of millions of years of swamps doing swampy things...
...like sucking down carbon from the atmosphere and sinking it in anoxic environments where it turns to kerogen and then to fossil fuels.
The Carboniferous period predated the Permian Triassic Mass Extinction Event —aka: The Great Dying— by laying down gigatons of Carbon... which turned to coal, oil, and methane... huge volumes of which were burned by the EXTREME volcanism of the Siberian Traps.
Like 96%+ of the tree of life went extinct.
[Burning Fossil Fuels Almost Ended Life on Earth](_URL_0_)
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[
"Petroleum is a naturally occurring liquid found in rock formations. It consists of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds. It is generally accepted that oil is formed mostly from the carbon rich remains of ancient plankton after exposure to heat and pressure in Earth's crust over hundreds of millions of years. Over time, the decayed residue was covered by layers of mud and silt, sinking further down into Earth’s crust and preserved there between hot and pressured layers, gradually transforming into oil reservoirs.\n",
"It may be possible to make petroleum from any kind of organic matter under suitable conditions. The concentration of organic matter is not very high in the original deposits, but petroleum and natural gas evolved in places that favored retention, such as sealed-off porous sandstones. Petroleum, produced over millions of years by natural changes in organic materials, accumulates beneath the earth's surface in extremely large quantities.\n",
"It consists of naturally occurring hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and may contain miscellaneous organic compounds. The name \"petroleum\" covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, mostly zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to both intense heat and pressure.\n",
"Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae. Vast amounts of these remains settled to sea or lake bottoms where they were covered in stagnant water (water with no dissolved oxygen) or sediments such as mud and silt faster than they could decompose aerobically. Approximately 1 m below this sediment or water oxygen concentration was low, below 0.1 mg/l, and anoxic conditions existed. Temperatures also remained constant.\n",
"Heavy crude oil, which is much more viscous than conventional crude oil, and oil sands, where bitumen is found mixed with sand and clay, began to become more important as sources of fossil fuel as of the early 2000s. Oil shale and similar materials are sedimentary rocks containing kerogen, a complex mixture of high-molecular weight organic compounds, which yield synthetic crude oil when heated (pyrolyzed). These materials have yet to be fully exploited commercially. With additional processing, they can be employed in lieu of other already established fossil fuel deposits. More recently, there has been disinvestment from exploitation of such resources due to their high carbon cost, relative to more easily processed reserves.\n",
"Crude oil is found in all oil reservoirs formed in the Earth's crust from the remains of once-living things. Evidence indicates that millions of years of heat and pressure changed the remains of microscopic plant and animal into oil and natural gas.\n",
"Crude oil, or petroleum, and its refined components, collectively termed \"petrochemicals\", are crucial resources in the modern economy. Crude oil originates from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil. The name \"mineral oil\" is a misnomer, in that minerals are not the source of the oil—ancient plants and animals are. Mineral oil is organic. However, it is classified as \"mineral oil\" instead of as \"organic oil\" because its organic origin is remote (and was unknown at the time of its discovery), and because it is obtained in the vicinity of rocks, underground traps, and sands. \"Mineral oil\" also refers to several specific distillates of crude oil.\n"
] |
what exactly is management consulting?
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In short you're correct: a management consultancy does spend a lot of time investigating a company, then makes a number of recommendations to senior staff on how to improve their business.
Not all management consultants are equal. The senior consultants and partners spend a lot of time with senior members of the company with which they're working, discussing performance and strategies.
Mid-level consultants tend to hold interviews with mid-level managers to understand the company and recognise problems. They may also supervise a team of junior consultants.
The junior consultants spend a lot of time typing up notes, fiddling with PowerPoint slides and ordering dinner because they're having to work very late.
Depending on ability, performance and luck it takes about 5 years and an MBA to move from junior to senior.
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[
"The practice of management consulting is about \"helping organizations to improve their performance, operating primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and the development of plans for improvement.\" with the purpose of \"gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants' specialized expertise.\" It follows therefore that there is scope for an international organization to promote and foster competence in the management consulting profession.\n",
"Management consulting is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants' specialized expertise.\n",
"Management consulting indicates both the industry of, and the practice of, helping organizations improve their performance, primarily through the analysis of existing business problems and development of plans for improvement.\n",
"There is a relatively unclear line between management consulting and IT consulting. There are sometimes overlaps between the two fields, but IT consultants often have degrees in computer science, electronics, technology, or management information systems while management consultants often have degrees in accounting, economics, Industrial Engineering, finance, or a generalized MBA (Masters in Business Administration).\n",
"Consulting psychology is a specialty area of psychology that addresses such areas as assessment and interventions at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The \"Handbook of Organizational Consulting Psychology\" provides an overview of specific areas of study and application within the field. The major journal in the field is \"\". Consulting psychologists typically work in business or non-profit organizations, in consulting firms or in private practice. Consulting psychologists are typically professionally licensed as psychologists.\n",
"Consulting psychology includes the application of psychology to consulting contexts at the individual, group and organizational levels. The field specializes in assessment and intervention, particularly in business and organizational applications but also is concerned with the consulting process used to assess and facilitate change in any area of psychology. Lowman (2002) provides an overview of the field, including the relevance of individual, group and organizational levels to consulting psychologists.\n",
"In contrast to management consulting, which primarily concerns internal organization and performance, risk and strategic consulting aims to provide clients with an improved understanding of the political and economic climate in which they operate. Most such consultancy is focused on those developing countries and emerging markets in which political and business risks may be greater, harder to manage, or harder to assess. Risk and strategic consulting is sometimes carried out alongside other activities such as corporate investigation, forensic accounting, employee screening or vetting, and the provision of security systems, training or procedures. Some of the largest groups in the industry include Kroll Inc. and Control Risks Group, though the size and range of consultancies varies widely, with groups such as Black Cube and Hakluyt & Company providing boutique services. \n"
] |
Why didn't Israel keep the Sinai peninsular?
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Because giving it up was a hugely important bargaining chip for peace with Egypt. No one really regarded it as part of Israel (the way the West Bank is), though there were people there who were less than thrilled about being kicked out. Making it demilitarized allowed for Israel to retain a buffer, while still getting peace with Egypt.
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[
"The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty led Israel to give up the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 and transform the military rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into the Israeli Civil Administration in 1981. The Western part of Golan Heights was unilaterally annexed by Israel the same year, thus abolishing the Military Governorate system entirely.\n",
"Under a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the peninsula is supposed to remain demilitarized, but Israel permitted the Egyptians to deploy about seven battalions in the peninsula to enforce control. Israel hopes that in this way, Egypt will be more able to eliminate terrorists that pose a threat to Egypt and Israel.\n",
"The Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt ( BC). This comes in stark contrast to the region north of it, the Levant (present-day territories of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine), which, due largely to its strategic geopolitical location and cultural convergences, has historically been the center of conflict between Egypt and various states of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. In periods of foreign occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire (1517–1867) and the United Kingdom (1882–1956). Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis (known in Egypt as the \"Tripartite Aggression\" due to the simultaneous coordinated attack by the UK, France and Israel) of 1956, and during the Six-Day War of 1967. On 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was unsuccessful. In 1982, as a result of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel withdrew from all of the Sinai Peninsula except the contentious territory of Taba, which was returned after a ruling by a commission of arbitration in 1989.\n",
"Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War. It established settlements along the Gulf of Aqaba and in the northeast portion, just below the Gaza Strip. It had plans to expand the settlement of Yamit into a city with a population of 200,000, though the actual population of Yamit did not exceed 3,000. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in stages beginning in 1979 as part of the Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty. As required by the treaty, Israel evacuated Israeli military installations and civilian settlements prior to the establishment of \"normal and friendly relations\" between it and Egypt. Israel dismantled eighteen settlements, two air force bases, a naval base, and other installations by 1982, including the only oil resources under Israeli control. The evacuation of the civilian population, which took place in 1982, was done forcefully in some instances, such as the evacuation of Yamit. The settlements were demolished, as it was feared that settlers might try to return to their homes after the evacuation. Since 1982, the Sinai Peninsula has not been regarded as occupied territory.\n",
"The Sinai peninsula status was returned to full sovereignty of Egypt in 1982 as a result of the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. The United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice both describe the West Bank and Western Golan Heights as \"occupied territory\" under international law, and the Supreme Court of Israel describes it as held \"in belligerent occupation\", however Israel's government calls all of them \"disputed\" rather than \"occupied\". Israel's government also argues that since the Gaza disengagement of 2005, it does not militarily occupy the Gaza strip, a statement rejected by the United Nations Human Rights Council and Human Rights Watch because Israel continues to maintain control of its airspace, waters, and borders.\n",
"In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in which Israel agreed to withdraw from the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula. Israel subsequently withdrew in several stages, ending in 1982. The Israeli pull-out involved dismantling almost all Israeli settlements, including the settlement of Yamit in north-eastern Sinai. The exception was that the coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh (which the Israelis had founded as Ofira during their occupation of the Sinai Peninsula) was not dismantled. The Treaty allows monitoring of Sinai by the Multinational Force and Observers, and limits the number of Egyptian military forces in the peninsula.\n",
"Following Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, captured during the 1956 Suez Crisis, the peninsula remained de facto demilitarized of most Egyptian forces. It was garrisoned by one infantry brigade, elements of several reconnaissance regiments and up to 100 tanks. Although the outcome of the Suez Crisis had been politically positive for Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), as well as military and civilian decision makers, had regarded Israel's military victory in the war as an effective deterrent to future Egyptian designs. In early 1960, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, therefore, estimated that Egypt would seek \"to avoid a military confrontation with Israel and keep the United Nations Emergency Force\" (UNEF) installed in the Gaza Strip following the crisis.\n"
] |
Reddit science people, my 6 year old would like an answer to a space question. I have no idea what to tell her.
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Your daughter is in good company with that wondering. One of the very first scientists was a Greek guy named Thales, who held that the primary essence of every substance was water.
What do you mean by "what if?" Do you mean "If the universe were all water, what would it be like?" Or do you mean "How do we know the universe is not made of water?"
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[
"Less than two weeks after the trip, she applied to study communication and electronic engineering at Monterrey Tech, graduating in 2003. Unfortunately, she was the only one at the school at the time interested in space. Despite this, she attended space conferences and other events such as the National Astronomy Congress, which allowed her to meet people in her future field. She was also invited to join a project to conserve Chipinque Park in Monterrey, which has an observatory. It had been out of use for some time and she worked to reactivate it. She then gave classes and workshops on astronomy to student visitors.\n",
"O’Shaughnessy has extensive experience cultivating girls’ and boys’ interest in reading, math, and science. Besides being a former science teacher, she is an award-winning writer of science books for children. O’Shaughnessy has written 12 children's science books, including six with Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Ride and O’Shaughnessy's clear and eloquent writing style earned them many accolades, including the American Institute of Physics Children's Science Writing Award in 1995 for their second book, \"The Third Planet: Exploring the Earth From Space\". In October 2015, O’Shaughnessy published a children's biography of Ride, \"Sally Ride: A Photobiography of America's Pioneering Woman in Space\". The book combines reminiscences from Ride's family and friends with dozens of photos, including many never-before-published family and personal photos.\n",
"NASA Space Place is an award-winning educational website about space and Earth science targeting upper-elementary aged children. Launched in 1998, it was the first NASA website to create content about multiple missions directly for children. It has its own url, and it also serves as the kids’ portion of the NASA Science Mission Directorate website.\n",
"When asked where her love of space science came from, Green has said: \"As a child, I remember hearing my parents say that they thought I was going to be an astrophysicist when I grew up. Not actually knowing what an astro-thinga-me-wotsit was, I agreed with them because I thought it sounded impressive. Really at that time I wanted to look after animals. People used to bring me injured birds and I would stay up all night feeding them worms!\"\n",
"On 20 March 2019 Galsworthy, amongst others, publicized a petition to revoke Article 50. In a televised interview the following day, with the petition having received 750,000 signatures, he expressed his view that Article 50 should be \"nuked from space\".\n",
"The Spacewoman in question is a scientist and explorer. The book is set many centuries in the future, though no dates are given. Humans have explored many worlds in a number of different galaxies. Their quest is for knowledge and to be helpful: there is a strict rule against 'interference'.\n",
"Haarsma takes part in school visits to promote his book and encourage imagination and reading in the school children. His presentation lasts fifty minutes, and discussions center around space travel, exploration, \"The Rings of Orbis\" universe, and other interactive topics, thus allowing for questions from the students at the conclusion. To help illustrate the scientific topics, NASA supplied Haarsma with space related information to present.\n"
] |
how do car dealerships work with the car companies and how do they make their profits?
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Car dealerships are independent businesses who have franchise agreements with the various car makers they sell. They purchase the vehicles through the manufacturers at the invoice price, but there are often other mechanisms for the dealers to make money from the sale, such as manufacturer holdbacks, quota bonuses, and other incentives. So even if a dealer sells a car "at invoice" they may still be making 3-5% of the cost in profit. Obviously then, if they sell for above invoice, they make more profit. Then there are the additional revenue streams that the finance manager tries to sell you on, like extended warranties, wheel protection, etc. that are all high margin products (same reason Best Buy always tries to sell you the extended warranty). And then there is the financing, with bounty going to the dealer when they go through the auto makers' credit arm. But most dealers actually make the most of the profit form the service part of the dealership, whether repairs covered under warranty that the car maker reimburses for, or repairs/service that are paid directly by the customer.
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[
"Car dealerships are usually franchised to sell and service vehicles by specific companies. They are often located on properties offering enough room to have buildings housing a showroom, mechanical service, and body repair facilities, as well as to provide storage for used and new vehicles. Many dealerships are located out of town or on the edge of town centers. An example of a traditional single proprietorship car dealership is Collier Motors in North Carolina. Many modern dealerships are now part of corporate-owned chains such as AutoNation with over 300 franchises. Dealership profits in the US mainly come from servicing, some from used cars, and little from new cars.\n",
"A car dealership or vehicle local distribution is a business that sells new or used cars at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. It employs automobile salespeople to sell their automotive vehicles. It may also provide maintenance services for cars, and employ automotive technicians to stock and sell spare automobile parts and process warranty claims.\n",
"In the United States and Canada, a car dealer may specialize in used vehicles, or be a franchised dealership, which is a retailer that sells new and sometimes used cars. In most cases Franchised Dealerships include certified preowned vehicles, employ trained automotive technicians, and offer financing. In the United States, direct manufacturer auto sales are prohibited in almost every state by franchise laws requiring that new cars be sold only by dealers.\n",
"New car dealerships also sell used cars, and take in trade-ins and/or purchase used vehicles at auction. Most dealerships also provide a series of additional services for car buyers and owners, which are sometimes more profitable than the core business of selling cars.\n",
"Car dealers also provide maintenance and in some cases, repair service for cars. New car dealerships are more likely to provide these services, since they usually stock and sell parts and process warranty claims for the manufacturers they represent. Maintenance is typically a high-margin service and represents a significant profit center for automotive dealers.\n",
"Most dealers utilize indirect lenders. This means that the installment loan contracts are immediately \"assigned\" or \"resold\" to third-party finance companies, often an offshoot of the car's manufacturer such as GM Financial, Ally Financial, or banks, which pay the dealer and then recover the balance by collecting the monthly installment payments promised by the buyer. To facilitate such assignments, dealers generally use one of several standard form contracts preapproved by lenders. The most popular family of contracts for the retail installment sale of vehicles in the U.S. are sold by business process vendor Reynolds and Reynolds; their contracts have been the subject of extensive (and frequently hostile) judicial interpretation in lawsuits between dealers and customers.\n",
"Used car dealers carry cars from many different manufacturers, while new car dealerships are generally franchises associated with only one manufacturer. Some new car dealerships may carry multiple brands from the same manufacturer. In some locales, dealerships have been consolidated and a single owner may control a chain of dealerships representing several different manufacturers.\n"
] |
Is there any proof that Mesopotamia and Egypt had contact with each other and if they did, what was their relationship like?
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What timeframe are you refering to?
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[
"The intensity of the exchanges suggest however that the contacts between Egypt and Mesopotamia were often direct, rather than merely through middlemen or through trade. Uruk had known colonial outposts of as far as Habuba Kabira, in modern Syria, insuring they presence in the Levant. Numerous Uruk cylinder seals have also been uncovered there. There were suggestions that Uruk may have had an outpost and a form of colonial presence in northern Egypt. The site of Buto in particular was suggested, but it has been rejected as a possible candidate.\n",
"Indus-Mesopotamia relations are thought to have developed during the second half of 3rd millennium BCE, until they came to a halt with the extinction of the Indus valley civilization after around 1900 BCE. Mesopotamia had already been an intermediary in the trade of Lapis Lazuli between the South Asia and Egypt since at least about 3200 BCE, in the context of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations.\n",
"Levantine sites previously showed evidence of trade links with Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia), Anatolia (Hattia, Hurria, Luwia and later the Hittites), Egypt and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age. Evidence at Ugarit shows that the destruction there occurred after the reign of Merneptah (ruled 1213–1203 BC) and even the fall of Chancellor Bay (died 1192 BC). The last Bronze Age king of the Semitic state of Ugarit, Ammurapi, was a contemporary of the last known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his reign are unknown.\n",
"There is sufficient archaeological evidence for the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. A number of these Indian seals have been found at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites.\n",
"Userkaf's reign might have witnessed a revival of trade between Egypt and its Aegean neighbors as shown by a series of reliefs from his mortuary temple representing ships engaged in what may be a naval expedition. Further evidence for such contacts is a stone vessel bearing the name of his sun temple that was uncovered on the Greek island of Kythira. This vase is the earliest evidence of commercial contacts between Egypt and the Aegean world. Finds in Anatolia, dating to the reigns of Menkauhor Kaiu and Djedkare Isesi, demonstrate that these contacts continued throughout the Fifth Dynasty.\n",
"Egypt-Mesopotamia relations seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia and in the pre-literate Gerzean culture for Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500-3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and generated \"deep-seated\" parallels in the early stages of both cultures.\n",
"Egypt-Mesopotamia relations seem to have developed from the 4th millennium BCE, starting in the Uruk period for Mesopotamia and the Gerzean culture of pre-literate Prehistoric Egypt (circa 3500-3200 BCE). Influences can be seen in the visual arts of Egypt, in imported products, and also in the possible transfer of writing from Mesopotamia to Egypt, and generated \"deep-seated\" parallels in the early stages of both cultures.\n"
] |
How much cytoplasm does the average animal cell contain?
|
About 100-1000 femtoliters.
& #x200B;
But it's a pretty hard thing to answer. The cell with the smallest volume that I know of is the sperm cell, with about 20 femtoliters (fL). The most numerous cell in your body is the red blood cell, and it has a cytoplasmic volume of about 100 fL. But a fibroblast has a volume of 1000 fL, a fat cell has a volume of about 100,000 fL, and a egg cell (oocyte) has a volume of about 1,000,000 fL.
& #x200B;
So how small of a volume is 100 femtoliters? Well, in 100 femtoliters, there is only a trillion water molecules. I know a trillion is a big number, but the fact that we even have a common word for the number of molecules in that volume tells you it's pretty small.
|
[
"The proportion of cell volume that is cytosol varies: for example while this compartment forms the bulk of cell structure in bacteria, in plant cells the main compartment is the large central vacuole. The cytosol consists mostly of water, dissolved ions, small molecules, and large water-soluble molecules (such as proteins). The majority of these non-protein molecules have a molecular mass of less than 300 Da. This mixture of small molecules is extraordinarily complex, as the variety of molecules that are involved in metabolism (the metabolites) is immense. For example, up to 200,000 different small molecules might be made in plants, although not all these will be present in the same species, or in a single cell. Estimates of the number of metabolites in single cells such as \"E. coli\" and baker's yeast predict that under 1,000 are made.\n",
"The molecular masses of proteins, nucleic acids, and other large polymers are often expressed with the units kilodaltons (kDa), megadaltons (MDa), etc. Titin, one of the largest known proteins, has a molecular mass of between 3 and 3.7 megadaltons. The DNA of chromosome 1 in the human genome has about 249 million base pairs, each with an average mass of about , or total.\n",
"C-values vary enormously among species. In animals they range more than 3,300-fold, and in land plants they differ by a factor of about 1,000. Protist genomes have been reported to vary more than 300,000-fold in size, but the high end of this range (\"Amoeba\") has been called into question. Variation in C-values bears no relationship to the complexity of the organism or the number of genes contained in its genome; for example, some single-celled protists have genomes much larger than that of humans. This observation was deemed counterintuitive before the discovery of non-coding DNA. It became known as the C-value paradox as a result. However, although there is no longer any paradoxical aspect to the discrepancy between C-value and gene number, this term remains in common usage. For reasons of conceptual clarification, the various puzzles that remain with regard to genome size variation instead have been suggested to more accurately comprise a complex but clearly defined puzzle known as the C-value enigma. C-values correlate with a range of features at the cell and organism levels, including cell size, cell division rate, and, depending on the taxon, body size, metabolic rate, developmental rate, organ complexity, geographical distribution, or extinction risk (for recent reviews, see Bennett and Leitch 2005; Gregory 2005).\n",
"In animal cells, myoinositol polyphosphates are ubiquitous, and phytic acid (myoinositol hexakisphosphate) is the most abundant, with its concentration ranging from 10 to 100 µM in mammalian cells, depending on cell type and developmental stage.\n",
"Cell size is highly variable among organisms, with some algae such as \"Caulerpa taxifolia\" being a single cell several meters in length. Plant cells are much larger than animal cells, and protists such as \"Paramecium\" can be 330 μm long, while a typical human cell might be 10 μm. How these cells \"decide\" how big they should be before dividing is an open question. Chemical gradients are known to be partly responsible, and it is hypothesized that mechanical stress detection by cytoskeletal structures is involved. Work on the topic generally requires an organism whose cell cycle is well-characterized.\n",
"In prokaryotes the cytosol contains the cell's genome, within a structure known as a nucleoid. This is an irregular mass of DNA and associated proteins that control the transcription and replication of the bacterial chromosome and plasmids. In eukaryotes the genome is held within the cell nucleus, which is separated from the cytosol by nuclear pores that block the free diffusion of any molecule larger than about 10 nanometres in diameter.\n",
"Eukaryotic cells are typically much larger than those of prokaryotes having a volume of around 10,000 times greater than the prokaryotic cell. They have a variety of internal membrane-bound structures, called organelles, and a cytoskeleton composed of microtubules, microfilaments, and intermediate filaments, which play an important role in defining the cell's organization and shape. Eukaryotic DNA is divided into several linear bundles called chromosomes, which are separated by a microtubular spindle during nuclear division.\n"
] |
why does it take so long for employers to reach hiring decisions?
|
Hiring an employee is a big investment. If there are lots of good options, then you want to make sure you're making the right one.
|
[
"Edmund Phelps [1972] introduced the assumption of uncertainty in hiring decisions. When employers make a hiring decision, although they can scrutinize the qualifications of the applicants, they cannot know for sure which applicant would perform better or would be more stable. Thus, they are more likely to hire the male applicants over the females, if they believe on \"average\" men are more productive and more stable. This general view affects the decision of the employer about the individual on the basis of information on the group averages.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Try-before-you-buy\" - In economics, potential employees send signals to the employers through their resume and interviews in an attempt to impress upon the interviewer to land the job. Shift based hiring allows employers to further \"test the waters\" on the workers’ suitability for the job by only committing to hiring the employee for one single shift, allowing employers to better select suitable employees to work for the company, before accepting these employees for more shifts.\n",
"The intent of skills-based hiring is for the applicant to demonstrate, independent of an academic degree, that he or she has the skills required to be successful on the job. It is also a mechanism by which employers may clearly and publicly advertise the expectations for the job – for example indicating they are looking for a particular set of skills at an appropriately communicated level of proficiency. The result of matching the specific skill requirements of a particular job to with the skills an individual has is both more efficient for the employer to identify qualified candidates, as well as provides an alternative, more precise method for candidates to communicate their knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors to the employer .\n",
"Lastly, the research suggests that for a better fit between an employee and a job, organization, or group to be more probable, it is important to spend an adequate amount of time with the applicant. This is because spending time with members before they enter the firm has been found to be positively associated with the alignment between individual values and firm values at entry (Chatman, 1991). Furthermore, if there are more extensive HR practices in place in the selection phase of hiring, then people are more likely to report that they experience better fits with their job and the organization as a whole (Boon et al., 2011).\n",
"The Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines apply to any selection procedure that is used for making employment decisions, not only for hiring, but also for promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff, discharge, or early retirement. Therefore, employment appraisal procedures must be validated like tests or any other selection device. Employers who base their personnel decisions on the results of a well-designed performance review program that includes formal appraisal interviews are much more likely to be successful in defending themselves against claims of discrimination.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Try-before-you-buy\" - Similarly for the employees, shift based hiring allows them to gain a deeper understanding on how working in the business is like by committing to a shift. They can then make a more informed decision on whether or not to continue working more shifts on a longer basis with the company.\n",
"After determining what career interests clients have and/or are best suited for via its comprehensive vocational evaluation system, staff provide clients with training in various areas of job readiness, from learning to fill out applications and develop their resumes to practicing job interviews and learning about employer expectations. Through networking and partnerships with various organizations in northeast Ohio, including Progressive Field, the Great Lakes Science Center, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, employment services helps connect clients with employers and secure work. Once a client finds permanent work, he/she is monitored for 90 days during which employment services determines what accommodations the client needs to perform at optimal efficiency.\n"
] |
why is the senate investigating claims that facebook censors conservative news when facebook is a private entity/platform?
|
Because the senate doesn't give a shit about actual government duties and only cares about their own partisan political ideologies and abusing their powers as much as possible in order to advance those particular political ideologies.
|
[
"Claims of shadow banning of conservative social media accounts began in 2016 with Facebook’s “Trending News” controversy. Conservative news sites lashed out at Facebook after a report from an unnamed Facebook employee on May 7 alleged that contractors for the social media giant were told to minimize links to their sites in its \"trending news\" column. Alex Breitbart, former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News, claimed that “Facebook trending news artificially mutes conservatives and amplifies progressives.” Facebook’s response included a statement that they “do not permit the suppression of political perspectives” and that its trending news articles are selected by algorithms to prevent human bias from violating its policy of neutrality. \n",
"As a result of perception that conservatives are not treated neutrally on Facebook alternative social media platforms have been established. This perception has led to a reduction of trust in Facebook, and reduction of usage by those who consider themselves to be conservative.\n",
"McCarthy is confident that social media platforms, such as Twitter, are actively censoring conservative politicians and their supporters. He called on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify before congress on the matter. On August 17, 2018, McCarthy submitted a tweet to suggest that conservatives were being censored by showing a screen capture of conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's Twitter account with a sensitive content warning on one of her tweets. This warning was due to McCarthy's own Twitter settings rather than any censorship from the platform. He refused to acknowledge this fact. McCarthy also suggested that Google was biased against Republicans due to some of its short-lived vandalism of the English Wikipedia entry on the California Republican Party that was automatically indexed in the search results.\n",
"Some commentators criticized Thune's letter as an example of government overreach against a private company. Facebook denied the bias allegations. Thune thanked Facebook in a statement saying, \"Private companies are fully entitled to espouse their own views, so I appreciate Facebook's efforts to address allegations of bias raised in the media and my concern about a lack of transparency in its methodology for determining trending topics.\"\n",
"In 2018, Facebook removed hundreds of pages related to U.S. politics on grounds of \"inauthentic activity\" one month before the midterm elections. Facebook representatives claimed that the posts and user accounts were deleted not because of the content of the posts, but because they violated Facebook's terms of service.\n",
"Although not directly performed during prescribed time in the presidential office, the use of personal private information for targeted politics on social media platforms has caused concerns regarding consumer privacy. In 2018, Facebook was accused of interfering in the 2016 election, potentially leading to events that altered the outcome.\n",
"In a 2017 feature on partisan news, BuzzFeed News analyzed weekly Facebook engagements \"since the beginning of 2015 and found that Occupy Democrats on the left and Fox News on the right are the top pages in each political category.\" The article added that the pages \"consistently generate more total engagement than the pages of major media outlets.\" The organization received wide attention during the 2016 presidential primaries of the Democratic Party, and was credited for having helped \"build support\" for Bernie Sanders' candidacy.\n"
] |
How do Historians typically calculate an "exact" date?
|
hi! hopefully some of the historians in antiquities will drop by with more info, but you may be interested in a few related posts
* [How do we know what years certain pre-gregorian historical events happened in?](_URL_4_)
* [How certain are we of what year it is? Were there every any disagreements, like during the Dark Ages or afterwards, of the exact year?](_URL_2_)
* [If an event is recorded to have occurred on a particular date, and I ask you to say with 100% confidence how many days have elapsed since that event, what is the oldest era for which you can do this?](_URL_3_)
* [What is the earliest recorded date that we can determine accurately?](_URL_5_)
* [What is the earliest reliable documented event in human history?](_URL_0_)
* [How do historians work with dates from different calendars? Do you have some kind of unified calendar?](_URL_1_)
|
[
"A calendar date is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, \"24 2020\" is ten days after \"14 2020\" in the Gregorian calendar. The date of a particular event depends on the observed time zone. For example, the air attack on Pearl Harbor that began at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time on 7 December 1941 took place at 3:18 a.m. Japan Standard Time, 8 December in Japan. \n",
"A very curious concept of dating is employed in Gethen, though this is only explained briefly in the book: the years are not numbered sequentially in increasing order, but the current year is always referred to as \"Year One\", and the others are counted as years before or after this standpoint. Historical records employ well-known events to mark (fixed) past dates.\n",
"The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from the Mayan creation date 4 Ahaw, 8 Kumkʼu (August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 in the Julian calendar -3113 astronomical dating). But instead of using a base-10 (decimal) scheme like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25 and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40. As the winal unit resets after only counting to 18, the Long Count consistently uses base-20 only if the tun is considered the primary unit of measurement, not the kʼin; with the kʼin and winal units being the number of days in the tun. The Long Count 0.0.1.0.0 represents 360 days, rather than the 400 in a purely base-20 (vigesimal) count.\n",
"The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 3114 BCE in the Julian Calendar (-3113 astronomical). Rather than using a base-10 scheme, like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40.\n",
"A different form of calendar was used to track longer periods of time, and for the inscription of calendar dates (i.e., identifying when one event occurred in relation to others). This form, known as the Long Count, is based upon the number of elapsed days since a mythological starting-point. According to the calibration between the Long Count and Western calendars accepted by the great majority of Maya researchers (known as the GMT correlation), this starting-point is equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or 6 September in the Julian calendar (−3113 astronomical).\n",
"Date and time notation in the United Kingdom records the date using the day-month-year format (21 October 2011 or 21/10/11). The ISO 8601 format (2011-10-21) is increasingly used for all-numeric dates. The time can be written using either the 24-hour clock (16:10) or 12-hour clock (4.10 p.m.).\n",
"During the changeover between calendars and for some time afterwards, dual dating was used in documents and gave the date according to both systems. In contemporary as well as modern texts that describe events during the period of change, it is customary to clarify to which calendar a given date refers by using an O.S. or N.S. suffix (denoting Old Style, Julian or New Style, Gregorian).\n"
] |
With the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the English language began rapidly changing. What other long-term cultural changes did this event bring about within England?
