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if a helicopter were to hover 12 hours without moving forward, would it be on the other side of the world?
|
No.
All of the air in the atmosphere is spinning with the Earth. If it wasn't there would constantly be very fast wind always travelling West - but there isn't.
Just like how the air moves with the Earth, a helicopter moves with the air.
This is a good watch which is kind of on topic (10 minutes): _URL_0_
|
[
"A helicopter normally encounters this condition when attempting to hover out of ground effect above the hovering ceiling for the aircraft, hovering out of ground effect without maintaining precise altitude control, and while making downwind or steep, powered approaches when the airspeed drops to nearly zero.\n",
"In forward flight, the rotor system is subject to various forms of differential loading. Imagine a rotor system where the tips of the blades rotate at 300 km/h relative to still air. When that helicopter is hovering, the blades see the same 300 km/h relative wind throughout their rotation. However, when the helicopter starts to move forward its speed is added to the speed of the blades as they advance towards the front of the aircraft, and subtracted as they retreat. For instance, if the helicopter is flying forward at 100 km/h, the advancing blades see 300 + 100 km/h = 400 km/h, and for the retreating ones its 300 – 100 km/h = 200 km/h.\n",
"The helicopter was airborne in less time than the estimated time of one minute on ground, with its gunner firing at the LTTE pillbox that was in close proximity to the main gate of the fort. After reaching an altitude of 2000 feet, Lasantha turned home.\n",
"As a helicopter moves from hover to forward flight it enters a state called translational lift which provides extra lift without increasing power. This state, most typically, occurs when the airspeed reaches approximately , and may be necessary for a helicopter to obtain flight.\n",
"From two miles away it would stop a conversation. I mean, the noise of those little jets on the tips of the rotor was just indescribable. So what have we got? The noisiest hovering vehicle the world has yet come up with and you're going to stick it in the middle of a city?\n",
"Your helicopter can move in 8 directions, though your move speed is fixed in relation to the stage's scroll speed. Also, the option to have your left/right directions reversed (pilot style) or not is presented before actual play begins.\n",
"In the first Roadblock of this leg, one team member rode a helicopter. Once in the air, they were given the controls to perform three specific tasks. First, they had to increase their speed from to and maintain it for 30 seconds. They then had to perform a full 360-degree turn within 2 minutes while maintaining a steady altitude. Finally, they had to rise from to and maintain the altitude for 30 seconds. If they correctly performed all 3 maneuvers in succession, they received their next clue and a piece of a \"Buddhi Batiks\" sari upon landing. Only two teams could complete this task at a time, if they failed any part of it, they would have to go to the back of the line.\n"
] |
How have the nutritional value of crops such a wheat changed over the last 1000 years and why?
|
This is nearly impossible to determine considering the chemical makeup of our foods hasn't been studied with modern peculiarity for very long. The history of enrichment and GMO sourcing would be a good start and you can almost rest assured that fortified foods are fortified for a reason. Unless there is a repository of un modified seeds not unlike the plant ark we'll never know as many of the components of these plants degrade, deaminate and deteriorate with exposure to air, water, light and anything else the cosmos throw at it. All in all we're better off now than ever for energy abundance as our foods, while overconsumption is a problem, offer more energy density and nutritional broad spectrum coverage than ever before.
MS in exercise science, health and human performance. I teach upper tier nutrition for performance as well as frosh/soph collegiate intro to nutrition courses.
A forensic anthropologist or evolutionary biologist might have better info.
|
[
"Sequencing the wheat genome completely is important for producers all over the world. Wheat currently makes up more than 20% of all calories consumed in the world, and as the global population increases, so does the need for wheat. Recently, however, wheat production has been stagnating because technological advances can’t keep up with negative economic and natural factors. The total demand for wheat is expected to increase by 70 percent by the year 2050—an increase of about 1.6 percent per year (Gonzalez). By sequencing the genome, scientists will be able to research ways to improve the efficiency of the crop through means like genetic engineering, which could allow production of wheat in areas with low nutrient levels.\n",
"Wheat production witnessed major changes in varieties and cultural practices since 1870. Thanks to these innovations, vast expanses of the wheat belt now support commercial production, and yields have resisted the negative impact of insects, diseases, and weeds. Biological innovations contributed roughly half of labor-productivity growth between 1839 and 1909.\n",
"During the second half of the 20th century there was a significant increase in the production of high-yield cereal crops worldwide, especially wheat and rice, due to an initiative known as the Green Revolution. The strategies developed by the Green Revolution focused on fending off starvation and were very successful in raising overall yields of cereal grains, but did not give sufficient relevance to nutritional quality. These modern high yield-cereal crops have low quality proteins, with essential amino acid deficiencies, are high in carbohydrates, and lack balanced essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and other quality factors.\n",
"The mix of crops also changed: the area under wheat rose by 1870 to 3.5 million acres (1.4m ha), barley to 2.25m acres (0.9m ha) and oats less dramatically to 2.75m acres (1.1m ha), while rye dwindled to 60,000 acres (25,000 ha), less than a tenth of its late medieval peak. Grain yields benefited from new and better seed alongside improved rotation and fertility: wheat yields increased by a quarter in the 18th century and nearly half in the 19th, averaging 30 bushels per acre (2,080 kg/ha) by the 1890s.\n",
"In the 20th century, global wheat output expanded by about 5-fold, but until about 1955 most of this reflected increases in wheat crop area, with lesser (about 20%) increases in crop yields per unit area. After 1955 however, there was a ten-fold increase in the rate of wheat yield improvement per year, and this became the major factor allowing global wheat production to increase. Thus technological innovation and scientific crop management with synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, irrigation and wheat breeding were the main drivers of wheat output growth in the second half of the century. There were some significant decreases in wheat crop area, for instance in North America.\n",
"Other food grains also benefited from private investment. For example, output growth rates for sorghum and barley accelerated even faster than wheat during the 1980s, although the overall amount produced was much smaller. During the 1980s, farmers also experimented with new varieties of vegetables and fruits but with only modest success. More traditional crops, like onions and dates, did not fare as well and their output declined or remained flat.\n",
"Better seed storage and germination ability (and hence a smaller requirement to retain harvested crop for next year's seed) is another 20th-century technological innovation. In Medieval England, farmers saved one-quarter of their wheat harvest as seed for the next crop, leaving only three-quarters for food and feed consumption. By 1999, the global average seed use of wheat was about 6% of output.\n"
] |
Is it possible that dinosaur fossils played some role in the origin of dragon myths?
|
It is possible, yes, that fossils (not necessarily just dinosaur fossils) did play a role in the development of dragon myths. It's mostly all speculation, really.
Most fossils that people find are either recognizably some smallish organism, like a seashell or a small fish, or a disarticulated bone or piece of a bone. All perfectly laid-out skeletons just don't really happen very often at all, and even then it takes a keen eye to discern what is what.
We do know that prior to Georges Cuvier's pioneering work in comparative anatomy, people very often tended to assume large fossil bones were the bones of creatures that were still alive at the time, or possibly giant versions of them. In the Western world, it was also frequently assumed they were the remains of animals and people killed in Noah's flood. One particular thigh bone (now known to be from a type of meat-eating dinosaur) was originally thought to have been the thigh bone from a giant antediluvian person, then for the while the fossilized scrotum of said person, then recognized again for a leg and not a ballsack, and finally correctly identified as not from a flood-victim giant human at all.
Also, prior to Cuvier's work, we really didn't have a concept of extinction. The world at this point was also not fully-explored by any one group, so there was an idea that even though these giant critters may not be around *here* anymore, the might still be found out *there* somewhere. Thomas Jefferson actually gave specific instructions to Lewis and Clark for their westward exploration to try and find a living specimen of a giant ground sloth--an animal known from fossils and which the founding father assumed based on assumptions that were perfectly rational for the time to still be kicking around out *there* somewhere.
There are some speculations that specific fossils may have influenced certain mythological creatures. For example, some myths of the Griffin describe a four-legged creature with wings, a beak, a horn on the back of the head, and lives in the desert and guards gold. The dinosaur *Protoceratops* has four legs, shoulder blades that to the untrained can look sort of wing-like, a beak, a frill on the back of the head which if the sides break off--which is very common--can look like a horn, its remains are found in the deserts of Mongolia and China in areas where gold deposits are not unheard of. It's possible, maybe even plausible, but not really testable.
Stories of mythical beasts, like dragons, grow and change with the times. They ultimately have many sources, some from the natural world, some purely fantasy. Fossils may explain part of the stories, but not all of them.
Consider that if you go to the Roman and Medieval sources, a "dragon" is described many different ways, many of them only having a passing resemblance to what we today would agree on is a prototypical "dragon." For example, in some medieval bestiaries based on Pliny the Elder's works, dragons are described as giant snakes that live in the East (i.e. India), live in trees and hunt elephants by dropping on them from the trees and constricting them, and are deathly afraid of jaguars.
|
[
"Jones then argues against the common hypothesis that dragon myths might be motivated by primitive discoveries of dinosaur fossils (he argues that there are widespread traits of dragons in folklore which are not observable from fossils), and claims that the common traits of dragons seem to be an amalgam of the principal predators of our ancestral hominids, which he names as the raptors, great cats (especially leopards) and pythons.\n",
"In her book \"The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times\" (2000), Adrienne Mayor argues that some stories of dragons may have been inspired by ancient discoveries of fossils belonging to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. She argues that the dragon lore of northern India may have been inspired by \"observations of oversized, extraordinary bones in the fossilbeds of the Siwalik Hills below the Himalayas\" and that ancient Greek artistic depictions of the Monster of Troy may have been influenced by fossils of \"Samotherium\", an extinct species of giraffe whose fossils are common in the Mediterranean region. In China, a region where fossils of large prehistoric animals are common, these remains are frequently identified as \"dragon bones\" and are commonly used in Chinese traditional medicine. Mayor, however, is careful to point out that not all stories of dragons and giants are inspired by fossils and notes that Scandinavia has many stories of dragons and sea monsters, but has long \"been considered barren of large fossils.\" In one of her later books, she states that \"Many dragon images around the world were based on folk knowledge or exaggerations of living reptiles, such as Komodo dragons, Gila monsters, iguanas, alligators, or, in California, alligator lizards.\"\n",
"Dinosaur fossils have been known for millennia, although their true nature was not recognized. The Chinese considered them to be dragon bones and documented them as such. For example, \"Hua Yang Guo Zhi\", a book written by Chang Qu during the Western Jin Dynasty (265–316), reported the discovery of dragon bones at Wucheng in Sichuan Province. Villagers in central China have long unearthed fossilized \"dragon bones\" for use in traditional medicines, a practice that continues today. In Europe, dinosaur fossils were generally believed to be the remains of giants and other biblical creatures.\n",
"\"Archaeoraptor\" is the informal generic name for an important fossil from China that was later discovered to be a fake. The name was created in an article published in \"National Geographic\" magazine in 1999, where the magazine claimed that the fossil was a \"missing link\" between birds and terrestrial theropod dinosaurs. Even prior to this publication there had been severe doubts about the fossil's authenticity. Further scientific study showed it to be a forgery constructed from rearranged pieces of real fossils from different species. Zhou \"et al.\" found that the head and upper body actually belong to a specimen of the primitive fossil bird \"Yanornis\", and another 2002 study found that the tail belongs to a small winged dromaeosaur, \"Microraptor\", named in 2000. The legs and feet belong to an as yet unknown animal.\n",
"\"Archaeoraptor\" is the informal generic name for a fossil from China in an article published in \"National Geographic\" magazine in 1999. The magazine claimed that the fossil was a \"missing link\" between birds and terrestrial theropod dinosaurs. Even prior to this publication there had been severe doubts about the fossil's authenticity. Further scientific study showed it to be a forgery constructed from rearranged pieces of real fossils from different species. Zhou \"et al.\" found that the head and upper body actually belong to a specimen of the primitive fossil bird \"Yanornis\". A 2002 study found that the tail belongs to a small winged dromaeosaur, \"Microraptor\", named in 2000. The legs and feet belong to an as yet unknown animal.\n",
"Ancient peoples across the Near East believed in creatures similar to what modern people call \"dragons\". These ancient peoples were unaware of the existence of dinosaurs or similar creatures in the distant past. References to dragons of both benevolent and malevolent characters occur throughout ancient Mesopotamian literature. In Sumerian poetry, great kings are often compared to the \"ušumgal\", a gigantic, serpentine monster. A dragon-like creature with the foreparts of a lion and the hind-legs, tail, and wings of a bird appears in Mesopotamian artwork from the Akkadian Period ( 2334 – 2154 BC) until the Neo-Babylonian Period (626 BC–539 BC). The dragon is usually shown with its mouth open. It may have been known as the \"(ūmu) nā’iru\", which means \"roaring weather beast\", and may have been associated with the god Ishkur (Hadad). A slightly different lion-dragon with two horns and the tail of a scorpion appears in art from the Neo-Assyrian Period (911 BC–609 BC). A relief probably commissioned by Sennacherib shows the gods Ashur, Sin, and Adad standing on its back.\n",
"The dinosaurs were most likely riparian, as well. Hundreds of dinosaur fossils have been discovered, such as \"Allosaurus\", \"Camptosaurus\", \"Ornitholestes\", several stegosaurs comprising at least two species of \"Stegosaurus\" and the slightly older \"Hesperosaurus\", and the early ankylosaurs, \"Mymoorapelta\" and \"Gargoyleosaurus\", most notably a very broad range of sauropods (the giants of the Mesozoic era). Since at least some of these species are known to have nested in the area (\"Camptosaurus\" embryoes have been discovered), there are indications that it was a good environment for dinosaurs and not just home to migratory, seasonal populations.\n"
] |
why is hitting your child legal (corporal punishment) when hitting an adult isn't?
|
the fuzzy gray line lies around intention to discipline not intention to inflict harm.
|
[
"In England and Wales, section 58 of the Children Act 2004 enables parents to justify common assault or battery (crime) of their children as \"reasonable punishment\", but prevents the defence being used in relation to Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (i.e. when causing anything beyond \"transient and trifling\" such as bruising) and any more serious harm.\n",
"Criminal law has a general prohibition against common assault and battery, but corporal punishment is legal through tradition and an implicit common law justification/defence (R v Hopley 2F&F 202, 1860) to such charges for parents striking their children in the context of \"lawful correction\" where the act is \"moderate and reasonable\". The Children Act 2004 effectively provides a statutory definition of immoderate by disallowing this justification for any act of punishment inflicting injuries or effects that amount to wounding, actual bodily harm (ABH), or any act considered \"cruelty to persons under sixteen\" in violation of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and was described at implementation as criminalising \"visible bruising\" and rendering lesser injuries (comparable to \"not serious\" common assault) implicitly lawful/defensible. At the time, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) produced a charging standard unlawfully asserting the age of the victim may be considered an aggravating factor in deciding if the offence charged would be indefensible serious assault occasioning ABH rather than (implicitly defensible) common assault and erroneousely asserted that any injuries more than \"temporary reddening of the skin\" or \"marks\" could be charged as ABH: this had no legal basis and was withdrawn in 2011. Standards now correctly require evidence of injuries that are \"serious\" and where a \"sentence clearly in excess of six months' imprisonment ought to be available\" (as legal precedent requires/demands injuries \"must, no doubt, be more than merely transient and trifling\" now being interpreted as \"more than common assault\") to warrant an indefensible criminal charge of ABH.\n",
"Some scholars, such as Elizabeth Gershoff and Sarah Font note a severe legal double standard when it comes to the physical punishment of children versus adults. In North Carolina, teachers can use a two-foot-long paddle to discipline children, which, in some cases, is more than half the height of an elementary school-aged child. \"In any other context, the act of an adult hitting another person with a board [2 feet long] (or really, of any size) would be considered assault with a weapon and would be punishable under criminal law.\"\n",
"In the UK, spanking or smacking is legal, but it must not cause an injury amounting to Actual Bodily Harm (any injury such as visible bruising, breaking of the whole skin etc.); in addition, in Scotland, since October 2003, it has been illegal to use any implements or to strike the head when disciplining a child, and it is also prohibited to use corporal punishment towards children under the age of 3 years.\n",
"In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, corporal punishment administered to children by their parent or legal guardian is not legally considered to be assault unless it is deemed to be excessive or unreasonable. What constitutes \"reasonable\" varies in both statutory law and case law. Unreasonable physical punishment may be charged as assault or under a separate statute for child abuse.\n",
"The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health of the United Kingdom remarked in a 2009 policy statement that \"corporal punishment of children in the home is of importance to pediatricians because of its connection with child abuse... all pediatricians will have seen children who have been injured as a result of parental chastisement. It is not possible logically to differentiate between a smack and a physical assault since both are forms of violence. The motivation behind the smack cannot reduce the hurtful impact it has on the child.\" They assert that preventing child maltreatment is of \"vital importance\", and advocate a change in the laws concerning corporal punishment. In their words, \"Societies which promote the needs and rights of children have a low incidence of child maltreatment, and this includes a societal rejection of physical punishment of children\".\n",
"Corporal punishment is most frequent for toddler-age children and continues into children's adolescence. More than a third of parents in the US report using corporal punishment on children less than a year old, often with a slap on the hand. Researchers estimate that 85% of American youth have been physically punished by parents during childhood or adolescence. The most common form of physical punishment is spanking on the buttocks with an open hand. However, more than one in four parents have also reported using an object, such as a hairbrush or wooden spoon, to hit their children, according to a 1995 survey. According to Elizabeth Gershoff, these data, combined with the common use of wooden paddles to administer corporal punishment in schools, demonstrate \"a prevailing acceptance of objects to deliver punishment\".\n"
] |
how does edward snowden's protection in russia work?
|
* Russia is not the US, so US law doesn't apply there. They can't just invade Russia and take him.
* The US must ask for Russia to "extradite" him (meaning to willingly turn him over to US authorities). Russia can choose to say no.
* They're saying no.
|
[
"Human Rights Watch said that if Snowden were able to raise the issue of NSA mass surveillance without facing espionage charges, he would not have left the United States in the first place. Human Rights Watch writes that any country where Snowden seeks asylum should consider his claim fairly and protect his rights under international law, which recognizes that revealing official secrets is sometimes justified in the public interest.\n",
"Snowden has said that he had told multiple employees and two supervisors about his concerns, but the NSA disputes his claim. Snowden elaborated in January 2014, saying \"[I] made tremendous efforts to report these programs to co-workers, supervisors, and anyone with the proper clearance who would listen. The reactions of those I told about the scale of the constitutional violations ranged from deeply concerned to appalled, but no one was willing to risk their jobs, families, and possibly even freedom to go through what [Thomas Andrews] Drake did.\" In March 2014, during testimony to the European Parliament, Snowden wrote that before revealing classified information he had reported \"clearly problematic programs\" to ten officials, who he said did nothing in response. In a May 2014 interview, Snowden told NBC News that after bringing his concerns about the legality of the NSA spying programs to officials, he was told to stay silent on the matter. He asserted that the NSA had copies of emails he sent to their Office of General Counsel, oversight and compliance personnel broaching \"concerns about the NSA's interpretations of its legal authorities. I had raised these complaints not just officially in writing through email, but to my supervisors, to my colleagues, in more than one office.\"\n",
"Snowden was then employed for less than a year in 2005 as a security guard at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Study of Language, a research center sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA). According to the University, this is not a classified facility, though it is heavily guarded. In June 2014, Snowden told \"Wired\" that his job as a security guard required a high-level security clearance, for which he passed a polygraph exam and underwent a stringent background check.\n",
"In 2013, Snowden was hired by an NSA contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, after previous employment with Dell and the CIA. Snowden says he gradually became disillusioned with the programs with which he was involved and that he tried to raise his ethical concerns through internal channels but was ignored. On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii, and in early June he revealed thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill. Snowden came to international attention after stories based on the material appeared in \"The Guardian\" and \"The Washington Post\". Further disclosures were made by other publications including \"Der Spiegel\" and \"The New York Times\".\n",
"Russia first received information about Snowden when he was in Hong Kong. At that time, they were told that a person who wanted to fight against human rights violations wanted to seek asylum in Russia. In 2017, during \"The Putin Interviews\" with the Director Oliver Stone, the Russian president Vladimir Putin described how Russia got involved in the Snowden saga. During that time, Russia did not want to get involved as it already had a strained relationship with the United States which it did not wish to exacerbate. Thereafter they learnt that Snowden was on a plane bound for Moscow, to transfer to another plane bound for Latin America. Most of this information was received through informal channels including information leaked to the press. While he was aboard the plane, his destination countries grew reluctant to allow him in, and Snowden was thus stuck in the transit area of Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport. While in the airport, U.S. authorities asked Russia to extradite Snowden. However this was not possible as Russia had proposed a treaty on cooperation in legal matters, requiring mutual extradition of criminals, which U.S. had not agreed upon. Further, United States had never extradited any Russian criminal who had taken asylum in USA, hence Snowden's extradition would have been unprecedented. Snowden had not committed a crime as per Russian law.\n",
"In October 2013, the Sam Adams Award was presented to Snowden in Moscow by a group of four visiting American former intelligence officers and whistleblowers. After two months as an asylee, Snowden made his first public appearance to accept the award, a candlestick holder meant to symbolize bringing light to dark corners. During their visit, one of the presenters—FBI whistleblower Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project—became Snowden's lawyer. A week later, Radack wrote in \"The Nation\" that Snowden exemplified Sam Adams's \"courage, persistence and devotion to truth—no matter what the consequences.\"\n",
"BULLET::::- Edward Snowden - In June 2013, Edward Snowden was charged under the Espionage Act after releasing documents exposing the NSA's PRISM Surveillance Program. Specifically, he was charged with \"unauthorized communication of national defense information\" and \"willful communication of classified intelligence with an unauthorized person\".\n"
] |
Why do electric engines don't have gear box?
|
I'm not an engineer, but I am a physicist with a car hobby, so I think I can answer. The simplest answer has to do with the speeds of the energy source involved. Let me explain:
The reason why an internal combustion engine, such as the [reciprocating engine in most cars](_URL_1_), has such a variable "torque curve" is because, at a given rotation per minute (RPM), the cylinders are moving at a certain speed up and down. The [air-fuel](_URL_2_) mixture that is pulled into the cylinder and compressed during each cycle is ignited, and the [flame front](_URL_6_) propagates outward from the spark, increasing the pressure rapidly and pushing the cylinder downward. This downward, linear force is applied to the [crankshaft](_URL_3_), producing **torque**. The key is that the speed at which this ignition and rise in pressure happens is relatively slow, only a few tens of meters per second, and so at different RPMs the cylinders are moving at different speeds with respect to the flame front. This is also why engines have [ignition timing curves](_URL_5_): as cylinder speed increases, the ignition has to happen earlier and earlier so that the maximum compression will occur at peak burn.
Now, we've come up with a variety of very clever solutions to maximize torque across the RPM range, such as sophisticated engine management and [variable valve timing systems](_URL_4_), but it isn't perfect. Consequently, all engines have a certain RPM range where they produce the most torque.
Electric motors (there actually is no such thing as an electric "engine", since an engine is a thermodynamic machine), on the other hand, rely on the [interaction of magnetic and electric fields](_URL_0_) to generate force. These interactions happen extremely quickly, at a [large fraction of the speed of light](_URL_7_). Consequently, to the electromagnetic field, an electric motor is essentially sitting still, no matter how fast it goes. So the force that gets generated is pretty much constant, producing a very flat torque curve.
**TL;DR:** Ignition is slow relative to engine speeds, so there is an optimal engine speed for producing torque; the electromagnetic field is pretty much instantaneous relative to engine speeds, producing a flat torque curve in electric motors.
|
[
"Surprisingly, the three-speed manual gearbox, was mechanically a four-speed box with first gear blanked off. This was done due to the perceived high torque of the engine, so that first gear was deemed unnecessary.\n",
"A box motor, in railroad terminology, is a self-propelled boxcar, normally powered by electricity and running on an interurban railway or a streetcar line. Many box motors were converted from passenger cars on the systems that ran them, with the seats and most of the windows removed and large freight doors fitted. They were generally used for express and less-than-carload freight.\n",
"When a manual starter system is used (such as a recoil starter with a pull-cord), only a basic electrical system is required, since the system's only purpose was to power the spark plug. Older engines used a magneto to achieve this, while newer engines often use a capacitor discharge ignition (CDI) system with an ignition coil. These systems do not require a battery or charging system.\n",
"Pitch control can be implemented via hydraulic or electric mechanisms. Hydraulic mechanisms have longer life, faster response time due to higher driving force, and a lower maintenance backup spring. However, hydraulics tend to require more power to keep the system at a high pressure, and can leak. Electric systems consume and waste less power, and do not leak. However, they require costly fail safe batteries and capacitors in the event of power failure.\n",
"A sprag clutch is used in many helicopter designs to transfer power from the engine to the main rotor. In the event of an engine failure, the sprag clutch allows the main rotor to continue rotating faster than the engines so that the helicopter can enter autorotation.\n",
"A Boxpok is a steam locomotive wheel that gains its strength through being made of a number of box sections rather than having traditional solid spokes (the name is a variation on \"box-spoke\"). Being hollow, they allow better counterbalancing than conventional drivers, which is important for fast locomotives. The Boxpok wheel was patented by General Steel Castings Corporation of Granite City, Illinois.\n",
"Various power transmission methods were available before power takeoffs became common, but there were applications left wanting for some of the attributes that PTOs would provide. Flat belts generally lent themselves only to applications where the engine was stationary, such as factory steam engines, portable stationary engines, or traction engines parked in front of the work. For moving vehicles such as a traction engine or early tractor towing a farm implement, the implement could receive rotary power by taking it from one of its own wheels (whose turning was imparted by the towing) and distributing it via roller chains (to a sickle bar's crank, for example), but such a transmission ceases if the vehicle stops traveling; and the workload's resistance tends to make the wheel skid rather than turn, even if cleated. The concept of a shaft drive with easily connected and disconnected couplings, and flexibility for driving at changing angles (such as when an articulated tractor-and-trailer combination turns), was a goal to pursue.\n"
] |
when financial companies "buy" commodities, how are they stored? or they buying "rights" to have them at that price?
|
no, sugar spoils anyway, you would never store it as an investment.
They own the future rights to buy sugar at a future date (hence why the contract is called a future).
when that date comes, they *could* demand physical delivery. This might make sense if we were talking about Delta airlines and they had a jet fuel future... Yes they could take and use the jet fuel, but due to logistical issues of such a thing, its almost never happens. They will settle in cash and the commodity will end go through the most efficient supply chain based on its location, delta will buy its fuel on the open market based on where it needs it.
Now, in other cases, like a Gold ETF, they may actually own gold. of course this is different, it doesnt spoil. in these cases, the gold is held in bank vaults around the world, NY, Zurich, London, ect. They spread it around to minimize risk.
|
[
"Commodities can be traded on financial markets, where there will be a single offer price (asking price), and bid price. Although there is a small spread between these two values the law of one price applies (to each).\n",
"A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Investors access about 50 major commodity markets worldwide with purely financial transactions increasingly outnumbering physical trades in which goods are delivered. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities. Futures are secured by physical assets. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, and options on futures. Farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodity market for centuries for price risk management.\n",
"Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods.\n",
"The price of a commodity is set by the market as long as fiat currency (paper) is not used. On the other hand, the price/value of commodities can be manipulated/adjusted by the creators of fiat money (by virtue of the market law of supply and demand).\n",
"A commodity is a social use value produced by its owner not for personal consumption but for exchange. Marx believed that an entrepreneur has more and more to keep up with the more his company and power expands. It becomes more difficult each time his range of power increases. Eventually, the entrepreneur himself will become a commodity because he/she will no longer be able to keep up with their business and will have to put themselves (their company) up for sale on the market.\n",
"In commodity money, intrinsic value can be partially or entirely due to the desirable features of the object as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Examples of such features include divisibility; easily and securely storable and transportable; scarcity; and difficulty to counterfeit. When objects come to be used as a medium of exchange they lower the high transaction costs associated with barter and other in-kind transactions.\n",
"Many items have been used as commodity money such as naturally scarce precious metals, conch shells, barley, beads etc., as well as many other things that are thought of as having value. Commodity money value comes from the commodity out of which it is made. The commodity itself constitutes the money, and the money is the commodity. Examples of commodities that have been used as mediums of exchange include gold, silver, copper, rice, Wampum, salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, candy, etc. These items were sometimes used in a metric of perceived value in conjunction to one another, in various commodity valuation or price system economies. Use of commodity money is similar to barter, but a commodity money provides a simple and automatic unit of account for the commodity which is being used as money. Although some gold coins such as the Krugerrand are considered legal tender, there is no record of their face value on either side of the coin. The rationale for this is that emphasis is laid on their direct link to the prevailing value of their fine gold content.\n"
] |
Has any virus or bacteria in humans ever mutated within us to then become a serious illness elsewhere in the animal kingdom?
|
_URL_0_
Chitrid disease in amphibians which is single handedly wiping out species across the earth is apparently spread by skin to skin contact from a fungus sometimes found on the hands of people.
It doesn't really affect people as far as I know.
Edit: And as far as I understand it didn't really start causing mass die offs until the 70's, could be a mutation, a sudden spread of a more virulent strain, or a sudden change in environment making it much more aggressive.
|
[
"A large proportion of viral pathogens that have emerged recently in humans are considered to have originated from various animal species. This is shown by several recent epidemics such as, avian flu, Ebola, monkey pox, and Hanta viruses. There is evidence to suggest that some diseases can potentially be re-introduced to human populations through animal hosts after they have been eradicated in humans. There is a risk of this phenomenon occurring with morbilliviruses as they can readily cross species barriers. CST can also have a significant effect on produce industries. Genotype VI-Avian paramyxovirus serotype 1 (GVI-PMV1) is a virus that arose through cross-species transmission events from Galliformes (i.e. chicken) to Columbiformes, and has become prevalent in the poultry industry. CST of rabies virus variants between many different species populations is a major wildlife management concern. Introduction of these variants into non-reservoir animals increases the risk of human exposures and threatens current advances toward rabies control.\n",
"The first case of a spumavirus being isolated from a primate was in 1955 \"(Rustigan et al., 1955)\" from the kidneys. What is curious about the cytopathology of SFV is that while it results in rapid cell death for cells \"in vitro\", it loses its highly cytopathic nature \"in vivo.\" With little evidence to suggest that SFV infection causes illness, some scientists believe that it has a commensal relationship to simians.\n",
"Many bacteria and viruses infect humans without pathology in normal individuals. If certain individuals are genetically predisposed to immunological intolerance of these commensal organisms, pathology can occur. The Saffold virus, a human virus discovered in 2007, has been shown to have high prevalence in humans (90%). It may be an important link between the study of mouse TMEV-induced encephalomyelitis and human Multiple Sclerosis.\n",
"The Mammalian orthoreovirus as stated previously is ubiquitous among mammals, infecting a large variety of species all over the world. Examples include, pigs, cattle, horses, primates, dogs, cats, rabbits, mice, marsupials, and humans. Experimental infection of Mammalian orthoreovirus Type 3 resulted in 100% mortality in nenonatal pigs, the pigs developed acute gastroenteritis and severe diarrhea within 72 hours of infection. Additionally, it has been reported that MRV-3 causes enteritis, pneumonia, encephalitis and reproductive failure in swine. Experimental infection of Mammalian orthoreovirus Type 1 resulted in pneumonia, enteritis, fever, and diarrhea.\n",
"Naturally, medical and veterinary sciences have attempted to exterminate parasites and pathogens living in humans and in domesticated animals. In the case of a few highly host-specific pathogens, this means the extinction of the entire pathogen species. Throughout human history, however, only one species, the smallpox virus, has been wholly eradicated. The last reported cases of smallpox occurred 1978. However, secure samples are known to still exist in the United States and Russia, purportedly for defensive purposes such as developing new vaccines, antiviral drugs, as well as for diagnostic tests. It is not known, but is speculated that these countries may have shared their samples with some of their allies during the Cold War.\n",
"The virus produces clinical disease and death in suckling and adult mice but not in hamsters, guinea pigs, or rabbits. Antibodies or virus have been detected in dogs, raccoons, cattle, and humans, but no evidence of infection has been found in sentinel chickens or wild birds.\n",
"A number of psychiatric disorders have often been tentatively linked with microbial pathogens, particularly viruses; however while there have been some suggestions of links from animal studies, and some inconsistent evidence for infectious and immune mechanisms (including prenatally) in some human disorders, infectious disease models in psychiatry are reported to have not yet shown significant promise except in isolated cases.\n"
] |
what happens when a person such as myself, who's maybe worth $18,000 on a good day, gets sued for $10 million?
|
You retain an attorney and defend against the lawsuit. If you cannot afford an attorney, one may be willing to help you for free--there are legal aid societies dedicated to this, and American Bar Association asks all lawyers to donate some of their time each year. Defendants in highly publicized cases often receive donations from people who believe in their cause. You may be insured against (some kinds of) lawsuits, as found in many homeowner's insurance policies--if so, that'll come in handy now.
You could try to a settlement with the plaintiff. He is probably willing to slash his claim if it means he avoids the difficulty of a trial and the associated legal expenses for himself. Then, your payment is entirely according to your agreement with him. Let's say you believe yourself quite innocent, though, and go to trial--what if you lose, and are ordered to pay a large sum? (Not necessarily the amount the defendant originally asked for.)
You will typically establish a payment plan based on your ability to pay, slowly working to pay off that debt. If you do not pay as ordered, the plaintiff could ask for garnishment, meaning your employer would be required to withhold part of your wages. The court may transfer possession of your property to the defendant to help satisfy back payments, though state law protects a basic amount of property like your primary residence and retirement funds.
At the end of the day, though, perhaps you will never be able to satisfy the debt. People can cause a lot of damage and be liable for more than they expect to earn in a lifetime. Wise plaintiffs know this, and don't sue people who won't and can't pay--such people with no accessible assets or income to speak of are sometimes called "judgment proof." If there is an outstanding balance when you die, the plaintiff may recover it from your estate (the inheritance), potentially having access to assets that were legally protected during your lifetime. If the estate does not cover the bill, the plaintiff is out of luck and simply has to accept the loss of the remainder.
|
[
"There is a rule that \"Grama benizakin patur\". If somebody caused financial harm to somebody else via an action that was not guaranteed to harm them, the person cannot be forced by a court to pay, although he might be morally obligated to.\n",
"In 2008, she appeared as a defendant on \"The People's Court\". She was sued by a one-time cornerman who claimed Laracuente never paid him for his services. The cornerman had sued for $2500 of her $7000 purse, plus an additional $2500 for embarrassment and threats, but was awarded only $350 by judge Marilyn Milian.\n",
"However the fact that the law effectively made it impossible to claim for any injury worth less than around $60,000 was criticised by New South Wales Chief Justice James Spigelman and others. Spigelman argued that it effectively \"eliminates small claims\" entirely, giving \"people the right to be negligent and injure someone up to a given level before they become liable\". Spigelman said:\n",
"BULLET::::- Lawyer Carolyn Kellman filed a class action lawsuit against Forever 21 in September 2012 after she received one penny less when she returned several items. Customers who received a penny less or were charged one more joined the case. According to \"The Huffington Post\", these pennies added up as \"The threshold for civil actions in her court district is $15,000 -- meaning, she had to find enough people to join the case so that she could cite 1.5 million pennies in damages (750,000 customers since 2007.)\"\n",
"BULLET::::- Jasmine and Prudith, who believe everything will cost a thousand pounds, despite what the person they're interacting with says. However, after they encounter the person they say that they will do something that would generally cost at least a thousand pounds, such as buying a mansion or a yacht. Appears in every series.\n",
"\"(The plaintiff) could recover the 175 pounds as money paid on a consideration which had wholly failed. She was, therefore, entitled to recover it as of right. And she is entitled to recover as well damages for negligence. Take this instance. If you engage a driver to take you to the station to catch a train for a day trip to the sea, you pay him 2 pounds – and then the car breaks down owing to his negligence. So that you miss your holiday. In that case you can recover not only your 2 pounds back but also damages for the disappointment, upset and mental distress which you suffered\".\n",
"A person who has committed a crime may be ordered to pay damages to the victim. Such damages can relate to compensation for destroyed clothing, a broken tooth, costs for medical care, pain and suffering, or personal violation. A person sentenced for an offence that could lead to imprisonment must pay SEK 800 to the Crime Victim Fund. Fines are determined in money, or as day fines. In the case of day fines, two figures are given, for example \"40 day fines of SEK 50\" (i.e. SEK 2,000). The first figure shows how serious the court has considered the offence and the latter figure depends on financial situation of the accused.\n"
] |
why do computers have a shutdown process instead of just cutting it's own power?
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For the same reason that people generally lie down before going to sleep instead of just falling over: To avoid damage.
At any given time, a computer is running a lot of programs in the background, and they need to be safely closed before the computer shuts down. Many of them also save their state during their shutdown procedures, so they can resume where they were when the computer comes back on. These programs can be extremely important to the operation of the computer, and if things don't add up when it comes back on, the operating system itself won't run anymore.
|
[
"To shut down or power off a computer is to remove power from a computer's main components in a controlled way. After a computer is shut down, main components such as CPUs, RAM modules and hard disk drives are powered down, although some internal components, such as an internal clock, may retain power.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Idle power-down\": This technique exploits gaps in workload demand to shut off components that are idle. When shut down, components cannot do any useful work. The problems unique to this approach are: (1) it costs time and energy to transition between active and idle power-down states, (2) no work can be done in the off state, so power-up must be done to handle a request, and (3) predicting idle periods and adapting appropriately by choosing the right power state at any moment is difficult.\n",
"Normally, when the computer is shutting down, every mounted storage will undergo an unmounting process to ensure that all queued data got written, and to preserve integrity of file system structure on the media.\n",
"BULLET::::- Managing power states: Logging off and shutdown has always been a function of the Start menu. In Windows 8, the shutdown function was moved out of the Start screen, only to be brought back in Windows 8.1 Update (in April 2014) with a sufficiently high screen resolution. Computer power states can also be managed by pressing Alt+F4, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"shutdown\" is the label of an optional routine used if the system console operator has requested to shut down timesharing. The program has a short period to allow itself to clean up any necessary features and quit. When the routine completes, the program is terminated and the user automatically logged off. If no shutdown routine exists, the program is cancelled without warning and the user automatically logged off.\n",
"Most computers have a reset line that brings the device into the startup state and is active for a short time after powering on. For example, in the x86 architecture, asserting the RESET line halts the CPU; this is done after the system is switched on and before the power supply has asserted \"power good\" to indicate that it is ready to supply stable voltages at sufficient power levels. Reset places less stress on the hardware than power cycling, as the power is not removed. Many computers, especially older models, have user accessible \"reset\" buttons that assert the reset line to facilitate a system reboot in a way that cannot be trapped (i.e. prevented) by the operating system. Out-of-band management also frequently provides the possibility to reset the remote system in this way.\n",
"In Microsoft Windows and ReactOS, a PC or server is shut down by selecting the Shutdown item from the Start menu on the desktop. Options include shutting down the system and powering off, automatically restarting the system after shutting down, or putting the system into stand-by mode.\n"
] |
internet infrastructure.
|
Inside your computer is something called a NIC (Network Interface Card). It has two main jobs - send data, and receive data.
Hook it up to another computer via an Ethernet cable and you have a simple network. Your computer's send is hooked up to the other's receive and vice-versa.
What if you want another computer? You add something called a Switch. All three computers now plug into the switch, rather than each other. The switch's job is to take data from one computer's "send" wire and send it to another computer's "receive" wire. To do this, it remembers the MAC Address of each NIC connected to it. (Every NIC has a unique MAC address set at the time of manufacture).
So now we have a basic network. Your neighbour John has done the same thing, and he now has his own network. You want to connect them together. Your Switch isn't going to want to have to remember every MAC address of every NIC being connected to and disconnected from every network, so...
Enter the Router. The Router does what it says on the tin - it routes traffic across networks. A router is like a computer with more than one NIC. (In fact, you can use an actual PC with two NICs as a router). One NIC will connect to the switch on your network, the other will connect to the switch in your neighbour's network.
The router will be set up with something called a "routing table" which is just information about the networks, now using IP (Internet Protocol) addresses rather than hardware MAC addresses, and where they are located - ie. Which NIC do I use to get traffic to John's network? (IP Addresses are structured for larger networks that NICs - ie. given a 'subnet mask', the router can work out which network an IP Address belongs to. So Routers tend to think in terms of networks, whereas switches tend to think in terms of Devices).
So when you send data to one of your neighbours computers, your computer will know that it's on a different network and will send it to the Router to deal with. Your computer doesn't know anything about John's network or how exactly to get there, and it doesn't need to. It just knows that the Router will take care of it. The router will look at the destination address, and send the packet to John's switch to be relayed to the destination.
Keep adding switches, routers, computers and other devices and the network gets bigger and bigger. As is the case with the internet. Also, the networks might not be directly connected together - data might have to travel across more than one subsection of the network to reach its destination.
Also, in a network the size of the internet, every router won't know about every other router on the network - it will only know about what it's connected to. To get data all the way across the internet, each router only needs to figure out the next 'hop' until the data gets to it's destination. You can see this happening by opening up a command prompt and typing:
tracert _URL_1_
That will show you the 'route' to the internet to get to _URL_1_. (Mine took 11 hops). Each entry in that list is a router. You'll probably find that the first one or two belong to your ISP.
The other thing is that routes can take different paths depending on many factors, such as if a segment of the network goes down, the routers can intelligently find alternate routes around the problem.
If the destination simply can't be reached, for example if [some old woman cuts the underground cable connecting America to other parts of the world](_URL_0_), the packets of data will just bounce around different routers until it times out.
|
[
"The infrastructure by which individuals, households, businesses, and communities connect to the Internet refers to the physical mediums that people use to connect to the Internet such as desktop computers, laptops, cell phones, iPods or other MP3 players, Xboxes or PlayStations, electronic book readers, and tablets such as iPads. Other than desktops, most types of Internet capable infrastructure connect through wireless means. In 2009, 56% of Americans said that they had connected to the Internet through wireless means.\n",
"BULLET::::- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (which refers to online services that abstract the user from the details of infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc.)\n",
"Chapter 5: Infrastructure for the 21st Century presents the notion of an information infrastructure. Alongside traditional infrastructure such as the road network, telephone lines, water and sewage this chapter states the American advanced economy must have an information infrastructure – high speed internet access, adequate spectrum allotment, cloud network etc. – that can support the increasingly wireless and technology-based economy.\n",
"Communications infrastructure is the informal and formal channels of communication, political and social networks, or beliefs held by members of particular groups, as well as information technology, software development tools. Still underlying these more conceptual uses is the idea that infrastructure provides organizing structure and support for the system or organization it serves, whether it is a city, a nation, a corporation, or a collection of people with common interests. Examples include IT infrastructure, research infrastructure, terrorist infrastructure, employment infrastructure and tourism infrastructure.\n",
"The Internet infrastructure comprises software-driven networked switches, routers, firewalls, servers and storage hardware that switch, route, protect and store all voice, video and text data intelligently across the world.\n",
"The industrial internet of things (IIoT) refers to interconnected sensors, instruments, and other devices networked together with computers' industrial applications, including manufacturing and energy management. This connectivity allows for data collection, exchange, and analysis, potentially facilitating improvements in productivity and efficiency as well as other economic benefits. The IIoT is an evolution of a distributed control system (DCS) that allows for a higher degree of automation by using cloud computing to refine and optimize the process controls.\n",
"The Infrastructure is the \"enabler\" of information systems which describes the supporting services, computing platforms, and internal and external interfaces needed to provide technology environments within which information systems run.\n"
] |
What are the best books on the everyday life of individuals in the past?
|
Well, there is Greenwood Press's *Daily Life in ________* series. These are of variable quality, at least the ones I've looked at. One of the strengths is the narrow scope of their focus. Like, there is a "Daily Life during the Spanish Inquisition," "Daily Life in Renaissance Italy", AND "Daily Life in the Reformation"; "Daily Life during the Black Death", "Daily Life in Chaucer's England", AND "Daily Life in Medieval Europe." That specificity goes a *long* way towards defeating the tendency to be overly general in accounts of daily life.
That said, books like that still do a fair amount of smoothing over--they're definitely on the more pop end of things. (Honestly, though, I'd say if you're looking for a starting point for writing historical fiction, you could do a whole lot worse!)
For the later Middle Ages, and medieval England specifically, there are two fantastic books I would further suggest: Ian Mortimer's *The Time Traveller's Guide to Fourteenth-Century England* (also the later one to 16C/Tudor England) and, more scholarly, Barbara Hanawalt's *The Ties That Bound*, which is about peasant life.
Once you move into the 19th century, or even the 18th and mayyybe the 17th in some cases, reading primary sources--diaries especially--can offer some really fabulous insight. If you can get ahold of some of the Mormon women's accounts of westward travel (Utah, California, etc), they are really interesting and fun reading. And Samuel Pepys--pronounced 'peeps', legit--is a good time in so many ways.
|
[
"\"A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived\" won gold at the 2017 Foreword INDIES Book Awards for science, and won the 2018 Thomas Bonner Book Prize. The book was also a 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award non-fiction finalist, featured on the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize longlist, and appeared on National Geographic's top 12 books from 2017.\n",
"This book is a work in two volumes, published in 1989 and 1990. It features a great diversity of people in a single place across the ages. Most of them are ordinary people living unprivileged lives. It is told thorough a series of flashbacks featuring an ordinary man in modern times. He is looking for his grandfather who has not returned from a hill-walk, but has visions of the past as it might have been.\n",
"Another Life: A Memoir of Other People is an autobiography written by Simon & Schuster publisher Michael Korda and published in the United States in 1999. In this memoir Korda gives an insider account of the world of publishing from the late 1950s through 1990s and creates intimate portraits of the authors, editors, and celebrities he has worked with over the decades.\n",
"His books include \"Fatal Decisions\" (1956), \"The Forgotten People\" (1962), \"The Experts\" (with George Bailey; 1968) and \"The Sense of the Senate\" (1971). \"The Forgotten People\" won the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award for the best book on foreign affairs in 1962.\n",
"Some of his other books, such as \"When I Grew Up Long Ago\", were aimed at an older audience, and presented glimpses of life in the United States during the late 19th century and the early 20th century.\n",
"Subsequent books include \"Hope, Human and Wild\", about Curitiba, Brazil, and Kerala, India, which he cites as examples of people living more lightly on the earth; \"The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation\", which is about the Book of Job and the environment; \"Maybe One\", about human population; \"Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously\", about a year spent training for endurance events at an elite level; and \"Enough\", about what he sees as the existential dangers of genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Speaking about \"Long Distance\" at the Cambridge Forum, McKibben cited the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi's idea of \"flow\" relative to feelings McKibben had had—\"taking a break from saving the world\", he joked—as he immersed himself in cross-country skiing competitions.\n",
"For the academic year 2008-2009, he was on a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to write a book entitled \"'Part of Our Lives:' A People's History of the American Public Library\". The book was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. Notable among library histories for its emphasis on user experience and the role of libraries as community institutions, the book has been described as a \"landmark\" in library history marked by \"impassioned advocacy\" and \"solid scholarship\". The book precedes a documentary on the American public library (release expected in 2019) by independent film makers.\n"
] |
What is the worst anachronism: To impose modern theory on the past, or to assume that we're able to understand history "as it was"
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Rankes 'bloss zu zeigen wie es eigentlich gewesen' is the core for your (and a historians) 'as it was'. Now, calling that an anachronism is in the light of Ranke a bit weird.
