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the annoying sound in my ears when i get out of the shower.
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> It's like there was a little, tiny flag in your ear which would wave very strongly with every move you make with your head.
If it's a clicking sound and seems related to swallowing, yawning, or breathing, you may want to ask a doctor about possible [Eustachian tube](_URL_1_) problems. That's a little tube inside your head that helps you "pop" your ears and equalize pressure.
If you mean some sort of ringing sound, then I'd suggest you look at [ELI5 : Tinnitus](_URL_0_).
|
[
"BULLET::::- Bathtub - A teenage girl in her bathrobe talks on her cell phone while looking into her bathroom mirror. She says, \"yeah, my parents think I'm sleeping at your house\". She hangs up and gets into the shower. While showering, she looks down and sees a trickle of blood. She turns around and screams; there is a pockmarked, bleeding version of herself shivering at the bottom of the shower, who pleads, \"don't do it.\"\n",
"Going to sleep, Greg is annoyed by a loud noise created by the Beardo siblings, who playfully crash a cleaning cart into a wall, and storms out of the room. He confronts them but Brandi, the oldest sibling, purposely rolls the cart into their car, leaving a huge scratch. Just as Mr. Beardo comes out of his motel room, Brandi angrily blames Greg responsible and Mr. Beardo goes after him but he evades him.\n",
"Andy wants to see what it feels like to have the shower full with water during the time Mr. and Mrs. Bainbridge are at Andy's house for dinner with his parents. With a lot of time on his hands, Andy seals up the door with a silicone gun from his Dad. Unfortunately, he accidentally breaks the hot tap, and ends up nearly drowning in cold water. The only way out is through the fan. He reaches up and pulls it, and is on the insulation patches as the water rises up the stall. With his rubber duck with him, a fiber in the vent pokes him. In temporary pain his loses the duck after being startled. He goes after the duck, but realizes quickly that the ceiling there is unsupported. The ceiling caves in and he finds himself lying legs spread on the dinner table, nude.\n",
"One morning she runs a bath and walks away from it, causing it to overflow. After work, she returns home and notices the plate of uncooked rabbit. As she turns on a light, the wall underneath the switch cracks open. She locks herself in her room and again hears footsteps. This time, she hallucinates that a man breaks into her room and rapes her. She is awoken on the floor of the hallway by the phone ringing. She answers it, and Colin is on the other end. She hangs up. \n",
"Dusche (German: \"Shower\") is a song by Farin Urlaub. It's the first single and fourteenth (and the last) track from his album \"Am Ende der Sonne\". It's about a paranoid man, who fears things in his house, thinking that they are conspiring to assassinate him. The man fights back and decides to burn everything down, when nothing else helps. The shower is the only one on his side. The man gradually grows more frenetic, until the end, where he is stabbed by his only friend.\n",
"Referred itch is the phenomenon in which a stimulus applied in one region of the body is felt as an itch or irritation in a different part of the body. The syndrome is relatively harmless, though it can be irritating, and healthy individuals can express symptoms. Stimuli range from a firm pressure applied to the skin – a scratch – to irritation or pulling on a hair follicle on the skin. The referred sensation itself should not be painful; it is more of an irritating prickle leading to the compulsion to scratch the area. The stimulus and referred itch are ipsilateral (the stimulus and the referred itch occur on the same side of the body). Also, because scratching or putting pressure on the referred itch does not cause the stimulus area to itch, the relationship between the stimulus and the referred itch is unidirectional. The itching sensation is spontaneous and can cease with continued stimulation.\n",
"The scene opens in the duo's flat at night time. Stan complains that he has a toothache. Ollie goes to the bathroom to get him a hot-water bottle and keeps stepping on a tack which is lying around. When Stan gets the water bottle, the lid opens and the water pours out in the bed. The two of them make much noise and the landlord (Charlie Hall) comes in, telling them that they will have to leave first thing in the morning.\n"
] |
Can a collapsing star have such great mass that the black hole formed completely absorbs the supernova and the star simply "goes dark?"
|
Yes, but it is not really due to the size of the star (given that the star is massive enough to undergo core collapse).
Once nucleosynthesis in the core of a star reaches iron-56, it begins to consume energy, rather than create it. If the core is large enough, electron degeneracy won't be able to support the core against the force of gravity and it will collapse catastrophically. During this process, a great deal of the gravitational potential energy is transferred to material that has "rebounded" from the core, which accelerates it away from the core. How exactly this happens is not understood at this time.
What we do know is that in some cases the amount of energy transferred is enough to expel most of the outer layers of the star in a supernova. In others, so much energy is transferred that the star is completely destroyed, and no remnant black hole or white dwarf is left behind. In other cases, the energy transferred is not sufficient to push the outer layers to escape velocity and no supernova is observable.
[Here](_URL_0_) under Current Models, Core Collapse is a nice chart giving a general overview of size/properties, type of supernova and remnant.
|
[
"One hypothesis is that the core of the star collapsed to form a black hole. The collapsing matter formed a burst of neutrinos that lowered the total mass of the star by a fraction of a percent. This caused a shock wave that blasted out the star's envelope to make it brighter. After the idea that a black holes are usually formed after a supernova, N6946-BH1 has given evidence that, instead of following this process, the star may automatically collapse into a black hole.\n",
"A star with a core mass slightly below this level—in the range of —will undergo a supernova explosion, but so much of the ejected mass falls back onto the core remnant that it still collapses into a black hole. If such a star is rotating slowly, then it will produce a faint supernova, but if the star is rotating quickly enough, then the fallback to the black hole will produce relativistic jets. The energy that these jets transfer into the ejected shell renders the visible outburst substantially more luminous than a standard supernova. The jets also beam high energy particles and gamma rays directly outward and thereby produce x-ray or gamma-ray bursts; the jets can last for several seconds or longer and correspond to long-duration gamma-ray bursts, but they do not appear to explain short-duration gamma-ray bursts.\n",
"The gravitational collapse of a star is a natural process that can produce a black hole. It is inevitable at the end of the life of a star, when all stellar energy sources are exhausted. If the mass of the collapsing part of the star is below the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) limit for neutron-degenerate matter, the end product is a compact star — either a white dwarf (for masses below the Chandrasekhar limit) or a neutron star or a (hypothetical) quark star. If the collapsing star has a mass exceeding the TOV limit, the crush will continue until zero volume is achieved and a black hole is formed around that point in space.\n",
"It is thought that stars this massive can never lose enough mass to avoid a catastrophic end with the collapse of a large iron core. The result will be a supernova, hypernova, gamma-ray burst, or perhaps almost no visible explosion, and leaving behind a black hole. The exact details depend heavily on the timing and amount of mass loss, with current models not fully reproducing the distribution of stars and supernovae that we observe. The most massive stars in the local universe are expected to progress to hydrogen-free Wolf Rayet stars before their cores collapse, producing a type Ib or Ic supernova and leaving behind a black hole. Gamma ray bursts are only expected under unusual conditions, or for less massive stars\n",
"When the progenitor star is below about – depending on the strength of the explosion and the amount of material that falls back – the degenerate remnant of a core collapse is a neutron star. Above this mass, the remnant collapses to form a black hole. The theoretical limiting mass for this type of core collapse scenario is about . Above that mass, a star is believed to collapse directly into a black hole without forming a supernova explosion, although uncertainties in models of supernova collapse make calculation of these limits uncertain.\n",
"If the mass of the remnant exceeds about (the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit), either because the original star was very heavy or because the remnant collected additional mass through accretion of matter, even the degeneracy pressure of neutrons is insufficient to stop the collapse. No known mechanism (except possibly quark degeneracy pressure, see quark star) is powerful enough to stop the implosion and the object will inevitably collapse to form a black hole.\n",
"The star's high mass loss rate combined with its eruptions will strip off its hydrogen layers and expose a hot helium core. It will proceed to the Wolf–Rayet sequence. It will eventually start fusing heavy elements in its core, and when it develops a large iron core the star will collapse in on itself and explode as a type Ib or Ic supernovae. Depending on the amount of mass lost before the supernova explosion, the remnant will be a neutron star or black hole. A black hole is predicted for the most massive stars such as this one.\n"
] |
the difference between deductive and abductive reasoning.
|
It simply means coming up with ideas to explain things we see. Those ideas then are put to the test and discarded or validated.
- Deduction: Winter is cold. Winter starts next month. So it will be cold next month.
- Induction: Last winter was cold, the one before was cold, and so on. So next winter is probably going to be cold.
- Abduction: Why is it so cold? Well, if it were winter, then of course it would be cold. So it's probably winter.
|
[
"Deductive reasoning differs from abductive reasoning by the direction of the reasoning relative to the conditionals. Deductive reasoning goes in the \"same direction as that of the conditionals, whereas abductive reasoning goes in the opposite direction to that of the conditionals.\n",
"Abductive reasoning is a form of inference which goes from an observation to a theory which accounts for the observation, ideally seeking to find the simplest and most likely explanation. In abductive reasoning, unlike in deductive reasoning, the premises do not guarantee the conclusion. One can understand abductive reasoning as \"inference to the best explanation\".\n",
"Abductive reasoning, or argument to the best explanation, is a form of reasoning that doesn't fit in deductive or inductive, since it starts with incomplete set of observations and proceeds with likely possible explanations so the conclusion in an abductive argument does not follow with certainty from its premises and concerns something unobserved. What distinguishes abduction from the other forms of reasoning is an attempt to favour one conclusion above others, by subjective judgement or attempting to falsify alternative explanations or by demonstrating the likelihood of the favoured conclusion, given a set of more or less disputable assumptions. For example, when a patient displays certain symptoms, there might be various possible causes, but one of these is preferred above others as being more probable.\n",
"In opposition, deductive reasoning is a basic form of valid reasoning. In this reasoning process a person starts with a known claim or a general belief and from there asks what follows from these foundations or how will these premises influence other beliefs. In other words, deduction starts with a hypothesis and examines the possibilities to reach a conclusion. Deduction helps people understand why their predictions are wrong and indicates that their prior knowledge or beliefs are off track. An example of deduction can be seen in the scientific method when testing hypotheses and theories. Although the conclusion usually corresponds and therefore proves the hypothesis, there are some cases where the conclusion is logical, but the generalization is not. For example, the argument, “All young girls wear skirts. Julie is a young girl. Therefore, Julie wears skirts,” is valid logically, but is not sound because the first premise isn't true.\n",
"Abductive reasoning is the process of deriving the most likely explanations of the known facts. An abductive logic should not be monotonic because the most likely explanations are not necessarily correct. For example, the most likely explanation for seeing wet grass is that it rained; however, this explanation has to be retracted when learning that the real cause of the grass being wet was a sprinkler. Since the old explanation (it rained) is retracted because of the addition of a piece of knowledge (a sprinkler was active), any logic that models explanations is non-monotonic.\n",
"Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying \"some\" evidence for the truth of the conclusion; this is in contrast to \"deductive\" reasoning. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument may be \"probable\", based upon the evidence given. Many dictionaries define inductive reasoning as the derivation of general principles from specific observations, though there are many inductive arguments that do not have that form.\n",
"Inductive reasoning is a form of argument that—in contrast to deductive reasoning—allows for the possibility that a conclusion can be false, even if all of the premises are true. Instead of being valid or invalid, inductive arguments are either \"strong\" or \"weak\", according to how \"probable\" it is that the conclusion is true. We may call an inductive argument plausible, probable, reasonable, justified or strong, but never certain or necessary. Logic affords no bridge from the probable to the certain.\n"
] |
How realistic is the cancer "vaccine" talked about recently?
|
So, immunotherapy has long been seen as a holy grail for cancer treatment. The immune system is naturally programmed to attack cells that have gone a bit weird (to use the scientific term). The problem tends to be that the cancer cells can also alter themselves so that they are disguised from the immune system, or in fact inhibit any immune cells that come into contact with them. This stops the immune system from seeing them as dangerous, allowing the cancer to grow. So the balance of the immune response is in favour of leaving the cancer alone.
What this treatment does is inject the tumour with molecules that tell the immune cells in the vicinity of the tumour to wake up and start doing their job, overcoming the inhibition that the cancer cells have put in place. This means that the balance of the immune response is now to attack the tumour, which seems to work very well.
The really cool thing is that now that the immune system is trained to see the tumour as bad, and will attack similar cells in different sites. This is why it behaves in some fashion like a vaccine.
It's perfectly viable, and very exciting. As always, there is always the question of how well it translates into human biology but it is still very promising. I think one problem is going to be how specific the immune response is. In the paper, they see the immune cells are trained to attack cells with protein markers unique to the tumour cells, which is a good sign. One concern might be that if you accidentally trigger the immune response to normal cell markers, it could cause your immune system to attack healthy cells which would obviously be a very bad consequence. Another would be how readily a tumour can evolve to overcome the immune system attack. If the immune system only ends up going for certain markers, it could miss tumour cells that don't have the same ones. These could then continue to grow and cause the cancer to return.
ETA: thank you kind, golden stranger!
...strangers!
|
[
"The National Cancer Institute states \"Widespread vaccination has the potential to reduce cervical cancer deaths around the world by as much as two-thirds if all women were to take the vaccine and if protection turns out to be long-term. In addition, the vaccines can reduce the need for medical care, biopsies, and invasive procedures associated with the follow-up from abnormal Pap tests, thus helping to reduce health care costs and anxieties related to abnormal Pap tests and follow-up procedures.\"\n",
"Widespread vaccination has the potential to reduce cervical cancer deaths around the world by as much as two-thirds, if all women were to take the vaccine and if protection turns out to be long-term. In addition, the vaccines can reduce the need for medical care, biopsies, and invasive procedures associated with the follow-up from abnormal Pap tests, thus helping to reduce health care costs and anxieties related to abnormal Pap tests and follow-up procedures.\n",
"BULLET::::- Drs. A. Bennett Jenson and Shin-je Ghim, innovators of the world's first 100% effective cancer vaccine have begun work to develop a less expensive vaccine with an increased spectrum of activity. This vaccine will be produced in tobacco plants, one of Kentucky's abundant crops.\n",
"Each vaccine is specific to that patient. Though not a preventative measure, the vaccine's creator, Dr. Barbuto, predicted that the vaccine would be even more effective in patients in earlier stages of cancer. The vaccine is administered in conjunction with other cancer-preventative measures such as chemotherapy.\n",
"BCG has been one of the most successful immunotherapies. BCG vaccine has been the \"standard of care for patients with bladder cancer (NMIBC)\" since 1977. By 2014 there were more than eight different considered biosimilar agents or strains used for the treatment of non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).\n",
"Vaccine therapy is perhaps the immunotherapeutic strategy with the most ongoing exploration in sarcomas at the current time, although, thus far at least, little evidence has emerged indicating that active vaccination alone can lead to tumor regression. Multiple techniques and treatment strategies are currently being studied in an effort to improve the objective response rate of vaccine therapy. Vaccines can deliver various tumor-associated factors (tumor antigens) to the immune system, resulting in a natural antibody and T-cell response to the tumor.\n",
"Currently, the vaccine is only administered to health care workers or research personnel who have a high risk of contracting the variola virus, and to the military personnel of the United States. Due to the threat of smallpox bioterrorism, there is a possibility the vaccine may have to be widely administered again in the future. Therefore, scientists are currently developing novel vaccine strategies against smallpox which are safer and much faster to deploy during a bioterrorism event.\n"
] |
Why do radar dishes need to spin and scan the area progressively? Can't they design a radar which scans the whole area?
|
I guess you could think of if by analogy with our eyes. We turn our heads to look at things because we have a narrow field of view. Radar is similar - it only gets information from in front of it, and so needs to be turned to look at everything around it.
You could, however, build an onmidirectional radar. It would put out a pulse in all directions and then listen for reflected radio signals from all directions. But there would be two big issues:
* You'd not get, in an normal radar design, any information about what direction the detected object was in. You could tell how far away it was and how fast it was moving towards you, but not at what angle it was. You could add this information by having a group of antennae that effectively triangulate.
* You'd need a lot of power, as unlike a normal radar, you'd be sending the radio power in all directions. If you didn't give more power, you'd have a much weaker return signal and thus a harder time to detect small or distant objects..
Edit: bullet points ftw
|
[
"Classic radars measure range by timing the delay between sending and receiving pulses of radio signals, and determine the angular location by the mechanical position of the antenna at the instant the signal is received. To scan the entire sky, the antenna is rotated around its vertical axis. The returned signal is displayed on a circular cathode ray tube that produces dots at the same angle as the antenna and displaced from the center by the time delay. The result is a two-dimensional re-creation of the airspace around the antenna. Such a display is called a Plan Position Indicator, usually simply a \"PPI\".\n",
"At a given position, the radar can scan for targets in one quadrant, encompassing a 90° sector. The array can electronically scan up to +/-45° from its mean bearing. Additionally, for 360° coverage from a given position, the whole array can be rotated by 135° on either side within 30 seconds to quickly change the scanning sector in response to threats.\n",
"The team first considered spinning the radar dish around a vertical axis and then angling the dish up and down a few degrees with each complete circuit. The vertical motion could be smoothed out by moving continually rather than in steps, producing a helix pattern. However, this helical-scan solution had two disadvantages; one was that the dish spent half of its time pointed backwards, limiting the amount of energy broadcast forward, and the other was that it required the microwave energy to somehow be sent to the antenna through a rotating feed. At a 25 October all-hands meeting attended by Dee, Hodgkin and members of the GEC group at GEC's labs, the decision was made to proceed with the helical-scan solution in spite of these issues. GEC solved the problem of having the signal turned off half the time by using two dishes mounted back-to-back and switching the output of the magnetron to the one facing forward at that instant. They initially suggested that the system would be available by December 1940, but as work progressed it became clear that it would take much longer.\n",
"Constructing a radar so as to emit minimal side and back lobes may also reduce the probability of interception when it is not pointing at the radar warning receiver. However, when the radar is sweeping a large volume of space for targets, it is likely that the main lobe will repeatedly be pointing at the RWR. Modern phased-array radars not only control their side lobes, they also use very thin, fast-moving beams of energy in complicated search patterns. This technique may be enough to confuse the RWR so it does not recognize the radar as a threat, even if the signal itself is detected.\n",
"With the location of targets known even when the radar antenna is not pointed at them, TWS radars can return to the same area of sky on their next scan and beam additional energy toward the target. So in spite of the radar not constantly painting the target as it would in a traditional lock-on, enough energy is sent in that direction to allow a missile to track. A phased array antenna helps here, by allowing the signal to be focused on the target when the antenna is in that direction, without it having to be pointed directly at the target. This means that the target can be painted for a longer period of time, whenever the antenna is in the same general direction. Advanced phased array radars make this even easier, allowing a signal to be continually directed at the target.\n",
"Radar jamming can be effective from directions other than the direction the radar antenna is currently aimed. When jamming is strong enough, the radar receiver can detect it from a relatively low gain sidelobe. The radar, however, will process signals as if they were received in the main lobe. Therefore, jamming can be seen in directions other than where the jammer is located. To combat this, an omnidirectional antenna is used for a comparison signal. By comparing the signal strength as received by both the omnidirectional and the (directional) main antenna, signals can be identified that are not from the direction of interest. These signals are then ignored.\n",
"A weather radar network uses a series of typical angles that will be set according to the needs. After each scanning rotation, the antenna elevation is changed for the next sounding. This scenario will be repeated on many angles to scan all the volume of air around the radar within the maximum range. Usually, this scanning strategy is completed within 5 to 10 minutes to have data within 15 km above ground and 250 km distance of the radar. For instance in Canada, the 5 cm weather radars use angles ranging from 0.3 to 25 degrees. The image to the right shows the volume scanned when multiple angles are used.\n"
] |
what are apertures, f-stops, how does depth of field work, and how does lens measurement factor into the equation?
|
An ideal lens focuses light from a single plane (called the focal plane) onto its sensor. However, that's not super useful, as we often want to take pictures of things that are thick. As it turns out, there is a region around the focal plane where the image is still well focused. This is called the "field" of the photo, and the "depth of field" (DOF) measures the thickness of this region from the point nearest the camera that is well focused to the farthest point that is well focused.
As it turns out, actual lenses are not ideal lenses. This matters when it comes to DOF. At small apertures, much less light enters the lens, and it all enters through the middle part of the lens. The result is a larger DOF. In fact, you can make pictures with no lens at all using a pinhole camera. The aperture is so small that the DOF is essentially infinite. Since the amount of light that comes through is similarly small, you need a very bright scene.
Since aperture effects both amount of light and DOF, it's not exactly a DOF control. As less light comes through, more integration time (or exposure time if you're still thinking of a film camera) is required to get an image.
f-number (or f-stop) is a ratio of aperture to focal length. This is a camera-specific idea, but the exposure time for similar f-stops is similar. This was a more interesting parameter when light meters were separate from cameras. Almost all modern cameras use through-the-lens metering and automatic (or at least semi-automatic programs) to select appropriate f-stops and exposure times.
|
[
"In photography, depth of field (DOF) means an effective focal length. It is usually used for stressing an object and deemphasizing the background (and/or the foreground). The important measure related to DOF is the lens aperture. Decreasing the diameter of aperture increases focus and lowers resolution and vice versa.\n",
"The aperture affects not only the amount of light that passes through the lens, but also the depth of field of the resulting image: a larger aperture (a smaller f-number, e.g. f/2.0) will have a shallow depth of field, while a smaller aperture (a larger f-number, e.g. f/11) will have a greater depth of field.\n",
"Adjustment of the lens opening measured as f-number, which controls the amount of light passing through the lens. Aperture also has an effect on depth of field and diffraction – the higher the f-number, the smaller the opening, the less light, the greater the depth of field, and the more the diffraction blur. The focal length divided by the f-number gives the effective aperture diameter.\n",
"The in-focus range of a lens or optical system around an item of interest. It is measured from the distance behind an object of interest, to the distance in front of the object of interest, when the viewing lens is specifically focused on the object of interest. Depth of field depends on subject-to-camera distance, focal length of the lens, and f-stop.\n",
"Depth of field is an effect that permits bringing objects into focus at varying distances from the camera, and at varying depth between each other, into the field of view. A short lens, as explained above, will bring objects into focus that are relatively close to the camera, but it will also keep focus at greater distances between objects. A telephoto lens will be very shallow in its gamut of focus.\n",
"The same factors that determine depth of field also determine depth of focus, but these factors can have different effects than they have in depth of field. Both depth of field and depth of focus increase with smaller apertures. For distant subjects (beyond macro range), depth of focus is relatively insensitive to focal length and subject distance, for a fixed \"f\"-number. In the macro region, depth of focus increases with longer focal length or closer subject distance, while depth of field decreases.\n",
"A device called a diaphragm usually serves as the aperture stop, and controls the aperture. The diaphragm functions much like the iris of the eye – it controls the effective diameter of the lens opening. Reducing the aperture size increases the depth of field, which describes the extent to which subject matter lying closer than or farther from the actual plane of focus appears to be in focus. In general, the smaller the aperture (the larger the f-number), the greater the distance from the plane of focus the subject matter may be while still appearing in focus.\n"
] |
why do i have to wait 30 seconds after i unplug my modem to plug it back in? once it's off, isn't it just...off?
|
Electronics contain capacitors and will maintain a capacitive charge for some length of time. The 30 second window is intended to be enough to let that capacitive charge drain. Not starting discharged can lead to some sequencing problems as the modem powers back up. In a perfect world they'd be designed such that it wouldn't matter, and it usually probably really doesn't.
You can see it one some electronics when you unplug them and the LED slowly fades out rather than going blank entirely.
|
[
"The products have built-in security codes for controlled activation. Once the code has been input into the device, it is activated for a time period of 8, 12, or 24 hours. Upon expiration of the time clock, the device shuts off and cannot be used again until the code is re-entered. This prevents unauthorized use in the event it is lost or stolen. \n",
"BULLET::::- Because each device has its own wire to the controller (rather than being part of a network) it has no need of an address to be set, so can be replaced simply by unplugging the faulty one and plugging in the new.\n",
"The codes may also temporarily stop working if they are done too many times in a row. Allowing the Attract mode display screens to cycle all the way through (at least 1 or 2 minutes) before trying a code again should rectify this.\n",
"One capability that a host can provide to a plugin is a \"worker thread\". In programming terms, this means that the plugin can offload some work to be done in another thread that the host provides. This is generally useful because a plugin is usually run in the real-time audio thread of an application, and hence cannot do any non-real-time safe operations (disk-accesses, system calls, etc.). To make it easy for the plugin to achieve its goals (e.g.: load a file from disk), the host can provide a worker thread. The host provides the LV2_Extension for the worker thread and the plugin is then able to use it.\n",
"debugWIRE can be disabled with e.g. JTAGICE mkII by sending a special reset command that disables temporarily the debugWIRE function and reenables /RESET and also ISP until next power down cycle. debugWIRE is not able to program the fuses of a device.\n",
"This is particularly designed for mode 3 connection. The incoming line to the mode 3 device is connected using pair one, and pair two is used as the outgoing line to other devices. If the mode 3 device is unplugged, the switch contacts maintain line connection to the other devices.\n",
"Updating the modem's Dashboard does not remove or affect the network-lock (that may be in effect with modems purchased subsidized from a service provider) that prevents you from using the modem with any service provider. However updating the modem's firmware may remove this network-unlock or even the opposite, turn a network-unlock free modem into an unlocked one.\n"
] |
What advice can askhistorians give me on becoming a professional historian.
|
Not to dissuade any new advice, but we've collected past posts in this topic under the FAQ section [History Careers and Education](_URL_0_).
|
[
"The work explores the craft of the historian from a number of different angles and discusses what constitutes history and how it should be configured and created in literary form by the historian. The scope of the work is broad across space and time: in one chapter, for instance, he cites a number of examples of erroneous history-writing and forgeries, citing sources as wide-ranging as the \"Commentaries\" of Julius Caesar and the \"Protocols of the Elders of Zion\". His approach is one that is configured not for those who are necessarily professional historians themselves (members of what he referred to as \"the guild\") but instead for all interested readers and non-specialists.\n",
"Personal historians have been described as comprising \"journalists, psychotherapists, social workers, nurses, videographers, gerontologists, and people from other helping or writing professions\", as \"retired teachers, journalists, genealogists, and therapists...\" and as \"social workers, journalists and others involved in communications... retirees who want to embark on a second career.\" In each case they form \" [g]enerally a one-person conglomerate of ghostwriter, editor, and publishing house...\".\n",
"In the mid 1970s she was a consultant historian to the private and government sectors, and is believed to be the first graduate historian in Queensland to use her training in this way, demonstrating that privately commissioned histories could be undertaken without sacrificing academic standards or ethical integrity. She was the founder of the Brisbane History Group and the Professional Historians' Association (Queensland), the professional association which promotes the interests of consulting historians in Queensland, and maintains standards of practice. As well as commissioned history, Ms Gregory is the author or co-author of many academic articles and studies and several entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.\n",
"To provide a welcoming environment where historians at all stages in their careers and from all parts of the world can meet formally and informally to exchange ideas and information, and to bring themselves up to date with current developments in historical scholarship\n",
"Her main fields of expertise are the history of history, the history of the church, the history of religions and confessions, the history of everyday life, the family, life forms, women and gender, regional, urban and local history as well as social, political and cultural orders.\n",
"The institute maintains a non-free Web site to serve as a portal for American history on the Web, to offer educational material for teachers, students, historians, and the public, and to provide up-to-the-minute information about the institute's programs and activities. The Web site offers learning modules on major topics in American history, podcasts from noted historians discussing their work, online exhibitions of primary source documents, and information about the institute's programs.\n",
"The Dooley Distinguished Research Fellows Program will also mentor the next generation of historians by giving younger scholars the opportunity to conduct research for a specific period of time in the vast collection of primary sources at the Georgia Historical Society Research Center. The research is expected to lead to a major piece of scholarly work such as: a dissertation, a book, an article in a refereed scholarly journal, a chapter in an edited collection, or an academic paper presented at a scholarly conference.\n"
] |
Why so much variation in the spelling of Irish surnames?
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It's a byproduct of British colonialism. During their process of colonisation, the English settlers often took Irish names - of people and places - and Anglicised them. For example, the capital of the Republic is Dublin, based on the viking settlement that used to be there called Dubhlinn (Blackpool if translated literally). More than that, though, while Irish was never prohibited in general (contrary to many popular myths), English was the language which dominated the Irish education system and civil service, and English was taught *exclusively* in the education system until 1871. There was major social pressure from the Catholic Church as well to discontinue the usage of Irish and they advocated against people speaking it until around the 1890's.
That attitude continued among a huge section of Ireland in spite of the Cultural Revival at the turn of the 20th century because employment opportunities were to be found in the Anglosphere - the United Kingdom and the United States, so Irish people were encouraged to learn English for when they would "inevitably" emigrate.
Now to the thrust of your question; Irish people's names are spelled with such variety because they weren't originally in English. They had to be Anglicised at some point and the method in which that was done wasn't done so consistently. O'Neill vs O'Neal vs O'Neil for example, would translate roughly back to Ó'Néill (grandson/descendant of Néill). Another example could be Piers v Pierce v Pearse v Pearson, which would go back to Mac Phearais (or Nic Phearais if they were a woman).
That's not to say Irish names in the original format are extremely consistent either. Ó'Néill could be Ua Néill, or Uí Néill, or Ní Néill but that's defined by rules - depending on stuff such as a person's gender.
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[
"A further reason for the variety in anglicised forms of the surname can be explained, as Irish Catholic priests, whilst literate, were only required to record surname spellings phonetically on birth certificates. This led to individuals sometimes having their surname recorded with a different spelling from their father, and indeed there are many examples of individuals with their surname spelt differently from their birth and death certificates even in the 20th century. Whilst literacy rates amongst the general Irish population were low in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, such variant spellings were rarely questioned.\n",
"Throughout this period and the following centuries, as noted by the Registrar General, R. E. Matheson in his report of 1901, surnames in Ireland had become altered in form by regional dialects and pronunciation, the anomalies of anglicisation and the effects of illiteracy, so as to occur in a bewildering variety of forms, even within the same families. Alongside this is the process of simplification already mentioned, reinforced by the mutation of the Irish form into English letters, e.g. the 'y' ending in English replacing 'aigh', 'aidh', 'dha' and even 'n' endings, 'áin, ín' etc. \"cf.\" 'Tipperary' and Irish original 'Tiobrad Árann'.\n",
"Down from the Anglo-Norman invasion, the names in use in Ireland were almost purely Gaelic, however the English forced the Irish to adopt English surnames. Accordingly it was enacted by the statute of Edward IV (1465), that every Irishman dwelling within the Pale, which then comprised the counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth and Kildare, should take an English surname. The Irish people were forced into adopting an English surname, or at least an English version of their Irish surname, therefore many removed the 'Mac' or 'O' from their surname. However The O'Hehir and O'Hare families did not drop the 'O', nor did they adopt an English version of their surnames. As a result, they would have had to endure extreme hardship and suffering because of such opposition. (The creation of societies such as the Gaelic League in the late 19th Century resulted in the widespread resumption of the 'Mac' and 'O' prefixes to many Irish surnames.)\n",
"Until the gradual standardization of English spelling in the last few centuries, English lacked any comprehensive system of spelling. Medieval Scottish names, particularly as they were anglicized from the original Gaelic, historically displayed wide variations in recorded spellings as scribes of the era spelled words according to how they sounded rather than any set of rules. This means that a person's name was often spelled several different ways over a lifetime. As such, different variations of the Keillor surname usually have the same origin. Aside from the United Kingdom, variants of the surname can be found today across the English-speaking world, particularly in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario in North America, and in Australia.\n",
"Until the gradual standardization of German spelling with the introduction of compulsory education in late 18th and early 19th centuries, many names displayed wide variations in spelling. In addition, as was quite common in earlier eras of mass migration, many immigrants either changed their surnames completely, or decided to use one of a number of various anglicized spellings of their original surnames, leading to wide variation in the spelling and pronunciation of what was originally the same name. As such, different variations of surnames such as Glady, from the original Glöde, usually have the same origin. \n",
"Until the gradual standardization of German spelling with the introduction of compulsory education in late 18th and early 19th centuries, many names displayed wide variations in spelling. In addition, as was quite common in earlier eras of mass migration, many immigrants either changed their surnames completely, or decided to use one of a number of various anglicized spellings of their original surnames, which further led to wide variations in the spelling and pronunciation of what was originally the same name. As such, different variations of surnames such as Teschow usually have the same origin.\n",
"It is due to the Anglicization of the original Irish that the several spelling variations have emerged, during the transcribing of the name into English. As well, all variations upon the O'Neill spelling are incorrect. This is mainly due to the lack of literacy and ability to spell (common at the time), and people wishing to associate themselves with the O'Neill royalty. Irish and Scottish variants also exist and include MacNeal, MacNiel and MacNeill, which arose when the \"ua\" element in the name was replaced with \"mac\", meaning \"son of.\" Ó has replaced Ua since the end of a standard Irish and its gradual evolution into Scottish, Manx and Irish. O'Neill is also occasionally found used as a given name.\n"
] |
Would it be possible to create a stable, artificial ring around our planet (any celestial body, really)?
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The issue is the amount of material you're talking about. Realistically you'd want to push asteroids around to form the belt. Then your main issue is what is this going to do to the gravity of the earth/moon system.
Lets throw some numbers around for fun. Average asteroid density is about 2g/cm^3 and a megastructure at geosync orbit that's 10m x 10m gets us 6.1* 10^13 kg. The gravitational pull on the surface would be ... OK my math broke down since it's a toroid and computing the gravity is problamatic. Either way we're talking a huge amount of mass but honestly with careful calculation and some good heavy list rockets and some extra-planetary tugs I don't see why it can't be done. It could even serve a purpose in that it's a great ancher for large space manfacturing and it's minimal gravity pull would clean out a lot of space junk in geosync.
If we could build one in LEO then it would be a lot smaller but it would need some kind of structural integrety to keep itself up as LEO still experiences some drag from the upper atmosphere. We don't want to be parking large asteroids there as without maintenence they'll fall on us fairly fast. Geosync has much less of that problem. Edit to add: 8.5 * 10^12 kg of mass there. That's only a cubic mile of material - not something we can launch but we could get a series of asteroids into place fairly easily. It's just then the question of how to keep them in orbit.
edit: forgot to add earth to the radius of geosync
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[
"BULLET::::- A Ringworld (or Niven Ring) is an artificial ring encircling a star, rotating faster than orbital velocity to create artificial gravity on its inner surface. A non-rotating variant is a transparent ring of breathable gas, creating a continuous microgravity environment around the star, as in the eponymous Smoke Ring.\n",
"An orbital ring is a concept for a giant artificially constructed ring hanging at low Earth orbit that would rotate at slightly above orbital speed that would have fixed tethers hanging down to the ground.\n",
"A simple unsupported hoop about a planet is unstable: it would crash into the Earth if left unattended. The orbital ring concept requires cables to the surface to stabilize it, with the outward centrifugal force providing tension on the cables, and the tethers stabilizing the ring.\n",
"BULLET::::- In the Ringworld series by Larry Niven, a ring a million miles wide is built and spun (to simulate gravity) around a star roughly one astronomical unit away. The ring can be viewed as a functional version of a Dyson sphere with the interior surface area of 3 million Earth-sized planets. Because it is only a partial Dyson sphere, it can be viewed as a construction of a civilization intermediary between Type I and Type II. Both Dyson spheres and the Ringworld suffer from gravitational instability, however—a major focus of the Ringworld series is coping with this instability in the face of partial collapse of the Ringworld civilization.\n",
"The existence of a ring system around a minor planet was unexpected because it had been thought that rings could only be stable around much more massive bodies. Ring systems around minor bodies had not previously been discovered despite the search for them through direct imaging and stellar occultation techniques. Chariklo's rings should disperse over a period of at most a few million years, so either they are very young, or they are actively contained by shepherd moons with a mass comparable to that of the rings. However, other research suggests that Chariklo's elongated shape combined with its fast rotation can clear material in an equatorial disk through Lindblad resonances and explain the survival and location of the rings, a mechanism valid also for the ring of Haumea.\n",
"The existence of a ring system around a minor planet was unexpected because it had been thought that rings could only be stable around much more massive bodies. Ring systems around minor bodies had not previously been discovered despite the search for them through direct imaging and stellar occultation techniques. Chariklo's rings should disperse over a period of at most a few million years, so either they are very young, or they are actively contained by shepherd moons with a mass comparable to that of the rings. The team nicknamed the rings Oiapoque (the inner, more substantial ring) and Chuí (the outer ring), after the two rivers that form the northern and southern coastal borders of Brazil. A request for formal names will be submitted to the IAU at a later date.\n",
"They first go to the puppeteer home world, where they learn that the expedition's goal is to investigate the Ringworld, a gigantic artificial ring, to see if it poses any threat. The Ringworld is about one million miles (1.6 million km) wide and approximately the diameter of Earth's orbit (which makes it about 600 million miles or 950 million km in circumference), encircling a sunlike star. It rotates to provide artificial gravity 99.2% as strong as Earth's from centrifugal force. The Ringworld has a habitable, flat inner surface (equivalent in area to approximately three million Earths), a breathable atmosphere and a temperature optimal for humans. Night is provided by an inner ring of shadow squares which are connected to each other by thin, ultra-strong wire. When the crew completes their mission, they will be given the starship in which they travelled to the puppeteer home world; it is orders of magnitude faster than any possessed by humans or Kzinti.\n"
] |
why do brass instruments only emit a sound when pursing your lips? why can't you just blow into them and make sound?
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There needs to be some kind of vibration. Your lips vibrate in the mouthpeice and the instrument basically amplifies that vibration. If you just blow all you do is move air though a bunch of tubes. A saxaphone is brass but is considered a woodwind instrument because they have a wooden reed that emits the vibration.
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[
"Many brass instrumentalists argue that excessive mouthpiece pressure is a major cause of embouchure problems and can be a factor in causing embouchure collapse. However, the pressure of the mouthpiece is not static during playing: it increases the higher in the register a player plays and the louder volume level. Also, a little mouthpiece pressure is essential to provide a seal between the player's embouchure and the instrument; without this, all the air would escape before entering the instrument and no sound would be emitted (brass instruments are dependent on an airflow to produce sound).\n",
"Because the player of a brass instrument has direct control of the prime vibrator (the lips), brass instruments exploit the player's ability to select the harmonic at which the instrument's column of air vibrates. By making the instrument about twice as long as the equivalent woodwind instrument and starting with the second harmonic, players can get a good range of notes simply by varying the tension of their lips (see embouchure).\n",
"Like the trumpet and all other modern brass wind instruments, the cornet makes a sound when the player vibrates (\"buzzes\") the lips in the mouthpiece, creating a vibrating column of air in the tubing. The frequency of the air column's vibration can be modified by changing the lip tension and aperture or \"embouchure\", and by altering the tongue position to change the shape of the oral cavity, thereby increasing or decreasing the speed of the airstream. In addition, the column of air can be lengthened by engaging one or more valves, thus lowering the pitch. Double and triple tonguing are also possible.\n",
"While performing on a brass instrument, the sound is produced by the player buzzing his or her lips into a mouthpiece. Pitches are changed in part through altering the amount of muscular contraction in the lip formation. The performer's use of the air, tightening of cheek and jaw muscles, as well as tongue manipulation can affect how the embouchure works.\n",
"This has the effect of providing both the \"brassy\" sound of horn instruments versus woodwinds or even metal instruments which lack a flare, and also of increasing the perceived loudness of the instrument, as harmonics in the range to which the ear is most sensitive are now delivered more efficiently. However, this enhanced radiation in the higher frequencies means by definition less energy imparted to the standing waves, and thus less stable and well-defined notes in the higher registers, making the instrument more difficult to play.\n",
"A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called \"labrosones\", literally meaning \"lip-vibrated instruments\".\n",
"Like the Greek \"salpinx\" the Roman trumpets were not regarded as musical instruments. Among the tems used to describe the tone of the \"tuba\", for instance, were \"horribilis\" (“horrible”), \"terribilis\" (“terrible”), \"raucus\" (“raucous”), \"rudis\" (“coarse”), \"strepens\" (“noisy”) and \"stridulus\" (“shrieking”). When sounding their instruments, the \"tubicines\" sometimes girded their cheeks with the \"capistrum\" (“muzzle”) which \"aulos\" (“flute”) players used to prevent their cheeks from being puffed out unduly.\n"
] |
What type of wood was the medieval trebuchet made of?
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In all likelihood most siege engines would have been a melange of cut and scavenged woods, some chronicles testify to ships hulls and masts, and houses, torn apart. However, oak and beech are the most common references in chronicles from Charlemagne (8th c CE) to Froissart (14th c CE), but that would be in areas where it was plentiful from forests in France, England, Germany. Fir was a good replacement: a strong tree with height and stoutness. Ash as well would have been a good substitute for some parts under some stress where flex was acceptable, and it was common for wheels, although did not grow as big. Hornbeam for axels where available, pretty much the hardest wood in Europe although did not grow in size like other trees.
Once you get to the Levant there are stories where crusaders needed to travel miles around to find suitable woods, although the woods are not named. The plentiful pines would have been liable to snapping, although Arabic siege engines were made of cedar according to one chronicle of the 8th c CE.
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[
"BULLET::::- Trebuchet: Trebuchets were probably the most powerful catapult employed in the Middle Ages. The most commonly used ammunition were stones, but \"darts and sharp wooden poles\" could be substituted if necessary. The most effective kind of ammunition though involved fire, such as \"firebrands, and deadly Greek Fire\". Trebuchets came in two different designs: Traction, which were powered by people, or Counterpoise, where the people were replaced with \"a weight on the short end\". The most famous historical account of trebuchet use dates back to the siege of Stirling Castle in 1304, when the army of Edward I constructed a giant trebuchet known as Warwolf, which then proceeded to \"level a section of [castle] wall, successfully concluding the siege\".\n",
"The Warwolf, or War Wolf or Ludgar (\"Loup de Guerre\"), is believed to be the largest trebuchet ever made. It was created in Scotland by order of King Edward I of England, during the siege of Stirling Castle, as part of the Scottish Wars of Independence.\n",
"A claymore (; from , \"great sword\") is either the Scottish variant of the late medieval two-handed sword or the Scottish variant of the basket-hilted sword. The former is characterised as having a cross hilt of forward-sloping quillons with quatrefoil terminations and was in use from the 15th to 17th centuries.\n",
"A ribauldequin, also known as a rabauld, ribault, ribaudkin, infernal machine or organ gun, was a late medieval volley gun with many small-caliber iron barrels set up parallel on a platform, in use during the 14th and 15th centuries. When the gun was fired in a volley, it created a shower of iron shot. They were employed, specifically, during the early fifteenth century, and continued serving, mostly, as an anti-personnel gun. The name \"organ gun\" comes from the resemblance of the multiple barrels to a pipe organ.\n",
"The two-handed claymore was a large sword used in the late Medieval and early modern periods. It was used in the constant clan warfare and border fights with the English from circa 1400 to 1700. Although claymores existed as far back as the Wars of Scottish Independence they were smaller and few had the typical quatrefoil design (as can be seen on the Great Seal of John Balliol King of Scots). The last known battle in which it is considered to have been used in a significant number was the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. It was somewhat longer than other two-handed swords of the era. Though the English did use swords similar to the Claymore during the renaissance called a greatsword. The two-handed claymore seems to be an offshoot of early Scottish medieval longswords (similar to the espee de guerre or grete war sword) which had developed a distinctive style of a cross-hilt with forward-angled arms that ended in spatulate swellings. The lobed pommels on earlier swords were inspired by the Viking style. The spatulate swellings were later frequently made in a quatrefoil design.\n",
"Jacques de Vitry mentions \"cum cornu\" (\"with horns\") in 1143 whilst referencing siege engines, which could indicate double arms made of horn required by a torsion machine (though it could just as likely be a tension device). The best medieval source is a 12th-century treatise by Mardi ibn Ali al-Tarsusi. The account is highly detailed, if incredibly dense. It describes a single-armed torsion machine on a triangular frame that could hurl 50 lbs. stones. Additionally, Persian double-armed devices similar to ancient Greek design are also described. The major problem with this source, however, is that most of the illustrations show trebuchets, not onagers or other torsion machines. Also by the 12th century, siege engines were used in batteries, often consisting of large numbers of torsion devices, as in Philip Augustus’ siege of Chinon in 1205 during which he collected 400 cords for petrariae. These batteries were gradually replaced with trebuchets and early gunpowder machines.\n",
"The Ribauldequin was a medieval version of the volley gun. It had its barrels set up in parallel. This early version was first employed during the Hundred Years' War by the army of Edward III of England, in 1339. Later on, the late Swiss army employed it.\n"
] |
Are quarks affected by magnetic fields?