|
Hi there, I essentially answered a similar question to yours [here](_URL_1_), and linked to an earlier answer on some more of the legal changes [here](_URL_0_). The legal changes in particular would have had a genuine impact on the day-to-day life of the English people, especially as the legal system turned heavily from restorative to punative justice.
|
[
"After the conquest of England in 1066, the Normans's language developed into Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until the Hundred Years' War, by which time the use of French-influenced English had spread throughout English society.\n",
"After the conquest of England in 1066, the Normans's language developed into Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman served as the language of the ruling classes and commerce in England from the time of the conquest until the Hundred Years' War, by which time the use of French-influenced English had spread throughout English society.\n",
"The Norman conquest of England in 1066 saw the replacement of the top levels of the English-speaking political and ecclesiastical hierarchies by Norman rulers who spoke a dialect of Old French known as Old Norman, which developed in England into Anglo-Norman. The use of Norman as the preferred language of literature and polite discourse fundamentally altered the role of Old English in education and administration, even though many Normans of this period were illiterate and depended on the clergy for written communication and record-keeping. A significant number of words of French origin began to appear in the English language alongside native English words of similar meaning, giving rise to such Modern English synonyms as \"pig/pork, chicken/poultry, calf/veal, cow/beef, sheep/mutton, wood/forest, house/mansion, worthy/valuable, bold/courageous, freedom/liberty, sight/vision, eat/dine\".\n",
"After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, society seemed fixed and unchanging for several centuries, but gradual and significant changes were still taking place, the exact nature of which would not be appreciated until much later. The Norman lords spoke Norman French, and in order to work for them or gain advantage, the English had to use the Anglo-Norman language that developed in England. This became a necessary administrative and literary language (see Anglo-Norman literature), but despite this the English language was not supplanted, and after gaining much in grammar and vocabulary began in turn to replace the language of the rulers. At the same time the population of England more than doubled between Domesday and the end of the 13th century, and this growth was not checked by the almost continual foreign warfare, crusades and occasional civil anarchy.\n",
"The Norman Conquest led to a profound change in the history of the English state. William ordered the compilation of the Domesday Book, a survey of the entire population and their lands and property for tax purposes, which reveals that within 20 years of the conquest the English ruling class had been almost entirely dispossessed and replaced by Norman landholders, who monopolised all senior positions in the government and the Church. William and his nobles spoke and conducted court in Norman French, in both Normandy and England. The use of the Anglo-Norman language by the aristocracy endured for centuries and left an indelible mark in the development of modern English.\n",
"The Norman Conquest of 1066 gave England a two-tiered society with an aristocracy which spoke Anglo-Norman and a lower class which spoke English. From 1066 until Henry IV of England ascended the throne in 1399, the royal court of England spoke a Norman language that became progressively Gallicised through contact with French. However, the Norman rulers made no attempt to suppress the English language, apart from not using it at all in their court. In 1204, the Anglo-Normans lost their continental territories in Normandy and became wholly English. By the time Middle English arose as the dominant language in the late 14th century, the Normans (French people) had contributed roughly 10,000 words to English of which 75% remain in use today. Continued use of Latin by the Church and centres of learning brought a steady, though dramatically reduced, the influx of new Latin lexical borrowings.\n",
"For 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Anglo-Norman language was the language of administration and few Kings of England spoke English. A large number of French words were assimilated into Old English, which lost most of its inflections, the result being Middle English. Around the year 1500, the Great Vowel Shift marked the transformation of Middle English into Modern English.\n"
] |
Biologically, how does pedophilia even make sense?
|
Although what causes pedophilia is not yet known, beginning in 2002, researchers began reporting a series of findings linking pedophilia with brain structure and function: Pedophilic (and hebephilic) men have lower IQs, poorer scores on memory tests, greater rates of non-right-handedness, greater rates of school grade failure over and above the IQ differences, lesser physical height, greater probability of having suffered childhood head injuries resulting in unconsciousness, and several differences in MRI-detected brain structures. They report that their findings suggest that there are one or more neurological characteristics present at birth that cause or increase the likelihood of being pedophilic. Evidence of familial transmittability "suggests, but does not prove that genetic factors are responsible" for the development of pedophilia.
Another study, using structural MRI, shows that male pedophiles have a lower volume of white matter than a control group.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has shown that child molesters diagnosed with pedophilia have reduced activation of the hypothalamus as compared with non-pedophilic persons when viewing sexually arousing pictures of adults. A 2008 functional neuroimaging study notes that central processing of sexual stimuli in heterosexual "paedophile forensic inpatients" may be altered by a disturbance in the prefrontal networks, which "may be associated with stimulus-controlled behaviours, such as sexual compulsive behaviours." The findings may also suggest "a dysfunction at the cognitive stage of sexual arousal processing."
Blanchard, Cantor, and Robichaud (2006) reviewed the research that attempted to identify hormonal aspects of pedophiles. They concluded that there is some evidence that pedophilic men have less testosterone than controls, but that the research is of poor quality and that it is difficult to draw any firm conclusion from it.
A study analyzing the sexual fantasies of 200 heterosexual men by using the Wilson Sex Fantasy Questionnaire exam, determined that males with a pronounced degree of paraphilic interest (including pedophilia) had a greater number of older brothers, a high 2D:4D digit ratio (which would indicate excessive prenatal estrogen exposure), and an elevated probability of being left-handed, suggesting that disturbed hemispheric brain lateralization may play a role in deviant attractions.
Wikipedia
|
[
"BULLET::::- Pedophilia is a psychological disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children. According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), pedophilia is a paraphilia in which a person has intense sexual urges towards children, and experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children. Pedophilic disorder is further defined as psychological disorder in which a person meets the criteria for pedophilia above, and also either acts upon those urges, or else experiences distress or interpersonal difficulty as a consequence. The diagnosis can be made under the DSM or ICD criteria for persons age 16 and older. Child sexual abuse is not committed by all pedophiles, and not all child molesters are pedophiles.\n",
"Pedophilia emerges before or during puberty, and is stable over time. It is self-discovered, not chosen. For these reasons, pedophilia has been described as a disorder of sexual preference, phenomenologically similar to a heterosexual or homosexual sexual orientation. These observations, however, do not exclude pedophilia from the group of mental disorders because pedophilic acts cause harm, and mental health professionals can sometimes help pedophiles to refrain from harming children.\n",
"Pedophilia is termed pedophilic disorder in the \"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders\" (DSM-5), and the manual defines it as a paraphilia involving intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children that have either been acted upon or which cause the person with the attraction distress or interpersonal difficulty. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) defines it as a \"sustained, focused, and intense pattern of sexual arousal—as manifested by persistent sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, or behaviours—involving pre-pubertal children.\"\n",
"Pedophilia is one of the most stigmatized mental disorders. One study reported high levels of anger, fear and social rejection towards pedophiles who have not committed a crime. The authors suggested such attitudes could negatively impact child sexual abuse prevention by reducing pedophiles' mental stability and discouraging them from seeking help. According to sociologists Melanie-Angela Neuilly and Kristen Zgoba, social concern over pedophilia intensified greatly in the 1990s, coinciding with several sensational sex crimes (but a general decline in child sexual abuse rates). They found that the word \"pedophile\" appeared only rarely in \"The New York Times\" and \"Le Monde\" before 1996, with zero mentions in 1991.\n",
"Pedophilia is a condition in which an adult or older adolescent is primarily or exclusively attracted to prepubescent children, whether the attraction is acted upon or not. A person with this attraction is called a \"pedophile\".\n",
"In the same article, Gardner denied that he condoned pedophilia. \"I believe that pedophilia is a bad thing for society,\" he wrote. \"I do believe, however, that pedophilia, like all other forms of atypical sexuality is part of the human repertoire and that all humans are born with the potential to develop any of the forms of atypical sexuality (which are referred to as paraphilias by DSM-IV). My acknowledgment that a form of behavior is part of the human potential is not an endorsement of that behavior. Rape, murder, sexual sadism, and sexual harassment are all part of the human potential. This does not mean I sanction these abominations.\"\n",
"In response to misinterpretations that the American Psychiatric Association considers pedophilia a sexual orientation because of wording in its printed DSM-5 manual, which distinguishes between paraphilia and what it calls \"paraphilic disorder\", subsequently forming a division of \"pedophilia\" and \"pedophilic disorder\", the association commented: \"'[S]exual orientation' is not a term used in the diagnostic criteria for pedophilic disorder and its use in the DSM-5 text discussion is an error and should read 'sexual interest.'\" They added, \"In fact, APA considers pedophilic disorder a 'paraphilia,' not a 'sexual orientation.' This error will be corrected in the electronic version of DSM-5 and the next printing of the manual.\" They said they strongly support efforts to criminally prosecute those who sexually abuse and exploit children and adolescents, and \"also support continued efforts to develop treatments for those with pedophilic disorder with the goal of preventing future acts of abuse.\"\n"
] |
why do black americans resent white americans so much for slavery when america wasn't the first to use slavery, and banned slavery 13 years before the last country to ban slavery did?
|
So in your world slavery was the end of the matter?
|
[
"The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution brought an end to the system of slavery that had kept American blacks in bondage since colonial times. After slavery was abolished, there was somewhat of a cultural crisis in the Southern states. Even though black Americans had received their freedom from the unjust practice of slavery, they also lost a consistent form of shelter, food, and worship. Almost overnight, these became things that tens of thousands of freed slaves now had to provide for by themselves. As if this hurdle were not enough, many white Americans, uncomfortable with this societal change, created, endorsed, and enforced Jim Crow laws as a way to segregate and suppress black Americans.\n",
"Until the Civil War, slavery was legal. After the Revolutionary War, the new Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 to provide a way for foreigners to become citizens of the new country. It limited naturalization to aliens who were \"free white persons\" and thus left out indentured servants, slaves, free African-Americans, and later Asians. In addition, many states enforced anti-miscegenation laws (e.g. Indiana in 1845), which prohibited marriage between whites and non-whites, that is, blacks, mulattoes, and, in some states, also Native Americans. After an influx of Chinese immigrants to the West Coast, marriage between whites and Asians was banned in some western states.\n",
"Conservative writer David Horowitz wrote a list of ten reasons why \"Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too\" in 2001. He contends that there isn't one particular group that benefited from slavery, there isn't one group that is solely responsible for slavery, only a small percentage of whites ever owned slaves and many gave their lives fighting to free slaves, and most Americans don't have a direct or indirect connection to slavery because of the United States' multi-ethnic background.\n",
"By late 1865, the American Civil War was over and slavery in the United States ended with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, known as freedmen, millions of former African American slaves were without employable job skills, opportunities, and even literacy itself, (e.g., in Virginia, since the bloody Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831, it had been unlawful to teach a slave to read).\n",
"According to a 2016 article in the Washington Post, a U.N. panel said they believe the U.S. owes black people reparations. A report done by a U.N connected panel claimed because of slavery, Americans with African descent should receive reparations in some form. In the same article, it is also stated that \" Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today.The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population.\" They concluded that because of slavery, violence against the black community, and terrorist acts like lynching, black people should receive some sort of apology or other form of reparation.\n",
"In 1999, African American lawyer and activist Randall Robinson, founder of the TransAfrica advocacy organization, wrote that America's history of race riots, lynching and institutional discrimination have \"resulted in $1.4 trillion in losses for African Americans\". Economist Robert Browne stated the ultimate goal of reparations should be to \"restore the black community to the economic position it would have if it had not been subjected to slavery and discrimination\". But what it doesn't cover is how none of those in the black community who are here due to slavery would even be here had slavery not existed in the United States. He estimates a fair reparation value anywhere between $1.4 to $4.7 trillion, or roughly $142,000 for every black American living today. Other estimates range from $5.7 to $14.2 to $17.1 trillion \n",
"In 1807, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress abolished the international slave trade. While American Blacks celebrated this as a victory in the fight against slavery, the ban increased the demand for slaves. Changing agricultural practices in the Upper South from tobacco to mixed farming decreased labor requirements, and slaves were sold to traders for the developing Deep South. In addition, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 allowed any Black person to be claimed as a runaway unless a White person testified on their behalf. A number of free Blacks, especially indentured children, were kidnapped and sold into slavery with little or no hope of rescue. By 1819 there were exactly 11 free and 11 slave states, which increased sectionalism. Fears of an imbalance in Congress led to the 1820 Missouri Compromise that required states to be admitted to the union in pairs, one slave and one free.\n"
] |
What books should be trusted?
|
Obviously, there is always a ton to be said on this sort of question, but you might find [this](_URL_0_) response by /u/Cosmic_Charlie informative
|
[
"The \"Los Angeles Times\" wrote that the author \"has given us a clear, almost controversial book that draws on the text and teachings of an ancient mystical faith and applies them to the concerns of contemporary life. His insights into the use of meditation to overcome the fear of death are comforting, reassuring, invigorating... [and this] is as much a book about the richness of life as it is about the end of living.\"\n",
"The Hai Gaon in 998 in Pumbeditah comments, \"Three possessions should you prize- a field, a friend, and a book.\" However the Hai Gaon mentions that a book is more reliable than even friends for sacred books span across time, indeed can express external ideas, that transcend time itself.\n",
"The \"Independent Thinking Review\" wrote, \"This is a book that deserves to be widely read. Skeptics and critical thinkers can learn from it, but more importantly, it's a book to give those who maybe aren't as skeptical as you, those who need some clear and reasonable arguments to gently push them in a more critical direction. Read this book yourself: buy it for someone whose mind you care about.\"\n",
"\"The book you hold is my own fictional version of what is surely one of the greatest stories of survival ever told. I can only offer gratitude to the reader for turning a blind eye to any historical inaccuracies, and for tolerating a novelist's liberties. I am no historian, and have massaged facts and fictions into place, re-conjuring history.\"\n",
"Philip F. Williams of Arizona State University stated that some people reading the book may need to consult other scholarly reference guides in order to help them understand \"Fin-de-Siècle Splendor\" due to the absence of edition, publication, and serialization information of some works chronicled within the book.\n",
"Any good book can be an inspiration, but many of these books highlight people overcoming adversity or reaching new levels of understanding. Whether they pull themselves up by their own bootstraps or have help from a higher power, these books will uplift and entertain you.\n",
"\"A Book to Keep (Hidden)\" gives accounts of thousands of years of good and bad deeds from antiquity to the current age. By Li’s own advice, it cannot be read by those who possess “eyes of flesh” (a Buddhist term indicating the “most mundane form of vision” characteristic of someone unenlightened).\n"
] |
Can light impart momentum?
|
The solar sail can either absorb the light (so the sail gains the momentum of the photon it asborbs), or better yet, reflect the light, reversing its momentum. By conservation of momentum, the sail then gains two times the photon's momentum.
This is completely analogous to experiments you might do with, say, a medicine ball and a person standing on a skateboard.
|
[
"The angular momentum of light is a vector quantity that expresses the amount of dynamical rotation present in the electromagnetic field of the light. While traveling approximately in a straight line, a beam of light can also be rotating (or “\"spinning\"”, or “\"twisting\"”) around its own axis. This rotation, while not visible to the naked eye, can be revealed by the interaction of the light beam with matter.\n",
"Less widely known is the fact that light may also carry angular momentum, which is a property of all objects in rotational motion. For example, a light beam can be rotating around its own axis while it propagates forward. Again, the existence of this angular momentum can be made evident by transferring it to small absorbing or scattering particles, which are thus subject to an optical torque.\n",
"It is well known that light, or more generally an electromagnetic wave, carries not only energy but also momentum, which is a characteristic property of all objects in translational motion. The existence of this momentum becomes apparent in the “\"radiation pressure\"” phenomenon, in which a light beam transfers its momentum to an absorbing or scattering object, generating a mechanical pressure on it in the process.\n",
"Current commonly accepted physical theories imply or assume the photon to be strictly massless. If the photon is not a strictly massless particle, it would not move at the exact speed of light, \"c\", in vacuum. Its speed would be lower and depend on its frequency. Relativity would be unaffected by this; the so-called speed of light, \"c\", would then not be the actual speed at which light moves, but a constant of nature which is the upper bound on speed that any object could theoretically attain in spacetime. Thus, it would still be the speed of spacetime ripples (gravitational waves and gravitons), but it would not be the speed of photons.\n",
"In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object the speed of light, or for a massive object to move the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability.\n",
"where formula_8. So relativistic energy and momentum significantly increase with speed, thus the speed of light cannot be reached by massive particles. In some relativity textbooks, the so-called \"relativistic mass\" formula_9 is used as well. However, this concept is considered disadvantageous by many authors, instead the expressions of relativistic energy and momentum should be used to express the velocity dependence in relativity, which provide the same experimental predictions.\n",
"When an object is pushed in the direction of motion, it gains momentum and energy, but when the object is already traveling near the speed of light, it cannot move much faster, no matter how much energy it absorbs. Its momentum and energy continue to increase without bounds, whereas its speed approaches (but never reaches) a constant value—the speed of light. This implies that in relativity the momentum of an object cannot be a constant times the velocity, nor can the kinetic energy be a constant times the square of the velocity.\n"
] |
Why are the lanthanides and actinides crammed in one space?
|
They don't, it's just a,way of drawing the Periodic Table more compactly. If you wanted the table set out properly as a grid it would have to be an unwieldy long piece of paper. The whole thing really should be split at that point and the La and Ac elements inserted as two long lines. We draw it the way we do for for covenience. If we wanted to, we could also draw the d-block elements similarly.
Chemically it's because the order of filling electron orbitals doesn't go simply shells 1-2-3-4-5... For the higher weight atoms, electrons start to fill the higher numbered "s" and "p" shells before the "d" and "f" of lower numbered shells have all the electrons they can take. So at the start of the Lanthanides and Actinides the sequence goes back filling in the remainder.
|
[
"Lanthanum and actinium are commonly depicted as the remaining group 3 members. It has been suggested that this layout originated in the 1940s, with the appearance of periodic tables relying on the electron configurations of the elements and the notion of the differentiating electron. The configurations of caesium, barium and lanthanum are [Xe]6s, [Xe]6s and [Xe]5d6s. Lanthanum thus has a 5d differentiating electron and this establishes it \"in group 3 as the first member of the d-block for period 6\". A consistent set of electron configurations is then seen in group 3: scandium [Ar]3d4s, yttrium [Kr]4d5s and lanthanum [Xe]5d6s. Still in period 6, ytterbium was assigned an electron configuration of [Xe]4f5d6s and lutetium [Xe]4f5d6s, \"resulting in a 4f differentiating electron for lutetium and firmly establishing it as the last member of the f-block for period 6\". Later spectroscopic work found that the electron configuration of ytterbium was in fact [Xe]4f6s. This meant that ytterbium and lutetium—the latter with [Xe]4f5d6s—both had 14 f-electrons, \"resulting in a d- rather than an f- differentiating electron\" for lutetium and making it an \"equally valid candidate\" with [Xe]5d6s lanthanum, for the group 3 periodic table position below yttrium. Lanthanum has the advantage of incumbency since the 5d electron appears for the first time in its structure whereas it appears for the third time in lutetium, having also made a brief second appearance in gadolinium.\n",
"They are called lanthanides because the elements in the series are chemically similar to lanthanum. Both lanthanum and lutetium have been labeled as group 3 elements, because they have a single valence electron in the 5d shell. However, both elements are often included in discussions of the chemistry of lanthanide elements. Lanthanum is the more often omitted of the two, because its placement as a group 3 element is somewhat more common in texts and for semantic reasons: since \"lanthanide\" means \"like lanthanum\", it has been argued that lanthanum cannot logically be a lanthanide, but IUPAC acknowledges its inclusion based on common usage.\n",
"Currently there is research showing that lanthanide elements can be used as anticancer agents. The main role of the lanthanides in these studies is to inhibit proliferation of the cancer cells. Specifically cerium and lanthanum have been studied for their role as anti-cancer agents.\n",
"The lanthanides and actinides, in the metallic state, can exist as either divalent (such as europium and ytterbium) or trivalent (most other lanthanides) metals. The former have fds configurations, whereas the latter have fs configurations. In 1975, Johansson and Rosengren examined the measured and predicted values for the cohesive energies (enthalpies of crystallization) of the metallic lanthanides and actinides, both as divalent and trivalent metals. The conclusion was that the increased binding energy of the [Rn]5f6d7s configuration over the [Rn]5f7s configuration for mendelevium was not enough to compensate for the energy needed to promote one 5f electron to 6d, as is true also for the very late actinides: thus einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, and nobelium were expected to be divalent metals. The increasing predominance of the divalent state well before the actinide series concludes is attributed to the relativistic stabilization of the 5f electrons, which increases with increasing atomic number. Thermochromatographic studies with trace quantities of mendelevium by Zvara and Hübener from 1976 to 1982 confirmed this prediction. In 1990, Haire and Gibson estimated mendelevium metal to have an enthalpy of sublimation between 134 and 142 kJ/mol. Divalent mendelevium metal should have a metallic radius of around . Like the other divalent late actinides (except the once again trivalent lawrencium), metallic mendelevium should assume a face-centered cubic crystal structure. Mendelevium's melting point has been estimated at 827 °C, the same value as that predicted for the neighboring element nobelium. Its density is predicted to be around .\n",
"Like the lanthanides, the actinides form a family of elements with similar properties. Within the actinides, there are two overlapping groups: transuranium elements, which follow uranium in the periodic table—and transplutonium elements, which follow plutonium. Compared to the lanthanides, which (except for promethium) are found in nature in appreciable quantities, most actinides are rare. The majority of them do not even occur in nature, and of those that do, only thorium and uranium do so in more than trace quantities. The most abundant or easily synthesized actinides are uranium and thorium, followed by plutonium, americium, actinium, protactinium, neptunium, and curium.\n",
"The lanthanides and actinides, in the metallic state, can exist as either divalent (such as europium and ytterbium) or trivalent (most other lanthanides) metals. The former have fs configurations, whereas the latter have fds configurations. In 1975, Johansson and Rosengren examined the measured and predicted values for the cohesive energies (enthalpies of crystallization) of the metallic lanthanides and actinides, both as divalent and trivalent metals. The conclusion was that the increased binding energy of the [Rn]5f6d7s configuration over the [Rn]5f7s configuration for nobelium was not enough to compensate for the energy needed to promote one 5f electron to 6d, as is true also for the very late actinides: thus einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, and nobelium were expected to be divalent metals, although for nobelium this prediction has not yet been confirmed. The increasing predominance of the divalent state well before the actinide series concludes is attributed to the relativistic stabilization of the 5f electrons, which increases with increasing atomic number: an effect of this is that nobelium is predominantly divalent instead of trivalent, unlike all the other lanthanides and actinides. In 1986, nobelium metal was estimated to have an enthalpy of sublimation between 126 kJ/mol, a value close to the values for einsteinium, fermium, and mendelevium and supporting the theory that nobelium would form a divalent metal. Like the other divalent late actinides (except the once again trivalent lawrencium), metallic nobelium should assume a face-centered cubic crystal structure. Divalent nobelium metal should have a metallic radius of around 197 pm. Nobelium's melting point has been predicted to be 827 °C, the same value as that estimated for the neighboring element mendelevium. Its density is predicted to be around 9.9 ± 0.4 g/cm.\n",
"It is disputed whether lanthanum and actinium should be included in group 3, rather than lutetium and lawrencium. Other d-block groups are composed of four transition metals, and group 3 is sometimes considered to follow suit. Scandium and yttrium are always classified as group 3 elements, but it is controversial which elements should follow them in group 3, lanthanum and actinium or lutetium and lawrencium. Scerri has proposed a resolution to this debate on the basis of moving to a 32-column table and consideration of which option results in a continuous sequence of atomic number increase. He thereby finds that group 3 should consist of Sc, Y, Lu, Lr. The current IUPAC definition of the term \"lanthanoid\" includes fifteen elements including both lanthanum and lutetium, and that of \"transition element\" applies to lanthanum and actinium, as well as lutetium but \"not\" lawrencium, since it does not correctly follow the Aufbau principle. Normally, the 103rd electron would enter the d-subshell, but quantum mechanical research has found that the configuration is actually [Rn]7s5f7p due to relativistic effects. IUPAC thus has not recommended a specific format for the in-line-f-block periodic table, leaving the dispute open.\n"
] |
How fast does an object inside the event horizon of a black hole move towards it?
|
There are two important things we have to remember here:
1. Velocity is a relative quantity. We can't just say, "That thing is moving at velocity *v*." We can only say, "That thing is moving at velocity *v* **relative to that other thing**." I assume you question is then, "Does an object inside the event horizon of a black hole move faster than c relative to an observer outside the event horizon?" This brings us to the second important fact.
2. The region inside the event horizon of a black hole **is not part of our universe**. This may sound shocking, but let's think about it. Nothing can cross from inside to outside, so we can never receive any information about it. It is completely inaccessible to us. We might as well say it's outside of our universe.
Thus, there's no meaningful way to talk about how fast something *inside* the event horizon of a black hole is moving relative to something *outside* of a black hole since we can never compare their velocities. Now, two massive objects inside the event horizon and in causal contact with each other (that is, they can "see" each other) must move at less than c relative to each other.
We, of course, could ask the hypothetical question, "Well, if we *could* see inside the event horizon of a black hole, would objects in there be moving at faster than c relative to us?" To answer that, I'd have to dig out my old relativity textbook and read up on it a lot, but even if it could happen, it wouldn't be a violation of special relativity thanks to the event horizon censorship.
|
[
"In the case of the horizon around a black hole, observers stationary with respect to a distant object will all agree on where the horizon is. While this seems to allow an observer lowered towards the hole on a rope (or rod) to contact the horizon, in practice this cannot be done. The proper distance to the horizon is finite, so the length of rope needed would be finite as well, but if the rope were lowered slowly (so that each point on the rope was approximately at rest in Schwarzschild coordinates), the proper acceleration (G-force) experienced by points on the rope closer and closer to the horizon would approach infinity, so the rope would be torn apart. If the rope is lowered quickly (perhaps even in freefall), then indeed the observer at the bottom of the rope can touch and even cross the event horizon. But once this happens it is impossible to pull the bottom of rope back out of the event horizon, since if the rope is pulled taut, the forces along the rope increase without bound as they approach the event horizon and at some point the rope must break. Furthermore, the break must occur not at the event horizon, but at a point where the second observer can observe it.\n",
"BULLET::::- At the event horizon, formula_30 the speed of light shining outward away from the center of black hole is formula_31 It can not escape from the event horizon. Instead, it gets stuck at the event horizon. Since light moves faster than all others, matter can only move inward at the event horizon. Everything inside the event horizon is hidden from the outside world.\n",
"The event horizon of a black hole may be thought of as a surface moving outward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between escaping and falling back. The event horizon of a white hole is a surface moving inward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between being swept outward and succeeding in reaching the center. They are two different kinds of horizons—the horizon of a white hole is like the horizon of a black hole turned inside-out.\n",
"As a black hole rotates, it twists spacetime in the direction of the rotation at a speed that decreases with distance from the event horizon. This process is known as the Lense–Thirring effect or frame-dragging. Because of this dragging effect, an object within the ergosphere cannot appear stationary with respect to an outside observer at a great distance unless that object were to move at faster than the speed of light (an impossibility) with respect to the local spacetime. The speed necessary for such an object to appear stationary decreases at points further out from the event horizon, until at some distance the required speed is that of the speed of light.\n",
"Any object approaching the horizon from the observer's side appears to slow down and never quite pass through the horizon, with its image becoming more and more redshifted as time elapses. This means that the wavelength of the light emitted from the object is getting longer as the object moves away from the observer. The notion of an event horizon was originally restricted to black holes; light originating inside an event horizon could cross it temporarily but would return. Later a strict definition was introduced as a boundary beyond which events cannot affect any outside observer at all, encompassing other scenarios than black holes. This strict definition of EH has caused information and firewall paradoxes; therefore Stephen Hawking has supposed an apparent horizon to be used. \n",
"Since the ergosphere is outside the event horizon, it is still possible for objects that enter that region with sufficient velocity to escape from the gravitational pull of the black hole. An object can gain energy by entering the black hole's rotation and then escaping from it, thus taking some of the black hole's energy with it (making the maneuver similar to the exploitation of the Oberth effect around \"normal\" space objects).\n",
"This \"slingshot\" effect has been explored in theoretical physics: it is hypothetically possible to slingshot oneself \"around\" the event horizon of a black hole. As a result of the black hole's extreme gravitation, time would pass at a slower rate near the event horizon, relative to the outside universe; the traveler would experience the passage of only several minutes or hours, while hundreds of years would pass in 'normal' space.\n"
] |
the difference in programming languages.
|
Every single programming language serves one purpose: explain to the computer what we want it to do.
HTML is... not a programming language, it's a markup language, which basically means text formatting. XML and JSON are in the same category
The rest of languages fall in a few general categories (with examples):
1. Assembly is (edit: for every intent and purpose) the native language of the machine. Each CPU has it's own version, and they are somewhat interoperable (forward compatibility mostly).
2. System languages (C and C++) . They are used when you need to tell the computer what to do, as well as HOW to do it. A program called a compiler interprets the code and transforms it into assembler.
3. Application languages (Java and C#). Their role is to provide a platform on which to build applications using various standardized ways of working.
4. Scripting languages (Python, and Perl). The idea behind them is that you can build something useful in the minimal amount of code possible.
5. Domain-specific languages (FORTRAN and PHP). Each of these languages exist to build a specific type of program (Math for FORTRAN, a web page generator for PHP)
Then you have various hybrid languages that fit in between these main categories. The list goes on and on. Various languages are better suited for various tasks, but it's a matter of opinion.
