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Why did the Guild system collapse?
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Simple answer: emergence of routinized labor in a factory. Call it Taylorization, [division of labor,](_URL_0_) or whatever you like, it was the change from craft control of labor to factory-based production that ended most guilds.
Longer answer is *very* long. Involves immigration, changes in technology, populism, anti-unionism, "robber-barons," and a whole dissertation's worth of stuff.
There are some professions that still resemble guilds: medicine, academia, and the legal profession maintain near-complete control over their own work. They select, train, employ and regulate their professional members, much as guilds did.
EDIT: Missed the last part of your question. Strengths of the system depend on whose point of view. From the worker's POV, they could control their output, regulate the price for that output, control entry to the profession, and control the conditions of their work. For example, a cigar roller's daily "stint" was to roll X cigars. If he rolled fewer, he was a poor worker. If he rolled more, he was a poor union/guild member. Rolling too many would mean that fewer people would be employed. From the point of view of a shop owner, the guilds guaranteed quality (usually,) and that there would always be a certain number of workers available. Shop owner laments would include: resistance to change, more-or-less fixed labor costs (not always bad,) and a complicated hiring system.
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[
"The guild system became a target of much criticism towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Critics argued that they hindered free trade and technological innovation, technology transfer and business development. According to several accounts of this time, guilds became increasingly involved in simple territorial struggles against each other and against free practitioners of their arts.\n",
"Because of industrialization and modernization of the trade and industry, and the rise of powerful nation-states that could directly issue patent and copyright protections — often revealing the trade secrets — the guilds' power faded. After the French Revolution they gradually fell in most European nations over the course of the 19th century, as the guild system was disbanded and replaced by laws that promoted free trade. As a consequence of the decline of guilds, many former handicraft workers were forced to seek employment in the emerging manufacturing industries, using not closely guarded techniques formerly protected by guilds, but rather the standardized methods controlled by corporations.\n",
"Guilds operating prior to the 18th century did see a decline through the 18th and 19th centuries. Guilds provided some form of security in prices, restricting production and controlling quality and provided support to members who hit hard times. However, with market forces driving down prices their importance declined, and with the Janissaries as their backers, being disbanded by Mahmut II in 1826, their fate was sealed.\n",
"The guild system survived the emergence of early capitalists, which began to divide guild members into \"haves\" and dependent \"have-nots\". The civil struggles that characterize the 14th-century towns and cities were struggles in part between the greater guilds and the lesser artisanal guilds, which depended on piecework. \"In Florence, they were openly distinguished: the \"Arti maggiori\" and the \"Arti minori\"—already there was a \"popolo grasso\" and a \"popolo magro\"\". Fiercer struggles were those between essentially conservative guilds and the merchant class, which increasingly came to control the means of production and the capital that could be ventured in expansive schemes, often under the rules of guilds of their own. German social historians trace the \"Zunftrevolution\", the urban revolution of guildmembers against a controlling urban patriciate, sometimes reading into them, however, perceived foretastes of the class struggles of the 19th century.\n",
"The guild dissolution prompted workers to riot, and social unruliness became a normal state of affairs. Guild members argued that this shift would lead to a more corporate system that would cause people to lose their sense of social identity, and that chaos and instability would result.\n",
"The craft guilds required relatively stable markets and a relative equality of income and opportunity amongst their members to function effectively. By the 14th century these conditions were increasingly uncommon. The first strains were seen in London, where the old guild system began to collapse – more trade was being conducted at a national level, making it hard for craftsmen to both manufacture goods and trade in them, and there were growing disparities in incomes between the richer and poorer craftsmen. As a result, under Edward III many guilds became companies or livery companies, chartered companies focusing on trade and finance, leaving the guild structures to represent the interests of the smaller, poorer manufacturers.\n",
"The craft guilds required relatively stable markets and a relative equality of income and opportunity amongst their members to function effectively. By the 14th century these conditions were increasingly uncommon. The first strains were seen in London, where the old guild system began to collapse - more trade was being conducted at a national level, making it hard for craftsmen to both manufacture goods and trade in them, and there were growing disparities in incomes between the richer and poor craftsmen. As a result, under Edward III many guilds became companies or livery companies, chartered companies focusing on trade and finance (the management of large amounts of money), leaving the guild structures to represent the interests of the smaller, poorer manufacturers.\n"
] |
if the single use plastic is already made, how is my refusal to buy these items helping the planet? they are already made and someone else will buy them?
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If not as many single use plastic items get bought, companies will cut back on how many more they make in the future. That's important too.
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[
"In 2017, the Thai government said that it might tax plastic bags. An \"endless debate\" has ensued in government, but no action. One reason might be the interests of powerful petrochemical firms. They maintain that plastic is not an issue if it is reused and recycled. Thai exports of polyethylene pellets and plastic goods amounted to 430 billion baht or five percent of total Thai exports in 2017 according to the Thai Plastic Industries Association.\n",
"On April 19, 2018, ahead of Earth Day, a proposal to phase out single-use plastics was announced during the meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government. This will include plastic drinking straws, which cannot be recycled and contribute to ocean deterioration, damaging ecosystems and wildlife. It is estimated that as of 2018, about 23 million straws are used and discarded daily in the UK. Plastic straws will be banned in England from April 2020. However, there will be exemptions for those who require plastic straws due to disability.\n",
"The Canadian government has plans to ban single-use plastics as early as 2021, the list of items to be banned includes plastic straws, cotton swabs, stirrers, plates, cutlery as well as balloon sticks.\n",
"It was reported that roughly 50% of plastics are being utilized in disposable manufacturing processes such as packaging, agricultural films, and disposables, while 20 to 25 % was used for long-term infrastructure like pipes, coating for cables and structured materials and the remainder is used for durable moderate life consumer goods such as electronics, furniture, and vehicles. In general, plastic is considered to be durable and non-biodegradable hence making them difficult to decompose for at least a few decades with some lasting over hundreds or thousands of years. Judging from the domestic environmental factors, even some degradable plastics may still exist for a considerable period of time due to their degradation rate which is also influenced by factors such as the exposure of UV, oxygen, and temperature, whereas biodegradable plastics require the need of adequate microorganisms. Therefore, the rate of degradation in landfills and terrestrial, marine environments would tend to vary. \n",
"Another issue is that removing marine debris from our oceans can potentially cause more harm than good. Cleaning up micro-plastics could also accidentally take out plankton, which are the main lower level food group for the marine food chain and over half of the photosynthesis on earth. One of the most efficient and cost effective ways to help reduce the amount of plastic entering our oceans is to not participate in using single use plastics, avoid plastic bottled drinks such as water bottles, use reusable shopping bags, and to buy products with reusable packaging.\n",
"According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 95% of the plastic packaging is discarded after a single use. In March 2019 the organisation published \"Solving Plastic pollution through accountability\", a report issued on an international basis and which urged governments to stop accepting projects contemplating the use of virgin materials. Additionally, it supported a global ban to single use plastics and requested the producers to be considered responsible for how their products are ultimately disposed of, and recycled. The single use plastics have been already banned in Europe.\n",
"China has been the dumping ground for the world's plastic for the longest time. In the 1990s, China saw discarded plastic as profitable, and the Chinese recreated the plastic into smaller, exportable bits and pieces. It was also cheaper for countries to export their plastic to China than discard it themselves. In November 2017, China stopped accepting contaminated plastic. This rejected plastic becomes absorbed by neighbouring countries like Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and South Korea. Now, Southeast Asian countries are starting to reject this waste as well. In August 2018, Vietnam introduced strict restrictions on plastic scrap imports. Thailand followed suit, announcing a ban on electronic parts. In October 2018, Malaysia also announced a ban on imports of plastic scraps.\n"
] |
islands like hawaii seem to very quickly get diverse vegetation even though they pop up in the middle of the ocean, so where do the first seeds come from?
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Seeds travel in many ways. Some get there by water, traveling on air currents (think dandelion) or by animals (bird eats seed, undigested seed from excrement finds new home), and by humans.
In Hawaii's case, many of their trees and plants were brought to the island by early settlers.
Edit: removed inaccurate information about the quantity of native flora and fauna. Thanks for correct info!
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[
"The plants are zoochorous; their seeds will stick to clothing, fur or feathers, and be carried to new habitat. This has enabled them to colonize a wide range, including many oceanic islands. Some of these species occur only in a very restricted range and several are now threatened with extinction, notably in the Hawaiian Islands. Due to the absence of native mammals on these islands, some of the oceanic island taxa have reduced burrs, evolving features that seem to aid in dispersal by the wind instead.\n",
"The flora of these islands is relatively poor in terms of diversity of species, due to their geographical isolation. However, most of the islands are covered by tropical forest. That is because the soil of volcanic origin is very fertile, and the climate is warm and humid. Among the trees of these islands that stand out are the coconut tree, the breadfruit , the casuarina, the banana, the ceiba, the banyan, the ilang-ilang, the polynesian chestnut, the flamboyant and the Caribbean pine. Among the bushes that stand out are the tiaré flower (emblem of Tahiti), the hibiscus, the plumeria, the bougainvillea, the gardenia, the jasmine and the oleander.\n",
"All the islands, except Farallon de Medinilla and Uracas or Farallon de Pajaros (in the northern group), are more or less densely wooded, and the vegetation is dense, much resembling that of the Carolines and also of the Philippines, from where species of plants have been introduced. Owing to the moistness of the soil cryptogams are numerous, as are also most kinds of grasses. On most of the islands there is a plentiful supply of water.\n",
"Because the islands of Hawaii are distant from other land habitats, life is thought to have arrived there by wind, waves (i.e. by ocean currents) and wings (i.e. birds, insects, and any seeds they may have carried on their feathers). This isolation, in combination with the diverse environment (including extreme altitudes, tropical climates, and arid shorelines), allowed for the evolution of new endemic flora and fauna. Hawaii has more endangered species and has lost a higher percentage of its endemic species than any other U.S. state. One endemic plant, \"Brighamia\", now requires hand-pollination because its natural pollinator is presumed to be extinct. The two species of \"Brighamia\"—\"B. rockii\" and \"B. insignis\"—are represented in the wild by around 120 individual plants. To ensure these plants set seed, biologists rappel down cliffs to brush pollen onto their stigmas.\n",
"Even the smaller islands have some plant cover, with the larger ones dominated by ferns and moss. Flora on the archiplego includes many endemic species and many that have a broad circumpolar distribution in the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans. Thus many of the species that occur in Tristan da Cunha occur as far away as New Zealand. For example, the species \"Nertera depressa\" was first collected in Tristan da Cunha, but has since been recorded in occurrence as far distant as New Zealand.\n",
"The islands are mostly covered by tropical rainforest, including cloud forest on Ta'u and lowland ridge forest on Tutuila. Most plants arrived by chance from Southeast Asia. There are 343 flowering plants, 135 ferns and about 30% are endemic plant species.\n",
"The islands vary in their land cover; most are sandy with limited vegetation, while the larger islands have deep rainforests and are fringed by intertidal mangroves. The Pulau Banyak area contains many varieties of stony Heliopora and branching Acropora types of coral . However, crown-of-thorns starfish are a significant problem. The fringing coral reefs are habitat to diverse species, including green and leatherback sea turtles, pelagic and coral fish, and varieties of octopus, lobster, and other sea life. The weather is tropical; August to January are the rainy season, followed by a dry season from approximately February to July. \n"
] |
Are there any other purposes of there being so much nitrogen composition in the air, other then to provide an inert atmosphere?
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_URL_0_
*All* species need the element nitrogen, it's a building block of proteins. It was discovered that some species can use nitrogen gas and "fix" it from the air in the 19th Century. Most species however obtain their nitrogen from compounds.
The atmospheric composition doesn't have any "purpose", but Earth's atmosphere and life influence each other. Unlike carbon dioxide, life hasn't used nitrogen to the point of mostly removing it.
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[
"There is an abundant supply of nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere — N gas comprises nearly 79% of air. However, N is unavailable for use by most organisms because there is a triple bond between the two nitrogen atoms in the molecule, making it almost inert. In order for nitrogen to be used for growth it must be “fixed” (combined) in the form of ammonium (NH) or nitrate (NO) ions. The weathering of rocks releases these ions so slowly that it has a negligible effect on the availability of fixed nitrogen. Therefore, nitrogen is often the limiting factor for growth and biomass production in all environments where there is a suitable climate and availability of water to support life.\n",
"Nitrogen gas (N) makes up 78% of the atmosphere and is extremely well mixed over short time-scales, resulting in a homogenous isotopic distribution ideal for use as a reference material. Atmospheric N is commonly called AIR when being used as an isotopic reference. In addition to atmospheric N there are multiple N isotopic reference materials. \n",
"Inert atmospheres consisting of gases such as argon, nitrogen, or helium are commonly used in chemical reaction chambers and in storage containers for oxygen-sensitive or water-sensitive substances, to prevent unwanted reactions of these substances with oxygen or water. \n",
"The applications of nitrogen compounds are naturally extremely widely varied due to the huge size of this class: hence, only applications of pure nitrogen itself will be considered here. Two-thirds of nitrogen produced by industry is sold as the gas and the remaining one-third as the liquid. The gas is mostly used as an inert atmosphere whenever the oxygen in the air would pose a fire, explosion, or oxidising hazard. Some examples include:\n",
"Pure nitrogen has the advantage that it is inert and abundantly available, because it is the major component of air. However, because nitrogen is only 3% lighter than air, it is not an obvious choice for a lifting gas.\n",
"Additional components include argon, helium, hydrogen, methane, neon, nitrogen and oxygen. Characteristically for fumarole gases on convergent plate boundaries, much of this nitrogen is non-atmospheric, although atmospheric air is also involved in generating the chemistry of the El Tatio fumarole gases.\n",
"Nitrogen is released into the air because of ammonia volatilization and nitrous oxide production. The combustion of fossil fuels is a large human-initiated contributor to atmospheric nitrogen pollution. Atmospheric nitrogen reaches the ground by two different processes, the first being wet deposition such as rain or snow, and the second being dry deposition which is particles and gases found in the air. Atmospheric deposition (e.g., in the form of acid rain) can also affect nutrient concentration in water, especially in highly industrialized regions.\n"
] |
what causes extreme heat on atmosphere re-entry and was this discovered prior to the first mission or a lesson learned later?
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Not exactly air friction. Friction would be the air rubbing against the body so much as to raise the temperature to extremes. But what happens is different.
In the upper atmosphere air is very thin - is not dense at all. As a body falls through that atmosphere at staggering speeds, the few air particles there are literally can't get out of the way fast enough. As the air density increases, that same issue causes the air to compress until, much like a diesel engine, it heats to the point of combustion.
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[
"The flight was an almost complete success, marred only by a heater that had inadvertently been turned off prior to liftoff and that allowed the inside temperature to drop to , a bout of space sickness, and a troublesome re-entry when the reentry module failed to separate cleanly from its service module.\n",
"Orbital spacecraft reentering the Earth's atmosphere must shed significant velocity, resulting in extreme heating. For example, the Space Shuttle thermal protection system (TPS) protects the orbiter's interior structure from surface temperatures that reach as high as , well above the melting point of steel. Suborbital spaceplanes fly lower energy trajectories that do not put as much stress on the spacecraft thermal protection system.\n",
"During re-entry of spacecraft into the earth's atmosphere, the high velocity of the spacecraft together with friction and displacement of air molecules leads to temperatures of over 2000 °C. In order to not burn up, spaceships need very expensive and sometimes failing heat shields.\n",
"Because the space environment is essentially a vacuum, heat cannot be lost through heat convection, and can only be directly dissipated through thermal radiation, a much slower process. Thus, even though the environment of space can be extremely cold, excessive heat build-up is inevitable. Without an LCVG, there would be no means by which to expel this heat, and it would affect not only EVA performance, but the health of the suit occupant as well. The LCVG used with the Apollo/Skylab A7L suit could remove heat at a rate of approximately 586 watts.\n",
"The Thiokol engineers had also argued that the low overnight temperatures of the evening prior to launch would almost certainly result in SRB temperatures below their redline of . Ice had accumulated all over the launch pad, raising concerns that ice could damage the shuttle upon lift-off. The Kennedy Ice Team inadvertently pointed an infrared camera at the aft field joint of the right SRB and found the temperature to be only . This was believed to be the result of supercooled air blowing on the joint from the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank vent. It was much lower than the air temperature and far below the design specifications for the O-rings. The low reading was later determined to be erroneous, the error caused by not following the temperature probe manufacturer's instructions. Tests and adjusted calculations later confirmed that the temperature of the joint was not substantially different from the ambient temperature.\n",
"Low temperature is often achieved by a coolant, which can run out. Space missions have either ended or shifted to \"warm\" observations when the coolant supply used up. For example, WISE ran out of coolant in October 2010, about ten months after being launched. (See also NICMOS, Spitzer Space Telescope)\n",
"Under earth conditions, the effect of gravity causing natural convection in a system with a temperature gradient along a fluid/fluid interface is usually much stronger than the Marangoni effect. Many experiments (ESA MASER 1-3) have been conducted under microgravity conditions aboard sounding rockets to observe the Marangoni effect without the influence of gravity. Research on heat pipes performed on the International Space Station revealed that whilst heat pipes exposed to a temperature gradient on Earth cause the inner fluid to evaporate at one end and migrate along the pipe, thus drying the hot end, in space (where the effects of gravity can be ignored) the opposite happens and the hot end of the pipe is flooded with liquid. This is due to the Marangoni effect, together with capillary action. The fluid is drawn to the hot end of the tube by capillary action. But the bulk of the liquid still ends up as a droplet a short distance away from the hottest part of the tube, explained by Marangoni flow. The temperature gradients in axial and radial directions makes the fluid flow away from the hot end and the walls of the tube, towards the center axis. The liquid forms a droplet with a small contact area with the tube walls, a thin film circulating liquid between the cooler droplet and the liquid at the hot end.\n"
] |
Would firing something like a Star Trek phaser create recoil? How about a real life military weapon that uses lasers?
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Realistic answer: No.
Actual answer: Yes, a tiny, tiny, stupidly minuscule bit of recoil. The emission of photons (light) will have a bit of recoil but this will be so small, it would be very difficult to detect this. An example of this phenomenon is the potential usage of [solar sails](_URL_0_) to move spacecraft via the interaction with solar radiation of high energy light and particles.
Even though phasers / military laser weapons emit much more energy per unit area than would be on a solar sail, it is over a very short period of time whereas on a solar sail, these effects are calculated over months/years of exposure.
*Edit: As we went through below, a 10 MJ laser would produce a roughly 0.03 Newton recoil for one second if the laser emitted this much energy over one second, which is roughly the force applied by gravity to 3 grams, 3 mL of water, or a bit less than a teaspoon of water for one second.
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[
"The plasma projectiles would be shot at a speed expected to be 3000 km/s in 1995 and 10,000 km/s (3% of the speed of light) by 2000. A shot has the energy of 5 pounds of TNT exploding. Doughnut-shaped rings of plasma and balls of lightning exploded with devastating thermal and mechanical effects when hitting their target and produced pulse of electromagnetic radiation that could scramble electronics, the energy would shower the interior of the target with high-energy x-rays that would potentially destroy the electronics inside.\n",
"The interaction of a lasgun beam and a Holtzman field results in subatomic fusion and a nuclear explosion. The magnitude of this blast is unpredictable; sometimes it destroys only the shielded target and gunner, sometimes the explosion is more powerful than atomics. Using lasguns in a shielded environment can result in military and environmental catastrophe, though at one point in \"Dune\" Duncan Idaho deliberately allows shield-lasgun contact as a discouragement to his enemies. In \"God Emperor of Dune\" (1981), lasgun fire is described as \"blue arcs\"; a lasgun is noted to be \"heavy\" in \"\" (1985). A cutteray is described in \"Dune\" as a \"Short-range version of a lasgun used mostly as a cutting tool and surgeon's scalpel\".\n",
"Another example of the more scientifically grounded approach which Foundation Imaging introduced to the series was the weaponry of the \"Starfury\" and other Earth vessels. Ejecting ball bearings into the flight paths of enemy vessels or using regular gunfire was considered, and subsequently rejected, on the grounds of it not being visually compelling. It was supervising animator Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz who theorised that plasma fire would have a similar appearance to the laser fire used in various movies and other television shows, but as it would not travel at the speed of light (as would be the case with lasers), it would lend credulity to the idea of the viewer seeing a burst of light move across the screen.\n",
"Weapon Effects Simulation (WES) is the creation of artificial weapons effects such as flashes, bangs and smoke during military training exercises. It is used in combination with Tactical engagement simulation (TES), which uses laser projection for training purposes instead of bullets and missiles. Typically, an accurate laser \"shot\" hitting a target such as a tank, will trigger cartridge-based WES equipment fitted to the tank which will give a flash, bang and smoke, signifying a hit in the exercise scenario.\n",
"Hammer, Hartman et al. showed that spheromaks could be accelerated to extremely high velocities using a railgun, which led to several proposed uses. Among these was the use of such plasmas as \"bullets\" to fire at incoming warheads with the hope that the associated electric currents would disrupt their electronics. This led to experiments on the Shiva Star system, although these were cancelled in the mid-1990s.\n",
"BULLET::::- Ray guns in movies are often shown as shooting discrete pulses of energy visible from off-axis, traveling slowly enough for people to see them emerge, or even for the target to evade them, although real-life laser light is invisible from off-axis and travels at the speed of light. This effect could sometimes be attributed to the beam heating atmosphere that it was passing through. A possible evasion tactic is dodging the firing axis of the gun, theorized in the early story of \"Mobile Suit Gundam\" by the character Char Aznable when he first encountered the series protagonist's machine's beam rifle and seemingly dodging it without any difficulty.\n",
"The simulator features effects such as the HMMWV pitching, shaking and vibrations as it moves over the virtual terrain, simulated explosions caused by enemy fire and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). Players fire air-pressured guns that mimic the recoil and kickback of real ones. The simulated weapons do not mimic the heat or smell of the real guns, however, and never jam.\n"
] |
Why do some viruses stay in the body forever and others not?
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It usually depends on the life cycle of the virus. Most viruses that you think of as being "beatable" reproduce in a highly active life cycle. They invade a cell, hijack its machinery to replicate, and then burst out when the cell can no longer hold all the virus particles. Those viruses then spread to new cells.
The other family of viruses, however, have a second latent portion of the life cycle. These viruses can do the same steps as above (which is what you'll notice with a herpes outbreak, for instance), but they can also remain dormant inside cells. If a virus can remain dormant, without replicating and without its host cell signaling that it's infected, it can live in the host indefinitely. That last bit is also important, because some cells can signal that they're infected, and can recruit immune cells to kill them.
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[
"Viruses are only able to replicate themselves by commandeering the reproductive apparatus of cells and making them reproduce the virus's genetic structure instead. Thus, a virus cannot function or reproduce outside a cell, thereby being totally dependent on a host cell in order to survive. Most viruses are species specific, and related viruses typically only infect a narrow range of plants, animals, bacteria, or fungi.\n",
"Viruses have different mechanisms by which they produce disease in an organism, which depends largely on the viral species. Mechanisms at the cellular level primarily include cell lysis, the breaking open and subsequent death of the cell. In multicellular organisms, if enough cells die, the whole organism will start to suffer the effects. Although viruses cause disruption of healthy homeostasis, resulting in disease, they may exist relatively harmlessly within an organism. An example would include the ability of the herpes simplex virus, which causes cold sores, to remain in a dormant state within the human body. This is called latency and is a characteristic of the herpes viruses, including Epstein–Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, and varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles. Most people have been infected with at least one of these types of herpes virus. These latent viruses might sometimes be beneficial, as the presence of the virus can increase immunity against bacterial pathogens, such as \"Yersinia pestis\".\n",
"Whether or not viruses should be considered as alive is controversial. They are most often considered as just replicators rather than forms of life. They have been described as \"organisms at the edge of life\" because they possess genes, evolve by natural selection, and replicate by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly. However, viruses do not metabolize and they require a host cell to make new products. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it may support the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.\n",
"The human virome is a part of our bodies and will not always cause harm. Many latent and asymptomatic viruses are present in the human body all the time. Viruses infect all life forms; therefore the bacterial, plant, and animal cells and material in our gut also carry viruses. When viruses cause harm by infecting the cells in the body, a symptomatic disease may develop. Contrary to common belief, harmful viruses may be in the minority compared to benign viruses in the human body. It is much harder to identify viruses than it is to identify bacteria, therefore our understanding of benign viruses in the human body is very rudimentary.\n",
"Opinions differ on whether viruses are a form of life or organic structures that interact with living organisms. They are considered by some to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly, and evolve through natural selection. However they lack key characteristics such as a cellular structure generally considered necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as replicators and as \"organisms at the edge of life\".\n",
"Viruses infect all cellular life and, although viruses occur universally, each cellular species has its own specific range that often infect only that species. Some viruses, called satellites, can replicate only within cells that have already been infected by another virus.\n",
"Unlike herpesviruses, which can remain inactive in the body for months or years before reappearing, molluscum contagiosum does not remain in the body when the growths are gone from the skin and will not reappear on their own.\n"
] |
Was there any benefit to Hitler going to war with the USSR?
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> But that got me thinking, was there any benefits to him going to war with The USSR that helped his efforts on the western fronts and semi-neglected the loss of manpower?
No, not really. Hitler's arrangement with the Soviet Union provided Germany with valuable oil and raw materials, allowing Germany to bypass the Blockade of the continent. With the Invasion of the USSR, the Blockade was now truly effective. There were certainly resources in the USSR worth taking, but what little industry and agricultural produce came into German hands was hardly compensation for the losses in manpower, and the tightening of the Blockade, as well as steadily declining strategic options from 1941 onwards.
David Stahel's books on the Battles of Moscow and Kiev, and Operations Bagration and Typhoon are good reads. Alexander Hill also has a document reader on the Great Patriotic War, which is valuable as a concise account of the Eastern Front. For economic, Adam Tooze's *Wages of Destruction* is the best book I'm aware of.
> no I do not wish that the Germans won WWII, WWI maybe, but not WWII
Frankly, history is better off that they lost both
EDIT:
> Like, if Hitler ignored the east and focused on the west, do you think he could've won or at the very least faired better
It's hard to imagine Hitler 'ignoring' the East; it was the center piece of his aims, the lebensraum for the Aryan race and the source of the resources that would allow Germany to achieve autarky and challenge Britain and America. With the Royal Navy still very much in control of Britain's territorial waters at least, and with RAF Fighter Command preventing the Luftwaffe from attaining the control of the air needed to launch Operation Sea Lion (to say nothing of how ersatz German preparations were for that invasion), there was nowhere else to look. North Africa was Italy's sphere, and Rommel was only sent there to assist the Italians in retaining their positions in Libya. After the defeat of France, the Soviet Union was the next logical (using that term relatively) step in Hitler's "programme" as Andreas Hillgruber or Gerhard Weinberg would put it.
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[
"In autumn 1940, high-ranking German officials drafted a memorandum on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They said Ukraine, Belorussia and the Baltic States would end up as only a further economic burden for Germany. It was argued that the Soviets in their current bureaucratic form were harmless and that the occupation would not benefit Germany. Hitler disagreed with economists about the risks and told his right-hand man Hermann Göring, the chief of the Luftwaffe, that he would no longer listen to misgivings about the economic dangers of a war with Russia. It is speculated that this was passed on to General Georg Thomas, who had produced reports that predicted a net economic drain for Germany in the event of an invasion of the Soviet Union unless its economy was captured intact and the Caucasus oilfields seized in the first blow, and he consequently revised his future report to fit Hitler's wishes. The Red Army's ineptitude in the Winter War against Finland in 1939–40 convinced Hitler of a quick victory within a few months. Neither Hitler nor the General Staff anticipated a long campaign lasting into the winter, and therefore adequate preparations, such as the distribution of warm clothing and winterization of vehicles and lubricants, were not made.\n",
"Hitler believed that after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the war in the East was to destroy Bolshevism, as well as aiming to ruin the Great Russian Empire, and a war for German expansion and economic exploitation.\n",
"Hitler's death prevents him from rising to power as leader of Nazi Germany, which creates a new timeline. Without Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union grows powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. The USSR seizes land from China and then invades Eastern Europe, to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. In response, the U.S. and the countries of Europe form the Allied Nations start a guerrilla war against the invading Soviet Army. Over the course of the game's story, the Allies and Soviets fight for control over the European mainland in an alternate World War II.\n",
"On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler abruptly broke the non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Stalin had made no preparations. Soviet intelligence was fooled by German disinformation and the invasion caught the Soviet military unprepared. In the larger sense, Stalin expected invasion but not so soon. The Army had been decimated by the Purges; time was needed for a recovery of competence. As such, mobilization did not occur and the Soviet Army was tactically unprepared as of the invasion. The initial weeks of the war were a disaster, with tens of thousands of men being killed, wounded, or captured. Whole divisions disintegrated against the German onslaught.\n",
"Hitler had been considering war with the Soviet Union since July 1940. Regarding a potential Soviet Axis entry, Ribbentrop wrote a letter promising Stalin that \"in the opinion of the Führer … it appears to be the historical mission of the Four Powers-the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan and Germany-to adopt a long range-policy and to direct the future development of their peoples into the right channels by delimitation of their interests in a worldwide scale.\" On November 12, 1940, Hitler issued secret \"Instruction No. 18\", directing his forces to prepare for war in the east \"irrespective of the results yielded by these discussions\", while Hitler, Molotov and Ribbentrop conferenced in Berlin to discuss a potential Soviet entry as a fourth Axis power. Hitler wanted an additional economic deal to get what he could from the Soviet Union before the invasion, while other German officials wanted such a deal in the hopes that it could change the current anti-Soviet direction of German policy. In November, Germany and the Soviet Union began negotiations on enlarging the 1940 German–Soviet Commercial Agreement, and discussed border disputes and other issues, culminating in the execution of the January 10, 1941 German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement.\n",
"BULLET::::- Hitler held a conference with his generals in which he said that the upcoming war with Russia would be a race war in which communist commissars and Jews would be exterminated by SS \"Einsatzgruppen\" following behind the advancing armies. Hitler expected the Soviet Union to be defeated in a matter of weeks and declared, \"We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.\"\n",
"Until the war with the Soviet Union was finished, Hitler was reluctant to have a war with the United States, and insisted upon avoiding \"incidents\" with the U.S. Navy as much as possible, whereas Raeder was all for a war with the United States. Hitler had cancelled the Z Plan again in late 1940, only to order it restarted in the middle of 1941 when it seemed that the war against the Soviet Union would soon be over and again cancelled the Z Plan in late 1941. When Hitler cancelled the Z Plan for the final time, Raeder forgot to cancel a contact he had placed with engineering firms for the engines of the first four of the planned H-class super battleships. As a result of that oversight, in June 1944 the \"Kriegsmarine\" had to accept and pay for four gigantic engines that were meant to power battleships that did not exist. From Hitler's viewpoint, it was better to wait until the Z Plan was complete before going to war with the United States. Raeder by contrast thought only of the \"immediate operational advantages\" that would accrue to Germany if the \"Reich\" went to war with the United States. On 11 December 1941, Germany declared war on the United States, which was at least in part due to the pressure of Raeder, who was very pleased with going to war with America. Even before the declaration of war on 11 December, Hitler had given orders to Raeder on 8 December 1941 that the \"Kriegsmarine\" could now sink on sight American warships and warships of all the Latin American republics except Argentina as well. Raeder gave orders that \"Kriegsmarine\" was now to begin Operation Drumbeat, the plan to defeat the United States by sending \"wolf-packs\" of submarines off the Atlantic coast of the United States to destroy all American shipping. On 12 December 1941, Raeder told Hitler that prospects for victory over the United States were good and that \"The situation in the Atlantic will be eased by Japan's successful intervention\". Continuing his analysis of the naval situation, Raeder told Hitler: \"Reports have already been received of the transfer of some [American] battleships from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is certain that light forces, especially destroyers will be required in increased numbers in the Pacific. The need for transport ships will be very great, so that a withdrawal of American merchant ships from the Atlantic can be expected. The strain on British merchant shipping will increase ... The U.S will have to concentrate all her strength in the Pacific during the next few months. Britain will not to run any risks after her severe losses of big ships [Raeder is referring to sinkings of and ]. It is hardly likely that transport tonnage is available for such occupation tasks or bringing up supplies ... It is improbable that the enemy will give up East Asia even temporarily; by so doing Britain will endanger India very seriously, and the U.S. cannot withdraw her fleet from the Pacific as long as the Japanese fleet has the upper hand\". Much to Raeder's annoyance, Hitler followed up declaring war on the U.S. by sending 23 U-boats to the Mediterranean to attack British shipping and another 16 to Norway to guard against a phantom British invasion instead of focusing the U-boat fleet off the eastern United States. Because the United States Navy under the leadership of Admiral Ernest King was not ready for anti-submarine warfare, U-boat operations off the east coast of America in the first half of 1942 were very successful, and only the diversion of the U-boat fleet to the Mediterranean and Norway kept them from being more successful. The entry of the United States into the war meant the ultimate defeat of the \"Kriegsmarine\" as the tremendous productive capacity of American industry meant that the Allies could replace every ship sunk by the U-boats, and then build some more. In 1943, American shipyards turned out enough ships to almost equal the number of all the ships sunk by U-boats between 1939 and 1942. Murray and Millet accused Raeder and the rest of the \"Seekriegsleitung\" of wanting war with America because the United States was an \"easy target\" and of \"taking the easiest tactical and operational path without the slightest thought to the strategic or long-range consequences\".\n"
] |
Primary source from the Rape of Nanking?
|
[Try this digital exhibit from Yale, a collection of materials from Christian missionaries who witnessed the Rape of Nanking.](_URL_0_)
For the future: If you're trying to find primary sources with Google, don't use the term "primary sources," this is a "schoolroom" history phrase and it's not used outside of teaching settings. Sometimes if you google "thing primary resources" they will turn up, but usually because a teacher has already gathered them and labeled them that. Some search terms you can try are "[subject] + archives," "[subject] + digital collections," "[subject] + oral history" or "[subject] + interviews." Also try different words for the subject - for instance, Rape of Nanking is also called the Nanking Massacre. It depends on what the topic is, but in general try to think what people would title the things you're looking for if they were listing them in a library catalog, and try lots and lots of different searches.
Good luck with your paper. :)
|
[
"\"The Rape of Nanking\" is structured into three main parts. The first uses a technique that Chang called \"the Rashomon perspective\" to narrate the events of the Nanking Massacre, from three different perspectives: that of the Japanese military, the Chinese victims, and the Westerners who tried to help Chinese civilians. The second part concerns the postwar reaction to the massacre, especially that of the American and European governments. The third part of the book examines the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.\n",
"Following the publication of \"The Rape of Nanking\", Japanese critic Masaaki Tanaka had his 1987 book on Nanking translated into English. Entitled \"What Really Happened in Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth\", Tanaka stated in his introduction \"I am convinced that [American researchers] will arrive at the realization that violations of international law of the magnitude alleged by Iris Chang in \"The Rape of Nanking\" (more than 300,000 murders and 80,000 rapes) never took place.\"\n",
"\"The Rape of Nanking\" sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the U. S., and according to \"The New York Times\", received general critical acclaim. Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the U. S.; she was awarded honorary degrees, invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanking Massacre on shows such as \"Good Morning America\", \"Nightline\", and \"The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer\", and was profiled by \"The New York Times\" and featured on the cover of \"Reader's Digest\". The book was on the \"New York Times\"' Best Seller list for 10 weeks and sold more than 125,000 copies in four months. Hillary Clinton invited her to the White House, U. S. historian Stephen Ambrose described her as \"maybe the best young historian we've got\", and the Organization of Chinese Americans named her National Woman of the Year. The book's popularity prompted a lengthy book tour, with Chang visiting 65 cities in over a year and a half.\n",
"Higashinakano came to public attention when he attacked Iris Chang's 1997 book \"The Rape of Nanking\". He argued in an opinion column that appeared in \"Sankei Shimbun\" that the book was \"pure baloney\", asserting that there was \"no witness of illegal executions or murders\". Referring to the war crimes trial in Tokyo after World War II, he opined that \"there existed no 'Rape of Nanking' as alleged by the Tokyo Trial.\" He claimed to have identified 90 historical factual errors in the first 64 pages of \"The Rape of Nanking\", some of which were corrected in the 1998 Penguin Books edition of the book.\n",
"During the Second Sino-Japanese War the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Nanking carried out what has come to be known as the Rape of Nanking, which has been described by Adam Jones as \"one of the most savage instances of genocidal rape\". The violence saw tens of thousands of women gang raped and killed. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly. \n",
"BULLET::::- The Nanking Massacre Project: A Digital Archive of Documents & Photographs from American Missionaries Who Witnessed the Rape of Nanking From the Special Collections of the Yale Divinity School Library\n",
"Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968November 9, 2004) was an American journalist, author of historical books and political activist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, \"The Rape of Nanking\". Chang is the subject of the 2007 biography, \"Finding Iris Chang\", and the 2007 documentary film \"Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking\".\n"
] |
Why is Belarus?
|
Not to discourage other answers, but you might be interested in this post:
[How did Belorussians and Ukrainians evolve as distinct national identities from Russia?](_URL_0_) with the top answer from /u/cheapwowgold4u.