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Yes, though quarks are never found alone.
Anything with electric charge can be affected by a magnetic field.
A proton is made of two up quarks and a down quark; it has a charge of +1.
The up, charm, and top quark have a charge of +2/3. The down, strange, and bottom quark have a charge of -1/3.
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[
"In the theory of quantum chromodynamics, magnetic catalysis can be applied when quark matter is subject to extremely strong magnetic fields. Such strong magnetic fields can lead to more pronounced effects of chiral symmetry breaking, e.g., lead to (i) a larger value of the chiral condensate, (ii) a larger dynamical (constituent) mass of quarks, (iii) larger baryon masses, (iv) modified pion decay constant, etc. Recently, there was an increased activity to cross-check the effects of magnetic catalysis in the limit of a large number of colors, using the technique of AdS/CFT correspondence.\n",
"The defining property of the quarks is that they carry color charge, and hence interact via the strong interaction. A phenomenon called color confinement results in quarks being very strongly bound to one another, forming color-neutral composite particles (hadrons) containing either a quark and an antiquark (mesons) or three quarks (baryons). The familiar proton and neutron are the two baryons having the smallest mass. Quarks also carry electric charge and weak isospin. Hence they interact with other fermions both electromagnetically and via the weak interaction. The remaining six fermions do not carry color charge and are called leptons. The three neutrinos do not carry electric charge either, so their motion is directly influenced only by the weak nuclear force, which makes them notoriously difficult to detect. However, by virtue of carrying an electric charge, the electron, muon, and tau all interact electromagnetically.\n",
"Since gluons carry color charge, they themselves are able to emit and absorb other gluons. This causes \"asymptotic freedom\": as quarks come closer to each other, the chromodynamic binding force between them weakens. Conversely, as the distance between quarks increases, the binding force strengthens. The color field becomes stressed, much as an elastic band is stressed when stretched, and more gluons of appropriate color are spontaneously created to strengthen the field. Above a certain energy threshold, pairs of quarks and antiquarks are created. These pairs bind with the quarks being separated, causing new hadrons to form. This phenomenon is known as \"color confinement\": quarks never appear in isolation. This process of hadronization occurs before quarks, formed in a high energy collision, are able to interact in any other way. The only exception is the top quark, which may decay before it hadronizes.\n",
"In quantum chromodynamics, the color field lines are coupled at short distances by gluons, which are polarized by the field and line up with it. This effect increases within a short distance (around 1 fm from the vicinity of the quarks) making the color force increase within a short distance, confining the quarks within hadrons. As the field lines are pulled together tightly by gluons, they do not \"bow\" outwards as much as an electric field between electric charges.\n",
"Isolated quarks and antiquarks have never been detected, a fact explained by confinement. Every quark carries one of three color charges of the strong interaction; antiquarks similarly carry anticolor. Color-charged particles interact via gluon exchange in the same way that charged particles interact via photon exchange. However, gluons are themselves color-charged, resulting in an amplification of the strong force as color-charged particles are separated. Unlike the electromagnetic force, which diminishes as charged particles separate, color-charged particles feel increasing force.\n",
"Most astrophysical disks do not meet this criterion and are therefore prone to this magnetorotational instability. The magnetic fields present in astrophysical objects (required for the instability to occur) are believed to be generated via dynamo action.\n",
"In this EMC experiment, a quark of a polarized proton target was hit by a polarized muon beam, and the quark's instantaneous spin was measured. In a polarized proton target, all the protons' spin take the same direction, and therefore it was expected that the spin of two out of the three quarks cancels out and the spin of the third quark is polarized in the direction of the proton's spin. Thus, the sum of the quarks' spin was expected to be equal to the proton's spin.\n"
] |
how does my printer know how much ink is in the cartridge?
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the inkjet cartridge has a electronic chip inside that counts how many times its asked to jet ink of each color. reach the upper end of that count and you have a good idea when it's going to run out.
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[
"All types of compatible ink cartridges are different and vary from supplier to supplier. This is due to the type of ink in the printer, the chips (or no chip) on the cartridge and the actual manufacture of the cartridge itself.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Injecting ink\": Depending on the type of cartridge being refilled, ink can either be injected through a hole on top of the cartridge, or directly into the ink chambers after the top has been popped off. The ink can be injected directly from a bottle (with a needle tip on it) or from a needle filled with ink. The ink must be slowly injected into the cartridge so as not to cause damage, or overfilling, or overflow to other-color ink reservoirs. (For colors, a label on the cartridge might have three ordered color-dots to indicate the corresponding three ink colors of the reservoir chambers.\n",
"Traditionally, printer manufacturers did not employ a standard, well-defined methodology for measuring toner cartridge yield. The most widely used description of cartridge capacity was \"number of printed pages at 5% coverage\", with final results depending on a number of factors.\n",
"Another option is for the consumer to purchase \"bulk ink\" (in pints, quarts, or gallons) and refill the cartridges themselves. This can be extremely cost-effective if the consumer is a heavy user of cartridges, although care is required while refilling to avoid ink stains on hands, clothes, or surroundings. One US pint (473 ml) is sufficient to fill about 15 to 17 large-capacity cartridges (or 34 to 39 per liter of ink).\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Installing and running\": Once the cartridge is filled, the top is placed back on (if necessary) and the cartridge can be reinstalled in the printer. Extra ink flowing from the cartridge print-head can be wiped or blotted (for a few minutes). On some cartridges, the ink has a problem getting to the bottom of the cartridge (especially the colored cartridges), it must be forced to the bottom either by suction through the jet plate or by putting pressure from the top with a syringe to purge the ink through the jet plate very gently. It might be necessary to run the printer cleaning utilities on the refilled cartridge, in case any excess ink is left over from the refilling process. A note to the unfamiliar: the capacity of the cartridge of some brands is much much more than the cartridge comes with when new (especially the colored ones), there may be room for 2 or 3 times the ink sold in some \"kits\" (this can be learned by doing an autopsy on a non-functioning cartridge, also why the ink does not reach the bottom in the case of some colored inks). In those cases, the needle must be able to reach to within 0.375\" from the bottom or closer to be sure that the ink can reach the jets and not just saturate the sponge. The sponge can in some cases take two or more charges of ink and still not reach the bottom (jets).\n",
"Page yield is the number of pages that can be printed with a cartridge. Estimated yield is a number published by manufacturers to provide consumers with an idea of how many pages they can expect from a cartridge. For many years, manufacturers developed their own methods for testing and reporting the yields of their toner cartridges, making it difficult for customers to compare products. \n",
"The high-speed photoelectric paper tape reader (250 hexadecimal digits per second on five-channel paper tape for the PR-1; 400 characters from 5-8 channel tape for the PR-2) read programs (and occasionally saved data) from tapes that were often mounted in cartridges for easy loading and unloading. Not unlike magnetic tape, the paper tape data are blocked into runs of 108 words or less since that is the maximum read size. A cartridge can contain many multiple blocks, up to 2500 words (~10 kilobytes).\n"
] |
I have a question for you /r/askscience. Is this some kind of hoax, or can this really work? I'm looking forward to your downvote if it is a duplicate. Reposted from /r/physics
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A simple search in askscience for your post turned up no results (it took a lil bit of digging to find this, and I only kept looking because I knew it was there) so you haven't done anything wrong but it has already been asked:
_URL_0_
EDIT: grammar
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[
"In scientific research, misappropriation is a type of research misconduct. An investigator, scholar or reviewer can obtain novel ideas during the process of the exchange of ideas amongst colleagues and peers. However, improper use of such information could constitute fraud. This can include plagiarism of work or to make use of any information in breach of any duty of confidentiality associated with the review of manuscripts or grant applications.\n",
"Thomas Eagar, a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also dismissed the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory. Eagar remarked, \"These people (in the 9/11 truth movement) use the 'reverse scientific method.' They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion.\"\n",
"A big lie is one which attempts to trick the victim into believing something major which will likely be contradicted by some information the victim already possesses, or by their common sense. When the lie is of sufficient magnitude it may succeed, due to the victim's reluctance to believe that an untruth on such a grand scale would indeed be concocted.\n",
"He goes back to Sally, believing her to be the last chance he has of finding out what was going on. However, when he gets there, her house is blown up. Sally herself is not in, but her mother, who has elephantiasis, is. Sally decides to go with Guy to track down the joke. His only lead is a company called Sphinx, that apparently create vacuum cleaners, as that was where he ended one of the trails of the joke. He tries to track down Sphinx, but cannot, and when he rings their number is left holding for an hour, before being redirected.\n",
"The conspiracy conversation is a conversation that we are all familiar with. We know that there are conspiracies out there, but this is a conversation that encompasses a lot of things that aren't being discussed other places. That's the basis for all conspiracy theories: the fact that there is hidden information out there, and how our process changes about things that we thought we used to know. We all, at some point, if we're are at a certain age, we grew up thinking Pluto was a planet. This is probably going to go down as one of my finest works, just because it's a collection of forbidden topics that we can't seem to get answered. I am one of the rare urban public officials. Part of my guarantee in my ticket price is that I'm going to be talking about what we are talking about now, and discussing from now to the next time we see [me] again. This is the open discussion that we've had since 2003. This is what it is about.\n",
"The \"Financial Times\" quotes his conviction to be \"I don't believe in creating an artificial consensus, which some people are comfortable with. So if there is something wrong, you can ask yourself two questions: Why did it happen? Will the people who did it go unpunished?\". This was published as the \"Quote of the Week\" by the World Bank.\n",
"If physics gives up the \"no conspiracy\" condition, it becomes possible for \"nature to force experimenters to measure what she wants, and when she wants, hiding whatever she does not like physicists to see.\"\n"
] |
Was former L.A. Mayor John Porter a member of the Ku Klux Klan?
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Not a historian, but you might look at the [San Diego History Center](_URL_3_) for answers on this. They appear to have some primary sources in their collection, but specifically on this they site Kevin Starr's Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920's (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
I also found a [1931 news article](_URL_2_) that mentions it, charging him with "bias to Jews, Blacks and Negroes."
Michael Newton's [White Robes and Burning Crosses: A History of the Ku Klux Klan from 1866](_URL_1_) mentions him.
You should also seek out the book [Chronological Record of Los Angeles City Officials: 1850—1938](_URL_0_) in a library. You might also look in LA newspaper archives - he was accused of being endorsed by the Klan and admitted his prior membership, so there should be something in the archives from 1928.
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[
"BULLET::::- December 24 – The Ku Klux Klan is formed by six Confederate Army veterans, with support of the Democratic Party, in Pulaski, Tennessee, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate \"carpetbaggers\" and \"scalawags\", as well as to repress the freed slaves.\n",
"The Ku Klux Klan, was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a vigilante organization whose goal was to keep control over freed slaves; It performed acts of lawlessness against negroes and other minorities. This included taking negro prisoners from the custody of officers or breaking into jails to put them to death. Few efforts were made by civil authorities in the South against the Ku Klux Klan.\n",
"The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee (JBAKC) was an anti-racist organization based in the United States. The group protested against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other white supremacist organizations and published anti-racist literature. Members of the JBAKC were involved in a string of bombings of military, government, and corporate targets in the 1980s. The JBAKC viewed themselves as anti-imperialists and considered African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans to be oppressed colonial peoples.\n",
"Virgil H. \"Bert\" Effinger (1873 – 15 December 1955) was a renegade member of the Ku Klux Klan who became the self-proclaimed leader of the Black Legion in the United States, active mostly in Ohio and Michigan. The secret, white vigilante group was made up of native-born Protestant men, many from the South, who were threatened by immigration and contemporary industrial society during the struggles of the Great Depression. One-third of the members in Michigan lived in Detroit. Effinger advocated a fascist revolution in the US with himself as dictator.\n",
"Preece corresponded with Roy Wilkins and W. E. B. Du Bois as a fighter for civil rights. He continued his support for civil rights in \"New Masses\" as well. He took on the Ku Klux Klan in the October 16, 1945 issue, with the result that \"[i]n 1946 the Ku Klux Klan chased him and his family out of the state, and they moved on to New York.\"\n",
"Brown Harwood (March 8, 1872 – June 26, 1963) was an American realtor and prominent leader of the Ku Klux Klan. A resident of Fort Worth, Texas, Harwood was a charter member of the Klan in that city; he eventually became Grand Dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan. In 1922, Harwood became imperial (national) klazik (vice-president) of the Ku Klux Klan. He stayed in that position until April 14, 1925; the arrest of Klan leader D. C. Stephenson for rape and murder in Indiana turned public opinion against the organization. \n",
"John Graham, a Confederate veteran and dispossessed planter, serves as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. As black power has been curtailed, the Grand Wizard orders Graham to have one last march through town and finally discontinue their activities. (This was ordered by the Klan's first Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest.) The Klan members burn their robes and bury them in a grave. Two weeks later Graham's rival, Steve Hoyle, starts a new Ku Klux Klan.\n"
] |
How come we can see distant galaxies but just recently discovered Pluto's fifth moon?
|
Galaxies and stars are very bright, so you can see them from farther away. Pluto and its moon do not emit light and all we see from them is reflected sunlight off their surface.
It's kindof like how you can see a streetlight from miles away at night, while you can't see the rock 10 feet away.
|
[
"In July 2015 NASA published photographs taken as the New Horizons space probe passed within 7000 miles of Pluto. A photo of Pluto's largest moon, Charon, shows a large dark area near its north pole. The dark area has been unofficially called Mordor Macula.\n",
"Since the first blurred images of the moon , images showing Pluto and Charon resolved into separate disks were taken for the first time by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s . The telescope was responsible for the best, yet low quality images of the moon. In 1994, the clearest picture of the Pluto-Charon system showed two distinct and well defined circles . The image was taken by Hubble's Faint Object Camera (FOC) when the system was 4.4 billion kilometers (2.6 billion miles) away from Earth Later, the development of adaptive optics made it possible to resolve Pluto and Charon into separate disks using ground-based telescopes.\n",
"In more modern telescopes, such as the Hubble or ground-based telescopes using adaptive optics, separate images of Pluto and Charon can be resolved, and the \"New Horizons\" probe took images showing some of Charon's surface features.\n",
"The moons of Haumea are too faint to detect with telescopes smaller than about 2 metres in aperture, though Haumea itself has a visual magnitude of 17.5, making it the third-brightest object in the Kuiper belt after Pluto and Makemake, and easily observable with a large amateur telescope.\n",
"The Tucana Dwarf Galaxy is a dwarf galaxy in the constellation Tucana. It was discovered in 1990 by R.J. Lavery of Mount Stromlo Observatory. It is composed of very old stars and is very isolated from other galaxies. Its location on the opposite side of the Milky Way from other Local Group galaxies makes it an important object for study.\n",
"On February 12, 2015, NASA released new images of Pluto (taken from January 25 to 31) from the approaching probe. \"New Horizons\" was more than away from Pluto when it began taking the photos, which showed Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. The exposure time was too short to see Pluto's smaller, much fainter, moons.\n",
"An intense search conducted by \"New Horizons\" confirmed that no moons larger than 4.5 km in diameter exist at the distances up to 180,000 km from Pluto (for smaller distances, this threshold is still smaller).\n"
] |
how much money (usd) would need to be "destroyed" in order to see a significant rise in the value of the dollar?
|
_URL_0_
The monetary base went from ~800 billion USD in 2008 to 3.6 trillion 2013 and you had ~10% cumulative inflation over 5 years.
So if you want to roll back that inflation you'd need to eliminate at least 80% of the monetary base (note that much of the monetary base is electronic), and that might get you back to where the US dollar was in 2008.
It's a non trivial question honestly, causing deflation - even a trivial amount would cause huge damage to the US economy, which would have effects of the US dollar.
|
[
"Estimates put the dollar damage at approximately $230 million to $280 million for California, Oregon and Washington combined. Those figures in 1962 dollars translate to $1.8 Billion to $2.2 Billion in 2014 Dollars. Oregon's share exceeded $200 million in 1962 dollars. This is comparable to land-falling hurricanes that occurred within the same time frame (for example, Audrey, Donna, and Carla from 1957 to 1961).\n",
", the U.S. Treasury calculates that $239 million in United States notes are in circulation and, in accordance with debt ceiling legislation, excludes this amount from the statutory debt limit of the United States. The $239 million excludes $25 million in United States Notes issued prior to July 1, 1929, determined pursuant to Act of June 30, 1961, 31 U.S.C. 5119, to have been destroyed or irretrievably lost.\n",
"$12 billion in U.S. currency was transported from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad in April 2003 and June 2004, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. A Vanity Fair magazine report concluded that of this sum, \"at least $9 billion has gone missing\".\n",
"Estimates of SMC's losses have ranged from $13 million to $22 million ($ million to $ million in modern dollars). Sullivan and his father quietly put the word out around the NFL that the Patriots and their stadium were for sale. Their $100 million asking price for the combined package made more sense when the Patriots qualified for Super Bowl XX after the next season, the first time they had ever done so.\n",
"Conclusively, the material losses and destruction was valued at 258 billion prewar Złoty, which amount to 50 billion U.S. Dollars (1939 rate). In relation to the 2017, the aforesaid U.S. Dollar transfers to $850–920 billion U.S. Dollars. As such, Poland's capital city of Warsaw suffered $60 billion U.S. Dollars in war losses.\n",
"Research by JP Morgan and Wachovia indicates that the value of toxic assets (technically CDO's of ABS) issued during late 2005 to mid-2007 are worth between 5 cents and 32 cents on the dollar. Approximately $305 billion of the $450 billion of such assets created during the period are in default. By another indicator (the ABX), toxic assets are worth about 40 cents on the dollar, depending on the precise vintage (period of origin).\n",
"In December 2012, Treasury calculated that $239 million in United States Notes were in circulation. These Notes, in accordance the debt ceiling legislation, are excluded from the statutory debt limit. The $239 million excludes $25 million in United States Notes issued prior to July 1, 1929, determined pursuant to Act of June 30, 1961, 31 U.S.C. 5119, to have been destroyed or irretrievably lost.\n"
] |
what is the purpose of that transparent blue strip on the top of the windshield glass of almost every car?
|
As the sun starts to set it can be shining directly into the drivers eyes. The shade strip lets you block some of that without having to tint the whole window which would make it harder to see out at night.
|
[
"Dichroic glass has one or several coatings in the nanometer-range (for example metals, metal oxides, or nitrides) which give the glass dichroic optical properties. Also the blue appearance of some automobile windshields is caused by dichroism.\n",
"Privacy films reduce visibility through the glass. Privacy film for flat-glass commercial and residential applications may be silvered, offering an unimpeded view from the low-light side but virtually no view from the high-light side. It may also be frosted, rendering the window translucent but not transparent. Privacy films for automobiles are available in gradients of darkness, with the darker tints commonly known as \"limo tint.\"\n",
"In many places, laws restrict the use of heavily tinted glass in vehicle windshields; generally, laws specify the maximum level of tint permitted. Some vehicles have noticeably more tint in the uppermost part of the windshield to block sunglare.\n",
"BULLET::::- Windshield, Tinted: With this Special Order option, tinted glass can be ordered for the windshield only, instead of all the vehicles windows. The tinted windshield offers the benefit of reduced glare for the driver on bright, sunny days, plus it costs less than Tinted Glass, Complete option-especially on crew cab or SuperCab models.\n",
"Constructed with thousands of 8mm thick glass window panes, glued together using invisible 2 part epoxy glue (Ciba-Geigy). The flat-drawn glass used (Emmaboda, Sweden) is deep green when seen from the edge of the pane (modern float glass would be much paler).\n",
"The windshield (North American English) or windscreen (Commonwealth English) of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window, which provides visibility whilst protecting occupants from the elements. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of, typically, two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and bonded into the window frame.\n",
"The windshield glass itself blocks most of the UV light and some of the infrared radiation. But it can't protect from the visible light that mostly penetrates through it and gets absorbed by the objects inside the car. The visible light that passes into the interior through the windshield is converted into the infrared light which, in its turn, is blocked by the glass and gets trapped inside, heating up the interior. Windshield sun shades have a reflective surface to bounce the light back, reducing the interior temperature\n"
] |
why primary education is disproportionately a female institution?
|
That's a pretty tough question to answer, and I think it also depends on the country you live in.
A lot of people think that the reason there are a majority of female teachers is because society puts pressure on girls to go into fields that have a more nurturing nature like teaching, child care, and nursing/medical fields.
Or it could be that, in general, women are more likely to go into fields like that because of their biology, as women are more genetically programmed for these types of things. Or maybe they just enjoy it more.
It's really more of an open-ended discussion than a cut-and-dry answer.
|
[
"The foremost factor limiting female education is poverty. Economic poverty plays a key role when it comes to coping with direct costs such as tuition fees, cost of textbooks, uniforms, transportation and other expenses. Wherever, especially in families with many children, these costs exceed the income of the family, girls are the first to be denied schooling. This gender bias decision in sending females to school is also based on gender roles dictated by culture. Girls usually are required to complete household chores or take care of their younger siblings when they reach home. This limits their time to study and in many cases, may even have to miss school to complete their duties. It is common for girls to be taken out of school at this point. Boys however, may be given more time to study if their parents believe that the education will allow them to earn more in the future. Expectations, attitudes and biases in communities and families, economic costs, social traditions, and religious and cultural beliefs limit girls’ educational opportunities.\n",
"Education, especially for girls, has social and economic benefits for society as a whole. Women earn only one tenth of the world’s income and own less than one percent of property, so households without a male head are at special risk of impoverishment. These women will also be less likely to immunize their children and know how to help them survive. Women who are educated tend to have fewer and healthier children, and these children are more likely to attend school. Higher female education makes women better-informed mothers and hence could\n",
"Gender inequality and strict gender roles are maintained by the strict patriarchal social system. This generally marginalizes women out of roles of power and productive wage-paying jobs. Women are expected to take on the role as the caretaker of the household. They bare the role of providing food and sanitized water for the household. They are expected to care for children, the elderly, and the sick. Consequently, the second leading reason girls do not go to school is due to increased care work. Due to the increased displacement of people being affected by the conflict, women are taking on extra care-taking responsibilities since the members of their households have increased. Accordingly, the conflict has increased their reproductive responsibilities which has further limited their access to education, political participation, and other activities. In addition, women are more susceptible to food insecurity and malnutrition owing to the fact that they are culturally and socially expected to refuse food in order to provide more for the rest of the family.\n",
"Education is compulsory from ages six to 15. However, many children do not attend school, and girls' enrollment is lower than that of boys at all levels due to factors such as poverty, societal preference to educate boys, child marriage and sexual harassment. Women's literacy rate (aged 15 and over) is significantly lower than that of men: female 22.2%, compared to male 45.1% (2015 est.). \n",
"Primary education is compulsory for children of both sexes between the ages of six to thirteen years and may be given either in institutions of primary or secondary schools, in public or free schools, or in the home, by the father himself or anyone he chooses.\n",
"Since the introduction of a public compulsory school system for children of both sexes in 1842, education for females had been a constant question of debate for politicians as well as in intellectual circles: while the new school system allowed every male the opportunity to go from compulsory education to secondary education and finally university, the public school system was closed to females after 5th grade. Except for private teachers, only two educational institutions were open to females after puberty: the free pauper schools, which taught poor girls professions, and the girls' schools for students from the middle and upper classes. These existing girls schools were normally more or less equivalent to finishing schools, with the goal of making the student a \"lady\", and they were forcefully criticized for their shallow and \"useless\" education. In 1842, only five girls' schools offered a more serious academic secondary education: Wallinska skolan in Stockholm, Askersunds flickskola in Askersund, and Fruntimmersföreningens flickskola, Kjellbergska flickskolan and Societetsskolan in Gothenburg.\n",
"Female education is a catch-all term of a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education (primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education, and its connection to the alleviation of poverty. Also involved are the issues of single-sex education and religious education, in that the division of education along gender lines as well as religious teachings on education have been traditionally dominant and are still highly relevant in contemporary discussions of educating females as a global consideration. In the field of female education in STEM, it has been shown that girls’ and women under-representation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education is deep rooted.\n"
] |
When you lose your memory, or if you have a hard time remembering things, is that because your brain can't "store" the memories properly or because it can't "retrieve" them properly?
|
The answer really is "it depends." Disruption in both storage (called encoding) and retrieval can both disrupt your ability to recall memories. There is quite a bit of debate about exactly what goes on when you forget something, with some people arguing that the memory trace (typically referred to as an association) simply decays due to time, while others believe that you build a new association and that this disrupts the original.
There's a lot of interesting research in the area of directed forgetting that tackles this exact problem. They have shown that intentional forgetting is much more effective if you use a replacement for the association (like if you are trying to forget the word "bed" when you originally associated it with "queen," you would then try to memorize the word "crown" being associated with "queen" and you would be more likely to forget the word "bed."
Most of the evidence points towards both decay and new associations being responsible for forgetting.
If you spontaneously recall the memory later, then that would be a pretty strong indication that it was an issue with recall and not encoding.
|
[
"Memory is not a perfect processor, and is affected by many factors. The ways by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted. The amount of attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes encoded for storage. Also, the storage process can become corrupted by physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage, such as the hippocampus. Finally, the retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory. Normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect the accuracy and capacity of the memory.\n",
"Memory inhibition is a critical component of an effective memory system. While some memories are retained for a lifetime, most memories are forgotten. According to evolutionary psychologists, forgetting is adaptive because it facilitates selectivity of rapid, efficient recollection. For example, a person trying to remember where they parked their car would not want to remember every place they have ever parked. In order to remember something, therefore, it is essential not only to activate the relevant information, but also to inhibit irrelevant information. \n",
"Memory lapses can be both aggravating and frustrating but they are due to the overwhelming amount of information that is being taken in by the brain. Issues in memory can also be linked to several common physical and psychological causes, such as: anxiety, dehydration, depression, infections, medication side effects, poor nutrition, vitamin B12 deficiency, psychological stress, substance abuse, chronic alcoholism, thyroid imbalances, and blood clots in the brain. Taking care of your body and mind with appropriate medication, doctoral check-ups, and daily mental and physical exercise can prevent some of these memory issues.\n",
"This form of memory breakdown involves problems at the point where attention and memory interface. Common errors of this type include misplacing keys or eyeglasses, or forgetting appointments, because at the time of encoding sufficient attention was not paid to what would later need to be recalled.\n",
"Memory is the faculty of the brain by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, relationships, or personal identity to develop. Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia.\n",
"Memory consolidation becomes a critical element of false memory and recovered memory syndromes. Once stored in the hippocampus, the memory may last for years or even for life, regardless that the memorized event never actually took place. Obsession to a particular false memory, planted memory, or indoctrinated memory can shape a person's actions or even result in delusional disorder.\n",
"The main theory, the \"motivated forgetting theory\", suggests that people forget things because they either do not want to remember them or for another particular reason. Painful and disturbing memories are made unconscious and very difficult to retrieve, but still remain in storage. Retrieval Suppression is one way in which we are able to stop the retrieval of unpleasant memories using cognitive control. This theory was tested by Anderson and Green using the Think/No-Think paradigm.\n"
] |
How often do neutrinos interact with us? What happens when they do?
|
> How often do neutrinos interact with us?
A quick *literal* rule of thumb for neutrinos: 10^11 neutrinos pass through your thumbnail *every second*. It doesn't matter if it's day or night - they interact so rarely that using the earth as shielding won't make a difference.
So how many of them interact? Well, [your lifetime odds for a neutrino interaction in your body are about 25%](_URL_0_). This means the odds of a neutrino interacting are about 1 in 10^25. For perspective, there are about 10^21 grains of sand on earth, so if one neutrino passed through your body for every grain of sand on earth you could *literally bet your life on nothing happening* and you'd be pretty safe.
> What happens when they do?
[Depends on the energy and flavor of the neutrino.](_URL_2_) They could just bounce off an electron or neutron, imparting some energy in a collision, or they could be absorbed by a neutron and make a proton and electron. There's lots of fun possibilities.
> And, lastly, is the Sun the only source from which the Earth gets neutrinos?
Two more rules I know for neutrinos: The sun emits about 2% of it's energy in neutrinos and about 98% as photons. A supernova, in contrast, releases 99% of it's energy as neutrinos, and only 1% as photons (imagine how much brighter a supernova would be if you could see the neutrinos :D).
There's a huge number of sources of neutinos, all with different energies and abundances. [Check this plot.](_URL_1_) Nuclear reactors make fucktons of them (among other terrestrial sources), and there's even more that form a sort of 'cosmic neutrino background' dating to the same time as the cosmic microwave background. Supernova and stars are another major source.
------
And my last favorite fun fact - [look at this picture.](_URL_3_) That is a picture of the sun, but it was *taken at night.* The camera is a neutrino detector under a mountain in Japan. *They took a picture of the sun, from underground, at night.* That's the power of neutrinos - they pass right through the world. This picture was taken with the SuperKamiokande detector in Japan, whose neutrino experiments earned the Nobel Prize last week for Takaaki Kajita, which he shared with Canadian astrophysicist Arthur McDonald.
|
[
"The Kamiokande II detection, which at 12 neutrinos had the largest sample population, showed the neutrinos arriving in two distinct pulses. The first pulse started at 07:35:35 and comprised 9 neutrinos, all of which arrived over a period of 1.915 seconds. A second pulse of three neutrinos arrived between 9.219 and 12.439 seconds after the first neutrino was detected, for a pulse duration of 3.220 seconds.\n",
"After this reality check, the senior executives review the facts. A neutrino transmission is an advanced method of communication which can cover billions of miles in an instant. A neutrino beam from Earth focused on the Moon \"could\" provide this miraculous two-way contact. Theoretical experiments had just begun in 1999. As their years in space would translate into the passage of decades on Earth, there would have been ample time for research and development.\n",
"Since neutrinos interact only very rarely with matter, the enormous flux of solar neutrinos racing through the Earth is sufficient to produce only 1 interaction for 10 target atoms, and each interaction produces only a few photons or one transmuted atom. The observation of neutrino interactions requires a large detector mass, along with a sensitive amplification system.\n",
"Neutrinos are omnipresent in nature such that every second, tens of billions of them \"pass through every square centimetre of our bodies without us ever noticing.\" Many were created during the big bang and others are generated by nuclear reactions inside stars, planets, and other interstellar processes. Some may also originate from events in the universe such as \"colliding black holes, gamma ray bursts from exploding stars, and/or violent events at the cores of distant galaxies,\" according to speculation by scientists. \n",
"Given the small chance of interaction of a single neutrino with a proton, neutrinos could only be observed using a huge neutrino flux. Beginning in 1951, Cowan and Reines, both then scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico, initially thought that neutrino bursts from the atomic weapons tests that were then occurring could provide the required flux. They eventually used a nuclear reactor as a source of neutrinos, as advised by Los Alamos physics division leader J.M.B. Kellogg. The reactor had a neutrino flux of neutrinos per second per square centimeter, far higher than any flux attainable from other radioactive sources. A detector consisting of two tanks of water was employed, offering a huge number of potential targets in the protons of the water.\n",
"Since the protons are transferred in bunches of one nanosecond duration at an interval of 18.73 ns, the speed of muons and neutrinos could be determined. A speed difference would lead to an elongation of the neutrino bunches and to a displacement of the whole neutrino time spectrum. At first, the speeds of muons and neutrinos were compared.\n",
"Since neutrinos could not be accurately tracked to the specific protons producing them, an averaging method had to be used. The researchers added up the measured proton pulses to get an average distribution in time of the individual protons in a pulse. The time at which neutrinos were detected at Gran Sasso was plotted to produce another distribution. The two distributions were expected to have similar shapes, but be separated by 2.4 milliseconds, the time it takes to travel the distance at light speed. The experimenters used an algorithm, maximum likelihood, to search for the time shift that best made the two distributions to coincide. The shift so calculated, the statistically measured neutrino arrival time, was approximately 60 nanoseconds shorter than the 2.4 milliseconds neutrinos would have taken if they traveled just at light speed. In a later experiment, the proton pulse width was shortened to 3 nanoseconds, and this helped the scientists to narrow the generation time of each detected neutrino to that range.\n"
] |
Was Joseph Smith sincere?
|
In short, we can show that Joseph and/or his compatriots were involved in intentional deception, explicit plagiarism, and attempts to bury evidence of misdeeds. I don't think we can ever completely rule out psychosis or an epic level of self-dillusion, but I think it highly unlikely considering what we know about his actions and behaviors. There's too much to write to go through it all, but I'll touch on some of the evidence below.
1. As you mentioned, Joseph had a long history of cons and frauds. This started young as a failed seer or glass looker. He was involved in at least one expedition for buried treasure, along with his father. This produced no results. Every time they started to dig, Joseph would say evil spirits took the gold away. He was involved in a fraudulent banking scheme, which he fled from. He was involved in several secret and illegal marriages across multiple states, which he publicly and repeatedly lied about. There are others, but I mention these because they required an active attempt at deception. See [more information here](_URL_4_), and a copy of his youth arrest for [scrying here](_URL_1_).
2. Joseph's origin claims are demonstrably fraudulent. For example, the Book of Mormon claims to have been completed in 600 BC and translated solely from that record in 1829; however, several verses were copied verbatim from the 1611 KJV + Apocrypha (his family bible), including [translation errors of the KJV translators](_URL_3_) (Joseph's family bible). There are many other examples of plagiarism, but this one is the most blatant. Again, something that required an intent to deceive.
3. Joseph had a history of hiding evidence of his misdeeds. For example, we have one letter he wrote where he told a potential lover to [burn the letter to protect him](_URL_5_), one of his former wives [accused him of ordering abortions after impregnating a girl](_URL_2_), and ordering his secretary to [burn the minutes of his infamous council of 50](_URL_0_) (his attempt at the presidency) when arrested for treason.
|
[
"My instinct is to attribute a sincerity to Joseph Smith. And yet at the same time, as an evangelical Christian, I do not believe that the members of the godhead really appeared to him and told him that he should start on a mission of, among other things, denouncing the kinds of things that I believe as a Presbyterian. I can't believe that. And yet at the same time, I really don't believe that he was simply making up a story that he knew to be false in order to manipulate people and to gain power over a religious movement. And so I live with the mystery. \n",
"Joseph Smith — a self-professed \"lawful\" heir (an heirship long hidden \"from the world with Christ in God\") to the princely thrones of the house of Judah and the house of Joseph — believing that he had been sent to the earth in its final dispensation, or in \"the fulness of times,\" discovered (as he records in his history) the earth's peoples living in a degenerate, apostate world over which the power of the great Enemy (Satan/Leviathan) had grown monstrously strong. Having in early spring 1820 been given his prophetic calling in vision by God the Father's personal appearance with His Messiah Son (JSH–1), the boy-prophet Joseph (later a recipient of both the lesser and higher priesthoods under the hands of the resurrected John the Baptist and Christ's chief apostles Peter, James and John) went forth into the world, endowed with great authority and power from on high. His divinely decreed mission was to \"restore\" the fullness of God's kingdom with its saving ordinances and primordial doctrines that would bring \"efficacy\" to the Davidic Messiah's redeeming atonement made at the meridian of time, and thus consummate salvation for God's chosen people and for all the world, if they would believe, repent, accept His eternal covenant and everlasting gospel, and endure faithfully to the end.\n",
"Joseph Smith's ancestors had an eclectic variety of religious views and affiliations. For instance, Joseph Smith's paternal grandfather, Asael, was a Universalist who opposed evangelical religion. According to Lucy Smith, Asael once came to Joseph Smith Sr.'s door after he had attended a Methodist meeting with Lucy and \"threw Tom Paine's \"Age of Reason\" into the house and angrily bade him read that until he believed it.\" Conversely, in 1811 Smith's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack, self-published a book describing a series of heavenly visions and voices he said had led to his conversion to Christianity at the age of seventy-six.\n",
"Joseph Smith III was an ardent opponent of the practice of plural marriage throughout his life. For most of his career, Smith denied that his father had been involved in the practice and insisted that it had originated with Brigham Young. Smith served many missions to the western United States where he met with and interviewed associates and women claiming to be widows of his father, who attempted to present him with evidence to the contrary. In the end, Smith concluded that he was \"not positive nor sure that [his father] was innocent\" and that if, indeed, the elder Smith had been involved, it was still a false practice. However, many members of Community of Christ, and some of the groups that were formerly associated with it are still not convinced that Joseph Smith III's father did indeed engage in plural marriage, and feel that the evidence that he did so is largely flawed.\n",
"Joseph F. Smith was the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints during the time of World War 1. Even though he was an advocate for peace, when the United States entered WWI by declaring war on Germany, President Smith supported the cause. He supported patriotism and responsibility, and pertaining to the two he once said, “a good Latter-Day Saint is a good citizen in every way.” President Smith showed this support by providing Latter-Day Saint chaplains for active duty military units. This was the first time that the United States Military allowed the LDS Church to directly select active duty member chaplains, and they have continued to allow this practice to the present day. The first three LDS chaplains selected by the church were Calvin Schwartz Smith, Herbert Brown Maw, and Brigham Henry Roberts. Even though there were only three chaplains for the 15,000 LDS members in the war, these men labored diligently to contribute to the war effort by religiously strengthening the LDS soldiers.\n",
"Vogel argues in the biography that Joseph Smith was a pious fraud—that Smith essentially invented his religious claims for what he believed were noble, faith-promoting purposes. Vogel identifies the roots of the pious fraud in the conflict between members of the Smith family, who were divided between the skepticism and universalism of Joseph Smith, Sr., and the more mainstream Protestant faith of Lucy Mack Smith. Vogel interweaves the history of Joseph Smith with interpretation of the Book of Mormon, which is read as springing from the young man's psychology and experiences.\n",
"We have had the privilege of conversing with Joseph Smith Jr. and we are delighted with his company. We have had a privilege of ascertaining in a great measure from whence all the evil reports have arisen and hitherto have every reason to believe him innocent. He is not an idiot, but a man of sound judgment, and possessed of abundance of intelligence and whilst you listen to his conversation you receive intelligence which expands your mind and causes your heart to rejoice. He is very familiar, and delights to instruct the poor saints. I can converse with him just as easy as I can with you, and with regard to being willing to communicate instruction he says, \"I receive it freely and I will give it freely.\" He is willing to answer any question I have put to him and is pleased when we ask him questions.\n"
] |
Why do cochlear implants not produce normal hearing, and what would they need to do so?
|
Your [cochlea](_URL_3_) is shaped like a snail shell. Throughout this shell, there are hairs that are triggered by different frequencies of sound. Hairs near the base fire in response to high frequency sounds. Hairs near the apex fire in response to low frequency sounds.
[This](_URL_0_) is an artists rendering of what the array looks like in the cochlea. If this is a 22 channel array, there are 22 spots on the long inserted piece that will stimulate the cochlea at different points along the cochlea. Remember that different points along the way respond to different frequencies, so a 22 channel array would allow for 22 frequencies to be heard.
The sound produced by cochlear implants has become more realistic overtime because initially there was only one frequency/one channel and progressively more so that a patient can hear a wider range of frequencies and better distinguish sounds.
[Wikipedia](_URL_1_)
edit: [This is an article about cochlear implants, place theory, and channels](_URL_2_)
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[
"Cochlear implants improve outcomes in people with hearing loss in either one or both ears. They work by artificial stimulation of the cochlear nerve by providing an electric impulse substitution for the firing of hair cells. They are expensive, and require programming along with extensive training for effectiveness.\n",
"Hearing aids or cochlear implants may be used if the hearing loss is severe or prolonged. Hearing aids work by amplifying the sound of the local environment and are best suited to conductive hearing loss. Cochlear implants transmit the sound that is heard as if it were a nervous signal, bypassing the cochlea.\n",
"Cochlear implants differ than hearing aids in that the entire acoustic hearing is replaced with direct electric stimulation of the auditory nerve, achieved via an electrode array placed inside the cochlea. Hence, here, other factors than device signal processing also strongly contribute to overall hearing, such as etiology, nerve health, electrode configuration and proximity to the nerve, and overall adaptation process to an entirely new mode of hearing. Almost all information in cochlear implants is conveyed by the envelope fluctuations in the different channels. This is sufficient to give reasonable perception of speech in quiet, but not in noisy or reverberant conditions. The processing in cochlear implants is such that the TFSp is discarded in favor of fixed-rate pulse trains amplitude-modulated by the ENVp within each frequency band. Implant users are sensitive to these ENVp modulations, but performance varies across stimulation site, stimulation level, and across individuals. The TMTF shows a low-pass filter shape similar to that observed in normal-hearing listeners. Voice pitch or musical pitch information, conveyed primarily via weak periodicity cues in the ENVp, results in a pitch sensation that is not salient enough to support music perception, talker sex identification, lexical tones, or prosodic cues. Listeners with cochlear implants are susceptible to interference in the modulation domain which likely contributes to difficulties listening in noise.\n",
"A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthetic device that provides a sense of sound to a person with moderate to profound sensorineural hearing loss. Cochlear implants bypass the normal acoustic hearing process, instead replacing it with electric signals which directly stimulate the auditory nerve. With training the brain may learn to interpret those signals as sound and speech.\n",
"Hearing aids and cochlear implants may make the child able to hear sounds in their hearing range—but they don't restore normal hearing. Cochlear implants can stimulate the auditory nerve directly to restore some hearing, but the sound quality isn't that of a normal hearing ear, suggesting that deafness cannot be fully overcome by medical devices. Some say that the benefits and safety of cochlear implants continues to grow, especially when children with implants receive a lot of oral educational support. It is a goal for some audiologists to test and fit a deaf child with a cochlear implant by six months of age, so that they don't get behind in learning language. In fact, there are expectations that if children get fit for implants early enough, they can acquire verbal language skills to the same level as their peers with normal hearing.\n",
"However, research indicated that these single-channel cochlear implants were of limited usefulness because they can not stimulate different areas of the cochlea at different times to allow differentiation between low and mid to high frequencies as required for detecting speech.\n",
"In cases when a person is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing in both ears, a cochlear implant may be surgically implanted. Cochlear implants bypass most of the peripheral auditory system to provide a sense of sound via a microphone and some electronics that reside outside the skin, generally behind the ear. The external components transmit a signal to an array of electrodes placed in the cochlea, which in turn stimulates the cochlear nerve.\n"
] |
If time stops completely at the event horizon, how can black holes grow?
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The phenomenon goes by the name *black hole complementarity.* Matter *both* falls into the singularity *and* stays fixed for eternity at the event horizon. Both things occur. This may sound like a paradox, but it really isn't, because no knowledge of what transpires within a black hole can ever filter out of it, so there's no actual contradiction, but merely an apparent one.
In a very real sense, there are two black holes. One is the black hole that exists to infalling matter; it's a point of zero volume and infinite density. The other is the black hole that exists to all observers who do *not* fall in; it's a spherical shell of energy that grows over time as more matter gets mushed up against it.
Since from the outside a spherical shell gravitates exactly as it would if it were a point, we can tell no difference between the two. But the tiny void just outside the event horizon roils and churns at the quantum scale, and the fluctuations that are present there are determined by what's fallen into the black hole. This is the source of Hawking radiation: If the universe ever cools to the point where black holes can radiate their heat away — and it is not certain this will occur — then all the information that fell into the black hole will emerge again, bit for bit, albeit in an entirely homogenized form.