Finally and most importantly: JavaScript is an abomination unto god, but it's the only language that can be reliably expected to be present in web browsers, so it's the only real way to code dynamic behavior on webpages.
Edit: Corrections, also added the 5th category
|
[
"Just as different groups in software engineering advocate different \"methodologies\", different programming languages advocate different \"programming paradigms\". Some languages are designed to support one paradigm (Smalltalk supports object-oriented programming, Haskell supports functional programming), while other programming languages support multiple paradigms (such as Object Pascal, C++, C#, Visual Basic, Common Lisp, Scheme, Python, Ruby, and Oz).\n",
"Different programming languages support different styles of programming (called \"programming paradigms\"). The choice of language used is subject to many considerations, such as company policy, suitability to task, availability of third-party packages, or individual preference. Ideally, the programming language best suited for the task at hand will be selected. Trade-offs from this ideal involve finding enough programmers who know the language to build a team, the availability of compilers for that language, and the efficiency with which programs written in a given language execute. Languages form an approximate spectrum from \"low-level\" to \"high-level\"; \"low-level\" languages are typically more machine-oriented and faster to execute, whereas \"high-level\" languages are more abstract and easier to use but execute less quickly. It is usually easier to code in \"high-level\" languages than in \"low-level\" ones.\n",
"The syntax of most programming languages uses English keywords, and therefore it could be argued some knowledge of English is required in order to use them. However, it is important to recognize all programming languages are in the class of formal languages. They are very different from any natural language, including English.\n",
"Programming languages tend to have their own, oftentimes multiple, programming styles and naming conventions. Enumerations frequently follow either a PascalCase or uppercase convention, while lowercase and others are seen less frequently.\n",
"The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning). Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard) while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some languages have both, with the basic language defined by a standard and extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common.\n",
"A programming language may also be classified by factors unrelated to programming paradigm. For instance, most programming languages use English language keywords, while a minority do not. Other languages may be classified as being deliberately esoteric or not.\n",
"Just as software engineering (as a process) is defined by differing \"methodologies\", so the programming languages (as models of computation) are defined by differing \"paradigms\". Some languages are designed to support one paradigm (Smalltalk supports object-oriented programming, Haskell supports functional programming), while other programming languages support multiple paradigms (such as Object Pascal, C++, Java, C#, Scala, Visual Basic, Common Lisp, Scheme, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Wolfram Language, Oz, and F#). For example, programs written in C++, Object Pascal or PHP can be purely procedural, purely object-oriented, or can contain elements of both or other paradigms. Software designers and programmers decide how to use those paradigm elements.\n"
] |
why do modern tvs seem to increase the framerate of video, even when to footage is decades old?
|
Modern televisions have a setting that is usually turned on by default that causes this effect. The way it does it is by looking at two frames in the image, seeing what the differences are, and "guessing" what another frame between the two would look like if it was there when the show was recorded. The TV then creates this extra frame, and gives the appearance of the TV show or film being recorded at 48-60 FPS.
|
[
"Conventional video displays consist of a series of images, or \"frames\", representing single snapshots in time. When the frames are updated rapidly enough, changes in those images provide the illusion of continuous motion. This makes normal television tubes unsuitable for computer displays, where the image is generally static for extended periods of time (as it is while you read this). The solution is to use additional hardware and computer memory to store the image between each update, a section of memory known as a framebuffer.\n",
"Although video technology had the potential to be cheaper since it doesn't have the costs of film stock and have to go through the development process respectively, the quality of early video recording technology in the 1950s and even into the mid 1960s was often far too low to be taken seriously against the aesthetical look, familiarity and relative ease of editing of 16mm and 35mm film stock – which many television cinematographers used well up until the late 1980s in documentaries, dramas etc. before video technology caught up to being 'acceptable' as television cameras and camcorders eventually displaced film stock for regular television use as they became lighter and more practical to take with them. Because early video cameras were so large and so expensive, it wasn't until 1984 with the JVC VHS-C camcorder that consumers had access to video tape technology.\n",
"Digital video equipment has made this approach easier; theatrical-release documentaries and features originated on video are now being produced this way. High Definition video became popular in the early 2000s by pioneering filmmakers like George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez, who used HD video cameras (such as the Sony HDW-F900) to capture images for popular movies like \"\" and \"Spy Kids 2\", respectively, both released in 2002.\n",
"Devices like Apple TV or Netgear's Digital Entertainer, capable of transferring video files from the Internet to the television screen, will cause an increase in the length of the size of videos, both in definition and duration.\n",
"In the mid and late 2000s, digital video technology had started to make it possible to shoot video at the \"film look\" rate of 24 frame/s at little or no additional cost. This had resulted in less high motion on television and on the internet on Video sharing applications such as YouTube in the early to mid 2010s.\n",
"Old video technology only had a 5 stop exposure dynamic range. Modern HD video cameras have up to 14 stops. The exposure range is therefore less of an issue than before, although there is still a popular belief that video is considerably worse than film in the shoulder of the gamma curve, where whites blow out in video, while film tends to overexpose more evenly and gracefully.\n",
"Until the late 1990s, programs shot on video always possessed high motion, while programming shot on film never did. (The exceptions: Certain motion simulators and amusement park rides included film projected at 48–60 frames per second, and video recorded on kinescope film recorders lost its high motion characteristic.) This had the result of high motion being associated with news coverage and low-budget programming such as soap operas and some sitcoms. Higher-budget programming on television was usually shot on film. In the 1950s, when Hollywood experimented with higher frame rates for films (such as with the Todd AO process) some objected to the more video-like look (although the inability to convert such films for projection in regular theaters was a more serious problem).\n"
] |
what exactly does a dip in economy do to a country?
|
If the economy dips less people are buying things, if less people are buying things then companies that make things can't afford to hire so many people to make those things. Those people lose their jobs and have less resources to buy things, and so on, and so on.
Houses are lost because the bank expects you to pay mortgages, cars are repossessed, utilities are shut off.
Quality of life goes down.
More people die from disease that could have been treated if they could afford it.
Crime rate goes up.
|
[
"These economic downturns occur because of increased supply and decreased demand, which combine to create a shift in surplus and power to the semi-periphery. Semi-periphery regions take advantage of the situation by expanding control of their home markets and the surrounding periphery countries at the expense of core countries. The underlying reason for this shift in power lies in the basic economic principle of scarcity. As long as core countries maintain scarcities of their goods, they can select customers from semi-periphery and periphery countries that are competing over them. When excess supply occurs, the core countries are the ones competing over a smaller market. This competition allows semi-peripheral nations to select from among core countries rather than vice versa when making decisions about commodity purchases, manufacturing investments, and sales of goods, shifting the balance of power to the semi-periphery. While in general there is a power shift from core to semi-periphery in times of economic struggles, there are few examples of semi-peripheral countries transitioning to core status. To accomplish this, semi-peripheral nations must not only take advantage of weaker core countries but must also exploit any existing advantages over other semi-peripheral nations. How well they exploit these advantages determines their arrangement within the semi-periphery class.\n",
"Then he argued that the contraction of the markets in that area tends to have a depressing effect on new investments, which in turn causes a further reduction of income and demand and, if nothing happens to modify the trend, there is a net movement of enterprises and workers towards other areas. Among the further results of these events, fewer local taxes are collected in a time when more social services is required and a vicious downward cumulative cycle is started and a trend towards a lower level of development will be further reinforced.\n",
"The economic malaise affecting the Comecon countries – low growth rates and diminishing returns on investment – led many domestic and Western economists to advocate market-based solutions and a sequenced programme of economic reform. It was recognized that micro-economic reform and macro-economic stabilization had to be combined carefully. Price liberalization without prior remedial measures to eliminate macro-economic imbalances, including an escalating fiscal deficit, a growing money supply due to a high level of borrowing by state-owned enterprises, and the accumulated savings of households (\"monetary overhang\") could result in macro-economic destabilization instead of micro-economic efficiency. Unless entrepreneurs enjoyed secure property rights and farmers owned their farms the process of Schumpeterian \"creative destruction\" would limit the reallocation of resources and prevent profitable enterprises from expanding to absorb the workers displaced from the liquidation of non-viable enterprises. A hardening of the budget constraints at state-owned enterprises would halt the drain on the state budget from subsidization but would require additional expenditure to counteract the resulting unemployment and drop in aggregate household spending. Monetary overhang meant that price liberalization might convert \"repressed inflation\" into open inflation, increase the price level still further and generate a price spiral. The transition to a market economy would require state intervention alongside market liberalization, privatization and deregulation. Rationing of essential consumer goods, trade quotas and tariffs and an active monetary policy to ensure that there was sufficient liquidity to maintain commerce might be needed. In addition to tariff protection, measures to control capital flight were also considered necessary in some instances.\n",
"However, when a country is suffering from high unemployment or wishes to pursue a policy of export-led growth, a lower exchange rate can be seen as advantageous. From the early 1980s the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has proposed devaluation as a potential solution for developing nations that are consistently spending more on imports than they earn on exports. A lower value for the home currency will raise the price for imports while making exports cheaper. This tends to encourage more domestic production, which raises employment and gross domestic product (GDP). Such a positive impact is not guaranteed however, due for example to effects from the Marshall–Lerner condition. Devaluation can be seen as an attractive solution to unemployment when other options, like increased public spending, are ruled out due to high public debt, or when a country has a balance of payments deficit which a devaluation would help correct. A reason for preferring devaluation common among emerging economies is that maintaining a relatively low exchange rate helps them build up foreign exchange reserves, which can protect against future financial crises.\n",
"An increase in government expenditure shifts the IS curve to the right. This will mean that domestic interest rates and GDP rise. However, this increase in the interest rates attracts foreign investors wishing to take advantage of the higher rates, so they demand the domestic currency, and therefore it appreciates. The strengthening of the currency will mean it is more expensive for customers of domestic producers to buy the home country's exports, so net exports will decrease, thereby cancelling out the rise in government spending and shifting the IS curve to the left. Therefore, the rise in government spending will have no effect on the national GDP or interest rate.\n",
"In the case of government intervention in the market, there is always a trade-off with positive and negative effects. For example, a price ceiling may cause a shortage, but it will also enable a certain percentage of the population to purchase a product that they couldn't afford at market costs. Economic shortages caused by higher transaction costs and opportunity costs (e.g., in the form of lost time) also mean that the distribution process is wasteful. Both of these factors contribute to a decrease in aggregate wealth.\n",
"A country with a large trade surplus would generally see the value of its currency appreciate relative to other currencies, which would reduce the imbalance as the relative price of its exports increases. This currency appreciation occurs as the importing country sells its currency to buy the exporting country's currency used to purchase the goods. Alternatively, trade imbalances can be reduced if a country encouraged domestic saving by restricting or penalizing the flow of capital across borders, or by raising interest rates, although this benefit is likely offset by slowing down the economy and increasing government interest payments.\n"
] |
why do helicopters crash so much more often than other aircraft?
|
Helicopters have extremely poor glide characteristics. Your best case scenario for a malfunction resulting in loss of lift is a controlled crash. There are a lot of flight regimes in which you're basically just 100% screwed in a helicopter because you simply don't have enough velocity or altitude to make any real recovery.
Planes have a lot more options because they are much simpler machines, and most are pretty decent gliders. A small private plane that loses power at altitude can get a pretty good distance before he hits the ground. That allows for the pilot to have some time to consider the situation, attempt to recover the aircraft, or pick a good spot to land/crash.
Helicopters also tend to operate near the ground a lot more often than planes.
|
[
"Of the accidents and incidents included in this list, six were caused by engine failure, while six flight-into-terrain accidents were recorded, with two additional hard landings resulting in serious damage to the aircraft. Seven more of the accidents and incidents were a result of problems in the helicopters' drive systems, while five others were caused by collisions, three of them being mid-air collisions - two with other Sea Kings, the third, with a Lockheed Hercules transport -, one a collision with the superstructure of a ship, and another a collision with a high-tension cable. Two accidents were the result of failure of the main rotor, with two others being caused by weather, while one accident each was caused by instrument failure, bird strike (presumed), fuel exhaustion, and on-board fire; eleven other accidents and incidents did not mention a specific cause, simply that the helicopter involved crashed or ditched without further detail being provided.\n",
"The construction of helicopters has to be more precise than for fixed-wing model aircraft, because helicopters are susceptible to even the smallest of vibrations, which can cause problems when the helicopter is in flight.\n",
"Helicopters became frequently used, due to a number of advantages; they could fly in rougher weather than fixed-wing aircraft and could deliver injured passengers directly to hospitals or other emergency facilities. Helicopters can hover above the scene of an accident while fixed-wing aircraft must circle, or for seaplanes, land and taxi toward the accident. Helicopters can save those stranded among rocks and reefs, where seaplanes are unable to go. Landing facilities for helicopters can be much smaller and cruder than for fixed-wing aircraft. Additionally, the same helicopter that is capable of air-sea rescue can take part in a wide variety of other operations including those on land. Disadvantages include the loud noise causing difficulties in communicating with the survivors and the strong downdraft that the hovering helicopter creates which increases wind chill danger for already-soaked and hypothermic patients. Helicopters also tend to have limited range and endurance.\n",
"The rotor turbulence may be harmful for other small aircraft such as balloons, hang gliders and paragliders. It can even be a hazard for large aircraft; the phenomenon is believed responsible for many aviation accidents and incidents, including the in-flight breakup of BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707, near Mt. Fuji, Japan in 1966, and the in-flight separation of an engine on an Evergreen International Airlines Boeing 747 cargo jet near Anchorage, Alaska in 1993.\n",
"Helicopters also produce wake turbulence. Helicopter wakes may be of significantly greater strength than those from a fixed wing aircraft of the same weight. The strongest wake can occur when the helicopter is operating at lower speeds (20 to 50 knots). Some mid-size or executive class helicopters produce wake as strong as that of heavier helicopters. This is because two-blade main rotor systems, typical of lighter helicopters, produce a stronger wake than rotor systems with more blades. The strong rotor wake of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor can extend beyond the description in the manual, which contributed to a crash.\n",
"In contrast, low-g conditions can be disastrous for helicopters. In such a situation their rotors may flap beyond normal limits. The excessive flapping can cause the root of the blades to exceed the limit of their hinges and this condition, known as mast bumping, can cause the separation of the blades from the hub or for the mast to shear, and hence detach the whole system from the aircraft, falling from the sky. This is especially true for helicopters with teetering rotors, such as the two-bladed design seen on Robinson helicopters.\n",
"The helicopter crash was attributed to technical and mechanical fault, indicated by the air force inquiries. Initial military reports suggested engine failure. Developing reports later revealed a failure in the helicopter's tail rotor while it was landing, which caused it to lose control and crash. The black box was recovered. According to Foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad, \"It was purely an accident, and accidents do happen.\" Ahmad added that the helicopter was serviced regularly, with the last service taking place 11 hours before the crash. The Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Air Staff constituted a military board of inquiry, the results of which would be made available to the public.\n"
] |
what are options and derivatives? and what are some of the more complex securities being traded?
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A derivative is a contract you can buy and sell. For example, "whoever holds this piece of paper can buy 100 shares of IBM from me for $50 per share." Now, if IBM is worth a lot more than $50 a share, that piece of paper is valuable and you can sell it -- someone will pay good money for it, and its value fluctuates as IBM's (present and future) value fluctuate.
An option is a specific kind of derivative -- one which says you have the right to buy (or sell) a certain thing at a certain price if you want, often with a certain time constraint. The above example is an option.
There are also more complex derivatives, such as "I agree to deliver you any combination of apples and oranges totaling 100,000 kg, at a time of my choosing in November 2016, for a price equal to the then-current price of 1000 barrels of Brent crude oil, but only if the USA has exited Iraq by that time."
|
[
"This article covers those who deal in securities and futures in US markets. Securities include equities (stocks), bonds (US Government, corporate and municipal), and options thereon. Derivatives include futures and options thereon as well as swaps. The distinction in the US relates to having two regulators. Markets in other countries have similar categories of securities and types of participants, though not two regulators.\n",
"A stock derivative is any financial instrument for which the underlying asset is the price of an equity. Futures and options are the main types of derivatives on stocks. The underlying security may be a stock index or an individual firm's stock, e.g. single-stock futures.\n",
"Option and futures contracts often provide leverage on underlying stocks, bonds or commodities; this increases the returns but also the risks. Note that in some cases, derivatives can be used to hedge, decreasing the overall risk of the portfolio due to negative correlation with other investments.\n",
"For instance, when investing in a stock it is possible to buy an option to sell that stock at a defined price at some point in the future. The combined portfolio of stock and option is now much less likely to move below a given value. As in diversification there is a cost, this time in buying the option for which there is a premium. Derivatives are used extensively to mitigate many types of risk.\n",
"Derivatives are contracts between two parties that specify conditions (especially the dates, resulting values and definitions of the underlying variables, the parties' contractual obligations, and the notional amount) under which payments are to be made between the parties. The assets include commodities, stocks, bonds, interest rates and currencies, but they can also be other derivatives, which adds another layer of complexity to proper valuation. The components of a firm's capital structure, e.g., bonds and stock, can also be considered derivatives, more precisely options, with the underlying being the firm's assets, but this is unusual outside of technical contexts.\n",
"Derivatives evolved from simple commodity future contracts into a diverse group of financial instruments that apply to every kind of asset, including mortgages, insurance and many more. Futures contracts, Swaps (1970s-), Exchange-traded Commodities (ETC) (2003-), forward contracts, etc. are examples. They can be traded through formal exchanges or through Over-the-counter (OTC). Commodity market derivatives unlike credit default derivatives for example, are secured by the physical assets or commodities.\n",
"Futures traders are traditionally placed in one of two groups: hedgers, who have an interest in the underlying asset (which could include an intangible such as an index or interest rate) and are seeking to \"hedge out\" the risk of price changes; and speculators, who seek to make a profit by predicting market moves and opening a derivative contract related to the asset \"on paper\", while they have no practical use for or intent to actually take or make delivery of the underlying asset. In other words, the investor is seeking exposure to the asset in a long futures or the opposite effect via a short futures contract.\n"
] |
Is it theoretically possible to replace all my bones (or most of the) for something made from a stronger material, like carbon fiber
|
Start by reading [this](_URL_0_) to learn about the functions of bone, which go beyond the structural.
|
[
"Bone generally has the ability to regenerate completely but requires a very small fracture space or some sort of scaffold to do so. Bone grafts may be autologous (bone harvested from the patient’s own body, often from the iliac crest), allograft (cadaveric bone usually obtained from a bone bank), or synthetic (often made of hydroxyapatite or other naturally occurring and biocompatible substances) with similar mechanical properties to bone. Most bone grafts are expected to be reabsorbed and replaced as the natural bone heals over a few months’ time.\n",
"Research on artificial bone materials has revealed that bioactive and resorbable silicate glasses (bioglass), glass-ceramics, and calcium phosphates exhibit mechanical properties that similar to human bone. Similar mechanical property does not assure biocompatibility. The body's biological response to those materials depends on many parameters including chemical composition, topography, porosity, and grain size. If the material is metal, there is a risk of corrosion and infection. If the material is ceramic, it is difficult to form the desired shape, and bone can't reabsorb or replace it due to its high crystallinity. Hydroxyapatite, on the other hand, has shown excellent properties in supporting the adhesion, differentiation, and proliferation of osteogenesis cell since it is both thermodynamically stable and bioactive. Artificial bones using hydroxyapatite combine with collagen tissue helps to form new bones in pores, and have a strong affinity to biological tissues while maintaining uniformity with adjacent bone tissue. Despite its excellent performance in interacting with bone tissue, hydroxyapatite has the same problem as ceramic in reabsorption due to its high crystallinity. Since hydroxyapatite is processed at a high temperature, it is unlikely that it will remain in a stable state.\n",
"Bone grafting is a surgical procedure that replaces missing bone in order to repair bone fractures that are extremely complex, pose a significant health risk to the patient, or fail to heal properly. Some kind of small or acute fractures can be cured but the risk is greater for large fractures like compound fractures.\n",
"Although the bone is a dynamic tissue that can self-heal upon minor injuries, it cannot regenerate after experiencing large defects such as bone tumor resections and severe nonunion fractures because it lacks the appropriate template. Currently, the standard treatment is autografting which involves obtaining the donor bone from a non-significant and easily accessible site (i.e. iliac crest) in the patient own body and transplanting it into the defective site. Transplantation of autologous bone has the best clinical outcome because it integrates reliably with the host bone and can avoid complications with the immune system. But its use is limited by its short supply and donor site morbidity associated with the harvest procedure. Furthermore, autografted bones are avascular and hence are dependent on diffusion for nutrients, which affects their viability in the host. The grafts can also be resorbed before osteogenesis is complete due to high remodeling rates in the body. Another strategy for treating severe bone damage is allografting which transplants bones harvested from a human cadaver. However, allografts introduce the risk of disease and infection in the host.\n",
"Bone grafting is possible because bone tissue, unlike most other tissues, has the ability to regenerate completely if provided the space into which to grow. As native bone grows, it will generally replace the graft material completely, resulting in a fully integrated region of new bone. The biologic mechanisms that provide a rationale for bone grafting are osteoconduction, osteoinduction and osteogenesis.\n",
"Bone has a unique and well documented natural healing process that normally is sufficient to repair fractures and other common injuries. Misaligned breaks due to severe trauma, as well as treatments like tumor resections of bone cancer, are prone to improper healing if left to the natural process alone. Scaffolds composed of natural and artificial components are seeded with mesenchymal stem cells and placed in the defect. Within four weeks of placing the scaffold, newly formed bone begins to integrate with the old bone and within 32 weeks, full union is achieved. Further studies are necessary to fully characterize the use of cell-based therapeutics for treatment of bone fractures.\n",
"It can be used as a tissue replacement for repairing bony defects when autogenous bone graft is not feasible or possible. It may be used alone or in combination with a biodegradable, resorbable polymer such as polyglycolic acid. It may also be combined with autologous materials for a bone graft.\n"
] |
if 1 and 0 (data) are voltage values, how is voltage stored in a flash drive after you plug it out of the computer and stop the electricity flow?
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Think of it as balls and buckets. It takes energy to kick a ball into a bucket, and it takes energy to remove a ball from a bucket, but unless someone does something a ball outside a bucket will stay out, and if the ball is in it will stay in. Each bucket is a bit, and it's state (0 or 1) will be determined by whether or not it has a ball. You sculpt your stored data by plucking balls out of buckets.
The balls are electrons and the buckets are just a metaphor for some quantum behavior I've never understood, but the ball & bucket analogy helps me understand.
|
[
"For use in a binary digital computer, the tube had to be capable of storing either one of two states at each of its memory locations, corresponding to the binary digits (bits) 0 and 1. It exploited the positive or negative electric charge generated by displaying either a dash or a dot at any position on the CRT screen, a phenomenon known as secondary emission. A dash generated a positive charge, and a dot a negative charge, either of which could be picked up by a detector plate in front of the screen; a negative charge represented 0, and a positive charge 1. The charge dissipated in about 0.2 seconds, but it could be automatically refreshed from the data picked up by the detector.\n",
"If the battery contacts at the back of the unit were short circuited, then all of the data stored at the device was erased, because the data was held in a kind of memory that required power for retaining the data. Enthusiasts were able to fix that issue by adding a diode to one of the battery contacts, so that during the charging of the device the diode was open, but during the short-circuit, the diode blocked the short circuiting current.\n",
"The disk's embedded microcontroller may signal the main computer that a disk write is complete immediately after receiving the write data, before the data is actually written to the platter. This early signal allows the main computer to continue working even though the data has not actually been written yet. This can be somewhat dangerous, because if power is lost before the data is permanently fixed in the magnetic media, the data will be lost from the disk buffer, and the file system on the disk may be left in an inconsistent state.\n",
"After being written to, the insulator traps electrons on the FG, locking it into the 0 state. However, in order to change that bit, the insulator has to be \"overcharged\" to erase any charge already stored in it. This requires higher voltage, about 10 volts, much more than a battery can provide. Flash systems include a \"charge pump\" that slowly builds up power and releases it at higher voltage. This process is not only slow, but degrades the insulators. For this reason flash has a limited number of writes before the device will no longer operate effectively.\n",
"To write a value to memory, the address was amplified and sent to the Y deflection plates, such that the beam would be fixed to a horizontal line on the screen. A timer then set the X deflection plate to increasing voltages, causing the beam to be scanned across the selected line. The gun was set to a default energy close to , and the bits from the computer fed to the gun to modulate the voltage up and down such that 0's would be below and 1's above it. By the time the beam reached the other side of the line, a pattern of short dashes was drawn for each 1, while 0's were empty locations.\n",
"BULLET::::- As of 2007, charge pumps are integrated into nearly all EEPROM and flash-memory integrated circuits. These devices require a high-voltage pulse to \"clean out\" any existing data in a particular memory cell before it can be written with a new value. Early EEPROM and flash-memory devices required two power supplies: +5 V (for reading) and +12 V (for erasing). , commercially available flash memory and EEPROM memory requires only one external power supply – generally 1.8 V or 3.3 V. A higher voltage, used to erase cells, is generated internally by an on-chip charge pump.\n",
"A single-level NOR flash cell in its default state is logically equivalent to a binary \"1\" value, because current will flow through the channel under application of an appropriate voltage to the control gate, so that the bitline voltage is pulled down. A NOR flash cell can be programmed, or set to a binary \"0\" value, by the following procedure:\n"
] |
why can't i (besides being a dick to the postal service) drop off a letter in a mailbox, with the return address being my actual intended address, to avoid using a stamp?
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You can. I have a friend who got caught, and was banned from the Postal Service for several years.
|
[
"Mailboxes, on the other hand, often have a \"maximum\" setback instead of a minimum one. A postal administration or postmaster may mandate that if a mailbox on a street is too far from the curb for the letter carrier to insert mail, without having to get out of the vehicle, the mail may not be delivered to that address at all until the situation is corrected.\n",
"The return address is not required on postal mail. However, lack of a return address prevents the postal service from being able to return the item if it proves undeliverable; such as from damage, postage due, or invalid destination. Such mail may otherwise become dead letter mail.\n",
"Any long-lived mailing list is going to eventually contain addresses that can't be reached. Addresses that were once valid can become unusable because the person receiving the mail there has switched to a different provider. In another scenario, the address may still exist but be abandoned, with unread mail accumulating until there is not enough room left to accept any more.\n",
"In a May 1980 ruling, Conner decided that community organizations that placed fliers in personal mailboxes did not violate the law, holding that the organizations' First Amendment rights trumped a 1934 statute imposing a $300 fine for placing mailable material into a mailbox without postage. The organizations that challenged the ban claimed that the cost and delays of using the mail \"barred them from effective communication\", while the United States Postal Service contended that mailbox security would be lost and that mail carriers would have to waste time checking what's in mailboxes.\n",
"The United States Postal Service has a monopoly on the delivery of \"non-urgent\" first-class mail, where delivery is not time-sensitive. It also has the exclusive right to use customer-owned mail boxes for placing the customer's mail for delivery. This means that, even though mail boxes, such as those in the door of a house, or on the curb, or in the front lobby of the customer's building, are owned by the customer, and not owned by the Postal Service, by law only the Postal Service may use them to deliver mail. This law is in effect because it is believed that were the Postal Service to not have this monopoly, other competing mail carriers would take over the most lucrative parts of the business (e.g. local delivery of bills in dense urban areas), leaving the Postal Service with more expensive urban deliveries and rural service.\n",
"This is the name for mail which is sent and received between employees and departments. Internal mail will often use a special envelope which can be reused. It is common for them to have many address boxes that are used in order. The most recent box is the current delivery address.\n",
"Occasionally, because of political instability when a post office could not provide normal services, incoming mail from a mail steamer would be delivered to a local delivery service, which would deliver the mail and charge the addressee an extra fee for the service. When this occurred, the local delivery service would place its own local service stamp or mark on the envelope when the extra fee was paid.\n"
] |
why people prefer mega or the pirate bay than mediafire?
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I use TPB for a couple reasons. Number one is nostalgia.
Number two is respect. They've been around for 10(?) years or so, name another pirating platform team that has faced the level of pressure TPB has...Mega, maybe? These guys are serving prison time and still running TPB. They've made plenty money and could have gotten out years ago, but they continue to risk their freedom for us(and more money).
TL;DR 1. Nostalgia 2. Much Respect.
|
[
"The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated to TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.\n",
"The films \"The Boat That Rocked\", \"Pump Up the Volume\", and \"On the Air Live with Captain Midnight\", as well as the TV series \"People Just Do Nothing\" are set in the world of pirate radio, while \"Born in Flames\" features pirate radio stations as being part of an underground political movement.\n",
"The Pirate Bay is considered part of an international anti-copyright movement. The documentary \"Steal This Film\" was produced and distributed (via BitTorrent) in the months following the raid. In the words of its speakers, it aimed to present the other side of the debate, until that time dominated by the media industry. The film was made available free, as donationware. \n",
"The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website that indexes and tracks BitTorrent files. It bills itself as \"the galaxy's largest BitTorrent tracker\" and is ranked as the 73rd most popular website by Alexa Internet. The website is funded primarily with advertisements shown next to torrent listings. Initially established in November 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån (\"The Piracy Bureau\") it has been operating as a separate organization since October 2004.\n",
"On April 18, 2011, the torrent site The Pirate Bay renamed itself to \"Research Bay,\" a display of their collaboration with the Cybernorms group. The Pirate Bay encouraged its users to take a sociological survey about file-sharing related issues. Private information was promised not to be released. The survey, powered by Questback queried participants about what media they were most likely to share, and what sources they use to download besides The Pirate Bay. Questions including asking about uploading practices to P2P networks and how much they use free streaming media services to watch TV, films, and listen to music. The survey's stated purpose was to understand online norms and values, which, the website goes on to say, is essential to developing relevant and effective laws and policies. Another purpose of the survey was to help researchers to better understand habits and norms within the file-sharing community.\n",
"The \"Great Pirate\" concept is explained in depth, and the source of their power is that they are the \"only\" masters of \"global\" information in a time where people are focused locally. Specifically, the \"Great Pirates\" are aware that resources are not evenly distributed around the world, so that items which are abundant in one area are scarce in another. This gives rise to trade which the \"Great Pirates\" exploit for their own advantage.\n",
"The Pirate Bay has sparked controversies and discussion about legal aspects of file sharing, copyright, and civil liberties and has become a platform for political initiatives against established intellectual property laws and a central figure in an anti-copyright movement. The website faced several shutdowns and domain seizures which \"did little to take the site offline, as it simply switched to a series of new web addresses and continued to operate\".\n"
] |
What is the oldest, civilized and still existing nation?
|
Depends on how you define "civilized" and "nation".