It's an older post from when AskHistorians allowed wikipedia as a source, but it's a well thought out answer. I'd link more posts but I'm on mobile, but if you search 'Belarus' in the search bar, a good amount of relevant posts come up. Hope that helps!
|
[
"Belarus (; , ), officially the Republic of Belarus (, ), formerly known by its Russian name Byelorussia or Belorussia (), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its is forested. Its major economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including the Principality of Polotsk (11th to 14th centuries), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire.\n",
"The territory of Belarus is divided into discrete regions, called oblasts. The oblasts are further divided into districts which are in turn subdivided into cities. The Constitution also allows for special regions to be created, which are to be controlled by legislation. Citizens of Belarus are also promised protection and sponsorship, regardless of whether they are inside Belarusian borders or in a foreign country. With some exceptions, those who do not have a nationality and foreigners are, under the Constitution, granted the same status and rights as citizens of Belarus. Belarus also has the power to grant asylum to those who have been subject to persecution due to their ethnic background, political ideology or religious affiliation.\n",
"The geology of Belarus began to form more than 2.5 billion years ago in the Precambrian, although many overlying sedimentary units deposited during the Paleozoic and the current Quaternary. Belarus is located in the eastern European plain. From east to west it covers about 650 kilometers while from north to south it covers about 560 kilometers, and the total area is about 207,600 square kilometers. It borders Poland in the north, Lithuania in the northwest, Latvia and Russia in the north, and Ukraine in the south. Belarus has a planar topography with a height of about 160 m above sea level. The highest elevation at 346 meters above sea level is Mt. Dzerzhinskaya, and the lowest point at the height of 80 m is in the Neman River valley. Belarus has a temperate continental climate with the warmest month (temperatures can be as high as 38 °C) being July, while the coldest month is January with temperatures plunging to as low as −36 °C to −44 °C.\n",
"The culture of Belarus is the product of a millennium of development under the impact of a number of diverse factors. These include the physical environment; the ethnographic background of Belarusians (the merger of Slavic newcomers with Baltic natives); the paganism of the early settlers and their hosts; Eastern Orthodox Christianity as a link to the Byzantine literary and cultural traditions; the country's lack of natural borders; the flow of rivers toward both the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea; and the variety of religions in the region (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam).\n",
"In the preamble of the Constitution, Belarus assumes the responsibility for its destiny as a member of the international community. To execute this responsibility, the government undertakes to show \"\"adherence to values common to all mankind, founding ourselves on our inalienable right to self-determination,\"\" which is \"\"supported by the centuries-long history of development of Belarusian statehood.\"\" Belarus also pledges to honor the rights and freedoms of its citizens and to maintain a stable government that is run by the people and based on the rule of law.\n",
"Belarus is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking. Belarusian victims are primarily subjected to trafficking in Russia and Belarus, as well as in Poland, Turkey, and other countries in Eurasia and the Middle East. Some Belarusian women travelling for foreign employment in the adult entertainment and hotel industries are subjected to sex trafficking. The government has identified Belarusian, Moldovan, Russian, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese victims exploited in Belarus.\n",
"The politics of Belarus takes place in a framework of a presidential republic with a bicameral parliament. The President of Belarus is the head of state. Executive power is exercised by the government, at its top sits a prime minister, appointed by the President. Legislative power is \"de jure\" vested in the bicameral parliament, the National Assembly, however the president may enact decrees that are executed the same way as laws, for undisputed time. Belarus's declaration of independence on 27 July 1990, did not stem from long-held political aspirations but from reactions to domestic and foreign events. Ukraine's declaration of independence, in particular, led the leaders of then Belarusian SSR to realize that the Soviet Union was on the brink of dissolving, which it did.\n"
] |
why does my iphone say i have 4.4 gigs of memory used in pictures and yet i have no pictures on my phone
|
It's photos saved in messages, possibly cached photos. Delete some conversations, or (I highly recommend) jailbreak your phone, install iCleaner and it will clear ALL that crap out.
|
[
"iOS 8 added iCloud Photo Library support to the Photos app, enabling photo synchronization between different Apple devices. Photos and videos were backed up in full resolution and in their original formats. This feature almost meant that lower-quality versions of photos could be cached on the device rather than the full-size images, potentially saving significant storage space on models with limited storage availability.\n",
"Because photographers rely on the integrity of image files, it is important to take proper care of memory cards. Common advocacy calls for formatting of the cards after transferring the images onto a computer. However, since all cameras only do quick formatting of cards, it is advisable to carry out a more thorough formatting using appropriate software on a PC once in a while. Effectively, this involves scanning of the cards to search for possible errors.\n",
"The first-generation iPhone and iPhone 3G have a fixed-focus 2.0-megapixel camera on the back for digital photos. It has no optical zoom, flash or autofocus, and does not natively support video recording. Video recording is possible on the first-generation iPhone and iPhone 3G via a third-party app available on the App Store or through jailbreaking. iPhone OS 2.0 introduced geotagging for photos.\n",
"The Photos app on iOS 9 included the improved scrubber bar in the photo viewer, \"Screenshots\" and \"Selfies\" albums, and the ability to hold and select multiple photos easily, without having to delete them individually. It also allows the user to hide sensitive material through a new Hide option. The app also allows the user to pinch-to-zoom while playing a video.\n",
"The photos represent almost every experience of its wearer's day. They are taken via a wide-angle lens in order to capture an image that is likely to contain most of what the wearer can see. The SenseCam uses a flash memory which has the means to store upwards of 2,000 photos per day as .jpg files, though more recent models with larger and faster memory cards mean a wearer typically stores up to 4,000 images per day. These files can then be uploaded and automatically viewed as a daily movie, which can be easily reviewed and indexed using a custom viewer application running on a PC. It is possible to replay the images from a single day in as little as a few minutes. An alternative way of viewing images is to have a day's worth of data automatically segmented into 'events' and to use an event-based browser which can view each event (of 50, 100 or more individual SenseCam images) using a keyframe chosen as a representative of that event.\n",
"The camera phone records pictures in JPEG format, but the Krave can also read GIF, PNG and BMP/DIB files. Thumbnails are stored individually as 9kB device-independent bitmap files (such as \"filename\"_jpg.dib, or \"filename\"_3g2.dib), occupying up to 10% more flash memory space (with 32kB clusters) than each picture itself (about 320kB at full size). The entire first video frame for each video is also stored this way (ff-\"filename\"_3g2.dib) at a resolution higher than the 320×240 of the video itself. Windows cannot read the thumbnails produced by the phone. Automatic creation of thumbnails can significantly slow browsing of photos. There is no way to bookmark, favorite, index, categorize, sort, or tag photos, such that the oldest ones require scrolling through all other photos taken since then. Large numbers of photos in the my_pix folder can cause severe slowness in capturing and browsing photos, and when a card is inserted or the phone reboots or is turned on.\n",
"The camera app can take photos, or record videos up to 15 seconds in length. Photos and videos can be stored to the device's internal storage, or immediately transferred to the user's phone or tablet. Users can also record up to 5 minutes worth of voice memos. A media controller for music or video being played by the phone or tablet is also provided.\n"
] |
Was Emperor Jimmu a real person? Who were his parents?
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In mythology Jimmu was a descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. Ugayafukiaezu no Mikoto, a Kami (a god) is his father. Considering that both of these people are gods, it is unlikely that he was a real person. But that's the short answer. The long answer is a bit more in depth:
The Japanese migrated to the Japanese Islands, that much is known but it's not known when or from where (though probably from Korea and that region). Largely the Japanese were concentrated in the south and seem to have been organized in small villages during what is known as the Yayoi and Kofun Periods. During the end of the Kofun and the beginning of the Asuka Period, the villages became more fortified and larger, and local leaders developed into clans known in Japanese as Uji.
Officially, the Uji are unified under the Yamato Family by the eight century C.E. As the Yamato claim descent from the Sun Goddess, this is probably where the idea of Jimmu comes from. The Japanese State seems to just sort of...happened, and like all states that seem to come out of nowhere, they invented a mythological history for themselves as an easy way to explain what was most likely a convoluted series of wars and deals for Yamato hegemony. Rather than recalling all the conflict that undoubtedly took place, Jimmu becomes an easy way to explain unification. Who established the armies? Jimmu. Who unified the clans? Jimmu. See where I'm going with this?
In all reality though, what the myth of Jimmu represents is a case where mythology has preserved actual history (we see this in cases like Romulus, and Hercules, indeed if you live in America Washington seems to very very slowly be moving towards this). A local strongman may have had enough strength and guile to begin unification, who was then mythologized as Jimmu. Or perhaps he, like Prince Yamato, is an example of a blending of various stock characters in order to explain the past.
I hope this helped answer your question!
|
[
"The origins of the Japanese imperial dynasty are obscure, and it bases its position on the claim that it has \"reigned since time immemorial\". There are no records of any Emperor who was not said to have been a descendant of other, yet earlier Emperor ( \"bansei ikkei\"). There is suspicion that Emperor Keitai (c. AD 500) may have been an unrelated outsider, though the sources (Kojiki, Nihon-Shoki) state that he was a male-line descendant of Emperor Ōjin. However, his descendants, including his successors, were according to records descended from at least one and probably several imperial princesses of the older lineage. The tradition built by those legends has chosen to recognize just the putative male ancestry as valid for legitimizing his succession, not giving any weight to ties through the said princesses.\n",
"The Emperor Emeritus was born at Tokyo Imperial Palace on 23 December 1933, the elder son and fifth child of the Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun. He was married on 10 April 1959 to Michiko Shōda. Emperor Akihito succeeded his father as emperor on 7 January 1989, and was succeded by Naruhito after he abdicated on 30 April 2019.\n",
", also known as was the 11th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. There is less known about \"Suinin\" than his father, and likewise is also considered to be a \"legendary emperor\". Both the \"Kojiki\", and the \"Nihon Shoki\" (collectively known as the \"Kiki\") record events that took place during Suinin's alleged lifetime. This legendary narrative tells how he ordered his daughter Yamatohime-no-mikoto to establish a new permanent shrine for Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess), which eventually became known as the Ise Grand Shrine. Other events that were recorded concurrently with his reign include the origins of Sumo wrestling in the form of a wrestling match involving Nomi no Sukune. \n",
"BULLET::::- in which Emperor Akihito reports his abdication to the Ancestral Spirits of the Imperial Family from one year after their death and the from Takamagahara and from Japanese mythology at the \"Kōrei-den\" and \"Shin-den\" of the Three Palace Sanctuaries of the Imperial Palace respectively.\n",
"The earliest Emperor recorded in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki is Emperor Jimmu, who is said to be a descendant of Amaterasu's grandson Ninigi who descended from Heaven (Tenson kōrin). If one believes what is written in Nihon Shoki, the Emperors have an unbroken direct male lineage that goes back more than 2,600 years.\n",
"Officially, the current Emperor of Japan, Naruhito is the 126th in line from the first emperor, Jimmu, who is variously believed to have reigned in the 1st or 7th century BC. The earliest documentary evidence is only for the 29th emperor, Kinmei (AD 509–571); however, this is sufficient such that even the most conservative of estimates still places the Japanese imperial family as among the oldest lines in the world today.\n",
"The first legendary Emperor of Japan, best known by his posthumous name of Emperor Jimmu was referred to in the records by the title of . He is the son of Ugaya, descendent of Ninigi, and the sea princess Tamayori. His given name was Hiko-hohodemi.\n"
] |
how do we know there are more colors than can be seen with the naked eye, if we can't... see them?
|
A color is just a particular wavelength of light that happens to trip some of the cells in our eyes to some degree.
We know for a fact that there are wavelengths of light that do *not* activate those cells in our eyes--but those are still wavelengths of light, which can be called a color.
Additionally, we know for a fact that there are other animals that those wavelengths *do* activate some of the cells in *their* eyes, which is reason enough to call those wavelengths "additional colors that humans can't see."
|
[
"Humans are able to see an array of colours because light in the visible spectrum is made up of different wavelengths (from 380 to 760 nm). Our ability to see in colour is due to three different cone cells in the retina, containing three different photopigments. The three cones are each specialized to best pick up a certain wavelength (420, 530 and 560 nm or roughly the colours blue, green and red). The brain is able to distinguish the wavelength and colour in the field of vision by figuring out which cone has been stimulated. The physical dimensions of colour include wavelength, intensity and purity while the related perceptual dimensions include hue, brightness and saturation.\n",
"Michael Tye argues, among other things, that there is only one correct way to see colors. Therefore, the colorblind and most mammals do not really have color vision because their vision differs from the vision of \"normal\" humans. Similarly, creatures with more advanced color vision, although better able to distinguish objects than people, are suffering from color illusions because their vision differs from humans. Tye advanced this particular position in an essay called \"True Blue\".\n",
"For storing and working on images, it is possible to use \"imaginary\" primary colors that are not physically possible so that the triangle does enclose a much larger gamut, so whether more than three primaries results in a difference to the human eye is not yet proven, since humans are primarily trichromats, though tetrachromats exist.\n",
"Human color vision is in fact more complicated than suggested by the explanation above, and in particular the perceived color of an object depends not only on the light it emits, but also on the colors of nearby objects. For example, a blue object close to a red object may appear somewhat greenish; this effect accounts for many apparently green stars.\n",
"Young proposed that color vision is based on three primary colors: red, green, and blue. Maxwell demonstrated that any color can be matched by a mixture of three primary colors. This was interpreted by Helmholtz as proof that humans perceive colors through three types of receptors, while white and black would reflect the amount of light.\n",
"The spectrum does not contain all the colors that the human eyes and brain can distinguish. Unsaturated colors such as pink, or purple variations like magenta, for example, are absent because they can only be made from a mix of multiple wavelengths. Colors containing only one wavelength are also called pure colors or spectral colors.\n",
"Colors are not in light. Colors are nothing more than the eye's activity, appearing in polar contrasts. Philosophers have always surmised that color belongs to the eye rather than to things. Locke, for example, claimed that color was at the head of his list of secondary qualities.\n"
] |
apple vs. samsung lawsuits
|
Basically, the evidence shows the Head Design Team from Samsung went through the iPhone point by point and compared it to their own TouchWiz OS and phone. They made suggestions that Samsung adopt hundreds of little features and design cues from the iPhone. You can look at the final OS changes on a phone and see they followed most of the advice released in [THESE INTERNAL DOCUMENTS.](_URL_0_)
|
[
"Samsung counter-sued Apple on April 22, 2011, filing federal complaints in courts in Seoul, South Korea; Tokyo, Japan; and Mannheim, Germany, alleging Apple infringed Samsung's patents for mobile-communications technologies. By summer, Samsung also filed suits against Apple in the British High Court of Justice, in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, and with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington D.C., all in June 2011.\n",
"Apple sued Samsung on 15 April 2011 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that several of Samsung's Android phones and tablets, including the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, infringed on Apple's intellectual property: its patents, trademarks, user interface and style. Apple's complaint included specific federal claims for patent infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition, and trademark infringement, as well as state-level claims for unfair competition, common law trademark infringement, and unjust enrichment.\n",
"\"Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.\" was the first of many lawsuits between Apple and Samsung. In the spring of 2011, Apple sued Samsung while already fully engaged in a patent war with Motorola. Apple's multinational litigation over technology patents became known as the mobile device patent wars: Extensive litigation followed fierce competition in the global market for consumer mobile communications.\n",
"The injunction Apple sought in the U.S. to block Samsung smartphones such as the Infuse 4G and the Droid Charge was denied. Judge Koh ruled that Apple's claims of irreparable harm had little merit because although Apple established a likelihood of success at trial on the merits of its claim that Samsung infringed one of its tablet patents, Apple had not shown that it could overcome Samsung's challenges to the patent's validity.\n",
"Apple initially sued Samsung on grounds of patent infringement, specifically European patents 2.059.868, 2.098.948, and 1.964.022. On the 24th of October, 2011, a court in the Hague ruled only a photo gallery app in Android 2.3 was indeed infringing a patent (EP 2.059.868), resulting in an import ban of three Samsung telephones (the Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Ace) running the infringing software. Phones operating more recent versions of Android remained unaffected. This made the import and sale of the banned phone models with updated software still legal. This ruling was widely interpreted as a favourable one for Samsung, and an appeal by Apple may still be forthcoming.\n",
"Samsung's complaint in Japan's Tokyo District Court cited two infringements. Apple has filed other patent suits in Japan against Samsung, most notably one for the \"bounce-back\" feature. Samsung has also sued Apple, claiming the iPhone and iPad infringe on Samsung patents.\n",
"In late August 2012, a three-judge panel in Seoul Central District Court delivered a split decision, ruling that Apple had infringed upon two Samsung technology patents, while Samsung violated one of Apple's patents. The court awarded small damages to both companies and ordered a temporary sales halt of the infringing products in South Korea; however, none of the banned products were the latest models of either Samsung or Apple.\n"
] |
Could the Industrial Revolution have happened earlier in history, or did it happen as soon as the world was "ready" for it?
|
This is basically directly taken from Ian Morris' *Why the West Rules for Now* which I highly recommend. Its a great read.
There were a few reasons why the Industrial Revolution happened when it did. Technology continued to accumulate over centuries and centuries making a breakthrough to industrialization possible, something earlier Empires did not have the luxury to rely on. Due to this increase in technology countries were more able to protect themselves with the invention of guns and other military equipment. This prevented empires from being overrun by enemy migration allowing them to focus on other concerns. Also ships could now sail virtually anywhere creating an economy that the world had never seen before. The Industrial Revolution was more easily instituted in Britain because of their massive economy, weaker monarchs (compared to other European powers), freer merchants, coal mines,more open institutions, and also dumb luck.
Again Ian Morris covers most of this in his book and does much better than I can, but none the less I hope this brief response helps somewhat.
|
[
"The \"industrial revolution\" is the historical event that ushered in industrial civilization. The modern world has evolved further following development in mass production and information technology (allowing service economy, and information society).\n",
"The Scientific Revolution changed humanity's understanding of the world and led to the Industrial Revolution, a major transformation of the world's economies. The Scientific Revolution in the 17th century had had little immediate effect on industrial technology; only in the second half of the 18th century did scientific advances begin to be applied substantially to practical invention. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and used new modes of production—the factory, mass production, and mechanization—to manufacture a wide array of goods faster and using less labour than previously required. The Age of Enlightenment also led to the beginnings of modern democracy in the late-18th century American and French Revolutions. Democracy and republicanism would grow to have a profound effect on world events and on quality of life.\n",
"The Industrial Revolution was a period from 1750 to 1850 where changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times. It began in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spread throughout Western Europe, North America, Japan, and eventually the rest of the world.\n",
"The basic picture painted of the pre-Industrial Revolution is that the Industrial Revolution was the result of a surplus of money and crops, which led to the development of new technology. This new technology eventually developed into factories. The Industrious Revolution addresses this belief, saying instead, that the overwhelming desire for more goods directly preceded the Industrial Revolution. The theory states that during the Industrious Revolution there was an increase in demand for goods, but that supply did not rise as quickly.\n",
"After the last stage of the Proto-industrialization, the first transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy is known as the Industrial Revolution and took place from the mid-18th to early 19th century in certain areas in Europe and North America; starting in Great Britain, followed by Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and France. Characteristics of this early industrialisation were technological progress, a shift from rural work to industrial labor, financial investments in new industrial structure, and early developments in class consciousness and theories related to this. Later commentators have called this the First Industrial Revolution.\n",
"The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions starting in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spreading throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way.\n",
"The Industrial Revolution, now also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increasing use of steam power and water power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the mechanized factory system. The Industrial Revolution also led to an unprecedented rise in the rate of population growth.\n"
] |
eili5 how does file encryption work?
|
Encryption takes a key, and combines it with the message mathematically to scramble it.
A simple encryption scheme might move the letters of the message forward in the alpha. If my key was 1 2 3, and my message was REDDIT, it would encrypt it like this:
R, 1 - > S
E, 2 - > G
D, 3 - > G
D, 1 - > E
I, 2 - > K
T, 3 - > W
So the encrypted message is now SGGEKW. And even if you knew what the encryption was, you'd have a hard time finding the message without a key.
In practice, the actually scrambling method is more complicated, but the principle is the same.
|
[
"With transparent encryption, the files are accessible immediately after the key is provided, and the entire volume is typically mounted as if it were a physical drive, making the files just as accessible as any unencrypted ones. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys. The entire file system within the volume is encrypted (including file names, folder names, file contents, and other meta-data).\n",
"File level encryption encrypts only the file contents. This leaves important information such as file name, size and timestamps unencrypted. Parts of the content of the file can be reconstructed from other locations, such as temporary files, swap file and deleted, unencrypted copies.\n",
"Filesystem-level encryption, often called file-based encryption, FBE, or file/folder encryption, is a form of disk encryption where individual files or directories are encrypted by the file system itself.\n",
"EFS works by encrypting a file with a bulk symmetric key (also known as the File Encryption Key, or FEK), which is used because it takes less time to encrypt and decrypt large amounts of data than if an asymmetric key cipher were used. The symmetric key used to encrypt the file is then encrypted with a public key associated with the user who encrypted the file, and this encrypted data is stored in the header of the encrypted file. To decrypt the file, the file system uses the private key of the user to decrypt the symmetric key stored in the file header. It then uses the symmetric key to decrypt the file. Because this is done at the file system level, it is transparent to the user.\n",
"In cryptography, format-preserving encryption (FPE), refers to encrypting in such a way that the output (the ciphertext) is in the same format as the input (the plaintext). The meaning of \"format\" varies. Typically only finite domains are discussed, for example:\n",
"Convergent encryption derives the key from the file content itself and means an identical file encrypted on different computers result in identical encrypted files. This enables the cloud storage provider to de-duplicate data blocks, meaning only one instance of a unique file (such as a document, photo, music or movie file) is actually stored on the cloud servers but made accessible to all uploaders. A third party who gained access to the encrypted files could thus easily determine if a user has uploaded a particular file simply by encrypting it themselves and comparing the outputs.\n",
"Another approach used by some conventional disk encryption software suites is creating a second encrypted volume within a container volume. The container volume is first formatted by filling it with encrypted random data, and then initializing a filesystem on it. The user then fills some of the filesystem with legitimate, but plausible-looking decoy files that the user would seem to have an incentive to hide. Next, a new encrypted volume (the hidden volume) is allocated within the free space of the container filesystem which will be used for data the user actually wants to hide. Since an adversary cannot differentiate between encrypted data and the random data used to initialize the outer volume, this inner volume is now undetectable.\n"
] |
why are wall outlets 110v or 220v? those seem like such arbitrary values; why not 100v?
|
In many parts of the world, electric companies sprung up, each making their own flavor of power (certain voltage, amperage, cycles per second, etc.). This caused one really big problem: you buy a lamp and it works in your house, then you move to another part of town, and it won't work because the power is different.
& #x200B;
At some point, it was necessary to standardize the way power works so that there was interchangeability, technicians didn't require retraining, etc. In the end, 110/220 were completely arbitrary. It could have been 150 or 200 for all that matters, as long as everyone used the same one in the same country.
|
[
"For example, in 2012, Hawaii residents had the highest average residential electricity rate in the United States (37.34¢/kWh), while Louisiana residents had the lowest average residential electricity costs (8.37¢/kWh). Even in the contiguous United States, the gap is significant with New York residents having the highest average residential electricity rates in the lower 48 U.S. states (17.62¢/kWh).\n",
"Most of the Americas use 60 Hz AC, the 120/240 volt split phase system domestically and three phase for larger installations. North American transformers usually power homes at 240 volts, similar to Europe's 230 volts. It is the split-phase that allows use of 120 volts in the home.\n",
"BULLET::::- Not inquiring about the voltage when traveling abroad for those residing in the Americas, Japan, and Taiwan (countries with 110-125 volts). This includes inter-American travel, as a few countries commonly use 220-240 volts. A matching electrical socket (power mains) does \"not\" necessarily mean the voltage is the same as one's home country. The doubling of voltage results in a very dangerous four-fold increase in power and heat. Not checking that dual-voltage small appliances have been adjusted correctly for 220-240 volts is also unsafe.\n",
"In household consumer terms, this equates to of emitted for each one kilowatt-hour (kWh), or , of electricity produced and fed into the electricity grid. That is, Muja Power Station emits slightly more per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced than nearby Collie Power Station () and much more than Bluewaters Power Station () based on estimates for the same year.\n",
"In household consumer terms, this equates to of emitted for each one kilowatt-hour (kWh), or , of electricity produced and fed into the electricity grid. That is, Collie Power Station emits slightly less per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced than nearby closing Muja Power Station () but more than also nearby Bluewaters Power Station () based on estimates for the same year.\n",
"Today, transmission-level voltages are usually considered to be 110 kV and above. Lower voltages, such as 66 kV and 33 kV, are usually considered subtransmission voltages, but are occasionally used on long lines with light loads. Voltages less than 33 kV are usually used for distribution. Voltages above 765 kV are considered extra high voltage and require different designs compared to equipment used at lower voltages.\n",
"Most of differences in the layout and design of low-voltage networks are dictated by the mains voltage rating. In Europe and most of the world 220–240 V is the dominant choice, while in North America 120 V is the standard.\n"
] |
What exactly is the reaction happening when I clean tarnished silver with bicarb, Aluminium, and hot water?
|
Aluminium is naturally very reactive, but is often covered in a thin layer of passivating aluminium oxide that prevents the rest of the aluminium from reacting. Aluminium oxide is amphoteric, and thus easily soluble in alkaline or acidic solutions. The hot bicarb solution is alkaline, and dissloves the aluminium oxide, and allows the underlying aluminium to react with water into more aluminium oxide, that gets dissolved, and it repeats until the metal is entirely gone.
The oxidizing aluminium, in turn, reduces the silver tarnish into silver when placed in contact with the aluminium.
The strong smell is probably the silver sulfide (black silver tarnish) reducing into silver metal and hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotting eggs.
|
[
"Ethyl alcohol is sometimes added to the slurry mixture to help dry out excess water. The slurry mixture is applied throughout the piece until completely polished. Dark tarnish spots are sometimes located on the surface and may need to be polished more than once to remove. Over polishing is an issue with silver and can cause harm to the surface of the metal. After polishing, the silver object is rinsed in deionized water and dried with a cotton cloth.\n",
"The common technique of cleaning silverware by immersion of the silver or sterling silver (or even just silver plated objects) and a piece of aluminum (foil is preferred because of its much greater surface area compared to ingots, although if the foil has a \"non-stick\" face, this must be removed with steel wool first) in a hot electrolytic bath (usually composed of water and sodium bicarbonate, i.e., household baking soda) is an example of galvanic corrosion. Silver darkens and corrodes in the presence of airborne sulfur molecules, and the copper in sterling silver corrodes under a variety of conditions. These layers of corrosion can be largely removed through the electrochemical reduction of silver sulfide molecules: the presence of aluminum (which is less noble than either silver or copper) in the bath of sodium bicarbonate strips the sulfur atoms off the silver sulfide and transfers them onto and thereby corrodes the piece of aluminum foil (a much more reactive metal), leaving elemental silver behind. No silver is lost in the process. \n",
"Water sensitive objects are masked in plastic wrap to avoid getting wet. A slurry of precipitated (pharmaceutical grade) calcium carbonate and deionized water is created and rubbed onto the silver piece with a cotton rag or cotton ball. It is recommended that the slurry be tested on the bottom or in a non-visible area of the silver for abrasiveness. If the slurry is too abrasive it will scratch the surface and increase the potential for future tarnishing. The polish is applied with a soft cloth and polished in a circular motion.\n",
"6. Neutralization: after water washing acid is not completely removed. So to neutralize the surface of the metal it is dipped into Kishta or Khatai i.e. tamarind solution.acid present on the meta surface darken the color of brass due to corrosion.\n",
"Sulfur-containing gases and particulates can tarnish the surface of silver. These corrosive agents can come from air pollution, paints, textiles, bacterial by-products, and other chemically treated objects or building materials. When storing silver, museum conservators wrap silver in sulfur-free tissue paper and store in a tight sealed polyethylene bag. Activated charcoal is sometimes used to absorb sulfur by placing it in the bag but not in direct contact with the object. Likewise, Pacific Silver Cloth has also been used by museums to prevent tarnishing.\n",
"Once cleaned and dried the silver is wrapped in acid-free tissue paper and placed in a sealed plastic bag. A 3M anti-tarnish strip is also placed in the bag to absorb any sulfur that may be in the air. The tissue paper is used as a buffer to prevent the silver surface coming into contact with the anti-tarnish strip.\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"
] |
why are doctors england on strike?
|
The UK government wants to introduce a new contract for doctors. The changes would include modification of standard working hours which will result in unsafe working practices and reduced pay, as well as potentially causing issues with staffing and recruitment.
The contract aims to "introduce" the idea of a 7-day NHS, as though care is currently withdrawn at 5pm every evening and is non-existent at weekends. One way of providing this is by classing Saturday, Sunday and evenings as normal working hours, as opposed to overtime or unsociable hours. Proposals have also included calls for only a 30 minute break during 10 hour on call shifts. These longer hours have the potential to result in doctors working while tired which can impact on their and patients' safety.
The other outcome of these changes in hours is one of pay. By changing unsociable hours to normal working hours, a lot of doctors will essentially be taking a paycut as they will no longer receive the same bonuses and incentive payments for working overtime or unsociable hours.
Understandably, junior doctors are not happy and, after many attempts at negotiation with the health secretary, have concluded that industrial action is the best way of getting their voices heard
|
[
"On the 12th of January 2016, Junior Doctors in England took part in the first general strike across the NHS, the first such industrial action in 40 years. Emergency care was still provided. There have been claims that the Medical Director of NHS England, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, has used performance target levels to justify and encourage NHS Trusts to declare an emergency situation, forcing Junior Doctors to work despite the strike, a move to which the BMA has condemned.\n",
"On 12 January 2016, Junior Doctors in England took part in the first general strike across the NHS, the first such industrial action in 40 years. Emergency care was still provided. Hunt claimed it was \"unnecessary\", that patients could be put at risk, and that many junior doctors had \"ignored\" the strike call and worked anyway, but the BMA responded that many junior doctors were in work maintaining emergency care as planned. There were claims that Bruce Keogh, had used performance target levels to justify and encourage NHS trusts to declare an emergency situation, forcing Junior Doctors to work despite the strike, a move to which the BMA condemned.\n",
"BULLET::::- Similar concerns were reflected by strike action around the same time more widely in UK professional classes: junior doctors undertook their first strikes in the history of the National Health Service (England) in 2015-16, while barristers began strike action on 1 April 2018.\n",
"A junior doctors contract dispute in England led to industrial action being taken in 2015 and 2016. A negotiation between NHS Employers and the main UK doctor's union, the British Medical Association (BMA) had been overshadowed by the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt threatening to impose certain aspects. The BMA balloted members in November 2015 and industrial action was scheduled for the following month. The initial action was suspended, although further talks broke down. Junior doctors took part in a general strike across the NHS in England on 12 January 2016, the first such industrial action in 40 years. Junior doctors again withdrew their labour for routine care on 10 February. On 26 April 2016, junior doctors withdrew from emergency and routine care, the first time this had happened.\n",
"BULLET::::- 290,000 doctors across the country participate in a strike for 12 hours to protest against the National Medical Commission Bill, which seeks to replace the Medical Council of India with National Medical Commission. The Strike was called off mid-way as the government agrees to send the bill to parliamentary standing committee.\n",
"In 2014, Care UK's former chairman Lord Nash became a government minister and Care UK took over services for people with severe learning disabilities in Doncaster, south Yorkshire - where they immediately cut wages of staff who had been on NHS terms by up to 35% while bringing in 100 new workers on £7 an hour. Fifty carers for the disabled began strike action in protest and by August 2014, had been on strike for 7 weeks - making it one of the longest strikes in the history of the NHS. Care UK won the supported living contract from the council after telling officials that it could deliver it for £6.7m over three years. Yet the wage bill alone for the service was £7m.\n",
"In November 2018 5,700 medical practitioners, including gynaecologists, paediatricians and general practitioners, went on strike for a week, demanding that the Generalitat de Catalunya implement a cap to the number of daily patient consultations. This was part of a dispute which started in 2008 when more than 900 doctors were fired and doctors’ wages were cut by 30%. They blocked the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, and occupied the Catalonia Health Institute headquarters. Emergency services were continued. After 4 days a settlement was negotiated on the number of patient appointments, which were limited by a cap of 25-28 patient consultations per day with a minimum time of 12 minutes per appointment. 300 more primary care professionals were recruited. In February 2019 these guidelines were still not universally enforced according to the doctors’ union of Catalonia, Metges De Catalunya. Very few of the 309 family medical practitioners had appeared. 600 existing doctors had agreed to work more hours. The European Union of General Practitioners found that only about 24% of general practitioners thought the workload in their country was sustainable and reasonable.\n"
] |
tuition is increasing faster than inflation. cable prices are increasing faster than inflation. healthcare costs too. isn't that the definition of inflation?
|
First, you need to understand how Inflation is measured. Its simply not practical to have the primary inflation number we talk about include every possible product that you could by or spend money on, not to mention the problems of deciding how to weight different items. Instead, a "basket" of goods is selected that is designed to represent common consumer items, and their prices are tracked and used to produce an inflation number. The problem is that what is included in that basket is a political question. The basket used to consider fuel prices, now it doesn't, etc...
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[
"With higher education costs on the rise, many students are becoming sensitive to every aspect of college pricing, including textbooks, which in many cases amount to one tenth of tuition costs. The 2005 Government Accountability Office report on college textbooks said that since the 1980s, textbook and supply prices have risen twice the rate of inflation in the past two decades. A 2005 PIRG study found that textbooks cost students $900 per year, and that prices increased four times the rate of inflation over the past decade. A June 2007 Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (ACSFA) report, “Turn the Page,” reported that the average U.S. student spends $700–$1000 per year on textbooks.\n",
"After adjusting for inflation, average published tuition at public (4-year, in-state) and private non-profit universities has increased by 178% and 98%, respectively, from the 1990-91 school year to 2017-18. Net Price (tuition less aid received) has also grown, but to a much smaller degree, as most universities have increased their \"discount rate\" by offering more in student aid. After adjusting for inflation, average net price at public and private universities has increased by 77% and 17%, respectively, over the same time frame.\n",
"Following closely behind annual increases in tuition and fees at postsecondary institutions, college textbook and supply prices have risen at twice the rate of annual inflation over the last two decades.\n",
"According to the 2007 edition of the College Board’s Trend in College Pricing Report published October 2007: \"\"College costs continue to rise and federal student aid has shown slower growth when adjusted for inflation, while textbooks, as a percentage of total college costs, have remained steady at about 5 percent.\"\"\n",
"It is estimated that in 2009, college students spent an average of $667 on their textbooks. A second estimate was $1,000 per year, with signs that textbook prices were increasing faster than inflation. Moreover, some college bookstores would offer to buy back the used books for a fraction of their original price.\n",
"An alternate explanation posits that tuition increases simply reflect the increasing costs of producing higher education due to its high dependence upon skilled labor. According to the theory of the Baumol effect, a general economic trend is that productivity in service industries has lagged that in goods-producing industries, and the increase in higher education costs is simply a reflection of this phenomenon.\n",
"While overall inflation has generally remained low since 2000, the costs of certain categories of \"big ticket\" expenses have grown faster than the overall inflation rate, such as healthcare, higher education, rent, and child care. These goods and services are considered essential to a middle-class lifestyle yet are increasingly unaffordable as household income stagnates.\n"
] |
why does radiation in a disaster stay for so long? (like in chernobyl)
|
All radioactive materials have a half-life. The half-life is the amount of time it takes for half of the material to decay into something else.
If the material from Chernobyl has a half-life of 1000 years then after 1000 years only 1/2 of it will be gone. After 2000 years, 3/4 of it will be gone. Etc.
Some radioactive materials actually decay into other radioactive materials. Then those materials need to decay, too.
Obviously, this is a problem. Modern nuclear reactors have been designed with safety in mind because nobody wants to deal with the consequences of a meltdown.
|
[
"At Chernobyl, approximately 10 times the amount of radiation was released into the atmosphere as was released from Fukushima I through 12 April 2011. The total amount of radioactive material still stored at Fukushima is about 8 times that stored at Chernobyl, and leakage at Fukushima continues.\n",
"Although the Chernobyl accident had dire off-site effects, much of the radioactivity remained within the building. If the building were to fail and dust were to be released into the environment, the release of a given mass of fission products that have aged for almost thirty years would have a smaller effect than the release of the same mass of fission products (in the same chemical and physical form) that had only undergone a short cooling time (such as one hour) after the nuclear reaction had terminated. If a nuclear reaction were to occur again within the Chernobyl plant (for instance if rainwater were to collect and act as a moderator), however, then the new fission products would have a higher specific activity and thus pose a greater threat if they were released. To prevent a post-accident nuclear reaction, steps have been taken, such as adding neutron poisons to key parts of the basement.\n",
"Factors such as rainfall, wind currents, and the initial explosions at Chernobyl themselves caused the nuclear fallout to spread throughout Europe, Asia, as well as parts of North America. Not only was there a spread of these various radioactive elements previously mentioned, but there were also problems with what are known as hot particles. The Chernobyl reactor didn't just expel aerosol particles, fuel particles, and radioactive gases, but there was an additional expulsion of Uranium fuel fused together with radionuclides. These hot particles could spread for thousands of Kilometers and could produce concentrated substances in the form of raindrops known as Liquid hot particles. These particles were potentially hazardous, even in low-level radiation areas. The radioactive level in each individual hot particle could rise as high as 10 kBq, which is a fairly high dosage of radiation. These liquid hot particle droplets could be absorbed in two main ways; ingestion through food or water, and inhalation. \n",
"The radioactivity released at Chernobyl tended to be more long lived than that released by a bomb detonation hence it is not possible to draw a simple comparison between the two events. Also, a dose of radiation spread over many years (as is the case with Chernobyl) is much less harmful than the same dose received over a short period.\n",
"Radiation is a carcinogen and causes numerous effects on living organisms and systems. The environmental impacts of nuclear power plant disasters such as the Chernobyl disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Three Mile Island accident, among others, persist indefinitely, though several other factors contributed to these events including improper management of fail safe systems and natural disasters putting uncommon stress on the generators. The radioactive decay rate of particles varies greatly, dependent upon the nuclear properties of a particular isotope. Radioactive Plutonium-244 has a half-life of 80.8 million years, which indicates the time duration required for half of a given sample to decay, though very little plutonium-244 is produced in the nuclear fuel cycle and lower half-life materials have lower activity thus giving off less dangerous radiation.\n",
"On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred at reactor No. 4, caused by a catastrophic power increase resulting in core explosions and open-air fires. This caused large quantities of radioactive materials and airborne isotopes to disperse in the atmosphere and surrounding land.\n",
"Hot particles released into the environment may originate in nuclear reactors. The Chernobyl disaster was a major source of hot particles, as the core of the reactor was breached, but they have also been released into the environment through illegal dumping of low-level waste at Dounreay. They are also a component of the black rain or other nuclear fallout resulting from detonations of a nuclear weapon, including the more than 2000 nuclear weapons tests in the mid-20th century. Radiation can spread from a more radioactive substance to a less radioactive one by the processes of neutron activation and photodisintegration; this induced radioactivity increases the potential number of hot particle sources.\n"
] |
Does leaving a refrigerator door opened for about 20 seconds actually use up a large enough amount of energy/ power to consider not leaving it open for that long?
|
I vaguely recall actually calculating this for a question long ago.