Black hole complementarity is a relatively new idea in physics, only having been first articulated back in the early 1990s. But in the years since, it's been universally accepted as the truth, as much as any notion that can't be experimentally tested or compared with observation can be.
|
[
"For a black hole to physically exist as a solution to Einstein's equation, it must form an event horizon in finite time relative to outside observers. This requires an accurate theory of black hole formation, of which several have been proposed. In 2007, Shuan Nan Zhang of Tsinghua University proposed a model in which the event horizon of a potential black hole only forms (or expands) after an object falls into the existing horizon, or after the horizon has exceeded the critical density. In other words, an infalling object causes the horizon of a black hole to expand, which only occurs after the object has fallen into the hole, allowing an observable horizon in finite time. This solution does not solve the information paradox, however.\n",
"Any object approaching the horizon from the observer's side appears to slow down and never quite pass through the horizon, with its image becoming more and more redshifted as time elapses. This means that the wavelength of the light emitted from the object is getting longer as the object moves away from the observer. The notion of an event horizon was originally restricted to black holes; light originating inside an event horizon could cross it temporarily but would return. Later a strict definition was introduced as a boundary beyond which events cannot affect any outside observer at all, encompassing other scenarios than black holes. This strict definition of EH has caused information and firewall paradoxes; therefore Stephen Hawking has supposed an apparent horizon to be used. \n",
"Stephen Hawking had shown earlier that the total horizon area of a collection of black holes always increases with time. The horizon is a boundary defined by light-like geodesics; it is those light rays that are just barely unable to escape. If neighboring geodesics start moving toward each other they eventually collide, at which point their extension is inside the black hole. So the geodesics are always moving apart, and the number of geodesics which generate the boundary, the area of the horizon, always increases. Hawking's result was called the second law of black hole thermodynamics, by analogy with the law of entropy increase, but at first, he did not take the analogy too seriously.\n",
"In the simple picture of stellar collapse leading to formation of a black hole, an event horizon forms before an apparent horizon. As the black hole settles down, the two horizons approach each other, and asymptotically become the same surface. If the AH exists, it is necessarily inside of the EH.\n",
"The event horizon of a black hole may be thought of as a surface moving outward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between escaping and falling back. The event horizon of a white hole is a surface moving inward at the local speed of light and is just on the edge between being swept outward and succeeding in reaching the center. They are two different kinds of horizons—the horizon of a white hole is like the horizon of a black hole turned inside-out.\n",
"The increase in the time coordinate to infinity as one approaches the event horizon is why information could never be received back from any probe that is sent through such an event horizon. This is despite the fact that the probe itself can nonetheless travel past the horizon. It is also why the space-time metric of the black hole, when expressed in Schwarzschild coordinates, becomes singular at the horizon - and thereby fails to be able to fully chart the trajectory of an infalling probe.\n",
"The event horizons bounding the black hole and white hole interior regions are also a pair of straight lines at 45 degrees, reflecting the fact that a light ray emitted at the horizon in a radial direction (aimed outward in the case of the black hole, inward in the case of the white hole) would remain on the horizon forever. Thus the two black hole horizons coincide with the boundaries of the future light cone of an event at the center of the diagram (at \"T\"=\"X\"=0), while the two white hole horizons coincide with the boundaries of the past light cone of this same event. Any event inside the black hole interior region will have a future light cone that remains in this region (such that any world line within the event's future light cone will eventually hit the black hole singularity, which appears as a hyperbola bounded by the two black hole horizons), and any event inside the white hole interior region will have a past light cone that remains in this region (such that any world line within this past light cone must have originated in the white hole singularity, a hyperbola bounded by the two white hole horizons). Note that although the horizon looks as though it is an outward expanding cone, the area of this surface, given by \"r\" is just formula_46, a constant. I.e., these coordinates can be deceptive if care is not exercised.\n"
] |
in philosophy, what are epistemology and metaphysics?
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True ELI5:
Epistemology = "How do I know shit? What does it mean to know shit?"
Metaphysics = "What is this shit? What is shit? What is?"
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[
"Epistemology – philosophy of knowledge. It is the study of knowledge and justified belief. It questions what knowledge is and how it can be acquired, and the extent to which knowledge pertinent to any given subject or entity can be acquired. Much of the debate in this field has focused on the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification.\n",
"Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. It is the discipline searching for a general understanding of reality, reasoning and values. Major fields of philosophy include logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and axiology (which includes ethics and aesthetics). Philosophy covers a very wide range of approaches, and is used to refer to a worldview, to a perspective on an issue, or to the positions argued for by a particular philosopher or school of philosophy.\n",
"Some goals of meta-epistemology are to identify inaccurate traditional assumptions, or hitherto overlooked scope for generalization. Thus whereas epistemology has usually been seen as a branch of philosophy, the discussion below also takes examples from biology which seem equivalent in relevant ways. Also, insofar as philosophy \"is\" involved, there may be a case for extending it beyond its traditional domain of word-based definitions.\n",
"BULLET::::- Epistemology: (from the Greek words \"episteme\" (knowledge) and \"logos\" (word/speech)) The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. Historically, it has been one of the most investigated and most debated of all philosophical subjects. Much of this debate has focused on analysing the nature and variety of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth and belief. Much of this discussion concerns the justification of knowledge claims, that is the grounds on which one can claim to know a particular fact.\n",
"BULLET::::- Branch of philosophy – philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.\n",
"Epistemology is a major branch of philosophy and is concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. The epistemology of Wikipedia has been a subject of interest from the earliest days of its existence.\n",
"Metaphysics (Greek: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά; Latin: \"Metaphysica\") is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is \"being qua being,\" or being insofar as it is being. It examines what can be asserted about any being insofar as it is and not because of any special qualities it has. Also covered are different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects, and a prime-mover God.\n"
] |
how can we smell spring?
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Pollen is just plant spunk. Walking outside in spring is like walking into a huge tree orgy. There really is something in the air, and on the ground, and covering your car (if you park under a tree).
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[
"Avuş spring - According to information of local people, the name of the spring is from word of \"ovuc\" (the handful), it was so called as the shape it is similar to the handful. In the Turkic languages, \"avuş/avuj\" means \"vaccine, alum\". And this show the existence of the same material in the content of the water of spring.\n",
"A spring may be the result of karst topography where surface water has infiltrated the Earth's surface (recharge area), becoming part of the area groundwater. The groundwater then travels through a network of cracks and fissures—openings ranging from intergranular spaces to large caves. The water eventually emerges from below the surface, in the form of a karst spring.\n",
"BULLET::::- 135: Spring - Today is Spring! And that can only mean one thing: spring cleaning! Also, Mona and Russell go on a teeter-totter with Mr. Wooka, smell flowers, and find a cocoon! A butterfly comes out of it after reading a book called \"Little Fuzz\" with Nana.\n",
"Spring is a season of growth, with new grass growing and flowers blooming. Animals come out of hibernation, and sun fills the city and its surroundings. Temperatures are on the rise, but March and April bring much rain, with light rain that can last for hours on end. That gives way to warm May and June months, and shore weather is in the forecast for many residents.\n",
"Spring is when the temperature starts to warm, although frosts and sometimes snow still occur in early spring. Around mid-spring the temperature can get as high as 24 °C (75.2 °F), sometimes even higher. Around spring all the crops and flowers start growing in the Central Tablelands. Nights in spring may still drop below 0 °C (32 °F), especially if the wind is blowing.\n",
"A spring is the \"eye of the landscape\", the natural burst of living water, flowing all year or drying up at certain seasons. In contrast to the \"troubled waters\" of wells and rivers (Jer. 2:18), there gushes forth from it \"living water\", to which Jesus compared the grace of the Holy Spirit (John 4:10; 7:38; compare Isaiah 12:3; 44:3). \n",
"The beginning of spring is not always determined by fixed calendar dates. The phenological or ecological definition of spring relates to biological indicators, such as the blossoming of a range of plant species, the activities of animals, and the special smell of soil that has reached the temperature for micro flora to flourish. These indicators, along with the beginning of spring, vary according to the local climate and according to the specific weather of a particular year. Most ecologists divide the year into six seasons that have no fixed dates. In addition to spring, ecological reckoning identifies an earlier separate prevernal (early or pre-spring) season between the hibernal (winter) and vernal (spring) seasons. This is a time when only the hardiest flowers like the crocus are in bloom, sometimes while there is still some snowcover on the ground.\n"
] |
what's happening inside of a plasma ball?
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Inside a plasma ball high voltage is used to strip electrons away from atoms of a noble gas (usually neon or argon). Plasma is a state of matter comprising these free electrons. Light (release of photons) happens whenever electrons change orbitals.
The stream of electrons are negatively charged and looking for a place to "go". Your body is a conductor so when you touch the globe you are presenting a path for these free electrons to go to.
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[
"A similar explanation involves a similar phenomenon in plasma physics. A free-floating plasma orb, created when surface electricity (e.g., from a capacitor) is discharged into a solution. However, most plasma ball experiments are conducted using high voltage capacitors, microwave oscillators, or microwave ovens, not under natural conditions.\n",
"A plasma globe or plasma lamp (also called plasma ball, dome, sphere, tube or orb, depending on shape) is a clear glass container filled with a mixture of various noble gases with a high-voltage electrode in the center of the container.\n",
"Plasma techniques are especially useful because they can deposit ultra thin (a few nm), adherent, conformal coatings. Glow discharge plasma is created by filling a vacuum with a low-pressure gas (ex. argon, ammonia, or oxygen). The gas is then excited using microwaves or current which ionizes it. The ionized gas is then thrown onto a surface at a high velocity where the energy produced physically and chemically changes the surface. After the changes occur, the ionized plasma gas is able to react with the surface to make it ready for protein adhesion. However, the surfaces may lose mechanical strength or other inherent properties because of the high amounts of energy.\n",
"Plasma is any gas whose atoms or molecules have been ionized, and is a separate phase of matter. This is most commonly achieved by heating the gas to extremely high temperatures, although other methods exist. Plasma becomes increasingly viscous at higher temperatures, to the point where other matter has trouble passing through.\n",
"Plasma is initiated in the system by applying a strong RF (radio frequency) electromagnetic field to the wafer platter. The field is typically set to a frequency of 13.56 Megahertz, applied at a few hundred watts. The oscillating electric field ionizes the gas molecules by stripping them of electrons, creating a plasma.\n",
"The outside of the sphere is covered with steam pistons, which push the liquid metal and collapse the vortex, thereby compressing the plasma. The compression increases the temperature of the plasma to the point where the deuterium and tritium nuclei fuse, releasing energy in the form of fast neutrons.\n",
"Plasma consists of a mixture of electrons, ions, radicals, neutrals and photons. Some of these species are in local thermodynamic equilibrium, while others are not. Even for simple gases like argon this mixture can be complex. For plasmas of organic monomers, the complexity can rapidly increase as some components of the plasma fragment, while others interact and form larger species. Glow discharge is a technique in polymerization which forms free electrons which gain energy from an electric field, and then lose energy through collisions with neutral molecules in the gas phase. This leads to many chemically reactive species, which then lead to a plasma polymerization reaction. The electric discharge process for plasma polymerization is the “low-temperature plasma” method, because higher temperatures cause degradation. These plasmas are formed by a direct current, alternating current or radio frequency generator.\n"
] |
how could pixar produce toy story back in 1995?
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The whole reason for the concept of Toy Story is because of the limitations of the technology at the time.
Somewhere in Pixar there was a conversation like "Damn, our animation methods struggle to capture the complexity of human movement realistically, and when we render our characters they look like they're made of plastic. They look like toys." "Fuck it, let's just have the characters be toys. Keep the humans off-screen whenever we can."
Later, as the tech got better they could do insects for A Bug's Life, which move complexly but don't have skin and hair. Then they figured out hair/fur for Monsters Inc, then water for Finding Nemo. Notice how even in those films, adult humans are pretty much never seen. Then they could do people, but in a very cartoony way for the Incredibles, and then finally the more realistic human characters in Ratatouille and Up.
But toys are by far the easiest thing to animate and render, so they did that first.
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[
"\"Toy Story\" (1995) was the first computer-animated feature film in Pixar's debut contract with Disney. In 2015, movie writer Julia Zorthian said in TIME, \"Children and adults flocked to theaters when Toy Story opened, making it the highest-selling film for three weeks in a row. As the first full-length, 3D computer-animated movie, it was a milestone for animation, possibly the most significant since the introduction of color.\"\n",
"The Pixar Story, directed by Leslie Iwerks, is a documentary of the history of Pixar Animation Studios. An early version of the film premiered at the Sonoma Film Festival in 2007, and it had a limited theatrical run later that year before it was picked up by the Starz cable network in the United States.\n",
"\"Toy Story\", the first film in the franchise, was released on November 22, 1995. It was the first feature-length film created entirely by CGI and was directed by John Lasseter. The plot involves Andy (voiced by John Morris), an imaginative young boy, getting a new Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) action figure for his birthday, causing Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), a vintage cowboy doll, to think that he has been replaced as Andy's favorite toy. In competing for Andy's attention, Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out a window, leading the other toys to believe he tried to murder Buzz. Determined to set things right, Woody attempts to save Buzz, and both must escape from the house of the next-door neighbor Sid Phillips (Erik von Detten), who likes to torture and destroy toys. In addition to Hanks and Allen, the film featured the voices of Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, and Annie Potts. The film was critically and financially successful, grossing over $373 million worldwide. The film was later re-released in Disney Digital 3-D as part of a double feature, along with \"Toy Story 2\", for a 2-week run, which was later extended due to its financial success.\n",
"Toy Story was released in 1995 to be the first feature film in history produced using only computer animation. The film, directed by John Lasseter and starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, went on to gross over $191 million in the United States during its initial theatrical release, and took in more than $373 million worldwide. Reviews were overwhelmingly positive, praising both the technical innovation of the animation and the wit and sophistication of the screenplay.\n",
"Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated buddy comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The feature film directorial debut of John Lasseter, it was the first entirely computer-animated feature film, as well as the first feature film from Pixar. The screenplay was written by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow from a story by Lasseter, Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft. The film features music by Randy Newman, and was executive-produced by Steve Jobs and Edwin Catmull. It features the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, and Erik von Detten. \n",
"The first film produced by Pixar with its Disney partnership, \"Toy Story\" (1995), with Jobs credited as executive producer, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released. Over the next 15 years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company produced box-office hits \"A Bug's Life\" (1998); \"Toy Story 2\" (1999); \"Monsters, Inc.\" (2001); \"Finding Nemo\" (2003); \"The Incredibles\" (2004); \"Cars\" (2006); \"Ratatouille\" (2007); \"WALL-E\" (2008); \"Up\" (2009); and \"Toy Story 3\" (2010). \"Finding Nemo\", \"The Incredibles\", \"Ratatouille\", \"WALL-E\", \"Up\" and \"Toy Story 3\" each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.\n",
"\"Toy Story\" was the first Pixar film to be adapted for television as and TV series. \"Cars\" became the second with the help of \"Cars Toons\", a series of 3-to-5-minute short films running between regular Disney Channel shows and featuring Mater (a tow truck voiced by comedian Larry the Cable Guy). Between 2013 and 2014, Pixar released its first two television specials, \"Toy Story of Terror!\" and \"Toy Story That Time Forgot\". \"Monsters at Work\", a television series spin-off of \"Monsters, Inc.\", is currently in development for Disney+.\n"
] |
how do download and upload speeds actually work,(i.e how do they limit the speed of download through your cables)
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They limit the speed of the download by limiting how many bits per second are allowed to transfer through the wire to you. Someone, somewhere tracks all the bits that go into your house, and counts those bits. Every second, that count "refreshes," but if that count reaches the max rate, they stop sending traffic through until the next second.
Basically, if your cable supports 10MBPS, they don't limit it by somehow making your cable support 5MBPS, they just transmit 5MB in half a second, then transmit 0MB for the next half a second.
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[
"BULLET::::- Files are downloaded in multiple streams, which under certain conditions can accelerate download speeds by up to eight times, depending on the bandwidth of the Internet connections and the speed at which the server sends files. At present, an option to increase or decrease the downloading speed is not provided.\n",
"BULLET::::- Using multi thread download similar to Internet Download Manager, the browser is supposed to download at just the same speed as Internet Download Manager, however there are reports of cases where it failed to perform up to expectation, because the actual acceleration depends on the bandwidth of the Internet, and the speed at which the server sends files.\n",
"BULLET::::- Users with a slow connection to the Internet who want to avoid slow download times by using a faster connection on another computer to download Project Dakota, and burn it to a CD, DVD or USB flash drive.\n",
"BULLET::::- In the case of One-click hosting websites downloading multiple files from one or several sources can significantly increase download speeds. This is because even if the source(s) provides slow download speeds on individual disks, downloading several disks simultaneously will allow the user to achieve much greater download rates.\n",
"speeding up the download time, especially for users with faster download than upload speeds. Thus, the more popular a file is, the faster a user will be able to download it, since many people will be downloading it at the same time, and these people will also be uploading the data to other users.\n",
"Each file to be distributed is divided into small information chunks called \"pieces\". Downloading peers achieve high download speeds by requesting multiple pieces from different computers simultaneously in the swarm. Once obtained, these pieces are usually immediately made available for download by others in the swarm. In this way, the burden on the network is spread among the downloaders, rather than concentrating at a central distribution hub or cluster. As long as all the pieces are available, peers (downloaders and uploaders) can come and go; no one peer needs to have all the chunks, or to even stay connected to the swarm in order for distribution to continue among the other peers.\n",
"For rare files this system could be slightly slower than downloading the file itself. Especially for non-cacheable content, you may as well go to the origin host. The system's speed is also subject to the constraint of number of participating proxies.\n"
] |
how come the zimbabwe dollar inflated so fast? how do people survive in a country with such hyperinflation?
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Hyperinflation is typically caused when a nation goes through a major crisis (war, political turmoil, etc) and has a simultaneous need to spend large amounts of money. The tax base has collapsed and the uncertain economy makes international borrowing unavailable, so the government starts to print money.
The sudden, huge increase in the amount of money in circulation makes the currency less valuable. With the value of money shrinking, the government has to print ever more of it to meet its commitments. Very rapidly this turns into a spiral of hyperinflation.
In the case of Zimbabwe specifically, the country entered into a plan of forced land redistribution. At least initially, the idea was to confiscate farms from the descendants of former European colonials and give the land to the poorest indigenous people. There were many problems with this plan. Chief among them, the recipients of the land knew very little about farming so productivity collapsed. Foreign investors saw property being confiscated and left the market. To make matters worse, the land grants were frequently awarded to cronies of the Mugabe regime. The government printed huge volumes of money to try to make up for the lost tax base and foreign investment.
How do people survive? Well, you may have heard of other cases of hyperinflation from history where people try to adapt. In the southern US after the Civil War and in Weimar Germany after World War I, there were stories of people bringing cash to the markets in wheelbarrows to try to buy food. In some families, there are stories of people burning bundles of cash for heat in the winter because it was cheaper than buying fuel.
In Brazil there was a saying that you should always take a bus instead of a cab because on a bus you pay when you get on; in a taxi, you pay when you get out and there is no telling how much the currency may have devalued during the ride.
As others have said, many people turn to barter or other types of trade that are not dependent on currency. Sadly, in most affected countries, this also means a large increase in crime.
The interesting thing is that barter holds the key to how Brazil finally managed to beat decades of hyperinflation. Economists noticed that people bartering would settle on fairly standard relative values of goods: just as an example, imagine two potatoes for one tomato. These same ratios held for the prices in the markets. If a potato was $50, a tomato was $100. When potatoes hit $50,000 tomatoes were $100,000.
The economists called this "real value" and started referring to prices in units of real value. Storekeepers started putting units of real value in ads and on shelves and just posted an exchange rate between the currency and the real value (this was also much easier than re-pricing everything in the store every day).
Eventually, after a few years of this, the country just switched to a new currency. Each unit of the new currency was equal to one unit of real value. The currency was even called the *real* (in Portuguese, the plural is *reais*). The switch was remarkably smooth, since everyone was already thinking in units of real value.
It's kind of fascinating from a psychological standpoint as much as an economic one. You wouldn't expect that you could simply swap out a failed currency for a stable one, but in this case (with the right preparation) it actually worked.
|
[
"The economy of Zimbabwe shrank significantly after 2000, resulting in a desperate situation for the country – widespread poverty and a 95% unemployment rate. Zimbabwe's participation from 1998 to 2002 in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo set the stage for this deterioration by draining the country of hundreds of millions of dollars. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was a major problem from about 2003 to April 2009, when the country suspended its own currency. Zimbabwe faced 231 million percent peak hyperinflation in 2008. A combination of the abandonment of the Zimbabwe dollar and a government of national unity in 2009 resulted in a period of positive economic growth for the first time in a decade.\n",
"The economy of Zimbabwe began shrinking significantly around 2000, following a series of events and government policies such as the fast-track land reform programme and the 1997 War Veterans' Compensation Fund pay-out. This led to hyperinflation, devaluation and the eventual collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar, high unemployment and general economic depression over the course of sixteen years.\n",
"By 2003, the country's economy had collapsed. It's estimated that up to a fourth of Zimbabwe's 11 million people had fled the country. Three-quarters of the remaining Zimbabweans were living on less than one US dollar a day.\n",
"Zimbabwe also suffered from a crippling inflation rate, as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had a policy of printing money to satisfy government debt. This policy caused the inflation rate to increase from 32% in 1998 to 11,200,000% in 2007. Monetary aid by the International Monetary Fund was suspended due to the Zimbabwe government's defaulting on past loans, its inability to stabilise its own economy, its inability to stem corruption and its failure to advance human rights. In 2009, Zimbabwe abandoned its currency, relying instead on foreign currencies.\n",
"Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was a period of currency instability in Zimbabwe that, using Cagan's definition of hyperinflation, began in February 2007. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. However, Zimbabwe's peak month of inflation is estimated at 79.6 billion percent month-on-month, 89.7 sextillion percent year-on-year in mid-November 2008.\n",
"Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk since 2000, in an atmosphere of political turmoil, capital flight, corruption and mismanagement. Inflation has spiralled out of control (peaking at 500 billion % in 2009) and the underpinnings of the economy in agriculture and industry have been dissipated. Due to the state of the formal economy, many Zimbabweans have begun working in the informal economy. Because of this, it is estimated that by 2009 unemployment was nearer 10% than the official 90%.\n",
"At its November 2008 peak, Zimbabwe's rate of inflation approached, but failed to surpass, Hungary's July 1946 world record. On 2 February 2009, the dollar was redenominated for the third time at the ratio of ZWR to 1 ZWL, only three weeks after the $100 trillion banknote was issued on 16 January, but hyperinflation waned by then as official inflation rates in USD were announced and foreign transactions were legalised, and on 12 April the Zimbabwe dollar was abandoned in favour of using only foreign currencies. The overall impact of hyperinflation was 1 USD = ZWD.\n"
] |
in ww2 movies and rl videos some soldiers salute and some use nazi salute. why is that?
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Nazi salute (with straight right hand) was mandatory for civilians but optional for military. Soldiers mostly used traditional salute.
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[
"During filming, Galland, who was acting as a German technical adviser, took exception to a scene where Kesselring is shown giving the Nazi salute, rather than the standard military salute. Journalist Leonard Mosley witnessed Galland spoiling the shooting and having to be escorted off the set. Galland subsequently threatened to withdraw from the production, warning \"dire consequences for the film if the scene stayed in\". When the finished scene was screened before Galland and his lawyer, he was persuaded to accept the scene after all.\n",
"Since the end of World War II, displaying the Nazi variant of the salute has been a criminal offence in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. Legal restrictions on its use in Italy are more nuanced, and use there has generated controversy. The gesture and its variations continue to be used in neo-fascist, neo-Nazi and Falangist contexts.\n",
"Salute is a 1929 motion picture directed by John Ford and starring George O’Brien, Helen Chandler, William Janney, Stepin Fetchit, and Frank Albertson. It is about the football rivalry of the Army–Navy Game, and two brothers, played by O'Brien and Janney, one of West Point, the other of Annapolis. John Wayne had an uncredited role in the film, as one of three midshipmen who perform a mild hazing.\n",
"The salute soon became part of everyday life. Postmen used the greeting when they knocked on people's doors to deliver packages or letters. Small metal signs that reminded people to use the Hitler salute were displayed in public squares and on telephone poles and street lights throughout Germany. Department store clerks greeted customers with \"Heil Hitler, how may I help you?\" Dinner guests brought glasses etched with the words \"Heil Hitler\" as house gifts. The salute was required of all persons passing the \"Feldherrnhalle\" in Munich, site of the climax of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which the government had made into a shrine to the Nazi dead; so many pedestrians avoided this mandate by detouring through the small \"Viscardigasse\" behind that the passage acquired the nickname \"Dodgers' Alley\" (\"Drückebergergasse\").\n",
"Officers of the Wehrmacht objected to the suicidal message of the film. The director, Karl Ritter, responded by saying, \"I want to show the German youth that senseless, sacrificed death has its moral value.\" Carl Bloem, a retired military officer who had published popular novels, was asked to rebut the film's point of view and did so in a radio play in which the pragmatic view won out amongst the soldiers: \"No German commanding officer has the right or duty to destroy \"uselessly\" the lives of German soldiers.\" The company raise the white flag of surrender. This was broadcast on the Cologne radio station, but the Ministry of Propaganda disavowed it, with the statement, \"Our film has the purpose of showing the younger generation of today the real spirit of the German soldier during the offensive at the western front in 1918.\" \n",
"The striking images of cheering crowds in Nazi Germany that were featured in Leni Riefenstahl's films were used extensively. U.S. Hollywood filmmaker Frank Capra also used scenes from her films, which he described partially as \"the ominous prelude of Hitler's holocaust of hate\", in many parts of the U.S. government's \"Why We Fight\" anti-Axis seven film series, to demonstrate what the personnel of the American military would be facing in the Second World War, and why the Axis had to be defeated.\n",
"BULLET::::- In a running gag in \"Hogan's Heroes\", Colonel Klink often forgets to give the Hitler salute at the end of a phone call; instead, he usually asks, \"What's that?\" and then says, \"Yes, of course, Heil Hitler\". In the German language version of the show, called \"Ein Käfig voller Helden\" (\"A Cage Full of Heroes\"), \"Col. Klink and Sgt. Schultz have rural Gomer Pyle-type accents\", and \"stiff-armed salutes are accompanied by such witticisms as \"this is how high the cornflowers grow\". The \"Heil Hitler\" greeting was the variant most often used and associated with the series; \"Sieg Heil\" was rarely heard.\n"
] |
What happens when I take a USB drive out without ejecting?
|
When you eject a USB drive, the operating system flushes all buffered data to the drive and closes the software device. This guarantees that everything you wrote to the drive is actually physically written there. If you do not do this, you stand a chance of losing data or corrupting files.
The long version: Most operating systems maintain a memory buffer for each drive connected to the system. The buffer is used to cache data written to and from the drive, to speed up operations. Data written to the drive is first written to the memory buffer, then after a certain amount of time passes, or when enough data is written to fill the buffer, the contents of the buffer are actually written to the drive. Until this happens, the data is not actually on the drive, so if you lose power or yank the drive out the data will go missing. This could cause files to be lost, or if you were making changes to a file, the file could become corrupted because only part of it was updated.
The reason you have never experienced any problems is basically luck. Most devices and computers will flush their drive buffers periodically, so if you haven't written anything to the drive in a while it is probably safe to yank it out. But it is always better to eject the drive, to be certain everything has been flushed.
|
[
"In this scenario, the transfer is done directly from the old (source) machine's hard drive. The drive can be connected externally (USB adapter / enclosure), or internally, as a secondary drive. This scenario works even for old computers that are unable to boot, as long as the data is intact.\n",
"BULLET::::- Drive removal detection: As a safety measure designed to prevent data loss, Windows pauses the entire system if the USB drive is removed, and resumes operation immediately when the drive is inserted within 60 seconds of removal. If the drive is not inserted in that time-frame, the computer shuts down to prevent possible confidential or sensitive information being displayed on the screen or stored in RAM. It is also possible to encrypt a Windows To Go drive using BitLocker.\n",
"It can also be used in reverse, with a whitelisted flash drive in the USB port attached to the user's wrist via a lanyard serving as a key. In this instance, if the flash drive is forcibly removed, the program will initiate the desired routines. \"[It] is designed to do one thing,\" wrote Aaron Grothe in a short article on USBKill in \"\", \"and it does it pretty well.\" As a further precaution, he suggests users rename it to something innocuous once they have loaded it on their computers in case someone might be looking for it on a seized computer in order to disable it.\n",
"BULLET::::- Removal of stored data: anyone with physical access can erase all of the data held within the USB dead drop (via file deletion or disk formatting), or make it unusable by encrypting the data or the whole drive and hiding the key (see also the related topic of ransomware).\n",
"If an external data storage device is unexpectedly disengaged or accidentally removed while copying files onto it, the user is given the chance to retry the operation without restarting that file copy operation from the beginning; this gives the user the chance to reconnect that external data storage device involved and retry the operation.\n",
"BULLET::::- A USB flash drive or an external hard disk drive. In this mode Windows Easy Transfer saves archive files of files and settings on the source machine to a user-specified location, which does not need to be a USB drive; the destination machine is then given access to the archives.\n",
"Reformatting the drive will remove some of the software (the hidden \"SYSTEM\" folder), but not all of it. The virtual CD-ROM drive cannot be removed by reformatting because it is presented to the host system as a physical device attached to a USB hub; the official U3 Launchpad Removal Software was available on the U3 website and disabled the virtual CD drive device, leaving only the USB mass storage device active on the U3 USB hub controller, at which point the remaining software can be removed by a subsequent format, performed by the removal software itself.\n"
] |
Panzer tanks: "first-class visual and command facilities"?
|
On a purely technical level, "visual and command" references both German radios and optics. Although German tank design was relatively conservative, especially at the start of the war, their tanks incorporated good optical equipment and effective radios. The latter was especially effective at coordinating German panzers as an effective unit. German optical sights were often quite advanced as well. This gave the early war German tank commanders a better sense of situational awareness than his French, British, or Russian counterparts.
But the Germans' early superiority in situational awareness was not just of a technical nature. Most German commanders did not fight "buttoned-up," which is tanker parlance for fighting inside the vehicle. At the top of a German turret was an circular armored cupola with vision ports all around it. This allowed a commander to scan terrain with the "Mark One Eyeball" from a [relatively safe position](_URL_0_) as seen in this photo of a Panzer IV. Early war Allied tanks did not have this ergonomic design. For example, the [earlyT-34's top hatch](_URL_2_) was notoriously clumsy and did not give the commander a good view and exposed him to fire from the rear and flanks. When the Germans captured Allied tanks, one of the first things they would do if able was replace the top hatch with a German one, as in these [*Beutepanzers*](_URL_1_).
So in sum, not only did early war panzers possess better optics and radios, they were a more ergonomic design than their contemporaries.
*Sources*
Forczyk, Robert. *Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front*. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2014.
Zaloga, Steve. *Panzer IV Vs Char B1 Bis: France 1940*. Oxford: Osprey Pub, 2011.
|
[
"\"Panzer Command\" is a tactical level simulation of armored combat, recreating the battles that raged across the steppes of the Soviet Union during the middle years of World War II. Each of two players commands the 40 to 60 company-sized units of a German armored division or Soviet tank corps, maneuvering forces across treacherous terrain to engage the enemy in a life or death struggle. The challenge of battlefield command is yours in the thought-provoking, exciting game experience of \"Panzer Command\".\n",
"\"Panzer General\" is an operational-level game, and units approximate battalions, although the unit size and map scale from one scenario to the next are elastic. While the names and information for the units are reasonably accurate, the scenarios only approximate historical situations.\n",
"The kleiner Panzerbefehlswagen (), known also by its ordnance inventory designation Sd.Kfz. 265, was the German Army's first purpose-designed armored command vehicle; a type of armoured fighting vehicle designed to provide a tank unit commander with mobility and communications on the battlefield. A development of the Army's first mass-produced tank, the Panzer I \"Ausf\". A, the Sd.Kfz. 265 saw considerable action during the early years of the war, serving in \"Panzer\" units through 1942 and with other formations until late in the war.\n",
"The \"kleiner Panzerbefehlswagen\", is commonly referred to as a command tank, but as it is without a turret or offensive armament and merely is built on the chassis of the Panzer I light tank, it does not retain the capabilities or role of a tank. Instead, it functions more along the line of an armored personnel carrier in conveying the unit commander and his radio operator under armor about the battlefield.\n",
"A \"panzer corps\" consisted of two to three divisions and auxiliary attachments. \"Panzergruppen\" (\"Panzer Groups\") were commands larger than a corps, approximately the size of an army, and named after their commander (e.g. \"Panzergruppe Hoth\"). These were later recognized as \"Panzerarmeen\" (\"Panzer Armies\"), an army-level command of two to three corps. These higher-level organizations almost always mixed ordinary infantry units with the \"Panzerwaffe\".\n",
"Developed for PC and the Xbox for JoWood Productions, \"Panzer Elite Action\" follows the story of three tank commanders and their crew. The German commander, encouraged by easy successes in Poland and France, moves on to the Eastern Front and the brink of victory with the taking of Stalingrad. Players meet the Russian commander in desperate straits as he helps defend Stalingrad, and follow him as the tide turns against the Germans and he joins the massive battle of Kursk. The American commander enters the war at the Normandy Beachhead on D-Day. After the struggle for the Bocage, he defends against the German outbreak at the Battle of the Bulge, and then drives on to the victorious crossing of the Rhine.\n",
"Panzer Leader is the sequel to Avalon Hill's \"PanzerBlitz\" game. Like its predecessor, it is a tactical platoon level hex and counter board wargame depicting \"WWII\" tank and infantry combat on the Western European front. It features 4 geomorphic map tiles, which can be put together in a variety of ways to play the provided scenarios (which are printed on cardstock, showing all the necessary information for a scenario) or home-made scenarios. The 20 provided scenarios cover various battles on the Western Front, with most of the scenarios involving the Normandy campaign or the Battle of the Bulge. Two scenarios cover the amphibious assaults on Omaha and Gold beaches and include special rules for naval fire. While based on PanzerBlitz, the rules were cleaned up and included additional mechanics such as for air attacks and engineers, as well new spotting rules to prevent PanzerBush\" tactics - units could no longer fire from concealment without revealing themselves to enemies. Several optional and experimental rules are provided, including one for opportunity fire to further nullify PanzerBush maneuvers.\n"
] |
why do competitions require you to answer a ridiculous question when you enter?
|
Well, in the UK a competition with a question is regarded legally as a game of skill, even if the question is stupidly simple. Without a question it would be regarded as a lottery, which has very much tougher rules and regulations.
|
[
"A challenge is a request made to the holder of a competitive title for a match between champion and challenger, the winner of which will acquire or retain the title. In some cases the champion has the right to refuse a challenge; in others, this results in forfeiting the title. The challenge system derives from duelling and its code of honour. While many competitive sports use some form of tournament to determine champions, a challenge match is the normal way of deciding professional boxing titles and the World Chess Championship. Some racket sports clubs have a reigning champion who may be challenged by any other club member; a ladder tournament extends the challenge concept to all players, not just the reigning champion. At élite-level competition, there is usually some governing body which authorises and regulates challenges, such as FIDE in chess. In some cases there is a challengers' tournament, the winner of which gains the right to play the challenge round against the reigning champion; in tennis this was the case at Wimbledon until 1922 and in the Davis Cup until 1972. The FA Cup's official name remains the \"Football Association Challenge Cup\", although not since its second season in 1873 has the reigning champion receive a bye to the final. The America's Cup is contested according to the terms of its 1887 deed of gift between yachts representing the champion yacht club and a challenging club. Since 1970, the usual practice, by mutual consent, is for an initial formal \"challenger of record\" replaced by the actual challenger after a qualifying tournament. However, in 1988 and 2010 there were court cases arising from non-consensual challenges.\n",
"A reason was made to listen to the five competitors, the first to book and give the correct answer could choose one of the eight subjects available. If the competitor did not guess the reason, another competitor could be booked until the correct answer was given. The chosen subject consisted of three questions to which the competitor had to answer in thirty seconds. In the case of a wrong answer even to only one of the questions or time expired, the competitor was eliminated. The first two competitors to make mistakes (or alternatively the last remaining in the race) were eliminated. Competitors who answered the three questions correctly qualified for the next game.\n",
"The contest is a development of single-choice questions with four options, the contestant must answer correctly to advance and in turn increase the monetary gains. The participant must be a person with extensive domain knowledge as well as stress, because as each question above, thanks to his poise and assertiveness, increasing levels of difficulty and demands of the questions. Meanwhile, viewers live for an hour the challenge of the contestant, who is facing a monumental machinery staging.\n",
"In most contests, the judging is done automatically by host machines, commonly known as judges. Every solution submitted by a contestant is run on the judge against a set of (usually secret) test cases. Normally, contest problems have an all-or-none marking system, meaning that a solution is \"Accepted\" only if it produces satisfactory results on all test cases run by the judge, and rejected otherwise. However, some contest problems may allow for partial scoring, depending on the number of test cases passed, the quality of the results, or some other specified criteria. Some other contests only require that the contestant submit the output corresponding to given input data, in which case the judge only has to analyze the submitted output data.\n",
"A challenge consists of four questions, alternating between the two contestants and starting with the challenged opponent. If the opponent wins, all cases stay with their holders. If the challenger wins, they take control of the opponent's case and the opponent is eliminated from the game with no winnings. The case originally held by the challenger is removed from play and opened to reveal its value. If the score is tied after all four questions have been asked, a tiebreaker is played on the buzzer. Once a challenge is resolved, the buzzer questions resume.\n",
"Questions in this round were on the buzzer, and each contained clues to an answer with a double meaning. (E.g. \"You can't hang out the washing without her\" would lead to \"peg,\" as in the girl's name Peg and a clothes peg.) The first question was open to all three contestants, and the first to respond correctly gained the right to challenge one opponent.\n",
"The two teams bid upwards against each other while predicting how many examples of a particular subject they will be able to list. If a team fails to list as many answers as they predicted, the other team wins the round.\n"
] |
what is treasury yields and why does it cause the market to slide?
|
First all the quick answers:
Treasuries are US government debt. Yields are how much interest the US government will pay lenders to loan money to them for a certain period of time. 10-year treasuries are the long term benchmark rate, they're the bench mark because they're a very liquid market. All the other rates are just different terms (pretty similar to a 3-year, 5-year, or 7-year car loan) the government can get more money for less interest by offering a variety of terms.
Now the why:
Treasuries are like the basic unit of investing. The US government has a very good reputation with investors, so treasuries are the safest return one can get over a period of time.
That means that when treasury rates rise, all other investments need to adjust (because if riskier investments don't provide at least that much return, investors are better off selling the other investment and buying the treasury). Sort of like an employer known to hire essentially everyone paying more than other more selective employers, the selective employer is going to have to keep their wages higher than the employer who hires anyone if they want to keep getting employees.
So when treasury yields rise, all other investment income rates also have to rise, and that means most investment prices fall.
|
[
"Since the yield of virtually any fixed-income instrument is affected by changes in the shape of the Treasury curve, it is not surprising that traders examine future and past performance in the light of changes to this curve.\n",
"Another common way for accounting for treasury stock is the par value method. In the par value method, when the stock is purchased back from the market, the books will reflect the action as a retirement of the shares. Therefore, common stock is debited and treasury stock is credited. However, when the treasury stock is resold back to the market the entry in the books will be the same as the cost method.\n",
"One way of accounting for treasury stock is with the cost method. In this method, the paid-in capital account is reduced in the balance sheet when the treasury stock is bought. When the treasury stock is sold back on the open market, the paid-in capital is either debited or credited if it is sold for less or more than the initial cost respectively.\n",
"The earnings yield can be used to compare the earnings of a stock, sector or the whole market against bond yields. Generally, the earnings yields of equities are higher than the yield of risk-free treasury bonds. Some of this may result in dividends, while some may be kept as retained earnings. The market price of stocks may increase or decrease, reflecting the additional risk involved in equity investments. The average P/E ratio for U.S. stocks from 1900 to 2005 is 14, which equates to an earnings yield of over 7%.\n",
"because there are few holders who can make an arbitrage profit by selling the spot and buying back the future. A market that is steeply backwardated—\"i.e.\", one where there is a very steep premium for material available for immediate delivery—often indicates a perception of a current \"shortage\" in the underlying commodity. By the same token, a market that is deeply in contango may indicate a perception of a current supply \"surplus\" in the commodity.\n",
"Assuming the market is in a perfectly competitive equilibrium, a subsidy increases the supply of the good beyond the equilibrium competitive quantity. The imbalance creates deadweight loss. Deadweight loss from a subsidy is the amount by which the cost of the subsidy exceeds the gains of the subsidy. The magnitude of the deadweight loss is dependent on the size of the subsidy. This is considered a market failure, or inefficiency.\n",
"A positively sloped yield curve allows Primary Dealers (such as large investment banks) in the Federal Reserve system to fund themselves with cheap short term money while lending out at higher long-term rates. This strategy is profitable so long as the yield curve remains positively sloped. However, it creates a liquidity risk if the yield curve were to become inverted and banks would have to refund themselves at expensive short term rates while losing money on longer term loans.\n"
] |
why does urinating feel different when you are sick?
|
For a multitude of reasons, among them:
+ When sick your system is generating different chemicals from the immunologic system fight, which generate different contents, pH and even smell for your pee, the different contents and pH can irritate the urethra and be painful
+ Your sensibility usually is higher due to the disease, so you can not only feel more intensively the urine pass, but also the above mentioned irritation
+ Your urination frequency messes up due to the sickness and you end up going to the bathroom at unusual (for your normal daily routine) times, which can also feel different
|
[
"Urinary symptoms include urinary frequency, urgency, incontinence and retention. Again, because of the retention of urine, urinary tract infections are frequent. Urinary retention can lead to bladder diverticula, stones, reflux nephropathy.\n",
"Functional incontinence is a form of urinary incontinence in which a person is usually aware of the need to urinate, but for one or more physical or mental reasons they are unable to get to a bathroom. The loss of urine can vary, from small leakages to full emptying of the bladder.\n",
"During urination, detrusor muscles in the wall of the bladder contract, forcing urine out of the bladder and into the urethra. At the same time, sphincter muscles surrounding the urethra relax, letting urine pass out of the body. Incontinence will occur if the bladder muscles suddenly contract (detrusor muscle) or muscles surrounding the urethra suddenly relax (sphincter muscles).\n",
"The need to urinate is experienced as an uncomfortable, full feeling. It is highly correlated with the fullness of the bladder. In many males the feeling of the need to urinate can be sensed at the base of the penis as well as the bladder, even though the neural activity associated with a full bladder comes from the bladder itself, and can be felt there as well. In females the need to urinate is felt in the lower abdomen region when the bladder is full. When the bladder becomes too full, the sphincter muscles will involuntarily relax, allowing urine to pass from the bladder. Release of urine is experienced as a lessening of the discomfort.\n",
"In infants, the signs and symptoms of a urinary tract infection may include only fever and lethargy, with poor appetite and sometimes foul-smelling urine, while older children typically present with discomfort or pain with urination and frequent urination.\n",
"Normally, the body produces a hormone that can slow the making of urine. This hormone is called antidiuretic hormone, or ADH. The body normally produces more ADH during sleep so that the need to urinate is lower. If the body does not produce enough ADH at night, the making of urine may not be slowed down, leading to the bladder overfilling. If a child does not sense the bladder filling and awaken to urinate, then wetting will occur.\n",
"Urolagnia is a paraphilia. During the activity, urine may be consumed or the person may bathe in it. Other variations include arousal from wetting or seeing someone else urinate in their pants or underclothes, or wetting the bed. Other forms of urolagnia may involve a tendency to be sexually aroused by smelling urine-soaked clothing or body parts. In many cases, a strong correlation or conditioning arises between urine smell or sight, and the sexual act. For some individuals the phenomenon may include a diaper fetish and/or arousal from infantilism.\n"
] |
why did sega drop out of the video game console business?
|
Sega spent a lot of money making the dreamcast. They didn't get enough money in return. They decided they can make more money with software alone. Big reason being, the market is too saturated with giants with a lot more financial backing then sega will ever have. That said - Dreamcast is still my favorite and I can't wait to play Shenmue 3... finally...
|
[
"From 1993 to early 1996, although Sega's revenue declined as part of an industry-wide slowdown, the company retained control of 38% of the U.S. video game market (compared to Nintendo's 30% and Sony's 24%). 800,000 PlayStation units were sold in the U.S. by the end of 1995, compared to 400,000 Saturn units. In part due to an aggressive price war, the PlayStation outsold the Saturn by two-to-one in 1996, while Sega's 16-bit sales declined markedly. By the end of 1996, the PlayStation had sold 2.9 million units in the U.S., more than twice the 1.2 million Saturn units sold. The Christmas 1996 \"Three Free\" pack, which bundled the Saturn with \"Daytona USA\", \"Virtua Fighter 2\", and \"Virtua Cop,\" drove sales dramatically and ensured the Saturn remained a competitor into 1997.\n",
"In response to a downturn in the arcade-game market in the early 1980s, Sega began to develop video game consoles—starting with the SG-1000 and Master System—but struggled against competing products such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Around the same time, Sega executives David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama executed a management buyout of the company with backing from CSK Corporation. Sega released its next console, the Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive outside North America) in 1988. Although it initially struggled, the Genesis became a major success after the release of \"Sonic the Hedgehog\" in 1991. Sega's marketing strategy, particularly in North America, helped the Genesis outsell main competitor Nintendo and their Super Nintendo Entertainment System for four consecutive Christmas seasons in the early 1990s. While the Game Gear and Sega CD achieved less, Sega's arcade business was also successful into the mid 1990s.\n",
"Sega was one of the primary competitors to Nintendo in the video game console industry. A few of Sega's early consoles outsold their competitors in specific markets, such as the Master System in Europe. Several of the company's later consoles were commercial failures, however, and the financial losses incurred from the Dreamcast console caused the company to restructure itself in 2001. As a result, Sega ceased to manufacture consoles and became a third-party video game developer. The only console that Sega has produced since is the educational toy console Advanced Pico Beena in 2005. Third-party variants of Sega consoles have been produced by licensed manufacturers, even after production of the original consoles had ended. Many of these variants have been produced in Brazil, where versions of the Master System and Genesis are still sold and games for them are still developed.\n",
"Whilst a broken gaming industry in the US took several local businesses to bankruptcy and practically ended retail interest in video gaming products, an 8-bit third generation of video game consoles started in Japan as early as 1983 with the release of both Nintendo's Family Computer (\"Famicom\") and Sega's SG-1000 on July 15. The first clearly trumped the second in terms of commercial success in the country, causing Sega to replace it, two years later, by a severely improved and modernized version called the Sega Mark III.\n",
"After the dust settled in the fifth generation console wars, several companies saw their outlooks change drastically. Atari Corporation, which was not able to recover its losses, ended up being purchased by JT Storage and stopped making game hardware. Sega's loss of consumer confidence (coupled with its previous console failures) along with their financial difficulties, set the company up for a similar fate in the next round of console wars.\n",
"The Saturn failed to take the lead in the market as its predecessor had. After the launch of the Nintendo 64 in 1996, sales of the Saturn and its games were sharply reduced, while the PlayStation outsold the Saturn by three-to-one in the U.S. in 1997. As of August 1997, Sony controlled 47% of the console market, Nintendo 40%, and Sega only 12%. Neither price cuts nor high-profile game releases proved helpful. Following five years of generally declining profits, in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998 Sega suffered its first parent and consolidated financial losses since its 1988 listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Due to a 54.8% decline in consumer product sales (including a 75.4% decline overseas), the company reported a net loss of ¥43.3 billion (US$327.8 million) and a consolidated net loss of ¥35.6 billion (US$269.8 million). Shortly before announcing its financial losses, Sega announced that it was discontinuing the Saturn in North America to prepare for the launch of its successor. The Saturn would last longer in Japan and Europe. The decision to abandon the Saturn effectively left the Western market without Sega games for over one year. Sega suffered an additional ¥42.881 billion consolidated net loss in the fiscal year ending March 1999, and announced plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its workforce. With lifetime sales of 9.26 million units, the Saturn is considered a commercial failure, although its install base in Japan surpassed the Nintendo 64's 5.54 million. Lack of distribution has been cited as a significant factor contributing to the Saturn's failure, as the system's surprise launch damaged Sega's reputation with key retailers. Conversely, Nintendo's long delay in releasing a 3D console and damage caused to Sega's reputation by poorly supported add-ons for the Genesis are considered major factors allowing Sony to gain a foothold in the market.\n",
"When Sega began publicly discussing their next-generation system (eventually released as the Dreamcast), barely two years after launching the Saturn, it became a self-defeating prophecy. This move, combined with Sega's recent history of short-lived consoles, particularly the Sega Mega-CD and 32X which were considered ill-conceived \"stopgaps\" that turned off gamers and developers alike, led to a chain reaction that quickly caused the Saturn's future to collapse. Immediately following the announcement, sales of the console and software substantially tapered off in the second half of 1997, while many planned games were canceled, causing the console's life expectancy to shorten substantially. While this let Sega focus on bringing out its successor, premature demise of the Saturn caused customers and developers to be skeptical and hold out, which led to the Dreamcast's demise as well, and Sega's exit from the console industry.\n"
] |
Why do some metals turn bright red and white when they are melting? Why don't they just turn to liquid like mercury does?
|
Because the melting points of most metals are much higher than Mercury and at high temperatures, the thermal radiations all objects gives off (including you, your dog and your chair) shifts into the visible spectrum.