6th edition of *Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English* defines "civilized" as: "1. a civilized society is well organized and developed, and has fair laws and customs". In historical use, from what I remember, a civilized state has the following characteristics:
* Urban city centers
* A form of symbolic writing
* An organized government and a taxation system
Egyptians had hieroglyphs as early as around 3 200 B.C, if I recall correctly. However, Egypt has not been existed continuously as it's own nation, the Persians conquered it around 525 B.C, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt (and pretty much everything else while at it, too) from the Persians, and the Hellenes were driven out after the war between Octavian, who would later be known as *Augustus Caesar*, and Marcus Antonius, or Mark Anthony, as his name has been anglicized, and finally, the Arabs conquered Egypt from the Eastern Roman Empire.
As far as I remember, the Kurds have never been independent, so I am not sure if they really count.
Meanwhile, in the Far East, China has had, according to folklore and tradition, dynasties, and thus governments, and thus taxation, since 22nd century B.C. Written language in China may date back even to [7th millenium B.C] (_URL_0_), but the evidence can be disputed as an anomaly. China, while it has been conquered, has never had it's ethnicity, culture and government system changed much, as far as I know, so I would say that China is the oldest civilization which still exists.
|
[
"The society is divided into 83 provinces along with six independent regions and ten dependent regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and the US. Their average age was 57.3 years: 63.4 years for priests, 29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers.\n",
"The oldest known people with sustained civilizations in Indiana are the Woodland Indians. These mound builders lived in what would become Indiana from approximately 1,000 BC to 900 AD. These Native American tribes disappeared, and were replaced by other tribes during the 1700s. In future northeast Indiana, the new tribes were the Miami and Potawatomi Indians. The Lake James area was the hunting grounds of the Potawatomi Indians, who managed the land and wildlife with periodic controlled burns.\n",
"BULLET::::- Japan, considered a constitutional monarchy under the Imperial House of Japan, has a claim to being the world's oldest extant continuous hereditary monarchy, with a traditional origin in 660 BC, commonly accepted archaeological and cultural evidence from the 3rd century and reliable historiographical evidence from at least the 6th century.\n",
"According to its Web site its history of over 140 years makes it one of the oldest in the country. It is, with the Carnival of Campeche, the only one that has preserved traditional expressions of historical value in the Yucatán Peninsula, and has become an event of heritage for the state of Quintana Roo. It is distinguished by its long history, its cultural aspects, its organization, and its family character.\n",
"This article attempts to list the oldest extant, freestanding buildings constructed in the United States and its territories. The list includes sites in current states and territories which were not part of the original Thirteen Colonies when the United States of America was founded in 1776. \n",
"BULLET::::4. That it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation, from whose emigrants the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Amazon River, the Pacific coast of South America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations.\n",
"BULLET::::- Kalingga: Kalingga (Javanese: Karajan Kalingga) was the 6th century Indianized kingdom on the north coast of Central Java, Indonesia. It was the earliest Hindu-Buddhist kingdom in Central Java, and together with Kutai and Tarumanagara are the oldest kingdoms in Indonesian history.\n"
] |
What is the history of course and grounds upkeep at St. Andrews?
|
St Andrews was unusual in that between 1552 and 1805 they used rabbits. There was a financial incentive for this, because rabbiting was a huge industry when every part of a rabbit had a use and there was always an increasing supply. This benefitted both the landlords who sold on the rabbits and the commoners who caught them - both received financial rewards - but the golf course would have held little revenue for commoners until tourism as an industry developed as we know it today.
Mass killing the rabbits was legalised in 1805, as the tourist golfer population and their interest in st andrews was rising. Golf itself was being standardised, and rabbits left too many of their own holes in the course to disturb matches. There was a 16 year struggle between the two sides until 1821 when the foundations for an established course were laid out.
Because the golf course is known to be over 500 years old, but rabbits were permitted in 1552, I would assume that rabbits were already being used and permission was granted as it was a difficult practice to curb (as is often the way) but it would otherwise have been livestock, probably sheep. Modern grass maintenance arrived in the mid-victorian era when the basic lawnmower was invented, in 1830, so I would again assumed livestock were used until later in the 18th century when St Andrews would have been able to purchase one.
I was able to find [this internet history](_URL_0_) for quick reading, but the 'definitive history' recommended is St Andrews, The Evolution of the Old Course: The Impact on Golf of Time, Tradition and Technology by Scott MacPherson. Hope this was helpful.
|
[
"The Charleston Trust is a charity set up in 1980 to restore and maintain the home of the Bloomsbury Group artists for the benefit of the public. The unique collection at Charleston is illustrative of the art and lifestyle of the influential Bloomsbury Group and has been on show to the public since 1986. Charleston attracts visitors from the local community as well as the rest of the UK and abroad.\n",
"The four galleries aim to tell the story of the University of St Andrews from its foundation in 1410 until the present day. Each gallery takes a different theme. 'Scotland's First University' covers the foundation and early period of the University's history. 'Living and Learning' examines student life at St Andrews and looks at aspects such as dining, student societies and the iconic red gown. 'Seeing and Believing' investigates the big ideas that have emerged from students, staff and alumni in the areas of Science, Theology and the Arts and features figures such as astronomer James Gregory (mathematician), mathematician John Napier and theologian Samuel Rutherford. The fourth gallery is now used for temporary exhibitions and shows a range of changing displays. Recent exhibitions have included the history of medicine at the University and a display of artworks representing Britain during the Second World War, some from the University's own collection and some on loan from the Victora & Albert Museum, London.\n",
"The house and gardens are open to visitors by guided tour in the summer and by appointment at other times. Guided tours focus upon the historical context of the house, the ancient mythological and religious origins of the Greek Revival, connections with Freemasonry, the Agricultural Revolution, the Picturesque movement, and issues of interpretation of the Borghese Vase and the Parthenon Frieze. A musical instrument collection including pianos, harpsichords, two pipe organs and a modified five-manual Makin electronic are used for an annual programme of concerts. The latter served at St Columb's Cathedral, Derry for 12 years (whilst its predecessor was being repaired after the Troubles), and is used in particular to promote the music of the French symphonic writers such as Vierne and Widor. Its expansion from three to five manuals, with more than 150 stops, makes it one of the largest such instruments in Europe with more than 25,000 possible stop combinations. The other keyboards are tuned to an unequal temperament, such as Well or Meantone, which composers of the Classical and Romantic era relied upon to choose the key in which to write their compositions.\n",
"The academic year at St Andrews is divided into two semesters, Martinmas and Candlemas, named after two of the four Scottish Term and Quarter Days. Martinmas, on 11 November, was originally the feast of Saint Martin of Tours, a 4th-century bishop and hermit. Candlemas originally fell on 2 February, the day of the feast of the Purification, or the Presentation of Christ. Martinmas semester runs from early September until mid-December, with examinations taking place just before the Christmas break. There follows an inter-semester period when Martinmas semester business is concluded and preparations are made for the new Candlemas semester, which starts in January and concludes with examinations at the end of May. Graduation is celebrated at the end of June.\n",
"That summer, Van Horne also visited St. Andrews, staying in its resort hotel. Van Horne, a Montreal resident, purchased nearby Minister's Island and soon began construction of his \"Covenhoven\" estate, which still stands today.\n",
"The Episcopal Church in Gardiner was organized in 1772 by Sylvester Gardiner, a major landowner for whom the city is named. This building, constructed in 1820, is its third sanctuary, the first having succumbed to fire in 1792, and the congregation having outgrown the second. It was designed by the Rev. Samuel Farmer Jarvis in what was then termed the \"Gothick\" style, which was then without precedent in New England.\n",
"The University of St Andrews announced in August 2014 that the theatre was to reopen under the management of the University, after striking a deal with owners Fife Council and Creative Scotland. Under the agreement, which takes the form of a 25-year lease, the Byre will be used as a theatre, educational resource, general arts venue and music centre. When the announcement was made, the University stressed that the \"rescue package will be delivered at no cost to council tax payers in Fife who hitherto had subsidised the ailing theatre\". Michael Downes, the University of St Andrews’ Director of Music, was appointed as Artistic Director in September 2014, and replaced by Liam Sinclair in 2016.\n"
] |
Could Russia ever have won the Cold War?
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In his book, *Predicting Politics*, political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita simulates the Cold War as a battle over ideology between different countries. He allows the *salience* of foreign policy to vary randomly in each run of the simulation; military, economic, and demographic capabilities are set at the outset and then vary over time due to conflict or cooperation between states. Anyway, what his model finds is that most of the time, the USSR more or less gives in and moves to the US position on international ideology. Still, in at least a quarter of cases, the opposite happens (usually because the US cannot assemble a coalition that cares about ideology and it suffers costs from resisting a more-powerful Soviet bloc alone). I'm not entirely persuaded by the simulations, but the model has been reasonably accurate as a forecasting tool, so it's not unreasonable to suppose that if Europe and Japan went to the far left, the US would basically withdraw from intense competition with the Soviet Union, leaving it to set the international agenda. Political science is probably as close to counterfactual history as you'll get, since all cause-effect statements necessarily include counterfactuals (e.g. if A makes B more likely, then B must be less likely absent A).
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"In January 2017, a former US Government adviser Molly K. McKew said at \"Politico\" that the US would win a new cold war. \"The New Republic\" editor Jeet Heer dismissed the possibility as \"equally troubling[,] reckless threat inflation, wildly overstating the extent of Russian ambitions and power in support of a costly policy\", and too centred on Russia while \"ignoring the rise of powers like China and India\". Heer also criticized McKew for suggesting the possibility. Jeremy Shapiro, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution, wrote in his blog post at \"RealClearPolitics\", referring to the US–Russia relations: \"A drift into a new Cold War has seemed the inevitable result\".\n",
"In August 2017, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denied claims that the US and Russia were having another cold war, despite ongoing tensions between the two countries and newer US sanctions against Russia. In March 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalist Megyn Kelly in an interview: \"My point of view is that the individuals that have said that a new Cold War has started are not analysts. They do propaganda\"- Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation and a fellow at the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute said that the new cold war for Russia \"is about its survival as a power in the international order, and also about holding on to the remnants of the Russian empire\". Lyle Goldstein, a research professor at the US Naval War College claims that the situations in Georgia and Ukraine \"seemed to offer the requisite storyline for new Cold War\".\n",
"Powell further claimed that even if nuclear weapons had not existed, the Russians would still not have invaded Western Europe: \"What has prevented that from happening was ... the fact that the Soviet Union knew ... that such an action on its part would have led to a third world war—a long war, bitterly fought, a war which in the end the Soviet Union would have been likely to lose on the same basis and in the same way as the corresponding war was lost by Napoleon, by the Emperor Wilhelm and by Adolf Hitler. It was that fear, that caution, that understanding, that perception on the part of Russia and its leaders that was the real deterrent against Russia committing the utterly irrational and suicidal act of plunging into a third world war in which the Soviet Union would be likely to find itself confronting a combination of the greatest industrial and economic powers in the world\".\n",
"The developer Kremlingames released a remake of this game under the same title (\"Crisis in the Kremlin\"). Unlike the original, the goal is not just to preserve the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, but to expand the communist bloc to other countries. In this game, it is possible to win the Cold War by weakening the United States until it no longer is a superpower.\n",
"Even before the war came to an end, it seemed highly likely that cooperation between the Western powers and the USSR would give way to intense rivalry or conflict. This was due primarily to the starkly contrasting economic ideologies of the two superpowers, now quite easily the strongest in the world. Whereas the USA was a liberal, two-party democracy with an advanced capitalist economy, based on free enterprise and profit-making, the USSR was a one-party Marxist–Leninist State with a state-controlled economy where private wealth was all but outlawed. Nevertheless, the origins of the Cold War should also be seen as a historical episode that demarcated the spheres of interests of the United States and the Soviet Union. Lewkowicz argues that \"the origins of the Cold War should not be seen from the perspective of a magnified spectrum of conflict. Instead, it should be regarded as a process by which the superpowers attempted to forge a normative framework capable of sustaining their geopolitical needs and interests in the postwar scenario.\" \n",
"In February 2016, a National Research University academic and Harvard University visiting scholar Yuval Weber wrote on \"E-International Relations\" that \"the world is not entering Cold War II\", asserting that the current tensions and ideologies of both sides are not similar to those of the original Cold War, that situations in Europe and the Middle East do not destabilize other areas geographically, and that Russia \"is far more integrated with the outside world than the Soviet Union ever was\". In September 2016, when asked if he thought the world had entered a new cold war, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, argued that current tensions were not comparable to the Cold War. He noted the lack of an ideological divide between the United States and Russia, saying that conflicts were no longer ideologically bipolar.\n",
"While new tensions between Russia and the West have similarities with those during the Cold War, there are also major differences, such as modern Russia's increased economic ties with the outside world, which may potentially constrain Russia's actions, and provide it with new avenues for exerting influence, such as in Belarus and Central Asia, which have not seen the type of direct military action that Russia engaged in less cooperative former Soviet states like Ukraine and the Caucasus region. The term \"Cold War II\" has therefore been described as a misnomer.\n"
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why are there fourteen mountains over 8,000m, but none over 9,000m?
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It's likely Mt. Everest is near to the largest size mountain earth will support. A larger mountain is more massive, which puts a strain on the material at its base. They deform the plates they sit upon, more mass will further the deformation. And depending on height and climate, can promote glacial development, which it has been theorized to cause vigorous erosion limiting total height.
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"Thirteen of the fourteen 8,000m summits are Ultras (the exception being Lhotse), and there are a further 64 Ultras over in height. There are 90 Ultras with a prominence of over , but only 22 with more than prominence.\n",
"The list contains 451 mountains with a prominence higher than 300 m, among which 24 are above 4000 m, 64 above 3500 m, 208 above 3000 m, 321 above 2500 m, 384 above 2000 m, 417 above 1500 m and 443 above 1000 m. The average and median heights are respectively 2812 and 2956 m. Eight summits (sometimes called ultra-prominent peaks) have a prominence exceeding 1500 m, they are found in seven cantons. The great majority of the summits are located in the Alps, the other being located in the Jura Mountains. On average, each summit is the culminating point of an area corresponding to 91.5 km, which is equivalent in term of density to approximately 1.09 summits per 100 km.\n",
"The importance of thirteeners is greatest in Colorado, which has the majority of such peaks in North America with over 600 of them. Despite the large number of peaks, over 20 peak baggers have reported climbing all of Colorado's thirteeners. Thirteeners are also significant in states whose highpoints fall between 13,000 and 13,999 feet. Regarding whether or not peaks in excess of 13,999 feet should be considered as \"thirteeners\", this article will count them as such for statistical purposes, but concentrate its focus on those peaks less than 14,000 feet since the higher peaks are already covered in the fourteeners list.\n",
"Other 6,000 m peaks which are often defined as individual peaks but which have less than 300 m of re-ascent or prominence, include:- Huandoy W 6,342 m (prominence between 200-250m), Sarapu 6,127 (prominence between 180-230m), Callangate North 6,000 m (less than 295m prominence).\n",
"There are two peaks above 2,900 m, Vihren and Kutelo; seven above 2,800 m; 13 above 2,700 m; 32 above 2,600 m and 60 above 2,500 m. The highest granite peak is the Banderishki Chukar (2,732 m). Some of the highest peaks are: \n",
"Besides Mt. Everest and K2, the other 9 of the world's 17 tallest peaks on China's western borders are: Lhotse (8516 m, 4th highest), Makalu (8485 m, 5th), Cho Oyu (8188 m, 6th), Gyachung Kang (7952 m, 15th) of the Himalayas on the border with Nepal and Gasherbrum I (8080 m, 11th), Broad Peak (8051 m, 12th), Gasherbrum II (8035 m, 13th), Gasherbrum III (7946 m, 16th) and Gasherbrum IV (7932 m, 17th) of the Karakorum on the border with Pakistan. The tallest peak entirely within China is Shishapangma (8013 m, 14th) of the Tibetan Himalayas in Nyalam County of Tibet Autonomous Region. In all, 9 of the 14 mountain peaks in the world over 8,000 m are in or on the border of China. Another notable Himalayan peak in China is Namchabarwa (7782 m, 28th), near the great bend of the Yarlungtsanpo (upper Brahmaputra) River in eastern Tibet, and considered to be the eastern anchor of the Himalayas.\n",
"BULLET::::- Thirteen of California's fifteen peaks which exceed 14,000 feet (a Fourteener) in elevation; the isolated Mount Shasta in northern California, and White Mountain Peak in neighboring Mono County, are the only California 14ers not (at least partly) in Inyo County\n"
] |
why is "the big crunch" an unpopular theory?
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So you have this balloon hooked up to an air compressor. Youre watching this and you see its slowly getting bigger. We know its getting bigger because if we draw a bunch of dots on the balloon with sharpie, you notice all the dots are getting farther from eachother.
The big crunch says that this air compressor will turn off, or atleast slow down enough that air is escaping faster than entering.
If the air compressor is currently on, yes its possible that it will turn off, but without other knowledge it makes more sense that it will keep inflating.
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[
"The Big Crunch is a theoretical scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately causing the cosmic scale factor to reach zero, an event potentially followed by a reformation of the universe starting with another Big Bang. The vast majority of evidence indicates that this theory is not correct. Instead, astronomical observations show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than being slowed down by gravity. \n",
"The Big Crunch hypothesis is a symmetric view of the ultimate fate of the universe. Just as the Big Bang started as a cosmological expansion, this theory assumes that the average density of the universe will be enough to stop its expansion and begin contracting. The end result is unknown; a simple estimation would have all the matter and space-time in the universe collapse into a dimensionless singularity back into how the universe started with the Big Bang, but at these scales unknown quantum effects need to be considered (see Quantum gravity). Recent evidence suggests that this scenario is not likely but it has not been ruled out as measurements are only available over a short period of time and could reverse in the future.\n",
"Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic Mysteries) () is a book written by Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and published in 2008. In it, Bernstein offers a layman's introduction to how the U.S. economic system works. Using economic inequality as the basis of his argument, Bernstein explains why Americans still feel squeezed during boom times, what he believes is wrong with the economy, and how he believes it could be improved for the greater common good.\n",
"The crunch is generally caused by a reduction in the market prices of previously \"overinflated\" assets and refers to the financial crisis that results from the price collapse. This can result in widespread foreclosure or bankruptcy for those who came in late to the market, as the prices of previously inflated assets generally drop precipitously. In contrast, a liquidity crisis is triggered when an otherwise sound business finds itself temporarily incapable of accessing the bridge finance it needs to expand its business or smooth its cash flow payments. In this case, accessing additional credit lines and \"trading through\" the crisis can allow the business to navigate its way through the problem and ensure its continued solvency and viability. It is often difficult to know, in the midst of a crisis, whether distressed businesses are experiencing a crisis of solvency or a temporary liquidity crisis.\n",
"Malthus' work did not spark many economic debates at the time of its publication. In fact, many denied Malthus' ideas on recessions. Say's Law remained the more commonly accepted theory at the time due to its popularity. Malthus' book does not attract much attention until the Great Depression occurs and it becomes evident that depressions are real. After this, economists such as John Maynard Keynes begin to look more deeply into Malthus' ideas and utilize them in their own work.\n",
"French economist Thomas Piketty states in his 2013 book, \"Capital in the Twenty-First Century,\" that \"the risk of a drift towards oligarchy is real and gives little reason for optimism about where the United States is headed.\"\n",
"In Keynes’ Treatise, he does not agree that booms and busts happen solely because of extrinsic random variables such as “sunspots”. Instead, he believes that economic events emerge when there are discrepancies between savings and investments.\n"
] |
Why did Japan have oil problems dispite owning oil-rich provinces during WW2?
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There are basically three elements to this.
First. While the the Southern Resource Area was oil rich by Japanese standards it was significantly less productive than other areas of the world at the time. In 1940 while the US produced 183 million tons of crude, the Dutch East Indies produced 8 million tons of crude. The rest of the region added a few million more tons. The US and other Allies also had access to the international market which added places like Venezuela (27Mt), Iran (10Mt), Mexico (7Mt), etc. Japan didn’t have access to any of that. So they were stuck using only the oil produced in the SRA and the tiny amounts produced in pre-war territories (mainly Japan and Taiwan/Formosa). Of the world’s 294 Mt oil output Japan had access to around 11 Mt.
Second. Japanese occupied territories never matched their pre-war output. One the the very last things the European powers did before the area was captured was to destroy refineries and wells. The Allies also focused on disrupting oil production, much like they did in Europe. So air raids were common. I can’t find mid-war production figures at the moment, but between 1940 and 1945 oil production in the Dutch East Indies dropped from 8 Mt of crude, to less than 1 Mt of crude. At no point did Japan ever get more than a fraction of the production the area had before the war.
Third. Japan had a grossly inadequate fleet of tankers. In December 1942, the country as a whole had 58 tankers, with a total carry capacity of around 600,000 tons. During the war they converted a number of other ships into tankers including passenger ships, they captured foreign tankers, and anything else they could think of. In all around 200 Japanese ships served as tankers. But it was never adequate, especially by mid-to-late-war when the submariners began to focus on the tankers. Japan could never adequately get the little oil they had to where they needed it. By late war the IJN was refueling some ships with raw crude directly from the fields rather than trying to transport the fuel to refineries and then back out to the fleet. This resulted in the damage to a number of boilers, due to the high sulfur content of the Bornean crude.
In short Japan had access to 3% of the pre-war production, never actually achieved those pre-war figures, and couldn’t have transported if they had.
Contrast that to the US, who themselves had local oil shortages at times. The US produced 67% of the world’s crude (and had access to about 80% of the global supply). They managed to increase pre-war production numbers during the war, including opening brand new fields. They had a vastly larger tanker fleet to start the war, and built a ridiculous number during the war. Just counting only the workhorse T2-SE-A1 models, the US built 481 during the war. Which alone accounts for about 2.5x as many as all Japanese tankers that served at all during the war.
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"Japanese oil fields in Sakhalin and Formosa provided only about ten percent of the petroleum needed to sustain Japanese industry. Reserves of California crude oil at Japanese refineries would have been exhausted in less than two years at the rate of consumption when United States terminated exports to Japan on 26 July 1941. Japan initiated hostilities against the United States and the United Kingdom four months later in preparation for seizing alternative sources of petroleum in the East Indies. Japan declared war on the Netherlands East Indies on 10 January 1942; and Japanese troops landed on Tarakan the following day. Dutch forces had declared war on Japan a month earlier, and sabotaged the oil field and refinery prior to surrender.\n",
"Access to oil was one of the linchpins of the Japanese war effort, as Japan has no native source of oil; it could not even produce enough to meet even 10% of its needs, even with the extraction of oil shale in Manchuria using the Fushun process. Japan quickly lost 93 percent of its oil supply after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order on 26 July 1941 which froze all of Japan's U.S. assets and embargoed all oil exports to Japan. In addition, the Dutch government in exile, at the urging of the Allies and with the support of Queen Wilhelmina, broke its economic treaty with Japan and joined the embargo in August. Japan's military and economic reserves included only a year and a half's worth of oil. As a U.S. declaration of war against Japan was feared if the latter took the East Indies, the Japanese planned to eliminate the U.S. Pacific Fleet, allowing them to overtake the islands; this led to the attack on Pearl Harbor.\n",
"The U.S. finally ceased oil exports to Japan in July 1941, following the seizure of French Indochina after the Fall of France, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. Because of this decision, Japan proceeded with plans to take the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. On August 17, Roosevelt warned Japan that America was prepared to take opposing steps if \"neighboring countries\" were attacked. The Japanese were faced with a dichotomy—either withdraw from China and lose face, or seize new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich European colonies of Southeast Asia.\n",
"The Japanese Army operated ruthless governments in most of the conquered areas, but paid more favorable attention to the Dutch East Indies. The main goal was to obtain oil, but Japan sponsored an Indonesian nationalist movement under Sukarno. Sukarno finally came to power in the late 1940s after several years of battling the Dutch. The Dutch destroyed their oil wells but the Japanese reopened them. However most of the tankers taking oil to Japan were sunk by American submarines, so Japan's oil shortage became increasingly acute.\n",
"During World War II (1939-1945) - control of oil supply from Baku and the Middle East played a large role in the events of the war and the ultimate victory of the allies. Cutting off the oil supply considerably weakened Japan in the latter part of the Pacific war.\n",
"During World War II (1939–1945) – control of oil supply from Baku and Middle East played a huge role in the events of the war and the ultimate victory of the allies. Cutting off the oil supply considerably weakened Japan in the latter part of the war. After World War II ended, the countries of the Middle East took the lead in oil production from the United States. Important developments since World War II include deep-water drilling, the introduction of the Drillship, and the growth of a global shipping network for petroleum relying upon oil tankers and pipelines. In 1949, first offshore oil drilling at Oil Rocks (Neft Dashlari) in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan eventually resulted in a city built on pylons. In the 1960s and 1970s, multi-governmental organizations of oil–producing nations OPEC and OAPEC played a major role in setting petroleum prices and policy. Oil spills and their cleanup have become an issue of increasing political, environmental, and economic importance.\n",
"Through the 1930s, Japan's military needed imported oil for airplanes and warships. It was dependent at 90% on imports, 80% of it coming from the United States. Furthermore, the vast majority of this oil import was oriented towards the Navy and the military. America opposed Tokyo's expansionist policies in China and Indochina and, in 1940–41, decided to stop supplying the oil Japan was using for military expansion against American allies. On July 26, 1940 the U.S. government passed the Export Control Act, cutting oil, iron and steel exports to Japan. This containment policy was seen by Washington as a warning to Japan that any further military expansion would result in further sanctions. However, Tokyo saw it as a blockade to counter Japanese military and economic strength. Accordingly, by the time the United States enforced the Export Act, Japan had stockpiled around 54 million barrels of oil. Washington imposed a full oil embargo imposed on Japan in July 1941.\n"
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if millipedes have around 200 legs and are that little then why are they so slow?
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If you had to organise 200 legs you'd be slow, too.[1]
Actually - some centipedes are very speedy, because that's the niche they've evolved to fit, but millipedes aren't predators (that I know of) and have no need for speed.
[1] Actually, they're self-organising - each segment responds in a set way to the movement of the one before, so much of it is automatic.
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[
"Octopuses mainly move about by relatively slow crawling, with some swimming in a head-first position. Jet propulsion, or backwards swimming, is their fastest means of locomotion, followed by swimming and crawling. When in no hurry, they usually crawl on either solid or soft surfaces. Several arms are extended forwards, some of the suckers adhere to the substrate and the animal hauls itself forwards with its powerful arm muscles, while other arms may push rather than pull. As progress is made, other arms move ahead to repeat these actions and the original suckers detach. During crawling, the heart rate nearly doubles, and the animal requires ten or fifteen minutes to recover from relatively minor exercise.\n",
"Among myriapods, millipedes have traditionally been considered most closely related to the tiny pauropods, although some molecular studies challenge this relationship. Millipedes can be distinguished from the somewhat similar but only distantly related centipedes (class Chilopoda), which move rapidly, are venomous, carnivorous, and have only a single pair of legs on each body segment. The scientific study of millipedes is known as diplopodology, and a scientist who studies them is called a diplopodologist.\n",
"Centipedes and millipedes have many sets of legs that move in metachronal rhythm. Some echinoderms locomote using the many tube feet on the underside of their arms. Although the tube feet resemble suction cups in appearance, the gripping action is a function of adhesive chemicals rather than suction. Other chemicals and relaxation of the ampullae allow for release from the substrate. The tube feet latch on to surfaces and move in a wave, with one arm section attaching to the surface as another releases. Some multi-armed, fast-moving starfish such as the sunflower seastar (\"Pycnopodia helianthoides\") pull themselves along with some of their arms while letting others trail behind. Other starfish turn up the tips of their arms while moving, which exposes the sensory tube feet and eyespot to external stimuli. Most starfish cannot move quickly, a typical speed being that of the leather star (\"Dermasterias imbricata\"), which can manage just in a minute. Some burrowing species from the genera \"Astropecten\" and \"Luidia\" have points rather than suckers on their long tube feet and are capable of much more rapid motion, \"gliding\" across the ocean floor. The sand star (\"Luidia foliolata\") can travel at a speed of per minute. Sunflower starfish are quick, efficient hunters, moving at a speed of using 15,000 tube feet.\n",
"Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name being derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a result of two single segments fused together. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a ball. Although the name \"millipede\" derives from the Latin for \"thousand feet\", no known species has 1,000; the record of 750 legs belongs to \"Illacme plenipes\". There are approximately 12,000 named species classified into 16 orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods, an arthropod group which also includes centipedes and other multi-legged creatures.\n",
"BULLET::::- Arthropoda: 4, 6 (Insecta), 8, 12, or 14 legs. Some arthropods have more than a dozen legs; a few species possess over 100. Despite what their names might suggest, centipedes (\"hundred feet\") may have fewer than 20 or more than 300 legs, and millipedes (\"thousand feet\") have fewer than 1,000 legs, but up to 750.\n",
"Millipedes are arthropods in the class Diplopoda, which is characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a ball. The average number of legs are about 500 or so, but rarely about 750. Approximately 12,000 species classified into sixteen orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods.\n",
"Centipedes make up the class Chilopoda. They are fast, predatory and venomous, hunting mostly at night. There are around 3,300 species, ranging from the diminutive \"Nannarrup hoffmani\" (less than 12 mm or in in length) to the giant \"Scolopendra gigantea\", which may exceed .\n"
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how is it humanly possible to survive a flight in an airplane wheel well given the lack of heating, pressure ond oxygen, which are vital for survival at a high altitude?
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Luck.
The young man in question was unconscious for most of the trip, luckily for him, but he was certainly dicing with death. Stowing away in a wheel well isn't a surefire way to kill yourself, but this risk is certainly unacceptably high. There's just enough oxygen and heat -- and plenty of pressure -- up there to make survival possible, just not very likely.
It is usually fatal, though. A few years ago a man literally fell out of the sky onto a street in London. He'd stowed away in a wheel well in Angola and perished on the way; when the plane lowered its undercarriage on its approach to Heathrow, the body fell out and gave several Londoners a nasty shock.