In 'as it was' histories, we are trying to recreate a (not the) picture of the past as best as we can, based on sources from that time. We are not using terminoligy or whatever out of historical context, we are simply holding historical sources to nothing but its own light. That is the basis of historical science and if done the right way, it is not anachronistic.
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[
"In historical writing, the most common type of anachronism is the adoption of the political, social or cultural concerns and assumptions of one era to interpret or evaluate the events and actions of another. The anachronistic application of present-day perspectives to comment on the historical past is sometimes described as presentism. Empiricist historians, working in the traditions established by Leopold von Ranke in the 19th century, regard this as a great error, and a trap to be avoided. Arthur Marwick has argued that \"a grasp of the fact that past societies are very different from our own, and ... very difficult to get to know\" is an essential and fundamental skill of the professional historian; and that \"anachronism is still one of the most obvious faults when the unqualified (those expert in other disciplines, perhaps) attempt to do history\". Anachronism in academic writing is considered at best embarrassing, as in early-20th-century scholarship's use of Translatio imperii, first formulated in the 12th century, to interpret 10th-century literature.\n",
"The modern school of thought by that name arose early during World War II as a consequence of the rise of Nazi Germany. In consequence of the scale of the devastation wrought on Europe by Nazi Germany, the theory of German history has progressively gained a following inside and outside Germany, especially since the late 1960s. In particular, its proponents argue that the way Germany developed over the centuries virtually ensured the evolution of a social and political order along the lines of Nazi Germany. In their view, German mentalities, the structure of society, and institutional developments followed a different course in comparison with the other nations of the West, which had a normal development of their histories. The German historian Heinrich August Winkler wrote about the question of there being a : \"For a long time, educated Germans answered it in the positive, initially by laying claim to a special German mission, then, after the collapse of 1945, by criticizing Germany's deviation from the West. Today, the negative view is predominant. Germany did not, according to the now prevailing opinion, differ from the great European nations to an extent that would justify speaking of a 'unique German path'. And, in any case, no country on earth ever took what can be described as the 'normal path'\".\n",
"A cyclical theory of history was adopted by Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), a German historian who wrote \"The Decline of the West\" in 1920. World War I, World War II, and the rise of totalitarianism demonstrated that progress was not automatic and that technological improvement did not necessarily guarantee democracy and moral advancement. British historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) felt that Christianity would help modern civilization overcome its challenges.\n",
"Over and above a great deal of false nonsynchronism [non-simultaneity] there is this one in particular: Nature, and more than that, the ghost of history comes very easily to the desperate peasant, to the bankrupt petty bourgeois; the depression which releases the ghost takes place in a country with a particularly large amount of pre-capitalist material. It is important to ask whether Germany is not more undeveloped, even more vulcanic than, for instance, France, in terms of its \"power\". Certainly it has not formed and evened out capitalist \"ratio\" nearly as synchronously.\"\n",
"In literary and historical analysis, presentism is the anachronistic introduction of present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Some modern historians seek to avoid presentism in their work because they consider it a form of cultural bias, and believe it creates a distorted understanding of their subject matter. The practice of presentism is regarded by some as a common fallacy in historical writing. \n",
"According to Fukuyama, one of the main reasons for the massive criticism against \"The End of History\" was the aggressive stance that it took towards postmodernism. Postmodern philosophy had, in Fukuyama's opinion, undermined the ideology behind liberal democracy, leaving the western world in a potentially weaker position. The fact that Marxism and fascism had been proven untenable for practical use while liberal democracy still thrived was reason enough to embrace the hopeful attitude of the Progressive era, as this hope for the future was what made a society worth struggling to maintain. Postmodernism, which, by this time, had become embedded in the cultural consciousness, offered no hope and nothing to sustain a necessary sense of community, instead relying only on lofty intellectual premises. Being a work that both praised the ideals of a group that had fallen out of favor and challenged the premises of the group that had replaced them, it was bound to create some controversy.\n",
"Arguing that this ontological realist mode of thinking is reinforced by current analog publishing practices, Ethan Kleinberg advocates for a hauntological approach to history that follows the work of Jacques Derrida and embraces a past that is at once present and absent, available and restricted, rather than a fixed and static snapshot of a moment in time. This polysemic understanding of the past as multiple and conflicting, he maintains, is what makes the deconstructive approach to the past particularly well suited to new digital forms of historical writing and presentation.\n"
] |
What actually causes you to throw up when you have the "stomach flu" ?
|
"Stomach flu" is a generic term for any number of illnesses--usually something like gastroenteritis--that are caused by an infection of the stomach and intestines. This causes inflammation all throughout the gastrointestinal tract, and makes it more sensitive. So eating, which always irritates the GI tract to some extent, is going to make the inflammation worse, to the extent that the vomit reflex gets triggered.
So, if you don't want to throw up, stick to foods that don't irritate the stomach as much. Bland carbs, water or Sprite/ginger ale (carbonation usually calms the stomach down a little bit), things like that, and stay away from spicy foods, alcohol, and overeating.
|
[
"The outlook depends on the cause. Most people recover within few hours or a day. While short-term nausea and vomiting are generally harmless, they may sometimes indicate a more serious condition. When associated with prolonged vomiting, it may lead to dehydration or dangerous electrolyte imbalances or both. Repeated intentional vomiting, characteristic of bulimia, can cause stomach acid to wear away at the enamel in teeth.\n",
"Symptoms often include vomiting, fever, and aches, and may include diarrhea. Bouts of vomiting can be repeated with an extended delay in between, because even if infected food was eliminated from the stomach in the first bout, microbes, like bacteria, (if applicable) can pass through the stomach into the intestine and begin to multiply. Some types of microbes stay in the intestine, some produce a toxin that is absorbed into the bloodstream, and some can directly invade deeper body tissues.\n",
"While the vomit response is commonly assumed to be a chemical reaction between the two foods, the reaction may also occur due simply to the large amount of food and drink ingested within a short period. Dietitian Heather Boline observes that the human stomach can only hold around two cups, saying \"Too much food or liquid in your stomach if your stomach doesn’t have that capability can make you vomit.\" Thus, the vomiting response is likely due to an inability for the stomach to contain the substances.\n",
"Nausea is a non-specific symptom, which means that it has many possible causes. Some common causes of nausea are gastroenteritis and other gastrointestinal disorders, food poisoning, motion sickness, dizziness, migraine, fainting and low blood sugar. Nausea is a side effect of many medications including chemotherapy, or morning sickness in early pregnancy. Nausea may also be caused by anxiety, disgust and depression.\n",
"Taking a thorough patient history may reveal important clues to the cause of nausea and vomiting. If the patient's symptoms have an acute onset, then drugs, toxins, and infections are likely. In contrast, a long-standing history of nausea will point towards a chronic illness as the culprit. The timing of nausea and vomiting after eating food is an important factor to pay attention to. Symptoms that occur within an hour of eating may indicate an obstruction proximal to the small intestine, such as gastroparesis or pyloric stenosis. An obstruction further down in the intestine or colon will cause delayed vomiting. An infectious cause of nausea and vomiting such as gastroenteritis may present several hours to days after the food was ingested. The contents of the emesis is a valuable clue towards determining the cause. Bits of fecal matter in the emesis indicate obstruction in the distal intestine or the colon. Emesis that is of a bilious nature (greenish in color) localizes the obstruction to a point past the stomach. Emesis of undigested food points to an obstruction prior to the gastric outlet, such as achalasia or Zenker's diverticulum. If patient experiences reduced abdominal pain after vomiting, then obstruction is a likely etiology. However, vomiting does not relieve the pain brought on by pancreatitis or cholecystitis.\n",
"While most causes of nausea are not serious, some serious conditions are associated with nausea. These include: pancreatitis, small bowel obstruction, appendicitis, cholecystitis, hepatitis, Addisonian crisis, diabetic ketoacidosis, increased intracranial pressure, Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension, brain tumors, meningitis, heart attack, carbon monoxide poisoning and many others.\n",
"Vomiting can be caused by a wide variety of conditions; it may present as a specific response to ailments like gastritis or poisoning, or as a non-specific sequela ranging from brain tumors and elevated intracranial pressure to overexposure to ionizing radiation. The feeling that one is about to vomit is called nausea; it often precedes, but does not always lead to, vomiting. Antiemetics are sometimes necessary to suppress nausea and vomiting. In severe cases, where dehydration develops, intravenous fluid may be required. Self-induced vomiting can be a component of an eating disorder such as bulimia, and is itself now an eating disorder on its own, purging disorder.\n"
] |
Does holding up your cell phone really increase reception?
|
it's not that altitude intrinsically gives better signal, it is that your line of sight increases with altitude. If you can get better line of site to the tower, then you get better signal. if you have low buildings or rolling hills, a few feet could make all the difference.
|
[
"Radio waves decrease rapidly in intensity by the inverse square of distance as they spread out from a transmitting antenna. So the cell phone transmitter, which is held close to the user's face when talking, is a much greater source of human exposure than the cell tower transmitter, which is typically at least hundreds of meters away from the public on a cell tower. A user can reduce their exposure by using a headset and keeping the cell phone itself further away from their body.\n",
"BULLET::::- in CDMA networks a handover (see further down) may be induced in order to reduce the interference to a smaller neighboring cell due to the \"near-far\" effect even when the phone still has an excellent connection to its current cell;\n",
"A mobile handset which is moving in a cell will record a signal strength that varies. Signal strength is subject to slow fading, fast fading and interference from other signals, resulting in degradation of the carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I). A high C/I ratio yields quality communication. A good C/I ratio is achieved in cellular systems by using optimum power levels through the power control of most links. When carrier power is too high, excessive interference is created, degrading the C/I ratio for other traffic and reducing the traffic capacity of the radio subsystem. When carrier power is too low, C/I is too low and QoS targets are not met.\n",
"A cellphone may not work at times because it is too far from a mast, or because the phone is in a location where cell phone signals are attenuated by thick building walls, hills, or other structures. The signals do not need a clear line of sight but greater radio interference will degrade or eliminate reception. When many people try to use the cell mast at the same time, e.g. during a traffic jam or a sports event, then there will be a signal on the phone display but it is blocked from starting a new connection. The other limiting factor for cell phones is the ability to send a signal from its low powered battery to the cell site. Some cellphones perform better than others under low power or low battery, typically due to the ability to send a good signal from the phone to the mast.\n",
"Cell phone reception can be sporadic and, when available, signal strength and clarity is poor. Although the surrounding mountainous terrain is the primary reason for this, the limited presence of, and/or proximity to, cellular communication antennas to receive and transmit signals along the route contributes to the problem.\n",
"Shortly after the iPhone 4 was launched, some consumers reported that signal strength of the phone was reduced when touching the lower left edge of the phone, bridging one of the two locations which separates the two antennas, resulting in dropped calls in some areas with lower signal reception. In response, Apple issued a statement advising that customers should \"avoid gripping [the phone] in the lower left corner\" when making or receiving a call.\n",
"Cell service area may also vary due to interference from transmitting systems, both within and around that cell. This is true especially in CDMA based systems. The receiver requires a certain signal-to-noise ratio, and the transmitter should not send with too high transmission power in view to not cause interference with other transmitters. As the receiver moves away from the transmitter, the power received decreases, so the power control algorithm of the transmitter increases the power it transmits to restore the level of received power. As the interference (noise) rises above the received power from the transmitter, and the power of the transmitter cannot be increased anymore, the signal becomes corrupted and eventually unusable. In CDMA-based systems, the effect of interference from other mobile transmitters in the same cell on coverage area is very marked and has a special name, \"cell breathing\".\n"
] |
why do we not have a universal chatting (im) service/client? or do we?
|
Basically [this](_URL_0_). To expand, each messenging service does well enough on its own to allow for its continued existence. Furthermore, most of them have some feature that makes them better for certain tasks. Skype is the king of video chatting. Facebook Messenger is, well, tied to Facebook. iChat blends seamlessly with your text messages.
> So the question is why has this been the case. Is it a technical issue? I understand that ftp and http are two entirely different things that serve entirely different purposes, so maybe even "translating" between them is a foolish idea; is this the same for IM?
Or is it a security issue? A money issue? Or are companies just being dickish with their closed-sourced services?
I think you are looking at it the wrong way. It's not that companies are conspiring to make you use 5 different IM services. It's just that they don't see a good reason to work together to produce a universal solution.
|
[
"TalkFree targets citizens and migrant workers in emerging countries who (1) cannot make online payments because they do not have access to Internet or mechanisms (e.g., credit card, PayPal) to make online payments; or (2) do not have access to VoIP due to legal restrictions. Unlike other VoIP providers, who cater to customers in developed markets, TalkFree focuses on markets such as Middle East or Africa.\n",
"A web chat is a system that allows users to communicate in real time using easily accessible web interfaces. It is a type of Internet online chat distinguished by its simplicity and accessibility to users who do not wish to take the time to install and learn to use specialized chat software. This trait allows users instantaneous access and only a web browser is required to chat. Users will always get the latest version of a chat service because no software installation or updates are required.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"24/7 digital support.\" An instant and always accessible assistant is assumed by the more and more digital consumer of the new era. Unlike humans, chatbots once developed and installed don't have a limited workdays, holidays or weekends and are ready to attend queries at any hour of the day. It helps to the customer to avoid waiting of a company's agent to be available. Thus, the customer doesn't have to wait for the company executive to help them. This also lets companies keep an eye on the traffic during the non-working hours and reach out to them later.\n",
"Rather than having many devices for different uses and ways of interacting, communicating online is more accessible and cheaper by having an Internet function built into one device, such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and smartphones. Other ways of communicating online with these devices are via services and applications such as Email, Skype, iChat, instant messaging programs, social networking services, asynchronous discussion groups, online games, virtual worlds and the World Wide Web.\n",
"I am still not adept at entering conversations when there are more than three competing talkers, but I don't mind much because I know I can put my own offerings into the computer and fish them out when the time is ripe.\n",
"BULLET::::- As it happens usually with technology-led changes in existing services, some consumers, more often than not from the old generation, are uncomfortable with chatbots due to their limited understanding, making it obvious that their requests are being dealt machines.\n",
"Perhaps the biggest obstacle to communication in online settings is the lack of emotional cues. Facial cues dictate the mood and corresponding diction of two people in a conversation. During phone conversations, tone of voice communicates the emotions of the person on the other line. But with chat rooms, instant messaging apps and texting, any signals that would indicate the tone of a person's words or their state of emotion are absent. Because of this, there have been some interesting accommodations. Perhaps the two most prevalent compensating behaviors are the use of emoticons and abbreviations. Emoticons use punctuation marks to illustrate common symbols that pertain to facial cues. For example, one would combine a colon and parenthesis to recreate the symbol of the smiley face indicating the happiness or satisfaction of the other person. To symbolize laughter, the abbreviation \"LOL\" standing for \"laughing out loud\" developed. Along with these, countless other symbols and abbreviations have developed including, \"BRB\" (\"be right back\"), \"TTYL\" (talk to you later) and specific designs incorporated by apps of a laughing face, sad face, crying face, angry face etc.\n"
] |
can masturbating make your muscles bigger?
|
To grow muscle you need to do few reps with high exertion. Masturbation is the opposite of this. You will improve muscular endurance in this way but that does not make your muscles bigger. That's why weightlifters are bulky and marathon runners are skinny.
|
[
"It is physically possible for men with sufficient flexibility, penis size, or both, to perform fellatio on themselves as a form of masturbation; this is called autofellatio. Few men possess sufficient flexibility and penis length to safely perform the necessary frontbend.\n",
"Although uncommon, some men can achieve ejaculations during masturbation without any manual stimulation. Such men usually do it by tensing and flexing their abdominal and buttocks muscles along with vigorous fantasising. Others may do it by relaxing the area around the penis, which may result in harder erections especially when hyperaroused.\n",
"Few men possess sufficient flexibility and penis length to safely perform the necessary frontbend. However, increased flexibility achieved via gravity-assisted positions, and physical training such as gymnastics, contortion, or yoga may make it possible for some. American biologists Craig Bartle and Alfred Charles Kinsey reported that fewer than 1% of males can successfully orally contact their own penis and that only 2 or 3 men in a thousand could perform a full autofellatio. Previously, autofellatio was considered by behavioristic science a problem rather than as a variety in sexual practice.\n",
"Testosterone helps build and maintain muscles through exercise. On average, males have around 10 times more testosterone than women. Prominent muscles of the body include the latissimus dorsi, trapezius, pectoral muscles (muscles critical for a strong erect posture) as well as biceps and triceps in the arms and quadriceps and hamstrings in the thighs.\n",
"Penis enlargement, or male enhancement, is any technique aimed to increase the size of a human penis. Some methods aim to increase total length, others the shaft's girth, and yet others the glans size. Techniques include surgery, supplements, ointments, patches, and physical methods like pumping, jelquing, and traction.\n",
"A similar exercise was developed in the 1950s by gynecologist Arnold Kegel, who in 1952 \"developed\" some exercises for women who had a problem with urinary incontinence. With the research he discovered that the pubococcygeus muscle was out of shape and not working properly. By exercising these muscles, the medical problem was solved and the potential for genital sensations and orgasm increased. In part this was due to blood flow increasing in exercised muscles, and the increase in blood flow is related to the ease of arousal and orgasm. When the strength of a muscle increases, the blood supply increases, with the side effect being an increase of blood flow to the pelvis resulting in higher levels of arousal and more intense orgasms.\n",
"Much research has been done into erection. By two years post-injury, 80% of men recover at least partial erectile function, though many experience problems with the reliability and duration of their erections if they do not use interventions to enhance them. Studies have found that half or up to 65% of men with SCI have orgasms, although the experience may feel different than it did before the injury. Most men say it feels weaker, and takes longer and more stimulation to achieve.\n"
] |
How appropriate is to call "The American Civil War", a "Civil War", instead of something like "Southern States Revolt"?
|
There's a lot of debate on 'what' the war was, which has carried on to today. And revisionism is a hotbed topic between the majority of America and regional nationalists like the *League of the South,* or the *Sons of Confederate Veterans.* (Let alone the overtly racist KKK.) There are more than a few places in the rural south where mentioning "The Civil War" will get you into an argument over the 'true' name, "The War of Northern Aggression" or "War between the States."
Now putting the context aside...
The answer to your question obviously depends on exactly how 'Civil War' is defined. [Merriam Webster](_URL_0_) defines it as, "A war between groups of people in the same country." As does [Oxford Dictionaries](_URL_2_).
More importantly, we can look at the definition in terms of international law...
> "The common scholarly definition has two main criteria. The first says that the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy. The second says that at least 1,000 people must have been killed in total, with at least 100 from each side." ^2
([Edward Wong](_URL_1_), *A Matter of Definition: What Makes a Civil War? And who Declares it so?*)
Finally, we can see that it fits the American legal definition...
> Civil war exists when two or more opposing parties within a country resort to arms to settle a conflict or when a substantial portion of the population takes up arms against the legitimate government of a country. Within International Law distinctions are drawn between minor conflicts like riots, where order is restored promptly, and full-scale insurrections finding opposing parties in political as well as military control over different areas. When an internal conflict reaches sufficient proportions that the interests of other countries are affected, outside states may recognize a state of insurgency. A recognition of insurgency, whether formal or de facto, indicates that the recognizing state regards the insurgents as proper contestants for legitimate power. Although the precise status of insurgents under international law is not well-defined, recognized insurgents traditionally gain the protection afforded soldiers under international rules of law pertaining to war. A state may also decide to recognize the contending group as a belligerent, a status that invokes more well-defined rights and responsibilities. Once recognized as a belligerent party, that party obtains the rights of a belligerent party in a public war, or war between opposing states. The belligerents stand on a par with the parent state in the conduct and settlement of the conflict. In addition, states recognizing the insurgents as belligerents must assume the duties of neutrality toward the conflict.^3
(*West's Encyclopedia of American Law*)
Summary: It's very clear that though the Confederacy's war aim was not to seize control of the entire government, it's still accurate to refer to separatist movements as 'Civil Wars.'
Sources:
1 - I use to be a member of Louisiana's *Sons of Confederate Veterans* and a serial 'Lost Causer' in my misguided teens. I live in Mississippi now, and I've been in countless arguments with Southern friends over this very topic.
2 - Edward Wong, *A Matter of Definition: What Makes a Civil War? And who Declares it so?*
3 - West's Encyclopedia of American Law, second edition
EDIT: Added Summary
|
[
"The most common name for the American Civil War in modern American usage is simply \"The Civil War\". Although used rarely during the war, the term \"War Between the States\" became widespread afterward in the Southern United States. During and immediately after the war, historians often used the term \"War of the Rebellion\" or \"Great Rebellion\", while the Confederate term was \"War for Southern Independence\". The latter regained some currency in the 20th century, but has again fallen out of use. Also in the 20th century, the term \"War of Northern Aggression\" developed under the Lost Cause of the Confederacy movement by Southern history revisionists, with attempts to negatively re-imagine the American Civil War narrative and preserve Confederate legacy. \"Freedom War\" is used to celebrate the effect the war had on ending slavery. In several European languages, the war is called \"War of Secession\". In most East Asian languages, the war is called \"Battle between North and South side of the United States\" or more commonly as \"American (U.S.) North–South War\", depending on the individual language.\n",
"The American Civil War (also known by other names) was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North (Union) and the South (Confederacy). The most studied and written about episode in U.S. history, the Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North, which also included some geographically western and southern states, proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.\n",
"In the United States, \"Civil War\" is the most common term for the conflict; it has been used by the overwhelming majority of reference books, scholarly journals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, popular histories, and mass media in the United States since the early 20th century. The National Park Service, the government organization entrusted by the United States Congress to preserve the battlefields of the war, uses this term. Writings of prominent men such as Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, P.G.T. Beauregard, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Judah P. Benjamin used the term \"Civil War\" during the conflict. Abraham Lincoln used it on multiple occasions. In 1862, the United States Supreme Court used the terms \"the present civil war between the United States and the so called Confederate States,\" as well as \"the civil war such as that now waged between the Northern and Southern States\".\n",
"Some historians name the 1861–1865 war as the \"Second American Civil War\", since the American Revolutionary War could be considered a (since the term can refer to any war to separate one political body from another). They then refer to the Independence War, which resulted in the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, as the \"First American Civil War\". A significant number of American colonists stayed loyal to the British Crown and as Loyalists fought on the British side while opposite were a significant amount of colonists called Patriots who fought on the American side. In some localities, there was fierce fighting between Americans including gruesome instances of hanging, drawing, and quartering on both sides. As Canadian historian William Stewart Wallace noted:\n",
"Historians debating the origins of the American Civil War focus on the reasons why seven Southern states declared their secession from the United States (the Union), why they united to form the Confederate States of America (simply known as the \"Confederacy\"), and why the North refused to let them go. While most historians agree that conflicts over slavery caused the war, they disagree sharply regarding which kinds of conflict—ideological, economic, political, or social—were most important.\n",
"The Confederate government avoided the term \"civil war\", because it assumes both combatants to be part of a single country, and referred in official documents to the \"War between the Confederate States of America and the United States of America\". European diplomacy produced a similar formula for avoiding the phrase \"civil war\". Queen Victoria's proclamation of British neutrality referred to \"hostilities ... between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America\".\n",
"The Battles of the American Civil War were fought between April 12, 1861 and May 12–13, 1865 in 23 states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia), the District of Columbia, as well as the following territories: Arizona Territory, Colorado Territory, Dakota Territory, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), New Mexico Territory, and Washington Territory, and naval engagements. These battles would change the standing and historical memory of the United States. While the origins of the war are complex, principal among them were the issue of slavery, and the interpretations of the Constitution and the rules, rights, and qualifications that it embodied.\n"
] |
Is there going to be a WW3? Why weren't there any major wars like WW1 and WW2 in the past 67 years?
|
As DrNoFriends said, nuclear proliferation has played a huge role. The world's major powers have been reluctant to engage in war with each other, with the risk of mutually assured destruction looming. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the power distribution throughout the world is drastically different now than before either World War I or World War II. Let's look at them both in order (note: obviously, this isn't by any means a comprehensive overview of things, but I think it touches on most of the major points):
Before World War I, Europe was populated by several imperial powers, each of which were equal enough in stature that one could not stand alone against an alliance of the rest of them. So, the alliance system that eventually tipped Europe into war gradually took shape. Once one of the powers declared war on another, the dominoes started to fall, and we all know what happened after.
So, let's look at Cold War Europe now. A system of alliances existed (and still in some ways does exist), but it was structured quite differently. At the turn of the century, each of the major nations had similar levels of power and strength, and they were (mostly) equal partners in their respective alliances. When it came to Warsaw Pact and NATO, however, each of these were dominated by the two superpowers, with other states being largely relegated to junior or even puppet status. While the smaller European nations may have been somewhat belligerent toward each other, they couldn't really move without the support of the US and the USSR, who both, again, feared escalation to nuclear war.
Another factor prior to World War I was the imperial ambitions of the major empires present, who had claims and counter-claims that conflicted throughout the third world at the time, which also led to escalated tensions. European forces fought over these colonies at the time (though colonial troops played major roles), and several times prior to World War I, wars that began as colonial conflicts overseas the escalated into European wars. Post-World War II, though, most of the imperialist conflicts were fought mostly as proxy wars, with one of the major powers fighting against a native enemy with supplies, weapons, and "advisors" provided by their opposite. Again, they were very careful not to let things escalate into open conflict between the superpowers or the major alliances.
OK, so now let's look at the situation leading up to World War II. Again, we have multiple major powers - the Allies, the Soviet Union, and Germany and Italy, each of which had conflicting ideologies, and in the latter two cases, ambitions over the rest of Europe (and in Italy's case, over Britain and France's African and Middle Eastern colonies as well). This is a simplistic view of things, but once Germany became aggressive, both the Allies and the Soviet Union had a vested interest in checking her expansion and escalating power.
Now, going back to Cold War Europe again - as mentioned before, the balance of power was rather different. Rather than three competing groups, we have just two, led by superpowers. Since there's no wild card third power here, they concentrate on each other, control their subordinate nations, and avoid conflict with each other as much as possible.
Now we're in the post-Cold War era. China is considered by many to be a new superpower, and Russian no longer has anywhere near the power that it once did. Will we see a World War III? Possible, but personally speaking, I doubt it. The spectre of MAD still looms over everything, especially with nuclear proliferation spreading further, to India, Pakistan, and other former third-world countries. Proxy wars do and will continue to exist, as it's a lot more economically feasible and safer to fund terrorists, insurgents, and other proxy armies rather than getting directly involved in conflicts. Direct wars between nations probably will continue, but superpowers have a vested interest in avoiding getting sucked too far into them - for example, if war between Pakistan and India breaks out, although the US is nominally Pakistan's ally, and India gets a great deal of aid from Russia, neither country will want to get involved, and will instead try very hard to broker a truce instead. I think it's very unlikely that a true World War III will break out, since there's comparatively a lot more at risk now.
**tl;dr - Fewer superpowers and fewer power blocs, plus the threat of nuclear war, is why there haven't been any true world wars since 1945.**
|
[
"World War II is generally viewed as having its roots in the aftermath of World War I, in which the German Empire under Wilhelm II, with its Central Powers, was defeated, chiefly by the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.\n",
"Prior to the beginning of the Second World War, the First World War (1914–1918) was believed to have been \"the war to end all wars,\" as it was popularly believed that never again could there possibly be a global conflict of such magnitude. During the interwar period, WWI was typically referred to simply as \"The Great War.\" The outbreak of World War II in 1939 disproved the hope that mankind might have already \"outgrown\" the need for such widespread global wars.\n",
"Prior to the beginning of the Second World War, the First World War (1914–1918) was believed to have been \"the war to end all wars,\" as it was popularly believed that never again could there possibly be a global conflict of such magnitude. During the inter-war period between the two world wars, WWI was typically referred to simply as \"The Great War.\" The outbreak of World War II in 1939 disproved the hope that mankind might have already \"outgrown\" the need for such widespread global wars.\n",
"World War I occurred from 1914 to 1918. In terms of human technological history, the scale of World War I was enabled by the technological advances of the second industrial revolution and the resulting globalization that allowed global power projection and mass production of military hardware. Wars on such a scale have not been repeated since the onset of the Atomic Age and the resulting danger of mutually-assured destruction. It had been recognized that the complex system of opposing alliances (the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires against the British, Russian, and French Empires) was likely to lead to a worldwide conflict if a war broke out. Due to this fact, a very minute conflict between two countries had the potential to set off a domino effect of alliances, triggering a world war. The fact that the powers involved had large overseas empires virtually guaranteed that such a war would be worldwide, as the colonies' resources would be a crucial strategic factor. The same strategic considerations also ensured that the combatants would strike at each other's colonies, thus spreading the wars far more widely than those of pre-Columbian times.\n",
"Originally, the First World War was a complete wake-up call for the human race, leading to greater internationalism and a \"Never Again\" spirit towards war that would eventually wear away the differences between the various power-blocs. By the 2020s, a global League of Nations oversees a planet totally at peace. The fledgling Nazi Party, in this 'original' timeline, simply faded out after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.\n",
"The Seven Years' War was perhaps the first true world war, having taken place almost 160 years before World War I and influenced many major events later around the globe. The war restructured not only the European political order, but also affected events all around the world, paving the way for the beginning of later British world supremacy in the 19th century, the rise of Prussia in Germany (eventually replacing Austria as the leading German State), the beginning of tensions in British North America, as well as a clear sign of France's eventual turmoil. It was characterized in Europe by sieges and the arson of towns as well as open battles with heavy losses.\n",
"BULLET::::- Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the many causes of World War I (1914–1918), the first of two wars to involve many major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia/USSR, the British Empire and the United States. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. At the time, it was said by many to be the \"war to end all wars\".\n"
] |
What is happening when you drive on a highway and have only one window down?
|
Pretty much the same thing that happens when you blow across a jug. Essentially, the stream of air hits the open window / jug top. The leading edge of the stream of air creates a vortex, and spins off. There's a low density region that follows, which helps to create the next vortex. This cascades for as long as the stream of air is supported. The rate at which the vortexes peel off depends on the geometry of your car / the jug, and how fast you're going. SO, when you change your car, like opening up another window, you change how the air bounces off. Flutes and pipe organs work on the same principle, except they're tuned to make the air vortexes sound like amazing music.
[Here's a video that visualizes this kind of phenomena.](_URL_0_) The stream of air is coming on the left, in the middle of the screen, and the vortexes are peeling off on the right, at some frequency (which is what you would hear as sound).
|
[
"All cars must have a nylon window net to protect the driver from flying debris and to contain the driver’s arms during a crash. In addition, the drivers are instructed to lower the window net after a wreck to signify that they are uninjured.\n",
"BULLET::::- In case a person, while exiting a car from a driver side, forgets to look at traffic coming from the backside of the vehicle, if the door gets hit by a vehicle, then the door will hit the passenger, causing serious injury. Whereas in the case of a front-hinged door, the door swings forward, reducing possible passenger injury.\n",
"Another form of head-on crash is the wrong-way entry crash, where a driver on a surface road turns onto an off-ramp from a motorway or freeway, instead of the on-ramp. They can also happen on divided arterials if a driver turns into the wrong side of the road. Considerable importance is placed on designing ramp terminals and intersections to prevent these incidents. This often takes to form of special signage at freeway off-ramps to discourage drivers from going the wrong way. Section 2B.41 of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices describes how such signs should be placed on American highways.\n",
"A driver is driving down a highway and must choose a speed, \"s\". Going faster is desirable, but is more likely to result in a crash. There is some prevalence of potholes, \"p\". The presence of potholes increases the probability of crashing. Note that \"s\" is a choice variable and \"p\" is a parameter of the environment that is fixed from the perspective of the driver. The driver seeks to formula_2.\n",
"BULLET::::- eliminated by reducing overlap between side and rear-view mirrors by adjusting side mirrors so the side of the car is barely visible when your head is between the front seats (for the right side mirror) and almost touching the drivers window (for the left side mirror), then checking to be sure you can see cars approaching from behind on either side when on the highway.\n",
"Often mounted on crash barriers at window level, they are placed along roadsides at choke points where vehicles must slow down, such as intersections and junctions. This gives the operator time to judge the moment to fire, when the vehicle is moving more slowly.\n",
"\"When you're traveling down the highway, you see an image whether it's dirt on the back of a truck or a splat on a windshield or two birds sitting by the side of the road picking at something. All those things have inspired me at some point in my creativity.\"\n"
] |
why do so many free wifi hotspots have a gateway page?
|
There are concerns that if you use a wifi connection and you commit computer crimes, libel or harassment the owner of the wifi connection could be held liable. The boilerplate text provides a mechanism for the wifi owner to disclaim liability for your actions.
|
[
"A hotspot gateway is a device that provides authentication, authorization and accounting for a wireless network. This can keep malicious users off of a private network even in the event that they are able to break the encryption.\n",
"A wireless hotspot gateway helps solve guest user connectivity problems by offering instant Internet access without the need for configuration changes to the client computer or any resident client-side software. This means that even if client configuration such as network IP address (including Gateway IP, DNS) or HTTP Proxy settings are different from that of the provided network, the client can still get access to the network instantly with their existing network configuration.\n",
"In May 2009 Free reconfigured the set-top boxes to act as Wifi hotspots by default. With over 3 million hotspots, it is thought to be the largest Wifi hotspot network in the world during that time. They require authentication which makes them only accessible to Free's ADSL and now mobile customers. Their main use is thus to let customers away from home continue accessing the Internet using the ADSL connection of other Free customer within Wifi range. For security reasons this access is isolated from the ADSL user's normal Wifi network, and is given lower priority.\n",
"Coffee shops, shopping malls, and other venues increasingly offer wireless access to computer networks, referred to as hotspots, for users who bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A Wi-Fi hotspot need not be limited to a confined location since multiple ones combined can cover a whole campus or park, or even an entire city can be enabled.\n",
"Public hotspots may be created by a business for use by customers, such as coffee shops or hotels. Public hotspots are typically created from wireless access points configured to provide Internet access, controlled to some degree by the venue. In its simplest form, venues that have broadband Internet access can create public wireless access by configuring an access point (AP), in conjunction with a router and connecting the AP to the Internet connection. A single wireless router combining these functions may suffice.\n",
"Private hotspots may be configured on a smartphone or tablet with a mobile network data plan to allow Internet access to other devices via Bluetooth pairing or if both the hotspot device and the device/s accessing it are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.\n",
"MSN WiFi Hotspots, previously \"Windows Live WiFi Hotspot Locator\", was a website that helped users to locate wireless Internet hotspots worldwide and view their positions on a map using Live Search Maps.\n"
] |
Did scientists at Los Alamos genuinely believe that atomic bombs could ignite the earth's atmosphere?
|
No. Their general opinion was that the atomic bombs couldn't "ignite" the atmosphere (the suggestion was that the bomb might be able to trigger a fusion reaction). The only dissenting opinion was Arthur Compton, who was not convinced of the complete impossibility of it, but he didn't think it likely (he estimated the probability at less than 1 in a million).
See _URL_0_ for more detail and references.
|
[
"On November 3 Dr. Kaplan brought the plan to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board at the Pentagon. Kaplan by this time had decided the fireballs might be a new type of rare meteor. Nonetheless, most of the scientists remained puzzled by the brightness, trajectories, and absence of sound. Seeming to contradict his meteor hypothesis, Kaplan also said, \"This high selectivity of direction seems to indicate that some group was trying to pinpoint Los Alamos with a new sort of weapon.\" Concerns were expressed about the possibility of panic and the need for continued secrecy.\n",
"In 1951, the first atomic bomb detonation at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, occurred. City residents and visitors were able to witness the mushroom clouds until 1963, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty required that nuclear tests be moved underground.\n",
"The 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident was an inadvertent nuclear weapon release over Mars Bluff, South Carolina, during 1958. The bomb, which lacked the fissile nuclear core, fell over the area, causing damage to buildings below. Six people were injured by the explosion of the bomb's conventional explosive load. The United States Air Force (USAF) was sued by the family of the victims, who received , .\n",
"A number of scientists who worked on the bomb were against its use. Led by Dr. James Franck, seven scientists submitted a report to the Interim Committee (which advised the President) in May 1945, saying:\n",
"Rotblat continued to have strong reservations about the use of science to develop such a devastating weapon. In 1985, he related that at a private dinner at the Chadwicks' house at Los Alamos in March 1944, he was shocked to hear the director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., say words to the effect that the real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets. Historians, notably Barton Bernstein, have cast doubt on this story.\n",
"An American official told \"MSNBC\" that the bomb was received by American security personnel in April, \"was never near a plane\" and \"never posed a risk.\" They speculated that the bomb might have been constructed by Ibrahim al-Asiri, who is accused of constructing the explosives used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2009.\n",
"As the incendiary effects of a nuclear explosion do not present any especially characteristic features, it is estimated by those with Strategic bombing experience that as the city was a firestorm hazard, the same fire ferocity and building damage produced at Hiroshima by one 16-kiloton nuclear bomb from a single B-29 bomber could have been produced instead by the conventional use of about 1.2 kilotons of incendiary bombs from 220 B-29s distributed over the city.\n"
] |
why bodybuilding competitions are not considered eating disorders?
|
It *can* be a disorder. There is a specific name for it: Muscle Dysmorphia.
That said, disorders are patterns of thought, not single occurrences. It has to control your entire life, not just occur one day every once in a while.
|
[
"Eating disorders are generally not a primary concern amongst youth athletes, however they are unusually prevalent in wrestling and aesthetic sports such as gymnastics. These place heavy emphasis upon weight and body image as ingredients for success in competition. In order to compete, 81% of wrestlers will deliberately lose weight. This involves shedding 3% to 20% of their body weight — most of which being dropped within a short period of time. For rhythmic gymnasts, “success is strongly influenced by visual appeal and body aesthetics. Rhythmic gymnasts are often required to meet certain weight targets to attain and maintain a thin shape.” The pressure to please is intense, and correspondingly, 42% of female aesthetic athletes have been diagnosed with eating disorders.\n",
"Although most of these athletes develop eating disorders to keep their competitive edge, others use exercise as a way to maintain their weight and figure. This is just as serious as regulating food intake for competition. Even though there is mixed evidence showing at what point athletes are challenged with eating disorders, studies show that regardless of competition level all athletes are at higher risk for developing eating disorders that non-athletes, especially those that participate in sports where thinness is a factor.\n",
"Disordered eating among athletes, particularly female athletes, has been the subject of much research. In one study, women with disordered eating were 3.6 times as likely to have an eating disorder if they were athletes. In addition, female collegiate athletes who compete in heavily body conscious sports like gymnastics, swimming, or diving are shown to be more at risk for developing an eating disorder. This is a result of the engagement in sports where weekly repeated weigh-ins are standard, and usually required by coaches.\n",
"Boxing, like several other fighting sports, categorizes its competitors into weight classes. Some fighters try to take advantage of this by dieting before weigh-in so that they can be bumped down a weight class. In extreme cases, a fighter may forego solid food before the official weigh-in ceremony, and eat a lot afterward to compensate. In some very extreme cases, boxers have been forced to stop eating solid food up to three days before the weigh-in ceremony, in order to make weight for the fight. Sometimes, if a boxer doesn't make the weight agreed for on the first weight-in, he or she might go to a sauna or to jog with a jacket to sweat and lose the extra pounds, however this is mainly water that the body holds. After weigh ins, competitors will in general add on weight before the fight, resulting in them weighing anywhere from 5 to 25 lbs above the weight class.\n",
"Boxer are very energetic even at old ages. They need plenty of exercise which means their diet should be high in quality calories. The main source of these calories should be lean animal protein, which include lean chicken, turkey, lamb and fish. While on a high calorie diet, owners should be thoughtful of the amount of treats given as this tends to cause obesity. Owners should be mindful of the food to snack ratio being consumed by the Boxer when determining how many treats are acceptable. Some healthy snacks include raw fruits and vegetables.\n",
"While most athletes do not meet the clinical criteria to be diagnosed with an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa, many will exhibit disordered eating habits such as fasting, as well as avoiding certain types of food the athlete thinks are \"bad\" (such as foods containing fat). More severe examples of disordered eating habits may include binge-eating; purging; and the use of diet-pills, laxatives, diuretics, and enemas.\n",
"Disordered eating, along with amenorrhea and bone demineralization, form what clinicians refer to as the female athletic triad, or FAT. In contribution to these eating disorders that these female athletes develop, Results in the lack of nutrition. This can lead to the loss of several or more consecutive periods which then leads to calcium and bone loss, putting the athlete at great risk of fracturing bones and damaging tissues. Each of these conditions is a medical concern as they create serious health risks that may be life threatening to the individual. While any female athlete can develop the triad, adolescent girls are considered most at risk because of the active biological changes and growth spurts that they experience, rapidly changing life circumstances that are observed within the teenage years, and peer and social pressures.\n"
] |
Friedrich Engels owned multiple factories. Did he manage them based on communist principles?
|
The simple answer to this is "No, he did not". Now, this is not because Engels was a hypocrite,but rather because of the following two reasons:
a) Friedrich Engels never actually owned any factories.
There were plenty of factories within the Engels estate, both in Germany and Britain, but because of Friedrichs radical views, his father decided against Friedrich ever getting ownership of any of the factories. The closest Friedrich got, was when he in 1864 made partner in the enterprise.
b) Throughout all of Marx' and Engels' writings, they never wrote anything about how to manage industries, or how the Socialist mode of production would function. After Marx' death, Engels and Kautsky attempted to do so, but never finished any coherent works on the issue. To this day, Orthodox and Classical Marxism has always been more of a critique of the Capitalist mode of production, than a prescriptive ideology about how society should function
Sources:
Green, John; *Engels: A Revolutionary Life*; 2008
Hunt, Tristram; *The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels*; 2009
Kautsky, Karl; *Friedrich Engels: His Life, His Work and His Writings*; 1899
|
[
"Wehrwirtschaftsführer (WeWiFü) were, during the time of Nazi Germany (1933–1945), executives of companies or big factories called 'rüstungswichtiger Betrieb' (company important for the production of war materials).\n",
"Geheimrat Koppel, who owned \"Auergesellschaft\", was later intimately involved in the financing of and influencing the direction of scientific entities in Germany. Among them were the \"Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft\" (Kaiser Wilhelm Society) and its research institutes. The Third Reich forced Koppel to sell \"Auergesellschaft\", and it was purchased in 1934 by the German corporation Degussa, a large chemical company with extensive experience in the production of metals.\n",
"Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft formed on April 30, 1908, from the assets of an experimental airship engine company located in Bitterfeld, Motorluftschiff Studiengesellscaft (MStG). Additional funding for the new enterprise was provided primarily by Krupp, AEG, and a local chemical company. The company's offices were located in Berlin along with the factory at Adlershof. Manufacture was transferred to Charlottenburg following a fire on 6 September 1916, allegedly caused by the British Secret Service.\n",
"Otto Rühle was involved in setting up the AAUE as an organisation which combined the political and economic aspirations of communist workers in a single (einheits) organisation. This occurred following his trip to Russia as a representative of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) at the Second World Congress of the Communist International. He travelled around Russia before the Congress and formed a very negative view of the Bolshevik regime. He advocated a very different way to realise a communist revolution which came to be adopted by the AAUE:\n",
"General Workers' Union of Germany (; AAUD), was the name of factory organisations formed following the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in opposition to the traditional trade unions. The AAUD was formed by the left communists in the Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) who considered organising based on trades as being an outmoded form of organisation and instead advocated organising workers based on factories, thus forming the AAUD. They were influenced by the industrial unionism of the Industrial Workers of the World. The council communists organised these factory organisations as the basis for region-wide workers' councils. \n",
"Friedrich Engels was born in 1820 as the son of a successful German industrialist. As a young man his father sent him to England to help manage his cotton factory in Salford. Engels was shocked by the poverty in the city and began writing an account that was published as the \"Condition of the Working Classes in England\" (1844). His account includes a graphic description of the pauper burial ground at St. Michael's Flags. Engels later collaborated with Karl Marx, which resulted in the Communist Manifesto.\n",
"With the emergence of the Czechoslovakia in 1918, and the complex economic conditions of post-war Europe the company was transformed from what was exclusively an arms manufacturer into a multi-sector concern. In addition to traditional branches, the production programme embraced a number of new concepts, such as steam (and later electric) locomotives. aircraft, ships, machine tools, steam turbines, power-engineering equipment, etc. \n"
] |
how come some peppers "burn" your skin if you touch them, but your mouth doesn't get burned if you eat them?
|
So it depends on the pepper, but it's not a burn like a fire would cause.
When it comes to spicy peppers, the reason you get the spicy sensation in your mouth is because of a chemical called Capsaicin. This chemical opens up the calcium channels in your tongue which tricks your body into thinking that it's on fire (the tongue has a hard time telling the difference between actual fire and capsiacin).