This is called the [Draper point](_URL_0_). It happens at 525 Celsius.
|
[
"Some metals appear coloured (Cu, Cs, Au), have low densities (e.g. Be, Al) or very high melting points, are liquids at or near room temperature, are brittle (e.g. Os, Bi), not easily machined (e.g. Ti, Re), or are noble (hard to oxidise) or have nonmetallic structures (Mn and Ga are structurally analogous to, respectively, white P and I).\n",
"In general, transition metals possess a high density and high melting points and boiling points. These properties are due to metallic bonding by delocalized d electrons, leading to cohesion which increases with the number of shared electrons. However the group 12 metals have much lower melting and boiling points since their full d subshells prevent d–d bonding, which again tends to differentiate them from the accepted transition metals. Mercury has a melting point of and is a liquid at room temperature.\n",
"Alkali metals dissolve in liquid ammonia giving deep blue solutions, which are conducting in nature. The blue colour of the solution is due to ammoniated electrons, which absorb energy in the visible region of light. Alkali metals also dissolve in hexamethylphosphoramide, forming blue solutions.\n",
"The alkali metal halides exist as colourless crystalline solids, although as finely ground powders appear white. They melt at high temperature, usually several hundred degrees to colorless liquids. Their high melting point reflects their high lattice energies. At still higher temperatures, these liquids evaporate to give gases composed of diatomic molecules.\n",
"In an oxidising environment metal (and some non-metal) ions will lose electrons. In iron oxides, Fe (ferrous) ions will become Fe (ferric) ions. In molten glass this will result in a change in glass colour from pale blue to yellow/brown. In a reducing environment the iron will gain electrons and colour will change from yellow/brown to pale blue. Similarly manganese will change in colour depending on its oxidation state. The lower oxidation state of manganese (Mn) is yellow in common glass while the higher oxidation states (Mn or higher) is purple. A combination of the two states will give a pink glass.\n",
"When dissolved in an approximately 35% nitric acid solution it is called Schwerter's solution and is used to test for the presence of various metals, notably for determination of silver purity. Pure silver will turn the solution bright red, sterling silver will turn it dark red, low grade coin silver (0.800 fine) will turn brown (largely due to the presence of copper which turns the solution brown) and even green for 0.500 silver.\n",
"Silver does not react with air, even at red heat, and thus was considered by alchemists as a noble metal along with gold. Its reactivity is intermediate between that of copper (which forms copper(I) oxide when heated in air to red heat) and gold. Like copper, silver reacts with sulfur and its compounds; in their presence, silver tarnishes in air to form the black silver sulfide (copper forms the green sulfate instead, while gold does not react). Unlike copper, silver will not react with the halogens, with the exception of fluorine gas, with which it forms the difluoride. While silver is not attacked by non-oxidizing acids, the metal dissolves readily in hot concentrated sulfuric acid, as well as dilute or concentrated nitric acid. In the presence of air, and especially in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, silver dissolves readily in aqueous solutions of cyanide.\n"
] |
How do Colloids work?
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Colloids aren’t a molecule or additive, they’re a state of a mixture. Specifically, a colloid is formed when the particles (not atomic particles, particulate/macroscopic particles) are too small to settle out. The particles are so small that gravity doesn’t affect them nearly as much as other forces, like boyancy, eddy currents, or molecular interactions. So these forces determine where any individual particle goes, rather than gravity.
Think of it like dust in the air, the dust is so light any little breeze can set it floating. But since liquids are so much more viscous than air the dust literally can’t fall because the force of gravity can’t pull it down strong enough to move the liquid out of the way. And also, the boyant force isn’t strong enough to send it to the surface, so it just hangs there, totally dependant on the currents of the liquid.
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[
"The term \"colloid\" is used primarily to describe a broad range of solid-liquid (and/or liquid-liquid) mixtures, all of which contain distinct solid (and/or liquid) particles which are dispersed to various degrees in a liquid medium. The term is specific to the size of the individual particles, which are larger than atomic dimensions but small enough to exhibit Brownian motion. If the particles are large enough, then their dynamic behavior in any given period of time in suspension would be governed by forces of gravity and sedimentation. But if they are small enough to be colloids, then their irregular motion in suspension can be attributed to the collective bombardment of a myriad of thermally agitated molecules in the liquid suspending medium, as described originally by Albert Einstein in his dissertation. Einstein concluded that this erratic behavior could adequately be described using the theory of Brownian motion, with sedimentation being a possible long-term result. This critical size range (or particle diameter) typically ranges from tens of angstroms (10 m) to a few micrometres (10 m).\n",
"In physics, colloids are an interesting model system for atoms. Micrometre-scale colloidal particles are large enough to be observed by optical techniques such as confocal microscopy. Many of the forces that govern the structure and behavior of matter, such as excluded volume interactions or electrostatic forces, govern the structure and behavior of colloidal suspensions. For example, the same techniques used to model ideal gases can be applied to model the behavior of a hard sphere colloidal suspension. In addition, phase transitions in colloidal suspensions can be studied in real time using optical techniques, and are analogous to phase transitions in liquids. In many interesting cases optical fluidity is used to control colloid suspensions.\n",
"Colloids are particles of a size between 1 nm (0.001 µm) and 1 µm depending on the method of quantification. Because of Brownian motion and electrostatic forces balancing the gravity, they are not likely to settle naturally.\n",
"In chemistry, a colloid is a mixture in which one substance of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Sometimes the dispersed substance alone is called the colloid; the term colloidal suspension refers unambiguously to the overall mixture (although a narrower sense of the word \"suspension\" is distinguished from colloids by larger particle size). Unlike a solution, whose solute and solvent constitute only one phase, a colloid has a dispersed phase (the suspended particles) and a continuous phase (the medium of suspension) that arise by phase separation. To qualify as a colloid, the mixture must be one that does not settle or would take a very long time to settle appreciably.\n",
"A colloid is a heterogeneous mixture of one phase in another, where the dispersed particles are usually. Like solutions, dispersed particles will not settle if the solution is left undisturbed for a prolonged period of time.\n",
"The terms colloid and nanoparticle are not interchangeable. A colloid is a mixture which has solid particles dispersed in a liquid medium. The term applies only if the particles are larger than atomic dimensions but small enough to exhibit Brownian motion, with the critical size range (or particle diameter) typically ranging from nanometers (10 m) to micrometers (10 m). Colloids can contain particles too large to be nanoparticles, and nanoparticles can exist in non-colloidal form, for examples as a powder or in a solid matrix.\n",
"Colloidal particles are the components of a colloid. A colloid is a substance microscopically dispersed evenly throughout another substance. Such colloidal system can be solid, liquid, or gaseous; as well as continuous or dispersed. The dispersed-phase particles have a diameter of between approximately 5 and 200 nanometers. Soluble particles smaller than this will form a solution as opposed to a colloid. Colloidal systems (also called colloidal solutions or colloidal suspensions) are the subject of interface and colloid science. Suspended solids may be held in a liquid, while solid or liquid particles suspended in a gas together form an aerosol. Particles may also be suspended in the form of atmospheric particulate matter, which may constitute air pollution. Larger particles can similarly form marine debris or space debris. A conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles may be described as a granular material.\n"
] |
why should someone never refreeze something that has been unfrozen ?
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Generally when frozen foods are frozen for sale/storage they are done so in a way that prevents large ice crystals from forming and damaging the food. You can't easily do this at home.
This was the big advantage that Birds Eye had when it first started - its founder, Clarence Birdseye, realized that fish frozen by the Inuit in Newfoundland was much better than fish frozen in New York and he reasoned that the difference was the speed at which they were frozen. Turns out, if you freeze something faster the ice crystals don't get as big and mess with the food as much.
When you unfreeze and re-freeze something you freeze it slowly since you probably don't have an industrial freezing machine and that causes larger ice crystals to form in the food, which makes it taste worse. The rule isn't really "don't unfreeze and refreeze," but rather "don't freeze for preservation without the proper machinery/techniques."
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[
"People sometimes defrost frozen foods at room temperature because of time constraints or ignorance; such foods should be promptly consumed after cooking or discarded and never be refrozen or refrigerated since pathogens are not killed by the freezing process.\n",
"Items deemed resellable are displayed for purchase in stores. Savers also has a recycling program and attempts to recycle any reusable items that cannot be sold at the stores, as well as any items that do not sell over a period of time to make room for fresh merchandise. Savers has buyers for its recyclables throughout the world and attempts to keep as much donated product out of the waste stream as possible.\n",
"Reuse is the action or practice of using something again, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfil a different function (creative reuse or repurposing). It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of used items to make raw materials for the manufacture of new products. Reuse – by taking, but not reprocessing, previously used items – helps save time, money, energy and resources. In broader economic terms, it can make quality products available to people and organizations with limited means, while generating jobs and business activity that contribute to the economy.\n",
"One way to address this is to increase product longevity; either by extending a product’s first life or addressing issues of repair, reuse and recycling. Reusing products, and therefore extending the use of that item beyond the point where it is discarded by its first user is preferable to recycling or disposal, as this is the least energy intensive solution, although it is often overlooked.\n",
"This can also be done by using reusable items such as thermoses for daily coffee or plastic containers for water and other cold beverages rather than disposable ones. If that option isn't available, it is best to properly recycle the disposable items after use. When one household recycles at least half of their household waste, they can save 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide annually.\n",
"Reuse means suitable to use again or for further use. It is the quality or state of being to be reusable. What cannot be reduced they should try to reuse. After a product or material has been used once, every effort should be made to reuse it. Products that can be reused should be favoured over those that are non-reusable.\n",
"A wide variety of things may be disposed while still repairable or in working condition, making salvage of them a source of potentially free items for personal use, or to sell for profit. Irregular, blemished or damaged items that are still otherwise functional are regularly thrown away. Discarded food that might have slight imperfections, near its expiration date, or that is simply being replaced by newer stock is often tossed out despite being still edible. Many retailers are reluctant to sell this stock at reduced prices because of the risks that people will buy it instead of the higher-priced newer stock, that extra handling time is required, and that there are liability risks. In the United Kingdom, cookery books have been written on the cooking and consumption of such foods, which has contributed to the popularity of skipping. Artists often use discarded materials retrieved from trash receptacles to create works of found objects or assemblage.\n"
] |
the ending of the sopranos
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Here's a very detailed analysis:
_URL_0_
I personally think you have to pick one of two narratives:
1. Tony was killed by the man in the members only jacket, with the ending tied to prior episodes where the characters discuss the fact that you you never see death coming. The fade to black is Tony's point of view as he dies.
or
2. Tony lives, and the audience is just on edge experiencing what it will be like for Tony for the rest of his life -- always worrying about death and his assassination from an unnoticed attacker.
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[
"\"The Bald Soprano\" appears to have been written as a continuous loop. The final scene contains stage instructions to start the performance over from the very beginning, with the Martin couple substituted for the Smith couple and vice versa. However, this decision was only added in after the show's hundredth performance, and it was originally the Smiths who restarted the show, in exactly the same manner as before.\n",
"The Sopranos is an American crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster, portraying the difficulties that he faces as he tries to balance his family life with his role as the leader of a criminal organization. These are explored during his therapy sessions with psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). The series features Tony's family members, mafia colleagues, and rivals in prominent roles—most notably his wife Carmela (Edie Falco) and his protégé/distant cousin Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli).\n",
"'[A] soprano was bugging everybody with temper tantrums during rehearsal. At a certain point the orchestra crashed onto a major seventh and there was silence for the soprano and flute cadenza. Nothing happened. The soprano looked into the orchestra pit and saw that my father had completely taken apart his flute, down to the last screw. (I used this idea in my 1962 FLUTE SOLO).' George Brecht \n",
"In a retrospective review, Emily VanDerWerff of \"The A.V. Club\" wrote that the \"[ending] montage - intercut with Tony watching Meadow sing - is one of the first moments when \"The Sopranos\" takes music and rises above its prosaic, muddy universe to become something like sublime\"; VanDerWerff commented that although the episode \"is a 'Let's get the plot wheels turning!' kind of episode, and those sorts of episodes can be a little trying from time to time\", there is nonetheless \"lots of it that is just expertly executed\". Alan Sepinwall praised Gandolfini's performance as well as the story involving Carmela and Charmaine, writing that the show \"has a really great eye and ear for insults – particularly ones not necessarily intended as such\".\n",
"\"The Sopranos\", a television drama series created by David Chase, premiered on the premium television channel HBO in the United States on January 10, 1999, and ended on June 10, 2007. The series consists of a total of 86 episodes over six seasons. Each episode is approximately 50 minutes long. The first five seasons each consist of thirteen episodes, and the sixth season twenty-one. \n",
"Tim Goodman of the \"San Francisco Chronicle\" characterized the finale as \"[a]n ending befitting genius of \"Sopranos\"\" and wrote that \"Chase managed, with this ending, to be true to reality [...] while also steering clear of trite TV conventions.\"\n",
"The shooting of Tony Soprano set off a media frenzy, with reporters stalking the Soprano house and outside the hospital where Tony lay in a coma. Junior Soprano was arrested and questioned about the shooting, which he insisted must have been a self-inflicted gunshot by Tony, whom he labeled as a \"depression case\". The captains of the Family agreed to cut all ties to Junior and allow Tony to decide what happens to him. Junior was judged to be mentally unstable and was sent to a mental rehabilitation facility.\n"
] |
What sort of judicial system did the Confederacy have during the Civil War?
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Someone did a presentation about this in the constitutional law class I took ages ago but I barely remember it. I do remember that at a national level, the [Confederate Constitution took the Article III language virtually word-for-word](_URL_0_) from the United States Constitution. It empowered the creation of a supreme court and tribunals inferior to it, but Davis and the Confederate Congress never got around to appointing justices to a Supreme Court of the Confederacy. I believe most of the district court judges simply continued serving in the antebellum benches. Given that early American courts frequently cited British common law precedent from before the Revolution (and the Supreme Court still cites pre-revolutionary British common law to this day), I'd theorize that the Confederate district courts continued to operate under prior precedent unless that precedent was explicitly changed -- but don't cite me on that.
State courts, to my knowledge, functioned the same way they did before secession since the states themselves didn't change. It'd be interesting to see the extent to which the Confederate courts changed after 1865, because Republican state legislatures theoretically could've created a whole new judiciary by ousting the sitting judges on treason charges. That'd be interesting to research too.
If you do end up researching the Confederate judiciary, please send me your findings! My interest has definitely been piqued.
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[
"Confederate district courts were authorized by Article III, Section 1, of the Confederate Constitution, and President Davis appointed judges within the individual states of the Confederate States of America. In many cases, the same US Federal District Judges were appointed as Confederate States District Judges. Confederate district courts began reopening in early 1861, handling many of the same type cases as had been done before. Prize cases, in which Union ships were captured by the Confederate Navy or raiders and sold through court proceedings, were heard until the blockade of southern ports made this impossible. After a Sequestration Act was passed by the Confederate Congress, the Confederate district courts heard many cases in which enemy aliens (typically Northern absentee landlords owning property in the South) had their property sequestered (seized) by Confederate Receivers.\n",
"The Confederate Constitution outlined a judicial branch of the government, but the ongoing war and resistance from states-rights advocates, particularly on the question of whether it would have appellate jurisdiction over the state courts, prevented the creation or seating of the \"Supreme Court of the Confederate States;\" the state courts generally continued to operate as they had done, simply recognizing the Confederate States as the national government.\n",
"The Confederate Constitution was modeled on that of the United States, allowing for an independent judiciary - a Supreme Court and various subordinate courts, and in addition each state had its own judicial system. Prior to the advent of Featherston, the judiciary was independent and on occasion made rulings displeasing to members of the legislative and executive branches - though discrimination of Blacks, first as slaves and later as non-citizen \"residents\", was a basic ingredient of the system which the courts consistently upheld (and which was, in fact, never challenged by any significant force among white Confederates)\n",
"The only two \"formal, national, functioning, civilian administrative bodies\" in the Civil War South were the Jefferson Davis administration and the Confederate Congresses. The Confederacy was begun by the Provisional Congress in Convention at Montgomery, Alabama on February 28, 1861. It had one vote per state in a unicameral assembly.\n",
"Although the Confederate States Supreme Court was never constituted, the supreme courts of the various Confederate states issued numerous decisions interpreting the Confederate Constitution. Unsurprisingly, given that the Confederate Constitution was based on the United States Constitution, the Confederate State Supreme Courts often used United States Supreme Court precedents. The jurisprudence of the Marshall Court, thus, influenced the interpretation of the Confederate Constitution. The state courts repeatedly upheld robust powers of the Confederate Congress, especially on matters of military necessity.\n",
"During the Civil War the Confederate Constitution set up a government with a president and a legislature, which was composed of a Senate and House of Representatives. The Confederate congressional atlas maps the districts, characteristics, elections and roll call voting behavior of this institution. The illustration shows the Union occupation status of the 106 districts of the Confederate House of Representatives in late 1863 and early 1864. Note the Confederacy admitted the slave states of Missouri and Kentucky, and they had full voting rights in the Confederate Congress, in spite of being Union controlled virtually from the beginning of the war, and in spite of their continued representation in the United States Congress. At the end of the First Confederate Congress only a little over a half of the House districts (52.8%) were unoccupied. The Union occupied areas mostly supported the increasingly stringent legislative proposals of Confederate President Jefferson Davis with respect to measures like conscription, impressment and habeas corpus. In other words, Confederate congressmen from occupied districts tended to support increasing conscription knowing men from their areas would not be subject, but many representatives from unoccupied districts tended to vote no, knowing men from their areas would bear the brunt of being drafted.\n",
"The Civil War Battle of Barbourville was fought on September 19, 1861, between 800 Confederate soldiers from General Felix Zollicoffer's command and 300 Union troops who attempted to defend the Union's Camp Andrew Johnson. The Union men tore up the planks on the bridge in an attempt to keep the Confederates from crossing, but the more numerous Confederates succeeded anyway. They destroyed the camp and seized the arms and equipment it contained.\n"
] |
stock dividends
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If a corporation makes a profit, it may decide that it wants to share some of the corporation's profits with its owners (known as shareholders). The profit that is paid by a corporation to its shareholders is called the dividend. The dividend is issued "per share", which means that the corporation might pay $1 per share. In that situation, someone who owns 10 shares of the corporation's stock would receive $10 and someone else who owns 25 shares would get $25. The corporation is free to decide the amount it pays per share.
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[
"In 1982 the dividend yield on the S&P 500 Index reached 6.7%. Over the following 16 years, the dividend yield declined to just a percentage value of 1.4% during 1998, because stock prices increased faster than dividend payments from earnings, and public company earnings increased slower than stock prices. During the 20th century, the highest growth rates for earnings and dividends over any 30-year period were 6.3% annually for dividends, and 7.8% for earnings\n",
"The dividend yield of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is obtained from the annual dividends of all 30 companies in the average divided by their cumulative stock price, has also been considered to be an important indicator of the strength of the U.S. stock market. Historically, the Dow Jones dividend yield has fluctuated between 3.2% (during market highs, for example in 1929) and around 8.0% (during typical market lows). The highest ever Dow Jones dividend yield occurred in 1932 when it yielded over 15%, which was years after the famous stock market collapse of 1929, when it yielded only 3.1%.\n",
"Unlike preferred stock, there is no stipulated dividend for common stock (\"ordinary shares\" in the UK). Instead, dividends paid to holders of common stock are set by management, usually with regard to the company's earnings. There is no guarantee that future dividends will match past dividends or even be paid at all. The historic yield is calculated using the following formula:\n",
"A high dividend yield indicates undervaluation of the stock because the stock's dividend is high relative to the stock price. High dividend yields are a particularly sought after by income and value investors. High-yield stocks tend to outperform low yield and no yield stocks during bear markets because many investors consider dividend paying stocks to be less risky.\n",
"A common stock dividend is the dividend paid to common stock owners from the profits of the company. Like other dividends, the payout is in the form of either cash or stock. The law may regulate the size of the common stock dividend particularly when the payout is a cash distribution tantamount to a liquidation. Such cash dividends may serve the intent of defrauding creditors.\n",
"Dividend payments on preferred stocks (\"preference shares\" in the UK) are set out in the prospectus. The name of the preferred share will typically include its nominal yield: for example, a 6% preferred share. However, the dividend may under some circumstances be passed or reduced. The current yield is the ratio of the annual dividend to the current market price, which will vary.\n",
"The Board of Directors considers the declaration of dividends four times each year, with checks for dividends declared on common stock mailed for receipt on 10 March, June, September, and December. In 2008, the dividend was $0.30 per share, the highest in company history, but on April 27, 2009, it was reduced to $0.05 per share. Dividends may be paid by mailed check, direct electronic deposit into a bank account, or be reinvested in additional shares of U.S. Steel common stock.\n"
] |
what determines whether a pro sports team is named after a city (dallas cowboys), or after a state (minnesota vikings)?
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That’s completely up to the team owner(s), they can name it whatever they like.
Look at the Angels in baseball, for example. Over they years, they’ve been the California Angels, Anaheim Angels, Los Angeles Angels, and now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
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[
"Some other sports teams gained their names from being in Minnesota before relocating. The Los Angeles Lakers get their name from once being based in Minneapolis, the City of Lakes. The Dallas Stars also derived their present name from their tenure as a Minnesota team, the Minnesota North Stars.\n",
"The game did not have licenses from the NFL, NFLPA or the NCAA. Because of this, pro teams were only referred to by city (Green Bay, Pittsburgh, etc.), state (Minnesota) or region (New England). Most of the college teams featured were ones with names that were based geographically (Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.) or militaristic (Army and Navy). This feature was purely cosmetic as the teams all played the same regardless of which one was chosen. It also allowed users to choose their own team colors no matter which team they chose.\n",
"Teams are referred to by city only, usually the city in which the real life team's stadium is located. The New England Patriots are referred to as \"Foxboro\", the Tennessee Oilers as \"Nashville\", the Arizona Cardinals as \"Phoenix\", the Minnesota Vikings as \"Minneapolis\", the Tampa Bay Buccaneers simply as \"Tampa\", the Carolina Panthers as \"Charlotte\", and a historic team, the Los Angeles Rams referred to as \"Anaheim\". Team uniforms are altered; all uniforms have white pants, helmet colors are often altered to be different from jerseys (only the Denver Broncos's home jersey and helmet are the same color), and even some already different colors are changed – Foxboro's helmet in this game is red, and Charlotte's is Carolina blue, when in real life both were silver.\n",
"Tecmo was not able to get the NFL's consent to use real team names. As a result, the teams in the game are identified solely by their home city or state. However, through the NFLPA license, each roster mimics that of the NFL team based out of the same city or state. Tecmo Bowl only uses players from twelve of the best and most popular teams of the time.\n",
"The teams fielded by NFL clubs bore little resemblance to those the fans had come to recognize through previous seasons. Fans tagged the replacement player teams with mock names like \"Seattle Sea-scabs.\"\n",
"In the Russian sports tradition, each team has a proper name written in parentheses followed by the indication of the city it represents in brackets: \"Spartak\" (Moscow), rather than Moscow Spartak, as would be in the English-language tradition. In English, the parentheses and brackets are usually omitted. Further, while North American team names normally use the plural (Chicago Bulls), Russian team names are usually singular. The names tend to reflect the imagined profession of the team players (or rather their fans, like with Edmonton Oilers), or refer to a geographical object related to the city the team represents (usually, a river or a mountain range), or to one of the former Russian-wide sports associations (Spartak, Dynamo etc.), or else to the sponsoring corporation. Below is the list of Second Division teams with their names translated:\n",
"Six franchises were ultimately added: the California Seals (San Francisco – Oakland), Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and St. Louis Blues. Had one of the teams been unable to start, a franchise would have then been awarded to Baltimore. Four of those teams are still playing in their original cities under their original names. In 1978, the North Stars merged with the Cleveland Barons, who were the relocated Seals, and in 1993 the North Stars became the Dallas Stars. Both the San Francisco-Oakland market and the Minneapolis-St. Paul markets were eventually granted new teams as the San Jose Sharks and the Minnesota Wild.\n"
] |
If I travel fast enough to red or blue shift radio waves, what would happen to the sound coming from a radio program?
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In both cases you would hear the signal speed up or slow down, and in both cases you would have to adjust your tuner up or down. Both the modulating (high frequency) and modulated (voice or music) signals are functions of linear-time (in opposition to time squared or the log of time), so if a 500THz red light gets shifted down to 400THz, your radio station at 100MHz will be shifted down to 80MHz, and the 1KHz test tone will shift down to 800Hz.
Modulation is cool because the modulated signal is still present in its original form. In the case of AM, you can pick it out by connecting the peaks or valleys of the modulated wave. In FM, you can pick it out by shifting the spectrum around -- which is incidentally exactly what happens when you have red or blue shift!
You could almost say that traveling at a certain rate is the same thing as single-sideband FM modulation!
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[
"BULLET::::- Some digitally-tuned FM radios are unable to tune using 50 kHz or even 100 kHz increments. Therefore, when traveling abroad, stations that broadcast on certain frequencies using such increments may not be heard clearly. This problem will not affect reception on an analog-tuned radio.\n",
"Very high frequency radio waves can be refracted by inversions, making it possible to hear FM radio or watch VHF low-band television broadcasts from long distances on foggy nights. The signal, which would normally be refracted up and away from the ground-based antenna, is instead refracted down towards the earth by the temperature-inversion boundary layer. This phenomenon is called tropospheric ducting. Along coast lines during Autumn and Spring, due to multiple stations being simultaneously present because of reduced propagation losses, many FM radio stations are plagued by severe signal degradation causing them to sound scrambled.\n",
"Since there is no error correction, the digital part of a SAME message is transmitted three times, so that decoders can pick \"best two out of three\" for each byte, thereby eliminating most errors which can cause an activation to fail. However, consumer weather radio receivers often activate (unmute the audio) after hearing only one out of the three headers (\"with a significant delay\").\n",
"If the shifted return light is then interfered with the original source, the resulting wave will have a beat frequency in the range of a few GHz. This beat frequency is slow enough that it can be monitored with a simple photo-detector and high speed oscilloscope. By recording the beat frequency over time, a complete velocity history of the surface is obtained.\n",
"Radio waves in a vacuum travel at the speed of light. When passing through a material medium, they are slowed according to that object's permeability and permittivity. Air is thin enough that in the Earth's atmosphere radio waves travel very close to the speed of light.\n",
"A separate radio control switch stopped the radio signal from broadcasting while the clock continued to move. This allowed the pilot to set up the system early in the flight, and then turn it off when better communications were needed, like in combat. The system could then be turned on again at any time, with the clock still in the proper position. Sector Commanders could ask pilots to turn it on by asking \"Is your Cockerel crowing?\".\n",
"Radio waves in vacuum travel at the speed of light. The Earth's atmosphere is thin enough that radio waves in the atmosphere travel very close to the speed of light, but variations in density and temperature can cause some slight refraction (bending) of waves over distances.\n"
] |
What makes an explosive effective at different jobs?
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Something not mentioned yet is that different explosives have differing degrees of 'brisance'. Think of it as the 'shattering capability' - one explosion might 'push' an object away at high speed, where another might shatter it into tiny fragments but not necessarily propel those fragments as fast.
C4 has extremely high brisance for antipersonnel and anti-armour, and gunpowder has low brisance for launching objects.
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[
"To determine the suitability of an explosive substance for a particular use, its physical properties must first be known. The usefulness of an explosive can only be appreciated when the properties and the factors affecting them are fully understood. Some of the more important characteristics are listed below:\n",
"Because the components of these devices are being used in a manner not intended by their manufacturer, and because the method of producing the explosion is limited only by the science and imagination of the perpetrator, it is not possible to follow a step-by-step guide to detect and disarm a device that an individual has only recently developed. As such, explosive ordnance disposal (IEDD) operators must be able to fall back on their extensive knowledge of the first principles of explosives and ammunition, to try and deduce what the perpetrator has done, and only then to render it safe and dispose of or exploit the device. Beyond this, as the stakes increase and IEDs are emplaced not only to achieve the direct effect, but to deliberately target IEDD operators and cordon personnel, the IEDD operator needs to have a deep understanding of tactics to ensure he is neither setting up any of his team or the cordon troops for an attack, nor walking into one himself. The presence of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) material in an IED requires additional precautions. As with other missions, the EOD operator provides the area commander with an assessment of the situation and of support needed to complete the mission.\n",
"Sensitivity, stability and brisance are three of the most significant properties of explosives that affect their use and application. All explosive compounds have a certain amount of energy required to initiate. If an explosive is too sensitive, it may go off accidentally. A safer explosive is less sensitive and will not explode if accidentally dropped or mishandled. However, such explosives are more difficult to initiate intentionally.\n",
"Sensitivity is an important consideration in selecting an explosive for a particular purpose. The explosive in an armor-piercing projectile must be relatively insensitive, or the shock of impact would cause it to detonate before it penetrated to the point desired. The explosive lenses around nuclear charges are also designed to be highly insensitive, to minimize the risk of accidental detonation.\n",
"Explosive compounds may exist in material states that limit their application. For instance, nitroglycerin is normally an oily liquid. Phlegmatization of nitroglycerin allows it to be formed as a solid, commonly known as dynamite. It also allows the liquid, which is very sensitive to shock, to be handled more vigorously.\n",
"It does not necessarily involve different explosive compounds. Because the properties of an explosive compound is in some degree related to its density, which is a result of with what pressure it is compressed during manufacture, the stages in a staged detonation may also come from each section having been pressed to a different density, giving it varying properties.\n",
"Still less sensitive materials such as blasting agents like ANFO, or shell fillings like Composition B, are so insensitive that the impulse from the detonator must be amplified by an explosive booster charge to secure reliable detonation. Some polymer bonded explosives — especially those based on TATB — are designed for use in insensitive munitions, which are unlikely to detonate even if struck by another explosive weapon.\n"
] |
why do wombat's poop cubes?
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Wombats poop on top of rocks and logs near their burrows. The reason for this is not to keep intruders away, but to use as an indicator to know where their home is. Wombats have terrible eyesight however they have an extraordinary sense of smell. The reason for these rubiks poop is because if the Wombat's are to effectively effectively smell their way home, their turds must remain where they dropped it, hence the fact that their excretion is cube, not circular. Who want's their shit rolling away?
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[
"In wombats and marsupial moles, the pouch opens backward or down. Backwards facing pouches would not work well in kangaroos or opossums as their young would readily fall out. Similarly, forward-facing pouches would not work well for wombats and marsupial moles as they both dig extensively underground. Their pouches would fill up with dirt and suffocate the developing young. Kangaroo mothers will lick their pouches clean before the joey crawls inside. Kangaroo pouches are sticky to support their young joey. Koalas are unable to clean out their pouches since they face backwards, so just prior to giving birth to the young koala joey, a self-cleaning system is activated, secreting droplets of an anti-microbial liquid that cleans it out. In a relatively short time, the cleansing droplets clean out all of the crusty material left inside, leaving an almost sterile nursery ready to receive the tiny joey.\n",
"Wombats dig extensive burrow systems with their rodent-like front teeth and powerful claws. One distinctive adaptation of wombats is their backward pouch. The advantage of a backward-facing pouch is that when digging, the wombat does not gather soil in its pouch over its young. Although mainly crepuscular and nocturnal, wombats may also venture out to feed on cool or overcast days. They are not commonly seen, but leave ample evidence of their passage, treating fences as minor inconveniences to be gone through or under, and leaving distinctive cubic feces. As wombats arrange these feces to mark territories and attract mates, it is believed that the cubic shape makes them more stackable and less likely to roll, which gives this shape a biological advantage. The method by which the wombat produces them is not well understood, but it is believed that the wombat intestine stretches preferentially at the walls. The adult wombat produces between 80 and 100, pieces of feces in a single night, and four to eight pieces each bowel movement.\n",
"The pouch is a distinguishing feature of female marsupials and monotremes (and rarely in the males as in the water opossum and the extinct thylacine); the name marsupial is derived from the Latin \"marsupium\", meaning \"pouch\". Marsupials give birth to a live but relatively undeveloped fetus called a joey. When the joey is born it crawls from inside the mother to the pouch. The pouch is a fold of skin with a single opening that covers the teats. Inside the pouch, the blind offspring attaches itself to one of the mother’s teats and remains attached for as long as it takes to grow and develop to a juvenile stage. \n",
"The concept for Cubetto was inspired by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori's early learning methods and MIT's programming language LOGO, which was designed by a team directed by Seymour Papert in the 1960s as a way to teach children the basic principles of coding. The square \"ground\" robot that rotates only through 90 degrees while roaming a checkerboard field is similar to the screen robots (NAKIs) of the pioneering educational robotics language OZNAKI. Cubetto overall is a radical innovation, but its use of coloured pieces inserted in slots/holes for robot control and training is very similar to the TORTIS system\n",
"Mash and Peas was a parodic sketch show written by and starring Matt Lucas & David Walliams. Their first television work together, it originally aired on Paramount Comedy 1 and Channel 4 between 1996 and 1997. The episodes were repeated before the channel's relaunch in 1999. The programme is made up of parodies of various television genres, introduced by the childish and incompetent Danny Mash (Lucas) and Gareth Peas (Walliams). Edgar Wright directed and long-standing collaborator Paul Putner appeared throughout.\n",
"The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by Elisabeth Beresford and originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968. They live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford's stories are concerned with the lives of the inhabitants of the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London, England.\n",
"BULLET::::- The newborn marsupial uses its forelimbs (with relatively strong hands) to climb to a nipple, which is usually in a pouch on the mother's belly. The mother feeds the baby by contracting muscles over her mammary glands, as the baby is too weak to suck. The newborn marsupial's need to use its forelimbs in climbing to the nipple was historically thought to have restricted metatherian evolution, as it was assumed that the forelimb couldn't become specialised intro structures like wings, hooves or flippers. However, several bandicoots, most notably the pig-footed bandicoot, have true hooves similar to those of placental ungulates, and several marsupial gliders have evolved.\n"
] |
how does the army/military wash clothes while deployed?
|
At the laundry. Deployed at base you still sleep in a bed/cot. Deployed in the field, you don't wash
|
[
"Many parts of the world still use washboards for washing clothes. Clothes are soaked in hot soapy water in a washtub or sink, then squeezed and rubbed against the ridged surface of the washboard to force the cleansing fluid through the cloth to carry away dirt. Washboards may also be used for washing in a river, with or without soap. Then the clothes are rinsed. The rubbing has a similar effect to beating the clothes and household linen on rocks, an ancient method, but is less abrasive. Military personnel often use washboards to do their laundry when no local laundry facilities exist.\n",
"The main purpose of a wash rack is to clean equipment while protecting the environment from contaminates commonly found on construction, maintenance and military vehicles or equipment. To comply with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations, which are intended to prevent soil-borne insects or other potentially harmful organisms from entering the United States, U.S. military vehicles and equipment must be thoroughly washed before being shipped home. As such, wash racks are commonly used by the US military to ensure vehicles are clean and safe before they are brought back into the country.\n",
"Upon arrival at the final destination in Camp Virginia, Kuwait, soldiers stripped their Strykers and prepared them for the wash-racks. At the site, soldiers and civilian contractors spent approximately 32 hours per vehicle, completely cleaning them both inside and out.\n",
"A field shower is equipment used to provide sanitation and decontamination facilities to military personnel, equipment and vehicles using various liquids, including water in the field of operations. Usually the showering facility is provided by the combat service support elements or decontamination units to combat units deployed away from permanent properties that offer the facilities, or when combat units have been exposed to hazardous chemicals and need to quickly decontaminate themselves.\n",
"Forward Operating Base Paliwoda, like many bases in Iraq, has portable shower units for soldiers to use. But at Paliwoda, persistent problems with the makeshift electrical system installed by an Iraqi contractor mean the water often is cold if it is running at all. The MWR (Morale, Welfare and Relaxation) building at Paliwoda began with about 15 computers and 10 telephones for soldiers to communicate with family at home, a second-hand ping pong table, a television, and a few board games; it has since been reduced to the telephones and computers. Once a day a convoy delivers food from the Kellogg, Brown and Root chow hall at Anaconda, unless the unit in control of the FOB has cooks attached to them. Also there is a gym with weight lifting equipment.\n",
"BULLET::::- Laundry service: Volunteers pick up soiled linens and bedclothes from the homes of incontinent individuals, wash and iron them, and return them. This service is available in Israel's three major cities for a nominal fee.\n",
"Medical unit sends soldiers medicines for general purpose (anti-inflammatory and antipyretic agents, antibiotics) and specialized individual first aid kits, staffed nearly NATO standards (military IFAKs). The structure includes hemostatic Celox, Combat-Application-Tourniquets, bandages... As of December 2014 the troops were transferred more than five thousand of these kits.\n"
] |
in movie scenes depicting large crowds or groups, do the extras usually have scripted dialogue or do they ad-lib?
|
They aren't talking at all. They are just pretending to talk. The sound is added in later. If they really talked it would interfere with the main actors dialogue recording. Sometimes directors will give them some motivation (like ask one couple in the background to pretend to argue or something). Even if they are working or doing something they are asked to do it completely silently.
