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If neutrinos turn out to be faster than light, are they useful in any way? Communication?
|
The recent measurement has no practical implications for communication. Neutrinos make inefficient signals because they are almost indetectable. One application I've seen proposed is for messaging submarines, because radio can't penetrate and sound is slow.
|
[
"Neutrino speeds \"consistent\" with the speed of light are expected given the limited accuracy of experiments to date. Neutrinos have small but nonzero mass, and so special relativity predicts that they must propagate at speeds slower than light. Nonetheless, known neutrino production processes impart energies far higher than the neutrino mass scale, and so almost all neutrinos are ultrarelativistic, propagating at speeds very close to that of light.\n",
"In a analysis of their data, scientists of the OPERA collaboration reported evidence that neutrinos they produced at CERN in Geneva and recorded at the OPERA detector at Gran Sasso, Italy, had traveled faster than light. The neutrinos were calculated to have arrived approximately 60.7 nanoseconds (60.7 billionths of a second) sooner than light would have if traversing the same distance in a vacuum. After six months of cross checking, on , the researchers announced that neutrinos had been observed traveling at faster-than-light speed. Similar results were obtained using higher-energy (28 GeV) neutrinos, which were observed to check if neutrinos' velocity depended on their energy. The particles were measured arriving at the detector faster than light by approximately one part per 40,000, with a 0.2-in-a-million chance of the result being a false positive, \"assuming\" the error were entirely due to random effects (significance of six sigma). This measure included estimates for both errors in measuring and errors from the statistical procedure used. It was, however, a measure of precision, not accuracy, which could be influenced by elements such as incorrect computations or wrong readouts of instruments. For particle physics experiments involving collision data, the standard for a discovery announcement is a five-sigma error limit, looser than the observed six-sigma limit.\n",
"In September 2011, OPERA researchers observed muon neutrinos apparently traveling faster than the speed of light. In February and March 2012, OPERA researchers blamed this result on a loose fibre optic cable connecting a GPS receiver to an electronic card in a computer. On 16 March 2012, a report announced that an independent experiment in the same laboratory, also using the CNGS neutrino beam, but this time the ICARUS detector, found no discernible difference between the speed of a neutrino and the speed of light. In May 2012, the Gran Sasso experiments BOREXINO, ICARUS, LVD and OPERA all measured neutrino velocity with a short-pulsed beam, and obtained agreement with the speed of light, showing that the original OPERA result was mistaken. Finally in July 2012, the OPERA collaboration updated their results. After the instrumental effects mentioned above were taken into account, it was shown that the speed of neutrinos is consistent with the speed of light. This was confirmed by a new, improved set of measurements in May 2013.\n",
"In 2011, the OPERA experiment mistakenly observed neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light. Even before the mistake was discovered, the result was considered anomalous because speeds higher than that of light in a vacuum are generally thought to violate special relativity, a cornerstone of the modern understanding of physics for over a century.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Faster Than the Speed of Light?\" (BBC 2, 2011). Marcus du Sautoy discusses the recent discovery, the faster-than-light neutrino anomaly, that neutrinos may travel faster than light. First broadcast on 19 October 2011.\n",
"BULLET::::- Faster-than-light neutrino anomaly (2011–2012): In 2011, the OPERA experiment mistakenly observed neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light. On July 12, 2012 OPERA updated their paper by including the new sources of errors in their calculations. They found agreement of neutrino speed with the speed of light.\n",
"BULLET::::- An international team of scientists at CERN records neutrino particles apparently traveling faster than the speed of light. If confirmed, the discovery would overturn Albert Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity, which says that nothing can travel faster than light. (BBC) (ArXiv)\n"
] |
During the time of the moon landing did people get upset about the governments space race and the mission to the moon?
|
Absolutely. In fact, at no point prior to the first Moon landing did the program receive a majority of support by the public at large. Indeed, there were several notable very vocal public opponents of the program because they felt it drew funds away from or was a distraction from now important work (such as poverty reduction and anti-segregation).
And in some regards they had a solid case to make. In the 1960s the per capita gdp of the US was considerably lower than today. There was a level of common poverty that existed then that today exists mostly in the developing world. Remember that in the 1960s the whole country didn't even have indoor plumbing, electricity, or phones. And, of course, this was also the peak of the struggle against Jim Crow. Many people, correctly, saw the moon race as a geopolitical struggle and lamented the waste of resources for what was effectively war making on another front. Even more so while the Vietnam War was raging.
It was only after the fact that the Apollo program became more closely associated with peace, science, and the inchoate environmental movement. And, of course, for the spending to become a sunk cost that couldn't be undone or diverted elsewhere.
Sources & further reading:
* [Historical Studies in the Societal Impact of Spaceflight pgs. 12-17 particularly (25-30 in the pdf)](_URL_3_)
* [Public opinion polls and perceptions of US human spaceflight](_URL_0_)
* [Moondoggle: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program](_URL_2_)
* Gil-Scott Heron (of "the revolution will not be televised" fame): [Whitey on the Moon](_URL_1_)
* [The Apollo Disappointment Industry](_URL_4_)
|
[
"BULLET::::- Marcus Allen – British publisher of \"Nexus\", who said photographs of the lander would not prove that the United States put men on the Moon, and \"Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem – the Russians did that in 1959. The big problem is getting people there.\" He suggests that NASA sent robot missions because radiation levels in outer space would be deadly. A variant of this idea has it that NASA and its contractors did not recover quickly enough from the Apollo 1 fire, and so all the early Apollo missions were faked, with Apollos 14 or 15 being the first real mission.\n",
"The Apollo 11 mission was the first human spaceflight mission to land on the Moon. The mission's wide effect on popular culture was anticipated and since then there have been a number of portrayals in media.\n",
"After the Apollo 11 mission, officials from the Soviet Union said landing humans on the Moon was dangerous and unnecessary. At the time the Soviet Union was attempting to retrieve lunar samples robotically. The Soviets publicly denied there was a race to the Moon, and indicated they were not making an attempt. Mstislav Keldysh said in July 1969, \"We are concentrating wholly on the creation of large satellite systems\". It was revealed in 1989 that the Soviets had tried to send people to the Moon, but were unable due to technological difficulties. The public's reaction in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it.\n",
"Mary Bennett and David Percy have claimed in \"Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers\", that, with all the known and unknown hazards, NASA would not risk broadcasting an astronaut getting sick or dying on live television. The counter-argument generally given is that NASA in fact \"did\" incur a great deal of public humiliation and potential political opposition to the program by losing an entire crew in the Apollo 1 fire during a ground test, leading to its upper management team being questioned by Senate and House of Representatives space oversight committees. There was in fact no video broadcast during either the landing or takeoff because of technological limitations.\n",
"In a 1994 poll by \"The Washington Post\", 9% of the respondents said that it was possible that astronauts did not go to the Moon and another 5% were unsure. A 1999 Gallup Poll found that 6% of the Americans surveyed doubted that the Moon landings happened and that 5% of those surveyed had no opinion, which roughly matches the findings of a similar 1995 \"Time/CNN\" poll. Officials of the Fox network said that such skepticism rose to about 20% after the February 2001 airing of their network's television special, \"Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?\", seen by about 15 million viewers. This Fox special is seen as having promoted the hoax claims.\n",
"Sibrel's claims that the moon landing was a hoax making claims about supposed photographic anomalies; disasters such as the destruction of Apollo 1; technical difficulties experienced in the 1950s and 1960s; and the problems of traversing the Van Allen radiation belts. Sibrel proposes that the most condemning evidence is a piece of footage that he claims was secret, and inadvertently sent to him by NASA; he alleges that the footage shows Apollo 11 astronauts attempting to create the illusion that they were from Earth (or roughly halfway to the Moon) when, he claims, they were only in a low Earth orbit.\n",
"Motivation for the United States to engage the Soviet Union in a Space Race can be traced to the then on-going Cold War. Landing on the Moon was viewed as a national and technological accomplishment that would generate world-wide acclaim. But going to the Moon would be risky and expensive, as exemplified by President John F. Kennedy famously stating in a 1962 speech that the United States chose to go \"because\" it was hard.\n"
] |
Who discovered energy = force x distance, and how?
|
The work done by a force was simply *defined* to be the line integral of the force field along the particle's path. There's nothing to discover. But this turns out to be *useful* because of the work-energy theorem and conservation of energy, which can be proven using Newton's laws and experimentally verified.
|
[
"However, over large variations in distance, the approximation that \"g\" is constant is no longer valid, and we have to use calculus and the general mathematical definition of work to determine gravitational potential energy. For the computation of the potential energy, we can integrate the gravitational force, whose magnitude is given by Newton's law of gravitation, with respect to the distance \"r\" between the two bodies. Using that definition, the gravitational potential energy of a system of masses \"m\" and \"M\" at a distance \"r\" using gravitational constant \"G\" is\n",
"As can be seen above, the gravitational attractive force of two bodies of 1 Planck mass each, set apart by 1 Planck length is 1 Planck force. Likewise, the distance traveled by light during 1 Planck time is 1 Planck length. To determine, in terms of SI or another existing system of units, the quantitative values of the five base Planck units, those two equations and three others must be satisfied:\n",
"Émilie du Châtelet (1706 – 1749) proposed and tested the hypothesis of the conservation of total energy, as distinct from momentum. Inspired by the theories of Gottfried Leibniz, she repeated and publicized an experiment originally devised by Willem 's Gravesande in 1722 in which balls were dropped from different heights into a sheet of soft clay. Each ball's kinetic energy - as indicated by the quantity of material displaced - was shown to be proportional to the square of the velocity. The deformation of the clay was found to be directly proportional to the height the balls were dropped from, equal to the initial potential energy. Earlier workers, including Newton and Voltaire, had all believed that \"energy\" (so far as they understood the concept at all) was not distinct from momentum and therefore proportional to velocity. According to this understanding, the deformation of the clay should have been proportional to the square root of the height from which the balls were dropped from. In classical physics the correct formula is formula_3, where formula_4 is the kinetic energy of an object, formula_5 its mass and formula_6 its speed. On this basis, Châtelet proposed that energy must always have the same dimensions in any form, which is necessary to be able to relate it in different forms (kinetic, potential, heat…).\n",
"This was connected with the theoretical prediction of the electromagnetic mass by J. J. Thomson in 1881, who showed that the electromagnetic energy contributes to the mass of a moving charged body. Thomson (1893) and George Frederick Charles Searle (1897) also calculated that this mass depends on velocity, and that it becomes infinitely great when the body moves at the speed of light with respect to the luminiferous aether. Also Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1899, 1900) assumed such a velocity dependence as a consequence of his theory of electrons. At this time, the electromagnetic mass was separated into \"transverse\" and \"longitudinal\" mass, and was sometimes denoted as \"apparent mass\", while the invariant Newtonian mass was denoted as \"real mass\". On the other hand, it was the belief of the German theoretician Max Abraham that all mass would ultimately prove to be of electromagnetic origin, and that Newtonian mechanics would become subsumed into the laws of electrodynamics.\n",
"Energy is defined as the ability to do work on an object; for example, the work required to lift a one-pound weight, one foot against the pull of gravity defines a foot-pound of energy (One joule is equal to the energy needed to move a body over a distance of one meter using one newton of force). If we were to modify the graph to reflect force (the pressure exerted on the base of the bullet multiplied by the area of the base of the bullet) as a function of distance, the area under that curve would be the total energy imparted to the bullet. Increasing the energy of the bullet requires increasing the area under that curve, either by raising the average pressure, or increasing the distance the bullet travels under pressure. Pressure is limited by the strength of the firearm, and duration is limited by barrel length.\n",
"The Geroch energy or Geroch mass is one of the possible definitions of mass in general relativity. It can be derived from the Hawking energy, itself a measure of the bending of ingoing and outgoing rays of light that are orthogonal to a 2-sphere surrounding the region of space whose mass is to be defined, by leaving out certain (positive) terms related to the sphere's external and internal curvature.\n",
"The equations above represent conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. There are thus three equations and four unknowns, formula_55 (density) formula_56 (fluid velocity), formula_57 (pressure) and formula_58 (total energy). The total energy is given by,\n"
] |
Dinosaurs and the Square/Cube Law: How'd it all work?
|
The square/cube law applies to objects (or animals) that scale isometrically. In other words, the object exactly retains its shape and relative dimensions, it just scales in size. Think of a scale-model matchbox car relative to a real car.
You can imagine an isometrically scaled chicken as being a chicken that is longer, taller, and wider by a factor *n*, with *n^2* times the surface area, and *n^3* times the mass of a regular chicken.
In reality, species do not tend to scale isometrically, due to the problems it would create. For example, a chicken that is 10 times as tall as a regular chicken would weigh 10^3 = 1000 times as much, but the cross-sectional area of its leg bones would only be 10^2 = 100 times greater. This means the static pressure the bones would have to bear would be 1000/100 = 10 times greater than for a regular chicken.
For this reason, many aspects of physiology are found to scale [allometrically](_URL_0_). For example, larger animals tend to have much stockier legs, dinosaurs being no exception to this.
This also applies to metabolism. Larger animals tend to burn less energy per unit mass per unit time. Specifically, metabolic rate scales as approximately mass^{3/4}, so metabolic rate per unit mass scales as approximately mass^{3/4} /mass = mass^{-1/4}. This relationship is known as [Kleiber's Law](_URL_1_). While we cannot study metabolic rates of extinct species, the ubiquity of this law in living species suggests that dinosaurs too would have followed it.
In addition, a lot of early estimates of dinosaur masses are now thought to have been [too high](_URL_2_).
|
[
"The Cube can be found in many publications related to design and some technology museums. In addition, the computer has been featured in other forms of media. The G4 Cube was used as a prop on shows such as \"Absolutely Fabulous\", \"The Drew Carey Show\", \"Curb Your Enthusiasm\", \"Dark Angel\" , \"The Gilmore Girls\" and \"24\". The computer was parodied in \"The Simpsons\" episode \"Mypods and Boomsticks.\" The Cube is also seen in films such as \"Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back\", \"40 Days and 40 Nights\", \"About a Boy\", \"August\" and \"The Royal Tenenbaums\". In William Gibson's 2003 novel \"Pattern Recognition\", the character Cayce uses her film producer friend's Cube while staying in his London flat. In the movie \"Big Fat Liar,\" a G4 Cube and a Studio Display can be seen in the background of Wolf's kitchen.\n",
"BULLET::::- Cubes are the aliens' answer to the Zeroids. They can combine into large constructs such as guns and force field cubicles. Their different sides are marked differently, indicating their different functions, such as one serving as a gun. Cy-Star keeps one, Pluto, as a pet.\n",
"Smeaton's Cube (Named after John Smeaton who was an English civil engineer who was responsible for the design of canals, bridges, lighthouses and harbours) is a competition for Civil Engineering undergrads where they design a cube that would undergo successive compressive tests following which a presentation on concrete is to be given. It is organized by the ICE, UK : Student Chapter, NIT Rourkela.\n",
"The cube, a geometric form often used by scientists to represent the concepts of space and time, inspired Saraceno to create an installation in which the visitors' movements enact the time variable, thereby introducing the concept of the fourth dimension within the three-dimensional space. The title of the work can be traced to quantum mechanics on the origins of the universe, distinguished by the idea of extremely fast-moving subatomic particles that can trigger changes in spatio-temporal matter. Freely inspired by these theories, Saraceno makes their movements metaphorically visible. The installation is a device that calls perceptual certainties into question; it is an element that modifies the architecture containing it, a structure that makes the interrelationships among people and visible space, an attempt to overcome the laws of gravity.\n",
"The Dino Cube is a cubic twisty puzzle in the style of the Rubik's Cube. It was invented in 1985 by Robert Webb, however it was not mass-produced until ten years later. It has a total of 12 external movable pieces to rearrange, compared to 20 movable pieces on the Rubik's Cube.\n",
"The idea of the cube is due to the mathematician Henk Barendregt (1991). The framework of pure type systems generalizes the lambda cube in the sense that all corners of the cube, as well as many other systems can be represented as instances of this general framework. This framework predates the lambda cube by a couple of years. In his 1991 paper, Barendregt also defines the corners of the cube in this framework.\n",
"The Cube is an hour-long teleplay that aired on NBC's weekly anthology television show \"NBC Experiment in Television\" in 1969. The production was produced and directed by puppeteer and filmmaker Jim Henson, and was one of several experiments with the live-action film medium which he conducted in the 1960s, before focusing entirely on \"The Muppets\" and other puppet works. The screenplay was co-written by long-time Muppet writer Jerry Juhl.\n"
] |
Why when looking at a clear container holding water from a side the surface of the water looks like a mirror? Is it the container or the water?
|
You mean the underside of the water? It's because of [total internal reflection](_URL_0_). That's the water.
|
[
"\"And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water, and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenous devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic.\"\n",
"The inverted real image of an object reflected by a concave mirror can appear at the focal point in front of the mirror. In a construction with an object at the bottom of two opposing concave mirrors (parabolic reflectors) on top of each other, the top one with an opening in its center, the reflected image can appear at the opening as a very convincing 3D optical illusion.\n",
"In fish such as the herring which live in shallower water, the mirrors must reflect a mixture of wavelengths, and the fish accordingly has crystal stacks with a range of different spacings. A further complication for fish with bodies that are rounded in cross-section is that the mirrors would be ineffective if laid flat on the skin, as they would fail to reflect horizontally. The overall mirror effect is achieved with many small reflectors, all oriented vertically. Silvering is found in other marine animals as well as fish. The cephalopods, including squid, octopus and cuttlefish, have multi-layer mirrors made of protein rather than guanine.\n",
"In fish such as the herring which live in shallower water, the mirrors must reflect a mixture of wavelengths, and the fish accordingly has crystal stacks with a range of different spacings. A further complication for fish with bodies that are rounded in cross-section is that the mirrors would be ineffective if laid flat on the skin, as they would fail to reflect horizontally. The overall mirror effect is achieved with many small reflectors, all oriented vertically. Silvering is found in other marine animals as well as fish. The cephalopods, including squid, octopus and cuttlefish, have multi-layer mirrors made of protein rather than guanine.\n",
"In the shallower epipelagic waters, the mirrors must reflect a mixture of wavelengths, and the fish accordingly has crystal stacks with a range of different spacings. A further complication for fish with bodies that are rounded in cross-section is that the mirrors would be ineffective if laid flat on the skin, as they would fail to reflect horizontally. The overall mirror effect is achieved with many small reflectors, all oriented vertically.\n",
"A mirror image (in a plane mirror) is a reflected duplication of an object that appears almost identical, but is reversed in the direction perpendicular to the mirror surface. As an optical effect it results from reflection off of substances such as a mirror or water. It is also a concept in geometry and can be used as a conceptualization process for 3-D structures.\n",
"Total internal reflection (TIR) is the phenomenon that makes the water-to-air surface in a fish-tank look like a perfectly silvered mirror when viewed from below the water level (Fig.1). Technically, TIR is the total reflection of a wave incident at a sufficiently oblique angle on the interface between two media, of which the second (\"external\") medium is transparent to such waves but has a higher wave velocity than the first (\"internal\") medium. TIR occurs not only with electromagnetic waves such as light waves and microwaves, but also with other types of waves, including sound and water waves. In the case of a narrow train of waves, such as a laser beam, we tend to speak of the total internal reflection of a \"ray\" (Fig.2).\n"
] |
Is there a point between the earth and the moon where their gravitational forces cancel out?
|
Yes, and it has a name. That's the Earth-moon L1 point.
You can float there but you are in unstable equilibrium; if you are nudged even slightly to one side then you will drift towards either the moon or Earth never to return.
The SOHO satellite is at the Earth/Sun L1 to monitor the sun and [continually take pictures of it](_URL_0_) without ever having an object get in the way of the sun. It starts drifting away every once in a while but moves itself back.
There are not one but five different points around any two objects where gravity and centrifugal force will cancel and you can just hang there with little or no effort. There are [lots of things](_URL_1_) at Lagrange points. L4 and L5 are stable; Jupiter has a whole collection of asteroids that have become caught in those points.
|
[
"BULLET::::2. It is sometimes suggested that the gravity field of the Earth might preferentially allow eruptions to occur on the near side, but not on the far side. However, in a reference frame rotating with the Moon, the centrifugal acceleration the Moon is experiencing is exactly equal and opposite to the gravitational acceleration of the Earth. There is thus no net force directed towards the Earth. The Earth tides do act to deform the shape of the Moon, but this shape is that of an elongated ellipsoid with high points at both the sub- and anti-Earth points. As an analogy, one should remember that there are two high tides per day on Earth, and not one.\n",
"Nordtvedt then observed that if gravity did in fact violate the strong equivalence principle, then the more-massive Earth should fall towards the Sun at a slightly different rate than the Moon, resulting in a polarization of the lunar orbit. To test for the existence (or absence) of the Nordtvedt effect, scientists have used the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment, which is capable of measuring the distance between the Earth and the Moon with near-millimetre accuracy. Thus far, the results have failed to find any evidence of the Nordtvedt effect, demonstrating that if it exists, the effect is exceedingly weak. Subsequent measurements and analysis to even higher precision have improved constraints on the effect.. Measurements of Mercury's orbit by the MESSENGER Spacecraft have further refined the Nordvedt effect to be below of even smaller scale.\n",
"Gravitational Tides are caused by changes in the relative location of the Earth, sun, and moon, whose orbits are perturbed slightly by Jupiter. Newton's law of universal gravitation states that the gravitational force between a mass at a reference point on the surface of the Earth and another object such as the Moon is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The declination of the Moon relative to the Earth means that as the Moon orbits the Earth during half the lunar cycle the Moon is closer to the Northern Hemisphere and during the other half the Moon is closer to the Southern Hemisphere. This periodic shift in distance gives rise to the lunar fortnightly tidal constituent. The ellipticity of the lunar orbit gives rise to a lunar monthly tidal constituent. Because of the nonlinear dependence of the force on distance additional tidal constituents exist with frequencies which are the sum and differences of these fundamental frequencies. Additional fundamental frequencies are introduced by the motion of the Sun and Jupiter, thus tidal constituents exist at all of these frequencies as well as all of the sums and differences of these frequencies, etc. The mathematical description of the tidal forces is greatly simplified by expressing the forces in terms of gravitational potentials. Because of the fact that the Earth is approximately a sphere and the orbits are approximately circular it also turns out to be very convenient to describe these gravitational potentials in spherical coordinates using spherical harmonic expansions.\n",
"Because the gravitational field created by the Moon weakens with distance from the Moon, it exerts a slightly stronger than average force on the side of the Earth facing the Moon, and a slightly weaker force on the opposite side. The Moon thus tends to \"stretch\" the Earth slightly along the line connecting the two bodies. The solid Earth deforms a bit, but ocean water, being fluid, is free to move much more in response to the tidal force, particularly horizontally. As the Earth rotates, the magnitude and direction of the tidal force at any particular point on the Earth's surface change constantly; although the ocean never reaches equilibrium—there is never time for the fluid to \"catch up\" to the state it would eventually reach if the tidal force were constant—the changing tidal force nonetheless causes rhythmic changes in sea surface height.\n",
"The gravitational attraction between Earth and the Moon causes tides on Earth. The same effect on the Moon has led to its tidal locking: its rotation period is the same as the time it takes to orbit Earth. As a result, it always presents the same face to the planet. As the Moon orbits Earth, different parts of its face are illuminated by the Sun, leading to the lunar phases; the dark part of the face is separated from the light part by the solar terminator.\n",
"The gravitational attraction that masses have for one another decreases inversely with the square of the distance of those masses from each other. As a result, the slightly greater attraction that the Moon has for the side of Earth closest to the Moon, as compared to the part of the Earth opposite the Moon, results in tidal forces. Tidal forces affect both the Earth's crust and oceans.\n",
"Neglecting axial tilt, the tidal force a satellite (such as the moon) exerts on a planet (such as earth) can be described by the variation of its gravitational force over the distance from it, when this force is considered as applied to a unit mass formula_1:\n"
] |
How is the suffix of an element determined?
|
Well "gen" is ~~latin~~ greek for maker, or generator, the word "Hydrogen" literally means "Water Maker", whereas Oxygen (somewhat misnamed) means "Sharp (Acid) Maker"
Not too sure what "Ium" means, but ^ is where the gen comes from!
Hope that helps :)
|
[
"Once an element has been named, a one-, or two-letter symbol must be ascribed to it so it can be easily referred to in such contexts as the periodic table. The first letter is always capitalised. While the symbol is often a contraction of the element's name, it may sometimes not match the element's name when the symbol is based on non-English words; examples include \"Pb\" for lead (from \"plumbum\" in Latin) or \"W\" for tungsten (from \"Wolfram\" in German). Elements which have only temporary systematic names are given temporary three-letter symbols (e.g. Uue for ununennium, the undiscovered element 119).\n",
"There are also symbols in chemical equations for groups of chemical elements, for example in comparative formulas. These are often a single capital letter, and the letters are reserved and not used for names of specific elements. For example, an \"X\" indicates a variable group (usually a halogen) in a class of compounds, while \"R\" is a radical, meaning a compound structure such as a hydrocarbon chain. The letter \"Q\" is reserved for \"heat\" in a chemical reaction. \"Y\" is also often used as a general chemical symbol, although it is also the symbol of yttrium. \"Z\" is also frequently used as a general variable group. \"E\" is used in organic chemistry to denote an electron-withdrawing group or an electrophile; similarly \"Nu\" denotes a nucleophile. \"L\" is used to represent a general ligand in inorganic and organometallic chemistry. \"M\" is also often used in place of a general metal.\n",
"The suffix \"‑ium\" overrides traditional chemical-suffix rules; thus, elements 117 and 118 were \"ununseptium\" and \"ununoctium\", not *\"ununseptine\" and *\"ununocton\". This does not apply to the trivial names these elements receive once confirmed; thus, elements 117 and 118 are now \"tennessine\" and \"oganesson\", respectively. For these trivial names, all elements receive the suffix \"‑ium\" except those in group 17, which receive \"‑ine\" (like the halogens), and those in group 18, which receive \"‑on\" (like the noble gases).\n",
"The known elements have atomic numbers from 1 through 118, conventionally presented as Arabic numerals. Since the elements can be uniquely sequenced by atomic number, conventionally from lowest to highest (as in a periodic table), sets of elements are sometimes specified by such notation as \"through\", \"beyond\", or \"from ... through\", as in \"through iron\", \"beyond uranium\", or \"from lanthanum through lutetium\". The terms \"light\" and \"heavy\" are sometimes also used informally to indicate relative atomic numbers (not densities), as in \"lighter than carbon\" or \"heavier than lead\", although technically the weight or mass of atoms of an element (their atomic weights or atomic masses) do not always increase monotonically with their atomic numbers.\n",
"Each element has a specific set of chemical properties as a consequence of the number of electrons present in the neutral atom, which is \"Z\" (the atomic number). The configuration of these electrons follows from the principles of quantum mechanics. The number of electrons in each element's electron shells, particularly the outermost valence shell, is the primary factor in determining its chemical bonding behavior. Hence, it is the atomic number alone that determines the chemical properties of an element; and it is for this reason that an element can be defined as consisting of \"any\" mixture of atoms with a given atomic number.\n",
"The ' suffix followed the precedent set in other newly discovered elements of the time: potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, and strontium (all of which Davy isolated himself). Nevertheless, element names ending in ' were known at the time; for example, platinum (known to Europeans since the 16th century), molybdenum (discovered in 1778), and tantalum (discovered in 1802). The \"\" suffix is consistent with the universal spelling alumina for the oxide (as opposed to aluminia); compare to lanthana, the oxide of lanthanum, and magnesia, ceria, and thoria, the oxides of magnesium, cerium, and thorium, respectively.\n",
"Although most attributes are provided as paired names and values, some affect the element simply by their presence in the start tag of the element (like the codice_5 attribute for the codice_6 element).\n"
] |
the contradiction of why you have to wait x amount of hours to report someone missing when they also say the first 24-48 hours are most important?
|
The 24 hour thing is a myth, an invention for police procedural dramas. In real Police stations they will ask why you suspect that a person has gone missing and will respond accordingly.
For example, a woman who comes to the Police station stating that her teenage daughter never came home from school and she was supposed to be home two hours ago, the Police might say that she's just running late.
However if, in the same scenario, the woman explains that she's worried because she's seen suspicious behavior in the area then the Police may open an investigation immediately.
|
[
"A common misconception is that a person must be absent for at least 24 hours before being legally classed as missing, but this is rarely the case. Law enforcement agencies often stress that the case should be reported as early as possible.\n",
"BULLET::::- The probability that a user may be delayed longer than time \"t\" while waiting for a connection. Time \"t\" is chosen by the telecommunications service provider so that they can measure whether their services conform to a set Grade of Service.\n",
"As a result of time loops, those who reside in them may not be able to return to the present day, depending on how long they've been there. In a mere matter of hours outside of the loop, the amount of time evaded will catch up. An example of this is Miss Peregrine's own former ward, a young girl named Charlotte who left the loop while Miss Peregrine was away. She was discovered by police in the mid-1980s and sent to a welfare agency. When Miss Peregrine found her just two days later, she'd already aged thirty-five years. Although she survived the ordeal, the unnatural aging process had caused Charlotte a great deal of mental disorder, and she was sent to live with Miss Nightjar, an ymbryne more suited for her care. The same process of deterioration applies to anything taken out of time loops as another instance was an apple Jacob took back to the inn where he and his father were staying in the present day. He left it on the nightstand next to his bed as he fell asleep that night, but by morning, found it had rotted to the point of disintegrating.\n",
"BULLET::::- It is rarely necessary to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report. In instances where there is evidence of violence or of an unusual absence, law enforcement agencies in the United States often stress the importance of beginning an investigation promptly. The UK government website says in large type, \"You don't have to wait 24 hours before contacting the police.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- If the worker was in the United States for 18 months or less, then H-2 time is interrupted if the worker is outside the United States for at least 45 days but less than 3 months. This means that time spent outside the United States will not count toward the 3-year limit, but rather, upon return, the worker's clock will resume from where it left off at the time of departure.\n",
"The U.S. Census Bureau found that there were 124 million people who work outside of their homes. Using their data on the time occupied by travel to work, the table below shows the absolute number of people who responded with travel times \"at least 30 but less than 35 minutes\" is higher than the numbers for the categories above and below it. This is likely due to people rounding their reported journey time. The problem of reporting values as somewhat arbitrarily rounded numbers is a common phenomenon when collecting data from people.\n",
"If this is allowed in an event, then care must be taken not to break the 3/4 rule: this rule states that any time lost may be made back provided that no section between 2 consecutive Time Controls is done in less than 3/4 of the time allowed for that section unless the section is less than 4 miles in length in which case as much time as required may be made back. This sounds counter-intuitive, but in practice it is very difficult to make back much time on a 4 mile/8 minute section and this rule allows organisers to build in sections of, for example, 2 miles/30 minutes specifically to allow competitors to reduce lateness.\n"
] |
Can planets in the habitable zone have moons that also supports life?
|
I think that the magnetic shielding would be a big issue. Even larger planets like Mars have their atmosphere stripped away by the solar winds, and Mars is much larger than our moon.
|
[
"Gliese 876 c lies at the inner edge of the system's habitable zone. While the prospects for life on gas giants are unknown, it might be possible for a large moon of the planet to provide a habitable environment. Unfortunately tidal interactions between a hypothetical moon, the planet, and the star could destroy moons massive enough to be habitable over the lifetime of the system. In addition it is unclear whether such moons could form in the first place.\n",
"Planetary-mass natural satellites have the potential to be habitable as well. However, these bodies need to fulfill additional parameters, in particular being located within the circumplanetary habitable zones of their host planets. More specifically, moons need to be far enough from their host giant planets that they are not transformed by tidal heating into volcanic worlds like Io, but must still remain within the Hill radius of the planet so that they are not pulled out of orbit of their host planet. Red dwarfs that have masses less than 20% of that of the Sun cannot have habitable moons around giant planets, as the small size of the circumstellar habitable zone would put a habitable moon so close to the star that it would be stripped from its host planet. In such a system, a moon close enough to its host planet to maintain its orbit would have tidal heating so intense as to eliminate any prospects of habitability.\n",
"Kepler-1647b is in the habitable zone of the star system. Since the planet is a gas giant, it is unlikely to host life. However, hypothetical large moons could potentially be suitable for life. However, large moons are usually not created during accretion near a gas giant. Such moons would likely have to be captured separately, e.g., a passing protoplanet caught into orbit due to the gravitational field of the giant planet.\n",
"The notion of a giant planet with a habitable moon went against theories of planetary formation as they stood before the discovery of \"hot Jupiter\" planets. It was thought that planets large enough to have an Earth-sized moon would only form above the \"snowline\", too far from the star for life. It is now believed that such worlds can migrate inwards, and habitable moons seem likely. The existence of exomoons has not been confirmed, though there are candidates.\n",
"The strongest candidates for natural satellite habitability are currently icy satellites such as those of Jupiter and Saturn—Europa and Enceladus respectively, although if life exists in either place, it would probably be confined to subsurface habitats. Historically, life on Earth was thought to be strictly a surface phenomenon, but recent studies have shown that up to half of Earth's biomass could live below the surface. Europa and Enceladus exist outside the circumstellar habitable zone which has historically defined the limits of life within the Solar System as the zone in which water can exist as liquid at the surface. In the Solar System's habitable zone, there are only three natural satellites—the Moon, and Mars's moons Phobos and Deimos (although some estimates show Mars and its moons to be slightly outside the habitable zone) —none of which sustain an atmosphere or water in liquid form. Tidal forces are likely to play as significant a role providing heat as stellar radiation in the potential habitability of natural satellites.\n",
"Since HD 28185 b orbits in its star's habitable zone, some have speculated on the possibility of life on worlds in the HD 28185 system. While it is unknown whether gas giants can support life, simulations of tidal interactions suggest that HD 28185 b could harbor Earth-mass satellites in orbit around it for many billions of years. Such moons, if they exist, may be able to provide a habitable environment, though it is unclear whether such satellites would form in the first place. Additionally, a small planet in one of the gas giant's Trojan points could survive in a habitable orbit for long periods. The high mass of HD 28185 b, of over six Jupiter masses, actually makes either of these scenarios more likely than if the planet was about Jupiter's mass or less.\n",
"If Earth-like planets form in or migrate into the circumbinary habitable zone they are capable of sustaining liquid water on their surface in spite of the dynamical and radiative interaction with the binary star. \n"
] |
Would it be possible to make a mirror that reflects the image back the right way around?
|
Yes. This is called a [non-reversing mirror](_URL_0_). There were some articles about a new kind of such mirror invented a few years ago. The guy who did it also made a side view mirror with "no blind spot".
|
[
"A non-reversing mirror (sometimes referred to as a flip mirror) is a mirror that presents its subject as it would be seen from the mirror. A non-reversing mirror can be made by connecting two regular mirrors at their edges at a 90 degree angle. If the join is positioned so that it is vertical, an observer looking into the angle will see a non-reversed image. This can be seen in places such as public toilets when there are two mirrors mounted on walls which meet at right angles. Such an image is visible while looking towards the corner where the two mirrors meet. The problem with this type of non-reversing mirror is that there is usually a line down the middle interrupting the image. However, if first surface mirrors are used, and care is taken to set the angle to exactly 90 degrees, the join can be made almost invisible.\n",
"A third type of non-reversing mirror was created by mathematics professor R. Andrew Hicks in 2009. It was created using computer algorithms to generate a \"disco ball\" like surface. The thousands of tiny mirrors are angled to create a surface which curves and bends in different directions. The curves direct rays from an object across the mirror's face before sending them back to the viewer, flipping the conventional mirror image.\n",
"The inverted real image of an object reflected by a concave mirror can appear at the focal point in front of the mirror. In a construction with an object at the bottom of two opposing concave mirrors (parabolic reflectors) on top of each other, the top one with an opening in its center, the reflected image can appear at the opening as a very convincing 3D optical illusion.\n",
"Specular reflection forms images. Reflection from a flat surface forms a mirror image, which appears to be reversed from left to right because we compare the image we see to what we would see if we were rotated into the position of the image. Specular reflection at a curved surface forms an image which may be magnified or demagnified; curved mirrors have optical power. Such mirrors may have surfaces that are spherical or parabolic.\n",
"A convex mirror or diverging mirror is a curved mirror in which the reflective surface bulges towards the light source. Convex mirrors reflect light outwards, therefore they are not used to focus light. Such mirrors always form a virtual image, since the focal point (\"F\") and the centre of curvature (\"2F\") are both imaginary points \"inside\" the mirror, that cannot be reached. As a result, images formed by these mirrors cannot be projected on a screen, since the image is inside the mirror. The image is smaller than the object, but gets larger as the object approaches the mirror.\n",
"A flip mirror unit is used on astronomical Telescope and other optical instruments in order to send the light from an object in new directions using a small mirror which can be moved into the lightbeam. It is a mirror-diagonal that holds both a camera and an eyepiece and allows you to switch your view between them by flipping a Mirror up or down. It is used to center the object in your camera and to help you focus it. It can also be used in 35-mm photography if it is large enough to allow the entire field of view to reach the camera.\n",
"Analysis of the flawed images showed that the cause of the problem was that the primary mirror had been polished to the wrong shape. Although it was probably the most precisely figured optical mirror ever made, smooth to about , at the perimeter it was too flat by about . This difference was catastrophic, introducing severe spherical aberration, a flaw in which light reflecting off the edge of a mirror focuses on a different point from the light reflecting off its center.\n"
] |
how will the porn ban in the uk affect ordinary internet browsing?
|
Same way the torrent site "ban" affected torrents in the UK - > it won't.
|
[
"In 2013, an 'Official' Court order was called in to bar users from browsing pornographic material. While the rule applies on censoring pornographic sites, it has been found that Internet filters have blocked other websites, \n",
"Internet censorship in the United Kingdom is conducted under a variety of laws, judicial processes, administrative regulations and voluntary arrangements. It is achieved by blocking access to sites as well as the use of laws that criminalise publication or possession of certain types of material. These include English defamation law, the Copyright law of the United Kingdom, regulations against incitement to terrorism and child pornography.\n",
"In July 2015 the Supreme Court of India refused to allow the blocking of pornographic websites and said that watching pornography indoors in the privacy of ones own home was not a crime. The court rejected an interim order blocking pornographic websites in the country. In August 2015 the Government of India issued an order to Indian ISPs to block at least 857 websites that it considered to be pornographic. In 2015 the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had asked internet service providers to take down 857 websites in a bid to control cyber crime, but after receiving criticism from the authorities it partially rescinded the ban. The ban from the government came after a lawyer filed a petition in the Supreme Court arguing that online pornography encourages sex crimes and rapes.\n",
"In July 2015, The Supreme Court of India denied to block pornographic websites sites and said, watching porn in the privacy of your own at indoors isn't a crime and declined to pass an interim order to block pornographic websites in the country. In August 2015, the Government of India issued an order to Indian ISPs to block at least 857 websites that it considered to be pornographic. The Department of Telecom(DoT), in the year 2015, had asked internet service providers to take down as many as 857 websites in a bid to control cyber crime but after receiving criticism from the authorities, it partially rescinded the ban. The ban from the government came after a lawyer filed a petition in Supreme Court arguing that online porn encourage sex crimes and rapes. \n",
"In jurisdictions that heavily restrict access or outright ban pornography, various attempts have been made to prevent access to pornographic content. The mandating of Internet filters to try preventing access to porn sites has been used in some nations such as China and Saudi Arabia. Banning porn sites within a nation's jurisdiction does not necessarily prevent access to that site, as it may simply relocate to a hosting server within another country that does not prohibit the content it offers. The United Kingdom's Digital Economy Act 2017 includes powers to require age-verification for pornographic Internet sites and the government accepted an amendment to allow the regulator to require ISPs to block access to non-compliant sites. As the BBFC are expected to become the regulator, this has caused discussion about ISPs being required to block content that is prohibited even under an R18 certificate, the prohibition of some of which is itself controversial.\n",
"In July 2015, The Supreme Court of India declined to pass an interim order to block pornographic websites and said that watching pornography in the privacy of one's own isn't a crime. In August 2015, the Government of India issued an order to Indian ISPs to block at least 857 websites that it considered to be pornographic. In 2015, the Department of Telecom(DoT) had asked internet service providers to take down as many as 857 websites in a bid to control cyber crime, but after receiving criticism from the authorities, it partially rescinded the ban. The ban came about after a lawyer filed a petition in Supreme Court arguing that online porn encourage sex crimes and rapes. \n",
"In July 2015, The Supreme Court of India denied to block pornographic websites sites and said, watching porn privately indoors is not a crime and declined to pass an interim order to block pornographic websites in the country. In August 2015, the Government of India issued an order to Indian ISPs to block at least 857 websites that it considered to be pornographic. The Department of Telecom(DoT), in the year 2015, had asked internet service providers to take down as many as 857 websites in a bid to control cyber crime but after receiving criticism from the authorities, it partially rescinded the ban. The ban from the government came after a lawyer filed a petition in Supreme Court arguing that online porn encourage sex crimes and rapes. \n"
] |
When and how did Boston, Massachusetts first become so heavily associated with Ireland and Irish culture?
|
> Does Boston simply have an extremely high proportion of Irish Americans?
Yes, historically Boston was a site of major Irish immigration, beginning as early as the beginning of the 1800s but massively increasing from 1840-1870 as the influence of the Great Famine was felt in Ireland.
In the earliest decades of the nineteenth century, the general contours of Irish immigration was to first stop off in the ports of Atlantic Canada (Halifax, Montreal, Quebec) because the shipping rates to those ports were cheapest^1. After a few years, they would then move south to American cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. In this period from 1800-1820, the majority of immigrants from Ireland tended to be Irish Protestants, owing to the fact that Protestants tended to have greater resources to manage the trip across the atlantic.
In the period from 1820-1840, the demographics and contours changed, with greater numbers of impoverished Catholics leaving Ireland and heading directly for Boston or New York. This immigration of Catholics did prompt hostility from a Protestant Yankee native population, and this period saw some notable anti-Catholic riots. The most notable event in Boston was the [burning of the Ursuline convent](_URL_3_) in 1834. Another famous confrontation was the [broad street riot](_URL_0_) in 1837.
As the Great Famine ravaged Ireland from 1845 to 1849, massive numbers of Irish people left the island, far greater in scale than previous migrations. 200,000 Irish immigrated to America in the decade of the 1830s. In the 1840s, 780,000 Irish came to America, mostly after 1846. At the outset of the Famine, Boston had a population of approximately 115,000 residents. In 1847, the first year of major migration due to the famine, 37,000 Irish arrived in Boston^2.
Like the earlier immigration from 1820-1840, this influx of Irish Catholics into a Protestant Yankee majority led to anti-immigrant hostility in the 1850s. In that decade, Know-Nothing politicians filled the State Senate, State House of Representatives, served as Governor and as Mayor of Boston^3.
As others have said in this thread, migration tended to flow towards established communities of Irish-Americans, where a migrant might have family or friends already living there. Thus, in the post-Famine period, Boston continued to see heavy migration of Irish people into the 1870s, and lower levels of migration into the 20th century.
> and why Boston, as opposed to any other major American city?
As I said above, other cities like New York, Philadelphia, Savanna and New Orleans all saw migrations of Irish into their cities in the 1840s and 1850s. The immigrant vote was quite important to the functioning of New York's Tammany Hall political machine in the later decades of the 1800s. Additionally, New York City saw severe Draft Riots in 1863, and newly naturalized Irish-Americans played a large part in these riots. They were partly motivated by resentment of exemption provisions, when working-class immigrants could never afford to pay the $300 required. Partially too, the Irish and German immigrant workers were driven by fears that abolition of slavery would result in labor competition from free Blacks.
In any case, New York City did not become as closely tied to Irish identity as Boston did for a variety of reasons. In the late 1840s and 1850s, New York saw German immigration at the same time and in similar numbers to Irish immigrants. Also, New York has hosted subsequent waves of Italian, Jewish, Balkan, Chinese, and other ethnicities, which made the city a patchwork and prevented New York from being associated with any one community. Boston, in contrast, did witness large Italian immigration into the North End, but not a similar scale and variety of immigration as New York did.
Of course, cities like Philadelphia and Chicago continue to have notable Irish-American communities, and noteworthy St Patrick's day parades.
----
1) [Enclyopedia of American Immigration](_URL_1_) pp 154.