If the levels of this chemical are high enough in the pepper, the same thing will happen on your skin.
|
[
"Electrical burns in the mouth are usually caused by chewing on live electrical wiring (an act that is relatively common among young children). Saliva acts as a conducting medium and an electrical arc flows between the electrical source and the tissues, causing extreme heat and possible tissue destruction.\n",
"600 nm when placed in violet light. If fresh chili peppers come in contact with the skin, eyes, lips or other membranes, irritation can occur; some people who are particularly sensitive wear latex or vinyl gloves while handling peppers. If irritation does occur, washing the oils off with hot soapy water and applying vegetable oil to the skin may help. When preparing jalapeños, it is recommended that hands not come in contact with the eyes as this leads to burning and redness.\n",
"Painful exposures to capsaicin-containing peppers are among the most common plant-related exposures presented to poison centers. They cause burning or stinging pain to the skin and, if ingested in large amounts by adults or small amounts by children, can produce nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and burning diarrhea. Eye exposure produces intense tearing, pain, conjunctivitis, and blepharospasm.\n",
"A hot spot, or \"acute moist dermatitis\", is an acutely inflamed and infected area of skin irritation created and made worse by a dog licking and biting at itself. A hot spot can manifest and spread rapidly in a matter of hours as secondary Staphylococcus infection causes the top layers of the skin to break down and as pus becomes trapped in the hair. Hot spots can be treated with corticosteroid medications and oral as well as topical antibiotic application, as well as clipping hair from around the lesion. Underlying inciting causes include flea allergy dermatitis, ear disease or other allergic skin diseases. Dogs with thick undercoat are most subject to getting hot spots.\n",
"Capsaicinoids are the chemicals responsible for the \"hot\" taste of chili peppers. They are fat soluble and therefore water will be of no assistance when countering the burn. The most effective way to relieve the burning sensation is with dairy products, such as milk and yogurt. A protein called casein occurs in dairy products which binds to the capsaicin, effectively making it less available to \"burn\" the mouth, and the milk fat helps keep it in suspension. Rice is also useful for mitigating the impact, especially when it is included with a mouthful of the hot food. These foods are typically included in the cuisine of cultures that specialise in the use of chilis. Mechanical stimulation of the mouth by chewing food will also partially mask the pain sensation.\n",
"Some causes of a burning mouth sensation may be accompanied by clinical signs in the mouth or elsewhere on the body. For example, burning mouth pain may be a symptom of allergic contact stomatitis. This is a contact sensitivity (type IV hypersensitivity reaction) in the oral tissues to common substances such as sodium lauryl sulfate, cinnamaldehyde or dental materials. However, allergic contact stomatitis is accompanied by visible lesions and gives positive response with patch testing. Acute (short term) exposure to the allergen (the substance triggering the allergic response) causes non-specific inflammation and possibly mucosal ulceration. Chronic (long term) exposure to the allergen may appear as chronic inflammatory, lichenoid (lesions resembling oral lichen planus), or plasma cell gingivitis, which may be accompanied by glossitis and cheilitis. Apart from BMS itself, a full list of causes of an oral burning sensation is given below:\n",
"A burning sensation in the mouth can be a symptom of another disease when local or systemic factors are found to be implicated, and this is not considered to be burning mouth syndrome, which is a syndrome of medically unexplained symptoms. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines burning mouth syndrome as \"a distinctive nosological entity characterized by unremitting oral burning or similar pain in the absence of detectable mucosal changes\", and \"burning pain in the tongue or other oral mucous membranes\", and the International Headache Society defines it as \"an intra-oral burning sensation for which no medical or dental cause can be found\".\n"
] |
how can thailand go through a military coup when the same king is still in power, and has been for so many years?
|
The King of Thailand doesn't have any real power. Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, just like England.
|
[
"On 19 September 2006, less than a month before the scheduled elections, members of the Royal Thai Army staged a coup d'état against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. It is the country's first coup in 15 years, though the practice used to be commonplace, with 17 having occurred between 1932 and 1991.\n",
"On 22 May 2014, the Royal Thai Armed Forces, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Commander of the Royal Thai Army (RTA), launched a \"coup d'état\", the 12th since the country's first coup in 1932, against the caretaker government of Thailand, following six months of political crisis. The military established a junta called the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to govern the nation.\n",
"The 2006 Thailand coup d'état took place on 19 September 2006, when members of the Royal Thai Army staged a coup against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The coup, which is Thailand's first in fifteen years, followed a year-long political crisis involving Thaksin and political opponents and occurred less than a month before elections were scheduled to be held, on 15 October. The military postponed the upcoming elections, suspended the Constitution, dissolved Parliament, banned protests, suppressed and censored media outlets, declared martial law, and arrested Cabinet members. The coup was bloodless, with no casualties reported.\n",
"The 2006 Thai \"coup d'état\" took place on 19 September 2006, when the Royal Thai Army staged a \"coup d'état\" against the elected caretaker government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The \"coup d'état\", which was Thailand's first non-constitutional change of government in fifteen years, followed a year-long political crisis involving Thaksin, his allies, and political opponents and occurred less than a month before nationwide House elections were scheduled to be held. It has been widely reported in Thailand and elsewhere that General Prem Tinsulanonda, Chairman of the Privy Council, was the mastermind of the coup. The military cancelled the upcoming elections, abrogated the constitution, dissolved parliament and constitutional court, banned protests and all political activities, suppressed and censored the media, declared martial law nationwide, and arrested cabinet members.\n",
"On 27 December 2013, Thailand's army chief General Prayut Chan-o-cha released a statement to the media in which he did not rule out the possibility of a military coup, stating: \"Whether it is going to happen, time will tell. We don't want to overstep the bounds of our authority. We don't want to use force. We try to use peaceful means, talks and meetings to solve the problem.\" During the same period, an arrest warrant was issued for Suthep for insurrection, but police did not act on the order for fear of further disruption.\n",
"Every time a coup was staged, scapegoats or excuses were found to justify it. Eventually, the ensuing junta government would hand the government back to elected officials. As a result, there have been 18 coups and 18 constitutions in the history of Thai politics.\n",
"On 19 September 2006 the Thai military staged a coup against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, suspended the Constitution, cancelled upcoming elections, and dissolved Parliament. The junta later appointed General Surayud Chulanont as Prime Minister of an interim civilian government, promulgated an interim charter, and changed its name to the Council for National Security.\n"
] |
why does water taste worse when our throat is sore?
|
Not a doctor but I get the same thing, and I would say it's because the throat is infected and you're getting teh bacteria into your mouth and on your tongue.
|
[
"A sore throat is usually from irritation or inflammation. The most common cause (80%) is acute viral pharyngitis, a viral infection of the throat. Other causes include other infections (such as streptococcal pharyngitis), trauma, and tumors. Gastroesophageal (acid) reflux disease can cause stomach acid to back up into the throat and also cause the throat to become sore. In children streptococcal pharyngitis is the cause of 37% of sore throats.\n",
"Dental pain and swelling are the two hallmark symptoms of a mouth infection. Fever is sometimes present, but not as frequently as tooth pain or persistent swelling. The swelling will occur at the tooth root or at the spaces occupied by the infection. Other symptoms that usually accompany an infection like increased heart rate, low energy, chills, and sweating may also be present. If infection spreads to the space between the muscles of mastication, then trismus, the inability to completely open one's mouth, will also be present.\n",
"Sulfonated phenolics/sulfuric acid appears to be more effective on sores in areas of the mouth that produce less saliva. Since a sore must be dry prior to application of Debacterol, it is difficult to properly apply under the tongue. The duration of pain relief and the overall effectiveness may be reduced in such areas.\n",
"Most commonly the individual complains of food getting lodged beneath the gums and a soreness that is usually confused with throat infections. In slightly milder forms a swelling is visible and mouth opening becomes difficult in severe cases. Pain is invariably present.\n",
"About 7.5% of people have a sore throat in any 3-month period. Two or three episodes in a year are not uncommon. This resulted in 15 million physician visits in the United States in 2007. Pharyngitis is the most common cause of a sore throat. The word comes from the Greek word \"pharynx\" meaning \"throat\" and the suffix \"-itis\" meaning \"inflammation\".\n",
"Minor and transient side effects of mouthwashes are very common, such as taste disturbance, tooth staining, sensation of a dry mouth, etc. Alcohol-containing mouthwashes may make dry mouth and halitosis worse since it dries out the mouth. Soreness, ulceration and redness may sometimes occur (e.g. aphthous stomatitis, allergic contact stomatitis) if the person is allergic or sensitive to mouthwash ingredients such as preservatives, coloring, flavors and fragrances. Such effects might be reduced or eliminated by diluting the mouthwash with water, using a different mouthwash (e.g. salt water), or foregoing mouthwash entirely.\n",
"Patients with mouth infections usually complain of pain at the affected tooth with or without fevers. Inability to fully open one's mouth, also known as trismus, suggests that the infection has spread to spaces between the jaw and muscles of mastication (masseter, medial pterygoid, and temporalis). If an abscess has formed, swelling, redness, and tenderness will be present. Depending on the location of the abscess, it will be visible intraorally, extraorally, or both. Severe infections with significant swelling may cause airway obstruction by shifting/enlarging soft tissue structures (floor of mouth, tongue, etc.) or by causing dysphagia that prevents adequate clearance of saliva. This is a medical emergency and may require endonasal intubation or tracheotomy to protect one's airway. The development of stridor, shortness of breath, and pooling oral secretions may indicate impending airway compromise due to a worsening mouth infection. Other rare but dangerous complications include osteomyelitis, cavernous sinus thrombosis, and deep neck space infection.\n"
] |
why does football go by scores of 7 instead of 1 ' s like hockey and soccer?
|
It doesn't "go by scores of 7." There are different ways to score points, and each type of score is worth a certain amount of points. Some are only possible in certain situations. A common misconception is that a touchdown is worth 7 points - it's actually worth 6.
|
[
"Scoring is the same as in 11-man football, with the exceptions being on the point after touchdown attempt and the field goal. A point-after kick is worth two points, while a conversion made by running or passing the ball is worth one point; this is the opposite of standard 11-man football. In addition, a field goal is worth four points instead of three. These rule changes were made because of the difficulty of successfully getting a kick off with so few blockers on the line compared to the number of defenders. In both University Interscholastic League and Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools competition, a 45-point \"mercy rule\" exists to prevent lopsided scoring deficits (no such rule exists in the 11-man game). The game is ended under this rule if a team is losing by 45 or more points at halftime or at any point after. The mercy rule is alluded to in the title of the David Morse film about six-man football, \"The Slaughter Rule\".\n",
"An important difference between the two sports involves the aftermath of a score. In Canadian football, the scoring team kicks off, except after a safety. In rugby union, the team scored upon kicks off (in rugby sevens, a variant of rugby union featuring seven players per side, the scoring team kicks off).\n",
"An important difference between the two sports involves the aftermath of a score. In American football, the scoring team kicks off, except after a safety. In rugby union, the team conceding the score kicks off (in rugby sevens, a variant of rugby union featuring seven players per side, the scoring team kicks off).\n",
"In other sports, a goal is the primary, but not the sole method of scoring. In these sports, the goal is worth a set number of points, and there is another method of scoring which scores fewer points (often one point). In these sports, the score is expressed as the number of goals plus the number of alternate scores and the combined total of points with the winner being decided on total points. For example, in Australian rules football the score may be expressed as follows:\n",
"Scoring and game timing are much different in touch football than its more organized counterpart. For the sake of simplicity, touchdowns are usually worth 1 point and no other scoring is counted (there are no extra point attempts). In a much lesser used variation, a touchdown is worth 6 points and if the player who scored the touchdown can progress in the other direction from the end zone in which he had just scored back to the opposite end zone without being touched, it counts as a two-point conversion. The former scoring method does not allow for other scoring types such as safeties. There is usually no game clock and the game ends when one opponent has reached 10 touchdowns (in the former convention) or 100 points (in a standard convention).\n",
"Scoring and game timing are much different in touch football than its more organized counterpart. For simplicity, touchdowns are usually worth 1 point and no other scoring is counted (there are no extra point attempts). In a much lesser used variation, a touchdown is worth 6 points and if the player who scored the touchdown can progress in the other direction from the end zone in which he had just scored back to the opposite end zone without being touched, it counts as a two-point conversion. The former scoring method does not allow for other scoring types such as safeties. There is usually no game clock and the game ends when one opponent has reached 10 touchdowns (in the former convention) or 100 points (in a standard convention).\n",
"In association football, or soccer, scoring a goal is the only method of scoring. Given the rarity of scoring in soccer, it is considered a notable achievement when a player scores multiple goals in a match (for example a hat-trick is awarded when a player scores three or more goals in a match). In the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I soccer media guide, players that score seven or more goals in a single match are recognized for their achievement. \n"
] |
why are some viruses shaped like an icosahedron?
|
Most likely because it's a compact shape that can be built easily (make a triangle of protein 8 times, join them together).
Viruses hijack the cells of other creatures (or bacteria) to reproduce, so they need to keep things super simple.
|
[
"Capsids are broadly classified according to their structure. The majority of viruses have capsids with either helical or icosahedral structure. Some viruses, such as bacteriophages, have developed more complicated structures due to constraints of elasticity and electrostatics. The icosahedral shape, which has 20 equilateral triangular faces, approximates a sphere, while the helical shape resembles the shape of a spring, taking the space of a cylinder but not being a cylinder itself. The capsid faces may consist of one or more proteins. For example, the foot-and-mouth disease virus capsid has faces consisting of three proteins named VP1–3.\n",
"BULLET::::- Icosahedral: Most animal viruses are icosahedral or near-spherical with chiral icosahedral symmetry. A regular icosahedron is the optimum way of forming a closed shell from identical sub-units. The minimum number of identical capsomeres required for each triangular face is 3, which gives 60 for the icosahedron. Many viruses, such as rotavirus, have more than 60 capsomers and appear spherical but they retain this symmetry. To achieve this, the capsomeres at the apices are surrounded by five other capsomeres and are called pentons. Capsomeres on the triangular faces are surrounded by six others and are called hexons. Hexons are in essence flat and pentons, which form the 12 vertices, are curved. The same protein may act as the subunit of both the pentamers and hexamers or they may be composed of different proteins.\n",
"Many viruses, such as the herpes virus, have the shape of a regular icosahedron. Viral structures are built of repeated identical protein subunits and the icosahedron is the easiest shape to assemble using these subunits. A regular polyhedron is used because it can be built from a single basic unit protein used over and over again; this saves space in the viral genome.\n",
"Its capsid appears hexagonal under an electron microscope, therefore the capsid symmetry is icosahedral. It does not appear to possess an outer viral envelope, suggesting that the virus does not exit the host cell by exocytosis.\n",
"Many viruses, e.g. herpes virus, have icosahedral shells. Viral structures are built of repeated identical protein subunits known as capsomeres, and the icosahedron is the easiest shape to assemble using these subunits. A \"regular\" polyhedron is used because it can be built from a single basic unit protein used over and over again; this saves space in the viral genome.\n",
"Many viruses have radial symmetries, their coats being composed of a relatively small number of protein molecules arranged in a regular pattern to form polyhedrons, spheres, or ovoids. Most are icosahedrons.\n",
"The icosahedral structure is extremely common among viruses. The icosahedron consists of 20 triangular faces delimited by 12 fivefold vertexes and consists of 60 asymmetric units. Thus, an icosahedral virus is made of 60N protein subunits. The number and arrangement of capsomeres in an icosahedral capsid can be classified using the \"quasi-equivalence principle\" proposed by Donald Caspar and Aaron Klug. Like the Goldberg polyhedra, an icosahedral structure can be regarded as being constructed from pentamers and hexamers. The structures can be indexed by two integers \"h\" and \"k\", with formula_1 and formula_2; the structure can be thought of as taking \"h\" steps from the edge of a pentamer, turning 60 degrees counterclockwise, then taking \"k\" steps to get to the next pentamer. The triangulation number \"T\" for the capsid is defined as:\n"
] |
why is gasoline sold per 9/10 gallon?
|
That is not 9/10 of a gallon. It's 9/10 of a cent.
When you see the price "$3.78 9/10", that's really $3.789 per gallon, not $3.78 per 9/10 of a gallon.
|
[
"In 2011 the United States Environmental Protection Agency introduced the \"gallon gasoline equivalent\" as a unit of energy because their research showed most U.S. citizens do not understand the standard units. The gallon gasoline equivalent is defined as 33.7 kWh, or about 1.213 joules.\n",
"Gasoline contains about 46.7 MJ/kg (127 MJ/US gal; 35.3 kWh/US gal; 13.0 kWh/kg; 120,405 BTU/US gal), quoting the lower heating value. Gasoline blends differ, and therefore actual energy content varies according to the season and producer by up to 1.75% more or less than the average. On average, about 74 L (19.5 US gal; 16.3 imp gal) of gasoline are available from a barrel of crude oil (about 46% by volume), varying with the quality of the crude and the grade of the gasoline. The remainder are products ranging from tar to naphtha.\n",
"Gasoline and diesel fuel are sold by the U.S. gallon, and fuel economy is rated in miles per gallon (MPG). The metric unit is kilometers per liter but, with few exceptions, such as Denmark, metric countries use the inverse unit, l/100 km, rather than km/l. Stations in Point Roberts, Washington, a short, noncontiguous peninsula that is accessible from the rest of the state of Washington only by crossing into Canada, sells its gasoline from pumps calibrated to dispense in liters. Gasoline is dispensed in liters in Puerto Rico. Automobile crankcase oil is sold by the quart, antifreeze by the gallon, brake fluid by the ounce (fluid), and air conditioning refrigerant by the ounce (mass). Windshield wiper replacement blades are measured in inches.\n",
"The usage and pricing of gasoline (or \"petrol\") results from factors such as crude oil prices, processing and distribution costs, local demand, the strength of local currencies, local taxation, and the availability of local sources of gasoline (supply). Since fuels are traded worldwide, the trade prices are similar. The price paid by consumers largely reflects national pricing policy. Some regions, such as Europe and Japan, impose high taxes on gasoline (petrol); others, such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, subsidize the cost. Western countries have among the highest usage rates per person. The largest consumer is the United States, which used an average of 368 million US gallons (1.46 gigalitres) each day in 2011.\n",
"In 1994, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defined \"gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) means 5.660 pounds of natural gas.\" Compressed natural gas (CNG), for example, is a gas rather than a liquid. It can be measured by its volume in standard cubic feet (ft³) (volume at atmospheric conditions), by its weight in pounds (lb) or by its energy content in joules (J) or British thermal units (BTU) or kilowatt-hours (kW·h). It is difficult to compare the cost of gasoline with other fuels if they are sold in different units. GGE solves this. One GGE of CNG and one GGE of electricity have exactly the same energy content as one gallon of gasoline. CNG sold at filling stations in the US is priced in dollars per GGE.\n",
"From 1998 to 2004, the price of gasoline fluctuated between US$1 and US$2 per U.S. gallon. After 2004, the price increased until the average gas price reached a high of $4.11 per U.S. gallon in mid-2008, but receded to approximately $2.60 per U.S. gallon by September 2009. More recently, the U.S. experienced an upswing in gasoline prices through 2011, and by 1 March 2012, the national average was $3.74 per gallon.\n",
"The price of gasoline and diesel fuel are based on the price on the New York Mercantile Exchange as a benchmark in Canadian funds. This plus a 6 cent per litre wholesale margin, plus a transportation allowance of 0.5 to 2 cents per litre, and a retail margin of 4 to 5.5 cents per litre (or to a maximum of 7.5 cents per litre for full-serve gasoline).\n"
] |
How CRT TV controls the beams so quickly back in the old days?
|
Well superhuman speed maybe but when it comes to electronics it is a fairly low speed thing.
Realize that the vertical refresh happens only 50/60 times per second - that's glacial speed, even for the 1930s electronics when tubes and oscillators running up to hundreds of MHz existed already. In fact, the 50/60Hz is originally derived from the mains frequency, generated by a spinning (i.e. mechanical) generator at a power plant.
The horizontal ray deflection needs to generate 525 (NTSC) or 625 (PAL) lines during that time. So that gives you (1/50) / 625 = 32us/line duration, thus 31.25kHz line frequency (for PAL). Again, that's very slow when it comes to electronics, it is just above the audio frequencies (\~20kHz). And that is neglecting the fact that the TV was interlaced, so only drawing half of the lines during each frame.
The only thing that needs to be fast is generating pixels within the line, because you have only those 32us to do so. So you are in tens of MHz pixel clock frequencies and up. However, with the analog TV **there are no pixels\*** \- the camera was scanning the image a the same speed and outputting an analog voltage corresponding to the brightness of the area of the imaging tube as the scanning electron beam passed over it (e.g. vidicon tube). This was reproduced in the receiver in the same way - a smoothly changing signal was modulating the current (and thus brightness) of the electron beam in the CRT as it was sweeping across the line.
Electronically, all you need to make a beam sweep is two linear ramp signals, one running at the vertical and the other at the horizontal frequency and synchronized with the incoming signal - that's what the "sync" pulses are for, to trigger the oscillators (well, in a real TV it is a bit more complex using PLL and such for robustness but the idea is the same).
So all of this was pretty much within reach, it wasn't much more complex than the contemporary radio circuits. In fact, the early television research has been done even using mechanical scanning, using a rotating wheel with a spiral of holes - Nipkow disc. Also the TV standards like NTSC and PAL didn't appear out of nowhere, other systems with fewer lines were common before that.
> also any reason no manufacturer tried to use more sets of cathode ray for higher resolution and faster refresh rate?
That has been probably tried but it was a niche thing for special purposes in the labs (e.g. multi-beam oscilloscope CRTs). The classic CRT design is well capable of full HD (1920x1080) resolution at 120Hz with a single electron gun and one set of deflection coils (high end PC monitors) or e.g. the Japanese HDTV TV standard going back to the 80s (1125 lines@60Hz). A multi-beam system would only cost a lot more for little gain when there were no signal sources capable of feeding such CRT anyway.
& #x200B;
\*Pixels are a computer thing that came much later with raster displays and cheap computer memory required for frame buffers. Original computer displays were so called "vector displays" that didn't work with pixels at all but were directly drawing lines ("vectors") by steering the electron beam around the screen.
|
[
"In a CRT television, the electron beam is moved in a raster scan on the screen. By adjusting the strength of the beam current, the brightness of the light produced by the phosphor on the screen can be varied. The cathode ray tube allowed the development of all-electronic television. \n",
"In conventional black and white (B&W) televisions, the CRT screen has a uniform coating of phosphor that emits white light when struck by electrons. The beam from an electron gun at the back of the tube is deflected (most commonly) by the varying fields from magnetic coils so it may be directed at any point on the screen. Electronic circuits known as time base generators pull the beam across the tube and down, creating the scanning pattern used in television signals. An amplitude modulated signal is used to control the acceleration of the beam, controlling the brightness as it is pulled across the screen.\n",
"Earlier remotes could turn sets on/off and change channels, but were connected to the TV with a cable. The Flash-matic came in response to consumer complaints about the inconvenience of these cables running from the transmitter to the TV monitor. Earlier remotes served as the central control system for transmitting complex signals to the receiving monitor. The Flash-matic instead placed the complexity in the receiver as opposed to the transmitter. It used a directional beam of light to control a television outfitted with four photo cells in the corners of the screen. The light signal would activate one of the four control functions, which turned the picture and sound on or off, and turned the channel tuner dial clockwise and counter-clockwise. The bottom receptors received the signal to mute and power on/off, and the upper cells received signals to channel up/down. In order for the various signals to be received by the monitor, the remote control had to be directed towards one of the four photocells. The system responded to full-spectrum light so could be activated or interfered with by other light sources including indoor light bulbs and the sun. Despite these defects, the Flash-matic remained in high demand. In September 1955, Zenith released an apology for its inability to meet the high demand of consumers. The Flash-matic was quickly replaced by new control systems. The \"Zenith Space Command\" remote control went into production in 1956 with aims to improve upon the Flash-matic's design.\n",
"As technology developed engineers realized that the output of a CRT display was more flexible than a panel of light bulbs and eventually, by giving control of what was displayed in the program itself, the monitor itself became a powerful output device in its own right.\n",
"From 1946 to 1951 the 7JP4 was a common CRT (Picture Tube or Kinescope) used in lower priced televisions sold in the United States. These television were popular for portable carry around and small table top sets. These smaller sets were direct view electrostatic deflection designs. This required an extremely large amount of voltage to produce an image across the full display screen. In 1946, RCA influenced manufacturers (with royalty free circuit designs) to move toward electromagnetic deflection type televisions. Electromagnetic deflection uses varying magnetic fields to produce a full screen image. Horizontal and vertical electromagnets are placed at the picture tube neck, called the \"yoke\". This method allowed the image to be viewed on larger screens. The first heavily mass-produced large picture tube to use this newer method of deflection was RCA's 10BP4, introduced in 1946. Soon after electrostatic picture tubes and the television electronic design would be completely replaced.\n",
"A cathode-ray tube (CRT) television displays an image by scanning a beam of electrons across the screen in a pattern of horizontal lines known as a raster. At the end of each line the beam returns to the start of the next line; the end of the last line is a link that returns to the top of the screen. As it passes each point the intensity of the beam is varied, varying the luminance of that point. A color television system is identical except that an additional signal known as chrominance controls the color of the spot.\n",
"In television sets and computer monitors, the entire front area of the tube is scanned repetitively and systematically in a fixed pattern called a raster. An image is produced by controlling the intensity of each of the three electron beams, one for each additive primary color (red, green, and blue) with a video signal as a reference. In all modern CRT monitors and televisions, the beams are bent by \"magnetic deflection\", a varying magnetic field generated by coils and driven by electronic circuits around the neck of the tube, although electrostatic deflection is commonly used in oscilloscopes, a type of diagnostic instrument.\n"
] |
Is there any plausible evidence for occurrences of single combat by "champions" or highly esteemed soldiers in the field of combat?
|
Single combat is mentioned quite frequently in the history of Ancient Rome – the Horatii's defeat of the Alba Longan Curiatii in the 7th century BC is reported by Livy to have settled a war in Rome's favor and subjected Alba Longa to Rome; Marcus Claudius Marcellus took the spolia opima from Viridomarus, king of the Gaesatae, at the Battle of Clastidium (222 BC); and Marcus Licinius Crassus from Deldo, king of the Bastarnae (29 BC).
|
[
"Instances of single combat are known from Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The champions were often combatants who represented larger, spectator groups. Such representative contests and stories thereof are known worldwide.\n",
"Sometimes however, such single combat would merely initiate a battle rather than prevent it. The most famous example of this was the duel between Russian monk Alexander Peresvet and the Golden Horde champion Chelubey or Temir-Murza at the beginning of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. The champions killed each other in the first run, though according to Russian legend, Peresvet did not fall from the saddle, while Temir-murza did.\n",
"Depictions of single combat also appear in the Hindu epics of the Mahābhārata and the Ramayana. Single combats are often preludes to battles in the Chinese epic \"Romance of the Three Kingdoms\" and are featured prominently throughout the epic.\n",
"Typically, it takes place in the no-man's-land between the opposing armies, with other warriors watching and themselves refraining from fighting until one of the two single combatants has won. Often, it is champion warfare, with the two considered the champions of their respective sides.\n",
"Understanding how battles were fought also helps us to understand why excelling in certain sports was considered the mark of a valuable retainer or war leader. Sports like running, jumping, throwing spears, and unbalancing people (i.e. wrestling) were all critical skills for combat. Heroes like the legendary Beowulf are described as champions in such athletic events.\n",
"There are several types of situations that require combat: jousts and tournaments; judicial and challenge combats; attacks on protagonists; hostile sieges; and civil war. Some critics observe that martial combat dominates the romance and distinguishes it from others, but chivalric adventures involving the testing and use of prowess are common in romance. The seeming prevalence of combat may be attributed to the perceived lack of development of romantic relationships, causing an imbalance compared to other romances, and to the number of opponents faced by the hero, which is perhaps notable because they are individualized.\n",
"Champion warfare refers to a type of battle, most commonly found in the epic poetry and myth of ancient history, in which the outcome of the conflict is determined by single combat, an individual duel between the best soldiers (\"champions\") from each opposing army.\n"
] |
what's all the fuss about megaupload? do that many people really need file storage?
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Online storage is generally seen as the way of the future. If you have a fire at home and your hard drive is destroyed, what happens to your data? If you collaborate with people on many projects, how do you keep your files in sync? If you work at home and on the road and in the workplace, how can you keep your data in check? All of these are solved by online storage.
Edit: also pirating.
|
[
"People who used Megaupload for personal and business storage, such as large audio and video files for family and work, have also voiced their complaints about the fact that they no longer had access to their files on the service. Examples cited in the media included staff at public interest group \"Public Knowledge\" who used it for large files, and Android cellphone software writers who described it as \"one of the best ways to distribute [software] ... There are a number of similar sites for this use, but Megaupload was always the fastest\".\n",
"People who used Megaupload for personal and business storage, such as large audio and video files for family and work, have also voiced their complaints about the fact that they no longer had access to their files on the service. Examples cited in the media included staff at public interest group \"Public Knowledge\" who used it for large files, and Android cellphone software writers who described it as \"one of the best ways to distribute [software] ... There are a number of similar sites for this use, but Megaupload was always the fastest\".\n",
"Various web companies have expressed their concerns with the future of file storage websites – specifically the powers that are available to the US government to seize websites. Megaupload's competitors such as Filesonic, Fileserve, Filejungle, and 4shared have all limited their services.\n",
"Megaupload itself is not the only one concerned about the loss of their user's personal data. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also expressed their concerns with the loss of personal data for Megaupload's users – with their Staff Attorney stating that the \"EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them. We think it's important that these users have their voices heard as this process moves forward.\" Teaming up with Carpathia Hosting, the EFF and Carpathia Hosting have started up a website (www.megaretrieval.com) to take an inventory of the innocent users affected by the seizure of Megaupload.\n",
"After the seizure of Megaupload, one of the primary concerns was what this meant for the future of the user's personal data. The Justice Department stated, on 20 January 2012, that Megaupload's users will most likely want to backup any data they have uploaded to Megaupload. The Justice department also referenced Megaupload's own set of frequently asked questions, where Megaupload's FAQ insists that their users not solely rely upon Megaupload – as \"they assume the full risk of complete loss or unavailability of their data\".\n",
"The seizure of Megaupload, a popular filesharing website with 150 million registered users, occurred on 19 January 2012, following a US indictment accusing Megaupload of harbouring millions of copyrighted files. According to the indictment, Megaupload was costing copyright holders over $500 million in lost revenues.\n",
"Following the seizure of Megaupload, concerns were raised as to what would happen to the files that had been uploaded by its users. On 20 January 2012, the Justice Department stated that \"It is important to note that Mega clearly warned users to keep copies of any files they uploaded\" adding that \"Megaupload.com expressly informed users through its Frequently Asked Questions ('FAQs') and its Terms of Service that users have no proprietary interest in any of the files on Megaupload's servers, they assume the full risk of complete loss or unavailability of their data, and that Megaupload can terminate site operations without prior notice.\" On 27 January 2012, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride wrote:\n"
] |
Does motion/speed influence sound waves?
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Absolutely. It's called the [Doppler effet](_URL_0_). A source moving towards the observer will sound higher pitched, and a source moving away from the observer will sound lower.
The same effect happens with light, too! Sources moving towards the observer look more blue, and away look more red.
E: As pointed out by /u/Patbott, I mistakenly switched red and blue.
|
[
"BULLET::::- Motion of the medium itself. If the medium is moving, this movement may increase or decrease the absolute speed of the sound wave depending on the direction of the movement. For example, sound moving through wind will have its speed of propagation increased by the speed of the wind if the sound and wind are moving in the same direction. If the sound and wind are moving in opposite directions, the speed of the sound wave will be decreased by the speed of the wind.\n",
"A sound wave propagates through a material as a localized pressure change. Increasing the pressure of a gas or fluid increases its local temperature. The local speed of sound in a compressible material increases with temperature; as a result, the wave travels faster during the high pressure phase of the oscillation than during the lower pressure phase. This affects the wave's frequency structure; for example, in an initially plane sinusoidal wave of a single frequency, the peaks of the wave travel faster than the troughs, and the pulse becomes cumulatively more like a sawtooth wave. In other words, the wave self-distorts. In doing so, other frequency components are introduced, which can be described by the Fourier series. This phenomenon is characteristic of a non-linear system, since a linear acoustic system responds only to the driving frequency. This always occurs but the effects of geometric spreading and of absorption usually overcome the self distortion, so linear behavior usually prevails and nonlinear acoustic propagation occurs only for very large amplitudes and only near the source.\n",
"The speed of sound is variable and depends on the properties of the substance through which the wave is travelling. In solids, the speed of transverse (or shear) waves depends on the shear deformation under shear stress (called the shear modulus), and the density of the medium. Longitudinal (or compression) waves in solids depend on the same two factors with the addition of a dependence on compressibility.\n",
"When applied to a sound wave through a medium of a fluid like air, particle velocity would be the physical speed of a parcel of fluid as it moves back and forth in the direction the sound wave is travelling as it passes.\n",
"which is a linear wave equation for the velocity potential . Again the oscillatory part of the velocity vector is related to the velocity potential by , while as before is the Laplace operator, and is the average speed of sound in the homogeneous medium. Note that also the oscillatory parts of the pressure and density each individually satisfy the wave equation, in this approximation.\n",
"Particle velocity should not be confused with the speed of the wave as it passes through the medium, i.e. in the case of a sound wave, particle velocity is not the same as the speed of sound. The wave moves relatively fast, while the particles oscillate around their original position with a relatively small particle velocity. Particle velocity should also not be confused with the velocity of individual molecules.\n",
"In a dispersive medium, the speed of sound is a function of sound frequency, through the dispersion relation. Each frequency component propagates at its own speed, called the phase velocity, while the energy of the disturbance propagates at the group velocity. The same phenomenon occurs with light waves; see optical dispersion for a description.\n"
] |
since all digital memory has to be stored as physical hard copies, will we ever have an information technology crisis?
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We're going to have a lot of other problems before we run out of computer storage. Silicon is one of the most commonly occurring elements on Earth, and it doesn't take all that much to create a flash drive or solid state drive. Plus we can make storage out of other things too, like plastic (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray) and aluminum (hard drives).
The more likely problem is that we'll have too much data and no fast way to search through all of it.
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[
"A common attack on digital evidence is that digital media can be easily altered. However, in 2002 a US court ruled that \"the fact that it is possible to alter data contained in a computer is plainly insufficient to establish untrustworthiness\" (US v. Bonallo, 858 F. 2d 1427 - 1988 - Court of Appeals, 9th).\n",
"Digital devices have the advantage of being versatile, and are not susceptible to unexpected output variation due to heat or noise. The discrete nature of a computer however, does not allow for all of history to be computed. Some finite range [a,t] must exist. Therefore, the number of data points that can be stored in memory (\"N\"), determines the oldest data point in memory, so that the value a is never more than \"N\" samples old. The effect is that any history older than a is \"completely\" forgotten, and no longer influences the output.\n",
"Since at least 2015, Cerf has been raising concerns about the wide-ranging risks of digital obsolescence, the potential of losing much historic information about our time – a digital \"dark age\" or \"black hole\" – given the ubiquitous digital storage of text, data, images, music and more. Among the concerns are the long-term storage of, and continued reliable access to, our vast stores of present-day digital data and the associated programs, operating systems, computers and peripherals required to access such.\n",
"As predicted by Moore's law, the amount of physical memory in all computers has grown almost exponentially, although this is offset to some degree by programs and files themselves becoming larger. In some cases, a computer with virtual memory support where the majority of the loaded data resides on the hard disk may run out of physical memory but not virtual memory, thus causing excessive paging. This condition, known as thrashing, usually renders the computer unusable until some programs are closed or the machine is rebooted. Due to these reasons, an out of memory message is rarely encountered by applications with modern computers.\n",
"Core memory is non-volatile storage—it can retain its contents indefinitely without power. It is also relatively unaffected by EMP and radiation. These were important advantages for some applications like first-generation industrial programmable controllers, military installations and vehicles like fighter aircraft, as well as spacecraft, and led to core being used for a number of years after availability of semiconductor MOS memory (see also MOSFET). For example, the Space Shuttle IBM AP-101B flight computers initially used core memory, which preserved the contents of memory even through the \"Challenger\"s disintegration and subsequent plunge into the sea in 1986.\n",
"Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete. Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of delay line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line. The first random-access digital storage device was the Williams tube, based on a standard cathode ray tube, but the information stored in it and delay line memory was volatile in that it had to be continuously refreshed, and thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the magnetic drum, invented in 1932 and used in the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.\n",
"Prior to the technological boom, medical institutions relied on the paper medium to file individual's medical data. Nowadays more and more information is stored within electronic databases. Research shows that it is safer to have information stored within a paper medium as it is harder to physically steal data, whilst digital records are vulnerable to access by hackers.\n"
] |
how do machines calculate body fat percentage?
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Usually scale use two electrod under your feet and use Tiny Ac current. By measuring the impedance and frequency responce of the human body they can deduce the ammount of fat and water.
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[
"In contrast with clinical tools, one relatively inexpensive type of body fat meter uses the principle of bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) in order to determine an individual's body fat percentage. To achieve this, the meter passes a small, harmless, electric current through the body and measures the resistance, then uses information on the person's weight, height, age, and sex to calculate an approximate value for the person's body fat percentage. The calculation measures the total volume of water in the body (lean tissue and muscle contain a higher percentage of water than fat), and estimates the percentage of fat based on this information. The result can fluctuate several percentage points depending on what has been eaten and how much water has been drunk before the analysis. Before bioelectrical impedance analysis machines were developed, there were many different ways in analyzing body composition such as skin fold methods using calipers, underwater weighing, whole body air displacement plethysmography (ADP) and DXA.\n",
"Simple devices to estimate body fat, often using BIA, are available to consumers as body fat meters. These instruments are generally regarded as being less accurate than those used clinically or in nutritional and medical practice. They tend to under-read body fat percentage.\n",
"Prior to the adoption of DXA, the most accurate method of estimating body fat percentage was to measure that person's average density (total mass divided by total volume) and apply a formula to convert that to body fat percentage.\n",
"There also exist formulas for estimating body fat percentage from an individual's weight and girth measurements. For example, the U.S. Navy circumference method compares abdomen or waist and hips measurements to neck measurement and height and other sites claim to estimate one's body fat percentage by a conversion from the body mass index. In the U.S. Navy the method is known as the \"rope and choke.\" There is limited information, however, on the validity of the \"rope and choke\" method because of its universal acceptance as inaccurate and easily falsified.\n",
"A reasonably accurate estimation of body fat can be obtained by means of a \"two compartment model\" of the human body which is based upon two simplifying assumptions: 1. Human fat has a density of 0.9 grams/ml, and 2. The lean (non-fat) components of the human body have an overall density of 1.1 grams/ml.\n",
"A body fat meter is a widely available tool used to measure the percentage of fat in the human body. Different meters use various methods to determine the body fat to weight ratio. They tend to under-read body fat percentage.\n",
"The body adiposity index (BAI) is a method of estimating the amount of body fat in humans. The BAI is calculated without using body weight, unlike the body mass index (BMI). Instead, it uses the size of the hips compared to the person's height.\n"
] |
Can a fruit without seeds be genetically modified?
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Most likely, no. Most fruits and vegetables are the result of simple breeding (that we've been using for millenia) experiments to develop produce with the most desirable qualities. If that's your friend's reasoning for not eating oranges, then there isn't anything see can eat except what she finds in the wild.
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[
"Seedless fruits can develop in one of two ways: either the fruit develops without fertilization (parthenocarpy), or pollination triggers fruit development, but the ovules or embryos abort without producing mature seeds (stenospermocarpy). Seedless banana and watermelon fruits are produced on triploid plants, whose three sets of chromosomes make it very unlikely for meiosis to successfully produce spores and gametophytes. This is because one of the three copies of each chromosome can't pair with another appropriate chromosome before separating into daughter cells, so these extra third copies end up randomly distributed between the two daughter cells from meiosis 1, resulting in the (usually) swiftly lethal aneuploidy condition. Such plants can arise by spontaneous mutation or by hybridization between diploid and tetraploid individuals of the same or different species. Some species, such as tomato, pineapple, and cucumber, produce fruit in which there is no seed to be found if not pollinated but will produce seeded fruit if pollination occurs.\n",
"Lacking seeds, and thus the capacity to propagate via the fruit, the plants are generally propagated vegetatively from cuttings, by grafting, or in the case of bananas, from \"pups\" (offsets). In such cases, the resulting plants are genetically identical clones. By contrast, seedless watermelons are grown from seeds. These seeds are produced by crossing diploid and tetraploid lines of watermelon, with the resulting seeds producing sterile triploid plants. Fruit development is triggered by pollination, so these plants must be grown alongside a diploid strain to provide pollen. Triploid plants with seedless fruits can also be produced using endosperm culture for the regeneration of triploid plantlets from endosperm tissue via somatic embryogenesis.\n",
"Apples are notorious for not breeding true from seed, which means that they are propagated by grafting. The same is true of many fruit and nut trees. Many commercially produced plants for gardeners are F1 hybrids, which if propagated from seed will produce F2 hydrids which are quite different from their parents; the F1 hybrids therefore don't breed true.\n",
"With plants, some somatic mutations can be propagated without the need for seed production, for example, by grafting and stem cuttings. These type of mutation have led to new types of fruits, such as the \"Delicious\" apple and the \"Washington\" navel orange.\n",
"In some plants seeds can be produced without fertilization and the seeds contain only the genetic material of the parent plant. Therefore, propagation via asexual seeds or apomixis is asexual reproduction but not vegetative propagation.\n",
"Avocados can be propagated by seed, taking roughly four to six years to bear fruit, although in some cases seedlings can take 10 years to come into bearing. The offspring is unlikely to be identical to the parent cultivar in fruit quality. Prime quality varieties are therefore propagated by grafting to rootstocks that are propagated by seed (seedling rootstocks) or by layering (clonal rootstocks). After about a year of growing in a greenhouse, the young rootstocks are ready to be grafted. Terminal and lateral grafting is normally used. The scion cultivar grows for another 6–12 months before the tree is ready to be sold. Clonal rootstocks are selected for tolerance of specific soil and disease conditions, such as poor soil aeration or resistance to the soil-borne disease (root rot) caused by \"Phytophthora\".\n",
"Scientists are trying to modify the banana plant to make it resist Panama disease and many other serious banana afflictions ranging from fungal, bacterial, and viral infections to nematodes and beetles. Researchers are combing remote jungles searching for new wild bananas. Hybrid bananas are being created in the hope of generating a new variety with strong resistance to diseases. Some believe the best hope for a more resilient banana is through genetic engineering, however, the resulting fruit also needs to taste good, ripen in a predictable amount of time, travel long distances undamaged, and be easy to grow in great quantities. Currently, no cultivar or hybrid meets all of these criteria.\n"
] |
How did Houston communicate with the astronauts on the moon?
|
[USB](_URL_0_). But not the adapter type. Radio waves - the general method of communication in space for basically everything (laser links are a very recent development).
By changing the amplitude or (better) the frequency of the radio waves you emit many times per second you can transmit information.
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[
"During a mission the capsule communicators (CAPCOMs), always fellow astronauts, were the only people who normally would speak to the crew. For Apollo 15, the CAPCOMs were Allen, Brand, C. Gordon Fullerton, Gordon, Henize, Edgar D. Mitchell, Parker, Schmitt and Alan B. Shepard.\n",
"For long-duration missions there is more than one CAPCOM, each assigned to a different shift team. After control of U.S. spaceflights moved to the Johnson Space Center in the early 1960s, each CAPCOM used the radio call-sign \"Houston\". When non-astronauts are communicating directly with the spacecraft, CAPCOM acts as the communications controller.\n",
"\"Houston, we have a problem\" is a popular but erroneous quotation from the radio communications between the Apollo 13 astronaut John (\"Jack\") Swigert and the NASA Mission Control Center (\"Houston\") during the Apollo 13 spaceflight, as the astronauts communicated their discovery of the explosion that crippled their spacecraft. The erroneous wording was popularized by the 1995 film \"Apollo 13\", a dramatization of the Apollo 13 mission, in which actor Tom Hanks, portraying Mission Commander Jim Lovell, uses that wording, which became one of the film's taglines.\n",
"In the days before the July 1969 space mission that marked mankind's first steps on the Moon, NASA was working with a group of Australian technicians who had agreed to engineer a space-to-Earth interface to carry the video and telemetry signals from the Lunar Lander on the Moon and relay them to the rest of the global audience, estimated then at some 600 million people. The actual dish antenna used had to be large as the signals expected from the spacecraft were very weak and easily lost. NASA had to use the Parkes radio telescope situated in the middle of an Australian sheep farm. There were some background concerns at NASA about using the Parkes antenna, mainly technical, as the signals had to go via point to point microwave links to get re-transmitted globally.\n",
"Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two people on the Moon. Neil Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface on July 21, 1969, at 02:56 UTC; Buzz Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later. Only limited radio bandwidth was available to transmit the video signal from the lunar landings, which needed to be multiplexed with other communication and telemetry channels beamed from the Lunar Module, back to Earth. Therefore, Apollo 11's moonwalk video was transmitted from the Apollo TV camera in a monochrome SSTV format at 10 frames per second (fps) with 320 lines of resolution, progressively scanned. These SSTV signals were received by radio telescopes at Parkes Observatory, the Goldstone tracking station, and Honeysuckle Creek tracking station. The camera's video format was incompatible with existing NTSC, PAL, and SECAM broadcast television standards. It needed to be converted before it could be shown on broadcast television networks. This live conversion was crude, essentially using a video camera pointing at a high-quality 10-inch TV monitor.\n",
"The capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew. For Apollo 8, the CAPCOMs were Michael Collins, Gerald Carr, Ken Mattingly, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Vance Brand, and Fred Haise.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Moon Voice\", a song that develops in a more rhythmic and techno-dance. It is a song entirely dedicated to the first \"Moon Landing\" in 1969, Apollo 11, where you can listen to the voices of the Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, processed electronically.\n"
] |
If male lyrebirds are so good at mimicking the sounds of other objects and animals , how do female lyrebirds know what is a bird and what is the real deal?
|
Having seen many lyrebirds to the south of Sydney, it seemed to me that they're curious about any loud noise. I'm going to guess the the calls attract the female's attention, but it's the courtship displays which count the most.
|
[
"A lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds that compose the genus Menura, and the family Menuridae. They are most notable for their superb ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment, and the striking beauty of the male bird's huge tail when it is fanned out in courtship display. Lyrebirds have unique plumes of neutral-coloured tailfeathers and are among Australia's best-known native birds.\n",
"Historically, there has been far more research on the mimetic abilities of male lyrebirds. This is primarily due to the assumption that the evolution of song in passerines resulted primarily from the selection on males in attracting mates or deterring rivals. However, a study found that females also produced mimetic vocalisations while foraging and during nest defence, suggesting that mimicry has a function in deterring predators and conspecific rivals.\n",
"The superb lyrebird is renowned for its mimicry, with an estimated 70-80% of the male’s vocalisations consisting of imitations of other model bird species. Females also sing and are capable of mimicry, however, although not to the extent of the males. Mimetic items can be interspersed with lyrebird-specific songs, territorial calls, and alarm calls. The songs adhere to recognisable structures, with different elements repeated in certain patterns.\n",
"Superb lyrebirds exhibit polygyny, with a single male mating with several females. A male’s territory can overlap with up to six female territories. Within his territory, the male will construct several circular mounds of bare dirt on the forest floor, for the purpose of conducting courtship displays. These mounds are defended vigorously from other males.There is strong sexual selection in lyrebirds, with females visiting the territories of several different males and choosing the most desirable males with which to copulate. When a male encounters a female lyrebird, he performs an elaborate courtship display on the nearest mound. This display incorporates both song and dance elements. The male fans out his tail horizontally to cover his entire body and head. The tail feathers are vibrated, and the lyrebird beats his wings against his body and struts around the mound. He also sings loudly, incorporating his own vocalisations with mimicry of other bird calls. A study has found evidence that the lyrebirds’ ‘dance choreography’ is highly coordinated to different types of song repertoire. Coordination of movement with acoustic signals is a trait previously thought to be unique to humans, and indicates high cognitive ability.\n",
"Male house mice court females by emitting characteristic ultrasonic calls in the 30 kHz–110 kHz range. The calls are most frequent during courtship when the male is sniffing and following the female; however, the calls continue after mating has begun, at which time the calls are coincident with mounting behaviour. Males can be induced to emit these calls by female pheromones. The vocalizations appear to differ between individuals and have been compared to bird songs because of their complexity. While females have the capability to produce ultrasonic calls, they typically do not do so during mating behaviour.\n",
"While most bird species use their feathers, tools, or feet to produce sounds and attract mates, many fish species use specialized internal organs to sonate. In Gadoid fish, special muscles attached to the swimbladder assist in the production of knocking or grunting sounds to attract mates.\n",
"The lyrebird is so called because the male bird has a spectacular tail, consisting of 16 highly modified feathers (two long slender \"lyrates\" at the centre of the plume, two broader \"medians\" on the outside edges and twelve \"filamentaries\" arrayed between them), which was originally thought to resemble a lyre. This happened when a superb lyrebird specimen (which had been taken from Australia to England during the early 19th century) was prepared for display at the British Museum by a taxidermist who had never seen a live lyrebird. The taxidermist mistakenly thought that the tail would resemble a lyre, and that the tail would be held in a similar way to that of a peacock during courtship display, and so he arranged the feathers in this way. Later, John Gould (who had also never seen a live lyrebird), painted the lyrebird from the British Museum specimen.\n"
] |
Is the graphical fidelity of games limited by computational power available currently or is it very difficult to make a realistic looking game?
|
It's both. You need a lot of data to represent all the realistic details, and that means either scanning them from real life objects (limited by scanner quality, issues with lighting, animation etc.), generating them procedurally (requires effort to make it look realistic), or creating them in the traditional ways (a lot of artists' work).