Source: I work in the film industry.
|
[
"Virtually all dialogue in the film is improvised. Actors were given outlines indicating where scenes would begin and end and character information necessary to avoid contradictions, but everything else came from the actors. As often as possible, the first take was used in the film, to capture natural reactions. \n",
"The cinema was used as the setting for a number of stunts in the British sketch show, \"Trigger Happy TV\". Filming was facilitated by the cinema having a balcony from which aerial shots could be taken, and the apparent willingness of the management to subject their patrons to some hilarious (and ultimately harmless) pranks. Various sketches involved the show's presenter, Dom Joly, along with extras from the show, annoying cinema-goers by dressing up as severely obese people trying to squeeze past whilst spilling popcorn from massively oversized buckets, sitting in front of them with enormous fake wigs, and dressing up as Beefeaters taking up whole rows of seats. Other more bizarre incidents involved the use of animal costumes. In one scene two rabbits were seen simulating sexual intercourse, and in another Joly dressed up as a snake and slithered around on the floor, as a supposed addition to a screening advising people to be vigilant about pick-pockets.\n",
"There was a lot of improvisation when it came to shooting the film. Each of the main actors had information withheld about the other characters' backstory and were instead given the scenarios in which the characters would interact. The relationships between the characters were thus loosely built upon the actors' real world interactions.\n",
"Many of the sequences are filmed in deliberately crude, low-budget or otherwise comical manners, and the actors do not always resemble the original cast. One scene is a stop-motion sequence using Lego \"Star Wars\" figurines. Another mimics the animation style of the 1968 Beatles film \"Yellow Submarine\". Others are parodies of specific pop culture subgenres, such as anime and grindhouse films. \"Star Wars\" Pez candy dispensers are featured prominently in some scenes.\n",
"These so-called \"process shots\" were widely used to film actors as if they were inside a moving vehicle, who were, in reality, in a vehicle mock-up on a soundstage. In these cases the motion of the backdrop film and foreground actors and props were often different due to the lack of steadicam-like imaging from the moving vehicles used to produce the plate. This was most noticeable as bumps and jarring motions of the background image that would not be duplicated by the actors.\n",
"At a panel on acting at the Telluride Film Festival, the actors spoke of the challenge of working in a two-camera system. Unlike traditionally shot and cut films, the actors knew that all moments of a take could end up on screen and thus 'acted through' every take. The actors were constantly 'in the moment'. The resulting film presents the actors' work in the way musicians play in a duet, with action, dialogue and reaction running on both sides of the frame in real time. The movie presents two remarkable achievements in screen acting.\n",
"For much of the film, they do versions of many of their recorded characters (with the exception of Pedro and the Man, whom they had already portrayed on film in \"Up in Smoke\") and several new skits. As most of the sketches featured did not directly fit into the narrative, they are instead presented as cutaways. The final act of the movie features their live performance (filmed at the Tuschinski Theater in September 1982), climaxing with a version of the \"Ralph And Herbie\" routine.\n"
] |
Do animals get tired of eating the same food day after day?
|
Another point to be considered is the number of taste buds the animal has. The dog for example, has about 1/6 the amount of tastebuds that a human has. Another interesting example is the chicken which has somewhere around 16 tastebuds.
|
[
"It is common for animals (even those like hummingbirds that have high energy needs) to forage for food until satiated, and then spend most of their time doing nothing, or at least nothing in particular. They seek to \"satisfice\" their needs rather than obtaining an optimal diet or habitat. Even diurnal animals, which have a limited amount of daylight in which to accomplish their tasks, follow this pattern. Social activity comes in a distant third to eating and resting for foraging animals. When more time must be spent foraging, animals are more likely to sacrifice time spent on aggressive behavior than time spent resting. Extremely efficient predators have more free time and thus often appear more lazy than relatively inept predators that have little free time. Beetles likewise seem to forage lazily due to a lack of foraging competitors. On the other hand, some animals, such as pigeons and rats, seem to prefer to respond for food rather than eat equally available \"free food\" in some conditions.\n",
"As with birds, the main rule for mammals (with certain exceptions, see below) is that they have two essentially different stages of sleep: REM and NREM sleep (see above). Mammals' feeding habits are associated with their sleep length. The daily need for sleep is highest in carnivores, lower in omnivores and lowest in herbivores. Humans sleep less than many other omnivores but otherwise not unusually much or unusually little in comparison with other mammals. Many herbivores, like Ruminantia (such as cattle), spend much of their wake time in a state of drowsiness, which perhaps could partly explain their relatively low need for sleep. In herbivores, an inverse correlation is apparent between body mass and sleep length; big mammals sleep less than smaller ones. This correlation is thought to explain about 25% of the difference in sleep amount between different mammals. Also, the length of a particular sleep cycle is associated with the size of the animal; on average, bigger animals will have sleep cycles of longer durations than smaller animals. Sleep amount is also coupled to factors like basal metabolism, brain mass, and relative brain mass. The duration of sleep among species is also directly related to basal metabolic rate (BMR). Rats, which have a high BMR, sleep for up to 14 hours a day, whereas elephants and giraffes, which have lower BMRs, sleep only 3–4 hours per day.\n",
"Early in the morning, the animals leave their nightly shelters, which are usually hollows protected by thick bushes or hedges, to bask in the sun and warm their bodies. They then roam about the Mediterranean meadows of their habitat in search of food. They determine which plants to eat by the sense of smell. (In captivity, they are known to eat dandelions, clover, and lettuce, as well as the leaves, flowers, and pods of almost all legumes.) In addition to leaves and flowers, the animals eat small amounts of fruits as supplementary nutrition.\n",
"Horses have a strong grazing instinct, preferring to spend most hours of the day eating forage. Horses and other equids evolved as grazing animals, adapted to eating small amounts of the same kind of food all day long. In the wild, the horse adapted to eating prairie grasses in semi-arid regions and traveling significant distances each day in order to obtain adequate nutrition. Thus, they are \"trickle eaters,\" meaning they have to have an almost constant supply of food to keep their digestive system working properly. Horses can become anxious or stressed if there are long periods of time between meals. When stabled, they do best when they are fed on a regular schedule; they are creatures of habit and easily upset by changes in routine. When horses are in a herd, their behavior is hierarchical; the higher-ranked animals in the herd eat and drink first. Low-status animals, that eat last, may not get enough food, and if there is little available feed, higher-ranking horses may keep lower-ranking ones from eating at all.\n",
"Animal foods become more important during the summer breeding season and may be the primary food source at that time of year, especially while regurgitating to young. Their animal foods are insects, especially dragonflies, and also snails, earthworms, crabs, spiders, millipedes, woodlice, amphibians, rodents, and small birds.\n",
"They spend most of the daylight time foraging, except around noon when they take some time to rest, preen and socialize at the river banks, where they also sleep. The food of \"M. squamatus\" consists of aquatic arthropods, frogs and small to medium-sized fish. Stonefly (Plecoptera) and Phryganeidae giant caddisfly larvae may constitute the bulk of its diet when available. Beetles and crustaceans are eaten less regularly, though the latter may be more important in autumn. As aquatic insect larvae hatch in the course of the summer, fish become more prominent in the diet. Favorite fish species include the dojo loach (\"Misgurnus anguillicaudatus\") and the lenok \"Brachymystax lenok\". More rarely eaten are such species as the lamprey \"Eudontomyzon morii\", the sculpin \"Mesocottus haitej\", or the Arctic grayling (\"Thymallus arcticus\"). Thus, they are opportunistic feeders; regarding fish, they will probably eat any species that has the correct elongated shape and small size.\n",
"Adults feed from the mouths of their retreats or move about in search of prey at night. Olfaction and sight play important roles in locating food. Animals are active away from cover at night, and also during raised water levels and increased turbidity. Individuals are inactive when stream temperatures exceed 18 °C.\n"
] |
why has the euro held its value for so many years, then all of the sudden dropped to almost the same value as the usd?
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I don't care how anyone ELI5 this question but please do it using an analogy with candy or something.
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[
"In the second term of 2007, euro as a reserve currency had reached a record level of 25.6% (a +0.8% increase from the year before) – at the expense of the US dollar, which dropped to 64.8% (a drop of 1.3% from the year before). By the end of 2007, shares of euro increased to 26.4% as the dollar slumped to its lowest level since records began in 1999, 63.8%.\n",
"Since its introduction, the euro has been the second most widely held international reserve currency after the US dollar. The euro inherited this status from the German mark, and since its introduction, it has increased its standing, mostly at the expense of the dollar. The increase of 4.4% in 2002 is due to the introduction of euro banknotes and coins in January 2002.\n",
"Soon after its introduction, the real unexpectedly gained value against the U.S. dollar, due to large capital inflows in late 1994 and 1995. During that period it attained its maximum dollar value ever, about US$1.20. Between 1996 and 1998 the exchange rate was tightly controlled by the Central Bank of Brazil, so that the real depreciated slowly and smoothly in relation to the dollar, dropping from near 1:1 to about 1.2:1 by the end of 1998. In January 1999 the deterioration of the international markets, disrupted by the Russian default, forced the Central Bank, under its new president Arminio Fraga, to float the exchange rate. This decision produced a major devaluation, to a rate of almost R$2:US$1.\n",
", the euro surpassed the dollar in the combined value of cash in circulation. The value of euro notes in circulation has risen to more than €610 billion, equivalent to US$800 billion at the exchange rates at the time. A 2016 report by the World Trade Organisation shows that the world's energy, food and services trade are made 60% with US dollar and 40% by euro.\n",
"The euro is the second-most widely held reserve currency after the U.S. dollar. After its introduction on 4 January 1999 its exchange rate against the other major currencies fell reaching its lowest exchange rates in 2000 (3 May vs Pound sterling, 25 October vs the U.S. dollar, 26 October vs Japanese yen). Afterwards it regained and its exchange rate reached its historical highest point in 2008 (15 July vs U.S. dollar, 23 July vs Japanese yen, 29 December vs Pound sterling). With the advent of the global financial crisis the euro initially fell, to regain later. Despite pressure due to the European sovereign-debt crisis the euro remained stable. In November 2011 the euro's exchange rate index – measured against currencies of the bloc's major trading partners – was trading almost two percent higher on the year, approximately at the same level as it was before the crisis kicked off in 2007.\n",
"The pound and the euro fluctuate in value against one another, although there may be correlation between movements in their respective exchange rates with other currencies such as the US dollar. Inflation concerns in the UK led the Bank of England to raise interest rates in late 2006 and 2007. This caused the pound to appreciate against other major currencies and, with the US dollar depreciating at the same time, the pound hit a 15-year high against the US dollar on 18 April 2007, reaching US$2 the day before, for the first time since 1992. The pound and many other currencies continued to appreciate against the dollar; sterling hit a 26-year high of US$2.1161 on 7 November 2007 as the dollar fell worldwide. From mid-2003 to mid-2007, the pound/euro rate remained within a narrow range (€1.45 ± 5%).\n",
"The value of the U.S. dollar was therefore no longer anchored to gold, and it fell upon the Federal Reserve to maintain the value of the U.S. currency. The Federal Reserve, however, continued to increase the money supply, resulting in stagflation and a rapidly declining value of the U.S. dollar in the 1970s. This was largely due to the prevailing economic view at the time that inflation and real economic growth were linked (the Phillips curve), and so inflation was regarded as relatively benign. Between 1965 and 1981, the U.S. dollar lost two thirds of its value.\n"
] |
the modern "war on women"
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There are a variety of issues that have come up that seem to relegate women to second class citizens, two of the biggest being birth control and abortion.
The fact that viagra is covered by insurance, but some are fighting to keep birth control uncovered. Many in the media hinted that women who needed birth control were sluts.
The bill that would require women to undergo an invasive vaginal ultrasound (which many likened to being raped) before an abortion. The idea being that they would change their mind after seeing their unborn baby.
In addition, tax breaks for women who stay home and have children lead to an environment where women are encouraged to give up careers for children and their husbands.
There is nothing wrong with women or men staying home or being chaste, but when the government is supporting this, it creates an oppressive environment.
|
[
"The modern Women Against War movement was created by women in the Capital Region and surrounding communities. The vision statement of the modern-day movement is that war is not the answer and that women can help to develop alternatives to violence.\n",
"This timeline of women in warfare and the military (1900–45) deals with the role of women in the military around the world from 1900 through 1945. By the end of the 19th century, women in some countries were starting to serve in limited roles in various branches of the military. The two major events in this time period were World War I and World War II. Please see Women in World War I and Women in World War II for more information.\n",
"A prominent basis for much of feminist scholarship on war is to emphasize the ways in which men are seen as the sole actors in war. Women, on the other hand, are commonly conceived of as acted upon throughout conflict and conflict resolutions. As asserted by Swati Parashar, they are documented as “grieving widows and mothers, selfless nurses and anti-war activists”. The reality is that women play various roles in war and for different reasons, depending on the conflict. It is noted that women have actively participated in war since the mid-nineteenth century. This process of eliminating women from war is a tool used to discredit women as agents in the international arena. A focal point for many feminist scholars is mass rape during wartime. These scholars will seek to explain why wartime sexual violence is so prevalent through history and today. Some scholars turn to explanations such as rape as a weapon or as a reward for soldiers during the war. Others see sexual violence as an inevitable consequence when social restraints are removed. \n",
"Women have been active in peace movements since the 19th century. After the First World War broke out in 1914, many women's organizations became involved in peace activities. In 1915, the International Congress of Women in the Hague brought together representatives from women's associations in several countries, leading to the establishment of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. This in turn led to national chapters which continued their work in the 1920s and 1930s. After the Second World War, European women once again became involved in peace initiatives, mainly as a result of the Cold War, while from the 1960s the Vietnam War led to renewed interest in the United States.\n",
"The 2012 collection of military history essays about the changing role of women in warfare, \"Women in War – from home front to front line\" includes a chapter featuring phage therapy: \"Chapter 17: Women who thawed the Cold War\".\n",
"This is a timeline of women in warfare in the United States up until the end of World War II. It encompasses the colonial era and indigenous peoples, as well as the entire geographical modern United States, even though some of the areas mentioned were not incorporated into the United States during the time periods that they were mentioned.\n",
"This article lists events involving women in warfare and the military in the United States from 2000 until 2010. For 2011 onward, please see Timeline of women in warfare and the military in the United States from 2011–present.\n"
] |
if one had an electric motor on a car that turned one wheel and three generators on the other three wheels, with two battery banks (one charging and one being used) could i run this car forever?
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No.
You're using energy to pull the car *and* using energy to turn the generating wheels to store again as energy. So that, alone, means your plan can't work. Let's say the car takes 50 watts to move, and each generator wheel needs, oh, 10 watts of power to turn and generate power. That means your motor wheel (*in an ideal universe without thermodynamics...we'll get to that later*) would need to put out 30 watts of power *just to turn the other wheels*. But it also has to drag the car, so the total the motor wheel has to use is 80 watts, but you're just getting 30, so no matter what you have a net loss of 50. Even if the car only took a fraction of a watt to move, it would still be a net loss of power.
But way more importantly, thermodynamics is a thing. Energy is *never* transferred without loss. The wires don't transfer the electricity from the batteries perfectly, so you lose a little. The motor wheel loses energy to friction against the road. The generator wheels also lose friction to the road. The wires lose energy to the batteries, etc.
If you just had a motor directly turning a generator, you would *still* lose energy. That's like asking if a crank can turn itself...
*Those numbers are just made up off the top of my head and wildly inaccurate.
|
[
"From the 1930s to late 1940s, Nelco Industries made a three-wheeled battery powered vehicle. Steering was by means of a tiller connected to the front wheel. The tiller also provided speed control. Forward or reverse by a separate control. The 24 volt electric motor could act as a generator to recharge the battery when going downhill. The motor was 24 volt.\n",
"An early electric-powered two-wheel cycle was put on display at the 1867 World Exposition in Paris by the Austrian inventor Franz Kravogl, but it was regarded as a curiosity and could not drive reliably in the street. Another cycle, this time with three wheels, was tested along a Paris street in April 1881 by French inventor Gustave Trouvé \n",
"Each engine has two small motors that generate while spinning at 40 000 rpm. The first-stage battery, which has to power the pumps of nine engines simultaneously, can provide over 1 MW of electric power.\n",
"As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport, a Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter.\n",
"As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport, a Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter.\n",
"Sets with battery-powered electric motors were available; these sets also typically included at least one wooden \"double pulley,\" with a single snug-fitting through-drilled center hole, and grooved rims at two diameters, allowing different moving parts to operate at different speeds.\n",
"The vehicle has two electric motors, one on the front axle and one on the rear axle. It is all-wheel drive and has a power output of and . The battery is floor-mounted and has an estimated range of . \n"
] |
Why were European states such as Britain, France, Germany and more, able and willing to colonize and conquer places like Africa, the Americas, and more?
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Oh dear. I'll be frank with you: the reason why you haven't received an answer to this question is because the answer would be enormous. You could spend the rest of your life studying how these questions apply to but a single group of people - like the Maya - and never arrive at a definitive conclusion.
I'm a bit occupied at the moment but I want to point you in the direction of [a series of posts I made a while back.](_URL_0_) A redditor asked why people in the United States do not say that native peoples were conquered, another user replied incorrectly, and I offered a brief overview of how Europe responded to the conquest. I think the linked reply will give you a taste of how complex the "motivation" question is.
But the real issue I want to discuss is the "why couldn't indigenous peoples defend themselves". Again, I want to point you to [a post](_URL_1_) I made on that thread which contextualizes the topic you are talking about. After you have read that material, why don't we see what questions you have and we can go from there?
|
[
"After their discovery of the New World in the 15th century, European states began trying to establish New World colonies. England, the Dutch Republic, France, Portugal, and Spain were the most active.\n",
"During the early modern period, some European nation-states and their agents adopted policies of colonialism, competing with each other to establish colonies outside of Europe, at first in the Americas, and later in Asia, Africa, and Oceania.\n",
"European nations entered their imperial projects with the goal of enriching the European metropole. Exploitation of non-Europeans and other Europeans to support imperial goals was acceptable to the colonisers. Two outgrowths of this imperial agenda were slavery and indentured servitude. In the 17th century, nearly two-thirds of English settlers came to North America as indentured servants.\n",
"In the 17th century, European powers had already successfully colonized some part of the world. England had a successful hold on North America and various other areas, including India, Spain had a large hold of South America and North America, and the Dutch had successful outposts in India. The French were beginning to colonize parts of North America, but did not have permanent settlements like the Spanish and British colonies.\n",
"The loss of overseas colonies partly also led many Western nations, particularly in continental Europe, to focus more on European, rather than global, politics as the European Union rose as an important entity. Though gone, the colonial empires left a formidable cultural and political legacy, with English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Dutch being spoken by peoples across far flung corners of the globe. European technologies were now global technologies – religions like Catholicism and Anglicanism, founded in the West, were booming in post colonial Africa and Asia. Parliamentary (or presidential) democracies, as well as rival Communist style one party states invented in the West had replaced traditional monarchies and tribal government models across the globe. Modernity, for many, was equated with Westernisation.\n",
"European Colonialism from the 16th to the early 20th centuries led to an imposition of a European colonies in many regions of the world, particularly in the Americas, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia, where European languages remain either prevalent or in frequent use as administrative languages. Major human migration before the 18th century was largely state directed. For instance, Spanish emigration to the New World was limited to settlers from Castile who were intended to act as soldiers or administrators. Mass immigration was not encouraged due to a labour shortage in Europe (of which Spain was the worst affected by a depopulation of its core territories in the 17th century).\n",
"Diamond also proposes geographical explanations for why western European societies, rather than other Eurasian powers such as China, have been the dominant colonizers, claiming Europe's geography favored balkanization into smaller, closer nation-states, bordered by natural barriers of mountains, rivers, and coastline. Threats posed by immediate neighbours ensured governments that suppressed economic and technological progress soon corrected their mistakes or were outcompeted relatively quickly, whilst the region's leading powers changed over time. Other advanced cultures developed in areas whose geography was conducive to large, monolithic, isolated empires, without competitors that might have forced the nation to reverse mistaken policies such as China banning the building of ocean-going ships. Western Europe also benefited from a more temperate climate than Southwestern Asia where intense agriculture ultimately damaged the environment, encouraged desertification, and hurt soil fertility.\n"
] |
What was life like in Spain in the early 70's?
|
I don't have any sources at hand but I will tell you what I remember from my Spanish High School history lessons:
Franco no longer is the dictator he was at the end of the Civil War, his aging and loosening of the executive power have made him a somewhat ceremonial figure, specially after he appointed his close confidant, admiral Luis Carrero Blanco as prime minister in june 1973. In this time ETA became an active threat, but they almost never made moves on civilians, and targeted mostly politicians and the military, Carrero Blanco himself being one of the casualties.
When talking about political issues you have to take into account that all Spanish parties besides Francoist movements were not dead in any way and were active either very discreetly or abroad. People did discuss politics but no real protests or manifestations ocurred because a) censorship was strict and powerful all the way until Franco's death and b) Spain was ending a period of incredible economic and social prosperity. Almost everyone everywhere was happy, had a wealthy lifestyle and managed to do things that many other western nations had done 40 years before, such as buying their own cars, partying, going to concerts and travelling. Tourism BOOMED in Spain, and has not stopped since. It is rumoured also that Francoist authorities somehow managed to rig the Eurovision Song Contest in favor of Spain in 1968, making a singer called Massiel win with an awful song called 'La La La'.
It was only after Franco's death that the country was somewhat shaken up and had some economic troubles and challenges, but once democracy had been brought back, it would most certainly have seemed that the country had been a stable democratic state in appearance for some time. Cuturally, economically and diplomatically speaking, the country was the same as its neigbours except for the fact that it was a dictatorship. By 1972 people were just waiting for Franco to die.
|
[
"The nightlife in Spain is very attractive to both tourists and locals. Spain is known to have some of the best nightlife in the world. Big cities such as Madrid and Barcelona are favorites amongst the large and popular discothèques. For instance, Madrid is known as the number one party city for clubs such as Pacha and Kapital (seven floors), and Barcelona is famous for Opium and Sutton famous clubs. The discothèques in Spain are open until odd hours such as 7am. The Baleraric Islands, such as Ibiza and Mallorca, are known to be major party destinations, as well as favored summer resort and in Andalusia, Malaga, specially the area of the Costa del Sol.\n",
"Night life in Ibiza has undergone several changes since the island's opening to international tourism in the late 1950s. Origins of today's club culture may be traced back to the hippie gatherings held during the 1960s and 1970s. During these, people of various nationalities sharing the hippie ethos would regroup, talk, play music and occasionally take drugs. These would most often happen on beaches during the day, with nude bathing a common sight, and in rented fincas in the evenings or at nights. Apart from this confidential scene, which nevertheless attracted many foreigners to the island, local venues during the 1960s consisted mostly of bars, which would be the meeting points for Ibicencos, ex-pats, seafarers and tourists alike. The Estrella bar on the port and La Tierra in the old city of Eivissa were favourites.\n",
"The 1940s and 1950s were a dark period in Spanish history, where the country was still recovering from the effects of the Spanish Civil War, where the economy was poor and people suffered a huge number of deprivations as a result of the loss of life and the repressive nature of the regime which sought to vanquish any and all remaining Republican support by going after anyone who had been affiliated with or expressed any sympathies towards the Second Republic.\n",
"A few years after the Spanish Civil War when some sort of order had been restored, the gradual breaking down of Spain's international isolation in the 1950s cleared the way for new options in tourism. The sea and the sun were drawing increasing numbers of people, which combined with the Côte d'Azur already being overcrowded in those days, enhanced the appeal of Costa Brava for holiday-makers who made their way there.\n",
"During the early 1990s, Spain experienced a period of economic crisis as a result of a larger, Europe-wide economic episode that led to a rise in unemployment rates. Many young adults in Spain found themselves trapped in a cycle of temporary jobs, which resulted in the creation of a secondary class of workers through reduced wages, job stability and advancement opportunities. As a result, many Spaniards, predominantly unmarried young adults, emigrated to other countries in order to pursue job opportunities and raise their standard of life, which left only a small amount of young adults living below the poverty line in Spain. Spain experienced another economic crisis during the 2000s, which also prompted a rise in Spanish citizens emigrating to neighboring countries with more job stability and better economic standings. Youth unemployment remains a concern in Spain, prompting researchers such as Anita Wölfl to suggest that Spain could decrease unemployment by making labor market programs and job-search assistance accessible to the most disadvantaged youth. She has also posited that this would improve Spain's weakened youth labor market, as issues with the school to work transition has made it difficult to find long-term employment. As a solution, Wölfl has suggested making improvements by matching their skills with businesses.\n",
"The first decades of the 20th century were as turbulent as in other regions of Spain. There was poverty in rural areas, and the Catholic Church was attacked, with monks, nuns, priests and a bishop of Cuenca, Cruz Laplana y Laguna, being murdered. During the Spanish Civil War Cuenca was part of the republican zone (\"Zona roja\" or: \"the red zone\"). It was taken in 1938 by General Franco's troops. During the post-war period the area suffered a major economic decline, causing many people to migrate to more prosperous regions, mainly the Basque Country and Catalonia, but also to other countries such as Germany. The city started to recover slowly from 1960 to 1970, and the town limits went far beyond the gorge to the flat surroundings.\n",
"Until the second half of the 20th century this part of Spain was isolated. Many settlements had no road access or electricity and were cut off by snow in winter. Communities were small and self-sufficient. This way of life is shown in the small museum at Piornedo which is located in a preserved palloza.\n"
] |
What will I hear if I talk while breaking the sound barrier?
|
Depends, in a jet it eill sound like you talking, if your head is exposed it will sound like nothing (and you would be screaming neways). What you hear is transmitted through the air (sound is just waves in air). So if the air is contained ans traveling at the same velocity, no change. If it isnt contained all you will hear is the air, and the air friction would be increadibly painful
|
[
"The acoustical science of noise barrier design is based upon treating an airway or railway as a line source. The theory is based upon blockage of sound ray travel toward a particular receptor; however, diffraction of sound must be addressed. Sound waves bend (downward) when they pass an edge, such as the apex of a noise barrier. Barriers that block line of sight of a highway or other source will therefore block more sound. Further complicating matters is the phenomenon of refraction, the bending of sound rays in the presence of an inhomogeneous atmosphere. Wind shear and thermocline produce such inhomogeneities. The sound sources modeled must include engine noise, tire noise, and aerodynamic noise, all of which vary by vehicle type and speed.\n",
"In aerodynamics, the sound barrier usually refers to the point at which an aircraft moves from transonic to supersonic speed. On October 14, 1947, just under a month after the United States Air Force had been created as a separate service, tests culminated in the first manned supersonic flight where the sound barrier was broken, piloted by Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1.\n",
"BULLET::::- October 14 – Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without any machine assistance during a record space dive out of the \"Red Bull Stratos\" helium-filled balloon from 24 miles (39 kilometers) over Roswell, New Mexico in the United States.\n",
"The noise barrier may be constructed on private land, on a public right-of-way, or on other public land. Because sound levels are measured using a logarithmic scale, a reduction of nine decibels is equivalent to elimination of approximately 86 percent of the unwanted sound power.\n",
"BULLET::::- October 14 – Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without any machine assistance during a record space dive out of the \"Red Bull Stratos\" helium-filled balloon from 128,000 ft equaling over Roswell, New Mexico in the United States.\n",
"The Sound Barrier (known in the United States, as Breaking Through the Sound Barrier and Breaking the Sound Barrier) is a 1952 British aviation film directed by David Lean. It is a fictional story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. It was David Lean's third and final film with his wife Ann Todd, but it was his first for Alexander Korda's London Films, following the break-up of Cineguild. \"The Sound Barrier\" stars Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, and Nigel Patrick.\n",
"BULLET::::- October 14: Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break sound barrier without mechanical assistance during a record space dive out of the \"Red Bull Stratos\" helium-filled balloon from 39,045 kilometers over Roswell, New Mexico in the United States.\n"
] |
What do you end up with if you tear something apart at a 'molecular level'?
|
Well first, that sounds like garbledeygook ad copy, so I wouldn't put much stock in the scientific value of that TV spot.
As for what breaking something at a "molecular level" would mean, that would depend on the nature of the substance. For crystalline materials, breaking a single crystal, you just get two smaller crystals. For many biological materials, breaking them would just separate some molecules into the respective parts. For large covalently-linked materials like rubber or cellulose, at some point chemical bonds would have to break, meaning you get new "molecules", but the nature of those molecules are poorly defined to begin with because the entire mass is connected by covalent bonds. Is that a single molecule? Not by most definitions.
Could a blender break a single small molecule? No. Could it break a larger one like a molecule of nucleic acid or protein? Yes, the shear force could lead to breakage of a bond. Technically a "different substance" but with most of the same properties. The more important function of a blender is disrupting the arrangement of various molecules with respect to each other, not their action on individual molecules themselves.
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[
"Although all damage at the atomic level manifests as broken atomic bonds, the manifestation of damage at the macroscopic level depends on the material, and can include cracks and deformation, as well as structural weakening that is not visible.\n",
"All physical damage begins on the atomic level, with the shifting or breaking of atomic bonds, and the rate at which damage to any physical thing occurs is therefore largely dependent on the elasticity of such bonds in the material being subjected to stress. Damage can occur where atomic bonds are not completely broken, but are shifted to create unstable pockets of concentration and diffusion of the material, which are more susceptible to later breakage. The effect of outside forces on a material depends on the relative elasticity or plasticity of the material; if a material tends towards elasticity, then changes to its consistency are reversible, and it can bounce back from potential damage. However, if the material tends towards plasticity, then such changes are permanent, and each such change increases the possibility of a crack or fault appearing in the material.\n",
"In biochemistry, the process of breaking down large molecules by splitting their internal bonds is catabolism. Enzymes which catalyse bond cleavage are known as lyases, unless they operate by hydrolysis or oxidoreduction, in which case they are known as hydrolases and oxidoreductases respectively.\n",
"In medicine, fragmentation is an operation that breaks of solid matter in a body part into pieces. Physical force (e.g., manual force, ultrasonic force), applied directly or indirectly through intervening body parts, are used to break down the solid matter into pieces. The solid matter may be an abnormal by-product of a biological function, or a foreign body. The pieces of solid matter are not taken out, but are eliminated or absorbed through normal biological functions. Examples would be the fragmentation of kidney and urinary bladder stones (nephrolithiasis and urolithiasis, respectively) by shock-wave lithotripsy, laser lithotripsy, or transurethral lithotripsy.\n",
"When a bone is fractured as a result of an injury, the two fragments may be displaced relative to each other. If they are not, usually no treatment is required other than immobilisation in an appropriate cast. If displacement does occur, then the space separating the fragments fills with blood shed by the damaged blood vessels within the bone. This collection, or pool, of blood is known as a hematoma. Injection of a suitable local anesthetic by needle and syringe through the skin into this hematoma produces relief of the pain caused by the fracture, allowing the bones to be painlessly manipulated.\n",
"All chemical reactions involve both the breaking of existing and the making of new chemical bonds. A reaction to break a bond always requires the input of energy and so such a process is always endothermic. When atoms come together to form new chemical bonds, the electrostatic forces bringing them together leave the bond with a large excess of energy (usually in the form of vibrations and rotations). If that energy is not dissipated, the new bond would quickly break apart again. Instead, the new bond can shed its excess energy - by radiation, by transfer to other motions in the molecule, or to other molecules through collisions - and then become a stable new bond. Shedding this excess energy is the exothermicity that leaves the molecular system. Whether a given overall reaction is exothermic or endothermic is determined by the relative contribution of these bond breaking endothermic steps and new bond stabilizing exothermic steps.\n",
"A molecular lesion or point lesion is damage to the structure of a biological molecule such as DNA, enzymes, or proteins that results in reduction or absence of normal function or, in rare cases, the gain of a new function. Lesions in DNA consist of breaks and other changes in the chemical structure of the helix (see \"types of DNA lesions\") while lesions in proteins consist of both broken bonds and improper folding of the amino acid chain.\n"
] |
why does money exist?
|
Because it's inconvenient to have to trade water buffalo for skittles.
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[
"BULLET::::- \"\"...but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why it has the name 'money' (nomisma)-because it exists not by nature but by law (nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make it useless.\"\" Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics [1133b 1].\n",
"BULLET::::- To quote monochrom's press statement: \"Money is frozen desire. Thus it governs the world. Money is used for all forms of trade, from daily shopping at the supermarket to trafficking in human beings and drugs. In the course of all these transactions, our money wears out quickly, especially the smaller bank notes that are changing hands constantly. ... Money is dirty, and thus it is a living entity. This is something we take literally: money is an ideal environment for microscopic organisms and bacteria. We want to make your money grow. In a potent nutrient fluid under heat lamps we want to get as much life as we can out of your dollar bills.\" (\"Growing Money\" was part of the \"Experience The Experience\" tour.)\n",
"Money is a \"means of final payment\" for goods in most price system economies, and is the unit of account in which prices are typically stated. Money has general acceptability, relative consistency in value, divisibility, durability, portability, elasticity in supply, and longevity with mass public confidence. It includes currency held by the nonbank public and checkable deposits. It has been described as a social convention, like language, useful to one largely because it is useful to others. In the words of Francis Amasa Walker, a well-known 19th-century economist, \"Money is what money does\" (\"Money is \"that\" money does\" in the original).\n",
"Other theorists also note that the status of a particular form of money always depends on the status ascribed to it by humans and by society. For instance, gold may be seen as valuable in one society but not in another or that a bank note is merely a piece of paper until it is agreed that it has monetary value.\n",
"How is money an abstraction? Money gives the illusion that it has a direct relationship to the work that is done. That is, the work one does is worth so much, equals so much money. In reality, however, the work one does is an expression of who one is as a person; it expresses one's goals in life and associated meaning. As a person, the work one performs is supposed to be an external realization of one's relationship to others and to the world. It is one's way of making the world a better place for oneself and for others. What reducing work to a monetary value does is to replace the concrete reality of one's everyday struggles with the world —to give it shape, form and meaning— with an abstraction. Kierkegaard lamented that \"a young man today would scarcely envy another his capacities or skill or the love of a beautiful girl or his fame, no, but he would envy him his money. Give me money, the young man will say, and I will be all right.\" But Kierkegaard thinks this emphasis on money leads to a denial of the gifts of the spirit to those who are poor and in misery. \n",
"When money is generally used in trade, money becomes the general expression of the form of value of goods being traded; usually this is associated with the emergence of a state authority issuing legal currency. At that point the form of value appears to have acquired a fully independent, separate existence from any particular traded object (behind this autonomy, however, is the power of state authorities or private agencies to \"enforce\" financial claims).\n",
"BULLET::::21. \"Money\": Money is the most powerful tool that Man has ever invented. It can build and destroy empires, and make people to go to war. Some people even believe that money is the key to happiness. What makes an object money? Where does it come from and who decides?\n"
] |
how do intangible currencies like bitcoin and dogecoin have value?
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People will accept it for goods and services. Therefore it has value.
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[
"5. While most of these currencies are restricted to a small geographic area or a country, through the Internet electronic forms of complementary currency can be used to stimulate transactions on a global basis. In China, Tencent's QQ coins are a virtual form of currency that has gained wide circulation. QQ coins can be bought for Renminbi and used to buy virtual products and services such as ringtones and on-line video game time. They can also be obtained through on-line exchange for goods and services at about twice the Renminbi price, by which additional 'money' is being directly created. Though virtual currencies are not 'local' in the tradition sense, they do cater to the specific needs of a particular community, a virtual community. Once in circulation, they add to the total effective purchasing power of the on-line population as in the case of local currencies. The Chinese government has begun to tax the coins as they are exchanged from virtual currency to actual hard currency.\n",
"Coinbase is a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco, California. They broker exchanges of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin with fiat currencies in approximately 32 countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide.\n",
"In a paper published by researchers from Oxford and Warwick, it was shown that bitcoin has some characteristics more like the precious metals market than traditional currencies, hence in agreement with the IRS decision even if based on different reasons.\n",
"The IRS decided in March 2014, to treat bitcoin and other virtual currencies as property for tax purposes, not as currency. Some have suggested that this makes bitcoins not fungible—that is one bitcoin is not identical to another bitcoin, unlike one gallon of crude oil being identical to another gallon of crude oil—making bitcoin unworkable as a currency. Others have stated that a measure like accounting on average cost basis would restore fungibility to the currency.\n",
"The question whether bitcoin is a currency or not is disputed. Bitcoins have three useful qualities in a currency, according to \"The Economist\" in January 2015: they are \"hard to earn, limited in supply and easy to verify\". Economists define money as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account, and agree that bitcoin has some way to go to meet all these criteria. It does best as a medium of exchange, the number of merchants accepting bitcoin has passed 100,000. , the bitcoin market suffered from volatility, limiting the ability of bitcoin to act as a stable store of value, and retailers accepting bitcoin use other currencies as their principal unit of account.\n",
"Coincheck is a bitcoin wallet and exchange service headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, founded by Koichiro Wada and Yusuke Otsuka. It operates exchanges between bitcoin, ether and fiat currencies in Japan, and bitcoin transactions and storage in some countries. In April 2018, Coincheck was acquired by Monex Group for 3.6 billion yen.\n",
"Bitcoin is a currency generated and secured by peer-to-peer networked devices that maintain a communal record of all transactions within the system that can be used in a crypto-anarchic context. The idea behind bitcoin can be traced to \"The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto\". There exist a large number of altcoins, some of which have opague ledgers such that transactions between peers can be untraceable (the first protocol for this is known as the Zerocoin protocol, see also Monero). Some altcoin currencies also act as decentralized autonomous organizations, or act as platforms for enabling such organizations.\n"
] |
Evolution Debate
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[Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution - Theodosius Dobzhansky](_URL_0_)
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[
"One of the main sources of confusion and ambiguity in the creation–evolution debate is the definition of \"evolution\" itself. In the context of biology, evolution is genetic changes in populations of organisms over successive generations. The word also has a number of different meanings in different fields, from evolutionary computation to molecular evolution to sociocultural evolution to stellar and galactic evolution.\n",
"Evolution: A Theory in Crisis is a 1985 book by Michael Denton, in which the author argues that the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection is a \"theory in crisis\". Reviews by scientists say that the book distorts and misrepresents evolutionary theory and contains numerous errors.\n",
"The current theory of evolution, the modern evolutionary synthesis (or neo-darwinism), explains that evolution of species occurs through a combination of Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection and Gregor Mendel’s theory of genetics as the basis for biological inheritance and mathematical population genetics. Essentially, the modern synthesis introduced the connection between two important discoveries; the units of evolution (genes) with the main mechanism of evolution (selection).\n",
"The term \"evolution\" was introduced into the scientific lexicon by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck in 1809, and fifty years later Charles Darwin posited a scientific model of natural selection as evolution's driving force. (Alfred Russel Wallace is recognized as the co-discoverer of this concept as he helped research and experiment with the concept of evolution.) Evolution is now used to explain the great variations of life found on Earth.\n",
"The theory of evolution through natural selection is also supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus; it is one of the most reliable and empirically tested theories in science. Opponents of evolution claim that there is significant dissent on evolution within the scientific community. The wedge strategy, a plan to promote intelligent design, depended greatly on seeding and building on public perceptions of absence of consensus on evolution.\n",
"Further confusion arose in 1980–1981, when there was a long debate in the pages of \"Nature\" about the scientific status of the theory of evolution. Specifically, the argument was on the factors influencing and nature of the unit of selection in the genome, with one side positing natural selection, and the other, neutral mutation. Neither of the parties seriously doubted that the theory was both scientific and, according to current scientific knowledge, true. Some participants objected to statements that appeared to present the theory of evolution as an absolute dogma, however, rather than as a hypothesis that so far has performed very well, and both sides quoted Popper in support of their positions. Evolution critics such as Phillip E. Johnson took this as an opportunity to declare that the theory of evolution was unscientific.\n",
"Evolution is a 2017 study guide to evolution written by Steve Jones and illustrated by Rowan Clifford. The volume, according to the publisher's website, explores the extraordinary diversity of life on our planet through the complex interactions of one very simple theory, and, according to its author, goes from foxes to human frailty.\n"
] |
in u.s., "math". in u.k., "maths". why?
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Linguists discuss the math vs. maths wording: _URL_0_
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[
"The mathematicians Edward Frenkel and Hung-Hsi Wu wrote in 2013 that the mathematical education in the United States is in \"deep crisis\" caused by the way math is currently taught in schools. Both agree that math textbooks, which are widely adopted across the states, already create \"mediocre de facto national standards\". The texts, they say, \"are often incomprehensible and irrelevant\". The Common Core State Standards address these issues and \"level the playing field\" for students. They point out that adoption of the Common Core State Standards and how best to test students are two separate issues.\n",
"Math League is a Math competition for elementary, middle, and high school students in the United States, Canada, and other countries. The Math League was founded in 1977 by two high school mathematics teachers, Steven R. Conrad and Daniel Flegler. Math Leagues, Inc. publishes old contests through a series of books entitled \"Math League Press\". The purpose of the Math League Contests is to provide students \"an enriching opportunity to participate in an academically-oriented activity\" and to let students \"gain recognition for mathematical achievement\".\n",
"The word \"mathematics\" comes from Ancient Greek μάθημα (\"máthēma\"), meaning \"that which is learnt\", \"what one gets to know\", hence also \"study\" and \"science\". The word for \"mathematics\" came to have the narrower and more technical meaning \"mathematical study\" even in Classical times. Its adjective is (\"mathēmatikós\"), meaning \"related to learning\" or \"studious\", which likewise further came to mean \"mathematical\". In particular, (\"mathēmatikḗ tékhnē\"), , meant \"the mathematical art\".\n",
"A \"matha\" (Sanskrit: मठ) refers to \"cloister, institute or college\", and in some contexts refers to \"hut of an ascetic, monk or renunciate\" or temple for studies. The root of the word is \"math\", which means \"inhabit\" or \"to grind\".\n",
"Maths A covers more practical topics than Maths B and C, but it is still OP eligible. There are considerably fewer algebraic concepts in this subject, and it is suitable for students who either struggled with mathematics in Year 10, or who do not require a knowledge of abstract mathematics in the future. Maths A is designed to help students to develop an appreciation of the value of Mathematics to humanity. Students learn how mathematical concepts may be applied to a variety of life situations including business and recreational activities. The skills encountered are relevant to a vast array of careers (trade, technical, business etc.). Assessments in the subject include both formative and summative written tests, assignments and practical work. It is assessed in the categories: Knowledge & Procedures (KAPS); Modelling & Problem Solving (MAPS); Communication & Justification (CAJ). Although Maths A is not a pre-requisite subject, but it is sufficient for entrance to many tertiary courses.\n",
"Mathematics (sometimes referred to as General Math, to distinguish it from other mathematics-related events) is one of several academic events sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League. It is also a competition held by the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association, using the same rules as the UIL.\n",
"Educators including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics objected to the \"Math class is tough\" phrase as detrimental to the effort to encourage girls to study math and science, and particularly in association with the phrases about shopping; the American Association of University Women criticized it in a report about girls receiving a relatively poor education in math and science. Mattel initially offered to exchange dolls for nonspeaking ones on request, and later apologized to the American Association of University Women, withdrew the math class phrase from those to be used in future dolls, and offered an exchange to purchasers who had a doll with that phrase. The criticism gave rise to the 1994 \"Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy\" episode of \"The Simpsons\", in which Lisa Simpson objects to sexist utterances by a \"Malibu Stacy\" doll such as \"Thinking too much gives you wrinkles.\" , the collector's price for one of the estimated 3,500 Teen Talk Barbies including the phrase \"Math class is tough\" was around $500.\n"
] |
if number of offspring in mammals roughly correlates with mammary glands, why are twins not the predominant birth in humans?
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Due to bilateral symmetry (animals being roughly symmetrical down the middle) all mammals, as far as I know, have an even number of nipples, even ones where only one offspring at a time is the norm.
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[
"Most mammals, including humans, have an XY sex-determination system: the Y chromosome carries factors responsible for triggering male development. In the absence of a Y chromosome, the fetus will undergo female development. This is because of the presence of the sex-determining region of the Y chromosome, also known as the SRY gene. Thus, male mammals typically have an X and a Y chromosome (XY), while female mammals typically have two X chromosomes (XX). In humans, biological sex is determined by five factors present at birth: the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, the type of gonads, the sex hormones, the internal genitalia (such as the uterus in females), and the external genitalia.\n",
"There are three extant kinds of mammals: monotremes, placentals and marsupials, all with internal fertilization. In placental mammals, offspring are born as juveniles: complete animals with the sex organs present although not reproductively functional. After several months or years, depending on the species, the sex organs develop further to maturity and the animal becomes sexually mature. Most female mammals are only fertile during certain periods during their estrous cycle, at which point they are ready to mate. Individual male and female mammals meet and carry out copulation. For most mammals, males and females exchange sexual partners throughout their adult lives.\n",
"Most therian mammals have only one pair of sex chromosomes in each cell. Males have one Y chromosome and one X chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. In mammals, the Y chromosome contains a gene, SRY, which triggers embryonic development as a male. The Y chromosomes of humans and other mammals also contain other genes needed for normal sperm production.\n",
"The breasts of the adult human female vary from most other mammals that tend to have less conspicuous mammary glands. The number and positioning of mammary glands varies widely in different mammals. The protruding teats and accompanying glands can be located anywhere along the two milk lines. In general most mammals develop mammary glands in pairs along these lines, with a number approximating the number of young typically birthed at a time. The number of teats varies from 2 (in most primates) to 18 (in pigs). The Virginia opossum has 13, one of the few mammals with an odd number. The following table lists the number and position of teats and glands found in a range of mammals:\n",
"Like most other male mammals, a man's genome typically inherits an X chromosome from his mother and a Y chromosome from his father. The male fetus produces larger amounts of androgens and smaller amounts of estrogens than a female fetus. This difference in the relative amounts of these sex steroids is largely responsible for the physiological differences that distinguish men from women. During puberty, hormones which stimulate androgen production result in the development of secondary sexual characteristics, thus exhibiting greater differences between the sexes. However, there are exceptions to the above for some transgender and intersex men.\n",
"The number of mammary glands is variable and correlates, as in all mammals, with litter size. Pigs, which have the largest litter size of all even-toed ungulates, have two rows of teats lined from the armpit to the groin area. In most cases, however, even-toed ungulates have only one or two pairs of teats. In some species, these form an udder in the groin region.\n",
"Most mammals are viviparous, giving birth to live young. However, the five species of monotreme, the platypuses and the echidnas, lay eggs. The monotremes have a sex determination system different from that of most other mammals. In particular, the sex chromosomes of a platypus are more like those of a chicken than those of a therian mammal.\n"
] |
How did the combatant nations of WW2 disarm their soldiers when fighting ended? Did lots of soldiers hold on to their weapons, and/or take sidearms home with them? How much military hardware was unaccounted for?