2)_URL_4_
3)[Hidden History of the Boston Irish](_URL_2_) pp 21
|
[
"Irish immigrants to the U.S. in the 19th century faced a combination of anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and specifically anti-Irish bigotry which were closely intertwined. This was especially true in Puritan-founded Boston, with its strongly Anglo-Saxon population. Generations of Bostonians celebrated Pope's Night on November 5 each year, holding anti-Catholic parades and burning the pope in effigy.\n",
"People of Irish descent form the largest single ethnic group in Boston, Massachusetts. Once a Puritan stronghold, Boston changed dramatically in the 19th century with the arrival of European immigrants. The Irish dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Great Irish Famine. Their arrival transformed Boston from an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant city into one that has become progressively more diverse. The Yankees hired Irish as workers and servants, but there was little social interaction. In the 1840s and 50s, the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant Know-Nothing movement targeted Irish Catholics in Boston. In the 1860s, many Irish immigrants fought for the Union in the American Civil War, and that display of patriotism helped to dispel much of the prejudice against them.\n",
"Throughout the 19th century, Boston became a haven for Irish Catholic immigrants, especially following the potato famine of 1845–49. Their arrival transformed Boston from a singular, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant city to one that has progressively become more diverse. The Yankees hired Irish as workers and servants, but there was little social interaction. In the 1850s, an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant movement was directed against the Irish, called the Know Nothing Party. But in the 1860s, many Irish immigrants joined the Union ranks to fight in the American Civil War, and that display of patriotism and valor began to soften the harsh sentiments of Yankees about the Irish.\n",
"Boston today has the largest number of Irish-Americans of any city in the United States. During the Celtic Tiger years, when the Irish economy was booming, the city saw a buying spree of residences by native Irish as second homes or as investment property.\n",
"In the \"early days\", the 19th century, the Irish formed a predominant part of the European immigrant population of New York City, a \"city of immigrants\", which added to the city's diversity to this day.\n",
"Maine experienced a wave of Irish immigration in the mid-19th century, though many came to the state via Canada and Massachusetts, and before the potato famine. There was a riot in Bangor between Irish and Yankee (nativist) sailors and lumbermen as early as 1834, and a number of early Catholic churches were burned or vandalized in coastal communities, where the Know-Nothing Party briefly flourished. After the Civil War, Maine's Irish-Catholic population began a process of integration and upward mobility.\n",
"The vast majority of Irish Catholic Americans settled in large and small cities across the North, particularly railroad centers and mill towns. They became perhaps the most urbanized group in America, as few became farmers. Areas that retain a significant Irish American population include the metropolitan areas of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Hartford, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where most new arrivals of the 1830–1910 period settled. As a percentage of the population, Massachusetts is the most Irish state, with about a fifth, 21.2%, of the population claiming Irish descent. The most Irish American towns in the United States are Scituate, Massachusetts, with 47.5% of its residents being of Irish descent; Milton, Massachusetts, with 44.6% of its 26,000 being of Irish descent; and Braintree, Massachusetts with 46.5% of its 34,000 being of Irish descent. (Weymouth, Massachusetts, at 39% of its 54,000 citizens, and Quincy, Massachusetts, at 34% of its population of 90,000, are the two most Irish \"cities\" in the country. Squantum, a peninsula in the northern part of Quincy, is the most Irish neighborhood in the country, with close to 60% of its 2600 residents claiming Irish descent.)\n"
] |
how do we know ancient civilisations/events existed?
|
Carbon dating is a chemistry-based method for determining how old organic matter (wood, preserved food) is. There's no disguising a 200 year old tomb as a 4000 year old tomb; the carbon dating is completely different.
Also, we have records from long ago (like the Roman Empire) of people *already* knowing about things like the Egyptian Pyramids, which were already old at the time.
Also, some civilizations (like China) have existed continuously for thousands of years, with continuous written records updated every year, and consistent with the archaeological records. It's just too much to fake; you might as well give up on reality entirely.
|
[
"With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of the history and culture of a civilisation, through critical study of the extant literary and physical artefacts, in order to compose and establish a continual historic narrative of the Ancient World and its peoples. The task is difficult due to a dearth of physical evidence: for example, Sparta was a leading Greek city-state, yet little evidence of it survives to study, and what is available comes from Athens, Sparta's principal rival; likewise, the Roman Empire destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the Etruscans.\n",
"The Ancients were a major race in the distant past; their ruins dot planets throughout charted space and their artifacts are more technically advanced than those of any existing civilization. For unknown reasons, they transplanted humans from Earth to dozens of worlds, uplifted Terran wolves to create the Vargr, and undertook many megascale engineering projects before destroying their civilization in a catastrophic war.\n",
"As far as the ancient cultural profile of this part of the World is concerned, we do not know much about the Pre-Historic and Proto-Historic age. There may be several archaeological sites that can produce the traces of human habitation before the second millennium B.C but that will need thorough and methodical archaeological excavations. The earliest evidences we so far have is the arrival of Achaemenian (Persian Zoroaster), who are evident by their seglois.\n",
"The Ancients are a technologically and physically advanced alien species with the ability and knowledge to harness wormhole-based technology. They are the most advanced race in \"Farscape\". They originally existed in another realm until it was bridged to the \"Farscape\" universe by wormholes. When they became aware of the various species in the other realm and many of those species' aggressive tendencies, they modified several members of their own species to live and exist in the other universe. These individuals became the Ancients. Yet after many years, the original planet of the Ancients began to die and they needed to search for a suitable location, and they discovered Earth through an elaborate simulation in human John Crichton, who gains wormhole knowledge in the process. A major part of \"Farscape\" is the risk of this wormhole knowledge getting in the hands of the Scarran. The Ancients are featured in the episodes \"A Human Reaction\", \"The Hidden Memory\", \"Infinite Possibilities\", \"Unrealized Reality\", and in \"\".\n",
"The Ancients are the original builders of the Stargate network, who by the time of \"Stargate SG-1\" have Ascended beyond corporeal form into a higher plane of existence. The humans of Earth are the \"second evolution\" of the Ancients. The Ancients (originally known as the Alterans) colonized the Milky Way galaxy millions of years ago and built a great empire. They also colonized the Pegasus galaxy and seeded human life there, before being driven out by the Wraith. The civilization of the Ancients in the Milky Way was decimated thousands of years ago by a plague, and those who did not learn to Ascend died out. With few exceptions, the Ascended Ancients respect free will and (with some exceptions) refuse to interfere in the affairs of the material galaxy. However, their legacy is felt profoundly throughout \"Stargate\" universe, from their technologies such as Stargates and Atlantis, to the Ancient Technology Activation gene, that they introduced into the human genome through crossbreeding.\n",
"The Ancients are the original builders of the Stargate network, who by the time of \"Stargate SG-1\" have Ascended beyond corporeal form into a higher plane of existence. The humans of Earth are the \"second evolution\" of the Ancients. The Ancients (originally known as the Alterans) colonized the Milky Way galaxy millions of years ago and built a great empire. They also colonized the Pegasus galaxy and seeded human life there, before being driven out by the Wraith. The civilization of the Ancients in the Milky Way was decimated thousands of years ago by a plague, and those who did not learn to Ascend died out. With few exceptions, the Ascended Ancients respect free will and refuse to interfere in the affairs of the material galaxy. However, their legacy is felt profoundly throughout \"Stargate\" universe, from their technologies such as Stargates and Atlantis, to the Ancient Technology Activation gene, that they introduced into the human genome through interbreeding.\n",
"The Ancients are the original builders of the Stargate network, who by the time of \"Stargate SG-1\" have ascended beyond corporeal form into a higher plane of existence. The humans of Earth are the \"second evolution\" of the Ancients. The Ancients (originally known as the Alterans) colonized the Milky Way galaxy millions of years ago and built a great empire. They also colonized the Pegasus galaxy and seeded human life there before being driven out by the Wraith. The civilization of the Ancients in the Milky Way was decimated millions of years ago by a plague and those who did not learn to ascend died out. With few exceptions the ascended Ancients respect free will and refuse to interfere in the affairs of the material galaxy. However their legacy is felt profoundly throughout the \"Stargate\" universe, from their technologies such as Stargates and Atlantis to the Ancient Technology Activation gene that they introduced into the human genome through interbreeding.\n"
] |
what are volts? amps? watts? which one(s) can kill you versus just shock/hurt you?
|
The water pipe analogy is a famous way to understand electricity.
Volts are like water pressure (high voltage would be like a pressure washer, low voltage would be like a babbling brook)
Amps are like the amount of water flow (high amperage would be like the Mississippi river, low amperage would be like a kitchen faucet)
Watts are the ability of the water to do work. Watts, conveniently, are equal to Amps * Volts.
What kills you is current (amperage) running through your body in the wrong way. However, current can't run through your body without a voltage (pressure) to drive it. So both are what kills you, really.
|
[
"Voltages over approximately 50 volts can usually cause dangerous amounts of current to flow through a human being who touches two points of a circuit—so safety standards, in general, are more restrictive around such circuits. The definition of \"extrahigh voltage\" (EHV) again depends on context. In electric power transmission engineering, EHV is classified as voltages in the range of 345,000 - 765,000 volts. In electronics systems, a power supply that provides greater than 275,000 volts is called an \"EHV Power Supply\", and is often used in experiments in physics.\n",
"It is sometimes suggested that human lethality is most common with alternating current at 100–250 volts; however, death has occurred below this range, with supplies as low as 42 volts. Assuming a steady current flow (as opposed to a shock from a capacitor or from static electricity), shocks above 2,700 volts are often fatal, with those above 11,000 volts being usually fatal, though exceptional cases have been noted. According to a Guinness Book of World Records comic, seventeen-year-old Brian Latasa survived a 230,000 volt shock on the tower of an ultra-high voltage line in Griffith Park, Los Angeles on November 9, 1967. A news report of the event stated that he was \"jolted through the air, and landed across the line\", and though rescued by firemen, he suffered burns over 40% of his body and was completely paralyzed except for his eyelids. The shock with the highest voltage reported survived was that of Harry F. McGrew, who came in contact with a 340,000 volt transmission line in Huntington Canyon, Utah.\n",
"The precise reasoning for the selection of 100 volts as the division between high and low is not clearly defined, but appears to be based on the idea that a person could touch the wires carrying low voltage with dry bare hands, and not be electrocuted, injured, or killed. This is generally true for 12 volt systems, but becomes more ambiguous as the voltage increases to 100 volt.\n",
"The Kill A Watt (a pun on \"kilowatt\") is an electricity usage monitor manufactured by Prodigit Electronics and sold by P3 International. It measures the energy used by devices plugged directly into the meter, as opposed to in-home energy use displays, which display the energy used by an entire household. The LCD shows voltage; current; true, reactive, and apparent power; power factor (for sinusoidal waveform); energy consumed in kWh; and hours connected. Some models display estimated cost.\n",
"Low-energy exposure to high voltage may be harmless, such as the spark produced in a dry climate when touching a doorknob after walking across a carpeted floor. The voltage can be in the thousand-volt range, but the current (the rate of charge transfer) is low.\n",
"Voltages greater than 50 V applied across dry unbroken human skin can cause heart fibrillation if they produce electric currents in body tissues that happen to pass through the chest area. The voltage at which there is the danger of electrocution depends on the electrical conductivity of dry human skin. Living human tissue can be protected from damage by the insulating characteristics of dry skin up to around 50 volts. If the same skin becomes wet, if there are wounds, or if the voltage is applied to electrodes that penetrate the skin, then even voltage sources below 40 V can be lethal.\n",
"BULLET::::- Low-charging or Anti-static: Materials that limit the buildup of charge by prevention of triboelectric effects through physical separation or by selecting materials that do not build up charge easily. Humans have natural electrical sources running through the body, touching an ESD unequipped can result in serious material damage.\n"
] |
each of the 5 positions in basketball and their responsibilities.
|
Point guard, or the "1": Primary ball handler on offense. Brings the ball up the court, generally starts plays and creates opportunities for others. On defense, defends the perimeter.
Shooting guard, or the "2" or the "2 guard": perimeter scorer that plays off the ball. Needs to be a good ball handler as well. They can drive to the basket to create opportunities for themselves or others, just as the point guard does. Defends the perimeter.
Small forward, or the "3": nowadays, these are some of the most impactful players. Sometimes called a "wing player." They need to be versatile in their ability to score from various places and defend various types of players. See LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, and to some extent Draymond Green.
Power Forward, or the "4": traditionally a post (post means underneath the basket, in a basic sense) player, nowadays many of them have the skills to step outside the basket and hit longer shots. Having a fourth player that can do this helps to stretch the defense. They also need to be able to rebound and defend the post.
Center, or the "5": This position is seemingly less important than ever in the modern game, but they are further specialized in playing the "post" than the power forward. They need to protect the basket on defense and rebound. On offense they can be used to take close shots, rebound, or step out to the perimeter and set "picks" (a pick is when one player blocks a defender so his teammate can create space from that defender, or "get open"). The modern game is fast and heavily focused on perimeter play so this position has become more about utility players that can rebound and set picks than about dominant players that can take over a game with scoring. Less about Shaq, Wilt Chamberlain, etc. Traditional type of "big men" such as Dwight Howard struggle to fill a dominant role right now.
|
[
"Basketball position – general location on the court which each player is responsible for. A player is generally described by the position (or positions) he or she plays, though the rules do not specify any positions. Positions are part of the strategy that has evolved for playing the game, and terminology for describing game play.\n",
"The center (C), also known as the five, or the big man, is one of the five positions in a regular basketball game. The center is normally the tallest player on the team, and often has a great deal of strength and body mass as well. In the NBA, the center is usually or taller and usually weighs or more. They traditionally have played close to the basket in the low post. A center with the ability to shoot outside from three-point range is known as stretch five.\n",
"Although the rules do not specify any positions whatsoever, they have evolved as part of basketball. During the early years of basketball's evolution, two guards, two forwards, and one center were used. In more recent times specific positions evolved, but the current trend, advocated by many top coaches including Mike Krzyzewski is towards positionless basketball, where big guys are free to shoot from outside and dribble if their skill allows it. Popular descriptions of positions include:\n",
"BULLET::::- Forward-center – position for players who play or have played both forward and center on a consistent basis. Typically, this means power forward and center, since these are usually the two biggest player positions on any basketball team, and therefore more often overlap each other.\n",
"The player is the coach of a basketball team, and determines the plays and sets, offense and defense. The basketball players are represented by numbers on the onscreen court, and the coach must learn how to effectively use the team's stars and how to obtain the best performance from the regular players. \"Basketball Challenge\" can be played by one or two players, or the computer can also play against a human opponent or run the entire game as both players. At the beginning of the game the player is given the option to choose offensive and defensive plays including lineup and tempo. During the game you have the ability to communicate with team players. You also have the ability to coach a player and this can lead to changing tactics or even substituting players during deadball. \n",
"The point guard (PG), also called the one or point, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. Point guards are expected to run the team's offense by controlling the ball and making sure that it gets to the right player at the right time. Above all, the point guard must totally understand and accept their coach's game plan; in this way, the position can be compared to a quarterback in American football or a playmaker in association football (soccer). While the point guard must understand and accept the coach's gameplan, they must also be able to adapt to what the defense is allowing, and they also must control the pace of the game.\n",
"The five players on each side at a time fall into five playing positions: the tallest player is usually the center, the tallest and strongest is the power forward, a slightly shorter but more agile big man is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.\n"
] |
TIL about the Phaistos Disk and Linear A and I'm curious, what other languages are still undeciphered? What are the chances that they will be deciphered?
|
Indus script, inscriptions left by the Indus Valley Civilization, has yet to be deciphered. The language appears to use short strings of symbols. For the past few years, researchers have attempted to decipher the language but the chances of Indus script being deciphered is very low. A big reason is that inscriptions of Indus script are short (Average length: 5. Longest on a single surface: 17). We also have no idea what language the Indus Valley people spoke and there is no artifact like the Rosetta Stone that we can refer to.
[Most of these numbers were pulled from this paper on page 796](_URL_1_)
EDIT: I did some more searching and found a [TED Talk](_URL_0_) by one of the guys who contributed to the paper I listed above
|
[
"The Phoenician text has long been known to be in a Semitic, more specifically Canaanite language (very closely related to Hebrew, and also relatively close to Aramaic and Ugaritic); hence there was no need for it to be \"deciphered.\" And while the inscription can certainly be read, certain passages are philologically uncertain on account of perceived complications of syntax and the vocabulary employed in the inscription, and as such they have become the source of debate among both Semiticists and Classicists.\n",
"These systems have not been deciphered. In some cases, such as Meroitic, the sound values of the glyphs are known, but the texts still cannot be read because the language is not understood. Several of these systems, such as Epi-Olmec and Indus, are claimed to have been deciphered, but these claims have not been confirmed by independent researchers. In many cases it is doubtful that they are actually writing. The Vinča symbols appear to be proto-writing, and quipu may have recorded only numerical information. There are doubts that Indus is writing, and the Phaistos Disc has so little content or context that its nature is undetermined.\n",
"The cuneiform lexical lists are a series of ancient Mesopotamian glossaries which preserve the semantics of Sumerograms, their phonetic value and their Akkadian or other language equivalents. They are the oldest literary texts from Mesopotamia and one of the most widespread genres in the ancient Near East. Wherever cuneiform tablets have been uncovered, inside Iraq or in the wider Middle East, these lists have been discovered.\n",
"Linear B, a script used in the ancient Aegean, was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, who demonstrated that it recorded an early form of Greek, now known as Mycenaean Greek. Linear A, the writing system that records the still-unknown language of the Minoans, resists deciphering, despite many attempts.\n",
"In 1995 independent linguist Steven Fischer, who also claims to have deciphered the enigmatic Phaistos Disc, announced that he had cracked the rongorongo \"code\", making him the only person in history to have deciphered two such scripts. In the decade since, this has not been accepted by other researchers, who feel that Fischer overstated the single pattern which formed the basis of his decipherment, and note that it has not led to an understanding of other patterns.\n",
"The vowels that are clearly distinguished by the cuneiform script are , , , and . Various researchers have posited the existence of more vowel phonemes such as and even and , which would have been concealed by the transmission through Akkadian, as that language does not distinguish them. That would explain the seeming existence of numerous homophones in transliterated Sumerian, as well as some details of the phenomena mentioned in the next paragraph. These hypotheses are not yet generally accepted.\n",
"Janet H. Johnson noted in 1996 that the texts can only be understood entirely when the parts written in the Egyptian language known as \"Demotic\" are accounted for. Johnson adds, \"All four of the Demotic magical texts appear to have come from the collections that Anastasi gathered in the Theban area. Most have passages in Greek as well as in Demotic, and most have words glossed into Old Coptic (Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet [which indicated vowels, which Egyptian scripts did not] supplemented by extra signs taken from the Demotic for sounds not found in Greek); some contain passages written in the earlier Egyptian hieratic script or words written in a special \"cipher\" script, which would have been an effective secret code to a Greek reader but would have been deciphered fairly simply by an Egyptian.\" \n"
] |
why does japanese use 3 different alphabets/sillabaries?
|
In the beginning, what would later become "Japan" adopted Chinese characters for their writing. Note that they only adopted the script, the spoken language is still Japanese, they just hammered that into Chinese characters
Later, during the middle Heian period (~1000 AD), a combination of a movement to detach from the mainland and develop a "native" culture, along with much of literature being written by women in courtly cultural salons lead to "women's hand" being developed and the de facto language. Women were traditionally not allowed to learn Chinese script, which is why what would later become Hiragana developed.
A number of important works, like the kokinshu, were written in hiragana.
Later, the Heian period collapsed, and the era of warrior rule started. With the end of cultural salons as the center of literature, works once again were written by men, for a predominantly male audience. The language became a mixed script of Chinese characters and onnade.
Katakana was parallel to all of this. It was used primarily for foreign loan-words. At first, Chinese of course.
---
tl;dr let's copy china, let's try to stop copying china (women make their own script), rip women, now we do both
|
[
"In modern Japanese, the hiragana and katakana syllabaries each contain 46 basic characters, or 71 including diacritics. With one or two minor exceptions, each different sound in the Japanese language (that is, each different syllable, strictly each mora) corresponds to one character in each syllabary. Unlike kanji, these characters intrinsically represent sounds only; they convey meaning only as part of words. Hiragana and katakana characters also originally derive from Chinese characters, but they have been simplified and modified to such an extent that their origins are no longer visually obvious.\n",
"The two Japanese syllabaries are themselves adapted from the Chinese characters (both of the syllabaries, katakana and hiragana, are in everyday use alongside the Chinese characters known as kanji; the kanji, being developed in parallel to the Chinese characters, have their own idiosyncrasies, but Chinese and Japanese ideograms are largely comprehensible, even if their use in the languages are not the same.)\n",
"The contemporary Japanese language uses two syllabaries together called kana, namely hiragana and katakana, which were developed around 700. Because Japanese uses mainly CV (consonant + vowel) syllables, a syllabary is well suited to write the language. As in many syllabaries, vowel sequences and final consonants are written with separate glyphs, so that both \"atta\" and \"kaita\" are written with three kana: あった (\"a-t-ta\") and かいた (\"ka-i-ta\"). It is therefore sometimes called a \"moraic\" writing system.\n",
"Other systems, known as kana, used Chinese characters phonetically to transcribe the sounds of Japanese syllables. An early system of this type was Man'yōgana, as used in the 8th century anthology \"Man'yōshū\". This system was not quite a syllabary, because each Japanese syllable could be represented by one of several characters, but from it were derived two syllabaries still in use today. They differ because they sometimes selected different characters for a syllable, and because they used different strategies to reduce these characters for easy writing: the angular katakana were obtained by selecting a part of each character, while hiragana were derived from the cursive forms of whole characters. Such classic works as Lady Murasaki's \"The Tale of Genji\" were written in hiragana, the only system permitted to women of the time.\n",
"The two Japanese syllabaries, katakana and hiragana, are sometimes seen as two styles or typographic variants of each other, but usually are considered separate character sets as a few of the characters have separate kanji origins and the scripts are used for different purposes. The \"gothic\" style of the roman script with broken letter forms, on the other hand, is usually considered a mere typographic variant.\n",
"Even though the Japanese language also uses Chinese characters (kanji), it primarily employs katakana to transliterate names of the elements from European languages (often German/Dutch or Latin [via German] or English). For example,\n",
"The original Japanese kana syllabaries were a purely phonetic representation used for writing the Japanese language when they were invented around 800 AD as a simplification of Chinese-derived kanji characters. However, the syllabaries were not completely codified and alternate letterforms, or hentaigana, existed for many sounds until standardization in 1900. In addition, due to linguistic drift the pronunciation of many Japanese words changed, mostly in a systematic way, from the classical Japanese language as spoken when the kana syllabaries were invented. Despite this, words continued to be spelled in kana as they were in classical Japanese, reflecting the classic rather than the modern pronunciation, until a Cabinet order in 1946 officially adopted spelling reform, making the spelling of words purely phonetic (with only 3 sets of exceptions) and dropping characters that represented sounds no longer used in the language.\n"
] |
When did the notion of American exceptionalism first take root?
|
An early advocacy of American exceptionalism came with the Puritan colonizers of Massachusetts. Here is some of the text of John Winthrop's sermon to the Puritan colonists while still on the ship "Arabella" as they were about to land in the New World. It is known as the "City on a Hill" sermon, referencing Jesus in Matthew 5.14, in the sermon on the mount, when he tells the audience, "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."
Part of Winthrop's sermon:
"The God of Israel is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and a glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: The Lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us."
(Source: _URL_2_)
The "City on a Hill", has been referenced many times by American politicians, perhaps most famously by Ronald Reagan in his 1989 farewell speech:
"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life....in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still..."
(Source: _URL_1_)
Reagan was referencing an earlier famous speech of his in 1974. In that speech he quoted John Winthrop, and closed with:
"We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall in Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of the United States was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, "The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.
We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth."
(Source: _URL_0_)
American exceptionalism - there at the beginning - still there today.
|
[
"The theory of the exceptionalism of the U.S. has developed over time and can be traced to many sources. French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as \"exceptional\" in 1831 and 1840. The actual phrase \"American exceptionalism\" was originally coined by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as a critique of a revisionist faction of American communists who argued that the American political climate was unique, making it an 'exception' to certain elements of Marxist theory. U.S. president Ronald Reagan is often credited with having crystallized this ideology in recent decades. Political scientist Eldon Eisenach argues in the twenty-first century American exceptionalism has come under attack from the postmodern left as a reactionary myth: \"The absence of a shared purposes ratified in the larger sphere of liberal-progressive public policy...beginning with the assumption of American exceptionalism as a reactionary myth.\"\n",
"In \"The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity from 1492 to 1800\" (1993) Greene explored the early history of the idea of American exceptionalism as it was defined by contemporaries in Europe and America and the social, economic, and legal conditions that supported and defined it\n",
"Some claim the phrase \"American exceptionalism\" originated with the American Communist Party in an English translation of a condemnation made in 1929 by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin criticizing communist supporters of Jay Lovestone for the heretical belief the US was independent of the Marxist laws of history \"thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions\". This origin has been challenged, however, because the expression \"American exceptionalism\" was already used by Brouder & Zack in the \"Daily Worker\" (N.Y.) on January 29, 1929, before Lovestone's visit to Moscow. Also, Fred Shapiro, editor of \"The Yale Book of Quotations\", has noted \"exceptionalism\" was used to refer to the United States and its self-image during the Civil War by \"The New York Times\" on August 20, 1861.\n",
"In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. This observation can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the United States as \"exceptional\" in 1831 and 1840.\n",
"American exceptionalism is one of three related ideas. The first is that the history of the United States is inherently different from those of other nations. In this view, American exceptionalism stems from its emergence from the American Revolution, thereby becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called \"the first new nation\" and developing a uniquely American ideology, \"Americanism\", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as \"American exceptionalism.\" Second is the idea that the US has a unique mission to transform the world. As Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address (1863), Americans have a duty to ensure, \"government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.\" Third is the sense that the United States' history and mission give it a superiority over other nations.\n",
"The exact term \"American exceptionalism\" was occasionally used in the 19th century. In his \"The Yale Book of Quotations\", Fred Shapiro notes \"exceptionalism\" was used to refer to the United States and its self-image by The Times of London on August 20, 1861. Its common use dates from Communist usage in the late 1920s. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin chastised members of the Jay Lovestone-led faction of the American Communist Party for its claim the U.S. was independent of the Marxist laws of history \"thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions\". Stalin may have been told of the usage \"American exceptionalism\" by Broder & Zack in \"Daily Worker\" (N.Y.) on January 29, 1929, before Lovestone's visit to Moscow. American Communists started using the English term \"American exceptionalism\" in factional fights. It then moved into general use among intellectuals.\n",
"Philosopher Douglas Kellner traces the identification of American exceptionalism as a distinct phenomenon back to 19th century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, who concluded by agreeing that the U.S., uniquely, was \"proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived\".\n"
] |
How did the US Government get all of the Native Americans to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears? What happened to the people who refused to leave?
|
Basically the tribes were coerced by violence to relocate to Indian Territory. Some tribes were able to hide out and they later became their own tribes in their original homelands. Famous examples include the Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama, Seminole Tribe of Florida (who were never militarily defeated by the United States), Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, and Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.
A band of [Nez Perce](_URL_2_) were forced from Washington to Indian Territory in 1878. Basically they said hell no and returned back to the NW in 1884. Same with the Northern Cheyenne, who returned to Montana on foot in the winter of 1878.
The Dawes Commission, led by Senator Henry L. Dawes (still hated today by most Oklahoma Indians), oversaw destroying tribal governments and landholdings in Indian Territory. The Curtis Act of 1898 dismantled tribal governments, courts, and school systems (many of these buildings were stolen from the tribes). The Dawes Severalty Act called for lands collectively owned by the tribes to be broken up into small individual allotments to individual Indians and Freedmen/Freedwomen. Then the so-called "Surplus" land was opened up to non-Native settlements in lotteries and [land runs](_URL_1_).
When the idea of combining Oklahoma Territory, Indian Territory, and the "unassigned lands" was proposed, traditionalists fought it legally and even by force (see the Four Mother's Society, the Green Peach War). Politicians from the NE tribes tried to promise a separate [State of Sequoyah](_URL_0_) to be separate from Oklahoma (it breaks my heart that this didn't happen).
Some tribes have recovered stolen public buildings from the state of Oklahoma in recent years. The tribes had to reorganized their governments under the [Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936](_URL_3_) and rebuild their infrastructure in ensuing decades. Some have repurchased important lands, but compensation, no.
|
[
"By the 1830s, the U.S. had drafted the Indian Removal Act, which was used to facilitate the Trail of Tears. Fearing retribution of other native peoples, Indian Agents all over the eastern U.S. began desperately trying to convince all their native peoples to uproot and move west. This included the Caddoans of Louisiana and Arkansas. Following the Texas Revolution, the Texans chose to make peace with their Native peoples, but did not honor former land claims or agreements. This began the movement of Native populations north into what would become Indian Territory—modern day Oklahoma.\n",
"In 1838, the U.S. government forced the Cherokees, along with other Native Americans, to relocate to the area designated as Indian Territory, in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Their journey west became known as the \"Trail of Tears\" for their exile and fatalities along the way. The U.S. Army used Ross's Landing as the site of one of three large internment camps, or \"emigration depots\", where Native Americans were held before the journey on the Trail of Tears.\n",
"Following the Indian Removal Act of 1830 the American government began forcibly relocating East Coast tribes across the Mississippi. The removal included many members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory in eastern sections of the present-day state of Oklahoma. About 2,500–6,000 died along the Trail of Tears. Chalk and Jonassohn assert that the deportation of the Cherokee tribe along the Trail of Tears would almost certainly be considered an act of genocide today. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 led to the exodus. About 17,000 Cherokees, along with approximately 2,000 Cherokee-owned black slaves, were removed from their homes. The number of people who died as a result of the Trail of Tears has been variously estimated. American doctor and missionary Elizur Butler, who made the journey with one party, estimated 4,000 deaths.\n",
"On January 27, 1825, the Indian Removal Act was signed, calling for the removal of all Native American Tribes in Georgia. In the following years, most of the Muskogee people were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma. Those who stayed hid in swampy, less desirable areas; fled to Florida and joined the Seminole tribe; or moved frequently to avoid capture. Laws limiting the rights of the Muskogee people were not officially removed until 1980.\n",
"By 1838, the Cherokee had run out of legal options in resisting removal. They were the last of the major Southeast tribes to be forcibly moved to the Indian Territories (in modern-day Oklahoma) on the Trail of Tears. After the removal of the Cherokee, their homes and businesses were taken over by whites, with much of the property distributed through a land lottery.\n",
"The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears led to a major enumeration of Native Americans, and many controversies and misunderstandings about blood quantum that persist to this day. As they were being forcibly driven out of their ancestral homelands and subjected to genocide, many Natives understandably feared and distrusted the government and tried to avoid being enumerated. But the only way to do this was to completely flee the Indian community, during a time of persecution and war. Indians who tried to refuse, if they were not already in a prison camp, had warrants issued for their arrests; they were forcibly rounded up and documented against their will. It is a modern-day misconception that this enumeration was the equivalent of contemporary tribal \"enrollment\" and in any way optional.\n",
"The removal of Indian Tribes from eastern states to the Indian Territory began under President Andrew Jackson in the 1830s continued in the 1840s. Tribal groups would be organized in their home area and would begin the journey up the Arkansas River, usually by steamer, as far as water conditions would allow and would then continue overland through the state until they reached Indian Territory. The job of escorting these bands of refugees along the \"Trail of Tears\" would often fall to the Arkansas Militia. Governor Conway signed a proclamation on 22 October 1836 which stated that there were numerous Indians \"roving about the state... without any fixed place of abode and committing depredations upon the property of the citizens contrary to the laws...\" he ordered the Indians to leave and directed that \"The Commandant of Regiments of the Militia in the several counties in the state and all subordinate officers are required to give their aid in carrying this order into effect.\" A similar proclamation was signed again on July 18, 1840.\n"
] |
how film negatives work the difference between them and digital
|
Think of a film negative as a cardboard with a cutout of something on it. When you shine a flashlight through the cardboard, it will cast a shadow of whatever's in it.
In an actual photo, you cast the "shadow" from the film negative on a paper that has light sensitive chemicals. The darkest part of the film negative will therefore block most of the light (cast the darkest shadow) on the paper, so that part will appear bright. Same thing applies to the lightest part of the film negative. The colors appear from the color of the shadow. That paper will be the actual photo. The film negative acts as your "memory card" so you can reprint photos as much as you like.
Most digital cameras work with something called a charge coupled device(CCD) behind the lens, instead of a film. Basically what a CCD does is to manipulate charges/signals according to a certain stimulus, in this case light.
CCD's are composed of tiny pixels, each recording the light it receives. Every four of those pixels, each in a square formation, contain one color filter each(red, blue and two green), so the colors are slightly lower res than the actual image resolution.
So in short a digital camera works by having very small squares record what kind of light they see, and save it on memory.
|
[
"Digital negatives offer many advantages, such as the ability to shoot with a digital camera and edit digitally while still working with alternative or traditional photographic processes. Small, analog negatives can be scanned and enlarged digitally to create new negatives instead of using the traditional enlarging film that must be processed in a darkroom. Another advantage lies in their reproducibility: a damaged negative can be recreated from the original digital file.\n",
"Film negatives usually have less contrast, but a wider dynamic range, than the final printed positive images. The contrast typically increases when they are printed onto photographic paper. When negative film images are brought into the digital realm, their contrast may be adjusted at the time of scanning or, more usually, during subsequent post-processing.\n",
"The digital negative is the collective name for methods used by photographers to create negatives on transparency film for the contact printing of alternative photographic techniques. The negatives can also be enlarged using traditional gelatin silver processes, though this is usually reserved for negatives of 4x5\" or larger due to quality limitations imposed by printer technology. This set of techniques is separate from the Digital negative (DNG) file format, although this format may be used to create digital negative transparencies.\n",
"Other currently available films are designed to produce color negatives for use in creating enlarged positive prints on color photographic paper. Color negatives may also be digitally scanned and then printed by non-photographic means or viewed as positives electronically. Unlike reversal-film transparency processes, negative-positive processes are, within limits, forgiving of incorrect exposure and poor color lighting, because a considerable degree of correction is possible at the time of printing. Negative film is therefore more suitable for casual use by amateurs. Virtually all single-use cameras employ negative film. Photographic transparencies can be made from negatives by printing them on special \"positive film\", but this has always been unusual outside of the motion picture industry and commercial service to do it for still images may no longer be available. Negative films and paper prints are by far the most common form of color film photography today.\n",
"Today, most films are edited digitally (on systems such as Avid, Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro) and bypass the film positive workprint altogether. In the past, the use of a film positive (not the original negative) allowed the editor to do as much experimenting as he or she wished, without the risk of damaging the original. With digital editing, editors can experiment just as much as before except with the footage completely transferred to a computer hard drive.\n",
"Digital negatives are typically used with one of the alternative processes such as gum bichromate, cyanotype, or Inkodye. In these cases digital negatives are most commonly printed full size to create contact prints. The negative is sandwiched printer ink-to-emulsion in a contact printing frame and exposed under a UV light source. They can also be used to create positives (where the initial digital file is not inverted) to make positives on emulsions such as collodion processes.\n",
"One problem that has resulted from Technicolor negatives is the rate of shrinkage from one strip to another. Because three-strip negatives are shot on three rolls, they are subject to different rates of shrinkage depending on storage conditions. Today, digital technology allows for a precise re-alignment of the negatives by resizing shrunken negatives digitally to correspond with the other negatives. The G, or Green, record is usually taken as the reference as it is the record with the highest resolution. It is also a record with the correct \"wind\" (emulsion position with respect to the camera's lens). Shrinkage and re-alignment (resizing) are non-issues with Successive Exposure (single-roll RGB) Technicolor camera negatives. This issue could have been eliminated, for three-strip titles, had the preservation elements (fine-grain positives) been Successive Exposure, but this would have required the preservation elements to be 3,000 feet or 6,000 feet whereas three-strip composited camera and preservation elements are 1,000 feet or 2,000 feet (however, three records of that length are needed).\n"
] |
Was 200,000 Jews really conscripted into the German Wehrmacht during WWII?
|
It did happen however the number is closer to 150,000. It should also be noted that they were not outright "Jews" but rather "Mischling" by German Law.
Here it how it works. In Nazi Germany the Nuremberg Laws (1935) defined "Jew" as someone who, regardless of religious affiliation had 3 Jewish grandparents. You were also considered a Jew if you were a "Geltungsjude" or "Jew of Legal Validity." This was determined if you met any one of the following:
- You were enrolled as member of a Jewish congregation when the Nuremberg Laws were passed, or after they were passed
- You were married to a Jew
- You were the offspring of a Jewish parent
So what is a Mischling? A Mischling is a "mixed breed." If you had two Jewish grandparents you were a Mischling of the first degree, and if you had one you were a Mischling of the second degree. You were then put through the Mischling test who's second part had the above standards (religion, marriage, etc). If you met any of those you were no longer a Mischling but rather a Geltungsjude.
Mischlings, though no preferable to Aryans *could* live and work in German culture and according to [this source from the University of Kansas](_URL_0_) about 150,000 of these Mischlings actually fought in the Wehrmacht.
I would compare life as Mischling to the life as a half-white/half-black individual in the American South. Sure you could own property and hold a job but the jobs you could work would be very limited because people wouldn't hire you, police would discriminate against you, etc.
|
[
"OKW and OKH secret reports show that half-Jews could only serve in \"Ersatzreserve II\" or \"Landwehr II\", while quarter-Jews remained in the Wehrmacht and were eligible for promotion. Employment or promotion of quarter-Jews required Hitler's approval. Cambridge University researcher Bryan Rigg noted that there were two field marshals and fifteen generals (two full generals, eight lieutenant generals, five major generals) who were Jews or of partial Jewish descent. Rigg estimated that there were 150,000 men of some Jewish descent that served in the German armed forces during World War II. 1,671 have been identified (as of 2010). Hitler personally issued \"German Blood\" papers to \"mischlings\" (mixed Jewish) for their continuing service.\n",
"Almost immediately after the invasion, Germans began forcibly conscripting laborers. Jews were drafted to repair war damage as early as October, with women and children 12 or older required to work; shifts could take half a day and with little compensation. The labourers, Jews, Poles and others, were employed in SS-owned enterprises (such as the German Armament Works, Deutsche Ausrustungswerke, DAW), but also in many private German firms – such as Messerschmitt, Junkers, Siemens, and IG Farben.\n",
"In 2006, on the eve of the 68th anniversary of the \"Kristallnacht\", soldiers of the \"Bundeswehr\" formed the \"Bund jüdischer Soldaten\", a federation of Jewish soldiers in the German Army, similar to the former \"Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten\". While few German Jews joined the West German Army after the Second World War, descendants of people who suffered through the Nazi persecution having been exempt from national service, by 2014 the \"Bundeswehr\" had around 250 German Jewish soldiers in its ranks again.\n",
"Quoting the research done by H. G. Adler into Poland during World War II called , there were \"80,000 Jews conscripted into Poland's independent army prior to the German invasion who identified themselves as Lithuanian Jews\". Using different sources Holocaust researchers claim there were between 60,000 and 65,000 Jewish soldiers in Poland's independent army who identified themselves as Lithuanian Jews.\n",
"Under a deal between the German Defense Ministry and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Jews up to the third generation of Holocaust victims were exempted from the military service obligation, but could still volunteer for military service. For decades, volunteering for military service was taboo in the German-Jewish community, but eventually, Jews began joining. In 2007, there were an estimated 200 Jewish soldiers serving in the Bundeswehr.\n",
"The number of Jews in Poland on 1 September 1939, amounted to about 3,474,000 people. One hundred thirty thousand soldiers of Jewish descent, including Boruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Military, served in the Polish Army at the outbreak of the Second World War, thus being among the first to launch armed resistance against Nazi Germany. During the September Campaign some 20,000 Jewish civilians and 32,216 Jewish soldiers were killed, while 61,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans; the majority did not survive. The soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were released ultimately found themselves in the Nazi ghettos and labor camps and suffered the same fate as other Jewish civilians in the ensuing Holocaust in Poland.\n",
"Recruitment for the \"Wehrmacht\" was accomplished through voluntary enlistment and conscription, with 1.3 million being drafted and 2.4 million volunteering in the period 1935–1939. The total number of soldiers who served in the \"Wehrmacht\" during its existence from 1935 to 1945 is believed to have approached 18.2 million. As World War II intensified, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe personnel were increasingly transferred to the Army, and \"voluntary\" enlistments in the SS were stepped up as well. Following the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, fitness standards for \"Wehrmacht\" recruits were drastically lowered, with the regime going so far as to create \"special diet\" battalions for men with severe stomach ailments. Rear-echelon personnel were sent to front-line duty wherever possible, especially during the last two years of the war.\n"
] |
is there any benefit to turning my phone off at night? does it need to "rest"?
|
No. Modern smartphones are designed to only need to be rebooted for major upgrades. Turning it off at other times makes absolutely no difference other than battery consumption when not plugged in.
|
[
"More recent research suggests that strobe lights are not effective at waking sleeping adults with hearing loss and suggest that a different alarm tone is much more effective. Individuals in the hearing loss community are seeking changes to improved awakening methods.\n",
"The energy-saving sleep state powers off the display and other vehicle electronics, after the car goes to sleep. This increases the time it takes the touchscreen and instrument panel to become usable. This mode can decrease the loss of the car's range when not being used to per day, .\n",
"The blue light that is emitted from the screens of phones, computers and other devices stops the production of melatonin, the hormone that controls the sleep-wake cycle of the circadian rhythm. Reducing the amount of melatonin produced makes it harder to fall and stay asleep. In a 2011 poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, it reported that approximately 90% of Americans used technology in the hour before bed. The poll noted that young adults and teenagers were more likely to use cell phones, computers, and video game consoles. Additionally, the authors of the poll found that technology use was connected to sleep patterns. 22% of participants reported going to sleep with cell phone ringers on in their bedroom and 10% reported awakenings in at least a few nights per week due to their cell phones' ringers. Among those with the cell phone ringers on, being awakened by their cell phone was correlated to difficulty sustaining sleep.\n",
"Exercise is an activity that can facilitate or inhibit sleep quality; people who exercise experience better quality of sleep than those who do not, but exercising too late in the day can be activating and delay falling asleep. Increasing exposure to bright and natural light during the daytime and avoiding bright light in the hours before bedtime may help promote a sleep-wake schedule aligned with nature's daily light-dark cycle.\n",
"BULLET::::- Onset of sleep from time the lights were turned off: this is called \"sleep onset latency\" and normally is less than 20 minutes. (Note that determining \"sleep\" and \"awake\" is based solely on the EEG. Patients sometimes feel they were awake when the EEG shows they were sleeping. This may be because of sleep state misperception, drug effects on brain waves, or individual differences in brain waves.)\n",
"BULLET::::- Caregivers could try letting patients choose their own sleeping arrangements each night, wherever they feel most comfortable sleeping, as well as allow for a dim light to occupy room to alleviate confusion associated with an unfamiliar place.\n",
"The blue wavelength of light from back-lit tablets may impact one's ability to fall asleep when reading at night, through the suppression of melatonin. Experts at Harvard Medical School suggest limiting tablets for reading use in the evening. Those who have a delayed body clock, such as teenagers, which makes them prone to stay up late in the evening and sleep later in the morning, may be at particular risk for increases in sleep deficiencies. A PC app such as F.lux and Android apps such as CF.lumen and Twilight attempt to decrease the impact on sleep by filtering blue wavelengths from the display. iOS 9.3 includes Night Shift that shifts the colors of the device's display to be warmer during the later hours.\n"
] |
how do you make a car more "reliable"
|
In general reliable cars come from years of iterative design and improvement. For example, you might design a car that ends up having 10 common faults. You fix these faults in the next redesign of the car and release it to the market. Consumers then discover another 5 faults and you fix those for the next redesign and so on. This is how companies like Honda work, they also (in general) only make small changes between models to make sure reliability doesn't suffer hugely.
You also tend to find that reliability falls when a car company makes a huge overhaul to a car with many changes at once.