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[
"The newest models of aircraft were capable of exceeding altitudes at which humans can breathe, even with 100% oxygen supplementation, introducing the risk of hypoxia. Bird discovered that an oxygen regulator in a crashed German bomber he was ferrying back to the U.S. for study seemed to contain a pressure breathing circuit. He took the oxygen regulator home, studied it, and made it more functional. It became the standard design for high-altitude oxygen regulators for most military aircraft until recent time. Bird studied medicine \" ... to understand the human body and its stress in flight\". This led to him developing efficient respirators and ventilators.\n",
"For airliners that need to fly over terrain that does not allow reaching the safe altitude within a minimum of 30 minutes, pressurized oxygen bottles are mandatory since the chemical oxygen generators fitted to most planes cannot supply sufficient oxygen.\n",
"Well below the Armstrong limit, humans typically require supplemental oxygen in order to avoid hypoxia. For most people, this is typically needed at altitudes above 4,500 m (15,000 ft). Commercial jetliners are required to maintain cabin pressurization at a cabin altitude of not greater than . U.S. regulations on general aviation aircraft (non-airline, non-government flights) require that the minimum required flight crew, but not the passengers, be on supplemental oxygen if the plane spends more than half an hour at a cabin altitude above . The minimum required flight crew must be on supplemental oxygen if the plane spends \"any\" time above a cabin altitude of , and even the passengers must be provided with supplemental oxygen above a cabin altitude of . Skydivers, who are at altitude only briefly before jumping, do not normally exceed .\n",
"Any failure of cabin pressurization above requires an emergency descent to or the closest to that while maintaining the Minimum Safe Altitude (MSA), and the deployment of an oxygen mask for each seat. The oxygen systems have sufficient oxygen for all on board and give the pilots adequate time to descend to below . Without emergency oxygen, hypoxia may lead to loss of consciousness and a subsequent loss of control of the aircraft. Modern airliners include a pressurized pure oxygen tank in the cockpit, giving the pilots more time to bring the aircraft to a safe altitude. The time of useful consciousness varies according to altitude. As the pressure falls the cabin air temperature may also plummet to the ambient outside temperature with a danger of hypothermia or frostbite.\n",
"Pure aviator oxygen which has moisture removed to prevent freezing of valves at altitude is readily available and routinely used in general aviation mountain flying and at high altitudes. Most small general aviation aircraft are not pressurized, therefore oxygen use is an FAA requirement at higher altitudes.\n",
"One of the most significant breakthroughs in the prevention of altitude DCS is oxygen pre-breathing. Breathing pure oxygen significantly reduces the nitrogen loads in body tissues by reducing the partial pressure of nitrogen in the lungs, which induces diffusion of nitrogen from the blood into the breathing gas, and this effect eventually lowers the concentration of nitrogen in the other tissues of the body. If continued for long enough, and without interruption, this provides effective protection upon exposure to low-barometric pressure environments. However, breathing pure oxygen during flight alone (ascent, en route, descent) does not decrease the risk of altitude DCS as the time required for ascent is generally not sufficient to significantly desaturate the slower tissues.\n",
"Cold or oxygen-rich atmospheres can sustain life at pressures much lower than atmospheric, as long as the density of oxygen is similar to that of standard sea-level atmosphere. The colder air temperatures found at altitudes of up to 3 km generally compensate for the lower pressures there. Above this altitude, oxygen enrichment is necessary to prevent altitude sickness in humans that did not undergo prior acclimatization, and spacesuits are necessary to prevent ebullism above 19 km. Most spacesuits use only 20 kPa (150 Torr) of pure oxygen. This pressure is high enough to prevent ebullism, but decompression sickness and gas embolisms can still occur if decompression rates are not managed.\n"
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when did the united states do away with voting as a "legal" holiday?
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It's a holiday under state law in a handful of states, but it has never been a national holiday. The problem with making it a holiday or having voting on the weekend is that there will still always be people who have to work. If the law mandated that everybody had the day off, then emergency services like police and hospitals would stop and that would be terribly dangerous. Even if first responders and other essential safety personnel worked, it would be a pain for a lot of people for all restaurants, stores, gas stations, etc. to be closed. At the end of the day there's no good way to force a holiday for everyone - our society relies on having access to various services to run and people have to work for those services to operate.
Early voting exists for people who can't take off on election day. A lot of states also require that employers let employees take a couple hours off from work to go vote.
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[
"In 1939, William Randolph Hearst advocated, through his chain of daily newspapers, the creation of a holiday to celebrate citizenship. In 1940, Congress designated the third Sunday in May as \"I am an American Day.\" In 1944 \"I am an American Day\" was promoted through the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. A 16-minute film, \"I Am an American\", was featured in American theaters as a short feature. In 1947 Hearst Newsreels featured the event on \"News of the Day\". By 1949, governors of all 48 states had issued Constitution Day proclamations. On February 29, 1952, Congress moved the \"I am an American Day\" observation to September 17 and renamed it \"\"Citizenship Day\"\".\n",
"Conyers' proposed the holiday in Resolution (H.R.) 63 - Democracy Day Act of 2005. The bill called for the Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every even-numbered year, Election Day, to be a legal public holiday. The purpose of the holiday was to increase voter turnout by giving citizens more time to vote, as well as to allow for the opening of more polling places with more workers while raising awareness of the importance of voting and civic participation.\n",
"On June 28, 1870, Grant approved and signed legislation that made Christmas, or December 25, a legal public Holiday within Washington D.C. Historian Ron White said this was done by Grant because of his passion to unify the nation. During the early 19th Century in the United States, Christmas became more of a family-centered activity. Other Holidays, included in the law within Washington D.C., were New Year, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving. The law affected 5,300 federal employees working in the District of Columbia, the nation's capital. The legislation was meant to adapt to similar laws in states surrounding Washington D.C. and \"in every State of the Union.\"\n",
"The Flag Act of 1777 () was passed by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, in response to a petition made by an American Indian nation on June 3 for \"an American Flag.\" As a result, June 14 is now celebrated as Flag Day in the United States.\n",
"The law establishing the present holiday was created in 2004 with the passage of an amendment by Senator Robert Byrd to the Omnibus spending bill of 2004. Before this law was enacted, the holiday was known as \"Citizenship Day\". In addition to renaming the holiday \"Constitution Day and Citizenship Day,\" the act mandates that all publicly funded educational institutions, and all federal agencies, provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution on that day. In May 2005, the United States Department of Education announced the enactment of this law and that it would apply to any school receiving federal funds of any kind.\n",
"The history of federal holidays in the United States dates back to June 28, 1870, when Congress created federal holidays \"to correspond with similar laws of States around the District ... and ... in every State of the Union.\" Although at first applicable only to federal employees in the District of Columbia, Congress extended coverage in 1885 to all federal employees.\n",
"Arizona resident, John Makkai, is credited with pushing the holiday through the Arizona legislation. American Family Day began as a 1-year proclamation, signed by then Governor Raúl Héctor Castro, declaring August 7, 1977 American Family Day. The following year, American Family Day was signed into law as an official Arizona holiday by Governor Bruce Babbitt. The holiday also caught on in several other states, including North Carolina and Georgia.\n"
] |
Is blood pressure related to blood viscosity
|
The formula for blood pressure is:
Heart rate • Stroke volume • Systemic vascular resistance
* Heart rate = how many times the heart beats in 1 minute.
* Stroke volume = how much blood is ejected from the heart each time it beats.
* Systemic vascular resistance = the resistance to blood flow caused by the blood flowing through the vessels.
The systemic vascular resistance is composed of many factors, including the total length of the vascular system, the radius of the vessels, the flow rate of the blood through them, and yes, the viscosity of the blood. Check out the [Hagen–Poiseuille equation](_URL_0_) for more info on that.
**tl;dr - The viscosity of the blood is only one small component of the total contribution to blood pressure.**
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[
"Blood viscosity is a measure of the resistance of blood to flow. It can also be described as the thickness and stickiness of blood. This biophysical property makes it a critical determinant of friction against the vessel walls, the rate of venous return, the work required for the heart to pump blood, and how much oxygen is transported to tissues and organs. These functions of the cardiovascular system are directly related to vascular resistance, preload, afterload, and perfusion, respectively.\n",
"Arteries have a blood pressure higher than other parts of the circulatory system. The pressure in arteries varies during the cardiac cycle. It is highest when the heart contracts and lowest when heart relaxes. The variation in pressure produces a pulse, which can be felt in different areas of the body, such as the radial pulse. Arterioles have the greatest collective influence on both local blood flow and on overall blood pressure. They are the primary \"adjustable nozzles\" in the blood system, across which the greatest pressure drop occurs. The combination of heart output (cardiac output) and systemic vascular resistance, which refers to the collective resistance of all of the body's arterioles, are the principal determinants of arterial blood pressure at any given moment.\n",
"Systemic arterial pressures are generated by the forceful contractions of the heart's left ventricle. High blood pressure is a factor in causing arterial damage. Healthy resting arterial pressures are relatively low, mean systemic pressures typically being under above surrounding atmospheric pressure (about at sea level). To withstand and adapt to the pressures within, arteries are surrounded by varying thicknesses of smooth muscle which have extensive elastic and inelastic connective tissues. The pulse pressure, being the difference between systolic and diastolic pressure, is determined primarily by the amount of blood ejected by each heart beat, stroke volume, versus the volume and elasticity of the major arteries.\n",
"A simple view of the hemodynamics of systemic arterial pressure is based around mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure. Most influences on blood pressure can be understood in terms of their effect on cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance. Cardiac output is the product of stroke volume and heart rate, and stroke volume is influenced by blood volume. In the short-term, the greater the blood volume, the higher the cardiac output. This may explain in part the relationship between dietary salt intake and increased blood pressure, where increased salt intake may increase blood volume potentially resulting in higher arterial pressure. However, this varies with the individual and is highly dependent on autonomic nervous system response and the renin–angiotensin system. In the longer-term the relationship between volume and blood pressure is more complex. In simple terms systemic vascular resistance is mainly determined by the caliber of small arteries and arterioles. The resistance attributable to a blood vessel depends on its radius as described by the Hagen-Poiseuille's equation (resistance∝1/radius). Hence, the smaller the radius, the very much higher the resistance. Other physical factors that affect resistance include: vessel length (the longer the vessel, the higher the resistance), blood viscosity (the higher the viscosity, the higher the resistance) and the number of vessels, particularly the smaller numerous, arterioles and capillaries. The presence of an arterial stenosis increases resistance to flow, however this increase in resistance rarely increases systemic blood pressure because its contribution to total systemic resistance is small, although it may profoundly decrease downstream flow. Substances called vasoconstrictors reduce the caliber of blood vessels, thereby increasing blood pressure. Vasodilators (such as nitroglycerin) increase the caliber of blood vessels, thereby decreasing arterial pressure. In the longer term a process termed remodeling also contributes to changing the caliber of small blood vessels and influencing resistance and reactivity to vasoactive agents. Reductions in capillary density, termed capillary rarefaction, may also contribute to increased resistance in some circumstances.\n",
"Regardless of site, blood pressure is related to the wall tension of the vessel according to the Young–Laplace equation (assuming that the thickness of the vessel wall is very small as compared to the diameter of the lumen):\n",
"Blood pressure in the arteries supplying the body is a result of the work needed to pump the cardiac output (the flow of blood pumped by the heart) through the \"vascular resistance\", usually termed total peripheral resistance by physicians and researchers. An increase in the media to lumenal diameter ratio has been observed in hypertensive arterioles (arteriolosclerosis) as the vascular wall thickens and/or lumenal diameter decreases.\n",
"If the blood viscosity increases (gets thicker), the result is an increase in arterial pressure. Certain medical conditions can change the viscosity of the blood. For instance, anemia (low red blood cell concentration), reduces viscosity, whereas increased red blood cell concentration increases viscosity. It had been thought that aspirin and related \"blood thinner\" drugs decreased the viscosity of blood, but instead studies found that they act by reducing the tendency of the blood to clot.\n"
] |
what thoughts go on in the mind of a typical mentally handicapped person?
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There is no such thing as a "typical mentally handicapped person". Every individual is different and the brain is an extremely complex organ and development or injury affects every individual in different ways. A "mental handicap" may manifest completely different in two people depending on nature and/or nurture.
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[
"Mental health and stability is a very important factor in a person’s everyday life. Social skills, behavioral skills, and someone’s way of thinking are just some of the things that the human brain develops at an early age. Learning how to interact with others and how to focus on certain subjects are essential lessons to learn. This spans from the time we can talk all the way to when we are so old that we can barely walk. However, there are some people out there who have difficulty with these kind of skills and behaving like an average person. This is most likely the cause of having a mental illness. A mental illness is a wide range of conditions that affect a person’s mood, thinking, and behavior. About 26% of people in the United States, ages 18 and older, have been diagnosed with some kind of mental disorder. However, not much is said about children with mental illnesses even though there are many that will develop one, even as early as age three.\n",
"Mental illness affects not only the person themselves, but the people around them. Friends and family also play an important role in the child’s mental health stability and treatment. If the child is young, parents are the ones who evaluate their child and decide whether or not they need some form of help. Friends are a support system for the child and family as a whole. Living with a mental disorder is never easy, so it’s always important to have people around to make the days a little easier. However, there are negative factors that come with the social aspect of mental illness as well. Parents are sometimes held responsible for their child’s own illness. People also say that the parents raised their children in a certain way or they acquired their behavior from them. Family and friends are sometimes so ashamed of the idea of being close to someone with a disorder that the child feels isolated and thinks that they have to hide their illness from others. When in reality, hiding it from people prevents the child from getting the right amount of social interaction and treatment in order to thrive in today’s society.\n",
"Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz compared that 50 years ago children were either categorized as good or bad, and today \"all children are good, but some are mentally healthy and others are mentally ill\". The social control and forced identity creation is the cause of many mental health problems among today's children. A behaviour or misbehaviour might not be an illness but exercise of their free will and today's immediacy in drug administration for every problem along with the legal over-guarding and regard of a child's status as a dependent shakes their personal self and invades their internal growth.\n",
"Mind mentions childhood abuse, trauma, violence or neglect, social isolation, loneliness or discrimination, the death of someone close, stress, homelessness or poor housing, social disadvantage, poverty or debt, unemployment, caring for a family member or friend, significant trauma as an adult, such as military combat, and being involved in a serious accident or being the victim of a violent crime as possibly triggering an episode of mental illness.\n",
"In the UK a lot of work has been done to extend the concept of psychological mindedness beyond the individual. This work recognises that the health and success of families, schools, hospitals, businesses, communities and indeed society as a whole depends in a large part on the psychological mindedness of the system or environment created by that institution. This is more than the sum of the individual parts. For example, an individual nurse on a psychiatric ward may be psychologically minded and motivated to connect with a service user who may also have some psychological mindedness. However, the chances of two such individuals having a psychologically minded encounter can easily be sabotaged by a \"psychologically blind\" or \"alexithymic\" care system that allows the nurse no time, no headspace, no structure and no back up to function in this way. It is well known that nurses on chaotic psychiatric wards have to shut off emotionally just to survive personally in the face of the overwhelming demands placed upon them. Once this happens the experience for the service user will obviously become one of \"not being listened to\". This real emotional neglect coupled with transference factors is what leads to so many incidents on our psychiatric wards. Service users who feel rejected are bound to escalate their behaviour in order to be heard and in order to \"hit back\" at those who are in effect just repeating the failures of past caregivers.\n",
"According to Coni Kalinowski (a psychiatrist at the University of Nevada and Director of Mojave Community Services) and Pat Risser (a mental health consultant and self-described former recipient of mental health services), mentalism at one extreme can lead to a categorical dividing of people into an empowered group assumed to be normal, healthy, reliable, and capable, and a powerless group assumed to be sick, disabled, crazy, unpredictable, and violent. This divide can justify inconsiderate treatment of the latter group and expectations of poorer standards of living for them, for which they may be expected to express gratitude. Further discrimination may involve labeling some as \"high functioning\" and some as \"low-functioning\"; while this may enable the targeting of resources, in both categories human behaviors are recast in pathological terms.\n",
"Psychological mindedness refers to a person's capacity for self-examination, self-reflection, introspection and personal insight. It includes an ability to recognize meanings that underlie overt words and actions, to appreciate emotional nuance and complexity, to recognize the links between past and present, and insight into one's own and others' motives and intentions. Psychologically minded people have above average insight into mental life.\n"
] |
during the cold war, what's the point of splitting berlin? like, it seemed like a bad idea from the start?
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It wasn't split during the cold war. It was split 4 ways after the Germans surrendered in WWII, into the Russian, American, English, and French zones. The idea behind splitting Berlin was that the allied powers defeated Germany, and thus each should be responsible for a section of the German capital.
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[
"At first, this arrangement was intended to be of a temporary administrative nature, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany and Berlin broke down. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations. In 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food and other goods through the Berlin Airlift. In May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained.\n",
"Germany's capital, Berlin, was deep within the area controlled after World War II by the Soviet Union. Initially governed in four sectors controlled by the four Allied powers (United States, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union), tensions of the Cold War escalated until the Soviet forces implemented the Berlin Blockade, which the Western allies relieved with the dramatic airlift. Afterward, the sectors controlled by the NATO Allies became an effective exclave of West Germany, completely surrounded by East Germany. From 1952, the border between East and West was closed everywhere but in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of East Germans defected to the West via West Berlin, a labour drain that threatened East Germany with economic collapse.\n",
"In 1945, the Third Reich ended in defeat and Germany was divided into four occupation zones, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The capital city of Berlin was similarly divided into four sectors. Between 1947 and 1949, the three zones of the western allies were merged, forming the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, aligned with capitalist Europe (which later developed into the European Community). The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic with its capital in East Berlin, part of the communist Soviet Bloc. The FRG was a member of the western military alliance, NATO and the GDR was a member of the Warsaw Pact. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War.\n",
"With the London Protocol of 1944 signed on September 12, 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union decided to divide Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the whole city that was called \"Magistrate of Greater Berlin\", which existed until 1947. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administered the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, which served as the governing body of the city. However, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a separate city government was established, which continued to call itself \"Magistrate of Greater Berlin\".\n",
"After the defeat in World War II, Germany was occupied by the troops of Britain, France, the United States and Soviet Union. Berlin was a case of its own, as it was situated on the territory of the Soviet zone but divided into four sectors. The western sectors were later called West Berlin, the other one East Berlin. The communists tended to consider the Soviet sector of Berlin as a part of GDR; West Berlin was, according to them, an independent political unit. In the GDR \"Westberlin\" was the preferred spelling in order to de-emphasize the relationship to \"Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR\" (the GDR capital).\n",
"Berlin's unique situation as a city half-controlled by Western forces in the middle of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany made it a natural focal point in the Cold War after 1947. Though the city was initially governed by a Four Power Allied Control Council with a leadership that rotated monthly, the Soviets withdrew from the council as East-West relations deteriorated and began governing their sector independently. The council continued to govern West Berlin, with the same rotating leadership policy, though now only involving France, Great Britain, and the United States.\n",
"From the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945 until the reunification of Germany in October 1990, Berlin was divided into four sectors: the American Sector, the French Sector, the British Sector, and the Soviet Sector, each named after the occupying power. The Soviet sector, informally called East Berlin, was considered by East Germany, then a member of the Warsaw Pact, to be part of its territory and in fact its capital, and the American, French, and British Sectors, collectively called West Berlin, were in some respects governed as if they were a part of West Germany, a member of NATO. Seldom did the American government exercise power directly in the American sector, except as it affected American military forces stationed in Berlin. In particular, the judgeship of the United States Court for Berlin was vacant except during the trial over which Judge Stern presided.\n"
] |
What location does fat get used to create energy?
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Ok so fat is called a Triglyceride or TAG and it is called that because it is made of three fatty acid chains. This structure is very stable and is unsoluable and is stored in docks called adipose tissue. When the body runs out of glucose and glycogen as fuel it starts burning fatty acids. A number of things need to happen first though.
To begin with the fatty acids need to be mobilised. This is done through a process called Lipolysis. The three acids are seperated and then transported to the cell that requires the fuel. In this case a muscle cell. Now what the cell needs to do is convert the fatty acid into energy or basically ATP. Through a complicated metabolic pathway they form a molecule called Acteyl Co-A. This molecule enters the energy producing cycle called the citric acid cycle. It is now the same as glucose and goes through the same steps such as the electron transport chain and stuff.
Let me know if you need more detail. Key thing is fat is stored in a stable unsoluable form in adipose tissue. When the body is starving hormones such as insulin activate the degradation of the TAGs into 3 separate chains which then enter the blood and get transported to the starving cell. The cell then uses that fuel.
I think that answers your question.
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[
"Fat is an important foodstuff for many forms of life, and fats serve both structural and metabolic functions. They are a necessary part of the diet of most heterotrophs (including humans) and are the most energy dense, thus the most efficient form of energy storage.\n",
"Adipose tissue, commonly known as fat, is a depository for energy in order to conserve metabolic homeostasis. As the body takes in energy in the form of glucose, some is expended, and the rest is stored as glycogen primarily in the liver, muscle cells, or fat.\n",
"The macronutrients (excluding fiber and water) provide structural material (amino acids from which proteins are built, and lipids from which cell membranes and some signaling molecules are built), and energy. Some of the structural material can also be used to generate energy internally, and in either case it is measured in Joules or kilocalories (often called \"Calories\" and written with a capital 'C' to distinguish them from little 'c' calories). Carbohydrates and proteins provide 17 kJ approximately (4 kcal) of energy per gram, while fats provide 37 kJ (9 kcal) per gram, though the net energy from either depends on such factors as absorption and digestive effort, which vary substantially from instance to instance.\n",
"The macronutrients (excluding fiber and water) provide structural material (amino acids from which proteins are built, and lipids from which cell membranes and some signaling molecules are built) and energy. Some of the structural material can be used to generate energy internally, and in either case it is measured in Joules or kilocalories (often called \"Calories\" and written with a capital \"C\" to distinguish them from little 'c' calories). Carbohydrates and proteins provide 17 kJ approximately (4 kcal) of energy per gram, while fats provide 37 kJ (9 kcal) per gram, though the net energy from either depends on such factors as absorption and digestive effort, which vary substantially from instance to instance. Vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water do not provide energy, but are required for other reasons.\n",
"The fats and carbohydrates in food constitute the majority of energy used by the body. They are measured cumulatively in the USA and many other places in calories and in kilojoules in some other parts of the world.\n",
"In addition to dietary fats, storage lipids stored in the adipose tissues are one of the main sources of energy for living organisms. Triacylglycerols, lipid membrane and cholesterol can be synthesized by the organisms through various pathways.\n",
"Energy in food comes from three sources: fat, protein, and carbohydrates. A typical energy bar weighs between 45 and 80 g and is likely to supply about 200–300 Cal (840–1,300 kJ), 3–9 g of fat, 7–15 g of protein, and 20–40 g of carbohydrates.\n"
] |
How can scientists measure the mass of an atom, and other subatomic particles to such extreme precision?
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Particle masses can be measured in a few ways. Typically, subatomic particle masses are determined by the relationship between their energy and their momentum. If a particle is not moving, its total energy is E=mc\^2. If it is moving, then E\^2=(mc\^2)\^2+(pc)\^2, where p is the momentum and c is the speed of light. One way to measure the mass, say, of a proton, is to put it in a mass spectrometer. Accelerating it in a known electric field gives it an amount of kinetic energy proportional to its charge. Causing the proton to move in a circular path in a uniform, well-calibrated magnetic field allows the momentum to be measured quite precisely.
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[
"Since the electron mass determines a number of observed effects in atomic physics, there are potentially many ways to determine its mass from an experiment, if the values of other physical constants are already considered known.\n",
"Typically, the mass of objects is measured in relation to that of the kilogram, which is defined as the mass of the \"international prototype kilogram\" (IPK), a platinum alloy cylinder stored in an environmentally-monitored safe secured in a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France. However, the IPK is not convenient for measuring the masses of atoms and particles of similar scale, as it contains trillions of trillions of atoms, and has most certainly lost or gained a little mass over time despite the best efforts to prevent this. It is much easier to precisely compare an atom's mass to that of another atom, thus scientists developed the atomic mass unit (or Dalton). By definition, 1 u is exactly one twelfth of the mass of a carbon-12 atom, and by extension a carbon-12 atom has a mass of exactly 12 u. This definition, however, might be changed by the proposed redefinition of SI base units, which will leave the Dalton very close to one, but no longer exactly equal to it.\n",
"The difficulty of making the measurement is illustrated by the wide-ranging values for the mass of the neutron obtained from 1932-1934. The accepted value today is . In Chadwick's 1932 paper reporting on the discovery, he estimated the mass of the neutron to be between and . By bombarding boron with alpha particles, Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie obtained a high value of , while Ernest Lawrence's team at the University of California measured the small value using their new cyclotron.\n",
"This method of measuring \"α\" is very similar in principle to the atom-recoil method. In this case, the accurately known mass ratio of the electron to the neutron is used. The neutron mass is measured with high precision through a very precise measurement of its Compton wavelength. This is then combined with the value of the Rydberg constant to extract \"α\". The result is,\n",
"The accurate mass (more appropriately, the measured accurate mass) is an experimentally determined mass that allows the elemental composition to be determined. For molecules with mass below 200 u, 5 ppm accuracy is often sufficient to uniquely determine the elemental composition.\n",
"An accurate value for the mass of the neutron could be determined from this process. Chadwick and Goldhaber tried this and found that it worked. They measured the kinetic energy of the proton produced as 1.05 MeV, leaving the mass of the neutron as the unknown in the equation. Chadwick and Goldhaber calculated that it was either 1.0084 or 1.0090 atomic units, depending on the values used for the masses of the proton and deuteron. (The modern accepted value for the mass of the neutron is .) The mass of the neutron was too large to be a proton–electron pair.\n",
"To get the mass of the electron, this method actually measures the mass of an Rb atom by measuring the recoil speed of the atom after it emits a photon of known wavelength in an atomic transition. Combining this with the ratio of electron to Rb atom, the result for \"α\" is,\n"
] |
why dont people have a problem with cuba being a problem?
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There isn't a sort of flicked switch between free and oppressive. As countries go, Cuba isn't *that bad.*
It's also poor, yes, but arguably because of US-imposed trade embargoes.
All the money it spends on medical aid is also a very good PR move - it sends hundreds of doctors to developing countries. It also has free healthcare and a lower child mortality rate than the US, despite spending a fraction of the amount of money per person on healthcare, which is why pro-healthcare reform people like to bring it up as a contrast to the US's current system.
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[
"Furthermore, Cuba has little to offer the United States economically. From the United States viewpoint, Cuba's one party semi-dictatorial form of government is especially undesirable due to characteristics such as its crackdowns on religious freedom, repression of the press, and repression of almost all criticism of the government. These policies are allegedly designed to ensure one party, dictatorial rule for as long as possible. Many in the United States profoundly disagree with Cuba's historical policies of severely limiting private property ownership and property rights in order to attain a more communistic society. The danger that Cuba will try to export its repressive and backward form of government, especially into the United States, is a national security threat due to Cuba's close proximity to the United States. This is not an unfounded threat as Cuba has launched several military campaigns, by itself and with other usually hostile nations, designed to export its undesirable form of government in the past. \n",
"The collapse of the Soviet Union put Cuba into a crisis because Cuba relied on the latter to remain a viable economy. People in Cuba suffered from daily shortages such as electricity blackouts, severe gasoline rationing, huge cuts in public transportation, and bicycles from China. Filmmakers, artists and intellectuals suffered the same consequence as everyone else. ICAIC only completed three features in 1990. At 1991, due to the economic crisis, it also led people to escape the island.\n",
"More than one million Cubans of all social classes have left the island to the United States, and to Spain, The UK, Canada, Mexico and other countries. Because leaving required exit permit and a substantial amount of money, most Cubans could never leave Cuban soil.\n",
"Cuba is the largest and most populated island in the Caribbean yet consistently experiences the lowest death tolls during hurricane season. According to United Nations, it's not because Cubans are lucky but because they're prepared. According to Oxfam, from 1996 to 2002, only 16 people were killed by the six hurricanes that struck Cuba.\n",
"Cuba today works with a growing bloc of Latin American politicians opposed to the \"Washington consensus\", the American-led doctrine that free trade, open markets, and privatization will lift poor third world countries out of economic stagnation. The Cuban government have condemned neoliberalism as a destructive force in the developing world, creating an alliance with Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia in opposing such policies.\n",
"Cuba had fallen into an economic crisis because of the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and old American embargo. Many citizens began to try to leave the country. Some had even begun to steal boats to flee. The clash began as police began securing boats to prevent theft.\n",
"In a December 2014 article, “Only Cubans Can Save Cuba,” she noted that America's change in its Cuban policy occurred only a week after 100 Cuban democracy protesters had been arrested and treated violently. “The US president has now rewarded the Cuban regime for having released a prisoner,” she wrote. “The Barack Obama administration has decided to normalize relations with a government that isn’t normal, because it is not legitimate. The Cuban people never chose it, and it violates our most fundamental human rights. In the ongoing dialogue between the elites of Washington and Havana, where are the Cuban people?”\n"
] |
What would be the implications if the existence of a magnetic monopole was found?
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First, the existence of a magnetic monopole would imply the necessity of electric charge quantization -- the phenomenon that all electric charges are integer multiples of some fundamental charge, a property which is observed but for which we do not have a confirmed explanation.
Secondly, many unified theories imply the existence of monopoles. So if you found a monopole, you could ask, if this is a unified theory monopole, what would it tell you about the unified theory? The mass of the monopole would allow us to determine the energy scale at which unification occurs. Also, in unified theories, the monopoles have a radius determined by the unification scale.
One last thing: The density of monopoles in the universe is related to the expansion rate of the universe and when that expansion occurred. Inflation -- a period of rapid expansion -- appears to be needed in the context of grand unification, because otherwise there'd be a much higher density of monopoles and we should have seen some already.
BTW, you might be interested to read about Cabrera's experiment that [appeared to detect a magnetic monopole](_URL_0_) in 1982, although since that signal never occurred again, it seems doubtful that one event was real.
Edit: I should add that the connection between the existence of magnetic monopoles and quantization of electric charge was [realized by Dirac](_URL_1_) in 1931.