It's further complicated by the "uncanny valley" issue: the closer you get to the realistic looks, the more discrepancies you notice with the real life, making it look "just a bit off", while those discrepancies are usually overlooked with stylized visuals.
And as a game developer, I can say that when people want "realistic graphics" etc., they actually mean "like in a movie". And movies are not realistic, they use a lot of tricks to get a good looking picture, often fighting against realistic lighting etc.
|
[
"The computational complexity of a game describes the asymptotic difficulty of a game as it grows arbitrarily large, expressed in big O notation or as membership in a complexity class. This concept doesn't apply to particular games, but rather to games that have been generalized so they can be made arbitrarily large, typically by playing them on an \"n\"-by-\"n\" board. (From the point of view of computational complexity a game on a fixed size of board is a finite problem that can be solved in O(1), for example by a look-up table from positions to the best move in each position.)\n",
"It is generally difficult to compute precisely the worst-case and the average-case complexity. In addition, these exact values provide little practical application, as any change of computer or of model of computation would change the complexity somewhat. Moreover, the resource use is not critical for small values of , and this makes that, for small , the ease of implementation is generally more interesting than a good complexity.\n",
"Since 2005–06, human–computer chess matches have demonstrated that chess computers are capable of defeating even the strongest human players (Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov). However, ratings of computers are difficult to quantify. There have been too few games under tournament conditions to give computers or software engines an accurate rating. Also, for chess engines, the rating is dependent on the machine that the program runs on.\n",
"This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many more solitaire games that already exist and still more that are currently in production. This is somewhat surprising, given that such games theoretically should be easier to play on a computer. However, there is no substitute for the feel of the pieces and the view of the map provided in paper and chit games. In addition, the artificial intelligence in computer gaming is often lacking and not as challenging as a solitaire board game. This would should be counter intuitive, but nonetheless, it is often very true.\n",
"Over the last three decades both concepts have made a remarkable progress improving computational speed and image quality. However, some technical restraints like computation and storage capacity still burden digital holography, making potential real-time applications with current standard computer hardware almost impossible.\n",
"Another way to address complexity is to use a computer to automate some or all of the routine procedures. Video games can be both sophisticated and easy to learn, which is why computer wargames are more popular than tabletop wargames.\n",
"Although the optimal strategy of a game may not (yet) be known, a game-playing computer might still benefit from solutions of the game from certain endgame positions (in the form of endgame tablebases), which will allow it to play perfectly after some point in the game. Computer chess programs are well known for doing this.\n"
] |
Who really built the Kaaba in Mecca
|
There is no simple answer to this question, I'm afraid. As has already been posted on here, Islamic tradition - and the tradition at the center of the Haaj - states that it was a construction of the Prophet Abraham, who had traveled there to settle down with Hagar and Ishmael, although some stories even suggest it was a home for earlier Prophets, too. It's primary significance for a Muslim today, though - the events of the Islamic pilgrimage, or Hajj - are largely a reenactment of the events that are purported to have happened during the lifetime of Abraham, as well as the guidance of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
That Mecca was a holy site for quite some time before the coming of Islam is also known, and Islamic tradition itself recognizes this, too. It argues that the Arabs of the region had had their faith corrupted and had become polytheists, and the home of Abraham that had been built in Mecca - the Ka'ba - had become a shrine of veneration to the numerous Gods of the Arabian milieu. Mecca is therefore recorded as having become a holy place among the Arabs, a sanctuary (Arabic: *haram*) where the constant in-fighting and blood feuds that categorized ancient and late antique Arabia were not permitted to occur. This allowed trade to thrive, and it is argued that the worship of the many Arabian deities brought wealth to Mecca and the region.
Islamic traditions also says that once the Prophet Muhammad had established his new religion in the nearby town of Medina. After successfully gaining control of Mecca, he destroyed all of the idols of the Arabian deities that had been placed by the Arabs inside the Ka'ba. The site has been the location of pilgrimage ever since, although that pilgrimage has changed and developed over the near 1400 years since its establishment, of course! The [wikipedia page on the Ka'ba](_URL_4_) is actually quite good in helping to explain some of the events that surround the Islamic hajj, and is a really great starting point for better understanding why it is important to Muslims.
Aside from Islamic tradition, we do know that Mecca was a site of Arabian religion prior to the coming of Islam, and work has been done to reconstruct what Arab life would have been like in the region prior to Muhammad's revelation. Robert Hoyland's [*Arabia and the Arabs*](_URL_3_) is an excellent source of information for the pre-Islamic religious traditions if you want to know more. For a more basic introduction, Karen Armstrong's early chapters [here](_URL_6_) are foundational reading that includes much of the information I've mentioned.
There is also a very clear argument to be main *against* the Islamic tradition for the practical purpose of what became the Hajj. If we can say, for instance, that the Meccan economy was thriving because of its role as a center of religion, and/or if we can say that there were Arabs in the region who were committed to the ceremonies and religious practices that already existed in Mecca, it could have been a very shrewd political move for Muhammad. To incorporate already established religious rituals and traditions into his "new" religion would have provided a comfortable transition for those committed to the old ways, while ensuring the local elites remained in an area shielded from warfare and where pilgrims would continue to come and spend money.
As for specifics on the building itself, we don't have great or reliable details on the condition of the structure prior to the coming of Islam. Not much else can be said there. I've mentioned this in a previous post, but the Ka'ba has actually been raided, damaged, repaired, and significantly rebuilt many times just over the 1400 years since Islam's establishment. This has included combat in the second Islamic Civil war between the Caliph [Abd al-Malik b. Marwan](_URL_5_) and another claimant, [Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr](_URL_0_) where the structure was either completely reconstructed or damaged depending on reports, a raid by the [Qarmatians](_URL_7_) in the tenth century that saw the famed "black stone" stolen from Mecca temporarily, and subsequent damage a number of times in the Ottoman period. An excellent source for some of the building work that has taken place around the Ka'ba and the Mosque which was built to surround it - the Masjid al-Haram - can be found [here.](_URL_2_)
Lastly, I think it important to mention that the the way most people think the Ka'ba looks is from pictures which almost always include the special shroud which is created to cover it, known in Arabic as *kiswa*. The structure beneath the shroud is quite [plain](_URL_1_).
Edit: Clarity
|
[
"The \"Kaaba\", a cuboid structure located within the \"Masjid al-Ḥarām\" (\"Sacred Mosque\") in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, according to Islamic tradition was rebuilt by Ibrahim (Abraham) and his son Ismail (Ishmael), and is one of the holiest places in Islam. During his life the Prophet Muhammad laid the Black Stone in one of the corners of the building. Many millions of Muslims visit Mecca and the surrounding areas each year during a pilgrimage known as the \"Hajj\" – the fifth and final pillar of Islam – during which they circumambulate the Kaaba as part of the ritual.\n",
"According to Islamic tradition, the history of Mecca goes back to Abraham (Ibrahim), who built the Kaaba with the help of his elder son Ishmael in around 2000 BCE, when the inhabitants of the site then known as Bakkah had fallen away from the original monotheism of Abraham through the influence of the Amalekites.\n",
"The early history of Mecca is still largely disputed, as there are no unambiguous references to it in ancient literature prior to the rise of Islam. The Roman Empire took control of part of the Hejaz in 106 CE, ruling cities such as Hegra (now known as Mada'in Saleh), located to the north of Mecca. Even though detailed descriptions were established of Western Arabia by Rome, such as by Procopius, there are no references of a pilgrimage and trading outpost such as Mecca. The first direct mention of Mecca in external literature occurs in 741 CE, in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, though here the author places it in Mesopotamia rather than the Hejaz.\n",
"Bakkah ( ), according to Muslim scholars, is an ancient name for Mecca, the most holy city of Islam. Most people believe they are synonyms, but to Muslim scholars there is a distinction: Bakkah refers to the Kaaba and the sacred site immediately surrounding it, while Mecca is the name of the city in which they are both located.\n",
"The ancient or early name for the site of Mecca is \"Bakkah\" (, also transliterated Baca, Baka, Bakah, Bakka, Becca, Bekka, etc.). An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure. Widely believed to be a synonym for Mecca, it is said to be more specifically the early name for the valley located therein, while Muslim scholars generally use it to refer to the sacred area of the city that immediately surrounds and includes the \"Ka‘bah\" (, Kaaba). This form is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3:96, while the form Mecca is used in 48:24. In South Arabic, the language in use in the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad, the \"b\" and \"m\" were interchangeable. Other references to Mecca in the Quran (6:92, 42:5) call it \"Umm al-Qurā\" (), meaning \"Mother of All Settlements\"/\"mother of villages\". Another name of Mecca is \"Ṫihāmah\" ().\n",
"During the Hajj of 930 CE, the Qarmatians attacked Mecca, defiled the Zamzam Well with the bodies of pilgrims and stole the Black Stone, taking it to the oasis region of Eastern Arabia known as al-Aḥsāʾ, where it remained until the Abbasids ransomed it in 952 CE. The basic shape and structure of the \"Kaaba\" have not changed since then.\n",
"The Kaaba ( \"\" , \"The Cube\"), also referred to as \"al-Kaʿbah al-Musharrafah\" (, the Holy Ka'bah), is a building at the center of Islam's most important mosque, Great Mosque of Mecca (, The Sacred Mosque), in the Hejazi city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered by Muslims to be the \"Bayt Allāh\" (, \"House of God\"), and has a similar role to the Tabernacle and Holy of Holies in Judaism. Its location determines the \"qiblah\" (, direction of prayer). Wherever they are in the world, Muslims are expected to face the \"Kaaba\" when performing \"Salah\", the Islamic prayer.\n"
] |
when you mix the same quantity of cold and hot water in a bucket, is the result the average of the two temperatures?
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In a perfectly closed system with no loss of temperature to the air or buckets, yes. A 50 degree bucket and a 100 degree bucket will make a 75 degree double bucket.
In reality it will be slightly less than 75 as some heat is lost to the bucket and the air.
|
[
"Temperature is a quantity for which there is an absence of concatenation operations. We cannot pour a volume of water of temperature 40 °C into another bucket of water at 20 °C and expect to have a volume of water with a temperature of 60 °C. Temperature is therefore an \"intensive\" quantity.\n",
" The temperature and pressure at which ordinary solid, liquid, and gaseous water coexist in equilibrium is a triple point of water. Since 1954, this point had been used to define the base unit of temperature, the kelvin but, starting in 2019, the kelvin is now defined using the Boltzmann constant, rather than the triple point of water.\n",
"Numerical details are settled by making one of the heat reservoirs a cell at the triple point of water, which is defined to have an absolute temperature of 273.16 K. The zeroth law of thermodynamics allows this definition to be used to measure the absolute or thermodynamic temperature of an arbitrary body of interest, by making the other heat reservoir have the same temperature as the body of interest.\n",
"A report published in 2007 by the Consultative Committee for Thermometry to the CIPM noted that their current definition of temperature has proved to be unsatisfactory for temperatures below 20 K and for temperatures above 1300 K. The committee was of the view that the Boltzmann constant provided a better basis for temperature measurement than did the triple point of water, as it overcame these difficulties.\n",
"i.e. The ratio of heat exchanged is a function of the respective temperatures at which they occur. We can choose any monotonic function for our formula_12; it is a matter of convenience and convention that we choose formula_13. Choosing then \"one\" fixed reference temperature (i.e. triple point of water), we establish the thermodynamic temperature scale.\n",
"A report published in 2007 by the Consultative Committee for Thermometry (CCT) to the CIPM noted that their current definition of temperature has proved to be unsatisfactory for temperatures below and for temperatures above . The committee took the view that the Boltzmann constant provided a better basis for temperature measurement than did the triple point of water because it overcame these difficulties.\n",
"Relative thermal resistance is a measure of the energy required to mix water of two different temperatures (and thus different densities). Comparisons will be made against the differences in the density of water at 3.98 °C and 5 °C. (Wetzel 1983) Since this is a relative measure, there are no units involved.\n"
] |
what is the point of having the marine corps and the army separated?
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The missions of the Marine Corps and the Army are entirely different, those differences came out of design and necessity. The Marines are a department of the navy, operating as their own entity and are constantly defending why they exist.
The Marines are referred to as "America's expeditionary force in readiness", they are always forward deployed ready to go into hotspots around the world. Generally Marines are sent first to gain a foothold of beachheads, ingress routes, supply lines, etc. Following that same general thought process, again generally they're meant to get in and get out fast and then transfer authority to a much larger force, like the U.S. Army who can better maintain a protracted conflict. However that has not been the case in recent wars/ conflicts.
Also the Marines are the only force that be called upon to react to conflict and or go to war or really do anything without the authorization of congress, the President holds authority over the Marine Corps and can "send them in" at his own discretion.
Also the Air Force was born out of the Army and was originally the Army Air Corps and didn't become its own branch of service until 1947.
The Army is responsible for land based operations where the USMC is responsible to maritime operations... soldiers of the sea. Their mission is as follows, from wikipedia: The United States Army serves as the land-based branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. §3062 of Title 10 US Code defines the purpose of the army as:[8][9]
Preserving the peace and security and providing for the defense of the United States, the Commonwealths and possessions and any areas occupied by the United States
Supporting the national policies
Implementing the national objectives
Overcoming any nations responsible for aggressive acts that imperil the peace and security of the United States
Also can confirm stuff about Marines, am one.
|
[
"The existence of the Marine Corps as the independent service was in question in 1945–1947, because newly appointed President Harry S. Truman intended the reorganize the United States Armed Forces. Due to cuts in Marine Corps budget, the threat of merging in the United States Army was more realistic. Platt was meanwhile transferred to the Division of Plans and Policies at Headquarters Marine Corps under Brigadier General Gerald C. Thomas and was attached to the so-called \"Chowder Society\", special Marine Corps Board under general Thomas, which was tasked by Commandant Alexander Vandegrift to conduct research and prepare material relative to postwar legislation concerning the role of the Marine Corps in national defense.\n",
"In general, the Marine Corps shares many resources with the other branches of the United States Armed Forces. However, the Corps has consistently sought to maintain its own identity with regard to mission, funding, and assets, while utilizing support available from the larger branches. While the Marine Corps has far fewer installations both in the U.S. and worldwide than the other branches, many Army posts, Naval stations, and Air Force bases have a Marine presence. They also cross train with other countries.\n",
"Originally organized as the Continental Marines on November 10, 1775, as naval infantry, the Marine Corps has evolved in its mission with changing military doctrine and American foreign policy. The Marine Corps has participated in every American armed conflict including the Revolutionary War.\n",
"The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations with the United States Navy as well as the Army and Air Force. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the four armed service branches in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States.\n",
"Doctrinally, the Marine Corps's focus is on being expeditionary and independent, and places emphasis on amphibious mobility and combined arms; these make it a much lighter force than many units of the Army. However, the Army maintains much larger and diverse combat arms (infantry, armor, artillery, special operations), ground transport, and logistics, while the Marines have a more diverse aviation arm (which constitutes a larger percentage of forces), and is usually organic to the MAGTF. Marines operate as expeditionary units and are completely amphibious. The Marine Corps focus is on standardized infantry units with the other arms in support roles, as the \"Every Marine a rifleman\" creed shows. This commitment to standardized units can be seen in the short-lived experiment of the Marine Raiders. Widely known as the first American special operations unit, created during World War II (February 1941), was seen as controversial, due to the thought of ‘an elite unit, within an elite unit’ was not in the Marine Corps interest. While the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, also created in World War II (December 1941), enjoys high prestige to this day due to its continuous service. The Marine Corps, by the insistence of then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were to create the present day successors to the Marine Raiders and join them to Special Operations Command starting with the establishment of MCSOCOM Detachment One in 2003.\n",
"The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is currently the largest and only marine combined-arms force in the world. Created in 1775, it was originally intended only to guard naval vessels during the American Revolutionary War. While the USMC is a component part of the US Department of the Navy in the military command structure, it is a separate military branch from the United States Navy, with its own representative on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Corps’ major functions include: seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and ... land operations ... essential to ... a naval campaign, ... provid[ing] detachments and organizations for service on armed vessels of the Navy ... [and] security detachments for the protection of naval property at naval stations and bases ... and such other duties as the President may direct ... [and] develop[ing] ... those phases of amphibious operations that pertain to the tactics, technique, and equipment used by landing forces. It also conducts maritime boarding operations and operates its own aviation units mainly to provide air support to the rest of its forces. It also has other missions. These include, among others, providing personnel as security guards at US diplomatic missions throughout the world, and providing helicopter transportation for the President of the United States aboard Marine One. Its motto is \"Semper Fidelis\", which means \"always faithful\" in Latin.\n",
"In the majority of countries, the marine force is an integral part of the navy. The United States Marine Corps is a separate armed service within the United States Department of the Navy, with its own leadership structure.\n"
] |
why does it seem like the large majority of movies from the 80s were set in either chicago or illinois in general?
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John Hughes was arguably the 80s movie king, and he filmed most of his stuff in and around Chicago.
|
[
"Chicago became a leader in motion pictures with innovative trailblazers and an interested public. In 1907, Chicago had more theaters per capita than any other city in the United States. Nickelodeons or five-cent theaters became extremely popular with the number of venues growing each year until the Great Depression. These theaters quenched the public's thirst for film and created solid neighborhood relations.\n",
"Despite the transition from Chicago to Hollywood in the 1920s, Chicago remained on the map. Citizens retained an insatiable appetite for motion pictures, even though production had left the city. Chicago boasted the largest chain of theaters during the studio era (1919–1952). The Balaban and Katz chain, once small west-side exhibitors, bloomed their business into a citywide phenomena. Balaban and Katz owned movie and stage palaces such as the Chicago Theatre, Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, and Balaban and Katz Uptown Theatre. High-profile film companies such as MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, Republic, Universal, RKO, and Paramount all held offices in Chicago.\n",
"\"Hogtown\", his \"period-less\" American film, has been called \"the most original film made in Chicago about Chicago to date\" and named one of the 10 Best Films of 2016 by Ben Kenigsberg, who reviewed the film for The New York Times. Nearing was named the inaugural Filmmaker in Residence for the City of Chicago (Chicago Film Office, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events) and Chicagoan of the Year for Film (2016–17) by the Chicago Tribune.\n",
"In the early years of film New York City was characterized as urbane and sophisticated. By the city's crisis period in the 1970s, however, films like \"Midnight Cowboy\" (1969), \"The French Connection\" (1971), and \"Death Wish\" (1974) showed New York as full of chaos and violence. With the city's renaissance in the 1990s came new portrayals on television; \"Seinfeld\", \"Friends\", and \"Sex and the City\" showed life in the city to be glamorous and interesting. Nonetheless a disproportionate number of crime dramas, such as \"Law & Order\" and the \"Spider-Man\" film series, continue to use the city as their setting despite New York's status as the safest large city in the United States after plummeting crime rates over many years.\n",
"The setting of the film reflects a prevailing trend that Judge observed in the United States. \"It seems like every city now has these identical office parks with identical adjoining chain restaurants\", he said in an interview. \"There were a lot of people who wanted me to set this movie in Wall Street, or like the movie \"Brazil\", but I wanted it very unglamorous, the kind of bleak work situation like I was in\".\n",
"Much of the film was shot on location in and around Chicago between July and October 1979, including Joliet Correctional Center in nearby Joliet, Illinois and Wauconda, Illinois, where the car crashes into the side of Route 12. Made with the cooperation of Mayor Jane M. Byrne, it is credited for putting Chicago on the map as a venue for filmmaking. Nearly 200 movies have been filmed in Chicago. \"Chicago is one of the stars of the movie. We wrote it as a tribute\", Dan Aykroyd told the \"Chicago Sun-Times\" in an article written to mark the film's 25th-anniversary DVD release.\n",
"Director Norman Jewison wanted to film on location in Chicago, but found the city too modern for the film's setting: \"Chicago has some nice, old streets, but behind every one of them there’s a 70 story skyscraper,\" he said. Exteriors instead were shot in Milwaukee, where modern skyscrapers were less prevalent, during June and July of 1968. \n"
] |
How much value has been placed on humor by societies of the past? Has being funny always been considered such a positive trait as it is today?
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Rhetoric scholar here. Cicero and Quintillian wrote extensively about the persuasive use of humor, and at least some of Cicero's reputation as an an orator derived from his wit.
Roman jokes tend to seem [not too funny](_URL_0_) to contemporary taste, though.
|
[
"The style of humor that flourished in the United States during the latter half of the 19th century was shared by DeQuille, Artemus Ward, Orpheus C. Kerr, Petroleum V. Nasby, Major Jack Downing, and most notably Mark Twain. It has since been theorized that America's hunger for this type of humor sprang from a sort of national psychic need from the aftermath of the American Civil War, the grief over the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the hardships of industrial pioneering in the West.\n",
"According to this theory, humor has a pure biological origin, while its social functions arose later. This conclusion corresponds to the known fact that monkeys (as pointed out by Charles Darwin) and even rats (as found recently) possess a sense of humor.\n",
"Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller contends that, from an evolutionary perspective, humour would have had no survival value to early humans living in the savannas of Africa. He proposes that human characteristics like humor evolved by sexual selection. He argues that humour emerged as an indicator of other traits that were of survival value, such as human intelligence.\n",
"The concept of \"humors\" (i.e. chemical systems regulating human behaviour) became more prominent from the writing of medical theorist Alcmaeon of Croton (C. 540–500BC). His list of humours was longer than just four liquids and included fundamental elements described by Empedocles, such as water, air, earth, etc. Some authors suggest that the concept of \"humours\" may have origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine or Mesopotamia, though it was not systemized until ancient Greek thinkers.\n",
"The United States has many diverse groups from which to draw on for humorous material. The strongest of these influences, during the 20th century at least, has been the influx of Jewish comedians and their corresponding Jewish humor, including some of the most influential: The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Mason, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, and Lewis Black, just to name a few.\n",
"The concept of humorism was not \"definitively demolished\" until 1858. There were no studies performed to prove or disprove the impact of dysfunction in known bodily organs producing named fluids (humors) on temperament traits simply because the list of temperament traits were not defined up until the end of 20th century.\n",
"Even though the positive benefits of humor have been lauded by popular media and have found support among scientific research, the field of humor research also has received criticism. The scientific support for the physical benefits of humor are somewhat sparse, and the findings from the existing research have been called into question in some cases. Humor is assessed differently based on the theories which underpin the research, such as whether humor is a stable personality trait or not. Because of the non-standard measurements of humor in research, it is difficult to tell whether researchers are measuring the same thing across studies. Sense of humor, internal humor response, and laughter can all be targeted to measure humor, but are not necessarily interchangeable. Martin (2001) critiques several studies for not measuring laughter along with their self-report humor measures.\n"
] |
what keeps people who work at kfc/coca-cola from stealing a sample of their secret recipes, reverse engineering them, and then selling them?
|
Not a huge amount, really. We already pretty much know what's in these products (I mean, with Coke, you can basically just read the label). The difficulty is only getting the exact formulation and mixing right. For most people, the prohibitive part of that is not knowing how it's done - it's having access to the kind of production chain that can produce that product consistently and cheaply.
Nobody buys KFC because their recipe is so much better than anywhere else. They buy it because it's convenient and consistent. Stealing or even improving on the recipe isn't (relatively) difficult, but entering the market as a competitor is.
|
[
"A copy of the recipe, signed by Sanders, is held inside a safe inside a vault in KFC's Louisville headquarters, along with eleven vials containing the herbs and spices. To maintain the secrecy of the recipe, half of it is produced by Griffith Laboratories before it is given to McCormick, who add the second half.\n",
"A copy of the recipe, signed by Sanders, is held inside a safe inside a vault in KFC's Louisville headquarters, along with eleven vials containing the herbs and spices. To maintain the secrecy of the recipe, half of it is produced by Griffith Laboratories before it is given to McCormick, who add the second half.\n",
"In 1999, a couple who bought the house formerly occupied by Colonel Sanders found scribbled notes purported to be the secret recipe. Initially KFC wanted to file a lawsuit against the couple to stop an auction of the notes, but by early 2001, it dropped the lawsuit, claiming the scribbled notes are \"nowhere close\" to the original recipe.\n",
"The company has developed an exclusive method of food analysis, testing and authentication that has thwarted the counterfeiting of food goods, and also cigars. The company's testing can also detect food contaminants.\n",
"Chefs provide the producers with shopping lists for each of the possible secret ingredients. Consequently, they can surmise what the secret ingredient will be just before it is officially revealed, based on which of their items were purchased.\n",
"BULLET::::- Copy-the-instructions: e.g. make a copy of the soup recipe. This is less error prone since the important elements of the soup are identified and the synthetic method explained. Any errors in using the recipe will not be passed on to future copiers since they will receive the recipe itself.\n",
"Investigations jointly held by both the Chinese and Japanese governments cleared the Chinese company of responsibility after finding no traces of any poison in the raw material used nor in the factory.\n"
] |
Nomadic animals
|
Migratory describes species which regularly return to the same spot at a particular point in time. Examples (as you noted) are most frequently birds, but also many marine mammals (humpback whales for example) and sea turtles. These species usually move to foraging areas in one part of the world where food is abundant, then migrate to breeding grounds (which are often warmer, which increases offspring survival rates).
Nomadic animals generally have no fixed point to return to. I notice on the wiki for black swans that they nomadic within Australia - This strategy has likely evolved because unpredictable weather means they cannot have a fixed breeding ground - they just have to go wherever conditions are suitable.
Another example I can think of is army ants (for example *Echiton burchellii*), the food source of these ants is ephemeral as they voraciously forage in whatever area their nest is in. After removing all available forage, they then move to a different site. They have no particular fixed area to return to - they just need to move when the food supply has been exhausted. They can do this easily as their nest is a 'bivouac' formed of their own bodies.
|
[
"Nomads keep moving for different reasons. Nomadic foragers move in search of game, edible plants, and water. Australian Aborigines, Negritos of Southeast Asia, and San of Africa, for example, traditionally move from camp to camp to hunt and gather wild plants. Some tribes of the Americas followed this way of life. Pastoral nomads make their living raising livestock such as camels, cattle, goats, horses, sheep or yaks; the Gaddi tribe of Himachal Pradesh in India is one such tribe. These nomads travel to find more camels, goats and sheep through the deserts of Arabia and northern Africa. The Fulani and their cattle travel through the grasslands of Niger in western Africa. Some nomadic peoples, especially herders, may also move to raid settled communities or to avoid enemies. Nomadic craftworkers and merchants travel to find and serve customers. They include the Lohar blacksmiths of India, the Romani traders, and the Irish Travellers.\n",
"Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism when livestock are herded in order to find fresh pastures on which to graze. Strictly speaking, true nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance where seasonal pastures are fixed. However this distinction is often not observed and the term nomad used for both—in historical cases the regularity of movements is often unknown in any case. The herded livestock include cattle, yaks, llamas, sheep, goats, reindeer, horses, donkeys or camels, or mixtures of species. Nomadic pastoralism is commonly practised in regions with little arable land, typically in the developing world, especially in the steppe lands north of the agricultural zone of Eurasia. Of the estimated 30–40 million nomadic pastoralists worldwide, most are found in central Asia and the Sahel region of North and West Africa, such as Fulani, Tuaregs, and Toubou, with some also in the Middle East, such as traditionally Bedouins, and in other parts of Africa, such as Nigeria and Somalia. Increasing numbers of stock may lead to overgrazing of the area and desertification if lands are not allowed to fully recover between one grazing period and the next. Increased enclosure and fencing of land has reduced the amount of land available for this practice. There is substantive uncertainty over the extent to which the various causes for degradation affect grassland. Different causes have been identified which include overgrazing, mining, agricultural reclamation, pests and rodents, soil properties, tectonic activity, and climate change. Simultaneously, it is maintained that some, such as overgrazing and overstocking, may be overstated while others, such as climate change, mining and agricultural reclamation, may be under reported. In this context, there is also uncertainty as to the long term effect of human behavior on the grassland as compared to non-biotic factors.\n",
"Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.\n",
"Nomadic pastoralists have a global food-producing strategy depending on the management of herd animals for meat, skin, wool, milk, blood, manure, and transport. Nomadic pastoralism is practiced in different climates and environments with daily movement and seasonal migration. Pastoralists are among the most flexible populations. Pastoralist societies have had field armed men protect their livestock and their people and then to return into a disorganized pattern of foraging. The products of the herd animals are the most important resources, although the use of other resources, including domesticated and wild plants, hunted animals, and goods accessible in a market economy are not excluded. The boundaries between states impact the viability of subsistence and trade relations with cultivators.\n",
"Solitary animals defend a territory and avoid social interactions with the members of its species, except during breeding season. This is to avoid resource competition, as two individuals of the same species would occupy the same niche, and to prevent depletion of food. A solitary animal, while foraging, can also be less conspicuous to predators or prey.\n",
"Nomadic foragers establish only temporary resting sites and make frequent moves from one patch to another. The forest tent caterpillar, \"Malacosoma disstria\" and the spiny elm caterpillar, \"Nymphalis antiopa\" are nomadic foragers.\n",
"Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the secondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat (\"on the hoof\") also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.\n"
] |
how do manufacturers get the little "pop/freshness seal bubble" on the tops of jars to stay down?
|
You can. /r/canning
You boil what is inside so the steam pushes out all the atmospheric gasses. Then when the can cools the water vapor condenses (mostly) back to water and leaves a vacuum.
|
[
"Jars of food items soon started appearing with a metal bubble-top lid, commonly known as a \"safety button\", which—like the lid of a Mason jar—popped out if the jar had ever been opened and stayed flat if the jar was in pristine condition. Customers were advised to never buy a product with a popped lid. (These lids would also pop out if the jar was contaminated by gas-producing bacteria, which was an additional safety feature.) Presumably the seal was achieved by packaging the jars in a low-pressure atmosphere, although companies were reluctant to divulge details.\n",
"This seal is extremely important to the safe preservation of the food product. That is why most preserved screw-top food products use a domed metal cover that emits an audible popping sound as the container is opened. The dome is held down by the vacuum seal and will not make a popping sound when the cover is pressed on a properly sealed container.\n",
"Blow-Fill-Seal (BFS) technology is a manufacturing technique used to produce small, (0.1mL) and large volume, (500mL +) liquid-filled containers. Originally developed in Europe in the 1930s, it was introduced in the United States in the 1960s, but over the last 20 years it has become more prevalent within the pharmaceutical industry and is now widely considered to be the superior form of aseptic processing by various medicine regulatory agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the packaging of pharmaceutical and healthcare products. \n",
"BULLET::::- In home canning, food is packed into a jar, and the steel lid is placed on top of the jar with the integral rubber seal resting on the rim of the jar. The band is screwed loosely over the lid, which will allow air and steam to escape. By far, though, the most popular form of seal was the screw-on zinc cap, the precursor to today's screw-on lids. The earliest glass jars were called wax sealers, because they used sealing wax, which was poured into a channel around the lip that held on a tin lid. The earliest successful application of this was discovered by John Landis Mason and patented on November 30, 1858, a date embossed on millions of jars for food preservation and pickling.\n",
"The container of the Bubblers is similar to the construction of a gas washing bottle and used for the protected storage of metalorganic compounds to exclude air (oxygen, moisture). The bubbler has a supply pipe and a sampling tube. The inlet tube ends just before the bottom of the tube. In this tube, an inert gas is introduced, which bubbles through the liquid chemical; a solid chemical will sublime. The mixture of the controlled inert gas and the vaporized chemical leaves the cylinder into a downstream reaction vessel. The temperature is controlled by a thermostat, so that a defined, constant steam pressure can be achieved. The supply of the often expensive and sensitive chemical is controlled by the regulated flow of inert gas and the temperature of the bubbler, resulting in a given vapor pressure of the chemical.\n",
"Blow-fill-seal technology reduces personnel intervention making it a more robust method for the aseptic preparation of sterile pharmaceuticals. BFS is used for the filling of vials for parenteral preparations and infusions, eye drops, and inhalation products. Generally the plastic containers are made up of polyethylene and polypropylene. Polypropylene is more commonly used to form containers which are further sterilised by autoclaving as polypropylene has greater thermostability.\n",
"Single chamber sealers require the entire product to be placed within the machine. Like external sealers, a plastic bag is typically used for packaging. Once the product is placed in the machine, the lid is closed and air is removed. Then, there is a heat seal inside the chamber that will seal the bag, after sealing the bag the chamber is refilled with air by the automatic opening of a vent to the outside. This oncoming pressure squeezes all remaining air in the bag. The lid is then opened and the product removed. Chamber sealers are typically used for low-to-medium-volume packaging. This style of vacuum machine is also capable of sealing liquids due to equal pressure in the chamber and the bag eliminating the risk of the liquid being sucked out of the open edge of the bag.\n"
] |
I am a typical peasant farmer in western Europe in the 16th century. Where do I get my drinking water from and how safe is it?
|
There's always room for discussion, but perhaps the sections [Drinking Water](_URL_1_) and [Beer](_URL_0_) from our FAQ will answer your inquiry.
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[
"In the 14th century Goslar was one of the very few towns that was able to provide all domestic properties with a water main system using wooden pipes, so that the kitchens were equipped with running water and the townsfolk did not have to collect water from a well.\n",
"Also noticeable was the planned network of water, called Bächle, in 1170, to provide water to the Altstadt in the streets, whose water comes from the Dreisam and was used to supply industrial and cleaning water in the Middle Ages, which also served as available means to extinguish fires. Drinking water was supplied to the town by wooden pipes called (Deicheln, in Freiburg Deichele) from sources above the city and was accessible from fountains. Runzgenossenschaften, or canal cooperatives, were formed to manage and maintain the watercourses in the city, such as the Bächle and Runzen (canals) for trade operation (such as tannery, pellet grinding, etc.).\n",
"For obtaining drinking water, wealthier Parisians usually had wells in their residences, often in the basement. For ordinary Parisians, it was much more difficult. The water of the Seine had been polluted since the Middle Ages by the discharge of human and animal waste, the dumping of chemicals by the tanneries, and by the decomposition of bodies in the many cemeteries not far from the river. In the 18th century the Lieutenant General of Police banned taking drinking water from between the present Quai des Celestins and the modern quai de Louvre. Average Parisians depended upon the fountains around city, which were not numerous, did not run at night, were crowded, and required a payment for each bucket taken. Parisians either collected water themselves, sent a servant, or depended upon water bearers, men who carried covered buckets of water or rolled large barrels on wheels to the residence and charged a fee for the service. There were frequent fights at public fountains between water bearers and domestic servants, and water bearers were known to avoid paying the fee at fountains by simply taking the water from the Seine. In the 18th century, a few enterprising Parisians dug Artesian wells; one well at the École Militaire sent a jet of water eight to ten meters into the air; but the artesian well water was hot and had a poor taste. In 1776, the Perrier brothers started a business delivering three million liters a water a day using steam-powered pumps at Chaillot and Gros-Caillou. Facing the organized hostility of the water bearers, the company went bankrupt in 1788 and was taken over by the city. The water supply problem was not resolved until the First Empire, when Napoleon commissioned a canal from the Ourcq River.\n",
"Also in the 18th century, a supply of drinking water was created by diverting water from the reservoir. In 1823, the last prince of Condé had eighteen fountains installed for the use of residents. In 1895 these were replaced with a supply from a water treatment plant in the neighboring village of Lamorlaye. This brought in water from Chantilly, Lamorlaye and Boran-sur-Oise then distributed the treated water through two water towers on the Mont de Pô in Gouvieux. This water supply has been managed by the private company since 1928. In 1999 the average price of a cubic meter of water was 3.25 euros.\n",
"In the Middle Ages, the water of the Seine was polluted with waste from butchers, tanners, decomposing corpses in cemeteries, and animal and human waste. Wealthy Parisians, the monasteries, and the royal palace had their own wells, usually in the basements of the their buildings. Ordinary Parisians took their water from one of the three city public fountains that existed in 1292 or paid one of the fifty-five water porters registered in that year to carry water from the fountains to their residence. Many Parisians took the risk and drank the water from the river. \n",
"Until the 1950s, water was carried by hand from the local wells. Buckets of water were carried a few miles by the local children for washing and drinking purposes. The most famous of these wells was known as \"Crennans well\" which produced a very high quality of drinking water. The miners small three roomed cottages which could be homes to ten plus people were thatched with rushes or reeds from the local area, sanitation did not exist, transport to Mass shopping and visiting was either by foot or by horse/donkey or \"jennit\" and cart.\n",
"Agriculture in Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all forms of farm production in the modern boundaries of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Britain in the fifth century and the establishment of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. Scotland has between a fifth and a sixth of the amount of the arable or good pastoral land of England and Wales, mostly located in the south and east. Heavy rainfall encouraged the spread of acidic blanket peat bog, which with wind and salt spray, made most of the western islands treeless. The existence of hills, mountains, quicksands and marshes made internal communication and agriculture difficult. Most farms had to produce a self-sufficient diet of meat, dairy products and cereals, supplemented by hunter-gathering. The early Middle Ages were a period of climate deterioration resulting in more land becoming unproductive. Farming was based around a single homestead or a small cluster of three or four homes, each probably containing a nuclear family and cattle were the most important domesticated animal.\n"
] |
how do teeth know how to grow in the pattern so they fit together when you bite down?
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They don't "know". Your body starts out with some stem cells. These are basically cells without an assigned function. They don't know where to go and what to do yet. They just divide. When your cells divide functions do get assigned to the new cells that form. This is done based on what it says in your DNA, which is basically a script. It'll tell a cell "you are part of the eye" or in this case "you are part of the jaw that's responsible for growing a tooth".
So the cell now knows where to go and what it's supposed to do. There is a rough pattern, but nothing like your actual teeth. While growing and through movement of your mouth pressure will be placed on each seperate tooth causing it to move. Not immediately, but like with braces this is a gradual process. The one tooth pushes the other to the side to make room, etc.
This isn't an overnight thing. Over many, many years the script (your DNA) has been refined enough to get to the point where we are now, with teeth sort of in a usefull position. But it's not hard to imagine that the first humans with teeth had horrible teeth with all sorts of issues, like soft enamel or issues like falling out because of a badly written script that left a lot of room for interpretation.
Teeth are still not perfect though. Many people have issues that influence how their teeth grow. Wisdom teeth for example are something that will probably dissapear at some point. They serve no function and often cause infections.
|
[
"The curve or bend may occur anywhere along the length of the tooth, sometimes at the cervical portion, at other times midway along the root or even just at the apex of the root, depending upon the amount of root formed when the injury occurred.\n",
"The mouth is unique, in that the teeth are well secured to the bone ends but come through epithelium (mucosa). A leg or wrist, for instance, has no such structure to help with a closed reduction. In addition, when the fracture happens to be in a tooth bearing area of the jaws, aligning the teeth well usually results in alignment of the fracture segments.\n",
"Since there are a standard number of teeth in humans, the size of the dental arch is of vital importance in determining how the teeth are positioned when they appear. While the arch can expand as a child grows, a small arch will force the teeth to grow close together. This can result in overlapping and improperly positioned teeth. Teeth may tilt at an awkward angle, putting pressure on gums when food is being chewed. This can ultimately lead to compromised gums or infections.\n",
"There is no universally accepted treatment strategy, but, generally, treatments aim to prevent movement of the segments of the involved tooth so they do not move or flex independently during biting and grinding and so the crack is not propagated. \n",
"Secondary dentin is formed after root formation is finished and occurs at a much slower rate. It is not formed at a uniform rate along the tooth, but instead forms faster along sections closer to the crown of a tooth. This development continues throughout life and accounts for the smaller areas of pulp found in older individuals.\n",
"If teeth come together in a non-ideal bite the researchers state that this would create further stress in areas on the teeth. Teeth that come together too soon or come under more load than they are designed for could lead to abfraction lesions. The impacts of restorations on the chewing surfaces of the teeth being the incorrect height has also been raised as another factor adding to the stress at the CEJ.\n",
"BULLET::::- Bruxism: When people grind their teeth, or brux, they wear away tooth structure, shortening their teeth. As a result, the upper teeth super-erupt, meaning they move down to come into contact with the lower teeth, bringing the gum tissue with them.\n"
] |
How did US gov't mints turn mined ore into coins?
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This also involves the Carson City federal mint in Nevada (drawing on the famed Comstock Lode), established in 1869. These mints purchased bullion, either directly from major mines or from banks, which purchased bullion from the market (including from smaller producers). Although the mints were capable of refining the bullion, they often acquired precious metal that required nothing or little more than assay work to make certain the bullion met the purity standard required for a US coin. The rest is a matter of transforming ingots into round blanks, which is merely an industrial process involving heat, rollers, and cutting followed by the actual stamping of the mint press.
|
[
"The mint produced coins from 1838 until 1861, when Confederate forces occupied the building and used it briefly as their own coinage facility until it was recaptured by Union forces the following year.\n",
"After the establishment of the Territory of Oregon, the mint producing the coins became an entirely private enterprise continuing its operations until Governor Joseph Lane ruled the operation unconstitutional in September 1849. (Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution declares the mintage of coins to be one of the enumerated powers of the Congress.) The opening of the United States Mint branch in San Francisco, California made a large supply of gold and silver U.S. currency available, playing a part in the demise of the \"Beaver Coins\". \n",
"Mining stopped in the South Pit mine in September 1996 and the North Pit shut down in November 1999. Ore processing finished on December 3, 1999. The Confederate States Mint struck commemorative gold, silver and bronze coins with metal from the mine and sold them to the general public. The coins were marketed as wholly South Carolina gold and featured a local building used by the Confederate army during the American Civil War. The Ridgeway Mining Company also commissioned the Confederate States Mint to mint a coin out of the mine's gold and silver which it gave to the mine employees as gifts.\n",
"In 1835, Andrew Jackson signed into law a bill to open three branch mints: in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Dahlonega, Georgia, for minting gold coinage, and in New Orleans, Louisiana. The ones in Charlotte and Dahlonega were to mint the newly discovered gold.\n",
"In 1835, Congress had authorized branch mints at Charlotte, North Carolina, Dahlonega, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana, to strike into American coin the gold being mined in or entering the country through the South. Despite the rich gold deposits nearby, both Charlotte and Dahlonega were in areas lacking men with technical training; accordingly trained personnel would have to be sent from Philadelphia. New buildings were to be constructed. In August 1837, Mint Director Patterson received word of problems at both sites, including a partial collapse of the Dahlonega building. He wrote to Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury, proposing \"to send, to both the Gold mints, a confidential & skillful person, who may ... give instructions as to correcting the errors, that have been committed ... I know of no one competent to this task, except our Melter & Refiner, Mr. Peale.\" Woodbury agreed, informing Patterson, \"you are authorized to send Mr. Peak.\"\n",
"The United States Mint built a branch mint there, which it operated from 1838 to 1861. The Dahlonega Mint, like the one established in 1838 in Charlotte, North Carolina, only minted gold coins, in denominations of $1.00, $2.50 (quarter eagle), $3.00 (1854 only) and $5.00 (half eagle). It was cost effective in consideration of the economics, time, and risk of shipping gold to the main mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Dahlonega Mint was a small operation, usually accounting for only a small fraction of the gold coinage minted annually in the US.\n",
"Section 201 amended legislation regarding the San Francisco Assay Office to allow coins to be minted there (as they previously were when it was the San Francisco Mint) until such time as the secretary certified that the mints of the United States were able to strike sufficient coins to meet the needs of the nation. It also repealed a provision of law not allowing gold or silver to be refined at the San Francisco facility. Section 202 increased the amount appropriated to expand Mint facilities (including the construction of the new Philadelphia Mint) from $30 million to $45 million. Section 9 of the Gold Standard Act of 1900 had required the Treasury Secretary to melt silver coins that were worn or no longer current, and restrike them into new ones; this was repealed by section 203 and the secretary was given authority to withdraw and melt all worn or uncurrent coins without needing to reuse the metal in coinage.\n"
] |
why doesn’t isopropyl alcohol damage electronics? are there other liquids that also don’t do damage to electrical components?
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it's neither corrosive nor conductive, so it doesn't dissolve or short anything. it also evaporates at low temperatures, so cleanup is a nonissue
candle wax shares the first 2 properties, but not the 3rd. this means letting a candle drip into your PC won't destroy it, but requires careful cleaning as it traps heat
|
[
"To prevent corrosion the fuel system must be made of suitable materials, electrical wires must be properly insulated and the fuel level sensor must be of pulse and hold type, magneto resistive or other similar non-contact type. In addition, high quality alcohol should have a low concentration of contaminants and have a suitable corrosion inhibitor added. Scientific evidence reveals that also water is an inhibitor for corrosion by ethanol.\n",
"Methanol and ethanol fuels contain soluble and insoluble contaminants. Halide ions, which are soluble contaminants, such as chloride ions, have a large effect on the corrosivity of alcohol fuels. Halide ions increase corrosion in two ways: they chemically attack passivating oxide films on several metals causing pitting corrosion, and they increase the conductivity of the fuel. Increased electrical conductivity promotes electrical, galvanic and ordinary corrosion in the fuel system. Soluble contaminants such as aluminum hydroxide, itself a product of corrosion by halide ions, clogs the fuel system over time.\n",
"Isopropyl alcohol is commonly used for cleaning eyeglasses, electrical contacts, audio or video tape heads, DVD and other optical disc lenses, removing thermal paste from heatsinks on CPUs and other IC packages, etc.\n",
"Hydrogen peroxide should be stored in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area and away from any flammable or combustible substances. It should be stored in a container composed of non-reactive materials such as stainless steel or glass (other materials including some plastics and aluminium alloys may also be suitable). Because it breaks down quickly when exposed to light, it should be stored in an opaque container, and pharmaceutical formulations typically come in brown bottles that block light.\n",
"Historically hydrogen peroxide was used for disinfecting wounds, partly because of its low cost and prompt availability compared to other antiseptics. It is now thought to inhibit healing and to induce scarring because it destroys newly formed skin cells. Only a very low concentration of HO can induce healing, and only if not repeatedly applied. Surgical use can lead to gas embolism formation. Despite this, it is still used for wound treatment in many countries but is also prevalent as a major first aid antiseptic in the United States.\n",
"Isopropyl alcohol is miscible in water, ethanol, ether, and chloroform. It dissolves ethyl cellulose, polyvinyl butyral, many oils, alkaloids, gums and natural resins. Unlike ethanol or methanol, isopropyl alcohol is not miscible with salt solutions and can be separated from aqueous solutions by adding a salt such as sodium chloride. The process is colloquially called \"salting out\", and causes concentrated isopropyl alcohol to separate into a distinct layer.\n",
"Isopropyl alcohol dissolves a wide range of non-polar compounds. It also evaporates quickly, leaves nearly zero oil traces, compared to ethanol, and is relatively non-toxic, compared to alternative solvents. Thus, it is used widely as a solvent and as a cleaning fluid, especially for dissolving oils. Together with ethanol, n-butanol, and methanol, it belongs to the group of alcohol solvents, about 6.4 million tonnes of which were used worldwide in 2011.\n"
] |
When is a rock's birthday? At what point in it's formation does a rock become a rock?
|
That's a fun question.
Let me distinguish between 2 things: the date when some geological material becomes a rock vs the date when a rock becomes "the specific rock it is".
The answer plays into the general classification of rocks classes [sedimentary, igneous & metamorphic].