Car companies also go through absolutely huge amounts of testing on all components - they put all of them through rigorous stress testing, testing in all climates, drive them for miles over rattle strips to make bits of the dash come loose, soak them in gallons of water to check leaks, leave parts in the desert to check UV degradation etc...
|
[
"Reliability is a major contributor to brand or company image, and is considered a fundamental dimension of quality by most end-users. For example, recent market research shows that, especially for women, reliability has become an automobile's most desired attribute.\n",
"The engine and the car levels determine how fast and how reliable the car will be in race for the driver. Applying more funds into the engine and fewer in the car (chassis) means that the car will be faster and more reliable but with a fragile chassis. Applying the reverse settings will mean that the car might be more resistant in chassis, but slower and more prone to engine failures.\n",
"Good ride quality provides comfort for the people inside the car, minimises damage to cargo and can reduce driver fatigue on long journeys in uncomfortable vehicles, and also because road disruption can impact the driver's ability to control the vehicle.\n",
"The Reliability Index has been running since 2000. Data from Warranty Direct's paid claims is used to establish the reliability of cars. This information is used to rank the car manufacturers and models by reliability, and allocate a \"Warranty Direct Rating\". The results are released in association with \"What Car?\".\n",
"If one was able to design cars for specific purposes, they can be tuned for much greater efficiency. The vast majority of car trips are short and low-speed; cars designed for this role can be far more efficient than the generalist vehicles generally used. However, the low ownership of specific-purpose vehicles, like motorcycles, is a good indication of the basic problem: people don't want to have to buy two vehicles to serve a single need: transportation. This has limited other forms of transit to specific roles: aircraft are used for long-distances, trains for inter-city freight and travel, and electric vehicles for known routes where power can be provided at all times.\n",
"This is how all major CAM systems do it these days because it works without failing no matter what the complexity and geometry of the model, and can be made fast later. Reliability is far more important than efficiency.\n",
"For ordinary production cars, manufactures err towards deliberate understeer as this is safer for inexperienced or inattentive drivers than is oversteer. Other compromises involve comfort and utility, such as preference for a softer smoother ride or more seating capacity.\n"
] |
why does the body need to be trained for cardio? what does your body do when at first u can’t run 1 mile but after a while u can run 10?
|
None of the three answers yet actually address the question, IMHO. I’ll take a stab at it:
Your body’s constantly trying balance a bunch of finite resources. If your heart doesn’t need to pump much blood all the time, the energy to maintain the heart muscle to do that would be better spent somewhere else. Cardio training (and all other muscle training) is just telling the body that it needs to start devoting some of its resources to those muscle groups now.
|
[
"Bradycardia is not necessarily problematic. People who regularly practice sports may have sinus bradycardia, because their trained hearts can pump enough blood in each contraction to allow a low resting heart rate. Sinus bradycardia can also be an adaptive advantage; for example, diving seals may have a heart rate as low as 12 beats per minute, helping them to conserve oxygen during long dives.\n",
"The athlete's heart is associated with physiological remodeling as a consequence of repetitive cardiac loading. Athlete's heart is common in athletes who routinely exercise more than an hour a day, and occurs primarily in endurance athletes, though it can occasionally arise in heavy weight trainers. The condition is generally considered benign, but may occasionally hide a serious medical condition, or may even be mistaken for one.\n",
"For this leg's Roadblock, one team member had to perform a boxing workout. After first wrapping their hands properly, the team member had to punch a punching bag and then jump rope for 60 seconds on each exercise without stopping. When they completed the workout, their boxing trainer would give them their next clue.\n",
"Haldeman stated in an article posted on Muscle Foods USA's website: \"I found fitness more by circumstance than anything else. I had an injury (2009) that resulted in my inability to walk or run for quite some time. It was recommended to me that I try weight training during this time to keep in shape and help reduces my recovery time. At the time I had zero interest in lifting weights or making a daily trip to the gym. It didn’t take long, however, until I found that I loved what resistance training can do to your body. After only a few short weeks I was hooked and started to learn everything I could about sculpting and building my physique….and although a few years have passed since then I am just as excited learning about everything health and fitness related ! It is a life style that I have completely submerged myself in!\" \n",
"In support of this, placebos (which must be mediated by a central process) have a powerful effect upon not only fatigue in prolonged exercise, but also upon short term endurance exercise such as sprint speed, the maximum weight that could be lifted with leg extension, and the tolerance of ischemic pain and power when a tourniqueted hand squeezes a spring exerciser 12 times.\n",
"Athlete's heart should not be confused with bradycardia that occurs secondary to Relative energy deficiency in sport or Anorexia nervosa, which involve slowing of metabolic rate and sometimes shrinkage of the heart muscle and reduced heart volume.\n",
"If your doctor deems it necessary, a stress TTE may be performed. This can be accomplished by either exercising on a bike or treadmill, or by medicine given through an IV along with a contrast agent to make your bodily fluids show up brighter. This allows a comparison between your heart at rest and your heart when it is beating at a faster rate. (Transthoracic Echocardiogram, n.d.)\n"
] |
If I blow my nose with a piece of toilet paper, would it be more environmentally friendly to put that paper in the toilet (to be flushed later) or in the garbage to be hauled away by a truck?
|
I have the same question regarding vegetable matter in the garbage disposal vs. garbage bin (ignoring composting).
|
[
"From an environmental standpoint, bidets can reduce the need for toilet paper. Considering that an average person uses only of water for cleansing once using a bidet, much less water is used than for making toilet paper. An article in \"Scientific American\" concluded that using a bidet is \"much less stressful on the environment than using paper\". \"Scientific American\" has reported that if the US switched to using bidets, 15 million trees could be saved every year.\n",
"In some parts of the world, especially before toilet paper was available or affordable, the use of newspaper, telephone directory pages, or other paper products was common. The widely distributed Sears Roebuck catalog was also a popular choice until it began to be printed on glossy paper (at which point some people wrote to the company to complain). With flush toilets, using newspaper as toilet paper is liable to cause blockages.\n",
"BULLET::::- Toilet paper is a soft paper product (tissue paper) used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. However, it can also be used for other purposes such as absorbing spillages or craft projects. Toilet paper in different forms has been used for centuries, namely in China. The ancient Greeks used clay and stone; the Romans, sponges and salt water. But according to a CNN article, the idea of a commercial product designed solely to wipe a person's buttocks was by New York City entrepreneur Joseph Gayetty, who in 1857, invented aloe-infused sheets of manila hemp dispensed from Kleenex-like boxes. However, Gayetty's toilet paper was a failure for several reasons. Americans soon grew accustomed to wiping with the Sears Roebuck catalog, they saw no need to spend money on toilet paper when catalogs for their use came in the mail for free, and because during the 19th century, it was a social taboo to openly discuss bathroom hygiene with others. Toilet paper took its next leap forward in 1890, when two brothers named Clarence and E. Irvin Scott of the Scott Paper Company co-invented rolled toilet paper.\n",
"In the United States, toilet paper has been the primary tool in a prank known as \"TP-ing\" (pronounced Teepeeing). TP-ing, or \"toilet papering\", is often favored by adolescents and is the act of throwing rolls of toilet paper over cars, trees, houses and gardens, causing the toilet paper to unfurl and cover the property, creating an inconvenient mess.\n",
"In rural areas of developing countries or during camping trips, sticks, stones, leaves, corn cobs and similar are also used for anal cleansing. This may be due to the unavailability of toilet paper and similar paper products or water.\n",
"Advice columnist Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer) was once asked which way toilet paper should hang. She answered \"under\", prompting thousands of letters in protest; she then recommended \"over\", prompting thousands more. She reflected that the 15,000 letters made toilet paper the most controversial issue in her column's 31-year history, wondering, \"With so many problems in the world, why were thousands of people making an issue of tissue?\"\n",
"Toilet paper orientation has been used rhetorically as the ultimate issue that government has no business dictating, in letters to the editor protesting the regulation of noise pollution and stricter requirements to get a divorce. In 2006, protesting New Hampshire's ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, representative Ralph Boehm (R–Litchfield) asked \"Will we soon be told which direction the toilet paper must hang from the roll?\"\n"
] |
Slavery seems to have a very prominent role in the popular conception of the Roman Empire, then sort of seems to fade away and become relevant again during the 17th-19th centuries. To what extent and how was slavery practiced in Western Europe following the collapse of the Western Roman State?
|
Hello, [here](_URL_0_) is a post I wrote a little while ago about post-Roman slavery in the British Isles. I hope it's useful and I'm happy to answer further questions :)
|
[
"Slavery was common in Classical Greece and in the earlier Roman Empire. It was legal in the Byzantine Empire but became rare after the first half of 7th century. From 11th century, semi-feudal relations largely replaced slavery. Under the influence of Christianity, a shift in the view of slavery is noticed, which by the 10th century transformed gradually a slave-object into a slave-subject. It was also seen as \"an evil contrary to nature, created by man's selfishness\", although slavery was permitted by the law.\n",
"In the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, slaves became quite rare by the first half of the 7th century A shift in the view of slavery is noticed, which by the 10th century transformed gradually a slave-object into a slave-subject. From 11th century, semi-feudal relations largely replaced slavery, seen as \"an evil contrary to natury, created by man's selfishness\", although slavery was permitted by the law.\n",
"Roman culture had distinct values on human life which are very different from those now prevailing in Europe and, in general, in the world. The system of slavery, made it possible for a man to lose his status as \"free man\" for various reasons such as: crime, debt or military defeat. After losing their rights, they were coerced into participating in a form of entertainment which today could be considered excessively brutal, but which at that time was one of the most powerful attractions of urban life: gladiatorial combat. Not only slaves or prisoners were involved in these kinds of struggles (although the vast majority of gladiators were), but some also had career as a gladiator who fought for money, favors or glory. Even some emperors occasionally ventured down to the sand to play this bloody \"sport\", as in the case of the emperor Commodus.\n",
"The social and legal status of slaves in the Roman state was different in different epochs. In the time of old civil law (ius civile Quiritium) slavery had a patriarchal shape (a slave did the same job and lived under the same conditions as his master and family). After Rome's victorious wars, from the 3rd century BC, huge numbers of slaves came to Rome, and that resulted in slave trade and increased exploitation of slaves. From that time on, a slave became only a thing (res)- \"servi pro nullis habentur\".\n",
"Slavery, for example, was part of the empire-wide \"ius gentium\" because slavery was known and accepted as a normal social institution in all parts of the known world. Nevertheless, as forcing people to work for others was a human-produced condition, it was not considered natural and, hence, was part of the \"ius gentium\" but not the \"ius naturale\". The \"ius naturale\" of the Roman jurists is not the same as implied by the modern sense of natural law as something derived from pure reason. As Sir Henry James Sumner Maine puts it, \"it was never thought of as founded on quite untested principles. The notion was that it underlay existing law and must be looked for through it\".\n",
"Contrary to suppositions of historians such as Marc Bloch, slavery thrived as an institution in medieval Christian Iberia. Slavery existed in the region under the Romans, and continued to do so under the Visigoths. From the fifth to the early 8th century, large portions of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Christian Visigothic Kingdoms, whose rulers worked to codify human bondage. In the 7th century, King Chindasuinth issued the Visigothic Code (Liber Iudiciorum), to which subsequent Visigothic kings added new legislation. Although the Visigothic Kingdom collapsed in the early 8th century, portions of the Visigothic Code were still observed in parts of Spain in the following centuries. The Code, with its pronounced and frequent attention to the legal status of slaves, reveals the continuation of slavery as an institution in post-Roman Spain.\n",
"The chaos following the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire made the taking of slaves habitual throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages. Roman practices continued in many areas the Welsh laws of Hywel the Good included provisions dealing with slaves and Germanic laws provided for the enslavement of criminals, as when the Visigothic Code prescribed enslavement for those who could not pay the financial penalty for their crime and as a punishment for certain other crimes. Such criminals would become slaves to their victims, often with their property.\n"
] |
what are the rules for fan made merchandise? if it is illegal like i think it is, how do companies like etsy and redbubble get away with it?
|
This would fall under copyright, and the gray area of copyright is confusing and hard to navigate. However, here is some basic information on this kind of scenario. Before going further: I'm not a lawyer, so please don't take my word as gospel.
What this boils down to is that you're going to be at the mercy of the copyright holder of whatever product you're making unlicensed merchandise of. Meaning that if they catch wind of your product and don't like you doing it, they can shut you down. Thankfully, with copyright, this isn't always going to happen. They are not legally compelled to enforce their copyright on all cases.
That said, avoid using any form of trademark. Unlike copyrights, trademarks MUST be protected in order to remain trademarks, and must be done universally. Meaning that if the trademark holder in question finds your works, they are legally obligated to get you to stop producing those works.
Though if experience tells me anything, most companies will send out C & Ds if they've got problems with your works, rather than take you to court to start. Litigation is costly for both sides, and stamps are cheap, emails cheaper. If you wind up getting a C & D, I'd urge complying to save you the hassle of a legal battle.
|
[
"Most fan labor products are derivative works, in that they are creative additions or modifications to an existing copyrighted work, or they are original creations which are inspired by a specific copyrighted work. Some or all of these works may fall into the legal category of transformative works (such as a parody of the original), which is protected as fair use under U.S. copyright law. However, corporations continue to ask fans to stop engaging with their products in creative ways.\n",
"In addition to the official merchandise produced and sold through entertainment companies, fans themselves produce a great deal of merchandise. In some instances, fans have responded to poor-quality official merchandise by producing their own higher-quality products, which are often cheaper. Official goods have an advantage as a commodity, while fan-produced merchandise may correspond to more specialized tastes, such as a fan-made photobook focusing on a particular member of a band. Producers and sellers of fan-made merchandise are known as \"home masters\".\n",
"Recent years have seen increasing legal action from media conglomerates, who are actively protecting their intellectual property rights. Because of new technologies that make media easier to distribute and modify, fan labor activities are coming under greater scrutiny. Some fans are finding themselves the subjects of cease and desist letters which ask them to take down the offending materials from a website, or stop distributing or selling an item which the corporation believes violates their copyright. As a result of these actions by media companies, some conventions now ban fan art entirely from their art shows, even if not offered for sale, and third party vendors may remove offending designs from their websites.\n",
"Companies, however, react to fan activities in very different ways. While some companies actively court fans and these type of activities (sometimes limited to ways delineated by the company itself), other companies attempt to highly restrict them.\n",
"However, some fans engage in for-profit exchange of their creations in what is known as the \"gray market\". The gray market operates mainly through word of mouth and \"under the table\" sales, and provides products of varying quality. Even though these are commercial activities, it is still expected that fan vendors will not make a large amount of profit, charging just enough to cover expenses. Some vendors attempt to not mark up their products at all, and will use that information in their promotional information, in an attempt to secure the confidence of other fans who may look down at fans making a profit.\n",
"Some artists, such as Girl Talk and Nine Inch Nails, use copyleft licenses such as the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license that don't allow commercial use. In this way they can choose to sell their creations without having to compete with others selling copies of the same works. However, some argue that the Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike license is not a true copyleft.\n",
"Fans who do their creative work out of paying respect to the original media property or an actor or to the fandom in general gain cultural capital in the fandom. However, those who attempt to sell their creative products will be shunned by other fans, and subject to possible legal action. Fans often classify other fans trying to sell their items for profit motives as \"hucksters\" rather than true fans.\n"
] |
why does chronic sleep deprivation cause erectile dysfunction?
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Sleep deprivation is a huge stress for your body. Evolution has built us that way - if you are that much stressed, the last thing you need at that moment is having sex
|
[
"Sleep disturbance is not only associated with the onset of manic or hypomanic episodes but also displays a residual symptom of manic and depressive episodes. They are associated with residual depressive symptoms and perceived cognitive performance and can thereby negatively influence the functioning and recovery of a patient. This is one reason why therapy programs like the Interpersonal and social rhythm therapy aim to reduce sleep disturbances.\n",
"As an autonomic nervous system response, an erection may result from a variety of stimuli, including sexual stimulation and sexual arousal, and is therefore not entirely under conscious control. Erections during sleep or upon waking up are known as nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT). Absence of nocturnal erection is commonly used to distinguish between physical and psychological causes of erectile dysfunction and impotence.\n",
"Counterintuitively, penile erections during sleep are not more frequent during sexual dreams than during other dreams. The parasympathetic nervous system experiences increased activity during REM sleep which may cause erection of the penis or clitoris. In males, 80% to 95% of REM sleep is normally accompanied by partial to full penile erection, while only about 12% of men's dreams contain sexual content.\n",
"Sleep deprivation is also associated with ASC, and can provoke seizures due to fatigue. Sleep deprivation can be chronic or short-term depending on the severity of the patient's condition. Many patients report hallucinations because sleep deprivation impacts the brain. An MRI study conducted at Harvard Medical school in 2007, found that a sleep-deprived brain was not capable of being in control of its sensorimotor functions, leading to an impairment to the patient's self-awareness. Patients were also prone to be a lot clumsier than if had they not been experiencing sleep deprivation.\n",
"Sleep deprivation is known to have negative effects on the brain and behavior. Extended periods of sleep deprivation often results in the malfunctioning of neurons, directly affecting an individual's behavior. While muscles are able to regenerate even in the absence of sleep, neurons are incapable of this ability. Specific stages of sleep are responsible for the regeneration of neurons while others are responsible for the generation of new synaptic connections, the formation of new memories, etc.\n",
"One study has linked lack of sleep to a reduction in rodent hippocampal neurogenesis. The proposed mechanism for the observed decrease was increased levels of glucocorticoids. It was shown that two weeks of sleep deprivation acted as a neurogenesis-inhibitor, which was reversed after return of normal sleep and even shifted to a temporary increase in normal cell proliferation. More precisely, when levels of corticosterone are elevated, sleep deprivation inhibits this process. Nonetheless, normal levels of neurogenesis after chronic sleep deprivation return after 2 weeks, with a temporary increase of neurogenesis.\n",
"Erections of the penis (nocturnal penile tumescence or NPT) normally accompany REM sleep in rats and humans. If a male has erectile dysfunction (ED) while awake, but has NPT episodes during REM, it would suggest that the ED is from a psychological rather than a physiological cause. In females, erection of the clitoris (nocturnal clitoral tumescence or NCT) causes enlargement, with accompanying vaginal blood flow and transudation (i.e. lubrication). During a normal night of sleep the penis and clitoris may be erect for a total time of from one hour to as long as three and a half hours during REM.\n"
] |
why isn't worshipping jesus considered idol worship in the christian faith?
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In catholicism jesus is part of the Holy trinity. Father, son and holy spirit...all 1 God, same person, just different forms. Weird, I admit, but that's my explanation.
|
[
"Christian deists consider themselves to be disciples, or students, of Jesus because Jesus taught the natural laws of God. But Christian deists believe that Jesus was only human. Jesus had to struggle with his own times of disappointment, sorrow, anger, prejudice, impatience, and despair, just as other human beings struggle with these experiences. Jesus never claimed to be perfect but he was committed to following God's natural laws of love.\n",
"Scholars have discussed whether idol worshipers made a distinction between a spiritual being that existed independently of idols and the physical idols themselves. Some scholars opine that the pagans in the Hebrew Bible did not literally worship the objects themselves, so that the issue of idolatry is really concerned with whether one is pursuing a \"false god\" or \"the true God\". In addition to the spiritual aspect of their worship, peoples in the Ancient Near East took great care to physically maintain their cult idols and thought that the instructions for their manufacture and maintenance came from the spirit of the god. Magical ceremonies were performed through which the people believed the spirit of the god came to live in the physical idol. When idols were captured or not cared for, the associated religious practices also flagged. So while scholars may debate the relative importance of belief in the physical object or the spirit it represented or housed, in practice the distinction was not easy to discern.\n",
"Judaism's animosity towards what they perceived as idolatry was inherited by Jewish Christianity. Although Jesus discussed the Mosaic Law in the Sermon on the Mount, he does not speak of issues regarding the meaning of the commandment against idolatry. His teachings, however, uphold that worship should be directed to God alone (Matthew 4:10 which is itself a quote of Deuteronomy 6:13, see also Shema in Christianity, Great Commandment, and Ministry of Jesus).\n",
"According to the psalmist and the prophet Isaiah, those who worship inanimate idols will be like them, that is, unseeing, unfeeling, unable to hear the truth that God would communicate to them. Paul the Apostle identifies the worship of created things (rather than the Creator) as the cause of the disintegration of sexual and social morality in his letter to the Romans. Although the commandment implies that the worship of God is not compatible with the worship of idols, the status of an individual as an idol worshiper or a God worshiper is not portrayed as predetermined and unchangeable in the Bible. When the covenant is renewed under Joshua, the Israelites are encouraged to throw away their foreign gods and \"choose this day whom you will serve\". King Josiah, when he becomes aware of the terms of God's covenant, zealously works to rid his kingdom of idols. According to the book of Acts, Paul tells the Athenians that though their city is full of idols, the true God is represented by none of them and requires them to turn away from idols.\n",
"Christian have sometimes been accused of idolatry, especially in regards in the iconoclastic controversy. However, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian forbid worship of icons and relics as divine in themselves, while honouring those represented by them is accepted and philosophically justified by the Second Council of Constantinople.\n",
"However, the worship of Jesus, or the ascribing of partners to God (known as \"shirk\" in Islam and as \"shituf\" in Judaism), is typically viewed as the heresy of idolatry by Islam and Judaism. Judaism and Islam see the incarnation of God into human form as a heresy.\n",
"The Christian view of idolatry may generally be divided into two general categories: the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox view which accepts the use of religious images, and the views of many Protestant churches that considerably restrict their use. However, many Protestants have used the image of the cross as a symbol.\n"
] |
neurologically speaking, why do people learn in different ways (ie kinesthetic, visual, etc)?
|
Some scientists say the whole concept is bogus. NPR recently did a [story](_URL_0_) on this topic that you might like.
|
[
"All healthy, normally developing human beings learn to use language. Children acquire the language or languages used around them: whichever languages they receive sufficient exposure to during childhood. The development is essentially the same for children acquiring sign or oral languages. This learning process is referred to as first-language acquisition, since unlike many other kinds of learning, it requires no direct teaching or specialized study. In \"The Descent of Man\", naturalist Charles Darwin called this process \"an instinctive tendency to acquire an art\".\n",
"Cultural learning is made possible by a deep understanding of social cognition. Humans have the unique capacity to identify and relate to others and view them as intentional beings. Humans are able to understand that others have intentions, goals, desires, and beliefs. It is this deep understanding, this cognitive adaptation, that allows humans to learn from and with others through cultural transmission (Tomasello, 1999).\n",
"Humans also tend to follow “communicative” ways of learning as seen in a study by Hanna Marno, researcher at the International School for Advanced Studies, which showed that infants followed an adult's action of pressing a button to light up a lamp based on the adult's “non-verbal (eye contact) and verbal cues.”\n",
"The empiricist views suggest that language can be learned with mental processes originally meant for other modes of cognition, and that there need not be a concept of innateness in order to account for the difference between the input a child receives versus the language they develop. Natural languages display statistical cues that children are able to learn from. Some argue that the ability to learn by statistical pattern matching can solve problems that nativists argue require innate knowledge.\n",
"The ability to learn and understand language is an extremely complex process. Language is acquired within the first few years of life, and all humans under normal circumstances are able to acquire language proficiently. A major driving force in the theoretical linguistic field is discovering the nature that language must have in the abstract in order to be learned in such a fashion. Some of the driving research questions in studying how the brain itself processes language include: (1) To what extent is linguistic knowledge innate or learned?, (2) Why is it more difficult for adults to acquire a second-language than it is for infants to acquire their first-language?, and (3) How are humans able to understand novel sentences?\n",
"According to Steven Pinker, who builds on the work by Noam Chomsky, the universal human ability to learn to talk between the ages of 1 – 4, basically without training, suggests that language acquisition is a distinctly human psychological adaptation (see, in particular, Pinker's \"The Language Instinct\"). Pinker and Bloom (1990) argue that language as a mental faculty shares many likenesses with the complex organs of the body which suggests that, like these organs, language has evolved as an adaptation, since this is the only known mechanism by which such complex organs can develop.\n",
"It has also been demonstrated that brain processing responds to the external environment. Learning, both of ideas and behaviors, appears to be coded in brain processes. It also appears that in several simplified cases this coding operates differently, but in some ways equivalently, in the brains of men and women. For example, both men and women learn and use language; however, bio-chemically, they appear to process it differently. Differences in female and male use of language are likely reflections \"both\" of biological preferences and aptitudes, \"and\" of learned patterns.\n"
] |
What does it actually mean to “die peacefully” in your sleep? Is this even possible?
|
During REM sleep the body is paralyzed ti prevent movement during dream state.
When you are having trouble breathing due ti oak if oxygen, the body can jerk you awake using a body reflex.
If you combine poor breathing with rem state paralysis the body may not be able to rake you from your dream, thus passing while asleep. Keep in mind this is only one possibility. No blood flow eg heart attack means brain damage. Hypoxia.
|
[
"In this context, sleep may also be considered a metaphor for death, both as an eventual equalizer of all things, and for the allusion to a \"crossing over,\" as in a river, a prevalent theme in Western spiritual beliefs.\n",
"\"Sleepless\" was written by Hannah Barker and Liam Jarvis, and was performed in Shoreditch Town Hall in 2016. The story, as stated on Shoreditch Town Halls website \"inspired by the extraordinary true story of a family cursed with a rare genetic disease that cruelly deprives members of sleep until they die, a story that sits at the crossroads of two cutting edge areas of science: sleep research and prion theory, and begs the broader question: how do we decide the value of a human life?\"\n",
"BULLET::::- Sleep is the emancipation of the mind: While we are asleep our spirit loosens its ties to matter and wanders the spiritual world. Because of it, it is theoretically possible—although uncommon—to see the spirit of a living person as an apparition.\n",
"BULLET::::- An unconscious desire to punish or cause suffering to someone one hates or envies may lead the spirit of a living person to use its relative freedom during sleep to attempt to obsess another living person.\n",
"You're very sleepy and very, very tired and you're sort of nodding off to sleep but something's telling you to keep waking up. This was the thing that kept everybody going through the hunger strike in trying to live or last out as long as possible. I knew death was close but I wasn't afraid to die – and it wasn't any sort of courageous or glorious thing. I think death would have been a release. You can never feel that way again. It's not like tiredness. It's an absolute, total, mental and physical exhaustion. It's literally like slipping into death.\n",
"He said: \"Well I thought that the most dreadful thing that could happen to anybody, would be not to be allowed to sleep so that just as you're dropping off there'd be a 'Dong' and you'd have to keep awake; you’re sinking into the ground alive and it's full of ants; and the sun is shining endlessly day and night and there is not a tree … there’s no shade, nothing, and that bell wakes you up all the time and all you've got is a little parcel of things to see you through life.\" He was referring to the life of the modern woman. Then he said: \"And I thought who would cope with that and go down singing, only a woman.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- \"I'm starting to think that I'm dead. | Doesn't it make sense that death too would be wrapped in dream? That after death, your conscious life would continue in what might be called a dream body? It would be the same dream body you experience in your everyday dream life. Except that in the post-mortal state, you could never again wake up.\"\n"
] |
how are some cars so much more expensive than other cars. eg. 1,000,000$ car vs. 20,000$ car.
|
It's not just the style; it's the material they use, the speeds they can reach (for sports cars), the size of the vehicle, the rarity, etc.
It's like saying why they can't just kill more snakes to make snake-skinned boots so they aren't $4,000 dollars. Snakes are rare and so is carbon fiber. Snake skinned boots are hard to make and so is carbon fiber. Thus, a vehicle with a full carbon fiber chassis is worth much more than your standard metal chassis honda and the same reason why snake skinned boots cost more than your vans.
|
[
"The increasing popularity of these commercial vehicles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, pushed their average price to nearly double the average passenger car cost. In response, the 2002 Tax Act increased this \"Section 179 depreciation deduction\" to US$75,000, and it rose again to US$102,000 for the 2004 tax year. This is more than three times the current average cost of a passenger car in the United States and covers a large number of luxury models, including the Hummer H2. In late 2006, the deduction was again reduced to US$25,000 for vehicles with GVWR between and .\n",
"It was massive, with a wheelbase. The price tag of $17,000-$25,000 made it the most expensive American car of the era; a Rolls-Royce sold for less than $10,000, American's highest-price model was US$5250, the Lozier Big Six limousines and landaulettes US$6,500 (tourers and roadsters were US$5,000), and the Lozier Light Six Metropolitan tourer and runabout bottomed at US$3,250. By contrast, the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout was US$650 and Western's Gale Model A was US$500.\n",
"The IRS considers that the average US automobile has a total cost of 0.58 USD/mile, around 0.32 EUR/km. According to the American Automobile Association the average driver of the average sedan, spends totally approximately 8700 USD per year, or 720 USD per month, to own and operate their vehicle.\n",
"Automakers have said that small, fuel-efficient vehicles cost the auto industry billions of dollars. They cost almost as much to design and market but cannot be sold for as much as larger vehicles such as SUVs, because consumers expect small cars to be inexpensive. In 1999, \"USA Today\" reported small cars tend to depreciate faster than larger cars, so they are worth less in value to the consumer over time. However, 2007 Edmunds depreciation data show that some small cars, primarily premium models, are among the best in holding their value.\n",
"You can follow the family's thinking by looking at the rationale for each judgment. Whenever a car that is under budget is compared with one that is over budget by more than $1,000, the former is extremely preferred. For cars under budget, a $1,000 less expensive car is slightly preferred, a $5,000 one is strongly preferred, and a $6,000 one is even more strongly preferred. When both cars are well over budget (comparison #6), they are equally preferred, which is to say they are equally undesirable. Because budget status and absolute price difference are enough to make each comparison, the ratio of prices never enters into the judgments.\n",
"The price of the second batch is €130 million (€1.85 m. per vehicle) and is somewhat higher than price for the initial 70 ordered in 2003 (€112 million). However, due to lower production costs the increased price is still very competitive compared to other European equivalents, which are priced up to €2.5 million each per similar vehicle.\n",
"It has a high resale and used-car value; the Kelley Blue Book used car retail price (the price an individual might expect to pay for one from a dealer) for a model in excellent condition with low mileage exceeds the original retail price of the car in many cases, making it one of a few recent cars that have actually approached an increase in value. This premium can be explained mostly due to scarcity, both of the cars themselves due to low production and importation, and especially ones that still have low mileage.\n"
] |
How do things like Bop It manage to generate pseudorandom numbers?
|
A very common way to generate random numbers in a small embedded device like that is to have a fairly fast free-running counter. When the device receives some input (like the player pressing the start button) the counter is read and that can provide a dozen or so bits of entropy, which is plenty to make a game like Bop It random. (If it needed more, it could read the counter every time you activate one of the thingies on the game, and accumulate entropy.) It probably uses this entropy to seed a simple PRNG like a LFSR.
Building a reasonably-good hardware random number source is not hard, but it would add a few cents or tens of cents to the toy's cost, and at the volumes those things are made that's a significant price. The free-running-counter approach can usually be implemented very cheaply.
|
[
"A pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), also known as a deterministic random bit generator (DRBG), is an algorithm for generating a sequence of numbers whose properties approximate the properties of sequences of random numbers. The PRNG-generated sequence is not truly random, because it is completely determined by an initial value, called the PRNG's \"seed\" (which may include truly random values). Although sequences that are closer to truly random can be generated using hardware random number generators, \"pseudorandom\" number generators are important in practice for their speed in number generation and their reproducibility.\n",
"A pseudorandom variable is a variable which is created by a deterministic algorithm, often a computer program or subroutine, which in most cases takes random bits as input. The pseudorandom string will typically be longer than the original random string, but less random (less entropic in the information theory sense). This can be useful for randomized algorithms.\n",
"Random number generators are very useful in developing Monte Carlo-method simulations, as debugging is facilitated by the ability to run the same sequence of random numbers again by starting from the same \"random seed\". They are also used in cryptography – so long as the \"seed\" is secret. Sender and receiver can generate the same set of numbers automatically to use as keys.\n",
"Since pseudorandom numbers are in fact deterministic, a given seed will always determine the same pseudorandom number. This attribute is used in security, in the form of rolling code to avoid replay attacks, in which a command would be intercepted to be used by a thief at a later time.\n",
"Pseudorandom functions are not to be confused with pseudorandom generators (PRGs). The guarantee of a PRG is that a \"single\" output appears random if the input was chosen at random. On the other hand, the guarantee of a PRF is that \"all its outputs\" appear random, regardless of how the corresponding inputs were chosen, as long as the \"function\" was drawn at random from the PRF family.\n",
"No pseudorandom number generator can produce more distinct sequences, starting from the point of initialization, than there are distinct seed values it may be initialized with. Thus, a generator that has 1024 bits of internal state but which is initialized with a 32-bit seed can still only produce 2 different permutations right after initialization. It can produce more permutations if one exercises the generator a great many times before starting to use it for generating permutations, but this is a very inefficient way of increasing randomness: supposing one can arrange to use the generator a random number of up to a billion, say 2 for simplicity, times between initialization and generating permutations, then the number of possible permutations is still only 2.\n",
"Note that an extractor has some conceptual similarities with a pseudorandom generator (PRG), but the two concepts are not identical. Both are functions that take as input a small, uniformly random seed and produce a longer output that \"looks\" uniformly random. Some pseudorandom generators are, in fact, also extractors. (When a PRG is based on the existence of hard-core predicates, one can think of the weakly random source as a set of truth tables of such predicates and prove that the output is statistically close to uniform.) However, the general PRG definition does not specify that a weakly random source must be used, and while in the case of an extractor, the output should be statistically close to uniform, in a PRG it is only required to be computationally indistinguishable from uniform, a somewhat weaker concept.\n"
] |
how did the first land bound life forms know we needed water to survive?
|
How did you know to suck your mothers teat? How is it that all puppies, kittens and even little babies know to flee from pain?
It's instinct. Evolution has brought us certain tendencies born right into us. If we never felt like drinking water when we needed it we'd die. If we couldn't distinguish salt water from fresh and we couldn't handle one or the other? We'd die.
|
[
"Major human settlements could initially develop only where fresh surface water was plentiful, such as near rivers or natural springs. Throughout history, people have devised systems to make getting water into their communities and households and disposing (and later also treating) wastewater more conveniently.\n",
"BULLET::::- The first known animals to live their lives entirely without oxygen – members of the phylum Loricifera – are discovered in the L'Atalante basin deep under the Mediterranean Sea. (\"Science Daily\")\n",
"Although humans cannot survive on seawater, some people claim that up to two cups a day, mixed with fresh water in a 2:3 ratio, produces no ill effect. The French physician Alain Bombard survived an ocean crossing in a small Zodiak rubber boat using mainly raw fish meat, which contains about 40 percent water (like most living tissues), as well as small amounts of seawater and other provisions harvested from the ocean. His findings were challenged, but an alternative explanation was not given. In his 1948 book, \"Kon-Tiki\", Thor Heyerdahl reported drinking seawater mixed with fresh in a 2:3 ratio during the 1947 expedition. A few years later, another adventurer, William Willis, claimed to have drunk two cups of seawater and one cup of fresh per day for 70 days without ill effect when he lost part of his water supply.\n",
"Although humans cannot survive on seawater alone—and, indeed, will sicken quickly if they try—some people have claimed that up to two cups a day, mixed with fresh water in a 2:3 ratio, produces no ill effect. During the 18th century, British physician Richard Russell (1687–1759) advocated the practice as part of medical therapy in his country. In the 20th century, René Quinton (1866–1925), in France, would also endorse the practice. Currently, the practice is widely used in Nicaragua and other countries, supposedly taking advantage of the latest medical discoveries.) In his 1948 book, \"Kon-Tiki\", Thor Heyerdahl reported drinking seawater mixed with fresh in a 2:3 ratio during the 1947 expedition. The French physician Alain Bombard (1924–2005) survived an ocean crossing (1952–53) in a small Zodiac rubber boat using mainly raw fish meat, which contains about 40 percent water (like most living tissues), as well as small amounts of seawater and other provisions harvested from the ocean. His findings were challenged, but an alternative explanation was not given. A few years later, an American sailor and adventurer, William Willis (1893–1968), claimed to have drunk two cups of seawater and one cup of fresh per day for 70 days without ill effect when he lost part of his water supply.\n",
"It is plausible that microbial life originated on Venus if liquid water existed on its surface prior to the heating of the planet by the runaway greenhouse effect, but no longer exists. Assuming the process that delivered water to Earth was common to all the planets near the habitable zone, it has been estimated that liquid water could have existed on its surface for up to 600 million years during and shortly after the Late Heavy Bombardment, which could be enough time for simple life to form, but this figure can vary from as little as a few million years to as much as few billion. This might also have given enough time for microbial life to evolve to be aerial. There has been very little analysis of Venusian surface material, so it is possible that evidence of past life, if it ever existed, could be found with a probe capable of enduring Venus's current extreme surface conditions, although the resurfacing of the planet in the past 500 million years means that it is unlikely that ancient surface rocks remain, especially those containing the mineral tremolite which, theoretically, could have encased some biosignatures.\n",
"This argument could have been made every time a new biological life form was found, and would have been correct every time; however, it is still possible that in the future a biological life form not requiring liquid water could be discovered.\n",
"Even so, volcanic outgassing could not have accounted for the amount of water in Earth's oceans. The vast majority of the water —and arguably carbon— necessary for life must have come from the outer Solar System, away from the Sun's heat, where it could remain solid. Comets impacting with the Earth in the Solar System's early years would have deposited vast amounts of water, along with the other volatile compounds life requires onto the early Earth, providing a kick-start to the origin of life.\n"
] |
is the ability to sing a natural or acquired talent?
|
Check out this interesting [story](_URL_0_) from Radiolab.
|
[
"Musical ability is inherent in almost all people, to a greater or lesser extent. However, those who develop it to a high level are generally encouraged to play an instrument or to sing at an early age. Late bloomers in music are generally composers or artists who became prominent later in life, but had displayed musical ability much earlier.\n",
"Singing wasn't exactly the first talent Led discovered in himself. In fact, he used to dance a lot during school events before learning songs by Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson and Regine Velasquez in his pre adolescent years. He was a subject of bullying because he doesn't look like a typical Filipino. His curly hair, dark skin and body weight became issues of bullying in school which made him shy.\n",
"Some consider that singing is not a natural process but is a skill that requires highly developed muscle reflexes, but others consider that some ways of singing can be considered as natural. Singing does not require much muscle strength but it does require a high degree of muscle coordination. Individuals can develop their voices further through the careful and systematic practice of both songs and vocal exercises. Voice teachers instruct their students to exercise their voices in an intelligent manner. Singers should be thinking constantly about the kind of sound they are making and the kind of sensations they are feeling while they are singing.\n",
"Aspiring singers and vocalists must have musical skill, an excellent voice, the ability to work with people, and a sense of showmanship and drama. Additionally, singers need to have the ambition and drive to continually study and improve,\n",
"It seems that the ability to sing has appeared independently at least two times in birds (possibly three): one in the common ancestor of hummingbirds and another in the common antecesor of songbirds and parrots. They all have in common a number of neuronal circuits that cannot be found in non-vocal learner species. A dN/dS analysis showed conserved evolution in 227 genes, most of which are highly expressed in the regions of the brain that control singing. Furthermore, 20% of them seemed to be regulated by singing.\n",
"While there is no consensus on this point, it is certainly a widely held view among newcomer singers that the singing community is best served if newcomers learn to sing in the way that traditional singers do, at least as far as this concerns rhythm, pitch, and the procedures followed at singing.\n",
"Learning to sing is an activity that benefits from the involvement of an instructor. A singer does not hear the same sounds inside his or her head that others hear outside. Therefore, having a guide who can tell a student what kinds of sounds he or she is producing guides a singer to understand which of the internal sounds correspond to the desired sounds required by the style of singing the student aims to re-create.\n"
] |
Can anyone explain the Mouse Utopia experiments in a less tinfoil-hatty way?
|
To start out, [The Smithsonian](_URL_3_) has a simple but brief overview of the experiments. On the opposite extreme, [Population density, social pathology, and behavioral ecology](_URL_0_) by Jim Moore (unfortunately, behind a paywall) discusses Calhoun's and similar experiments in a fair amount of detail. In particular, it argues that the supposed degradation and "maladaptive" behaviors identified by Calhoun could in fact be explained by simple (but non-linear) behavioral models (basically, he just points out that different strategies are viable at different population densities).
As with many experiments that gain widespread notoriety, the conclusions drawn from Calhoun's experiments among researchers differ somewhat from those drawn by the general public. At the time the experiments were publicized (1960s) overpopulation was a major concern, as was the possibility of "moral decay," and overpopulation remained a major political topic until the 80s. The bleak results of the experiments played into public fears about overpopulation. These days overpopulation is less discussed because of declining birth rates in developed countries, as well as greater focus on other concerns such as global warming and pollution.
In scientific fields the link between population density and social problems, especially crime, had already been under investigation for a while ([example](_URL_5_)). However, greater public interest did lead to more experimentation. Your video seems to mention this briefly, but Calhoun's experiments did not generalize to humans. In fact, the effect of overpopulation on different animals remains a popular topic of study and the results tend to vary quite a bit between species.
To start off with a couple simple examples: clearly bees and ants can live in dense hive structures without great difficulty while animals like lions and whales react very poorly to even modestly small enclosures (much to the dismay of zoos). So the idea that different species react differently shouldn't come as too big of a shock.
To link you a couple studies, overpopulation in [guppies](_URL_2_) leads to more male-male competition (similar to Calhoun's experiments) but not to less copulation (not similar). In chimps higher density was found to [decrease](_URL_1_) aggressive behavior.
Modern researchers have also found results similar to Calhoun's when they study mice while providing more insight into related questions, such as [this study](_URL_4_) which also finds that overpopulation produces particular stress on male mice.
It is worth noting that all of these experiments had slightly different goals and none of them pursued the same "wait until extreme overpopulation is reached" methodology that Calhoun did. Calhoun himself encouraged much of the apocalyptic interpretations, by giving his own experiments evocative names like "Utopia" and "Behavioral Sink." This kind of fanciful description is typically avoided today, because it tends to influence interpretations (see how Jim Moore reinterpreted Calhoun's results above).
|
[
"Mouse Trap is a 1981 arcade maze game developed by Exidy. The game design is similar to \"Pac-Man\", replacing Pac-Man with a mouse, the dots with cheese, the ghosts with cats, and the power pills with bones. The unique element of \"Mouse Trap\" is that color-coded doors in the maze can be toggled by pressing a button of the same color.\n",
"The Utopia Experiment was an experiment by Dylan Evans, set up in the Scottish highlands. It involved the establishing and running of a microcommunity of catastrophists. It was time-limited to 18 months, and served as both a learning community (where everyone had a skill of knowledge they could teach the others) and a working community (where everyone would contribute by working).\n",
"Shannon had developed a maze-solving device which attendees of the Macy Conferences likened to a rat. Shannon’s ‘rat’ was designed and programmed to find its marked goal when dropped at any point in a maze by giving it the ability to recall on past experiences, previous paths it had taken around the maze, so as to help it reach its endpoint - which it did repeatedly.\n",
"The magician John Nevil Maskelyne also criticized the design of the experiment for taking place under a table. The psychologist Millais Culpin wrote the experiment was not scientific and questioned why the experiment was done under the table instead of in a more convenient position on top of it. Before the accordion experiment with Crookes, Home had performed the accordion feat for over fifteen years under various conditions but always under his control. It was reported by sitters and Crookes that Home's accordion played only two pieces, \"Home Sweet Home\" and \"The Last Rose of Summer.\" Both contain only one-octave.\n",
"Mouse Trap (originally titled Mouse Trap Game) is a board game first published by Ideal in 1963 for two to four players. The game was one of the first mass-produced, three-dimensional board games. Over the course of the game, players at first cooperate to build a working Rube Goldberg-like mouse trap. Once the mouse trap has been built, players turn against each other, attempting to trap opponents' mouse-shaped game pieces. \n",
"The original version, designed by Hank Kramer of Ideal Toy Company, allowed the players almost no decision-making, in keeping with other games for very young children such as \"Candyland\", or \"Chutes and Ladders\" (\"Snakes and Ladders\"). In 1975, the board game surrounding the Mouse Trap was redesigned by Sid Sackson, adding the cheese pieces and allowing the player to maneuver opponents onto the trap space. A modified version was released in the United Kingdom in 2004, featuring three mousetraps and a completely different board and plastic components. Characters from the \"Elefun and Friends\" universe were added to a new version in 2014.\n",
"Mouse Trap (originally titled Mouse Trap Game) is a board game first published by Ideal in 1963 for two to four players. The game was one of the first mass-produced, three-dimensional board games. Over the course of the game, players at first cooperate to build a working Rube Goldberg–like mouse trap. Once the mouse trap has been built, players turn against each other, attempting to trap opponents' mouse-shaped game pieces.\n"
] |
What makes an atomic bomb/explosion stop expanding? Why don't atoms continue to split more atoms etc?
|
The short answer is they blow up. Which is to say the stuff needed for the reaction is violently pushed apart. As a result there is only a very narrow time window for the reaction to occur.
There are two types of nuclear weapons:
- Fission (Uranium/Plutonium bombs)
- Fusion (Hydrogen bombs)
It is worth noting that a hydrogen bomb has a fission bomb wrapped around the outside.
In both cases the trick is to mash things together at really high densities to make things work. In the case of a fusion bomb the densities and energies needed are so high that you need a fission bomb around the outside to compress and heat the hydrogen enough to fuse.
Problem is when the reactions occur the forces start pushing out (that is the bomb's "*boom*"). As a result there is only a very small slice of time where the stuff going "*boom*" is in the right conditions to go "*boom*".
I forget the number but the amount of material in a nuclear bomb that actually undergoes fission/fusion is something like a few percent (2-4% of the material). I am probably wrong on that number but it's close.
|
[
"Ordinarily, atoms are mostly electron clouds by volume, with very compact nuclei at the center (proportionally, if atoms were the size of a football stadium, their nuclei would be the size of dust mites). When a stellar core collapses, the pressure causes electrons and protons to fuse by electron capture. Without electrons, which keep nuclei apart, the neutrons collapse into a dense ball (in some ways like a giant atomic nucleus), with a thin overlying layer of degenerate matter (chiefly iron unless matter of different composition is added later). The neutrons resist further compression by the Pauli Exclusion Principle, in a way analogous to electron degeneracy pressure, but stronger.\n",
"For isolated systems (closed to all mass and energy exchange), mass never disappears in the center of momentum frame, because energy cannot disappear. Instead, this equation, in context, means only that when any energy is added to, or escapes from, a system in the center-of-momentum frame, the system will be measured as having gained or lost mass, in proportion to energy added or removed. Thus, in theory, if an atomic bomb were placed in a box strong enough to hold its blast, and detonated upon a scale, the mass of this closed system would not change, and the scale would not move. Only when a transparent \"window\" was opened in the super-strong plasma-filled box, and light and heat were allowed to escape in a beam, and the bomb components to cool, would the system lose the mass associated with the energy of the blast. In a 21 kiloton bomb, for example, about a gram of light and heat is created. If this heat and light were allowed to escape, the remains of the bomb would lose a gram of mass, as it cooled. In this thought-experiment, the light and heat carry away the gram of mass, and would therefore deposit this gram of mass in the objects that absorb them.\n",
"In the shell model, this phenomenon is explained by shell-filling. Successive atoms become smaller because they are filling orbits of the same size, until the orbit is full, at which point the next atom in the table has a loosely bound outer electron, causing it to expand. The first Bohr orbit is filled when it has two electrons, which explains why helium is inert. The second orbit allows eight electrons, and when it is full the atom is neon, again inert. The third orbital contains eight again, except that in the more correct Sommerfeld treatment (reproduced in modern quantum mechanics) there are extra \"d\" electrons. The third orbit may hold an extra 10 d electrons, but these positions are not filled until a few more orbitals from the next level are filled (filling the n=3 d orbitals produces the 10 transition elements). The irregular filling pattern is an effect of interactions between electrons, which are not taken into account in either the Bohr or Sommerfeld models and which are difficult to calculate even in the modern treatment.\n",
"The increasing nuclear charge is partly counterbalanced by the increasing number of electrons, a phenomenon that is known as shielding; which explains why the size of atoms usually increases down each column. However, there is one notable exception, known as the lanthanide contraction: the 5d block of elements are much smaller than one would expect, due to the weak shielding of the 4f electrons.\n",
"Atoms can only be displaced if, upon bombardment, the energy they receive exceeds a threshold energy \"E\". Likewise, when a moving atom collides with a stationary atom, both atoms will have energy greater than \"E\" after the collision only if the original moving atom had an energy exceeding 2\"E\". Thus, only PKAs with an energy greater than 2\"E\" can continue to displace more atoms and increase the total number of displaced atoms. In cases where the PKA does have sufficient energy to displace further atoms, the same truth holds for any subsequently displaced atom.\n",
"For about the next –, the excess electrons remained too energetic to bind with atomic nuclei. What followed is a period known as recombination, when neutral atoms were formed and the expanding universe became transparent to radiation.\n",
"The cause of a surface mottling is more complex. In the initial microseconds after the explosion, a fireball is formed around the bomb by the massive numbers of thermal x-rays released by the explosion process. These x-rays cannot travel very far in the lower atmosphere before reacting with molecules in the air, so the result is a fireball that rapidly forms within about in diameter and does not expand. This is known as a \"radiatively driven\" fireball.\n"
] |
why was cloning such a big deal in the 90's but now is rarely spoken about?
|
There were a lot of breakthroughs in the '90s, and that made it new and exciting and a big deal. And naturally also very blown out of proportion.