The answer is basically no, it's not a huge waste. For starters, the air in the refrigerator is essentially stagnant; you're not going to get a large amount of mixing of the cold air with the surroundings in the span of 20 seconds, unless you have a fan pointing at it. Secondly, if you have a decently stocked fridge, the thermal mass of the physical items inside it (think of a fully stocked beer fridge), and the walls of the fridge, is far higher than the thermal mass of the air.
|
[
"A defrosting procedure is generally performed periodically on refrigerators and freezers to maintain their operating efficiency. Over time, as the door is opened and closed, letting in new air, water vapour from the air condenses on the cooling elements within the cabinet.\n",
"Disposal of discarded refrigerators is regulated, often mandating the removal of doors; children playing hide-and-seek have been asphyxiated while hiding inside discarded refrigerators, particularly older models with latching doors. Since 2 August 1956, under U.S. federal law, refrigerator doors are no longer permitted to latch so they cannot be opened from the inside. Modern units use a magnetic door gasket that holds the door sealed but allows it to be pushed open from the inside. This gasket was invented, developed and manufactured by Max Baermann (1903-1984) of Bergisch Gladbach/Germany.\n",
"This means the refrigerator may become too warm. However, because only enough air is diverted to the refrigerator compartment, the freezer usually re-acquires the set temperature quickly, unless the door is opened. When a door is opened, either in the refrigerator or the freezer, the fan in some units stops immediately to prevent excessive frost build up on the freezer's evaporator coil, because this coil is cooling two areas. When the freezer reaches temperature, the unit cycles off, no matter what the refrigerator temperature is. Modern computerized refrigerators do not use the damper system. The computer manages fan speed for both compartments, although air is still blown from the freezer.\n",
"The efficiency of older refrigerators can be improved by defrosting (if the unit is manual defrost) and cleaning them regularly, replacing old and worn door seals with new ones, adjusting the thermostat to accommodate the actual contents (a refrigerator needn't be colder than to store drinks and non-perishable items) and also replacing insulation, where applicable. Some sites recommend cleaning condenser coils every month or so on units with coils on the rear. It has been proven that this does very little for improving efficiency, however, the unit should be able to \"breathe\" with adequate spaces around the front, back, sides and above the unit. If the refrigerator uses a fan to keep the condenser cool, then this must be cleaned, at the very least, yearly. \n",
"The \"refrigerator rule\" applies, and a refrigerator door is not opened from the inside. If the hinges are on the right then it is a right hand (or right hung) door. (Australian Standards for Installation of Timber Doorsets, AS 1909–1984 pg 6.)\n",
"Freezer units are used in households and in industry and commerce. Food stored at or below is safe indefinitely for longer than at room temperatures. Most household freezers maintain temperatures from , although some freezer-only units can achieve and lower. Refrigerators generally do not achieve lower than , since the same coolant loop serves both compartments: Lowering the freezer compartment temperature excessively causes difficulties in maintaining above-freezing temperature in the refrigerator compartment. Domestic freezers can be included as a separate compartment in a refrigerator, or can be a separate appliance. Domestic freezers are generally upright units resembling refrigerators or chests (upright units laid on their backs). Many modern upright freezers come with an ice dispenser built into their door. Some upscale models include thermostat displays and controls, and sometimes flatscreen televisions as well.\n",
"A refrigerator (colloquially fridge) consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump (mechanical, electronic or chemical) that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room. Refrigeration is an essential food storage technique in developed countries. The lower temperature lowers the reproduction rate of bacteria, so the refrigerator reduces the rate of spoilage. A refrigerator maintains a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water. Optimum temperature range for perishable food storage is . A similar device that maintains a temperature below the freezing point of water is called a freezer. The refrigerator replaced the icebox, which had been a common household appliance for almost a century and a half.\n"
] |
Are there any indications that there are elements beyond the 118 we have currently discovered or synthesized? If so, is there any indication that there is a finite number of elements, other than their increasingly short halflives?
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A neutron star is very similar to an extremely heavy atomic nucleus. Consider that neutron stars contain ~10^57-58 particles. If a neutron star grows much heavier than this it will collapse into a black hole. Therefore there is a **finite** limit to the number of possible atomic elements, but it's a very large number. A periodic table that detailed all the elements up to and including element number 10^57 would be so large and massive that it would collapse into a black hole.
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[
"The elements from atomic numbers 1 (hydrogen) through 118 (oganesson) have been discovered or synthesized, completing seven full rows of the periodic table. The first 94 elements all occur naturally, though some are found only in trace amounts and a few were discovered in nature only after having first been synthesized. Elements 95 to 118 have only been synthesized in laboratories or nuclear reactors. The synthesis of elements having higher atomic numbers is currently being pursued: these elements would begin an eighth row, and theoretical work has been done to suggest possible candidates for this extension. Numerous synthetic radionuclides of naturally occurring elements have also been produced in laboratories.\n",
"Element 118, oganesson, is the last element that has been synthesized. The next two elements, elements 119 and 120, should form an 8s series and be an alkali and alkaline earth metal respectively. Beyond element 120, the superactinide series is expected to begin, when the 8s electrons and the filling 8p, 7d, 6f, and 5g subshells determine the chemistry of these elements. Complete and accurate CCSD calculations are not available for elements beyond 122 because of the extreme complexity of the situation: the 5g, 6f, and 7d orbitals should have about the same energy level, and in the region of element 160, the 9s, 8p, and 9p orbitals should also be about equal in energy. This will cause the electron shells to mix so that the block concept no longer applies very well, and will also result in novel chemical properties that will make positioning these elements in a periodic table very difficult. For example, element 164 is expected to mix characteristics of the elements of group 10, 12, 14, and 18.\n",
"Ununennium and unbinilium (elements 119 and 120) are the lightest elements that have not yet been synthesized: all the preceding elements have been synthesized, culminating in oganesson (element 118), the heaviest-known element, which completes the seventh row of the periodic table. Attempts to synthesize elements 119 and 120 push the limits of current technology, due to the decreasing cross sections of the production reactions and their probably short half-lives, expected to be on the order of microseconds. Heavier elements would likely be too short-lived to be detected with current technology: they would decay within a microsecond, before reaching the detectors.\n",
"The number of possible elements is not known. A very early suggestion made by Elliot Adams in 1911, and based on the arrangement of elements in each horizontal periodic table row, was that elements of atomic weight greater than circa 256 (which would equate to between elements 99 and 100 in modern-day terms) did not exist. A higher—more recent—estimate is that the periodic table may end soon after the island of stability, which is expected to centre around element 126, as the extension of the periodic and nuclides tables is restricted by proton and neutron drip lines. Other predictions of an end to the periodic table include at element 128 by John Emsley, at element 137 by Richard Feynman, at element 146 by Yogendra Gambhir, and at element 155 by Albert Khazan.\n",
"As of 2010, there are 118 known elements (in this context, \"known\" means observed well enough, even from just a few decay products, to have been differentiated from other elements). Of these 118 elements, 94 occur naturally on Earth. Six of these occur in extreme trace quantities: technetium, atomic number 43; promethium, number 61; astatine, number 85; francium, number 87; neptunium, number 93; and plutonium, number 94. These 94 elements have been detected in the universe at large, in the spectra of stars and also supernovae, where short-lived radioactive elements are newly being made. The first 94 elements have been detected directly on Earth as primordial nuclides present from the formation of the solar system, or as naturally occurring fission or transmutation products of uranium and thorium.\n",
"After Moseley's death in 1915, the atomic numbers of all known elements from hydrogen to uranium (\"Z\" = 92) were examined by his method. There were seven elements (with \"Z\" 92) which were not found and therefore identified as still undiscovered, corresponding to atomic numbers 43, 61, 72, 75, 85, 87 and 91. From 1918 to 1947, all seven of these missing elements were discovered. By this time the first four transuranium elements had also been discovered, so that the periodic table was complete with no gaps as far as curium (\"Z\" = 96).\n",
"Of the elements with atomic numbers 1 to 92, most can be found in nature, having stable (such as hydrogen), or very long half-life (such as uranium) isotopes, or are created as common products of the decay of uranium and thorium (such as radon). The exceptions are elements 43, 61, 85, and 87; all four occur in nature, but only in very minor branches of the uranium and thorium decay chains, and thus all save element 87 were first discovered by synthesis in the laboratory rather than in nature (and even element 87 was discovered from purified samples of its parent, not directly from nature).\n"
] |
Actual health impacts of eugenics programs
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It's not really possible to know. These programs were not scientifically rigorous or adequately controlled, and the sheer number of factors that may or may not impact how individual people or entire societies develop means that it cannot be said with any degree of confidence whether or not eugenics programs worked.
|
[
"A major criticism of eugenics policies is that, regardless of whether \"negative\" or \"positive\" policies are used, they are susceptible to abuse because the genetic selection criteria are determined by whichever group has political power at the time. Furthermore, \"negative eugenics\" in particular is criticized by many as a violation of basic human rights, which include the right to reproduce. Another criticism is that eugenics policies eventually lead to a loss of genetic diversity, thereby resulting in inbreeding depression due to a loss of genetic variation. Yet another criticism of contemporary eugenics policies is that they propose to permanently and artificially disrupt millions of years of evolution, and that attempting to create genetic lines \"clean\" of \"disorders\" can have far-reaching ancillary downstream effects in the genetic ecology, including negative effects on immunity and species resilience.\n",
"Some, for example Nathaniel C. Comfort from Johns Hopkins University, claim that the change from state-led reproductive-genetic decision-making to individual choice has moderated the worst abuses of eugenics by transferring the decision-making from the state to the patient and their family. Comfort suggests that \"the eugenic impulse drives us to eliminate disease, live longer and healthier, with greater intelligence, and a better adjustment to the conditions of society; and the health benefits, the intellectual thrill and the profits of genetic bio-medicine are too great for us to do otherwise.\" Others, such as bioethicist Stephen Wilkinson of Keele University and Honorary Research Fellow Eve Garrard at the University of Manchester, claim that some aspects of modern genetics can be classified as eugenics, but that this classification does not inherently make modern genetics immoral. In a co-authored publication by Keele University, they stated that \"[e]ugenics doesn't seem always to be immoral, and so the fact that PGD, and other forms of selective reproduction, might sometimes technically be eugenic, isn't sufficient to show that they're wrong.\"\n",
"Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories. Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged; for example, the reproduction of the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, \"in vitro\" fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning. The movie \"Gattaca\" provides a fictional example of a dystopian society that uses eugenics to decide what people are capable of and their place in the world. Negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally \"undesirable\". This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning. Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive; abortion for fit women, for example, was illegal in Nazi Germany.\n",
"Eugenics eventually referred to human selective reproduction with an intent to create children with desirable traits, generally through the approach of influencing differential birth rates. These policies were mostly divided into two categories: \"positive eugenics\", the increased reproduction of those seen to have advantageous hereditary traits; and \"negative eugenics\", the discouragement of reproduction by those with hereditary traits perceived as poor. Negative eugenic policies in the past have ranged from paying those deemed to have bad genes to voluntarily undergo sterilization, to attempts at segregation to compulsory sterilization and even genocide. Positive eugenic policies have typically taken the form of awards or bonuses for \"fit\" parents who have another child. Relatively innocuous practices like marriage counseling had early links with eugenic ideology. Eugenics is superficially related to what would later be known as Social Darwinism. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary, eugenics asserted new policies were needed to actively change the status quo towards a more \"eugenic\" state, while the Social Darwinists argued society itself would naturally \"check\" the problem of \"dysgenics\" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the poor might reproduce more but would have higher mortality rates).\n",
"In their book published in 2000, \"From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice\", bioethicists Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler argued that liberal societies have an obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of eugenic enhancement technologies as possible (so long as such policies do not infringe on individuals' reproductive rights or exert undue pressures on prospective parents to use these technologies) in order to maximize public health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements.\n",
"Eugenic policies may lead to a loss of genetic diversity. Further, a culturally-accepted \"improvement\" of the gene pool may result in extinction, due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change, and other factors that may not be anticipated in advance. This has been evidenced in numerous instances, in isolated island populations. A long-term, species-wide eugenics plan might lead to such a scenario because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition.\n",
"Other countries that adopted some form of eugenics program at one time include Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland with programs to sterilize people the government declared to be mentally deficient.\n"
] |
How much air in one breath came from the previous one?
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[Anatomical deadspace](_URL_0_), which is the term for the air that doesn't participate in gas exchange within the body is roughly 1ml/kg.
However, it's not this simple to example, at the small airways, there really is no flow-rate to be measured, it's purely diffusion.
If we take into consideration that the first gas you inhale is the last gas you exhale, and don't account for changes in physiological deadspace on inhalation and exhalation, you'll find that roughly the first 1/3 of inhalation is *old* gas. The po2 in this air isn't significantly lower because of diffusion though, nor is the pc02 higher for the same reason.
So, you could sort of say it's a 1/3, but it really isn't.
|
[
"A typical human breathes between 12 and 20 times per minute at a rate primarily influenced by carbon dioxide concentration, and thus pH, in the blood. With each breath, a volume of about 0.6 litres is exchanged from an active lung volume (tidal volume + functional residual capacity) of about 3 litres. Normal Earth atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% argon, carbon dioxide, and other gases. After just two or three breaths of nitrogen, the oxygen concentration in the lungs would be low enough for some oxygen already in the bloodstream to exchange back to the lungs and be eliminated by exhalation.\n",
"For example, calculating how much 1 liter of air (a) at 0 °C, 100 kPa, \"p\" = 0 kPa (known as STPD, see below) would fill when breathed into the lungs where it is mixed with water vapor (l), where it quickly becomes 37 °C, 100 kPa, \"p\" = 6.2 kPa (BTPS):\n",
"The primary purpose of breathing is to bring atmospheric air (in small doses) into the alveoli where gas exchange with the gases in the blood takes place. The equilibration of the partial pressures of the gases in the alveolar blood and the alveolar air occurs by diffusion. At the end of each exhalation, the adult human lungs still contain 2,500–3,000 mL of air, their functional residual capacity or FRC. With each breath (inhalation) only as little as about 350 mL of warm, moistened atmospherically is added, and well mixed, with the FRC. Consequently, the gas composition of the FRC changes very little during the breathing cycle. Since the pulmonary capillary blood equilibrates with this virtually unchanging mixture of air in the lungs (which has a substantially different composition from that of the ambient air), the partial pressures of the arterial blood gases also do not change with each breath. The tissues are therefore not exposed to swings in oxygen and carbon dioxide tensions in the blood during the breathing cycle, and the peripheral and central chemoreceptors do not need to \"choose\" the point in the breathing cycle at which the blood gases need to be measured, and responded to. Thus the homeostatic control of the breathing rate simply depends on the partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the arterial blood. This then also maintains the constancy of the pH of the blood.\n",
"Normal atmospheric air contains approximately 21% oxygen when inhaled in. After gaseous exchange has taken place in the lungs, with waste products (notably carbon dioxide) moved from the bloodstream to the lungs, the air being exhaled by humans normally contains around 17% oxygen. This means that the human body utilises only around 19% of the oxygen inhaled, leaving over 80% of the oxygen available in the exhalatory breath.\n",
"When Breath Becomes Air is a non-fiction autobiographical book written by Paul Kalanithi. It is a memoir about his life and illness, battling stage IV metastatic lung cancer. It was posthumously published by Random House on January 12, 2016.\n",
"A 1927 paper produced by Emil Bogen, who collected air in a football bladder and then tested this air for traces of alcohol, discovered that the alcohol content of 2 litres of expired air was a little greater than that of 1 cc of urine. However, research into the possibilities of using breath to test for alcohol in a person's body dates as far back as 1874, when Francis E. Anstie made the observation that small amounts of alcohol were excreted in breath.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"fire air Karl Wilhelm Scheele 1771\" John W. Severinghaus (25 July 2016) Eight sages over five centuries share oxygen's discovery https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00076.2016, \"Advances in Physiological Education\", The American Physiological Society \"During the last century, historians have discovered that between the 13th and 18th centuries, at least six sages discovered that the air we breathe contains something that we need and use. Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) in Cairo and Michael Servetus (1511–1553) in France accurately described the pulmonary circulation and its effect on blood color. Michael Sendivogius (1566–1636) in Poland called a part of air “the food of life” and identified it as the gas made by heating saltpetre. John Mayow (1641–1679) in Oxford found that one-fifth of air was a special gas he called “spiritus nitro aereus.” Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742–1786) in Uppsala generated a gas he named “fire air” by heating several metal calcs. He asked Lavoisier how it fit the phlogiston theory. Lavoisier never answered. In 1744, Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) in England discovered how to make part of air by heating red calc of mercury. He found it brightened a flame and supported life in a mouse in a sealed bottle. He called it “dephlogisticated air.” He published and personally told Lavoisier and other chemists about it. Lavoisier never thanked him. After 9 years of generating and studying its chemistry, he couldn't understand whether it was a new element. He still named it “principe oxigene.” He was still not able to disprove phlogiston. Henry Cavendish (1731–1810)\" PubMed 27458241, Received 11 May 2016, Accepted 2 June 2016, Published online 25 July 2016, Published in print 1 September 2016\n"
] |
What were the main arguments American Anti-Federalists made against the first article of the Constitution?
|
I assume you have looked at the anti-federalist papers?
|
[
"The Anti-Federalists proved unable to stop the ratification of the US Constitution, which took effect in 1789. Since then, the essays they wrote have largely fallen into obscurity. Unlike, for example, The Federalist No. 10 written by James Madison, none of their works are mainstays in college curricula or court rulings. The influence of their writing, however, can be seen to this day – particularly in the nature and shape of the United States Bill of Rights. Federalists (such as Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 84) vigorously argued against its passage but were in the end forced to compromise. The broader legacy of the Anti-Federalist cause can be seen in the strong suspicion of centralized government held by many Americans to this day.\n",
"Anti-Federalism was a late-18th century movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, gave state governments more authority. Led by Patrick Henry of Virginia, Anti-Federalists worried, among other things, that the position of president, then a novelty, might evolve into a monarchy. Though the Constitution was ratified and supplanted the Articles of Confederation, Anti-Federalist influence helped lead to the passage of the United States Bill of Rights.\n",
"The sharp Anti-Federalist critique of the Constitution did not abate after it became operational, and by the time the First Congress convened in March 1789, there existed widespread sentiment in both the House and Senate in favor of making alterations. That September, Congress adopted twelve amendments and sent to the states for ratification. Ten of these were ratified by the required number of states in December 1791 and became part of the Constitution. These amendments enumerate freedoms not explicitly indicated in the main body of the Constitution, such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, and free assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, security in personal effects, and freedom from warrants issued without probable cause; indictment by a grand jury for a capital or \"infamous crime\"; guarantee of a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury; and prohibition of double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights reserves for the people any rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution and reserves all powers not specifically granted to the federal government to the people or the States.\n",
"The Ninth Amendment (1791) declares that individuals have other fundamental rights, in addition to those stated in the Constitution. During the Constitutional ratification debates Anti-Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights should be added. The Federalists opposed it on grounds that a list would necessarily be incomplete but would be taken as explicit and exhaustive, thus enlarging the power of the federal government by implication. The Anti-Federalists persisted, and several state ratification conventions refused to ratify the Constitution without a more specific list of protections, so the First Congress added what became the Ninth Amendment as a compromise. Because the rights protected by the Ninth Amendment are not specified, they are referred to as \"unenumerated\". The Supreme Court has found that unenumerated rights include such important rights as the right to travel, the right to vote, the right to privacy, and the right to make important decisions about one's health care or body.\n",
"Although some Anti-Federalists continued to call for a new federal constitutional convention and ridiculed them, by December 15, 1791, 10 of the 12 proposed amendments had been ratified by the requisite number of states (then 11), and became Amendments One through Ten of the Constitution; collectively they are known as the Bill of Rights.\n",
"When the U.S. Constitution was put to the states for ratification after being signed on September 17, 1787, the Anti-Federalists argued that a Bill of Rights should be added. One of the arguments the Federalists gave against the addition of a Bill of Rights, during the debates about ratification of the Constitution, was that a listing of rights could problematically enlarge the powers specified in of the new Constitution by implication. For example, in Federalist , Alexander Hamilton asked, \"Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?\" Likewise, James Madison explained to Thomas Jefferson, \"I conceive that in a certain degree ... the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted\" by Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution.\n",
"Anti-Federalists feared the Constitution would over-centralize government and diminish individual rights and liberties. They sought to amend the Constitution, particularly with a Bill of Rights as a condition before ratification. Federalists insisted that states had to accept or reject the document as written.\n"
] |
What's the most expensive part of launching a spacecraft?
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Fuel is pretty cheap. The problem is that you need so much of it that you have to shave every ounce of weight off your structure and engines in order to be able to make it to space. This means that your safety margins need to pretty small, leaving little room for error and uncertainty.
To reduce this uncertainty, you need to spend a lot of money on engineering analysis, tests, quality assurance, inspections, etc. Some of these are non-recurring (only done once), but a lot of work still has to be done for each launch.
|
[
"Present-day launch costs are very high – $2,500 to $25,000 per kilogram from Earth to low Earth orbit (LEO). As a result, launch costs are a large percentage of the cost of all space endeavors. If launch can be made cheaper, the total cost of space missions will be reduced. \n",
"The cost of the mission was $327.6 million total for the orbiter and lander, comprising $193.1 million for spacecraft development, $91.7 million for launching it, and $42.8 million for mission operations.\n",
"By 2011, the incremental cost per flight of the Space Shuttle was estimated at $450 million, or $18,000 per kilogram (approximately $8,000 per pound) to low Earth orbit (LEO). By comparison, Russian Proton expendable cargo launchers (Atlas V rocket counterpart), still largely based on the design that dates back to 1965, are said to cost as little as $110 million, or around $5,000/kg (approximately $2,300 per pound) to LEO.\n",
"With an estimated manufacturing cost of $65 million and a sale price of $250 million the development costs of ~$3 billion could be paid off with about 20 sales. Launch costs were estimated at $1M (launch often) to $100M (once per year) depending on how often the vehicle was operated, with launch facilities costing $100M and fitting inside a 1-mile circle. The Rocket Company asserts that globally such sales are possible. Potential clients are suggested as NASA, the USAF, NATO countries like UK, France, Germany and Japan, as well as private firms, like Virgin Galactic or Bigelow Aerospace. \n",
", the company planned to charge 10 million CHF (US$10.5 million) per launch using unmanned suborbital spaceplanes that could carry satellites weighing up to . Costs were expected to be reduced by the reusable nature of the spaceplane and launch facilities, and by somewhat lower fuel-consumption than conventional systems.\n",
"Early during development of the space shuttle, NASA had estimated that the program would cost $7.45 billion ($43 billion in 2011 dollars, adjusting for inflation) in development/non-recurring costs, and $9.3M ($54M in 2011 dollars) per flight. Early estimates for the cost to deliver payload to low earth orbit were as low as $118 per pound ($260/kg) of payload ($635/lb or $1,400/kg in 2011 dollars), based on marginal or incremental launch costs, and assuming a 65,000 pound (30 000 kg) payload capacity and 50 launches per year. A more realistic projection of 12 flights per year for the 15-year service life combined with the initial development costs would have resulted in a total cost projection for the program of roughly $54 billion (in 2011 dollars).\n",
"Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc.) by the number of launches. With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the Shuttle program. A 2017 study found that carrying one kilogram of cargo to the ISS on the Shuttle cost $272,000 in 2017 dollars, twice the cost of Cygnus and three times that of Dragon.\n"
] |
Salt and Ice
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I would say that the ice chest *without* the salt added stays colder for longer. The chest with the salt gets colder as the ice melts and absorbs the latent heat of fusion. However, since heat transfer is proportional to the temperature difference between the substance and its environment, the 'cryo bath' will warm faster than the other chest. The liquid formed from the melting ice can also facilitate heat transfer and thus expedite it's melting. On the other hand, the ice in the chest without the salt warms more slowly because it is closer to thermal equilibrium with the room, and it still needs to absorb the same latent heat as the 'cryo bath' ice to melt. Thus, the chest with the salt would be expected to fully melt sooner.
|
[
"Halite is also often used both residentially and municipally for managing ice. Because brine (a solution of water and salt) has a lower freezing point than pure water, putting salt or saltwater on ice that is below will cause it to melt. (This effect is called freezing-point depression.) It is common for homeowners in cold climates to spread salt on their sidewalks and driveways after a snow storm to melt the ice. It is not necessary to use so much salt that the ice is completely melted; rather, a small amount of salt will weaken the ice so that it can be easily removed by other means. Also, many cities will spread a mixture of sand and salt on roads during and after a snowstorm to improve traction. Using salt brine is more effective than spreading dry salt because moisture is necessary for the freezing-point depression to work and wet salt sticks to the roads better. Otherwise the salt can be wiped away by traffic. \n",
"The second major application of salt is for de-icing and anti-icing of roads, both in grit bins and spread by winter service vehicles. In anticipation of snowfall, roads are optimally \"anti-iced\" with brine (concentrated solution of salt in water), which prevents bonding between the snow-ice and the road surface. This procedure obviates the heavy use of salt after the snowfall. For de-icing, mixtures of brine and salt are used, sometimes with additional agents such as calcium chloride and/or magnesium chloride. The use of salt or brine becomes ineffective below .\n",
"The salt and ice challenge is an Internet challenge where participants pour salt on their bodies, usually on the arm, and ice is then placed on the salt. This causes a \"burning\" sensation similar to frost bite, and participants vie to withstand the pain for the longest time. The challenge can be recorded and posted on YouTube or other forms of social media.\n",
"Himalayan salt is rock salt (halite) mined from the Punjab region of modern Pakistan. The salt often has a pinkish tint due to mineral impurities. It is primarily used as a food additive as table salt, but is also used as a material for cooking and food presentation, decorative lamps, and spa treatments. The salt has been claimed to provide numerous health benefits, but no scientific support exists for such claims.\n",
"Salt, also referred to as table salt or by its chemical formula NaCl, is an ionic compound made of sodium and chloride ions. All life has evolved to depend on its chemical properties to survive. It has been used by humans for thousands of years, from food preservation to seasoning. Salt's ability to preserve food was a founding contributor to the development of civilization. It helped to eliminate dependence on seasonal availability of food, and made it possible to transport food over large distances. However, salt was often difficult to obtain, so it was a highly valued trade item, and was considered a form of currency by certain peoples. Many salt roads, such as the via Salaria in Italy, had been established by the Bronze age.\n",
"Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 6,000 BC, when people living in the area of present-day Romania boiled spring water to extract salts; a salt-works in China dates to approximately the same period. Salt was also prized by the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites, Egyptians, and the Indians. Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, and across the Sahara on camel caravans. The scarcity and universal need for salt have led nations to go to war over it and use it to raise tax revenues. Salt is used in religious ceremonies and has other cultural and traditional significance.\n",
"Himalayan salt is used to flavor food. It is recognized by its distinctive pink hue, which has led to a misconception that it is healthier than common table salt. There is no scientific evidence to support such assertions. Blocks of salt are also used as serving dishes, baking stones, and griddles. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration warned a manufacturer about marketing the salt as a dietary supplement with unproven claims of health benefits. \n"
] |
serious question - is there science behind a face that appears more desirable to punch? aka: "punchable face"
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There is no definitive single answer, but there are some answers. It probably shouldn't be a surprise that given how sensitive to facial expressions humans are, that we'd have the capacity for a strong reaction. By the way, there is a German word for the phenomenon you're describing, called "Backpfeifengesicht"... or roughly, "A face that should be struck."
The answer seems to be that people who's faces, for any number of reasons, don't express a comfortable and familiar range of expressions. A great example, and a good discussion of this can be found here: _URL_0_
|
[
"Punch is aggravated by his whining child, nagging wife (Judy), and ineffective bureaucracy. This eventually leads to Punch hitting other characters with his slapstick, but it is a very ritualized form of violence. Traditional shows ended with Punch defeating the ultimate evil and proclaiming \"Huzzah, Huzzah, I've killed the Devil!\" In modern endings, Punch is punished by being swallowed by the crocodile, scared into repentance by a ghost, or arrested by the police.\n",
"Using the example of smiling, Rainer Krause shows in a (German) presentation the difference between a natural-looking and a phony smile, in which not the same muscles are involved. Significant in this regard is the fact that the muscles of the so-called “lower face” can be consciously controlled much easier than the muscles of the so-called “upper face”. And with a smile that seems spurious, certain muscles of the upper face are not involved. As the “most common emotions that you get to see”, Krause is calling contempt and disgust, which is likely to be contrary to the everyday theories of laypersons in affect-psychology. However, when people talk about their daily lives, the expression of joy is the most frequently shown emotion. Other situations show different rankings of the affects. Krause emphasizes that what is seen in the face of the person who imagines a specific affect is not inevitably what is experienced. Only in expression of joy is there congruence with what is visible in the face and what is internally experienced. Not so with the negative emotions: they are shown more often than experienced. Krause states that this will not allow information-sharing about the relationship between the two persons. He refers to old and often confirmed findings of Bühler (1934), according to which in a communication between a “sender” and his “receiver” signs of expression should be interpreted differently: as an “expression for the internal status of the sender”, or in his “appeal function” that “should bring the receiver to a specific action”, or as a kind of “mental comment” about something “the sender is talking or thinking about”. Laughter is “combined with almost any other emotion” in contrast to other affective states.\n",
"Hadley Freeman wrote that since it appeared in the Broken People video, it had enjoyed a stratospheric rise, and pointed out that the male equivalent term Resting Asshole Face (RAF) highlighted in this video had not received the same degree of comment. Texas Women's University academic Rene Paulson stated that those with resting bitch face have a stronger sense of self-awareness and a better ability to communicate, whilst New York University psychologist Jonathan Freeman carried out a study showing that slightly angry facial expressions make other people think you are untrustworthy.\n",
"When someone punches you so much and so hard, it feels as if your face is broken. People hit me on my back and on my sides with their hands and then kicked me... [In another location] they psychologically tortured me; they didn't hit me, but they made strong threats to kill me.\n",
"When someone punches you so much and so hard, it feels as if your face is broken. People hit me on my back and on my sides with their hands and then kicked me... [In another location] they psychologically tortured me; they didn't hit me, but they made strong threats to kill me.\n",
"Despite Punch's unapologetic murders throughout the performances, it is still a comedy. The humour is aided by a few things. Rosalind Crone (2006, p. 1065) suggests that, since the puppets are carved from wood, their facial expressions cannot change, but are stuck in the same exaggerated pose, which helps to deter any sense of realism and to distance the audience. The use of the swazzle also helps to create humour, and that the sound of Punch's voice takes the cruelty out of Punch. According to Crone, a third aspect that helped make the violence humorous was that Punch's violence toward his wife was prompted by her own violence toward him. In this aspect, he retains some of his previous hen-pecked persona. This would suggest that, since Punch was merely acting violently out of self-defence, it was okay. This is a possible explanation for the humour of his violence toward his wife, and even towards others who may have somehow \"had it coming.\" This suggestion better explains the humour of the violence toward the baby. Other characters that had to incur the wrath of Punch varied depending on the punchman, but the most common were the foreigner, the blind man, the publican, the constable, and the devil.\n",
"Several movies, as well as some anime, involving boxing, martial arts, or other styles of fighting have scenes involving face distortion. Movies like \"Cinderella man\", which involves American boxing has a few of these moments. Anime's like Bleach and Naruto contain moments of face distortion as well.\n"
] |
what is a senator and what is a congressman?
|
Congress is more or less the US equivalent of the UK's Parliament. Like the UK Parliament, it has two houses.
The lower house is the House of Representatives. The people who sit in that are called Congressmen/women. It's very much like the UK's House of Commons. The entire country is split into districts (same concept as UK constituencies) which each elect a single representative via the First Past The Post system. They have fewer Congressmen than the UK has MPs and a much larger population, so the districts are much bigger than in the UK. There are fresh elections every 2 years.
The Senate is the upper house of Congress. However it's very different to the UK's upper house, the House of Lords. Each state elects 2 senators, regardless of its population. Senators have 6 year terms, but they are not elected all at once. They are staggered so 1/3 of them are elected every 2 years.
Another difference is that the Senate is much more powerful than the House of Lords. Most bills have to be agreed by both houses before a bill can become law. Where as in the UK, the House of Commons can ultimately pass legislation through even if the Lords doesn't agree.
So I'd say Congressmen are the closest equivalent to UK MPs. But Senators are more senior in a sense because they serve longer terms, and there's fewer of them.
edit - I suppose I should point out that technically Senators are also Congressmen, as they are part of Congress. The people in the House of Representatives are Representatives. But people commonly refer to them as Congressmen, and refer to Senators specifically as Senators.
|
[
"Congress is a bicameral legislature. The upper house, the Senate, is composed of 24 senators elected via the plurality-at-large voting with the country as one at-large \"district.\" The senators elect amongst themselves a Senate President. The lower house is the House of Representatives, currently composed of 292 representatives, with no more than 20% elected via party-list system, with the rest elected from legislative districts. The House of Representatives is headed by the Speaker.\n",
"The Legislative branch is a unicameral legislature. The Senate consists of the entire Executive Council as non-voting members (excluding the Executive Vice-President, who serves as the Senate chair) and twenty-three voting Senators. The representation in the Senate is based on the enrollment of the various colleges (one Senator for every 1000 students in the respective college). Consequently, there are at present 10 Senators from the College of Arts and Sciences, 4 Senators from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and 1 each of the following: Senator from the College of Business, Senator from the Health Science Center, and Senator-at-Large (who represents the School of Journalism and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, which each have fewer than 1000 students but have more than 1000 in total). Additionally, there is a Freshman Class Senator, a Sophomore Class Senator, a Junior Class Senator, a Senior Class Senator, and a Senator from the Commuter Student Association and the Residence Hall Association, who are each appointed internally by the two organizations from among their officers.\n",
"The members are sitting members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Typically, the House members include the Speaker of the House as well as the House majority and minority leaders. The Senate members are drawn from the leadership of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration (previously known by other names). A senator acts as Chairman of the Joint Committee; the chairman is therefore drawn from the party in control of the Senate, which may or may not be the same party as the president-elect's. Membership in the committee gives its members the opportunity to control tickets to the inauguration ceremonies.\n",
"The Legislature, referred to as the Senate, is a unicameral body, one of the four such legislative bodies in the United States, along with Nebraska, Guam and the District of Columbia. The Legislature meets inside the Senate Building in Charlotte Amalie, a restored Danish and American military barracks building as well as a former high school.\n",
"The Legislative Branch is composed of the Vice-President, a bicameral Congress, the General Auditing Office of the Nation and the Ombudsman. Congress is divided in two Houses: \"Cámara de Diputados\" (Chamber of Deputies, the Lower House) and \"Cámara de Senadores\" (Senate, the Upper House).\n",
"Members of the Senate are referred to as Senators and members of the House of Representatives are referred to as Representatives. Because this shadows the terminology used to describe members of Congress, constituents and the news media, using \"The Associated Press Stylebook\", often refer to legislators as state senators or state representatives to avoid confusion with their federal counterparts.\n",
"Members of the Senate are referred to as Senators and members of the House of Representatives are referred to as Representatives. Because this shadows the terminology used to describe members of Congress, constituents and the news media, using \"The Associated Press Stylebook\", often refer to Legislators as State Senators or State Representatives to avoid confusion with their Federal counterparts.\n"
] |
why do people become outraged and upset at other people's sexual preferences?
|
My theory is this: we humans have found the need to become self-controlled and disciplined for the good of our society. We keep our basic instincts in check so that we can focus on working together to build things and to make our lives better and free of danger.
Obviously most of us like sex... but we also don't have sex anywhere, anytime we want. Society expects us to deal with our basic instincts in privacy. Those who cannot do this are frowned upon because it shows a lack of self-control, a personality flaw that is seen as harmful to the well-being of our society. However, heterosexuality is more widely accepted (or tolerated) because it's essential to life - that's basically how you make babies. If you're alive right now, chances are that your biological parents did the nasty at least once before.
Homosexuality on the other hand isn't as widespread as heterosexuality so many people have trouble relating to it. They don't understand its appeal. Because of that and because it doesn't follow "the norm", some people see homosexuality as a personality flaw, as the result of someone not being able to take control of their urges. It also doesn't help that some gay people are extremely vocal about their sexual preference and may be attracted to heterosexual people, something which isn't reciprocated and can be the source of discomfort.
In my opinion, the reason why some idiots are outraged about what gay people do in their own home is because they think their supposed "lack of self-control" is going to have a negative effect somewhere else in society.
|
[
"The increase in sexual content in modern society often results in a more nonchalant approach to sexually suggestive behavior. People, predominantly women, often act in a way that they themselves do not consider to be sexually suggestive but which can be misinterpreted by others. For example, wearing clothes or skirts/shorts that show skin is not something that most Western women would consider to be overtly provocative but it is still regarded as sexually suggestive by others. Misconstruing people’s behaviour can have disastrous consequences, contributing to harassment and rape culture.\n",
"Sexual over-perception relative to under-perception was reported more frequently among younger participants, among singles, and among participants with an unrestricted socio-sexual orientation. Endorsing and being more open to casual sex may have evoked more sexual interest from members of the opposite sex, leading to more frequent reports of sexual overperception. Socially unrestricted male and female high school students were found to report being more subject to sexual harassment as well as sexually harassing others. From this, it is possible that being subject to sexual over-perception may explain the link between socio-sexuality and being subject to sexual harassment.\n",
"This indicates negative opinions towards women. It is concluded that being exposed to sexual content, even when it is unwanted, leads men to develop harsher sexist attitudes towards women. The greater intrigue for men to view hardcore and unusual pornography was greater when they believed to be doing so anonymously. This is most likely tied to the theory of deindividuation. The theory states that a person detaches his or her self from personal responsibility and awareness as an individual, and is more likely to act differently than when their behaviors are socially attached to his or her character. \"When individuals perceive that no one knows what they are viewing, they are likely to experience reduced self-awareness, which, in turn, leads to being less considerate toward others\". This implies that these men would be less likely to view the pornography which harshly objectifies women if they know others would be aware if they do so, due to the perceived social consequences.\n",
"Additionally, studies have found connections between as sexual objectification as a result of internalized sexism and body shame, sexual objectification, and disordered eating. Internalized sexism also plays a role in lowered academic goals and diminished job performance. On a larger scale, the presence of internalized sexism in the world is believed to alienate those affected from each other and thus further promotes continued sexism as a whole.\n",
"Some feminists and psychologists argue that sexual objectification can lead to negative psychological effects including eating disorders, depression and sexual dysfunction, and can give women negative self-images because of the belief that their intelligence and competence are currently not being, nor will ever be, acknowledged by society. Sexual objectification of women has also been found to negatively affect women's performance, confidence, and level of position in the workplace. How objectification has affected women and society in general is a topic of academic debate, with some saying girls' understanding of the importance of appearance in society may contribute to feelings of fear, shame, and disgust during the transition to womanhood, and others saying that young women are especially susceptible to objectification, as they are often taught that power, respect, and wealth can be derived from one's outward appearance.\n",
"Heteronormativity can contribute to the hesitation of youths in being public with their gender identity and sexuality. This can be due to the fact that one may feel they do not fit with the social constructs of heterosexuality, masculinity or femininity - which are ideals that do not necessarily include the exceptions and differences of other genders and sexualities. According to Choi and collaborators, \"Misunderstanding and fear of the unknown are likely the main influencers of the controversy around gender acceptance. As a sense of belonging is one of the five basic needs, the individual may fear transitioning to another gender causing an inner conflict.\" The social construct of heteronormativity is directly related to gender binary; these two constructs are often conditioned in the mainstream to be more accepted, therefore impacting the acceptance of other genders and sexualities, ones that may not fit into those norms or are fluid between multiple categories.\n",
"The reactions to the campaign were especially difficult for me, because it showed people’s ignorance on the definition of sexual harassment; that it is not really about attraction, it is about power and control. You see, the harasser on the street knows that the girl will know better than to react. She has been taught to ignore, especially in our society. If she tries to defend herself, they will say that she is too masculine, or she exaggerates, or they will accuse her of having psychological issues because any \"normal\" girl should be flattered at the attention. She will prefer to ignore and let it pass over so as to not draw attention to herself. He knows that she is in a weaker position than he, so he abuses the situation with pleasure.\n"
] |
why constant friction leads to orgasm? what makes the brain think "yeah... i wasn't sure you were having sex, but now that 20 minutes has passed i'm certain... take the reward now"?
|
As far as I know (not a biologist) human males generally last so long because they train to, because they want to get human females off, which i'm guessing have a longer time to orgasm to encourage them to have more sex, to guarantee pregnancy. Since monogamy and marriage and stuff is a human cultural thing, from nature's perspective we should absolutely just be fucking any woman we see just about all the time if we're not out hunting or whatever.
If you take a human male who hasn't had sex or masturbated in a while, he will pop basically as soon as he enters the vagina, if he even lasts that long, which lines up with most animals natural abilities and is indeed, the 'optimal' speed from nature's perspective.