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[
"Modern interest in this concept stems from particle theories, notably Grand Unified Theories and superstring theories, that predict either the existence, or the possibility, of magnetic monopoles. These theories and others have inspired extensive efforts to search for monopoles. Despite these efforts, no magnetic monopole has been observed to date.\n",
"The magnetic monopole in the \"quantum\" theory of magnetic charge started with a paper by the physicist Paul A.M. Dirac in 1931. The detection of magnetic monopoles is an open problem in experimental physics. In some theoretical models, magnetic monopoles are unlikely to be observed, because they are too massive to be created in particle accelerators, and also too rare in the Universe to enter a particle detector with much probability.\n",
"The existence of magnetic monopoles has long been an interesting and profound possibility. Such solitons could potentially explain the quantization of electric charge, as pointed out by Dirac; they can arise as the classical solutions in gauge theories, as pointed out by Polyakov and 't Hooft; and the inability to detect them is one of the motivations of proposing a period of inflation before the hot Big-Bang phase.\n",
"In 1931, Dirac proposed that the existence of a single magnetic monopole in the universe would suffice to explain the quantisation of electrical charge. In 1975, 1982, and 2009 intriguing results suggested the possible detection of magnetic monopoles, but there is, to date, no direct evidence for their existence (see also Magnetic monopole#Searches for magnetic monopoles).\n",
"Nevertheless, some theoretical physics models predict the existence of these magnetic monopoles. Paul Dirac observed in 1931 that, because electricity and magnetism show a certain symmetry, just as quantum theory predicts that individual positive or negative electric charges can be observed without the opposing charge, isolated South or North magnetic poles should be observable. Using quantum theory Dirac showed that if magnetic monopoles exist, then one could explain the quantization of electric charge—that is, why the observed elementary particles carry charges that are multiples of the charge of the electron.\n",
"The magnetic monopole is a theorized particle that has not yet been observed. It is a possible solution to Maxwell's equations. One researcher claimed to have observed a monopole with a light-bulb-sized detector. The fact that a detector the size of multiple football pitches (MACRO) has not yet duplicated this feat leads most to disregard the earlier claim.\n",
"A \"magnetic monopole\" is a hypothetical particle (or class of particles) that has, as its name suggests, only one magnetic pole (either a north pole or a south pole). In other words, it would possess a \"magnetic charge\" analogous to an electric charge. Magnetic field lines would start or end on magnetic monopoles, so if they exist, they would give exceptions to the rule that magnetic field lines neither start nor end.\n"
] |
To what extent were the Romans successful against Persian horsemen?
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So I wrote a post on why horse archers were so effective a couple of days ago:
_URL_0_
As for Roman tactics against them, let's first look at Crassus' campaign. He was a rich man but a horrible commander, and actually was given a good route for his campaign. The King of Armenia offered him safe passage and extra cavalry for his campaign, but Crassus rejected this and instead marched through the desert. One of the most important things to remember when facing an army of horse archers is to avoid terrain that is conducive to their strategies, like the desert, and instead to travel through lands that are bad for cavalry maneuvers, like the Highlands the Armenian king offered passage through. So Crassus chooses the bad option, is led through the desert by Parthian spies without the necessary cavalry support, and ends up getting everyone killed.
One thing to remember about the Romans is that they adapt, and when they suck at something, they hire someone else to do it for them. During Trajan's campaign 150 years later, he brings along a significant portion of auxiliary cavalry. His units stick to highlands and in his case sail along the Euphrates to avoid fighting horse archers in their natural environment. He uses a tactic much like Richard Lionheart's, where you use a natural barrier to protect your rear, line up infantry in front of significant missle fire, and keep your cavalry in reserve to do measured charges to keep chase off the enemy. Even though he is significantly better prepared, they stop at the Iranian plateau as that would have been a dire defeat for the Romans even with Mauretanian horse auxilliaries.
As for the Mongols, they did have problems with castles up until their conquest of China and subsequent absorption of Chinese siege engineers. To say they were stopped by sieges in the west is wrong though. They had the capacity to besiege and take castles, but by the time they reach Hungary they are stretched very thin. They do win multiple battles, but have to withdraw because of the election of a new Great Khan. So why didn't they go back and overrun Europe? As I said before, they were stretched thin and horse archer armies work when they can fight on their terms. The Hungarian plain was the end of the steppes. After the Carpathian Mountains, Europe is heavily forested and has swamps and hill country and mountain ranges. It's just not conducive to the Mongol way of war, and unlike China, is not close enough to make the resources needed worth it.
Source: Erik Hildinger "Warriors of the Steppe"
|
[
"The Romans retired their frontier troops and the Persian forces susequently crossed the Tigris river. Shapur's tactic was to tire the Roman forces with a long march in the hot hours of the day before engaging them with his archers and cataphracts, thus, when the two armies came face-to-face, the Persian cavalry feigned flight and the overconfident Romans then pursued them for more than 18 kilometers, reaching Singara while the Sasanians had cut off their communication lines.\n",
"The Sassanid Persians employed cavalry archers and heavy cataphracts to counter the heavy Roman infantry. In battle, these archers had varying degrees of effect. Soon the Romans began to adopt similar methods of warfare.\n",
"But Emperor Heraclius's offensive in 628 AD brought victory over the Persians and ensured Roman predominance in western and eastern Georgia until the invasion and conquest of the Caucasus by the Arabs in the second half of the 7th century.\n",
"The Romans came to know cataphracts during their frequent wars in the Hellenistic East. Cataphracts had varying levels of success against Roman military tactics more so at the Battle of Carrhae and less so at the battle of Lucullus with Tigranes the Great near Tigranocerta in 69 BC. In 38 BC, the Roman general Publius Ventidius Bassus, by making extensive use of slingers, whose long-range weapons proved very effective, defeated the uphill-storming Parthian armored cavalry.\n",
"Mixed results against major cavalry enemies. Rome's overall record against the Parthians was favourable, although the Parthian horsemen offered stiff resistance, as it was against the horsemen of Hannibal, and some Gallic opponents. Subsequent Roman leaders like Antony invaded Parthian territory but had to withdraw after severe losses. Others like Severus and Trajan saw great success in their invasions of Mesopotamia, defeating Parthian armies through combined arms tactics.. Thus, the battles of Ventidius and Julian show that the Roman infantry, when properly handled and maneuvered, and when working in conjunction with other supporting arms like slingers, could certainly meet the challenge of enemy cavalryman.\n",
"According to Emperor Maurice's \"Strategikon\", a manual of war, the Persians made heavy use of archers that were the most \"rapid, although not powerful archery\" of all warlike nations, and they avoided weather that hampered their bows. It claims that they deployed so that their formation was equal in strength in the center and the flanks. They also apparently neutralized the charge of Roman lancers by using rough terrain since the latter preferred to avoid hand-to-hand combat. Thus, the \"Strategikon\" advised fighting on level terrain with rapid charges to avoid the Persian arrows. They were seen as skilled in laying siege and liked to \"achieve their results by planning and generalship\".\n",
"On the other hand, the Persians adopted war engines from the Romans. The Romans had achieved and maintained a high degree of sophistication in siege warfare and had developed a range of siege machines. On the other hand, the Parthians were inept at besieging; their cavalry armies were more suited to the hit-and-run tactics that destroyed Antony's siege train in 36 BC. The situation changed with the rise of the Sasanians, when Rome encountered an enemy equally capable in siege warfare. The Sasanians mainly used mounds, rams, mines, and to a lesser degree siege towers, artillery, and also chemical weapons, such as in Dura-Europos (256) and Petra (550-551). Recent assessments comparing the Sasanians and Parthians have reaffirmed the superiority of Sasanian siegecraft, military engineering, and organization, as well as ability to build defensive works.\n"
] |
How accurate is Battlefield 1?
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There's always room for discussion, but perhaps this previous topic found through the search function will answer your inquiry.
* [Battlefield 1 Trailer Accuracy](_URL_0_)
|
[
"There is no serious historical evidence giving an exact place or time to the battle, nor any troop positions, numerical statistics, casualties, or much of anything of that nature. It is not even fully understood if the battle was in of itself a major engagement or merely a small battle or even a large skirmish. Dio Cassius gives a minor mention of the battle, but it is a mere mention.\n",
"English Heritage, a government body in charge of conservation of historic sites, roughly locates the battlefield in an area 800 to 1600 metres (0.5 to 1.0 mile) north of the town of Barnet. Over the centuries, much of the terrain has changed, and records of the town's boundaries and geography are not detailed enough for English Heritage or historians to conclude the exact location of the battle. Geographical features corresponding to contemporary descriptions allow approximations of where the fighting took place.\n",
"\"\"Cemetery Hill\" is a simulation, on an operational level, of the battle between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia at the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The game covers the period from 1 July to 4 July 1863, when these two armies fought the bloodiest battle in American history to that point. The game system is an adaptation of the popular \"Napoleon at Waterloo\" system. Various special and optional rules allow the Players to recreate a picture of an historical event.\" \n",
"The scale of the battle was, however, confirmed in the 19th century when the railway line in Moira was being constructed. Thousands of bodies of men and horses were excavated. When one considers that the survivors probably numbered quite considerably more, then the reputation of the scale of the battle becomes obvious.\n",
"It is described as \"probably the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil\", and according to historical sources, probably the longest. According to chroniclers, more than 50,000 Yorkist and Lancastrian soldiers fought for hours amidst a snowstorm on that day, which was Palm Sunday. A newsletter circulated a week after the battle reported that 28,000 died on the battlefield.\n",
"Not much is known about this battle since it, along with other events of the era, are clouded by mythology. Thus, the historical accuracy of accounts of this battle is disputed. Chinese historiographical tradition places it in the 26th century BC.\n",
"Battlefield is an American documentary series that debuted in 1994 on PBS that explores the most important battles fought primarily during the Second World War and the Vietnam War. The series employs a novel approach in which history is described by detailed accounts of major battles together with background and contextual information. The sixth and final series of the program was broadcast in 2002.\n"
] |
why did we shoot people that contracted rabies? (context within)
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1. you're gonna die, and pretty soon, and it's incredibly painful.
2. you are likely to go nutso as the disease progresses and then bite someone, scratch someone or exchange fluids with them someone - you're contagious.
In days of yore we took slightly more drastic approaches to dealing with this sort of thing....
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[
"BULLET::::- Rabies, a fatal neurologic disease in animals and people, is caused by a virus. Animals and people are most commonly infected through bites from rabid animals. Infected cats may have a variety of signs, but most often have sudden behavioral changes and progressive paralysis.\n",
"BULLET::::- Rabies – Rabies is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure, followed by one or more of the following symptoms: violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, the result is nearly always death. The time period between contracting the disease and the start of symptoms is usually one to three months; however, the time is dependent on the distance the virus must travel along nerves to reach the central nervous system. In people who have been exposed to rabies, the rabies vaccine and sometimes rabies immunoglobulin are effective in preventing the disease if the person receives the treatment before the start of rabies symptoms. Once the patient becomes symptomatic, treatment is almost never effective and mortality is over 99%. Rabies may also inflame the spinal cord, producing transverse myelitis.\n",
"In 1969 there was an outbreak of rabies when a dog, just released from a sixth month quarantine after returning from Germany, attacked two people on Camberley Common. The scare resulted in restriction orders for dogs and large-scale shoots to carry out the destruction of foxes and other wildlife.\n",
"Rabies is a viral disease that exists in Haiti and throughout the world. It often causes fatal inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals, such as dogs and mongooses in Haiti. The term \"rabies\" is derived from a Latin word that means \"to rage\"; rabid animals sometimes appear to be angry. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure, followed by one or more of the following symptoms: violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, death is nearly always the outcome. The time period between contracting the disease and showing symptoms is usually one to three months; however, this time period can vary from less than a week to more than a year. The time between contraction and the onset of symptoms is dependent on the distance the virus must travel to reach the central nervous system.\n",
"Unlike rabies and at least a dozen other pathogens carried by raccoons, distemper, an epizootic virus, does not affect humans. This disease is the most frequent natural cause of death in the North American raccoon population and affects individuals of all age groups. For example, 94 of 145 raccoons died during an outbreak in Clifton, Ohio, in 1968. It may occur along with a following inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), causing the animal to display rabies-like symptoms. In Germany, the first eight cases of distemper were reported in 2007.\n",
"Rabies is a viral zoonotic neuroinvasive disease which causes inflammation in the brain and is usually fatal. Rabies, caused by the rabies virus, primarily infects mammals. In the laboratory it has been found that birds can be infected, as well as cell cultures from birds, reptiles and insects. Animals with rabies suffer deterioration of the brain and tend to behave bizarrely and often aggressively, increasing the chances that they will bite another animal or a person and transmit the disease. Most cases of humans contracting the disease from infected animals are in developing nations. In 2010, an estimated 26,000 people died from rabies, down from 54,000 in 1990.\n",
"Any mammal may become infected with the rabies virus and develop symptoms, but dogs are by far the main source of human rabies deaths — responsible for up to 99% of all rabies transmissions to humans. Infected monkeys, raccoons, foxes, skunks, cattle, wolves, bats, and cats are also known to transmit rabies to humans. Rabies may also spread through exposure to infected domestic farm animals, groundhogs, weasels, bears and other wild carnivores. Small rodents such as squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice and lagomorphs like rabbits and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and are not known to transmit rabies to humans. Vampire bats can transmit rabies to humans in the 'new world' tropics.\n"
] |
Were the Vandals any more destructive than other invading tribes during the fall of the Roman Empire, or was there another reason their name became connected with vandalism?
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I'll only speak for one aspect of the Vandals in that, while certainly proving to be just as if not more destructive than the Huns and Alaric's visigoths--in terms of the sack of Rome they actually proved to be far less Vandal-like.
Like when Attilla and the Huns were at Rome's doorstep, Pope Leo I once again rode out to meet the would-be invaders and attempt to turn them away from the city. However, Leo's position with the Vandals was far weaker. They were far closer to Rome than Attila was, and Leo didn't have the benefit this time of an army at his back. Unlike the Huns though, the Vandals were christian.
What this is leading to is that when the Vandals did sack Rome, they made an agreement with Leo. They would take what they want--but they wouldn't harm the citizens. They stuck to their word. The Visigoths certainly didn't do that much.
Though, the Visigoths had a far better reason than the Vandals for wishing to sack Rome in the first place. Alaric wanted to establish a homeland for his people--and attempted multiple times to seek some sort of settlement Honorius. Honorius was too stupid or stubborn to accept Alaric's peace offers.
Things are not very black and white in history. While I can't speak of to how the act of vandalism became overtly associated with the Vandals, I can at least say that their sacking of Rome proved to be far less brutal than the other barbarian invasions of the Western Empire.
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[
"The Vandals were also weakened by the hostility of their Roman subjects, the continued existence among the Vandals of a faction loyal to Hilderic, and by the ambivalent position of the Moorish tribes, who watched the oncoming conflict from the sidelines, ready to join the victor and seize the spoils.\n",
"The modern term \"vandalism\" stems from the Vandals' reputation as the barbarian people who sacked and looted Rome in AD 455. The Vandals were probably not any more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, but writers who idealized Rome often blamed them for its destruction. For example, English Restoration poet John Dryden wrote, \"Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race, / Did all the matchless Monuments deface\".\n",
"By the end of the 2nd century, the Vandals were divided in two main tribal groups, the Silingi and the Hasdingi, with the Silingi being associated with Silesia and the Hasdingi living in the Sudetes. Around the mid 2nd century AD, there was a significant migration by Germanic tribes of Scandinavian origin (Rugii, Goths, Gepidae, Vandals, Burgundians, and others) towards the south-east, creating turmoil along the entire Roman frontier. The 6th century Byzantine historian Procopius noted that the Goths, Gepidae and Vandals were physically and culturally identical, suggesting a common origin. These migrations culminated in the Marcomannic Wars, which resulted in widespread destruction and the first invasion of Italy in the Roman Empire period. During the Marcomannic Wars (166–180) the Hasdingi (or Astingi), led by the kings Raus and Rapt (or Rhaus and Raptus) moved south, entering Dacia as allies of Rome. However they eventually caused problems in Dacia and moved further south, towards the lower Danube area. Together with the Hasdingi were the Lacringi, who were possibly also Vandals. In about 271 AD the Roman Emperor Aurelian was obliged to protect the middle course of the Danube against them. They made peace and stayed on the eastern bank of the Danube.\n",
"Although the Vandals had fended off attacks from the Romans and established hegemony over the islands of the western Mediterranean, they were less successful in their conflict with the Berbers. Situated south of the Vandal kingdom, the Berbers inflicted two major defeats on the Vandals in the period 496–530.\n",
"The traditional view has been that the Vandals migrated from southern Scandinavia to the area between the lower Oder and Vistula rivers during the 2nd century BC and settled in Silesia from around 120 BC. They are associated with the Przeworsk culture and were possibly the same people as the Lugii. Expanding into Dacia during the Marcomannic Wars and to Pannonia during the Crisis of the Third Century, the Vandals were confined to Pannonia by the Goths around 330 AD, where they received permission to settle from Constantine the Great. Around 400, raids by the Huns forced many Germanic tribes to migrate into the territory of the Roman Empire, and fearing that they might be targeted next the Vandals were pushed westwards, crossing the Rhine into Gaul along with other tribes in 406. In 409 the Vandals crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, where their main groups, the Hasdingi and the Silingi, settled in Gallaecia (northwest Iberia) and Baetica (south-central Iberia) respectively.\n",
"The Vandals, an ancient Germanic people, are associated with senseless destruction as a result of their sack of Rome under King Genseric in 455. During the Enlightenment, Rome was idealized, while the Goths and Vandals were blamed for its destruction. The Vandals may not have been any more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, but they did inspire British poet John Dryden to write, \"Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race, Did all the matchless Monuments deface\" (1694). However, the Vandals did intentionally damage statues, which may be why their name is associated with the vandalism of art. The term \"Vandalisme\" was coined in 1794 by Henri Grégoire, bishop of Blois, to describe the destruction of artwork following the French Revolution. The term was quickly adopted across Europe. This new use of the term was important in colouring the perception of the Vandals from later Late Antiquity, popularising the pre-existing idea that they were a barbaric group with a taste for destruction.\n",
"In 400 or 401, Hunnic raids forced many Germanic tribes such as the Goths to migrate Westward. Worried that they might be targeted next by the Huns, the Vandals under king Godigisel, along with their allies (the Iranian Alans and Germanic Suebians), moved westwards into Roman territory. Some of the Silingi joined them later. Vandals raided the Roman province of Raetia in the winter of 401/402. From this, historian Peter Heather concludes that at this time the Vandals were located in the region around the Middle and Upper Danube. It is possible that the Vandals were part of the Gothic king Radagaisus' invasion of Italy in 405–406 AD.\n"
] |
The negative side of the square root does not matter?
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The square root symbol is just an object that we made up to keep track of certain quantities. The equation x^(2)-A=0 has two solutions in the real numbers for A > 0. Luckily we know that if x=b is a solution (so b is a number so that b^2=A), then x=-b is *also* a solution. This says two things: 1) We just need to know *one* solution in order to keep track of *both* of them and 2) One of the solutions will be positive. We then *invent* the symbol "sqrt(A)" to be the *positive* solution to x^(2)-A=0. This means that the solutions to x^(2)-A=0 are sqrt(A) and -sqrt(a). sqrt(A) is a single value, it can't be both positive and negative.
sqrt(A) symbol invented to represent a single number that can be used as a bookkeeping device in order to keep track of *both* solutions to x^(2)-A=0. We can't have, for instance, sqrt(4)=+-2, because equality is *transitive*. We'd have sqrt(4)=-2 and sqrt(4)=2, which then says -2=2. What we can say is that the solutions to x^(2)-4=0 are x=2 and x=-2.
An interesting thing is that the equation x^(2)+1=0 has two solutions, but neither of them is positive or negative. In fact, we *can't* tell the two solutions to this equation apart! What we do is then just say that "i" is *one* of these solutions. Which one? Doesn't matter. But we can use it to keep track of both solutions, as the other is -i.
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[
"No square root can be taken of a negative number within the system of real numbers, because squares of all real numbers are non-negative. The lack of real square roots for the negative numbers can be used to expand the real number system to the complex numbers, by postulating the imaginary unit , which is one of the square roots of −1.\n",
"Square roots of negative numbers can be discussed within the framework of complex numbers. More generally, square roots can be considered in any context in which a notion of \"squaring\" of some mathematical objects is defined (including algebras of matrices, endomorphism rings, etc.)\n",
"Since the square of every real number is a positive real number, negative numbers do not have real square roots. However, for every negative real number there are two imaginary square roots. For example, the square roots of −25 are 5\"i\" and −5\"i\", where \"i\" represents a number whose square is .\n",
"As the solutions to the equation involve square roots, negative roots are equally valid. They can be interpreted as both ladders and walls being below ground level and with them in opposing sense, they can be interchanged.\n",
"The square of any positive or negative number is positive, and the square of 0 is 0. Therefore, no negative number can have a real square root. However, it is possible to work with a more inclusive set of numbers, called the complex numbers, that does contain solutions to the square root of a negative number. This is done by introducing a new number, denoted by \"i\" (sometimes \"j\", especially in the context of electricity where \"\"i\"\" traditionally represents electric current) and called the imaginary unit, which is \"defined\" such that . Using this notation, we can think of \"i\" as the square root of −1, but notice that we also have and so −\"i\" is also a square root of −1. By convention, the principal square root of −1 is \"i\", or more generally, if \"x\" is any nonnegative number, then the principal square root of −\"x\" is\n",
"We are not taking the square root of any negative values here, since both \"x\" and 4 are necessarily positive. But we have lost the solution \"x\" = −2. The reason is that \"x\" is actually not in general the \"positive\" square root of \"x\". If \"x\" is negative, the positive square root of \"x\" is \"-x\". If the step is taken correctly, it leads instead to the equation:\n",
"The square root term in these expressions cause them to have two solutions. However, only solutions with a positive real part are physically meaningful since passive circuits cannot exhibit negative resistance. This will normally be the positive root.\n"
] |
why are people scared of guns?
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I get hunting, and have fired weapons myself (including a 20-gauge when I was a teenager, as well as a South African "R5" 5.56mm assault rifle on a range). So I don't "hate" guns, nor am I "scared" of them, but I still have major issues with the whole concept, philosophically.
Step back a bit and look at the big picture, forgetting specifics for a minute. A gun is a machine for killing people and other animals. It's not the only way of killing, of course, but it makes killing incredibly *easy*. Just point it at someone and squeeze the trigger.
With great power comes great responsibility, then, and I frankly don't want that kind of responsibility. Some bad guys have guns, so I should have guns too? That's a circular argument, and it's how arms races start. The bad guys know I have guns, so they get more and/or bigger guns, so should I follow suit? If someone breaks in on me in the suburbs at 4AM, and I started firing my little Glock (or whatever), I doubt that the intruders would be in any danger.
Where does it end? What kind of society would it be if guns were both the problem and the solution? I don't have kids, but if I did, would they be able to go outside and play, away from parental gaze, have fun, and come back safely? My idea of a world safe for everyone is not one that requires guns at all.
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[
"In studies of nonfatal gun use, it was found that guns can contribute to coercive control, which can then escalate into chronic and more severe violence. Guns can have a negative impact on victims even without being discharged. Threats of gun use or showing a weapon can create damaging and long-lasting fear and emotional stress in victims because they are aware of the danger of having an abuser who has access to a gun.\n",
"Firearms users that have to rely on their weapon under adverse conditions, such as big five and other dangerous game hunters, obviously have to check the correct functioning of the firearm and ammunition they intend to use before exposing themselves to potentially dangerous situations.\n",
"Being tough on terrorism, particularly the sorts of homegrown terrorism that we've seen now in Orlando and San Bernardino, means making it harder for people who want to kill Americans to get their hands on assault weapons that are capable of killing dozens of innocents as quickly as possible. That's something I'll continue to talk about in the weeks ahead.\n",
"David Hemenway of Harvard School of Public Health claims that when some people in a community own guns, it \"imposes psychic costs on most other members of the community\". He claims that \"eighty-five percent of non-gun-owners report they would feel less safe if more people in their community acquired guns; only 8% would feel more safe\". This is purportedly because non gun-owners would worry about guns being used in the neighbourhood.\n",
"Because of the increase in guns in the United States, many schools and local communities are taking it into their own hands by providing young students with early gun safety courses to make them aware of the dangers these objects actually are, also to prevent school shootings.According to Katherine A. Fowler, PhD, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An average 1,297 children die (two children per 100,000) and 5,790 are treated for injuries caused by guns each year, the study reported. Six percent of these deaths were accidental, 38% were suicides, 53% were homicides and the remaining 3% were from legal intervention or undetermined reasons. Guns injured children at a rate of 8 per 100,000 children, but this rate is likely considerably higher because of unreported injuries.\n",
"The US attitude to guns generally perplexes those in other developed countries, who cannot understand the unusual permissiveness of American gun laws, and why the American public does not push for harsher gun control measures in the face of mass shootings. Critics contrast the US reaction to terrorism given how few deaths it causes, with their high death rates from non-terror related gun crime.\n",
"The stopping power of firearms when used against humans is a more complex subject, in part because many persons voluntarily cease hostile actions when shot; they either flee, surrender, or fall immediately. This is sometimes referred to as \"psychological incapacitation\".\n"
] |
How many photons from a distant star hit the Earth at any given moment or per second, and does a unique photon strike every (very small) unit area of the side of the planet that faces the source?
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> I was wondering if two people standing next to one another see distinct photons
Any time you and another person see the same thing, you are actually seeing distinct photons. When you see something, it means photons from that object have been absorbed by your retina; the same photon can't be absorbed by the retinas of two different people.
> how does something so far away "cover" the entire side of the Earth (facing the source) with photons?
It does by emitting a *huge* number of photons. In some sense, that's the definition of something which is visible.
> I realize the light is red-shifted and the wave is stretched out as it travels away from the source
The light from stars we see is not necessarily red shifted. While on a large scale, the universe is expanding, that's not reflected in the motion of nearby objects. For things in the galaxy, the light can be red-shifted or blue-shifted depending on the local velocities of the stars relative to us.
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[
"If we assume a 10 m diameter ideal ground-based telescope and an unresolved star: every second, over a patch the size of the seeing-enlarged image of the star, 35 photons arrive from the star and 3500 from air-glow. So, over an hour, roughly arrive from the air-glow, and approximately arrive from the source; so the S/N ratio is about:\n",
"Our star will likely not be directly affected by such an event, but the Earth may be easily affected by a nearby collision. Astronomers say that if a stellar collision happens within 100 light years of the Earth, the resulting gamma-ray burst could possibly destroy all life on Earth. This is still very unlikely though because there are no stellar clusters this close to the Solar System.\n",
"BULLET::::- March 19, 2008: \"Swift\" detected GRB 080319B, a burst of gamma rays amongst the brightest celestial objects ever witnessed. At 7.5 billion light-years, \"Swift\" established a new record for the farthest object (briefly) visible to the naked eye. It was also said to be 2.5 million times intrinsically brighter than the previous brightest accepted supernova (SN 2005ap). \"Swift\" observed a record four GRBs that day, which also coincided with the death of noted science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.\n",
"The Swift BAT all-sky survey detected hard X-rays (in the energy range 14-195 keV) in the direction of M31 and found that this emission was centered in a region 6 arcseconds away from the galaxy center. Using a subsequent NuSTAR observation, it was found that a single source was responsible for this emission, and optical HST images ruled out the presence of stars more massive than 3 solar masses in that direction.\n",
"BULLET::::- Astronomers report the detection of the most distant individual star (actually, a blue supergiant), named Icarus (formally, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1), at 9 billion light-years (light-travel distance) away from Earth.\n",
"In terms of gamma rays, a magnetar (type of neutron star) called SGR 1806-20, had an extreme burst reach Earth on 27 December 2004. It was the brightest event known to have impacted this planet from an origin outside the Solar System; if these gamma rays were visible, with an absolute magnitude of approx. −29, it would be brighter than the Sun \"(as measured by the Swift spacecraft)\".\n",
"Unless a star is being observed from the direction of its pole, sections of the surface have some amount of movement toward or away from the observer. The component of movement that is in the direction of the observer is called the radial velocity. For the portion of the surface with a radial velocity component toward the observer, the radiation is shifted to a higher frequency because of Doppler shift. Likewise the region that has a component moving away from the observer is shifted to a lower frequency. When the absorption lines of a star are observed, this shift at each end of the spectrum causes the line to broaden. However, this broadening must be carefully separated from other effects that can increase the line width.\n"
] |
how come women begin being biologically capable of having babies at an age (periods can start as early as 9) in which they are not developmentally/emotionally/physically capable to?
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I see a lot of people mentioning evolution. Valid to some point. But a huge influence are
endocrine disruptors like BPA. A few decades ago it wasn't common for girls as young as 9 to get their period. The chances of surviving a birth as a 9 year old are also pretty low.
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[
"Precocious puberty can make a child fertile when very young, with the youngest mother on record being Lina Medina, who gave birth at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 17 days, in one report and at 6 years 5 months in another.\n",
"These young girls, some as young as 12, are being force into sexual relationships which results to them being pregnant and becoming mothers at an early age when they should be looked after by their parents. \n",
"Females typically give birth to 2 young, sometimes 1 or 3. The gestation period is on average 133 days. The female typically reaches sexual maturity by 2 years of age. Because of competition between males based upon size males usually reach reproductive age later than females. After birth, the mother leaves the young to forage and returns nourishing the young with nutrient rich milk. The juveniles typically remain with their mother until they reach close to sexual maturity.\n",
"In the United States, 82.5 million women are mothers of all ages, while the national average age of first child births is 25.1 years. In 2008, 10% of births were to teenage girls, and 14% were to women ages 35 and older. In the United States, a study found that the average woman spends 5 years working and building a career before having children, and mothers working non-salary jobs began having children at age 27, compared to mothers with salary positions, who became pregnant at age 31. The study shows that the difference in age of child birth is related to education, since the longer a woman has been in school, the older she will be when she enters the workforce.\n",
"Females become fertile at around 9 years of age. The oldest pregnant female ever recorded was 41 years old. Gestation requires 14 to 16 months, producing a single calf. Sexually mature females give birth once every 4 to 20 years (pregnancy rates were higher during the whaling era). Birth is a social event, as the mother and calf need others to protect them from predators. The other adults may jostle and bite the newborn in its first hours.\n",
"In females, changes in the primary sex characteristics involve growth of the uterus, vagina, and other aspects of the reproductive system. Menarche, the beginning of menstruation, is a relatively late development which follows a long series of hormonal changes. Generally, a girl is not fully fertile until several years after menarche, as regular ovulation follows menarche by about two years. Unlike males, therefore, females usually appear physically mature before they are capable of becoming pregnant.\n",
"Females give birth to a single young up to twice a year, typically between June and January. The young are born blind, and weighing around , after a gestation of 135 days. They are weaned by 40–80 days, and are able to fly by the time they have reached in weight. Females are sexually mature at ten months of age.\n"
] |
How prevalent was Latin in Britain under the Romans and if it was when did it die out as a common language?