There are still advances being made, but nothing huge.
Cloning would not make a species viable, either. You need genetic diversity, which is the exact *opposite* of cloning.
|
[
"President George W. Bush said that human cloning was \"deeply troubling\" to most Americans. Kansas Republican Sam Brownback said that Congress should ban all human cloning, while some Democrats were worried that Clonaid announcement would lead to the banning of therapeutic cloning. FDA biotechnology chief Dr. Phil Noguchi warned that the human cloning, even if it worked, risked transferring sexually transmitted diseases to the newly born child. The White House was also critical of the claims.\n",
"On May 31, 1997, an issue of the popular science magazine \"New Scientist\" said that the International Raëlian Movement was starting a company to fund the research and development of human cloning. This alarmed bioethicists who were opposed to such plans. They warned lawmakers against failing to regulate human cloning. At the time, European countries such as Britain had banned human cloning, but the United States had merely a moratorium on the use of federal funds for human cloning research. U.S. President Bill Clinton requested that private companies pass their own moratorium. Claude Vorilhon, the founder of Raëlism, was opposed to this move and denied that the technology used to clone was inherently dangerous.\n",
"The Humane Society of the United States and other animal welfare groups denounced the cloning, saying that the $50,000 could have been better used to save some of the millions of animals euthanized each year.\n",
"Although the possibility of cloning humans had been the subject of speculation for much of the 20th century, scientists and policy makers began to take the prospect seriously in the mid-1960s. J. B. S. Haldane was the first to introduce the idea of human cloning, for which he used the terms \"clone\" and \"cloning\", which had been used in agriculture since the early 20th century. In his speech on \"Biological Possibilities for the Human Species of the Next Ten Thousand Years\" at the \"Ciba Foundation Symposium on Man and his Future\" in 1963, he said:\n",
"The Food and Drug Administration stated its intention to investigate Clonaid to see if it had done anything illegal. The FDA contended that its regulations forbid human cloning without prior agency permission. However, some members of the United States Congress believed that the jurisdiction of the FDA on human cloning matters was shaky and decided to push Congress to explicitly ban human cloning.\n",
"Science fiction has used cloning, most commonly and specifically human cloning, due to the fact that it brings up controversial questions of identity. Humorous fiction, such as \"Multiplicity\" (1996) and the Maxwell Smart feature \"The Nude Bomb\" (1980), have featured human cloning. A recurring sub-theme of cloning fiction is the use of clones as a supply of organs for transplantation. Robin Cook's 1997 novel \"Chromosome 6\" and Michael Bay's \"The Island\" are examples of this; \"Chromosome 6\" also features genetic manipulation and xenotransplantation. The series Orphan Black follows human clones' stories and experiences as they deal with issues and react to being the property of a chain of scientific institutions. In the 2019 horror film Us, the entirety of the United States' population is secretly cloned. Years later, these clones reveal themselves to the world by successfully pulling off a mass genocide of their counterparts.\n",
"The Church of England put out a statement on the Church's website which reads, \"human reproductive cloning was made unlawful by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Few members of the Church of England would dissent from such a position. However, therapeutic cloning may be thought of as ethical, as it does not result in another human being.\" Thus, while reproductive cloning is again discouraged, therapeutic cloning is more acceptable.\n"
] |
Does the confirmation of the Higgs Boson have any implications for String Theory? Does it strengthen it, weaken it, or have no effect?
|
Little effect, there are some theories with large extra dimensions that would require no Higgs (they have their own mechanism producing the same end effect without adding a boson), so those theories are probably feeling it a bit, but otherwise it sheds little light on the landscape.
|
[
"An initial focus of research was to investigate the possible existence of the Higgs boson, a key part of the Standard Model of physics which is predicted by theory but had not yet been observed before due to its high mass and elusive nature. CERN scientists estimated that, if the Standard Model were correct, the LHC would produce several Higgs bosons every minute, allowing physicists to finally confirm or disprove the Higgs boson's existence. In addition, the LHC allowed the search for supersymmetric particles and other hypothetical particles as possible unknown areas of physics. Some extensions of the Standard Model predict additional particles, such as the heavy W' and Z' gauge bosons, which are also estimated to be within reach of the LHC to discover.\n",
"Following the 2012 discovery, it was still unconfirmed whether or not the 125 GeV/\"c\" particle was a Higgs boson. On one hand, observations remained consistent with the observed particle being the Standard Model Higgs boson, and the particle decayed into at least some of the predicted channels. Moreover, the production rates and branching ratios for the observed channels broadly matched the predictions by the Standard Model within the experimental uncertainties. However, the experimental uncertainties currently still left room for alternative explanations, meaning an announcement of the discovery of a Higgs boson would have been premature. To allow more opportunity for data collection, the LHC's proposed 2012 shutdown and 2013–14 upgrade were postponed by 7 weeks into 2013.\n",
"Evidence of the Higgs field and its properties has been extremely significant for many reasons. The importance of the Higgs boson is largely that it is able to be examined using existing knowledge and experimental technology, as a way to confirm and study the entire Higgs field theory. Conversely, proof that the Higgs field and boson do \"not\" exist would have also been significant.\n",
"Because the Higgs boson is a very massive particle and also decays almost immediately when created, only a very high-energy particle accelerator can observe and record it. Experiments to confirm and determine the nature of the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN began in early 2010 and were performed at Fermilab's Tevatron until its closure in late 2011. Mathematical consistency of the Standard Model requires that any mechanism capable of generating the masses of elementary particles becomes visible at energies above ; therefore, the LHC (designed to collide two proton beams) was built to answer the question of whether the Higgs boson actually exists.\n",
"The Higgs boson validates the Standard Model through the mechanism of mass generation. As more precise measurements of its properties are made, more advanced extensions may be suggested or excluded. As experimental means to measure the field's behaviours and interactions are developed, this fundamental field may be better understood. If the Higgs field had not been discovered, the Standard Model would have needed to be modified or superseded.\n",
"In this scenario the existence of the Higgs boson follows from the symmetries of the theory. This allows to explain why this particle is lighter than the rest of the composite particles whose mass is expected from direct and indirect tests to be around a TeV or higher. It is assumed that the composite sector has a global symmetry G spontaneously broken to a subgroup H where G and H are compact Lie groups. Contrary to technicolor models the unbroken symmetry must contain the SM electro-weak group SU(2)xU(1). According to Goldstone's theorem the spontaneous breaking of a global symmetry produces massless scalar particles known as Goldstone bosons. By appropriately choosing the global symmetries it is possible to have Goldstone bosons that correspond to the Higgs doublet in the SM. This can be done in a variety of ways and is completely determined by the symmetries. In particular group theory determines the quantum numbers of the Goldstone bosons. From the decomposition of the adjoint representation one finds,\n",
"Confirmation of the Higgs boson or something very much like it would constitute a rendezvous with destiny for a generation of physicists who have believed the boson existed for half a century without ever seeing it. Further, it affirms a grand view of a universe ruled by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws, but in which everything interesting in it being a result of flaws or breaks in that symmetry. According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only visible and particular manifestation of an invisible force field that permeates space and imbues elementary particles that would otherwise be massless with mass. Without this Higgs field, or something like it, physicists say all the elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light; there would be neither atoms nor life. The Higgs boson achieved a notoriety rare for abstract physics. To the eternal dismay of his colleagues, Leon Lederman, the former director of Fermilab, called it the \"God particle\" in his book of the same name, later quipping that he had wanted to call it \"the goddamn particle\". Professor Incandela also stated,\n"
] |
Why was Pilot Wave Theory / de Broglie-Bohm theory considered controversial and ultimately discarded by most physicists? What does it mean for a theory to be nonlocal? What paradoxes would be created by combining relativity and de Broglie-Bohm?
|
As a general rue any "interpretation" of quantum mechanics better be *especially* compelling in order to gain significant traction with physicists, because interpretations of quantum mechanics are a branch of philosophy, not science. One of the main reasons de Broglie-Bohm theory isn't *especially* compelling is its non-locality. What this means is that the pilot wave in the theory (the wave that guides the particle) can send signals to itself faster than the speed of light. Now due to the way the theory is constructed, this can never be used to actually send information faster than light in practice. You don't ever see the pilot wave (it is a "hidden variable"); only the particle. Nevertheless if you take the theory seriously, you must contend with the fact that the theory includes as "real" objects that travel faster than light, and therefore violate special relativity. Why is this a problem? Well again it's not a problem *scientifically*, since you don't ever see the pilot wave. But it is a problem philosophically if you take it seriously, because faster-than-light motion results in causal paradoxes. The reason is that if A follows B in one reference frame, and the distance between A and B is farther than light could have traveled in the time between A and B, then when viewed in another reference frame moving at a different velocity, B will follow A. See the wikipedia article about the [tachyonic antitelephone](_URL_0_) for more discussion. More generally, violation of relativity just seems *wrong* to most physicists; it is a simple and beautiful symmetry of nature that has an impeccable record of not only passing every experimental test, but of making surprising predictions (like antiparticles) that have turned out to be correct. Sure it's *possible* that relativity is violated in some *hidden variable* but remains true experimentally, but such baggage seems unnecessary given some of the other compelling interpretations of QM that have gained traction with physicists.
|
[
"Pilot-wave theory is explicitly nonlocal, which is in ostensible conflict with special relativity. Various extensions of \"Bohm-like\" mechanics exist that attempt to resolve this problem. Bohm himself in 1953 presented an extension of the theory satisfying the Dirac equation for a single particle. However, this was not extensible to the many-particle case because it used an absolute time.\n",
"The de Broglie–Bohm theory of quantum mechanics (also known as the pilot wave theory) is a theory by Louis de Broglie and extended later by David Bohm to include measurements. Particles, which always have positions, are guided by the wavefunction. The wavefunction evolves according to the Schrödinger wave equation, and the wavefunction never collapses. The theory takes place in a single space-time, is non-local, and is deterministic. The simultaneous determination of a particle's position and velocity is subject to the usual uncertainty principle constraint. The theory is considered to be a hidden-variable theory, and by embracing non-locality it satisfies Bell's inequality. The measurement problem is resolved, since the particles have definite positions at all times. Collapse is explained as phenomenological.\n",
"The theory was historically developed in the 1920s by de Broglie, who, in 1927, was persuaded to abandon it in favour of the then-mainstream Copenhagen interpretation. David Bohm, dissatisfied with the prevailing orthodoxy, rediscovered de Broglie's pilot-wave theory in 1952. Bohm's suggestions were not then widely received, partly due to reasons unrelated to their content, but instead were connected to Bohm's youthful communist affiliations. De Broglie–Bohm theory was widely deemed unacceptable by mainstream theorists, mostly because of its explicit non-locality. Bell's theorem (1964) was inspired by Bell's discovery of the work of David Bohm and his subsequent wondering whether the obvious nonlocality of the theory could be eliminated. Since the 1990s, there has been renewed interest in formulating extensions to de Broglie–Bohm theory, attempting to reconcile it with special relativity and quantum field theory, besides other features such as spin or curved spatial geometries.\n",
"The de Broglie–Bohm theory itself might have gone unnoticed by most physicists, if it had not been championed by John Bell, who also countered the objections to it. In 1987, John Bell rediscovered Grete Hermann's work, and thus showed the physics community that Pauli's and von Neumann's objections \"only\" showed that the pilot wave theory did not have locality. \n",
"The de Broglie–Bohm theory itself might have gone unnoticed by most physicists, if it had not been championed by John Bell, who also countered the objections to it. In 1987, John Bell rediscovered Grete Hermann's work, and thus showed the physics community that Pauli's and von Neumann's objections \"only\" showed that the pilot wave theory did not have locality.\n",
"The de Broglie–Bohm theory, also known as the pilot wave theory, Bohmian mechanics, Bohm's interpretation, and the causal interpretation, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics. In addition to a wavefunction on the space of all possible configurations, it also postulates an actual configuration that exists even when unobserved. The evolution over time of the configuration (that is, the positions of all particles or the configuration of all fields) is defined by the wave function by a guiding equation. The evolution of the wave function over time is given by the Schrödinger equation. The theory is named after Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) and David Bohm (1917–1992).\n",
"Its more modern version, the de Broglie–Bohm theory, interprets quantum mechanics as a deterministic theory, avoiding troublesome notions such as wave–particle duality, instantaneous wave function collapse, and the paradox of Schrödinger's cat. To solve these problems, the theory is inherently nonlocal and non-relativistic.\n"
] |
How did the Bismarck compare technologically to the allied fleet?
|
It was essentially a 1915 design copy pasted to the 1930s. With a newer model of gun, and some new engines.
What that meant was she was still hindered by the expectation of a short range brawl in the North Sea. Where stopping shells coming horizontally was the key. But even during WW1 increasing ranges meant that fire would be coming down at a very steep plunging direction.
But her double armoured deck and turtle back scheme was problematic. It meant that while certain key areas were protected, the top armor might deflect a shell into other key areas which would then be penetrated and destroyed. There was also the problem that a small volume was protected this way than peer ships. Meaning that she had less reserve buoyancy. In general German heavy ships were hard to sink by gunfire, but could be made impotent quickly. And as soon as they started to flood it was all over.
There were also serious issues with her ability to handle after a problem to a propeller or rudder that were demonstrated on her final voyage. And concerns about the placement and forget if her armour belt on the sides. And her fire control scheme, and poorly placed radar position.
And finally her armament didn't help her. While all ships in 1941 were light on AA, Bismarck's reliance on a mixed battery of single purpose guns meant she was getting less bang for her buck and thus less protection.
/u/fourthmaninaboat and /u/jschooltiger actually had a wonderful conversation on this topic in a thread last week.
|
[
"Despite the fact that Raeder and other senior naval officers envisioned using \"Bismarck\" and \"Tirpitz\" as commerce raiders against first French and later British shipping in the Atlantic, and in fact used them in that role during World War II, the ships were not designed for that mission. Their steam turbines did not afford the necessary cruising radius for such a role, and many of the decisions made for the ships' armament and armor layout reflect the expectation to fight a traditional naval battle at relatively close range in the North Sea. The disconnect between how \"Bismarck\" and \"Tirpitz\" were designed and how they were ultimately used represents the strategic incoherence that dominated German naval construction in the 1930s.\n",
"\"Bismarck\" displaced as built and fully loaded, with an overall length of , a beam of and a maximum draft of . The battleship was Germany's largest warship, and displaced more than any other European battleship, with the exception of , commissioned after the end of the war. \"Bismarck\" was powered by three Blohm & Voss geared steam turbines and twelve oil-fired Wagner superheated boilers, which developed a total of and yielded a maximum speed of on speed trials. The ship had a cruising range of at . \"Bismarck\" was equipped with three FuMO 23 search radar sets, mounted on the forward and stern rangefinders and foretop.\n",
"The \"Bismarck\" class was a pair of fast battleships built for Nazi Germany's \"Kriegsmarine\" shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The ships were the largest and most powerful warships built for the \"Kriegsmarine\"; displacing more than normally, they were armed with a battery of eight guns and were capable of a top speed of . was laid down in July 1936 and completed in September 1940, while her sister s keel was laid in October 1936 and work finished in February 1941. The ships were ordered in response to the French s and they were designed with the traditional role of engaging enemy battleships in home waters in mind, though the German naval command envisioned employing the ships as long-range commerce raiders against British shipping in the Atlantic Ocean. As such, their design represented strategic confusion that dominated German naval construction in the 1930s.\n",
"As built, the \"Bismarck\"-class ships were equipped with a full ship rig to supplement their steam engines on overseas cruising missions, but this was later reduced, and \"Blücher\" had her rigging removed altogether. Steering was controlled with a single rudder. The vessels were good sea boats, but they made bad leeway in even mild winds and they were difficult to maneuver. They lost a significant amount of speed in a head sea, and they had limited performance under sail.\n",
"When \"Bismarck\" was in Norway, a pair of Bf 109 fighters circled overhead to protect her from British air attacks, but Flying Officer Michael Suckling managed to fly his Spitfire directly over the German flotilla at a height of and take photos of \"Bismarck\" and her escorts. Upon receipt of the information, Admiral John Tovey ordered the battlecruiser , the newly commissioned battleship , and six destroyers to reinforce the pair of cruisers patrolling the Denmark Strait. The rest of the Home Fleet was placed on high alert in Scapa Flow. Eighteen bombers were dispatched to attack the Germans, but weather over the fjord had worsened and they were unable to find the German warships.\n",
"\"Bismarck Sea\" was a Casablanca-class escort carrier, the most numerous type of aircraft carriers ever built, and designed specifically to be mass-produced using prefabricated sections, in order to replace heavy early war losses. Standardized with her sister ships, she was long overall, had a beam of , and a draft of . She displaced standard, with a full load. She had a long hangar deck, a long flight deck. She was powered with two Uniflow reciprocating steam engines, which provided a force of 9000 horsepower, driving two shafts, enabling her to make . The ship had a cruising range of , assuming that she traveled at a constant speed of . Her compact size necessitated the installment of an aircraft catapult at her bow end, and there were two aircraft elevators to facilitate movement of aircraft between the flight and hangar deck: one on the fore, another on the aft.\n",
"The \"Bismarck\"-class ships both had three sets of geared turbine engines; \"Bismarck\" was equipped with Blohm & Voss turbines, while \"Tirpitz\" used Brown, Boveri, and Co. engines. Each set of turbines drove a 3-bladed screw that was in diameter. The three-shaft arrangement was chosen over a four-shaft system, as was typically used on foreign capital ships, since it would save weight. At a full load, the high and medium-pressure turbines ran at 2,825 rpm, while the low-pressure turbines ran at 2,390 rpm. The ships' turbines were powered by twelve Wagner ultra high-pressure, oil-burning water-tube boilers. \"Bismarck\" and \"Tirpitz\" were originally intended to use electric-transmission turbines that would have produced apiece. These engines would have provided for a higher top speed, but at the cost of greater weight. The geared turbines were significantly lighter, and as a result had a slight performance advantage. The geared turbines also had a significantly more robust construction, and so they were adopted instead.\n"
] |
What would happen if you swallowed gasoline? Say maybe 8 oz and no vomiting.
|
First off, it would be best to call poison control immediately and follow their instructions, but since that's not what you're asking, I'll give it a go: 8oz is not enough to kill (depending on the size of the person). If you ingest the gasoline, you will vomit as it is recognized as a poison by the body and will likely make you very sick for several hours. Water and milk are good to coat the stomach and flush out the poison.
That all being said, if you were to develop cold or flu like symptoms or if you drank twelve or more ounces, it's time to go to the hospital.
Hope that helps.
|
[
"Contrary to common misconception, swallowing gasoline does not generally require special emergency treatment, and inducing vomiting does not help, and can make it worse. According to poison specialist Brad Dahl, \"even two mouthfuls wouldn't be that dangerous as long as it goes down to your stomach and stays there or keeps going.\" The US CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says not to induce vomiting, lavage, or administer activated charcoal.\n",
"Concentrated solutions when drunk have resulted in adult respiratory distress syndrome or swelling of the airway. Recommended measures for those who have ingested potassium permanganate include gastroscopy. Activated charcoal or medications to cause vomiting are not recommended. While medications like ranitidine and N-acetylcysteine may be used in toxicity, evidence for this use is poor.\n",
"Vomiting is dangerous if gastric content enters the respiratory tract. Under normal circumstances the gag reflex and coughing prevent this from occurring; however, these protective reflexes are compromised in persons under the influence of certain substances (including alcohol) or even mildly anesthetized. The individual may choke and asphyxiate or suffer aspiration pneumonia.\n",
"Pure ethanol will irritate the skin and eyes. Nausea, vomiting, and intoxication are symptoms of ingestion. Long-term use by ingestion can result in serious liver damage. Atmospheric concentrations above one in a thousand are above the European Union occupational exposure limits.\n",
"Self reports from another study showed that 63% of patients in the study gulped their drinks rather than sipped. Five patients recollected vomiting during the drinking episode while 32 drank on an empty stomach and 41 drank more than originally planned. During the drinking episode 31% subjects described blackouts, 20% described brownouts, and 49% reported no amnesic episode.\n",
"The oral median lethal dose (LD) of ethanol in rats is 5,628 mg/kg. Directly translated to human beings, this would mean that if a person who weighs drank a glass of pure ethanol, they would theoretically have a 50% risk of dying. Symptoms of ethanol overdose may include nausea, vomiting, central nervous system depression, coma, acute respiratory failure, or death.\n",
"BULLET::::- disulfiram (Antabuse) – inhibits enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, causing acetaldehyde poisoning when ethanol is consumed; used to cause severe hangover when drinking; increases liver, kidney, and brain damage from drinking.\n"
] |
why do i physically feel horrible immediately when seeing gory photos?
|
This is an evolutionary "trait" of sorts. Similar to how some people faint after seeing blood.
My guess would be that humans subconsciously see blood and gore as 'something that's gone terribly wrong' and should be heeded as a warning. After all, if you saw someone suddenly shot and bleeding, wouldn't you be somewhat shocked?
|
[
"\"When I saw these pictures, it really freaked me out,\" said Jalil Hasan. His mother said: \"Right now I feel very violated ... When I'm looking at these pictures, and I'm looking at these snapshots, I'm feeling, 'Where did I send my child?'\"\n",
"it's ... the spectacle of the thing, right? You really want to be there when the person is seeing it. To the extent that there's all these sites online of sort of people taking pictures of their friends and showing them Goatse... [In photos online,] It's like thousands and thousands of people looking really shocked or disgusted. It's really great.\n",
"It's uncomfortable because I just simply took a photograph. That's all my participation was in my poster that sold over a million copies, was that I took a photograph that I thought was a dumb photograph. My husband said, \"Oh, try this thing tied up here, it'll look beautiful\". And the photographer said \"the back-lighting is really terrific\". So dealing with someone having that picture up in their... bedroom or their... living room or whatever I think would be hard for anyone to deal with.\n",
"Even though it would be great to hear many nice words about it but getting away from that, I thought that I should do something that I have never done before, and it attracted many people's attention on it... Even then, I think they will say 'What's this?' when they see the photo. Besides cursing over the photo, I am thankful simply that they found and saw the photo.\n",
"\"I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things. I mean it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- \"\"To involve the public, you have to make each of your pictures a thousand times more spectacular than what you might see on the most exquisite day – otherwise you’ll never convey even one-tenth of what it feels like to be out there on the dullest gray day when nothing’s going on.\"\" Bob Walker (Beaver, Christopher, \"After the Storm: Bob Walker and the East Bay Regional Park District\")\n",
"Severe or chronic photophobia, such as in migraine or seizure disorder, may result in a person not feeling well with eye ache, headache and/or neck ache. These symptoms may persist for days even after the person is no longer exposed to the offensive light source. Further, once the eyes have become sensitized to the offensive light source (which can occur even in short duration exposures), they may become even more photosensitive with extreme pain occurring upon exposure to light.\n"
] |
Question about concave mirrors, projectors, and real images.
|
[This is in fact almost exactly how flight simulators work.](_URL_0_) The key to it is a collimating lens that means the user doesn't have to sit in a precise spot and the image truly feels 3 dimensional. Check out the linked wikipedia article for a good diagram (that, good for you, looks almost exactly like your diagram).
All you would need to do is add the touch/motion sensing.
|
[
"Parabolic reflectors are popular for use in creating optical illusions. These consist of two opposing parabolic mirrors, with an opening in the center of the top mirror. When an object is placed on the bottom mirror, the mirrors create a real image, which is a virtually identical copy of the original that appears in the opening. The quality of the image is dependent upon the precision of the optics. Some such illusions are manufactured to tolerances of millionths of an inch.\n",
"The inverted real image of an object reflected by a concave mirror can appear at the focal point in front of the mirror. In a construction with an object at the bottom of two opposing concave mirrors (parabolic reflectors) on top of each other, the top one with an opening in its center, the reflected image can appear at the opening as a very convincing 3D optical illusion.\n",
"A concave mirror, or converging mirror, has a reflecting surface that is recessed inward (away from the incident light). Concave mirrors reflect light inward to one focal point. They are used to focus light. Unlike convex mirrors, concave mirrors show different image types depending on the distance between the object and the mirror.\n",
"A convex mirror or diverging mirror is a curved mirror in which the reflective surface bulges towards the light source. Convex mirrors reflect light outwards, therefore they are not used to focus light. Such mirrors always form a virtual image, since the focal point (\"F\") and the centre of curvature (\"2F\") are both imaginary points \"inside\" the mirror, that cannot be reached. As a result, images formed by these mirrors cannot be projected on a screen, since the image is inside the mirror. The image is smaller than the object, but gets larger as the object approaches the mirror.\n",
"The biggest advantage of catadioptric systems (panoramic mirror lenses) is that because one uses mirrors to bend the light rays instead of lenses (like fish eye), the image has almost no chromatic aberrations or distortions. The image, a reflection of the surface on the mirror, is in the form of a doughnut to which software is applied in order to create a flat panoramic picture. Such software is normally supplied by the company who produces the system. Because the complete panorama is imaged at once, dynamic scenes can be captured without problems. Panoramic video can be captured and has found applications in robotics and journalism. The mirror lens system uses only a partial section of the digital camera's sensor and therefore some pixels are not used. Recommendations are always to use a camera with a high pixel count in order to maximize the resolution of the final image.\n",
"A pseudoscope is a binocular optical instrument that reverses depth perception. It is used to study human stereoscopic perception. Objects viewed through it appear inside out, for example: a box on a floor would appear as a box shaped hole in the floor.\n",
"With mirror anamorphosis, a conical or cylindrical mirror is placed on the drawing or painting to transform a flat distorted image into an apparently undistorted picture. The deformed image is created by using the laws of the angles of the incidence of reflection. This reduces the length of the flat drawing's curves when the image is viewed in a curved mirror, so that the distortions resolve into a recognizable picture. Unlike perspective anamorphosis, catoptric images can be viewed from many angles. The technique was originally developed in China during the Ming Dynasty. The first European manual on mirror anamorphosis was published around 1630 by the mathematician Vaulezard.\n"
] |
I'm a king in an average sized European castle in the Middle Ages. How do I get candles? Surely my candle use would be enormous. Do I have a guy whose sole job is candle maker, or do I have to import them from somewhere else?
|
I completely love this question.
The courts of the late Middle Ages used an absolutely *mind-blowing* amount of lighting--individual tapers, full candelabras and chandeliers, larger torches when brighter light was culturally significant. (For example, on either side of the altar at Mass, or using twice as many to light the duke of Burgundy's dining table as the table of his relatives/rivals.) To give just one example, when Edward I lay in state following his death in 1307, the royal household purchased *843 pounds* of wax for candles to surround his body. A *minor* court official under him would still receive a candlelit wake of 300 candles. Yes, supplied by the royal family--in fact, distribution of candles as gifts/livery to court members was a *major* drain on medieval royal wax resources.
When it came to acquisition of necessary goods in late medieval royal courts, Malcolm Vale argues that it was almost always the case that the king relied upon a group of outside merchants for the supply, rather than having designated "court artists" to provide e.g. furniture or tapestries. (Often, though, the same names appear in records at numerous points in a king's reign, suggesting the existence of favorites/known reliable workers to turn to). It was little different with candles.
Responsibility for the acquisition of candles and related goods in the court culture orbit of late medieval Burgunday-France-England generally lay with a designated official of the king's household. Often candles, specifically, were the responsibility of someone with another central task--but not always the same task. French king Philip the Fair, for example, had a specific staff dedicated to making sure fruit, dates, and nuts appeared on all tables at meals. One or more of these *fruitiers* was responsible for the acquisition of "candles and wax" and "great torches." And not just for meals, either. Household accounts often add "for the chapel" or "for the Mass-altar" or some such.
Meanwhile, under Henry III of England, a *goldsmith* actually seems to have been in charge of candle selection! Edward Fitz Odo was an "ascended craftsman" of sorts--he was actually responsible for overseeing a *lot* of the artistic-type needs of the court. He would find and hire painters for ever-more elaborate decoration of the royal chamber (four Gospel authors for four walls, amirite?)--and sometimes, it seems, for new *construction* on the castle. Among Odo's responsibilities was, you guessed it, acquiring the candles needed to put on the proper show.
One thing I'm really intrigued by is the way many of the primary sources (quoted by Vale, and then a few I found via typing phrases in Google because *that is how I roll*) distinguish between "candles" and "wax." I'm not sure if this means that lump beeswax was acquired, at which point the household organizer would also have to have hired chandlers to finish the job; or if we are to make a distinction between *wax* candles and *tallow* candles. I would honestly assume the latter, except tallow candles are generally associated with middle/lower classes, being cheaper but less user-friendly. And if we're dealing with people who can burn down *843 pounds of wax* for a *dead body*, cost is probably not the first factor on their minds.
|
[
"During the Middle Ages, tallow candles were most commonly used. By the 13th century, candle making had become a guild craft in England and France. The candle makers (chandlers) went from house to house making candles from the kitchen fats saved for that purpose, or made and sold their own candles from small candle shops. Beeswax, compared to animal-based tallow, burned cleanly, without smoky flame. Beeswax candles were expensive, and relatively few people could afford to burn them in their homes in medieval Europe. However, they were widely used for church ceremonies.\n",
"Candles were commonplace throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Candle makers (known as chandlers) made candles from fats saved from the kitchen or sold their own candles from within their shops. The trade of the chandler is also recorded by the more picturesque name of \"smeremongere\", since they oversaw the manufacture of sauces, vinegar, soap and cheese. The popularity of candles is shown by their use in Candlemas and in Saint Lucy festivities.\n",
"The earliest candle chandeliers were used by the wealthy in medieval times; this type of chandelier could be moved to different rooms. From the 15th century, more complex forms of chandeliers, based on ring or crown designs, became popular decorative features in palaces and homes of nobility, clergy and merchants. Their high cost made chandeliers symbols of luxury and status.\n",
"In England and France, candle making had become a guild craft by the 13th century. The Tallow Chandlers Company of London was formed in about 1300 in London, and in 1456 was granted a coat of arms. The Wax Chandlers Company existed prior to 1330 and acquired its charter in 1484. By 1415, tallow candles were used in street lighting. The first candle mould comes from the 15th century in Paris.\n",
"In parts of Europe, the Middle-East and Africa, where lamp oil made from olives was readily available, candle making remained unknown until the early middle-ages. Candles were primarily made from tallow and beeswax in ancient times, but have been made from spermaceti, purified animal fats (stearin) and paraffin wax in recent centuries.\n",
"By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. Wax candles, expensive items at the time, are found in attestations from the late 18th century.\n",
"In the [medieval] Church, Paschal candles often reached a stupendous size. The Paschal candle of Salisbury Cathedral was said to have been 36 feet (11 meters) tall. Today, in the United States and Southern Europe (e.g., Italy and France) the candle is approximately 2 inches in diameter and 36 to 48 inches tall; in Northern Europe the candle tends to be shorter in height (19 to 24 inches) and wider in diameter (3 to 5 inches).\n"
] |
How do scientist know (what evidence is there) to show the decay rates of isotopes, such as carbon 14?
|
Radioactive decay is probabilisitc. What that means is that, in a given time period there is a 50% chance a particular nucleus will undergo spontaneous decay. So if you take a large number of them, half of them will have decayed in that time frame. That is why it's called a half life. If you wait a further half life, half of what you had remaining will now also have decayed. And so on
Now, the great thing with this is that there are many, many different isotopes, all of different stability. So they each have different half lives.
Now, if the half lives did not remain constant through time, it would be impossible to draw any comparisons between these different systems. However, what we see is that each isotope system is consistent with the others. So if I get a date using, say K-Ar dating, I will find the same date using U-Pb or Sm-Nd dating etc^* .
So, if I take isotope X which has a half life of 5 years, and isotope Y with a half life of 20 years, put a known volume of each in a box, and come back and measure them in 20 years, I'll have have half of my original Y isotope, and 1/16th of my original X isotope.
Even better than that, we can calibrate back into the geological record (at least some way) using stuff like ice cores, tree rings, varved sediments and fission track analysis to double check our maths (at least on the younger samples).
^* this is of course an oversimplification, as many isotopic systems can only be used in certain circumstances (i.e. when the parent, stable and daughter isotopes are in high enough concentrations to measure which will depend on rock type) and we have to be aware of potential complications such as metamorphic history, weathering etc which will can introduce inaccuracies. But careful sample collection and preparation does allow us to check these clocks against each other, and we get stunningly good agreement.
|
[
"By measuring the amount of radioactive decay of a radioactive isotope with a known half-life, geologists can establish the absolute age of the parent material. A number of radioactive isotopes are used for this purpose, and depending on the rate of decay, are used for dating different geological periods. More slowly decaying isotopes are useful for longer periods of time, but less accurate in absolute years. With the exception of the radiocarbon method, most of these techniques are actually based on measuring an increase in the abundance of a radiogenic isotope, which is the decay-product of the radioactive parent isotope. Two or more radiometric methods can be used in concert to achieve more robust results. Most radiometric methods are suitable for geological time only, but some such as the radiocarbon method and the Ar/Ar dating method can be extended into the time of early human life and into recorded history.\n",
"All methods based on the radioactive decay belong to this category. The principle at the base of radiometric dating is that natural unstable isotopes, called 'parent isotopes', decay to some isotope which is instead stable, called the 'daughter isotope'. Under the assumptions that (1) the initial amount of parent and daughter isotopes can be estimated, and (2) after the geologic material formed, parent and daughter isotopes did not escape the system, the age of the material can be obtained from the measurement of isotope concentrations, through the laws of radioactive decay.\n",
"The constancy of the decay rates of isotopes is well supported in science. Evidence for this constancy includes the correspondences of date estimates taken from different radioactive isotopes as well as correspondences with non-radiometric dating techniques such as dendrochronology, ice core dating, and historical records. Although scientists have noted slight increases in the decay rate for isotopes subject to extreme pressures, those differences were too small to significantly impact date estimates. The constancy of the decay rates is also governed by first principles in quantum mechanics, wherein any deviation in the rate would require a change in the fundamental constants. According to these principles, a change in the fundamental constants could not influence different elements uniformly, and a comparison between each of the elements' resulting unique chronological timescales would then give inconsistent time estimates.\n",
"Unstable isotopes decay at predictable rates, and the decay rates of different isotopes cover several orders of magnitude, so radioactive decay can be used to accurately date both recent events and events in past geologic eras. Radiometric mapping using ground and airborne gamma spectrometry can be used to map the concentration and distribution of radioisotopes near the Earth's surface, which is useful for mapping lithology and alteration.\n",
"The following table lists some of the most important radiogenic isotope systems used in geology, in order of decreasing half-life of the radioactive parent isotope. The values given for half-life and decay constant are the current consensus values in the Isotope Geology community. ** indicates ultimate decay product of a series.\n",
" Radiocarbon dating is also simply called Carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon, with a half-life of 5,730 years (which is very short compared with the above isotopes), and decays into nitrogen. In other radiometric dating methods, the heavy parent isotopes were produced by nucleosynthesis in supernovas, meaning that any parent isotope with a short half-life should be extinct by now. Carbon-14, though, is continuously created through collisions of neutrons generated by cosmic rays with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere and thus remains at a near-constant level on Earth. The carbon-14 ends up as a trace component in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO).\n",
"Thirty radioisotopes have been characterised, which range in mass number from 209 to 238. After Th, the most stable of them (with respective half-lives) are Th (75,380 years), Th (7,340 years), Th (1.92 years), Th (24.10 days), and Th (18.68 days). All of these isotopes occur in nature as trace radioisotopes due to their presence in the decay chains of Th, U, U, and Np: the last of these is long extinct in nature due to its short half-life (2.14 million years), but is continually produced in minute traces from neutron capture in uranium ores. All of the remaining thorium isotopes have half-lives that are less than thirty days and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than ten minutes.\n"
] |
what is frequency modulation and how are it's uses different from amplitude modulation?
|
FM would be like sending a signal by changing the color of the light or pitch of the sound, while AM is like changing the brightness of the light or the loudness of the sound.
|
[
"Frequency modulation and phase modulation are the two complementary principal methods of angle modulation; phase modulation is often used as an intermediate step to achieve frequency modulation. These methods contrast with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier wave varies, while the frequency and phase remain constant.\n",
"Frequency modulation is widely used for FM radio broadcasting. It is also used in telemetry, radar, seismic prospecting, and monitoring newborns for seizures via EEG, two-way radio systems, music synthesis, magnetic tape-recording systems and some video-transmission systems. In radio transmission, an advantage of frequency modulation is that it has a larger signal-to-noise ratio and therefore rejects radio frequency interference better than an equal power amplitude modulation (AM) signal. For this reason, most music is broadcast over FM radio.\n",
"Frequency modulation or FM is a form of modulation which conveys information by varying the frequency of a carrier wave; the older amplitude modulation or AM varies the amplitude of the carrier, with its frequency remaining constant. With FM, frequency deviation from the assigned carrier frequency at any instant is directly proportional to the amplitude of the input signal, determining the instantaneous frequency of the transmitted signal. Because transmitted FM signals use more bandwidth than AM signals, this form of modulation is commonly used with the higher (VHF or UHF) frequencies used by TV, the FM broadcast band, and land mobile radio systems.\n",
"Angle modulation is a class of carrier modulation that is used in telecommunications transmission systems. The class comprises frequency modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM), and is based on altering the frequency or the phase, respectively, of a carrier signal to encode the message signal. This contrasts with varying the amplitude of the carrier, practiced in amplitude modulation (AM) transmission, the earliest of the major modulation methods used widely in early radio broadcasting.\n",
"Frequency modulation generates high quality audio and greatly reduces the amount of noise on the channel when compared with amplitude modulation. Early broadcasters used amplitude modulation because it was easier to generate than frequency modulation and because the receivers were simpler to make. The electronics theory indicated that a frequency modulated signal would have infinite bandwidth; for an amplitude modulated signal, the bandwidth is approximately twice the highest modulating frequency.\n",
"Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis where the frequency of a waveform, called the carrier, is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The frequency of an oscillator is altered \"in accordance with the amplitude of a modulating signal.\" \n",
"Amplitude modulation (AM) is a modulation technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. In amplitude modulation, the amplitude (signal strength) of the carrier wave is varied in proportion to that of the message signal being transmitted. The message signal is, for example, a function of the sound to be reproduced by a loudspeaker, or the light intensity of pixels of a television screen. This technique contrasts with frequency modulation, in which the frequency of the carrier signal is varied, and phase modulation, in which its phase is varied.\n"
] |
When did China start having conceptions of race? What is the history of race in China?
|
This doesn't answer your historical question, but it might be worth clearing up what people mean today by saying that race is a social construct.
There are different ethnicities in the world, but our decision to group different ethnicities together into large umbrellas of "race" is the social construct that most people are talking about.
We put Ashkenazi Jews, Greeks, Germans, Basques, and Slavs in the same "white" category. Are they so similar to each other, and so different from Arabs, Persians, and Kurds, that the categorization makes sense? Or does it all descend from somewhat arbitrary line drawing?
Does the U.S. Census Bureau's categorization of South Asians, East Asians, and Pacific Islanders as a single category of "Asian/Pacific Islander" follow some kind of principled system, or is it an arbitrary categorization that makes sense only in the context of American society?
It's also worth noting that we tend to account for shared culture and language when drawing the lines of ethnicity in the first place. So meaningfully separating culture from race is difficult to begin with, and I'm not sure what you'd be able to do with the isolated variables.
|
[
"Historian Frank Dikötter (1990:420) says the Chinese \"idea of 'race' (\"zhong\" [種], \"seed\", \"species\", \"race\") started to dominate the intellectual scene\" in the late 19th-century Qing dynasty and completed the \"transition from cultural exclusiveness to racial exclusiveness in modern China\" in the 1920s.\n",
"The modern concept of race emerged as a product of the colonial enterprises of European powers from the 16th to 18th centuries which identified race in terms of skin color and physical differences. This way of classification would have been confusing for people in the ancient world since they did not categorize each other in such a fashion. In particular, the epistemological moment where the modern concept of race was invented and rationalized lies somewhere between 1730 to 1790. \n",
"Wang, Štrkalj et al. (2003) examined the use of race as a biological concept in research papers published in China's only biological anthropology journal, \"Acta Anthropologica Sinica\". The study showed that the race concept was widely used among Chinese anthropologists. In a 2007 review paper, Štrkalj suggested that the stark contrast of the racial approach between the United States and China was due to the fact that race is a factor for social cohesion among the ethnically diverse people of China, whereas \"race\" is a very sensitive issue in America and the racial approach is considered to undermine social cohesion – with the result that in the socio-political context of US academics scientists are encouraged not to use racial categories, whereas in China they are encouraged to use them.\n",
"Horse racing in one form or another has been a part of Chinese culture for millennia. Horse racing was a popular pastime for the aristocracy at least by the Zhou Dynasty - 4th century B.C. General Tian Ji's strategem for a horse race remains perhaps the best known story about horse racing in that period. In the 18th and 19th centuries, horse racing and equestrian sports in China was dominated by Mongol influences.\n",
"Throughout much of recorded Chinese history, there was little attempt by Chinese authors to separate the concepts of nationality, culture, and ethnicity. Those outside of the reach of imperial control and dominant patterns of Chinese culture were thought of as separate groups of people regardless of whether they would today be considered as a separate ethnicity. The self-conceptualization of Han largely revolved around this center-periphery cultural divide. Thus, the process of Sinicization throughout history had as much to do with the spreading of imperial rule and culture as it did with actual ethnic migration.\n",
"These things show that many times, pre-modern Chinese did view culture (and sometimes politics) rather than race and ethnicity as the dividing line between the Chinese and the non-Chinese. In many cases, the non-Chinese could and did become the Chinese and vice versa, especially when there was a change in culture.\n",
"As part of this nation-building effort, the notion of race was abolished by the time of the 1930 census. Prior census did take race into account and those of Chinese origin were so noted. However, the lack of a race category, plus the complicated laws concerning nationality blurred the line as to who was Mexican and who was not. This not only affected those who had immigrated from China, but also their Mexican wives and mixed-race children. Depending on when wives married their husbands and when children were born, among other factors, wives and children could be considered to be Chinese rather than Mexican nationals. While it cannot be proven that information taken from this census was used in the mass deportation of Chinese men and their families in the 1930s, their uncertain legal status reflected by it would give them little to no protection against deportations.\n"
] |
What period in human history have literacy rates been the highest as a percentage of the worlds population?
|
It may safely be assumed that today's literacy rates are unprecedented: Unesco reports that "Since 1950, the adult literacy rate at the world level has increased by 5 percentage points every decade on average, from 55.7% in 1950 to 86.2% in 2015" (*Reading the past, writing the future*, Paris 2016) - and most of the 1950 total represents European and north American countries with rates in excess of 90-95% (Unesco, *World literacy at mid-century*, Paris 1957), a condition that certainly doesn't apply in earlier centuries.
There's really no reliable way to measure global rates before the 20th century, except to say they were lower than today's or even the 1950 level - inevitably given the spread of education in the 19th and 20th centuries. Even in Europe, barely half of the population seems to have enjoyed functional literacy as late as 1850, and fewer still could read earlier in the century. The US seems to have been a 19th-century leader with extensive schoolong, but even there a fifth were illiterate in 1870, more than a tenth in 1900.
Rates doubtless had their downs as well as their ups, as conditions for written communication became less or more favourable in particular periods, as reflected in the varying availability of written sources over time. But the long-run trend has certainly been upward with the spread of writing itself and later of general basic schooling and printing.
|
[
"Literacy data published by UNESCO displays that since 1950, the adult literacy rate at the world level has increased by 5 percentage points every decade on average, from 55.7 per cent in 1950 to 86.2 per cent in 2015. However, for four decades, the population growth was so rapid that the number of illiterate adults kept increasing, rising from 700 million in 1950 to 878 million in 1990. Since then, the number has fallen markedly to 745 million in 2015, although it remains higher than in 1950 despite decades of universal education policies, literacy interventions and the spread of print material and information and communications technology (ICT). However, these trends have been far from uniform across regions.\n",
"It took over two-hundred thousand years of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; world population reached an estimated 2 billion in 1927; by late 1999, the global population reached 6 billion. Global literacy averaged 80%; global lifespan-averages exceeded 40+ years for the first time in history, with over half achieving 70+ years (three decades \"longer\" than it was a century ago).\n",
"Every census since 1881 had indicated rising literacy in the country, but the population growth rate had been high enough that the absolute number of illiterates rose with every decade. The 2001–2011 decade is the second census period (after the 1991–2001 census period) when the absolute number of Indian illiterates declined (by 31,196,847 people), indicating that the literacy growth rate is now outstripping the population growth rate.\n",
"In the early 1980s, estimates of total literacy were between 50 and 60 percent, or about 70 percent for men and 35 percent for women, but the gender gap has since narrowed, especially because of increased female school attendance. For 2001 the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report estimates that the adult literacy rate climbed to about 80.8 percent, or 91.3 percent for males and 69.3 percent for females. According to 2004 U.S. government estimates, 82 percent of the total adult population (age 15 and older) is literate, or 92 percent of males and 72 percent of females. The United Nations Development Programme recorded about an 89.9 percent adult literacy rate in 2014, while UNICEF estimated that as high 99.9 percent literacy rates among youths ages 15 to 24 for both sexes in 2012.\n",
"In the 19th century, literacy rates among the United States population were relatively high despite the decentralized educational system. There has been a notable increase in American citizens' educational attainment since then, but studies have also indicated declining reading performance starting in the 1970s. In the past, although entities such as the U.S. Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS) and legislation such as the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 have highlighted education as a topic of national importance, the push for high levels of mass literacy has been a recent development. Expectations concerning literacy have sharply increased over the past decades. Contemporary standards for adequate literacy have become more difficult to meet in comparison to historical criteria. Whereas such standards were only applied to the elite in the past, due to the proliferation of and increased accessibility to education in the form of public schools, the expectation of mass literacy has been applied to the entirety of the U.S. population.\n",
"The rate of illiteracy decreased more rapidly in more populated areas and areas where there was mixture of religious schools. The literacy rate in England in the 1640s was around 30 percent for males, rising to 60 percent in the mid-18th century. In France, the rate of literacy in 1686-90 was around 29 percent for men and 14 percent for women, it increased to 48 percent for men and 27 percent for women.\n",
"Available global data indicates significant variations in literacy rates between world regions. North America, Europe, West Asia, and Central Asia have achieved almost full adult literacy (individuals at or over the age of 15) for both men and women. Most countries in East Asia and the Pacific, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean, are above a 90% literacy rate for adults. Illiteracy persists to a greater extent in other regions: 2013 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) data indicates adult literacy rates of only 67.55% in South Asia and North Africa, 59.76% in Sub-Saharan Africa.\n"
] |
what are mac adresses for computers and how are they different from ip adresses?