**Sedimentary rocks** start from loose sediment, sand, gravel, mud and similar materials. When buried, sediments undergo a process called ["diagenesis"](_URL_1_), where they undergo a series of changes where compaction and the precipitation of minerals (termed "cement") such as carbonates, clays and quartz will bind together these loose particles into a cohesive whole. This is usually a gradual process where you will not be able to easily pinpoint a specific date/year where you may affirm "today, this is now a rock". There are exceptions where the process can be quite rapid, say the formation of beachrock which can happen in decades, but usually you are waiting for a gradual process which operates at the pace of millenia.
**Igneous rocks** are figuratively simple to understand, as they form from the cooling of molten material [lava or magma]. Smaller bodies cool off quicker and might in some cases be said to have a precise date of formation [for instance, the Vesuvius ash flow of the 24^th of August 79 AD], while larger ones may take years or even millenia to cool off and completely solidify. Heat loss is a process controlled by the ratio of surface to volume, so while a magma body of about 1 cubic km might take a few years to cool off, another one of several million cubic kilometers might take a few millenia. The latter might have the opportunity to undergo a process called ["fractional crystallisation"](_URL_0_), whereby minerals precipitate in a certain order and separate from the remaining melt by gravity, either floating to the top [e.g.: anorthosite] or sinking to the bottom [e.g. olivine cumulates] - the process is not completely unlike a salad dressing unmixing.
But then there are **metamorphic rocks**. These guys start as rocks, but they usually progressively change their composition and features as they re-equilibrate to match the pressure and temperature stability conditions of their environment, as they are either buried or exhumed. Thus, a rather banal clay stone made up of an assemblage of clay minerals, quartz & feldspar, might as it is progressively buried deeper change it's mineral composition to a muscovite-garnet shist, then a cordierite-garnet shist , then a quartz-K-spar-biotite-sillimanite shist before reaching temperatures where it starts turning to liquid again.
Thus, when studying metamorphic rocks, one is always concerned with 2 "birthdates": the first one being the time when this lump of geological material first became a rock [termed "protolith"], and the time where the rock reached it's current state. Rocks being not unlike books, metamorphic rocks will often preserve quite a bit of the history of the various changes they underwent as they transitionned from their protolith to their final current state [see [P-T-t-path](_URL_2_)], and are great sources of information that way.
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[
"The oldest dated rocks on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that have not been subsequently broken down by erosion or melted, are more than 4 billion years old, formed during the Hadean Eon of Earth's geological history. Such rocks are exposed on the Earth's surface in very few places. \n",
"Although there have been conflicting reports in the past, the most recent evidence is that the rock was laid down very late in the Famennian stage of the Devonian period. This makes the rock about 365 to 358.9 million years old.\n",
"The oldest rocks dates back to 155 million years ago during the Kimmeridgian era in the area what is now the east of the rise, around 131 to 128 million years ago, the seamounts of Maio and Santiago were formed, at the time they were closer to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The spreading rate was slow and moved a centimeter a year.\n",
"The fourth and the youngest type of rocks is sand and gravel. It is found along the beaches. Once again it has been created by the action of waves and rain that cause erosion of the others type of rocks. The age of this kind of rocks varies from ten thousand years ago up to the present day.\n",
"The rock's age has been estimated since 1980 to be approximately 3.97 ± 0.25 billion years. The rock was highly shocked at some point in its history, as indicated by the fact that most of the rock's plagioclase content was converted to maskelynite and/or plagioclase glass.\n",
"The oldest rocks are hard, grey, often shelly, carboniferous limestones. These were laid down in a warm, shallow sea during the early part of the Carboniferous Period when Wales it is generally held traversed the equator. Inter-continental drift and earthquakes folded and fractured the earth's crust, and during the next 100 million years the rocks suffered extensive erosion. The movements left the upfolded carboniferous limestones as high ground, the slopes and cliffs of the Vale of Glamorgan.\n",
"The rock is said to be one of the oldest formations in the world. It is 3.8 billion years old, making it as old as the rocks in Greenland and older than the Himalayas. Quartz, used in glass making, and feldspar, used in ceramics, are found in this rock formation.\n"
] |
Around 1975, almost every major progressive rock band "sold out" and started producing more radio friendly material. Why did this happen?
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Your question is unanswerable because its central premise is flawed.
With Genesis, the change is easily explained - Peter Gabriel left as bandleader, Phil Collins took over. Phil Collins has a different style and sensibility, so naturally their work reflected that.
Rush released their first record in 1974, so to say that they "sold out" around 1975 is pretty ridiculous; what else do you have to compare it to? And in what universe is that material more radio friendly? As the 70's wore on, their songs became longer and longer and incorporated more and more synthesized elements and odd time signatures.
For Camel, you get an orchestral concept album in 1975, which again goes against your conceit. And their material became more jazz-influenced, which in the late 70s isn't exactly a big seller. You might as well say that Steely Dan was getting more commercial with Aja, or that Joni Mitchell was getting more commercial with The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
If you could provide more examples we could possibly answer your question, but as it stands your question is based on a flawed premise. As bands go on, they tend to get better at what they do and often have access to better technology due to bigger budgets and improved recording technology; oftentimes this can give the illusion of "more commercial" when compared to earlier work, when it really just means "played better, recorded better, in better facilities". Most of the time, though, "My favorite band sold out!" translates to "I liked the way they sounded before."
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[
"The idea of rock music as a serious art form started in the late 1960s and was the dominant view of the genre at the time of new wave's arrival. New wave looked back or borrowed in various ways from the years just prior to this occurrence. One way this was done was by taking an ironic look at consumer and pop culture of the 1950s and early 1960s. The B-52's became most noted for a kitsch and camp presentation with their bouffant wigs, beach party and sci-fi movie references. Other groups that referenced the pre-progressive rock era were the Go-Go's, Blondie and Devo.\n",
"Unfortunately the mid-1970s was not a good time for rehearsal-intensive progressive rock. The music industry was being taken over by punk rock and disco to the point where even well-established rock acts were being dropped from their labels. Despite their well-honed local reputation, Glass was not offered a contract by any of the dozens of labels they approached on the West Coast and in New York City. Two members even undertook a trip to London in the summer of 1975 to speak with industry representatives in the birthplace of progressive rock, but if anything the economic and musical depression was even worse in England.\n",
"Progressive rock (also known as art rock) was ushered in the 1970s, directly following the combination of classical grandiosity and pop experimentalism from the 1960s. Although it reached widespread popularity, from 1976 onward, the genre declined in sales and was played with less frequency on FM radio. According to Breithaupt and Breithaupt, this created a vacuum for \"a host of new, milder 'serious' bands, whose humor (Queen), pop smarts (Supertramp), and style (Roxy Music, mach two) would ensure their survival into the eighties. ... they met the melodic requirements of AM radio while still producing thoughtful, original work.\" Bands like Queen and ELO played a type of progressive pop that was grounded in prog-rock without compromising their chart success.\n",
"A third wave of progressive rock bands, who can also be described as a second generation of neo-progressive bands, emerged in the 1990s. The use of the term \"progressive\" to describe groups that follow in the style of bands from ten to twenty years earlier is somewhat controversial, as it has been seen as a contradiction of the spirit of experimentation and progress. These new bands were aided in part by the availability of personal computer-based recording studios, which reduced album production expenses, and the Internet, which made it easier for bands outside of the mainstream to reach widespread audiences. Record stores specialising in progressive rock appeared in large cities.\n",
"Political and social trends of the late 1970s shifted away from the early 1970s hippie attitudes that had led to the genre's development and popularity. The rise in punk cynicism made the utopian ideals expressed in progressive rock lyrics unfashionable. Virtuosity was rejected, as the expense of purchasing quality instruments and the time investment of learning to play them were seen as barriers to rock's energy and immediacy. There were also changes in the music industry, as record companies disappeared and merged into large media conglomerates. Promoting and developing experimental music was not part of the marketing strategy for these large corporations, who focused their attention on identifying and targeting profitable market niches.\n",
"Ever since the evolution of radios and television gave us the ability to project music, sports, news, etcetera, the world has been able to tune in to what is happening halfway across the world from their location. The 1950s boomed with increases in income, scientific and medical increases, entertainment, and a tremendous media increase starting with the portable radio. After World War II, couples who had put off having children either before or during the war finally had the chance to start a family and live normal lives. Hence, the baby boom initiated the start of a very busy decade. After the first portable radio came out, media rapidly increased. People could advertise themselves to people all around the country and even to people driving in their cars. This media evolution gave birth to a whole new way of living for the generations to come and for the first time ever there was a generation gap. Media was reaching everyone and molding people's lives like never before. Anyone could access comical, frightening, romantic, or sarcastic information, movies, music and so on with the click of a button. A rise in juvenile delinquency was one of the main causes of the baby boom and media increase. Teenagers could access more information at their age than any other generation. As a result, teenagers witnessed crime, murder, stealing, cheating, lying, and so on to be \"cool\" like how they saw in the media. This led to a high rise in juvenile delinquency because more children and teens were implanted with the thought that carrying out bad actions was okay. Lead has also been linked to juvenile delinquency , it was added to gasoline from the 1920s through 1979, however it was not widely understood to be neurologically harmful in minute amounts until the 1950s. For further information on this topic, and more, please see the references below or the juvenile delinquency page.\n",
"In September 1988, \"Billboard\" launched their Modern Rock chart. While the acts on the chart reflected a wide variety of stylistic influences, new wave's legacy remained in the large influx of acts from Great Britain and acts that were popular in rock discos, as well as the chart's name, which reflected how new wave had been marketed as \"modern\". New wave's indie spirit would be crucial to the development of college rock and grunge/alternative rock in the latter half of the 1980s and beyond.\n"
] |
There were ancient Pacific Islanders- were there Atlantic Islanders? What happened to them?
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In the north, the Irish and then the Norse settled the Faeroes before the Norse jumped off to Iceland, Greenland, and (briefly) the coast of North America.
In the south, the Canary Islands were inhabited by the Guanches, who were present on the islands around 1000 BC and were originally from North Africa. (Although about half of the current Canarian population's DNA is Guanche, the culture and language have been largely extinct for centuries.)
The Guanches were reliant on stone tools when encountered by the Portuguese in the 15th century. They lacked metals and had no remaining tradition of navigation; the Canaries have strong currents and trade winds, so smaller vessels would have been death traps. As a result, the Guanches never expanded west or north into the rest of the islands in that region (Cape Verde, the Azores, Madeira, collectively known as "Macaronesia"); they were uninhabited when the Portuguese explored them, although there was some evidence of Roman and Viking exploration on Madeira.
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[
"At the time of the European arrival, three major Amerindian indigenous peoples lived on the islands: the Taíno in the Greater Antilles, The Bahamas and the Leeward Islands; the Island Caribs and Galibi in the Windward Islands; and the Ciboney in western Cuba. The Taínos are subdivided into Classic Taínos, who occupied Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, Western Taínos, who occupied Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamian archipelago, and the Eastern Taínos, who occupied the Leeward Islands. Trinidad was inhabited by both Carib speaking and Arawak-speaking groups.\n",
"The islanders were known as the Ilois (one French Creole word for \"islanders\") and they numbered about 1,000. They were of mixed African, South Indian, Portuguese, English, French and Malay descent and lived very simple, spartan lives in their isolated archipelago working in the coconut and sugar plantations, or in the fishing and small textile industries. Few remains of their culture have been left, although their language is still spoken by some of their descendants in Mauritius.\n",
"Sometime between 400 B.C. and A.D. 100, the Arawak group of Amerindians inhabited Puerto Rico. Around A.D. 600, the Arawaks no longer lived on the island, perhaps because they had integrated with another culture or perhaps because they had been killed by illness. By A.D. 1000, the indigenous Taíno inhabited the island. They called the island Borikén (alternatively, Borinquén), which means \"land of the valiant one\" and later Puerto Ricans called themselves boricua, borincano and borinqueño to embrace their indigenous identity. In the 15th century, the Carib lived on nearby islands and periodically invaded Taíno villages.\n",
"At the time of the European discovery of most of the islands of the Caribbean, three major Amerindian indigenous peoples lived on the islands: the Taíno in the Greater Antilles, The Bahamas and the Leeward Islands; the Island Caribs and Galibi in the Windward Islands; and the Ciboney in western Cuba. The Taínos are subdivided into Classic Taínos, who occupied Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, Western Taínos, who occupied Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahamian archipelago, and the Eastern Taínos, who occupied the Leeward Islands. Trinidad was inhabited by both Carib speaking and Arawak-speaking groups.\n",
"While the natives of Tierra del Fuego were not capable of true oceanic travel, there is some evidence of Polynesian visits to some of the sub antarctic islands to the south of New Zealand, although these are further from Antarctica than South America. There are also remains of a Polynesian settlement dating back to the 13th century on Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands. According to ancient legends, around the year 650 the Polynesian traveler Ui-te-Rangiora led a fleet of Waka Tīwai south until they reached \"a place of bitter cold where rock-like structures rose from a solid sea\". It is unclear from the legends how far south Ui-te-Rangiora penetrated, but it appears that he observed ice in large quantities. A shard of undated, unidentified pottery, reported as found in 1886 in the Antipodes Islands, has been associated with this expedition.\n",
"Native Americans inhabiting the western part of Long Island were part of the Lenape nation, whose language is also in the Algonquian family. Their territory extended to lower New York, western Connecticut and the mid-Atlantic coastal areas into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Their bands were also known by the names of their geographic locations but did not constitute distinct peoples.\n",
"The islands were first populated by indigenous peoples of the Americas, possibly as far back as 3000 BC. The Arawak people are the first identifiable group; however, they were later displaced circa 1400 AD by Kalina-Carib peoples.\n"
] |
how does fingerprint authentication store the fingerprint information?
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Fingerprint scanners are basically capacitive touchscreens minus the screen part. Fingerprints are made of ridges and valleys. When you press your finger against a scanner, it registers what parts of your finger are ridges and what parts are valleys based on what touches it. It then takes several parts of this information as markers. The next time you scan your finger, it looks for these parts. For example, just as your fingerprint is unique, so too is the upper half of your fingerprint, or the bottom left corner, or a random square millimeter. All sufficiently large segments of your fingerprint are as unique as your fingerprint itself. Therefore all the scanner needs to see is one or more of those parts. That's how it deals with not having the exact same scanned section each time. It doesn't need the entire fingerprint.
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[
"Today, Identix' computerized fingerprint identification products are used by federal governments and law enforcement agencies around the world. Additionally, the verification of personal identity using fingerprints has propagated into everyday life. Fingerprint access is now used in smart phones, laptops, time and attendance systems, credit card purchases, airport security and physical access systems.\n",
"A minority of flash drives support biometric fingerprinting to confirm the user's identity. As of mid-, this was an expensive alternative to standard password protection offered on many new USB flash storage devices. Most fingerprint scanning drives rely upon the host operating system to validate the fingerprint via a software driver, often restricting the drive to Microsoft Windows computers. However, there are USB drives with fingerprint scanners which use controllers that allow access to protected data without any authentication.\n",
"In public-key cryptography, a public key fingerprint is a short sequence of bytes used to identify a longer public key. Fingerprints are created by applying a cryptographic hash function to a public key. Since fingerprints are shorter than the keys they refer to, they can be used to simplify certain key management tasks. In Microsoft software, \"thumbprint\" is used instead of \"fingerprint\".\n",
"The passports issued since October 1, 2005 contain an RFID chip containing the passport's printed data in a digital format along with the photograph in a JPEG format along with a digital key to verify that the data contained is authentic and hasn't been tampered with. The data in the chip can only be accessed after using the printed codes on the lower part of the passport's person page. Fingerprints are stored since June 28, 2009.\n",
"In systems such as SSH, users can exchange and check fingerprints manually to perform key authentication. Once a user has accepted another user's fingerprint, that fingerprint (or the key it refers to) will be stored locally along with a record of the other user's name or address, so that future communications with that user can be automatically authenticated.\n",
"Historically, fingerprints have been used as the most authoritative method of authentication, but court cases in the US and elsewhere have raised fundamental doubts about fingerprint reliability. Outside of the legal system as well, fingerprints have been shown to be easily spoofable, with British Telecom's top computer-security official noting that \"few\" fingerprint readers have not already been tricked by one spoof or another. Hybrid or two-tiered authentication methods offer a compelling solution, such as private keys encrypted by fingerprint inside of a USB device.\n",
"IDEX offers fingerprint sensor and biometric software for identity cards, banking cards, smart cards, access control, healthcare, IOT and other security solutions. Fingerprint recognition is one form of biometric identification, other examples being DNA, face recognition, iris recognition and retinal scan as well as identification based on behavioral patterns such as speaker recognition, keystroke dynamics and signature recognition.\n"
] |
How can I understand the motion of gyroscopes intuitively?
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A gyroscope doesn't resist movement, it resists moment. So if you had a box with a gyroscope in it on a table, you could push it forwards/backwards/left/right with ease, but it would be difficult to spin it.
To see why this is, imagine you have a friction-less disk spinning clockwise and you want to reverse its spin. To slow it down to a stop and get it spinning counter-clockwise would require a couple moment to be applied for some time. The faster the wheel is spinning and the more rotational inertia it has the more energy required to reverse its spin. Of course, you could skip the whole slowing down and speeding up part and just turn the disk over. But since you are effectively reversing the spin by turning it over it requires the same amount of energy as slowing it all the way down and speeding it back up.
This isn't a perfect explanation and I may have botched a few terms but that's how I envision it.
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[
"Gyroscopes measure the angular rate of rotational movement about one or more axes. Gyroscopes can measure complex motion accurately in multiple dimensions, tracking the position and rotation of a moving object unlike accelerometers which can only detect the fact that an object has moved or is moving in a particular direction. Further, unlike accelerometers and compasses, gyroscopes are not affected by errors related to external environmental factors such as gravitational and magnetic fields. Hence, gyroscopes greatly enhance the motion sensing capabilities of devices and are used for advanced motion sensing applications in consumer devices such as full gesture and movement detection and simulation in video gaming. The Nintendo Wii MotionPlus accessory and the Nintendo 3DS incorporate gyroscopes.\n",
"Since the gyroscope allows the calculation of orientation and rotation, designers have incorporated them into modern technology. The integration of the gyroscope has allowed for more accurate recognition of movement within a 3D space than the previous lone accelerometer within a number of smartphones. Gyroscopes in consumer electronics are frequently combined with accelerometers (acceleration sensors) for more robust direction- and motion-sensing. Examples of such applications include smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, HTC Titan, Nexus 5, iPhone 5s, Nokia 808 PureView and Sony Xperia, game console peripherals such as the PlayStation 3 controller and the Wii Remote, and virtual reality sets such as the Oculus Rift.\n",
"The rate indicating gyroscope consists of a damping fluid between the float assembly can and the outer casing. This viscous fluid resists the motion of the gimbal precession. This causes the gimbal to accelerate initially in the fluid, until the damping effect is equal to the precessing force.\n",
"Gyroscopes measure the angular velocity of the sensor frame with respect to the inertial reference frame. By using the original orientation of the system in the inertial reference frame as the initial condition and integrating the angular velocity, the system's current orientation is known at all times. This can be thought of as the ability of a blindfolded passenger in a car to feel the car turn left and right or tilt up and down as the car ascends or descends hills. Based on this information alone, the passenger knows what direction the car is facing but not how fast or slow it is moving, or whether it is sliding sideways.\n",
"Gyroscopes are devices that sense rotation in three-dimensional space without reliance on the observation of external objects. Classically, a gyroscope consists of a spinning mass, but there are also \"ring laser gyros\" utilizing coherent light reflected around a closed path. Another type of \"gyro\" is a hemispherical resonator gyro where a crystal cup shaped like a wine glass can be driven into oscillation just as a wine glass \"sings\" as a finger is rubbed around its rim. The orientation of the oscillation is fixed in inertial space, so measuring the orientation of the oscillation relative to the spacecraft can be used to sense the motion of the spacecraft with respect to inertial space.\n",
"A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος \"gûros\", \"circle\" and σκοπέω \"skopéō\", \"to look\") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rotation (spin axis) is free to assume any orientation by itself. When rotating, the orientation of this axis is unaffected by tilting or rotation of the mounting, according to the conservation of angular momentum.\n",
"A gyroscope is a wheel mounted in two or three gimbals, which are pivoted supports that allow the rotation of the wheel about a single axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow a wheel mounted on the innermost gimbal to have an orientation remaining independent of the orientation, in space, of its support. In the case of a gyroscope with two gimbals, the outer gimbal, which is the gyroscope frame, is mounted so as to pivot about an axis in its own plane determined by the support. This outer gimbal possesses one degree of rotational freedom and its axis possesses none. The inner gimbal is mounted in the gyroscope frame (outer gimbal) so as to pivot about an axis in its own plane that is always perpendicular to the pivotal axis of the gyroscope frame (outer gimbal). This inner gimbal has two degrees of rotational freedom.\n"
] |
What's the deal with the Celts and the Norse?
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One of the most thoughtful recent scholars on this subject was the late Bo Almqvist (1931-2013) - a Swedish folklorist who was the director of the Irish Department of Folklore at University College, Dublin. His "Viking Ale: Studies on Folklore Contacts between the Northern and the Western Worlds", edited by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Séamas Ó Catháin (Aberystwyth: Boethius, 1991) is an excellent collection of articles, many of which address what you are asking. Here is a quote that helps frame this discussion:
> [The Norwegian folklorist Reidar Christiansen] has pointed to a series of close parallels between certain Scandinavian and Scottish-Gaelic and Irish legends, and has introduced the term North Sea legends. It is not easy to account satisfactorily for these similarities. It may be that some of the motifs and legends are part of a common stock, but there can be little doubt either that the Norse and Gaelic speaking communities influenced one another, and that certain types and sub-types spread in either direction.
What is true of folklore is equally true of art and various other cultural motifs. We cannot speak of something like Newgrange without acknowledging that it is pre-Celtic, but the point is well taken - what seems to be elements of common cultural inheritance also seem to pre-date both the Celts and the Scandinavians - as we understand them. The question remains - why do these similarities exist? Diffusion through various periods of contact seems like an obvious answer, but aspects of shared cultural elements seem too deep to be accounted for strictly through diffusion.
I address this to a certain extent in my forthcoming, ["The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation"](_URL_0_). The following is an excerpt - before the copyeditor makes me seem far smarter than I am (so apologies for any clunky language!):
> Almqvist addresses a question in British studies, looking to those who conclude that Anglo-Saxons invaders gave as much as they took, creating a hybridised society. Almqvist applied this to assist in his life-long study of the interaction of Celtic and Scandinavian folklore. In his essay, ‘Scandinavian and Celtic Folklore Contacts in the Earldom of Orkney’, he attempts to determine which traditions were borrowed and which may represent common inheritance. It is no mean task, but Almqvist writes with authority, having spent decades pondering the question, reading sources in multiple languages to consider possible origins of parallel texts.
> Cornwall presented a similar situation since it encountered not only Anglo-Saxons but also Scandinavians. Cornwall cannot be regarded as the ‘Venice of the North’, as Almqvist characterises the medieval earldom of Orkney; nevertheless, the Cornish nation was also something of a crossroad. While it resisted medieval Anglo-Saxon advances, Cornwall was not as secluded as the hinterland of Wales or north-western, mountainous Caledonia. One would expect that the Cornish had their own oral tradition before the many forces of history had their way. Regardless of how factors affecting lives and culture played out, the folklore of Cornwall certainly exhibits the same common inheritance that Almqvist suggests ‘is part of the explanation of the unity that exists today among the peoples of the British Isles.’
What can be said about similarities throughout Britain and Ireland, can be extended effortlessly, also, to Scandinavia and Iceland. In otherwords, yours is an excellent question, and many have pondered the answer(s) with various degrees of success.
|
[
"The Celts (, see pronunciation of \"Celt\" for different usages) are an Indo-European ethnolinguistic group of Europe identified by their use of Celtic languages and cultural similarities. The history of pre-Celtic Europe and the exact relationship between ethnic, linguistic and cultural factors in the Celtic world remains uncertain and controversial. The exact geographic spread of the ancient Celts is disputed; in particular, the ways in which the Iron Age inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland should be regarded as Celts have become a subject of controversy. According to one theory, the common root of the Celtic languages, the Proto-Celtic language, arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe, which flourished from around 1200 BC. \n",
"The Celts (, occasionally , see pronunciation of \"Celtic\") or Kelts were an ethnolinguistic group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had a similar culture, although the relationship between the ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements remains uncertain and controversial.\n",
"The Celts is an Australian folk music band. Members included: Michael Caine (mandolin & whistle), Jeremy Dunlop (guitar), Brian McLaughlin (vocals & bodhran), Alex Black and Martin Ball (fiddle & keyboards). Their second album, \"The Rocky Road\", saw them nominated for the 1995 ARIA Music Award for Best World Music Album.\n",
"The modern Celts (, see pronunciation of \"Celt\") are a related group of ethnicities who share similar Celtic languages, cultures and artistic histories, and who live in or descend from one of the regions on the western extremities of Europe populated by the Celts.\n",
"The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age Europe. Proto-Celtic culture formed in the Early Iron Age in Central Europe (Hallstatt period, named for the site in present-day Austria). By the later Iron Age (La Tène period), Celts had expanded over wide range of lands: as far west as Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula, as far east as Galatia (central Anatolia), and as far north as Scotland. By the early centuries AD, following the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture had become\n",
"The Celts (Ancient Greek Κέλτοι \"Keltoi\"; Latin \"Celtae\", \"Galli\", \"Galati\") were tribes and tribal confederations of ancient Europe, who resided in west central Europe in the Late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (the Hallstatt culture). In the La Tène period they expanded, through migration and cultural transmission, to the British Isles, northern Iberia, the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor. The Greeks and Romans commonly referred to areas under Celtic rule as Κελτική or \"Celticum\". They had a relatively uniform material culture (especially in the La Tène period) and non-material culture (customs and norms), which differed from neighbouring peoples like the Italians, Etruscans, Illyrians, Greeks, Iberians, Germans, Thracians and Scythians.\n",
"The Celts were a diverse group of people that through migration, lived in an area stretching from the British Isles to Anatolia. A people with a strong warrior tradition, they varied greatly in battle and equipment (see Celtic warfare). Some of the heavier armed Celts wore chainmail and \"Galea\" type helmets, and threw javelins in battle - all of these elements were later adopted by the Romans. Celts were respected for their battle prowess and often served as mercenaries for other Mediterranean civilizations.\n"
] |
What is the total population of all life on our planet?
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Do you count bacterias? The rest of the animals are just a rounding error for the bacteria population.
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[
"Some estimates on the number of Earth's current species of life forms range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. However, a May 2016 scientific report estimates that 1 trillion species are currently on Earth, with only one-thousandth of one percent described. The total number of DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 10 with a weight of 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 trillion tons of carbon. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all organisms living on Earth.\n",
"Although the number of Earth's catalogued species of lifeforms is between 1.2 million and 2 million, the total number of species in the planet is uncertain. Estimates range from 8 million to 100 million, with a more narrow range between 10 and 14 million, but it may be as high as 1 trillion (with only one-thousandth of one percent of the species described) according to studies realized in May 2016. The total number of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 10 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC (trillion tons of carbon). In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) of all organisms living on Earth.\n",
"Two months later, Harvard University astronomy professor Harlow Shapley speculated on the number of inhabited planets in the universe, saying \"The universe has 10 million, million, million suns (10 followed by 18 zeros) similar to our own. One in a million has planets around it. Only one in a million million has the right combination of chemicals, temperature, water, days and nights to support planetary life as we know it. This calculation arrives at the estimated figure of 100 million worlds where life has been forged by evolution.\"\n",
"In biological terms, there are 7.2 billion humans on the planet, each having a genome of 6.2 billion nucleotides. Since one byte can encode four nucleotide pairs, the individual genomes of every human on the planet could be encoded by approximately 1x10^19 bytes. The digital realm stored 500 times more information than this in 2014 (see figure). The total amount of DNA contained in all of the cells on Earth is estimated to be about 5.3x10^37 base pairs, equivalent to 1.325x10^37 bytes of information.\n",
"For example, there were 12 billion hectares of biologically productive land and water on this planet in 2008. Dividing by the number of people alive in that year, 6.7 billion, gives a biocapacity of 1.8 global hectares per person . This assumes that no land is set aside for other species that consume the same biological material as humans.\n",
"In 2007, the average biologically productive area per person worldwide was approximately 1.8 global hectares (gha) per capita. The U.S. footprint per capita was 9.0 gha, and that of Switzerland was 5.6 gha, while China's was 1.8 gha. The WWF claims that the human footprint has exceeded the biocapacity (the available supply of natural resources) of the planet by 20%. Wackernagel and Rees originally estimated that the available biological capacity for the 6 billion people on Earth at that time was about 1.3 hectares per person, which is smaller than the 1.8 global hectares published for 2006, because the initial studies neither used global hectares nor included bioproductive marine areas.\n",
"More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to have died out. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. In 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described.\n"
] |
would 2 equally loud noises combine to make a louder sound? why or why not?
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Depends on where you're standing. Sound waves can add or cancel as they mix together.
(That's the science behind noise canceling headphones, which actually create a sound that is opposite in phase to the noise it's cancelling.)
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[
"For Liquid Sound, for instance, a special stereo set is necessary because one hears differently underwater than in the air: it is impossible to hear from where the tones are coming. The reason is that sound waves go through water about five times as fast as through the air. Due to its higher speed, the sound seems to be coming from everywhere.\n",
"For instance, sound will travel 1.59 times faster in nickel than in bronze, due to the greater stiffness of nickel at about the same density. Similarly, sound travels about 1.41 times faster in light hydrogen (protium) gas than in heavy hydrogen (deuterium) gas, since deuterium has similar properties but twice the density. At the same time, \"compression-type\" sound will travel faster in solids than in liquids, and faster in liquids than in gases, because the solids are more difficult to compress than liquids, while liquids in turn are more difficult to compress than gases.\n",
"The warble sounds as if the flute is vacillating back and forth between distinct pitches. However, it is actually the sound of different harmonic components of same sound coming into dominance at different times.\n",
"If two sounds of two different frequencies are played at the same time, two separate sounds can often be heard rather than a combination tone. The ability to hear frequencies separately is known as \"frequency resolution\" or \"frequency selectivity\". When signals are perceived as a combination tone, they are said to reside in the same \"critical bandwidth\". This effect is thought to occur due to filtering within the cochlea, the hearing organ in the inner ear. A complex sound is split into different frequency components and these components cause a peak in the pattern of vibration at a specific place on the cilia inside the basilar membrane within the cochlea. These components are then coded independently on the auditory nerve which transmits sound information to the brain. This individual coding only occurs if the frequency components are different enough in frequency, otherwise they are in the same critical band and are coded at the same place and are perceived as one sound instead of two.\n",
"BULLET::::3. \"Satpratipaksa\": Here the hetu is contradicted by another hetu. If both have equal force, then nothing follows. 'Sound is eternal, because it is audible', and 'Sound is non-eternal, because it is produced'. Here 'audible' is counterbalanced by 'produced' and both are of equal force.\n",
"BULLET::::- Dissimilation: When a sound changes one of its features to become \"less\" similar to an adjacent sound, usually to make the two sounds more distinguishable. This type of rule is often seen among people speaking a language that is not their native language, where the sound contrasts may be difficult.\n",
"Similar to the Gestalt principle of good continuation (see: principles of grouping), sounds that change smoothly or remain constant are often produced by the same source. Sound with the same frequency, even when interrupted by other noise, is perceived as continuous. Highly variable sound that is interrupted is perceived as separate.\n"
] |
Have there ever been mafias/organized crime syndicates in the United States that were German, French, or Scandinavian?
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There has been one case of plagiarism, several jokes, and a number of contentless posts offered up as "answers" to the OP's question.
This is AskHistorians. We ask that your answers be in-depth, comprehensive, and such that an historian might give. You should also be able to back your post with proper sources if requested. If you cannot provide an answer that meets our requirements, please refrain from posting. We prefer no answer to speculation, educated guesswork, jokes or memes.
Thank you.
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[
"The same large and politically connected gangs from New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans that controlled gambling, prostitution, extortion, thefts and narcotics since the early to mid-19th century, now controlled bootlegging operations across America in the 1920s. These recently organized and powerful criminal organizations began from the ethnic street gangs who committed violent crimes, provided illegal goods and services to the community and acted as enforcers for the political machines of the big cities and towns. The mainly Irish, Jewish, Italian and Polish immigrants that had begun to organize themselves at after World War I, continued their criminal activities with the start of Prohibition and began to meet the great demand for beer and liquor that came from citizens, speakeasies and blind pigs that sprang up across America overnight.\n",
"A wide variety of gangs, such as the Order of Assassins, the Damned Crew, Adam the Leper's gang, Penny Mobs, Indian Thugs, Chinese Triads, Snakehead, Japanese Yakuza, Irish mob, Pancho Villa's Villistas, Dead Rabbits, American Old West outlaw gangs, Bowery Boys, Chasers, the Italian Mafia, Jewish mafia, and Russian mafia have existed for centuries.\n",
"Other criminal gangs include the Russian mafia, Mexican, Colombian Drug Cartels, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia, the Texas Syndicate, the Black Guerrilla Family, the Nuestra Familia, the Mara Salvatrucha, the Primeiro Comando da Capital, the Irish Mob, the Puerto Rican Mafia, Nuestra familia, the Chinese Triads, the Japanese Yakuza, the Jamaican-British Yardies, the Haitian gang Zoe Pound, and other crime syndicates.\n",
"According to the 2004 New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, there were 24 active Mafia families in the United States. In 2004, author Thomas Milhorn reported that the Mafia was active in 26 cities across the United States.\n",
"Mafia operations in the United States in the 1920s were controlled by Giuseppe \"Joe The Boss\" Masseria, whose faction consisted mainly of gangsters from Sicily and the Calabria and Campania regions of Southern Italy. Masseria's faction included Charles \"Lucky\" Luciano, Albert \"Mad Hatter\" Anastasia, Vito Genovese, Alfred Mineo, Willie Moretti, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello. As it became more and more evident that the two factions would clash for leadership of the United States, they each sought to recruit more followers to support them.\n",
"BULLET::::- Gangsters from eight U.S. states, including Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Johnny Torrio and Bugsy Siegel, met in Atlantic City, New Jersey to form a national crime syndicate. Over the next three days they settled disputes, agreed upon territorial boundaries and strolled along the boardwalk in full view of the media.\n",
"In his 1991 biography of Meyer Lansky, \"Little Man\", journalist Robert Lacey argued that no National Crime Syndicate ever existed. \"The idea of a National Crime Syndicate is often confused with the Mafia. Yet they are not the same thing,\" probably referring to the American Mafia.\n"
] |
since essentially everything nowadays causes cancer, should we just assume that we still don't really know what causes it?
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Here's the thing with cancer: at its most basic level, whether or not you get cancer comes down to statistics and randomness. Cancer happens when you get a combination of mutations that cause a cell to reproduce continuously, avoid cell-suicide, infiltrate other tissues, etc. All a carcinogen is is a substance believed to increase the odds of such a combination of mutations occurring. Thing is, you could be a lifelong smoker, eat tons of processed meats, regularly get exposed to radiation, and yet never develop cancer just because you were lucky enough to never have the right mutation combination in the same cell at the same time. Conversely, you could do everything right and still get cancer due to a simple transcription error during cell reproduction.
Because of this inherent randomness, it's *extremely* difficult to predict and understand which substances actually create a significantly increased risk of developing cancer.
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[
"In recent years it has come to the attention of researchers that many types of cancer are caused largely due to epigenetic factors. Cancer can be caused in a variety of ways due to differential methylation of histones. Since the discovery of oncogenes as well as tumor suppressor genes it has been known that a large factor of causing and repressing cancer is within our own genome. If areas around oncogenes become unmethylated these cancer-causing genes have the potential to be transcribed at an alarming rate. Opposite of this is the methylation of tumor suppressor genes. In cases where the areas around these genes were highly methylated, the tumor suppressor gene was not active and therefore cancer was more likely to occur. These changes in methylation pattern are often due to mutations in methyltransferase and demethyltransferase. Other types of mutations in proteins such as isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) and isocitrate dehydrogenase 2 (IDH2) can cause the inactivation of histone demethyltransferase which in turn can lead to a variety of cancers, gliomas and leukemias, depending on in which cells the mutation occurs.\n",
"Cancer is a group of fatal diseases that involves abnormal cell growth that can invade or spread to other parts of the body. They are usually caused by the accumulation of mutations in genes that regulate cell growth and differentiation. Majority of cancer, about 90-95%, are due to genetic mutations from environmental and lifestyle factors – including age, chemicals, diet, exercise, viruses, and radiation. The remaining 5-10% are due to inherited genetics. Some of the cancers may be difficult to treat by conventional means such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, but may be controlled by the stimulation of the immune response of the body with the help of cancer vaccines. \n",
"Classically, cancer has been viewed as a set of diseases that are driven by progressive genetic abnormalities that include mutations in tumour-suppressor genes and oncogenes, and chromosomal aberrations. However, it has become apparent that cancer is also driven by\n",
"Cancer is a disease caused by genetic changes leading to uncontrolled cell growth and tumor formation. The basic cause of sporadic (non-familial) cancers is DNA damage and genomic instability. A minority of cancers are due to inherited genetic mutations. Most cancers are related to environmental, lifestyle, or behavioral exposures. Cancer is generally not contagious in humans, though it can be caused by oncoviruses and cancer bacteria. The term \"environmental\", as used by cancer researchers, refers to everything outside the body that interacts with humans. The environment is not limited to the biophysical environment (e.g. exposure to factors such as air pollution or sunlight), but also includes lifestyle and behavioral factors. \n",
"Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bleeding, prolonged cough, unexplained weight loss, and a change in bowel movements. While these symptoms may indicate cancer, they can also have other causes. Over 100 types of cancers affect humans.\n",
"Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells coupled with malignant behaviour: invasion and metastasis (among other features). It is caused by the interaction between genetic susceptibility and environmental factors. These factors lead to accumulations of genetic mutations in oncogenes (genes that control the growth rate of cells) and tumor suppressor genes (genes that help to prevent cancer), which gives cancer cells their malignant characteristics, such as uncontrolled growth.\n",
"This is a list of cancer types. Cancer is a group of diseases that involve abnormal increases in the number of cells, with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Not all tumors or lumps are cancerous; benign tumors are not classified as being cancer because they do not spread to other parts of the body. There are over 100 different known cancers that affect humans.\n"
] |
why are tickets (to concerts, sports events, etc) purchased through third parties (stubhub, ticketmaster, etc) as opposed to directly from the venue hosting the event?
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Back in the day you had to buy directly from the venue. You had to get in line and buy paper tickets often having to campout overnight for best seats or for high demand shows. Buying from a ticket seller is much easier for everyone.
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[
"Ticket exchanges allow people to buy and sell tickets online. For example, an individual who purchased tickets to a football game may find that they can no longer go and hence sell their tickets on a ticket exchange. Those most likely to use the services of a ticket exchange are ticket brokers (commonly known as \"scalpers\"). Brokers may purchase tickets in bulk from a promoter or directly from the venue (box office) hoping that the tickets will sell above face value due to high demand.\n",
"A season ticket is also an option for many music venues (including Opera, Ballet, Symphony houses) and repertory theatre companies. The season subscription usually offers a discounted price over purchasing a ticket for each concert or play in a series or all concerts or plays in a season. (Typically, season tickets are only offered to donors who support the cultural institution).\n",
"TicketHurry is an online ticketing company, serving as an alternative to similar marketplaces such as StubHub and TicketsNow. TicketHurry's listings include all spectator events, including concerts, sporting events, theater, and Broadway. The company is primarily an aggregator, as they do not purchase tickets or act as a ticket broker. Tickets offered through TicketHurry mostly come from record labels and independent ticket brokers, however a small percentage are provided by general ticket holders and season ticket holders.\n",
"With respect to events tickets, online reservations and payments, and other transactions, there is sometimes a service charge (often called a convenience fee) that serves as additional compensation for the company facilitating the transaction. Ticketmaster and others charge this, and have made a business model of it. However, such groups have a monopoly on particular events or even entire concert venues.\n",
"In recent years, some Arena standing tickets have been available for purchase on the day, with no requirement to have attended previous concerts. These are sold on a 'first-come first-served' basis to those prepared to queue. In the post-war period, with the growing popularity of the Last Night, the only way to obtain tickets was through a postal ballot held well in advance. An annual ballot now exists for the chance to purchase a maximum of two tickets from a special allocation of 100 stalls seats.\n",
"Members of the public can buy a ticket at a ticket window or counter, called a box office in the entertainment industry (this term is also used for the total receipts). The ticket check may also be there, or it may be separate. Tickets may also be available from resellers, which typically are commercial enterprises that purchase tickets in bulk, and resell them to members of the public, adding a surcharge. Consumers buy from resellers for reasons of convenience and availability. The convenience factor relates to being able to obtain tickets locally, and also being able to make alternate selections on the spot if the preferred performance is not available. The availability factor relates to the fact that all tickets may have been sold out at the box office, requiring the purchaser to either obtain tickets from the reseller, or not to see the show (or at least not see the particular performance of choice).\n",
"In the United States, ticket resale is a $5 billion industry. Ticket resale on the premises of the event (including adjacent parking lots that are officially part of the facility) may be prohibited by law. These laws vary from state to state, and the majority of US states do not have laws in place to limit the value placed on the resale amount of event tickets or where and how these tickets should be sold. Ticket re-sellers may conduct business on nearby sidewalks, or advertise through newspaper ads or ticket brokers.\n"
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us federal income taxes
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It is complicated, but the part that throws most people is the progressive tax rate. Think about it that instead of you specifically being taxed at one tax rate, each individual dollar you make is taxed at a changing rate. Let's say the first 10,000 dollars aren't taxed at all, dollars 10,000-20,000 are taxes at %10, and dollars 20,000+ are taxes at 20% (these are made upbrackets).
Amy makes $9,000. The first 10k is not taxed, so Amy owes nothing. If she has been having money withdrawn automatically from her paycheck, she will get it back as a refund.
Bob makes $15,000. The first 10k isn't taxed. After that, he has 5k left, which is taxed at 10%, so Bob owes $500.
Charlie makes 25,000. The first 10k isn't taxed. The next 10k is taxed at 10% = $1000. The remaining money is taxed at 20%. 20% of 5k also - $1000. So Charlie's total tax bill is $2,000.
Debbie uses deductions to her total income. She makes $25,000, the same as Charlie. However, she is able to make $5,000 of it tax deductible, which means it is not taxable income. So instead of $25,000, the IRS treats it like she made $20,000. As we saw above, the first 10k is untaxed, the next 10k is taxed at 10%, so she only pays $1000.
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[
"The federal income tax is only one of several taxes Americans pay. Americans who pay zero federal income taxes do pay other taxes, such as payroll taxes (a.k.a. FICA), excise taxes, sales taxes, tariffs, gift taxes, unemployment taxes, state income taxes, property taxes, and self-employment taxes.\n",
"Federal payroll taxes are imposed on nearly every American with income from employment (there are exceptions for certain students, certain religious objectors, and certain state/local government employees who participate in a state/local pension). Federal self-employment taxes are imposed on nearly every American with net income from self-employment above $400 (again with exceptions for certain religious objectors). So almost all Americans with some earned income do pay some federal taxes. However, the US also allows earned income tax credits to certain individuals, which can lower their income taxes below zero. When these refundable tax credits equal or exceed other federal taxes, the individual is said to pay \"no net federal taxes.\"\n",
"The federal income tax enacted in 1913 included corporate and individual income taxes. It defined income using language from prior laws, incorporated in the Sixteenth Amendment, as \"all income from whatever source derived\". The tax allowed deductions for business expenses, but few non-business deductions. In 1918 the income tax law was expanded to include a foreign tax credit and more comprehensive definitions of income and deduction items. Various aspects of the present system of definitions were expanded through 1926, when U.S. law was organized as the United States Code. Income, estate, gift, and excise tax provisions, plus provisions relating to tax returns and enforcement, were codified as Title 26, also known as the Internal Revenue Code. This was reorganized and somewhat expanded in 1954, and remains in the same general form.\n",
"A tax is imposed on net taxable income in the United States by the federal, most state, and some local governments. Income tax is imposed on individuals, corporations, estates, and trusts. The definition of net taxable income for most sub-federal jurisdictions mostly follows the federal definition.\n",
"United States federal income tax incorporates an alternative minimum tax. This tax is computed at a lower tax rate (20% for corporations), and imposed based on a modified version of taxable income. Modifications include longer depreciation lives assets under MACRS, adjustments related to costs of developing natural resources, and an addback of certain tax exempt interest. The U. S. state of Michigan previously taxed businesses on an alternative base that did not allow compensation of employees as a tax deduction and allowed full deduction of the cost of production assets upon acquisition.\n",
"Income taxes in the United States are imposed by the federal, most state, and many local governments. The income taxes are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. An alternative tax applies at the federal and some state levels.\n",
"In the United States, ordinary income is taxed at the marginal tax rates. As of 2006, there are six \"tax brackets\" ranging from 10% to 35%. Ordinary income is taxed within the particular tax bracket listed on the rate schedules or tax tables as a percentage for each dollar within that bracket. However, after the 2003 Tax Cut, qualified dividends and long-term capital gains are taxed at the same rate of 15% (up to 20% after 2012).\n"
] |
How do surgeons sew arteries together?
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I'm really hoping someone will answer your question.
And if you'll allow me to make a related comment: Does anyone know of a freely available source the general public can learn about surgical procedures *in detail*? I mean... say you take someone's intestines out. *How do you know how to fold them back in?*
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[
"Coronary artery bypass grafting, also called revascularization, is a common surgical procedure to create an alternative path to deliver blood supply to the heart and body, with the goal of preventing clot formation. This can be done in many ways, and the arteries used can be taken from several areas of the body. Arteries are typically harvested from the chest, arm, or wrist and then attached to a portion of the coronary artery, relieving pressure and limiting clotting factors in that area of the heart.\n",
"Blood vessel grafts often come from the same leg of the bypass site, which are arteries above and below the knee. These grafts can only be removed and prepared during surgery at the time of the bypass. However, in some cases a leg vein is left in place and connected to the artery (in situ procedure). Under this circumstance, an angioscope (a flexible medical tube with a camera) is used to aid this procedure.\n",
"The first step is ligating the supplying artery and vein, to prevent hemorrhage (bleeding). The muscles are transected, and finally, the bone is sawed through with an oscillating saw. Sharp and rough edges of the bone(s) are filed down, skin and muscle flaps are then transposed over the stump, occasionally with the insertion of elements to attach a prosthesis.\n",
"Angioplasty is a procedure used to widen narrowed blood vessels, especially in coronary arteries. A long and thin tube called catheter is inserted into a large artery through an incision in the wrist, arm or groin area. The catheter is guided to the affected artery using a real-time x-ray video. A thin wire is then introduced into the blood vessel, delivering a small balloon to the affected area. The balloon is inflated to stretch the blood vessel and compress the fatty deposits against the wall of artery. Hence, the vessel is widened and blood can flow through it freely to maintain adequate blood supply to different tissues. Finally, the balloon is deflated and removed. A stent may also be placed to provide support to the vessel wall and prevent it from re-narrowing.\n",
"The surgery is generally performed under general anaesthesia. The surgeon makes an incision in the upper leg, and a graft either man-made or the patient's vein is sewn to both ends of the artery. The graft reroutes the blood flow around the blocked artery, allowing for adequate supply back to the parts of the leg. Generally, it is preferred where possible, a healthy vein is used to make the graft as it has shown to have a better outcome of the procedure. In cases however where a vein can not be used, materials such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or Dacron are often used to make the graft.\n",
"Endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) is a surgical technique that may be used in conjunction with coronary artery bypass surgery (commonly called a \"bypass\"). For patients with coronary artery disease, a physician may recommend a bypass to reroute blood around blocked arteries to restore and improve blood flow and oxygen to the heart. To create the bypass graft, a surgeon will remove or \"harvest\" healthy blood vessels from another part of the body, often from the patient's leg or arm. This vessel becomes a graft, with one end attaching to a blood source above and the other end below the blocked area, creating a \"conduit\" channel or new blood flow connection across the heart.\n",
"BULLET::::- Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG): Grafting an artery or vein from elsewhere to bypass a stenotic coronary artery. Performed by cardiothoracic surgeons, a sternotomy is performed to open the chest and then grafts are performed. Cardiopulmonary bypass may be necessary. The internal mammary artery or saphenous vein can be used as grafts. The grafts are used to provide an alternate path for blood flow around a stenosis.\n"
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the negative effects of the industrial revolution
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Immediate or long term?