This is mostly conjecture and shouldn't be taken as fact. but it's what I can work out with the knowledge i've got.
|
[
"An orgasm is believed to occur in part because of the hormone oxytocin, which is produced in the body during sexual excitement and arousal and labor. It has also been shown that oxytocin is produced when a man or woman's nipples are stimulated and become erect. Komisaruk also relayed, however, that preliminary data suggests that nipple nerves may directly link up with the relevant parts of the brain without uterine mediation, acknowledging the men in his study who showed the same pattern of nipple stimulation activating genital brain regions.\n",
"Normally, a human being is able to feel pleasure from an orgasm. Upon reaching a climax, chemicals are released in the brain and motor signals are activated that will cause quick cycles of muscle contraction in the corresponding areas of both males and females. Sometimes, these signals can cause other involuntary muscle contractions such as body movements and vocalization. Finally, during orgasm, upward neural signals go to the cerebral cortex and feelings of intense pleasure are experienced. People who have this disorder are aware of reaching an orgasm, as they can feel the physical effects of it, but they experience very limited or no sort of pleasure.\n",
"Equally, if sexual stimulation stops before orgasm, the physical effects of the stimulation, including the vasocongestion, will subside in a short time. Repeated or prolonged stimulation without orgasm and ejaculation can lead to discomfort in the testes (corresponding to the slang term \"blue balls\").\n",
"Orgasm, or sexual climax, is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual tension during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic muscular contractions in the pelvic region characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure. Women commonly find it difficult to experience orgasms during vaginal intercourse. Mayo Clinic states: \"Orgasms vary in intensity, and women vary in the frequency of their orgasms and the amount of stimulation necessary to trigger an orgasm.\" Additionally, some women may require more than one type of sexual stimulation in order to achieve orgasm. Clitoral stimulation in normal copulation happens when the thrusting of the penis moves the clitoral hood.\n",
"If sexual stimulation continues, then sexual arousal may peak into orgasm. After orgasm, some women do not want any further stimulation and the sexual arousal quickly dissipates. Suggestions have been published for continuing the sexual excitement and moving from one orgasm into further stimulation and maintaining or regaining a state of sexual arousal that can lead to second and subsequent orgasms. Some women have experienced such multiple orgasms quite spontaneously.\n",
"The health effects surrounding the human orgasm are diverse. There are many physiological responses during sexual activity, including a relaxed state created by prolactin, as well as changes in the central nervous system such as a temporary decrease in the metabolic activity of large parts of the cerebral cortex while there is no change or increased metabolic activity in the limbic (i.e., \"bordering\") areas of the brain. There is also a wide range of sexual dysfunctions, such as anorgasmia. These effects impact cultural views of orgasm, such as the beliefs that orgasm and the frequency/consistency of it are either important or irrelevant for satisfaction in a sexual relationship, and theories about the biological and evolutionary functions of orgasm.\n",
"Also, during the week following ovulation, progesterone levels increase, resulting in a woman experiencing difficulty achieving orgasm. Although the last days of the menstrual cycle are marked by a constant testosterone level, women's libido may get a boost as a result of the thickening of the uterine lining which stimulates nerve endings and makes a woman feel aroused. Also, during these days, estrogen levels decline, resulting in a decrease of natural lubrication.\n"
] |
What was up with the Anti-Masonic Party? Why was Freemasonry considered such a pressing issue in 17th century America that people created a whole political party over it?
|
I can give you a brief answer, copied from an earlier question I answered on this sub. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can step in to supplement:
An incident occurred in the 1820s that sparked a wave of anti-masonry. A man claimed he was going to publish the masonic "secrets" (rites and symbols) ...and then went missing. Some blamed the masons for his death. This spark was fanned both by religious groups who just so happened to be going through a massive religious revival, and an anti-Jacksonite political party (as Jackson was a mason) who were running non-masonic candidates. The sentiment and political party largely diminished after a few years.
& nbsp;
^(Edit: I just noticed that you said '17th century America' ... I'm assuming that's a simple typo, as the political party was formed in the early 19th century / 1800s.)
|
[
"The major opponent of Freemasonry was the Roman Catholic Church so that in countries with a large Catholic element, such as France, Italy, Spain and Mexico, much of the ferocity of the political battles involve the confrontation between what Davies calls the reactionary Church and enlightened Freemasonry. Even in France, Masons did not act as a group. American historians, while noting that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were indeed active Masons, have downplayed the importance of Freemasonry in causing the American Revolution because the Masonic order was non-political and included both Patriots and their enemy the Loyalists.\n",
"Freemasonry in the United States faced political pressure following the 1826 kidnapping of William Morgan by Freemasons and his subsequent disappearance. Reports of the \"Morgan Affair\", together with opposition to Jacksonian democracy (Andrew Jackson was a prominent Mason), helped fuel an Anti-Masonic movement. The short-lived Anti-Masonic Party was formed, which fielded candidates for the presidential elections of 1828 and 1832.\n",
"The Anti-Masonic Party, also known as the Anti-Masonic Movement, was the first third party in the United States. It strongly opposed Freemasonry as a single-issue party and later aspired to become a major party by expanding its platform to take positions on other issues. After emerging as a political force in the late 1820s, most of the Anti-Masonic Party's members joined the Whig Party in the 1830s and the party disappeared after 1838. \n",
"The Anti-Masonic Party was formed in Upstate New York in February 1828. Anti-Masons were opponents of Freemasonry, believing that it was a corrupt and elitist secret society which was ruling much of the country in defiance of republican principles. Many people regarded the Masonic organization and its adherents involved in government as corrupt.\n",
"As people became more mobile economically during the Industrial Revolution and began to move west when new states were populated by white settlers and added to the Union, the growth of the Anti-Masonic movement was caused by the political and social unrest resulting from the weakening of longstanding family and community ties. With Freemasonry one of the few institutions that remained stable during this time of change, it became a natural target for protesters. As a result, the Morgan Affair became the catalyst that turned the movement against Freemasons into a political party.\n",
"After the negative views of Freemasonry among a large segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party began to disintegrate. Some of its members began moving to the Whig Party, which had a broader issue base than the Anti-Masons. The Whigs were also regarded as a better alternative to the Democrats.\n",
"Freemasonry during the early 18th century had somewhat of a Jacobite tinge to it, particularly in France and Ireland. In England, the supporters of the Hanoverians, particularly under Prime Minister Robert Walpole, had decided to move into freemasonry and make it their own, rather than attack it outright or suppress it, as well as this, abroad (especially in Paris) the Hanoverians and Jacobites spied on each other in the masonic lodges. Some persons within freemasonry, such as John Theophilus Desaguliers and James Anderson (author of \"The Constitutions of the Free-Masons\" in 1723) were happy to oblige with this Whiggish reorientation. In relation to France, around 1737, Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, the Chief Minister to Louis XV of France was looking to make to make peace with Walpole and Britain. The masonic lodges in France, founded mostly by Jacobite military exiles, were a threat to this deal and so de Fleury directed René Hérault to shut them down. He also pressed Pope Clement XII to issue a bull the following year condemning freemasonry. \n"
] |
what happened to the panama papers story? it was supposed to be this giant scandal, yet it seems to have disappeared.
|
1. It's still a thing, but given that there haven't been any new major revelations (e.g. The Pope) most news organizations have chosen to focus on more topical things (The Euro 16, Brexit, etc.)
2. No prominent Americans were listed, hence why it's gotten little to no attention in the US. Most Americans don't give a shit if some Saudi Minister hid money off-shore. Now if some Mega Church Pastor was named you'd see the media explode on this.
|
[
"The documents were dubbed the Panama Papers because of the country they were leaked from; however, the Panamanian government expressed strong objections to the name over concerns that it would tarnish the government's and country's image worldwide, as did other entities in Panama and elsewhere. This led to an advertising campaign some weeks after the leak, titled \"Panama, more than papers\". Some media outlets covering the story have used the name \"Mossack Fonseca papers\".\n",
"The 2016 Panama Papers scandal is the largest-ever leak of information on black money in history. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists first obtained the leaked information, revealing over 11 million documents. These documents pertain to 214,000 offshore entities and span almost 40 years. The papers originated from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm with offices in more than 35 countries. The list of names exposed in the scandal includes 500 Indians who flouted rules and regulations, such as Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Niira Radia, KP Singh, Garware family, Harish Salve, and others.\n",
"The information leaked in regards to the Panama Papers is considered one of the largest leaks in history. This leak is considered to be larger than both the US diplomatic cables distributed by WikiLeaks in 2010 and the secrete intelligence documents released by Edward Snowden in 2013. In total there 11.5m documents along with 2.6 terabytes of information taken from the Mossack Fonseca’s internal database.\n",
"In April 2016 the Panama Papers scandal broke out; it was a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents that provide detailed information about more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, including the identities of shareholders and directors of the companies. The documents show how wealthy individuals, including public officials, hid their assets from public scrutiny. Silvio Berlusconi was cited in the list, along with his long-time partner at A.C. Milan, Adriano Galliani.\n",
"White concludes his article by stating that the main problem that the Panama Papers illustrates is a questions concerning the governance of our world. The leak demonstrates who is actually in power. He further argues that the distribution of the papers will only be successful if it bring upon change.\"\n",
"The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.\n",
"The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.\n"
] |
what factors cause people from different countries to protest differently?
|
Nothing's to say that can't happen in the US, but a part of it comes out of necessity. Many parts of Asia are heavily populated, and not just heavily, but densely. The need to be clean isn't just a good idea, it has roots in survival. And it's convention. People do it so you do it. People see you do it so they do it. It's just something done. Some cultures hold the door, others don't. However, picking up trash has more of an actual impact, so it *should* be done everywhere.
Beyond that, many protests in the US happen this way. Right now in North Dakota the protests are *very* peaceful and clean, considering. It depends how it's portrayed. What protests are you talking about or comparing?
Koreans are protesting their president, but many people as of late in the US are protesting the needless killing of its citizens by an armed force that almost always gets away with it. The idea that people should politely protest everything is also absurd.
|
[
"Protesting outside of one’s home country is a relatively new phenomenon. Nicole Constable, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, has noted that the potential ability for them to protest relies upon their pseudo stateless nature. While FDWs receive visas to live and work temporarily within their host country, they rarely become full-fledged citizens or residents in their country of employment. This creation of improper statehood allows for a “neoliberal space of exception” that allows for a greater ability to mobilize.\n",
"Repression experienced by a minority often leads to protest. Without sufficient resolution of the dispute, a social criticism can be formulated, often covered by political groups (political monopoly). For protesting people \"within\" a social movement, it is often frustrating to experience failure of the movement and its own agenda.\n",
"Social movements are groups that protest against social or political issues. Different social movements try to make the public and politicians aware of different social problems. For social movements it is important to solve collective action problems. When social movements protest for something in the interest of the whole society, it is easier for the individual to not protest. The individual will benefit the outcome, but will not risk anything by participating in the protest. This is also known as the free-rider problem. Social movements must convince people to join the movement to solve this problem. \n",
"According to Fetzer (2000), opposition to immigration commonly arises in many countries because of issues of national, cultural, and religious identity. The phenomenon has been studied especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as in continental Europe. Thus nativism has become a general term for \"opposition to immigration\" based on fears that the immigrants will distort or spoil existing cultural values. In situations where immigrants greatly outnumber the original inhabitants, nativistic movements can allow cultural survival. Immigrants can \"swamp\" a local population due to birth rate relative to nationals.\n",
"Negative responses to minorities within the nation state have ranged from cultural assimilation enforced by the state, to expulsion, persecution, violence, and extermination. The assimilation policies are usually enforced by the state, but violence against minorities is not always state initiated: it can occur in the form of mob violence such as lynching or pogroms. Nation states are responsible for some of the worst historical examples of violence against minorities not considered part of the nation.\n",
"What distinguishes social movements from mere protests is that they have a larger purpose, not one specific demand. From the first meetings of university and high school students on 9 March the El Khomri law served as an opportunity to express general indignation. In protest leaflets, students called for resistance \"against government policy\" rather than just this one bill. During marches, protesters expressed their disappointment with the political left in general and the ruling Socialist Party in particular.\n",
"Certain countries may be opposed to international immigration. Reasons such as xenophobia can subject new immigrants to discrimination, thus, the immigrants may have trouble assimilating to their new country. The native population of said countries may also resent and oppose the loss of national identity, homogeneous national culture, and the loss of advantages for native people that replacement immigration leads to.\n"
] |
At what point did Australians and New Zealanders begin to consider themselves as distinct from the British?
|
I wrote about this partly in my undergraduate thesis.
Similar to the colonization of America, settlers in the Antipodes experienced a lifestyle hugely different from what they or their parents had experienced in Europe. Australian/American/Canadian/New Zealand (to an extent) evolved as a response to their new environment and a different understanding of their role as settlers and within the Empire. Dealing with (often) hostile natives in an unhospitable environment changes the character of the individual and society as a whole. The 'frontier' played a pivotal role in shaping the idea of white settler national identity, and the heros of the frontier (explorers, outlaws etc.) remain an important aspect of national mythology. Essentially these societies grew outside or even against the traditional notion of state authority, so individuals who defied the oppression of the state were idolized and subsequently hold a vital place in their national histories (Lewis & Clark, Ned Kelly).
However, Australia, New Zealand and Canada remained strongholds of the British Empire even as they gradually gained increasing amounts of political and economic sovereignty throughout the 19th century as they transitioned towards 'Dominion' status. Settlers from Britain and other European countries continued to arrive so there is no doubt that the societies being created were 'European' societies at the base level.
The 'heroic' fairytale idea is that Australian and New Zealand identity was born after the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. As a part of the Empire, ANZAC forces were under the command of British generals and suffered huge losses in the poorly-planned and orchestrated campaign against the Ottomans. Many historians have played up the significance of Gallipoli in identity construction because it is picturesque and allows them to point to a specific point in history.
When the Second World War broke out and the British surrendered their Empire in South-East Asia to the Japanese, it became clear to Australians and Kiwis that they could not rely on the British for military protection and instead found another willing and capable ally across the Pacific in the USA. The Australians and New Zealanders were finally asserting their political and military sovereignty and the ANZUS treaty which resulted form their wartime alliance with the USA has been a vital aspect of Australian foreign relations throughout C20 and up until today.
So to answer your question. There is no specific date when a distinct national identity emerged but it gradually developed due to a variety of environmental, political and economic factors over the course of centuries. Let me know if you have any questions as I have only provided a very simplified overview of 200 years of Antipodean political history
|
[
"As a result of many shared linguistic, historical, cultural and geographic characteristics, Australians have often identified closely with New Zealanders in particular. Furthermore, elements of Indigenous, American, British, and more recent immigrant customs, languages, and religions have also combined to form the modern Australian culture.\n",
"A long-term result of James Cook's voyage of 1768–1771, a significant number of New Zealanders are of British descent, for whom a sense of Britishness has contributed to their identity. As late as the 1950s, it was common for British New Zealanders to refer to themselves as British, such as when Prime Minister Keith Holyoake described Sir Edmund Hillary's successful ascent of Mount Everest as putting \"the British race and New Zealand on top of the world\". New Zealand passports described nationals as \"British Subject: Citizen of New Zealand\" until 1974, when this was changed to \"New Zealand citizen\".\n",
"The development of a New Zealand identity and national character, separate from the British colonial identity, is most often linked with the period surrounding the First World War, which gave rise to the concept of the Anzac spirit. However, cultural links between New Zealand and Great Britain are maintained by a common language, sustained immigration from the UK, and the fact that many young New Zealanders spend time in Britain on \"overseas experience\", known as \"OE\". New Zealanders also identify closely with Australians, as a result of the two nations' shared historical, cultural and geographic characteristics.\n",
"The New Zealand 2006 census statistics reported citizens with British (27,192), English (44,202), Scottish (15,039), Irish (12,651), Welsh (3,771) and Celtic (1,506) origins. Historically, a sense of 'Britishness' has figured prominently in the identity of many New Zealanders. As late as the 1950s it was common for New Zealanders to refer to themselves as British, such as when Prime Minister Keith Holyoake described Sir Edmund Hillary's successful ascent of Mt. Everest as \"\"[putting] the British race and New Zealand on top of the world\"\". New Zealand passports described nationals as \"British Subject and New Zealand Citizen\" until 1974, when this was changed to \"New Zealand Citizen\".\n",
"While \"European\" identity predominates political discourse in New Zealand today, the term \"British\" is still used by some New Zealanders to explain their ethnic origins. Others see the term as better describing previous generations; for instance, journalist Colin James referred to \"we ex-British New Zealanders\" in a 2005 speech. It remains a relatively uncontroversial descriptor of ancestry.\n",
"In the eyes of multiculturalists, Australian society of the 1940s, 150 years after first settlement, is adequately described as Anglo-Celtic. At least this acknowledges that the people of Australia were Irish and Scots as well as English, but it has nothing more substantial than a hyphen joining them. In fact a distinct new culture had been formed. English, Scots and Irish had formed a common identity - first of all British and then gradually Australian as well. In the 1930s the historian W.K. Hancock could aptly describe them as Independent Australian Britons.\n",
"Its history of British dominance meant that Australia was \"grounded in British culture and political traditions that had been transported to the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century and become part of colonial culture and politics\". Australia maintains the Westminster system of Parliamentary Government and Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia. Until 1987, the national status of Australian citizens was formally described as \"British Subject: Citizen of Australia\". Britons continue to make up a substantial proportion of immigrants.\n"
] |
how on earth do batteries work?
|
They have a chemical inside that is capable of holding extra electrons. When you charge them, you use the energy from the power plant ( or solar panels/ wherever the hell it comes from) to pump the chemical to a higher energy state (lots of extra electrons). When you discharge a battery you complete a circuit from the negative to the positive terminal. The positive terminal is a different substance that wants more electrons. It pulls them from the negative terminal through the circuit (the device the battery is powering).
It's like a little pressurized container for electrons. You pump it up with energy and it holds it to high pressure, the pressure is released and utilized when you connect the negative to positive terminal.
|
[
"An Earth battery is a pair of electrodes made of two dissimilar metals, such as iron and copper, which are buried in the soil or immersed in the sea. Earth batteries act as water activated batteries and if the plates are sufficiently far apart, they can tap telluric currents. Earth batteries are sometimes referred to as telluric power sources and telluric generators.\n",
"Earth batteries tap electric currents in the earth called telluric current. They can be installed anywhere in the ground. They provide only low voltages and current. They were used to power telegraphs in the 19th century. As appliance efficiencies increase, they may become practical.\n",
"Batteries are used on spacecraft as a means of power storage. Primary batteries contain all their usable energy when assembled and can only be discharged. Secondary batteries can be re-charged from some other energy source, such as solar panels, and can deliver power during periods when the space vehicle is out of direct sunlight. Batteries generate electrical current from a chemical reaction.\n",
"The simplest earth batteries consist of conductive plates from different metals of the electropotential series, buried in the ground so that the soil acts as the electrolyte in a voltaic cell. As such, the device acts as a primary cell. When operated only as electrolytic devices, the devices were not continuously reliable, owing to drought condition. These devices were used by early experimenters as energy sources for telegraphy. However, in the process of installing long telegraph wires, engineers discovered that there were electrical potential differences between most pairs of telegraph stations, resulting from natural electrical currents (called telluric currents) flowing through the ground. Some early experimenters did recognize that these currents were, in fact, partly responsible for extending the earth batteries' high outputs and long lifetimes. Later, experimenters would utilize these currents alone and, in these systems, the plates became polarized.\n",
"One of the earliest examples of an earth battery was built by Alexander Bain in 1841 in order to drive a \"prime mover\"—a device that transforms the flow or changes in pressure of a fluid into mechanical energy. Bain buried plates of zinc and copper in the ground about one meter apart and used the resulting voltage, of about one volt, to operate a clock. Carl Friedrich Gauss, who had researched Earth's magnetic field, and Carl August von Steinheil, who built one of the first electric clocks and developed the idea of an \"Earth return\" (or \"ground return\"), had previously investigated such devices.\n",
"Earth batteries are not to be confused with soil-based microbial fuel cells, which rely on electrogenic micro-organisms present in soil to generate electricity, as opposed to the galvanic reaction of two different metals.\n",
"A battery is a device consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections provided to power electrical devices such as flashlights, mobile phones, and electric cars. When a battery is supplying electric power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its negative terminal is the anode. The terminal marked negative is the source of electrons that will flow through an external electric circuit to the positive terminal. When a battery is connected to an external electric load, a redox reaction converts high-energy reactants to lower-energy products, and the free-energy difference is delivered to the external circuit as electrical energy. Historically the term \"battery\" specifically referred to a device composed of multiple cells, however the usage has evolved to include devices composed of a single cell.\n"
] |
If dark matter is a matter, then what would it look like if you held it in your hands?
|
Dark matter, according to the most popular theories at the moment, consists of **w**eakly **i**nteracting **m**assive **p**articles, or WIMPs. Because they interact so weakly, in particular having no electromagnetic interaction, WIMPs stream through you much like neutrinos do. Thus, you can't really hold dark matter in your hands, and if you could, somehow, it wouldn't look like anything, since it wouldn't interact with photons.
|
[
"Dark matter is defined as hypothetical matter that is undetectable by its emitted radiation, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. It has been used in a variety of fictional media, including computer and video games and books. In such cases, dark matter is usually attributed extraordinary physical or magical properties. Such descriptions are often inconsistent with the known properties of dark matter proposed in physics and cosmology. For example, in computer games, it is often used as material for making weapons and items, and is usually depicted as black or a similar color.\n",
"Dark matter can refer to any substance which interacts predominantly via gravity with visible matter (e.g., stars and planets). Hence in principle it need not be composed of a new type of fundamental particle but could, at least in part, be made up of standard baryonic matter, such as protons or neutrons. However, for the reasons outlined below, most scientists think the dark matter is dominated by a non-baryonic component, which is likely composed of a currently unknown fundamental particle (or similar exotic state).\n",
"If dark matter is composed of weakly-interacting particles, an obvious question is whether it can form objects equivalent to planets, stars, or black holes. Historically, the answer has been it cannot,ref name=\"siegel\"\n",
"\"Dark Matter\", by Michelle Paver, is a ghost story set in 1937 in an isolated bay on the north-east coast Svalbard. A group of scientists land in Svalbard and prepare to overwinter in an abandoned mining camp. However, they soon discover that there is someone—or something—else out there of a sinister nature.\n",
"In astrophysics and cosmology, \"dark matter\" is matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. Observational evidence of the early universe and the Big Bang theory require that this matter have energy and mass, but is not composed ordinary baryons (protons and neutrons). The commonly accepted view is that most of the dark matter is non-baryonic in nature. As such, it is composed of particles as yet unobserved in the laboratory. Perhaps they are supersymmetric particles, which are not Standard Model particles, but relics formed at very high energies in the early phase of the universe and still floating about.\n",
"For the deluded, matter seems to appear. This is due to non-recognition of the five lights. Matter includes the \"mahābhūta\" or classical elements, namely: space, air, water, fire, earth. The illusion of matter includes even the formless realms and the minds of sentient beings. For example, the beings of the formless realms are made of subtle matter. And the mind of a human is merely matter, specifically vayu (wind, air). \n",
"Dark matter is a form of matter that neither emits nor absorbs light. Within physics, this behavior is characterized by dark matter not interacting with electromagnetic radiation, hence making it \"dark\" and rendering it undetectable via conventional instruments in physics. Data from galaxy rotation curves indicate that approximately 80% of the mass of a galaxy cannot be seen, forcing researchers to innovate ways that \"indirectly\" detect it through dark matter's effects on gravitational fluctuations. There exists no consensus in the theoretical physics community as to whether dark matter is divisible into various 'types', but there exists evidence for differentiating dark matter into \"hot\" (HDM) and \"cold\" (CDM) types–some even suggesting a middle-ground of \"warm\" dark matter (WDM). The terminology is not meant to invoke any association with temperature, but instead refer to the \"size\" of the purported dark matter particles (WIMPs). In turn, the size of the particles determines the velocities at which they travel at in an inverse relationship: HDM travels faster than CDM because the HDM particles are theorized to be of lower mass.\n"
] |
if things with different mass fall at the same velocity, why do heavier things cause more 'damage' when they land?
|
Force = mass x acceleration
As you point out, objects fall at the same rate, i.e. acceleration is constant. So, for falling objects, force is proportional to mass. Using your example, a 1 ton (1,000 kg) ball will hit with exactly 1,000 times more force than the 1kg ball.
|
[
"The reason why the object does not fall down when subjected to only downward forces is a simple one. Think about what keeps an object up after it is thrown. Once an object is thrown into the air, there is only the downward force of earth's gravity that acts on the object. That does not mean that once an object is thrown in the air, it will fall instantly. What keeps that object up in the air is its velocity. The first of Newton's laws of motion states that an object's inertia keeps it in motion, and since the object in the air has a velocity, it will tend to keep moving in that direction.\n",
"These results supported Galileo's hypothesis that objects of different weights, when measured at the same point in their fall, are falling at the same speed because they experience the same gravitational acceleration.\n",
"While Aristotle had observed that heavier objects fall more quickly than lighter ones, in \"Two New Sciences\" Galileo postulated that this was due \"not\" to inherently stronger forces acting on the heavier objects, but to the countervailing forces of air resistance and friction. To compensate, he conducted experiments using a shallowly inclined ramp, smoothed so as to eliminate as much friction as possible, on which he rolled down balls of different weights. In this manner, he was able to provide empirical evidence that matter accelerates vertically downward at a constant rate, regardless of mass, due to the effects of gravity.\n",
"As the speed of an object increases, so does the drag force acting on it, which also depends on the substance it is passing through (for example air or water). At some speed, the drag or force of resistance will equal the gravitational pull on the object (buoyancy is considered below). At this point the object ceases to accelerate and continues falling at a constant speed called the terminal velocity (also called settling velocity). An object moving downward faster than the terminal velocity (for example because it was thrown downwards, it fell from a thinner part of the atmosphere, or it changed shape) will slow down until it reaches the terminal velocity. Drag depends on the projected area, here, the object's cross-section or silhouette in a horizontal plane. An object with a large projected area relative to its mass, such as a parachute, has a lower terminal velocity than one with a small projected area relative to its mass, such as a bullet.\n",
"This is why large vehicles perform poorly in crash tests and why there are limits to how high buildings can be built. Similarly, the larger an object is, the less other objects would resist its motion, causing its deceleration.\n",
"Because of Bernoulli's principle, a decrease in air pressure between a larger object (such as a transit bus or large truck) and a smaller object (such as a pedestrian or cyclist) is created when passing in close proximity, resulting in a force that pulls the smaller object towards the larger object. The greater the velocity of the larger object, and the greater the difference in mass of the two objects, the greater the force. This principle accounts for accidents wherein, for instance, a cyclist being closely passed by a moving bus is pulled toward the bus, loses control and is thrown under the path of the wheels. The curvature of the guard is designed to counteract Bernoulli's principle by producing a net outward pressure away from the direction of travel of the bus, in addition to physically pushing an object out of the way.\n",
"Velocity differences between the bottom and tops of particles can lead to lift. Water is allowed to flow above the particle but not below resulting in a zero and non-zero velocity at the bottom and top of the particle respectively. The difference in velocities results in a pressure gradient that imparts a lifting force on the particle. If this force is greater than the particle's weight, it will begin transport.\n"
] |
how does a charger charge your phone for a split second after it was removed from the socket?
|
Do you think because the icon shows charging that it is actually charging?
Or the software just hasn't updated the screen yet?
|
[
"The charge control consists of a pressure switch built into the cell, which disconnects the charging current when the internal cell pressure rises above a certain limit (usually 200 to 300 psi or 1.4 to 2.1 MPa). This prevents overcharging and damage to the cell.\n",
"If a battery has been completely discharged (e.g. the car lights were left on overnight) and next is given a fast charge for only a few minutes, then during the short charging time it develops only a charge near the interface. The battery voltage may rise to be close to the charger voltage so that the charging current decreases significantly. After a few hours this interface charge will spread to the volume of the electrode and electrolyte, leading to an interface charge so low that it may be insufficient to start a car.\n",
"Consider a battery that has been completely discharged (such as occurs when leaving the car lights on overnight, a current draw of about 6 amps). If it then is given a fast charge for only a few minutes, the battery plates charge only near the interface between the plates and the electrolyte. In this case the battery voltage might rise to a value near that of the charger voltage; this causes the charging current to decrease significantly. After a few hours this interface charge will spread to the volume of the electrode and electrolyte; this leads to an interface charge so low that it may be insufficient to start the car. As long as the charging voltage stays below the gassing voltage (about 14.4 volts in a normal lead–acid battery), battery damage is unlikely, and in time the battery should return to a nominally charged state.\n",
"The manual does not indicate that removing the charging plug before it is fully charged can illuminate the 'Electrical Fault Light' which stays on until a full trickle charge is performed. This can be quite disconcerting as the manual states the car has to be taken to the dealer to reset the problem. Also, one cannot, or should not, perform a fast charge when it is in this state.\n",
"The charger is a small box, usually powered by a battery. It contains an electronic circuit that steps the battery voltage up to the high voltage needed for charging. The box has a fixture that requires one to press the end of the dosimeter on the charging electrode. Some chargers include a light to illuminate the measurement electrode, so that measurement, logging and recharging can occur with one routine motion.\n",
"BULLET::::- As the charging socket shares a feeder from the switchboard with other sockets (no dedicated circuit) if the sum of consumptions exceeds the protection limit (in general 16 A), the circuit-breaker will trip, stopping the charging.\n",
"When a device detects it is plugged into a charger with a compatible faster-charging standard, the device pulls more current or the device tells the charger to increase the voltage or both to increase power (the details vary between standards).\n"
] |
Why do mitochondria need their own DNA?
|
As has been said, endosymbiotic theory which is pretty widely accepted states that both chloroplasts and mitochondria were once bacteria of their own right. We believe the modern day equivalents are cyanobacteria and proteobacteria respectively.
Some nice sets of evidence:
* Circular genomes as seen in bacteria
* No nucleus of their own and no chromatin packaging (prokaryotic features)
* No introns as in eukaroytic systems
* Double membrane akin to the inner and outer membranes of gram-negative bacteria.
* Encode their own tRNAs
* Replicate at a different point in the cell cycle to other organelles
But do they "need their own DNA". No they don't. But it's the system that works and nature is good at keeping systems that work, even if they're not the optimal system. A considerable amount of mtDNA and chDNA has migrated to the nucleus such that mtDNA no longer fully encodes for a functioning mitochondrion. Why doesn't all the DNA migrate to the nucleus? Because this system works :)
[See quantum_lotus' comparison of eukaryotic and prokaryotic mitochondria including chimera activity recovery](_URL_0_)
|
[
"Mitochondria are thought to be organelles that developed from endocytosed bacteria which learned to coexist inside our cells. These bacteria maintained their own DNA, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which codes for components of the electron transport chain (ETC). The ETC is found in the inner mitochondrial membrane and functions to produce energy in the form of ATP molecules. The process is called oxidative phosphorylation, because ATP is produced from ADP in a series of redox reactions. Electrons are transferred through the ETC from NADH and FADH to oxygen, reducing oxygen to water.\n",
"Mitochondria are essential organelles in eukaryotic cells. Their function is to convert the potential energy of glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in a process called oxidative phosphorylation. Mitochondria carry their own DNA, called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The information stored in the mtDNA is used to produce several of the enzymes essential to the production of ATP.\n",
"Mitochondria are organelles that synthesize ATP for the cell by metabolizing carbon-based macromolecules. The presence of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in mitochondria and proteins, derived from mtDNA, suggest that this organelle may have been a prokaryote prior to its integration into the proto-eukaryote. Mitochondria are regarded as organelles rather than endosymbionts because mitochondria and the host cells share some parts of their genome, undergo mitosis simultaneously, and provide each other means to produce energy. Endomembrane system and nuclear membrane were derived from the protomitochondria.\n",
"Mitochondria are small organelles that lie in the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells, such as those of humans. Their primary function is to provide energy to the cell. Mitochondria are thought to be reduced descendants of symbiotic bacteria that were once free living. One indication that mitochondria were once free living is that each contains a circular DNA, called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), whose structure is more similar to bacteria than eukaryotic organisms (see endosymbiotic theory). The overwhelming majority of a human's DNA is contained in the chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell, but mtDNA is an exception.\n",
"The mitochondria contains its own set of DNA used to produce proteins found in the electron transport chain. The mitochondrial DNA only codes for about thirteen proteins that are used in processing mitochondrial transcripts, ribosomal proteins, ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, and protein subunits found in the protein complexes of the electron transport chain.\n",
"Mitochondria contain their own DNA, which has close structural similarities to bacterial DNA, and which encodes rRNA and tRNA genes that produce RNA which is closer in structure to bacterial RNA than to eukaryote RNA. They are now generally held to have developed from endosymbiotic prokaryotes, probably proteobacteria.\n",
"The reasons why mitochondria have retained some genes are debated. The existence in some species of mitochondrion-derived organelles lacking a genome suggests that complete gene loss is possible, and transferring mitochondrial genes to the nucleus has several advantages. The difficulty of targeting remotely-produced hydrophobic protein products to the mitochondrion is one hypothesis for why some genes are retained in mtDNA; colocalisation for redox regulation is another, citing the desirability of localised control over mitochondrial machinery. Recent analysis of a wide range of mtDNA genomes suggests that both these features may dictate mitochondrial gene retention.\n"
] |
the senate bill 5 being discussed in today's filibuster in the texas senate.
|
Might be a little over EIL5, but meh...
The bill does a few things. From [_URL_1_](_URL_4_):
* The bill would restrict abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy
* Require all clinics to be certified as ambulatory surgical centers
* Require abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Problems with these are:
1) the Supreme Court and many doctors agree, kinda sorta, that "life" (more like viability) starts at about the 24th(?) week of the term. [Radiolab story about it is really heartbreaking](_URL_7_). This would hamper and go counter to what's been established as a litmus test. Thus, it limits the woman's right to choose.
2) The ambulatory surgical clinic provision seems like a good idea, till you actually look into what's needed to run one of these.
> "There's a whole bunch of requirements that have to do with airflow, temperature, humidity, size of the room, that kind of thing for operations that may take three or four hours. But for an abortion that takes five or ten minutes, it's sort of mismatched."
From a [KXAN article](_URL_0_). While [this](_URL_3_) article can be argued to be slightly biased, the oldest citation is from 1990. 97% of all women in the US suffer no complications, 2% suffer minor complications that can be handled in clinic or outpatient, and about .5% suffer serious complications.
Outpatient knee surgery has nearly the same, if not slightly worse numbers according to [this](_URL_8_) with 94% meeting discharge criteria, with 3.6% readmission. Granted, the numbers for the knee surgery study are smaller than the abortion study, but there's more care needed.
Also, who is to say that once the majority of abortion clinics in Texas get up to the standard, that they will be licensed to practice? [Here's the requirement](_URL_5_) for clinics in Texas. And according to this [Washington Post article](_URL_6_), "the majority of abortions are not surgical procedures, and 37 of the state’s 42 abortion clinics don’t meet that new standard, so many would need to relocate and spend millions of dollars to reach it." Which means that these clinics would have to change how they operate completely.
3) Admitting privilege sounds like a great idea. I personally agree with it in principle, but in real life, things aren't as simple. For starters [this shows how doctors are "employed'](_URL_2_). Then, each hospital seems to have it's own rules and standards for who and what can get admitting privileges as well as limited number of slots. I could be wrong on this, but I believe that general practitioners in Texas do not need admitting privileges to operate. There's also the fact that many communities in Texas do not have a "local" (however it's defined legally) hospital.
So, let's look at it simply: the 20 week limit is shorter than what the Supreme Court of the USA, medical ethicist, and others agree upon viability (to live outside of the womb) of the embryo, the regulations then put on an abortion clinic could mean that no abortion clinics could be licensed to practice, and there's nothing to say that doctors who provide abortions will be able to get admitting privileges. This bill can deny a woman's constitutional right to seek a legal abortion.
|
[
"On June 25, 2013, Davis held a thirteen-hour-long filibuster to block Senate Bill 5, a measure which included more restrictive abortion regulations for Texas. The filibuster played a major role in Senate Democrats' success in delaying passage of the bill beyond the midnight deadline for the end of the legislative session, though it ultimately passed in a second session. The filibuster brought Davis national attention, leading to speculation about a run for governor of Texas. She subsequently ran for governor of Texas in 2014, but was defeated by Republican Party nominee Greg Abbott, 59–38%.\n",
"On June 25, 2013, Wendy Davis gave an 11-hour filibuster in an attempt to run out a special legislative session so that a vote could not be held on Texas Senate Bill 5. At about 15 minutes to midnight, Van de Putte confronted the Presiding Officer, State Senator Robert L. Duncan, a Republican from Lubbock, who she said had ignored her repeated motions earlier. Van de Putte asked him, \"at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?\" Her question was immediately met with cheers and applause by the spectators in the gallery. The applause delayed the legislative session past the midnight deadline, effectively ending the legislative session without a vote on the bill. This bill was ultimately passed in a special session ordered by then Governor Rick Perry.\n",
"On October 5, the Senate voted 51–49 for cloture; a procedural vote that brought debate to end and allowed the Senate to move forward on the Kavanaugh nomination. The vote was almost entirely along party lines, with the exception of Democrat Joe Manchin, who voted yes, and Republican Lisa Murkowski, who voted no.\n",
"In 1968, the rules of the Senate required the approval of two thirds of senators present to cut off debate (from 1975 to 2017 the consent of three fifths of the membership of the Senate was required to cut off debate, but a simple majority is sufficient). The 45 to 43 cloture vote to end the Fortas debate included 10 Republicans and 35 Democrats voting for cloture, and 24 Republicans and 19 Democrats voting against cloture. The 12 other senators, all Democrats, were absent. \"The New York Times\" wrote of the 45 to 43 vote for cloture: \"Because of the unusual crosscurrents underlying today's vote, it was difficult to determine whether the pro-Fortas supporters would have been able to muster the same majority in a direct confirmation vote.\" The next president, Republican Richard Nixon, appointed Warren Burger the next Chief Justice. David Leonhardt of \"The New York Times\" called Johnson's nomination of Fortas \"one of the most consequential blunders in modern American politics,\" as the role of Chief Justice has been held by conservatives appointed by Republican presidents ever since.\n",
"On June 5, 2012, the bill fell short of the 60 votes necessary to override a filibuster and did not make it to the Senate floor for debate. The vote went along party lines, excluding a vote against by Democrat Harry Reid. (Senator Reid changes his vote as a procedural maneuver, which left Democrats the option to call up the bill again at a later time.)\n",
"Merkley has been a leader in trying to reform the rules of the Senate itself, including those concerning the filibuster. On January 5, 2011, Merkley and Senators Tom Udall and Tom Harkin introduced a resolution intended to increase genuine debate and accountability in the Senate. The resolution proposed to eliminate the filibuster on motions to proceed, eliminate secret holds, guarantee consideration of amendments for both majority and minority, require a \"talking filibuster\" in which senators opposed to holding a straight up-or-down vote must continuously debate on the Senate floor, and expedite the nominations process. Upon introducing the resolution, Merkley stated: \"The Senate is broken. We are failing to fulfill our legislative responsibilities.\" On January 27, Merkley's \"talking filibuster\" proposal received 46 votes in the Senate.\n",
"On June 11, 2013, the Senate voted 84-15 (all 52 Democrats, both Independents, and 30 Republicans voting in the affirmative) to proceed with debate. The Senate considered the bill on the floor on June 12–13, June 17–21, June 24–26, 2013. During this time, it was recommitted to the Senate Judiciary committee twice to make amendments.\n"
] |
Are they any cases of animals using covering or "clothes" to protect themselves from the environment as humans have done?
|
Hermit crabs are an obvious example.