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MAC adresses are hard-coded into physical hardware devices (and cannot be changed) - sort of like the street address for your house. IP address are set in software and can be moved/changed - sort of like your phone number.
When you call 911, the operator can tell what your address is because your physical address has been mapped to a particular phone number. You can change your phone number or move it to another house, but the street address for your house will never change (realistically).
|
[
"Apple Developer, formerly Apple Developer Connection or ADC, is Apple Inc.'s developer network. It is designed to make available resources to help software developers write software for the macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and iOS platforms. Those applications are created in Xcode or other programs that are not created by Apple Inc.. Then iOS applications are uploaded on the App Store (iOS), watchOS applications are attached to some iOS applications, and tvOS applications are uploaded to the App Store (tvOS). For Mac applications, it’s more common to find them on the World Wide Web to download or on the App Store (macOS).\n",
"There are different types of ad servers. There is an ad server for publishers that helps them to launch a new ad on a website by listing the highest ads' price on its and to follow the ad's growth by registering how many users it has reached. There is an ad server for advertisers that helps them by sending the ads in the form of HTML codes to each publisher. In this way, it is possible to open the ad in every moment and make changes of frequency for example, at all times. Lastly, there is an ad server for ad networks that provides information as in which network the publisher is registering an income and which is the daily revenue.\n",
"Similar to AdMob, iAd facilitates integrating advertisements into applications sold on the iOS App Store. If the user tapped on an iAd banner, a full-screen advertisement appeared within the application, unlike other ads that would send the user into the Safari web browser. Ads were promised to be more interactive than on other advertising services, and users were able to close them at any time, returning to where they left their app. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs initially indicated that Apple would retain 40% of the ad revenue, in line with what he called \"industry standard\", with the other 60% going to the developers. The amount paid to developers was later increased to 70%. iAd was expected to benefit free applications as well. The iAd App Network was discontinued as of June 30, 2016. Since then the technology lives on in both Apple News Advertising and App Store Search Ads.\n",
"The Mac Developer Program is a way developers for Apple's Mac OS X operating system can distribute their apps through the Mac App Store. It costs US$99/year. Unlike iOS, developers are not required to sign up for the program in order to distribute or test their applications. Mac applications can freely be distributed via the developer's website and/or any other method of distribution excluding the Mac App Store. Apple provides Xcode for free to developers to code, build, and test their apps. The Mac Developer Program provides developers with many resources to help them distribute their Mac applications.\n",
"Apple uses a tracking technique called \"identifier for advertisers\" (IDFA). This technique assigns a unique identifier to every user that buys an Apple iOS device (such as an iPhone or iPad). This identifier is then used by Apple's advertising network, iAd, to determine the ads that individuals are viewing and responding to.\n",
"Advertising companies use third-party cookies to track a user across multiple sites. In particular, an advertising company can track a user across all pages where it has placed advertising images or web bugs. Knowledge of the pages visited by a user allows the advertising company to target advertisements to the user's presumed preferences.\n",
"The applets listed below are components of the Microsoft Windows control panel, which allows users to define a range of settings for their computer, monitor the status of devices such as printers and modems, and set up new hardware, programs and network connections. Each applet is stored individually as a separate file (usually a .cpl file), folder or DLL, the locations of which are stored in the registry under the following keys:\n"
] |
A simple F=MA problem that frustrates my brain.
|
If your car is coasting along (ie engine not actively powering wheels) and you include friction, then your car will be slowing down gradually. Friction between the wheels and the ground (rolling friction) would manifest as a force in the direction opposite of the car's movement, resulting in a small acceleration in the same direction.
If you want a car to travel at a constant speed while considering rolling friction, you must be applying energy to the wheels by some mechanism to oppose the losses due to friction. You'll still have the rolling friction force going in the opposite direction, but you'd have an equal and opposite force driving the wheels forward to get you a net force of 0.
> Would you or would you not need another force to overcome the friction and therefore make the car's acceleration equal to zero? More fundamentally, what would the net force on the car be?
You would indeed need some other force to cancel out the friction to result in zero acceleration. And if you have zero acceleration, the net force will be zero.
|
[
"Practitioners and researchers have suggested many ways of solving the A*P = F equation. It transpires that the most natural method – that of minimizing formula_9 by least squares regression – leads to unsatisfactory results. The large number of zeroes in the matrix \"A\" mean that function \"P\" turns out to be \"bumpy\".\n",
"The hitting time of a set \"F\" is also known as the \"début\" of \"F\". The Début theorem says that the hitting time of a measurable set \"F\", for a progressively measurable process, is a stopping time. Progressively measurable processes include, in particular, all right and left-continuous adapted processes.\n",
"Two other commonly used F measures are the formula_4 measure, which weighs recall higher than precision (by placing more emphasis on false negatives), and the formula_5 measure, which weighs recall lower than precision (by attenuating the influence of false negatives).\n",
"where F is a random force representing the random collisions of the particle and the surrounding molecules, and where the time constant τ reflects the drag force that opposes the particle's motion through the solution. The drag force is often written F = −γv; therefore, the time constant τ equals \"m\"/γ.\n",
"The Automatic Thought Questionnaire 30 (ATQ 30) is a scientific questionnaire created by Steven D. Hollon and Phillip C. Kendall that measures automatic negative thoughts. The ATQ 30 consists of 30 negative statements and asks participants to indicate how often they experienced the negative thought during the course of the week on a scale of 1-5 (1=Low-High=5). This measure was created in response to Aaron T. Beck’s hypothesis that thinking in depressed populations tends to be negative. Example statements include \"I'm worthless\", \"I've let people down\", \"I can't get started\" and \"My future is bleak\".\n",
"\"f\"(\"k\", \"n\", \"p\") is monotone increasing for \"k\" < \"M\" and monotone decreasing for \"k\" > \"M\", with the exception of the case where (\"n\" + 1)\"p\" is an integer. In this case, there are two values for which \"f\" is maximal: (\"n\" + 1)\"p\" and (\"n\" + 1)\"p\" − 1. \"M\" is the \"most probable\" outcome (that is, the most likely, although this can still be unlikely overall) of the Bernoulli trials and is called the mode.\n",
"is sometimes taken to be \"f\"(\"u\") = \"u\"/(\"k\"+1) + \"u\" for some positive integer \"k\" (where the extra \"u\" is a \"drift term\" that makes the analysis a little easier). The case \"f\"(\"u\") = 3\"u\" is the original Korteweg–de Vries equation.\n"
] |
What is the probable true extent of Koko the gorilla's intelligence? (Additional question for anyone fluent in ASL)
|
Intelligence and the ability to communicate are not really the same thing. If by intelligence you mean the ability to communicate higher order cognitive functions such as emotions, deception etc I think you're not going to find an answer. People associate intelligence with language, but who says they must both exist in tandem? We may not understand the bounds of intelligence. We see squid seeing with their tentacles with no eyes. The animal kingdom continually amazes us. Depending on who you ask Koko, Kanzi, Panbanisha, Alex the African grey could all be considered "exceptions". Just as extraordinary human individuals exist, extraordinary animals are likely to exist.
My thoughts from my research are that Apes, Parrots and possibly other animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for. They have the ability to possess language it just is poorly understood by us. We place language in this tiny box reserved for humans because the components of religion etc have not came about in other animals.
We have to question whether the language of other animals is as complex as ours. What if we do not understand it? If we start with the hypothesis that animals do not have language because of the particular results of it we're examining a hero story. We know the ending and we're just searching for facts to prove ourselves right. We've spent so long placing ourselves above animals due to our cultural biases that we lack the objective scientific approach to animal language studies. Nonsense research like [Project Nim](_URL_0_) plague the scientific field because it seems like the obvious answer. African grey's exhibit convergence evolutionary aspects of language and their environment is quite similar as our hominin ancestors. I believe there is something we are missing in our studies of animal language and intelligence.
Many studies of ape language focus on gestural communication as a precursor for language as their brocas areas activate when they communicate manually. (This is the area that activates when we speak.) There was some type of switch between using our bodies and relying more on vocalizations and calls. I have my own theories about how music was a precursor to language and there recently there have been some research done into this idea, so obviously I'm not alone in this idea.
I would say though that most anthropologists feel one way, linguists another, psychologists another and it is really best to evaluate the facts yourself.
|
[
"Although many people who encounter Ahn-Kha dismiss his intelligence due to his resemblance to the Gray Ones, his own species of Grog is generally as intelligent (if not more so) than humans. Ahn-Kha is a great source of wisdom, something Valentine relies on almost as much as he relies on Ahn-Kha's strength.\n",
"Gon's intelligence seems to fluctuate in each adventure, ranging from total cluelessness (such as failing to notice a bird nest on his head for weeks), to strategic cunning (using a lion as a beast of burden to capture prey).\n",
"This was addressed in the book \"Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence\" (2008) by neurologists Gary Lynch and Richard Granger, who claimed the large brain size in Boskop individuals might be indicative of particularly high general intelligence. Anthropologist John Hawks harshly criticized the depiction of the Boskop fossils in the book and in the book's review article in \"Discover\" magazine.\n",
"Gorilla Grodd is a hyper-intelligent telepathic gorilla able to control the minds of others. He was an average ape until an alien spacecraft (retconned from a radioactive meteor which also empowered Hector Hammond) crashed in Grodd's African home. Grodd and his tribe of gorillas were imbued with super intelligence by the ship's pilot. Grodd and fellow gorilla Solovar also developed telepathic and telekinetic powers. Led by the alien, the gorillas constructed the super-advanced Gorilla City. The gorillas lived in peace until their home was discovered by explorers. Grodd forced one of the explorers to kill the alien and took over Gorilla City, planning to conquer the world next. Solovar telepathically contacted Barry Allen to warn of the evil gorilla's plans, and Grodd was defeated. The villain manages to return again and again to plague the Flash and the hero's allies.\n",
"George Tarleton was subjected to a mutagenic process that transformed him into MODOK and grants him superhuman intelligence, including a computer-like memory, the ability to scour and retain large data-banks of information very quickly, and solve abstract mathematical problems nearly instantaneously. He also has the ability to calculate the mathematical probability of any given event occurring, which is so strong that it borders on precognition. However, his creativity remains at an average human level. MODOK's vast intelligence makes him one of the few beings that can analyze and comprehend the workings of the Cosmic Cube, which was the very purpose for his creation.\n",
"The Kree Supreme Intelligence is a vast cybernetic/organic computer system composed of 5,000 cubic meters of computer circuitry incorporating the disembodied brains of the greatest statesmen and philosophers in Kree history, preserved cryogenically. This aggregation of brains creates a single collective intelligence able to use the vast information storage and processing capabilities of the computer system in a creative way. When wishing to interact with it, the Kree address it within its terminal chamber, where a holographic image is projected on a gigantic monitor screen.\n",
"Intelligence testing was compared with anthropometrics. Samuel George Morton (1799–1851) collected hundreds of human skulls from all over the world and started trying to find a way to classify them according to some logical criterion. Morton claimed that he could judge intellectual capacity by cranial capacity. A large skull meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. Modern science has since confirmed that there is a correlation between cranium size (measured in various ways) and intelligence as measured by IQ tests, although it is a weak correlation at about 0.2. Today, brain volume as measured with MRI scanners also find a correlation between brain size and intelligence at about 0.4.\n"
] |
why do professional singers, such as elvis presley and andrea bocelli, have a vibrato on every note? is it learned/does it make singing easier in some way?
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Vibrato might make the sound a little more pleasant, and it also covers up tiny imperfections or discrepancies in pitch.
|
[
"Prior to the advent of the charismatic Rubini, every well-schooled opera singer had avoided using a conspicuous and continuous vibrato because, according to Scott, it varied the pitch of the note being sung to an unacceptable degree and it was considered to be an artificial contrivance arising from inadequate breath control. British and North American press commentators and singing teachers continued to subscribe to this view long after Rubini had come and gone.\n",
"One element of the tone quality of traditional Sacred Harp singers that can be clearly asserted is that they never use vibrato. However, this in itself says little about the rather distinctive sound that traditional singers produce. \n",
"Many have recorded and played this song, in particular Tríos huastecos, Mariachis and Bolero Trios. But the most famous version was made by Miguel Aceves Mejía with his mariachi. With Huapangos or Son Huastecos, the falsetto technique is used to great effect, as in David Záizar's version. Quite a few versions of the song feature vocal gymnastics by whoever sings them, particularly the stretching of vowels such as the \"e\" sound in the gentilic 'Malagueña' for as long as the singer can hold the note. Other known mariachi versions of the song were recorded by: \n",
"There is another kind of vibrato-linked fault that can afflict the voices of operatic artists, especially aging ones—namely the slow, often irregular wobble produced when the singer's vibrato has loosened from the effects of forcing, over-parting, or the sheer wear and tear on the body caused by the stresses of a long stage career.\n",
"As with pop singing styles, the attractiveness or exciting qualities of a live opera vocal performance or recording are subjective and vary between listeners, cultures, and time periods. A soprano singing in the 1930s would elicit praise and applause for hitting a high note in a way that would be deemed unacceptable in the 2000s, because of the use of performance practices such as doing a long, drawn-out glissando up to reach the high note and then using a wide vibrato, wavering on the pitch so much that it is hard to discern which note they are singing.\n",
"Traditionally, however, the deliberate cultivation of a particularly wide, pervasive vibrato by opera singers from the Latin countries has been denounced by English-speaking music critics and pedagogues as a technical fault and a stylistic blot (see Scott, cited below, Volume 1, pp. 123–127). They have expected vocalists to emit a pure, steady stream of clear sound — irrespective of whether they were singing in church, on the concert platform, or on the operatic stage.\n",
"The piece is a staple of the operatic repertoire Because of a scarcity of true contraltos, the role of Rosina has most frequently been sung by a coloratura mezzo-soprano (with or without pitch alterations, depending on the singer), and has in the past, and occasionally in more recent times, been sung by coloratura sopranos such as Marcella Sembrich, Maria Callas, Roberta Peters, Gianna D'Angelo, Victoria de los Ángeles, Beverly Sills, Lily Pons, Diana Damrau, Edita Gruberová, Kathleen Battle and Luciana Serra. Famous recent mezzo-soprano Rosinas include Marilyn Horne, Teresa Berganza, Lucia Valentini Terrani, Susanne Marsee, Cecilia Bartoli, Joyce DiDonato, Jennifer Larmore, Elīna Garanča, and Vesselina Kasarova. Famous contralto Rosinas include Ewa Podleś.\n"
] |
Is there more evidence of observable black holes now?
|
Yes, one of the most striking examples is that the stars right at the centre of the galaxy are all [orbiting something massive and invisible](_URL_0_) over like a 20 year period.
And just this year, LIGO detected gravitational radiation from two colliding black holes.
|
[
"Such research has attracted much media attention, as black holes have long captured the imagination of both scientists and the public for both their innate simplicity and mysteriousness. The recent theoretical results have therefore undergone much scrutiny and most of them are now ruled out by theoretical studies. For example, several alternative black hole models were shown to be unstable in extremely fast rotation, which, by conservation of angular momentum, would be a not unusual physical scenario for a collapsed star (see pulsar). Nevertheless, the existence of a stable model of a nonsingular black hole is still an open question.\n",
"Note that this proof of existence of stellar black holes is not entirely observational but relies on theory: We can think of no other object for these massive compact systems in stellar binaries besides a black hole. A direct proof of the existence of a black hole would be if one actually observes the orbit of a particle (or a cloud of gas) that falls into the black hole.\n",
"(May 2) First visual proof of existence of black holes is published. Suvi Gezari's team in Johns Hopkins University, using the Hawaiian telescope Pan-STARRS 1, record images of a supermassive black hole 2.7 million light-years away that is swallowing a red giant.\n",
"A primordial black hole with an initial mass of around would be completing its evaporation today; a less massive primordial black hole would have already evaporated. In optimistic circumstances, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope satellite, launched in June 2008, might detect experimental evidence for evaporation of nearby black holes by observing gamma ray bursts. It is unlikely that a collision between a microscopic black hole and an object such as a star or a planet would be noticeable. The small radius and high density of the black hole would allow it to pass straight through any object consisting of normal atoms, interacting with only few of its atoms while doing so. It has, however, been suggested that a small black hole (of sufficient mass) passing through the Earth would produce a detectable acoustic or seismic signal.\n",
"General relativity predicts the smallest primordial black holes would have evaporated by now, but if there were a fourth spatial dimension – as predicted by string theory – it would affect how gravity acts on small scales and \"slow down the evaporation quite substantially\". This could mean there are several thousand black holes in our galaxy. To test this theory, scientists will use the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope which was put in orbit by NASA on June 11, 2008. If they observe specific small interference patterns within gamma-ray bursts, it could be the first indirect evidence for primordial black holes and string theory.\n",
"A follow-up study, based on the same data and published the following year, reached a very different conclusion. The black hole that was initially suggested at was not as massive as once thought. The black hole was estimated to be between 2 and 5 billion solar masses. This is less than a third of the previously estimated mass, a significant decrease. Models with no black hole at all were also found to provide reasonably good fits to the data, including the central region.\n",
"The evidence for stellar black holes strongly relies on the existence of an upper limit for the mass of a neutron star. The size of this limit heavily depends on the assumptions made about the properties of dense matter. New exotic phases of matter could push up this bound. A phase of free quarks at high density might allow the existence of dense quark stars, and some supersymmetric models predict the existence of Q stars. Some extensions of the standard model posit the existence of preons as fundamental building blocks of quarks and leptons, which could hypothetically form preon stars. These hypothetical models could potentially explain a number of observations of stellar black hole candidates. However, it can be shown from arguments in general relativity that any such object will have a maximum mass.\n"
] |
How much of a concrete operations plan was "the Schlieffen Plan"?
|
I'm not an expert, I only know what I had to do on a bit of work over a year ago, but I remember getting a good mark on it:
Well the Schlieffen Plan relied on 5 *huge* assumptions in order to be successful:
Invading Belgium would cause no issue with the UK, or France.
Belgium would not resist, or be unable to delay, German invasion
Paris would be captured in a matter of days
Without France, the UK would sue for peace, if they even got involved
Russia would take at least 6 weeks to mobilise troops en masse, and could not stand against Germany
Basically the entire thing just seemed like it would be more accurate if it were a tactic of pre-Industrial Revolution era (though Germany was a relatively recently industrialised nation). Germany had great military minds in command, so the idea they'd rely on such a plan seems disingenuous, there were probably *similar* plans, and that a best case scenario would play out similar to the Schlieffen Plan, but I doubt this was what they were expecting.
Bear in mind, the Schlieffen Plan is not the plan that was shown in WWI anyway. The Schlieffen Plan is actually a collection separate war plans. One for a simple Franco-German war, one for Entente v Germany focused in the West, one Russo-German war, and another Entente-German war. Then both of the Entente plans were plans within plans, based on the participation (or lack thereof) of the UK and other European nations. So your reading of a "Schlieffen Plan" not truly existing are pretty accurate. The final war plans were a bit of a combination of plans, also from what I understand, the plans were not all that detailed.
Ignoring the practical limitations of getting the German forces through to Paris, which could be possible, just not in the timeframe dictated, but the plan failed on a political level with the invasion of Belgium, which is typical of Wilhelm's Germany and his fundamental misunderstanding of the Great Powers and their interactions.
Here's a couple readings:
Inventing the Schlieffen Plan: German War Planning, 1871–1914 (Zuber)
1914-1918: the History of the First World War (Stevenson)
Also, my favourite Reddit post, a huge repository of free ebooks:
_URL_0_
|
[
"The Morgenthau Plan ( ) by the Allied occupation of Germany following World War II was a proposal to eliminate Germany's ability to wage war by eliminating its arms industry, and the removal or destruction of other key industries basic to military strength. This included the removal or destruction of all industrial plants and equipment in the Ruhr. It was first proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. in a memorandum entitled \"Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany\".\n",
"Operation Clausewitz was the code word initiating the defence of Berlin by Nazi Germany during the final stage of the European Theatre of World War II. Clausewitz was established in the 9 March 1945 document, \"Basic Order for the Preparations for the Defense of the Reich Capital\" (), a 33 page document containing 24 separate points. The second point of the document, in full (translated) is: \"The Reich capital will be defended to the last man and to the last bullet.\" It has been referred to as the Nazis' last stand against the Soviets.\n",
"The Guderian Plan is a plan developed in the autumn of 1944 for the restoration and expansion of the eastern fortifications of the German Reich. The plan was named after its initiator General Heinz Guderian.\n",
"The plan was finalized in May 1939 by the Central Office II P (Poland). Following the orders of Adolf Hitler, a special unit dubbed \"Tannenberg\" was created within the Reich Main Security Office (\"Reichssicherheitshauptamt\"). It commanded a number of \"Einsatzgruppen\" units formed with Gestapo, Kripo and \"Sicherheitsdienst\" (SD) officers and men who were theoretically to follow the \"Wehrmacht\" (armed forces) into occupied territories. Their task was to track down and arrest all the people listed on the proscription lists exactly as it had been compiled before the outbreak of war.\n",
"Riese (German for \"giant\") is the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany in 1943–1945, consisting of seven underground structures located in the Owl Mountains and Książ Castle in Lower Silesia, previously Germany, now a territory of Poland.\n",
"BULLET::::- Z-Plan (or Plan-Z) was the name given to the re-equipment and expansion of the Kriegsmarine (Nazi German Navy) as ordered by Adolf Hitler on 27 January 1939. The plan called for 10 battleships, four aircraft carriers, three battlecruisers, eight heavy cruisers, 44 light cruisers, 68 destroyers and 249 U-boats by 1944 that was meant to challenge the naval power of the United Kingdom. The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 came far too early to implement the plan.\n",
"His plan was to be used as the blueprint for the spring offensive the next year and was titled Plan 1919. The German surrender that November precluded the implementation of the plan, but it was studied extensively by the Germans and used as the model for their Blitzkrieg attacks during the next war (Fuller). Plan 1919, although never carried out, laid the “groundwork” for numerous upgrades in military equipment, technology, and tactics of modern warfare .\n"
] |
complete quantum teleportation of photonic quantum bits
|
A bit is the basic unit of information. It's a logical question with either a yes or a no answer. Quantum teleportation of information has to do with a phenomenon known as "Quantum Entanglement" which means that particles are connected sort of like twins are connected in horror films. What one particle knows, the other inevitably knows no matter how far away they are.
Our method of sending and receiving information is limited by the speed of light. For example, we send out phone calls in radio waves which move at the speed of light, this is what photonic (photons are the particles that make up not only visible light, but radio/infared/ultraviolet etc) quantum bits are. Quantum teleportation, in theory, would work because the twin particles seem to "learn together" without having to send data to the other one.
Say we have a few sets of 'twin particles' here on Earth and in a lab on the face of the sun. On Earth we have all the 'older twins' and in our lab on the sun we have all the 'second born twins.' We have this lab stationed on the sun to alert us of when the sun explodes. Now imagine that the sun exploded; it would take 8 minutes for us on Earth to see the explosion happen, and we would have no time to react. The lab, being on the surface of the sun, gets this information the instant it happens. Because our particles here on Earth are entangled with the ones in that lab, we now know on Earth that the sun has just exploded and we have about 8 minutes to prepare our defenses against our impending death.
TL;DR - Conventional sending/receiving of bits of information are limited by the speed of light. Quantum Entanglement suggests that pairs of particles are connected in a special way such that if one particle 'learns' something, its partner instantly learns it as well, regardless of the distance between them.
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[
"Quantum teleportation provides a mechanism of moving a qubit from one location to another, without having to physically transport the underlying particle to which that qubit is normally attached. Much like the invention of the telegraph allowed classical bits to be transported at high speed across continents, quantum teleportation holds the promise that one day, qubits could be moved likewise. the quantum states of single photons, photon modes, single atoms, atomic ensembles, defect centers in solids, single electrons, and superconducting circuits have been employed as information bearers.\n",
"BULLET::::- 17 August – In an unprecedented effort by ETH Zurich Laboratories, computational quantum teleportation has been achieved in solid-state circuit. Using quantum entanglement methods, researchers have teleported approximately 10,000 qubits (quantum bits) per second on a specially designed chip.\n",
"Quantum teleportation is a process by which quantum information (e.g. the exact state of an atom or photon) can be transmitted (exactly, in principle) from one location to another, with the help of classical communication and previously shared quantum entanglement between the sending and receiving location. Because it depends on classical communication, which can proceed no faster than the speed of light, it cannot be used for faster-than-light transport or communication of classical bits. While it has proven possible to teleport one or more qubits of information between two (entangled) quanta, this has not yet been achieved between anything larger than molecules.\n",
"In quantum teleportation, a sender wishes to transmit an arbitrary quantum state of a particle to a possibly distant receiver. Quantum teleportation is able to achieve faithful transmission of quantum information by substituting classical communication and prior entanglement for a direct quantum channel. Using teleportation, an arbitrary unknown qubit can be faithfully transmitted via a pair of maximally-entangled qubits shared between sender and receiver, and a 2-bit classical message from the sender to the receiver. Quantum teleportation requires a noiseless quantum channel for sharing perfectly entangled particles, and therefore entanglement distillation satisfies this requirement by providing the noiseless quantum channel and maximally entangled qubits.\n",
"The prerequisites for quantum teleportation are a qubit that is to be teleported, a conventional communication channel capable of transmitting two classical bits (i.e., one of four states), and means of generating an entangled EPR pair of qubits, transporting each of these to two different locations, A and B, performing a Bell measurement on one of the EPR pair qubits, and manipulating the quantum state of the other pair. The protocol is then as follows:\n",
"Quantum teleportation is distinct from regular teleportation, as it does not transfer particles from one place to another, but rather transmits the information necessary to prepare a target system in the same quantum state as the source system. In many cases, such as normal matter at room temperature, the exact quantum state of a system is irrelevant for any practical purpose (because it fluctuates rapidly anyways, it “decoheres”), and the necessary information to recreate the system is classical. In those cases, quantum teleportation may be replaced by the simple transmission of classical information, such as radio communication.\n",
"In quantum teleportation, a sender wishes to transmit an arbitrary quantum state of a particle to a possibly distant receiver. Consequently, the teleportation process is a quantum channel. The apparatus for the process itself requires a quantum channel for the transmission of one particle of an entangled-state to the receiver. Teleportation occurs by a joint measurement of the sent particle and the remaining entangled particle. This measurement results in classical information which must be sent to the receiver to complete the teleportation. Importantly, the classical information can be sent after the quantum channel has ceased to exist.\n"
] |
What about deep breathing makes us lightheaded?
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Hyperventilation removes more CO2 from the blood than is being released into the blood via cell respiration. This increases the pH of the blood, a condition called alkalosis, which in turn causes blood vessels to constrict, reducing blood flow. Alkalosis also reduces the amount of freely ionized calcium in the blood, which is essential for proper nerve functioning, and which also causes blood vessels to constrict, reducing blood flow to the brain further, which makes you feel lightheaded.
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[
"Overly shallow breathing, also known medically as hypopnea, may result in hypoventilation, which could cause a build up of carbon dioxide in an individual's body, a symptom known as hypercapnia. It's a condition related to neuro-muscular disorders (NMDs) that include Lou Gehrig's Disease, Muscular Dystrophy, Polio, Post-Polio Syndrome and others. It is a serious condition if not diagnosed properly, or if it's ignored. It is often treated as a \"sleep disorder\" after a sleep study performed, but \"sleep studies cannot diagnose shallow breathing (JR Bach, M.D.).\" Serious symptoms arise most commonly during sleep; however, because when the body sleeps, the intercostal muscles do not perform the breathing for mechanism, it's done by the diaphragm, which is often impaired in people with NMDs. \n",
"The term asphyxiation is often mistakenly associated with the strong desire to breathe that occurs if breathing is prevented. This desire is stimulated from increasing levels of carbon dioxide. However, asphyxiant gases may displace carbon dioxide along with oxygen, preventing the victim from feeling short of breath. In addition the gases may also displace oxygen from cells, leading to loss of consciousness and death rapidly.\n",
"Some describe tachypnea as any rapid breathing. Hyperventilation is then described as increased ventilation of the alveoli (which can occur through increased rate or depth of breathing, or both) where there is a smaller rise in metabolic carbon dioxide relative to this increase in ventilation. Hyperpnea, on the other hand, is defined as breathing more rapid and deep than breathing at rest.\n",
"In a healthy person during sleep, breathing is regular so oxygen levels and carbon dioxide levels in the bloodstream stay fairly constant: After exhalation, the blood level of oxygen decreases and that of carbon dioxide increases. Exchange of gases with a lungful of fresh air is necessary to replenish oxygen and rid the bloodstream of built-up carbon dioxide. Oxygen and carbon dioxide receptors in the body (called chemoreceptors) send nerve impulses to the brain, which then signals for reflexive opening of the larynx (enlarging the opening between the vocal cords) and movements of the rib cage muscles and diaphragm. These muscles expand the thorax (chest cavity) so that a partial vacuum is made within the lungs and air rushes in to fill it. In the absence of central apnea, any sudden drop in oxygen or excess of carbon dioxide, even if small, strongly stimulates the brain's respiratory centers to breathe; the respiratory drive is so strong that even conscious efforts to hold one's breath do not overcome it.\n",
"During heavy breathing (hyperpnea), as, for instance, during exercise, inhalation is brought about by a more powerful and greater excursion of the contracting diaphragm than at rest (Fig. 8). In addition the \"accessory muscles of inhalation\" exaggerate the actions of the intercostal muscles (Fig. 8). These accessory muscles of inhalation are muscles that extend from the cervical vertebrae and base of the skull to the upper ribs and sternum, sometimes through an intermediary attachment to the clavicles. When they contract the rib cage's internal volume is increased to a far greater extent than can be achieved by contraction of the intercostal muscles alone. Seen from outside the body the lifting of the clavicles during strenuous or labored inhalation is sometimes called clavicular breathing, seen especially during asthma attacks and in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.\n",
"During heavy breathing, exhalation is caused by relaxation of all the muscles of inhalation. But now, the abdominal muscles, instead of remaining relaxed (as they do at rest), contract forcibly pulling the lower edges of the rib cage downwards (front and sides) (Fig. 8). This not only drastically decreases the size of the rib cage, but also pushes the abdominal organs upwards against the diaphragm which consequently bulges deeply into the thorax (Fig. 8). The end-exhalatory lung volume is now well below the resting mid-position and contains far less air than the resting \"functional residual capacity\". However, in a normal mammal, the lungs cannot be emptied completely. In an adult human there is always still at least 1 liter of residual air left in the lungs after maximum exhalation.\n",
"Shallow breathing, or chest breathing is the drawing of minimal breath into the lungs, usually by drawing air into the chest area using the intercostal muscles rather than throughout the lungs via the diaphragm. Shallow breathing can result in or be symptomatic of rapid breathing and hyperventilation. Most people who breathe shallowly do it throughout the day and are almost always unaware of the condition.\n"
] |
would the mass of a helium balloon be positive or negative and is there such a negative mass
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The mass of a helium balloon is positive. The weight is negative. There might be such a thing as negative mass, but we haven't encountered such a thing yet.
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[
"Negative mass is any region of space in which for some observers the mass density is measured to be negative. This could occur due to a region of space in which the stress component of the Einstein stress–energy tensor is larger in magnitude than the mass density. All of these are violations of one or another variant of the positive energy condition of Einstein's general theory of relativity; however, the positive energy condition is not a required condition for the mathematical consistency of the theory.\n",
"Fully inflated, a balloon of this size would contain just over of helium. Helium's lift capacity at sea level and 0 °C is 1.113 kg/m (0.07 lbs/ft) and decreases at higher altitudes and at higher temperatures. The volume of helium in the balloon has been estimated as being able to lift a total load, including the balloon material and the structure beneath it, of at sea level and at .\n",
"A common helium-filled toy balloon is something familiar to many. When such a balloon is fully filled with helium, it has buoyancy—a force that opposes gravity. When a toy balloon becomes partially deflated, it often becomes neutrally buoyant and can float about the house a meter or two off the floor. In such a state, there are moments when the balloon is neither rising nor falling and—in the sense that a scale placed under it has no force applied to it—is, in a sense perfectly weightless (actually as noted below, weight has merely been redistributed along the Earth's surface so it cannot be measured). Though the rubber comprising the balloon has a mass of only a few grams, which might be almost unnoticeable, the rubber still retains all its mass when inflated.\n",
"In a theoretically perfect situation with weightless spheres, a 'vacuum balloon' would have 7% more net lifting force than a hydrogen-filled balloon, and 16% more net lifting force than a helium-filled one. However, because the walls of the balloon must be able to remain rigid without imploding, the balloon is impractical to construct with all known materials. Despite that, sometimes there is discussion on the topic.\n",
"The balloons were spherical superpressure types with a diameter of and filled with helium. A gondola assembly weighing and long was connected to the balloon envelope by a tether long. Total mass of the entire assembly was .\n",
"The mass of \"weightless\" (neutrally buoyant) balloons can be better appreciated with much larger hot air balloons. Although no effort is required to counter their weight when they are hovering over the ground (when they can often be within one hundred newtons of zero weight), the inertia associated with their appreciable mass of several hundred kilograms or more can knock fully grown men off their feet when the balloon's basket is moving horizontally over the ground.\n",
"The balloons are zero pressure difference balloons, and are vented at the bottom. They are only partially inflated when launched, and as they rise up, the lower atmospheric pressure causes them to fully inflate.\n"
] |
why does the grocery store carry fully cooked frozen chicken and turkey, but not beef?
|
Not certain but perhaps its because there's a lot of different degrees at which different people like their meet cooked.
|
[
"Intensive farming of turkeys from the late 1940s dramatically cut the price, making it more affordable for the working classes. With the availability of refrigeration, whole turkeys could be shipped frozen to distant markets. Later advances in disease control increased production even more. Advances in shipping, changing consumer preferences and the proliferation of commercial poultry plants has made fresh turkey inexpensive as well as readily available.\n",
"Turkeys are sold sliced and ground, as well as \"whole\" in a manner similar to chicken with the head, feet, and feathers removed. Frozen whole turkeys remain popular. Sliced turkey is frequently used as a sandwich meat or served as cold cuts; in some cases, where recipes call for chicken, turkey can be used as a substitute. Additionally, ground turkey is frequently marketed as a healthy ground beef substitute. Without careful preparation, cooked turkey may end up less moist than other poultry meats, such as chicken or duck.\n",
"Turkeys are sold sliced and ground, as well as \"whole\" in a manner similar to chicken with the head, feet, and feathers removed. Frozen whole turkeys remain popular. Sliced turkey is frequently used as a sandwich meat or served as cold cuts; in some cases where recipes call for chicken, it can be used as a substitute. Ground turkey is sold, and frequently marketed as a healthy alternative to ground beef. Without careful preparation, cooked turkey is usually considered to end up less moist than other poultry meats such as chicken or duck.\n",
"Canned meats have a mixed reputation for their taste, texture, ingredients, preparation and nutrition. The canning process produces a product with a generally homogeneous texture and flavor. The low-cost ingredients used also affect the quality. For example, mechanically separated chicken or turkey is a paste-like product made by forcing crushed bone and tissue through a sieve to separate bone from tissue. In the United States, mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969, after the National Academy of Sciences found it safe for use. On November 3, 1995, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a final rule in the Federal Register (see 60 FR 55962) on mechanically separated poultry, stating that it was safe to use without restrictions. However, it must be labeled as \"mechanically separated\" chicken or turkey in the ingredient statement. The final rule became effective on November 4, 1996.\n",
"In addition to meatpacking, Swift sold various dairy and grocery items, including Swiftning shortening, Allsweet margarine, Brookfield butter, cheese under the Brookfield, Pauly, and Treasure Cave brands, and Peter Pan peanut butter. Swift began selling frozen turkeys under the Butterball brand in 1954. Gustavus Swift also championed the refrigerated railroad car.\n",
"Kummerow researched lipids at Kansas State University during and after World War II. He won a contract from the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps to investigate methods of preventing frozen turkeys and chickens from tasting rancid. Ultimately, \"a simple change in the poultry feed solved the problem, making possible the sale of frozen poultry in grocery stores.\" The feed change was from linseed to corn.\n",
"Turkey product lines include fresh turkey meats in a range of cuts such as sausages, small roasts, steaks, wings, drumsticks, schnitzel and turkey mince. Ready-to-eat lines are either roasted or smoked and packaged. Frozen items include a whole turkey, buffé, or Kiev.\n"
] |
why can't we just transfer antibodies from immune people to sick people to cure them easily?
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Give a man antibodies and he's immune for however long they last. Teach a man's B-cells to make antibodies and they are immune for life (unless they stop making them in immune-compromised situations).
Antibodies are single use. They bind to something determined bad to mark it disposal and are removed with the bad thing. If there are not enough antibodies, you can't get rid of the bad things before the bad things make more of themselves. Certain treatments do harvest antibodies made from chemical reactions or manufactured cells to be put in humans.
Meanwhile, if you can train your body's immune B-cells to make antibodies, you will be immune as long as those cells produce antibodies. Vaccines give your body a taste of the bad things so you can produce your own immunity. This may be needed a few times to build up immunity (chicken pox) or repeatedly if the bad thing changes quickly (flu virus).
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[
"Different antigens are able to escape through a variety of mechanisms. For example, the African trypanosome parasites are able to clear the host's antibodies, as well as resist lysis and inhibit parts of the innate immune response. Another bacteria, \"Bordetella pertussis\", is able to escape the immune response by inhibiting neutrophils and macrophages from invading the infection site early on. One cause of antigenic escape is that a pathogen's epitopes (the binding sites for immune cells) become too similar to a person's naturally occurring MHC-1 epitopes. The immune system becomes unable to distinguish the infection from self-cells.\n",
"Antibodies are produced naturally by the body and play a key role in fighting infections caused by bacteria and viruses. They can also be used to treat infections by use of injections with blood plasma that contain large amounts of them. The use of whole, natural antibodies as medicines presents many problems: they can only be produced by live cells and this process is difficult to control on an industrial scale, they are large molecules and following administration by injection, they do not diffuse easily from the blood to the tissues and other sites of infections where they are needed.\n",
"Antigenic escape occurs when the immune system is unable to respond to an infectious agent. This means that the response mechanisms a host's immune system normally utilizes to recognize and eliminate a virus or pathogen is no longer able to do so. This process can occur in a number of different mechanisms of both genetic and environmental nature. Such mechanisms include homologous recombination, and manipulation and resistance of the host's immune responses.\n",
"In the course of normal immune response, parts of pathogens (e.g. bacteria) are recognized by the immune system as foreign (non-self), and eliminated or effectively neutralized to reduce their potential damage. Such a recognizable substance is called an antigen. The immune system may respond in multiple ways to an antigen; a key feature of this response is the production of antibodies by B cells (or B lymphocytes) involving an arm of the immune system known as humoral immunity. The antibodies are soluble and do not require direct cell-to-cell contact between the pathogen and the B-cell to function.\n",
"Even if the host does develop antibodies, protection might not be adequate; immunity might develop too slowly to be effective in time, the antibodies might not disable the pathogen completely, or there might be multiple strains of the pathogen, not all of which are equally susceptible to the immune reaction. However, even a partial, late, or weak immunity, such as a one resulting from cross-immunity to a strain other than the target strain, may mitigate an infection, resulting in a lower mortality rate, lower morbidity, and faster recovery.\n",
"These non-human antibodies are recognized as foreign by the human immune system and may be rapidly cleared from the body, provoke an allergic reaction, or both. To avoid this, parts of the antibody can be replaced with human amino acid sequences, or pure human antibodies can be engineered. If the constant region is replaced with the human form, the antibody is termed \"chimeric\" and the substem used was \"-xi-\". Part of the variable regions may also be substituted, in which case it is called \"humanized\" and \"-zu-\" was used; typically, everything is replaced except the complementarity determining regions (CDRs), the three loops of amino acid sequences at the outside of each variable region that bind to the target structure, although some other residues may have to remain non-human in order to achieve good binding. Partly chimeric and partly humanized antibodies used \"-xizu-\". These three substems did not indicate the foreign species used for production. Thus, the human/mouse chimeric antibody basiliximab ends in \"-ximab\" just as does the human/macaque antibody gomiliximab. Purely human antibodies used \"-u-\".\n",
"The body naturally does not launch an immune system attack on its own tissues. Immune tolerance therapies seek to reset the immune system so that the body stops mistakenly attacking its own organs or cells in autoimmune disease or accepts foreign tissue in organ transplantation. Creating immunity reduces or eliminates the need for lifelong immunosuppression and attendant side effects. It has been tested on transplantations, and type 1 diabetes or other autoimmune disorders.\n"
] |
how does dental uv lights work on fillings? what makes it cures so fast?
|
Actually it is intense blue visible light, not UV light that they use for curing. As for how it works:
The material that is used for fillings is a resin based composite that is specially designed for that exact purpose. Resin is a polymer that looks similar in color to teeth and has physical properties that are desirable to be a replacement for a gap in a tooth, like its strength, durability, heat resistance, etc. Different polymers had been used in the past but they were much more difficult because polymerization (the polymer hardening from liquid to solid) would begin about 30 seconds after the components were mixed together, leaving dentists with very little room for error.
This led to the use of photoinitiators for resin fillings. By using a photoinitiator, polymerization would not begin until a specific wavelength of light (visible blue in this case) introduced its energy to the mix. The actual science behind photoinitiators is a little beyond what I'm comfortable explaining so I'll leave you to research them yourself. But them being in the resin allows the dentist all the time they could want because the liquid won't polymerize until the light is introduced, and once the light energy is given the reaction occurs quickly and irreversibly. This gives them more control and precision.
|
[
"Some task lights also come with built in magnifying glasses for detailed tasks. It is hard to overstate the benefits of having focused light alongside magnification for small, precise operations such as model building, sewing, or other high-detail activities. Dentists often use a task light with magnification to perform dental cleanings.\n",
"Together with proper access to the oral cavity, light is an important part of performing precision dentistry. Because a dentist's head often eclipses the overhead dental lamp, loupes may be fitted with a light source. Loupe-mounted lights used to be fed by fiber optic cables that connected to either a wall-mounted or table-top light source. Newer models feature a more convenient LED lamp within the loupe-mounted light and an electric cord coming from either the conventional wall-mounted or table-top light source or a belt clip rechargeable battery pack. Options for loupe-mounted cameras and video recorders are also available.\n",
"The development of this new technology gave way to new light activated resin materials. These new materials are very different from the previous ones. These materials do not need to be mixed and can be dispensed directly into the site. This new malleable resin material can only be fully cured/hardened with a dental curing light. This presents new advantages for dentists: the time constraint is now lifted and the dentist can now assure that the material is properly placed.\n",
"A dental laser can target and ablate the melanocytes, thus reducing the production of melanin in the gingival tissue. Following laser depigmentation, the gingiva heals by secondary intention. This results in a lighter and more uniform color of the gums. A study found that (Er,Cr:YSGG) laser was effective and there were no signs of re-pigmentation after a 6 month follow up period.\n",
"A combination of glass-ionomer and composite resin, these fillings are a mixture of glass, an organic acid, and resin polymer that harden when light cured (the light activates a catalyst in the cement that causes it to cure in seconds). The cost is similar to composite resin. It holds up better than glass ionomer, but not as well as composite resin, and is not recommended for biting surfaces of adult teeth, or when control of moisture cannot be achieved.\n",
"UV curing is the process by which ultraviolet light is used to initiate a photochemical reaction that generates a crosslinked network of polymers. UV curing is adaptable to printing, coating, decorating, stereolithography, and in the assembly of a variety of products and materials. In comparison to other technologies, curing with UV energy may be considered a low temperature process, a high speed process, and is a solventless process, as cure occurs via direct polymerization rather than by evaporation. Originally introduced in the 1960s, this technology has streamlined and increased automation in many industries in the manufacturing sector.\n",
"The 1990s presented great improvements in light curing devices. As dental restorative materials advanced, so too did the technology used to cure these materials; the focus was to improve the intensity in order to be able to cure faster and deeper. In 1998 the plasma arc curing light was introduced. It uses a high intensity light source, a fluorescent bulb containing plasma, in order to cure the resin-based composite, and claimed to cure resin composite material within 3 seconds. In practice, however, while the plasma arc curing light proved to be popular, negative aspects (including, but not limited to, an expensive initial price, curing times longer than the claimed 3 seconds, and expensive maintenance) of these lights resulted in the development of other curing light technologies.\n"
] |
how redbull can afford to sponsor so many different (and expensive) sports, yet their product is only a drink?
|
Food technology business guy here.