The immediate negative effects was the lowering of living standards (today we have higher living standards because of it). Working hours increased, deaths due to injury increased, pollution shot through the roof.
Long term is, well, still the pollution.
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[
"The Industrial Revolution is an example of a positive technology shock. The Industrial Revolution occurred between the 18th and the 19th centuries where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport, and technology occurred.\n",
"The effects on living conditions of the industrial revolution have been very controversial, and were hotly debated by economic and social historians from the 1950s to the 1980s. A series of 1950s essays by Henry Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins later set the academic consensus that the bulk of the population, that was at the bottom of the social ladder, suffered severe reductions in their living standards. During 1813–1913, there was a significant increase in worker wages.\n",
"Some historians believe the Industrial Revolution was an outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of feudalism in Britain after the English Civil War in the 17th century, although feudalism began to break down after the Black Death of the mid 14th century, followed by other epidemics, until the population reached a low in the 14th century. This created labour shortages and led to falling food prices and a peak in real wages around 1500, after which population growth began reducing wages. Inflation caused by coinage debasement after 1540 followed by precious metals supply increasing from the Americas caused land rents (often long term leases that transferred to heirs on death) to fall in real terms.\n",
"What this did to the economy at the time was notable. It increased wages steadily over the period of time and it also increased population because people had the wages for standard living. This is an example of a positive technology shock, where it increases national and disposable income, and also increases the labor force. The Industrial Revolution also provided a much more efficient way to produce goods which lead to less labor-intensive work.\n",
"The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions starting in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spreading throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way.\n",
"Some economists, such as Robert E. Lucas, Jr., say that the real effect of the Industrial Revolution was that \"for the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behaviour is mentioned by the classical economists, even as a theoretical possibility.\" Others, however, argue that while growth of the economy's overall productive powers was unprecedented during the Industrial Revolution, living standards for the majority of the population did not grow meaningfully until the late 19th and 20th centuries, and that in many ways workers' living standards declined under early capitalism: for instance, studies have shown that real wages in Britain only increased 15% between the 1780s and 1850s, and that life expectancy in Britain did not begin to dramatically increase until the 1870s. Similarly, the average height of the population declined during the Industrial Revolution, implying that their nutritional status was also decreasing. Real wages were not keeping up with the price of food.\n",
"The Industrial Revolutions were major technological, socioeconomic, and cultural changes in late 18th and early 19th centuries that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting the majority of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous and is often compared to the Neolithic revolution, when mankind developed agriculture and gave up its nomadic lifestyle.\n"
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why are motorcycle helmets so heavy when the human neck is comparatively fragile?
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Now think about what happens in a car wreck. The body is fastened to the car via seat belt so in an accident, the neck is the moving part which gives you whiplash. In a motorcycle accident , your entire body is in motion as you flail across the horizon to your new destination. So there is no worry of whiplash in a sense. Easy way of putting: most people prefer a heavy helmet that can cause a neck injury over your head being split open and brain matter all over the road.
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[
"Motorcyclists are at high risk in traffic crashes. A 2008 systematic review examined studies on motorcycle riders who had crashed and looked at helmet use as an intervention. The review concluded that helmets reduce the risk of head injury by around 69% and death by around 42%. Although it was once speculated that wearing a motorcycle helmet increased neck and spinal injuries in a crash, recent evidence has shown the opposite to be the case, that helmets protect against cervical spine injury, and that an often-cited small study dating to the mid-1980s, \"used flawed statistical reasoning\".\n",
"Underbones can have spoked or alloy wheels which are spindle mounted, usually the size fitted to small conventional motorcycles. These provide much better road-holding and braking than scooters, though it does make the (increasingly rare) punctures more difficult to repair.\n",
"Underbones are very popular in Southeast Asia. There is a demand for aftermarket and tuner parts. Many enthusiasts modify their underbones either for show (such as installing small sound systems, neon lights and custom paint jobs) or for performance (like increasing the engine power and fine tuning the suspension). Riding gear may not even extend to wearing shoes and long pants for safety. Illegal underbone drag racing has become popular in countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia, and poses safety issues for the commuting public as well as the riders themselves, as underbones offer little protection in the event of crashes. The most popular underbone for these purposes is the Honda XRM, Suzuki Raider 150 and the Honda Wave, although similar models from Kawasaki and Yamaha are also frequently used.\n",
"Studies have shown that full face helmets offer the most protection to motorcycle riders because 35% of all crashes showed major impact on the chin-bar area. Wearing a helmet with less coverage eliminates that protection — the less coverage the helmet offers, the less protection for the rider.\n",
"Modern helmets are constructed from plastics. Premium price helmets are made with fiberglass reinforced with Kevlar or carbon fiber. They generally have fabric and foam interiors for both comfort and protection. Motorcycle helmets are generally designed to distort in a crash (thus expending the energy otherwise destined for the wearer's skull), so they provide little protection at the site of their first impact, but continued protection over the remainder of the helmet.\n",
"BULLET::::52. There is no liability for neck injury by wearing a safety helmet; helmeted riders had fewer neck injuries than unhelmeted riders. Only four minor injuries were attributable to helmet use, and in each case the helmet prevented possible critical or fatal head injury,\n",
"Underbones are small-displacement motorcycles with a step-through frame, descendants of the original Honda Super Cub. They are differentiated from scooters by their larger wheels and their use of footpegs instead of a floorboard. They often have a gear shifter with an automatic clutch.\n"
] |
how did bugs such as bees and ants come to have "queens"? how did physiologically different creature originate but remain the same species? why is there no "queen" human?
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Efficiency!
A small number of specialized *breeding caste* is enough to supply eggs for the whole hive. Keep in mind the queen is not *in charge*, she is just another specialized caste like workers or soldiers or drones.
Worker bees can override and evict a queen if circumstances require, and some ant nests have multiple queens.
There are other sorts of bees or wasps that live in much smaller groups, like a bumblebee queen that only has a nest with half a dozen brood cells or hunting wasps that make a nest for one baby at a time.
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[
"The term \"queen bee\" can be more generally applied to any dominant reproductive female in a colony of a eusocial bee species other than honey bees. However, as in the Brazilian stingless bee \"Schwarziana quadripunctata\", a single nest may have multiple queens or even dwarf queens, ready to replace a dominant queen in a case of sudden death.\n",
"In most common bee species, worker bees are infertile due to enforced altruistic kin selection, and thus never reproduce. Workers are nevertheless considered female for anatomical and genetic reasons. Genetically, a worker bee does not differ from a queen bee and can even become a laying worker bee, but in most species will produce only male (drone) offspring. Whether a larva becomes a worker or a queen depends on the kind of food it is given after the first three days of its larval form.\n",
"Differences in the colors of bees may be more pronounced in queens and drones; workers are much less easily differentiated by color. Drones are produced from the unfertilized eggs of queens and therefore their genetic characteristics depend entirely on those of the queen, whereas worker bees are produced from fertilized eggs. To make things even more complicated, a queen will normally mate multiple times, the spermatozoa from which are retained within her body, meaning that workers may only be half-sisters to each other, and their colors and other characteristics may differ.\n",
"Polygyny in eusocial insects means that some insects living in colonies have not only one queen, but several queens. Solitary species of insects take part in this practice in order to maximize their reproductive success of the widely dispersed females, such as the bee species \"Anthidium maculosum\". Insects such as red flour beetles use polygyny to reduce inbreeding depression and thus maximize reproductive success.\n",
"The only tribe in the family Apidae that do not form large colonies are the Euglossini, because they tend to move independently. Because of this distinction, there are no worker bees or queen bees because there would not be a need for such roles in independent movement. This was proven through the analysis of the number of females in comparison to the number of cells in the hive. Because the number of females outweigh the number of cells, one can assume that there are some female bees who are reproductively inactive. When creating a new nest, a female bee will make foraging trips for resin in order to construct the hives and this process will last anywhere from 8 minutes to 15 minutes. The construction of the hive itself usually takes anywhere from 10 to 22 minutes. As a result, the process of foraging and constructing a nest takes a total of 18 minutes to 37 minutes for a female.\n",
"Physical size is a major distinguishing feature between queens and gynes versus female worker bees. Queens consistently are larger in body size than workers. Queens also tend to have worn wings and worn mandibles as a result of higher activity, in addition to greater ovarian development correlating with the reproductive capacity of queens. Queens also generally have abundant fat stores. This physical dimorphism persists throughout all stages of the lifecycle, from pupae to adult. Rarely, queens can be abnormally small compared to the size of workers, but abnormally large workers have never been observed in the wild.\n",
"Large differences are seen in morphology between both queens and workers, and males and females. Queens are about in length and in width, which is larger than workers that are typically about in length and in width. Both queens and workers have black hair that covers their heads, much of their legs, and the bottom of their abdomens. They also both have completely yellow hair on the majority of their abdomens, except for a small section near the area closest to the rear end of the bee. Workers have a slight mixing of yellow and black hairs near the base of the wings, which forms a discernible \"V\" shape, as well as a rust-colored patch of hair on the middle portion of the abdomen. Thus, while workers and queens share similarities in certain aspects of coloration, also differences occur in body size and the presence or absence of rust-colored patches of hair. Regardless of the caste within the colony, all members of \"B. affinis\" have significantly shorter tongues than any other species of bumblebee. Because of its body size and furry appearance, however, this bee is often confused with other species of bumblebee, such as \"B. citrinus, B. griseocollis, B. perplexus,\" and \"B. vagans.\"\n"
] |
what makes deer/moose antlers symmetrical?
|
A symmetrical set of antlers are called typical, as opposed to a set of non typical which are not symmetrical. Antlers are "shed" and regrow every single year, a mature rocky mountain elk can grow 1 1/2" in mass a day during the peak. What trips me out about antlers... during the antler growth they're covered in skin and hair with lots of blood, the antler can become injured creating a deformity in the antler. This deformity will recur every subsequent year! The DNA for the shape of the antler changes and remembers that injury, how the heck does that happen!
|
[
"One of the principal means of distinguishing the closely related black-tailed deer and white-tailed deer is the growth habit of the buck's antlers. In the case of the Black Tail and California mule deer, the antlers fork in an upward growth, whereas the other species' antlers grow in a forward direction.\n",
"The brow-antlered deer is a medium-sized deer, with uniquely distinctive antlers, measuring 100–110 cm. in length with extremely long brow tine, which form the main beam. The two tines form a continuous curve at right angles to the closely set pedicels. This signifies its name, brow-antlered deer, the forward protruding beam appears to come out from the eyebrow. The antlers of the opposite sides are unsymmetrical with respect to each other. The beams are unbranched initially whereas curvature increases as length increases and they get forked also. The sexes are moderately dimorphic in body size and weight. The height and weight of a fully grown stag may be approximately 115–125 cm at shoulder and 95 to 110 kg (210 to 230 lb) respectively. The height and weight of the female are shorter and less as compared to the male counterpart. The length of the body from the base to the ear up to the tail is about 145 to 155 cm in both sexes. The tail is short and rump patch is not pronounced.\n",
"This deer was a graceful species similar in appearance to the barasingha. The pelt was a dark brown with lighter underparts. The underside of the tail was white. Males possessed basket-like antlers, upon which all the main tines branched. This caused the deer to have up to 33 points on their antlers and the outer edge of the rack to be up to long. Females had no antlers.\n",
"Adult male Thorold's deer have antlers, measuring up to in beam length, and weighing up to . Compared with those of wapiti or red deer, the antlers are flattened with the first and second (\"bez\") tines noticeably far apart. The antlers can have up to seven tines, which all lie in the same plane. They are shed annually in March, reaching their full length by late summer. Other distinctive features include longer ears than most other deer, lined with white hair, and large metatarsal and preorbital glands. The hooves are broad and heavy, with unusually long dewclaws. The tail is short, at in length.\n",
"\"Cervus elaphus acoronatus\" was a deer of large size, similar to that of the existing \"Cervus elaphus\", with large and well developed antlers. In this archaic form the antlers lack at their apex, even in adult individuals, the characteristic multi-pointed \"crown\" (hence the Latin name \"acoronatus\", meaning \"without crown\"). In this subspecies the antlers have a simple distal fork oriented transversally to the axis of the body.\n",
"The most noticeable differences between white-tailed and mule deer are the size of their ears, the color of their tails, and the configuration of their antlers. In many cases, body size is also a key difference. The mule deer's tail is black-tipped, whereas the whitetail's is not. Mule deer antlers are bifurcated; they \"fork\" as they grow, rather than branching from a single main beam, as is the case with white-tails.\n",
"Deer constitute the second most diverse family of artiodactyla after bovids. Though of a similar build, deer are strongly distinguished from antelopes by their antlers, which are temporary and regularly regrown unlike the permanent horns of bovids. Characteristics typical of deer include long, powerful legs, a diminutive tail and long ears. Deer exhibit a broad variation in physical proportions. The largest extant deer is the moose, which is nearly tall and weighs up to . The elk stands at the shoulder and weighs . On the contrary, the northern pudu is the smallest deer in the world; it reaches merely at the shoulder and weighs . The southern pudu is only slightly taller and heavier. Sexual dimorphism is quite pronounced – in most species males tend to be larger than females, and, except for the reindeer, only males possess antlers.\n"
] |
How do technological changes affect musical styles?
|
You're asking kind of a lot of questions here. Typically classical music developed and changed with technology.
Take Baroque instruments, for example. You have [Baroque Horns](_URL_0_) with no valves, so they can only play in a handful of keys, and can't play scales, chromatics, and so on, so what you write for them is very limited based on the ability of the instrument. Same with writing for a harpsichord. It can't play any dynamics, can't play sustained notes, and so on, so you are writing within the constraints of the instrument.
As for writing in the baroque era, there was no formal agreement on what constituted an orchestra, it was just however many musicians you happened to be able to afford. As such, the music in the baroque era was very flexible, by necessity. A part for flute could easily be played by oboe, or recorder, or likely even violin. Ornamentation was never written in because it would always be improvised by each individual player.
As for bass instruments, you had what is called a [Figured Bass](_URL_1_) or Basso Continuo wherein there was never a written bass part that you played note for note. You were given the chord numbers of what was going on in the piece, and whoever was playing the bass part would completely improvise bass line around that. Whether it was an organ, or a Viola de Gamba, or a harpsichord, or whatever you had on hand.
The music was extremely versatile and flexible, but it was more so due to necessity.
As you get into the classical era, the instruments keep developing, and all the winds gain the ability to play full chromatic scales, and the orchestras get larger, and the complement becomes more standard. So you lose the figured bass lines, and you see composers write pieces that are more complex for the newer, more versatile instruments. You also see pieces that are more fixed to their instrument - a flute concerto from the Classical era likely wouldn't ever be played on any other instrument, as it was written specifically for the flute.
Then you get into the Romantic period, and the instruments keep getting better. At this time you also see much larger works, bigger orchestras, grander operas with massive casts, works for hundreds of players and singers. At this time the orchestra was getting larger, and composers must have assumed that this growth would continue, so you see works like the [Mahler's 8th Symphony](_URL_2_) known as the "Symphony of a thousand", written for double orchestra (plus lots of additional instruments that are not normally in an orchestra), 8 soloists, double choir, children's choir, 2 brass choirs, and full cathedral organ. It's an insane amount of people. (wicked fun to perform, though)
So, what would have happened if Mahler wrote this in 1702? First off, most of the instruments he was writing for existed in very primitive forms and wouldn't have been able to play a good chunk of the notes written for them. Some hadn't even been invented, like the [Celesta](_URL_3_). Next, you would have had to empty the entire country of musicians just to be able to find enough to play the piece (and somehow find the money to pay them). Then you're dealing with a style of music that no one had ever heard. It would be like playing Bob Marley or Tom Waits. No one would get it.
Music progresses, but not as quickly as we think. Tastes do change, but it's a gradual change where you add a few new elements to an already established, known, and popular formula. To take a totally unknown style and throw it into a different era, would likely scare and confuse the hell out of people.
Rite of Spring is an excellent example. A piece of music that went way beyond the boundaries of what audiences expected, and what was "good taste". As a result, there was a riot in which the police were called. The audiences of the 20th century weren't ready for a piece like that.
|
[
"Music technology is connected to both artistic and technological creativity. Musicians and music technology experts are constantly striving to devise new forms of expression through music, and they are physically creating new devices and software to enable them to do so. Although in the 2010s, the term is most commonly used in reference to modern electronic devices and computer software such as digital audio workstations and Pro Tools digital sound recording software, electronic and digital musical technologies have precursors in the electric music technologies of the early 20th century, such as the electromechanical Hammond organ, which was invented in 1929. In the 2010s, the ontological range of music technology has greatly increased, and it may now be electronic, digital, software-based or indeed even purely conceptual.\n",
"While most music production is done using sophisticated software, some musicians and producers prefer the sound of older analog technology. Professor Albin Zak claims that the increased automation of both newer processes and newer instruments reduces the level of control and manipulation available to musicians and producers.\n",
"Events and changes in society such as ideas, attitudes, discoveries, inventions, and historical events often affect music. For example, the Industrial Revolution was in full effect by the late 18th century and early 19th century. This event had a profound effect on music: there were major improvements in the mechanical valves and keys that most woodwinds and brass instruments depend on. The new and innovative instruments could be played with greater ease and they were more reliable .\n",
"The birth of industrial music was a response to \"an age [in which] the access and control of information were becoming the primary tools of power.\" At its birth, the genre of industrial music was different from any other music, and its use of technology and disturbing lyrics and themes to tear apart preconceptions about the necessary rules of musical form supports the suggestion that industrial music is modernist music. The artists themselves made these goals explicit, even drawing connections to social changes they wished to argue for through their music.\n",
"The mission statement of Electric Kompany states that \"at this time in music history, composers are freely combining Avant-garde and American popular music aesthetics. This new 'Avant - Pop' music is daring, exciting, even shocking. However, most composers are writing this 'new' music for 'old' instruments. As beautiful as these kinds of pieces are, there still is a tremendous lack of 'modern music' written for 'modern instruments' - in our case - the electric guitar, keyboards, drum set, and electric bass. This seems to be the next logical step in music evolution and is the main reason for the formation of the rock quartet, Electric Kompany.\"\n",
"With the development of technology and digital music during the 21st century, the music industry of the world accepts more challenge. There are also different trends in the record economy. The development of digital music makes the record economy toward a high level. The development of the internet and digital music bring many change and challenge on the modern music industry. The characteristic of digital music is fast and convenient. Compare with traditional record music, digital music is more suit for the age of the internet.\n",
"Some elements of the previous century have been retained, including postmodernism, polystylism and eclecticism, which seek to incorporate elements of all styles of music irrespective of whether these are \"classical\" or not—these efforts represent a slackening differentiation between the various musical genres. Important influences include rock, pop, jazz and the dance traditions associated with these. The combination of classical music and multimedia is another notable practice in the 21st century; the Internet, alongside its related technology, are important resources in this respect. Attitudes towards female composers are also changing.\n"
] |
why is the prices of games going up in canada even though the dollar has remained the same for about a year.
|
There is an ever increasing competition between game makers, and the cost of development is increasing.
|
[
"Nintendo Australia has also been criticised for the expensive cost of their games, but this is the same with all video game distributors and subsidiaries in Australia, and Rose Lappin has said that the Australian and New Zealand dollar are weak on the exchange conversion rate, and they must raise the prices in order to keep running and to make a profit for their parent companies. This is despite multiple and recent occasions where the Australian dollar is reaching parity with the US.\n",
"Following the system's price cut of almost one third of its original price by the second quarter of 2011, sales saw an increase of more than 260 percent during the comparable 19-day time period in July. About 185,000 units were sold following a price cut on August 12. Nintendo sold more than 235,000 Nintendo 3DS systems in the United States in August, being the second best-selling dedicated game system for the month.\n",
"In 1970, the Canadian dollar ceased to be pegged to the American dollar and US dealers found their Yorkville prices suddenly jump 10% higher, followed quickly by another 10% added due to a short-lived US surtax on imported finished goods.\n",
"Publishers had to pass these higher expenses to the consumer and as a result, Nintendo 64 games tended to sell for higher prices than PlayStation games. While most PlayStation games rarely exceeded US$50, Nintendo 64 cartridges could reach US$79.99, such as the first pressing of \"The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time\". Games in Sony's line of PlayStation Greatest Hits budget line retailed for US$19.95, while Nintendo's equivalent Player's Choice line retailed for US$29.95. In the United Kingdom, Nintendo 64 games were priced £54.95 at their time of release, while PlayStation games were priced at £44.95. In the United States, games were priced around at the time of their release.\n",
"Sales of the Nintendo 2DS surged three weeks after launching in the United Kingdom, after retailers cut on its price due to poor sales. The system was available for around £110, but major retailers including Argos, Amazon and Tesco cut the system's price to under £100 to coincide with the school half-term. As a result, sales of the Nintendo 2DS increased by 64% week-on-week, making it the UK's best selling console of the month, without combining the sales of the Nintendo 3DS and its larger counterpart. During the third quarter of 2013, video game retailer GameStop reported that worldwide hardware sales grew by 15.3%, mainly due to strong Nintendo 2DS and 3DS sales.\n",
"The Canadian dollar fell in value against its American counterpart during the technological boom of the 1990s that was centred in the United States, and was traded for as little as US$0.6179 US on January 21, 2002, which was an all-time low. Since then, its value against all major currencies rose until 2013, due in part to high prices for commodities (especially oil) that Canada exports.\n",
"After its North American release on May 29, 2007, the game sold 314,000 units in the United States in three days, making it the best-selling home console game in the country of May and the second-best selling game overall. In late June the game sold 426,000 units making it the best-selling game of the month, and on July 2 Nintendo of America announced that the game had sold over 550,000 copies since its release, making it the fastest-selling entry in the series. According to the NPD Group, the game was the tenth best-selling game of 2007 in the US, with 1.82 million units sold. In January 2008, Famitsu reported that \"Mario Party 8\" had sold 1,153,648 copies, making it one of 4 Wii games that had surpassed sales of one million units and the third best-selling Wii game behind Wii Sports (2,663,938 units) and Wii Play (2,139,084 units). According to GameDaily, the game was the tenth most-rented video game of 2008. It received a \"Platinum\" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. The game went on to sell 7.6 million copies worldwide, making it the tenth best-selling Wii game of all-time.\n"
] |
if i try to hit a small insect, e.g. a fruit fly, with my hand at high speed, will i hit it or will the air which my hand pushes in front of it will save the insect?
|
The air in front of it will actually be hitting it itself if you swing hard enough. Of course this is way faster than your hand can really go on its own. So it depends on what you mean by 'high speed'.
That's why the space shuttle coming down from space catches fire. Not from friction, but by pushing the air so hard in front of it that it hits more air hard enough that it glows and gets super hot.
If you had some kind of superhuman punch the force from the punch could hit the fly with air molecules hard enough to kill it well before your fist made contact.
Have your punch go fast enough and you could turn the air into superheated plasma that would vaporize the fly. But at that point your hand has become a fist shaped weapon of mass destruction. As you'd be vaporizing everything in a vaguely cone shape for a large distance.
Of course, with a slow enough human hand speed, the air currents are likely pushing the fly away, because you're not moving the air fast enough to make it damage the fly. And your hand isn't moving fast enough to damage the fly. And because the fly is so small it will absorb way less kinetic energy from your hand than say, somebody's face.
At THIS speed, the air is doing you a disfavor, and that's why the air holes in a fly swatter help it snap down fast enough. But even a fly swatter hitting a fly will often not harm it. It's the impact against the fly swatter and the wall the fly is on that crushes it.
|
[
"The adult insect is an excellent flier and is able to travel great distances. While they prefer to attack palms that are already infested or weakened by other stresses, they will colonize healthy palms.\n",
"BULLET::::- Drone bees - These muscular bees can fire their stingers but they die if they fire them. If Rollie is on the ball, they will pound try to pound their fists instead. They appear in level 6 and 7.\n",
"A flyswatter is ideally lightweight and stiff, allowing quick acceleration to overcome the fast reaction time of the fly, while also minimizing damage caused by hitting other objects. The flyswatter usually works by mechanically crushing the fly against a hard surface, after the user has waited for the fly to land somewhere. However, some skilled users can injure or stun an airborne insect in mid-flight by whipping the swatter through the air at an extreme speed.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Butterfly, The pink butterfly appears after the second ball. He flutters and flies like lightning and will home-in on you, trying to sting you with his venomous bite. Just staying away from him won't do the trick. There are many tricks that you may learn to avoid the butterfly, but you will have to figure them out for yourself. Up to four butterflies can appear, but not until very late in the game.\n",
"Any prey that has the ability to jump or fly away will always be more effective in escaping than non-flying insects like the termites. However, many times those that do escape will still lose a leg or other appendage in the process, like 60% of the grasshoppers in this experiment. Because the prey is so much larger than the ants, even just getting this one appendage as a food source is a victory. For example, a hind leg of a grasshopper is still about 12.4 times the size of a single ant and a great resource in itself.\n",
"Many insects can hover, or stay in one spot in the air, doing so by beating their wings rapidly. The ability to do so, though, is complex; requiring the use of sideways stabilization as well as the lift necessary to overcome the force of gravity. The lifting force is caused by the downward stroke of the wings. As the wings push down on the surrounding air, the result reaction force of the air on the wings force the insect up. The wings of most insects are evolved so that, during the upward stroke, the force on the wing is small. Due to the fact that the upbeat and downbeat force the insect down and up respectively, the insect oscillates and winds up staying in the same position.\n",
"Some plants are capable of rapid movement: the so-called \"sensitive plant\" (\"Mimosa pudica\") responds to even the slightest physical touch by quickly folding its thin pinnate leaves such that they point downwards, and carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap (\"Dionaea muscipula\") produce specialized leaf structures that instantaneously snap shut when touched or landed upon by insects. In the Venus flytrap, touch is detected by cilia lining the inside of the specialized leaves, which generate an action potential that stimulates motor cells and causes movement to occur.\n"
] |
in a microwave, can i heat my food on half the heat for twice the time?
|
Pretty much that is what you can do. You can also in a sense turn it into a slow cooker if you set the power low enough. I do not know if your power level goes low enough, or why you want to do this at all.
I use mine to prepare fine chicken soup inside ten minutes using things from the refrigerator and freezer. Frozen vegetables do well this way as do noodles kept at room temperature. Seven minutes in the microwave at regular setting and I have better soup than Raman ever made.
|
[
"Microwave ovens produce heat directly within the food, but despite the common misconception that microwaved food cooks from the inside out, 2.45 GHz microwaves can only penetrate approximately into most foods. The inside portions of thicker foods are mainly heated by heat conducted from the outer .\n",
"BULLET::::- When using a microwave oven to cook food, the micro wave travels through the food, causing the water molecules vibrate in the same frequency, which is similar to resonance, so that the food as a whole, gets hot fast.\n",
"BULLET::::- Microwave ovens do not cook food from the inside out. 2.45 GHz microwaves can only penetrate approximately into most foods. The inside portions of thicker foods are mainly heated by heat conducted from the outer portions.\n",
"Microwave ovens heat food without getting hot themselves. Taking a pot off a stove, unless it is an induction cooktop, leaves a potentially dangerous heating element or trivet that will stay hot for some time. Likewise, when taking a casserole out of a conventional oven, one's arms are exposed to the very hot walls of the oven. A microwave oven does not pose this problem.\n",
"In addition, hot food must be held at a minimum interval of 135°F (57°C) if it is not immediately consumed. The temperature must be checked every 4 hours or else labeled with a discard time. Although monitored hot food can be held indefinitely in this way without a food safety concern, the nutritional value, flavor, and quality can suffer over long periods.\n",
"Susceptors built into packaging create high temperatures in a microwave oven. This is useful for crisping and browning foods, as well as concentrating heat on the oil in a microwave popcorn bag (which is solid at room temperature) in order to melt it rapidly.\n",
"In microwave cooking, susceptors are built into paper packaging of certain foods, where they absorb microwaves which penetrate the packaging. This process raises the susceptor patch temperature to levels where it may then heat food by conduction or by infrared radiation.\n"
] |
how do throttleable rocket engines work?
|
Simply put you alter the fuel flow using pumps on the fuel line. More fuel means more thrust being generated in the combustion chamber.
Due to the inability of the pumps to work arbitrarily fast and the inability of the combustion chamber to handle all fuel combusting simultaneously you have an upper limit on how much you can put out per unit time.
|
[
"Rockets can be throttled by controlling the propellant combustion rate formula_11 (usually measured in kg/s or lb/s). In liquid and hybrid rockets, the propellant flow entering the chamber is controlled using valves, in solid rockets it is controlled by changing the area of propellant that is burning and this can be designed into the propellant grain (and hence cannot be controlled in real-time).\n",
"Rockets can usually be throttled down to an exit pressure of about one-third of ambient pressure (often limited by flow separation in nozzles) and up to a maximum limit determined only by the mechanical strength of the engine.\n",
"The engine's powerhead fulfills two additional functions, heating helium gas for pressurization of propellant tanks and generating hydraulic power for hydraulic actuators to deflect the nozzle and aerodynamic rudders.\n",
"In spacecraft propulsion, rocket engines are generally mounted on a pair of gimbals to allow a single engine to vector thrust about both the pitch and yaw axes; or sometimes just one axis is provided per engine. To control roll, twin engines with differential pitch or yaw control signals are used to provide torque about the vehicle's roll axis.\n",
"In practice, the degree to which rockets can be throttled varies greatly, but most rockets can be throttled by a factor of 2 without great difficulty; the typical limitation is combustion stability, as for example, injectors need a minimum pressure to avoid triggering damaging oscillations (chugging or combustion instabilities); but injectors can be optimised and tested for wider ranges.\n",
"SuperDraco rocket engines utilize a storable (non-cryogenic) propellant which allows the engines to be fired many months after fueling and launch. They combine the functions of both a reaction control system and a main propulsive engine.\n",
"Rocket engines produce thrust by the expulsion of an exhaust fluid that has been accelerated to high speed through a propelling nozzle. The fluid is usually a gas created by high pressure () combustion of solid or liquid propellants, consisting of fuel and oxidiser components, within a combustion chamber. As the gases expand through the nozzle, they are accelerated to very high (supersonic) speed, and the reaction to this pushes the engine in the opposite direction. Combustion is most frequently used for practical rockets, as high temperatures and pressures are desirable for the best performance.\n"
] |
why does shaking (like in a train or bus) and rocking a baby's crib help us sleep?
|
I am going to take a dig at this. I think the exact word you are looking for is "Rocking to sleep".
As to why Rocking helps us sleep, it is a matter of brain waves.
Firstly, we have been put to sleep a hundred times since our birth by gentle swinging motions of our parents. Hence our **brain associates these gentle movements to a relaxing environment**. As a result, we feel a little less stressed and calm, the perfect conditions for inducing sleep.
Now comes the question: Why do babies rock to sleep in the first place? I read about it a while back, so I might not be accurate here. It is still poorly understood, but the bottom line is, **any sort of slow rhythmic movement is sleep inducing**. The reason is that our brain is made to respond to any stimuli. This is an evolutionary trait, and is one of the most important traits in our survival as a species. While observing a slow rhythmic movement, our brain functions at a much slower rate than if it was observing a random fast paced movement. Since there is nothing much new to intake, that means nothing much new to process. *Same input, same output, less processing*. This applies to all the senses: sight, hearing and so on. Hence our brain functions at a slower rate, which is the ideal condition for sleeping.
Another reason is that, rhythmic movement **calms down our Amygdala - the part of the brain which responds to fear**. Since Amygdala is a key element in the sleep-wake cycle, calming it down is one of the foremost tasks before sleep.
So there it is. Hope I have remembered it well.
Note: Rocking does not only put us to sleep, it also helps us to sleep deeply.
P.S. This is my first comment on Reddit, please be gentle.
Edit: The article I read was probably about this study: _URL_0_. You can check this out. It more or less states the above.
|
[
"Many adults find rocking chairs soothing because of the gentle motion. Gentle rocking motion has been shown to provide faster onset of sleep than remaining stationary, mimicking the process of a parent rocking a child to sleep.\n",
"Children and adults will often rock themselves when distressed: there appears to be a deep comfort and security to be found in gentle movement. With its flowing and wave-like movements, Pulsing perhaps recalls a body-memory of the foetal experience in the womb, where the baby is constantly subject to rhythmic pulsation, or of being cradled and rocked during infancy. \n",
"Indian people believe that the rocking motion soothes and relaxes the child and puts them to sleep quickly by replicating the comfort and security of the womb. Indian mothers claim that using a ghodiyu for their child can relieve baby colic symptoms due to the rocking motion which they believe relaxes the baby.\n",
"This may include repositioning the child's head throughout the day so that the rounded side of the head is placed against the mattress, re-positioning cribs and other areas that infants spend time in so that they will have to look in a different direction to see their parents or others in the room, re-positioning mobiles and other toys for similar reasons, and avoiding extended time sleeping in car-seats (when not in a vehicle), bouncy seats, or other supine seating which is thought to exacerbate the problem. If the child appears to have discomfort or cries when they are re-positioned, a neck problem should be ruled out.\n",
"The physical abuse of infants is related to crying. Crying may be related to the abusive head trauma in infants. This is the most common cause of child abuse death. Fathers are often the ones who shake the infant. Shaking may occur many times. This shaking can cause serious injuries in almost 50% of the time. Some caregivers are unaware that shaking the baby can seriously harm or kill the infant. This type of abuse is being addressed by efforts to educate parents and caregivers with educational flyers and videos.\n",
"Cradleboard use and its effect on mother-infant interaction has been studied in Navajo communities. It has been shown that cradleboard use has no significant negative effect on this development. In the first few months of infancy, cradleboards have a soothing effect on babies. After 6 months of age or more, infants begin to resist being placed in cradleboards more vigorously as they become more mobile, and they are often placed in the cradleboard with their arms and hands free, so that they can play with objects hung from the cradleboard for their amusement.\n",
"By the time the baby is learning to roll over, often around 4–5 months, parents and caregivers should transition the baby from swaddling to a less restrictive covering for sleep. If the baby can roll over, then it is important for the baby to have use of its hands and arms to adjust his or her head position after rolling over.\n"
] |
why couldn't you lose weight by just not eating until you were thin?
|
Because of the starvation response.
Your body is meant to be digesting food pretty much all the time. It's the constant digestion of food that supplies your brain with glucose.
If you go without eating at all long enough for your digestive system to stop producing glucose — anywhere from six to twenty-four hours, depending — your body will start metabolizing something called glycogen. Glycogen is a substance your body stores in your liver and your muscles and which can be broken down in your liver to make glucose.
When the liver starts breaking down glycogen, your body notices, and the regulatory endocrine system starts releasing a variety of hormones that get picked up by your liver and your digestive system in general.
This *hurts.* It's very unpleasant, like feeling hungry only more so. Headache, muscle and joint pain, irritability and generally feeling extra-emotional … it all adds up to a *profound* urge to eat.
But you can ignore it. It's not crippling or anything; it doesn't leave you writhing in agony. It just puts getting some food at the very top of your list of priorities, is all. If you choose to ignore it — or if you have no choice, because you don't have access to food, like if you're on a liferaft in the middle of the ocean or something — your body initiates what's called the *starvation response.*
When your body gets to the point where no more glucose is available from the digestive system or the liver, anywhere from a day and a half to three days after last eating, your *body* switches over to metabolizing fatty acids, and your *brain* switches over to primarily metabolizing ketone bodies. Your metabolism as a whole slows down because less energy is available — fatty acids and ketone bodies aren't as good a supply of energy as glucose is — which also has the effect of conserving what energy reserves you have left. Your body does begin digesting your own adipose tissue deposits — that is, at this point you do begin losing weight — but it happens *very* slowly, much more slowly than it would happen if the starvation response hadn't kicked in.
But there's a bigger problem. See, your body is now *mainly* running off fatty acids and ketone bodies, but it still needs a trickle of glucose to stay alive. Ordinarily, when your metabolism is normal and you aren't starving, you need about 200 grams of pure glucose a day just to live. After the starvation response kicks in, that requirement drops to just about 30 grams a day. Your body can synthesize glucose out of the byproducts of fatty acid metabolism, but that only adds up to about *20* grams a day. You still need ten more … and to get it, your body begins metabolizing proteins. Proteins are long chains of amino acids, and your body can make glucose out of amino acids in your liver. So your body begins eating its own core structures.
To synthesize one gram of glucose in your liver, your body has to break down about three grams of protein. While in starvation, your body needs to make about ten grams of glucose a day from protein, so that means your body loses about 30 grams of protein a day. This mostly comes from your big skeletal muscles.
So yes, by starving yourself you are indeed losing weight … but not in the way you wanted to. In addition to burning off body fat, you're also breaking down and digesting your own muscles, which *hurts!* It's *extremely* painful! And because your metabolism as a whole is slowed dramatically by starvation, you just have to endure that discomfort *longer* to lose a given amount, in pounds, of body fat.
So yes, you can in principle just stop eating to lose weight. But it's the slowest and most agonizingly painful way to do it.
|
[
"As a young adult, Ellen had fluctuations with her weight and that was when her fear of becoming fat began. In her writings, she expressed her strong cravings for food, yet she had an extreme fear of gaining weight. These thoughts eventually led to the development of depression. In order to stay thin, Ellen started to take laxatives; sometimes taking as many as sixty to seventy packs a day.\n",
"Weight loss and eating difficulties due to dysphagia and other muscle discoordination are common, making nutrition management increasingly important as the disease advances. Thickening agents can be added to liquids as thicker fluids are easier and safer to swallow. Reminding the affected person to eat slowly and to take smaller pieces of food into the mouth may also be of use to prevent choking. If eating becomes too hazardous or uncomfortable, the option of using a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy is available. This is a feeding tube, permanently attached through the abdomen into the stomach, which reduces the risk of aspirating food and provides better nutritional management. Assessment and management by speech-language pathologists with experience in Huntington's disease is recommended.\n",
"Continuing weight loss may deteriorate into wasting, a vaguely defined condition called cachexia. Cachexia differs from starvation in part because it involves a systemic inflammatory response. It is associated with poorer outcomes. In the advanced stages of progressive disease, metabolism can change so that they lose weight even when they are getting what is normally regarded as adequate nutrition and the body cannot compensate. This leads to a condition called anorexia cachexia syndrome (ACS) and additional nutrition or supplementation is unlikely to help. Symptoms of weight loss from ACS include severe weight loss from muscle rather than body fat, loss of appetite and feeling full after eating small amounts, nausea, anemia, weakness and fatigue.\n",
"BULLET::::- High fiber foods and foods with a more dense, natural consistency can become very difficult to eat, while highly refined foods cause little discomfort. Many people who regain any weight lost after surgery do so because they begin to avoid the discomfort associated with consuming \"healthier\" foods, and start eating more easily passed \"junk\" foods.\n",
"Food thickening can be important for people facing medical issues with chewing or swallowing, as foods with a thicker consistency can reduce the chances of choking, or of inhalation of liquids or food particles, which can lead to aspiration pneumonia.\n",
"\"Thinner\" is partly based on an episode in Stephen King's own life. He weighed and was warned by his doctor that he needed to lose weight and stop smoking. Although he did in fact lose the weight, he was angered by the fact that the decision to lose weight was not really his own, but, he felt, had been forced on him by his doctor. He began to contemplate what would happen if someone were to lose weight and then be unable to stop losing weight—and the idea for \"Thinner\" began to germinate in his mind.\n",
"Fad diets tend to result in losing small amounts of weight, usually mostly water, in the first few days or weeks. Afterwards, the weight is almost invariably regained. According to Boston University School of Medicine, 98% of people who lose weight regain it within 5 years. Many diets fail to produce lasting weight loss because dieters revert to old habits after the end of the diet, many diets are not sustainable, and deprivation of certain foods leads to binge eating.\n"
] |
How much farmland was needed to sustain classical/ancient cities?
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Quite a lot. Indeed, most large cities in the Mediterranean world got that way because they were able to exceed the production limitations of their surrounding hinterland by importing food. Few cities, even in the most productive regions, could sustain a particularly large population from their local area alone. Even smaller cities had difficulty sustaining themselves. Athens, while a decently large Classical city-state, was not particularly large compared to contemporary cities in the east or later cities in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. With a population of probably only a few hundred thousand, and only something like 20,000 adult citizen males (estimates vary wildly, and I'm hardly on top of them) in the 5th Century Athens was absolutely dwarfed by the likes of Rome, Alexandria, Roman Carthage, or Antioch. But even the Athenians were forced to depend heavily on imported grain, receiving hundreds of thousands of μέδιμνοι. Much of this import was during the Peloponnesian War, when the city was cut off from its hinterland, but the Attic countryside could not supply the city during normal periods without imported aid in any case.
Furthermore, grain import was crucial to protect cities from famine. Prior to the Green Revolution farming was a much more risky ordeal. Even a slight dip in a region's temporary productivity might have devastating effects for cities that were packed full of inhabitants. The already strained food supply of large cities in antiquity could completely snap in the face of a poor harvest. Famine was a big fucking deal, and grain import helped provide a buffer against that sort of thing. Grain import allowed excess grain to be easily stockpiled, and it also ensured a steady supply of food even when the local countryside could not produce, even if that hinterland was in fact capable of providing for the city.
Of course the most notable example of a city that survived on the grain trade is Rome itself. With at least a million inhabitants by some time in the 1st Century, B.C. the city was totally unable to be provisioned by the local Latin countryside, and when the grain trade broke down in late antiquity the city's population dwindled rapidly. Imports from Campania and fertile Apulia (for real, go to Apulia some day, it's just wheat farms as far as the eye can see) were originally enough, but soon the city was demanding more grain than could be reasonably supplied for cheap. That's another thing, cost. A city of any reasonable size *might* be able to provision itself via overland routes, but it was too expensive to do so. It cost vastly less to haul grain by sea from Sicily and Africa, which were more productive in any case, than overland from Apulia or Campania. The acquisition of provinces allowed the city to provision itself at previously unthinkable levels, with the population rising in tandem. The Roman grain import, obtained largely through provincial grain taxes, was absolutely enormous. Sicily paid 3 million *modii* of grain a year, a tenth of its total production--more could be purchased if there was need, as was the case in 73 when nearly 4 million more *modii* were purchased to offset famine. According to Josephus the province of Africa alone supplied the city for eight months per year. Pseudo-Aurelius Victor reports that Egypt under Augustus supplied the city with a whopping 20 million *modii* of grain per year. The overseas grain trade was so crucial to the city that threatening it was tantamount to putting the city under siege. When the Cilicians disrupted the grain trade from Sicily and Africa the Romans were forced to grant Pompey an extraordinary magistracy to clear them out--Cicero reports that the day that Pompey's magistracy was enacted grain prices plummeted as traders began to become more assured of the survival of their cargo.
Much the same could be said about other large cities. Constantinople had to import most of its grain from Egypt in late antiquity. Alexandria also could not rely on its local hinterland, collecting grain taxes from throughout Egypt and almost certainly importing a significant amount as well. A smaller city might not need to import its grain, but once we start talking about real metropoleis the story becomes very different very quickly
|
[
"The ideal farmland habitat is a mixture of grass and arable fields, divided by thick hedgerows with pockets of dense scrub. They can tolerate a certain degree of urbanisation, and are found in green spaces in towns and cities, even Rome.\n",
"At the height of the city's occupation, the population reached the limits of the agricultural carrying capacity of the land, with crops grown in gardens and fields among the residential complexes and irrigated from artificial cisterns built to store water from the seasonal rains, and more distant fields in neighbouring valleys, probably were cultivated. Additional agricultural produce probably was supplied from nearby satellite sites.\n",
"Sumerian farmers grew the cereals barley and wheat, starting to live in villages from about 8000 BC. Given the low rainfall of the region, agriculture relied on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Irrigation canals leading from the rivers permitted the growth of cereals in large enough quantities to support cities. The first ploughs appear in pictographs from Uruk around 3000 BC; seed-ploughs that funneled seed into the ploughed furrow appear on seals around 2300 BC. Vegetable crops included chickpeas, lentils, peas, beans, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. They grew fruits including dates, grapes, apples, melons, and figs. Alongside their farming, Sumerians also caught fish and hunted fowl and gazelle. The meat of sheep, goats, cows and poultry was eaten, mainly by the elite. Fish was preserved by drying, salting and smoking.\n",
"In his treatise \"De agricultura\" (\"On Farming\", 2nd century BC), Cato wrote that the best farms contained a vineyard, followed by an irrigated garden, willow plantation, olive orchard, meadow, grain land, forest trees, vineyard trained on trees, and lastly acorn woodlands. Though Rome relied on resources from its many provinces acquired through conquest and warfare, wealthy Romans developed the land in Italy to produce a variety of crops. \"The people living in the city of Rome constituted a huge market for the purchase of food produced on Italian farms.\"\n",
"While today the city's landscape appears to be barren, there is recorded evidence of extensive deforestation and numerous agricultural activities. This suggests that the landscape has changed dramatically. Virtually all available arable land was irrigated using a variety of innovative methods. A significant percentage of the population was involved in agriculture, making the city self-sufficient for food. This enabled it to withstand long sieges, of which there were many during the empire's three century long existence. Numerous canals were dug to provide a perennial water supply to the narrow strip of fertile land bordering the Tungabhadra River. Many of these canals are still in use today though they usually have been modified to meet current requirements. Many of the tanks (\"bunds\") created for water storage purposes like the Kamalapura tank are still in use. Excavation of the \"Intensive Survey Area\" has shown the presence of sixty water reservoir embankments. Numerous other agricultural features such as check dams, erosion control walls and wells have been recorded. The net result of these systems was a complex agricultural landscape characterized by a multitude of agricultural regimes appropriate to the complex topography, resources, needs and differing populations.\n",
"In the Greco-Roman world of Classical antiquity, Roman agriculture was built on techniques originally pioneered by the Sumerians, transmitted to them by subsequent cultures, with a specific emphasis on the cultivation of crops for trade and export. The Romans laid the groundwork for the manorial economic system, involving serfdom, which flourished in the Middle Ages. The farm sizes in Rome can be divided into three categories. Small farms were from 18–88 iugera (one iugerum is equal to about 0.65 acre). Medium-sized farms were from 80–500 iugera (singular iugerum). Large estates (called latifundia) were over 500 iugera. The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by owner and his family; slaves doing work under supervision of slave managers; tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner and a tenant divide up a farm's produce; and situations in which a farm was leased to a tenant.\n",
"While today the environs of the metropolitan city appear to be barren, evidence of extensive deforestation and numerous agricultural sites have been recorded. Virtually all available arable land was used for irrigation using variety of innovative methods. In fact a significant percentage of the population was involved in agriculture, making the city self-sufficient in food. This enabled the capital city to withstand long sieges, many of which did happen during the three century long existence of the empire. These discoveries indicate dramatic landscape changes. Numerous canals dug out provided perennial water supply to a narrow strip of fertile land bordering the Tungabhadra river. Many of these canals are still in use though modified in most cases to meet current requirements. Many of the tanks created for water storage purposes like the Kamalapura tank still are in use. Survey of the \"Intensive Survey Area\" has shown the presence of 60 water reservoir embankments. Numerous other agricultural features like check dams, erosion control walls and wells have been recorded. The net result of these schemes was a complex agricultural landscape that was characterized by a multitude of agricultural regimes appropriate to complex topography, resources, needs and populations.\n"
] |
Why did the Germanic invasions of Britain result in conqueror's language becoming the spoken tongue compared to the rest of the Germanic conquests in Europe?