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It depended on the country. I can shed some light on the American and Soviet methods of disarmament.
When the Red Army began to demobilize large formations of its troops, the Soviet officials told them to hand over any firearms (government issue or enemy capture) or face potentially being sent to a labor camp. The Soviet government was very careful about how it went about demobilizing its vast army. Its troops had been exposed to capitalist societies, the shortcomings of the government during wartime, and many had witnessed/participated in atrocities that would tarnish the image of the Red Army soldier which was so essential to Russian post-war propaganda. Though the government bestowed numerous gifts upon discharged troops, every soldier who was demobilized also had his/her bag searched on the train before arriving back home. Most did not put up too much resistance to this action because there were still so many weapons and explosives laying about the numerous battlefields back home in Russia. (Source: Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale, pp. 356-357)
In the American military, soldiers were officially allowed to take home one souvenir firearm, and they had to register it before departing back home. The lines to do so were pretty long at places like Camp Lucky Strike in Le Havre, and many soldiers sold off what extra weapons they had. I don't know what the policy was for service weapons or if a service member could send weapons through the mail before being sent to demobilization camps. It wouldn't surprise me if they did.
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[
"During World War II, losses of major items of equipment were substantial in many battles all throughout the war, with no exception on the Eastern Front. Due to the expense of producing such equipment as replacements, many armies made an effort to recover and re-use enemy equipment that fell into their hands , applicable to both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.\n",
"The commissar, Tkachenko, went on to urgently request vehicles (including ambulances, of which there were none), small arms and support weapons, draught horses, and a closer supply base. After the first day of fighting he further reported that the lack of high-explosive shells forced the artillery to fire armor-piercing rounds at enemy firing points and troops; there were no cartridges for the submachine guns; many of the mens' uniforms and footwear were worn out; and it was impossible to commit the replacements into the fighting because of the lack of weapons.\n",
"Logistics, nonetheless, were very bad for both armies, supported by whatever equipment was left over from World War I or could be captured. The Polish Army, for example, employed guns made in five countries, and rifles manufactured in six, each using different ammunition. The Soviets had many military depots at their disposal, left by withdrawing German armies in 1918–1919, and modern French armaments captured in great numbers from the White Russians and the Allied expeditionary forces in the Russian Civil War. Still, they suffered a shortage of arms; both the Red Army and the Polish forces were grossly underequipped by Western standards.\n",
"These initiatives were not always successful; by late 1944 and early 1945, the number of units fighting continuously or nearly continuously caused the replacement system to break down. As a result, rear echelon soldiers were often pulled from their duties to fill vacancies in front line combat units, and training for some replacement soldiers and units was cut short so they could be rushed into combat. Some units were worn down to the point of combat ineffectiveness. In others, low morale, fatigue, and sickness became more prevalent.\n",
"In the Second World War, the RCOC had a strength of 35,000 military personnel, not including the thousands of civilian personnel employed at RCOC installations. They procured all the material goods required by the Army, from clothing to weapons. Up until 1944, the RCOC was responsible for maintenance and repair. Ordnance Field Parks, that carried everything from spare parts to spare artillery, supported the Divisions and Corps.\n",
"In the Second World War, the RCOC had a strength of 35,000 military personnel, not including the thousands of civilian personnel employed at RCOC installations. They procured all the material goods required by the Army, from clothing to weapons. Up until 1944, the RCOC was responsible for maintenance and repair. Ordnance Field Parks, that carried everything from spare parts to spare artillery, supported the Divisions and Corps.\n",
"Though supplies were still being brought in, they were insufficient to maintain the Army's fighting strength. Zhukov sent a terse ultimatum: Surrender, or every German soldier in the pocket would be shot.\n"
] |
why is a fan higher pitched when on higher speeds?
|
Sounds are based on frequency. The greater the frequency, the higher the pitch of the sound. As the fan is spinning faster, its frequency is greater and therefore the sound is higher.
|
[
"The speed of rotation (specified in revolutions per minute, RPM) together with the static pressure determine the airflow for a given fan. Where noise is an issue, larger, slower-turning fans are quieter than smaller, faster fans that can move the same airflow. Fan noise has been found to be roughly proportional to the fifth power of fan speed; halving the speed reduces the noise by about 15 dB. Axial fans may rotate at speeds of up to around 23,000 rpm for smaller sizes.\n",
"BULLET::::- Fan noise: High-performance fans running at maximum speed used for the required degree of cooling of an overclocked machine can be noisy, some producing 50 dB or more of noise. When maximum cooling is not required, in any equipment, fan speeds can be reduced below the maximum: fan noise has been found to be roughly proportional to the fifth power of fan speed; halving speed reduces noise by about 15 dB. Fan noise can be reduced by design improvements, e.g. with aerodynamically optimized blades for smoother airflow, reducing noise to around 20 dB at approximately 1 metre or larger fans rotating more slowly, which produce less noise than smaller, faster fans with the same airflow. Acoustical insulation inside the case e.g. acoustic foam can reduce noise. Additional cooling methods which do not use fans can be used, such as liquid and phase-change cooling.\n",
"This kind of high-pitched noise is much less of an issue on modern high-bypass turbofan engines as the significantly larger front fans they employ are designed to spin at much lower speeds than those found in older turbojet, and low-bypass turbofan, engines.\n",
"Fans generate noise from the rapid flow of air around blades and obstacles causing vortexes, and from the motor. Fan noise has been found to be roughly proportional to the fifth power of fan speed; halving speed reduces noise by about 15 dB.\n",
"The comparatively large frontal fan has several effects. Compared to a turbojet of identical thrust, a turbofan has a much larger air mass flow rate and the flow through the bypass duct generates a significant fraction of the thrust. Because the additional duct air has not been ignited which it gives it a slow speed, but no extra fuel is needed to provide this thrust. Instead, the energy is taken from the central core, which gives it also a reduced exhaust speed. The average velocity of the mixed exhaust air is thus reduced (low specific thrust) which is less wasteful of energy but reduces the top speed. Overall, a turbofan can be much more fuel efficient and quieter, and it turns out that the fan also allows greater net thrust to be available at slow speeds.\n",
"Because the turbine has to additionally drive the fan, the turbine is larger and has larger pressure and temperature drops, and so the nozzles are smaller. This means that the exhaust velocity of the core is reduced. The fan also has lower exhaust velocity, giving much more thrust per unit energy (lower specific thrust). The overall effective exhaust velocity of the two exhaust jets can be made closer to a normal subsonic aircraft's flight speed. In effect, a turbofan emits a large amount of air more slowly, whereas a turbojet emits a smaller amount of air quickly, which is a far less efficient way to generate the same thrust (see \n",
"Fan noise is often proportional to fan speed, so fan controllers can be used to slow down fans and to precisely choose fan speed. Fan controllers can produce a fixed fan speed using an inline resistor or diode; or a variable speed using a potentiometer to supply a lower voltage. Fan speed can also be reduced more crudely by plugging them into the power supply's 5 volt line instead of the 12 volt line (or between the two for a potential difference of 7 volts, although this cripples the fan's speed sensing). Most fans will run at 5 volts once they are spinning, but may not start reliably at less than 7 V. Some simple fan controllers will only vary the fans' supply voltage between 8 V and 12 V to avoid this problem entirely. Some fan controllers start the fan at 12 V, then drop the voltage after a few seconds.\n"
] |
why during medical trials both control and subject group are told they are receiving experimental drug instead both being told they receive placebo?
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Telling people you're feeding them sugar pills when in fact they're taking an experimental drug with possibly disastrous side effects is considered unethical, as it will make them more likely to shrug off bleeding from their ears and eyes as "probably just allergies or something."
Telling people you're feeding them an experimental drug when in fact you're just giving them sugar pills is less likely to do any harm.
|
[
"If a drug is being tested, the control group will frequently be given a placebo. This is done as a double blind test, as neither the healthcare professional nor the patient know if they are receiving the drug under test or a placebo, and don't find out which substance was administered until after the experiment is concluded.\n",
"The variables in a clinical trial are specified and controlled, but a clinical trial can never tell you the whole story of the effects of a drug in all situations. In fact, nothing could tell you the whole story, but a clinical trial must tell you enough; \"enough\" being determined by legislation and by contemporary judgements about the acceptable balance of benefit and harm. Ultimately, when a drug is marketed it may be used in patient populations that were not studied during clinical trials (children, the elderly, pregnant women, patients with co-morbidities not found in the clinical trial population, etc.) and a different set of warnings, precautions or contraindications (where the drug should not be used at all) for the product's labeling may be necessary in order to maintain a positive risk/benefit profile in all known populations using the drug.\n",
"Two recent reviews concluded that conclusions drawn from most of these early trials are unreliable due to serious methodological flaws. These include the absence of adequate control groups, lack of followup, and vague criteria for therapeutic outcome. In many cases studies failed to convincingly demonstrate whether the drug or the therapeutic interaction was responsible for any beneficial effects.\n",
"In December 2006, the final report of the Expert Group on Phase One Clinical Trials was published. It found that the trial had not considered what constituted a safe dose in humans, and that then-current law had not required it. It made 22 recommendations, including the need for independent expert advice before a high-risk study was allowed, testing only one volunteer at a time (sequential inclusion of participants) in case there were rapid ill effects, and administering drugs slowly by infusion rather than as an injection.\n",
"One issue with trials is what to use as a placebo treatment group or non-treatment control group. Often, this group includes patients on a waiting list, or those receiving some kind of regular non-specific contact or support. Researchers must consider how best to match the use of inert tablets or sham treatments in placebo-controlled studies in pharmaceutical trials. Several interpretations and differing assumptions and language remain. Another issue is the attempt to standardize and manualize therapies and link them to specific symptoms of diagnostic categories, making them more amenable to research. Some report that this may reduce efficacy or gloss over individual needs. Fonagy and Roth's opinion is that the benefits of the evidence-based approach outweighs the difficulties.\n",
"In controlled experiments of medical treatment options on humans, researchers randomly assign individuals to a treatment group or control group. This is done to reduce the confounding effect of irrelevant variables that are not being studied, such as the placebo effect. \n",
"Predicting low-frequency side effects has been difficult, because such side effects need not become apparent until the treatment is adopted by many patients. The appearance of severe side-effects in phase three often causes development to stop, for ethical and economic reasons. Also, in recent years many candidate drugs failed in phase 3 trials because of lack of efficacy rather than for safety reasons. One reason for failure is that traditional trials aim to establish efficacy and safety for most subjects, rather than for individual subjects, and so efficacy is determined by a statistic of central tendency for the trial. Traditional trials do not adapt the treatment to the covariates of subjects: \n"
] |
- why do most honour killings involve murdering the victim? why not kill the rapist instead?
|
In such cultures women are viewed as property, to be bought, sold, or traded. The honor killing is in retribution for the perceived dishonor of allowing themselves to be raped, as it damages or destroys their value to their male owner.
It is fucked up.
|
[
"Honour killing is an act of murder, in which a person is killed for his or her actual or perceived immoral behavior. Such \"immoral behavior\" may take the form of alleged marital infidelity, refusal to submit to an arranged marriage, demanding a divorce, perceived flirtatious behaviour and being raped. Suspicion and accusations alone are many times enough to defile a family's honour and therefore enough to warrant the killing of the woman.\n",
"Ritual killings perpetrated by individuals or small groups within a society that denounces them as simple murder are difficult to classify as either \"human sacrifice\" or mere pathological homicide because they lack the societal integration of sacrifice proper.\n",
"The \"Montreal Gazette\" published a column in which it said that labelling the murders as honour killing is a mistake because domestic violence against women is ubiquitous and framing it into a particular category would mean distancing oneself from a crime that is all too common. The authors argue that premeditation is put forth as a core component to differentiate honour killings from other types of murders, such as crimes of convenience or crimes of passion. However, recent studies indicate that premeditation is as much a component in other cases of domestic violence and murder as it is in \"honour killings.\"\n",
"Honor killings take place in Rajasthan, too. In June 2012, a man chopped off his 20-year-old daughter's head with a sword in Rajasthan after learning that she was dating men. According to police officer, \"Omkar Singh told the police that his daughter Manju had relations with several men. He had asked her to mend her ways several times in the past. However, she did not pay heed. Out of pure rage, he chopped off her head with the sword\".\n",
"An honor killing is a murder of a family member who has been considered to have brought dishonour and shame upon the family. Examples of reasons for honor killings include the refusal to enter an arranged marriage, committing adultery, choosing a partner that the family disapproves of, and becoming a victim of rape.Village caste councils or \"khap panchayats\" in certain regions of India regularly pass death sentences for persons who do not follow their diktats on caste or gotra. The volunteer group known as Love Commandos from Delhi, runs a helpline dedicated to rescuing couples who are afraid of violence for marrying outside of caste lines.\n",
"An honour killing is the practice wherein an individual is killed by one or more family member(s), because he or she is believed to have brought shame on the family. The shame may range from refusing to enter an arranged marriage, having sex outside marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by the family, starting a divorce proceeding, or engaging in homosexual relations.\n",
"Ritualistic killings, which involve the removal from the victim's corpse of body parts used in tribal rituals, and which are often described in police reports as accidents or suicides, are a common occurrence. Protests against these killings are also common, and sometimes lead to injury and death\n"
] |
how does a random function work?
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A random number generator like the one typically used by a computer to generate random numbers isn't actually random. It is what is known as a *pseudo-random number generator*. It generates numbers according to a certain algorithm that first is initialized with a value called *seed*. For different seed values, different pseudo-random sequences would be produced. Your computer will usually use something like the current time as seed to initialize the pseudo-random number generator. And then you get these pseudo-random numbers that seem to be random, even if they aren't. For most purposes, this is good enough.
A certain category of pseudo-random number generators are known as *cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generators*. These are algorithms that conform to certain requirements that are hard to ELI5, but the basic and most important idea is that one can't predict what the next number would be even if you know the entire sequence up until now.
For certain applications where truly random numbers are needed, special hardware devices are used that can generate random numbers by using physical processes that are unpredictable (random) by the laws of physics.
|
[
"A random function is a type of random element in which a single outcome is selected from some family of functions, where the family consists some class of all maps from the domain to the codomain. For example, the class may be restricted to all continuous functions or to all step functions. The values determined by a random function evaluated at different points from the same realization would not generally be statistically independent but, depending on the model, values determined at the same or different points from different realisations might well be treated as independent.\n",
"The term random function is also used to refer to a stochastic or random process, because a stochastic process can also be interpreted as a random element in a function space. The terms \"stochastic process\" and \"random process\" are used interchangeably, often with no specific mathematical space for the set that indexes the random variables. But often these two terms are used when the random variables are indexed by the integers or an interval of the real line. If the random variables are indexed by the Cartesian plane or some higher-dimensional Euclidean space, then the collection of random variables is usually called a random field instead. The values of a stochastic process are not always numbers and can be vectors or other mathematical objects.\n",
"Essentially, a truly random function would just be composed of a lookup table filled with uniformly distributed random entries. However, in practice, a PRF is given an input string in the domain and a hidden random seed and runs multiple times with the same input string and seed, always returning the same value. Nonetheless, given an arbitrary input string, the output looks random if the seed is taken from a uniform distribution.\n",
"The term \"random function\" is also used to refer to a stochastic or random process, though sometimes it is only used when the stochastic process takes real values. This term is also used when the index sets are mathematical spaces other than the real line, while the terms \"stochastic process\" and \"random process\" are usually used when the index set interpreted as time, and other terms are used such as \"random field\" when the index set is formula_1-dimensional Euclidean space formula_6 or a manifold.\n",
"In computer science, a randomization function or randomizing function is an algorithm or procedure that implements a randomly chosen function between two specific sets, suitable for use in a randomized algorithm.\n",
"In probability theory, operations are applied to random variables for different purposes. Sometimes these operations are regular expectations that produce the average or variance of a random variable. Others, such as characteristic functions (or Laplace transforms) of a random variable can be used to uniquely identify or characterize random variables and prove results like the central limit theorem. In the theory of point processes there exist analogous mathematical tools which usually exist in the forms of measures and functionals instead of moments and functions respectively.\n",
"In theory, randomization functions are assumed to be truly random, and yield an unpredictably different function every time the algorithm is executed. The randomization technique would not work if, at every execution of the algorithm, the randomization function always performed the same mapping, or a mapping entirely determined by some externally observable parameter (such as the program's startup time). With such a \"pseudo-randomization\" function, one could in principle construct a sequence of calls such that the function would always yield a \"bad\" case for the underlying deterministic algorithm. For that sequence of calls, the average cost would be closer to the worst-case cost, rather than the average cost for random inputs.\n"
] |
why can some brands completely rip off other brands designs on certain products?
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Per a quick google search, they are often lawsuits for this. However, I’d hazard a guess that court costs and lawyer fees are factored in before moving forward. Generic copy at Walmart maybe only profits 40k$, but the lawsuit would cost 200k for both sides. It’s now a loss to sue and not worth moving forward. Adidas sued Walmart for infringing on their 3 stripe design a while back and won. Those shoes now have 4 stripes.
Edit:changed a letter
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[
"Designer branding is sometimes associated with a higher quality of manufacture and a higher price. The ownership and display of such products of quality is frequently marketed to suggest that the wearer will automatically embody a personal characteristic of quality by association. Designers have identified this and in some cases are able to exploit it to the extent that prices can be escalated to surprising proportions without reference to the cost of manufacture. Extreme examples of this type of branding are found among accessory manufacturers such as Versace, Gucci and Burberry, scent manufacturers such as Chanel and Guerlain and watch manufacturers such as Rolex and Bulgari.\n",
"Consumers may look on branding as an aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services can command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic, store-branded product), potential purchasers may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the perceived quality of the brand or on the basis of the reputation of the brand owner.\n",
"Individual branding is the most effective when a company offers numerous unconnected commodities, which vary in quality and price and target different market segments. It is also useful when introducing a new, high-risk product to the market, in order to manage risks to existing brands if the new product should fail. However, the expected revenue from a new brand must justify the higher costs of marketing and advertising.\n",
"Knock off name brand products being sold by drop shipping wholesalers is another problem. While some of these products may look genuine, they can be spotted by the extremely high profit margins available on them. If colors, styles or other physical characteristics do not match those of the manufacturer, the product is probably a counterfeit. Selling non-genuine products could destroy one's eCommerce reputation and possibly ruin a drop shipping business. It might also cause legal problems.\n",
"When the aesthetic development of the good is intended to enhance the design and make the product more commercially desirable, trademark protection may be denied because the consumer is drawn to the design. The distinctiveness of the mark serves to identify the product rather than the source, and trademark protection becomes inappropriate. The underlying theory as aesthetics become integrated with functionality, the resulting product strongly resembles product design, which may receive no trademark protection absent secondary meaning.\n",
"The original aim of branding was to simplify the process of identifying and differentiating products. Over time, manufacturers began to use branded messages to give the brand a unique personality. Brands came to embrace a performance or benefit promise, for the product, certainly, but eventually also for the company behind the brand.\n",
"BULLET::::- Several different producers exist, with big differences in their production and selling costs, which greatly impacts on the mix design and curing process. This makes each brand very different in potential uses. Even though the different brands may look and feel similar, caution must be used when selecting the versions and brands for specific use since they are not all the same or usable in the same way. [?reference]\n"
] |
does convolution of signals have an intuitive explanation like the water-flow example for voltage and current?
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Have you heard of convolution reverb?
Basically, you take an impulse response from, say, a cathedral, and then you can convolve it with any sound signal to make it sound as if it were in the cathedral.
So i guess a convolution is kind of like an echo. A bit like sonar - when there is something x-metres away, you'll get a corresponding spike on the impulse-response when the echo comes back.
|
[
"In the \"water-flow analogy\", sometimes used to explain electric circuits by comparing them with water-filled pipes, voltage (difference in electric potential) is likened to difference in water pressure. Current is proportional to the diameter of the pipe or the amount of water flowing at that pressure. A resistor would be a reduced diameter somewhere in the piping and a capacitor/inductor could be likened to a \"U\" shaped pipe where a higher water level on one side could store energy temporarily.\n",
"It is mathematically impossible to reconstruct a unique intracranial current source for a given EEG signal, as some currents produce potentials that cancel each other out. This is referred to as the inverse problem. However, much work has been done to produce remarkably good estimates of, at least, a localized electric dipole that represents the recorded currents.\n",
"where the superscripts formula_12 and formula_13 represent forward- and backward-traveling waves, respectively. A surge of energy on a finite transmission line will see an impedance of \"Z\" prior to any reflections arriving, hence \"surge impedance\" is an alternative name for characteristic impedance.\n",
"Reflections of signals on conducting lines can exhibit a phase change from the incident signal. The voltage wave reflection on a line terminated with a short circuit is 180° phase shifted. This is analogous (by the mobility analogy) to a string where the end is fixed in position, or a sound wave in a tube with a blocked off end. The current wave, on the other hand, is not phase shifted. A transmission line terminated with an open circuit is the dual case; the voltage wave is shifted by 0° and the current wave is shifted by 180°. In both cases the full amplitude of the wave is reflected.\n",
"The characteristic impedance formula_69 of a transmission line is the ratio of the amplitude of a \"single\" voltage wave to its current wave. Since most transmission lines also have a reflected wave, the characteristic impedance is generally not the impedance that is measured on the line.\n",
"Given the relations between the reflected and transmitted waves found earlier, this means that the transmitted wave in an inductive grid is equal to the negative of the reflected wave in a capacitive grid and vice versa, and also that the transmitted powers for capacitive and inductive grids sum to unity for a unit incident wave.\n",
"In signal processing, the coherence is a statistic that can be used to examine the relation between two signals or data sets. It is commonly used to estimate the power transfer between input and output of a linear system. If the signals are ergodic, and the system function linear, it can be used to estimate the causality between the input and output.\n"
] |
the definition of “literary theory”
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I suppose there isnt one definition but a literary theory woukd be a way in which yoi can understand/interpret literature.
For example you could read a text in a feminist or post colonial way and theyre both literary theories.
Or you could theorise on what literature itself is, for example literary theorist Roland Barthes discusses the role of the author in literature.
|
[
"As a consequence, the word \"theory\" has become an umbrella term for a variety of scholarly approaches to reading texts. Many of these approaches are informed by various strands of Continental philosophy and of sociology.\n",
"A theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking often is associated with such processes like observational study, research. Theories may either be scientific or other than scientific (or scientific to less extent). Depending on the context, the results might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings.\n",
"The term \"theory\" is used informally within mathematics to mean a self-consistent body of definitions, axioms, theorems, examples, and so on. (Examples include group theory, Galois theory, control theory, and K-theory.) In particular there is no connotation of \"hypothetical\". Thus the term \"unifying theory\" is more like a sociological term used to study the actions of mathematicians. It may assume nothing conjectural that would be analogous to an undiscovered scientific link. There is really no cognate within mathematics to such concepts as \"Proto-World\" in linguistics or the Gaia hypothesis.\n",
"A philosophical theory or philosophical position is a set of beliefs that explains or accounts for a general philosophy or specific branch of philosophy. The use of the term theory here is a statement of colloquial English and not reflective of the term theory. While any sort of thesis or opinion may be termed a position, in analytic philosophy it is thought best to reserve the word \"theory\" for systematic, comprehensive attempts to solve problems.\n",
"Literary theory is a discipline that some literary theorists claim overlaps with the philosophy of language. It emphasizes the methods that readers and critics use in understanding a text. This field, an outgrowth of the study of how to properly interpret messages, is unsurprisingly closely tied to the ancient discipline of hermeneutics.\n",
"The English word \"theory\" derives from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek. As an everyday word, \"theoria\", , meant \"a looking at, viewing, beholding\", but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things, such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled orators or artisans. English-speakers have used the word \"theory\" since at least the late 16th century. Modern uses of the word \"theory\" derive from the original definition, but have taken on new shades of meaning, still based on the idea of a theory as a thoughtful and rational explanation of the general nature of things.\n",
"Literary theory in a strict sense is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and other interdisciplinary themes which are of relevance to the way humans interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of scholarship is an outgrowth of critical theory and is often called simply \"theory\".\n"
] |
Paper vs Electronics
|
To add to that, how much difference is there between an e-ink e-reader and an actual book?
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[
"Electronic paper, also called e-paper, is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later. Applications of e-paper technology include e-book readers capable of displaying digital versions of books, magazines and newspapers, electronic pricing labels in retail shops, time tables at bus stations, and electronic billboards. Electronic paper was invented in 1973 by Nick Sheridon at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. The first electronic paper, called Gyricon, consisted of polyethylene spheres between 75 and 106 micrometres across.\n",
"BULLET::::- Although paper is traditionally identified with reading and writing, communications has now been replaced by packaging as the single largest category of paper use at 41% of all paper used.\n",
"There are many approaches to electronic paper, with many companies developing technology in this area. Other technologies being applied to electronic paper include modifications of liquid crystal displays, electrochromic displays, and the electronic equivalent of an Etch A Sketch at Kyushu University. Advantages of electronic paper include low power usage (power is only drawn when the display is updated), flexibility and better readability than most displays. Electronic ink can be printed on any surface, including walls, billboards, product labels and T-shirts. The ink's flexibility would also make it possible to develop rollable displays for electronic devices.\n",
"Electronic paper was first developed in the 1970s by Nick Sheridon at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. The first electronic paper, called Gyricon, consisted of polyethylene spheres between 75 and 106 micrometers across. Each sphere is a janus particle composed of negatively charged black plastic on one side and positively charged white plastic on the other (each bead is thus a dipole). The spheres are embedded in a transparent silicone sheet, with each sphere suspended in a bubble of oil so that they can rotate freely. The polarity of the voltage applied to each pair of electrodes then determines whether the white or black side is face-up, thus giving the pixel a white or black appearance.\n",
"One advantage of printed electronics is that different electrical and electronic components can be printed on top of each other, saving space and increasing reliability and sometimes they are all transparent. One ink must not damage another, and low temperature annealing is vital if low-cost flexible materials such as paper and plastic film are to be used. There is much sophisticated engineering and chemistry involved here, with iTi, Pixdro, Asahi Kasei, Merck & Co.|Merck, BASF, HC Starck, Hitachi Chemical and Frontier Carbon Corporation among the leaders.\n",
"Several companies are simultaneously developing electronic paper and ink. While the technologies used by each company provide many of the same features, each has its own distinct technological advantages. All electronic paper technologies face the following general challenges:\n",
"Paper can be used in lithium-ion batteries as regular, commercial paper, or paper enhanced with single-walled carbon nanotubes. Enhanced paper is used as the electrode and as the separator which results in a sturdy, flexible battery that have great performance capabilities such as good cycling, great efficiency, and good reversibility. Using paper as a separator is more effective than using plastic. The process of enhancing the paper, however, can be complicated and costly, depending on the materials used. A carbon nanotube and silver nanowire film can be used to coat regular paper to create a simpler and less expensive separator and battery support. The conductive paper can also be used to replace traditionally used metallic chemicals. The resulting battery performs well, while simplifying the manufacturing process and reducing the cost. Lithium-ion paper batteries are flexible, durable, rechargeable, and produce significantly more power than electrochemical batteries. In spite of these advantages, there are still some drawbacks. In order for paper to be integrated with the Li-ion battery, complex layering and insulating techniques are required for the battery to function as desired. One reason these complex techniques are used is to strengthen the paper used so that it does not tear as easily. This contributes to the overall strength and flexibility of the battery. These techniques require time, training, and costly materials. Additionally, the individual materials required are not environmentally friendly and require specific disposal procedures. Paper lithium-ion batteries would be best suited for applications requiring a substantial amount of energy over an extended period of time. \n"
] |
how do we know what prehistoric life was like?
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We have a good understanding of biomechanics, how the shape of bones, their growth and wear patterns, how ligaments were attached, and a lot of the details that tell us how the moved, how they ate and hunted. Teeth can tell you a lot about what sort of food an animal ate. The design of the head tells you how big their eyes, noses, and mouths were. Some bones have teeth marks, indicating that they were bitten by other dinosaurs.
Here's a review article [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) on Dinosaur Biomechanics
& #x200B;
|
[
"In addition, fossil remains of some hitherto undescribed prehistoric species have been found. The oldest comes from the Late Miocene (Tortonian, some 7 to 12 million years ago) of the Bahía Inglesa Formation in Chile.\n",
"The idea of prehistoric animals surviving into the present day was not new, but had already been introduced by Jules Verne in \"Journey to the Center of the Earth\". In that book, published in 1864, the creatures live under the earth in and around a subterranean sea.\n",
"The beginning of life and living organisms is difficult to specifically date as proto-organisms' earliest existence left no paleontological clues. Cavalier-Smith argues that initially there was primordial soup which contained amino acids, the building blocks for proteins. Replication and phosphorylation were not relevant until the prebiotic soup started to become organized into the \"nucleic acid\" era. Although still not \"living,\" the substances during this period could replicate and undergo organized chemical processes. Based off these orderly processes, the world transitioned into an obcell world which included coding for proteins and chromosomes and the symbiotic interactions between membranes, genes, and enzymes. Obcells probably had a single membrane that was lipid-dense and also had specific cytoskeletal proteins that gave the obcells its curvature. These skeletal proteins were probably contained within the obcell's protoperiplasm.\n",
"The earliest identified organisms were minute and relatively featureless, and their fossils look like small rods that are very difficult to tell apart from structures that arise through abiotic physical processes. The oldest undisputed evidence of life on Earth, interpreted as fossilized bacteria, dates to 3 Ga. Other finds in rocks dated to about 3.5 Ga have been interpreted as bacteria, with geochemical evidence also seeming to show the presence of life 3.8 Ga. However, these analyses were closely scrutinized, and non-biological processes were found which could produce all of the \"signatures of life\" that had been reported. While this does not prove that the structures found had a non-biological origin, they cannot be taken as clear evidence for the presence of life. Geochemical signatures from rocks deposited 3.4 Ga have been interpreted as evidence for life, although these statements have not been thoroughly examined by critics.\n",
"A small advance group, led by Professor Lake, discovers the remains of fourteen prehistoric life-forms, previously unknown to science, and also unidentifiable as either plants or animals. Six of the specimens have been badly damaged, while another eight have been preserved in pristine condition. The specimens' stratum places them far too early on the geologic time scale for the features of the specimens to have evolved. Some fossils of Cambrian age show signs of the use of tools to carve a specimen for food.\n",
"Rona and Lutz had been scouring the ocean floors for the organism \"Paleodictyon nodosum\", believed to be one of the Earth's earliest complex life forms, or one of the oldest \"living fossils\". No living creatures have been found, only thousands of their formed hexagonal patterns.\n",
"It is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world and research there has been instrumental in furthering understanding of early human evolution. Excavation work there was pioneered by Mary and Louis Leakey in the 1950s and is continued today by their family. Some believe that millions of years ago, the site was that of a large lake, the shores of which were covered with successive deposits of volcanic ash. Around 500,000 years ago seismic activity diverted a nearby stream which began to cut down into the sediments, revealing seven main layers in the walls of the gorge.\n"
] |
What was the fire rate of the matchlock musket, and how did it compare to wheel locks and flintlocks?
|
16th century sources do indeed tend to be pretty unclear when it comes to firearm's rate of fire. Humfrey Barwick was a strong proponent of firearms at the end of the century and as such is probably represents the upper end of what might be expected in terms of fire rate. While serving as a mercenary for the French army he described a war meeting in which he overheard a nobleman claim that an arquebus could only be fired 10 times per hour. Some people apparently did think the fire rate was this low, but Barwick thought the man was daft and afterwards approached him offering to personally demonstrate shooting 40 times in one hour with a single piece. One shot every 1 minute and 30 seconds doesn't seem like much, but this seems to have only been the rate for long term fire over the course of an hour, which would have required occasionally cleaning the weapon, adjusting the match, and measuring the powder for each shot independently since a soldier at the time typically didn't carry 40 whole wooden cartridges at a time.
For short term rate of fire, later on in his discourse he described the maximum number of times that a soldier with a *musket* could shoot at an advancing army, which involved shooting once in the time it took the enemy to march (not running) 80 yards (presumably 60-90 seconds, he recommended making up the difference by shooting multiple bullets at a time as the enemy got closer). The fact that he says this is for a musket is significant because the 16th century musket was a very different beast compared to the muskets of the 17th and 18th centuries. It was extremely heavy with a longer barrel and a larger bore than later weapons and had to be supported by a forked rest while firing. Most troops at the time would have been armed with an arquebus or caliver, firearms which which were much lighter and had a much shorter barrel. Humfrey Barwick and Sir Roger Williams both wrote that the arquebus/caliver could fire twice as quickly as the clumsy musket could (though they prefered the latter because of its far greater force).
That would make the ideal rate of fire for the late 16th century arquebus/caliver: 30-45 seconds per shot max, 40 shots per hour sustained
And for the heavy musket: 60-90 seconds per shot max, 20 shots per hour sustained.
As far as how rate of fire compares to the wheel lock or flintlock. A matchlock is generally more complicated to load since it requires constantly tending the match to keep it burning as well as adjusting the match length as it burns down. In addition manuals on loading reccomends removing the match after every shot and holding it in the opposite hand so the soldier doesn't accidentally blow himself up while handling powder (loading could still potentially be done much faster if shortcuts are taken as demonstrated by [this reenactor with an arquebus](_URL_0_)). A wheel lock firearm did away all this but added the need to reset the spring with a specialized tool after every shot. As far as flintlocks go, most manuals and sources tend to give a maximum fire rate of around 3, maybe four shots per minute. As far as I know, even with greatly simplified drills reenactors tend to have a lot of difficulty reloading a full sized Napoleonic musket in under 20 seconds.
So to sum up, 16th century muskets did take a long time to reload, largely due to its size. A flintlock musket was generally quicker and easier to reload than a 16th century matchlock caliver (which was similar in length and weight) though probably not as much as you're saying. And there was more to reload speed than the type of lock.
|
[
"At the end of the 17th century, a flaw within the design of matchlock muskets became more apparent. Since the matchlock musket used a slow burning piece of twine known as a slow match, the twine sometimes would accidentally set fire to the gunpowder reservoir in the musket prematurely setting off all of the gunpowder and bringing serious injury and death to the operator. During this time, matchlock muskets began to be replaced by lighter and cheaper infantry fusils with flintlocks, weighing 5 kg with a caliber of 17.5 mm, first in France and then in other countries. In many countries, the new fusils retained the name \"musket\". Both muskets and fusils were smoothbore, which lessened their accuracy and range, but made for faster loading, lesser amount of bore fouling and more robust, less complicated firearms.\n",
"BULLET::::- Flintlock musket: became the main weapon of long range fighting for the Carignan-Salières. It replaced the matchlock musket that was common in early years due to its increased reliability and ability to be fired without the use of an external flame. Additionally, it was capable of a much higher rate of fire than the earlier matchlock.\n",
"The Springfield Model 1840 flintlock musket was manufactured in Springfield. The .69 caliber musket had a 42-inch (107 cm) barrel, an overall length of 58 inches (147 cm), and a weight of 9.8 pounds (4,4 kg). More than 30,000 were produced by the Springfield Armory and two independent contractors between 1840 and 1846 (D. Nippes and L. Pomeroy).\n",
"BULLET::::- The flintlock: flintlock firing mechanisms for cannon were suggested by Captain Sir Charles Douglas and introduced during the American War of Independence in place of the traditional matches. Flintlocks enabled a higher rate of fire and greater accuracy as the gun captain could choose the exact moment of firing. Prior to this the Royal Navy introduced the use of goose quills filled with powder during the Seven Years' War giving an almost instantaneous burn time compared with earlier methods of detonation.\n",
"The Model 1840 was the last flintlock musket produced at Springfield Armory. Many were converted to percussion lock before they made it to the field. Although produced as a smoothbore musket, most of the Model 1840s had their barrels rifled later, as the designers had anticipated.\n",
"The major advancement in weapon technology in the 1690s was the introduction of the flintlock musket. The new firing mechanism provided superior rates of fire and accuracy over the cumbersome matchlocks. But the adoption of the flintlock was uneven, and until 1697 for every three Allied soldiers that were equipped with the new muskets, two soldiers were still handicapped by matchlocks: French second-line troops were issued matchlocks as late as 1703. These weapons were further enhanced with the development of the socket-bayonet. Its predecessor, the plug bayonet – jammed down the firearm's barrel – not only prevented the musket from firing but was also a clumsy weapon that took time to fix properly, and even more time to unfix. In contrast, the socket-bayonet could be drawn over the musket's muzzle and locked into place by a lug, converting the musket into a short pike yet leaving it capable of fire. The disadvantage of the pike came to be widely recognised: at the Battle of Fleurus in 1690, German battalions armed only with the musket repulsed French cavalry attacks more effectively than units conventionally armed with the pike, while Catinat had abandoned his pikes altogether before undertaking his Alpine campaign against Savoy.\n",
"Flintlock firing mechanisms for cannon were suggested by Captain Sir Charles Douglas and introduced during the American War of Independence in place of the traditional matches. Flintlocks enabled a higher rate of fire and greater accuracy as the gun captain could choose the exact moment of firing. Prior to this the Royal Navy introduced the use of goose quills filled with powder during the Seven Years' War giving an almost instantaneous burn time compared with earlier methods of detonation.\n"
] |
what's a good source of hydration during a hurricane if water supply in stores is sold out?
|
The point is to stock up beforehand. Water comes out of your faucet for hundreds of times cheaper than in the store.
|
[
"To prevent casual use or misuse, the hydrant requires special tools to be opened, usually a large wrench with a pentagonal socket. Vandals sometimes cause monetary loss by wasting water when they open hydrants. Such vandalism can also reduce municipal water pressure and impair firefighters' efforts to extinguish fires. Sometimes those simply seeking to play in the water remove the caps and open the valve, providing residents a place to play and cool off in summer. However, this is usually discouraged as residents have been struck by passing automobiles while playing in the street in the water spray. In spite of this, some US communities provide low flow sprinkler heads to enable residents to use the hydrants to cool off during hot weather, while gaining some control on water usage. Most fire hydrants in Australia are protected by a silver-coloured cover with a red top, secured to the ground with bolts to protect the hydrant from vandalism and unauthorized use. The cover must be removed before use.\n",
"In the United Kingdom, an \"Emergency Drought Order\" permits a water company to shut off the primary water supply to homes, and to supply water instead from tanks or standpipes in the streets. This was done in some areas during the 1976 heat wave, for example.\n",
"In rural areas where municipal water systems are not available, dry hydrants are used to supply water for fighting fires. A dry hydrant is analogous to a standpipe. A dry hydrant is usually an unpressurized, permanently installed pipe that has one end below the water level of a lake or pond. This end usually has a strainer to prevent debris, such as frogs, from entering the pipe. The other end is above ground and has a hard sleeve connector. When needed, a pumper fire engine will pump from the lake or pond by drafting water. This is done by vacuuming the air out of the dry hydrant, hard sleeve, and the fire engine pump with a primer. Because lower pressure now exists at the pump intake, atmospheric pressure on the water and the weight of the water forces water into part of the dry hydrant above water, into the hard sleeve, and finally into the pump. This water can then be pumped by the engine's centrifugal pump.\n",
"Large amounts of saline water are injected into the sub-surface around the oil reservoirs to maintain oil pressure, and this can cause health problems if people drink the water. Witnesses also said that toxic waste was being dumped into pits in the dried swamp, which would flood into the marshes in the rainy season.\n",
"In 2012, drought had severely damaged the capability to supply water to about 16,000 customers,because the lake level had dropped below normal. One of the water intakes was above the water level, while the other was partially above the line. By January 14, 2014, a television newscast reported that the lake was within a few weeks of running out of water.\n",
"Bottled water is often stored as part of an emergency kit in case of natural disaster. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says the \"safest\" and \"most reliable\" source of drinking water is store bought bottled water. Commonly, disaster management experts recommend storing of water per person, per day for at least three days. This amount is intended to include water for drinking and cooking as well as water for hand washing, washing dishes, and personal hygiene. Factory-containers of water have an indefinite shelf life, as long as they remain unopened and undamaged. The sell-by date is voluntarily and individually set by manufacturers to indicate the length of time that they believe the water will taste and smell fresh, rather than to indicate any issue of contamination or food safety.\n",
"To set up a big plant near a water abundant area, bottled water companies need to extract groundwater from a source at a rate more than the replenishment rate leading to the persistent decline in the groundwater levels. The groundwater is taken out, bottled, and then shipped all over the country or world and this water never goes back. When the water table depletes beyond a critical limit, bottling companies just move from that area leaving a grave water scarcity. Groundwater depletion impacts everyone and everything in the area that uses the water: farmers, businesses, animals, ecosystems, tourism and other users e.g. people reliant on a local well for potable water. Millions of gallons of water out of the ground leaves the water table depleted uniformly and not just in that area because the water table is connected across the landmass. Bottling Plants generate water scarcity and impact ecological balance. They lead to water stressed areas which bring in droughts.\n"
] |
why does canceling a credit card with a zero balance hurt my credit score
|
Assuming you have other credit and you have outstanding balances. Canceling increases your credit utilization %..
Lets say you have two cards and one has a balance
A:$50/$100
B: $0/$100
You are using 25% of your available credit.
You cancel card B
Your are now using 50% of your available credit.
Credit scores are a bit of a scam, they measure more your ability to keep paying than anything else... in fact most companies would prefer you keep paying your minimum and send them money for ever.
This is why the following can also hurt your score:
- Having TOO Much available credit, IE you have lots of cards with $0 on them but the total credit has become a risk in-case you snap and max them all at once.
- You have no credit cards, and have always payed for everything.. Even if you have good income, this can be a problem if they haven't been able to build a history of your reliability to pay.
If you have Netflix check if the movie [Maxed Out](_URL_0_) is still on their... it explains consumer debt fairly well.
|
[
"Because a significant portion of the FICO score is determined by the ratio of credit used to credit available on credit card accounts, one way to increase the score is to increase the credit limits on one's credit card accounts.\n",
"However, this law did not prohibit all forms of universal default. Credit card companies have begun the practice of canceling altogether the accounts of customers who are delinquent or in default with other credit agencies even if the customer is still in good standing with the credit card company.\n",
"Declines in credit card debt are often misinterpreted because they fail to include information about charge-offs. The possible causes for a decline in credit card debt are consumers paying down their debt, credit card companies writing charged-off debt off their books, or a combination of the two. Inclusion of charged-off debt can therefore significantly impact debt trends and the characterization of a nation's financial health. For example, the $10.3 billion decrease in outstanding credit card debt in Q3 2010 relative to the previous quarter might at first glance seem to be a significant consumer pay down. However, considering that the Q3 credit card charge-off rate was $16.9 billion, consumers actually increased their overall debt by $6.6 billion during this quarter.\n",
"This second form of credit card hijacking was created by marketers who recognized that subscription based services generally have relatively low periodic billing amounts which will generally go unnoticed on any given credit card statement. So what happens is that long after the user loses interest in the subscription, they forget to cancel the subscription and because the periodic billing is so low, they don’t tend to notice it on their credit card statement.\n",
"Since the financial crisis of late 2008, many Americans have struggled with the negative change to their credit score. Reduced credit lines resulting in a new group of consumers in need of liquidity forced this growing consumer segment to seek alternative financial services providers. Businesses relying on traditional credit reports to make credit decisions have had limited to no visibility on the new credit usage behaviors of this growing portion because alternative data is not information that the traditional bureaus capture or tend to report.\n",
"Low introductory credit card rates are limited to a fixed term, usually between 6 and 12 months, after which a higher rate is charged. As all credit cards charge fees and interest, some customers become so indebted to their credit card provider that they are driven to bankruptcy. Some credit cards often levy a rate of 20 to 30 percent after a payment is missed. In other cases, a fixed charge is levied without change to the interest rate. In some cases universal default may apply: the high default rate is applied to a card in good standing by missing a payment on an unrelated account from the same provider. This can lead to a snowball effect in which the consumer is drowned by unexpectedly high interest rates. Further, most card holder agreements enable the issuer to arbitrarily raise the interest rate for any reason they see fit. First Premier Bank at one point offered a credit card with a 79.9% interest rate; however, they discontinued this card in February 2011 because of persistent defaults.\n",
"Getting a higher credit limit can help a credit score. The higher the credit limit on the credit card, the lower the utilization ratio average for all of a borrower's credit card accounts. The utilization ratio is the amount owed divided by the amount extended by the creditor and the lower it is the better a FICO rating, in general. So if a person has one credit card with a used balance of $500 and a limit of $1,000 as well as another with a used balance of $700 and $2,000 limit, the average ratio is 40 percent ($1,200 total used divided by $3,000 total limits). If the first credit card company raises the limit to $2,000, the ratio lowers to 30 percent, which could boost the FICO rating.\n"
] |
Do computer screens have a direct effect on our levels of melatonin?
|
The short answer is: yes, [computer monitors suppress the natural release of melatonin during the biological night](_URL_8_). But this is not unique to computer monitors -- *all* artificial and natural light that is bright enough suppresses melatonin, including blue and other colors of light.