Keep in mind that the operating and manufacturing costs for soft drinks are *ridiculously* low.
Food technology is pretty much just a basic set of chemicals that are essentially commodities (i.e., all products are nearly identical, so they all have an insanely low price). Because of the lengthy FDA GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) approval cycle, the majority of breakthroughs in food science today are just better ways to combine these different chemicals to get a certain recipe/application functionality, flavor, umami, or mouthfeel. It's not rocket surgery.
Of the ingredients that go into a soft drink, the highest cost will invariably be the packaging (the can) and the packaging coating (e.g., the chemical coating on the inside to make it food-safe). Everything else (phosphates, water, sugar, caffeine and its derivatives, dyes, flavoring...) is an industrial chemical that can be bought for a few hundred bucks a ton. Even carbonation is a technology that has been around since the 19th century. It's a well-perfected process.
The real money is in the marketing. Sustain a decade-long "Red Bull gives you wings" campaign and Red Bull's name becomes permanently beamed into people's minds when they think of energy drinks. So Red Bull can absolutely ask ~~$2.00~~ ~~$4.00~~ a brazillian dollars for a can that really only costs them a few cents to make. More for sugarfree or zero-calorie versions that takes virtually no extra effort to manufacture. Marketing is where the whole becomes worth more than the sum of its parts.
~~Sponsorship is equivalent to marketing, since they get to plaster their logo all over something that people actually *choose to watch* (as opposed to commercials). So this is accounted for in their budget and chalked up to the cost of increasing sales.~~ Someone pointed out to me that Red Bull actually *owns* their racing team, rather than just being the sponsor, so they gain income from the team. Doing stuff like the Baumgartner jump and sponsoring other teams, however, is part of the marketing.
Edit: Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. I really did not expect this to blow up the way it did.
Edit edit: Thank you, kind /u/zTroII for the reddit gold!
|
[
"Consisting of a variety of different flavors such as fruit punch, green apple, and lemonade, the company also offers other flavors made for sponsorships with YouTubers, Twitch.tv streamers, and Esports gamers.\n",
"The sponsorship of sporting events and sportspeople is banned in many countries. For example, the primary club competition in European rugby union, the Heineken Cup, is called the \"H Cup\" in France because of that country's restrictions on alcohol advertising. However, such sponsorship is still common in other areas, such as the United States, although such sponsorship is controversial as children are often a target audience for major professional sports leagues.\n",
"Like many alcohol companies, C&C invests heavily in sports sponsorship. Their brands have used this method extensively. Current and previous sponsorship includes the league now known as Pro14 (Magners League), Tennents Scottish Cup, London Wasps, Edinburgh Rugby, Bath Rugby, Celtic F.C., Dundee F.C. and Rangers F.C..\n",
"It has largely growing mainstream appeal as a result of its unique composition among rival brands (it is sold nationally in UK Asda stores), choosing to highlight USP's such as the use of 100% mineral water and natural ingredients only, subsequently positioning itself as an 'Ultra Premium Soft Drinks Brand'.\n",
"Other ethical concerns with sponsorship being used as a marketing tactic by food companies include; the specific targeting of youths, sponsorship from alcohol brands and the misconceptions created through sponsorships by energy drink brands such as Red Bull.\n",
"Tervis also sells branded drinkware through licensing agreements with all five of the major American sports leagues (MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, and NHL), nearly all major NCAA colleges and universities, all branches of the United States Armed Forces, and many companies.\n",
"They also have what they call their official sponsors such as Teisseire a French syrup company, Kronenbourg the best selling beer in France, Fnac a French international retail chain selling cultural and electronic products, the Haute-Savoie county council and the guitar game Rocksmith.\n"
] |
Global Warming: Truth
|
This question has been discussed on /r/askscience several times before.
The most recent article I remember is:
[How solid is the scientific backing for anthropogenic global warming?](_URL_1_)
The top comment from that thread [can be found here](_URL_1_c1tfsky).
Other recent discussions:
* [I'm skeptical of Human Caused Global Warming, but I'm open minded! Can you convince me?](_URL_0_)
* [I remember the global warming scandal a few years back...What's up with that?](_URL_3_)
* [How do I explain global warming is really happening, in the simpliest and understandable way?](_URL_2_)
|
[
"After reading a 2007 speech by US Senator James Inhofe, who maintains that global warming is a hoax, John Cook created Skeptical Science as an internet resource to counter common arguments by climate change deniers. The site hosts various articles addressing the merit of common criticisms of the scientific consensus on global warming, such as the claim that solar activity (rather than greenhouse gases) is responsible for most 20th and 21st century global warming, or that global warming is natural and/or not harmful to humans. Each article, referred to as an \"argument\", presents a quotation from a prominent figure who made a direct claim regarding global warming, and follows with a summary of \"what the science says\".\n",
"On August 17, 2011 at a breakfast with business leaders in New Hampshire Perry said that he does not believe the science behind global warming. He said \"there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.\"\n",
"On February 14, 2009, Neal Campbell, posting as Cali Lewis, raised the issue of a global warming controversy with a post on Twitter. \"It's so sad that smart people don't pay attention to the science that proves global warming is a hoax.\" The comment was criticized by fellow radio host and podcaster Leo Laporte who said the statement was inconsistent with overwhelming scientific opinion on climate change.\n",
"In 2016, Roberts requested a briefing from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on scientific evidence of human-caused global warming. The briefing was delivered in September 2016, after which Roberts said he would consider the CSIRO's evidence, but also accused the CSIRO of pushing the “de-industrialisation” of Australia, and added that policies to mitigate climate change were \"anti-human\".\n",
"The Australia Institute is active in promoting global warming mitigation measures, and has been critical of the Australian federal government's perceived lack of action on climate change. The Australia Institute was critical of the Howard Government's decision to refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. It claims that the former Prime Minister and some senior ministers deny the scientific evidence for global warming and that the resources sector drives government energy policy. Leaked minutes of a meeting between the Energy Minister, the Prime Minister and fossil fuel lobbyists provide evidence for these claims.\n",
"\"An Inconsistent Truth\" is Valentine's investigation into man-made global warming. The title alludes to Al Gore's documentary \"An Inconvenient Truth\". Valentine talks with scientists and politicians who are skeptical of human caused global warming, and explores the culture of the global warming movement; often in a satirical way. \n",
"The Real Global Warming Disaster (\"Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?\") is a 2009 book by English journalist and author Christopher Booker in which he asserts that global warming can not be attributed to humans, and then alleges how the scientific opinion on climate change was formulated.\n"
] |
What did people in your focus culture make of dreams?
|
This is a topic of particular interest to me! I do Viking-age Scandinavia, and dreams were a big deal to this particular culture, if the sagas are anything to go by. I wrote a paper on this subject, the general conclusion of which was that dreams represent a kind of liminal meeting-place between the human and supernatural realms. People are frequently visited by ethereal figures in their dreams, who may be able to share knowledge with the dreamer; this pops up in Gisli Sursson's saga, for example. Interestingly, the supernatural prophetic figures in dreams are very often female, which has led some scholars to attempt to draw some link between them and valkyries. Of particular interest to my paper was the idea of dream as a more literal neutral ground - there's one fascinating little "thaettur," or short story, called "The Mound-Dweller," about a farmer who stumbles across a burial cairn. He finds a sword underneath it and takes it home with him. In the sagas, this kind of thing often serves as the set-up for a conflict between humans and the dead; there are lots of stories of heroes going down into burial mounds to steal treasure and fight the undead inhabitants. In this story, though, the farmer is visited in his dreams by a strange man, the inhabitant of the mound. The mound-dweller tells the farmer, in verse, that he will be his ruin, to which the farmer replies that he will repay any injury the mound-dweller does him "blow for blow." Impressed by his poetry and bravery, the mound-dweller tells the farmer that "no other answer would have been appropriate" and vanishes. So, what we have is the dream as a meeting-place to resolve conflicts between the supernatural and physical worlds. The sagas are fascinating stuff.
|
[
"Many different researchers have tried to understand the purpose behind dreaming and state their most apprehensive work behind understanding early childhood dreams. Sigmund Freud (1900/1965) claimed that dreams from childhood were illustrations of wish-fulfillment dreams that begin in naivety during childhood and escalate into later adulthood. Carl Jung (1974) believed that childhood dreams were a sign of transpersonal wisdom from the unconscious. G. William Domhoff (1996) and S. H. Foulkes (1999) were both known for arguing childhood dreams as a reflection of the immature development involved in the consciousness of a young child, involving characteristics such as being passive and bland. Antti Revonsuo (2000) was in support of childhood dreams, in particular nightmares, to better support his idea of \"threat simulation theory\" found in dreaming.\n",
"The \"Senoi\" culture, he discovered, regarded dreams as an important part of life. Mornings were used by families to indulge in the custom of dream-telling, where, for instance, a \"\"child's fearful dream of falling was praised as a gift to learn to fly the next night\"\". Songs and dances learned in dreams were often taught to neighbouring tribes to foster good relations.\n",
"Modern popular culture often conceives of dreams, like Freud, as expressions of the dreamer's deepest fears and desires. The film version of \"The Wizard of Oz\" (1939) depicts a full-color dream that causes Dorothy to perceive her black-and-white reality and those with whom she shares it in a new way. In films such as \"Spellbound\" (1945), \"The Manchurian Candidate\" (1962), \"Field of Dreams\" (1989), and \"Inception\" (2010), the protagonists must extract vital clues from surreal dreams.\n",
"\"Dreamtime\" became a widely cited concept in popular culture in the 1980s, and by the late 1980s was adopted as a cliché in New Age and feminist spirituality alongside related appeals to other \"Rouseauian natural people\", such as the Native Americans idealized in 1960s hippie counterculture.\n",
"By the 1990s, \"Dreamtime\" and \"the Dreaming\" had acquired their own currency in popular culture, based on idealised or fictionalised conceptions of Australian mythology. Since the 1970s, \"Dreaming\" and \"Dream time\" have also returned from academic usage via popular culture and tourism and are now ubiquitous in the English vocabulary of indigenous Australians in a kind of \"self-fulfilling academic prophecy\".\n",
"In Korea conception dreams are known as 태몽(\"taemong\"). Many women in Korean culture report having such dreams themselves. Popular topics of the dreams include fruit (such apples, persimmons, cherries, chestnuts), animals (tigers, snakes, goldfish), nature (rivers, rainbows), children and jewels. The dreamer might eat or take fruits, embrace animals, or interact with nature. The topic is believed to influence the gender or the future of the baby; for example, fruits are seen as a sign for a baby girl.\n",
"Those whose dreams were especially vivid or significant were thought to be blessed and were given special status in these ancient societies. Likewise, people who were able to interpret dreams were thought to receive these gifts directly from the gods, and they enjoyed a special status in society as well.\n"
] |
what constitutes a roman numeral in a chemical formula?
|
You have to look at the oxidation state of the metal in the compound (a number like +1, +2, etc.). If it's always a certain value, like sodium for example, then you don't need a Roman numeral. Otherwise, the numeral just corresponds to the oxidation number, so in your example manganese would have an oxidation number of +4.
P.S. I think you meant MnS. Mg = magnesium. ;)
|
[
"Roman numerals are essentially a decimal or \"base 10\" number system. Powers of ten – thousands, hundreds, tens and units – are written separately, from left to right, in that order. Different symbols are used for each power of ten, but a common pattern is used for each of them.\n",
"Though the Romans used a decimal system for whole numbers, reflecting how they counted in Latin, they used a duodecimal system for fractions, because the divisibility of twelve makes it easier to handle the common fractions of 1/3 and 1/4 than does a system based on ten On coins, many of which had values that were duodecimal fractions of the unit , they used a tally-like notational system based on twelfths and halves. A dot (·) indicated an \"twelfth\", the source of the English words \"inch\" and \"ounce\"; dots were repeated for fractions up to five twelfths. Six twelfths (one half) was abbreviated as the letter \"S\" for \"half\". \"Uncia\" dots were added to \"S\" for fractions from seven to eleven twelfths, just as tallies were added to for whole numbers from six to nine.\n",
"The Roman numerals, in particular, are directly derived from the Etruscan number symbols: \"𐌠\", \"𐌡\", \"𐌢\", \"𐌣\", and \"𐌟\" for 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100 (They had more symbols for larger numbers, but it is unknown which symbol represents which number). As in the basic Roman system, the Etruscans wrote the symbols that added to the desired number, from higher to lower value. Thus the number 87, for example, would be written 50 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 = 𐌣𐌢𐌢𐌢𐌡𐌠𐌠 (this would appear as 𐌠𐌠𐌡𐌢𐌢𐌢𐌣 since Etruscan was written from right to left.)\n",
"An isotope and/or nuclide is specified by the name of the particular element (this indicates the atomic number) followed by a hyphen and the mass number (e.g. helium-3, helium-4, carbon-12, carbon-14, uranium-235 and uranium-239). When a chemical symbol is used, e.g. \"C\" for carbon, standard notation (now known as \"AZE notation\" because \"A\" is the mass number, \"Z\" the atomic number, and E for element) is to indicate the mass number (number of nucleons) with a superscript at the upper left of the chemical symbol and to indicate the atomic number with a subscript at the lower left (e.g. , , , , , and ). Because the atomic number is given by the element symbol, it is common to state only the mass number in the superscript and leave out the atomic number subscript (e.g. , , , , , and ). The letter \"m\" is sometimes appended after the mass number to indicate a nuclear isomer, a metastable or energetically-excited nuclear state (as opposed to the lowest-energy ground state), for example (tantalum-180m).\n",
"Atomic isotopes are written using superscripts. In symbolic form, the number of nucleons is denoted as a superscripted prefix to the chemical symbol (for example , , , , and ). The letters \"m\" or \"f\" may follow the number to indicate metastable or fission isomers, as in or .\n",
"When expressing a numerical quantity, Roman numerals are commonly used in place of Arabic digits so as to avoid confusion. The numbers 1 - 3 (I, II, III), usually written as upper-case Roman numerals, often have the appearance of a capital \"T\" or a series of capital \"T's\" with a dot above each \"T.\" They are also sometimes written as lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii).\n",
"Chemical formulas most often use integers for each element. However, there is a class of compounds, called non-stoichiometric compounds, that cannot be represented by small integers. Such a formula might be written using decimal fractions, as in FeO, or it might include a variable part represented by a letter, as in FeO, where x is normally much less than 1.\n"
] |
how does medicine like asprin work?
|
Aspirin reduces pain and inflammation because it blocks the activity of a protein (called cyclooxegenase, or COX) which helps produce molecules that promote inflammation (called prostaglandins).
It helps thin blood in the prevention of strokes and heart attacks because blocking COX also prevents the production of a molecule that that promotes clotting, called thromboxane A2.
|
[
"Atropine is a medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings as well as some types of slow heart rate and to decrease saliva production during surgery. It is typically given intravenously or by injection into a muscle. Eye drops are also available which are used to treat uveitis and early amblyopia. The intravenous solution usually begins working within a minute and lasts half an hour to an hour. Large doses may be required to treat some poisonings.\n",
"Baclofen can be administered transdermally as part of a pain-relieving and muscle-relaxing topical cream mix at a compounding pharmacy, orally or \"intrathecally\" (directly into the cerebral spinal fluid) using a pump implanted under the skin.\n",
"BULLET::::- In the pharmaceutical industry, it acts as a wetting, stabilizing agent and a choline enrichment carrier, helps in emulsifications and encapsulation, and is a good dispersing agent. It can be used in manufacture of intravenous fat infusions and for therapeutic use. Examples of intravenous applications are propofol for anesthesia, NSAID drugs, etc.\n",
"Furosemide, sold under the brand name Lasix among others, is a medication used to treat fluid build-up due to heart failure, liver scarring, or kidney disease. It may also be used for the treatment of high blood pressure. It can be taken by injection into a vein or by mouth. When taken by mouth, it typically begins working within an hour, while intravenously, it typically begins working within five minutes.\n",
"Diazepam, first marketed as Valium, is a medicine of the benzodiazepine family that typically produces a calming effect. It is commonly used to treat a range of conditions including anxiety, alcohol withdrawal syndrome, benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, muscle spasms, seizures, trouble sleeping, and restless legs syndrome. It may also be used to cause memory loss during certain medical procedures. It can be taken by mouth, inserted into the rectum, injected into muscle, or injected into a vein. When given into a vein, effects begin in one to five minutes and last up to an hour. By mouth, effects may take 40 minutes to begin.\n",
"Bisacodyl (INN) is an organic compound that is used as a stimulant laxative drug. It works directly on the colon to produce a bowel movement. It is typically prescribed for relief of episodic and chronic constipation and for the management of neurogenic bowel dysfunction, as well as part of bowel preparation before medical examinations, such as for a colonoscopy.\n",
"Progestins are available in the form of oral tablets, solutions and suspensions for intramuscular or subcutaneous injection, and a number of other forms (e.g., transdermal patches, vaginal rings, intrauterine devices, subcutaneous implants).\n"
] |
how is food waste bad for the economy?
|
Consider that you also created an artificial scarcity of $40 worth of food that could have gone to something else. This is similar to what happened in the short run with cash for clunkers. Yes, there were some new cars made and purchased but the dip in supply of used ones rekt the prices in the used car market.
"Mr. Pies, that's a terrible example."
I know. I couldn't think of a better one at the time. Comparing consumables with durable goods, blah blah blah.
|
[
"One way of dealing with food waste is to reduce its creation. Consumers can reduce spoilage by planning their food shopping, avoiding potentially wasteful spontaneous purchases, and storing foods properly (and also preventing a too large buildup of perishable stock). Widespread educational campaigns have been shown to be an effective way to reduce food waste. A British campaign called “Love Food, Hate Waste” has raised awareness about preventative measures to address food waste for consumers. Through advertisements, information on food storage and preparation and in-store education, the UK observed a 21% decrease in avoidable household food waste over the course of 5 years. Another potential solution is for \"smart packaging\" which would indicate when food is spoiled more precisely than expiration dates currently do, for example with temperature-sensitive ink, plastic that changes color when exposed to oxygen, or gels that change color with time.\n",
"BULLET::::- Food waste (which is a component of food loss) is any removal of food from the food supply chain which is or was at some point fit for human consumption, or which has spoiled or expired, mainly caused by economic behaviour, poor stock management or neglect.\n",
"Food waste may be diverted for alternative human consumption when economic variables allow for it. The waste of consumable food is even gaining attention from large food conglomerates. For instance, due to low food prices, simply discarding irregular carrots has typically been more cost-effective than spending money on the extra labor or machinery necessary to handle them. A juice factory in the Netherlands, however, has developed a process to efficiently divert and use previously rejected carrots, and its parent company is expanding this innovation to plants in Great Britain.\n",
"In the US, food waste can occur at most stages of the food industry and in significant amounts. In subsistence agriculture, the amounts of food waste are unknown, but are likely to be insignificant by comparison, due to the limited stages at which waste can occur, and given that food is grown for projected need as opposed to a global marketplace demand. Nevertheless, on-farm losses in storage in developing countries, particularly in African countries, can be high although the exact nature of such losses is much debated.\n",
"In the world, as in Australia, one-third of the groceries are wasted every year. Food waste impacts the community on various sectors and its implications have started to be considered more often in the last ten years. It is considered a waste of resources and opportunities, but it also is a source of atmospheric emissions by producing methane when it is disposed of in landfills.\n",
"Food waste is generally considered to have a damaging effect on the environment; a reduction in food waste is considered critical if the UK is to meet obligations under the European Landfill Directive to reduce biodegradable waste going to landfill and favourable considering international targets on climate change, limiting greenhouse gas emissions. When disposed of in landfill, food waste releases methane, a relatively damaging greenhouse gas, and leachate, a toxin capable of considerable groundwater pollution. The food supply chain accounts for a fifth of UK carbon emissions; the production, storage and transportation of food to homes requires large amounts of energy. The effects of stopping food waste that can potentially be prevented has been likened to removing one in five cars from UK roads.\n",
"Food waste recycling is a process to convert food waste into useful materials and products for achieving sustainability of the environment. Food waste is defined as all inedible and edible parts of food that creates preceding and succeeding food processing, production and consumption. Greenhouse gases, especially methane can be reduced by food waste recycling. Food waste recycling can also alleviate the saturation of landfill sites in Hong Kong.\n"
] |
What would happen if the Earth were to pass through the particle beam of a black hole or quasar?
|
If the Earth went through an AGN (Active Galactic Nucleus) jet, all life would be obliterated. The atmosphere would be stripped away in very short order by the bombardment of highly relativistic particles; the Earth's magnetic field (which is far, far weaker than the magnetic fields present in AGN jets) would not be able to stop that. The oceans would boil away and the surface would melt. If you left it in the jet for very long, the surface would start to ablate away.
Gamma ray bursts are mostly high-energy electromagnetic radiation, probably along with some protons/electrons. AGN jets consist largely of highly relativistic protons and electrons (much more energetic than whatever massive particles are present in a GRB) spiraling around magnetic field lines, along with X-ray flux from both the black hole accretion disk and the jet itself.
There's a hypothesis that one of the Earth's [major extinctions was caused by a GRB](_URL_0_). During that event something like a third of all animal genera went extinct. If the Earth entered an AGN jet there would be no more life.
|
[
"BULLET::::- It has been suggested that a small black hole passing through the Earth would produce a detectable acoustic signal. Because of its tiny diameter, large mass compared to a nucleon, and relatively high speed, such primordial black holes would simply transit Earth virtually unimpeded with only a few impacts on nucleons, exiting the planet with no ill effects.\n",
"However, if the object passes too close to the central supermassive black hole, it will make a direct plunge across the event horizon. This will produce a brief violent burst of gravitational radiation which would be hard to detect with currently planned observatories. Consequently, the creation of EMRI requires a fine balance between objects passing too close and too far from the central supermassive black hole. Currently, the best estimates are that a typical supermassive black hole of , will capture an EMRI once every 10 to 10 years. This makes witnessing such an event in our Milky Way unlikely. However, a space based gravitational wave observatory like LISA will be able to detect EMRI events up to cosmological distances, leading to an expected detection rate somewhere between a few and a few thousand per year.\n",
"According to quantum field theory in curved spacetime, a single emission of Hawking radiation involves two mutually entangled particles. The outgoing particle escapes and is emitted as a quantum of Hawking radiation; the infalling particle is swallowed by the black hole. Assume a black hole formed a finite time in the past and will fully evaporate away in some finite time in the future. Then, it will only emit a finite amount of information encoded within its Hawking radiation. Assume that at time formula_1, more than half of the information had already been emitted.\n",
"In the early 21st century, astronomers detect what appears to be a distant gamma-ray burster, a black hole engulfing another star many light years away. The data is bizarre and troubling, because only 13 hours later, a second burster appears, which, given the great distance between stars, would be impossible. Eventually, the astronomers realize that the black hole, rather than being incredibly far from us, is actually heading towards the Solar System, and moving our way at considerable speed. Stranger still, it seems to be moving under its own will; it is an intelligent being itself. This age-old cosmic being reveals that it had been born seven billion years ago and had become a wandering entity, feeding on asteroids, planets and various space debris, projecting itself forward in space through the process. Through the billions of years of its existence across the expanse of time and space, this intelligent entity has learned of many ancient civilizations in the universe. The black hole eventually sends a message to the people of Earth; it \"desires converse\". The black hole is willing to share the knowledge it had gained throughout the ages in return for the chance to \"chat\" with the humans. But eventually, something about the nature of the life-form is revealed. It prefers to learn about people by having their minds uploaded to it and demands that the best and brightest of Earth be sent to it in this way.\n",
"According to quantum field theory in curved spacetime, a single emission of Hawking radiation involves two mutually entangled particles. The outgoing particle escapes and is emitted as a quantum of Hawking radiation; the infalling particle is swallowed by the black hole. Assume a black hole formed a finite time in the past and will fully evaporate away in some finite time in the future. Then, it will only emit a finite amount of information encoded within its Hawking radiation. Assume that at time formula_7, more than half of the information had already been emitted. According to widely accepted research by physicists like Don Page and Leonard Susskind, an outgoing particle emitted at time formula_7 must be entangled with all the Hawking radiation the black hole has previously emitted. This creates a paradox: a principle called \"monogamy of entanglement\" requires that, like any quantum system, the outgoing particle cannot be fully entangled with two independent systems at the same time; yet here the outgoing particle appears to be entangled with both the infalling particle and, independently, with past Hawking radiation.\n",
"Even if quantum information was not extinguished in the singularity of a classic black hole and it somehow still existed, quantum data would be unable to climb up against infinite gravitational intensity to reach the surface of its event horizon and escape. Hawking radiation (so-far undetected particles and photons thought to be emitted from the proximity of black holes) would not circumvent the information paradox; it could reveal only the mass, angular momentum, and electric charge of classic black holes. Hawking radiation is thought to be created when virtual particles— antiparticle pairs of all sorts plus photons, which are their own antiparticle—form very close to the event horizon and one member of a pair spirals in while the other escapes, carrying away the energy of the black hole.\n",
"Detecting a signal from Delta, which has taken the equivalent of 15 Earth years to reach them, the travellers are able to plot their position and lay in a course home. However, disaster strikes when \"Altares\" is caught in the gravity of a black hole that has formed from a collapsed star. The photon drive is unable to provide the faster-than-light speeds necessary to break free; nevertheless, Anna urges the crew not to give up hope, for she suspects that the object may be a gateway to another universe. Her theory is proven correct when, sustaining the various space-time distortions at the event horizon, \"Altares\" safely emerges from the black hole – intact, albeit with no way of returning to Earth. As the vessel and its intrepid crew approach a planet, the narrator concludes, \"One thing is sure – this is not the final word. Not the end, but the beginning. A new universe, a new hope? Only time will tell.\"\n"
] |
how do companies like kfc, mcdonalds or even coca cola protect their recipes? wont modern science be able to breakdown whats exactly in the food they serve?
|
Yes you can break down the exact components of something like Coke and see what is in there.
It won't help.
I could tell you a house is made of several hundred boards, a few thousand nails, hundreds of pounds of gypsum, various types of metals (copper, iron), some plastic, and some other stuff.
Does that help you *build* a house? No. What is secret is the *process*, the actual recipe. *How* to make it. *When* to put in certain ingredients. It's much more about what it's made of. It's about consistency, texture, stability, and many more things.
|
[
"The CFS has also been an advocate for GE food labeling at both the state and federal level, pushing for new legislation and generating public support across the country for the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take action.\n",
"Opponents claimed Prop 37 backers real intent was to ban GMOs via labeling schemes removing consumer choices, citing claims by proponents like Jeffrey M. Smith that labeling requirements in California would cause food companies to source only non-GMO foods to avoid having labels that consumers would perceive as warnings.\n",
"While the FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food safety, the agency holds the position that \"the use of genetic engineering in the production of food does not present any safety concerns for such foods as a class\", and , as there is \"an absence of reliable data indicating safety concerns\" with GMO foods as a class, voiced no opposition for USDA having the responsibility of regulating GMO food labeling. The agency commented that the bill has language that may allow GMO material to escape labeling: the bill requires labeling if the food contains \"genetic material\", but that may exempt secondary products like oil, starches, sweeteners, or proteins derived from GMO substrates. The agency questioned the specificity of the definition of bioengineered food when it would not apply to GMOs that could also be achieved by 'conventional breeding\". The FDA has also voiced some concerns about food information being presented in electronic codes.\n",
"Since 2014, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared HFCS to be safe as a food ingredient. In 2015, production of HFCS in the United States was 8.5 million tons from some 500 million bushels of corn.\n",
"Proponents argue that approved GMO food has undergone extensive testing, is \"safe\" and that basically labeling is unnecessary. Labeling may discourage consumers to use GMO products when such a choice may be irrational. A lot of consumers express fears that have not been substantiated by science.\n",
"In the United States, there are laws/regulations and agencies to protect the consumer when purchasing food products, specifically dedicated to the packaging and labeling. Some laws and organizations include the Nutrition and Labeling Education Act, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).\n",
"In December 2007, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) filed a complaint with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “halt the marketing of NSA's Juice Plus Orchard Blend and Garden Blend capsules because the products appear to be adulterated and misbranded”. CSPI said it was “concerned that the products' claim, ‘the next best thing to fruits and vegetables,’ may lead consumers to believe the pills are closer to real fruits and vegetables than is likely to be the case.\" According to CSPI, the labels say the capsules contain high levels of vitamins A and C and folate naturally, but “do not disclose that these vitamins and minerals are added to the capsules during processing and are nutrients only characteristic of the original fruit and vegetable sources.”\n"
] |
Is Gavrilo Princip a "Yugoslav nationalist" or a "Serbian nationalist"?
|
I think it really depends on how you conceptualize the Serbian nationalist movement in the early 20th century. "Yugoslav" means "south Slav" and a Yugoslav nationalist would be someone who supported the unification of southern Slavs - Serbians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Bosnians, etc - into one state. This is the geopolitical result of Pan-Slavism.
On the other hand, a Serbian nationalist would have seen Serbia as the protector of the Slavs in the Balkans. As a newly founded state which had won substantial victories in 1912 and 1913, Serbia could rightly hope to woo the Balkans' Slavic populations away from the existing Empires there: namely Austria-Hungary. A Serbian nationalist would have supported the idea of a Serb-dominated Southern Balkans in which Slavic lands were incorporated into Serbia or Serb-friendly governments installed.
See how those can be pretty confusing? They both stem from the idea that together, the Slavs of the southern Balkans are strong and can defend themselves against the various Empires which had dominated them for so long. Yugoslav nationalism is interesting because it necessarily involves the breakdown of the barriers which already existed within the South Slavs themselves - Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian Muslim, Kosovar, etc. Serbian nationalism is more outright nationalism, in that it supports the idea of a strong South Slavic people, but a South Slavic people under the direct guidance of a strong Serbia.
I think Princip was more of an outright Serbian nationalist, in that he saw the Bosnian Serbs living under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as being rightfully Serbian. As in, the lands inhabited by Bosnian Serbs should rightfully be attached to Serbia. That's why the 1908 Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria drove the Serbian nationalist absolutely *nuts*.
|
[
"In socialist Yugoslavia, Gavrilo Princip was venerated as a national hero and a freedom fighter who fought to liberate all the peoples of Yugoslavia from Austrian rule; however in the modern day, many Croats and Bosniaks have now expressed viewpoints characterizing Princip as a murderer. Asim Sarajlic, a senior MP of the Bosniak nationalist Party of Democratic Action, stated that Princip brought an end to \"a golden era of history under Austrian rule\" and that \"we are strongly against the mythology of Princip as a fighter of freedom.\"\n",
"Aleksandar Ranković (nom de guerre Leka; ; 28 November 1909 – 19 August 1983) was a Yugoslav communist of Serb origin, considered to be the third most powerful man in Yugoslavia after Josip Broz Tito and Edvard Kardelj. Ranković was a proponent of a centralized Yugoslavia and opposed efforts that promoted decentralization that he deemed to be against the interests of the Serbian people; he ensured Serbs had a strong presence in Serbia's Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo's nomenklatura. Ranković cautioned against separatist forces in Kosovo who were commonly suspected of pursuing seditious activities.\n",
"Several Serbian sources have repeatedly alleged that the Croatian politician Ivan \"Stevo\" Krajačić, a member of the League of Communists of Croatia inside Communist Yugoslavia and a confidant of President Josip Broz Tito, was an active campaigner for Croatian independence. Among other allegations, Krajačić was accused of having adopted the nickname \"\"Conducător\" of Separatism\", as a compliment to Ceaușescu's dictatorial stance.\n",
"Vasić left the Republican Party and, with Jovanović's encouragement, founded the nationalist Serbian Cultural Club in 1936. He later became its vice-president. Before World War II, he edited a periodical titled \"Srpski glas\" (Serbian Voice). He sided with Serbian nationalists during the concordat crisis in 1938 and opposed the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of August 1939, which granted greater autonomy to Croatia within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Vasić is reported to have had some contacts with Soviet intelligence services.\n",
"Josip Broz (; born 1947), commonly known as Joška Broz (), is a politician in Serbia. He is the grandson of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and is one of the most prominent supporters of the Titoist legacy within the former Yugoslavia. Broz has led Serbia's Communist Party since its formation in 2009 and has served in the National Assembly of Serbia since 2016, sitting with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) parliamentary group.\n",
"Svetozar Vukmanović - Tempo (; 3 August 1912 in Podgora, Kingdom of Montenegro – 6 December 2000 in Reževići, near Budva, Montenegro) was a leading Montenegrin communist and member of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. During World War II he served on the Supreme Staff, went on missions to Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania, and became Josip Broz Tito's personal representative in Macedonia. He held high positions in the postwar government, and was proclaimed a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.\n",
"In the Balkans, Yugoslav nationalists such as the leader, Ante Trumbić, strongly supported the war, desiring the freedom of Yugoslavs from Austria-Hungary and other foreign powers and the creation of an independent Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Committee, led by Trumbić, was formed in Paris on 30 April 1915 but shortly moved its office to London. In April 1918, the Rome Congress of Oppressed Nationalities met, including Czechoslovak, Italian, Polish, Transylvanian, and Yugoslav representatives who urged the Allies to support national self-determination for the peoples residing within Austria-Hungary.\n"
] |
what is the difference between credit cards systems in u.s.a and europe?
|
People use mostly same cards (Visa, Mastercard) some are unheard of (Diners)
Differences:
In EU, People favor using Debit cards instead of Credit cards.
There is no "credit score" in EU, so people have little motivation to use credit card just to improve credit score.
In USA when you pay in restaurant, they take your credit card and do the processing in back. In EU, they bring machine to you.
Technology in ahead - no magnetic swipes, everyone has contactless cards and readers.
Stuff like Card Skimmers is less common (due to advanced security features) and because there are less things like unattended gas pumps where you pay with CC.
US has better customer service (like easy revertion of payments) when your CC card gets cloned and abused.
|
[
"Within the United States, credit card transactions are controlled by four main financial institutions: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover, making it an oligopoly. Credit cards work as a two-sided market, with the institutions providing benefits to consumers (by allowing them to access lines of credit to make instant purchases) and merchants (by providing them the funds for that purchase instantly). The institutions support this by taking a transaction fee off the merchant's funds, with the fee varying between each institution.\n",
"In July 2007 a new system of credits, compatible with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, was introduced in which one credit (\"högskolepoäng\") in the new system corresponds to one ECTS credit and two-thirds of a credit in the old system (\"poäng\").\n",
"Federal systems, such as those in Canada, Switzerland, and the US, may have different rules for allowing a credit for extra-jurisdictional credits at the federal and state levels. Such rules may differ among sub-federal (provincial, cantonal, state) jurisdictions. Thus, for example, Canadian and US federal governments allow credits from all foreign levels, while Canadian provinces and US states tend to allow a credit for income taxes paid to other provinces and states but not for taxes paid to sovereign jurisdictions (countries). Sub-federal taxes may or may not be covered by income tax treaties.\n",
"There are two types of credit systems; Local Credits and European Credit Transfer System credits (ECTS). One theoretical hour or two practical hours per week account for one local credit. At each committee, every 14 theoretical hours or 28 practical hours are assigned as one credit. ECTS credits are calculated based on students’ workload (featuring theoretical, practical hours and study time).\n",
"In Europe, a common credit system has been introduced. The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is in some European countries used as the principal credit and grading system in universities, while other countries use the ECTS as a secondary credit system for exchange students. In ECTS, a full study year normally consists of 60 credits. ECTS grades are given in the A-E range, where F is failing. Schools are also allowed to use a pass/fail evaluation in the ECTS system.\n",
"The fractured nature of the U.S. banking system under the Glass–Steagall Act meant that credit cards became an effective way for those who were traveling around the country to move their credit to places where they could not directly use their banking facilities. There are now countless variations on the basic concept of revolving credit for individuals (as issued by banks and honored by a network of financial institutions), including organization-branded credit cards, corporate-user credit cards, store cards and so on.\n",
"Although credit cards reached very high adoption levels in the US, Canada and the UK during the latter 20th century, many cultures were more cash-oriented or developed alternative forms of cashless payments, such as Carte bleue or the Eurocard (Germany, France, Switzerland, and others). In these places, adoption of credit cards was initially much slower. Due to strict regulations regarding bank overdrafts, some countries, France in particular, were much quicker to develop and adopt chip-based credit cards which are seen as major anti-fraud credit devices. Debit cards and online banking (using either ATMs or PCs) are used more widely than credit cards in some countries. It took until the 1990s to reach anything like the percentage market penetration levels achieved in the US, Canada, and UK. In some countries, acceptance still remains low as the use of a credit card system depends on the banking system of each country; while in others, a country sometimes had to develop its own credit card network, e.g. UK's Barclaycard and Australia's Bankcard. Japan remains a very cash-oriented society, with credit card adoption being limited mainly to the largest of merchants; although stored value cards (such as telephone cards) are used as alternative currencies, the trend is toward RFID-based systems inside cards, cellphones, and other objects.\n"
] |
what happens short-term and long-term when a person defaults on their student loans?
|
The usual suspects. Credit score tanks. Collections calls start flowing in. Stuff gets repo'd or your wages get garnished until the debt is repaid.
Of course it might vary by state and by whatever agency granted the loan (federal vs state vs whatever), but the basic pattern of "this person owes us money" doesn't change much.
|
[
"There are other negative consequences resulting from a defaulted loan. A student who wishes to return to school cannot qualify for federal aid in the United States until satisfactory payment arrangements are made on the defaulted loan or the loan is rehabilitated, a process that can take as long as a full year of on-time payments.\n",
"In a 2017 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, the researchers found that 27% of all student loans resulted in default within 12 years. Children in poor families were particularly vulnerable, still maintaining an average balance that was 91% of the original loan.\n",
"The lent amount, often referred to as a \"student loan,\" may be owed to the school (or bank) if the student has dropped classes and withdrawn from the school. Students who withdraw from an institution, especially with poor grades, often end up disqualifying for further financial aid. For low and no-income students, student loans are the sole factor that enable them to go to school, as loans typically cover tuition, room and board, meal plans, text books, and miscellaneous necessities. During repayment of student loans, renegotiation and bankruptcy are strictly regulated.\n",
"No principal payments are expected on the loan while the student is in school enrolled at least half-time, referred to as in-school deferment. Deferment of repayment continues for six months after the student leaves school by graduating, dropping below half-time enrollment, or withdrawing, referred to as the grace period.\n",
"Defaulting on a loan can adversely affect credit for many years. Default typically occurs when a loan receives no payment for 270 days. The loan leaves repayment status and is due in full when the lender requests. New collection costs are added to the loan's balance and the loan becomes drastically more expensive or eliminated through negotiation or legal action. \n",
"Fixed interest rate loans have repayment periods of 3, 5, or 10 years from the time that the loan becomes interest-bearing. The longest repayment term is 20 years, but can be deferred up to 30 years. After graduation, students are given a default grace period of 5 months before they have to begin making payments in the sixth month. Borrowers can request additional deferment periods for a maximum deferment of 3 years. The accrued interest from the deferment period will be capitalized into the loan, meaning that the standard monthly payment will increase for every additional deferment period. \n",
"Some loaning institutions offer a variety of repayment plans for your term loan. Commonly, you may choose to pay off your debt in even amounts, or the amount you pay will gradually increase over the loan period. If you expect that you will be more financially able to repay in the future, causing an incremental increase may help you and save you interest. If you are unsure of your future monetary position, even payments may help prevent defaulting on the loan if things go badly.\n"
] |
When the Roman Empire began to collapse, the Saxons invaded England. Were they united in doing so, or was it one tribe that invaded, or many? What happened to those that stayed behind in Germany?
|
Invasion is a loaded word that really does a poor job of describing the Saxon's role in England. Many, many individual tribes traveled across to England and began settling the eastern coast. While there was some conflict between the native Britains and the Saxons it was largely a peaceful transition.
There was really no unity in the immigration. It really seems like the Germanic tribes came over as opportunists; seeking land. When they found open land they invited more tribes to come over. It was largely a familial affair. It was much more immigration than invasion.
Due to the breaking of Roman trade ties the entire island (well, south of Hadrien's Wall) was thrown into a total upheaval. The culture from the early 5th century to mid 7th century saw a lot of transition and combining of the Roman, British, and English cultures.
There are theories that the early immigrants rose to economic supremacy due to their relationship with the Germanic mainland. Being the first to arrive, they had the opportunity to set up trade networks with the mainland. Those left in the mainland often moved island-side due to the economic opportunities. We know that at least until the mid 7th century there was frequent trade with the mainland. Change in jewelry culture in the mainland manifested itself in England, for example.
|
[
"As the Roman Empire declined, its hold on Britain loosened. By AD 410, Roman forces had been withdrawn, and small, isolated bands of migrating Germans began to invade Britain. There seems to have been no large \"invasion\" with a combined army or fleet, but the tribes, notably the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, quickly established control over modern-day England.\n",
"Towards the end of the post-classical history period and the onset of the Middle Ages, there were various invasions, which led to the settlement of a large and collective body of Germans in Roman Gaul. One of the earliest invasions of the Roman Empire was conducted by the Visigoths, that were a major group of Germanic peoples. However, this invasion was very far from affecting the Romans who held on strong until the year 9 A.D. when the Romans were defeated and Germanisation seemed imminent as the Romans were pushed into defence against various Germanic peoples who were impatient to push the boundary and enter Roman territory. Many scholars agree that if there had not been a sudden and alarming influx of populations from the Germanic peoples into Gaul and other regions, the Roman Empire might have collapsed completely much earlier than it actually did.\n",
"Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine. Roman emperor Augustus in 12 BC ordered the conquest of the Germans, but the catastrophic Roman defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest resulted in the Roman Empire abandoning its plans to completely conquer Germania. Germanic peoples in Roman territory were culturally Romanized, and although much of Germania remained free of direct Roman rule, Rome deeply influenced the development of German society, especially the adoption of Christianity by the Germans who obtained it from the Romans. In Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, and Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions intermingled. The adoption of Christianity would later become a major influence in the development of a common German identity.\n",
"In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire almost collapsed and its army was becoming increasingly Germanic in make-up, so that in the 4th century when Huns pushed German tribes westward, they spilled across the Empire's borders and began to settle there. The Visigoths settled in Italy and then Spain, in the north the Franks settled into Gaul and western Germany, and in the 5th century the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. By the close of the 6th century the Western Roman Empire was almost completely replaced with smaller less politically organized, but vigorous, Germanic kingdoms.\n",
"One of the reasons for the Roman withdrawal was the pressure put upon the empire's military resources by the incursion of barbarian tribes from the east. These tribes, including the Angles and Saxons, who later became the English, were unable to make inroads into Wales except possibly along the Severn Valley as far as Llanidloes. However, they gradually conquered eastern and southern Britain. At the Battle of Chester in 616, the forces of Powys and other British kingdoms were defeated by the Northumbrians under Æthelfrith, with king Selyf ap Cynan among the dead. It has been suggested that this battle finally severed the land connection between Wales and the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd (\"Old North\"), the Brythonic-speaking regions of what is now southern Scotland and northern England, including Rheged, Strathclyde, Elmet and Gododdin, where Old Welsh was also spoken. From the 8th century on, Wales was by far the largest of the three remnant Brythonic areas in Britain, the other two being the Hen Ogledd and Cornwall.\n",
"One of the reasons for the Roman withdrawal was the pressure put upon the empire's military resources by the incursion of barbarian tribes from the east. These tribes, including the Angles and Saxons, who later became the English, were unable to make inroads into Wales except possibly along the Severn Valley as far as Llanidloes. However they gradually conquered eastern and southern Britain. At the Battle of Chester in 616, the forces of Powys and other British kingdoms were defeated by the Northumbrians under Æthelfrith, with king Selyf ap Cynan among the dead. It has been suggested that this battle finally severed the land connection between Wales and the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd (\"Old North\"), the Brittonic-speaking regions of what is now southern Scotland and northern England, including Rheged, Strathclyde, Elmet and Gododdin, where Old Welsh was also spoken. From the 8th century on, Wales was by far the largest of the three remnant Brittonic areas in Britain, the other two being the Hen Ogledd and Cornwall.\n",
"The Romans tried to stop the Germanic invaders in 112 at the Battle of Noreia, in 107 at the Battle of Burdigala, and in 105 at the Battle of Arausio but met with defeat each and every time. The Battle of Arausio was considered the Romans greatest defeat since Hannibal crushed their army at Cannae. Fortunately for the Romans, the Germans did not invade Italy after their victories but trekked through Gaul and Hispania instead. For a decade the Romans lived in fear of a Germanic invasion they thought would arrive at any moment.\n"
] |
why we can secure banking/investment accts online but we can't secure voting
|
The requirements are different.
Most importantly, banking information needs to be tied to the person making the transaction. If any inconsistencies come up they need to be able to make sure they have enough identification information to trace the transactions back to the person who made them.
This is exactly the opposite in voting. Voting has to be anonymous. Having anonymous voting but still being able to trace the inconsistencies back is a trickier problem. It's not impossible tho.