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The traditional narrative is that it was just that, a large scale population exchange with the Romano-British being killed, dying of plague and being driven West by the Anglo-Saxons, later becoming the Welsh and Cornish. The remaining small population of Romano-British in what became England and Lowland Scotland, merged into the Anglo-Saxon majority and soon began speaking the English language. The old Brythonic language and any Vulgar Latin that had developed were soon eradicated.
This viewpoint is supported by the historical sources we have available, place name studies - Brythonic influenced names are rare in England and tend to occur the most in regions close to Wales and Cornwall, for instance 'coombe' in Devon which is the cognate of 'cwm' in Welsh and the River Avon, which is a corruption of 'Afon' - Welsh for river. Another piece of evidence is vague records of plague in Britain in the 6th century. It's also supported in the English language itself, which shows very little Brythonic influence anywhere, I'd be surprised if I've even used one Brythonic word in this entire post aside from when quoting.
It's important to note that nowhere else in the former Roman Empire did the language of the Germanic invaders supplant the native languages, in England it replaces both Brythonic and the Vulgar Latin there. Something major had to have happened for this to occur, as it breaks the pattern of every other Roman province.
The alternative viewpoint is a little less defined. It's become vogue amongst some historians in the past 20/30 years to downplay the extent of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The new ideas suggest that the Anglo-Saxon migration was much smaller, the Romano-British remained where they were and a hybrid population developed. However the population was politically dominated by the Anglo-Saxons (some suggest an apartheid-like system) and thus English was adopted. This idea is a bit troublesome in my opinion, as in history up until the modern day, very rarely did a minority impose their language upon the majority aside from in religious environments. When a minority language was imposed such as Latin, it ended up heavily corrupted by the original language, thus Vulgar Latin and eventually the Romance Languages. English shows no evidence of this language merging (sorry, I don't know the linguistic term) until the Norman Invasion, which is an example of language evolution similar to. Nearly every instance of language interaction has either the majority language killing the minority, the two co-existing together or a hybrid language being formed. Under this theory the Romano-British would have had to have spontaneously given up Brythonic and spoke Old English, because there's little evidence of Brythonic in Old English to suggest a slow transition over centuries. For this to have been true it would be like the Gauls suddenly speaking Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin/French never developing.
Supporters of this theory tend to point towards genetic surveys done recently such as Oppenheimer's which suggests that the population of Britain has changed little since the Ice Age, but they're somewhat unproven, as other surveys such as the Wellcome Trust/Oxford University's 'Face of Britain' survey have given results that back up the tradition 'Germanic domination' model. Furthermore this argument doesn't explain why the historical evidence and place name evidence is so heavily in favour of the traditional narrative.
So essentially, you can believe the historical narrative of 'German dominance', a Romano-British population collapse and that the English people are primarily a Germanic people speaking their German language; or you can believe the 'Elite Adoption' model, where the Anglo-Saxon invasions were small and the English people emerged as mixture of the Anglo-Saxons and Romano-British and the English language was adopted wholesale because of the political power of the Anglo-Saxons. A definitive answer is unknown, although you'll probably be able to tell my position from this post.
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[
"Germanicist John A. Hawkins sets forth the arguments for a Germanic substrate. Hawkins argues that the Proto-Germans encountered a non-Indo-European speaking people and borrowed many features from their language. He hypothesizes that the first sound shift of Grimm's Law was the result of non-native speakers attempting to pronounce Indo-European sounds and that they resorted to the closest sounds in their own language in their attempt to pronounce them. The battle-axe people are an ancient culture identified by archaeology who have been proposed as candidates for the people who influenced Germanic with their non-Indo-European speech. However, the culture was spread through a wider range of regions across Eastern and Central Europe, already close to or in contact with areas inhabited by Indo-European speakers and their putative area of origin, and none of the Indo-European proto-languages thus produced or their succeeding languages developed along the much larger line of extension of the battle-axe people (Celto-Italic, Illyrian, Slavic, Baltic and others) appear to have been affected by the same changes that are limited to the Proto-Germanic. \n",
"The demise of Vulgar Latin in the face of Anglo-Saxon settlement is very different from the fate of the language in other areas of Western Europe which were subject to Germanic migration, like France, Italy and Spain, where Latin and the Romance languages continued. The likely reason is that in Britain there was a greater collapse in Roman institutions and infrastructure, leading to a much greater reduction in the status and prestige of the indigenous Romanised culture; and so the indigenous people were more likely to abandon their languages, in favour of the higher-status language of the Anglo-Saxons.\n",
"The East Germanic languages were marginalized from the end of the Migration period. The Burgundians, Goths, and Vandals became linguistically assimilated by their respective neighbors by about the 7th century, with only Crimean Gothic lingering on until the 18th century.\n",
"As the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives. The Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman, and Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. Political power was no longer in English hands, so the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect. Middle English literature is written, then, in the many dialects that correspond to the history, culture, and background of the individual writers.\n",
"These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants. The dialects spoken by these invaders formed what would be called Old English, which was also strongly influenced by yet another Germanic language, Old East Norse, spoken by Danish Viking invaders who settled mainly in the North-East. English, England and East Anglia are derived from words referring to the Angles: \"Englisc\", \"Angelcynn\" and \"Englaland\".\n",
"Although also spoken in neighbouring lands, the Germanic languages show less significant Slavic influence, partly because Slavic migrations were mostly headed south rather than west. Slavic tribes did push westwards into Germanic territory, but borrowing for the most part seems to have been from Germanic to Slavic rather than the other way: for instance, the now-extinct Polabian language was heavily influenced by German, far more than any living Slavic language today. The Slavic contributions to Germanic languages remains a moot question, though Max Vasmer, a specialist in Slavic etymology, has claimed that there were no Slavic loans into Proto-Germanic. The only Germanic languages that shows significant Slavic influence are Yiddish and the historical colonial dialects of German that were spoken East of the Oder–Neisse line, such as Silesian German (formerly spoken in Silesia and South of East Prussia) and the Eastern varieties of East Low German, with the exception of Low Prussian, which had a strong Baltic substratum. Modern Dutch slang, especially the Amsterdam dialect, borrowed much from Yiddish in turn. However, there are isolated Slavic loans (mostly recent) into other Germanic languages. For example, the word for \"border\" (in modern German \"Grenze\", Dutch \"grens\") was borrowed from the Common Slavic \"granica\". There are, however, many cities and villages of Slavic origin in Eastern Germany, the largest of which are Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden. English derives \"quark\" (a kind of cheese, not the subatomic particle) from the German \"Quark\", which in turn is derived from the Slavic \"tvarog\", which means \"curd\". Many German surnames, particularly in Eastern Germany and Austria, are Slavic in origin. Swedish also has \"torg\" (market place) from Old Russian \"tъrgъ\" or Polish \"targ\", \"tolk\" (interpreter) from Old Slavic \"tlŭkŭ\", and \"pråm\" (barge) from West Slavonic \"pramŭ\".\n",
"With the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. As the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives: the Oïl dialect of the upper classes became Anglo-Norman, and Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English.\n"
] |
If milk chocolate has milk in it, how does chocolate have such a long shelf life?
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Chocolate has almost no water in it. [There is a minimum water activity that is necessary for microbial growth](_URL_0_). Chocolate is below that, so microbes can't get in there and spoil it. Even when making things like truffles with liquid centers a lot of care is taken to make sure that the amount of water is low enough to retard mold growth while still keeping the center liquid.
Milk chocolate will eventually go rancid thanks to the unsaturated fat that reacts with air. This is slow, especially wrapped in an airtight and opaque covering.
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[
"Some nutritionists have criticized chocolate milk for its high sugar content and its relationship to childhood obesity. In New York City, school food officials report that nearly 60 percent of the 100 million cartons served each year contain fat-free chocolate milk. Because chocolate milk can contain twice as much sugar as plain low-fat milk from added sugars, some school districts have stopped serving the product altogether, including some areas in California and Washington, D.C.\n",
"In a study conducted in 2006, researchers stated that the benefits of drinking chocolate milk were likely due to its ratio of carbohydrates to protein, among other nutritional properties. However, this study was small in scale as it was conducted on only nine athletes and was partially funded by the dairy industry. Furthermore, the study compared chocolate milk to two energy drinks and unflavored milk was not used as a comparison, so it is unknown if chocolate milk is superior to unflavored milk as a recovery drink.\n",
"Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that also contains milk powder or condensed milk. In the UK and Ireland, milk chocolate must contain a minimum of 20% total dry cocoa solids; in the rest of the European Union, the minimum is 25%.\n",
"A number of studies have been issued in regards to chocolate milk nutrition. A 2005 study by the New York City (NYC) Department of Education found that by removing whole milk and replacing it with low-fat or fat-free chocolate milk, students were served an estimated 5,960 fewer calories and 619 fewer grams of fat per year. However, more recent studies show that fat-free and low-fat milk may actually increase body fat and contribute to obesity. Whole milk may in fact be healthier for obese children than low-fat or non-fat milk.\n",
"BULLET::::- Milk chocolate is solid chocolate made with milk added in the form of powdered milk, liquid milk, or condensed milk. In 1875 a Swiss confectioner, Daniel Peter, developed the first solid milk-chocolate using condensed milk, which had been invented by Henri Nestlé, Peter's neighbour in Vevey. European Union regulations specify a minimum of 25% cocoa solids. However, an agreement was reached in 2000 that allowed an exception from these regulations in the UK, Ireland, and Malta, where \"milk chocolate\" can contain only 20% cocoa solids. Such chocolate is labelled as \"family milk chocolate\" elsewhere in the European Union. \"Cadbury\" is the leading brand of milk chocolate in the United Kingdom. The United States government requires a 10% concentration of chocolate liquor. The Hershey Company is the largest producer in the US. The actual Hershey process is a trade secret, but experts speculate that the milk is partially lipolyzed, producing butyric acid, and then the milk is pasteurized, stabilizing it for use. This process gives the product a particular taste, to which the US public has developed an affinity, to the extent that some rival manufacturers now add butyric acid to their milk chocolates.\n",
"A 100-gram serving of milk chocolate supplies 540 calories. It is 59% carbohydrates (52% as sugar and 3% as dietary fiber), 30% fat and 8% protein (table). Approximately 65% of the fat in milk chocolate is saturated, mainly palmitic acid and stearic acid, while the predominant unsaturated fat is oleic acid (table, see USDA reference for full report).\n",
"The Cadbury factory at Marlbrook processes 180 million litres of fresh milk, 56,000 tonnes of sugar and 13,000 tonnes of cocoa liquor each year to produce milk chocolate crumb which is blended with cocoa butter, refined and turned into milk chocolate at other factories. On 23 June 2006, the factory featured in the news when more than a million chocolate bars were to be removed from sale amid fears that they might have been contaminated with salmonella by a leaking pipe. BBC News report.\n"
] |
why is airplane fuel measured by weight instead of volume?
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Many aircraft are limited by their “maximum gross weight” for takeoff and/ or landing. It makes the math easier when you don’t need to multiply the gallons by the specific weight of the fuel / gallon. Make sense?
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[
"The weight of fuel forms a significant part of the total weight of an aircraft, so any fuel calculation must take into account the weight of any fuel not yet burned. Instead of trying to predict the fuel load not yet burned, a flight planning system can handle this situation by working backward along the route, starting at the alternate, going back to the destination, and then going back waypoint by waypoint to the origin.\n",
"Fuel measurement will vary on the gauges fitted to a particular aircraft. The most common unit of fuel measurement is kilograms; other possible measures include pounds, UK gallons, US gallons, and litres. When fuel is measured by weight, the specific gravity of the fuel used is taken into account when checking tank capacity.\n",
"In larger aircraft, fuel tanks also are in the fuselage and their load affects the center of gravity of the aircraft. This imposes limitations on the amount of fuel carried and the order in which fuel must be used.\n",
"Another concept introduced after the 1970s is a Zero-fuel weight; the weight of fuel in the wings has less of a structural effect than weight in the fuselage—modern planes have a zero-fuel weight that allows for increasing the maximum takeoff weight when that weight is in fuel.\n",
"The weight of the aircraft is the common factor that links all aspects of aircraft design such as aerodynamics, structure, and propulsion, all together. An aircraft's weight is derived from various factors such as empty weight, payload, useful load, etc. The various weights are used to then calculate the center of mass of the entire aircraft. The center of mass must fit within the established limits set by the manufacturer.\n",
"In aerospace engineering, an aircraft's fuel fraction, fuel weight fraction, or a spacecraft's propellant fraction, is the weight of the fuel or propellant divided by the gross take-off weight of the craft (including propellant):\n",
"Aircraft manufacturers are responsible for generating flight performance data which flight planners use to estimate fuel needs for a particular flight. The fuel burn rate is based on specific throttle settings for climbing and cruising. The planner uses the projected weather and aircraft weight as inputs to the flight performance data to estimate the necessary fuel to reach the destination. The fuel burn is usually given as the weight of the fuel (usually pounds or kilograms) instead of the volume (such as gallons or litres) because aircraft weight is critical.\n"
] |
why are some photographs considered art?
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From google:
art
noun: art; plural noun: arts; plural noun: the arts
1. the expression or application of human creative skill **and imagination**, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
The ELI5 answer would be that most people agree that photography meets that definition.
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[
"The aesthetics of photography is a matter that continues to be discussed regularly, especially in artistic circles. Many artists argued that photography was the mechanical reproduction of an image. If photography is authentically art, then photography in the context of art would need redefinition, such as determining what component of a photograph makes it beautiful to the viewer. The controversy began with the earliest images \"written with light\"; Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, and others among the very earliest photographers were met with acclaim, but some questioned if their work met the definitions and purposes of art.\n",
"Many serious photographers were appalled. Their craft, and to some their art, was being co-opted by a newly engaged, uncontrolled and mostly untalented citizenry. The debate about art and photography intensified around the argument that if anyone could take a photograph then photography could not possibly be called art. Some of the most passionate defenders of photography as art pointed out that photography should not and cannot be seen as an \"either/or\" medium—some photographs are indeed simple records of reality, but with the right elements some are indeed works of art. William Howe Downs, art critic for the \"Boston Evening Transcript\", summed up this position in 1900 by saying \"Art is not so much a matter of methods and processes as it is an affair of temperament, of taste and of sentiment ... In the hands of the artist, the photograph becomes a work of art ... In a word, photography is what the photographer makes it ‒ an art or a trade.\"\n",
"According to Dona Meilach, a found object artist in the 1960s, found object art, and in correlation found photography, is indeed art because of the artist's manipulation of the found materials. In the case of found photography, the way photos are exhibited by the artist affects the meaning viewers extract from them (refer back to Barry Mauer and Looking at Found Photography).\n",
"Puyo believed that for a photograph to be considered art, it must create a beauty independent of the subject, and thus believed art photographers should be more concerned with beauty rather than fact. He considered the manipulation of a photograph to be an expression of individuality, and believed that manipulation was necessary to eliminate the sense that the photograph was produced by an unemotional machine.\n",
"Contrary to what some histories of photography portray, pictorialism did not come about as the result of a linear evolution of artistic sensibilities; rather, it was formed through \"an intricate, divergent, often passionately conflicting barrage of strategies.\" While photographers and others debated whether photography could be art, the advent of photography directly affected the roles and livelihoods of many traditional artists. Prior to the development of photography, a painted miniature portrait was the most common means of recording a person's likeness. Thousands of painters were engaged in this art form. But photography quickly negated the need for and interest in miniature portraits. One example of this effect was seen at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in London; in 1830 more than 300 miniature paintings were exhibited, but by 1870 only 33 were on display. Photography had taken over for one type of art form, but the question of whether photography itself could be artistic had not been resolved.\n",
"A photo is not just an image; it is a trace of reality, an experience captured, a moment. Photography is an art that gives importance to events and makes them worth remembering. It is about telling the reality; about showing what other people are not able to see, to make them aware of it through the images they receive from the media. Thus, when the picture serves as informing, we find ourselves facing at other art—photojournalism. As James Nachtwey states: “If everyone could be there to see for themselves the fear and the grief, just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worth letting things get to the point where that happens to even one person, let alone thousands. But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there, to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on, to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference, to protest, and by the strength of that protest to make others protes\n",
"The use of photographs in artwork began in the early 80s with stressed and damaged photos from the Communist Revolution era. Then, during the mid to late 90s, artists used images to represent the Sino-Japanese War. After this, experimental artists began using family photos to create \"private histories.\" This led to the use of contemporary art forms such as installation, video, and multi-media art. Since the 90's, there has been an effort to demonstrate photography's role in forging \"memory links\" between past and present. Some artists and photographers have gone from this to focusing more on the impermanence of the history and memory of the events displayed in the photographs.\n"
] |
Do stars normally complete a full rotation around a galaxy?
|
Our sun, roughly middle, takes ~225-250 million years to make a full trip around. (this is called a cosmic or galactic year).
There are stars that are much bigger, and as such burn so quickly, that they do not make it a full trip around.
It would vary heavily based on type of star, and orbital period but it definitely happens and my gut tells me most make multiple trips around. (too lazy to do the research and math to back up that vague assertion)
|
[
"The stars and gas in the Milky Way rotate about its center differentially, meaning that the rotation period varies with location. As is typical for spiral galaxies, the orbital speed of most stars in the Milky Way does not depend strongly on their distance from the center. Away from the central bulge or outer rim, the typical stellar orbital speed is between . Hence the orbital period of the typical star is directly proportional only to the length of the path traveled. This is unlike the situation within the Solar System, where two-body gravitational dynamics dominate, and different orbits have significantly different velocities associated with them. The rotation curve (shown in the figure) describes this rotation. Toward the center of the Milky Way the orbit speeds are too low, whereas beyond 7 kpcs the speeds are too high to match what would be expected from the universal law of gravitation.\n",
"This star is rotating rapidly with a projected rotational velocity of , which gives a lower limit to the star's azimuthal velocity along the equator. The critical equatorial velocity, at which the star would begin to break up, is . The star's axis of rotation is inclined by an estimated angle of 70.8° to the line of sight from the Earth.\n",
"that is, the star's rotation velocity is independent of \"r\", its distance from the centre of the galaxy – the rotation curve is flat, as required. By fitting his law to rotation curve data, Milgrom found formula_6 to be optimal. This simple law is sufficient to make predictions for a broad range of galactic phenomena.\n",
"In 1996 it was revealed that this galaxy has a counter-rotating disk; around 20% of the stars in the galaxy are rotating in the opposite direction from the other 80%. The neutral and ionized gas in this galaxy are rotating in the same direction as the counter-rotating disk, and the stars in this group are generally younger than the main stellar population. This disk may have formed as the result of a merger with a gas-rich dwarf galaxy some four billion years ago. Simulations indicate that the counter-rotation of this disk is acting to suppress spiral arm features in the galaxy as a whole. The young, star-forming ring structure is likely the result of collisions between gas clouds rotating in the opposite directions.\n",
"This is a giant or subgiant Be star with a stellar classification of B2 IVne or B2 III(e)p, depending on the source. It is spinning rapidly with a projected rotational velocity of 327 km/s. Compare this to the estimated break-up velocity of 440 km/s. This rotation is giving the star an oblate shape with an equatorial bulge that is 25% larger than the polar radius. The most likely rotation period is deemed to be twice the period of variation, or 1.4 days. The star also possesses a rotating circumstellar disc, seen edge on, which makes Lambda Eri a \"shell star\", where the disk appears more opaque than usual. \n",
"The peculiarity of this star is its projected equatorial velocity of ~600 km/s (about 2.000.000 km/h), making it the fastest rotating massive star known. The resulting centrifugal force tends to flatten the star; material can be lost in the loosely bound equatorial regions, allowing for the formation of a disk. The spectroscopic observations seem to confirm this, and the star is classified as Oe, possibly due to emission from such an equatorial disk of gas.\n",
"The fixed stars exhibit real motion as well, however. This motion may be viewed as having components that consist in part of motion of the galaxy to which the star belongs, in part of rotation of that galaxy, and in part of motion peculiar to the star itself within its galaxy. In the case of star systems or star clusters, the individual components move with respect to each other in a non-linear manner.\n"
] |
Why is moonlight white?
|
> why, on a brightly moonlit night, is everything so devoid of colour compared to the daytime?
It's a function of your eyes, not of the scenery.
Retina:
rods return something akin to luminosity (sensitivity peaking around the blue end of green) with no colour response;
cones respond to colour but are less sensitive overall.
As the external illumination level drops, the signal from the rods begins to dominate, so effectively you're preserving luminosity-channel information at the expense of colour (with a shift toward blue as the last thing to go).
It's known as the [Purkinje effect](_URL_0_), and explains why a 30-second night-time photographic exposure looks like daylight colours (because camera sensors respond equally across R+G+B rather than separately to L/ab) whereas to you everything looks shades of inky blue and silver. Enjoy.
|
[
"The color of moonlight, particularly around full Moon, appears bluish to the human eye compared to most artificial light sources due to the Purkinje effect. Moonlight is not actually tinted blue, and although moonlight is often referred to as \"silvery\", it has no inherent silvery quality.\n",
"The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on spectral class and it is informally designated as a \"yellow dwarf\" because its visible radiation is most intense in the yellow-green portion of the spectrum. It is actually white, but from the Earth's surface it appears yellow because of atmospheric scattering of blue light. In the spectral class label, \"G2\" indicates its surface temperature, of approximately 5778 K () and \"V\" indicates that the Sun, like most stars, is a main-sequence star, and thus generates its energy via fusing hydrogen into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses about 620 million metric tons of hydrogen each second.\n",
"The Moon has an exceptionally low albedo, giving it a reflectance that is slightly brighter than that of worn asphalt. Despite this, it is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun. This is due partly to the brightness enhancement of the opposition surge; the Moon at quarter phase is only one-tenth as bright, rather than half as bright, as at full moon. Additionally, color constancy in the visual system recalibrates the relations between the colors of an object and its surroundings, and because the surrounding sky is comparatively dark, the sunlit Moon is perceived as a bright object. The edges of the full moon seem as bright as the centre, without limb darkening, because of the reflective properties of lunar soil, which retroreflects light more towards the Sun than in other directions. The Moon does appear larger when close to the horizon, but this is a purely psychological effect, known as the moon illusion, first described in the 7th century BC. The full Moon's angular diameter is about 0.52° (on average) in the sky, roughly the same apparent size as the Sun (see ).\n",
"In a widely admired paper published in 1948, Wallach explored the stimulus conditions for the perception of neutral colors – that is, colors that vary in lightness but have no hue, thus ranging from white to gray to black. Wallach projected round patches of light (“disks”) of various brightnesses on a white screen in a dark room and found that, when presented alone, the disks always appeared to be luminous – i.e. they seemed to be emitting light, just as the moon appears when it is high in a dark sky. However, when a surrounding ring of a different brightness was added to such a projected disk, the disk ceased to appear luminous and looked like a patch of smooth paper whose color depended on the relative brightnesses of the central disk and the surrounding ring .If the surround was less bright than the disk in the center, the disk appeared white. If the surround was brighter than the center, the central disk appeared to be a shade of gray. The shade of gray depended on the brightness ratio of the center to the surround, regardless of the absolute luminance levels of the two elements in the display. Thus, for example, a disk with a physical luminance of 50 millilamberts (mL) surrounded by a ring of 200 mL would seem to be the same shade of gray as a disk of 500 mL surrounded by a ring of 2000 mL.\n",
"In locations with little light pollution, the moonlit night sky is also blue, because moonlight is reflected sunlight, with a slightly lower color temperature due to the brownish color of the moon. The moonlit sky is not perceived as blue, however, because at low light levels human vision comes mainly from rod cells that do not produce any color perception (Purkinje effect).\n",
"Many of the light sources that emit white light emit light at almost all visible wavelengths (sun light, incandescent lamps of various Color temperatures). This has led to the notion that white light can be defined as a mixture of \"all colors\" or \"all visible wavelengths\". This widespread idea is a misconception, and might originally stem from the fact that Newton discovered that \"sunlight\" is composed of light with wavelengths across the visible spectrum. Concluding that \"since \"all colors\" produce white light then white must be made up of \"all colors\"\" is a common logical error called affirming the consequent, which might be the cause of the misunderstanding.\n",
"Moonbows are much fainter than solar rainbows, due to the smaller amount of light reflected from the surface of the moon. Because the light is usually too faint to excite the cone color receptors in human eyes, it is difficult for the human eye to discern colors in a moonbow. As a result, a moonbow often appears to be white. However, the colors in a moonbow do appear in long exposure photographs.\n"
] |
what's happening in our brain when we're looking for an object, but we're actually holding it in our hand?
|
Sensory information is represented in 'maps' in your brain. Meaning a certain small area in your brain (eg if you poke the back of your head, your primary visual cortex is around that area. If you poke the top of your head your primary somatosensory (skin sensations) is located around there. So zoom in to the top area on your brain, like really zoom in until you start to see cells. The cells are arranged in a sheet. If you move along a certain direction on the sheet of cells, the activity of those cells represents a continuous area of skin sensation on your body. These sensory cells then send signals to other areas of your brain (approx around top of forehead) which have 'goal related' brain cell activity. As in some cells are active and that represents the goal that you have, like 'i want this object'.
Now ultimately your behaviour (for example searching for an object) is just a sequence of muscle movements (for example to move your eyes, visual search. Or arm muscles to make reaching/grasping). "Attention" has to do with specifically what sense signals are used to program a movement. So maybe the object is in your hand. But the physical area of sensory cortex being investigated isn't the correct position of the object. So in this example. Maybe the cells in your frontal cortex (responsible for your goal of 'i want this object') is looking at the vis sensory cells in more detail than the sensory cells that represent skin sensation). So takes a bit longer to "find" the object in this particular event.
|
[
"By turning the attention inward, one discovers that no \"self-nature\" can be found in the movements of the mind. Eventually, dhyana leads to the realisation that awareness is empty, and cannot be grasped by concepts:\n",
"An explanation for this phenomenon is that observers see the critical object in their visual field but fail to process it extensively enough to retain it. Individuals experience inattentional agnosia after having seen the target stimuli but not consciously being able to identify what the stimuli is. It is possible that observers are not even able to identify that the stimuli they are seeing are coherent objects. Thus observers perceive some representation of the stimuli but are actually unaware of what that stimulus is. It is because the stimulus is not encoded as a specific thing, that it later is not remembered. Individuals fail to report what the stimuli is after it has been removed. However, despite a lack in ability to fully process the stimuli, experiments have shown a priming effect of the critical stimuli. This priming effect indicates that the stimuli must have been processed to some degree, this occurs even if observers are unable to report what the stimuli is.\n",
"The chair he used had a bank of four hundred vibrating plates resting against the blind user's back, and vibrating in connection with a camera placed above the chair, looking forwards. The pattern in which the stimulation occurred enabled the user to \"see\", often being able to recognise an object coming towards the camera. Bach-y-Rita suggested this was an example of neuroplasticity, as he believed the signals sent to the brain from the skin via touch were being processed in the visual cortex, because of the way the patients interpreted the information.\n",
"Humans have demonstrated the ability to aim eye movement toward the hand without vision, using the sense of proprioception, with only minor errors related to internal knowledge of limb position. It has been shown the proprioception of limbs, in both active and passive movement, result in eye saccade overshoots when the hands are being used to guide eye movement. These overshoots result from the control of eye saccades rather than previous movement of the hands in experiments. This implies that limb-based proprioception is capable of being transformed into ocular motor coordinates to guide eye saccades, which allows for the guidance of the saccades by hands and feet.\n",
"Neuroscientists have extensively researched human gaze behavior, with studies noting that the use of the gaze is very task-specific, but that humans typically exhibit proactive control to guide their movement. Usually, the eyes fixate on a target before the hands are used to engage in a movement, indicating that the eyes provide spatial information for the hands. The duration that the eyes appear to be locked onto a goal for a hand movement varies—sometimes the eyes remain fixated until a task is completed. Other times, the eyes seem to scout ahead toward other objects of interest before the hand even grasps and manipulates the object. \n",
"In a second experiment Sperry and Gazzaniga placed a small object in the subject's right or left hand, without being able to see (or hear) it. Placed in the right hand, the isolated left hemisphere perceived the object and could easily describe and name it. However, placed in the left hand, the isolated right hemisphere could not name or describe the object. Questioning this result, the researchers found that the subjects \"could\" later match it from several similar objects; tactile sensations limited to the right hemisphere were accurately perceived but could not be verbalized. This further demonstrated the apparent location (or lateralization) of language functions in the left hemisphere.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded.\"\n"
] |
A recent Crusader Kings II expansion introduced a mechanic that allows your ruler to join a secret society of demon worshipers. Is there any actual historical precedent for the existence of anti-Christian, organized demonic worship in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages period?
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I haven't played the game, but this sounds a lot like the fate of the Knights Templar.
Before I go into this story, let's make one thing clear: There is no evidence of organized Satanic ritual activity on any scale. I assume there are small groups of iconoclasts who paint themselves as faux "Satanists," and at various times in history people who practiced pagan religion were called "Satanists." But in the sense that you mean... No, it didn't happen.
Here's what *did* happen:
During the Crusades there existed a number of "Militant Orders" which were groups of crusading knights who lived a quasi-monastic lifestyle. The knights organized themselves in a manner similar to monks living in a monastery, and devoted themselves to both war and religious practice. One of the most prominent of these was the Knights Templar. The Templars were a powerful and wealthy order of knights whose influence waxed and waned throughout the Crusades, but by the end of it they were pretty well off, to say the least. Some go so far as to credit them with the invention of modern banking.
The King of France (Phillip IV, the Fair) wanted to get his hands on some of this wealth, and the easiest mechanism by which he could do this was to have the Knights tried as heretics. In 1307 he put forth a list of charges that included such things as: worshipping various Satanic beings and idols, taboo sexual practices, and performing certain acts that disgraced Christian symbols. The concept that they were a secret Satanist cult gave him the political and legal justification to abolish the order, execute the knights, and steal their stuff. It is virtually certain that these charges were fabricated.
It's all a rather fascinating (and tragic) story. These accusations and other invented stories about the Templars have led to them becoming something of a pop culture trope. Rumors of Templar mysticism or cults flourish in conspiracy theories or speculative writing, and you can see the influence of this in media such as "The DaVinci Code" and "Assassin's Creed" video games.
|
[
"Throughout the Middle Ages, there were a number of Christian sects, cults and movements that sought a return to the purity of the Apostolic church and whose teachings foreshadowed Protestant ideas. Some of the main groups were: Paulicians (6th to 9th centuries); Tondrakians (9th to 11th centuries); Bogomils (11th century); Petrobrusians (12th century); Henricans (12th century); Brethren of the Free Spirit (13th century); Apostolic Brethren – later known as Dulcinians – (13th to 14th centuries); Neo-Adamites – including Taborites, Picards and some Beghards – (13th to 15th centuries); Men of Understanding (15th century).\n",
"When Zengi became ruler of Mosul in 1127 and Aleppo in 1128, the Crusaders were faced with a dangerous opponent. For several years afterward, Zengi gained power at the expense of neighboring Muslim states. By occasionally allying itself with the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Muslim emirate of Damascus successfully resisted Zengi's efforts to conquer that city. \n",
"From a secular viewpoint, demonization can be used to denigrate an opposed individual or group, making adherents to your own religion or viewpoint less inclined to do business with them (and possibly convert) and more inclined to fight against them. If foreigners are evil and corrupted by demonic influence, then any means of self-defense is easily portrayed as legitimate. The portrayal of almost all pagans in the Middle East as Baal-worshippers in the Hebrew Bible is an example of this. If pagans are corrupted by the demon-\"god\" Baal, then clearly they must be fought or at least oppressed. Especially in the earlier books of the Hebrew Bible, foreign deities are portrayed as existing and corrupting entities rather than being mere powerless idols. Some would argue this later transferred to Christianity after Constantine I's ascension in its suppression of Roman paganism. Some of the most known of these demonizations are Lucifer, Beelzebub and Baphomet up to the extend that they became synonymous with the devil/satan of Abrahamic religions. Later, the language of demonization would be invoked during the Spanish Inquisition, leading to the expulsion of Jews and Moriscos from Spain.\n",
"In the Middle Ages, violent persecution of non-Christians became widely accepted by the Catholic Church within the framework of the Crusades. These tactics were particularly widely used in the Northern Crusades, where Christian rulers – and, later, monastic orders such as the Teutonic Knights – waged a centuries-long series of campaigns to compel the pagan Balts and Slavs of the region to convert by conquering them and settling in the newly conquered territory as feudal rulers. The region’s inhabitants resisted conquest, and, even once subjected, rebelled repeatedly in an effort to reject Christianity and reverse the conquest. As part of these campaigns, forced conversions were widespread; massacre and atrocity, combined with the capture and killing of hostages to compel surrender and conversion, were commonly used tactics. These tactics sometimes reached such extremes that they caused large-scale depopulation of some regions through the extermination or fleeing of local inhabitants; the Old Prussian people vanished as a distinct culture as a result of the Prussian Crusade.\n",
"Demonization is sometimes used against what are arguably political opponents rather than religious ones. The Knights Templar were destroyed by accusations that they worshipped Baphomet from King Philip the Fair. Baphomet, often thought to be Beelzebub, may have been used because of the likeness of this horned deity with the Christian images of Satan.\n",
"During the Crusades, persecution of the Brotherhood continued. Being expelled by the Latin (Roman Catholic) clergy from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other holy places, the Brotherhood regrouped in the metochion of the Lavra of St Savvas and eventually regained possession of the holy places in 1185.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Infernal realm: Satan and his demonic forces. In the medieval context, this includes everything from Satan himself to illnesses and bad smells. Demons are compelled to corrupt, destroy, and tempt all mortals to sin; while the Order of Hermes refuses to explicitly name the Infernal as their enemies (which it is assumed would draw too much attention and wrath to the Order), they have been forbidden from entering into agreements with Hell's minions ever since a corruption scandal nearly ruined House Tytalus in the 11th century. As the evil/negative counterpart to the Divine, Infernal power also weakens the effects of any Realm not attuned to Hell or other forsaken spaces. Infernally tainted forms of magic do exist, usually of great deceptive or destructive power, or acquired too easily for understanding, especially in order to tempt magi. Anyone in the Order found guilty of diabolism is expelled and hunted down.\n"
] |
what makes elevators so safe? seems like few deaths occur on what seems like a potentially dangerous machine.
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There are usually triple redundancies on elevators. i.e. far more than one cable holds the weight, so even if one snapped it would still be absolutely fine and would just be closed for maintenance. People are just stupid on stairs.
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[
"Statistically speaking, cable-borne elevators are extremely safe. Their safety record is unsurpassed by any other vehicle system. In 1998, it was estimated that approximately eight millionths of one percent (1 in 12 million) of elevator rides result in an anomaly, and the vast majority of these were minor things such as the doors failing to open. Of the 20 to 30 elevator-related deaths each year, most of them are maintenance-related — for example, technicians leaning too far into the shaft or getting caught between moving parts, and most of the rest are attributed to other kinds of accidents, such as people stepping blindly through doors that open into empty shafts or being strangled by scarves caught in the doors. In fact, prior to the September 11th terrorist attacks, the only known free-fall incident in a modern cable-borne elevator happened in 1945 when a B-25 bomber struck the Empire State Building in fog, severing the cables of an elevator cab, which fell from the 75th floor all the way to the bottom of the building, seriously injuring (though not killing) the sole occupant — the elevator operator. However, there was an incident in 2007 at a Seattle children's hospital, where a ThyssenKrupp ISIS machine-room-less elevator free-fell until the safety brakes were engaged. This was due to a flaw in the design where the cables were connected at one common point, and the kevlar ropes had a tendency to overheat and cause slipping (or, in this case, a free-fall). While it is possible (though extraordinarily unlikely) for an elevator's cable to snap, all elevators in the modern era have been fitted with several safety devices which prevent the elevator from simply free-falling and crashing. An elevator cab is typically borne by 2 to 6 (up to 12 or more in high rise installations) hoist cables or belts, each of which is capable on its own of supporting the full load of the elevator plus twenty-five percent more weight. In addition, there is a device which detects whether the elevator is descending faster than its maximum designed speed; if this happens, the device causes copper (or silicon nitride in high rise installations) brake shoes to clamp down along the vertical rails in the shaft, stopping the elevator quickly, but not so abruptly as to cause injury. This device is called the governor, and was invented by Elisha Graves Otis. In addition, an oil/hydraulic or spring or polyurethane or telescopic oil/hydraulic buffer or a combination (depending on the travel height and travel speed) is installed at the bottom of the shaft (or in the bottom of the cab and sometimes also in the top of the cab or shaft) to somewhat cushion any impact. However, in Thailand in November 2012, a woman was killed in a free falling elevator, in what was reported as the \"first legally recognised death caused by a falling lift\".\n",
"In hydraulic elevator systems, emergency power will lower the elevators to the lowest landing and open the doors to allow passengers to exit. The doors then close after an adjustable time period and the car remains unusable until reset, usually by cycling the elevator main power switch. Typically, due to the high current draw when starting the pump motor, hydraulic elevators are not run using standard emergency power systems. Buildings like hospitals and nursing homes usually size their emergency generators to accommodate this draw. However, the increasing use of current-limiting motor starters, commonly known as \"soft-start\" contactors, avoid much of this problem, and the current draw of the pump motor is less of a limiting concern.\n",
"The low mechanical complexity of hydraulic elevators in comparison to traction elevators makes them ideal for low rise, low traffic installations. They are less energy efficient as the pump works against gravity to push the car and its passengers upwards; this energy is lost when the car descends on its own weight. The high current draw of the pump when starting up also places higher demands on a building's electrical system. There are also environmental concerns should the lifting cylinder leak fluid into the ground.\n",
"New modern elevators are designed to be fail-safe and user-friendly to prevent accidents. The Singapore Lift and Escalator Contractors and Manufacturers Association (SLECMA) have set up a safety committee to create awareness in the usage of elevators and escalators. \n",
"A residential elevator or home lift is often permitted to be of lower cost and complexity than full commercial elevators. They may have unique design characteristics suited for home furnishings, such as hinged wooden shaft-access doors rather than the typical metal sliding doors of commercial elevators. Construction may be less robust than in commercial designs with shorter maintenance periods, but safety systems such as locks on shaft access doors, fall arrestors, and emergency phones must still be present in the event of malfunction.\n",
"Past problems with hydraulic elevators include underground electrolytic destruction of the cylinder and bulkhead, pipe failures, and control failures. Single bulkhead cylinders, typically built prior to a 1972 ASME A17.1 Elevator Safety Code change requiring a second dished bulkhead, were subject to possible catastrophic failure. The code previously permitted only single-bottom hydraulic cylinders. In the event of a cylinder breach, the fluid loss results in uncontrolled down movement of the elevator. This creates two significant hazards: being subject to an impact at the bottom when the elevator stops suddenly and being in the entrance for a potential shear if the rider is partly in the elevator. Because it is impossible to verify the system at all times, the code requires periodic testing of the pressure capability. Another solution to protect against a cylinder blowout is to install a plunger gripping device. Two commercially available are known by the marketing names \"LifeJacket\" and \"HydroBrake\". The plunger gripper is a device which, in the event of an uncontrolled downward acceleration, nondestructively grips the plunger and stops the car. A device known as an overspeed or rupture valve is attached to the hydraulic inlet/outlet of the cylinder and is adjusted for a maximum flow rate. If a pipe or hose were to break (rupture), the flow rate of the rupture valve will surpass a set limit and mechanically stop the outlet flow of hydraulic fluid, thus stopping the plunger and the car in the down direction.\n",
"On the morning of February 2, 2016, a 44-year-old elevator repair technician working for Slade Elevator was accidentally killed inside an elevator shaft of Tower II while doing scheduled monthly maintenance on that elevator. The worker became entangled between the elevator door and the upper portion of the elevator car and was dragged upwards. He was pronounced dead at the scene. While Occupational Safety and Health Administration embarked on an investigation to determine the worker's official cause of death, the building's management stated publicly that while there was no indication that this was caused by an elevator malfunction, the elevators would be operated entirely by attendants, and their automatic functions suspended, until their safety could be verified through inspection.\n"
] |
How would early Anglo-Saxons decorate their shields?
|
Frustratingly, we don't know. Everything we know about shields in this period comes from archaeological sites (we don't have any contemporary art showing shield faces), and the fronts of shield, along with any decoration they may have displayed, have never survived.
We do know from archaeological excavations that shields were always covered with leather (probably rawhide), and in one case ([Tranmer House](_URL_1_)) this leather was covered in some sort of preparatory layer for paint (maybe gesso); but, the painting didn't survive. Many shields had metal appliqués (like Sutton Hoo, often less fancy), and some had a pair of large flat circular rivets whose functional purpose isn't clear (so, possibly another form of metallic decoration). But what, if anyting, would have been painted onto their faces is unknown.
In many cases, shields were buried to display their faces toward assembled mourners, and several graves at Mucking had shield boards (noe visible only as a dark soil stain) buried in the grave eithout their metal bosses. To me, that implies that shield faces *were* decorated: you wanted guests at the funeral to see the shield face and know who your family's friends were by recognizing the design(s) painted on it (even if you wanted to keep and recycle the still useful iron components).
We do have a record of late Roman shield designs, the [Notitia Dignitatum](_URL_2_). It's very possible that some of these designs would have continued to be used in Britain after 410. One might also wonder whether some of the circular motifs on Style 1 jewelry were also used to decorate shields, but that's just speculation with no hard evidence to support it.
If you want to read further, see [Dickinson and Harke's book on early Anglo-Saxon shields](_URL_0_), available free on Harke's _URL_3_ page.
|
[
"The shield was another extremely common piece of war equipment used by the Anglo-Saxons—nearly 25% of male Anglo-Saxon graves contain shields. In Old English, a shield was called a \"bord\", \"rand\", \"scyld\", or \"lind\" (\"linden-wood\"). Anglo-Saxon shields comprised a circular piece of wood constructed from planks which had been glued together; at the center of the shield, an iron boss was attached. It was common for shields to be covered in leather, so as to hold the planks together, and they were often decorated with fittings of bronze or iron. Textual descriptions and visual representations indicate that some shields were convex, but archaeological evidence for this has not yet been found. No painted Anglo-Saxon shields have been discovered; however, painted shields from the same time period have been found in Denmark, and \"Beowulf\" describes shields as being \"bright\" and \"yellow.\" These pieces of evidence suggest that some Anglo-Saxon shields may have been painted.\n",
"In the battles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes in England, most of the Saxon army would have consisted of the inexperienced \"Fyrd\" — a militia composed of free peasants. The shield-wall tactic suited such soldiers, as it did not require extraordinary skill, being essentially a shoving and fencing match with weapons.\n",
"As for defensive equipment, most Anglo-Saxon warriors only had access to shields. Pollington theorized that the shield was \"perhaps the most culturally significant piece of defensive equipment\" in Anglo-Saxon England, for the shield-wall would have symbolically represented the separation between the two sides on the battlefield. Smaller shields were lighter and easier to manoeuver, and therefore were best used in minor skirmishes and hand-to-hand combat. In contrast, larger shields were most commonly used in full-scale battles—they would have provided better protection from projectiles and were needed to construct a shield wall.\n",
"Early mention of heraldic shields in Middle High German literature also dates to the 12th century. Shield designs are described in the \"Kaiserchronik\" (c. 1150–1170), such as the boar carried by the Romans, as well as, in isolated cases, in the \"Rolandslied\" (c. 1115), \"König Rother\" (c. 1150), Veldecke's \"Eneas\" (c. 1170), and Hartmann's \"Erec\" (c. 1185). These appear in the larger context of describing an armed protagonist, and are not yet tied to the bearer's pedigree.\n",
"The term refers to various types of shields used by infantry troops from the 13th to 16th centuries, or earlier. More specifically, a targe was a concave shield fitted with enarmes on the inside, one adjustable by a buckle, to be attached to the forearm, and the other fixed as a grip for the left hand. These shields were mostly made of iron or iron-plated wood. From the 15th century, the term could also refer to special shields used for jousting. A fair number were created wholly for show.\n",
"In prehistory and during the era of the earliest civilisations, shields were made of wood, animal hide, woven reeds or wicker. In classical antiquity, the Barbarian Invasions and the Middle Ages, they were normally constructed of poplar tree, lime or another split-resistant timber, covered in some instances with a material such as leather or rawhide and often reinforced with a metal boss, rim or banding. They were carried by foot soldiers, knights and cavalry.\n",
"Often shields were decorated with a painted pattern or an animal representation to show their army or clan. These designs developed into systematized heraldic devices during the High Middle Ages for purposes of battlefield identification. Even after the introduction of gunpowder and firearms to the battlefield, shields continued to be used by certain groups. In the 18th century, for example, Scottish Highland fighters liked to wield small shields known as targes, and as late as the 19th century, some non-industrialized peoples (such as Zulu warriors) employed them when waging war.\n"
] |
If dragonflies see almost 360 degrees how come they don't go blind looking at the sun?
|
First a side note about insect vision, many insects, including dragonflies and damselflies, have ocellus. These are single lens eyes and are located on the top of the insect's head. So many different insects have "eyes" point up at the sun.
To answer your question: I'm not sure. [Scholarpedia](_URL_1_) makes a brief mention of changes in the nerve synapses with changes in light intensity meaning the nerves change the signal that they send to the ganglia (one of the insects brain's). This [book](_URL_0_)(page 426) mentions that the pigments change in adjacent ommatidia so, I believe, that the amount of light entering any given lens is diminished, decreasing the intensity of the light. I'll rummaged through my general entomology text book when I get to work and see if it has any thing else helpful to add.