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We can't know for sure, but it was probably somewhat similar to English in India: it was a language of administration and law, a literary language, and a common language, particularly in the towns. Unfortunately we just don't have enough writing from Britain to know for certain.
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[
"With the end of Roman rule, Latin was displaced as a spoken language by Old English in most of what became England during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of the fifth and sixth centuries. It survived in the remaining Celtic regions of western Britain until about 700, when it was replaced by the local Brittonic languages.\n",
"The demise of Vulgar Latin in the face of Anglo-Saxon settlement is very different from the fate of the language in other areas of Western Europe which were subject to Germanic migration, like France, Italy and Spain, where Latin and the Romance languages continued. The likely reason is that in Britain there was a greater collapse in Roman institutions and infrastructure, leading to a much greater reduction in the status and prestige of the indigenous Romanised culture; and so the indigenous people were more likely to abandon their languages, in favour of the higher-status language of the Anglo-Saxons.\n",
"Although Latin continued to be spoken by many of the British elite in western Britain, by about 700, it had died out. The incoming Latin-speakers from the lowland zone seem to have rapidly assimilated with the existing population, and adopted Brittonic. The continued viability of British Latin may have been negatively affected by the loss to Old English of the areas where it had been strongest: the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the lowland zone may have indirectly ensured that Vulgar Latin would not survive in the highland zone either. The assimilation to Brittonic appears to be the exact opposite to the situation in France, where the collapse of towns and the migration of large numbers of Latin-speakers into the countryside apparently caused the final extinction of Gaulish.\n",
"British Latin or British Vulgar Latin was the Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods. While Britain formed part of the Roman Empire, Latin became the principal language of the elite, especially in the more Romanized south and east of the island. However, it never substantially replaced the Brittonic language of the indigenous Britons, especially in the less Romanized north and west. In recent years, scholars have debated the extent to which British Latin was distinguishable from its continental counterparts, which developed into the Romance languages.\n",
"Gaulish survived in Gaul into the late 6th century, and played a decisive role in the formation of Gallo-Romance languages. Latin did not become as deeply entrenched in the province of Britannia, and may have dwindled rapidly after the Roman withdrawal around 410 AD, although pockets of Latin-speaking Britons survived in western Britain until about 700 AD. The evidence of Latin loanwords into Brittonic suggests that the Latin of Roman Britain was academic, in contrast to the everyday conversational Latin (\"Vulgar\" Latin) on the continent.\n",
"It is not known when Vulgar Latin ceased to be spoken in Britain, but it is likely that it continued to be widely spoken in various parts of Britain into the 5th century. In the lowland zone, Vulgar Latin was replaced by Old English during the course of the 5th and the 6th centuries, but in the highland zone, it gave way to Brittonic languages such as Primitive Welsh and Cornish. However, scholars have had a variety of views as to when exactly it died out as a vernacular. The question has been described as \"one of the most vexing problems of the languages of early Britain.\"\n",
"All linguistic evidence from Roman Britain suggests that most inhabitants spoke British Celtic and/or British Latin. However, by the eighth century, when extensive evidence for the post-Roman language situation is next available, it is clear that the dominant language in what is now eastern and southern England was Old English, whose West Germanic predecessors were spoken in what is now the Netherlands and northern Germany. Old English then continued spreading westwards and northwards in the ensuing centuries. This development is strikingly different from, for example, post-Roman Gaul, Iberia, or North Africa, where Germanic-speaking invaders gradually switched to local languages. Old English shows little obvious influence from Celtic or spoken Latin: there are for example vanishingly few English words of Brittonic origin. Moreover, except in Cornwall, the vast majority of place-names in England are easily etymologised as Old English (or Old Norse, due to later Viking influence), demonstrating the dominance of English across post-Roman England. Intensive research in recent decades on Celtic toponymy has shown that more names in England and southern Scotland have Brittonic, or occasionally Latin, etymologies than was once thought, but even so, it is clear that Brittonic and Latin place-names in the eastern half of England are extremely rare, and although they are noticeably more common in the western half, they are still a tiny minority─2% in Cheshire, for example.\n"
] |
I'm looking for books focused on political history (preferably books focused on the 20th century, but I'm open to anything). Any suggestions?
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I can only give limited advice about *The Rise and Fall of Communism* as I just skimmed through a few pages of the book in a local Barnes and Noble but it seems to be a well-written book; however, I would also suggest you look at another book about communism that came out not too long ago called *The Red Flag: A History of Communism*, which seems to be a much more entertaining yet still enlightening book (this observation, too, is made from reading just a few pages at B & N). *Nixonland* is a good read but nothing incredibly memorable.
Here's a small list of selections from a variety of topic areas so hopefully one of these will suit your interests:
Edmund Morris's biographies of Teddy Roosevelt are excellent. If you want to continue with TR, check out Douglas Brinkley's *The Wilderness Warrior*, which details TR's campaign for environmentalism. Brinkley is by far the best writer of history I have come across in a long time, so if that book doesn't interest you I urge to look at his other books. No matter what the subject, his books are incredibly engaging.
*Private Empire* by Steve Coll: This book is written by the Pulitzer Prize winning author of *Ghost Wars* and gives a detailed, objective history of ExxonMobil. Very well written and very informative about the strength of ExxonMobil's lobbying power both within the US and throughout the world.
*One Minute to Midnight* by Michael Dobbs. Covers Cuban Missile Crisis and the book's argument is that no one really had control over what was going on. The world could have slipped into nuclear war even though no one wanted that simply because many factors were at play that could not be accounted for or stopped. Great read.
*Guests of the Ayatollah* by Mark Bowden. He's the author of *Black Hawk Down* and writed in a very readable, journalistic style similar to Steve Coll. This book is about the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979 an goes through the 444-day ordeal through the vantage points of the hostages, hostage-takers, and major political figures. Well-researched and maybe the most entertaining read on this list.
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[
"The Century is a book about politics, philosophy and literature by Alain Badiou, first published in French by Éditions du Seuil in 2005; the English translation by Alberto Toscano was published by Polity Press in 2007. The thirteen chapters of the book are presented as lessons derived from a seminar Badiou gave at the College International de Philosophie between 1998-2001. Badiou's analysis of the 20th century is drawn from his unique encounter with 20th century poetry and theater, literary theory, totalitarianism, and the search for meaningful narratives that are neither logical nor dialectical. He warns against \"animal humanism\" and advocates \"formalized inhumanism\".\n",
"The early books he authored or edited are: \"The Galena Lead District: Federal Policy and Practices, 1824-1847\" (1966); \"The West of the American People\" (1970); The \"Politics of Populism: Dissent in Colorado\" (1974); \"The Great Plains Experience: Readings in the History of a Region\" (1978); and \"The Progressive Yankees: Republican Reformers in New Hampshire\" (1987).\n",
"Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the 1980s is a book by British journalist and writer Paul Johnson, who gives an outline of world history during the 20th century from a conservative perspective. It was cited in \"National Review\" as one of the top ten books that changed America and is described as a book that has \"influenced intellectual thinking on a profound level\". It was first published in 1983 and has since been reissued and updated.\n",
"Schattschneider's books include \"Politics, Pressures and the Tariff\" (1935), \"Party Government\" (1942), \"The Struggle for Party Government\", (1948), \"Equilibrium and Change in American Politics\" (1958), \"The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America\" (1960), and \"Two Hundred Million Americans in Search of a Government\" (1969).\n",
"In 1948 he published \"The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It\", incisive interpretive studies of 12 major American political leaders from the 18th-20th centuries. Besides critical success, the book sold nearly a million copies at university campuses, where it was used as a history textbook; critics found it \"skeptical, fresh, revisionary, occasionally ironical, without being harsh or merely destructive.\" Each chapter title illustrated a paradox: Thomas Jefferson is \"The Aristocrat as Democrat\"; John C. Calhoun is the \"Marx of the Master Class\"; and Franklin Roosevelt is \"The Patrician as Opportunist.\" Hofstadter's writing style was so powerful and engrossing that professors kept assigning the book long after its main points had been revised or rejected by scholars.\n",
"Updike's novels about America almost always contain references to political events of the time. In this sense, they are artifacts of their historical eras, showing how national leaders shape and define their times. The lives of ordinary citizens take place against this wider background.\n",
"A version of the book titled \"The Twentieth Century\" contains only chapters 12–25 (\"The Empire and the People\" to \"The 2000 Election and the 'War on Terrorism). Although it was originally meant to be an expansion of the original book, recent editions of \"A People's History\" now contain all of the later chapters from it.\n"
] |
Why do people with chromosome abnormality/ disorder have shorter life expectancies than people without?
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Defects typically worsen things and do not improve them.
Some defects have more negative effects than others. That is a matter of statistics.
In very rare cases, anomalies turn out to be no "defects" but improvements, but the statistical probability for this is very low.
So bottom line: If you introduce a random change in the genetic code of something as complex as a human, the likelihood of worsening sth. is much greater than the likelihood of improving something.
Think of it as computer code: If you change a random line of code randomly (mutation), most likely the program's performance will degrade and will crash earlier than without this change.
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[
"Twin studies have estimated that approximately 20-30% the variation in human lifespan can be related to genetics, with the rest due to individual behaviors and environmental factors which can be modified. Although over 200 gene variants have been associated with longevity according to a US-Belgian-UK research database of human genetic variants, these explain only a small fraction of the heritability. A 2012 study found that even modest amounts of leisure time physical exercise can extend life expectancy by as much as 4.5 years.\n",
"Some cells, especially in older men and smokers, lack a Y chromosome. It has been found that men with a higher percentage of hematopoietic stem cells in blood lacking the Y chromosome (and perhaps a higher percentage of other cells lacking it) have a higher risk of certain cancers and have a shorter life expectancy. Men with \"loss of Y\" (which was defined as no Y in at least 18% of their hematopoietic cells) have been found to die 5.5 years earlier on average than others. This has been interpreted as a sign that the Y chromosome plays a role going beyond sex determination and reproduction (although the loss of Y may be an effect rather than a cause). Male smokers have between 1.5 and 2 times the risk of non-respiratory cancers as female smokers.\n",
"Jennifer Couzin-Frankel examined how much mortality from various causes would have to drop in order to boost life expectancy and concluded that most of the past increases in life expectancy occurred because of improved survival rates for young people. She states that it seems unlikely that life expectancy at birth will ever exceed 85 years. Michio Kaku argues that genetic engineering, nanotechnology and future breakthroughs will accelerate the rate of life expectancy increase indefinitely. Already genetic engineering has allowed the life expectancy of certain primates to be doubled, and for human skin cells in labs to divide and live indefinitely without becoming cancerous.\n",
"Chromosome 7 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human body, and spans about 159 million base pairs and represents about 5-5.5% of the total DNA in cells. Changes to the structure of chromosome 7 can result in a number of genetic abnormalities, including Williams Syndrome which causes structural and cosmetic changes to the human body, ultimately resulting in a shorter lifespan. There are hundreds of known open reading frames (ORF) along the domain of chromosome 7, however there is not much known about the 26th reading frame, which is of considerable interest.\n",
"Predicting short- or long-term survival depends on many factors. The most important are the cancer type and the patient's age and overall health. Those who are frail with other health problems have lower survival rates than otherwise healthy people. Centenarians are unlikely to survive for five years even if treatment is successful. People who report a higher quality of life tend to survive longer. People with lower quality of life may be affected by depression and other complications and/or disease progression that both impairs quality and quantity of life. Additionally, patients with worse prognoses may be depressed or report poorer quality of life because they perceive that their condition is likely to be fatal.\n",
"Cells of affected individuals have reduced lifespan in culture, more chromosome breaks and translocations and extensive deletions. These DNA damages, chromosome aberrations and mutations may in turn cause more RecQ-independent aging phenotypes.\n",
"Humans, like all sexually reproducing species, have somatic cells that are in diploid [2N] state, meaning that N represent the number of chromosomes, and 2 the number of their copies. In humans, there are 23 chromosomes, but there are two sets of them, one from mother and one from father, totaling in 46, that are arranged according to their size, function and genes they carry. Each cell is supposed to have two of each, but sometimes due to mutations or malfunctions during cell division, mistakes are made that cause serious health problems. One such error is the cause of Distal trisomy 10q disorder.\n"
] |
You're in a stopped car with the windows closed, a horsefly is 'hovering'; Upon accelerating the car, does the fly remain in the same position in space, or does it hit the rear window?
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A fly's motion is based on the objects it is in contact with, as well as the gravitational pull of the Earth. A fly would be hovering because the force exerted upwards by the air on the fly's wings is balanced out by the gravitational pull of the earth. Now, if the car were to accelerate, it would bring all of the air with it. Some of the air would be compressed towards the back of the car, which would cause the fly to go backwards a bit, but regardless, the fly should be able to hover there.
You can test this with a helium-filled balloon. Be aware of the tension force from the string (you cannot tie it down).
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[
"Each side of the body must be synchronized and the two sides are also coupled. That is, the left and right wings and thus the left and right halteres always beat at the same frequency. However, the amplitude of the wingbeat does not always have to be the same on the left and right side. This is what allows the flies to turn and is accomplished using a gearbox, much like what you would find in an automobile. This gearbox can change the maximum amplitude of the wing movement and determine its speed of motion. The wings of flies even have a clutch structure at their base. The clutch moves between grooves in the gearbox, to engage and disengage the wing muscles and also modulate the wingbeat amplitude. When the amplitude of the left wing is less than the right, the fly will make a left turn. Even though haltere movement is controlled by separate muscles than the wings, because the wings are mechanically coupled with the halteres, changes in wingbeat frequency extend to the haltere-beat frequency as well, but haltere beat amplitude does not change.\n",
"During flight, it is important for a fly to maintain a level gaze; however, it is possible for a fly to rotate. The rotation is detected visually as a rotation of the environment termed optical flow. The input of the optical flow is then converted into a motor command to the fly's neck muscles so that the fly will maintain a level gaze. This reflex is diminished in a stationary fly compared to when it is flying or walking.\n",
"As the flywheel, unlike the spring of a pullback motor, is continuously rotating and not held, the motor may be \"pumped up\" by pushing the car repeatedly forward. The cars also typically work in forward and reverse. Some used a \"zip cord\" pulled from the vehicle body to accelerate the flywheel directly. Another system was the \"Turbo Tower of Power\" (TTP) in which air expelled from a hand-operated pump pushed turbine blades on the flywheel's rim.\n",
"When used in vehicles, flywheels also act as gyroscopes, since their angular momentum is typically of a similar order of magnitude as the forces acting on the moving vehicle. This property may be detrimental to the vehicle's handling characteristics while turning or driving on rough ground; driving onto the side of a sloped embankment may cause wheels to partially lift off the ground as the flywheel opposes sideways tilting forces. On the other hand, this property could be utilized to keep the car balanced so as to keep it from rolling over during sharp turns.\n",
"When flying the four wings are spread quite far apart, fore and hind wing of the same side far apart, body horizontal. Flight slow enough so that the movements of each separate wing can be seen—insect consequently moves slowly but can dodge. Mr. Barnes compared the movements of the wings to that of a windmill, but the revolving movements are lacking; I should say the effect produced by the wings is more like that of a jumping-jack with moveable arms and legs pulled by one string, rather slowly, but, of course, at regular intervals.\n",
"Simply holding the stick still, when starting with the wings near level, an aircraft will usually have a tendency to gradually veer off to one side of the straight flightpath. This is the (slightly unstable) spiral mode.\n",
"When the left wing is down, right rudder is needed to hold level flight. Rolling slowly left will require moving the rudder slowly to the right, then back to center as the wings become level in inverted flight (where of course some elevator is needed), and then to the left as the roll continues and puts the right wing down, and finally back to center and the aircraft returns to straight and level flight.\n"
] |
Does heat energy have "momentum"?
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No. Heat may continue to diffuse through the object, which may cause it to appear to be increasing in heat for a short while (e.g. if you're measuring temperature at a different spot from where it's being heated) but the max temperature wouldn't rise without a heat source.
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[
"The concept of energy emerged from the idea of \"vis viva\" (living force), which Leibniz defined as the product of the mass of an object and its velocity squared; he believed that total \"vis viva\" was conserved. To account for slowing due to friction, Leibniz claimed that heat consisted of the random motion of the constituent parts of matter — a view shared by Isaac Newton, although it would be more than a century until this was generally accepted.\n",
"In the kinetic theory, heat is explained in terms of the microscopic motions and interactions of constituent particles, such as electrons, atoms, and molecules. The immediate meaning of the kinetic energy of the constituent particles is not as heat. It is as a component of internal energy.\n",
"He had been motivated to think of a \"wave theory of heat\" by analogy with the wave theory of light and some experiments by James Forbes and Macedonio Melloni on radiant heat. His statement that \"... in mixed media the mean square molecular velocity is inversely proportional to the specific weight of the molecules\" has been seen as the first statement of the equipartition theorem for translational motion. Waterston grasped that, while the kinetic energy of an individual molecule with velocity \"v\" is ½\"mv\"², heat energy is proportional to temperature, \"T\". That insight led him to derive the ideal gas law:\n",
"The energy and momentum are properties of matter and radiation, and it is impossible to deduce that they form a four-vector just from the two basic postulates of special relativity by themselves, because these don't talk about matter or radiation, they only talk about space and time. The derivation therefore requires some additional physical reasoning. In his 1905 paper, Einstein used the additional principles that Newtonian mechanics should hold for slow velocities, so that there is one energy scalar and one three-vector momentum at slow velocities, and that the conservation law for energy and momentum is exactly true in relativity. Furthermore, he assumed that the energy of light is transformed by the same Doppler-shift factor as its frequency, which he had previously shown to be true based on Maxwell's equations. The first of Einstein's papers on this subject was \"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy Content?\" in 1905. Although Einstein's argument in this paper is nearly universally accepted by physicists as correct, even self-evident, many authors over the years have suggested that it is wrong. Other authors suggest that the argument was merely inconclusive because it relied on some implicit assumptions.\n",
"Heat transfer physics describes the kinetics of energy storage, transport, and energy transformation by principal energy carriers: phonons (lattice vibration waves), electrons, fluid particles, and photons. Heat is energy stored in temperature-dependent motion of particles including electrons, atomic nuclei, individual atoms, and molecules. Heat is transferred to and from matter by the principal energy carriers. The state of energy stored within matter, or transported by the carriers, is described by a combination of classical and quantum statistical mechanics. The energy is also transformed (converted) among various carriers.\n",
"In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer to or from a thermodynamic system, by mechanisms other than thermodynamic work or transfer of matter. The mechanisms include conduction, through direct contact of immobile bodies, or through a wall or barrier that is impermeable to matter; or radiation between separated bodies; or isochoric mechanical work done by the surroundings on the system of interest; or Joule heating by an electric current driven through the system of interest by an external system; or a combination of these. When there is a suitable path between two systems with different temperatures, heat transfer occurs necessarily, immediately, and spontaneously from the hotter to the colder system. Thermal conduction occurs by the stochastic (random) motion of microscopic particles (such as atoms or molecules). In contrast, thermodynamic work is defined by mechanisms that act macroscopically and directly on the system's whole-body state variables; for example, change of the system's volume through a piston's motion with externally measurable force; or change of the system's internal electric polarization through an externally measurable change in electric field. The definition of heat transfer does not require that the process be in any sense smooth. For example, a bolt of lightning may transfer heat to a body.\n",
"Further progress in kinetic theory started only in the middle of the 19th century, with the works of Rudolf Clausius, James Clerk Maxwell, and Ludwig Boltzmann. In his 1857 work \"On the nature of the motion called heat\", Clausius for the first time clearly states that heat is the average kinetic energy of molecules. This interested Maxwell, who in 1859 derived the momentum distribution later named after him. Boltzmann subsequently generalized his distribution for the case of gases in external fields.\n"
] |
why does curiosity often outweigh common sense?
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I think it might have to do with our hunter gatherer ancestors. We have a need for knowledge of everything near us, so we can be aware of predators, food, and other things either beneficial or detrimental to our survival.
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[
"Although the phenomenon of curiosity is widely regarded, its root causes are relatively unknown beyond theory. However, recent studies have provided some insight into the neurological mechanisms that make up what is known as the reward pathway which may impact characteristics associated with curiosity, such as learning, memory, and motivation. Due to the complex nature of curiosity, research that focuses on specific neural processes with these characteristics can help create a better understanding the phenomenon of curiosity as a whole. The following are characteristics of curiosity and their links to neural aspects that can be thought of as essential in creating exploratory behaviors:\n",
"The term \"curiosity\" can also be used to denote the behavior or emotion of being curious, in regard to the desire to gain knowledge or information. Curiosity as a behavior and emotion is attributed over millennia as the driving force behind not only human development, but developments in science, language, and industry.\n",
"These traditional ideas of curiosity have recently expanded to look at the difference between \"curiosity as the innate exploratory behavior\" that is present in all animals and \"curiosity as the desire for knowledge\" that is specifically attributed to humans.\n",
"Curiosity (from Latin \"cūriōsitās\", from \"cūriōsus\" \"careful, diligent, curious\", akin to \"cura\" \"care\") is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.\n",
"Curiosity can categorize as particular interest stimulated behavior and diverse curiosity encouraged the practice. The first mentioned of two displays an in-depth analysis for a single incentive because this stimulation evokes curiousness of consumer; in this situation, exploration is a reaction for a specific stimulus motivated by collative properties. However, the diverse curiosity, which can be initiated by an assortment of sources, refers to the response for boredom, meaning that it does not react to a particular stimulus.\n",
"Subsets of curiosity-drive theory differ on whether curiosity is a primary or secondary drive and if this curiosity-drive is originated due to one's need to make sense of and regulate their environment or if it is caused by an external stimulus. Causes can range from basic needs that need to be satisfied (e.g. hunger, thirst) to needs in fear induced situations. Each of these subset theories state that whether the need is primary or secondary curiosity is developed from experiences that create a sensation of uncertainty or perceived unpleasantness. Curiosity then acts as a means in which to dispel this uncertainty. By exhibiting curious and exploratory behavior, one is able to gain knowledge of the unfamiliar and thus reduce the state of uncertainty or unpleasantness. This theory, however, does not address the idea that curiosity can often be displayed even in the absence of new or unfamiliar situations. This type of exploratory behavior is common in many species. Take the example of a human toddler who, if bored in his current situation devoid of arousing stimuli, will walk about until something interesting is found. The observation of curiosity even in the absence of novel stimuli pinpoints one of the major shortcomings in the curiosity-drive model.\n",
"Curiosity can be seen as an innate quality of many different species. It is common to human beings at all ages from infancy through adulthood, and is easy to observe in many other animal species; these include apes, cats, and rodents. Early definitions cite curiosity as a motivated desire for information. This motivational desire has been said to stem from a passion or an appetite for knowledge, information, and understanding.\n"
] |
how do the machines work that the tsa use to put swabs in after they swipe your clothing?
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They use a technique called "ion-mobility spectrometry". What happens is they ionize the specimen swabs and then travel through a tube with an electric field and a buffer gas that opposes the motion. The speed at which it will pass through the tube indicates what the material is made of, and it is calibrated to trigger on explosives residue.
Hopefully if someone has a bomb they would have to handle it, and the very faint residue of that handling would be detected by the device.
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[
"The user clips the piece of clothing on two hooks and the item is pulled into the machine. Then a series of rollers and arms moves in all directions to straighten and fold it. The machine can fold shirts, tops, trousers and dresses, but not small pieces of clothing like underwear or large items like sheets. The folded items are returned in a stack through a window at the bottom of the machine.\n",
"The main purpose of a wash rack is to clean equipment while protecting the environment from contaminates commonly found on construction, maintenance and military vehicles or equipment. To comply with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations, which are intended to prevent soil-borne insects or other potentially harmful organisms from entering the United States, U.S. military vehicles and equipment must be thoroughly washed before being shipped home. As such, wash racks are commonly used by the US military to ensure vehicles are clean and safe before they are brought back into the country.\n",
"Some manufacturers have taken steps to reduce vibration emanating from their washers, by means of reducing or controlling motor speeds, using hydraulic suspensions instead of spring suspensions, and having freely moving steel balls contained inside a ring mounted on both the front and back sides of the drum in order to counter the weight of the clothes and reduce vibration.\n",
"A robot then transfers the aluminium blanks into the tandem press lines where the sheets are stamped into the various panels of the cars. The Schuler SMG hydraulic stamping press line is the largest in North America and the 6th largest in the world. The presses use up to 11,000 ton-force to form the body panels; the upper section applies 1400 tonnes of downward force and the lower section 130 tonnes. The blank aluminium sheet is stretched over the lower draw die and openings are cut with robots transferring the panels between processes. The workers then inspect each panel to ensure correct pressing. The parts are then stacked in frames and stored. The machines press one part every 6 seconds and create 5,000 parts per day.\n",
"A wheel washing system is a device for cleaning the tires of trucks when they are leaving a site, to control and eliminate the pollution of public roads. The installation can be made in or above the ground for either temporary or permanent applications. There are two types of wheel washing systems: roller and drive-through systems.\n",
"Customers purchase kits to sample one or more parts of their body, including the gut, genitals, mouth, nose, or skin. After swabbing, a participant takes a survey which is used to make correlations with microbiome data. The participant sends the kit to the company in the mail and receives data in a few weeks; he or she can compare their data with that of uBiome’s data set. In 2015 uBiome received Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certification from the State of California. In 2016, uBiome received accreditation from the College of American Pathologists.\n",
"In a top load washing machine the agitator projects from the bottom of the wash basket and creates the wash action by rotating back and forth, rolling garments from the top of the load, down to the bottom, then back up again.\n"
] |
Why don't we have infinite entropy in the universe?
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Entropy increases over time. It's a fundamental law of thermodynamics.
However, the universe in it's current state isn't infinite, it had a start at the Big Bang. At the Big Bang, the universe had an incredibly low entropy. Why this is isn't entirely known, and there's a lot of speculation on the topic. We currently exist in a time frame where the low entropy is playing out. In a VERY long time (Like 10^10^36 years) the universe will reach it's maximum state of entropy, and no trace will be left of what transpired over the lifetime of the universe.
Presumably this will carry on for an infinite amount of time, assuming time has any meaning in a maximum entropy environment.
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[
"Max Planck wrote that the phrase \"entropy of the universe\" has no meaning because it admits of no accurate definition. More recently, Grandy writes: \"It is rather presumptuous to speak of the entropy of a universe about which we still understand so little, and we wonder how one might define thermodynamic entropy for a universe and its major constituents that have never been in equilibrium in their entire existence.\" According to Tisza: \"If an isolated system is not in equilibrium, we cannot associate an entropy with it.\" Buchdahl writes of \"the entirely unjustifiable assumption that the universe can be treated as a closed thermodynamic system\". According to Gallavotti: \"... there is no universally accepted notion of entropy for systems out of equilibrium, even when in a stationary state.\" Discussing the question of entropy for non-equilibrium states in general, Lieb and Yngvason express their opinion as follows: \"Despite the fact that most physicists believe in such a nonequilibrium entropy, it has so far proved impossible to define it in a clearly satisfactory way.\" In Landsberg's opinion: \"The \"third\" misconception is that thermodynamics, and in particular, the concept of entropy, can without further enquiry be applied to the whole universe. ... These questions have a certain fascination, but the answers are speculations, and lie beyond the scope of this book.\"\n",
"Since a finite universe is an isolated system, the second law of thermodynamics states that its total entropy is continually increasing. It has been speculated, since the 19th century, that the universe is fated to a heat death in which all the energy ends up as a homogeneous distribution of thermal energy so that no more work can be extracted from any source.\n",
"One position is to say that the constant increase of entropy we observe happens \"only\" because of the initial state of our universe. Other possible states of the universe (for example, a universe at heat death equilibrium) would actually result in no increase of entropy. In this view, the apparent T-asymmetry of our universe is a problem in cosmology: why did the universe start with a low entropy? This view, if it remains viable in the light of future cosmological observation, would connect this problem to one of the big open questions beyond the reach of today's physics — the question of \"initial conditions\" of the universe.\n",
"Second, the application of the concept of entropy to the entire universe is unwarranted. This association has its origin in Clausius' statement that the entropy of the World always increases. Clausius, who is credited for the formulation of the second law, did not and could not understand the molecular interpretation of entropy. Unfortunately, the application of the concept of entropy to the entire universe features in many textbooks and in popular science books. This erroneous application is discussed in great detail in Ben-Naim's recent books: \"The Briefest History of Time\", \"Entropy, the Truth the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth\", and in \"Information, Entropy, Life and the Universe\".\n",
"If the universe can be considered to have generally increasing entropy, then – as Roger Penrose has pointed out – gravity plays an important role in the increase because gravity causes dispersed matter to accumulate into stars, which collapse eventually into black holes. The entropy of a black hole is proportional to the surface area of the black hole's event horizon. Jacob Bekenstein and Stephen Hawking have shown that black holes have the maximum possible entropy of any object of equal size. This makes them likely end points of all entropy-increasing processes, if they are totally effective matter and energy traps. However, the escape of energy from black holes might be possible due to quantum activity (see Hawking radiation).\n",
"A recent analysis of entropy states, \"The entropy of a general gravitational field is still not known\", and, \"gravitational entropy is difficult to quantify\". The analysis considers several possible assumptions that would be needed for estimates and suggests that the observable universe has more entropy than previously thought. This is because the analysis concludes that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor. Lee Smolin goes further: \"It has long been known that gravity is important for keeping the universe out of thermal equilibrium. Gravitationally bound systems have negative specific heat—that is, the velocities of their components increase when energy is removed. ... Such a system does not evolve toward a homogeneous equilibrium state. Instead it becomes increasingly structured and heterogeneous as it fragments into subsystems.\"\n",
"Thus, if entropy is associated with disorder and if the entropy of the universe is headed towards maximal entropy, then many are often puzzled as to the nature of the \"ordering\" process and operation of evolution in relation to Clausius' most famous version of the second law, which states that the universe is headed towards maximal “disorder”. In the recent 2003 book \"SYNC – the Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order\" by Steven Strogatz, for example, we find “Scientists have often been baffled by the existence of spontaneous order in the universe. The laws of thermodynamics seem to dictate the opposite, that nature should inexorably degenerate toward a state of greater disorder, greater entropy. Yet all around us we see magnificent structures—galaxies, cells, ecosystems, human beings—that have all somehow managed to assemble themselves.” \n"
] |
why it’s so uncomfortable to stare into someone else’s eyes for too long?
|
It depends who it's for. Alot of the time it's a show of dominant behavior or even submissive depending on the person. This can lead to people being uncomfortable.