Pigs will slather themselves in mud to cool off.
You could call a burrow a kind of "clothing" that animals "put on" to protect themselves from the environment.
The biggest problem is that the natural world doesn't present a lot of things which you can really use as a covering (which is why we need to do complicated things like weaving fibres or skinning animals). So without a high degree of intelligence and dexterity it's very hard to make "clothes".
Heck, a lot of human tribes didn't have clothes.
edit: Another thing is that we need clothes mostly because a lot of us live outside our natural habitat. If we still lived in Kenya then they would be less necessary.
|
[
"Animal rights activists generally protest the use of animal hides for human clothing. Forms of protest range from PETA's \"I would rather go naked than wear fur\" campaign, although more shocking and direct action, like damaging furs with red paint in imitation of blood, has been toned down, like the \"Ink, not Mink\" campaign.\n",
"Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage serving exclusively as anti-predator adaptations. Many animals supplement the protection afforded by their physiology by burrowing or otherwise adopting habitats or behaviors that insulate them from potential sources of harm. Humans originally began wearing clothing and building shelters in prehistoric times for protection from the elements. Both humans and animals are also often concerned with the protection of others, with adult animals being particularly inclined to seek to protect their young from elements of nature and from predators.\n",
"Humans have shown extreme inventiveness in devising clothing solutions to environmental hazards and the distinction between clothing and other protective equipment is not always clear-cut; examples include space suit, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suit, swimsuit, bee-keeper's protective clothing, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and protective clothing in general.\n",
"The use of animal fur in clothing dates to prehistoric times. It is currently associated in developed countries with expensive, designer clothing, although fur is still used by indigenous people in arctic zones and higher elevations for its warmth and protection. Once uncontroversial, it has recently been the focus of campaigns on the grounds that campaigners consider it cruel and unnecessary. PETA, along with other animal rights and animal liberation groups have called attention to fur farming and other practices they consider cruel.\n",
"For adventitious protection, an animal uses materials such as twigs, sand, or pieces of shell to conceal its outline, for example when a caddis fly larva builds a decorated case, or when a decorator crab decorates its back with seaweed, sponges and stones.\n",
"A rug (UK), blanket (Equine and other livestock, US), or coat (canine and other companion animals, US) is a covering or garment made by humans to protect their pets from the elements, as in a \"horse rug\" or \"dog coat\". \n",
"Among animals, self-decoration is found in decorator crabs, some insects such as caddis flies and the masked hunter bug, and occasionally also in octopuses. In military camouflage, it is seen in the use of ghillie suits by snipers and the helmet nets of soldiers more generally, when these are camouflaged by inserting grass and other local plant materials, and in a more general way by the use of decorated camouflage netting over vehicles, gun emplacements and observation posts.\n"
] |
What were relations between medieval Muslims and medieval Buddhists like?
|
As I mention [in this post](_URL_0_) to almost the same question, the initial Buddhist literary response to Islam was highly negative. I'd welcome other perspectives, of course, especially from the Muslim side and on a more subaltern level.
|
[
"During the Middle Ages, Muslims came into conflict with Zoroastrians during the Islamic conquest of Persia (633-654); Christians fought against Muslims during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (7th to 11th centuries), the Crusades (1095 onward), the Reconquista (718-1492), the Ottoman wars in Europe (13th century onwards) and the Inquisition; Shamanism was in conflict with Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and Christians during the Mongol invasions (1206-1337); and Muslims clashed with Hindus and Sikhs during the Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent (8th to 16th centuries).\n",
"Overlaps in Jain-Hindu identities have included Jains worshipping Hindu deities, intermarriages between Jains and Hindus, and medieval era Jain temples featuring Hindu religious icons and sculpture. Beyond India, on Java island of Indonesia, historical records attest to marriages between Hindus and Buddhists, medieval era temple architecture and sculptures that simultaneously incorporate Hindu and Buddhist themes, where Hinduism and Buddhism merged and functioned as \"two separate paths within one overall system\", according to Ann Kenney and other scholars. Similarly, there is an organic relation of Sikhs to Hindus, states Zaehner, both in religious thought and their communities, and virtually all Sikhs' ancestors were Hindus. Marriages between Sikhs and Hindus, particularly among \"Khatris\", were frequent. Some Hindu families brought up a son as a Sikh, and some Hindus view Sikhism as a tradition within Hinduism, even though the Sikh faith is a distinct religion.\n",
"Abul Fazl, the courtier of Mughal emperor Akbar, states, \"For a long time past scarce any trace of them (the Buddhists) has existed in Hindustan.\" When he visited Kashmir in 1597 he met with a few old men professing Buddhism, however he 'saw none among the learned'. This is can also be seen from the fact that Buddhist priests were not present amidst learned divines that came to the Ibadat Khana of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri. \n",
"According to Johan Elverskog, the \"Vimalaprabha\" provides evidence that the Buddhists who composed this text, along with the \"Kalachakra Tantra\", were aware of the Islamic theology and the core differences between the precepts and premises of Muslims and Buddhists by the 11th-century. The differences were deemed so significant that the text refers to Muslims as barbarians. In other sections it calls Muslims as enemies or \"mlecchas\", assertions that have led scholars to date the text after the 10th-century Islamic invasions of regions inhabited by Buddhist monks.\n",
"Abul Fazl, the courtier of Mughal emperor Akbar, states, \"For a long time past scarce any trace of them (the Buddhists) has existed in Hindustan.\" When he visited Kashmir in 1597, he met with a few old men professing Buddhism, however he 'saw none among the learned'. This is can also be seen from the fact that Buddhist priests were not present amidst learned divines that came to the Ibadat Khana of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri.\n",
"Buddhists entered the service of the Mongol Empire in the early 13th century. Buddhist monasteries established in the Karakorum were granted tax-exempt status, though the religion was not given official status by the Mongols until later. All variants of Buddhism, such as Chinese, Tibetan and Indian Buddhism flourished, though Tibetan Buddhism was eventually favored at the imperial level under emperor Möngke, who appointed Namo from Kashmir as chief of all Buddhist monks.\n",
"Unlike what the Bible is to Christianity and the Quran is to Islam, but like all major ancient Indian religions, there is no consensus among the different Buddhist traditions as to what constitutes the scriptures or a common canon in Buddhism. The general belief among Buddhists is that the canonical corpus is vast. This corpus includes the ancient \"Sutras\" organized into \"Nikayas\", itself the part of three basket of texts called the \"Tripitakas\". Each Buddhist tradition has its own collection of texts, much of which is translation of ancient Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist texts of India. The Chinese Buddhist canon, for example, includes 2184 texts in 55 volumes, while the Tibetan canon comprises 1108 texts—all claimed to have been spoken by the Buddha—and another 3461 texts composed by Indian scholars revered in the Tibetan tradition. The Buddhist textual history is vast; over 40,000 manuscripts—mostly Buddhist, some non-Buddhist—were discovered in 1900 in the Dunhuang Chinese cave alone.\n"
] |
why does a magnetic field do no work on a stationary particle but yet electric field does work on it?
|
A magnetic field does no work on a point charge under any circumstances. The magnetic force on a stationary charge is zero. If the charge is moving, then there is a magnetic force of q**v**x**B**, which is always perpendicular to **v**, so it doesn't do any work.
|
[
"Because the magnetic force is perpendicular to the velocity, it performs no work and requires no energy—nor does it provide any. Thus magnetic fields (like the Earth's) can profoundly affect particle motion in them, but need no energy input to maintain their effect. Particles may also get steered around, but their total energy remains the same.\n",
"All moving charged particles produce magnetic fields. Moving point charges, such as electrons, produce complicated but well known magnetic fields that depend on the charge, velocity, and acceleration of the particles.\n",
"The magnetostatic field produced by any arrangement of stationary permanent magnets is a conservative field. This means any magnetic object which moves in a closed-loop path in the field, like the ball in this device, gains no energy from the field, and in the absence of friction ends with the same total energy (kinetic plus potential) it started with. Since any moving object is also subject to friction forces, which dissipate the kinetic energy as it moves, the ball will always end a cycle with less energy than it started with, and will eventually stop moving.\n",
"If the magnetic field in the plasma is not stationary, either because the plasma as a whole is transient or because the fields are periodic (radio-frequency heating), the rate of change of the magnetic field with time (formula_1, read \"B-dot\") can be measured locally with a loop or coil of wire. Such coils exploit Faraday's law, whereby a changing magnetic field induces an electric field. The induced voltage can be measured and recorded with common instruments.\n",
"Electric and magnetic fields are created by charged particles in matter such as electrons. A stationary charge creates an electrostatic field in the space around it. A steady current of charges (direct current, DC) creates a static magnetic field around it. The above fields contain energy, but cannot carry power because they are static. However time-varying fields can carry power. Accelerating electric charges, such as are found in an alternating current (AC) of electrons in a wire, create time-varying electric and magnetic fields in the space around them. These fields can exert oscillating forces on the electrons in a receiving \"antenna\", causing them to move back and forth. These represent alternating current which can be used to power a load.\n",
"The magnetic field of a rotating body of conductive gas or liquid develops self-amplifying electric currents, and thus a self-generated magnetic field, due to a combination of differential rotation (different angular velocity of different parts of body), Coriolis forces and induction. The distribution of currents can be quite complicated, with numerous open and closed loops, and thus the magnetic field of these currents in their immediate vicinity is also quite twisted. At large distances, however, the magnetic fields of currents flowing in opposite directions cancel out and only a net dipole field survives, slowly diminishing with distance. Because the major currents flow in the direction of conductive mass motion (equatorial currents), the major component of the generated magnetic field is the dipole field of the equatorial current loop, thus producing magnetic poles near the geographic poles of a rotating body.\n",
"Sakharov's concern about the electrodes led him to consider using magnetic confinement instead of electrostatic. In the case of a magnetic field, the particles will circle around the lines of force. As the particles are moving at high speed, their resulting paths look like a helix. If one arranges a magnetic field so lines of force are parallel and close together, the particles orbiting adjacent lines may collide, and fuse.\n"
] |
why do we sometimes twitch or spaz when we get a random chill?
|
Those are transient myoclonic jerks . These are just short burst of muscle contractions that you see especially when you are falling sleep. These are similarly seen in many physiological and pathological conditions.
If excessive they are called myoclonic seizures.
|
[
"Chills are commonly caused by inflammatory diseases, such as the flu.. It is also common in urinary tract infections. Malaria is one of the common reasons for chills and rigors. In malaria, the parasites enter the liver, grow there and then attack the red blood cells which causes rupture of these cells and release of a toxic substance hemozoin which causes chills recurring every 3 to 4 days. Sometimes they happen in specific people almost all the time, in a slight power, or it less commonly happens in a generally healthy person.\n",
"A cold chill (also known as chills, the chills or simply thrills) is described by David Huron as, \"a pleasant tingling feeling, associated with the flexing of hair follicles resulting in goose bumps (technically called piloerection), accompanied by a cold sensation, and sometimes producing a shudder or shiver.\" Dimpled skin is often visible due to cold chills especially on the back of the neck or upper spine. Unlike shivering, however, it is not caused by temperature, menopause, or anxiety but rather is an emotionally triggered response when one is deeply affected by things such as music, speech, or recollection. It is similar to autonomous sensory meridian response; both sensations consist of a pleasant tingling feeling that affects the skin on the back of the neck and spine.\n",
"Chill-out (shortened as chill; also typeset as chillout or chill out) is a loosely defined form of popular music characterized by slow tempos and relaxed moods. The definition of \"chill-out music\" has evolved throughout the decades, and generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening. Some of the genres associated with \"chill\" include downtempo, classical, dance, jazz, hip hop, world, pop, lounge, and ambient.\n",
"Chills is a feeling of coldness occurring during a high fever, but sometimes is also a common symptom which occurs alone in specific people. It occurs during fever due to the release of cytokines and prostaglandins as part of the inflammatory response, which increases the set point for body temperature in the hypothalamus. The increased set point causes the body temperature to rise (pyrexia), but also makes the patient feel cold or chills until the new set point is reached. Shivering also occurs along with chills because the patient's body produces heat during muscle contraction in a physiological attempt to increase body temperature to the new set point. When it does not accompany a high fever, it is normally a light chill. Sometimes a chill of medium power and short duration may occur during a scare, especially in scares of fear, commonly interpreted like or confused by trembling.\n",
"Frisson is of short duration, lasting only a few seconds. Typical stimuli include loud passages of music and passages—such as appoggiaturas and sudden modulation—that violate some level of musical expectation. During a frisson, a sensation of chills or tingling felt on the skin of the lower back, shoulders, neck, and/or arms. The sensation of chills is sometimes experienced as a series of 'waves' moving up the back in rapid succession and commonly described as \"shivers up the spine\". Hair follicles may also undergo piloerection.\n",
"According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine there is a wide range of potential causes, including anxiety, stimulant like caffeine and nicotine, stress and strenuous activities in the evening. It also may be facilitated by fatigue or sleep deprivation. However, most hypnic jerks occur essentially at random in healthy people. Nevertheless, these repeated, intensifying twitches can cause anxiety in some individuals and a disruption to their sleep onset.\n",
"\"Chills\" is composed of a presenter, psychic medium, historian, main technology consultant and a backstage team of researchers and technicians, who work behind the scenes, mainly with Harrison and La Peruta.\n"
] |
why does your arm shake when you flex really hard?
|
When you stretch or flex your muscles, they can affect the body’s nervous system, which in effect controls the body’s muscle movements. When the body becomes overly stressed, it can cause involuntary muscle spasms.
|
[
"The overuse of the coracobrachialis can lead to stiffening of the muscle. Common causes of injury include chest workouts or activities that require one to press the arm very tight towards the body, e.g. work on the rings in gymnastics. Symptoms of overuse or injury are pain in the arm and shoulder, radiating down to the back of the hand. In more severe cases, the musculocutaneous nerve can get trapped, causing disturbances in sensation to the skin on the radial part of the forearm and weakened flexion of the elbow, as the nerve also supplies the biceps brachii and brachialis muscles. Actual rupture to the coracobrachialis muscle is extremely rare. Very few case reports exist in the literature, and it is reported to be caused by direct trauma to the contracted muscle. Avulsion of the muscle's origin from the coracoid as a result of indirect forces is even more unusual.\n",
"In anatomy, flexion (from the Latin verb \"flectere\", to bend) is a joint movement that decreases the angle between the bones that converge at the joint. For example, your elbow joint flexes when you bring your hand closer to the shoulder.\n",
"The main symptom of shoulder arthritis is pain; this is due to the grinding of the bones against each other because of the lack of cartilage. Pain usually occurs in the front of the shoulder and is worse with motion. People with shoulder arthritis will also experience moderate to severe weakness, stiffness developing over many years, and the inability to sleep on the affected shoulder.\n",
"\"Flexion\" describes a bending movement that \"decreases\" the angle between a segment and its proximal segment. For example, bending the elbow, or clenching a hand into a fist, are examples of flexion. When sitting down, the knees are flexed. When a joint can move forward and backward, such as the neck and trunk, flexion refers to movement in the anterior direction. When the chin is against the chest, the head is flexed, and the trunk is flexed when a person leans forward. Flexion of the shoulder or hip refers to movement of the arm or leg forward.\n",
"Skeletal muscles produce reactive forces and moments at the joints. To avoid injury or fatigue, when person is performing a task, such as pushing or lifting a load, the external moments created at the joints due to the load at the hand and the weight of the body segments must be ideally less than the muscular moment strengths at the joint.\n",
"Arm wrestling puts enormous torque/torsion stress on the upper arm's humerus bone to a degree seen in few other physical activities. Most people's bones are not accustomed to being significantly stressed in this direction, and severe injuries can occur. The arm typically fails because of a diagonal break at or below the midpoint between the shoulder and the elbow; this is known as the 'break arm' position. The most common injury is the humeral shaft fracture. Other common injuries also include shoulder injuries, muscle strain, and less commonly pectoralis major rupture.\n",
"Massaging the forearm muscles also alleviates the tightness that occurs with muscles exertion. Stretching allows the muscles more flexibility, decreasing interference with the innervations of the ulnar nerve to the fingers.\n"
] |
What would we see if the speed of light was, say, 1ms^-1?
|
This is actually a common thought experiment in special relativity. The answer is, nothing would really change, but massive relativistic effects would be observable in everyday life. Also, everything in the universe would be limited to a speed of 1m/s since the speed of light is the top speed that anything can travel (including information). This means that when you leave for school, you could walk there, but in the 20 minutes it takes to walk there, hundreds if not millions of years will have passed once you get there. The speed of light actually has nothing to do with its intensity, but running forward will actually narrow your visual range. Kind of like tunnel vision. The backwards question is even more interesting. If you were facing forward, and you started running backward at near the speed of light, your visual range will increase. You would be able to see things that are behind you. If you are more interested on the topic, just look up special relativity. The fact that in our universe, the speed of light is constant has lots of wacky consequences. Things like time dilation, Lorentz contraction, and loss of simultaneity. If you are interested, I could describe more of it here, but I would recommend you look around the web at videos. These kinds of questions are what got me really interested in physics and I would be glad to try and answer more questions that people have.
|
[
"The speed of light is (by definition) exactly 299,792,458 m/s, very close to 300,000,000 m/s. This is a pure coincidence, as the meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the Earth's pole and equator along the surface at sea level, and the Earth's circumference just happens to be about 2/15 of a light-second. It is also roughly equal to one foot per nanosecond (the actual number is 0.9836 ft/ns).\n",
"\"If one considers the vast size of the diameter KL, which according to me is some 24 thousand diameters of the Earth, one will acknowledge the extreme velocity of Light. For, supposing that KL is no more than 22 thousand of these diameters, it appears that being traversed in 22 minutes this makes the speed a thousand diameters in one minute, that is 16-2/3 diameters in one second or in one beat of the pulse, which makes more than 11 hundred times a hundred thousand toises;\"\n",
"where \"c\" is the speed of light, \"v\" that of the source, \"c' \" the resultant speed of light, and \"k\" a constant denoting the extent of source dependence which can attain values between 0 and 1. According to special relativity and the stationary aether, \"k\"=0, while emission theories allow values up to 1. Numerous terrestrial experiments have been performed, over very short distances, where no \"light dragging\" or extinction effects could come into play, and again the results confirm that light speed is independent of the speed of the source, conclusively ruling out emission theories.\n",
"The speed of light is 983571056 ft/s, or about one foot per nanosecond. If it were exactly one foot per nanosecond, and a target was one data mile away, then the radar return from that target would arrive 12 microseconds after the transmission. (Recall that radar was developed during World War II in America and England, while both were using English units. It was convenient for them to relate 1 data mile to 12 microseconds, whereas the modern tendency would be to approximate the speed of light as 3e8 m/s.)\n",
"The most precise agreement with the speed of light () was determined in 1987 by the observation of electron antineutrinos of energies between 7.5 and 35 MeV originated at the Supernova 1987A at a distance of 157000 ± 16000 light years. The upper limit for deviations from light speed was:\n",
"Another example: when the speed of light (exactly by the definition of the meter and second) is expressed as 3.00 × 10 m/s or 3.00 × 10 km/s then it is clear that it is between 299 500 km/s and 300 500 km/s, but when using 300 × 10 m/s, or 300 × 10 km/s, 300 000 km/s, or the unusual but short 300 Mm/s, this is not clear. A possibility is using 0.300 Gm/s.\n",
"In particular, the physical experience of an observer who whizzes by a gravitating object (such as a star or a black hole) at nearly the speed of light can be modelled by an \"impulsive\" pp-wave spacetime called the Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost.\n"
] |
What are the recommended sources for the history of mercenaries and, to a lesser extent, the development of professional fighting forces in Europe from the collapse of the WRE to the early medieval period?
|
Absolutely try to find a copy of David Parrott’s *The Business of War.* It’s also a massive book, and it’s more focused on the late medieval and early modern periods. BUT it does contain a very useful introduction that will give you an idea of the way mercenaries have been written about in European history. It also contains a little information in the first chapter that’s kinda high/late medieval. I imagine the bibliography and footnotes would give you some further reading as well. See what you think of the price and if it’s too hefty, try to find it at a library.
|
[
"During the Late Middle Ages, mercenary forces grew in importance in Europe, as veterans from the Hundred Years War and other conflicts came to see soldiering as a profession rather than a temporary activity, and commanders sought long-term professionals rather than temporary feudal levies to fight their wars. Swiss mercenaries (\"Reisläufer\") were valued throughout Late Medieval Europe for the power of their determined mass attack in deep columns with the spear, the pike and halberd. Hiring them was made even more attractive because entire ready-made Swiss mercenary contingents could be obtained by simply contracting with their local governments, the various Swiss cantons—the cantons had a form of militia system in which the soldiers were bound to serve and were trained and equipped to do so. Some Swiss also hired themselves out individually or in small bands.\n",
"The Landsknecht, (), plural: Landsknechte, were mercenary soldiers who became an important military force through late 15th- and 16th-century Europe. Consisting predominantly of German mercenary pikemen and supporting foot soldiers, they were the universal mercenaries of early modern Europe, sometimes fighting on both sides of a conflict.\n",
"The Battle of the Golden Spurs had been seen as the first example of the gradual \"Infantry Revolution\" in Medieval warfare across Europe during the 14th century. Conventional military theory placed emphasis on mounted and heavily armoured knights which were considered essential to military success. This meant that warfare was the preserve of a wealthy elite of \"bellatores\" (nobles specialized in warfare) serving as men-at-arms. The fact that this form of army, which was expensive to maintain, could be defeated by militia drawn from the \"lower orders\" led to a gradual change in the nature of warfare during the subsequent century. The tactics and composition of the Flemish army at Courtrai were later copied or adapted at the battles of Bannockburn (1314), Crecy (1346), Aljubarrota (1385), Sempach (1386), Agincourt (1415), Grandson (1476) and in the battles of the Hussite Wars (1419–34). As a result, cavalry became less important and nobles more commonly fought dismounted. The comparatively low costs of militia armies allowed even small states (such as the Swiss) to raise militarily significant armies and meant that local rebellions were more likely to achieve military success.\n",
"The changes in warfare eventually made the mercenary forces of the Renaissance and Middle Ages obsolete. However this was a gradual change. As late as the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), most troops were mercenaries. However, after this conflict, most states invested in better disciplined and more ideologically inspired troops. For a time mercenaries became important as trainers and administrators, but soon these tasks were also taken by the state. The massive size of these armies required a large supporting force of administrators. The newly centralized states were forced to set up vast organized bureaucracies to manage these armies, which some historians argue is the basis of the modern bureaucratic state.\n",
"BULLET::::- Showalter, Dennis E. (1993), \"Caste, Skill, and Training: The Evolution of Cohesion in European Armies from the Middle Ages to the Sixteenth Century\", \"Journal of Military History\", 57(3), pp. 407–430.\n",
"Towards the end of the 15th century, especially after the success of guns and cannons, mercenaries became a dominant force in the country’s military. With the economic demands created by the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire, the force diminished and included only mercenaries such as the \"seimeni\".\n",
"Towards the end of the 15th century, especially after the success of guns and cannons, mercenaries became a dominant force in the country's military. With the economic demands created by the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire, the force diminished and included only mercenaries such as the \"seimeni\".\n"
] |
plasma, in the electrical sense. why is it its own state/phase?
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Plasma forms when you heat up a gas to really high temperatures. The electrons get ripped away from the atoms due to their high energy. This is called ionization. This makes plasma highly electrically conductive. Plasma is its own state of matter because its properties are so fundamentally different from a gas, in the same way that a liquid's properties are fundamentally different than a solid's.
|
[
"Plasma is a state of matter in which an ionized gaseous substance becomes highly electrically conductive to the point that long-range electric and magnetic fields dominate the behaviour of the matter. The plasma state can be contrasted with the other states: solid, liquid, and gas.\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",
"A plasma is a \"quasineutral\" (total electrical charge is close to zero) mix of ions (atoms which have been ionized, and therefore possess a net positive charge), electrons, and neutral particles (un-ionized atoms or molecules). Most plasmas are only partially ionized, in fact, the ionization degree of common plasma devices like fluorescent lamp is fairly low ( less than 1%). Almost all the matter in the universe is very low density plasma: solids, liquids and gases are uncommon away from planetary bodies. Plasmas have many technological applications, from fluorescent lighting to plasma processing for semiconductor manufacture.\n",
"Plasma is the state of matter where some of the electrons in a gas are stripped or \"ionized\" from their molecules or atoms. A plasma can be formed by high temperature, or by application of a high electric or alternating magnetic field as noted above. Due to their lower mass, the electrons in a plasma accelerate more quickly in response to an electric field than the heavier positive ions, and hence carry the bulk of the current. The free ions recombine to create new chemical compounds (for example, breaking atmospheric oxygen into single oxygen [O → 2O], which then recombine creating ozone [O]).\n",
"A plasma is any gas in which a significant percentage of the atoms or molecules are ionized. Fractional ionization in plasmas used for deposition and related materials processing varies from about 10 in typical capacitive discharges to as high as 5–10% in high density inductive plasmas. Processing plasmas are typically operated at pressures of a few millitorr to a few torr, although arc discharges and inductive plasmas can be ignited at atmospheric pressure. Plasmas with low fractional ionization are of great interest for materials processing because electrons are so light, compared to atoms and molecules, that energy exchange between the electrons and neutral gas is very inefficient. Therefore, the electrons can be maintained at very high equivalent temperatures – tens of thousands of kelvins, equivalent to several electronvolts average energy—while the neutral atoms remain at the ambient temperature. These energetic electrons can induce many processes that would otherwise be very improbable at low temperatures, such as dissociation of precursor molecules and the creation of large quantities of free radicals.\n",
"Plasma is an ionized gas that conducts electricity. In bulk, it is modeled using magnetohydrodynamics, which is a combination of the Navier–Stokes equations governing fluids and Maxwell's equations governing how magnetic and electric fields behave. Fusion exploits several plasma properties, including:\n",
"Like a gas, plasma does not have definite shape or volume. Unlike gases, plasmas are electrically conductive, produce magnetic fields and electric currents, and respond strongly to electromagnetic forces. Positively charged nuclei swim in a \"sea\" of freely-moving disassociated electrons, similar to the way such charges exist in conductive metal, where this electron \"sea\" allows matter in the plasma state to conduct electricity.\n"
] |
why are vehicles insured, instead of people/drivers?
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I some countries it's actually both. The vehicle is insured, but the insurance won't cover driver liability, so the driver needs their own insurance too.
|
[
"With the onset of fully autonomous cars, it is possible that the need for specialized automobile insurance disappears and that health insurance and homeowner's liability insurance instead cover automobile crashes, much in the same way that they cover bicycle accidents. Moreover, as cases of traditional negligence decrease, no-fault insurance systems appear attractive given their benefits. It would provide compensation to victims relatively quickly and the compensation would not depend on the identification of a party at-fault. In such systems, individual drivers would be well protected and would encourage the adoption of autonomous cars for its safety and cost-related benefits.\n",
"This system though, is not very reliable and lacks discipline. The high number of public cars that travel the roads, and the fact that they do not lend themselves to regulation or central control, causes frequent transit problems among city roads. They may also be somewhat uncomfortable, since they try to fit as many people as possible inside them. As a standard, a 4-person sedan (driver included) usually carries 6 passengers, twice the amount for which they were designed.\n",
"Autonomous vehicles will have a severe impact on the mobility options of persons that are not able to drive a vehicle themselves. To remain socially engaged with society or even able to do groceries, the elderly people of today are depending on caretakers to drive them to these places. In addition to the perceived freedom of the elderly people of the future, the demand for human aides will decrease. When we also consider the increased health of the elderly, it is safe to state that care centers will experience a decrease in the number of clients. Not only elderly people face difficulties of their decreased physical abilities, also disabled people will perceive the benefits of autonomous vehicles in the near future, causing their dependency on caretakers to decrease. Both industries are largely depending on informal caregivers, who are mostly relatives of the persons in need. Since there is less of a reliance on their time, employers of informal caregivers or even governments will experience a decrease of costs allocated to this matter. Children and teens, who are not able to drive a vehicle themselves, are also benefiting of the introduction of autonomous cars. Daycares and schools are able to come up with automated pick up and drop off systems, causing a decrease of reliance on parents and childcare workers. The extent to which human actions are necessary for driving will vanish. Since current vehicles require human actions to some extent, the driving school industry will not be disrupted until the majority of autonomous transportation is switched to the emerged dominant design. It is plausible that in the distant future driving a vehicle will be considered as a luxury, which implies that the structure of the industry is based on new entrants and a new market.\n",
"Bicycling is often used as an alternative to travel by car. Automobile travel provides increased mobility and convenience for travelers, but also has high costs associated with taxes, insurance, fuel, maintenance, road construction and repair, and contributes to air pollution. When infrastructure is built to allow consumers to choose between automobile and other forms of travel, it reduces a community's automobile dependency and allows for more efficient land usage.\n",
"The Insurance Information and Enforcement System is a system used, in the United States, by many Department of Motor Vehicles agencies to track people who might be driving without automobile insurance. Since many jurisdictions forbid uninsured driving, a system like this is necessary to keep track of any applications and cancellations of policies. The system was created largely because many people try to trick the DMV into thinking they're keeping their car insured by registering a car with a policy and then cancelling the policy soon after to keep the plates.\n",
"Vehicle insurance, in the United States and elsewhere, is designed to cover risk of financial liability or the loss of a motor vehicle the owner may face if their vehicle is involved in a collision resulting in property or physical damages. Most states require a motor vehicle owner to carry some minimum level of liability insurance. States that do not require the vehicle owner to carry car insurance include Virginia, where an uninsured motor vehicle fee may be paid to the state; New Hampshire, and Mississippi which offers vehicle owners the option to post cash bonds (see below). The privileges and immunities clause of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of citizens in each respective state when traveling to another. A motor vehicle owner typically pays insurers a monthly fee, often called an insurance premium. The insurance premium a motor vehicle owner pays is usually determined by a variety of factors including the type of covered vehicle, the age and gender of any covered drivers, their driving history, and the location where the vehicle is primarily driven and stored. Credit scores are also taken into consideration. Most insurance companies offer premium discounts based on these factors.\n",
"Since December 2014, exempted vehicles include passenger cars with three or more passengers including the driver; properly registered vehicles for use by people with disabilities; all-electric vehicles; emergency vehicles, such police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks; properly identified public utilities vehicles, traffic control and towing vehicles; school buses; motorcycles; cash-in-transit armored vehicles; funeral vehicles; and press, judiciary, diplomatic, presidential motorcade, and security scort vehicles.\n"
] |
what's the point of the russians visiting the moon in 2029 when we're planning on visiting mars in the 2030's?
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Why go on holiday to the caravan park this year when you know you're going to go on holiday to DISNEYLAND next year?
There's still things for us to Do on the Moon - places yet unmapped, below surface exploration, samples to collect. Sure we're going to Mars, but that doesn't mean we should Not go to the Moon as well, or explore the Mariana Trench, or have some tasty ice cream at Disneyland.
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[
"A number of Mars mission concepts and proposals have been put forth by Russian scientists. Stated dates were for a launch sometime between 2016 and 2020. The Mars probe would carry a crew of four to five cosmonauts, who would spend close to two years in space.\n",
"Three spaceflights to the Moon are planned to take place in 2021. As part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, commercial landers developed by Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines will both be launched, and Russia will resume its Luna-Glob exploration programme with the Luna 25 lander. NASA plans a return to the Moon sometime in the 2020s, and following that a manned exploration of Mars in the mid 2030s.\n",
"Russia's Luna-Glob 1 was expected to be launched in 2019. In 2007 the head of the Russian Space Agency announced plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanent robotically operated base there in 2027–2032. In 2015, Roscosmos stated that Russia plans to place a cosmonaut on the Moon by 2030, leaving Mars to NASA. The purpose is to work jointly with NASA and avoid another Space Race.\n",
"Russia also announced to resume its previously frozen project Luna-Glob, an uncrewed lander and orbiter, which is slated to launch in 2021. In 2015, Roscosmos stated that Russia plans to place an astronaut on the Moon by 2030 leaving Mars to NASA. The purpose is to work jointly with NASA and avoid a space race Russian Federation spacecraft is planned to send cosmonauts into Moon orbit in 2025. Russian Lunar Orbital Station is then proposed to orbit around the Moon after 2030.\n",
"NASA plans a return of humans to the Moon by 2024, first by assembling a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway in lunar orbit. A crewed exploration of Mars could follow in the mid 2030s. An uncrewed and then a crewed trip to Jupiter and Europa have been commonly contemplated, but no space agencies or companies have yet announced definite plans to launch a crewed mission further than Mars. SpaceX, a private company, has also announced plans to land humans on Mars in the mid-2020s, with the long-term goal of enabling the colonization of Mars. \n",
"In June 2014 Japan's science and technology ministry said it was considering a space mission to Mars. In a ministry paper it indicated unmanned exploration, manned missions to Mars and long-term settlement on the Moon were objectives, for which international cooperation and support was going to be sought.\n",
"In June 2014 Japan's science and technology ministry said it was considering a space mission to Mars. In a ministry paper it indicated unmanned exploration, manned missions to Mars and long-term settlement on the Moon were objectives, for which international cooperation and support was going to be sought.\n"
] |
How can meteor fragments found on earth possibly be so frequently described as 'martian'? How can we possibly assert their origin?
|
The quote below is taken directly from the [Martian Meteorite](_URL_0_) page of Wikipedia:
By the early 1980s, it was obvious that the SNC group of meteorites (Shergottites, Nakhlites, Chassignites) were significantly different from most other meteorite types. Among these differences were younger formation ages, a different oxygen isotopic composition, the presence of aqueous weathering products, and some similarity in chemical composition to analyses of the Martian surface rocks in 1976 by the Viking landers. Several workers suggested these characteristics implied the origin of SNC meteorites from a relatively large parent body, possibly Mars (e.g., Smith et al.[4] and Treiman et al.[5]). Then in 1983, various trapped gases were reported in impact-formed glass of the EET79001 shergottite, gases which closely resembled those in the Martian atmosphere as analyzed by Viking.[6] These trapped gases provided direct evidence for a Martian origin. In 2000, an article by Treiman, Gleason and Bogard gave a survey of all the arguments used to conclude the SNC meteorites (of which 14 had been found at the time) were from Mars. They wrote, "There seems little likelihood that the SNCs are not from Mars. If they were from another planetary body, it would have to be substantially identical to Mars as it now is understood."[3]
|
[
"A Martian meteorite is a rock that formed on the planet Mars and was then ejected from Mars by the impact of an asteroid or comet, and finally landed on the Earth. Of over 61,000 meteorites that have been found on Earth, 224 were identified as Martian . These meteorites are thought to be from Mars because they have elemental and isotopic compositions that are similar to rocks and atmosphere gases analyzed by spacecraft on Mars. In October 2013, NASA confirmed, based on analysis of argon in the Martian atmosphere by the Mars Curiosity rover, that certain meteorites found on Earth thought to be from Mars were indeed from Mars.\n",
"As of 2018, there are 117 known Martian meteorites (some of which were found in several fragments). These are valuable because they are the only physical samples of Mars available to Earth-bound laboratories. Some researchers have argued that microscopic morphological features found in ALH84001 are biomorphs, however this interpretation has been highly controversial and is not supported by the majority of researchers in the field.\n",
"The meteorite fragments were recovered within days after the fall, so it is considered an \"uncontaminated\" meteorite. The meteorite displays evidence of water weathering, and there are signs of elements being carried into cracks in the rocks by water or fluid, which is something never seen before in a Martian meteorite. Specifically, scientists found carbon and nitrogen-containing compounds associated with hydrothermal mineral inclusions. One team reported measuring an elevated carbon-13 (C) ratio, while another team reported a low C ratio as compared to the content in Mars' atmosphere and crust, and suggested that it may be of biological origin, but the researchers also noted that there a several geological processes that could explain that without invoking complex life-processes; for example, it could be of meteoritic origin and would have been mixed with Martian soil when meteorites and comets impact the surface of Mars, or of volcanic origin.\n",
"Of the over 53,000 meteorites that have been found on Earth just 99 had been identified as Martian . On 17 October 2013, NASA reported, based on analysis of argon in the Martian atmosphere by the Mars \"Curiosity\" rover, that certain meteorites found on Earth thought to be from Mars, were actually from Mars. The list does \"not\" include meteorites found on Mars by the various rovers.\n",
"EETA 79001 has been shown to originate from the Martian interior, so holds great importance because of the clues it can provide about the composition and evolution of Mars. It was the first sample that provided conclusive evidence of an origin from Mars. The idea of meteorites ejected from other planets was at first not popular with scientists, as they believed such an impact would completely melt the ejected debris, EETA 79001 showed that while some portion is likely melted from impact, original rock crystals can survive the process. This meteorite is one of only 99 known meteorites discovered on earth, of Martian origin. \n",
"A number of meteorites thought to have originated from Mars have been catalogued from around the world, including the Nakhlites. These are considered to have been ejected by the impact of another large body colliding with the Martian surface. They then travelled through the solar system for an unknown period before penetrating the Earth's atmosphere.\n",
"The meteorite is classified as a shergottite and is primarily basaltic in composition. EETA 79001 is the second largest Martian meteorite found on earth, at approximately 7900 grams, only the Zagami meteorite is larger. It is a very young rock, by geologic standards, dating to only about 180 million years ago, and was ejected from the Martian surface about 600 thousand years ago.\n"
] |
after the initial sleepiness feeling, why do we suddenly feel more alert after a few hours pass your normal sleeping time before you suddenly feel lethargic and sleepy again?
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A certain sleep writer suggests it's because there is a metabolitic release timed to coincide with the early part of sleep intended to for the heavy lifting your lymphatic and endocrine systems will do in the early part of sleep. Apparently this is the "second wind" we feel at approximately 10pm, and being asleep at this point results in higher quality sleep.