Here is how melatonin release normally works. The brain contains a master circadian clock -- it is a group of a few thousand neurons called the [suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)](_URL_6_) in the hypothalamus -- that keeps approximately 24-hour time. This clock sends signals to many other brain regions, one of which is the pineal gland. As an aside, the signal takes a [rather crazy pathway](_URL_7_) via the superior cervical ganglion in the neck. As a result, people who have severed their spinal cord above this level (i.e., people with tetraplegia) [release no detectable melatonin at all](_URL_0_).
The SCN signals the pineal gland to release melatonin across the night. The timing of melatonin release (in the total absence of light) is variable between individuals, but it is typical for melatonin release to begin a couple of hours before bed and to end around wake time. Light exposure during the night causes the SCN to send a stop signal to the pineal gland, causing melatonin release to cease. [Once the light source is removed, melatonin release will ramp up again if it is still during the nighttime release interval](_URL_4_). No melatonin is released during the biological day, even in darkness.
So how bright does the light need to be to suppress melatonin? It turns out the circadian system is very sensitive to light. Using broad-spectrum white light, [dim indoor lighting is sufficient to cause 50% suppression of melatonin release](_URL_10_).
And what about the color of light? I often hear that it's just blue light that matters. This is not quite correct -- it's an oversimplification. The wikipedia passage you linked to is misleading in this respect. Let me explain why. The SCN receives light signals from a special population of cells in the retina, called [intrinsically-photosensitive retinal ganglion cells](_URL_5_), or ipRGCs for short. These cells are involved in sensing light for non-visual purposes, such as the circadian system and the pupillary reflex to light. It is possible to be visually blind yet still have this non-visual light-detecting system intact, but for some blind people this system is destroyed as well (e.g., if the eyes are removed), meaning the circadian rhythm is unable to be reset by light and runs at its intrinsic period (different between individuals and not exactly 24 hours).
The ipRGCs have their own photopigment called [melanopsin](_URL_3_) (which was only discovered in the last 20 years!), allowing them to detect light. The melanopsin molecule is most sensitive to blue light (around 460-480nm wavelength), which is where this idea that blue light is the only really important color of light for melatonin suppression comes from.
However, things are a bit more complicated than that. The ipRGCs *also* receive inputs from the cone/rod system, which is maximally sensitive to green light! I have drawn a simple schematic of the pathways [here](_URL_9_). As a result, the suppression of melatonin is achieved by a combination of rod/cone and melanopsin responses to light. For relatively short light pulses (up to minutes), the rod/cone system is highly responsive and [green light is just as effective as blue light for suppressing melatonin](_URL_1_). For longer exposures (hours or longer), blue light has the greatest effect. However, if the light is bright enough, any color light can suppress melatonin release.
There are some programs now (e.g., f.lux) that redden the screen at night, thereby reducing the blue content of the light. While I am not aware of any rigorous studies of these programs to date, they are based on sound scientific reasoning. Reducing the blue content of light at night will reduce (but not eliminate) the effect on the circadian system. This makes it easier to fall asleep for two reasons. First, there will be less suppression of melatonin, and melatonin helps sleep onset to occur. Second, light in the late evening and early night causes [delay of the circadian rhythm](_URL_2_), which pushes the brain's sleep onset signal and the release of melatonin back later into the night, which can cause insomnia on that night and subsequent nights.
|
[
"Interest lies in the fact that MDA and MDMA may not themselves be responsible for their neurotoxicity, as an intracerebroventricular injection does not appear to cause neurotoxicity. While many studies suggest excitotoxicity or oxidative stress as likely mechanisms, which may be an effect of MDMA itself, this has led to the search for other mechanisms for the observed toxicity of serotonin axons and subsequent reduction in 5-HT (Serotonin) and 5-HIAA (its major metabolite in the body) in vivo following administration. A common theory follows that a metabolite in the periphery must be responsible, and several have been cited as responsible. Although alpha-methyldopamine is widely cited as the source of this neurotoxicity in a number of lay sources, McCann, \"et al.\" (1991), demonstrated that the major metabolites alpha-methyldopamine (α-Me-DA or HHA) and 3-O-methyl-α-methyldopamine (3-O-Me-α-MeDA or HMA) did not produce neurotoxicity.\n",
"BULLET::::- Psychedelic drugs – Reduced blood flow to the PCC and mPFC was observed under the administration of psilocybin. These two areas are considered to be the main nodes of the DMN. One study on the effects of LSD demonstrated that the drug desynchronizes brain activity within the DMN; the activity of the brain regions that constitute the DMN becomes less correlated.\n",
"Recent research investigating MDMA has revealed the neurotoxic effect of the drug on brain serotonin neurons. Long term and potentially permanent changes to serotonergic axons have been noted in animal and primate studies where they were administered doses of MDMA similar to those taken by some human users. MDMA has subsequently been used to investigate the role that serotonin may play in visual orientation processing. Serotonin neurons are thought to reside in the occipital lobe, which is an area of the brain responsible for visual processing of line orientation, edges, motion and stereoscopic depth perception. Because MDMA is known to affect serotonin and that serotonin is thought to be involved in vision, individuals who take MDMA may exhibit differences in their visual orientation processing.\n",
"Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI) have been known to prolong and enhance the effects of DMT and one study assumed that the effect on psilocybin would be similar since it is a structural analogue of DMT. Alcohol consumption may enhance the effects of psilocybin, because acetaldehyde, one of the primary breakdown metabolites of consumed alcohol, reacts with biogenic amines present in the body to produce MAOIs related to tetrahydroisoquinoline and β-carboline. Tobacco smokers may also experience more powerful effects with psilocybin, because tobacco smoke exposure decreases the activity of MAO in the brain and peripheral organs.\n",
"The relationship between the effect of MDMA and serotonin's role in visual orientation processing has been investigated following a prior study conducted in the 1990s by Maisini, Antonietti and Moja (1990). Their experiment involved subjects ingesting a mixture which significantly reduced brain serotonin levels. This reduction in serotonin resulted in an increase in the magnitude of the TAE in those subjects. This study has since been used as the foundation for the idea that MDMA neurotoxicity, due to its effect on serotonin neurons, could influence the magnitude of the TAE in individuals who use MDMA.\n",
"A direct neurochemical relationship between sleep mechanisms and depression is another possibility. DSPD may cause excessive or inappropriate production of melatonin. Serotonin, a mood regulator, is the precursor of melatonin. As a result, increased endogenous melatonin production can deplete serotonin levels and may cause depression.\n",
"The experience elicited by MDMA depends on the dose, setting, and user. The variability of the induced altered state by MDMA is lower compared to other psychedelics. For example, MDMA used at parties is associated with high motor activity, reduced sense of self-identity as well as poor awareness of the background surroundings. Use of MDMA individually or in a small groups in a quiet environment and when concentrating, is associated with increased lucidity, capability of concentration, sensitivity of aesthetic aspects of the background and emotions, as well as greater capability of communication with others. In psychotherapeutic settings MDMA effects have been described by infantile ideas, alternating phases of mood, sometimes memories and moods connected with childhood experiences.\n"
] |
why do indian reservations have such high unemployment?
|
Very true and in case you have forgotten, the reservations were the tracts of mostly worthless land nobody wanted, far from civilisation. That should explain the dismal prospects ofvthe denizens.
|
[
"Native American reservation inequality underlies a range of societal issues that affect the lives of Native American populations residing on reservations in the United States. About one third of the Native American population, about 700,000 persons, lives on an Indian Reservation in the United States. Reservation poverty and other discriminatory factors have led to persisting social inequality on Native American reservations. Disparities between many aspects of life at the national level and at the reservation level, such as quality of education, quality of healthcare, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, violence, and suicide rates are significant in demonstrating the inequality of opportunities and situations between reservations and the rest of the country.\n",
"In part because of the reservation's isolation, it has struggled economically. Many people are unemployed. High unemployment has contributed to high rates of poverty, alcoholism, violence and suicide. As a result, since the 1990s, the school board has added classes to the high school curriculum to include drug and alcohol abuse prevention, anti-gang training, anti-bullying training, and instruction about fetal alcohol syndrome. As a result of gang killings in the 1990s, the school added security measures to the high school, including guards.\n",
"According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Indian voters consider the lack of employment opportunities as a \"very big problem\" in their country. \"About 18.6 million Indians were jobless and another 393.7 million work in poor-quality jobs vulnerable to displacement\", states the Pew report.\n",
"According to the Pew Research Center, a significant majority of Indians consider the lack of employment opportunities as a \"very big problem\" in their country. \"About 18.6 million Indians were jobless and another 393.7 million work in poor-quality jobs vulnerable to displacement\", states the Pew report.\n",
"People belonging to Economically Weaker Section now get 10% reservation in education and government jobs of India similarly like OBC, SC, ST. There was huge unrest among people which came out in many ways including the form of anti-reservation agitations.\n",
"A large number of unskilled and skilled workers have moved to Southern India and other nations because of the unavailability of jobs locally. The technology boom that occurred in the past three decades in Southern India has helped many Indians from the north to find jobs and live prosperous lives in Southern cities. An analysis by Multidimensional Poverty Index creators reveals that Acute poverty prevails in eight Indian states. \n",
"Reservations vary drastically in their size, population, political economy, culture and traditions. Despite such variation, all reservations share similar histories of colonization, and face similar contemporary challenges. One of these challenges is poverty. In 2010, the poverty rate on reservations was 28.4 percent, compared with 22 percent among all American Indians (on and off reservations). The official U.S. poverty rate for 2016 was much lower, at 12.7 percent. In addition to poverty rates, reservations are hindered by lower-than-national-average education levels, poor healthcare services, low employment, substandard housing, and deficient economic infrastructure.\n"
] |
how do motor boat engines not get water logged?
|
Same reason your car motor doesn't get water logged when you drive in rain or puddles.
The motor is not in the water. It's spins a shaft which is also attached to a propeller, that goes into the water.
|
[
"The Amphicar's engine was mounted at the rear of the craft, driving the rear wheels through a 4-speed manual transmission. For use in the water, the same engine drove a pair of reversible propellers at the rear, with a second gear lever engaging forward or reverse drive. Once in the water, the main gear lever would normally be left in neutral. By engaging first gear as well as drive to the propellers when approaching a boat ramp, the Amphicar could drive itself out of the water.\n",
"A motorboat has one engine or more that propel the vessel over the top of the water. Boat engines vary in shape, size and type. Engines are installed either inboard or outboard. Inboard engines are part of the boat construction, while outboatboard engines are secured to the transom and hangs off the back of the boat. Motorboat engines run on gasoline or diesel and fuel. Engines come in various types. Engines vary in fuel type such as: gasoline, diesel, gas turbine, rotary combustion or steam. Motorboats are commonly used for recreation, sport or racing. Boat racing is a sport where drivers and engineers compete for fastest boat. The American Powerboat Association (APBA) splits the sport into categories. The categories include: inboard, inboard endurance, professional outboard, stock outboard, unlimited outboard performance craft, drag, modified outboard and offshore. Engines and hulls categorize racing. The two types of hull shape are runabout and hydroplane. Runabout is a v-shape and hydroplane is flat and stepped. The type of hull used depends on the type of water the boat is in and how the boat is being used. Hulls can be made of wood, fiberglass or metal but most hulls today are fiberglass.\n",
"For propulsion in or on the water some vehicles simply make do by spinning their wheels or tracks, while others can power their way forward more effectively using (additional) screw propeller(s) or water jet(s). Most amphibians will work only as a displacement hull when in the water – only a small number of designs have the capability to raise out of the water when speed is gained, to achieve high velocity hydroplaning, skimming over the water surface like speedboats.\n",
"Power boats are typically Fast electric or internal combustion, (ignition engine or glow plug R/C engine based) and some are steam powered (conventional type, and also flash steam). (At one time some boats used engines working on the compression ignition principle. These were not diesels in the true sense of the word but the modelling fraternity frequently referred to them as such. A few enthusiasts still operate such engines.) The power is commonly used to rotate a submerged propeller, aircraft propeller or jet which in turn provide the thrust to move the craft. Typically power boats have two controls, rudder, outboard motor or stern drive and throttle control. Powered scale boats will often have additional remote-controlled functions to improve realism, e.g. sounding fog horns, rotating radar antennae etc. Some of the more sophisticated powered racing boats may also have additional remote-controlled functions. These may include remote mixture control allowing the driver to optimise the fuel/air mixture during a race. Another function occasionally implemented for racing boats using a surface piercing propellor is remote control of depth or angle of thrust. There are three main types of power boat. RTR(ready-to-run), ARTR(almost-ready-to-run), and kit versions are available. All thoroughbred racing boats are made from kits and the builders add their own gear and radio.\n",
"For surface running, they were powered by one gasoline engine that drove the single propeller. When submerged the propeller was driven by a electric motor. The boats could reach on the surface and underwater.\n",
"For surface running, they were powered by one gasoline engine that drove the single propeller shaft. When submerged the propeller was driven by a electric motor. The boats could reach on the surface and underwater.\n",
"A motorboat, speedboat, or powerboat is a boat which is powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit.\n"
] |
Are there any good book (for layman) about climate changes and their impact on the course of human history/prehistory? Hopefully with maps.
|
Although comprehensive only in the sense that it attempts to cover the whole globe across most of the seventeenth century, with special focus on the impact of the Little Ice Age and associated abnormal El Nino episodes, Geoffrey Parker's book *The Global Crisis* (2013) is a major contribution by a senior historian to efforts to integrate social, political and environmental history.
Parker's thesis is that climate change during this period is crucial to understanding the very widespread political turmoil of the 17th century, which "saw more cases of simultaneous state breakdown around the globe than any previous or subsequent age" – from the Thirty Years War and British civil wars to the Fronde, the downfall of the Ming dynasty, civil war in Mughal India, the overthrow of the African kingdom of Kongo, and the disintegration of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.
Parker contends that the period was also marked by a sharp increase in the number of revolts, and more and longer wars than occurred in any comparable period before the 20th century, all accompanied by dearth and plague leading to massive mortality – which in turn led (as Hobbes suggested in *Leviathan*) to the feeling that
> "There is [now] no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; ... no arts; no letters; no society. And, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
and which prompted the contemporary Welsh historian James Howell to conclude that:
> "God Almighty has a quarrel lately with all mankind, and given the reins to the ill spirit to compass the whole earth; for within these twelve years [1637-49] there have the strangest revolutions and horridest things happened, not only in Europe but all the world over, that have befallen mankind, I dare boldly say, since Adam fell, in so short a revolution of time ... [Such] monstrous things have happened [that] it seems the whole world is off the hinges."
Finally, although perhaps least persuasively, Parker also attempts to explain why Japan, pretty much alone among the major nations studied, escaped most of the problems caused by climate change in this period.
It's a very big book, but he writes extremely well and it flies by, if the subject matter itself grips you.
|
[
"Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change is a 2006 non-fiction book by Elizabeth Kolbert. The book attempts to bring attention to the causes and effects of global climate change. Kolbert travels around the world where climate change is affecting the environment in significant ways. These locations include Alaska, Greenland, the Netherlands, and Iceland. The environmental effects that are apparent consist of rising sea levels, thawing permafrost, diminishing ice shelves, changes in migratory patterns, and increasingly devastating forest fires due to loss of precipitation. She also speaks with many leading scientists about their individual research and findings. Kolbert brings to attention the attempts of large corporations such as Exxon Mobil and General Motors to influence politicians and discredit scientists. She also writes about America’s reluctance in the global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Leading this resistance, she explained, was the Bush administration, which was opposed to the Kyoto Protocol since it was ratified in 2005. Kolbert concludes the book by examining the events surrounding the events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and arguing that governments have the knowledge and technologies to prepare for such disasters but choose to ignore the signs until it is too late.\n",
"Bradley's research focuses on climate variability over recent centuries and millennia, using instrumental and proxy records of past climate, making major contributions to our understanding of climate change over the last century. He has made it clear that these changes are well outside the envelope of natural variability that the earth has experienced over recent millennia. His research on natural forcing factors has helped to clarify the factors that caused climates to vary in the past. He has shown the critical importance of well-calibrated paleoclimate proxies for placing recent changes in a long-term context, thereby clarifying the important effects that humans have had on climate in recent decades. This led to him becoming the target of political attacks by \"skeptics\" of global warming, to which he has responded, in terms that provide a clear explanation of the issues involved for the public at large, in \"Global Warming and Political Intimidation\", 2011, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, also available in a Japanese translation [2012] by Kagaku Dojin, Tokyo.\n",
"Part I, comprising the first four chapters of the book, reviews the science of climate change, setting forth the evidence that humans are causing an unprecedented increase in carbon emissions that is, in turn causing global warming. The book describes the consequences of unchecked climate change, such as destruction of coastal cities due to rising sea levels and mega-hurricanes; increasing droughts and deadly water shortages; infestation of insects into new ranges; and increased famines, heat waves, forest fires and desertification. The book sets forth the research on \"feedback loops\" that would contribute to accelerating climate change, including: \n",
"The book includes 36 short essays predicting the consequences of global warming and has been translated into over twenty languages. The book reviews evidence of historical climate change and attempts to compare this with the current era. The book argues that if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase at current rates, the resulting climate change will cause mass species extinctions. The book also asserts that global temperatures have already risen enough to cause the annual monsoon rains in the Sahel region of Africa to diminish, causing droughts and desertification. This in turn, according to Flannery, has contributed to the conflict in the Darfur region through competition for disappearing resources. Further consequences, argued in the book, include increasing hurricane intensity, and decline in the health of coral reefs.\n",
"The book specifically examined man's influence on nature and climate change. Topics covered included astrophysics, climatology, geology, glaciology, microbiology, paleobotany, paleontology, palynology, plate tectonics, soil remineralization, seismology, soil science, solar physics and human survival.\n",
"For the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, experts assessed the literature on the impacts of climate change on ecosystems. Rosenzweig \"et al\". (2007) concluded that over the last three decades, human-induced warming had likely had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems (p. 81). Schneider \"et al\". (2007) concluded, with very high confidence, that regional temperature trends had already affected species and ecosystems around the world (p. 792). With high confidence, they concluded that climate change would result in the extinction of many species and a reduction in the diversity of ecosystems (p. 792).\n",
"In a literature assessment, Hegerl \"et al.\" (2007) assessed evidence for attributing observed climate change. They concluded that since the middle of the 20th century, it was likely that human influences had significantly contributed to surface temperature increases in every continent except Antarctica. The magazine \"Scientific American\" reported on December 23, 2008, that the 10 places most affected by climate change were Darfur, the Gulf Coast, Italy, northern Europe, the Great Barrier Reef, island nations, Washington, D.C., the Northwest Passage, the Alps, and Uganda.\n"
] |
reverse entropy
|
imagine you have a jar of marbles that you tip over. The marbles all go out in different directions, ricochet off of eachother, and settle. Now, you must put them back how they were before. How? That's impossible, that's so much data to somehow learn, which way each marble went and what it hit and how at what angle and so on to reach it's final resting spot.
imagine if you could look through time, though. You'd see the path that every single marble took and the way they scattered would look very apparent to you, like a tree with branches. You could easily tell how they got there and how to reverse it.
Reverse entropy is only possible by timetravel, but we cannot do that. As time advances, the past is braided, so to speak, into one singular universe, the universe we at this very moment are at the head of. In the future there's infinite possibilities but as we travel through the fourth dimension, we collapse/destroy all those universes into the one we right now are witnessing. The past is beyond our reach, and the future doesn't exist yet, or rather it exists in every infinite way. So we're kinda stuck in the present, just like how a 3D apple passing through a 2D world would only exist to the 2D world as that slice of 2D it is at that current time, we're that apple, and time is what we're passing through, and we can only experience the world as it is at this very moment we are advancing through it. And as such, it's not possible for us to go back and look how the marbles fell and scattered... But the secret to reversing entropy might hold the way to look back in time, and vice versa. Just like in that 2D world they have no concept of ALL of the apple in one physical 3D existence, only slices of it. They might have the cognition to imagine a 3D apple, just like how we humans have memory and forethought of the past and future, but it's really just a makeshift bandaid solution.
It's all very theoretical stuff.
|
[
"The linear entropy then is obtained by expanding ln \"ρ\" = ln (1−(1−\"ρ\")), around a pure state, \"ρ\"=\"ρ\"; that is, expanding in terms of the non-negative matrix 1−\"ρ\" in the formal Mercator series for the logarithm,\n",
"A reverse salient refers to a component of a technological system that, due to its insufficient development, prevents the system in its entirety from achieving its development goals. The term was coined by Thomas P. Hughes, in his work \"Networks of power: Electrification in western society, 1880-1930\".\n",
"Entropy is conserved for a reversible process. A reversible process is one that does not deviate from thermodynamic equilibrium, while producing the maximum work. Any process which happens quickly enough to deviate from thermal equilibrium cannot be reversible. In these cases energy is lost to heat, total entropy increases, and the potential for maximum work to be done in the transition is also lost. More specifically, total entropy is conserved in a reversible process and not conserved in an irreversible process. For example, in the Carnot cycle, while the heat flow from the hot reservoir to the cold reservoir represents an increase in entropy, the work output, if reversibly and perfectly stored in some energy storage mechanism, represents a decrease in entropy that could be used to operate the heat engine in reverse and return to the previous state, thus the \"total\" entropy change is still zero at all times if the entire process is reversible. An irreversible process increases entropy.\n",
"A deterministic process is time-reversible if the time-reversed process satisfies the same dynamic equations as the original process; in other words, the equations are invariant or symmetrical under a change in the sign of time. A stochastic process is reversible if the statistical properties of the process are the same as the statistical properties for time-reversed data from the same process.\n",
"Once obtained, these formulas can be applied to an irreversible process, such as the free expansion of an ideal gas. Such an expansion is also isothermal and may have the same initial and final states as in the reversible expansion. Since entropy is a state function, the change in entropy of the system is the same as in the reversible process and is given by the formulas above. Note that the result \"Q\" = 0 for the free expansion can not be used in the formula for the entropy change since the process is not reversible.\n",
"BULLET::::- Extropy – opposing concept of entropy. It poses that culture and technology will aid the universe in developing in an orderly progressive manner. So extropy is the tendency of systems to grow more organized.\n",
"An irreversible process degrades the performance of a thermodynamic system, designed to do work or produce cooling, and results in entropy production. The entropy generation during a reversible process is zero. Thus entropy production is a measure of the irreversibility and may be used to compare engineering processes and machines.\n"
] |
how do companies like walmart profit from selling gift cards to other services when a gift card costs the amount of credit it's worth?
|
it is a strategy used to get people in the door, much like a sale, it is ok to not make as much money on one or two items because usually when people come in they buy more than they were intending to in the first place, it happens. so to get people in the door it is actually more profitable to sell some things at a reduced price or even at a loss if it means you are making more profit on other goods and or services
|
[
"In fact, many sellers could not qualify for a credit card Merchant account because they lacked a commercial credit history. The service also appealed to auction buyers because they could fund PayPal accounts using credit cards or bank account balances, without divulging credit card numbers to unknown sellers. PayPal employed an aggressive marketing campaign to accelerate its growth, depositing $10 in new users' PayPal accounts.\n",
"Credit card merchant associations, like Visa and MasterCard, receive profits from transaction fees, charging between 0% and 3.25% of the purchase price plus a per transaction fee of between 0.00 USD and 40.00 USD. Cash costs more to bank up, so it is worthwhile for merchants to take cards. Issuers are thus motivated to pursue policies which increase the money transferred by their systems. Many merchants believe this pursuit of revenue reduces the incentive for credit card issuers to adopt procedures to reduce crime, particularly because the cost of investigating a fraud is usually higher than the cost of just writing it off. These costs are passed on to the merchants as \"chargebacks\". This can result in substantial additional costs: not only has the merchant been defrauded for the amount of the transaction, he is also obliged to pay the chargeback fee, and to add insult to injury the transaction fees still stand.. Additionally, merchants may lose their merchant account if their percent of chargeback to overall turnover exceeds some value related to their type of product or service sold.\n",
"Many credit card customers receive rewards, such as frequent flyer points, gift certificates, or cash back as an incentive to use the card. Rewards are generally tied to purchasing an item or service on the card, which may or may not include balance transfers, cash advances, or other special uses. Depending on the type of card, rewards will generally cost the issuer between 0.25% and 2.0% of the spread. Networks such as Visa or MasterCard have increased their fees to allow issuers to fund their rewards system. Some issuers discourage redemption by forcing the cardholder to call customer service for rewards. On their servicing website, redeeming awards is usually a feature that is very well hidden by the issuers. With a fractured and competitive environment, rewards points cut dramatically into an issuer's bottom line, and rewards points and related incentives must be carefully managed to ensure a profitable portfolio. Unlike unused gift cards, in whose case the breakage in certain US states goes to the state's treasury, unredeemed credit card points are retained by the issuer.\n",
"Many payment services, such as PayPal and Square, allow people to receive credit card payments for low prices, which could be made to oneself. These could be used to pay off balances. In this case, the kiter is creating cash while avoiding legally entitled cash advance fees. This is a violation of PayPal and Square Terms of Service contracts and agreements.\n",
"In order to collect the money for their item, the seller must apply to the credit card company with a signed receipt. Sellers usually apply for many payments at regular intervals. The seller is also charged a fee of normally 1–3% of the purchase price by the credit card company for the privilege of accepting that brand of credit card for purchases.\n",
"A quarter of gift card recipients still have not spent gift cards a year after receiving them, according to a Consumer Reports survey, and a majority of people say they end up spending more than the value of the card once they get to the store. \n",
"Purchases of gift cards are not subject to sales tax in all states. These purchases are considered to be similar to exchange of cash. The sales tax will be charged when gift cards are used as a method of payment for taxable goods or services. There was a proposal in New York State to impose a sales tax when a gift card is purchased instead of imposing it when the card is used, but it failed.\n"
] |
Why are owls associated with intelligence?
|
To answer the former question: Athena was the protector of Athens. Athena had an owl because owls were abundant in Athens. There's a proverb that says "bring owls to Athens" for a pointless venture.
edit: I was answering the question of why owls are associated with the Greek goddess Athena.
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[
"BULLET::::- Although owls are often associated with wisdom and intelligence, this is not universal, nor a timeless image. During the Middle Ages owls were seen as stupid and evil helpers of witches. In many paintings of Hieronymus Bosch the bird is seen as a symbol of stupidity and/or evil. The Dutch profanity word \"\"uilskuiken\" (\"owl chick\")\" is used to insult a stupid person; the Dutch saying \"\"Wat baten kaars en bril als de uil niet zien wil?\" (\"What use are a candle and glasses if the owl refuses to see?\")\" reminds people of this opposite view of owls. In Asian culture owls are traditionally seen as dumb instead of wise. Portrayal of owls as evil can also be seen in films such as \"Rock-a-Doodle\".\n",
"Successful training of owls is much different from the training of hawks and falcons, as they are hearing- rather than sight-oriented. (Owls can only see black and white, and are long-sighted.) This often leads falconers to believe that they are less intelligent, as they are distracted easily by new or unnatural noises and they do not respond as readily to food cues. However, if trained successfully, owls show intelligence on the same level as that of hawks and falcons.\n",
"Although many people believe this owl has exceptional night vision, its retina is no more sensitive than a human's and its asymmetrically placed ears are key to its hunting by giving it excellent directional hearing. Its nocturnal habits and eerie, easily imitated call, have led to a mythical association of the tawny owl with bad luck and death.\n",
"Some research has found that night owls are more intelligent and creative and more likely to get high-paying jobs than larks. A study among 1000 adolescents by the University of Madrid found that owls are better than early birds in intuitive intelligence, creative thinking and inductive reasoning. However, they lag behind larks in academic performance, and they tend to have unhealthier eating habits.\n",
"BULLET::::- Owls are variable-sized, typically night-specialized hunting birds. They fly almost silently due to their special feather structure that reduces turbulence. They have particularly acute hearing.\n",
"Much of the owls' hunting strategy depends on stealth and surprise. Owls have at least two adaptations that aid them in achieving stealth. First, the dull coloration of their feathers can render them almost invisible under certain conditions. Secondly, serrated edges on the leading edge of owls' remiges muffle an owl's wing beats, allowing an owl's flight to be practically silent. Some fish-eating owls, for which silence has no evolutionary advantage, lack this adaptation.\n",
"On the other hand, Cynthia Berger theorizes about the appeal of some characteristics of owls —such as their ability to see in the dark— to be used as symbol of wisdom while others, such as William Geoffrey Arnott, propose a simple association between founding myths of Athens and the significant number of little owls in the region (a fact noted since antiquity by Aristophanes in \"The Birds\" and \"Lysistrata\").\n"
] |
sound effects
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Yes, sometimes they just go out to a shooting range or go out driving with a bunch of sound equipment.
Usually for movies they just buy the sound effects from someone who already did that and is selling all the sound effects.
Either way, studios end up with libraries of sound effects they use.
|
[
"A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. These are normally created with foley. In motion picture and television production, a sound effect is a sound recorded and presented to make a specific storytelling or creative point \"without\" the use of dialogue or music. The term often refers to a process applied to a recording, without necessarily referring to the recording itself. In professional motion picture and television production, dialogue, music, and sound effects recordings are treated as separate elements. Dialogue and music recordings are never referred to as sound effects, even though the processes applied to such as reverberation or flanging effects, often are called \"sound effects\".\n",
"As far back as Ancient Greece, sound effects have been used in entertainment productions. Sound effects (also known as \"sound FX\", \"SFX\", or simply \"FX\") are used to enhance theatre, radio, film, television, video games and online media.\n",
"Sound effects were originally added to productions by creating the sounds needed in real time. Various devices and props were utilized to approximate the actual sounds, including coconut shells for horse hooves, and a sheet of metal for thunder. With the advent of radio and specifically radio dramas, the role of sound effects became more important. When cinema went from silent to \"talkies\", sound effects became a large part of this new medium, too.\n",
"When the required sound effect is of a small subject, such as scissors cutting, cloth ripping, or footsteps, the sound effect is best recorded in a studio, under controlled conditions. Such small sounds are often delegated to a foley artist and foley editor. Many sound effects cannot be recorded in a studio, such as explosions, gunfire, and automobile or aircraft maneuvers. These effects must be recorded by a sound effects editor or a professional sound effects recordist.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Design sound effects\" are sounds that do not normally occur in nature, or are impossible to record in nature. These sounds are used to suggest futuristic technology in a science fiction film, or are used in a musical fashion to create an emotional mood.\n",
"When creating sound effects for films, sound recordists and editors do not generally concern themselves with the verisimilitude or accuracy of the sounds they present. The sound of a bullet entering a person from a close distance may sound nothing like the sound designed in the above example, but since very few people are aware of how such a thing actually sounds, the job of designing the effect is mainly an issue of creating a conjectural sound which feeds the audience's expectations while still suspending disbelief.\n",
"Once the sound effects are recorded or captured, they are usually loaded into a computer integrated with an audio non-linear editing system. This allows a sound editor or sound designer to heavily manipulate a sound to meet his or her needs.\n"
] |
How important are cyanobacteria to *keeping* the earth's atmosphere oxygenated?
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Indeed, they are very important. [Here](_URL_0_) is a Nat. Geo. article on this very topic (though they are talking about all phytoplankton, but just cyanobacteria). It's a bit old (2004), but still agrees with several other more recent sources I found. The short answer is that, yes, photosynthetic unicellular marine microorganisms (cyanobacteria being one of the most abundant) are very important for maintaining our atmospheric oxygen.
|
[
"While prokaryotic cyanobacteria reproduce asexually through cell division, they were instrumental in priming the environment for the evolutionary development of more complex eukaryotic organisms. Cyanobacteria (as well as extremophile Gammaproteobacteria) are thought to be largely responsible for increasing the amount of oxygen in the primeval earth's atmosphere through their continuing photosynthesis (see Great Oxygenation Event). Cyanobacteria use water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to create their food. A layer of mucus often forms over mats of cyanobacterial cells. In modern microbial mats, debris from the surrounding habitat can become trapped within the mucus, which can be cemented together by the calcium carbonate to grow thin laminations of limestone. These laminations can accrete over time, resulting in the banded pattern common to stromatolites. The domal morphology of biological stromatolites is the result of the vertical growth necessary for the continued infiltration of sunlight to the organisms for photosynthesis. Layered spherical growth structures termed oncolites are similar to stromatolites and are also known from the fossil record. Thrombolites are poorly laminated or non-laminated clotted structures formed by cyanobacteria, common in the fossil record and in modern sediments.\n",
"While prokaryotic cyanobacteria themselves reproduce asexually through cell division, they were instrumental in priming the environment for the evolutionary development of more complex eukaryotic organisms. Cyanobacteria (as well as extremophile Gammaproteobacteria) are thought to be largely responsible for increasing the amount of oxygen in the primeval earth's atmosphere through their continuing photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria use water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to create their food. A layer of mucus often forms over mats of cyanobacterial cells. In modern microbial mats, debris from the surrounding habitat can become trapped within the mucus, which can be cemented by the calcium carbonate to grow thin laminations of limestone. These laminations can accrete over time, resulting in the banded pattern common to stromatolites. The domal morphology of biological stromatolites is the result of the vertical growth necessary for the continued infiltration of sunlight to the organisms for photosynthesis. Layered spherical growth structures termed oncolites are similar to stromatolites and are also known from the fossil record. Thrombolites are poorly laminated or non-laminated clotted structures formed by cyanobacteria common in the fossil record and in modern sediments.\n",
"Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that have existed on Earth for an estimated 2.7 billion years. The ability of cyanobacteria to produce oxygen initiated the transition from a planet consisting of high levels of carbon dioxide and little oxygen, to what has been called the Great Oxygenation Event where large amounts of oxygen gas were produced. Cyanobacteria have colonized a wide diversity of habitats, including fresh and salt water ecosystems, and most land environments. Phylogenetically, \"Synechocystis\" branches off later in the cyanobacterial evolutionary tree, further from the ancestral root (\"Gloeobacter violaceus\"). \"Synechocystis\", which is non-diazotrophic, is closely related to another model organism, \"Cyanothece\" ATCC 51442, which is a diazotroph. Thus, it has been proposed that \"Synechocystis\" originally possessed the ability to fix nitrogen gas, but lost the genes required for a fully functioning nitrogen fixation (\"nif\") gene cluster.\n",
"Cyanobacteria are the only bacteria that produce oxygen during photosynthesis. Earth's primordial atmosphere was anoxic. Organisms like cyanobacteria produced our present-day oxygen-containing atmosphere.\n",
"Cyanobacteria are arguably the most successful group of microorganisms on earth. They are the most genetically diverse; they occupy a broad range of habitats across all latitudes, widespread in freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems, and they are found in the most extreme niches such as hot springs, salt works, and hypersaline bays. Photoautotrophic, oxygen-producing cyanobacteria created the conditions in the planet's early atmosphere that directed the evolution of aerobic metabolism and eukaryotic photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria fulfill vital ecological functions in the world's oceans, being important contributors to global carbon and nitrogen budgets. – Stewart and Falconer\n",
"Somewhere between 3.8 and 2.3 billion years ago, the ancestors of cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis, enabling the use of the abundant yet relatively oxidized molecule HO as an electron donor to the electron transport chain of light-catalyzed proton-pumping responsible for efficient ATP synthesis. When this evolutionary breakthrough occurred, autotrophy (growth using inorganic carbon as the sole carbon source) is believed to have already been developed. However, the proliferation of cyanobacteria, due to their novel ability to exploit water as a source of electrons, radically altered the global environment by oxygenating the atmosphere and by achieving large fluxes of CO consumption.\n",
"Cyanobacteria, which are prokaryotic organisms which carry out oxygenic photosynthesis, occupy many environmental conditions, including fresh water, seas, soil, and lichen. Cyanobacteria carry out plant-like photosynthesis because the organelle in plants that carries out photosynthesis is derived from an endosymbiotic cyanobacterium. This bacterium can use water as a source of electrons in order to perform CO reduction reactions. Evolutionarily, cyanobacteria's ability to survive in oxygenic conditions, which are considered toxic to most anaerobic bacteria, might have given the bacteria an adaptive advantage which could have allowed the cyanobacteria to populate more efficiently.\n"
] |
is it true that if you eat human flesh your body will uncontrollably shake? if so, why?
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It could happen, yes. It's due to a prion disease called Kuru: _URL_0_
|
[
"In modern humans, necrophagy (eating of dead/decaying flesh) occurs rarely in most societies. This is likely an adaptation to the risk of disease, due to humans having lower levels of protective acids in the digestive tract, compared to species that are dedicated scavengers. Many instances have occurred in history, especially in times of war, where necrophagy and cannibalism can emerge as a survival behavior.\n",
"One of the key dangers of shock is that it progresses by a positive feedback mechanism. Poor blood supply leads to cellular damage, which results in an inflammatory response to increase blood flow to the affected area. This is normally very useful to match up blood supply level with tissue demand for nutrients. However, if enough tissue causes this, it will deprive vital nutrients from other parts of the body. Additionally, the ability of the circulatory system to meet this increase in demand causes saturation, and this is a major result, of which other parts of the body begin to respond in a similar way; thus, exacerbating the problem. Due to this chain of events, immediate treatment of shock is critical for survival.\n",
"Although nerves tend to lie deep under the skin except in a few places such as the ulnar nerve near the elbow joint, they are still relatively exposed to physical damage, which can cause pain, loss of sensation, or loss of muscle control. Damage to nerves can also be caused by swelling or bruises at places where a nerve passes through a tight bony channel, as happens in carpal tunnel syndrome. If a nerve is completely transected, it will often regenerate, but for long nerves this process may take months to complete. In addition to physical damage, peripheral neuropathy may be caused by many other medical problems, including genetic conditions, metabolic conditions such as diabetes, inflammatory conditions such as Guillain–Barré syndrome, vitamin deficiency, infectious diseases such as leprosy or shingles, or poisoning by toxins such as heavy metals. Many cases have no cause that can be identified, and are referred to as idiopathic. It is also possible for nerves to lose function temporarily, resulting in numbness as stiffness—common causes include mechanical pressure, a drop in temperature, or chemical interactions with local anesthetic drugs such as lidocaine.\n",
"Murphy and Mallory do not exclude the possibility that the flesh removed from the bodies was consumed. Archeologically these activities remain invisible. But they point out that elsewhere, Herodotus names another tribe (Androphagi) as the only group to eat human flesh.\n",
"Those to be eaten were tied and hung up in trees until needed, then had their brains bashed out on execution blocks with a club. Women and children seem to have been cannibalized just for food, whereas warriors killed in battle were offerings to the gods and were eaten by their conquerors to absorb their power; their skulls were kept by their slayers for the same reason.\n",
"Meat and fish served on the bone can present a risk of accident or injury. Small, sharp fish bones are the most likely to cause injury although sharp fragments of meat bone can also cause problems. Typical injuries include bones being swallowed and becoming trapped in the throat and bones being trapped under the tongue.\n",
"Shock is the state of not enough blood flow to the tissues of the body as a result of problems with the circulatory system. Initial symptoms may include weakness, fast heart rate, fast breathing, sweating, anxiety, and increased thirst. This may be followed by confusion, unconsciousness, or cardiac arrest as complications worsen.\n"
] |
how is the sugar coating on sour candy so much different than table sugar?
|
From Wikipedia: *Sour sanding, or sour sugar, is a food ingredient that is used to impart a sour flavor, made from citric or tartaric acid and sugar. It is used to coat sour candies like Sour Patch Kids or to make hard candies tart, such as acid drops or SweeTarts.* It's not quite the same thing.
|
[
"Sugar candy is made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize. Candy comes in a wide variety of textures, from soft and chewy to hard and brittle. The texture of candy depends on the ingredients and the temperatures that the candy is processed at.\n",
"The final texture of sugar candy depends primarily on the sugar concentration. As the syrup is heated, it boils, water evaporates, the sugar concentration increases and the boiling point rises. A given temperature corresponds to a particular sugar concentration. These are called sugar stages. In general, higher temperatures and greater sugar concentrations result in hard, brittle candies, and lower temperatures result in softer candies. Once the syrup reaches or higher, the sucrose molecules break down into many simpler sugars, creating an amber-colored substance known as caramel. This should not be confused with caramel candy, although it is the candy's main flavoring.\n",
"The final texture of candy depends on the sugar concentration. As the syrup is heated, it boils and the sugar concentration increases as water evaporates. A given temperature corresponds to a particular sugar concentration because the boiling-point elevation of the sugar solution is a colligative property (i.e., it is related to the concentration of the solution), so temperature is used as a marker for the necessary concentration. In general, higher temperatures and greater sugar concentrations result in hard, brittle candies, and lower temperatures result in softer candies. The stages of sugar cooking are as follows:\n",
"Sugaring paste can be prepared with common household food items such as water, sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, honey and molasses. Lemon juice is added for its acidity, which breaks up the sucrose into fructose and glucose. As in candy making, this gives the finished sugaring wax a non-crystalline, or amorphous, structure. Getting the correct consistency takes practice for most users. Pre-made sugar paste is also sold. This includes professional and retail versions, which may contain guar gum for texture or essential oils to condition skin. Since sugaring paste is water-based and water-soluble, the substance can be easily cleaned up with warm water. Sugaring is sometimes preferable to waxing because it has no resins, except for guar.\n",
"Rock candy or sugar candy (in British English), also called rock sugar, is a type of confection composed of relatively large sugar crystals. This candy is formed by allowing a supersaturated solution of sugar and water to crystallize onto a surface suitable for crystal nucleation, such as a string, stick, or plain granulated sugar. Heating the water before adding the sugar allows more sugar to dissolve thus producing larger crystals. Crystals form after 6 to 7 days. Food coloring may be added to the mixture to produce colored candy.\n",
"Sugar candy is often used to sweeten tea. Northern Germany, specifically East Frisia, has an established tea culture, where a large crystal of sugar candy \"(Kandiszucker\" or in the regional dialect \"Kluntje)\" is placed at the bottom of the cup and the hot tea added, which cracks and dissolves the crystal. Similarly in Iran, tea is consumed with sugar candy (called \"nabat\") placed either in the tea or in the mouth. In China, sugar candy is used to sweeten Chrysanthemum tea as well as Cantonese dessert soups and the liquor \"baijiu\". \n",
"As described by a 1980 patent, the candy is made by dissolving sugars in water and is evaporated at until the water content is 3% by mass. The water and sugar mixture is then cooled to , and while being intensely stirred it is pressurized with carbon dioxide at . The mixture is then kept under pressure and allowed to cool and solidify, embedding the carbon dioxide bubbles in candy. The majority of the resultant carbon dioxide bubbles are between in diameter. When the pressure on the cooled and solidified candy is released, it shatters into pieces that vary in size.\n"
] |
how are airplanes able to travel through the air despite being heavier than air? also, what exactly is jet propulsion?
|
Airplanes fly by generating lift. Their wings are shaped in such a way that when they are moving through the air, the air passing over the top of the wing is moving faster than the air moving under the wing. The faster that air moves, the lower pressure it has. Since the faster moving air on top of the wing has less pressure than the slower moving air on the bottom of the wing it generates lift and causes the plane to rise.