Edit: The text book didn't say much more except that the light sensitivity of ommaitdia isn't that great due to their small diameter (nocturnal insects have a slightly different eye physiology to help compensate for this) so that may aid in their ability to deal with direct sunlight.
|
[
"The Komodo dragon can see objects as far away as , but because its retinas only contain cones, it is thought to have poor night vision. It can distinguish colours, but has poor visual discrimination of stationary objects.\n",
"It appears with more distinctness against a blue background. With practice, it is possible to see it in the naturally polarized light of a blue sky. Minnaert recommended practicing first with a polarizer, then trying it without. The areas of the sky with the strongest polarization are those 90 degrees away from the sun. Minnaert said that after a minute of gazing at the sky, \"a kind of marble effect will appear. This is followed shortly by Haidinger's brush.\" He commented that not all observers see it in the same way. Some see the yellow pattern as solid and the blue pattern as interrupted, as in the illustrations on this page. Some see the blue as solid and the yellow as interrupted, and some see it alternating between the two states.\n",
"Celestial navigation: Butterflies are known to be capable of navigation with the help of the sun. They can also navigate by using polarized light. The polarization of the sun's light changes with the angle of the rays, hence they can also navigate with cloudy weather. There are indications that they can even make corrections depending on the time on a day. Diamondback moths are known to fly in a straight trajectory which is not dependent on the angle of the sun's rays. Tests have been performed to interfere with the biological clock of certain species by keeping them in the dark and then observing if they would choose for other flight paths. The conclusion was that some species did, and others did not. Research on monarchs demonstrates that with removal of antennae, the location of the circadian clock, individuals do not localize in any one direction during flight as they do with antennae intact. Night flyers cannot use sun light for navigation. Most of these species rely on the moon and stars instead.\n",
"Dragonflies perceive horizontally polarized light as a sign of water. For this reason, sources of water are indistinguishable from asphalt roads with polarized light pollution to them. Dragonflies searching for water either to drink or in which to lay eggs often land on roads or other dark flat reflective surfaces such as cars and remain there until they die of dehydration and hyperthermia.\n",
"It is reported that one Pingelapese island sea-fisherman with this condition has difficulty seeing in bright sunlight, but at night can see in much fainter light than people with normal vision can; he uses this ability in a boat at night waving a large burning torch about to attract or confuse flying fish, which he then catches; the flying fish act as if the torch is the moon. The commentator said that in his brain, brain capacity intended to process cone signals is instead added to his rod signal processing capacity.\n",
"There are several exceptions to this rule, such as with the diurnal Zygaenidae and Sytomidae families of moths, both of which have apposition eyes, or the Hedyloidea family of butterflies, which are nocturnal and feature superposition eyes. In most cases where one species is found to be using the opposite type of eye than expected, it is because they are active during the opposite time of day than is normal for other butterflies or moths\n",
" Many people call it \"stargazers\" or \"sky-gazers\" because their eyeballs are turned permanently upwards. Due to its upturned eyes, they are should not be kept in the aquarium that has rough objects that can harm or hurt their eyes or even can cause blindness. It is developed from the dorsal-less telescope eye goldfish.\n"
] |
numbers and letters on processor model?
|
For starters, that's an Intel Chip.
i7 is the product line. i3 is entry level, i5 is a step up, i7 is higher end.
4710HQ is the model, which is assigned to that specific chip.
4=4th generation (the current generation of the "i" product line)
710=model number (the specific chip from this generation and product line)
HQ=suffix, a feature code. Specifically, that's a "quad core".
(K=unlocked, as in, you may change the speed of the processor. S and T are low-power versions (gen 2, gen 3, respectively). R means it has Iris Pro Integrated Graphics. M is for standard dual-core mobile (laptop) processors.)
2.5GHz refers to the speed of the cores.
The other big name in processors is AMD, a common processor is an "FX-8350".
FX is the product line (FX is high end desktop, A are mid level processors, E/C series are low-power).
8350 is the model.
8 is series, which means, it has 8 cores. (A 4-core would be a 4350)
3 is the generation (3rd gen).
50 is the model number (tied to speed, so an 8350 is faster than an 8300, but both are 8-core 3rd-generation)
|
[
"As of November 2007, AMD has removed the letters from the model names and X2/X3/X4 monikers for depicting the number of cores of the processor, leaving just a four digit model number with the first character being the sole identification of the processor family, while Sempron remained using the LE prefix, as follows:\n",
"The model numbers of the new line of processors were apparently changed from the PR ratings used by its predecessors, the Athlon 64 series processors (except Phenom FX series, being suggested to follow the nomenclature of Athlon 64 FX series). As reported by DailyTech, the model numbers are in alpha-numeric format as AA-@### where AA are alphabetical letters, the first letter indicating the processor class and the second indicating the typical TDP power envelope. The character @ is the series indicator, which varies by branding (see below table), and the last three characters (###) are the model number, with higher numbers indicating greater performance.\n",
"The CPU model number can be read directly from the OPN number, the fourth to the seventh letters represent the model number of the CPU. The \"200U\" model number is only used for embedded system products.\n",
"Every CPU represents numerical values in a specific way. For example, some early digital computers represented numbers as familiar decimal (base 10) numeral system values, and others have employed more unusual representations such as ternary (base three). Nearly all modern CPUs represent numbers in binary form, with each digit being represented by some two-valued physical quantity such as a \"high\" or \"low\" voltage.\n",
"Intel discontinued the use of part numbers such as 80486 in the marketing of mainstream x86-architecture microprocessors with the introduction of the Pentium brand in 1993. However, numerical codes, in the 805xx range, continued to be assigned to these processors for internal and part numbering uses. The following is a list of such product codes in numerical order:\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Code name\" – The internal engineering codename for the processor (typically designated by an NVXY name and later GXY where X is the series number and Y is the schedule of the project for that generation).\n",
"BULLET::::- The actual processor model is derived from the Model, Extended Model ID and Family ID fields. If the Family ID field is either 6 or 15, the model is equal to the sum of the Extended Model ID field shifted left by 4 bits and the Model field. Otherwise, the model is equal to the value of the Model field.\n"
] |
why is mouth breathing bad for humans and why are we able to do it?
|
They don’t really say that mouth breathing is bad it’s just that breathing through your nose is better... the hairs in your nose “filter” the air hence why you get boogers(they are the “bad” stuff in the air)
|
[
"The adaptation from nasal to mouth breathing takes place when changes such as chronic middle ear infections, sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, upper airway infections, and sleep disturbances (e.g., snoring) take place. In addition, mouth breathing is often associated with a decrease in oxygen intake into the lungs. Mouth breathing can particularly affect the growing face, as the abnormal pull of these muscle groups on facial bones slowly deforms these bones, causing misalignment. The earlier in life these changes take place, the greater the alterations in facial growth, and ultimately an open mouth posture is created where the upper lip is raised and the lower jaw is maintained in an open posture. The tongue, which is normally tucked under the roof of the mouth, drops to the floor of the mouth and protrudes to allow a greater volume of air intake. Consequently, an open mouth posture can lead to malocclusions and problems in swallowing. Other causes of open-mouth posture are weakness of lip muscles, overall lack of tone in the body or hypotonia, and prolonged/chronic allergies of the respiratory tract. A.union\n",
"Human infants are sometimes considered obligate nasal breathers, but generally speaking healthy humans may breathe through their nose, their mouth, or both. During rest, breathing through the nose is common for most individuals. Breathing through both nose and mouth during exercise is also normal, a behavioral adaptation to increase air intake and hence supply more oxygen to the muscles. Mouth breathing may be called abnormal when an individual breathes through the mouth even during rest. Some sources use the term \"mouth breathing habit\" but this incorrectly implies that the individual is fully capable of normal nasal breathing, and is breathing through their mouth out of preference. However, in about 85% of cases, mouth breathing represents an involuntary, subconscious adaptation to reduced openness of the nasal airway, and mouth breathing is a requirement simply in order to get enough air. Chronic mouth breathing in children may affect dental and facial growth. It may also cause gingivitis (inflamed gums) and halitosis (bad breath), especially upon waking if mouth breathing occurs during sleeping.\n",
"Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a form of artificial ventilation, is the act of assisting or stimulating respiration in which a rescuer presses his or her mouth against that of the victim and blows air into the person's lungs. Artificial respiration takes many forms, but generally entails providing air for a person who is not breathing or is not making sufficient respiratory effort on his/her own. It is used on a patient with a beating heart or as part of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to achieve the internal respiration.\n",
"The nasal airway may be compromised partially (where there is increased resistance to the flow of air due to narrowing of the lumen at some point in the upper respiratory tract) or completely obstructed. Such individuals may find it difficult or impossible to breathe through their nose alone. In about 85% of cases, mouth breathing is an adaptation to nasal obstruction. Specific causes of nasal obstruction which have been linked to mouth breathing include antrochoanal polyps.\n",
"For children, there is a concern that mouth breathing can contribute to the development of long face syndrome. A recent study finds that it is a growing problem which should be treated as \"it won't just go away.\" In addition to mouth breathing, it may be associated with sleep apnea.\n",
"Severe mouth infections become dangerous when breathing or swallowing are impaired. Since the primary and secondary spaces extend towards the back of the throat, significant swelling can lead to airway obstruction. Signs and symptoms of airway obstruction are difficulty breathing, stridor, low oxygen saturation measured by a pulse oximeter, blue discoloration of the skin or lips, and stridor. Similarly, infections that spread to adjacent structures may also impair swallowing or cause significant pain with swallowing. Individuals with long-standing infections may lose significant weight because pain blunts their desire and impairs their ability to eat food. When infections affect swallowing, one may not be able to swallow saliva and other oral secretions faster than they are produced, causing drooling. Pooling secretions at the back of the throat increases the likelihood of the saliva traveling down the windpipe and into the lungs instead of through the esophagus and into the stomach. This process of breathing in material that should be swallowed is known as aspiration, and can lead to more infections like pneumonia.\n",
"Estimated rates of bad breath vary from 6% to 50% of the population. Concern about bad breath is the third most common reason people seek dental care, after tooth decay and gum disease. It is believed to become more common as people age. Bad breath is viewed as a social taboo and those affected may be stigmatized. People in the United States spend more than $1 billion per year on mouthwash to treat the condition.\n"
] |
why aren't more uplifting, good news (the ones that put faith in humanity) shown in journalism?
|
Longtime communications person w/ a journalism degree and a lot of feeling about this topic.
Speaking to American journalism specifically, the vast majority of outlets are for-profit (as opposed to non-profit), so they have to try and generate revenue through their reporting to stay afloat. Think NY Times, FOX News, etc.
There's a saying in reporting: "If it bleeds, it leads." This means that media outlets put all your negative/sensational stories at the front of the broadcast/on the front page because its what peaks people's interest and keeps their attention. In a consumer-driven market, the consumer's interest dictate what outlets report on.
Conversely, if the entire country stood up and "All I want are tella novellas and cooking shows on TV!" and - here's the important part - ACTED ON IT by not consuming any other kind of media, we'd have nothing by tella novellas and cooking shows on TV by this time next week. So people can bitch and moan about the low quality of reporting, but if they don't act on it, there's no incentive for the outlet to change their reporting style. So its ultimately the consumer's fault.
Meanwhile, you look at non-profit/public reporting outlets, you tend to see much more measured, thoughtful reporting about things that actually matter.
TLDR: In for-profit journalism, the outlets are forced to pursue revenue, which in turn makes them publish stories that people respond to. People like sensational stories, so outlets publish them because there's no motive to publish stories people aren't going to read.
|
[
"A number of writers have tried to explain the decline in journalistic standards. One explanation is the 24-hour news cycle, which faces the necessity of generating news even when no news-worthy events occur. Another is the simple fact that bad news sells more newspapers than good news. A third possible factor is the market for \"news\" that reinforces the prejudices of a target audience. \"In a 2010 paper, Mr. Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, a frequent collaborator and fellow professor at Chicago Booth, found that ideological slants in newspaper coverage typically resulted from what the audience wanted to read in the media they sought out, rather than from the newspaper owners' biases.\"\n",
"The apparent bias of media is not always specifically political in nature. The news media tend to appeal to a specific audience, which means that stories that affect a large number of people on a global scale often receive less coverage in some markets than local stories, such as a public school shooting, a celebrity wedding, a plane crash, a \"missing white woman\", or similarly glamorous or shocking stories. For example, the deaths of millions of people in an ethnic conflict in Africa might be afforded scant mention in American media, while the shooting of five people in a high school is analyzed in depth. Bias is also known to exist in sports broadcasting; in the United States, broadcasters tend to favor teams on the East Coast, teams in major markets, older and more established teams and leagues, teams based in their respective country (in international sport) and teams that include high-profile celebrity athletes. The reason for these types of bias is a function of what the public wants to watch and/or what producers and publishers believe the public wants to watch.\n",
"An evolutionary psychology explanation for why negative news have a higher news value than positive news starts with the empirical observation that the human perceptive system and lower level brain functions have difficulty distinguishing between media stimuli and real stimuli. These lower level brain mechanisms which function on a subconscious level make basic evaluations of perceptive stimuli, focus attention on important stimuli, and start basic emotional reactions. Research has also found that the brain differentiates between negative and positive stimuli and reacts quicker and more automatically to negative stimuli which are also better remembered. This likely has evolutionary explanations with it often being important to quickly focus attention on, evaluate, and quickly respond to threats. While the reaction to a strong negative stimulus is to avoid, a moderately negative stimulus instead causes curiosity and further examination. Negative media news is argued to fall into the latter category which explains their popularity. Lifelike audiovisual media are argued to have particularly strong effects compared to reading.\n",
"In addition to economic struggles and readership decline, newsprint has also struggled with losing readers' trust. Surveys have found that people tend to trust newspapers less than other news media, in part because they believe that newspaper journalists are \"isolated and out of touch\" and motivated by commercial interests. Most people believe their local and national news television stations more than their local and national newspapers. The only news medium that people trust less than newspapers is print magazines.\n",
"Some commentators on news values have argued that journalists' training in news values \"itself\" represents a systemic bias of the news. The norm of objectivity leads journalists to gravitate towards certain types of acts and exclude others. A journalist can be sure of objectivity in reporting that an official or public figure has made a certain statement. This is one reason why so much news reporting is devoted to official statements. This lemma dates back to the early history of public news reporting, as exemplified by an English printer who on 12 March 1624 published news from Brussels in the form of letters, with the prefacing comment: \"Now because you shall not say, that either out of my owne conceit I misliked a phrase, or presumptuously tooke upon me to reforme any thing amisse, I will truly set you downe their owne words.\"\n",
"\"If educated to understand the difference between including scattered oppositional facts, and challenging a dominant frame, journalists might be better equipped to construct news that makes equally salient—equally accessible to the average, inattentive, and marginally informed audience—two or more interpretations of problems.\"\n",
"Journalism has developed a variety of ethics and standards. While objectivity and a lack of bias are of primary concern and importance, more liberal types of journalism, such as advocacy journalism and activism, intentionally adopt a non-objective viewpoint. This has become more prevalent with the advent of social media and blogs, as well as other platforms that are used to manipulate or sway social and political opinions and policies. These platforms often project extreme bias, as \"sources\" are not always held accountable or considered necessary in order to produce a written, televised, or otherwise \"published\" end product.\n"
] |
How did Hezbollah go from a small militia to such an impressive paramilitary force?
|
Quick answer: Support from Iran via Syria and stong social presence. More detail:
* Hezbollah military men get trained in Iran. They also get weapons from Iran through Syria. Lots of weapon and artillery. They know the country and the villages and the inner streets so they are very well positioned to fight off any attack.
* Hezbollah men will fight to the death because it is a cause they are born and raised to believe in, unlike regular soldiers. Plus if they die, other than the prestige, they become martyrs and their wives and children are taken care of financially by the party.
* In addition, they created themselves as champions of the Shia sect. Shia in Lebanon were the underdog and completely neglected by the government,they had virtually no representation. So Hizbollah provided them with a voice, not to mention all the charity and rebuilding work, so Hizbollah had a major popular base.
* Hizbollah's leader, Nasrallah, is a seriously intelligent and charismatic man, he has a large appeal in the country even among some of the Christians.
|
[
"The militia is described as an \"operational auxiliary\" or subsidiary of Hezbollah. Group members fight under the Hezbollah flag and command structure in combat, but are at least nominally separate in peacetime. They also receive intelligence from Hezbollah.\n",
"At its zenith, the militia had 14,000 troops. Amal fought a long campaign against Palestinian refugees during the Lebanese Civil War (called the War of the Camps). After the War of the Camps, Amal fought a bloody battle against rival Shi'a group Hezbollah for control of Beirut, which provoked Syrian military intervention. Hezbollah itself was formed by religious members of Amal who had left after Nabih Berri's assumption of full control and the subsequent resignation of most of Amal's earliest senior members.\n",
"Hezbollah has not revealed its armed strength. It has been estimated by Mustafa Alani, security director at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre, that Hezbollah's military force is made up of about 1,000 full-time Hezbollah members, along with a further 6,000-10,000 volunteers.\n",
"At its zenith, the militia had 14,000 troops. Amal fought a long campaign against Palestinian refugees during the Lebanese Civil War (called the War of the Camps). After the War of the Camps, Amal fought a bloody battle against rival Shi'a group Hezbollah for control of Beirut, which provoked Syrian military intervention. Hezbollah itself was formed by religious members of Amal who had left after Nabih Berri's assumption of full control and the subsequent resignation of most of Amal's earliest members.\n",
"Hezbollah does not reveal its armed strength. Mustafa Alani, security director at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre, estimated that Hezbollah's armed wing comprises 1,000 full-time Hezbollah members, along with a further 6,000–10,000 volunteers. According to the Iranian Fars News Agency, Hezbollah has up to 65,000 fighters. It is often described as more militarily powerful than the Lebanese Army. Israeli commander Gui Zur called Hezbollah \"by far the greatest guerrilla group in the world\".\n",
"According to the US, the Assad loyalist militia known as Jaysh al-Sha'bi was created and is maintained by Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard, both of whom provide it with money, weapons, training and advice. Also, according to Israeli intelligence sources, Hezbollah is working to forge loyalist government militias into a 100,000-strong irregular army to fight alongside the government's conventional forces.\n",
"In 2006, Hezbollah fighters \"often participated in extended direct firefights with the IDF.\" Hezbollah would generally wait for Israel to enter a village before beginning combat, rather than engage in open territory. Fighters mostly wore Hezbollah uniforms, while a small number wore civilian clothes or IDF uniforms in combat. Hezbollah fighters in the 1990s and 2000s mostly wore M81 woodland and olive drab camo, with fighters recently also wearing multicam. Hezbollah fighters conducted close-range, direct firefights with the IDF, and launched counterattacks with up to a platoon of men. Soldiers displayed tenacity and planned and executed complex ambushes. Close familiarity with their area of operations, widespread civilian support, and strong communication networks bolstered the fighters. Fighters rely on \"superior mobility, fighting morale, and popular support\" to counter Israel's technological advancement. Israeli Brigadier General Gal Hirsch described house-to-house fighting with Hezbollah as \"a full-contact operation. I mean direct fighting between our soldiers face to face.\" In 2006, Hezbollah fighters were overwhelmingly clad in uniforms, and often had equipment used by state militaries like body armor, dog tags, and helmets. Hezbollah is strongest when defending its home territory of southern Lebanon, and had a \"strategic advantage\" here. One of Hezbollah's strongest attributes is its skill in cover and camouflage, which is sometimes described as good as Israel.\n"
] |
how do you explain that depak chopra and other woo woo new age pseudo science/medicine is bogus to someone that is deeply invested in them?
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Sounds like it is trying to take advantage of the placebo effect, a real phenomenon. Honestly, people who are deeply invested in these pseudosciences usually will not listen to reason and they will reject any evidence that doesn’t support their belief, much like a person who is delusional with a psychiatric illness.
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[
"Chopra has equated spontaneous remission in cancer to a change in quantum state, corresponding to a jump to \"a new level of consciousness that prohibits the existence of cancer\". Physics professor Robert L. Park has written that physicists \"wince\" at the \"New Age quackery\" in Chopra's cancer theories, and characterizes them as a cruel fiction, since adopting them in place of effective treatment risks compounding the ill effects of the disease with guilt, and might rule out the prospect of getting a genuine cure.\n",
"Chopra's \"Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old\" was published in 1993. The book and his friendship with Michael Jackson gained him an interview on July 12 that year on \"Oprah\". Paul Offit writes that within 24 hours Chopra had sold 137,000 copies of his book and 400,000 by the end of the week. Four days after the interview, the Maharishi National Council of the Age of Enlightenment wrote to TM centers in the United States, instructing them not to promote Chopra, and his name and books were removed from the movement's literature and health centers. Neuroscientist Tony Nader became the movement's new \"Dhanvantari of Heaven and Earth\".\n",
"He is placed by David Gorski among the \"quacks\", \"cranks\" and \"purveyors of woo\", and described as \"arrogantly obstinate\". \"The New York Times\" in 2013 stated that Deepak Chopra is \"the controversial New Age guru and booster of alternative medicine\". \"Time\" magazine stated that he is \"the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.\" He has become one of the best-known and wealthiest figures in the holistic-health movement. \"The New York Times\" argued that his publishers have used his medical degree on the covers of his books as a way to promote the books and buttress their claims. In 1999 \"Time\" magazine included Chopra in its list of the 20th century's heroes and icons. Cosmo Landesman wrote in 2005 that Chopra was \"hardly a man now, more a lucrative new age brand – the David Beckham of personal/spiritual growth\". For Timothy Caulfield, Chopra is an example of someone using scientific language to promote treatments that are not grounded in science: \"[Chopra] legitimizes these ideas that have no scientific basis at all, and makes them sound scientific. He really is a fountain of meaningless jargon.\" A 2008 \"Time\" magazine article by Ptolemy Tompkins commented that for most of his career Chopra had been a \"magnet for criticism\", and most of it was from the medical and scientific professionals. Opinions ranged from the \"dismissive\" to the \"outright damning\". Chopra's claims for the effectiveness of alternative medicine can, some have argued, lure sick people away from medical treatment. Tompkins however considered Chopra a \"beloved\" individual whose basic messages centered on \"love, health and happiness\" had made him rich because of their popular appeal. English professor George O'Har argues that Chopra exemplifies the need of human beings for meaning and spirit in their lives, and places what he calls Chopra's \"sophistries\" alongside the emotivism of Oprah Winfrey. Paul Kurtz writes that Chopra's \"regnant spirituality\" is reinforced by postmodern criticism of the notion of objectivity in science, while Wendy Kaminer equates Chopra's views with irrational belief systems such as New Thought, Christian Science, and Scientology.\n",
"Shiv Chopra identified his life so completely with his whistleblowing at Health Canada that his autobiography is nearly all about his work protecting Canadians from unsafe products being pushed through approval. In 1974 Chopra sat for an interview for a shift in position at the Bureau of Drugs. He was asked, \"Suppose you are selected for this post, whom would you consider to be your client?\" Chopra replied, \"The public, of course.\" The interviewer replied, \"No, it is the industry.\" Chopra insisted that the mandate of the position was Parliament's \"Food and Drugs Act\" (page 19). Such unabashed subservience of supervisors to corporate influence convinced Chopra that Health Canada was \"Corrupt to the Core\", the title of the autobiography. One aspect of his whistleblowing was flagging obstructions to advancement, which he grieved and sued. The major conflict was approval of unsafe products:\n",
"Reflecting on his stint in first season of Indian Super League, Chopra admitted that ISL turned out to be much more intense and competitive than he had anticipated. He said“I think there were a few things that went wrong; I underestimated the ISL. I thought it was going to be easier than it was, and then I picked up a hamstring injury in pre-season which set me back.\n",
"Chopra's involvement with TM led to a meeting, in 1985, with the leader of the TM movement, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who asked him to establish an Ayurvedic health center. He left his position at the NEMH. Chopra said that one of the reasons he left was his disenchantment at having to prescribe too many drugs: \"[W]hen all you do is prescribe medication, you start to feel like a legalized drug pusher. That doesn't mean that all prescriptions are useless, but it is true that 80 percent of all drugs prescribed today are of optional or marginal benefit.\"\n",
"Former colleagues Ming Tsuang and Joseph Coyle have maintained that the denial of Grinspoon's promotion was likely predicated on his perceived neglect of \"original research\" in favor of \"[synthesizing] the work of others.\" However, Coyle has acknowledged that Grinspoon's cannabis research \"could have been an element\" in the decision.\n"
] |
Do any ancient bibles/scriptures show that Jesus did not resurrect?
|
Honestly, not really. Even in the earliest gospel (Mark), after women enter Jesus' tomb, an angel says
> "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. *He has been raised; he is not here*."
And the earliest sources that we have -- the epistles of Paul -- are permeated with references to Jesus' resurrection.
The only thing that's been hypothesized is that the earliest Christians originally did not believe that Jesus underwent *bodily* resurrection, and that they instead believed that his body really did remain dead (wherever it had ended up), and that it was just his spirit that was "exalted to heaven." But, again, this was just hypothetical, and doesn't enjoy wide scholarly support; and the only texts that we have are insistent on resurrection.
|
[
"According to the New Testament, some Christians reported that they encountered Jesus after his crucifixion. They argued that he had been resurrected (belief in the resurrection of the dead in the Messianic Age was a core Pharisaic doctrine), and would soon return to usher in the Kingdom of God and fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy such as the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment.\n",
"Historically, this has been one of the most difficult passages to resolve with a literal interpretation of the text. At face value it would seem to imply that the disciples would still be alive today. Awkward legends arose suggesting that the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking did not die but remain alive, eventually developing into legends like those of the Wandering Jew and Prester John. C. S. Lewis called this \"the most embarrassing verse in the Bible\".\n",
"Another apologetical argument is to argue that the disciples had no compelling reason to fabricate a resurrection story because they earnestly believed (at that time) Jesus was not the Messiah after all. According to J.N.D. Anderson in his work, the disciples simply didn't anticipate the resurrection and were surprised by the physical presence of the risen Christ. This is emphasized by the disciples fearful response upon seeing Jesus for the first time after his resurrection: \"...They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost\" (). They seemingly failed to \"expect\" the resurrection and were either unfamiliar with or discounted prophecies indicating the Messiah would be resurrected. The Gospel of John seems to support this: \"...Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead...\" (). If the apostles \"did not understand\" these prophecies, they would have no logical purpose in robbing the body of Jesus from his tomb, as there was nothing to prove.\n",
"The use of the \"lost years\" in the \"swoon hypothesis\", suggests that Jesus survived his crucifixion and continued his life, instead of what was stated in the New Testament that he ascended into Heaven with two angels. This, and the related view that he avoided crucifixion altogether, has given rise to several speculations about what happened to him in the supposed remaining years of his life, but these are not accepted by mainstream scholars either.\n",
"The gospels state that the first day of the week after the crucifixion (typically interpreted as a Sunday), The followers of Jesus encounter him risen from the dead, after his tomb was discovered to be empty. The New Testament does not include an account of the \"moment of resurrection\" and in the Eastern Church icons do not depict that moment, but show the Myrrhbearers, and depict scenes of salvation.\n",
"The belief in the resurrection of the dead was largely a fairly recent innovation in ancient Jewish thought, and Jesus defends the belief against the Sadducees, who consider it to be a false innovation. He quotes God's statement to Moses on Mount Sinai made in the present tense about the patriarchs to show that God states them to be still in existence after their death, and thus that the doctrine of resurrection is present in the scripture from the beginning.\n",
"In his essays \"The Myth of the Resurrection\" (1925) and \"Did Jesus Ever Live?\" (1926) McCabe wrote that Christianity is a direct representation of older Pagan beliefs. Slain saviors and their resurrection myths were currently known and celebrated across the ancient world before Christianity began. According to McCabe the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus contain numerous conflicts, contradictions and errors and are unreliable as they had been fabricated over the years by many different writers. McCabe came to the conclusion that Jesus was an Essenian holy man who was turned into a God over the years by hearsay and oral tradition.\n"
] |
if we were to go extinct today, would earth be able to erase any evidence of us completely?
|
Yes and no. The things you mention, such as buildings and bridges, would pretty much fade to oblivion. Foundations would probably remain for some things but for the most part, we would simply fade away. However, many of our more forward thinking projects, such as seed banks, would be around for millennia. When we decide that we want something to last, we can do a pretty good job of it. Furthermore, our effects on the planet will live on for the rest of the Earth's lifespan. Trapped in the geology of our planet will be records of our lives here today. Changes in carbon and methane levels, along with traces of elements and isotopes which simply do not exist naturally, will be infused into the planet for all time. To a future civilization, it would be as clear as the words you are reading right now.
|
[
"Researchers experience difficulty in studying near human extinction directly, since humanity has never been destroyed before. While this does not mean that it will not be in the future, it does make modelling existential risks difficult, due in part to survivorship bias. However, civilizations vanished rather frequently in human history.\n",
"It has been many years since a group of humans retreated to an artificial colony below the planet's surface. An unspecified ecological disaster has left the surface largely uninhabitable, plagued by apparent pollution, cold from receiving little light and largely absent of signs of life. Much of recorded history before the move has been forgotten, despite the numerous advances in technology. The last remaining information lies in a vast archive of data, much of it in corrupted formats. Determined to recover this precious information, the \"Archive Excavation Department\" works specifically to restore as much of it as possible. Long ago, the Department used to be excited and full of energy. Now, some feel that knowledge of the lost past can bring only sadness.\n",
"Commenting on \"Final Call\", Kitaro said, \"I have always felt we all must respect the providence of the Universe. Unfortunately, through the course of time and the growth of civilization, many living creatures that we now know will become extinct. If we don't alter how we treat each other and our planet Earth, many habitats and portions of this earth may become devastated and eventually disappear.\"\n",
"If you haven't given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species ... Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. \"Les U. Knight\" (pseudonym),\n",
"One study found that extinction from habitat loss is the hardest to detect, as this might only fragment populations to the point of concealment from humans. Some mammals declared as extinct may very well reappear. For example, a study found that 36% of purported mammalian extinction had been resolved, while the rest either had validity issues (insufficient evidence) or had been rediscovered.\n",
"According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York's American Museum of Natural History, nearly 70% believed that the Earth is currently in the early stages of a human-caused mass extinction, known as the Holocene extinction. In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20% of all living populations could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). A 2014 special edition of \"Science\" declared there is widespread consensus on the issue of human-driven mass species extinctions.\n",
"Human extinction can be prevented by improving the physical barrier or increasing the mean distance between people and the potential extinction event. For example, pandemics are controlled by placing exposed people in quarantine and evacuating healthy people away. The human lineage of genus \"Homo\" has reduced from several species co-existing on Earth to just one — all others became extinct before the end of the last Ice age. This illustrates that \"Homo sapiens\" is not immune to planetary disaster and that human survival may be better assured through the colonization of space.\n"
] |
why do humans feel shame?
|
It's a social emotion similar to embarrassment. When you feel shame, it's usually from doing something not socially accepted and whatnot, so you feel a bad emotion to be discouraged from doing it again, as humans are social creatures, and we generally prefer to be accepted by our communities.
|
[
"Shame can be a contributor to those with problems of low self-esteem. Feelings of shame usually occur because of a situation where the social self is devalued, such as a socially evaluated poor performance. A poor performance leads to higher responses of psychological states that indicate a threat to the social self namely a decrease in social self-esteem and an increase in shame. This increase in shame can be helped with self-compassion.\n",
"When people feel shame, the focus of their evaluation is on the self or identity. Shame is a self-punishing acknowledgment of something gone wrong. It is associated with \"mental undoing\". Studies of shame showed that when ashamed people feel that their entire self is worthless, powerless, and small, they also feel exposed to an audience—real or imagined—that exists purely for the purpose of confirming that the self is worthless. Shame and the sense of self is stigmatized, or treated unfairly, like being overtly rejected by parents in favor of siblings' needs, and is assigned externally by others regardless of one's own experience or awareness. An individual who is in a state of shame will assign the shame internally from being a victim of the environment, and the same is assigned externally, or assigned by others regardless of one's own experience or awareness.\n",
"The boundaries between concepts of shame, guilt, and embarrassment are not easily delineated. According to cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict, shame is a violation of cultural or social values while guilt feelings arise from violations of one's internal values. Thus shame arises when one's 'defects' are exposed to others, and results from the negative evaluation (whether real or imagined) of others; guilt, on the other hand, comes from one's own negative evaluation of oneself, for instance, when one acts contrary to one's values or idea of one's self. Thus, it might be possible to feel ashamed of thought or behavior that no one actually knows about [since one fears their discovery] and conversely, to feel guilty about actions that gain the approval of others.\n",
"Nineteenth-century scientist Charles Darwin described shame affect in the physical form of blushing, confusion of mind, downward cast eyes, slack posture, and lowered head; Darwin noted these observations of shame affect in human populations worldwide, as mentioned in his book \"The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals\". Darwin also mentions how the sense of warmth or heat, associated with the vasodilation of the face and skin, can result in an even more sense of shame. More commonly, the act of crying can be associated with shame.\n",
"Tangney et al. found that shame is painful, exposing, disapproving, self-directed, and causes forms of defense towards others. These characteristics are extreme, but shame enters a new level when one's behavior becomes avoidant, retaliated, and blaming. In redirecting anger outside the self, shamed individuals may be attempting to regain a sense of agency and control which is so often impaired in the shame experience, so they looked at possibilities of how anger and shame go hand in hand. Once angered, people often feel ashamed of being angry, the experience of shame itself fosters feelings of other-directed anger and hostility, and the acute pain of shame can lead to a sense of ‘humiliated fury' directly toward the self and toward a real or imagined disapproving other. Negative affect fosters feelings of anger and the ‘instigation to aggress'. Thus, from this perspective it may be the pain of shame that accounts for its link with indexes of anger and hostility.\n",
"Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion typically associated with a negative evaluation of the self, withdrawal motivations, and feelings of distress, exposure, mistrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.\n",
"There are many different reasons that people might feel shame. According to Joseph Burgo, there are four different aspects of shame. He calls these aspects of shame paradigms. In his first subdivision of shame he looks into is unrequited love; which is when you love someone but your partner does not reciprocate, or one is rejected by somebody that they like; this can be mortifying and shaming. Unrequited love can be shown in other ways as well. For example, the way a mother treats her new born baby. An experiment was done where a mother showed her baby love and talked to the baby for a set period of time. She then went a few minutes without talking to the baby. This resulted with the baby making different expressions to get the mother's attention. When the mother stopped giving the baby attention, the baby felt shame. The second type of shame is unwanted exposure. This would take place if you were called out in front of a whole class for doing something wrong or if someone saw you doing something you didn't want them to see. This is what you would normally think of when you hear the word shame. Disappointed expectation would be your third type of shame according to Burgo. This could be not passing a class, having a friendship go wrong, or not getting a big promotion in a job that you thought you would get. The fourth and final type of shame according to Burgo is exclusion which also means being left out. Many people will do anything to just fit in or want to belong in today's society. This happens all the time at school, work, friendships, relationships, everywhere. People will do anything to prove that they belong. Shame causes a lot of stress on people daily, but it also teaches people a lot of lessons. Without having shame people would never be able to learn a lesson and never be able to grow from their mistakes.\n"
] |
why its carl's jr. on the western half of the u.s and hardee's on the midwestern/some eastern
|
Carl's and Hardees were originally different restaurant chains. Back in 1997, the parent company of Carl's Jr. bought Hardees and is slowly combining the two restaurants. I expect they will keep the names separate indefinitely, as there's no reason to throw away name recognition.
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[
"By 1975, there were more than 100 Carl's Jr. locations in Southern California, and the company expanded into the northern part of the state. Carl's Jr. celebrated its success by building its Anaheim corporate headquarters in 1976. The following year, it became the first QSR chain to offer salad bars in all 200 locations. The first out-of-state restaurant opened in Las Vegas in 1979. By the end of the decade, sales exceeded the $100 million mark.\n",
"At the closing table, Kroc became annoyed that the brothers would not transfer to him the real estate and rights to the original San Bernardino location. The brothers had told Kroc they were giving the operation, property and all, to the founding employees. In his anger, Kroc later opened a new McDonald's restaurant near the original McDonald's, which had been renamed \"The Big M\" because the brothers had neglected to retain rights to the name. \"The Big M\" closed six years later. It is alleged that as part of the buyout Kroc promised, based on a handshake agreement, to continue the annual 0.5% royalty of the original agreement, but there is no evidence of this beyond a claim by a nephew of the McDonald brothers. Neither of the brothers publicly expressed disappointment over the deal. Speaking to someone about the buyout, Richard McDonald reportedly said that he had no regrets.\n",
"As of 2017, CKE (the parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's) has a total of 3,665 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 44 states and 39 foreign countries and U.S. territories. Outside of the U.S., Carls Jr. is currently present in Australia, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam.\n",
"The company has expanded across the American West and Southwest, as well as opened locations in several Southeast states, including 23 restaurants in Florida. All of the restaurants are company-owned.\n",
"By the 1960s, Carl was operating 24 restaurants in Southern California. The company incorporated in 1966 as Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc., and launched a major expansion of the chain in 1968. The menus were limited for faster service, featuring charbroiled hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, and malts.\n",
"In October 2003, The Bon-Ton expanded its reach into Ohio and the lower Midwest with the acquisition of the 69-store Elder-Beerman store chain. Following an attempt to convert to a privately held company, Elder-Beerman was offered more cash for its outstanding stock as part of the buyout. The chain operated as a separate banner until the company's demise in 2018.\n",
"Carl's Jr. chains had struggled to gain success in Arizona and Texas, perhaps diminishing hopes of expansion to other states, though later states like Nevada, Oregon, and Washington proved successful. During the 1990s, Karcher and the board of directors began clashing, often publicly, over marketing and business practices, including the chain's attempt at dual branding with such chains as The Green Burrito and its new advertising campaigns. Karcher was removed as chairman of the company by its board of directors on October 1, 1993. Soon after, the board of directors took a new approach by cutting the menu, lowering prices, and introducing a new marketing campaign which targeted younger urban and suburban males.\n"
] |
how does lying to yourself work?
|
You don't actually "lie" to yourself. You don't say something factually wrong like "I'm not fat" and suddenly believe you are not overweight.
What you do is delude yourself about things that are less factually certain. You say things like "I might be overweight, but I am still pretty healthy". You focus on the evidence for being healthy, like being able to go on long bike rides, and pay less attention to the evidence against, like your high blood pressure. Next time you have to decide between a double cheeseburger and a salad, you comfort yourself with how healthy you are, and get some fries with that.
|
[
"Researchers have looked into individuals cognitive effort when choosing between a lie versus the truth. Lying has been proven more difficult for the brain than telling the truth, they have found that lying increases activity in the brain regions. It takes the brain longer to formulate a deceptive answer than it does a truthful answer when a person is asked to answer questions at a faster speed. Overall, the truth is the first thing that comes to mind for a person in most situations. A humans mind is flexible enough to adapt in certain situations when needing to be deceptive, there are just certain variable and time restraints that arise from it.\n",
"Lying is the act of both knowingly and intentionally or willfully making a false statement. Normal lies are defensive and are told to avoid the consequences of truth telling. They are often white lies that spare another's feelings, reflect a pro-social attitude, and make civilized human contact possible. Pathological lying can be described as a habituation of lying. It is when an individual consistently lies for no personal gain.\n",
"BULLET::::- Lying (by commission) : It is hard to tell if somebody is lying at the time they do it, although often the truth may be apparent later when it is too late. One way to minimize the chances of being lied to is to understand that some personality types (particularly psychopaths) are experts at the art of lying and cheating, doing it frequently, and often in subtle ways.\n",
"In \"Lying\", neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that lying is negative for the liar and the person who's being lied to. To say lies is to deny others access to reality, and often we cannot anticipate how harmful lies can be. The ones we lie to may fail to solve problems they could have solved only on a basis of good information. To lie also harms oneself, makes the liar to distrust the person who's being lied to. Liars generally feel bad for it and sense a loss of sincerity, authenticity, integrity. Harris defends that honesty allows you to have deeper relationships, and to bring all dysfunction in one's life to the surface.\n",
"Lying is a long-form essay book by American author and neuroscience expert Sam Harris. Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie.\n",
"Social Psychology has explored whether the tenancy to tell the truth prevails. When a lie serves a persons self-interest they might be more prone to lying because it ends in a positive result for them. As noted before, self-interest has been found to be the driving force for people to practice deception. People are most prone to lie after engaging in a depleting task, when they are sleep deprived, and later in the day compared to when they first wake up.\n",
"Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions. For example, when the seller of a car declares it has been serviced regularly but does not mention that a fault was reported during the last service, the seller lies by omission. It can be compared to dissimulation. An omission is when a person tells most of the truth, but leaves out a few key facts that therefore completely change the story.\n"
] |
what exactly is a bruised bone?
|
A bone bruise, or a bone contusion, is an injury to bone typically caused by trauma that results in [microscopic fractures and the build-up of blood and fluid in the surrounding tissue and bone](_URL_0_). Bone bruises can be very painful but are much less severe than a fracture. While fractures can be seen on x-rays, a bone bruise can only be seen on MRIs.
|
[
"A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasate into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Most bruises are not very deep under the skin so that the bleeding causes a visible discoloration. The bruise then remains visible until the blood is either absorbed by tissues or cleared by immune system action. Bruises, which do not blanch under pressure, can involve capillaries at the level of skin, subcutaneous tissue, muscle, or bone. Bruises are not to be confused with other similar-looking lesions primarily distinguished by their diameter or causation. These lesions include petechia (< 3 mm result from numerous and diverse etiologies such as adverse reactions from medications such as warfarin, straining, asphyxiation, platelet disorders and diseases such as cytomegalovirus), purpura (3 mm to 1 cm, classified as palpable purpura or non-palpable purpura and indicates various pathologic conditions such as thrombocytopenia), and ecchymosis (1 cm caused by blood dissecting through tissue planes and settled in an area remote from the site of trauma or pathology such as periorbital ecchymosis, e.g.,\"raccoon eyes\", arising from a basilar skull fracture or from a neuroblastoma).\n",
"Bruise shapes may correspond directly to the instrument of injury or be modified by additional factors. Bruises often become more prominent as time lapses, resulting in additional size and swelling, and may grow to a large size over the course of the hours after the injury that caused the bruise was inflicted. As stated above, bruising present in a different location than the site of impact is called \"ecchymosis\" and generally occurs when the tissue at the site of injury is loose, allowing blood to travel under the skin to another location due to gravity or other forces, such as in a black eye.\n",
"Bruises often induce pain immediately after the trauma that results in their formation, but small bruises are not normally dangerous alone. Sometimes bruises can be serious, leading to other more life-threatening forms of hematoma, such as when associated with serious injuries, including fractures and more severe internal bleeding. The likelihood and severity of bruising depends on many factors, including type and healthiness of affected tissues. Minor bruises may be easily recognized in people with light skin color by characteristic blue or purple appearance (idiomatically described as \"black and blue\") in the days following the injury.\n",
"The presence of bruises may be seen in patients with platelet or coagulation disorders, or those who are being treated with an anticoagulant. Unexplained bruising may be a warning sign of child abuse, domestic abuse, or serious medical problems such as leukemia or meningoccocal infection. Unexplained bruising can also indicate internal bleeding or certain types of cancer. Long-term glucocorticoid therapy can cause easy bruising. Bruising present around the navel (belly button) with severe abdominal pain suggests acute pancreatitis. Connective tissue disorders such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome may cause relatively easy or spontaneous bruising depending on the severity.\n",
"As a type of hematoma, a bruise is always caused by internal bleeding into the interstitial tissues which does not break through the skin, usually initiated by blunt trauma, which causes damage through physical compression and deceleration forces. Trauma sufficient to cause bruising can occur from a wide variety of situations including accidents, falls, and surgeries. Disease states such as insufficient or malfunctioning platelets, other coagulation deficiencies, or vascular disorders, such as venous blockage associated with severe allergies can lead to the formation of purpura which is not to be confused with trauma-related bruising/contusion. If the trauma is sufficient to break the skin and allow blood to escape the interstitial tissues, the injury is not a bruise but bleeding, a different variety of hemorrhage. Such injuries may be accompanied by bruising elsewhere.\n",
"As these are colloquial terms, texts and medical dictionaries do not universally agree on precise meanings. Various authorities state that a \"boxer's fracture\" means a break in specifically the second metacarpal bone or third metacarpal bone, with \"bar room fracture\" being specific to the fourth metacarpal bone or fifth metacarpal bone. Though some writers assert that boxer's fracture and bar room fracture are distinct terms representing injuries to different bones, this distinction seems to have been lost and most medical professionals now describe any metacarpal fracture as a \"boxer's fracture\" .\n",
"Bone pain (also known medically by several other names) is pain coming from a bone. It occurs as a result of a wide range of diseases and/or physical conditions and may severely impair the quality of life. \n"
] |
why do people have pairs of chromosomes? what does that do?
|
You get one chromosome from each parent. It increases genetic diversity by giving you one from each parent, rather than just one chromosome from one parent.
|
[
"Humans have a total of 46 chromosomes, but there are only 22 pairs of homologous autosomal chromosomes. The additional 23rd pair is the sex chromosomes, X and Y. If this pair is made up of an X and Y chromosome, then the pair of chromosomes is not homologous because their size and gene content differ greatly. The 22 pairs of homologous chromosomes contain the same genes but code for different traits in their allelic forms since one was inherited from the mother and one from the father. So humans have two homologous chromosome sets in each cell, meaning humans are diploid organisms.\n",
"Chromosomes in humans can be divided into two types: autosomes (body chromosome(s)) and allosome (sex chromosome(s)). Certain genetic traits are linked to a person's sex and are passed on through the sex chromosomes. The autosomes contain the rest of the genetic hereditary information. All act in the same way during cell division. Human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes), giving a total of 46 per cell. In addition to these, human cells have many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome. Sequencing of the human genome has provided a great deal of information about each of the chromosomes. Below is a table compiling statistics for the chromosomes, based on the Sanger Institute's human genome information in the Vertebrate Genome Annotation (VEGA) database. Number of genes is an estimate, as it is in part based on gene predictions. Total chromosome length is an estimate as well, based on the estimated size of unsequenced heterochromatin regions.\n",
"Most organisms that reproduce sexually have pairs of chromosomes in each cell, with one chromosome inherited from each parent. In such organisms, a process called meiosis creates cells called gametes (eggs or sperm) that have only one set of chromosomes. The number of chromosomes is different for different species. Humans have 46 chromosomes (i.e. 23 pairs of chromosomes). Human gametes have only 23 chromosomes.\n",
"Humans have only 23 pairs of chromosomes, while all other extant members of Hominidae have 24 pairs. (It is believed that Neanderthals and Denisovans had 23 pairs.) Human chromosome 2 is a result of an end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes.\n",
"A regular human carries 23 pairs of chromosomes in his or her cells. Cells containing two pairs of chromosomes are known as diploid cells. Those with diploid triploid mosaicism have some cells which are triploid, meaning that they have three copies of chromosomes, or a total of 69 chromosomes. Triploidy is distinct from trisomy, in which only one chromosome exists in three pairs. A well-known example of trisomy is trisomy 21 or Down syndrome.\n",
"Unlike other chromosomes, Y chromosomes generally do not come in pairs. Every human male (excepting those with XYY syndrome) has only one copy of that chromosome. This means that there is not any chance variation of which copy is inherited, and also (for most of the chromosome) not any shuffling between copies by recombination; so, unlike autosomal haplotypes, there is effectively not any randomisation of the Y-chromosome haplotype between generations. A human male should largely share the same Y chromosome as his father, give or take a few mutations; thus Y chromosomes tend to pass largely intact from father to son,\n",
"For example, humans have a diploid genome that usually contains 22 pairs of autosomes and one allosome pair (46 chromosomes total). The autosome pairs are labeled with numbers (1–22 in humans) roughly in order of their sizes in base pairs, while allosomes are labelled with their letters. By contrast, the allosome pair consists of two X chromosomes in females or one X and one Y chromosome in males. Unusual combinations of XYY, XXY, XXX, XXXX, XXXXX or XXYY, among other allosome combinations, are known to occur and usually cause developmental abnormalities.\n"
] |
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