This is the only thing I've come up with on the topic so far. It seams reasonable that one's body would benefit from a release of energy for homonal/repair/immune function that does happen during sleep; however, I traced the reference chain back finally back to an Ayurvedic medicine writer, and haven't found any peer-reviewed empirical research on the topic (yet), so I think the jury is still out on this one.
|
[
"Disrupted sleep patterns are characteristic of Smith–Magenis syndrome, typically beginning early in life. Affected people may be very sleepy during the day, but have trouble falling asleep and awaken several times each night, due to an inverted circadian rhythm of melatonin.\n",
"Diagnosing sleep apnea usually requires a professional sleep study performed in a sleep clinic, because the episodes of wakefulness caused by the disorder are extremely brief and patients usually do not remember experiencing them. Instead, many patients simply feel tired after getting several hours of sleep and have no idea why. Major risk factors for sleep apnea include chronic fatigue, old age, obesity and snoring.\n",
"Finally, on the opposite end of the spectrum, other patients may report feeling that they have slept much longer than is observed. It has been proposed that this experience be subclassified under sleep state misperception as \"positive sleep state misperception\", \"reverse sleep state misperception\", and \"negative sleep state misperception\".\n",
"People with the disorder may have an especially hard time adjusting to changes in \"regular\" sleep–wake cycles, such as vacations, stress, evening activities, time changes like daylight saving time, travel to different time zones, illness, medications (especially stimulants or sedatives), changes in daylight hours in different seasons, and growth spurts, which are typically known to cause fatigue. They also show lower sleep propensity after total sleep deprivation than do normal sleepers.\n",
"Circadian rhythm effects describe the tendency for humans to experience a normal cycle in attentiveness and sleepiness through the 24-hour day. Those with a conventional sleep pattern (sleeping for seven or eight hours at night) experience periods of maximum fatigue in the early hours of the morning and a lesser period in the early afternoon. During the low points of this cycle, one experiences reduced attentiveness. During the high points, it is difficult to sleep soundly. The cycle is anchored in part by ambient lighting (darkness causes a person's body to release the hormone melatonin, which induces sleep), and by a person's imposed pattern of regular sleeping and waking times. The influence of the day-night cycle is never fully displaced (standard artificial lighting is not strong enough to inhibit the release of melatonin), and the performance of night shift workers usually suffers. Circadian rhythms are persistent, and can only be shifted by one to two hours forward or backward per day. Changing the starting time of a work shift by more than these amounts will reduce attentiveness, which is common after the first night shift following a \"weekend\" break during which conventional sleep times were followed.\n",
"Occasionally, late at night, while trying to sleep and failing, people experience an anxiety of existence, they are aware of their entire body, the entire world, and the whole of reality itself. It's like waking from a dream, or a light going on, or a giant \"\"You are here\"\" sign appearing in the sky. The mere fact that I'm actually real and actually breathing suddenly hits me in the head with a thwack. It leaves me giddy. It causes a brief surge of clammy, bubbling anxiety, like the opening stages of a panic attack. The moment soon passes, but while it lasts it's strangely terrifying.\n",
"Individuals with the delayed sleep phase type of the disorder exhibit habitually late sleep hours and an inability to change their sleeping schedule consistently. They often show sleepiness during the desired wake period of their days. Their actual phase of sleep is normal. Once they fall asleep, they stay asleep for a normal period of time, albeit a period of time that starts and stops at an abnormally late time.\n"
] |
why do fermented foods turn into alcohol and cause intoxication?
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Yeast. Yeast is a microscopic fungi that is intentionally added to the process of making alcoholic drinks. It consumes the sugars, and excrete alcohol. As the alcohol content rises, the yeast dies off. They also produce CO2, which is why beer is carbonated (at least traditionally, now its added)
So beer is essentially fungal shit
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[
"Several species of the benign bacteria in the intestine use fermentation as a form of anaerobic metabolism. This metabolic reaction produces ethanol as a waste product. Thus, human bodies contain some quantity of alcohol endogenously produced by these bacteria. In rare cases, this can be sufficient to cause \"auto-brewery syndrome\" in which intoxicating quantities of alcohol are produced.\n",
"Fermentation is the microbial conversion of starch and sugars into alcohol. Not only can fermentation produce alcohol, but it can also be a valuable preservation technique. Fermentation can also make foods more nutritious and palatable. For example, drinking water in the Middle Ages was dangerous because it often contained pathogens that could spread disease. When the water is made into beer, the boiling during the brewing process kills any bacteria in the water that could make people sick. Additionally, the water now has the nutrients from the barley and other ingredients, and the microorganisms can also produce vitamins as they ferment.\n",
"_Fermentation is a reaction where sugar can be converted into a gas, alcohols or acids. _Microorganisms like yeast and bacteria are used to massively produce the many things. Drinking alcohol also known as ethanol is produced by yeast and bacteria.\n",
"Unlike other tequila production steps, fermentation is one of the few steps out of the control of human beings. Fermentation is the conversion of sugars and carbohydrates to alcohol through yeast in anerobic conditions, meaning that oxygen is not present during the process. Fermentation is also carried out in a non-aseptic environment which increases the bacterial activity of tequila. The participation of microorganisms from the environment (yeasts and bacteria) makes fermentation a spontaneous process which gives rise to many byproducts that contribute to the flavor and aroma of tequila.\n",
"Liebig formulated his own theory claiming that the production of alcohol was not a biological process but a chemical process, discrediting the idea that fermentation could occur due to microscopic organisms. He believed that vibrations emanating from the decomposition of organic matter would spread to the sugar resulting in the production of solely carbon dioxide and alcohol.\n",
"Ethanol fermentation, also called alcoholic fermentation, is a biological process which converts sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose into cellular energy, producing ethanol and carbon dioxide as by-products. Because yeasts perform this conversion in the absence of oxygen, alcoholic fermentation is considered an anaerobic process. It also takes place in some species of fish (including goldfish and carp) where (along with lactic acid fermentation) it provides energy when oxygen is scarce.\n",
"In yeast and many bacteria, alcohol dehydrogenase plays an important part in fermentation: Pyruvate resulting from glycolysis is converted to acetaldehyde and carbon dioxide, and the acetaldehyde is then reduced to ethanol by an alcohol dehydrogenase called ADH1. The purpose of this latter step is the regeneration of NAD, so that the energy-generating glycolysis can continue. Humans exploit this process to produce alcoholic beverages, by letting yeast ferment various fruits or grains. Yeast can produce and consume their own alcohol.\n"
] |
Were places like New Jersey, New York, New South Wales, etc. so named because of a resemblance in climate/topography to Jersey, York, Wales, etc., or because the original settlers were from those regions of the British Isles?
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New Jersey was so named because the land it encompasses was an award from the King Charles II to Sir George Cartalet for his loyalty during the English Civil War. Sir Goerge was both originally born on the isle of Jersey and served as a governor there, so the land was eventually renamed, in his honor, by the Duke of York as "New Jersey".
So, in the case of New Jersey, it seems to be the latter.
Source: [Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 09](_URL_0_)
EDIT - Just found my book on Scottish colonialism to confirm: Nova Scotia (Latin for New Scotland) was so named because while originally settled by the French and called a different name, it was eventually taken over by Scotland, which was technically a separate kingdom at the time of settlement, and renamed.
Source: [The Scottish Empire, Michael Fry](_URL_1_)
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[
"The region of New England in the United States has numerous place names derived from the indigenous peoples of the area. New England is in the Northeastern United States, and comprises six states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Listed are well-known names of towns, significant bodies of water, and mountains. This list can virtually never be sufficiently completed as there are hundreds of thousands of place names in New England.\n",
"Some towns of New York and areas of New York City, once part of the colony of New Netherland have names of Dutch origin, such as Brooklyn (after Breukelen), Flushing (after Vlissingen), the Bowery (after Bouwerij, construction site), Harlem (after Haarlem), Coney Island (from Conyne Eylandt, modern Dutch spelling Konijneneiland: Rabbit island) and Staten Island (meaning \"Island of the States\"). The last Director-General of the colony of New Netherland, Pieter Stuyvesant, has bequeathed his name to a street, a neighborhood and a few schools in New York City, and the town of Stuyvesant. Many of the towns and cities along the Hudson in upstate New York have placenames with Dutch origins (for example Yonkers, Hoboken, Haverstraw, Newburgh, Staatsburg, Catskill, Kinderhook, Coeymans, Rensselaer, Watervliet). Nassau County, one of the four that make up Long Island, is also of Dutch origin. The Schuylkill river that flows into the Delaware at Philadelphia is also a Dutch name meaning hidden or skulking river.\n",
"Ever since the settling of New Netherland in the 1600s, comprising what is now the Gateway Region of northeastern New Jersey as well as portions of Downstate New York in the New York City metropolitan area, the Dutch and British, along with German and Irish Americans, have established an integral role in the subsequent long-term development of Jersey City over the centuries.\n",
"During the 17th century, colonists from the Southern Netherlands (the area of modern-day Belgium) lived in several of the Thirteen Colonies of North America. Settlements already existed in New York — in Wallabout (Brooklyn), on Long Island and Staten Island—and New Jersey (Hoboken, Jersey City, Pavonia, Communipaw, and Wallkill). Later, other settlers moved into the Middle States. Many names are derived from the Walloon reformed immigrants who settled there and the Dutch versions of Walloon words used to describe a locale. There were also Southern Netherlands colonies in Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania established primarily by Walloons, many of whom arrived with the Dutch West India Company (founded by Willem Usselincx, a Fleming).\n",
"By 1785 enough settlers had arrived from Nantucket and Rhode Island that they were able to incorporate as a city, the first in New York since independence and the third in the state. They set aside the high ground today known as Promenade Hill overlooking the water at the district's west end as a \"Parade\", an open leisure ground for the citizens. Some disassembled their New England houses and reconstructed them on the lots they had divided their land into.\n",
"Because New England has never had a formal identity, its claimed boundaries have varied with time. In broad terms, it covers the humid coastal strip including the Hunter Region to the Queensland border, the New England Tablelands and the immediately adjoining Western Slopes and Plains.\n",
"Ever since the settling of New Netherland in the 1600s, comprising what is now the Gateway Region of northeastern New Jersey as well as portions of Downstate New York in the New York City metropolitan area, the Dutch and British, along with German and Irish Americans, have established an integral role in the subsequent long-term development of Hudson County over the centuries.\n"
] |
What aspects of a speaker determine it's max volume?
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Two things can go wrong with a speaker.
The coil can push the cone too hard and it rips. This happens a lot with older paper speakers.
You can put too much electricity through the coil (a little transformer) and burn it out.
The volume produced is (sort of) the diameter of the cone times the travel in and out. That tells how much air it will move.
Also, some speakers are more efficient than others. If you use a lighter weight Mylar cone, it takes less electrical power to move the cone than a heavy paper one, and you can move more air.
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[
"Due to the reactive nature of a speaker's impedance over the audio band frequencies, giving a speaker a single value for 'impedance' rating is in principle impossible, as one may surmise from the impedance vs. frequency curve above. The nominal impedance of a loudspeaker is a convenient, single number reference that loosely describes the impedance value of the loudspeaker over a majority of the audio band. A speaker's nominal impedance is defined as:\n",
"Like perceived loudness, speaker sensitivity also varies with frequency and power. The sensitivity is measured at 1 watt to minimize nonlinear effects such as power compression and harmonic distortion, and averaged over the usable bandwidth. The bandwidth is often specified between the measured '+/-3 dB' cutoff frequencies where the relative loudness becomes attenuated from the peak loudness by at least 6 dB. Some speaker manufacturers use '+3 dB/-6 dB' instead, to take into account the real-world in-room response of a speaker at frequency extremes where the floor/wall/ceiling boundaries may increase the perceived loudness.\n",
"The relationship between perceived volume (loudness) and power output in watts of an amplifier is not a linear relationship. The human ear perceives a 50-watt amplifier as only twice as loud as a five-watt amplifier, despite a tenfold increase in power in watts. Doubling the power of an amplifier results in a \"just noticeable\" increase in volume, so a 100-watt amplifier is only slightly louder than a 50-watt amplifier. In addition is the human ear's tendency to behave as a natural audio compressor at high volumes.\n",
"The impedance of a loudspeaker is not constant across all frequencies. In a typical loudspeaker the impedance will rise with increasing frequency from its DC value, as shown in the diagram, until it reaches a point of its mechanical resonance. Following resonance, the impedance falls to a minimum and then begins to rise again. Speakers are usually designed to operate at frequencies above their resonance, and for this reason it is the usual practice to define nominal impedance at this minimum and then round to the nearest standard value. The ratio of the peak resonant frequency to the nominal impedance can be as much as 4:1. It is, however, still perfectly possible for the low frequency impedance to actually be lower than the nominal impedance. A given audio amplifier may not be capable of driving this low frequency impedance even though it is capable of driving the nominal impedance, a problem that can be solved either with the use of crossover filters or underrating the amplifier supplied.\n",
"Some manufacturers also list \"peak power,\" \"maximum power\" (\"max power\"), or \"burst power\". Peak power is the power-handling ability of the speaker for very short bursts of high-wattage signal. The RMS figure is much more important than the \"peak power\" or \"max power\" figure. Some manufacturers state the \"program power\" capabilities of their speaker cabinet, which can be a vague and less defined term. \n",
"Hearing level is the sound pressure level produced by an audiometer at a specific frequency. It is measured in decibels with reference to audiometric zero. Hearing of speech is considered to be impaired when the hearing level is shifted 25 dB or more.\n",
"In loudspeakers, thermal capacities of the voice coils and magnet structures largely determine continuous power handling ratings. However, at the lower end of a loudspeaker's usable frequency range, its power handling might necessarily be derated because of mechanical excursion limits. For example, a subwoofer rated at 100 watts may be able to handle 100 watts of power at 80 hertz, but at 25 hertz it might not be able to handle nearly as much power since such frequencies would, for some drivers in some enclosures, force the driver beyond its mechanical limits much before reaching 100 watts from the amplifier.\n"
] |
what makes elements perform ionic and covalent bonds?(x-post from askscience)
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Ionic bonds are a bit easier to visualize I think. You can sort think about it this way: Atoms are composed of a nucleus with protons and a bunch of electrons. Each proton carries a positive charge and each electron carries a negative charge. Like the poles on a magnet, the positively and negatively charged particles attract each other, and if an atom has the same number of protons and electrons, they balance out and the atom has no charge overall.
It turns out that atoms kind of store their electrons in a set of bags, where each bag holds a certain number of electrons. The first bag holds two, the next one holds eight, the next one holds 18, etc.
The atoms on the left hand side of the periodic table have juuusstt too many electrons to fit evenly in their bags. Take sodium, for instance, with 11 protons and electrons. The sodium atom puts its first two electrons in the first bag, the next eight into the second bag, but it only has one electron remaining for the last bag, which is designed to hold 18 electrons. Now sodium doesn't necessarily want to expel that last electron, but if someone else comes along that might want an extra electron, sodium wouldn't feel too bad about giving it away, because then it would only need 2 bags instead of carrying around a whole third bag with only a single electron in it.
Along comes chlorine with 17 protons and electrons. We can do the same kind of analysis and find that it has 2 electrons in its first bag, 8 in next, and 7 in its last bag. Even the though the last bag can hold a total of 18 electrons, it turns out that 8 is also a pretty even number that fits in the last bag, so if chlorine had one more electron, it would be happy. When sodium and chlorine meet, sodium gives its awkward electron to chlorine. After the exchange, sodium becomes positively charged because it lost its electron, and chlorine becomes negatively charged. The oppositely charged sodium and chlorine attract each other and form an ionic bond and become Sodium Chloride (NaCl), or common table salt.
Also, regarding your question about if you'd get water if you massaged oxygen and hydrogen together... Typically, if you have pure hydrogen or oxygen, they exist as hydrogen gas molecules composed of 2 hydrogen atoms, and oxygen gas molecules, also composed of 2 oxygen atoms. Say you mix the two gasses together in a room at room temperature. In this case, not much would happen. This is because the hydrogens are lazily happy on their own bonded to each other, and the oxygen as well. Sure, the hydrogen would _rather_ be bonded to the oxygen, but at such a low temperature, they're too lazy to do anything about it. If there should happen to be a spark though, the hydrogen and oxygen close to the spark might get just enough energy to change from hydrogen and oxygen gas into water vapor. When that happens, it turns out that energy is released by the atoms as they exchange in the form of heat and light. The released heat and light might cause other neighboring hydrogens and oxygens to bond, too, causing a very fast chain reaction throughout the room. The resulting heat and light from the gigantic chain reaction would cause a hindenburg explosion in your room, after which you'd have water vapor. Like this: _URL_0_
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[
"Going down the above table, there is a transition from covalent bonding (with discrete molecules) to ionic bonding; going across the table, there is a transition from ionic bonding to metallic bonding. (Covalent bonding occurs when both elements have similar high electronegativities; ionic bonding occurs when the two elements have very different electronegativities, one low and the other high; metallic bonding occurs when both elements have similar low electronegativities.) For example, in the leftmost column of the table (with bonds to oxygen), O and O are purely covalent, SO and SO are polar molecules, SeO forms chained polymers (stretching in one dimension), TeO forms layered polymers (stretching in two dimensions), and PoO is ionic with the fluorite structure (spatial polymers, stretching in three dimensions); in the bottom row of the table (with bonds to polonium), PoO and PoS are ionic, PoSe and PoTe are semimetallic, and Po is metallic.\n",
"An important consideration is that compounds in the lower oxidation state are ionic, whereas the compounds in the higher oxidation state tend to be covalent. Therefore, covalency effects must also be taken into account. In fact an alternative explanation of the inert pair effect by Drago in 1958 attributed the effect to low M-X bond enthalpies for the heavy p-block elements and the fact that it requires less energy to oxidize an element to a low oxidation state than to a higher oxidation state. This energy has to be supplied by ionic or covalent bonds, so if bonding to a particular element is weak, the high oxidation state may be inaccessible. Further work involving relativistic effects confirms this. In view of this it has been suggested that the term inert pair effect should be viewed as a description rather than as an explanation.\n",
"If the electronic structure of the two interacting bodies is affected by the presence of one another, covalent interactions (non-ionic) also contribute to the overall energy of the compound formed. Ionic compounds are rarely purely ionic, i.e. held together only by electrostatic forces. The bonds between even the most electronegative/electropositive pairs such as those in caesium fluoride exhibit a small degree of covalency. Conversely, covalent bonds between unlike atoms often exhibit some charge separation and can be considered to have a partial ionic character. The circumstances under which a compound will have ionic or covalent character can typically be understood using Fajans' rules, which use only charges and the sizes of each ion. According to these rules, compounds with the most ionic character will have large positive ions with a low charge, bonded to a small negative ion with a high charge. More generally HSAB theory can be applied, whereby the compounds with the most ionic character are those consisting of hard acids and hard bases: small, highly charged ions with a high difference in electronegativities between the anion and cation. This difference in electronegativities means that the charge separation, and resulting dipole moment, is maintained even when the ions are in contact (the excess electrons on the anions are not transferred or polarized to neutralize the cations).\n",
"Ionic bonding can result from a redox reaction when atoms of an element (usually metal), whose ionization energy is low, give some of their electrons to achieve a stable electron configuration. In doing so, cations are formed. An atom of another element (usually nonmetal) with greater electron affinity accepts the electron(s) to attain a stable electron configuration, and after accepting electron(s) an atom becomes an anion. Typically, the stable electron configuration is one of the noble gases for elements in the s-block and the p-block, and particular stable electron configurations for d-block and f-block elements. The electrostatic attraction between the anions and cations leads to the formation of a solid with a crystallographic lattice in which the ions are stacked in an alternating fashion. In such a lattice, it is usually not possible to distinguish discrete molecular units, so that the compounds formed are not molecular in nature. However, the ions themselves can be complex and form molecular ions like the acetate anion or the ammonium cation.\n",
"Covalent and ionic bonding form a continuum, with ionic character increasing with increasing difference in the electronegativity of the participating atoms. Covalent bonding corresponds to sharing of a pair of electrons between two atoms of essentially equal electronegativity (for example, C–C and C–H bonds in aliphatic hydrocarbons). As bonds become more polar, they become increasingly ionic in character. Metal oxides vary along the iono-covalent spectrum. The Si–O bonds in quartz, for example, are polar yet largely covalent, and are considered to be of mixed character.\n",
"It is important to recognize that \"clean\" ionic bonding – in which one atom or molecule completely transfers an electron to another cannot exist: all ionic compounds have some degree of covalent bonding, or electron sharing. Thus, the term \"ionic bonding\" is given when the ionic character is greater than the covalent character – that is, a bond in which a large electronegativity difference exists between the two atoms, causing the bonding to be more polar (ionic) than in covalent bonding where electrons are shared more equally. Bonds with partially ionic and partially covalent character are called polar covalent bonds. \n",
"Allred used the Pauling method to calculate separate electronegativities for different oxidation states of the handful of elements (including tin and lead) for which sufficient data was available. However, for most elements, there are not enough different covalent compounds for which bond dissociation energies are known to make this approach feasible. This is particularly true of the transition elements, where quoted electronegativity values are usually, of necessity, averages over several different oxidation states and where trends in electronegativity are harder to see as a result.\n"
] |
What did people do before coffee?
|
A similar question was asked about a month ago. You will find somewhat relevant answers in the comments.
[Did the Ancient Romans have their own version of a "cup of coffee"? by which I mean a mild stimulant they would have used on a daily basis](_URL_0_)
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[
"The history of coffee dates back to the 15th century, and possibly earlier with a number of reports and legends surrounding its first use. The native (undomesticated) origin of coffee is thought to have been Ethiopia.The earliest substantiated evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree is from the early 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen, spreading soon to Mecca and Cairo. By the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, South India (Karnataka), Persia, Turkey, the Horn of Africa, and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to the Balkans, Italy, and to the rest of Europe, as well as Southeast Asia and then to America, despite bans imposed during the 15th century by religious leaders in Mecca and Cairo, and later by the Catholic Church.\n",
"The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee plant appears in the middle of the fifteenth century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. From Mocha, coffee spread to Egypt and North Africa, and by the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia and Turkey. From the Middle East, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, and coffee plants were transported by the Dutch to the East Indies and to the Americas.\n",
"The heritage of coffee grown all around the world can be found in the forests of Ethiopia, where the theory of its origins also resides. According to local legend, a goat herder named Kaldi saw his goats eating coffee \"berries\". This caused them to gain extreme amounts of energy, preventing them from sleeping at night. He brought this information to local monks, who created a drink with the coffee beans. One monk who drank the concoction found that it allowed him to stay up all night and pray. As this information spread to other Ethiopian monks, it began to spread across the civilized world.\n",
"The Birth of Coffee is a project created by The Image Expedition, a not-for-profit organization \"designed to photographically document and preserve ancient places and indigenous ways of life that, with the passage of time, might otherwise be lost forever... it is global visual artifact gathering.\"\n",
"The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century in the accounts of Ahmed al-Ghaffar in Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is prepared now. Coffee was used by Sufi circles to stay awake for their religious rituals. Accounts differ on the origin of the coffee plant prior to its appearance in Yemen. From Ethiopia, coffee could have been introduced to Yemen via trade across the Red Sea. One account credits Muhammad Ibn Sa'd for bringing the beverage to Aden from the African coast. Other early accounts say Ali ben Omar of the Shadhili Sufi order was the first to introduce coffee to Arabia. According to al Shardi, Ali ben Omar may have encountered coffee during his stay with the Adal king Sadadin's companions in 1401. Famous 16th-century Islamic scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami notes in his writings of a beverage called qahwa developed from a tree in the Zeila region. Coffee was first exported out of Ethiopia to Yemen by Somali merchants from Berbera. In addition, Mocha, which was the centre of the coffee trade for much of the early modern era, obtained most of their coffee from Somali merchants based in Berbera.\n",
"It seems that the Jesuits were the first to introduce seeds of coffee in the \"\"Nueva Granada\"\" (today Colombia) by the year 1723. The first experiments in growing coffee in Colombia are recorded in the 18th century. Although some coffee plantations were initiated during the first half of the 19th century, it was not until the second half of the Century that the coffee industry was consolidated as an economic generator of employment, wealth, and hard currencies.\n",
"BULLET::::- Coffee: Stories exist of coffee originating in Ethiopia, but the earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of the Yemen in southern Arabia. It was in Yemen that coffee beans were first roasted and brewed as they are today. From Mocha, coffee spread to Egypt and North Africa, and by the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia and Turkey. From the Muslim world, coffee drinking spread to Italy, then to the rest of Europe, and coffee plants were transported by the Dutch to the East Indies and to the Americas.\n"
] |
What equipment would ancient Romans use against armoured opponents? ~107BC-395AD
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Standard fighting equipment for a post-Marian legionnaire was the gladius, pilum, pugio, scutum, galea, and some sort of body armor, either the lorica squamata, lorica hamata, or, mainly imperial, lorica segmentata. This profile rarely if ever changed in any meaningful way, whether fighting naked Britons or Parthian horse-archers or perfumed Egyptians or other Romans legions. This changes in Late Antiquity, when we start to see specialized units, but in your period specialized forces would always be auxiliaries.
Your focus on [weapon type] effective against [protection type] is mostly a modern construction. The vast majority of casualties in an ancient battle happened after a side broke and fled. Ancient battles were much more about maneuvering, positioning, and maintaining morale rather than inflicting damage to combatants along the line of battle. Casualties were incidental to those three, and killing blows often the consequence of an injury unrelated to body armor (like taking a *tragula* through an exposed thigh at twenty meters, or going down with a sprained ankle in the push).
You should also not discount the gladius. It was a vicious, versatile weapon, and the legionnaire treated it like a tool. Gladius, shovel, wooden stake. Its tapered point made it a sturdy puncturing weapon as much as a slasher, and with the force of a thrust, it was more than enough to push through the weakpoint of a lorica hamata or the joint of a lorica segmentata. The hilt design was intended to help transfer force to a thrust attack in this way.
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[
"Siege warfare gave the Roman army significant offensive advantages over their enemies. Though the catapult was developed in ancient Greece, the Romans were able to replace the traditional Greek catapult made of wood making the most stressed components out of iron or bronze. This allowed for a reduction in size and also the ability to increase the stress levels to provide more power. Since a detailed understanding of mathematics and mechanics was required to design the catapult, it stands as a prime example of cooperation between ancient science and technology. Additional knowledge in topics like metallurgy and machine design helped to improve the performance of catapults. One example is the addition of machine elements like springs and copper bearings. It was known that the size of the catapult's components should be proportional to the weight of its intended projectile. As a result, tables relating standard part sizes and common projectile weights were assembled, which drastically increased the efficiency and production rate of catapults. The Roman catapult could be moved and operated by a single soldier, which allowed a more efficient use of soldiers and resources. These machines were torsion-powered and most were used to launch large spherical or dart-like projectiles. However, more creative options were often used. These included poisonous snakes, jars of bees, and dead bodies that were infected with diseases like the plague. The catapult was versatile, and could effectively launch any projectile that fit in its launch bucket. The Romans also developed an automatic repeating catapult called the scorpion. This was smaller than other catapults but had more moving parts. The rope coils were often made of twisted bovine sinews, horsehair or women's hair. The kinetic power delivered by a catapult was dependent on the diameter of these coils, making the coil diameter the dimensional standard for power rating. This would be similar to how the caliber system is used in modern firearms.\n",
"The Romans adopted elaborate defensive armor from Persia, coats of mail, cuirasses, casques and greaves of steel for tagma of elite heavy cavalrymen called cataphracts, who were armed with bow and arrows as well as sword and lance.\n",
"Rome's forces used typical Roman equipment including \"pila\" (heavy javelins) and \"hastae\" (thrusting spears) as weapons as well as traditional bronze helmets, bodyshields and body armor. On the other hand, the Carthaginian army used a variety of equipment. The Iberians fought with falcatas, while Celtiberians and Lusitanians would use straight gladii, as well as javelins and various types of spears. For defense, warriors from Hispania carried large oval shields and often wore a crested helmet made of animal sinews. Most Gallic foot warriors likely had no protection other than large shields, and the typical Gallic weapon was a long slashing sword. The Numidian cavalry were very lightly equipped, lacking saddles and bridles for their horses, and wearing no armor but carrying small shields, javelins and possibly a knife or a longer blade. In contrast, the heavier Iberian peninsular cavalry carried round shields, swords, javelins and thrusting spears. The similarly heavy Gallic cavalry added the four-horned saddle, with the wealthier ones being clad in mail, a Gallic invention. Skirmishers acting as light infantry carried either slings or javelins. The Balearic slingers, who were famous for their accuracy, carried short, medium and long slings used to cast stones or bullets. They may have carried a small shield or simple leather pelt on their arms, but this is uncertain. Hannibal himself, like many Roman officers on the opposing side, might have been wearing a bronze \"musculata\" and carrying a \n",
"The Barbarian tribes that the Romans encountered north of the Alps did include iron war axes in their armories, alongside swords and spears. The Cantabri from the Iberian peninsula also used battle axes.\n",
"BULLET::::- Roman military equipment (cf. Roman military personal equipment), particularly armor, was more withstanding and far more ubiquitous, especially in the late Republican and Early Imperial era, than that of most of their opponents. Soldiers equipped with shields, helmets and highly effective body armor had a major advantage over warriors protected, in many cases, with nothing other than their shields, particularly in a prolonged engagement.\n",
"The Romans started to use catapults as arms for their wars against Syracuse, Macedon, Sparta and Aetolia (3rd and 2nd centuries BC). The Roman machine known as an arcuballista was similar to a large crossbow. Later the Romans used ballista catapults on their warships.\n",
"Using the falx, the Dacian warriors were able to counter the power of the compact, massed Roman formations. During the time of the Roman conquest of Dacia (101 - 102, 105 - 106), legionaries had reinforcing iron straps applied to their helmets. The Romans also introduced the use of leg and arm protectors (greaves and manica) as further protection against the falxes.\n"
] |
why was black and white photography very high resolution at it's peak, but soon after when color photography was introduced, it was very bad quality?
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Black and White film has one emulsion, color film has three emulsions (RGB).
According to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_):
> Photographic emulsion is a fine suspension of insoluble light-sensitive crystals in a colloid sol, usually consisting of gelatin. The light-sensitive component is one or a mixture of silver halides: silver bromide, chloride and iodide. The gelatin is used as a permeable binder, allowing processing agents (e.g., developer, fixer, toners, etc.) in aqueous solution to enter the colloid without dislodging the crystals. Other polymer macromolecules are often blended,[citation needed] but gelatin has not been entirely replaced. The light-exposed crystals are reduced by the developer to black metallic silver particles that form the image. Colour films and papers have multiple layers of emulsion, made sensitive to different parts of the visible spectrum by different colour sensitizers, and incorporating different dye couplers which produce superimposed yellow, magenta and cyan dye images during development. Panchromatic black-and-white film also includes colour sensitizers, but as part of a single emulsion layer.
> Most modern emulsions are "washed" to remove some of the reaction byproducts (potassium nitrate and excess salts). The "washing" or desalting step can be performed by ultrafiltration, dialysis, coagulation (using acylated gelatin), or a classic noodle washing method. Emulsion making also incorporates steps to increase sensitivity by using chemical sensitizing agents and sensitizing dyes.
The number of emulsions affects the quality and the volume of byproducts that had to be removed.
|
[
"This made photography much more useful to science, allowed a more satisfactory rendering of colored subjects into black-and-white, and brought actual color photography into the realm of the practical.\n",
"However, even if both techniques have inherent noise, it is widely appreciated that for color, digital photography has much less noise/grain than film at equivalent sensitivity, leading to an edge in image quality. For black-and-white photography, grain takes a more positive role in image quality, and such comparisons are less valid.\n",
"Despite greater availability of color film after WWII during the next several decades, it remained much more expensive than black-and-white and required much more light, factors which combined the greater cost of processing and printing delayed its widespread adoption. Decreasing cost, increasing sensitivity and standardised processing gradually overcame these impediments. By the 1970s, color film predominated in the consumer market, while the use of black-and-white film was increasingly confined to photojournalism and fine art photography.\n",
"After the advent of motion pictures, a tremendous amount of energy was invested in the production of photography in natural color. The invention of the talking picture further increased the demand for the use of color photography. However, in comparison to other technological advances of the time, the arrival of color photography was a relatively slow process.\n",
"With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.\n",
"The process of splitting the image reduced the amount of light reaching the film stock. Since the film speed of the stocks used were fairly slow, early Technicolor productions required a greater amount of lighting than a black-and-white production. It is reported that temperatures on the film set of \"The Wizard of Oz\" from the hot studio lights frequently exceeded 100 °F (38 °C), and some of the more heavily costumed characters required a large water intake. Some actors and actresses claimed to have suffered permanent eye damage from the high levels of illumination.\n",
"Originally, all photography was monochrome, or \"black-and-white\". Even after color film was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades, due to its lower cost and its \"classic\" photographic look. The tones and contrast between light and dark areas define black-and-white photography. It is important to note that monochromatic pictures are not necessarily composed of pure blacks, whites, and intermediate shades of gray but can involve shades of one particular hue depending on the process. The cyanotype process, for example, produces an image composed of blue tones. The albumen print process first used more than years ago, produces brownish tones.\n"
] |
How can a layman tell how reliable a source is?
|
I tell my students to start with a Google of the author. Is s/he affiliated with a university? With a think tank? NGO? Each of these will have differing goals in publishing, and you need to weigh them when considering a source.
Then read her/his CV, paying attention to what has been published and in which journals. Is the author publishing stuff in the *Journal of American History?* If so, probably reliable. Is the author publishing stuff in the *Journal of Crazy Conspiracy Theories?* If so, maybe not as reliable.
Is the book published by an academic press (University of Somewhere You've Heard Of Press, etc.?) If so, it has most likely gone thru a pretty rigorous peer-review process. That doesn't guarantee a good book, but it does mean that at least a few people think it's probably OK.
Thumb thru the citations. By itself, footnoting doesn't mean anything. Heck, I can cite Phil Foner all day, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Are the footnotes citing someone reputable? Are the notes to works that are as describes above (academic presses, solid journals, etc.?) Do the notes include historiographic discussion? (nb: historians, if allowed by a publisher, would probably write a 5000 word article with a 25000 word set of footnotes politely bashing or congratulating their colleagues.)
This list is far from exhaustive, but should give you a fair footing.
Cheers and keep reading.
|
[
"BULLET::::- Using Primary Sources as Evidence is the ability to locate, choose, understand and provide context for the past using primary sources. This approach to reading a source will be dependent on the kind of source being used and the kind of information the user is trying to find (e.g. reading to a book for factual information)\n",
"When a source is untested, \"then evaluation of the information must be done solely on its own merits, independent of its origin\". A primary source passes direct knowledge of an event to the analyst. A secondary source provides information twice removed from the original event: one observer informs another, who then relays the account to the analyst. The more numerous the steps between the information and the source, the greater the opportunity for error or distortion.\n",
"BULLET::::- Unreliability. It is difficult for a reader to evaluate the reliability and neutrality of a source they cannot identify, and the reliability of the news as a whole is reduced when it relies upon information from anonymous sources.\n",
"Notability is demonstrated using \"reliable sources\" according to the corresponding Wikipedia guideline. Reliable sources generally include mainstream news media and major academic journals, and exclude self-published sources, particularly when self-published on the internet. The foundation of this theory is that credible sources \"exercise some form of editorial control.\"\n",
"In general, the closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened. In the Bible where a variety of earlier sources have been quoted, the historian seeks to identify and date those sources used by biblical writers as the first step in evaluating their historical reliability.\n",
"In library and information sciences, secondary sources are generally regarded as those sources that summarize or add commentary to primary sources in the context of the particular information or idea under study.\n",
"In scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine their independence and reliability. In contexts such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources and that \"if none are available, it is only with great caution that [the author] may proceed to make use of secondary sources.\" Sreedharan believes that primary sources have the most direct connection to the past and that they \"speak for themselves\" in ways that cannot be captured through the filter of secondary sources.\n"
] |
If genetic testing shows Ashkenazi Jewish people have much more relation to the semitic people, where did the Khazar jews end up after the empire collapsed?
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This thread has a pretty good compilation of threads on the religion of the khazars
_URL_0_
_URL_1_
By /u/gingerkid1234
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[
"Much awareness of \"Ashkenazi Jews\" as an ethnic group stems from genetic studies of disease. Some regard these studies as exhibiting ascertainment bias which created an impression that Jews are more susceptible to genetic disease than other populations. They cite BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations becoming identified as \"Jewish mutations,\" despite there being mutations at these loci that are found in all populations. Sheila Rothman and Sherry Brandt-Rauf write: \"Our findings cast doubt on the accuracy and desirability of linking ethnic groups to genetic disease. Such linkages exaggerate genetic differences among ethnic groups and lead to unequal access to testing and therapy.\"\n",
"In an ethnic sense, an Ashkenazi Jew is one whose ancestry can be traced to the Jews who settled in Central Europe. For roughly a thousand years, the Ashkenazim were a reproductively isolated population in Europe, despite living in many countries, with little inflow or outflow from migration, conversion, or intermarriage with other groups, including other Jews. Human geneticists have argued that genetic variations have been identified that show high frequencies among Ashkenazi Jews, but not in the general European population, be they for patrilineal markers (Y-chromosome haplotypes) and for matrilineal markers (mitotypes). Since the middle of the 20th century, many Ashkenazi Jews have intermarried, both with members of other Jewish communities and with people of other nations and faiths.\n",
"While the consensus in genetic research is that the world's Jewish populations (including the Ashkenazim) share substantial genetic ancestry derived from a common Ancient Middle Eastern founder population, and that Ashkenazi Jews have no genetic ancestry attributable to Khazars, at least one study authored in this period diverges from the majority view in favor of the Khazar theory.\n",
"A study conducted in 2013 found no evidence of a Khazar origin for Ashkenazi Jews and suggested that \"Ashkenazi Jews share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations, and among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Europe and the Middle East. No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews with populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly with the populations that most closely represent the Khazar region. In this view, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate would corroborate earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region.\"\n",
"In \"The Thirteenth Tribe\" (1976) Koestler advanced a theory that Ashkenazi Jews are descended, not from the Israelites of antiquity, but from the Khazars, a Turkic people in the Caucasus that converted to Judaism in the 8th century and was later forced westwards. Koestler argued that a proof that Ashkenazi Jews have no biological connection to biblical Jews would remove the racial basis of European anti-Semitism.\n",
"A 2013 trans-genome study carried out by 30 geneticists, from 13 universities and academies, from 9 countries, assembling the largest data set available to date, for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins found no evidence of Khazar origin among Ashkenazi Jews. \"Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region\", the authors concluded. The authors found no affinity in Ashkenazim with north Caucasus populations, as well as no greater affinity in Ashkenazim to south Caucasus or Anatolian populations than that found in non-Ashkenazi Jews and non-Jewish Middle Easterners (such as Kurds, Iranians, Druze and Lebanese). The greatest affinity and shared ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews were found to be (after those with other Jewish groups from southern Europe, Syria, and North Africa) with both southern Europeans and Levantines such as Druze, Cypriot, Lebanese and Samaritan groups. \n",
"Considering Ashkenazi Jews, Atzmon (citing Behar above) states that beyond four founder mitochondrial haplogroups of possible Middle Eastern origins which comprise approximately 40% of Ashkenazi Jewish mtDNA, the remainder of the mtDNA falls into other haplogroups, many of European origin. He noted that beyond Ashkenazi Jews, \"Evidence for founder females of Middle Eastern origin has been observed in other Jewish populations based on non-overlapping mitochondrial haplotypes with coalescence times 2000 years\".\n"
] |
Books on early fascism's relationship to liberalism and socialism?
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Emilio Gentile (whose works have the additional quality of being, some times, available in an English translation) has spent a good portion of his career analyzing the early stages of the ambiguous definition of a "fascist ideology" within the environment of what he has defined "national radicalism".