The real big issue is that an election screwing up and a country having a tyrant running it who is willing to fix an election to win is far, far worse than any loss of money a bank might suffer. Electronic elections software has way more riding on it than banking software.
|
[
"A problem of privacy arises with moves to improve efficiency of voting by the introduction of postal voting and electronic voting. Some countries permit proxy voting, which some argue is inconsistent with voting privacy.\n",
"Unlike large scale data centers and company brand image, people may be less likely to trust peers vs. a large company like Google or Amazon. Running some sort of computation with sensitive information would then need to be encrypted properly and the overhead of that encryption may reduce the usefulness of the P2P offloading. When resources are distributed in small pieces to many peers for computations, inherent trust must be placed in the client, regardless of the encryption that may be promised to the client.\n",
"The government must be in a position to guarantee that online communications are secure and that they do not violate people's privacy. This is especially important when considering electronic voting. An electoral voting system is more complex than other electronic transaction systems and the authentication mechanisms employed must be able to prevent ballot rigging or the threat of rigging. This may include the use of smart cards that allow a voter's identity to be verified whilst at the same time ensuring the privacy of the vote cast. Electronic voting in Estonia is one example of a method to conquer the privacy-identity problem inherent in internet voting systems. However, the objective should be to provide equivalence with the security and privacy of current manual systems.\n",
"The security of the voting system is crucial for any form of democracy but the use of information technology adds new opportunities for fraud. All of the systems that are employed in Internet banking systems are proposed to ensure security in Interactive Democracy. However, there are also concerns that personal information and voting patterns open up the system to \"Big Brother\" style manipulation. Proponents of ID suggest that strong regulations supported by an independent judiciary and police force will be sufficient to prevent such threats.\n",
"The Institute of Social Research in Norway conducted a study in which we can see signs that voters are afraid that their votes will become public, which they will see as a compromise of their democratic rights. In addition, voters’ fears are embedded in the encryption system that guards the privacy of their votes. How can voters be sure that their votes are safe from hackers? This led them to believe that in order to make this a viable voting system, governments have to ensure that the encryption system used to protect votes is as safe as possible. Until governments can ensure a certain level of safety for people's votes, the outcomes in Norway are unlikely to change - the voter turnout will still be low even if the convenience of voting is made easier.\n",
"Cryptography is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative secure voting method. This mechanism eliminates the “countable ballot” and instead relies strictly on the digital code to transfer each vote. Each vote is privately stored \"cryptographically\" in the blockchain and can be traced backed to the individual voter by their ballot decision and has the potential to reinvent the electoral process by increasing voter accessibility. On the contrary, critics, like Barbara Simmons who is a computer scientist and chairwoman of the Verified Voting Foundation, claim this method is not reliable because of potential hacking or tampering to votes before they enter the blockchain. After the 2016 presidential election, voters and officials became more aware of this possibility as of accusations towards Russia for election hacking started to arise. Part of the Verified Voting Foundation's work is motivated to remove this voting option in order to prevent this potential vulnerability for electronic voting and require a paper receipt for each voter as a physical source of accountability to prevent skewed election results. \n",
"One cited benefit of the creation of a \"Trusted Community\" for branches of industry is that, although companies protect their own infrastructures, problems occur in cases where encryption or authentication solutions are used across different companies and yet should be acknowledged as confidential. An impasse is often reached when both sides seek to implement their own mechanisms, if not before. This is demonstrated by the example of email encryption, with the clash of safety regulations in view of shared application use and thousands of unencrypted data connections. A shared, confidential infrastructure provides a remedy here. Ford cites the use of ENX to communicate with suppliers as an example of how considerable savings can be made through consolidation and standardisation.\n"
] |
religion. honestly i don't understand it.
|
People want answers.
But what are the questions?
Things like these:
What is the meaning of life?
Why are we here?
Who made us?
Who made the universe?
Do I go somewhere when I die?
What is good?
What is evil?
Religion answers all (or at least one) of these questions and more while giving peoples' lives a purpose and structure.
|
[
"A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth.\n",
"Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements. However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.\n",
"A \"religion\" is a set of beliefs and practices, often centered upon specific supernatural and/or moral claims about reality, the cosmos, and human nature, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term \"religion\" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.\n",
"BULLET::::- Religion (outline) – a religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.\n",
"The scholar of religion S. Brent Plate was of the view that \"religion must be understood as deriving from rudimentary human experiences, from lived, embodied practices\". He stated that \"to learn about religion we have to come to our senses. Literally. We have to begin to discover... that we cannot know the worlds of any other culture, let alone our own, unless we get inside the sensational operations of human bodies.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- Religion: Sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine; and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief. In its broadest sense some have defined it as the sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken many forms in various cultures and individuals. Occasionally, the word \"religion\" is used to designate what should be more properly described as \"organized religion\" – that is, an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). There are many different religions in the world today.\n",
"\"Religion\" is a belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, and institutions associated with such belief, although some scholars, such as Durkheim, would argue that the supernatural and the divine are not aspects of all religions. Religious beliefs and practices may include the following: a deity or higher being, eschatology, practices of worship, practices of ethics and politics. Some religions do not include all these features. For instance, belief in a deity is not essential to Buddhism.\n"
] |
what is the purpose of those robocalls where no one is on the other end
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> But what value could a call be that gets no information other than you picked up so it’s a live number?
That information is useful to reduce the calling list to numbers that at least work.
Robo-calling outfits operate by having a call center full of workers ready to pick up and start the scam. The system automatically calls people and then if someone picks up will transfer them to a worker with an open line. But if more people pick up than expected and there is no open line available the call might not be connected to anyone and the system will just hang up.
|
[
"Robux is the virtual currency in \"Roblox\" that allows players to buy various items. Players can obtain Robux through real life purchases, another player buying their items, or from earning daily Robux with a membership.\n",
"Unlike other \"Custom Robo\" titles, once shot out of the Robocannon, players have a random amount of time for their Custom Robo to be ready to battle, instead of depending on which six sides of the cube they land on. Custom Robos are arranged in groups that are similar to their abilities. In camera views, unlike other Custom Robo titles, this one has only one, which zooms out whenever two Custom Robos are far from each other, while it zooms in whenever they are close to each other. The endurance bar is located above the players' hit points. Once it runs out, the players' robo gets \"downed\" which means that it stays fallen for a couple seconds. After it gets up, it goes into \"rebirth\", where it stays invincible for about 3 seconds. If the player repeatedly loses the same battle, the game offers the option of reducing the opponent's initial health, to make it easier. If the players continue to lose several times, the degree of handicap offered increases up to 75%, giving the opponent a starting 250 HP.\n",
"Rob persuades a reluctant, and debt-ridden, Lady Dolwyn to sell the land, and also offers the leaseholders large sums for their leases. They are also offered new houses in a Liverpool suburb and jobs in a cotton mill for those who want them. Rob has his own reasons for wanting the village flooded; he is a native of Dolwyn, but was stoned out of it twenty years before for thievery. He therefore hates and despises the villagers, who are actually oblivious to his shameful past and bear him no ill will.\n",
"Roblox is a massively multiplayer online and game creation system platform that allows users to design their own games and play a wide variety of different types of games created by other users. The platform hosts user-created games and virtual worlds covering a wide variety of genres, from traditional racing and role-playing games to simulations and obstacle courses. As of April 2019, Roblox has over 90 million monthly active users.\n",
"Roblox is a game creation platform which allows players to create their own games using its proprietary engine, Roblox Studio. Games are coded under an Object Oriented Programming system utilizing the programming language Lua to manipulate the environment of the game. Users are able to create game passes, which are purchasable content through one-time purchases, as well as microtransactions through developer products. Developers on the site exchange Robux earned from various products on their games into real world currency through the Developer Exchange system. A percentage of the revenue from purchases is split between the developer and \"Roblox\".\n",
"RoboCop quickly proves to be an effective weapon against crime, but unbeknownst to Morton is that RoboCop begins to remember his past life as Murphy, starting with his death at the hands of Boddicker and his gang. Enraged at having had his life stolen from him, RoboCop embarks on a personal quest for vengeance as he hunts down and apprehends Boddicker's gang, resulting in the gang's arrest. RoboCop also tracks down OCP's senior executive, Dick Jones, in an attempt to make him pay for aiding Boddicker. However, RoboCop's classified 'Directive 4' comes into effect, preventing him from arresting Jones, and he is subsequently damaged by the ED-209 as well as Lt. Hedgecock and his SWAT team, though a few SWATs refuse to follow the order. After enduring a massed attack by SWAT, RoboCop is rescued by Lewis who was alerted by the few SWATs to LT. Hedgecock's treachery. The two hide in an abandoned steel mill after they escape, during which RoboCop confides to Lewis about his memories of his past life. He also uses a drill brought by Lewis to remove his headpiece, showing how he has his \"Alex Murphy\" face stretched over it. The two are attacked by Boddicker's gang, commissioned by Jones to destroy the cyborg after he realizes that his entire confession of ordering Morton's murder has been recorded. The final confrontation with Boddicker himself ends with RoboCop violently stabbing him in the throat with the computer data spike installed in his fist. RoboCop confronts Jones in the middle of an OCP board meeting, during which Jones takes the \"Old Man\" hostage. After admitting that he can take no action due to Directive 4, the \"Old Man\" fires Jones, allowing RoboCop to shoot him, since he is no longer an OCP employee and his orders on the Detroit police force to destroy him is put to an end. Complimenting RoboCop on his shooting skills, The Old Man asks him his name. Robocop smiles before answering, \"Murphy\".\n",
"Parks, sewers and even private houses provide clues needed to solve the mystery and bring the kidnapper to justice. Innocent citizens can also be kicked around just like the criminals. Knives and guns can also be integrated into Holmes' offensive techniques; allowing him to collect money from fallen thugs. If Holmes is killed by any means, the mystery becomes a perfect crime, thus terminating the game.\n"
] |
cold hot water?¿
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I remember one of my middle school science teachers explaining something like this. If I remember correctly, the body's nerves have a hard time telling the difference between extreme hot and extreme cold temperatures. So, the receptors can mix them up. When putting your hand in freezing water, it can feel like it burns. And when putting your hand in really hot water, it can feel like you're freezing.
If I am incorrect, someone feel free to let me know and steer me in the right direction.
|
[
"Hot water can cause painful, dangerous scalding injuries, especially in children and the elderly. Water at the outlet should not exceed 49 degrees Celsius. Some jurisdictions set a limit of 49 degrees on tank setpoint temperature. On the other hand, water stored below 60 degrees Celsius can permit the growth of bacteria, such as those that cause Legionnaire's disease, which is a particular danger to those with compromised immune systems. One technical solution would be use of mixing valves at outlets used for sinks, baths or showers, that would automatically mix cold water to maintain a maximum below 49 C. A proposal to add this to the building code of Canada was unsuccessful. \n",
"The underground travel of the waters, from the opposite shore of the lake (more than thirty years at deep), explains its temperature of 46°. Many sources provide calcium, sulphated, silica-rich waters which are very slightly radioactive at 45° or cold, and finally with bicarbonatees. They, according to their origin and their temperature, are used either for showers or baths, in a swimming-pool, or to drink. These warm waters are especially indicated for degenerative rheumatism such as lumbar or cervical arthritis, osteoarthritis, sciatica, acute lumbago, recurrent arthritis of the hands, knee osteoarthritis, and for inflammatory rheumatism and spontylarthrite rheumatism. The use of sources is also beneficial for the algodystrophy, tendonitis, and phlebological problems (chronic venous insufficiency, suites and sequelae of thrombosis, lymphatic insufficiency, Raynaud's disease), on the other hand, these waters are contraindicated for the varicose ulcer, stroke or recent cardiac events. The cure techniques are the use of showers, individual enclosure (Berthollet), physiotherapy, mud application, underwater showers, and rehabilitation in a swimming pool. By their calming of the nervous system, the waters can cause euphoric relaxation.\n",
"The simplest use of cold water is for air conditioning: using the cold water itself to cool air saves the energy that would be used by the compressors for traditional refrigeration. Another use could be to replace expensive desalination plants. When cold water passes through a pipe surrounded by humid air, condensation results. The condensate is pure water, suitable for humans to drink or for crop irrigation. Via a technology called Ocean thermal energy conversion, the temperature difference can be turned into electricity.\n",
"Two conflicting safety issues affect water heater temperature—the risk of scalding from excessively hot water greater than , and the risk of incubating bacteria colonies, particularly \"Legionella\", in water that is not hot enough to kill them. Both risks are potentially life-threatening and are balanced by setting the water heater's thermostat to . The European Guidelines for Control and Prevention of Travel Associated Legionnaires’ Disease recommend that hot water should be stored at and distributed so that a temperature of at least and preferably is achieved within one minute at points of use.\n",
"As its name suggests, there are thirty natural hot water sources with temperatures ranging from 45° to more than 80°. The most famous is the source of the Par river with a water temperature of 82° - the hottest in Europe - with a flow in the region of 450,000 litres a day. One local story suggests that the source is so-named because a pig was dressed (\"paré\") or jointed thanks to the hot water. The waters are used all year round. In winter, they have provided heat for houses and the church as district heating since the 14th Century; from spring the waters are channeled to the spa for the treatment of rheumatics.\n",
"Counter-intuituvely, hot water (typically to 160 °F) is used to make new ice. Hot water has a lower oxygen content, and makes clearer, harder ice. The hot water also flows better across the frozen surface, smoothing gouges and filling holes. The ice-making water is untreated City of Marlborough tap water.\n",
"The minimum requirements of the system are typically determined by the amount or temperature of hot water required during winter, when a system's output and incoming water temperature are typically at their lowest. The maximum output of the system is determined by the need to prevent the water in the system from becoming too hot.\n"
] |
how do babies/toddlers run on their knees like it's no problem but adults can't?
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I think it has to do with the fact that the bones of a baby don't really solidify into hard bones until they are older. So going on their knees isn't too bad. Also as a baby the have at what 15lbs of weight on their knees and are usually somewhat chubby (thinks more padding) Adults are a lot heavier with more wear and tear on their joints already.
But I could be wrong.
|
[
"In infants, some babies may be hypotonia, a loose and floppy baby, or hypertonia, a stiff and rigid baby. Toddlers may have trouble feeding themselves or may stand, sit or walk later than what is developmentally normal. Other signs of motor skills disorders may be children that are clumsy or have excessive accidents, such as knocking things over. Children who have trouble with complex physical activities such as dancing, swimming, catching or throwing a ball, or drawing may avoid these activities completely.\n",
"Infants sometimes \"crawl\" with their stomachs on the ground as early as 3 months, but this crawling is infrequent with the baby remaining stationary most of the time. True crawling with the stomach off the ground and the baby frequently on the move usually develops between 7 and 11 months of age and lasts anywhere from a week to 4 months before the child switches to walking. Even after taking their first unaided steps, most babies still crawl part of the time until they have mastered walking. While crawling, infants gradually practice standing, at first by using people or objects for support and, later, without support. Crawling babies are notorious for getting into trouble, so parents are often advised to childproof their house before a baby reaches crawling age.\n",
"Newborn infants cannot voluntarily control their posture. Within a few weeks, though, they can hold their heads erect, and soon they can lift their heads while prone. By 2 months of age, babies can sit while supported on a lap or an infant seat, but sitting independently is not accomplished until 6 or 7 months of age. Standing also develops gradually across the first year of life. By about 8 months of age, infants usually learn to pull themselves up and hold on to a chair, and they often can stand alone by about 10 to 12 months of age. There is a new device called a “Standing Dani” developed to help special needs children with their posture.\n",
"Walking upright requires being able to stand up and balance position from one foot to the other. Although infants usually learn to walk around the time of their first birthday, the neural pathways that control the leg alternation component of walking are in place from a very early age, possibly even at birth or before.[1] This is shown because 1- to 2-month-olds are given support with their feet in contact with a motorized treadmill, they show well-coordinated, alternating steps. If it were not for the problem of switching balance from one foot to the other, babies could walk earlier. Tests were performed on crawling and walking babies where slopes were placed in front of the path and the babies had to decide whether or not it was safe. The tests proved that babies who just learned how to walk did not know what they were capable of and often went down slopes that were not safe, whereas experienced walkers knew what they could do. Practice has a big part to do with teaching a child how to walk.\n",
"From the moment children could walk, they were expected to fend for themselves. Aside from feeding, children were taught to act individually early on. Once a child was around one or two years old, they were carried around on the mother's back. Early in the child's life, mothers will, despite the well known risk of strangulation, carry their babies by the armpit. As children grew older and could hold on for themselves, mothers would sit their children astride the mother's neck and expect them to hold onto their mother's hair for support. Once astride the neck, mothers returned to working in the fields to provide for their families. Babies were rarely held, and if they were held it was not by the mothers but instead by small daughters of other mothers.\n",
"Symptoms most often first appear in early childhood (the toddler stage) when children begin to sit or walk. Though they usually start walking at a normal age, they wobble or sway when walking, standing still or sitting. In late pre-school and early school age, they develop difficulty moving their eyes in a natural manner from one place to the next (oculomotor apraxia). They develop slurred or distorted speech, and swallowing problems. Some have an increased number of respiratory tract infections (ear infections, sinusitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia). Because not all children develop in the same manner or at the same rate, it may be some years before A–T is properly diagnosed. Most children with A–T have stable neurologic symptoms for the first 4–5 years of life, but begin to show increasing problems in early school years.\n",
"Children until the age of 3 to 4 have a degree of genu varum. The child sits with the soles of the feet facing one another; the tibia and femur are curved outwards; and, if the limbs are extended, although the ankles are in contact, there is a distinct space between the knee-joints. During the first year of life, a gradual change takes place. The knee-joints approach one another; the femur slopes downward and inward towards the knee joints; the tibia become straight; and the sole of the foot faces almost directly downwards.\n"
] |
The Cold War was a time of incredible technological achievement. How did that directly impact ideas of national defense for both NATO and the Warsaw Pact?
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I've forwarded your question to a colleague who is a specialist in this area. I too am very interested to know more.
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[
"During the 1970s there was growing concern that the combined conventional forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact could overwhelm the forces of NATO. It seemed unthinkable to respond to a Soviet/Warsaw Pact incursion into Western Europe with strategic nuclear weapons, inviting a catastrophic exchange. Thus, technologies were developed to greatly reduce collateral damage while being effective against advancing conventional military forces. Some of these were low-yield neutron bombs, which were lethal to tank crews, especially with tanks massed in tight formation, while producing relatively little blast, thermal radiation, or radioactive fallout. Other technologies were so-called \"suppressed radiation devices,\" which produced mostly blast with little radioactivity, making them much like conventional explosives, but with much more energy.\n",
"For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly waged war against each other in Europe; the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War on the international stage. These included the Korean War, Vietnam War, Bay of Pigs invasion, Dirty War, Cambodian–Vietnamese War, and others.\n",
"Rather than making extensive preparations for battlefield nuclear combat in Central Europe, \"The Soviet military leadership believed that conventional superiority provided the Warsaw Pact with the means to approximate the effects of nuclear weapons and achieve victory in Europe without resort to those weapons.\"\n",
"While the cold war never went hot directly between NATO and Warsaw Pact alliances the US was engaged in two major limited air wars aiding allies who faced Soviet supported enemies and both sides using weaponry designed to fight WW-III; the Korean and Vietnam wars.\n",
"During the Cold War (1945–1990), the two opposing forces in Europe were the Warsaw Pact countries on the one side, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries on the other side. Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact led to effective standardization on a few tank designs. In comparison, the main NATO countries, Britain, France, Germany, and the USA, developed their own tank designs with little in common, and the smaller counties generally adopted one or more of these designs.\n",
"One scenario that was the focus of American and NATO naval planning during the Cold War was a conflict between two modern and well equipped fleets on the high seas, the clash of the United States/NATO and the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact. Because the Cold War ended without direct total war between the two sides, the outcome of such an action remains hypothetical, but was broadly understood to include, towards the late Cold War, multiple salvoes of anti-ship missiles against the Americans and U.S. attempts to air strike Soviet land bases and/or fleets. Given the eventual strategic surprise effectiveness of anti-ship missiles, the outcome of such a clash is far from being clear.\n",
"It was this weakness that led first to the New Look of 1953, and then to the \"New\" New Look of 1955. The later, especially, aimed to counter any Warsaw Pact action in Europe with the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield, allowing NATO's superior airpower to destroy the Warsaw Pact's massed armor. As part of this shift in policy, the majority of US military development and funding was sent to the US Air Force and US Navy, the Army was, to a degree, ignored.\n"
] |
Sailing Speeds
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This is an area of interest to me, but finding actual speeds is like digging a ditch with a teaspoon. You find a bit here, a bit there, and once in a great while, how many days it took to press on from one port to another. Due to the recreated ships, you can find out more hard data about Classical galleys in the Mediterranean and Norse ships crossing the Atlantic than about medieval ones.
In general, figure a Venetian galley, under sail with a quartering wind, does 12 kn. They did usually sail, and only took down the mast and rowed when battle offered, or when it was dead calm, or they had a contrary wind.
Rodgers says of Mediterranean galleys "In the thirteenth century the ordinary galleys were about 128 feet long and 17 feet wide with a deep draft of 4.0 to 4.5 feet when they displaced about 130-145 tons. ... Each carried one mast which was usually struck when clearing for action." This would have about 120 rowers, free men who fought for the ship. Sizes ranged down to the "vachette" (little cow) with 8 oars (16-32 rowers), about 23 feet long and 6 feet wide.
Besides the rowers were a captain, steersmen, officers, and an unspecified number of marines, especially crossbowmen.
In a 1313 Genoese law, merchant galleys of large size had to be manned with "12 crossbowmen, 4 pilots, and 162 rowers and seamen, all armed with helmets, cuirasses, darts, swords, maces, and other weapons."
In 1203, Rodgers notes, it took a Venetian fleet under sail 31 days to sail 700 miles, though that includes 8 days at Abydos to wait for stragglers. So let's say 700 miles in 23 days. This is over open sea, not stopping each night along a coast, so it's 24 hr/day, meaning they covered 30-31 miles per day, which is kind of pitiful.
In 1284, the Genoese fleet sailed in pursuit of the Pisans, from Genoa to Porto Pisano in 5 days.
Sources: *Naval Warfare Under Oars, 4th to 16th Century* by Rodgers. He admits he uses some galleasses in the Spanish Armada as an excuse to be able to include the Armada Fight.
Gardiner, Robert (Editor) *The Earliest Ships: The Evolution of Boats into Ships*
Parker, Foxhall A., Commodore USN, *The Fleets of the World: The Galley Period*
This makes me want ebooks of Rodgers, so I can Search rather than eye-scan around the Crusader battles.
|
[
"The outright sailing speed record has since been claimed by the French trimaran Hydroptère which, on 4 September 2009, reached a speed of 51.36 knots over 500 meters and 50.17 over a nautical mile in open ocean and only 25 to 30 knots of wind.\n",
"Speed sailing is the art of sailing a craft as fast as possible over a predetermined route, and having its overall or peak speed recorded and accredited by a regulatory body. The term usually refers to sailing on water, even though sailing on land and ice is progressively faster because of the lower friction involved. The World Sailing Speed Record Council is the body authorized by the International Sailing Federation to confirm speed records of sailing craft (boats or sailboards) on water (not on ice or land).\n",
"Typical racing speeds are over 30 knots (55 km/h, 34 mph) with the boats capable of sailing well over 40 knots (74 km/h, 46 mph) in the right conditions. The fastest race speed recorded was on Emirates Team New Zealand which was 47.57 knots (88 km/h, 55 mph) in 21.8 knots of wind (2.2 times the wind speed) on September 24, 2013.\n",
"In 2009, the world speed sailing record on water was set by a hydrofoil trimaran sailing at 1.71 times the speed of the wind. In late 2012, the Vestas Sailrocket 2 skippered by Paul Larsen achieved a new outright world speed record of 65.45 knots on water, at around 2.5 times the speed of the wind.\n",
"Most sailing is not done in order to achieve a maximum speed, but in order to go from one point to another. In most sailboat racing the objective is to sail a certain distance directly upwind (to a point called the upwind mark), and then to return downwind, as fast as possible.\n",
"A slower speed of 19 knots is designed, compared to the 23–26 knots of similar ships. The top speed would be 25 knots, but steaming at 20 knots would reduce fuel consumption by 37%, and at 17.5 knots fuel consumption would be halved. These slower speeds would add 2–6 days to journey times.\n",
"The second event saw the first ever over- outright speed sailing record, when on October 3 Sebastien Cattelan made 50.26 knots (93.08 km/h), only to lose the title one day later to Alex Caizergues at 50.57 knots (93.66 km/h). This achievement marked the end of the race of the speed sailing world to cross the mark, between kitesurfers, windsurfers and sailboats, and opened the race towards the next \"mythical frontier\" of 100 km/h.\n"
] |
I have read that Crete produced some of the best quality archers in the ancient Mediterranean, what was it that set them apart from other archers of the time?
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Mostly the fact that they were Cretan. I've written about Cretan archers at length recently - see [here](_URL_0_). While Cretans were known to specialise in ranged combat due to the rugged nature of their homeland, their reputation as mercenary archers was largely self-sustaining. Cretans offered their services as mercenaries; since Cretans were available, those looking to hire archers would hire Cretans; the Cretans therefore became widely known as useful mercenaries, increasing demand; the Cretans realised that service abroad was a good way to make a living, and offered their services; and so on. Effectively, the Cretan archer was a brand. While skilled use of the bow certainly took a lot of practice, there is nothing in the literary evidence to suggest that Cretans had special skills that others couldn't replicate.
The Cretan archer would likely have been indistinguishable from other Greek light infantry in dress and equipment. They would wear tunics, but no body armour; on their heads they might wear a felt cap or a loose wide-brimmed sun hat. Their bows were probably short composite bows, expensive and delicate; the maximum range of these bows was perhaps 150 meters, their lethal range much less than that. Those who could not afford composite bows would have used simple bows with a smaller effective range. Xenophon once mentions that the Cretans of the Ten Thousand carried small bronze shields, but it is difficult to picture how such a shield would be wielded by an archer. Either some of the Cretans with this army were not in fact archers but peltasts, or they carried the bronze shields purely for the occasion Xenophon is describing (they were meant to flash their shields in the sun to make the enemy think there was a large force waiting in ambush).
The only distinctive feature of Cretan archers was that they sometimes used arrows with very large bronze tips. These were so much larger than the average arrowhead that it is difficult for archaeologists to distinguish between Cretan arrows and the bolts of the [*gastraphetes*](_URL_1_) or belly-bow, the earliest piece of proto-artillery. However, I can't think of any scholarship that has examined the impact of this large arrowhead on the Cretan archer's range and potential armour-piercing capabilities.
|
[
"Philip II was also able to field archers, including mercenary Cretan archers and perhaps some native Macedonians. In most Greek states, archery was not greatly esteemed, nor practised by native soldiery, and foreign archers were often employed, such as the Scythians prominent in Athenian employ. However, Crete was notable for its very effective archers, whose services as mercenaries were in great demand throughout the Greek World. Cretan archers were famed for their powerful bows, firing arrows with large, heavy heads of cast bronze. They carried their arrows in a quiver with a protective flap over its opening. Cretan archers were unusual in carrying a shield, which was relatively small and faced in bronze. The carrying of shields indicates that the Cretans also had some ability in hand-to-hand fighting, an additional factor in their popularity as mercenaries. Archers were also raised from Macedonia and various Balkan peoples. Alexander inherited the use of Cretan archers from his father's reign, yet around this time a clear reference to the use of native Macedonian archers was made. After the Battle of Gaugamela, archers of West Asian backgrounds became commonplace and were organized into \"chiliarchies\".\n",
"Cretan archers were a well known class of warrior whose specialist skills were extensively utilized in both ancient and medieval warfare. They were especially valued in armies, such as those of the Greek city states, Macedonia and ancient Rome, which could not draw upon substantial numbers of skilled archers from their native populations. \n",
"Though Cretan archers could be theoretically outranged by Rhodian slingers, they were widely recognized as being amongst the best light missile troops in the ancient world, and as such found employment as mercenaries in many armies, including Alexander the Great's and those of many of the Diadochi. During the Retreat of the Ten thousand following the Battle of Cunaxa in 401 BC Xenophon's hoplites were able to hold off pursuing Persian troops, with the aid of the Cretan archers who formed part of the Greek mercenary army. On this occasion the Cretans, cut off from supplies, were able to gather and reuse the spent Persian arrows while seizing bowstrings from local peasantry. Xenophon records that Cretan archers were outranged by their Persian counterparts and suffered losses because they wore no armour.\n",
"From about 218 BC onwards, the archers of the Roman army of the mid-Republic were virtually all mercenaries from the island of Crete, which boasted a long specialist tradition. During the late Republic (88–30 BC) and the Augustan period, Crete was gradually eclipsed by men from other, much more populous, regions subjugated by the Romans with strong archery traditions. These included Thrace, Anatolia and, above all, Syria. Of the 32 \"sagittarii\" units attested in the mid-2nd century, 13 have Syrian names, 7 Thracian, 5 from Anatolia, 1 from Crete and the remaining 6 of other or uncertain origin.\n",
"From about 218 BC onwards, the archers of the Roman army of the mid-Republic were virtually all mercenaries from the island of Crete, which boasted a long specialist tradition. During the late Republic (88-30 BC) and the Augustan period, Crete was gradually eclipsed by men from other, much more populous, regions with strong archery traditions, newly subjugated by the Romans. These included Thrace, Anatolia and above all, Syria. Of the thirty-two \"sagittarii\" units attested in the mid 2nd century, thirteen have Syrian names, seven Thracian, five from Anatolia, one from Crete and the remaining six of other or uncertain origin.\n",
"Many of the archers in service to Egypt were of Nubian extraction commonly referred to as Medjay, who go from a mercenary force during their initial service to Egypt in the Middle Kingdom to an elite paramilitary unit by the New Kingdom. So prolific were the Nubians as archers that Nubia as whole would be referred to Ta-Seti or land of the bow by the Ancient Egyptians.\n",
"Heraklion's fortifications have made it one of the best fortified cities in the Mediterranean. The walls remain largely intact to this day, and they are considered to be among the best preserved Venetian fortifications in Europe.\n"
] |
(xpost /r/askhistory) When the first recordings of someones voice were made, did people think it was flawed without knowing you sound different in your head then to other people?
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Guys, we get it. They could have asked someone else.
If you have something to say based on historical records about people's reactions to hearing their voices recorded, please feel free to give OP an answer. If you don't, please refrain from commenting because your comment will probably end up deleted anyway.
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[
"Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian psychologist who had taught at the Uppsala University, Sweden and who had worked in conjunction with Jürgenson, made over 100,000 recordings which he described as being communications with people. Some of these recordings were conducted in an RF-screened laboratory and contained words Raudive said were identifiable. In an attempt to confirm the content of his collection of recordings, Raudive invited listeners to hear and interpret them. He believed that the clarity of the voices heard in his recordings implied that they could not be readily explained by normal means. Raudive published his first book, \"Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead\" in 1968 and it was translated into English in 1971.\n",
"As a result, Clark went on to operate on a second patient who had been deaf for 17 years. He was able to show that the speech coding strategy was not unique to one person's brain response patterns, and that the memory for speech sounds could persist for many years after the person became deaf.\n",
"Raudive started researching such alleged voices on his own and spent much of the last ten years of his life exploring EVP. With the help of various electronics experts he recorded over 100,000 audiotapes, most of which were made under what he described as \"strict laboratory conditions.\" He collaborated at times with Bender. Over 400 people were involved in his research, and all apparently heard the voices. This culminated in the 1968 publication of \"Unhörbares wird hörbar\" \"(“What is inaudible becomes audible”)\" (published in English in 1971 as \"Breakthrough\").\n",
"Burleigh disdained recording and it was long (mistakenly) believed that no recording existed of his voice. He recorded once in 1919, for a small label run by his friend George Broome, and again in 1944 for St. George's church. The 1919 recording exists, but the latter recordings have never been found.\n",
"Flint accused of using prerecorded tapes to produce voices, as well as live accomplices providing a two-way voice channels. Parapsychologists from the Society for Psychical Research who attended séances with Flint also claimed he was using ventriloquism to produce the voices that they had heard.\n",
"When Moroder arrived in the studio to record his monologue, he was initially perplexed that the booth contained multiple microphones; he wondered if the extra equipment was a precaution in case one of the microphones broke. The recording engineer explained that the microphones varied with origin dates that ranged from the 1960s to the 21st century, and that each microphone would be used to represent the different decades in Moroder's life. The engineer added that although most listeners would not be able to distinguish between each microphone, Bangalter would know the difference. Nile Rodgers was also present during the voice recording sessions, which took place over the course of two days.\n",
"Nevertheless, experts and politicians analyzing the recordings agree that at least some of them are real, judging by known voices, speaking manners and confidential details mentioned. A few politicians, including Kuchma himself, have officially claimed they recognize their own voices on the tapes. However, the President and his supporters have always denied the authenticity of the body of conversations recorded, calling them a \"montage\". On the other hand, in 2002 Bruce Koenig, of the US forensic firm Bek Tek, a former worker in the FBI's forensic laboratory, examined the recordings and concluded that there were no signs of them having been doctored.\n"
] |
what exactly causes the putrid smell that is released when a dead animal is in the process of decaying?
|
Various complex molecules in our body break down into computers with apt names like putricine and cadaverine.
Since decaying bodies are often unsafe to be around, we have evolved to be particularly sensitive to those odors.
|
[
"Decomposition begins at the moment of death, caused by two factors: 1.) autolysis, the breaking down of tissues by the body's own internal chemicals and enzymes, and 2.) putrefaction, the breakdown of tissues by bacteria. These processes release compounds such as cadaverine and putrescine, that are the chief source of the unmistakably putrid odor of decaying animal tissue.\n",
"Active decay is characterized by the period of greatest mass loss. This loss occurs as a result of both the voracious feeding of maggots and the purging of decomposition fluids into the surrounding environment. The purged fluids accumulate around the body and create a cadaver decomposition island (CDI). Liquefaction of tissues and disintegration become apparent during this time and strong odors persist. The end of active decay is signaled by the migration of maggots away from the body to pupate.\n",
"Carrion begins to decay at the moment of the animal's death, and it will increasingly attract insects and breed bacteria. Not long after the animal has died, its body will begin to exude a foul odor caused by the presence of bacteria and the emission of cadaverine and putrescine.\n",
"The beginning of active decay stage is marked by the deflation of the carcass as feeding Dipteran larvae pierce the skin and internal gases are released. During this stage the carcass has a characteristic wet appearance due to the liquefaction of tissues. Flesh from the head and around the anus and umbilical cord is removed by larval feeding activity. A strong odor of putrefaction is associated with the carcass.\n",
"The final stage of decomposition is dry remains. Payne described a total of six stages of decay, the last two being separate dry and remains. As these stages are nearly impossible to distinguish between, many entomological studies combine the two into a single final stage. Very little remains of the carcass in this stage, mainly bones, cartilage and small bits of dried skin. There is little to no odor associated with remains. Any odor present may range from that of dried skin to wet fur.\n",
"The fresh stage of decomposition is generally described as the period between the moment of death and when the first signs of bloat are apparent. There are no outward signs of physical change, though internal bacteria have begun to digest organ tissues. No odor is associated with the carcass. Early post-mortem changes, used by pathologists as medical markers for early post-mortem interval estimations, have been described by Goff and include livor mortis, rigor mortis and algor mortis.\n",
"In many animals, body odor plays an important survival function. Strong body odor can be a warning signal for predators to stay away (such as porcupine stink), or it can also be a signal that the prey animal is unpalatable. For example, some animals species, who feign death to survive (like opossums), in this state produce a strong body odor to deceive a predator that the prey animal has been dead for a long time and is already in the advanced stage of decomposing. Some animals with strong body odor are rarely attacked by most predators, although they can still be killed and eaten by birds of prey, which are tolerant of carrion odors.\n"
] |
How do scientists calculate the location of a comet and its trajectory (projected orbital path) and then articulate it for others to confirm the data?
|
You would want to report:
1. the comet's position on the sky (usually in J2000 RA,dec; J2000 is the epoch, which sets where the axes of the coordinate system are)
2. at each time you saw the comet
3. precisely where you were located at those times
4. optionally, the brightness ([magnitude](_URL_2_)) of the comet
You bundle this up and send it to the [Minor Planet Center](_URL_1_). For example, if you scroll down on [this page](_URL_3_) you can see the data for Sedna.
In practice, you don't have to worry too much about exactly how the coordinate system is defined. What you do is take a catalog (e.g. [USNO B1.0](_URL_0_)) which has position information for a large number of stars. You then measure the position of the comet relative to the positions of several nearby stars.
If the comet is new then you'd want to get a good orbit and to do this you have to track the comet for a while. What 'a while' means depends very strongly on a number of things ... This comes from the fact that what you can measure (sky position vs time) doesn't have information about velocity towards/away from you if you only have a couple nights of observations. You need to wait until the comet-Earth-Sun angle has changed and re-observe to get at understanding the comet's movement in 3D. I have experience with orbit determination of Kuiper Belt objects, and there you need to get several observations over at least two (preferably at least three) years before you can really trust the orbit determination.
|
[
"The orbiter will send a signal which will be picked up by the lander. As the orbiter moves along its orbit, the path between it and the lander will vary and so pass through differing parts of the comet. In addition, the rotation of the comet nucleus will also change the relative position of the lander and the orbiter. Hence, over several orbits, many different paths will have been obtained.\n",
"The comet has an observation arc of 58 days allowing a reasonable estimate of the orbit. But the near-parabolic trajectory with an osculating perihelion eccentricity of 0.9999996 generates an extreme unperturbed aphelion distance of 2,034,048 AU (32 light-years). The orbit of a long-period comet is properly obtained when the osculating orbit is computed at an epoch after leaving the planetary region and is calculated with respect to the center of mass of the solar system. Using JPL Horizons, the barycentric orbital elements for epoch 2020-Jan-01 generate a semi-major axis of 832 AU, an aphelion distance of 1660 AU, and a period of approximately 24,000 years.\n",
"After orbits are determined, mathematical propagation techniques can be used to predict the future positions of orbiting objects. As time goes by, the actual path of an orbiting object tends to diverge from the predicted path (especially if the object is subject to difficult-to-predict perturbations such as atmospheric drag), and a new orbit determination using new observations serves to re-calibrate knowledge of the orbit.\n",
"The basic technique is to track a projectile for sufficient time to record a segment of the trajectory. This is usually done automatically, but some early and not so early radars required the operator to manually track the projectile. Once a trajectory segment is captured it can then be processed to determine its point of origin on the ground. Before digital terrain databases this involved manual iteration with a paper map to check the altitude at the coordinates, change the location altitude and recompute the coordinates until a satisfactory location was found.\n",
"The comet has an observation arc of 285 days allowing a good estimate of the orbit. The orbit of a long-period comet is properly obtained when the osculating orbit is computed at an epoch after leaving the planetary region and is calculated with respect to the center of mass of the solar system. Using JPL Horizons, the barycentric orbital elements for epoch 2020-Jan-01 generate a semi-major axis of 1,582 AU, an apoapsis distance of 3,163 AU, and a period of approximately 63,000 years.\n",
"The path of a small planet, comet, or long-range spacecraft can often be accurately modeled starting from the 2-body elliptical orbit around the sun, and adding small corrections from the gravitational attraction of the larger planets in their known orbits.\n",
"In a 2018 paper, \"Quan-Zhi Ye et al.\" used recorded observations of the comet to recalculate the orbit, finding Le Verrier's 1844 calculations to be highly accurate. They simulated the orbit forwards to the year 2000, finding that 98% of possible orbits remained orbiting the Sun, 85% with a perihelion nearer than the asteroid belt, and 40% crossing Earth's orbit. The numbers remain consistent even when including non-gravitational parameters caused by pressures from a comet's jets.\n"
] |
why is it supposedly rude to point?
|
Pointing makes people uncomfortable or even feel threatened. If a stranger points at you on the street (assuming you're not a celebrity), it never means something good. They could be signaling an attack, mocking you, etc. Whatever the reason, it's bad.
Thus, it's rude to point.
|
[
"In much of the world, pointing with the index finger is considered rude or disrespectful, especially pointing to a person. Pointing with the left hand is taboo in some cultures. Pointing with an open hand is considered more polite or respectful in some contexts. In Nicaragua, pointing is frequently done with the lips in a \"kiss shape\" directed towards the object of attention.\n",
"Pointing may vary substantially across cultures, with some having many distinct types of pointing, both with regard to the physical gestures employed and their interpretation. Pointing, especially at other people, may be considered inappropriate or rude in certain contexts and in many cultures. It is generally regarded as a species-specific human feature that does not normally occur in other primates in the wild. It has been observed in animals in captivity; however, there is disagreement on the nature of this non-human pointing.\n",
"Pointing toward someone with forefinger is considered rude. While pointing with the whole open palm or just a thumb (with other fingers folded) are considered most polite. Pointing direction by doing smooth and graceful motion with your chin is quite acceptable, except a sharp and strong movement, which is not polite and considered as an insult.\n",
"For all the responses are often outrageously comedic, due to some being extremely near the knuckle, hosts have still had to reiterate on many occasions that the statements are not meant to be taken seriously in any way. Indeed, more often than not they actually have the intention of mocking those who \"would\" hold such an abhorrent view; even so, despite repeated clarification, complaints are still a fairly regular occurrence.\n",
"Thus, it seems pointing may be more complex than a straightforward indicator of social understanding. Early pointing may not indicate an understanding of intention; rather it may indicate an association between the gesture and interesting objects or events. However, an understanding of intention may develop as the child develops a theory of mind and begins to use pointing to convey meaning about referents in the world.\n",
"Foolish criticism is not necessarily arbitrary or willy-nilly, but it is \"foolish\", because it does the critic (or his intended target) no good. Typically it is therefore self-defeating, which might make people wonder why it is being stated at all. People can become terribly obsessed with a criticism, without really being aware of \"what\" it is truly about, \"why\" it is being made, or what the \"effect\" of it is. They might feel they should \"pipe in\" about an issue, without any awareness of a clear motivation.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Eye-rolling:\" People can communicate disgust and anger, non-verbally, by rolling their eyes, sighing or making mouth noises. By doing so, that can often raise the level of animosity by inflaming the other person. It is important to recognize what is being done and abstain from doing it.\n"
] |
My mom says to gargle salt water when I have a cold. Is she right?
|
The [Mayo Clinic](_URL_1_) recommends salt water to relieve a sore or itchy throat. [This New York Times article](_URL_2_) cites [this study](_URL_0_) that showed a decrease in upper respiratory tract infections among people who gargled with salt water several times a day during cold and flu season.
My personal experience is also that salt water does indeed reduce the pain of a sore throat. I haven't usually gargled with salt water when I *didn't* have a sore throat, even if I did have a cold, but perhaps I'll start... I'm a teacher, so can pretty much always use another boost against colds!
|
[
"Salt poisoning is an intoxication resulting from the excessive intake of sodium (usually as sodium chloride) in either solid form or in solution (saline water, including brine, brackish water, or seawater). \n",
"An Anacin advertisement in 1962 featured a mother trying to assist her grown daughter with various chores, such as preparing a meal. \"Don't you think it needs a little salt?\", the mother would say, only to have her nerve-racked daughter shout, \"Mother, please, I'd rather do it myself!\" As the mother wilted, the daughter would emote and rub her head, with her inner voice saying, \"Control yourself! Sure, you've got a headache, you're tense, irritable, but don't take it out on her!\" Another commercial had a wife greeting her husband as he pulled into their driveway in his car; the husband responded by yelling \"Helen, can't you keep Billy's bike \"out of the driveway?!?\"\" These advertisement scenarios became popular and were parodied a number of times, including in the Allan Sherman song \"Headaches\", the 1966 film \"The Silencers\" and the 1980 film \"Airplane\".\n",
"BULLET::::- Salt poisoning is the most common cause in children. It has also been seen in a number of adults with mental health problems. Too much salt can also occur from drinking seawater or soy sauce.\n",
"Crass male ignorance, helplessness and muddling… I rub as much salt into the sore places in their minds… because it is good for them; but I can't help melting a little when they are very humble and confess that the whole thing is a grievous and gigantic blunder and presents almost insoluble problems, and they don't know how to face it.\n",
"Salt poisoning typically results in a feeling of confusion and jitteriness; more severe degrees of intoxication can cause seizures and coma. Death can result if medical intervention is not forthcoming. These symptoms are generally a consequence of hypernatremia—an abnormally high sodium level in the blood. (There are myriad causes of hypernatremia, which is frequently encountered in medical practice; salt poisoning is not a common cause.) \n",
"Gargling salt water is often suggested, but evidence of its usefulness is lacking. Alternative medicines are promoted and used for the treatment of sore throats. However, they are poorly supported by evidence.\n",
"Salt water mouth wash is made by dissolving 0.5–1 teaspoon of table salt into a cup of water, which is as hot as possible without causing discomfort in the mouth. Saline has a mechanical cleansing action and an antiseptic action as it is a hypertonic solution in relation to bacteria, which undergo lysis. The heat of the solution produces a therapeutic increase in blood flow (hyperemia) to the surgical site, promoting healing. Hot salt water mouthwashes also encourage the draining of pus from dental abscesses. Conversely, if heat is applied on the side of the face (e.g., hot water bottle) rather than inside the mouth, it may cause a dental abscess to drain extra-orally, which is later associated with an area of fibrosis on the face (see cutaneous sinus of dental origin). Gargling with salt water is said to reduce the symptoms of a sore throat.\n"
] |
why does finding a smaller hubble constant imply that the universe is older than we thought?
|
Imagine the universe as a balloon. And we hook up the balloon to a helium tank that is slowly filling up the balloon. If you measure the size of the balloon, as well as the rate in which the balloon is being filled up at (the Hubble constant), you can make a good estimate as to how long the balloon has been expanding.