Other times for fewer people it's the start of a soul gaze, which is something most tend to avoid.
|
[
"Visually, a glaring person tends to have their eyes fixed and heavily focused on a subject. This can sometimes be considered synonymous to staring but, in most of the cases, staring is caused due to curiosity and lasts only for a short duration, whereas glaring is caused due to contempt and lasts for a relatively longer duration.\n",
"The eyes are often viewed as important features of facial expressions. Aspects such as blinking rate can possibly be used to indicate whether a person is nervous or whether he or she is lying. Also, eye contact is considered an important aspect of interpersonal communication. However, there are cultural differences regarding the social propriety of maintaining eye contact or not.\n",
"Some people are able to consciously uncouple their eyes, either by overfocusing closely (i.e. going cross-eyed) or unfocusing. Also, while looking at one object behind another object, the foremost object's image is doubled (for example, placing one's finger in front of one's face while reading text on a computer monitor). In this sense, double vision is neither dangerous nor harmful, and may even be enjoyable. It makes viewing stereograms possible.\n",
"Eye contact is the instance when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time; it is the primary nonverbal way of indicating engagement, interest, attention and involvement. Some studies have demonstrated that people use their eyes to indicate interest. This includes frequently recognized actions of winking and movements of the eyebrows. Disinterest is highly noticeable when little or no eye contact is made in a social setting. When an individual is interested, however, the pupils will dilate.\n",
"Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information. People, perhaps without consciously doing so, search other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. In some contexts, the meeting of eyes arouses strong emotions.\n",
"BULLET::::- Staring - Staring is more than just eye contact, it usually involves eyes wider than normal. A lack of blinking may indicate more interest, but it also may indicate a stronger feeling than a person may intend to portray. Prolonged eye contact can be aggressive, affectionate, or deceptive.\n",
"A recent experiment at the University of California at Berkeley found that individuals with a combination of low self-esteem and low attentional control are more likely to exhibit eye-blink startle responses while viewing rejection themed images. These findings indicate that people who feel bad about themselves are especially vulnerable to rejection, but that people can also control and regulate their emotional reactions.\n"
] |
why is it acceptable for politicians to litter signs and pamphlets everywhere?
|
You can't stop people from mailing you stuff or leaving it at your house but most towns have regulations around those signs that they leave on people's lawns. My town has these regulations:
\- Need to get an owner's consent to put a sign on their lawn.
\- Person needs to track where they put them. Candidates are responsible for them all.
\- After an election the Candidate is responsible for removing all the signs they put around town, within a certain amount of time
Otherwise they are subject to fines. Check your local regs. Maybe they exist but no one's enforcing them.
|
[
"In addition, it gives the requester a placebo effect of doing something substantive, while not actually volunteering to help their candidate. Critics charge that \"lawn signs don't vote\" and dismiss their importance. Theft of lawn signs is treated like any other instance of petty theft, however, signs on the rights of way in many states are considered litter and can be picked up by anyone as a public service. On several occasions, citizens who removed lawn signs on the pretext of cleaning up the clutter and eliminating driver distraction were arrested, sparking a public controversy.\n",
"Election litter is a term used by some national and subnational governments to describe the unlawful erection of political advertising on private residences or property owned by the local government. Often, election signs may only be displayed \"on private property with permission\" for a certain time within the election, and may not exceed a certain size. When placed on public property or public rights of way without permission, or if left on private property for too long, they are often in violation of littering laws, and/or laws intended to prevent flyposting.\n",
"Badges, favours, flags, rosettes, symbols, sets of colours, advertisements, handbills, placards, posters and replica voting papers may not be carried, worn, used or displayed by any person or on any vehicle as political propaganda, although candidates may wear replicas of the symbols allotted to them for election purposes. In addition, holding election meetings and canvassing are not permitted on the day before polling day or on polling day itself. Canvassing involves trying to persuade a person to vote or not to vote in a particular way; or visiting a voter for an election-related purpose at home or at his or her workplace. It is an offence to exercise undue influence on any person at or near a polling station: for example, trying to find out the identity of any person entering a polling station; recording voters' particulars; and waiting outside or loitering within of polling stations.\n",
"Badges, favours, flags, rosettes, symbols, sets of colours, advertisements, handbills, placards, posters and replica voting papers may not be carried, worn, used or displayed by any person or on any vehicle as political propaganda, although candidates may wear replicas of the symbols allotted to them for election purposes. In addition, holding election meetings and canvassing are not permitted on the day before polling day and polling day itself. Canvassing involves trying to persuade a person to vote or not to vote in a particular way, or visiting a voter for an election-related purpose at home or at his or her workplace. It is also an offence to exercise undue influence on any person at or near a polling station, for instance, by trying to find out the identity of any person entering a polling station, recording voters' particulars, and waiting outside or loitering within of polling stations.\n",
"Election litter usually is defined as placing campaign signs on public, government-owned property, or on privately owned property (including residences) without the owner's permission. It is usually banned by local government.\n",
"Political scientist Mel Kahn states that lawn signs help build name recognition for candidates. Supposedly, each sign represents 6-10 votes for the candidate. However, veteran political organizers hate the task of handing out yard signs, because they believe that time spent on procuring and distributing yard signs could be better used on other voter registration and get out the vote operations. One randomized field trial found yard signs simply reminding people to vote were able to significantly increase overall voter turnout. A 2016 study found that lawn signs raise vote shares by slightly more than 1 percentage point and are “on par with other low-tech campaign tactics such as direct mail that generate … effects that tend to be small in magnitude.”\n",
"They are frequently distributed as part of promotional, and political campaigns; for example, in many voting districts in the U.S., stickers indicating an individual has voted are given to each voter as they leave the polling place, largely as a reminder to others to vote. Observers may clap hands, honk a horn or otherwise applaud a good sticker.\n"
] |
An object in orbit around a massive body is in a constant state of free fall, so why isn't it accelerating towards an infinite velocity?
|
For objects in a circular orbit, the force of gravity is always perpendicular to the direction of motion. That means that gravity does not pull the object to go faster in its current direction, but instead only changes the direction without affecting the speed of the object.
|
[
"In typical free-fall, the acceleration of gravity acts along the direction of an object's velocity, linearly increasing its speed as it falls toward the Earth, or slowing it down if it is moving away from the Earth. In the case of an orbiting spacecraft, which has a velocity vector largely \"perpendicular\" to the force of gravity, gravitational acceleration does not produce a net change in the object's speed, but instead acts centripetally, to constantly \"turn\" the spacecraft's velocity as it moves around the Earth. Because the acceleration vector turns along with the velocity vector, they remain perpendicular to each other. Without this change in the direction of its velocity vector, the spacecraft would move in a straight line, leaving the Earth altogether.\n",
"If the free-falling body completed a full orbit, it would begin at distance formula_2 from the point source mass formula_3, fall inward until it reached that point source, then turn around and journey back to its original position. In real systems, the point source mass isn't truly a point source and the infalling body eventually collides with some surface. Thus, it only completes half the orbit. But since the infalling part of the orbit is symmetric to the hypothetical outgoing portion of the orbit, we can simply divide the period of the full orbit by two to attain the free-fall time (the time along the infalling portion of the orbit).\n",
"A body in free fall (which by definition entails no aerodynamic forces) near the surface of the earth has an acceleration approximately equal to 9.8 m s with respect to a coordinate frame tied to the earth. If the body is in a freely falling lift and subject to no pushes or pulls from the lift or its contents, the acceleration with respect to the lift would be zero. If on the other hand, the body is subject to forces exerted by other bodies within the lift, it will have an acceleration with respect to the freely falling lift. This acceleration which is not due to gravity is called \"proper acceleration\". On this approach, weightlessness holds when proper acceleration is zero.\n",
"That is, being on the surface of the Earth is equivalent to being inside a spaceship (far from any sources of gravity) that is being accelerated by its engines. The direction or vector of acceleration equivalence on the surface of the earth is \"up\" or directly opposite the center of the planet while the vector of acceleration in a spaceship is directly opposite from the mass ejected by its thrusters. From this principle, Einstein deduced that free-fall is inertial motion. Objects in free-fall do not experience being accelerated downward (e.g. toward the earth or other massive body) but rather weightlessness and no acceleration. In an inertial frame of reference bodies (and photons, or light) obey Newton's first law, moving at constant velocity in straight lines. Analogously, in a curved spacetime the world line of an inertial particle or pulse of light is \"as straight as possible\" (in space \"and\" time). Such a world line is called a geodesic and from the point of view of the inertial frame is a straight line. This is why an accelerometer in free-fall doesn't register any acceleration; there isn't any.\n",
"Technically, an object is in free fall even when moving upwards or instantaneously at rest at the top of its motion. If gravity is the only influence acting, then the acceleration is always downward and has the same magnitude for all bodies, commonly denoted formula_1.\n",
"In 2018, Li and Liao reported 234 solutions to the unequal-mass \"free-fall\" three body problem. The free fall formulation of the three body problem starts with all three bodies at rest. Because of this, the masses in a free-fall configuration do not orbit in a closed \"loop\", but travel forwards and backwards along an open \"track\".\n",
"BULLET::::- As the object is pulled toward the massive body, it falls toward that body. However, if it has enough tangential velocity it will not fall into the body but will instead continue to follow the curved trajectory caused by that body indefinitely. The object is then said to be orbiting the body.\n"
] |
How does the electric field behave as a charged particle falls into a black hole?
|
> It seems to imply that to a distant observer, the field due to a charge at the event horizon of a black hole would have to be spherically symmetric around the center of the black hole (at least, assuming a spherical black hole).
Ok, when people say a black hole is only described by its mass, charge and angular momentum, there's an important caveat that this only applies if you wait a bit for things to stabilize. For example, consider this [animation of two merging black holes](_URL_0_). Immediately after they merge, the merged black hole is still wobbling and the gravitational field produced by this is dynamic, so it goes beyond just mass, charge and angular momentum. But the wobbling black hole is emitting gravitational waves, and in doing so stabilizes into a static state after some time.
Same thing if you dump electric charge into the black hole. From your point of view, you observe the charge being scrambled at the event horizon and the associated dynamic EM field. Over time, the charge will get evenly distributed over the event horizon and radiate away EM waves until everything stabilizes and you get a static electric field.
The important thing is that everything happens at the level of the event horizon from your point of view. You never get any information of what's going inside. For example, the wobbling black hole can be seen as an elastic beach ball without concern for what's inside the ball. Similarly, when you dump charge in the hole, you see the charge flowing through the beach ball's surface.
But if you wait long enough, the black hole will look like a nice sphere described only by mass, charge and angular momentum, after it has finished scrambling what you tossed inside.
|
[
"A charged black hole is a black hole that possesses electric charge. Since the electromagnetic repulsion in compressing an electrically charged mass is dramatically greater than the gravitational attraction (by about 40 orders of magnitude), it is not expected that black holes with a significant electric charge will be formed in nature.\n",
"Instead of analyzing the movement of an empty state in the valence band as the movement of many separate electrons, a single equivalent imaginary particle called a \"hole\" is considered. In an applied electric field, the electrons move in one direction, corresponding to the hole moving in the other. If a hole associates itself with a neutral atom, that atom loses an electron and becomes positive. Therefore, the hole is taken to have positive charge of +e, precisely the opposite of the electron charge.\n",
"If particle A enters the ergosphere of a Kerr black hole, then splits into particles B and C, then the consequence (given the assumptions that conservation of energy still holds and one of the particles is allowed to have negative energy) will be that particle B can exit the ergosphere with more energy than particle A while particle C goes into the black hole, i.e. and say , then .\n",
"In semiconductors and insulating materials, an electric field causes charged particles, electrons, to reach a specific drift velocity that is parallel to the direction of the field. This is different from the behavior of the free charged particles in a vacuum, in which a field accelerates the particle. The proportionality factor between the magnitudes of the drift velocity, formula_7, and the electric field, formula_8, is called the mobility, formula_9:\n",
"An alternative view of the process is that vacuum fluctuations cause a particle–antiparticle pair to appear close to the event horizon of a black hole. One of the pair falls into the black hole while the other escapes. In order to preserve total energy, the particle that fell into the black hole must have had a negative energy (with respect to an observer far away from the black hole). This causes the black hole to lose mass, and, to an outside observer, it would appear that the black hole has just emitted a particle. In another model, the process is a quantum tunnelling effect, whereby particle–antiparticle pairs will form from the vacuum, and one will tunnel outside the event horizon.\n",
"The maximum amount of energy gain possible for a single particle via this process is 20.7%. The process obeys the laws of black hole mechanics. A consequence of these laws is that if the process is performed repeatedly, the black hole can eventually lose all of its angular momentum, becoming non-rotating, i.e. a Schwarzschild black hole. In this case the theoretical maximum energy that can be extracted from a black hole is 29% of its original mass. Larger efficiencies are possible for charged rotating black holes.\n",
"So, the above purely classical calculation cannot be trusted. Furthermore, even classically, electric charge and angular momentum affect the properties of a black hole. To take them into account, while still ignoring quantum effects, one should use the Kerr–Newman metric. If we do, we find the angular momentum and charge of the electron are too large for a black hole of the electron's mass: a Kerr-Newman object with such a large angular momentum and charge would instead be 'super-extremal', displaying a naked singularity, meaning a singularity not shielded by an event horizon.\n"
] |
Is it colder just before dawn or somewhere in the middle between dawn and dusk?
|
Assuming no strong cold or warm air advection is taking place, it's normally the coldest just before sunrise. You can clearly see the diurnal temperature trends in [this hourly weather graph for Phoenix, Arizona](_URL_0_).
|
[
"Daytime becomes longer as the summer solstice approaches, while nighttime gets longer as the winter solstice approaches. This can have a potential impact on the times and durations of dawn and dusk. This effect is more pronounced closer to the poles, where the Sun rises at the vernal equinox and sets at the autumn equinox, with a long period of twilight, lasting for a few weeks.\n",
"Dawn, from an Old English verb \"dagian\": \"to become day\", is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in the atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc reaches 18° below the horizon. This dawn twilight period will last until sunrise (when the Sun's upper limb breaks the horizon), as the diffused light becomes direct sunlight.\n",
"The opposite of night is day (or \"daytime\", to distinguish it from \"day\" referring to a 24-hour period). The start and end points of time for a night vary, based on factors such as season and latitude. Twilight is the period of night after sunset or before sunrise when the Sun still illuminates the sky when it is below the horizon. At any given time, one side of Earth is bathed in sunlight (the daytime) while the other side is in the shadow caused by Earth blocking the sunlight. The central part of the shadow is called the umbra.\n",
"BULLET::::- The long dawn of two months is a special and important characteristic of the North Pole. As we descend southward, the splendor and the duration of the dawn will be witnessed on a less and less magnificent scale. But the dawn occurring at the end of the long night of two, three or more months will still be unusually long, often of several days duration.\n",
"Unlike the other seasons, summer is not warmer in Scania compared to many other Swedish provinces. As in winter, the weather usually changes between periods that either are sunny and fairly hot (up to 30 degrees, even higher away from the coastlines), and periods of unstable cloudy and cooler weather. The time between sunset and sunrise during June and earliest July is less than 7 hours, and both the dawn and the dusk are rather long as well. However, there are still a few hours of real night. Further north in Sweden there is no real night, as dusk turns into dawn. (In northernmost Sweden, the sun does not set at all for around two months.)\n",
"The sun remains below the horizon during the polar night from about 26 November to 15 January, but owing to the mountains, the sun is not visible from 21 November to 21 January. The return of the sun is an occasion for celebration. However, because of the twilight, there is some daylight for a couple of hours even around midwinter, often with bluish light, allowing for normal day/night cycles during the winter. The nights shorten quickly. By 21 February the sun is above the horizon from 7:45 am to 4:10 pm, and by 1 April it is above the horizon from 5:50 am to 7:50 pm (daylight saving time). However, if one were to include astronomical twilight as \"not night\", then Tromsø only has 13 hours and 32 minutes of night on the winter solstice.\n",
"The sun remains below the horizon during the polar night from about 26 November to 15 January, but owing to the mountains, the sun is not visible from 21 November to 21 January. The return of the sun is an occasion for celebration. However, because of the twilight, there is some daylight for a couple of hours even around midwinter, often with bluish light. The nights shorten quickly. By 21 February the sun is above the horizon from 7:45 am to 4:10 pm, and by 1 April it is above the horizon from 5:50 am to 7:50 pm (daylight saving time). If we include astronomical twilight as \"not night\", then Tromso only has 14 hours of night on the winter solstice.\n"
] |
what is java?
|
I suppose you're here talking about computers and not the dance.
**ELI5 answer :** Java is a programming language which allows to create programs.
**Long answer :** Unlike other programming languages like C++, the code is interpreted by another program (called the JVM, Java Virtual Machine) which renders the result. Most programming languages doesn't work like this ; they compile code into binary data which can be directly used by the computer. Java is also a *object-oriented* programming language, but defining the *object-oriented* notion would require another ELI5.
|
[
"Java is a general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to minimize implementation dependencies. It relies on a Java virtual machine to be secure and highly portable. It is bundled with an extensive library designed to provide a full abstraction of the underlying platform. Java is a statically typed object-oriented language that uses a syntax similar to (but incompatible with) C++. It includes a documentation system called Javadoc.\n",
"Java is a general-purpose programming language that is class-based, object-oriented (although not a pure object-oriented language, as it contains primitive types), and designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers \"write once, run anywhere\" (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but it has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. , Java was one of the most popular programming languages in use according to GitHub, \n",
"BULLET::::- Java – is a general-purpose programming language that is class-based, object-oriented(although not a \"pure\" OO language), and designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers \"write once, run anywhere\" (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation.\n",
"JavaScript is a scripting language that is mainly used for creating for implementing dynamic website pages and enhanced user interfaces for web browsers. Highly influenced by programming languages such as C, Java, Self, and Scheme, JavaScript supports object oriented, functional, and imperative programming styles. Even though its name has \"Java\" in it, it is an entirely different language from Java.\n",
"Java is a set of computer software and specifications developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems, which was later acquired by the Oracle Corporation, that provides a system for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers. Java applets, which are less common than standalone Java applications, were commonly run in secure, sandboxed environments to provide many features of native applications through being embedded in HTML pages. It's still possible to run Java in web browsers after most of them having dropped support for Java's VM.\n",
"JavaOS is an operating system with a Java virtual machine as a fundamental component, originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Unlike Windows, Mac OS, Unix, or Unix-like systems which are primarily written in the C programming language, JavaOS is primarily written in Java. It is now considered a legacy system.\n",
"JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a high-level, interpreted programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. JavaScript has curly-bracket syntax, dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation, and first-class functions.\n"
] |
Why are so many followers of Islam/people in Islamic nations named after the prophet Muhammad?
|
Interesting, I always thought about it from the other point of view. If you consider a man to be the best human and a role model to pattern your life on, wouldn't it follow that it should be a very common name? Muslims are supposed to love the prophet Muhammad more than their parents and we know that naming children after people you love is pretty common. With that logic, I think the question should be, why aren't Jesus and Moses more common names?*
*Among Christians and Jews, respectively, of course. They're both relatively common names in the Muslim world (with the Arabic pronunciation, of course).
|
[
"There were Jews, such as Natan'el, who accepted this model of religious pluralism, leading them to view Muhammad as a legitimate prophet, albeit not Jewish, sent to preach to the Arabs, just as the Hebrew prophets had been sent to deliver their messages to Israel.\n",
"According to the sixth edition of \"The Columbia Encyclopedia\" (2000), \"Muhammad\" is probably the most common given name [in the world], including variations. It is estimated that more than 150 million men and boys in the world bear the name \"Muhammad\" due to its relationship to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.\n",
"The names and titles of Muhammad, names and attributes of Muhammad, Names of Muhammad (Arabic: أَسْمَاءُ ٱلْنَّبِيّ \"’Asmā’u ’n-Nabiyy\") are the names of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and used by Muslims, where 88 of them are commonly renown, but also countless names which are found mainly in the Quran and hadith literature.\n",
"As Muhammad taught of new \"Islamic prophets\" (such as Lot, and Jesus) and that his message was identical to those of Abraham and Moses, the Jews were furthermore in the position to make some Muslims doubt about his prophethood. Judaism does not list Lot, nor Jesus as Prophets in Judaism, and the Talmud (Sanhedrin 11a) states that Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi were the last prophets, all of whom lived at the end of the 70-year Babylonian exile, and nowadays only the \"Bath Kol\" (בת קול, lit. \"daughter of a voice\", \"voice of God\") exists. The Jews, according to Watt, could argue that \"some passages in the Qur'an contradicted their ancient scriptures\". Watt also states that many of the Jews had close links with Abd-Allah ibn Ubayy, \"the potential prince of Medina\" who \"is said that but for the arrival of Muhammad, had not become\" the chief arbitrator of the community. The Jews may have hoped for greater influence if Ubayy had become a ruler. Watt writes that the Islamic response to these criticisms was:\n",
"Moreover, once the prophethood of Muhammad is testified they would obey him, no one would hesitate to follow his offspring and this would not be hard for anyone. While to follow the offspring of the corrupted families is difficult. And that is maybe why the basic characteristic of Muhammad and other prophets was their nobility. For none of them, it is said, were originated from a disgraced family. It is believed that all Muhammad's ancestors up to Adam were true Muslims. Jesus was also from a pious family, as it is mentioned in Quran that after his birth, people said to Mary: \"O sister of Aaron, your father was not a man of evil, nor was your mother unchaste.\"\n",
"Indeed such is the popularity of the name \"Muhammad\" throughout parts of Africa, Arabia, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia, it is often represented by the abbreviation \"Md.\", \"Mohd.\", \"Muhd.\", or just \"M.\". In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, due to its almost ubiquitous use as a first name, a person will often be referred to by their second name:\n",
"The Quran identifies a number of men as \"Prophets of Islam\" ( \"nabī\"; pl. \"anbiyāʾ\"). Muslims believe such individuals were assigned a special mission by God to guide humanity. Besides Muhammad, this includes prophets such as Abraham (\"Ibrāhīm\"), Moses (\"Mūsā\") and Jesus (\"ʿĪsā\").\n"
] |
How accurate are orbital calculations?
|
Here's a taste of how accurate orbital calculations are: in 1676 Romer proposed that there was a finite speed of light when he noticed that Io, a moon of Jupiter, was some times 8 minutes ahead of "schedule" (predicted location) and sometimes 8 minutes behind. 8 minutes. 350 years ago.
|
[
"One of the major problems in trajectory and orbital estimation is to obtain a realistic estimate of the accuracy of the trajectory and other important parameters. In the orbital case, some of the parameters which may not be solved for are geopotential constants, survey, etc. These factors will affect the total uncertainty in the orbit and, of course, ephemeris predictions. A statistical technique was developed that performs a variance-covariance propagation to obtain accuracy estimates based on random and unmodeled errors. An example of the unmodeled error propagation in the MISTRAM system was given for the Geos B satellite.\n",
"Theoretical models may calculate the constants (coefficients) corresponding to the higher powers of \"T\", but since it is impossible for a (finite) polynomial to match a periodic function over all numbers, the difference in all such approximations will grow without bound as \"T\" increases. However, greater accuracy can be obtained over a limited time span by fitting a high enough order polynomial to observation data, rather than a necessarily imperfect dynamic numerical model. So for present flight trajectory calculations of artificial satellites and spacecraft, the polynomial method gives better accuracy. In that respect, the International Astronomical Union chose the best-developed available theory. For up to a few centuries in the past and the future, all formulas do not diverge very much. For up to a few thousand years in the past and the future, most agree to some accuracy. For eras farther out, discrepancies become too large – the exact rate and period of precession may not be computed using these polynomials even for a single whole precession period.\n",
"Knowing three orbital positions of a planet's orbit – positions obtained by Sir Isaac Newton from astronomer John Flamsteed – Newton was able to produce an equation by straightforward analytical geometry, to predict a planet's motion; i.e., to give its orbital properties: position, orbital diameter, period and orbital velocity. Having done so, he and others soon discovered over the course of a few years, those equations of motion did not predict some orbits very well or even correctly. Newton realized it was because gravitational interactive forces amongst all the planets was affecting all their orbits.\n",
"Orbital uncertainty is related to several parameters used in the orbit determination process including the number of observations (measurements), the time spanned by those observations (observation arc), the quality of the observations (e.g. radar vs. optical), and the geometry of the observations. Of these parameters, the time spanned by the observations generally has the greatest effect on the orbital uncertainty.\n",
"The apparent resonance even depends on what source data and calculation methods are employed - the best fit for the given orbital \"periods\" within a 25,000 year cycle time, 44:75, is still imperfect and exhibits a final error of more than 1.5 Earth years for the final conjunction (approx 0.5%, or 2 degrees of arc). If we instead use the two bodies' respective \"semi-major axes\", i.e. their mean orbital \"radii\" as the basis for calculation, and purely Keplerian 2-body equations (ignoring interference by all other bodies), the decimal ratio returns 1.699943. This is actually close enough to 1.7 that a 10:17 resonance can be considered a credible possibility, not only with \"U\" = 2, but even in the looser reaches of a notional \"U=-1\" band, 4.4× more accurate than the usual \"U\" = 0 gold standard and about 85× more than band 2. However, appearing to be dead centre is no guarantee of accuracy when the uncertainty IS actually that great, so either of the other explanations could still be correct.\n",
"The higher-order terms are extra corrections to Newtonian mechanics, and become important at higher speeds. The Newtonian equation is only a low-speed approximation, but an extraordinarily good one. All of the calculations used in putting astronauts on the moon, for example, could have been done using Newton's equations without any of the higher-order corrections.\n",
"It is impossible to determine individually the semi-major axis \"a\" and the inclination of the orbit plane \"i\". However, the product of the semi-major axis and the sine of the inclination (i.e. \"a\" sin \"i\") may be determined directly in linear units (e.g. kilometres). If either \"a\" or \"i\" can be determined by other means, as in the case of eclipsing binaries, a complete solution for the orbit can be found.\n"
] |
Do ALL plants release pollen into the air?
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Plants only produce pollen from their flowers (or cones, etc.). So if your friend would like some plants inside her house she just needs to make sure they don't flower (i.e. cut the flower buds off). Some plants flower more often or easily than others. Cacti rarely flower, in my experience.
Ferns produce no flowers but they reproduce using spores. As long as your friend is not also allergic to fern spores, that could be an option.
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"\"Filipendula rubra\" is known for its air-borne pollen, however pollination is only effective (can create a seed) when pollen is transferred to a different plant, due to the fact that \"F. rubra\" is self-incompatible. The vast majority of pollen will be derived from inflorescences within the same clone and thus incompatible. Pollination is aided by insects such as sweat bees spreading pollen.\n",
"Wind and water pollination require the production of vast quantities of pollen because of the chancy nature of its deposition. If they are not to be reliant on the wind or water (for aquatic species), plants need pollinators to move their pollen grains from one plant to another. They particularly need pollinators to consistently choose flowers of the same species, so they have evolved different lures to encourage specific pollinators to maintain fidelity to the same species. The attractions offered are mainly nectar, pollen, fragrances and oils. The ideal pollinating insect is hairy (so that pollen adheres to it), and spends time exploring the flower so that it comes into contact with the reproductive structures.\n",
"Although pollination results from the bees visiting these flowers, this is not the primary reason they visit plants with poricidal anthers. Pollen contains a substantial amount of protein compared to nectar, the sugary liquid the majority of plants produce as a reward for their animal pollinators. Bees eat pollen as well as make a paste with it to feed their larvae. The pollen paste is then sealed into the nest to create a reserve for the young bees. Bees rely on this resource for food; therefore they are also dependent on flowers that produce substantial amounts of accessible pollen, including flowers with poricidal anthers. Bees from \"Bombus\" and \"Xylocopa\" are thought to pollinate these flowers because their adaptive behavior allows them easily extract pollen that is less available to other insects. Since bees have a source of plentiful pollen that they do not have to compete with other insects for, they are more likely to visit these flowers. This then allows the flowers to more successful reproductively because the plants maximize their pollen dispersal with each bee visit, and less pollen is lost. The relationship between buzz pollinated plants and bees benefits both groups and could be why poricidal anthers have been successful evolutionarily. Pollinator and flower relationships have been observed in \"Orphium frutescens\", a small shrub that has poricidal anthers. Bees visited these plants outside of the University of Cape Town and continued to visit the plants even when all of the pollen had been extracted. Although the bees did not know the \"O. frutescens\" would benefit from these multiple visits as the plants continue to produce pollen during the flowering season.\n",
"Pollen is released as single grains, like in most other plants, in the Apostasioideae, Cypripedioideae, and Vanilloideae. In the other subfamilies, which comprise the great majority of orchids, the anther (3) carries two pollinia.\n",
"In plants that use insects or other animals to move pollen from one flower to the next, plants have developed greatly modified flower parts to attract pollinators and to facilitate the movement of pollen from one flower to the insect and from the insect back to the next flower. Flowers of wind pollinated plants tend to lack petals and or sepals; typically large amounts of pollen are produced and pollination often occurs early in the growing season before leaves can interfere with the dispersal of the pollen. Many trees and all grasses and sedges are wind pollinated, as such they have no need for large fancy flowers.\n",
"Water-pollinated plants are aquatic and pollen is released into the water. Water currents therefore act as a pollen vector in a similar way to wind currents. Their flowers tend to be small and inconspicuous with lots of pollen grains and large, feathery stigmas to catch the pollen. However, this is relatively uncommon (only 2% of pollination is hydrophily) and most aquatic plants are insect-pollinated, with flowers that emerge into the air. \"Vallisneria\" is an example.\n",
"The flowers produce both pollen and nectar. Long- and short-tongued bees visit the plants for both nectar and pollen, syrphid flies and fire beetles (\"Pedilus lugubris\") feed on pollen, and butterflies and moths drink nectar. Out of these insects, large bees are the most effective at cross-pollination, since they most often touch the pollen-covered anthers.\n"
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