His early works that focus especially on this process - *Le origini dell'ideologia fascista (1918-25)* [1975, 1996] and *Il mito dello stato nuovo dall'antigiolittismo al fascismo* [1982, 1999] - provide a good insight into the context of the transition from the ideas of the Italian liberal state to those advocating for a new, albeit often ill defined, political system. Since both are somewhat technical in their perspective, I would suggest pairing them with a general overview of Italian politics during Giolitti's age and the Great War (for instance Bosworth's), unless one is already familiar with the period.
Still with Gentile, and for additional context, his early work on *La Voce* - *Mussolini e La Voce* [1976], especially for the influence of Prezzolini's newspaper on Mussolini's (tenuous) attempts at developing his own revisionist approach to Marxism - *La Grande Italia* [1997] for the affirmation of a new sentiment of *Italianismo* during the early XX Century - *"La nostra sfida alle stelle", Futuristi in politica* [2009] for the origins and relative impact of Italian Futurism as a political formation - *Mussolini contro Lenin* [2017] for a review of Mussolini's "anti-Bolshevism" during 1917-22, mostly taken from the pages of his *Popolo d'Italia* and for an attempt at a critical examination of how Mussolini's "revolutionarism", or instinct for a national renovation, could adjust to the impact of the Bolshevik revolution.
For a more detailed coverage of Mussolini's relations with the internal currents of early fascism, and for the illustration of the traditional distinction between "party" and "movement", one should check De Felice's *Mussolini*, especially vol. 1-2-3. As well as De Felice's additional works on the relations between Mussolini, De Ambris and D'Annunzio centered around the "Fiume endeavor" (for context on the latter, one should check Alatri, P. *Nitti,D'Annunzio e la questione Adriatica*)
In more recent years, specific works have attempted to cover Mussolini's experience as a more or less prominent figure of Italian socialism and his eventual transition to revolutionary interventionism and then to "national" interventionism.
Di Scala, E. ; Gentile, E. - *Mussolini 1883-1915, Triumph and transformation of a revolutionary socialist* [2016]
For a comprehensive examination of the ongoing social and political landscape across the Great War, I would nonetheless recommend Vivarelli, R. - *Storia delle origini del Fascismo* and his *Il fallimento del liberalismo* - the latter especially more focused on the elements of weakness of the Italian liberal system. In English, but much shorter and with a different (and far more "British") perspective on Italian liberalism, Seton-Watson C. - *Italy, from liberalism to Fascism, 1870-1925* [1967].
|
[
"In the book, Goldberg argues that both modern liberalism and fascism descended from progressivism, and that before World War II, \"fascism was widely viewed as a progressive social movement with many liberal and left-wing adherents in Europe and the United States\". Goldberg writes that there was more to fascism than bigotry and genocide, and argues that those characteristics were not so much a feature of Italian fascism, but rather of German Nazism, which was allegedly forced upon the Italian fascists \"after the Nazis had invaded northern Italy and created a puppet government in Salò.\"\n",
"One issue where Fascism is in accord with liberalism is in its support of private property rights and the existence of a market economy. Although Fascism sought to \"destroy the existing political order\", it had tentatively adopted the economic elements of liberalism, but \"completely denied its philosophical principles and the intellectual and moral heritage of modernity\". Due to the economic hardships that resulted from \"War Communism\", which almost toppled the leadership of Soviet Russia in 1921, fascists in Germany and Italy followed the examples of Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP), which had endorsed \"state capitalism\" and permitted the public to trade, buy and sell for \"private profit\". Although the Bolsheviks were averse to the principles of open markets and profit, they were nonetheless forced by dire circumstances to allow \"privatization and private initiative\" that resulted in a Soviet \"mixed economy\". For fascist leaders, following the two economic pillars of Fascism — \"productionism\" and \"syndicalism\" — was more important than adhering to ideological commitments that could risk economic collapse and mass unemployment that had plagued Lenin's nationalization policies. Moreover, Fascism espoused antimaterialism, which meant that it rejected the \"rationalistic, individualistic and utilitarian heritage\" that defined the liberal-centric Age of Enlightenment.\n",
"Marxist theories of fascism have seen fascism as a form of reaction to socialism and a feature of capitalism. Several modern historians have tried to pay more attention to the economic, political and ideological differences between these two regimes than to their similarities.\n",
"While fascism denounced the mainstream internationalist and Marxist socialisms, it claimed to economically represent a type of nationalist productivist socialism that while condemning parasitical capitalism, it was willing to accommodate productivist capitalism within it. This was derived from Henri de Saint Simon, whose ideas inspired the creation of utopian socialism and influenced other ideologies, that stressed solidarity rather than class war and whose conception of productive people in the economy included both productive workers and productive bosses to challenge the influence of the aristocracy and unproductive financial speculators. Saint Simon's vision combined the traditionalist right-wing criticisms of the French Revolution combined with a left-wing belief in the need for association or collaboration of productive people in society. Whereas Marxism condemned capitalism as a system of exploitative property relations, fascism saw the nature of the control of credit and money in the contemporary capitalist system as abusive. Unlike Marxism, fascism did not see class conflict between the Marxist-defined proletariat and the bourgeoisie as a given or as an engine of historical materialism. Instead, it viewed workers and productive capitalists in common as productive people who were in conflict with parasitic elements in society including: corrupt political parties, corrupt financial capital and feeble people. Fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler spoke of the need to create a new managerial elite led by engineers and captains of industry—but free from the parasitic leadership of industries. Hitler stated that the Nazi Party supported \"bodenständigen Kapitalismus\" (\"productive capitalism\") that was based upon profit earned from one's own labour, but condemned unproductive capitalism or loan capitalism, which derived profit from speculation.\n",
"The book was at once a passionate critique of Marxism, a creative synthesis of the democratic socialist revisionism (Bernstein, Turati and Treves) and of classical Italian Liberalism (Benedetto Croce, Francisco Saverio Merlino and Gaetano Salvemini). But it contained also a shattering attack on the Stalinism of the Third International, which had, with the derisive formula of \"socialfascism\", lumped together social democracy, bourgeois liberalism and fascism. It was not surprising, therefore, when one of the most important Italian Communists, Togliatti, defined \"liberal Socialism\" \"libellous anti-socialism\" and Rosselli \"a reactionary ideologue who has nothing to do with the working class\".\n",
"There is a 1930s literature derived from debates about the continued relevance of the Marxist scheme of class-generated ideologies, even in the less reductionist version set forth in most of Karl Mannheim's \"Ideology and Utopia,\" although his essay on \"Utopia\" does envision a loss of both utopian and ideological vision. Fascism rather than communism originally posed the question, insofar as the simplification of Fascism as \"ideology\" of the capitalist class lost credibility. One current of thought took up the theme of \"mass society\" and contended that the modes of control and resistance both had little to do with the ideology concept (Emil Lederer, \"The State of Mass Society\"). Although much of this was conjoined with conservative arguments about the \"revolt of the masses,\" there was also a current that looked to pragmatic problem solving where Fascism (and increasingly Communism) could be resisted or contained. Mannheim's \"planning\" writings ambiguously fostered this trend. Daniel Bell belonged to the next generation, when ideas about the institutionalisation of intelligence in ordinary democratic political processes became more sophisticated, as in the work of \"pluralist\" political theorists like David Truman, Robert Dahl and Daniel Bell. Technocratic notions at home on the Right played little part.\n",
"In his book \"Fascism and Social Revolution\" a scathing criticism and analysis of fascism is presented with a study of the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and other countries, he called fascism a violent authoritarian, ultra nationalist, and irrational theory. In his own words: \"Fascism is antithetical to everything of substance within the liberal tradition.\"\n"
] |
Can a solar system or star get pulled into a different galaxy?
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In around four billion years our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy (Since galaxies are largely empty space with the odd solid bit - it won't be quite as violent as it might seem - probably).
Assuming that the two galaxies subsequently go on their merry ways (imagine a comet having a close pass with the sun) then it is likely that the two galaxies will exchange some mass (solar systems) during the encounter.
There are two parts of the interaction that are likely to be interesting:
1. The action of the centre of masses of the galaxies on solar systems.
2. The specific interaction when two solar system pass near each other.
Both of these types of interaction can/will disturb orbits and could lead to a solar system (or part thereof) to be pulled into a new orbit.
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[
"This galaxy is known to contain two counter-rotating populations of stars. That is, one set of stars is rotating in the opposite direction with respect to the other. One means for this to occur is by acquiring gas from an external source, which then undergoes star formation. An alternative is by a merger with a second galaxy. Neither scenario has been ruled out. The age of the lower mass, counter-rotating population is younger by about than the primary star population of the galaxy.\n",
"Just as planets can be gravitationally bound to stars, pairs of stars can orbit each other. Some binary stars are visual binaries, meaning they can be observed orbiting each other through a telescope. Some binary stars, however, are too close together to be resolved. These two stars, when viewed through a spectrometer, will show a composite spectrum: the spectrum of each star will be added together. This composite spectrum becomes easier to detect when the stars are of similar luminosity and of different spectral class.\n",
"Although objects that form part of a planetary system move, and stars rotate about their axes and orbit each other in multiple star systems, stellar proper motion is not simulated, and galaxies are at fixed locations and do not rotate.\n",
"A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large number of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a \"star cluster\" or \"galaxy\", although, broadly speaking, they are also star systems. Star systems are not to be confused with planetary systems, which include planets and similar bodies [such as comets.]\n",
"When a galaxy or a planetary system forms, its material takes the shape of a disk. Most of the material orbits and rotates in one direction. This uniformity of motion is due to the collapse of a gas cloud. The nature of the collapse is explained by the principle called conservation of angular momentum. In 2010 the discovery of several hot Jupiters with backward orbits called into question the theories about the formation of planetary systems. This can be explained by noting that stars and their planets do not form in isolation but in star clusters that contain molecular clouds. When a protoplanetary disk collides with or steals material from a cloud this can result in retrograde motion of a disk and the resulting planets.\n",
"A giant galaxy interacting with its satellites is common. A satellite's gravity could attract one of the primary's spiral arms, or the secondary satellite's path could coincide with the position of the primary satellite's and so would dive into the primary galaxy (the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy into the Milky Way being an example of the latter). That can possibly trigger a small amount of star formation. Such orphaned clusters of stars were sometimes referred to as \"blue blobs\" before they were recognized as stars.\n",
"Stars and planetary systems tend to be born in star clusters rather than forming in isolation. Protoplanetary disks can collide with or steal material from molecular clouds within the cluster and this can lead to disks and their resulting planets having inclined or retrograde orbits around their stars. Retrograde motion may also result from gravitational interactions with other celestial bodies in the same system (See Kozai mechanism) or a near-collision with another planet, or it may be that the star itself flipped over early in their system's formation due to interactions between the star's magnetic field and the planet-forming disk.\n"
] |
Is the Higgs field an actual physical field of energy?
|
First off the Higgs field is as real a field as any other field and was predicted in the 60's. As to whether particles or fields are fundamental or mathematical tools, that is really a philosophical question.
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[
"In the Standard Model, the Higgs field is a scalar tachyonic field \"scalar\" meaning it does not transform under Lorentz transformations, and \"tachyonic\" meaning the field (but not the particle) has imaginary mass, and in certain configurations must undergo symmetry breaking. It consists of four components: two neutral ones and two charged component fields. Both of the charged components and one of the neutral fields are Goldstone bosons, which act as the longitudinal third-polarisation components of the massive W, W, and Z bosons. The quantum of the remaining neutral component corresponds to (and is theoretically realised as) the massive Higgs boson, this component can also interact with fermions via Yukawa coupling to give them mass, as well.\n",
"In the standard model, the Higgs field is an SU(2) doublet (i.e. the standard representation with two complex components called isospin), which is a scalar under Lorentz transformations. Its electric charge is zero; its weak isospin is ; its weak hypercharge (the charge for the U(1) gauge group) is 1 . Under U(1) rotations, it is multiplied by a phase, which thus mixes the real and imaginary parts of the complex spinor into each other, combining to the standard two-component complex representation of the group U(2).\n",
"Unlike other known fields such as the electromagnetic field, the Higgs field is scalar and has a non-zero constant value in vacuum. The existence of the Higgs field became the last unverified part of the Standard Model of particle physics, and for several decades was considered \"the central problem in particle physics\".\n",
"In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a boson with spin zero, no electric charge and no colour charge. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately. The Higgs field is a scalar field, with two neutral and two electrically charged components that form a complex doublet of the weak isospin SU(2) symmetry. The Higgs field has a \"Mexican hat-shaped\" potential. In its ground state, this causes the field to have a nonzero value everywhere (including otherwise empty space), and as a result, below a very high energy it breaks the weak isospin symmetry of the electroweak interaction. (Technically the non-zero expectation value converts the Lagrangian's Yukawa coupling terms into mass terms.) When this happens, three components of the Higgs field are \"absorbed\" by the SU(2) and U(1) gauge bosons (the \"Higgs mechanism\") to become the longitudinal components of the now-massive W and Z bosons of the weak force. The remaining electrically neutral component either manifests as a Higgs particle, or may couple separately to other particles known as fermions (via Yukawa couplings), causing these to acquire mass as well.\n",
"More speculatively, the Higgs field has also been proposed as the energy of the vacuum, which at the extreme energies of the first moments of the Big Bang caused the universe to be a kind of featureless symmetry of undifferentiated, extremely high energy. In this kind of speculation, the single unified field of a Grand Unified Theory is identified as (or modelled upon) the Higgs field, and it is through successive symmetry breakings of the Higgs field, or some similar field, at phase transitions that the presently known forces and fields of the universe arise.\n",
"The relationship (if any) between the Higgs field and the presently observed vacuum energy density of the universe has also come under scientific study. As observed, the present vacuum energy density is extremely close to zero, but the energy density expected from the Higgs field, supersymmetry, and other current theories are typically many orders of magnitude larger. It is unclear how these should be reconciled. This cosmological constant problem remains a further major unanswered problem in physics.\n",
"The Standard Model hypothesises a field which is responsible for this effect, called the Higgs field (symbol: formula_1), which has the unusual property of a non-zero amplitude in its ground state; i.e., a non-zero vacuum expectation value. It can have this effect because of its unusual \"Mexican hat\" shaped potential whose lowest \"point\" is not at its \"centre\". In simple terms, unlike all other known fields, the Higgs field requires \"less\" energy to have a non-zero value than a zero value, so it ends up having a non-zero value \"everywhere\". Below a certain extremely high energy level the existence of this non-zero vacuum expectation spontaneously breaks electroweak gauge symmetry which in turn gives rise to the Higgs mechanism and triggers the acquisition of mass by those particles interacting with the field. This effect occurs because scalar field components of the Higgs field are \"absorbed\" by the massive bosons as degrees of freedom, and couple to the fermions via Yukawa coupling, thereby producing the expected mass terms. When symmetry breaks under these conditions, the Goldstone bosons that arise \"interact\" with the Higgs field (and with other particles capable of interacting with the Higgs field) instead of becoming new massless particles. The intractable problems of both underlying theories \"neutralise\" each other, and the residual outcome is that elementary particles acquire a consistent mass based on how strongly they interact with the Higgs field. It is the simplest known process capable of giving mass to the gauge bosons while remaining compatible with gauge theories. Its quantum would be a scalar boson, known as the Higgs boson.\n"
] |
Why is the direction of the torque vector significant?
|
The direction of the torque vector is only significant once an arbitrary convention (i.e. the right hand rule) has been chosen. Really I think it make more sense to think of toques and angular momenta as defined by a plane plus a direction of circulation than it does a vector. However, there's a nice property in three dimensions that each plane has exactly one direction perpendicular to it, and we can define a direction/magnitude of circulation by specifying a given vector along the direction of that normal.
From this point of view the direction (in or out) is just a stand in for the direction of circulation of the plane. In some ways the plane picture is better, however most of the math you would have developed is better at using vectors and since this one to one correspondence between the two exists we can jump back and forth between the two.
that was a bit rushed by I hope its clear.
As for the second question radians are dimensionless so the units of meters/radian are the same as the units of meters. Radians are the ratio between the arclength (distance around the circumference) and the radius. ratios of two things with the same units are dimensionless.
|
[
"Due to the way the torque vectors are defined, it is a vector that is perpendicular to the plane of the forces that create it. Thus it may be seen that the angular momentum vector will change perpendicular to those forces. Depending on how the forces are created, they will often rotate with the angular momentum vector, and then circular precession is created.\n",
"It follows from the properties of the cross product that the \"torque vector\" is perpendicular to both the \"position\" and \"force\" vectors. Conversely, the \"torque vector\" defines the plane in which the \"position\" and \"force\" vectors lie. The resulting \"torque vector\" direction is determined by the right-hand rule.\n",
"Due to the angular momentum, the dynamics of a magnetic dipole in a magnetic field differs from that of an electric dipole in an electric field. The field does exert a torque on the magnetic dipole tending to align it with the field. However, torque is proportional to rate of change of angular momentum, so precession occurs: the direction of spin changes. This behavior is described by the Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation:\n",
"The torque vector points along the axis around which the torque tends to cause rotation. To maintain rotation around a fixed axis, the total torque vector has to be along the axis, so that it only changes the magnitude and not the direction of the angular velocity vector. In the case of a hinge, only the component of the torque vector along the axis has an effect on the rotation, other forces and torques are compensated by the structure.\n",
"where × represents the vector cross product. Note that this equation includes all of the qualitative information included above. There is no torque on a magnet if is in the same direction as the magnetic field. (The cross product is zero for two vectors that are in the same direction.) Further, all other orientations feel a torque that twists them toward the direction of magnetic field.\n",
"The velocity parallel to the field v is not affected by the field, because no magnetic force exists in that direction. That velocity just stays constant (as long as the field does), and adding the two motions together gives a spiral around a central guiding field line. If the field curves or changes, the motion is modified, but the general character of spiraling around a central field line persists: hence the name \"guiding center motion.\"\n",
"Both the torque and force exerted on a magnet by an external magnetic field are proportional to that magnet's magnetic moment. The magnetic moment is a vector: it has both a magnitude and direction. The direction of the magnetic moment points from the south to north pole of a magnet (inside the magnet). For example, the direction of the magnetic moment of a bar magnet, such as the one in a compass is the direction that the north poles points toward.\n"
] |
law of conservation of mass
|
It's like when you're playing with your legos, buddy. You can take your house apart, make it into a car, move the bricks closer together or further apart. But you can't break the bricks, they're indestructible. Now pretend everything in the world is made of legos which are so tiny that you can't see them, those are called atoms. Atoms work in almost the same way as legos, if you burn, cut or pull something apart then you only break that thing, but not the legos. The legos stay. Do you get it?
|
[
"The law of conservation of mass can only be formulated in classical mechanics when the energy scales associated to an isolated system are much smaller than formula_1, where formula_2 is the mass of a typical object in the system, measured in the frame of reference where the object is at rest, and formula_3 is the speed of light. \n",
"The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system's mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor be removed. Hence, the quantity of mass is conserved over time.\n",
"The conservation of mass only holds approximately and is considered part of a series of assumptions coming from classical mechanics. The law has to be modified to comply with the laws of quantum mechanics and special relativity under the principle of mass-energy equivalence, which states that energy and mass form one conserved quantity. For very energetic systems the conservation of mass-only is shown not to hold, as is the case in nuclear reactions and particle-antiparticle annihilation in particle physics.\n",
"The law can be formulated mathematically in the fields of fluid mechanics and continuum mechanics, where the conservation of mass is usually expressed using the continuity equation, given in differential form asformula_4where formula_5 is the density (mass per unit volume), formula_6 is the time, formula_7 is the divergence, and formula_8 is the flow velocity field.\n",
"BULLET::::- Conservation of mass – The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system's mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor be removed. Hence, the quantity of mass is conserved over time.\n",
"The concept of mass conservation is widely used in many fields such as chemistry, mechanics, and fluid dynamics. Historically, mass conservation was demonstrated in chemical reactions independently by Mikhail Lomonosov and later rediscovered by Antoine Lavoisier in the late 18th century. The formulation of this law was of crucial importance in the progress from alchemy to the modern natural science of chemistry.\n",
"If the conservation of mass law is interpreted as conservation of \"rest\" mass, it does not hold true in special relativity. The \"rest\" energy (equivalently, rest mass) of a particle can be converted, not \"to energy\" (it already \"is\" energy (mass)), but rather to \"other\" forms of energy (mass) that require motion, such as kinetic energy, thermal energy, or radiant energy. Similarly, kinetic or radiant energy can be converted to other kinds of particles that have rest energy (rest mass). In the transformation process, neither the total amount of mass nor the total amount of energy changes, since both properties are connected via a simple constant. This view requires that if either energy or (total) mass disappears from a system, it is always found that both have simply moved to another place, where they are both measurable as an increase of both energy and mass that corresponds to the loss in the first system.\n"
] |
just seen captain phillips, why are cargo ships sailing around the horn of africa so poorly defended?
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International maritime law forbids arming merchant ships.
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[
"Several factors combine to make the passage around Cape Horn one of the most hazardous shipping routes in the world: the fierce sailing conditions prevalent in the Southern Ocean generally; the geography of the passage south of the Horn; and the extreme southern latitude of the Horn, at 56° south. (For comparison, Cape Agulhas at the southern tip of Africa is at 35° south; Stewart Island/Rakiura at the south end of New Zealand is 47° south.)\n",
"Ships of the \"De Zeven Provinciën\" class have been involved in counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa. The untraditional target set (i.e., small slow-moving or even static surface targets) can apparently be challenging for doppler radars designed to take on \"high end\" threats. However, according to Jane's International Defence Review:\n",
"From the 18th to the early 20th centuries, Cape Horn was a part of the clipper routes which carried much of the world's trade. Sailing ships sailed round the Horn carrying wool, grain, and gold from Australia back to Europe; much trade was carried around the Horn between Europe and the Far East; and trade and passenger ships travelled between the coasts of the United States via the Horn. The Horn exacted a heavy toll from shipping, however, owing to the extremely hazardous combination of conditions there.\n",
"Capesize ships are the largest dry cargo ships. They are too large to transit the Suez Canal (Suezmax limits) or Panama Canal (Neopanamax limits), and so have to pass either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn to traverse between oceans.\n",
"Ships of the RNLN's \"De Zeven Provinciën\" class have been involved in counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa. The untraditional target set (i.e., small slow-moving or even static surface targets) can apparently be challenging for doppler radars designed to take on \"high end\" threats. However, according to Jane's International Defence Review:\n",
"The threat posed by the fleets in Brest and Cadiz was stretching the Royal Navy, and convoy escorts were weaker than usual as so many vessels had been diverted to the blockade fleets needed to watch French and Spanish movements. As a result, there were a number of independently sailing merchant ships in the Bay of Biscay and Allemand encountered and captured three on his journey north into the area later known as the Western Approaches. From the prisoners taken out of these ships, the French admiral learned that a large convoy was due from the West Indies, protected only by a single ship of the line, . This rich prize would be a major success for Allemand and his squadron cruised the Western Approaches in anticipation of its arrival during September 1805.\n",
"American merchant vessels began to fall prey to Barbary Pirates, along the so-called \"Barbary Coast\" of North Africa, Morocco, Tunis (in future Tunisia), Tripoli (in future Libya), and most notably from Algiers (in future Algeria), in the Mediterranean Sea during the 1790s. Congress responded with the Naval Act of 1794. The Act provided funds for the construction of six frigates to be built in six different East Coast ports; however, it included a clause stating that construction of the ships would cease if the United States agreed to peace terms with Algiers. By the time of the conclusion in 1815, of the later War of 1812 with Great Britain, the United States had fought a series of three brief, but savage naval and amphibious wars.\n"
] |
why can't robots move exactly like humans yet? what is holding engineers back?
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The trouble is software. We have the technology to build the physical machine itself. We could build an artificial skeleton with artificial tendons and muscles and the necessary sensors, but developing the software to control it all simultaneously in a way that duplicates human movement is a daunting task.
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[
"Robots able to co-exist and co-operate with people and reach or even surpass their performance require a technology of actuators, responsible for moving and controlling the robot, which can reach the functional performance of the biological muscle and its neuro-mechanical control.\n",
"The tendency to build robots has been to minimize the degrees of freedom because that reduces the control problems. Recent improvements in computers has shifted the emphasis to more degrees of freedom, allowing robotic devices that seem more intelligent and more human in their motions. This also allows more direct teleoperation as the user can control the robot with their own motions.\n",
"Robots have replaced humans in performing repetitive and dangerous tasks which humans prefer not to do, or are unable to do because of size limitations, or which take place in extreme environments such as outer space or the bottom of the sea. There are concerns about the increasing use of robots and their role in society. Robots are blamed for rising technological unemployment as they replace workers in increasing numbers of functions. The use of robots in military combat raises ethical concerns. The possibilities of robot autonomy and potential repercussions have been addressed in fiction and may be a realistic concern in the future.\n",
"Another characteristic of humanoid robots is that they move, gather information (using sensors) on the \"real world\" and interact with it. They don’t stay still like factory manipulators and other robots that work in highly structured environments. To allow humanoids to move in complex environments, planning and control must focus on self-collision detection, path planning and obstacle avoidance.\n",
"The state of the art in sensory intelligence for robots will have to progress through several orders of magnitude if we want the robots working in our homes to go beyond vacuum-cleaning the floors. If robots are to work effectively in homes and other non-industrial environments, the way they are instructed to perform their jobs, and especially how they will be told to stop will be of critical importance. The people who interact with them may have little or no training in robotics, and so any interface will need to be extremely intuitive. Science fiction authors also typically assume that robots will eventually be capable of communicating with humans through speech, gestures, and facial expressions, rather than a command-line interface. Although speech would be the most natural way for the human to communicate, it is unnatural for the robot. It will probably be a long time before robots interact as naturally as the fictional C-3PO, or Data of Star Trek, Next Generation.\n",
"In the scientific world, there is a large number of applications for mobile robots. Their ability to perform experiments and exploration without putting human lives in danger makes them an important asset. Unlike humans, robots do not require life support systems to function. In space travel, robots are performing science on planets and asteroids because sending humans is far more taxing on resources and money. The same is true in the oceanography domain. In fact, several of the same robotic systems are designed to perform their science under both conditions - space and underwater. In nuclear power plants, robots can service electronics and mechanical systems which prevents human exposure to large amounts of radiation.\n",
"The characteristics of robots are however progressive, their abilities being enlarged as the technology has progressed. The same CB² acts more and more as human and it was capable of teaching itself how to walk with the aid of human help. The robot learned how to move around the room by using its 51 \"muscles,\" which are driven by air pressure.\n"
] |
why can't the cellular infrastructure that is in place to provide 3g and lte just be used to create a giant wifi network?
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Those networks use different standards to provide their signals. It's not like it's all using the same frequency for all of the various forms of wireless. [Source.](_URL_0_)
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[
"3G networks have taken this approach to a higher level, using different underlying technology but the same principles. They routinely provide speeds over 300kbit/s. Due to the now increased internet speed, internet connection sharing via WLAN has become a workable reality. Devices which allow internet connection sharing or other types of routing on cellular networks are called also cellular routers.\n",
"Cellular wireless networks generally have good capacity, due to their use of directional aerials, and their ability to reuse radio channels in non-adjacent cells. Additionally, cells can be made very small using low power transmitters this is used in cities to give network capacity that scales linearly with population density.\n",
"Small cells are an integral part of future LTE networks. In 3G networks, small cells are viewed as an offload technique. In 4G networks, the principle of heterogeneous network (HetNet) is introduced where the mobile network is constructed with layers of small and large cells. In LTE, all cells will be self-organizing, drawing upon the principles laid down in current Home NodeB (HNB), the 3GPP term for residential femtocells.\n",
"The telecommunication industry is growing as the need for 4G and 5G networks flourishes. As a result of this growth there is a constant demand for cellular networks to increase their coverage. Therefore, more cellular towers are constructed and more leases are drawn up between the cellular provider and landowners, which can include municipalities and private landowners, such as homeowners.\n",
"A similar network called a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network is used by cable television operators but is usually not synonymous with \"fiber In the loop\", although similar advanced services are provided by the HFC networks. Fixed wireless and mobile wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) are an alternative for providing Internet access.\n",
"When deploying its LTE network, C Spire Wireless decided not to use A block because of the lack of band-12 support in mobile devices, issues with roaming, and the increased cost of base stations due to lack of supply. US Cellular deployed a band class 12 LTE network, however not all of US Cellular's devices were able to access it. In particular, the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C could not. Other wireless telecommunication providers launched LTE band class 12 networks, but have not been able to offer smartphones that access them, instead resorting to fixed or mobile wireless broadband modems. As of April 2015, only three telecom providers were offering smartphones that use band 12: US Cellular, T-Mobile USA, and Nex-Tech Wireless.\n",
"Wireless data connections used in mobile computing take three general forms so. Cellular data service uses technologies GSM, CDMA or GPRS, 3G networks such as W-CDMA, EDGE or CDMA2000. and more recently 4G networks such as LTE, LTE-Advanced. These networks are usually available within range of commercial cell towers. Wi-Fi connections offer higher performance, may be either on a private business network or accessed through public hotspots, and have a typical range of 100 feet indoors and up to 1000 feet outdoors. Satellite Internet access covers areas where cellular and Wi-Fi are not available and may be set up anywhere the user has a line of sight to the satellite's location, which for satellites in geostationary orbit means having an unobstructed view of the southern sky. Some enterprise deployments combine networks from multiple cellular networks or use a mix of cellular, Wi-Fi and satellite. When using a mix of networks, a mobile virtual private network (mobile VPN) not only handles the security concerns, but also performs the multiple network logins automatically and keeps the application connections alive to prevent crashes or data loss during network transitions or coverage loss.\n"
] |
why are "bologna" and "lasagna" pronounced so utterly differently?
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We've Americanized the pronunciation of *bologna* a lot more than *lasagna*.
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[
"\"Knöpfle\" means \"small buttons\" and describes the compact, round form of the pasta. In everyday language usage, the two names refer to the same product made from the same dough and are interchangeable. There is no clear distinction between the way the two names are used and usage varies from one region to another.\n",
"The word \"gnocchi\" may be derived from the Italian word \"nocchio\", meaning a knot in wood, or from \"nocca\" (meaning knuckle). It has been a traditional type of Italian pasta of (probable) Middle Eastern origin since Roman times. It was introduced by the Roman legions during the expansion of the empire into the countries of the European continent. In Roman times, gnocchi were made from a semolina porridge-like dough mixed with eggs, and are still found in similar forms today, particularly the oven-baked \"gnocchi alla romana\" and Sardinia's \"malloreddus\" which do not contain eggs.\n",
"\"My Bologna\" is a parody of the Knack's hit song \"My Sharona\", recorded and performed by musical parody artist \"Weird Al\" Yankovic. Yankovic originally wrote the song while he attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California; the original version of the parody was recorded in a bathroom across the hall from the radio station at which Yankovic worked. The title refers to Bologna sausage, specifically the Oscar Mayer brand popular in the United States. Yankovic sent \"My Bologna\" to Dr. Demento, who aired the song on his nationwide radio program, \"The Dr. Demento Show\". The song was a hit on the program, and eventually gained the number one spot on Dr. Demento's \"Funny Five\" countdown.\n",
"Ring bologna is much smaller in diameter than standard bologna. It is better suited for slicing and serving on crackers as a snack or \"hors d'oeuvre\". It is generally sold as an entire link rather than sliced. The link is arranged as a semicircle or \"ring\" when prepared for sale (hence the name). Pickled bologna is usually made from ring bologna soaked in vinegar and typical pickling spices. It is usually served in chunks as a cold snack.\n",
"Bologna sausage, also called baloney () and known in Australia, Britain, Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa as polony, is a sausage derived from mortadella, a similar-looking, finely ground pork sausage containing cubes of pork fat, originally from the Italian city of Bologna (). \n",
"BULLET::::- A number of Italian words are deliberately misspelled (\"\"Giovanno\"\" instead of \"\"Giovanni\"\", and \"\"hello, che se dice\"\" which is Italian slang for \"hello, what's up?\". Other words are in Italo-English slang: (goombah, from \"cumpà,\" literally godson/godfather but more broadly fellow countryman, and 'jadrool' or \"'cidrule\"\", a stupid person, closely related to cetriolo, Italian for \"cucumber\", but in Sicilian dialect meaning jackass. The word \"tiavanna\" is invented.\n",
"The Italian American word \"spuccadella\" does not exist in the written Italian of Italy, but it may be derived from the common Italian word \"spaccatella,\" a kind of \"panino\" or bread roll, with rounded ends, that could be used for sandwich making.\n"
] |
I'm an extremely deep-sleeper, and have massive troubles waking up on time. Is there a scientific alarm solution?
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I read about using sunlight/simulated natural light to help people wake up: _URL_0_
I use a similar thing but I go low-tech when trying to wake up my 5-year-old (not an easy task) and just turn on the light.
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[
"Scientific studies on sleep having shown that sleep stage at awakening is an important factor in amplifying sleep inertia. Alarm clocks involving \"sleep stage monitoring\" appeared on the market in 2005. The alarm clocks use sensing technologies such as EEG electrodes and accelerometers to wake people from sleep.Dawn simulators are another technology meant to mediate these effects.\n",
"More recent research suggests that strobe lights are not effective at waking sleeping adults with hearing loss and suggest that a different alarm tone is much more effective. Individuals in the hearing loss community are seeking changes to improved awakening methods.\n",
"The activity of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis correlates with anxiety in response to threat monitoring. It is thought to act as a relay site within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and regulate its activity in response to acute stress. However, the stress response is time related and the BNST does not activate for contextual fear. This means that a sudden scary situation that is under ten minutes long, does not activate the BNST. It is also thought to promote behavioral inhibition in response to unfamiliar individuals, by input from the orbitofrontal cortex. Bilateral disruption of this pathway has been shown to attenuate reinstatement of drug seeking behaviour in rodents.\n",
"Some patients may need to do an overnight sleep study to determine if insomnia is present. Such a study will commonly involve assessment tools including a polysomnogram and the multiple sleep latency test. Specialists in sleep medicine are qualified to diagnose disorders within the, according to the ICSD, 81 major sleep disorder diagnostic categories. Patients with some disorders, including delayed sleep phase disorder, are often mis-diagnosed with primary insomnia; when a person has trouble getting to sleep and awakening at desired times, but has a normal sleep pattern once asleep, a circadian rhythm disorder is a likely cause.\n",
"A person, then, who fears (i.e. experiences anticipatory anxiety over) not getting a good night's sleep may try too hard (that is, hyper-intend) to fall asleep, and this would hinder their ability to do so. A logotherapist would recommend, then, that the person go to bed and intentionally try not to fall asleep. This would relieve the anticipatory anxiety which kept the person awake in the first place, thus allowing them to fall asleep in an acceptable amount of time.\n",
"Today, many humans wake up with an alarm clock; however, people can also reliably wake themselves up at a specific time with no need for an alarm. Many sleep quite differently on workdays versus days off, a pattern which can lead to chronic circadian desynchronization. Many people regularly look at television and other screens before going to bed, a factor which may exacerbate disruption of the circadian cycle. Scientific studies on sleep have shown that sleep stage at awakening is an important factor in amplifying sleep inertia.\n",
"The individual places the sensor (usually located in briefs or underwear) and turns the alarm device on (there are various types of alarms) before going to sleep. The enuresis alarm is triggered when a sensor in the sheets or night clothes becomes wet with urine, setting off an auditory signal with the intention of causing the individual to wake, cease voiding, and arise to void. Parents are advised to wake their child when the alarm is activated—otherwise, children are prone to turn it off and go back to sleep.\n"
] |
how can banks detect if someone else is using your credit/debit card when the amount is small and the location of purchase is near?
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What was the store? What was the time? Had you made any other purchases recently?
Fraud detection systems work by finding patterns in your spending and flagging things that don't fit the pattern. If it's in a weird city when you're normally at work & not buying things at all, that's going to flag things. If you're a guy & suddenly you're buying lingerie, it might raise a flag. If a purchase 10 minutes away is made 5 minutes after a purchase you make, it might trigger an alert. If you always shop at Safeway & they see you shopping at Publix, it might raise a flag. If you filled up your gas tank yesterday & you're buying gas today, it might raise a flag. If you always use debit+PIN & they ran the charge as credit, it might raise a flag. If they entered your PIN wrong twice, it might raise a flag. There's probably hundreds of other things they look at - exactly what they look for is kept a secret.
Sometimes, no one thing is enough to trigger a warning - it takes a combination of things, possibly spread over multiple transactions, to really be sure that something might be fraud.
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[
"The Senate report identified \"data pass\", or the automatic transfer from the merchant after the transaction of the customer's credit card information. Information provided by the Federal Trade Commission and the National Association of Attorneys General, and information collected from telephone billing has found that requiring the entry of credit card information will decrease the likelihood that a customer will enter a transaction by a factor of 3 or 4. Therefore, companies will use the automatic transference of this information which will induce consumers to involuntarily provide their credit card information to merchants which they were otherwise unwilling to transact with.\n",
"When consumers walk into a store and buy something, they typically swipe their credit cards, confirm the purchase amount, enter a secret code (or sign their name) and leave with the merchandise. This is a \"card is present\" purchase and fraudulent chargebacks in these situations are almost non-existent.\n",
"When a merchant swipes a customer's credit card, the credit card terminal connects to the merchant's acquirer, or credit card processor, which verifies that the customer's account is valid and that sufficient funds are available to cover the transaction's cost. At this step, the funds are \"held\" and deducted from the customer's credit limit (or available bank balance, in the case of a debit card), but are not yet transferred to the merchant. At the time of the merchant's choosing, the merchant instructs the credit card machine to submit the finalized transactions to the acquirer in a \"batch transfer,\" which begins the settlement process, where the funds are transferred from the customers' accounts to the merchant's accounts.\n",
"The payment of consumer purchases at the retail checkout counter through the use of an electronic debit card was introduced across Canada in 1994. Known as Interac, the system allows the consumer to swipe his personal card and with the use of a personal identification number have the amount of the purchase electronically deducted from his or her bank account. The service has since become very popular.\n",
"In addition, if the payment vendor can automatically and securely identify customers then card details can be recalled for future purchases turning credit card payments into simple single click-to-buy giving higher conversion rates for additional purchases.\n",
"When a transaction is made, the card holder is offered a paper or electronic transaction record containing information about the purchase. This includes: transaction amount, transaction number, transaction date and time, transaction type (deposits, withdrawal, purchase or refund), type of account being debited or credited, card number, identity of the card acceptor (organization/store address) as well as the identity of the terminal (company name from which the machine operates). The use of debit cards in 2014 increased by 18% from the 2011 total volume of Canadian Payment Methods. As for credit cards, it increased by 26% from the 2011 total volume of Canadian Payment Methods. These two types of payment methods combined make up for more transactions than cash. Card transaction data has increased through the expansion of payment channels available to customers. Additionally, incentive and reward programs have increased the use of electronic cards for their benefits. The use of contactless and e-commerce payment has also allowed for a growth in card transaction data to increase due to the simplicity of the transaction. The use of Interact Debit transactions have increased rapidly in the last 6 years according to \"Interact Debit\" statistics. However, Canada has a lower rate debit use transactions by inhabitant in comparison to the United States, Sweden, Netherlands, Australia, and Great Britain.\n",
"Ease of use – Both the process of setting up a virtual debit card and using it online for shopping are very easy. Setting up your card only takes about 15 minutes, which involves filling up a form with your transaction details (account information, card number), phone number for OTP verification and a bunch of other things. Once the form is submitted to the surface, you receive a confirmation from your bank verifying the link. Your virtual card is then forwarded to you by the service in the form of a card number, and you can easily use it on any online platform like you would use a normal debit/credit card.\n"
] |
Why is Napoleon often portrayed with his right hand tucked into his vest?