You then discover that the rate of expansion for the balloon is much less than you originally thought. This means that the balloon, for its current size, has been expanding much longer than you originally thought.
|
[
"Hubble's skepticism about the universe being too small, dense, and young turned out to be based on an observational error. Later investigations appeared to show that Hubble had confused distant H II regions for Cepheid variables and the Cepheid variables themselves had been inappropriately lumped together with low-luminosity RR Lyrae stars causing calibration errors that led to a value of the Hubble Constant of approximately 500 km/s/Mpc instead of the true value of approximately 70 km/s/Mpc. The higher value meant that an expanding universe would have an age of 2 billion years (younger than the Age of the Earth) and extrapolating the observed number density of galaxies to a rapidly expanding universe implied a mass density that was too high by a similar factor, enough to force the universe into a peculiar closed geometry which also implied an impending Big Crunch that would occur on a similar time-scale. After fixing these errors in the 1950s, the new lower values for the Hubble Constant accorded with the expectations of an older universe and the density parameter was found to be fairly close to a geometrically flat universe.\n",
"The cosmological constant makes the universe \"older\" for fixed values of the other parameters. This is significant, since before the cosmological constant became generally accepted, the Big Bang model had difficulty explaining why globular clusters in the Milky Way appeared to be far older than the age of the universe as calculated from the Hubble parameter and a matter-only universe. Introducing the cosmological constant allows the universe to be older than these clusters, as well as explaining other features that the matter-only cosmological model could not.\n",
"Sandage began working at the Palomar Observatory. In 1958 he published the first good estimate for the Hubble constant, revising Hubble's value of 250 down to 75 km/s/Mpc, which is close to today's accepted value. Later he became the chief advocate of an even lower value, around 50, corresponding to a Hubble age of around 20 billion years. At the time, many, especially Sandage, believed that the cosmological constant was zero. In such a case, a low Hubble constant is necessary in order for the age of the universe (as opposed to the Hubble age) to be at least as old as the oldest objects it contains, i.e. ca. 14 billion years.\n",
"Hubble's early estimate of his constant was 550 (km/s)/Mpc, and the inverse of that is 1.8 billion years. It was believed by many geologists such as Arthur Holmes in the 1920s that the Earth was probably over 2 billion years old, but with large uncertainty. The possible discrepancy between the ages of the Earth and the universe was probably one motivation for the development of the Steady State theory in 1948 as an alternative to the Big Bang; in the (now obsolete) steady state theory, the universe is infinitely old and on average unchanging with time. The steady state theory postulated spontaneous creation of matter to keep the average density constant as the universe expands, and therefore most galaxies still have an age less than 1/H. However, if H had been 550 (km/s)/Mpc, our Milky Way galaxy would be exceptionally large compared to most other galaxies, so it could well be much older than an average galaxy, therefore eliminating the age problem.\n",
"The Hubble parameter is not thought to be constant through time. There are dynamical forces acting on the particles in the universe which affect the expansion rate. It was earlier expected that the Hubble parameter would be decreasing as time went on due to the influence of gravitational interactions in the universe, and thus there is an additional observable quantity in the universe called the deceleration parameter which cosmologists expected to be directly related to the matter density of the universe. Surprisingly, the deceleration parameter was measured by two different groups to be less than zero (actually, consistent with −1) which implied that today the Hubble parameter is converging to a constant value as time goes on. Some cosmologists have whimsically called the effect associated with the \"accelerating universe\" the \"cosmic jerk\". The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was given for the discovery of this phenomenon.\n",
"While Hubble helped to refine estimates of the age of the universe, it also cast doubt on theories about its future. Astronomers from the High-z Supernova Search Team and the Supernova Cosmology Project used ground-based telescopes and HST to observe distant supernovae and uncovered evidence that, far from decelerating under the influence of gravity, the expansion of the universe may in fact be accelerating. Three members of these two groups have subsequently been awarded Nobel Prizes for their discovery. The cause of this acceleration remains poorly understood; the most common cause attributed is dark energy.\n",
"where formula_1 is the Hubble parameter and the function \"F\" depends only on the fractional contribution to the universe's energy content that comes from various components. The first observation that one can make from this formula is that it is the Hubble parameter that controls that age of the universe, with a correction arising from the matter and energy content. So a rough estimate of the age of the universe comes from the Hubble time, the inverse of the Hubble parameter. With a value for formula_1 around , the Hubble time evaluates to formula_5 = billion years.\n"
] |
If there were two moons, would nights be noticeably brighter?
|
It depends on the position of them. If both are positioned in a close proximity they will reflect more sunlight combined hence making the night brighter. But, if they are opposite to each other you could see only one moon at a time. But tides will be crazy.
|
[
"As with Uranus, the low light levels cause the major moons to appear very dim. The brightness of Triton at full phase is only −7.11, despite the fact that Triton is more than four times as intrinsically bright as Earth's moon and orbits much closer to Neptune.\n",
"However, the low light levels at such a great distance from the sun ensure that the moons appear very dim; the brightest, Ariel, would shine only at magnitude −7.4, more than 100 times dimmer than the moon as seen from Earth. Meanwhile, the outer large moon Oberon would be only as bright as magnitude −4.9, about the same as Venus despite its proximity.\n",
"Some of the most spectacular moons come during the full moon phase near sunset or sunrise. The moon on the horizon benefits from the moon illusion which makes it appear larger. The light reflected from the moon traveling through the atmosphere also colors the moon orange and/or red.\n",
"Full moon is generally a suboptimal time for astronomical observation of the Moon because shadows vanish. It is a poor time for other observations because the bright sunlight reflected by the Moon, amplified by the opposition surge, then outshines many stars.\n",
"Due to the high lunar standstill, the harvest and hunter's moons of 2007 were special because the time difference between moonrises on successive evenings was much shorter than average. The Moon rose about 30 minutes later from one night to the next, as seen from about 40° N or S latitude (because the full moon of September 2007 rose in the northeast rather than in the east). Hence, no long period of darkness occurred between sunset and moonrise for several days after the full moon, thus lengthening the time in the evening when enough twilight and moonlight to work to get the harvest in.\n",
"As the phase angle of an object lit by the Sun decreases, the object's brightness rapidly increases. This is mainly due to the increased area lit, but is also partly due to the intrinsic brightness of the part that is sunlit. This is affected by such factors as the angle at which light reflected from the object is observed. For this reason, a full moon is more than twice as bright as the moon at first or third quarter, even though the visible area illuminated appears to be exactly twice as large.\n",
"Though a terrestrial observer would find a dramatic decrease in available sunlight in these environments, the Sun would still be bright enough to cast shadows even as far as the hypothetical Planet Nine, possibly located 1,200 AU away, and would still outshine the full Moon.\n"
] |
Can modern Turks trace their origins to ancient Anatolian peoples like the Hittites and the Trojans?
|
Probably not. Turks, as an ethnic identifier, are connected to central Asia (e.g., Turkmenstan) and were part of the [expansion of peoples prior to the Mongol invasions](_URL_0_). Those in Ionia might have some extra-Turkic connections that can be traced, but further inland, it becomes murkier owing to displacement, migration, religious change, and limited records. If someone is from those regions they might be able to say something with more certainty, but most Turks I know identify first as Turks (in the sense of the Republic), then as Muslims, then as residents of wherever they're from. But I am of course an outsider.
|
[
"Although the Hittites are first attested in the 2nd millennium BCE, the Anatolian branch seems to have separated at a very early stage from Proto-Indo-European, or may have developed from an older Pre-Proto-Indo-European ancestor. If it separated from Proto-Indo-European, it likely did so between 4500–3500 BCE.\n",
"The Hittites, who established an extensive empire in the Middle East in the 2nd millennium BCE, are by far the best known members of the Anatolian group. The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Egypt and the Middle East. Despite the use of \"Hatti\" for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium). The Hittite military made successful use of chariots. Although belonging to the Bronze Age, they were the forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of iron artifacts from as early as the 14th century, when letters to foreign rulers reveal the latter's demand for iron goods. The Hittite empire reached its height during the mid-14th century under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After 1180 BCE, amid the Bronze Age Collapse in the Levant associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples, the kingdom disintegrated into several independent \"Neo-Hittite\" city-states, some of which survived until as late as the 8th century BCE. The lands of the Anatolian peoples were successively invaded by a number of peoples and empires at high frequency: the Phrygians, Bithynians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, the Galatian Celts, Romans and the Oghuz Turks. Many of these invaders settled in Anatolia, in some cases causing the extinction of the Anatolian languages. By the Middle Ages, all the Anatolian languages (and the cultures accompanying them) were extinct, although there may be lingering influences on the modern inhabitants of Anatolia, most notably Armenians.\n",
"The arrival of the Hittites in Anatolia in the Bronze Age was one of a superstrate imposing itself on a native culture (in this case over the pre-existing Hattians and Hurrians), either by means of conquest or by gradual assimilation. In archaeological terms, relationships of the Hittites to the Ezero culture of the Balkans and Maykop culture of the Caucasus have been considered within the migration framework. The Indo-European element at least establishes Hittite culture as intrusive to Anatolia in scholarly mainstream (excepting the opinions of Colin Renfrew, whose Anatolian hypothesis assumes that Indo-European is indigenous to Anatolia, and, more recently, Quentin Atkinson).\n",
"Anatolians were Indo-European peoples of the Near East identified by their use of the Anatolian languages. These peoples were among the oldest Indo-European ethnolinguistic groups, one of the most archaic, because Anatolians were the first or among the first branches of Indo-European peoples to separate from the initial Proto-Indo-European community that gave origin to the individual Indo-European peoples. \n",
"It is possible that the Demircihüyük culture (c.3500-2500 BC) is connected with the arrival of Indo-Europeans in Anatolia, since Proto-Anatolian must have split off around 3000 BC at the latest on linguistic grounds.\n",
"It is generally assumed that the Hittites came into Anatolia some time before 2000 BC. While their earlier location is disputed, it has been speculated by scholars for more than a century that the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, in present-day Ukraine, around the Sea of Azov, spoke an early Indo-European language during the third and fourth millennia BC.\n",
"The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians, non-Indo-European peoples who inhabited central and eastern Anatolia, respectively, as early as c. 2300 BC. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed the Hattians and Hurrians c. 2000–1700 BC. The first major empire in the area was founded by the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th century BC. The Assyrians conquered and settled parts of southeastern Turkey as early as 1950 BC until the year 612 BC, although they have remained a minority in the region, namely in Hakkari, Sirnak and Mardin.\n"
] |
How is a historiography written?
|
> what exactly is a historiography
Historiography is the history of history. So what you're doing, in essence, is talking about how historians talk about history. (Sometimes I've found that undergraduates decide that "historiography" is just a more fancy-sounding work for history. It isn't, and misusing it doesn't make you seem smarter. And despite what Microsoft Word's spellchecker says, historiography _is_ a word...)
A practical example. Let's say I'm interested writing a _history_ of the atomic bomb. A straight history of the atomic bomb would be about the scientists who built it, the political decisions that went into its production and use, the consequences and so on. Pretty straightforward. My primary sources are going to be things like interviews with people involved, government documents from the time, and maybe press coverage afterwards to talk about how the news was received.
Let's say I was writing a _historiography_ of the atomic bomb. Now I'm writing about _historians_ and my primary sources are _historical works_. So I'm going to talk about how Herbert Feis, a foreign relations historian, wrote his book _Japan Subdued_ in 1966, and how his take on the history of bomb different from that of Robert Jungk, whose _Brighter than a Thousand Suns_ came out in 1958. I'm going to talk about how Gar Alperovitz's _Atomic Diplomacy_ (1965) put forward the thesis that the atomic bombs were just meant to scare the Soviet Union, whereas Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's _Racing the Enemy_ (2005) argued that it was the Soviet invasion, not the atomic bombs, that led to Japan's defeat. I might talk about how Richard Rhodes' _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_ (1986) relies upon "genius" narratives for telling its stories of the scientists, but nonetheless is ambiguous about the morality of the bombing. I could mention that Ruth Howes' _Their Day in the Sun_ (1999) is the only book that really takes into account female contributions to the bomb project (which were substantial), but that it has been more or less ignored by most subsequent histories of the bomb written by males (hmm). I might even blur the lines between history and historiography by talking about how the original historical actors — like General Groves or Secretary of War Stimson — were very deliberate with regards to manipulating what was known about the atomic bomb, and in the process ended up writing the "first draft" of the history of the bomb (and many of their key arguments continue to be points of discussion by modern historians). Ultimately it can be quite wide, but what I'm looking at is how we talk about the history in question has changed over time — history itself becomes historicized.
So you can sort of see the difference here in my examples. What's the value of historiography, you might be asking? For one thing, it helps us see, at a glance, what different types of arguments and interpretations have been put forward. It can help us see the production of history as a product of its time, as well. It helps us be more critical about works of history, because we see that _they themselves_ are products of their time and context — they don't sit "above" anything like that.
|
[
"Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians have studied that topic using particular sources, techniques, and theoretical approaches. Scholars discuss historiography by topic—such as the historiography of the United Kingdom, that of WWII, the British Empire, early Islam, and China—and different approaches and genres, such as political history and social history. Beginning in the nineteenth century, with the development of academic history, there developed a body of historiographic literature. The extent to which historians are influenced by their own groups and loyalties—such as to their nation state—remains a debated question.\n",
"Historiography and Historical method include the study of the reliability of the sources used, in terms of, for example, authorship, credibility of the author, and the authenticity or corruption of the text.\n",
"Historiography was more recently defined as \"the study of the way history has been and is written – the history of historical writing\", which means that, \"When you study 'historiography' you do not study the events of the past directly, but the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians.\"\n",
"In the early modern period, the term \"historiography\" meant \"the writing of history\", and \"historiographer\" meant \"historian\". In that sense certain official historians were given the title \"Historiographer Royal\" in Sweden (from 1618), England (from 1660), and Scotland (from 1681). The Scottish post is still in existence.\n",
"Historiography has a number of related meanings. Firstly, it can refer to how history has been produced: the story of the development of methodology and practices (for example, the move from short-term biographical narrative towards long-term thematic analysis). Secondly, it can refer to what has been produced: a specific body of historical writing (for example, \"medieval historiography during the 1960s\" means \"Works of medieval history written during the 1960s\"). Thirdly, it may refer to why history is produced: the Philosophy of history. As a meta-level analysis of descriptions of the past, this third conception can relate to the first two in that the analysis usually focuses on the narratives, interpretations, world view, use of evidence, or method of presentation of other historians. Professional historians also debate the question of whether history can be taught as a single coherent narrative or a series of competing narratives.\n",
"Historiography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and cultural identity. Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former colonies influenced by Europe since the nineteenth century. According to the medieval historian Patrick J. Geary:\n",
"While historiography is concerned with the theory and history of historical writing, including the study of the developmental trajectory of history as a discipline, critical historiography addresses how historians or historical authors have been influenced by their own groups and loyalties. Here, there is an assumption that historical sources should not be taken at face value and has to be examined critically according to scholarly criteria. \n"
] |
why is there a threat of gun violence / mass shootings at joker screenings??
|
The Colorado shootings during the first screenings of the dark knight rises. The guy who did it "idolized" the joker.
|
[
"The Joker makes another television appearance with a similar threat. This time, he plans to kill Judge Thomas Lake and Bruce Wayne. Police officers are at both men's houses; however, Gordon is at Lake's. Bruce starts laughing and turns white, but his butler, Alfred Pennyworth, administers a shot to slow his heart rate to slow the spread of the poison. Meanwhile, a gang of armed men dressed as clowns drive onto Lake's property where a shoot-out takes place. Bruce, while under the poison, hallucinates the night his parents were murdered. He awakes, fully recovered, in an ambulance. Another gang of armed men dressed as clowns shoot at the ambulance. Bruce changes into his Batman costume, exits the ambulance unnoticed and defeats the clowns.\n",
"The National Association of Theatre Owners distributed checklists from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to its members and said in a July 21 statement that members were \"working closely with local law enforcement agencies and reviewing security procedures\". AMC Theatres announced it would \"not allow any guests into our theatres in costumes that make other guests feel uncomfortable and we will not permit face-covering masks or fake weapons inside our buildings\". \"Security Director News\" raised the possibility in a July 23 article that \"the massacre could be a Virginia Tech for movie theaters, causing security to become a bigger part of the conversation and more stringent security procedures to be adopted at theaters across the country.\" Several theaters subsequently held tighter security on allowing unaccompanied singles to see films.\n",
"The film was released on 6 February 2009, in Quebec, and on 20 March 2009, in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. Its release sparked controversy in Quebec and across Canada for its depiction of real life events involving the murder of unarmed students. The film was shown in 45 theatres in Quebec. By August 2009, the distributor Remstar had sold screening rights to around 12 countries.\n",
"In a Fox News interview conducted several hours after the shooting occurred and before the killer was identified, controversial (and now disbarred) lawyer Jack Thompson, referred to by Fox News as a \"School Shootings Expert,\" stated that the shootings were motivated by violent video games, specifically the perpetrator's use of them. There were claims that Cho was a devoted player of Counter-Strike, but further investigation revealed little to no proof of his alleged gaming activities. Thompson even went as far as blaming Bill Gates for promoting the game and ordering him to take it offline, even though Counter-Strike is owned and operated by Valve.\n",
"In the months prior to the hearings, there had been a small moral panic in America on gun-related crimes, which fueled the concerns related to violent video games. Both Congress and the Justice Department were looking to reduce the amount of violence on television.\n",
"Rarely screened in movie theaters due to its lengthy running time, theaters generally show \"Sátántangó\" either in two separate parts, or in its entirety with two intermissions. Tarr has expressed a wish for the film to be viewed without any interruption.\n",
"Two former SWAT members, one an active-shooter tactics expert and trainer, expressed misgivings about the three-hour delay in breaching the nightclub, citing the lesson learned from other mass shootings that officers can minimize casualties only by entering a shooting location expeditiously, even if it means putting themselves at great risk.\n"
] |
Could gravity in space bend the light coming from stars so much that where a star appears to be isn't actually where it is?
|
This is exactly the effect that was measured by Eddington and Davidson back in 1919 that make Einstein world famous. During a solar eclipse, when the Sun is dimmed, you can see the starlight near it. If you record the positions of those stars and compare them to their locations when the Sun isn't in the way, there is a bending of light or shift which occurs because of the Sun's gravitation.
Here's some info about it with a diagram,
* _URL_0_
The actual paper,
* _URL_2_
And the even more impressive and related effect of the Einstein Ring,
* _URL_1_
|
[
"When the stars reach the point of their closest encounter, the mutual gravitational pull between the two stars will cause them to become slightly ellipsoidal in shape, which is the reason for their light being so variable.\n",
"The gravitational weakening of light from high-gravity stars was predicted by John Michell in 1783 and Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1796, using Isaac Newton's concept of light corpuscles (see: emission theory) and who predicted that some stars would have a gravity so strong that light would not be able to escape. The effect of gravity on light was then explored by Johann Georg von Soldner (1801), who calculated the amount of deflection of a light ray by the sun, arriving at the Newtonian answer which is half the value predicted by general relativity. All of this early work assumed that light could slow down and fall, which was inconsistent with the modern understanding of light waves.\n",
"Light given off by a star is un-polarized, i.e. the direction of oscillation of the light wave is random. However, when the light is reflected off the atmosphere of a planet, the light waves interact with the molecules in the atmosphere and become polarized.\n",
"During 1783 geologist John Michell wrote a letter to Henry Cavendish outlining the expected properties of dark stars, published by The Royal Society in their 1784 volume. Michell calculated that when the escape velocity at the surface of a star was equal to or greater than lightspeed, the generated light would be gravitationally trapped so that the star would not be visible to a distant astronomer.\n",
"BULLET::::- According to general relativity, light does not travel along straight lines when it propagates in a gravitational field. Instead, it is deflected in the presence of massive bodies. In particular, starlight is deflected as it passes near the Sun, leading to apparent shifts of up 1.75 arc seconds in the stars' positions in the sky (an arc second is equal to 1/3600 of a degree). In the framework of Newtonian gravity, a heuristic argument can be made that leads to light deflection by half that amount. The different predictions can be tested by observing stars that are close to the Sun during a solar eclipse. In this way, a British expedition to West Africa in 1919, directed by Arthur Eddington, confirmed that Einstein's prediction was correct, and the Newtonian predictions wrong, via observation of the May 1919 eclipse. Eddington's results were not very accurate; subsequent observations of the deflection of the light of distant quasars by the Sun, which utilize highly accurate techniques of radio astronomy, have confirmed Eddington's results with significantly better precision (the first such measurements date from 1967, the most recent comprehensive analysis from 2004).\n",
"Therefore, the authors posited that the most likely cause of the observed light curve was a closely orbiting planet, about twice the mass of Mercury, which was rapidly emitting small particles into independent orbits around the star. Exactly the cause of this phenomenon could be the direct sublimation of the planetary surface and its emission into space, the intense volcanism caused by the tidal effects of orbiting extremely close to the host star, or both processes mutually reinforcing the strength of each other in a positive feedback loop.\n",
"Stars twinkle because they are so far from Earth that they appear as point sources of light easily disturbed by Earth's atmospheric turbulence, which acts like lenses and prisms diverting the light's path. Large astronomical objects closer to Earth, like the Moon and other planets, encompass many points in space and can be resolved as objects with observable diameters. With multiple observed points of light traversing the atmosphere, their light's deviations average out and the viewer perceives less variation in light coming from them.\n"
] |
how do computer viruses work? why can't whatever bug they exploit simply be fixed?
|
*The* bug they exploits can be fixed. But software has become so complex that there will be more. It is a race between those finding bugs to exploit, and those finding bugs to fix.
There is also a major fault that we can't fix. That is the actions and understanding of the user. We can make our software really good, but all of that is in vain if the user will tell the computer to install the virus because the virus promised to display a pretty picture.
|
[
"As software is often designed with security features to prevent unauthorized use of system resources, many viruses must exploit and manipulate security bugs, which are security defects in a system or application software, to spread themselves and infect other computers. Software development strategies that produce large numbers of \"bugs\" will generally also produce potential exploitable \"holes\" or \"entrances\" for the virus.\n",
"In order to replicate itself, a virus must be permitted to execute code and write to memory. For this reason, many viruses attach themselves to executable files that may be part of legitimate programs (see code injection). If a user attempts to launch an infected program, the virus' code may be executed simultaneously. In operating systems that use file extensions to determine program associations (such as Microsoft Windows), the extensions may be hidden from the user by default. This makes it possible to create a file that is of a different type than it appears to the user. For example, an executable may be created and named \"picture.png.exe\", in which the user sees only \"picture.png\" and therefore assumes that this file is a digital image and most likely is safe, yet when opened, it runs the executable on the client machine.\n",
"Computer viruses infect a variety of different subsystems on their host computers and software. One manner of classifying viruses is to analyze whether they reside in binary executables (such as .EXE or .COM files), data files (such as Microsoft Word documents or PDF files), or in the boot sector of the host's hard drive (or some combination of all of these).\n",
"BULLET::::- Computer Viruses are programs that can replicate their structures or effects by infecting other files or structures on a computer. The common use of a virus is to take over a computer to steal data.\n",
"Many users install antivirus software that can detect and eliminate known viruses when the computer attempts to download or run the executable file (which may be distributed as an email attachment, or on USB flash drives, for example). Some antivirus software blocks known malicious websites that attempt to install malware. Antivirus software does not change the underlying capability of hosts to transmit viruses. Users must update their software regularly to patch security vulnerabilities (\"holes\"). Antivirus software also needs to be regularly updated in order to recognize the latest threats. This is because malicious hackers and other individuals are always creating new viruses. The German AV-TEST Institute publishes evaluations of antivirus software for Windows and Android.\n",
"A computer virus is a type of malicious software that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. When this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be \"infected\" with a computer virus.\n",
"Another category of bug is called a \"race condition\" that may occur when programs have multiple components executing at the same time. If the components interact in a different order than the developer intended, they could interfere with each other and stop the program from completing its tasks. These bugs may be difficult to detect or anticipate, since they may not occur during every execution of a program.\n"
] |
Do tall people have more nerves, and therefore feel more pain?
|
No, we all have roughly the same layout. I say roughly because that really only applies to the major nerves and branching elements, with the rest a bit more (not random, but) on-the-fly. Broadly speaking though, being taller isn't going to mean that you have more nerves, although you will have more total "mileage" of nerve tissue than a shorter person. A much fatter person will also have their nerves innervate the new tissue, but I don't think that's really what you're asking about. Still, a larger body of the same tissue will tend to be *less* sensitive. Even though it will necessarily be fully innervated, the body interprets sensation in a way that takes account of how many nerves are being stimulated at once.
You could imagine that rather than having "more nerves" larger people have "more diluted" nerves. Still it would be an *incredibly* subtle effect that would be swamped by almost any natural variance in sensation.
As to pain though, taller people might experience more pain just because they're taller, carry more weight, their joints may be under more strain, etc. Especially *very* tall people will often experience joint and spinal issues which can be very painful. That's not a result of having more nerves though, even though it is related to being tall/large.
Edit: Link to a previous, related question with a very good answer from a (then) medical student. _URL_0_
|
[
"Conduction velocities in both the Median sensory and Ulnar sensory nerves are negatively related to an individual's height, which likely accounts for the fact that, among most of the adult population, conduction velocities between the wrist and digits of an individual's hand decrease by 0.5 m/s for each inch increase in height. As a direct consequence, impulse latencies within the Median, Ulnar, and Sural nerves increases with height.\n",
"People will sometimes feel as if they are gesturing, feel itches, twitch, or even try to pick things up. The missing limb often feels shorter and may feel as if it is in a distorted and painful position. Occasionally, the pain can be made worse by stress, anxiety and weather changes. Phantom limb pain is usually intermittent. The frequency and intensity of attacks usually declines with time.\n",
"At the extreme end, being excessively tall can cause various medical problems, including cardiovascular problems, because of the increased load on the heart to supply the body with blood, and problems resulting from the increased time it takes the brain to communicate with the extremities. For example, Robert Wadlow, the tallest man known to verifiable history, developed trouble walking as his height increased throughout his life. In many of the pictures of the later portion of his life, Wadlow can be seen gripping something for support. Late in his life, although he died at age 22, he had to wear braces on his legs and walk with a cane; and he died after developing an infection in his legs because he was unable to feel the irritation and cutting caused by his leg braces.\n",
"Along with gestures, phenotypic traits can also convey certain messages in nonverbal communication, for instance, eye color, hair color and height. Research into height has generally found that taller people are perceived as being more impressive. Melamed and Bozionelos (1992) studied a sample of managers in the United Kingdom and found that height was a key factor in who was promoted. Height can have benefits and depressors too. \"While tall people often command more respect than short people, height can also be detrimental to some aspects of one-to-one communication, for instance, where you need to 'talk on the same level' or have an 'eye-to-eye' discussion with another person and do not want to be perceived as too big for your boots.\"\n",
"Taller people have an increased risk of cancer because they have more cells than shorter people. Since height is genetically determined to a large extent, taller people have a heritable increase of cancer risk.\n",
"I have never been self conscious about my height. I am more conscious of going fat and bald so that should tell you. I never let my height play a negative part in my life. I always do what I want, some tall people may be restricted as they are constantly stared at or people ask the same questions over and over. This is the only bad thing about being tall – the stupid remarks and questions. Other than that, being tall is great.\n",
"Taller players are often thought to have an advantage in basketball because their shots have less distance to travel to the basket, they start closer to the rebound, and their ability to reach higher into the air yields a better chance of blocking shorter players' shots.\n"
] |
what is the procedure for when a demolition fails?
|
Controlled implosions aren't just about bringing a building down...its about bringing it down so the debris goes where you want it to.
The actual amount of explosive force needed to bring a structure down is actually low (because of gravity) So if there is a screw up in the implosion process, the building is still coming down...just in a really unsafe way.
|
[
"Demolition, or razing, is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other man-made structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for reuse purposes.\n",
"The demolition of a house for military purposes is often undertaken in very different ways to conventional civilian demolitions. In peacetime situations, demolition is merely the first stage in a process that is usually intended to clear the ground for subsequent re-use (for instance, replacing an old building with a newer one or decommissioning an old industrial building). It is undertaken with extensive preparations, such as stripping the property of items of value, removing hazardous materials such as glass and asbestos insulation, and preparing the structure by removing features that might impede the demolition (such as internal partitions).\n",
"In many conflicts, demolition frequently is carried out by using fire—often set with the aid of accelerants—as a simple but very effective means of quickly rendering a property uninhabitable. Armored bulldozers or tanks may be used to knock out the walls of a building, causing it to collapse. Combat engineering forces may use explosives to demolish a building, or it may simply be destroyed through direct bombardment by aircraft or artillery. The end result is not always the total demolition of a building—the walls may remain standing in the event of a fire, for instance—but it does achieve the main objective of making the building unfit for habitation. However, when the Israeli military demolishes a house using armored bulldozers, it totally flattens the structure to eliminate possible hideouts for snipers and booby traps.\n",
"Before any demolition activities can take place, there are many steps that must be carried out beforehand, including performing asbestos abatement, removing hazardous or regulated materials, obtaining necessary permits, submitting necessary notifications, disconnecting utilities, rodent baiting and the development of site-specific safety and work plans.\n",
"Military house demolitions are undertaken with the demolition itself being the primary objective, the aim being to deliberately deny subsequent use of the property. The methods used are therefore focused on simplicity and speed. Unlike civilian demolition, military house demolition is also often intended to destroy property \"within\" a building, such as food or personal effects, either to deny its use to an enemy or to impoverish the civilian occupants. House demolitions thus often takes place without the occupant's possessions first being removed and with minimal preparations beforehand.\n",
"Demolition by neglect refers to the practice of allowing a building to deteriorate to the point that demolition becomes necessary or restoration becomes unreasonable. The practice has been used by property owners as a means of sidestepping historic preservation laws by providing justification for the demolition of historical buildings. In order to prevent demolition by neglect, a number of cities have adopted ordinances requiring property owners to properly maintain historical buildings.\n",
"In the controlled demolition industry, building implosion is the strategic placing of explosive material and timing of its detonation so that a structure collapses on itself in a matter of seconds, minimizing the physical damage to its immediate surroundings. Despite its terminology, building implosion also includes the controlled demolition of other structures, such as bridges, smokestacks, towers, and tunnels.\n"
] |
will the city of detroit ever get better? when will it be on par with other cities of similar size? (ex.- charlotte, boston, denver, seattle)
|
There's no definite answer to that question. It really all depends on whether the city's economy improves, and that depends on the city being able to attract businesses.
|
[
"Detroit has a variety of neighborhood types. The revitalized Downtown, Midtown, and New Center areas feature many historic buildings and are high density, while further out, particularly in the northeast and on the fringes, high vacancy levels are problematic, for which a number of solutions have been proposed. In 2007, Downtown Detroit was recognized as the best city neighborhood in which to retire among the United States' largest metro areas by CNN Money Magazine editors.\n",
"In 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the future city of Detroit. During the 19th century, it became an important industrial hub at the center of the Great Lakes region. With expansion of the auto industry in the early 20th century, the city and its suburbs experienced rapid growth, and by the 1940s, the city had become the fourth-largest in the country. However, due to industrial restructuring, the loss of jobs in the auto industry, and rapid suburbanization, Detroit lost considerable population from the late 20th century to the present. Since reaching a peak of 1.85 million at the 1950 census, Detroit's population has declined by more than 60 percent. In 2013, Detroit became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, which it successfully exited in December 2014, when the city government regained control of Detroit's finances.\n",
"Detroit is a major port located on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The Detroit Metropolitan Airport is among the most important hubs in the United States. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional economy in the Midwest, behind Chicago and ahead of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, and the 13th-largest in the United States. Detroit and its neighboring Canadian city Windsor are connected through a tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest international crossing in North America. Detroit is best known as the center of the U.S. automobile industry, and the \"Big Three\" auto manufacturers General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are all headquartered in Metro Detroit.\n",
"Detroit’s urban agriculture initiatives are well established compared to others in the United States. Because of the need for reliable and healthy food sources, Detroit shows potential for the expansion of urban agriculture from a neighborhood level to a city level.\n",
"Detroit's six-county Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of about 4.3 million, a workforce of about 2.1 million, and a Gross Metropolitan Product of $200.9 billion. Detroit's urban area has a population of 3.9 million. A 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers study estimated that Detroit's urban area had a Gross Domestic Product of $203 billion.\n",
"Detroit's architecture is recognized as being among the finest in the U.S. with the National Trust for Historic Preservation listing many of Detroit's skyscrapers and buildings as some of America's most endangered landmarks. Detroit has one of the largest surviving collections of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century buildings in the U.S. Meanwhile, the suburbs contain some significant contemporary architecture and several historic estates.\n",
"Detroit's unique culture, distinctive architecture, and revitalization and urban renewal efforts in the 21st century have given Detroit increased prominence as a tourist destination in recent years. \"The New York Times\" listed Detroit in its list of \"52 Places to Go in 2017\", while travel guide publisher \"Lonely Planet\" named Detroit the second-best city in the world to visit in 2018.\n"
] |
How does a strong magnet fall in a copper tube?
|
> At first I assumed the magnet would no longer move but if that where the case there would no longer a velocity, resulting in the retarding force becoming zero. It seems the magnet would neither fall or not fall.
Roughly speaking, ∞ × 0 != 0. It can equal any number including 0 or infinity itself, it depends on the function you are approaching infinity and zero with. Infinite strength and zero velocity could come out to a real force to match gravity. I haven't done the math here, but I'm pretty sure that's the case and it will cause an equal force even with no movement.
As for the answer here, I found [this article](_URL_0_) deriving the terminal velocity.
v_t = 64mga^4 /45πeσμ^2
Here m is the mass of the magnet, g Earth's Gravity, a is the pipe size, e is the pipe thickness, σ is the conductivity of the pipe, and μ is the strength of the magnetic dipole moment.
So leaving the geometry, mass, and gravity alone, we have the pipe conductivity and magnet strength to work with. They are in the denominator, so to get a 0 terminal velocity we need to get them to infinity. So yes, making an arbitrarily strong magnet would eventually freeze it in place. Magnetic field would be so strong that even infinitesimal movement would be adequate to drive a strong enough current for an opposing force. However, the thing with a magnetic field approaching infinity is you have energy approaching infinity and you're likely going to break the bounds of this equation at some point. Like I don't know, your magnet being impossible to achieve or the field being so energy dense it's gravity comes into play or even sucks the whole pipe up into a blackhole.
But as for the other variable, we can send conductivity to infinity. In other words, resistance to zero. A superconductor. A regular magnet trying to fall by a superconducting material would remain in place. In fact, [here's a video of one doing excatly that.](_URL_1_)
|
[
"Currents bound inside the atoms of strong magnets can create counter-rotating currents in a copper or aluminum pipe. This is shown by dropping the magnet through the pipe. The descent of the magnet inside the pipe is observably slower than when dropped outside the pipe.\n",
"Most often, magnet wire is composed of fully annealed, electrolytically refined copper to allow closer winding when making electromagnetic coils. High-purity oxygen-free copper grades are used for high-temperature applications in reducing atmospheres or in motors or generators cooled by hydrogen gas.\n",
"The coil windings of a superconducting magnet are made of wires or tapes of Type II superconductors (e.g.niobium-titanium or niobium-tin). The wire or tape itself may be made of tiny filaments (about 20 micrometers thick) of superconductor in a copper matrix. The copper is needed to add mechanical stability, and to provide a low resistance path for the large currents in case the temperature rises above \"T\" or the current rises above \"I\" and superconductivity is lost. These filaments need to be this small \"because in this type of superconductor the current only flows skin-deep.\" (See Skin effect) The coil must be carefully designed to withstand (or counteract) magnetic pressure and Lorentz forces that could otherwise cause wire fracture or crushing of insulation between adjacent turns.\n",
"During initiation, the wire heats with the passing current until melting point is reached. The heating rate is high enough that the liquid metal has no time to flow away, and heats further until it vaporizes. During this phase the electrical resistance of the bridgewire assembly rises. Then an electric arc forms in the metal vapor, leading to drop of electrical resistance and sharp growth of the current, quick further heating of the ionized metal vapor, and formation of a shock wave. To achieve the melting and subsequent vaporizing of the wire in time sufficiently short to create a shock wave, a current rise rate of at least 100 amperes per microsecond is required.\n",
"In typical experiments, students measure the slower time of fall of the magnet through a copper tube compared with a cardboard tube, and may use an oscilloscope to observe the pulse of eddy current induced in a loop of wire wound around the pipe when the magnet falls through.\n",
"In physics education a simple experiment is sometimes used to illustrate eddy currents and the principle behind magnetic braking. When a strong magnet is dropped down a vertical, non-ferrous, conducting pipe, eddy currents are induced in the pipe, and these retard the descent of the magnet, so it falls slower than it would if free-falling. As one set of authors explained\n",
"The 90° redirection of the wire when exiting the hollow needle stresses the wire a lot and makes it difficult to wind copper wires with a diameter of more than 1 mm in a reasonable way. Orthocyclic winding with a needle winder is therefore only partly possible for these winding tasks.\n"
] |
how do languages with a different number of characters share the same computer keyboards?
|
They don't. A lot of languages use their own keyboards. German keyboards for example are layed out qwertz instead of qwerty and include the letter ö, ü, and ä.
France uses an azerty layout with their special characters (various accents).
However, because most languages use the Latin alphabet, it's possible to write on the same keyboards because the basic set of 26 letters is the same, a standard qwerty layout includes options for adding some basic accents to letters, and other than that you can use Unicode shortcuts to use special characters
|
[
"The U.S. IBM PC keyboard has 104 keys, while the PC keyboards for most other countries have 105 keys. In an operating system configured for a non-English language, the keys are placed differently. For example, keyboards designed for typing in Spanish have some characters shifted, to release space for Ñ/ñ; similarly those for French or Portuguese may have a special key for the character Ç/ç. Keyboards designed for Japanese may have special keys to switch between Japanese and Latin scripts, and the character ¥ (Japanese yen or Chinese yuan currency symbol) instead of \\ (backslash, which may be replaced by the former in some typefaces and codepages). Using a keyboard for alternative languages leads to a conflict: the image on the key does not correspond to the character. In such cases, each new language may require an additional label on the key, because the standard keyboard layouts do not even share similar characters of different languages.\n",
"Keyboards in many parts of Asia may have special keys to switch between the Latin character set and a completely different typing system. Japanese layout keyboards can be switched between various Japanese input methods and the Latin alphabet by signaling the operating system's input interpreter of the change, and some operating systems (namely the Windows family) interpret the character \"\\\" as \"¥\" for display purposes without changing the bytecode which has led some keyboard makers to mark \"\\\" as \"¥\" or both.\n",
"Many languages or language families not based on the Latin alphabet such as Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, or Hebrew have historically been represented on computers with different 8-bit extended ASCII encodings. Written East Asian languages, specifically Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, use far more characters than can be represented in an 8-bit computer byte and were first represented on computers with language-specific double byte encodings.\n",
"Chinese, Japanese, and Korean require special input methods, often abbreviated to CJK IMEs (Input Method Editors), due to the thousands of possible characters in these languages. Various methods have been invented to fit every possibility into a QWERTY keyboard, so East Asian keyboards are essentially the same as those in other countries. However, their input methods are considerably more complex, without one-to-one mappings between keys and characters.\n",
"Each language has its own standard keyboard layout, adopted from typewriters. With the flexibility of computer input methods, there are also transliterating or phonetic/homophonic keyboard layouts made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English QWERTY keyboard. When practical Cyrillic keyboard layouts or fonts are unavailable, computer users sometimes use transliteration or look-alike \"volapuk\" encoding to type in languages that are normally written with the Cyrillic alphabet.\n",
"When using a keyboard from another language, most operating systems require the user to type using an original Korean keyboard layout, the most common of which is \"2(du)-beolsik\". This is in contrast to some other languages, like Japanese, where text can be entered using a Romanization system on non-native keyboards.\n",
"Although there are a large number of keyboard layouts used for languages written with Latin-script alphabets, most of these layouts are quite similar. They can be divided into three main families according to where the , , , , and keys are placed on the keyboard. These are usually named after the first six letters.\n"
] |
if i had a room covered completely in mirrors, and turned on a flashlight, what would happen?
|
Michael Stevens does a great video about spherical mirrors in this video _URL_0_
He talks about turning a light on and then turning it off, hoping to keep the beam reflecting, but light gets absorbed by the mirror so nothing would *really* happen.
|
[
"BULLET::::- An intruder detection or access control system could be used in conjunction with light level sensors to turn lights on and off. So when you walk into a dark room the lights turn on (if you are allowed to be there) and when you leave they turn off behind you, thus making energy savings by preventing lights from being left on.\n",
"Almost any item can be booby-trapped in some way. For example, booby trapping a flashlight is a classic tactic: a flashlight already contains most of the required components. First of all, the flashlight acts as bait, tempting the victim to pick it up. More importantly, it is easy to conceal a detonator, some explosives, and batteries inside the flashlight casing. A simple electrical circuit is connected to the on/off switch. When the victim attempts to turn the flashlight on to see if it works, the resulting explosion blows their hand or arm off and possibly blinds them.\n",
"The illumination problem is a resolved mathematical problem attributed to Ernst Straus in the 1950s. Straus asked if a room with mirrored walls can always be illuminated by a single point light source, allowing for repeated reflection of light off the mirrored walls. Alternatively, the question can be stated as asking that if a billiard table can be constructed in any required shape, is there a shape possible such that there is a point where it is impossible to the billiard ball in a at another point, assuming the ball is point-like and continues infinitely rather than stopping due to friction.\n",
"For an analogy to more easily understand the differences in deflected vertically and horizontally polarized signals, place a mirror on the floor in the middle of a room. Have somebody hold a flashlight on the other side of the room. The flashlight represents a signal and your eyes are the receiver. The mirror represents a flat roof within region 1 of the Fresnel zone. Have the flashlight move up and down representing vertical polarization. Note that in the mirror, the flashlight moves in the opposite direction, that is, it moves down and up rather than up and down. This is out-of-phase. Now have the flashlight move to the left and right representing horizontal polarization. If you look in the mirror, the reflected image of the flashlight moves exactly in tandem with the actual flashlight. Left is left, right is right. This is in-phase.\n",
"And when Zenodorus the astronomer came down to Arcadia and was introduced to us, he asked us how to find a mirror surface such that when it is placed facing the sun the rays reflected from it meet a point and thus cause burning.\n",
"The Mirror Room is a room within the cavern that contains a stream of water about deep. However, when a group of lights are turned on, the depth of the water is perceived by many to be as great as , due to the reflection of the cavern's roof on the undisturbed water.\n",
"The hidden room may be an identical mirror-image of the main room, so that its reflected image matches the main room's; this approach is useful in making objects seem to appear or disappear. This illusion can also be used to make one object or person reflected in the mirror appear to morph into another behind the glass (or vice versa). This is the principle behind the Girl-to-Gorilla trick found in old carnival sideshows. The hidden room may instead be painted black, with only light-colored objects in it. In this case when light is cast on the room, only the light objects reflect the light and appear as ghostly translucent images superimposed in the visible room. This can be used to make objects appear to float in space.\n"
] |
how on earth does a snake move at all?
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[This Gaboon Viper movement is really cool](_URL_1_) This movement is called Rectilinear movement and the snake just moves their belly scales forward a small amount alternating sides. [There are 4 other types of snake movement](_URL_0_). Each one allows the species of snake to play to the strengths of its body characteristics. Remember that snakes still have tons of muscles and are very flexible, they use all those muscles and flexibility to coordinate their body and move gracefully through their habitat.
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[
"Most snakes move using lateral undulation where a lateral wave travels down the snake's body in the opposite direction to the snake's motion and pushes the snake off irregularities in the ground. This mode of locomotion requires these irregularities to function. Another form of locomotion, rectilinear locomotion, is used at times by some snakes, especially large ones such as pythons and boa. Here large scales on the underside of the body, known as scutes are used to push backwards and downwards. This is effective on a flat surface and is used for slow, silent movement, such as when stalking prey. Snakes use concertina locomotion for moving slowly in tunnels, here the snake alternates in bracing parts of its body on it surrounds. Finally the caenophidian snakes use the fast and unusual method of movement known as sidewinding on sand or loose soil. The snake cycles through throwing the front part of its body in the direction of motion and bringing the back part of its body into line crosswise.\n",
"The slowest mode of snake locomotion is rectilinear locomotion, which is also the only one where the snake does not need to bend its body laterally, though it may do so when turning. In this mode, the belly scales are lifted and pulled forward before being placed down and the body pulled over them. Waves of movement and stasis pass posteriorly, resulting in a series of ripples in the skin. The ribs of the snake do not move in this mode of locomotion and this method is most often used by large pythons, boas, and vipers when stalking prey across open ground as the snake's movements are subtle and harder to detect by their prey in this manner.\n",
"Each point on the snake's body goes through alternating cycles of static contact and movement, with regions propagating posteriorly (i.e. any point on the snake will change from movement to stasis or vice versa shortly after the change occurs in the point anterior to it). This movement is quite strenuous and slow compared to other methods of locomotion. Energetic studies show that it takes more calories per meter to use concertina locomotion than either sidewinding or lateral undulation.\n",
"Snakes can exhibit 5 different modes of terrestrial locomotion: (1) lateral undulation, (2) sidewinding, (3) concertina, (4) rectilinear, and (5) slide-pushing. Lateral undulation closely resembles the simple undulatory motion observed in many other animals such as in lizards, eels and fish, in which waves of lateral bending propagate down the snake's body.\n",
"In the resultant movement, the snake's body is always in static (as opposed to sliding) contact when touching the ground. The head seems to be \"thrown\" forward, and the body follows, being lifted from the prior position and moved forward to lie on the ground ahead of where it was originally. Meanwhile, the head is being thrown forward again. In this way, the snake slowly progresses at an angle, leaving a series of mostly straight, J-shaped tracks. Because the snake's body is in static contact with the ground, without slip, imprints of the belly scales can be seen in the tracks, and each track is almost exactly as long as the snake.\n",
"Traditional snakebots locomote purely by changing the shape of their body, just like snakes. Many variants have been created which use wheels or treads for locomotion. No snakebots have been developed yet that can completely mimic the locomotion of real snakes, but researchers have been able to produce ways of moving that do not occur in nature.\n",
"Snake Hips is a movement in which the knees are moved forward and back, first one knee then the other, while keeping the feet together. As in Ball the Jack, in which the knees are held together, this results in a rotation of the hips.\n"
] |
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