Jet engines work by taking in a large amount of air and compressing it into a small space. Fuel is then added to the compressed air and it is ignited, or basically blown up. The more air that can be pushed in and the more it can be compressed, the more powerful the explosion will be. The force of the explosion pushes out of the back of the jet engine causing forward thrust. In reality it creates more pressure pushing forward on the jet engine than at the rear of the jet engine, the thrust isn't actually pushing off of anything behind it. That's why boosters still work in space where there is no air.
|
[
"There are different approaches to flight. If an object has a lower density than air, then it is buoyant and is able to float in the air without expending energy. A heavier than air craft, known as an aerodyne, includes flighted animals and insects, fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft. Because the craft is heavier than air, it must generate lift to overcome its weight. The wind resistance caused by the craft moving through the air is called drag and is overcome by propulsive thrust except in the case of gliding.\n",
"An aircraft is a Vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships (including blimps), gliders, paramotors and hot air balloons.\n",
"In flight a powered aircraft can be considered as being acted on by four forces: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. \"Thrust\" is the force generated by the engine (whether it be a jet or a propeller driven craft) and acts in a forward direction for the purpose of overcoming drag. \"Lift\" acts perpendicular to the vector representing the aircraft's velocity relative to the atmosphere. \"Drag\" acts parallel to the aircraft's velocity vector, but in the opposite direction because drag resists motion through the air. \"Weight\" acts through the aircraft's centre of gravity, towards the centre of the Earth.\n",
"An aircraft can only stay aloft by constantly traveling forward relative to the air (rather than the ground), so that the wings can generate lift. The thinner the air, the faster the plane must go to generate enough lift to stay up. The amount of lift provided (which must equal the vehicle's weight in order to maintain level flight) is calculated by the lift equation:\n",
"Heavier-than-air aircraft, such as airplanes, must find some way to push air or gas downwards, so that a reaction occurs (by Newton's laws of motion) to push the aircraft upwards. This dynamic movement through the air is the origin of the term \"aerodyne\". There are two ways to produce dynamic upthrust — aerodynamic lift, and powered lift in the form of engine thrust.\n",
"Wing-in-ground-effect vehicles are not considered aircraft. They \"fly\" efficiently close to the surface of the ground or water, like conventional aircraft during takeoff. An example is the Russian ekranoplan (nicknamed the \"Caspian Sea Monster\"). Man-powered aircraft also rely on ground effect to remain airborne with a minimal pilot power, but this is only because they are so underpowered—in fact, the airframe is capable of flying higher.\n",
"An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a powered, fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Worldwide, commercial aviation transports more than four billion passengers annually on airliners and transports more than 200 billion tonne-kilometres of cargo annually, which is less than 1% of the world's cargo movement. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed to be remotely or computer-controlled such as drones.\n"
] |
when you forget something, why does retracing your steps often make you remember? (such as going back to a webpage you closed or redoing the activity you were doing)
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For me, it tends to be that something in what I was doing was the impetus for the thought to begin with. When that stimulus occurs again, the thought happens again in the same way it did initially.
|
[
"There are two theories that can explain directed forgetting: retrieval inhibition hypothesis and context shift hypothesis. The Retrieval Inhibition Hypothesis states that the instruction to forget the first list hinders memory of the list-one items. This hypothesis suggests that directed forgetting only reduces the retrieval of the unwanted memories, not causing permanent damage. If we intentionally forget items, they are difficult to recall but are recognized if the items are presented again. The Context Shift Hypothesis suggests that the instructions to forget mentally separate the to-be-forgotten items. They are put into a different context from the second list. The subject's mental context changes between the first and second list, but the context from the second list remains. This impairs the recall ability for the first list.\n",
"Forgetting can have very different causes than simply removal of stored content. Forgetting can mean access problems, availability problems, or can have other reasons such as amnesia caused by an accident.\n",
"Although the term \"retrieval-induced forgetting\" was first used in 1994, it was described in an earlier review by Robert A. Bjork in terms of suppressing memories that become active but are not relevant for a given situation. Bjork described a study by Neely and Durgunoğlu who found that participants were slower at recognizing words when they were shown a related word immediately beforehand. The researchers hypothesized that participants were actually trying to suppress the related words during recognition, as it was irrelevant and unhelpful information in completing the recognition task.\n",
"The main theory, the \"motivated forgetting theory\", suggests that people forget things because they either do not want to remember them or for another particular reason. Painful and disturbing memories are made unconscious and very difficult to retrieve, but still remain in storage. Retrieval Suppression is one way in which we are able to stop the retrieval of unpleasant memories using cognitive control. This theory was tested by Anderson and Green using the Think/No-Think paradigm.\n",
"The directed forgetting paradigm is a psychological term meaning that information can be forgotten upon instruction. There are two methods of the directed forgetting paradigm; item method and list method. In both methods, the participants are instructed to forget some items, the to-be-forgotten items and the to-be-remembered items.\n",
"Kundera ties slowness to the act of remembering, and speed to the act of forgetting. When one wants to savour, remember, or prolong a moment, one moves and acts slowly. On the other hand, one travels fast in order to forget a past experience. For example, after Vincent's disastrous night at the chateau, he gets on his motorcycle and drives home as fast as he can in order to leave behind the site of his failed romantic endeavor.\n",
"Retrieval failure provides another explanation for why we forget learned information. According to this theory, we forget information because it is inaccessible in long-term memory stores. Access to this information depends on retrieval cues, and the absence of these cues causes difficulties in recalling retained information. Forgetting learned information occurs most often when the context and state are very different when encoding and retrieving. In these situations, there are no retrieval cues which can result in cue-dependent forgetting. For example, many people do not remember much about their childhood. However, once returning to an old house or school; which provide retrieval cues, childhood memories usually begin to return. Retrieval failure and an absence in cues can be very influential for forgetting learned information.\n"
] |
Is radioactive decay temperature-dependent?
|
Typically is not, the nucleus is so much smaller than the atom that it doesn't "care" what's happening around it (imagine a marble at the center of one of those giant human hamster balls). There are maybe a few small exceptions.
One could argue that the electron-capture mechanism (sometimes called inverse beta decay) depends on the probability of the electron being found in the nucleus, which depends on the lattice arrangement which depends on temperature. The difficulty with testing this is that the functioning of particle detectors for measuring decay also depends on temperature. There were a few studies purporting to find temperature dependence, [but a more precise study](_URL_0_) did not.
There's also the phenomenon that a superheated gas might have atoms that experience time dilation and appear to have slower decay rate. It's not feasible to make a gas that hot with current technology, but slower decay rates of nuclei have been observed in a particle accelerator.
|
[
"The mathematics of radioactive decay depend on a key assumption that a nucleus of a radionuclide has no \"memory\" or way of translating its history into its present behavior. A nucleus does not \"age\" with the passage of time. Thus, the probability of its breaking down does not increase with time, but stays constant no matter how long the nucleus has existed. This constant probability may vary greatly between different types of nuclei, leading to the many different observed decay rates. However, whatever the probability is, it does not change. This is in marked contrast to complex objects which do show aging, such as automobiles and humans. These systems do have a chance of breakdown per unit of time, that increases from the moment they begin their existence.\n",
"The constancy of the decay rates of isotopes is well supported in science. Evidence for this constancy includes the correspondences of date estimates taken from different radioactive isotopes as well as correspondences with non-radiometric dating techniques such as dendrochronology, ice core dating, and historical records. Although scientists have noted slight increases in the decay rate for isotopes subject to extreme pressures, those differences were too small to significantly impact date estimates. The constancy of the decay rates is also governed by first principles in quantum mechanics, wherein any deviation in the rate would require a change in the fundamental constants. According to these principles, a change in the fundamental constants could not influence different elements uniformly, and a comparison between each of the elements' resulting unique chronological timescales would then give inconsistent time estimates.\n",
"Since radioactive decay is exponential with a constant probability, each process could as easily be described with a different constant time period that (for example) gave its \"(1/3)-life\" (how long until only 1/3 is left) or \"(1/10)-life\" (a time period until only 10% is left), and so on. Thus, the choice of and \"\" for marker-times, are only for convenience, and from convention. They reflect a fundamental principle only in so much as they show that the \"same proportion\" of a given radioactive substance will decay, during any time-period that one chooses.\n",
"The radioactivity of all radioactive waste weakens with time. All radionuclides contained in the waste have a half-life — the time it takes for half of the atoms to decay into another nuclide — and eventually, all radioactive waste decays into non-radioactive elements (i.e., stable nuclides). Since radioactive decay follows the half-life rule, the rate of decay is inversely proportional to the duration of decay. In other words, the radiation from a long-lived isotope like iodine-129 will be much less intense than that of a short-lived isotope like iodine-131. The two tables show some of the major radioisotopes, their half-lives, and their radiation yield as a proportion of the yield of fission of uranium-235.\n",
"Theory predicts that many apparently \"stable\" isotopes/nuclides are radioactive, with extremely long half-lives (discounting the possibility of proton decay, which would make all nuclides ultimately unstable). Some stable nuclides are in theory energetically susceptible to other known forms of decay, such as alpha decay or double beta decay, but no decay products have yet been observed, and so these isotopes are said to be \"observationally stable\". The predicted half-lives for these nuclides often greatly exceed the estimated age of the universe, and in fact there are also 31 known radionuclides (see primordial nuclide) with half-lives longer than the age of the universe.\n",
"Radioactive decay is a stochastic (i.e. random) process at the level of single atoms. According to quantum theory, it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay, regardless of how long the atom has existed. However, for a collection of atoms, the expected decay rate is characterized in terms of measured decay constants or half-lives. This is the basis of radiometric dating. The half-lives of radioactive atoms have no known upper limit, spanning a time range of over 55 orders of magnitude, from nearly instantaneous to far longer than the age of the universe.\n",
"For most radioactive nuclides, the half-life depends solely on nuclear properties and is essentially a constant. It is not affected by external factors such as temperature, pressure, chemical environment, or presence of a magnetic or electric field. The only exceptions are nuclides that decay by the process of electron capture, such as beryllium-7, strontium-85, and zirconium-89, whose decay rate may be affected by local electron density. For all other nuclides, the proportion of the original nuclide to its decay products changes in a predictable way as the original nuclide decays over time. This predictability allows the relative abundances of related nuclides to be used as a clock to measure the time from the incorporation of the original nuclides into a material to the present.\n"
] |
batteries: rechargeable vs disposable
|
Rechargable batteries have different chemistry from disposable batteries. And the different chemistries result in various pros and cons.
A NiMH AA has a voltage of 1.2, but an alkaline AA is 1.5. But most electronics tolerate these small differences.
A more significant difference for a user would be the problem of auto-discharge. Rechargeable cells like a NiMH, even when not plugged in, lose charge with time.
So while your remotes, mouse, and game controllers can utilize recharging cells, you should NOT use rechargables for something like an emergency-kit's flashlight which you store away for hurricane season, because chances are you won't be charging them periodically waiting for the unexpected to happen.
So there are legitimate reasons to use alkalines, but their use obviously is too common to be explained by those circumstances. My guess is selling disposable batteries is more profitable for them, or that people are too lazy, or both.
|
[
"A rechargeable battery, storage battery, secondary cell, or accumulator is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or primary battery, which is supplied fully charged and discarded after use. It is composed of one or more electrochemical cells. The term \"accumulator\" is used as it accumulates and stores energy through a reversible electrochemical reaction. Rechargeable batteries are produced in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from button cells to megawatt systems connected to stabilize an electrical distribution network. Several different combinations of electrode materials and electrolytes are used, including lead–acid, nickel–cadmium (NiCd), nickel–metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li-ion), and lithium-ion polymer (Li-ion polymer).\n",
"Rechargeable batteries typically initially cost more than disposable batteries, but have a much lower total cost of ownership and environmental impact, as they can be recharged inexpensively many times before they need replacing. Some rechargeable battery types are available in the same sizes and voltages as disposable types, and can be used interchangeably with them.\n",
"A rechargeable battery, comprises one or more electrochemical cells. It is known as a 'secondary cell' because its electrochemical reactions are electrically reversible. Rechargeable batteries come in many different shapes and sizes, ranging from button cells to megawatt grid systems.\n",
"Manufacturers do not support recharging of disposable alkaline batteries, and warn that it may be dangerous. Despite this advice, alkaline batteries have been recharged, and chargers have been available. The capacity of a recharged alkaline battery declines with number of recharges, until it becomes unusable after typically about ten cycles.\n",
"Rechargeable systems may mechanically replace the anode and electrolyte, essentially operating as a refurbishable primary cell, or may use zinc powder or other methods to replenish the reactants. Mechanically recharged systems were investigated for military electronics uses in the 1960s because of the high energy density and easy recharging. However, primary lithium batteries offered higher discharge rates and easier handling.\n",
"Rechargeable batteries have lower total cost of use and environmental impact than non-rechargeable (disposable) batteries. Some rechargeable battery types are available in the same form factors as disposables. Rechargeable batteries have higher initial cost but can be recharged very cheaply and used many times.\n",
"Secondary batteries, also known as \"secondary cells\", or \"rechargeable batteries\", must be charged before first use; they are usually assembled with active materials in the discharged state. Rechargeable batteries are (re)charged by applying electric current, which reverses the chemical reactions that occur during discharge/use. Devices to supply the appropriate current are called chargers.\n"
] |
why was microsoft criticised for bundling a browser and media player with their os, but is apple allowed to bundle a computer with their os?
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Microsoft was leveraging its monopoly to put a much smaller rival out of business.
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[
"The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling them is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took a while to download or purchase such software at a store. Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft had manipulated its application programming interfaces to favor IE over third-party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct.\n",
"In a legal case brought by the US Department of Justice and twenty U.S. states, Microsoft was accused of breaking an earlier consent decree, by bundling Internet Explorer with its operating system software. The department took issue with Microsoft's contract with OEM computer manufacturers that bound the manufacturers to include Internet Explorer with the copies of Microsoft Windows they installed on systems they shipped. It would not allow the manufacturer to put an icon for any other web browser on the default desktop in place of Internet Explorer. Microsoft maintained that integration of its web browser into its operating system was in the interests of consumers.\n",
"Mac OS X has been demonstrated running on various netbooks as a result of the OSx86 project, although this is in violation of the operating system's end-user license agreement. Apple has complained to sites hosting information on how to install OS X onto non-Apple hardware (including \"Wired\" and YouTube) who have reacted and removed content in response. One article nicknamed a netbook running OS X a \"Hackintosh.\" The Macbook Air can be considered an expensive netbook.\n",
"Apple Inc. sued to prevent other software companies from offering graphical user interfaces similar to its own. Apple lost most of its claims but courts agreed Apple's Trash \"icon\" was original and protected by copyright. Non-Apple software may use other metaphors for file deletion, such as Recycle Bin, Smart Eraser, or Shredder.\n",
"In August 2004, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered Microsoft to pull ads in Britain that claimed that the total cost of ownership of Linux servers was ten times that of Windows Server 2003. The comparison included the cost of hardware, and put Linux at a disadvantage by installing it on more expensive but poorer-performing hardware compared to that used for Windows.\n",
"The macOS EULA forbids installations of macOS on a \"non-Apple-branded computer\". On July 3, 2008, Apple filed a lawsuit against Psystar Corporation for violating this restriction, among other claims. Apple claimed Psystar \"violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by dodging copy-protection technologies Apple uses to protect .\" Apple employs technological protection measures that effectively control access to Apple's copyrighted works. Specifically, Apple charged Psystar with acquiring or creating code that \"avoids, bypasses, removes, descrambles, decrypts, deactivates or impairs a technological protection measure without Apple's authority for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to Apple's copyrighted works.\" This brief revealed that Apple considers the methods that it uses to prevent macOS from being installed on non-Apple hardware to be protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).\n",
"As the result of unfair competition lawsuits in Europe and South Korea, which both alleged that Microsoft had improperly leveraged its status in the PC market to favor its own bundled software, Microsoft was ordered to release special versions of XP in these markets that excluded certain applications. In March 2004, after the European Commission fined Microsoft €497 million (US$603 million), Microsoft was ordered to release \"N\" versions of XP that excluded Windows Media Player, encouraging users to pick and download their own media player software. As it was sold at the same price as the version with Windows Media Player included, certain OEMs (such as Dell, who offered it for a short period, along with Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Fujitsu Siemens) chose not to offer it. Consumer interest was minuscule, with roughly 1,500 units shipped to OEMs, and no reported sales to consumers. In December 2005, the Korean Fair Trade Commission ordered Microsoft to make available editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that do not contain Windows Media Player or Windows Messenger. The \"K\" and \"KN\" editions of Windows XP were released in August 2006, and are only available in English and Korean, and also contain links to third-party instant messenger and media player software.\n"
] |
why do some nutrition labels read "total carbohydrates 30g" but sugars will say "sugars 22g"?
|
Sugars are a simple type of carbohydrate.
Fibre (cellulose) is technically a carbohydrate, but it is not digestible and has no direct nutritional value. It is therefore not included in the total carbohydrates of food.
|
[
"This is a list of sugars and sugar products. Sugar is the generalized name for sweet, short-chain, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. They are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. There are various types of sugar derived from different sources.\n",
"Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. The various types of sugar are derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose (also known as dextrose), fructose, and galactose. \"Table sugar\" or \"granulated sugar\" refers to sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. In the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into fructose and glucose.\n",
"The World Health Organization, in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization, published guidelines that can be effectively represented in a food pyramid relating to objectives in order to prevent obesity, improper nutrition, chronic diseases and dental caries based on meta-analysis though they represent it as a table rather than as a \"pyramid\". The structure is similar in some respects to the USDA food pyramid, but there are clear distinctions between types of fats, and a more dramatic distinction where carbohydrates are categorized on the basis of free sugars versus sugars in their natural form. Some food substances are singled out due to the impact on the target issues that the \"pyramid\" is meant to address. In a later revision, however, some recommendations are omitted as they automatically follow other recommendations while other sub-categories are added. The reports quoted here explain that where there is no stated lower limit in the table below, there is \"no\" requirement for that nutrient in the diet.\n",
"The principal definition of free sugars was to split the term \"carbohydrate\" into elements that relate more directly to the impact on health rather than a chemical definition, and followed on from meta-studies relating to chronic disease, obesity, and dental decay. It also led to the WHO and FAO to publish a revised food pyramid that splits up the classic food groups into more health-directed groups, which appears, as yet, to have had little impact on the food pyramids in use around the world.\n",
"A typical sugar packet in the United States contains 2 to 4 grams of sugar. Some sugar packets in countries such as Poland contain 5 to 10 grams of sugar. Sugar packet sizes, shapes, and weights differ by brand, region, and other factors. Because a gram of any carbohydrate contains 4 nutritional calories (also referred to as \"food calories\" or kilo-calories), a typical four gram sugar packet has 16 nutritional calories.\n",
"Scientifically, \"sugar\" loosely refers to a number of carbohydrates, such as monosaccharides, disaccharides, or oligosaccharides. Monosaccharides are also called \"simple sugars,\" the most important being glucose. Most monosaccharides have a formula that conforms to with n between 3 and 7 (deoxyribose being an exception). Glucose has the molecular formula . The names of typical sugars end with -\"ose\", as in \"glucose\" and \"fructose\". Sometimes such words may also refer to any types of carbohydrates soluble in water. The acyclic mono- and disaccharides contain either aldehyde groups or ketone groups. These carbon-oxygen double bonds (C=O) are the reactive centers. All saccharides with more than one ring in their structure result from two or more monosaccharides joined by glycosidic bonds with the resultant loss of a molecule of water () per bond.\n",
"On May 20, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced changes to the Nutrition Facts panel displayed on all foods, to be effective by July 2018. New to the panel is a requirement to list \"Added sugars\" by weight and as a percent of Daily Value (DV). For vitamins and minerals, the intent of DVs is to indicate how much should be consumed. For added sugars, the guidance is that 100% DV should not be exceeded. 100% DV is defined as 50 grams. For a person consuming 2000 calories a day, 50 grams is equal to 200 calories and thus 10% of total calories—the same guidance as the World Health Organization. To put this in context, most 12 ounce (335 mL) cans of soda contain 39 grams of sugar. In the United States, a government survey on food consumption in 2013–2014 reported that, for men and women aged 20 and older, the average total sugar intakes—naturally occurring in foods and added—were, respectively, 125 and 99 g/day.\n"
] |
what do the schrödinger and dirac equations describe and what's the difference?
|
The Schrödinger equation (ih d/dt psi = H psi) is a very general statement about quantum mechanics: the phase of a state changes (it ”turns”, in a way) proportional to its energy. It can describe many different things as long as you use the correct H. Note that I’m NOT talking about the common formulation ih d/dt psi = -h^2 / 2m psi + V psi, which is the specific case for a singe nonrelativistic (slow) particle. The Dirac equation is another specific instance of it, describing relativistic (very fast) spin-1/2 particles (like electrons) and has spin and antiparticles built into it.
|
[
"the Schrödinger equation is turned into an integral equation. The \"in\" and \"out\" states are assumed to form bases too, in the distant past and distant future respectively having the appearance of free particle states, but being eigenfunctions of the complete Hamiltonian. Thus endowing them with an index, the equation becomes\n",
"In particle physics, the Dirac equation is a relativistic wave equation derived by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928. In its free form, or including electromagnetic interactions, it describes all spin- massive particles such as electrons and quarks for which parity is a symmetry. It is consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity, and was the first theory to account fully for special relativity in the context of quantum mechanics. It was validated by accounting for the fine details of the hydrogen spectrum in a completely rigorous way.\n",
"The Schrödinger equation allows one to calculate the stationary states and also the time evolution of quantum systems. Exact analytical answers are available for the nonrelativistic hydrogen atom. Before we go to present a formal account, here we give an elementary overview. \n",
"The form of the Schrödinger equation depends on the physical situation (see below for special cases). The most general form is the time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE), which gives a description of a system evolving with time:\n",
"The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that describes the wave function or state function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the subject. The equation is named after Erwin Schrödinger, who postulated the equation in 1925, and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.\n",
"The term \"\"Schrödinger equation\"\" can refer to both the general equation, or the specific nonrelativistic version. The general equation is indeed quite general, used throughout quantum mechanics, for everything from the Dirac equation to quantum field theory, by plugging in diverse expressions for the Hamiltonian. The specific nonrelativistic version is a strictly classical approximation to reality and yields accurate results in many situations, but only to a certain extent (see relativistic quantum mechanics and relativistic quantum field theory).\n",
"In quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation describes how a system changes with time. It does this by relating changes in the state of system to the energy in the system (given by an operator called the Hamiltonian). Therefore, once the Hamiltonian is known, the time dynamics are in principle known. All that remains is to plug the Hamiltonian into the Schrödinger equation and solve for the system state as a function of time.\n"
] |
English (Latin?) certainly made its view of left-handed people clear (sinister - left handed) but are there any cultures were left-handedness is seen as better than right-handedness?
|
You might try /r/Askanthropology. There may be someone here with the answer, but this other sub has a concentration of people with a background in comparative ethnography.
|
[
"Moreover, apart from inconvenience, left-handed people have historically been considered unlucky or even malicious for their difference by the right-handed majority. In many European languages, including English, the word for the direction \"right\" also means \"correct\" or \"proper\". Throughout history, being left-handed was considered negative. The Latin adjective \"sinister\" means \"left\" as well as \"unlucky\", and this double meaning survives in European derivatives of Latin, including the English words \"sinister\" (meaning both 'evil' and 'on the bearer's left on a coat of arms') and \"ambisinister\" meaning 'awkward or clumsy with both or either hand'.\n",
"Beyond being inherently disadvantaged by a right-handed bias in the design of tools, left-handed people have been subjected to deliberate discrimination and discouragement. In certain societies, they may be considered unlucky or even malicious by the right-handed majority. Many languages still contain references to left-handedness to convey awkwardness, dishonesty, stupidity, or other undesirable qualities. Even in relatively advanced societies, left-handed people were historically (and in some cases still are) forced as children to use their right hands for tasks which they would naturally perform with the left, such as eating or writing.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Left-handedness\" is far less common than right-handedness. Left-handed people are more skillful with their left hands when performing tasks. Studies suggest that approximately 10% of the world population is left-handed.\n",
"There are many colloquial terms used to refer to a left-handed person, e.g. \"southpaw\" (USA). Some are just slang or jargon words, while other references may be offensive or demeaning, either in context or in origin. In some parts of the English-speaking world, \"cack-handed\" is slang for left-handed, and is also used to mean clumsy. The origin of this term is disputed, but some suggest it is derived from the Latin \"cacare\", in reference to the habit of performing ablutions with the left hand, leaving the right hand \"clean\". However, other sources suggest that it is derived from the Old Norse word \"keikr\", meaning \"bent backwards\". Australians frequently use \"cacky-handed\". A less common Australian slang word for a left-handed individual is the term \"Molly-Dooker\", whose origins cannot be determined with certainty.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Right-handedness\" is by far the most common type. Right-handed people are more skillful with their right hands when performing tasks. Studies suggest that approximately 90% of the world's population is right-handed.\n",
"Left-Handed v Right-Handed was an occasional first-class cricket fixture held in England between 1790 and 1870. There were four such fixtures in all where a team titled \"Left-Handed\" played a team titled \"Right-Handed\". Additionally, a left-handed team played in two other matches against Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). There are no instances of a right-handed team except in the four matches against left-handed teams.\n",
"Left-handed and right-handed modes of practice may be evident in both orthodox and heterodox practices of Indian religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism and is a matter of taste, culture, proclivity, initiation, \"sadhana\" and dharmic \"lineage\" (\"parampara\").\n"
] |
obama's new jobs bill.
|
You can read about it [Right Here](_URL_0_) from a previous ELI5. Cheers.
|
[
"The American Jobs Act () (H. Doc. 112-53) and (H.R. 12) is the informal name for a pair of bills recommended by U.S. President Barack Obama in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress on September 8, 2011. He characterized the proposal as a collection of non-controversial measures designed to get Americans back to work, and he repeatedly urged Congress to pass it \"right away\"; he also said that the bills would not add to the national deficit and would be fully paid for.\n",
"While at a monthly breakfast meeting of the Madison County Republican Men's Club, Brooks referred to the jobs bill proposed by President Obama as the \"Obama 'kill jobs' bill.\" He told the crowd that it adds to the debt, promotes \"frivolous lawsuits,\" and creates new government agencies. He challenged the president's promotion of the bill saying, \"If Barack Obama is serious about jobs, how about repealing Obamacare, dealing with illegal immigration and urging the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass pro-jobs bills that have already cleared in the House.\" At the same meeting, Brooks compared the recession of 2008 (and its after effects) with the Great Depression, saying that the problems associated with the Great Depression are \"a cakewalk compared to what can happen to our country if we don't start acting responsibly in Washington, D.C., to try to get this deficit under control.\" Brooks believes that if the national debt of the United States continues to grow, the damage done to the nation will be catastrophic.\n",
"President Barack Obama proposed the American Jobs Act in September 2011, which included a variety of tax cuts and spending programs to stimulate job creation. The White House provided a fact sheet which summarized the key provisions of the $447 billion bill. However, neither the House nor the Senate has passed the legislation as of December 2012. President Obama stated in October 2011: \"In the coming days, members of Congress will have to take a stand on whether they believe we should put teachers, construction workers, police officers and firefighters back on the job...They'll get a vote on whether they believe we should protect tax breaks for small business owners and middle-class Americans, or whether we should protect tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.\"\n",
"On September 21, 2011, \"The Wall Street Journal\" noted that President Obama's job-creation plans were drawing resistance from Senate Democrats. The article quoted Carper as saying, \"I think the best jobs bill that can be passed is a comprehensive long-term deficit-reduction plan. That's better than everything else the president is talking about combined.\"\n",
"Tommarello, Norman, and Belote extensively lobbied with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and in the United States Congress for the passing of the JOBS Act so much that they were in Washington, D.C. to watch President Barack Obama sign the bill on April 5, 2012. The JOBS Act, which allows startups to advertise and generally solicit for investments, is set to be fully implemented by mid-2014.\n",
"The bill was a counter-proposal to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 introduced by President Barack Obama. HR 470 proposes to stimulate the economy without new government spending by implementing a permanent five-percentage point income tax cut for all taxpayers; it also would make permanent current capital gains and dividend tax rates at 15% (current law will allowing rates to rise after 2010). The bill proposes to index capital gains for inflation, and reduce the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%, and repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax for individuals. The bill proposes a one-percent reduction in all non-defense discretionary spending for the fiscal year ending in 2009.\n",
"The Congressional Research Service summarized the bill as follows: \"Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act—Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) exempt from employment taxes for a 24-month period employers who hire an employee who replaces another employee who is not a citizen or permanent resident of the United States and who performs similar duties overseas; (2) deny any tax deduction, deduction for loss, or tax credit for the cost of an American jobs offshoring transaction (defined as any transaction in which a taxpayer reduces or eliminates the operation of a trade or business in connection with the start-up or expansion of such trade or business outside the United States); and (3) eliminate the deferral of tax on income of a controlled foreign corporation attributable to property imported into the United States by such corporation or a related person, except for property exported before substantial use in the United States and for agricultural commodities not grown in the United States in commercially marketable quantities.\"\n"
] |
what makes the noise in an engine?
|
Its either the engine lifter's noise, valve noise, the combustion, bearing noise, or the exhaust of the car itself you're talking about at the moment.
Vroom vroom.
|
[
"In recent years, the engine has developed a noise, referred to as \"The Squeak\". While the cause of this noise is not definitively known, it is presumed to come from the low pressure valve. There are no physical indications of scuffing, galling, or damage to components indicating a metal-to-metal contact. The squeak is more pronounced as the engine warms up, and goes away as the engine speed increases. The problem has so vexed the engineers that they have started a tongue-in-cheek fund, whereby visitors are required to donate $1 to the repair fund if they wish to talk to an engineer about it. (This fund may also be diverted to a beer fund, at the discretion of the engineer.)\n",
"The engine noise in the interior of the car was sometimes criticized; \"Road & Track\" listing noise as one of their biggest complaints about the car, with \"little joy listening to the wheeze of an emission equipment-stifled 4-banger\", and \"Motor\" calling the engine noise a \"raucous cacophony\".\n",
"The main producers of mechanically created noise and vibration are the engines, but there are also other sources, like the air conditioning, shaft-line, cargo handling and control equipment and mooring machinery.\n",
"In the case of sound levels, engine operation is of greatest impact with respect to mobile sources such as automobiles and trucks. Engine noise is a particularly large component of mobile source noise for vehicles operating at lower speeds, where aerodynamic and tire noise is less significant. Generally speaking, petrol (gasoline) and diesel engines emit less noise than turboshafts of equivalent power output; electric motors very often emit less noise than their fossil fuel-powered equivalents. Thrust-outputting engines, such as turbofans, turbojets and rockets emit the greatest amount of noise because their method of producing thrust is directly related to the production of sound.\n",
"While the design can be noisy, it is typically masked by wind noise and other engine components such as intake and exhaust noise. Though stated above the noise is \"uncomfortably loud in engines with four or more cylinders\", if true, this is limited (in terms of Ducati) to the MotoGP, MotoGP Race Replica bikes, and the 2018 Ducati Panigale V4, which are the only current production desmodromic engines that feature four cylinders. (Note that exhaust noise levels can exceed 110 dB on full race systems.)\n",
"In the early production run of the LS-series engine, some engines encountered 'piston slap' during the first few minutes after a cold engine start; this sound is caused by the pistons rocking slightly in the cylinder until they reach operating temperature/size. 'Piston slap' sometimes sounds more like a knock or the sound of a diesel engine running. It is typically only present when the engine is cold and disappears as the engine reaches operating temperature. The noise of 'piston slap' often is louder when listening for it below the oil pan.\n",
"This sudden pulse of pressure causes the loud “choo” sound that members of the public associate with steam engines, because they mostly encounter engines at stations, where efficiency is sacrificed as trains pull away. A steam engine well adjusted for efficiency makes a soft “hhHHhh” sound that lasts throughout the exhaust stroke, with the sounds from the two cylinders overlapping to produce a nearly constant sound.\n"
] |
what is al qaeda fighting for?
|
Its not a simple answer because Al Qaeda is NOT a simple terrorist group.
The point of Al Qaeda, as laid out by Bin Laden, is not a single group with a single goal, but as the Arabic translation plainly tell us, to be "the base" for multiple related but not 100% similar groups, causes, and goals.
This is NO single thing Al Qaeda wants because the is NO single Al Qaeda. There's Al Qaeda in Iraq (now fracturing into AQI and ISIS), there's Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQM), Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, also Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. The original Afghanistan franchise is also still present with the remnants of the Taliban in the Pakistan Tribal areas. Plus these franchises, literally they are franchises, they use the Al Qaeda name and sometimes share finances/fighters but they have semi-independent leadership and act towards separate goals.
Bin Laden states goals where many, but the usual demands in his fatwa videos included: Removal of US soldiers and sailors from Saudi Arabia, end of US support of Israel, the overthrow of several western friendly Middle East governments, and the replacement of them with a unified Islamic Caliphate or one super Arab-Muslim state in the gulf.
Others linked to Al Qaeda have also demanded the forced conversion of all non-Muslims, the replacement of civil law with Sharia religious law, the complete destruction of Israel, or for an Islamic Caliphate to extend beyond the middle east and conquer the world.
To accomplish these, Al Qaeda was supposed to be a linked network of terrorism support groups. The training camps in pre 9/11 Afghanistan hosted terrorists from all over the world. Al Qaeda would link financier X with group Y to move money. They would provide their franchise groups with better planning of attacks and strategy. You could share bomb makers. One guy learns an IED to defeat armored Humvees, Al Qaeda would hook up other groups with him. It was envisioned as a one stop terrorist super store/support line.
Each individual group had its own motivations, usually less about Islam and infidels, and more about seizing regional power and taking political control. Al Qaeda in Iraq talks a good game about hating Jews and Americans, but really they just bomb and kill other Iraqi Muslims so that AQI can get more political control over the west of Iraq. They couldn't care less about Al Qaeda in the Maghreb fighting in Libya or Algeria or the Taliban's fight in Afghanistan. Bin Laden simply built them a common support network for training, money, and strategy; but not a governing body where they vote on the general platforms of terrorism.
This split has only gotten bigger since most of the senior leadership have been killed or captured since 9/11. Al Qaeda is less about the spectacular overseas attacks (9/11, London bombings, Madrid train attacks) of which OBL and KSM were proponents and more about these regional franchises attacking regionally for regional gain.
**TL:DR** What exactly Al Qaeda wants depends on which Al Qaeda you are talking about.
|
[
"Al-Qaeda operates as a network of Islamic extremists and Salafist jihadists. The organization has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, India, and various other countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on non-military and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 United States embassy bombings, the September 11 attacks, and the 2002 Bali bombings. The United States government responded to the September 11 attacks by launching the \"War on Terror\", which sought to undermine al-Qaeda and its allies. The deaths of key leaders, including that of Osama bin Laden, have led al-Qaeda's operations to shift from the organization and planning of attacks, to the planning of attacks which are carried out by associated groups and \"lone-wolf\" operators. Al-Qaeda characteristically employs attacks which include suicide attacks and the simultaneous bombing of several targets. Activities which are ascribed to al-Qaeda involve the actions of those who have made a pledge of loyalty to bin Laden, or to the actions of \"al-Qaeda-linked\" individuals who have undergone training in one of its camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq or Sudan. Al-Qaeda ideologues envision the removal of all foreign influences in Muslim countries, and the creation of a new caliphate ruling over the entire Muslim world.\n",
"Fatah al-Islam (, meaning \"Conquest of Islam\") is a radical Sunni Islamist group that formed in November 2006 in a Palestinian refugee camp, located in Lebanon. It has been described as a militant jihadist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda. It became well known in 2007 after engaging in combat against the Lebanese Army in the Nahr al-Bared UNRWA Palestinian refugee camp. Following its defeat at Nahr el-Bared, the group relocated to the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon in 2008. As of 2014, after the death or capture of many members, most of the surviving members of Fatah al-Islam are thought to have joined other groups in Lebanon and Syria including the Free Syrian Army, Al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.\n",
"Al-Qaeda's stated aim is the use of jihad to defend and protect Islam against Zionism, Christianity, Hinduism, the secular West, and Muslim governments such as Saudi Arabia, which it sees as insufficiently Islamic and too closely tied to the United States. Formed by Osama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef in the aftermath of the Soviet–Afghan War in the late 1980s, al-Qaeda called for the use of violence against civilians and military of the United States and any countries that are allied with it.\n",
"Al-Nusra Front is a branch of al-Qaeda operating in Syria. Al-Nusra has launched many attacks and bombings, mostly against targets affiliated with or supportive of the Syrian government. There have been media reports that many of al-Nusra's foreign fighters have left to join al-Baghdadi's ISIL.\n",
"It has been designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations, Canada, Russia, the UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is on the United States' list of terrorist organizations for alleged connections with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, and the American administration decided to freeze all assets of Osbat al-Ansar following the attacks on September 11th, 2001. The group has reportedly received funding from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.\n",
"Fatah al-Islam is an Islamist group operating out of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. It was formed in November 2006, by fighters who broke off from the pro-Syrian Fatah al-Intifada, itself a splinter group of the Palestinian Fatah movement, and is led by a Palestinian fugitive militant named Shaker al-Abssi. The group's members have been described as militant jihadists, and the group itself has been described as a terrorist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda. Its stated goal is to reform the Palestinian refugee camps under Islamic sharia law, and its primary targets are the Lebanese authorities, Israel and the United States.\n",
"Al Qaeda involvement in Asia. It is believed that members of Al-Qaeda are in hiding along the border of Afghanistan and northwest sections of Pakistan. In Iraq, elements loosely associated with al-Qaeda, in the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization commanded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have played a key role in the War in Iraq.\n"
] |
why does styrofoam melt when it comes into contact with superglue/adhesives?
|
Super glue and other adhesives contain some organic solvents (e.g. acetone, ethyl acetate). Styrofoam is made from thousands of styrene molecules linked together. Styrene by itself really wants to dissolve in these organic solvents, but since so many of them are linked together it can't because it's simply too big. So instead of dissolving, you get melting effect.
|
[
"Two: Adhesion: Polyamide materials are basically high performance hot-melt adhesives. The adhesive properties of polyamide is what seals a chosen substrate. The type of adhesion is purely mechanical i.e. no chemical reaction takes place.\n",
"Hot-melt adhesives are as numerous as they are versatile. In general, hot melts are applied by extruding, rolling or spraying, and the high melt viscosity makes them ideal for porous and permeable substrates. HMA are capable of bonding an array of different substrates including: rubbers, ceramics, metals, plastics, glass and wood.\n",
"The two components are held by the lower fixture to control alignment and a small clamping force is added to the upper part to form intimate contact. A melt layer is then created at the interface between the two components, composed of a mixture of two plastic materials.\n",
"BULLET::::- Hot melt adhesive can be applied in strips or beads at the point of joining. It can also be applied to one of the surfaces during an earlier manufacturing step and reactivated for bonding.\n",
"Melt-blown nonwovens are produced by extruding melted polymer fibers through a spin net or die consisting of up to 40 holes per inch to form long thin fibers which are stretched and cooled by passing hot air over the fibers as they fall from the die. The resultant web is collected into rolls and subsequently converted to finished products. The extremely fine fibers (typically polypropylene) differ from other extrusions, particularly spun bond, in that they have low intrinsic strength but much smaller size offering key properties. Often melt blown is added to spun bond to form SM or SMS webs, which are strong and offer the intrinsic benefits of fine fibers such as fine filtration, low pressure drop as used in face masks or filters and physical benefits such as acoustic insulation as used in dishwashers. One of the largest users of SM and SMS materials is the disposable diaper and feminine care industry.\n",
"Another mechanism of physical sputtering is called \"heat spike sputtering\". This can occur when the solid is dense enough, and the incoming ion heavy enough, that collisions occur very close to each other. In this case, the binary collision approximation is no longer valid, and the collisional process should be understood as a many-body process. The dense collisions induce a heat spike (also called thermal spike), which essentially melts a small portion of the crystal. If that portion is close enough to its surface, large numbers of atoms may be ejected, due to liquid flowing to the surface and/or microexplosions. Heat spike sputtering is most important for heavy ions (e.g. Xe or Au or cluster ions) with energies in the keV–MeV range bombarding dense but soft metals with a low melting point (Ag, Au, Pb, etc.). The heat spike sputtering often increases nonlinearly with energy, and can for small cluster ions lead to dramatic sputtering yields per cluster of the order of 10,000. For animations of such a process see \"Re: Displacement Cascade 1\" in the external links section.\n",
"Upon further crosslinking (crosslinking degree about 80%), the individual macromolecules are eventually connected to a network. This crosslinked polyethylene (PE-X) is chemically seen a thermoset, it shows above the melting point rubber-elastic behavior and can not be processed in the melt anymore.\n"
] |
how do services like pandora and spotify work
|
same way any business operates. sell it for more than you buy it.
if it costs $10,000 for Pandora to buy the rights for a song, and they play it on 1million users and get advertising $0.01 per play, then that's profit.
|
[
"Pandora (also known as Pandora Media or Pandora Radio) is an American music streaming and automated music recommendation internet radio service powered by the Music Genome Project. The service, operated by Sirius XM Satellite Radio, is available in the United States. The service plays songs that have similar musical traits. The user then provides positive or negative feedback (as thumbs up or thumbs down) for songs chosen by the service, and the feedback is taken into account in the subsequent selection of other songs to play. The service can be accessed either through a web browser or with its mobile app. Pandora is a freemium service; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations, while additional features, such as improved streaming quality, music downloads and offline channels are offered via paid subscriptions.\n",
"Advertising on Pandora works through a method of collecting data from the users online browsing activity. Once the data is collected, the company uses the data to show the user target ads. This process of advertising is also known as behavioral advertising. Pandora offers its users the option of submitting out of the targeted ads, by an opt-out configuration on its website. Opting-out will only prevent targeted ads, meaning users may continue to see generic (non-targeted ads) from these companies after they opt-out. Eventually, Pandora offers either targeted advertisements or generic advertisements for its non-subscribed users. However, Pandora's advertising does not offer local content such as the local news, weather, traffic, and talk.\n",
"Pandora is another music streaming service that is available on the Internet. Pandora is one of the few music services that is free (no subscription required) to users. The user can select genres that are played back at random on Pandora's playlists.\n",
"There are a few different methods of advertising on Pandora. Audio advertising comes in spots of 15 to 30 seconds, and run once every 20 minutes. However, users only encounter ads if they are engaging with the site, like contributing a thumbs up or a thumbs down when changing a song or station.\n",
"In September 2016, Pandora announced additional features and subscription options, including a mid-level subscription service known as \"Pandora Plus\" that offers advertisement-free streaming, offline playback support using a prediction mechanism and more skips and replays. Users of the free service were also provided more skips and replays in exchange for watching an advertisement. Pandora also announced the launch of an on-demand service similar to competitors such as Apple Music and Spotify.\n",
"On March 13, 2017, Pandora launched \"Pandora Premium\", a new service allowing users to listen to and create playlists of individual songs on demand. Pandora's suggestions engine suggests and recommends songs and albums, as well as generates playlists based on similar songs. Pandora also emphasized a use of machine learning and manual curation, and that it had filtered \"karaoke tracks, knock-off covers and pet sounds (but not \"Pet Sounds\") that slow down other services\" from its library.\n",
"The Pandora media player is based on OpenLaszlo. Pandora can also be accessed through many media streaming devices such as Roku, Reciva-based radios (from companies like Grace Digital, Sanyo, and Sangean), Frontier Silicon-based connected audio systems, Slim Devices, Sonos, and HEOS by Denon. product(s). On July 11, 2008, Pandora launched a mobile version of their software for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch through the iTunes App Store. Pandora is also available for Windows Phone, Windows 10, Android phones, BlackBerry platforms, HP webOS (used on the Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Palm Pre 2, and HP Veer) . Pandora was the provider for MSN Radio until MSN discontinued their internet radio service on June 18, 2008. A modified version of Pandora has been made available for Sprint. Pandora is available on Comcast's X1/X2 cable TV products. A GNU/Linux-based application, called Pithos, which is available for accessing Pandora Radio, is available for most distributions via their repositories and is also available to build from source. SoundSpectrum's iOS-based visualizing application Tunr has native support for Pandora, but requires a ONE subscription.\n"
] |
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