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The pose is quite common in period paintings:
Directly bearing on the "hand-in" posture, and underpinning Nivelon's description of it as "manly boldness tempered with modesty," is Bulwer's "Sixth Canon for Rhetoricians," which claims that "the hand restrained and kept in is an argument of modesty, and frugal pronunciation, a still and quiet action suitable to a mild and remiss declamation."
_URL_0_
|
[
"The hand-in-waistcoat (also referred to as hand-inside-vest, hand-in-jacket, hand-held-in, or hidden hand) is a gesture commonly found in portraiture during the 18th and 19th centuries. The pose appeared by the 1750s to indicate leadership in a calm and firm manner. The pose is most often associated with Napoleon I of France due to its use in several portraits made by his artist, Jacques-Louis David, amongst them the 1812 painting \"Napoleon in His Study\". The pose, thought of as being stately, was copied by other portrait painters across Europe and America. Most paintings and photographs show the right hand inserted into the waistcoat/jacket but some sitters appear with the left hand inserted. The pose was also often seen in mid-nineteenth century photography.\n",
"Napoleon is seen wearing clothing appropriate for his location: over his uniform he wears a long topcoat which is wrapped firmly around him, in which he keeps his gloveless right hand warm. He retains a piece of his dignity in the gold-trimmed black bicorne he wears on his head. The mule Napoleon rides is undernourished, tired from its ordeal in struggling through the Alps. On the left of the mule is his guide, Pierre Nicholas Dorsaz, who must constantly push himself and the mule forward, and who leans heavily on the shaft of wood he clutches in his left hand to allow himself to continue moving forward. His clothes are weather-beaten, his face ruddy from the cold. He is not allowed the luxury of riding an animal, for he must be able to navigate independently, on the ground.\n",
"The painting shows Napoleon as emperor, in the costume he wore for his coronation, seated on a circular-backed throne with armrests adorned with ivory balls. In his right hand he holds the sceptre of Charlemagne and in his left the hand of justice. On his head is a golden laurel wreath, similar to one worn by Caesar. He also wears an ermine hood under the great collar of the Légion d'honneur, a gold-embroidered satin tunic and an ermine-lined purple velvet cloak decorated with gold bees. The coronation sword is in its scabbard and held up by a silk scarf. The subject wears white shoes embroidered in gold and resting on a cushion. The carpet under the throne displays an imperial eagle. The signature INGRES P is in the bottom left, and ANNO 1806 in the bottom right.\n",
"Napoleon, to the right, the \"little corporal\", is much smaller in height and stockier in build, with a prominent hooked nose. He wears the blue coat of the Imperial French Army, and his large fore-and-aft bicorn hat has an extravagant feather plume reminiscent of a French cock. His large knife resembles a military sword, and his two-pronged fork is embedded over a region marked \"Hanover\", home of the ruling British monarchs of the House of Hanover. He is cutting away a slice of land to the east of the British Isles marked \"Europe\", but his piece of land is much smaller than Pitt's portion of sea. \n",
"Vertical in format, it shows Napoleon standing, three-quarters life size, wearing the uniform of a colonel of the Imperial Guard Foot Grenadiers (blue with white facings and red cuffs). He also wears his Légion d'honneur and Order of the Iron Crown decorations, along with gold epaulettes, white French-style culottes and white stockings. His face is turned towards the viewer and his right hand is in his jacket.\n",
"Leaving Marshal Michel Ney's VI Corps to begin the Siege of Magdeburg, Napoleon ordered his right wing to head for Berlin. The French emperor found time to pay a reverent visit to the tomb of Frederick the Great at Potsdam. In spite of his respect for the Prussian king, Napoleon stole Frederick's sword and other trophies. The French right wing consisted of Davout's corps, Lannes' corps, Marshal Pierre Augereau's VII Corps, and Murat's 1st Cuirassier Division under General of Division Etienne Marie Antoine Champion de Nansouty, 2nd Cuirassier Division led by General of Division Jean-Joseph Ange d'Hautpoul, and 3rd Dragoon Division under General of Division Marc Antoine de Beaumont. General of Division Emmanuel Grouchy's 2nd Dragoon Division trailed behind. Bernadotte, Soult, and Sahuc's 4th Dragoon Division formed the left wing. Louis Klein's 1st Dragoon Division was split between assisting Ney and patrolling the line of communications.\n",
"A few months later, on 20 May 1807, King Louis—now called \"Lodewijk\"—altered these arms, adding a helmet, leaving out his brother's star and replacing the \"Grand Aigle\" with his own Dutch Order of the Union and the old Dutch devise \"Unity makes strength\" around the shield. Exemplary for the innovation in Napoleon's heraldry are the two hands coming out of clouds from behind the shield holding swords, designating King Louis as \"Connétable de France\".\n"
] |
albinism seems like a very disadvantageous mutation. how has it continued in the animal kingdom?
|
A mutation can appear more than once in time. Albino animals pretty much never have albino parents, it just appears randomly and likely subsides again as the chances of reproduction are lowered. The parents have instead carried an albino gene, without being albino themselves.
|
[
"Oculocutaneous albinism is generally the result of the biological inheritance of genetically recessive alleles (genes) passed from both parents of an individual such as OCA1 and OCA2. A mutation in the human TRP-1 gene may result in the deregulation of melanocyte tyrosinase enzymes, a change that is hypothesized to promote brown versus black melanin synthesis, resulting in a third oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) genotype, ″OCA3″. Some rare forms are inherited from only one parent. There are other genetic mutations which are proven to be associated with albinism. All alterations, however, lead to changes in melanin production in the body. Some of these are associated with increased risk of skin cancer .\n",
"Albinism results from inheritance of recessive gene alleles and is known to affect all vertebrates, including humans. It is due to absence or defect of tyrosinase, a copper-containing enzyme involved in the production of melanin. It is the opposite of melanism. Unlike humans, other animals have multiple pigments and for these, albinism is considered to be a hereditary condition characterised by the absence of melanin in particular, in the eyes, skin, hair, scales, feathers or cuticle. While an organism with complete absence of melanin is called an albino, an organism with only a diminished amount of melanin is described as leucistic or albinoid. The term is from the Latin \"albus\", \"white\".\n",
"Albinism is the \"congenital absence of any pigmentation or coloration in a person, animal or plant, resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink eyes in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish and other small invertebrates as well.\" Varied use and interpretation of the terms mean that written reports of albinistic animals can be difficult to verify. Albinism can reduce the survivability of an animal; for example, it has been suggested that albino alligators have an average survival span of only 24 hours due to the lack of protection from UV and their lack of camouflage to avoid predators. Albino animals have characteristic pink or red eyes because the lack of pigment in the iris allows the blood vessels of the retina to be visible. Familiar albino animals include in-bred strains of laboratory animals (rats, mice and rabbits), but populations of naturally occurring albino animals exist in the wild, e.g. Mexican cave tetra. Albinism is a well-recognized phenomenon in molluscs, both in the shell and in the soft parts. It has been claimed by some, e.g. that \"albinism\" can occur for a number of reasons aside from inheritance, including genetic mutations, diet, living conditions, age, disease, or injury. However, this is contrary to definitions where the condition is inherited.\n",
"A further difference between albinism and leucism is in eye colour. Due to the lack of melanin production in both the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and iris, those affected by albinism typically have red eyes due to the underlying blood vessels showing through. In contrast, most leucistic animals have normally coloured eyes. This is because the melanocytes of the RPE are not derived from the neural crest, instead an outpouching of the neural tube generates the optic cup which, in turn, forms the retina. As these cells are from an independent developmental origin, they are typically unaffected by the genetic cause of leucism.\n",
"The chance of offspring with albinism resulting from the pairing of an organism with albinism and one without albinism is low. However, because organisms (including humans) can be carriers of genes for albinism without exhibiting any traits, albinistic offspring can be produced by two non-albinistic parents. Albinism usually occurs with equal frequency in both sexes. An exception to this is ocular albinism, which it is passed on to offspring through X-linked inheritance. Thus, ocular albinism occurs more frequently in males as they have a single X and Y chromosome, unlike females, whose genetics are characterized by two X chromosomes.\n",
"The best-known type of albinism is OCA1A, which impairs tyrosinase production. In other mammals, the diagnosis of albinism is based on the impairment of tyrosinase production through defects in the \"Color\" (\"C\") gene. Mice and other mammals without tyrosinase have unpigmented pink skin, unpigmented white hair, unpigmented reddish eyes, and some form of vision impairment. No mutations of the tyrosinase or \"C\" gene are known in horses.\n",
"Several kinds of albinism in chickens has been described: A complete albinism controlled by an autosomal recessive gene and two different kinds of partial albinism. One of the partial albinisms is sex-linked and the other is autosomal recessive. A fourth kind of albinism severely reduce pigmentation in the eyes, but only dilutes the pigment in the plumage.\n"
] |
what happens when my computer is connecting to/loading a website/?
|
There's many steps, but here is a simple explanation:
You send an "HTTP request" to the server. HTTP is the protocol commonly used to send/receive data on the internet. Let's just say it's like the format of when you write your address and destination address on an envelope.
This request will look something like this (They don't always look like this, but most contain these common "headers"):
GET /r/explainlikeimfive/ HTTP/1.1
Host www._URL_1_
User-Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:29.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/29.0
Accept text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
Accept-Language en-us,es;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding gzip, deflate
Referer _URL_0_
That's saying that I want to access "/r/explainlikeimfive" from the host "www._URL_1_". This is how the server know what page I want.
The "user-agent" tells the server I'm using "windows NT 6.1" which just means Windows 7. The "Gecko" and "Firefox" basically just mean I'm using Firefox. (Fun fact, see that "Mozilla" at the very start of the user agent string? All browsers include this, even IE, Chrome, Safari, etc. It's a neat bit of trivia that I won't go into, but you can look it up)
The "Accept-Language" header tells the server my browser preference. Right now it's set to US English, followed by Spanish. If I made Spanish first, and I visited Google, I'd get Google in spanish. That happens purely because Google's server sees my language preference, and changes the response. Most sites would probably ignore it.
The "Referer" tells the server what page I was on when I clicked that link. In this case, it was the Reddit homepage.
So, all these headers and their values get sent to the server whenever you try to access anything on the internet. They tell the server exactly what you're trying to access, and the server responds with it (assuming everything is OK). If everything is good, it'll respond with response code 200. If the file wasn't there, it would give a 404. If the server encountered an error trying to get it, it'll respond with 500.
Keep in mind that this is what happens on the very top level. Networking workis via different protocols and layers, all stacked on each other. Before anything I explained even happens, for example, the TCP/IP protocol is used to get the IP address of _URL_1_, establish connection, etc.
TL;DR: You send some headers that tells the server what content you want, and the server responds with it.
|
[
"Each time a user visits a website using Microsoft Internet Explorer, files downloaded with each web page (including HTML and Javascript code) are saved to the Temporary Internet Files folder, creating a web cache of the web page on the local computer's hard disk drive, or other form of digital data storage. The next time the user visits the cached website, only changed content needs to be downloaded from the Internet; the unchanged data is available in the cache.\n",
"Consider a web browser which attempts to load a page while the network is unavailable. The browser will receive an error code indicating the problem, and may display this error message to the user in place of the requested page. However, it is incorrect for the browser to place the error message in the page cache, as this would lead it to display the error again when the user tries to load the same page - even after the network is back up. The error message must not be cached under the page's URL; until the browser is able to successfully load the page, whenever the user tries to load the page, the browser must make a new attempt.\n",
"The computer also restarts when trying to open the Windows Command Prompt and prevents the user from downloading files. It also pop ups the default Web browser and loads a web page (HTML) which is located in the \"My Pictures\" (or on Windows Vista, \"Pictures\") folder. It creates .exe files in folders usually named as the folder itself (..\\documents\\documents.exe) this also includes all mapped network drives.\n",
"Web pages usually contain hyperlinks to other pages and resources. Each link contains a URL, and when it is clicked, the browser navigates to the new resource. Thus the process of bringing content to the user begins again.\n",
"Dynamic web pages are often cached when there are few or no changes expected and the page is anticipated to receive considerable amount of web traffic that would create slow load times for the server if it had to generate the pages on the fly for each request.\n",
"The computer that is attempting to go to that site will be blocked from that site only, but can surf any other site. It is a good idea to either redirect the output into nothingness ( 2/dev/null 1/dev/null) or into a file for later analysis ( file.tcpkill ). By default, it will redirect output to the console.\n",
"If a website or add-on causes a tab to crash in Internet Explorer 8, only that tab is affected. The browser itself remains stable and other tabs remain unaffected, thereby minimizing any disruption to the browsing experience. If a tab unexpectedly closes or crashes it is automatically reloaded with the same content as before the crash.\n"
] |
Why is the modern nation of Ghana located far southeast of the medieval kingdom of Ghana?
|
This question comes up from time to time. My answer in [this thread](_URL_0_) gives the specific context for how the Gold Coast colony came to be named Ghana. Also, [this post from last month](_URL_1_) provides additional context about the oral traditions that Danquah was drawing on to justify the connections.
|
[
"Ghana was inhabited in the Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms in the Southern and Central territories. This included the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom.\n",
"Thus, although the Ghana Empire was geographically different from present-day Ghana, some of its people, specifically the Akan, moved to what is today Ghana, hence the historicity of the name. In fact, the North African Almoravid dynasty gold coin was renowned throughout the medieval world as being made of the purest of golds, since West African gold was 92 percent pure at the time it was mined, higher than old Egyptian gold ore, which started at 85 percent, a figure which was later refined to 95 percent. Evidence of early Ashanti connections to the Islamic world is the Ashanti word for money – \"sikka\" – the same as the Arabic word for minting money.\n",
"The Ghana Empire may have been an established kingdom as early as the 8th century AD, founded among the Soninke by Dinge Cisse. Ghana was first mentioned by Arab geographer Al-Farazi in the late 8th century. Ghana was inhabited by urban dwellers and rural farmers. The urban dwellers were the administrators of the empire, who were Muslims, and the \"Ghana\" (king), who practiced traditional religion. Two towns existed, one where the Muslim administrators and Berber-Arabs lived, which was connected by a stone-paved road to the king's residence. The rural dwellers lived in villages, which joined together into broader polities that pledged loyalty to the \"Ghana.\" The \"Ghana\" was viewed as divine, and his physical well-being reflected on the whole society. Ghana converted to Islam around 1050, after conquering Aoudaghost.\n",
"Ghana is a multiethnic country. The largest ethnic group is the Ashanti people. Ghana's territorial area within West Africa was unoccupied and uninhabited by humans until the 10th century BC. By the 10th century AD. The Guans were the first settlers in Ghana long before the other tribes came. Akans had established Bonoman (Brong Ahafo region) and were joined by the current settlers and inhabitants by the 16th century.\n",
"The Ghanaians established a number of powerful kingdoms from the 10th century AD to the 17th century and the Ghanaians became the dominant military power in the west of Africa. In 1902, the powerful Ghanaian kingdoms had all become a colony of Britain and their powerful kingdoms was renamed Gold Coast following a series of military battles between the Ghanaians and the British. The Ghanaians gained their independence from Britain in 1957, and renamed their sovereign state \"Ghana (Warrior King)\" due to the fact that pre-historic Republic of Ghana was ruled by warriors. The Republic of Ghana was the first African country to gain independence from European colonization.\n",
"The Ghana Empire ( 700 until 1240), properly known as Wagadou (\"Ghana\" or \"Ga'na\" being the title of its ruler), was a West African empire located in the area of present-day southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. Complex societies based on trans-Saharan trade with salt and gold had existed in the region since ancient times, but the introduction of the camel to the western Sahara in the 3rd century CE, opened the way to great changes in the area that became the Ghana Empire. By the time of the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the 7th century the camel had changed the ancient, more irregular trade routes into a trade network running from Morocco to the Niger river. The Ghana Empire grew rich from this increased trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt, allowing for larger urban centres to develop. The traffic furthermore encouraged territorial expansion to gain control over the different trade routes.\n",
"Ghana – sovereign country in West Africa in Africa. The word \"Ghana\" means \"Warrior King\", and was the source of the name \"Guinea\" (via French \"Guinoye\") used to refer to the West African coast (as in Gulf of Guinea). Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms, including the inland Empire of Ashanti and various Fante states along the coast and inland. Trade with European states flourished after contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the British established a crown colony, Gold Coast, in 1874. Upon achieving independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, the name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana that once extended throughout much of western Africa. In the Akan language it is spelled \"Gaana\".\n"
] |
Why do old portraits all look so similar? I feel like I have no idea how these people really looked.
|
I don't think this is universally true; if you look at the portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger for example it starts to become very obvious that these people all look different. Some people have rather large noses, some people have rather wide or round or skinny cheekbones, some people have the most absurd tiny eyes, and so on and so forth. This is most obvious when you look at his male portraits; it's a little less visible in his female portraits but it's present. Bear in mind also that all these people are wearing very similar clothing and formal robes; because we are used to using very visible differences in clothing habits, hairstyles and dress to tell people apart(think about how recognizable some of your friends are simply by their haircut or the way they dress) and strongly expect old portraits to be idealized(not that they weren't; but a greater or lesser degree of idealization is always a intentional choice on the part of the artist) we might also be less sensitive to subtle distinctions in their appearance. Indeed, once we look more closely at the portraits of his wives in sequence, salient differences emerge in the length of their faces, their noses, how deep-set their eyes are, the prominence of their chin and so on and so forth. A useful point of comparison is the rather nasty racist joke that 'all Asians look alike"; in the same way we tend to mentally categorize all people in 16th century paintings as looking alike. This extends to the clothing; the fact is that a typical modern viewer is going to be less sensitive to the vagaries of 16th century fashion and less sensitive(in a world where virtually everyone wears cheap and affordable comfortable cotton or synthetic fabrics on a regular basis) to the different textures and qualities of linen, silk, taffeta, velvet, or brocade is probably going to not recognize subtle differences in dress that would be glaringly visible to a 16th century viewer-look at for example how the portrait of Jane Seymour you probably saw shows a much wider collar than the portrait of Anne of Cleves, or how much more loosely and widely cut and fabric-intensive the clothes of Anne of Cleves look.
|
[
"Portraits are natural reflection of real people. The ability to achieve a true likeness was greatly valued until the mid-nineteenth century. However, once photographs became common, artists could use their skills to show something about the subject that no camera could match. In addition to showing the person, a great portrait suggests a history, personality, mood and feeling. Leonardo da Vinci's \"Mona Lisa\", 1507 captures the essence of the portrait in that it is compelling, and the view feels a connection to the person who is portrayed, yet it is also mysterious.\n",
"The art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of an idealized symbol of what that person looked like. (Compare the portraits of Roman Emperors Constantine I and Theodosius I at their entries.) In the Europe of the Early Middle Ages representations of individuals are mostly generalized. True portraits of the outward appearance of individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in tomb monuments, donor portraits, miniatures in illuminated manuscripts and then panel paintings.\n",
"Portraits generally have a client or \"sitter\" rather than a model as the subject; and are now often done from photographs at least in part, although artists prefer to have at least some hours of live sitting particularly at the beginning to better capture the personality, and at the end for final touches.\n",
"Chinese portrait painting was slow to desire or achieve an actual likeness. Many \"portraits\" were of famous figures from the past, and showed an idea of what that person should look like. Buddhist clergy, especially in sculpture, were something of an exception to this. Portraits of the emperor were long never seen in public, partly for fear that mistreatment of them might dishonour the emperor or even cause bad luck. The most senior ministers were allowed once a year to pay homage to the images in the imperial gallery of ancestor portraits, as a special honour.\n",
"Certain conjectural portraits have become iconic of their subjects, and are widely recognizable as such, with few being aware that they are not authentic portraits. For example, portraits of Christopher Columbus and Joan of Arc are widely recognized.\n",
"His portraits are always faithful representations of the sitters. It is astonishing that after so many years, many of the portraits still resemble the sitters. But, sometimes he embellishes the sitter by adding some mannerist hands. Fascinated by hands (which is the most difficult part of a portrait), he always included some hands into a portrait (when possible). But, generally they do not represent the hands of the sitter. They are – especially with woman portraits – a mannerist way to add more grace and elegance to the sitter. Baroness Van Houtte's and Baroness Velge's hands are indeed stockier than the hands Raeburn painted, while the position of the hand of Countess de Liedekerke is anatomically quite impossible, as are the hands of Countess d'Oultremont. One notices the elongated fingers in the portraits of Baroness Van Houtte, Countess d'Oultremont and Countess de Liedekerke.\n",
"Portraits and self-portraits have a longer continuous history in Asian art than in Europe. Many in the scholar gentleman tradition are quite small, depicting the artist in a large landscape, illustrating a poem in calligraphy on his experience of the scene. Another tradition, associated with Zen Buddhism, produced lively semi-caricatured self-portraits, whilst others remain closer to the conventions of the formal portrait.\n"
] |
Chinese(?) coins
|
Based on your drawing the first one is from the period of the Daoguang 道光 Emperor, the 8th Qing emperor who ruled from 1820 to 1850. The second is from the reign of the Shunzhi 順治 Emperor, who was the third Qing emperor, ruling from 1644 to 1661. The side with Chinese characters just says the name of the empepror and that it's money (通寶).
The other side is written in Manchu and says "Ministry of Revenue" on both coins. That's the minting authority, which in this case was in the province of Chihli, which no longer exists today as a modern administrative division. Basically Beijing, though.
Chances are these are not authentic. A lot of these are made as tourist trinkets and you can get them for literal pennies. If they look to be very similar in condition and material, then it's almost certain that they are knock-offs, since if they were authentic you'd expect the 200 years differnce of when they would have been minted (if authentic) to leave different patterns of ware. Even if they are authentic, the Daoguang one isn't going to make you rich. Neither is the Shunzhi though it might arguably be worth more. You'd obviously need them authenticated by a collector to really know, though.
Also your red is pretty darn accurate. Well done!
|
[
"Chinese coinage during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods includes some of the earliest coins produced in the world. However, they were mostly not the typical round shape of modern coins. They included cowrie shells, ant nose money, spade-shaped money and knife-shaped money.\n",
"Chinese coins of this type are known Kwangtung dollars from the old romanisation of the name of the mint that they were first produced in China, more popularly they are known in Chinese as 龍銀, literally \"Dragon Silver\" or \"Dragon Money\", 銀 capable of being read as both silver or money.\n",
"In the modern era, these coins are considered to be Chinese “good luck coins”; they are hung on strings and round the necks of children, or over the beds of sick people. They hold a place in various superstitions, as well as Traditional Chinese medicine, and Feng shui. Currencies based on the Chinese cash coins include the Japanese mon, Korean mun, Ryukyuan mon, and Vietnamese văn.\n",
"As the Chinese coins were not in sufficient number as trade and economy expanded, local Japanese imitations of Chinese coins were made from the 14th century, especially imitations of Ming coins, with inscribed names identical to those of contemporary Chinese coins. These coins had a very low value compared to Chinese coins, and several of them had to be exchanged for just one Chinese coin. This situation continued until the beginning of the Edo period, when a new system was put in place.\n",
"Ancient Chinese coins are markedly different from their European counterparts. Chinese coins were manufactured by being cast in molds, whereas European coins were typically cut and hammered or, in later times, milled. Chinese coins were usually made from mixtures of metals such copper, tin and lead, from bronze, brass or iron: precious metals like gold and silver were uncommonly used. The ratios and purity of the coin metals varied considerably. Most Chinese coins were produced with a square hole in the middle. This was used to allow collections of coins to be threaded on a square rod so that the rough edges could be filed smooth, and then threaded on strings for ease of handling.\n",
"The high regard in which these coins came to be held, led to the minting of the silver Chinese yuan, a coin designed to resemble the Spanish one. These Chinese \"dragon dollars\" not only circulated in China, but together with original coins of Spanish-Mexican origin became the preferred currency of trade between China and its neighbours. Defeated in the First Opium War China was forced to open its ports to foreign trade, and in the late half of the 19th Century Western nations trading with China found it cheaper and more expedient to mint their own coins, from their own supplies of silver, than to continue to use coins from Mexican sources. These so-called trade dollars would approximate in specification, weight 7 mace and 2 candareens (approx. 27.2 grams) and fineness .900 (90%), the Spanish-Mexican coins so long trusted and valued in China.\n",
"In the 19th century, foreign coins began to circulate widely in China, particularly silver coins such as the Mexican peso. In 1889, Chinese currency began to be denominated in the yuan and its subdivisions. The cash or wén was retained in this system as yuan. Traditional style, cast 1 wén coins continued to be produced until the end of the Chinese Empire in 1911. The last coins denominated in cash were struck in the early years of the Republic of China in 1924.\n"
] |
How are artifical sweeteners digested by the body?
|
It depends on the sweetener. They are very different molecules.
Aspartame, brand name Equal, is basically a tiny protein molecule with an alcohol molecule stuck on the end. It gets broken apart into its component parts and they are digested separately. This generates about 4 calories per gram-- the same as sugar.
The reason aspartame is a "low calorie" sweetener is that it's 200 times sweeter than sugar, so you use much less of it. Instead of two teaspoons of sugar, you use one blue sweetener packet, which contains 0.04 grams of aspartame and some filler.
Sucralose, brand name Splenda, works differently. It's low calorie because the body does not recognize it as a nutrient, so it doesn't get digested at all. It passes through the digestive tract unchanged, and almost entirely unabsorbed. The tiny amount of sucralose that does get absorbed into the bloodstream gets excreted right back out again, still unchanged, in the urine.
|
[
"BULLET::::- Low-calorie sugars and artificial sweeteners are often made of maltodextrin with added sweeteners. Maltodextrin is an easily digestible synthetic polysaccharide consisting of short chains of glucose molecules and is made by the partial hydrolysis of starch.\n",
"Sweet taste signals the presence of carbohydrates in solution. Since carbohydrates have a very high calorie count (saccharides have many bonds, therefore much energy), they are desirable to the human body, which evolved to seek out the highest calorie intake foods. They are used as direct energy (sugars) and storage of energy (glycogen). However, there are many non-carbohydrate molecules that trigger a sweet response, leading to the development of many artificial sweeteners, including saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame. It is still unclear how these substances activate the sweet receptors and what adaptational significance this has had.\n",
"A characteristic feature of the beverage is that the starting material is cooked, chewed, and fermented, so that enzymes present in human saliva can break down the starch into fermentable sugars. (This principle was originally used also for Japanese sake.) \n",
"Apart from sugar of lead (used as a sweetener in ancient through medieval times before the toxicity of lead was known), saccharin was the first artificial sweetener and was originally synthesized in 1879 by Remsen and Fahlberg. Its sweet taste was discovered by accident. It had been created in an experiment with toluene derivatives. A process for the creation of saccharin from phthalic anhydride was developed in 1950, and, currently, saccharin is created by this process as well as the original process by which it was discovered. It is 300 to 500 times as sweet as sugar (sucrose) and is often used to improve the taste of toothpastes, dietary foods, and dietary beverages. The bitter aftertaste of saccharin is often minimized by blending it with other sweeteners.\n",
"BULLET::::- Sweeteners : Sweeteners are added to foods for flavoring. Sweeteners other than sugar are added to keep the food energy (calories) low, or because they have beneficial effects for diabetes mellitus and tooth decay and diarrhea.\n",
"BULLET::::- Sweeteners : Sweeteners are added to foods for flavoring. Sweeteners other than sugar are added to keep the food energy (calories) low, or because they have beneficial effects regarding diabetes mellitus, tooth decay, or diarrhea.\n",
"Taste profile. Isomaltulose is used as a food ingredient and alternative to other sugars and maltodextrins in foods and beverages. In these it provides a natural sucrose-like sweetness profile with a sweetening power about half that of sucrose, and no aftertaste. \n"
] |
I have some hypothetical questions about magnetic spheres.
|
Based on what I can understand of your question you are horribly misunderstanding magnetism.
Reason: Your spheres are impossible.
Without a path to complete what I generally hear termed the "magnetic circuit" you are effectively looking at some sort of magnetic monopole type structure which is (as far as science understands so far) is impossible.
By "thicker" and "thinner" it sounds like you are thinking of a spherical shell but the same idea of inability to complete the circuit applies even when they are within each other. Does that make sense? (as in, flux lines from the very center cannot loop back out as they want to)
Also, magnets cannot be magnetized spherically like you indicate. It can be approximated with smaller magnets put together but can't just be magnetized that way to begin with. (_URL_0_)
Is there a particular reason you are asking? That will direct how I can address perhaps creating a type of situation like you're thinking of.
|
[
"The spheres are to in diameter (larger than Geomag), approximately in weight, and are prone to surface corrosion, unlike most other magnetic construction toys. The bars with magnets at each end are long, or , or and flexible, or short rigid curves. Panel shapes include two types of interlocking triangles, interlockable squares, and circle or disks. The triangles and squares identify the North-South polarity of one of their embedded magnets. The disks identify all four magnets.\n",
"Relatively shortly after his breakthrough Ugelstad gave a lecture in the United States. After the lecture some scientists asked if it was possible to magnetize the spheres, so they could be used to separate cells. The inquiry sparked new nights with research problems in John Ugelstad bedrooms and resulted in the development of magnetic monodisperse particles at SINTEF. The solution was designated as ingenious in its simplicity. Basically he made particles paramagnetic, i.e. they are only magnetic in a magnetic field. When this field is removed, the particles are non-magnetic.\n",
"This sphere example was used by Newton himself to discuss the detection of rotation relative to absolute space. Checking the fictitious force needed to account for the tension in the string is one way for an observer to decide whether or not they are rotating – if the fictitious force is zero, they are not rotating. (Of course, in an extreme case like the gravitron amusement ride, you do not need much convincing that you are rotating, but standing on the Earth's surface, the matter is more subtle.) Below, the mathematical details behind this observation are presented.\n",
"Consequently, the fictitious force found above for this problem of rotating spheres is consistent with the general result and is not an \"ad hoc\" solution just \"cooked up\" to bring about agreement for this single example. Moreover, it is the Coriolis force that makes it possible for the fictitious force to change sign depending upon which of ω, ω is the greater, inasmuch as the centrifugal force contribution always is outward.\n",
"In fictional accounts, the Dyson-sphere concept is often interpreted as an artificial hollow sphere of matter around a star. This perception is based on a literal interpretation of Dyson's original short paper introducing the concept. In response to letters prompted by some papers, Dyson replied, \"A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of 'biosphere' which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star.\"\n",
"The rotating magnetic field induces eddy currents in the sphere. The resulting Lorentz interaction between the magnetic field and these eddy currents generate torque that rotates the sphere. The rotational speed of the sphere depends on the rotational velocity of the magnetic field, the magnitude of the magnetic field and the viscosity of the sample around the sphere. The motion of the sphere is monitored by a video camera ⑤ located below the cell. The torque applied to the sphere is proportional to the difference in the angular velocity of the magnetic field and the one of the sphere . There is thus a linear relationship between and the viscosity of the liquid.\n",
"The case of a particle in a one-dimensional ring is an instructive example when studying the quantization of angular momentum for, say, an electron orbiting the nucleus. The azimuthal wave functions in that case are identical to the energy eigenfunctions of the particle on a ring.\n"
] |
Why don't we create a small scale nuclear reactor to power cars individualy?
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The cost is far too high for it to be reliable and consistent, and the waste produced would be difficult to manage, depending on the type of fuel used.
|
[
"Reactors used in nuclear marine propulsion (especially nuclear submarines) often cannot be run at continuous power around the clock in the same way that land-based power reactors are normally run, and in addition often need to have a very long core life without refueling. For this reason many designs use highly enriched uranium but incorporate burnable neutron poison in the fuel rods. This allows the reactor to be constructed with an excess of fissionable material, which is nevertheless made relatively safe early in the reactor's fuel burn-cycle by the presence of the neutron-absorbing material which is later replaced by normally produced long-lived neutron poisons (far longer-lived than xenon-135) which gradually accumulate over the fuel load's operating life.\n",
"It is possible to design civilian power-generating reactors using unenriched fuel, but only about 10% of those ever built (such as the CANDU reactor) utilize that technology. Thus most civilian reactors as well as all naval reactors and nuclear weapons production require fuel containing concentrated U-235 and generate depleted uranium.\n",
"Although there is no way to guarantee that a reactor will always be designed, built and operated safely, the nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed safer reactor designs, though many of these designs have yet to be tested at industrial or commercial scales. Mistakes do occur and the designers of reactors at Fukushima in Japan did not anticipate that a tsunami generated by an earthquake would disable the backup systems that were supposed to stabilize the reactor after the earthquake. According to UBS AG, the Fukushima I nuclear accidents have cast doubt on whether even an advanced economy like Japan can master nuclear safety. Catastrophic scenarios involving terrorist attacks are also conceivable.\n",
"Modern nuclear reactor designs have had numerous safety improvements since the first-generation nuclear reactors. A nuclear power plant cannot explode like a nuclear weapon because the fuel for uranium reactors is not enriched enough, and nuclear weapons require precision explosives to force fuel into a small enough volume to go supercritical. Most reactors require continuous temperature control to prevent a core meltdown, which has occurred on a few occasions through accident or natural disaster, releasing radiation and making the surrounding area uninhabitable. Plants must be defended against theft of nuclear material and attack by enemy military planes or missiles, or planes hijacked by terrorists.\n",
"Spacecraft nuclear reactors are typically fast reactors for reasons of space and weight. Moderator materials add bulk and mass which is not desirable in a spacecraft. Fast reactors require more highly enriched fuel than the typical 5% enrichment of moderated reactors, the BES-5 uses 95% enrichment Uranium. Note that some of the U-238 (which is fertile and not fissile) will be converted to Pu-239 during operation, and this is taken into consideration during the design and while estimating the power output and design life expectancy.\n",
"While power reactors are carefully designed and operated to avoid prompt criticality under all circumstances, many small research or \"zero power\" reactors are designed to be intentionally placed into prompt criticality (reactivity $2) with complete safety by rapidly withdrawing their control rods. Their fuel elements are designed so that as they heat up, reactivity is automatically and quickly reduced through effects such as doppler broadening and thermal expansion. Such reactors can be \"pulsed\" to very high power levels (e.g., several GW) for a few milliseconds, after which reactivity automatically drops to $1 and a relatively low and constant power level (e.g. several hundred kW) is maintained until shut down manually by reinserting the control rods. \n",
"For especially large EVs, such as submarines, the chemical energy of the diesel-electric can be replaced by a nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactor usually provides heat, which drives a steam turbine, which drives a generator, which is then fed to the propulsion. \"See Nuclear Power\"\n"
] |
in terms of microeconomics, how does piracy of digital goods affect supply, demand, sale, price, etc.?
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Within a narrow context, piracy has two effects. It depresses or increases potential demand for a product at the rate at which the file spreads through a population. There's less than 1 to 1 correlation between the number of people with an illicit copy who drop out of the demand population. The number of people who will potentially purchase a file through sanctioned means can sometimes be greater with a moderate amount of piracy than with none at all, due to marketing and to pirates who pay their respects. In other cases, piracy allows a digital good to be sampled at no cost to the consumer, and the product fails due to lack of appeal or quality.
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[
"According to the same study, even though digital piracy inflicts additional costs on the production side of media, it also offers the main access to media goods in developing countries. The strong tradeoffs that favor using digital piracy in developing economies dictate the current neglected law enforcements toward digital piracy. In China, the issue of digital infringement is not merely legal, but social – originating from the high demand for cheap and affordable goods as well as the governmental connections of the businesses which produce such goods.\n",
"Piracy's real effect on music sales is difficult to accurately assess. In neoclassical economics prices are determined by the combination of the forces of supply and demand, but the participators in the digital market do not always follow the usual motives and behaviors of the supply and demand system. First, the cost of digital distribution has decreased significantly from the costs of distribution by former methods. Furthermore, the majority of the filesharing community will distribute copies of music for a zero price in monetary terms, and there are some consumers who are willing to pay a certain price for legitimate copies even when they could just as easily obtain pirated copies, such as with pay what you want vendors.\n",
"Media Piracy in Emerging Economies is a report released by the Social Science Research Council in 2011. It contends that “high prices for media goods, low incomes, and cheap digital technologies are the main ingredients of global media piracy. If piracy is ubiquitous in most parts of the world, it is because these conditions are ubiquitous.”\n",
"In Media Piracy in Emerging Economies, the first independent international comparative study of media piracy with center on Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Turkey and Bolivia, \"high prices for media goods, low incomes, and cheap digital technologies\" are the chief factors that lead to the global spread of media piracy, especially in emerging markets.\n",
"An important aspect of the digital supply chain is the process of encrypting the content so that it cannot be played back without the proper license which is often acquired via purchase of content or subscription. This reduces the possibility of media being pirated.\n",
"Consumers have also had to deal with intellectual property as it concerns their ownership of and ability to control the born-digital material that they buy. Piracy proves to be a bigger problem with digital objects, including those that are born-digital, because such materials can be copied and spread in perfect condition with speed and distance on a scale inconceivable for traditional print and physical materials. Again, the first-sale doctrine, which, from a consumer standpoint, allows purchasers of materials to sell or give away items (such as books and CDs), is not yet applied effectively to digital objects. Three reasons for this have been identified by Victor Calaba: \"...first, license agreements imposed by software manufacturers typically prohibit exercise of the first sale doctrine; second, traditional copyright law may not support application of the first sale doctrine to digital works; finally, the functionally prevents users from making copies of digitized works and prohibits the necessary bypassing of access control mechanisms to facilitate a transfer.\"\n",
"Online piracy has led to improvements into file sharing technology that has bettered information distribution as a whole. Additionally, pirating communities tend to model market trends well, as members of those communities tend to be early adopters. Piracy can also lead to businesses developing new models that better account for the current market.\n"
] |
why do emojis show up differently on ios vs android devices?
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Well consider it like a different font type. It still conveys the same information, but it is a separate style.
|
[
"The second problem relates to technology and branding. When an author of a message picks an emoji from a list, it is normally encoded in a non-graphical manner during the transmission, and if the author and the reader do not use the same software or operating system for their devices, the reader's device may visualize the same emoji in a different way. Small changes to a character's look may completely alter its perceived meaning with the receiver.\n",
"Journalists have noted that the ambiguity of emoji has allowed them to take on culture-specific meanings not present in the original glyphs. For example, has been described as being used in English-language communities to signify \"non-caring fabulousness\" and \"anything from shutting haters down to a sense of accomplishment\". Unicode manuals sometimes provide notes on auxiliary meanings of an object to guide designers on how emoji may be used, for example noting that some users may expect to stand for \"a reserved or ticketed seat, as for an airplane, train, or theater\".\n",
"Apple first introduced emoji to their desktop operating system with the release of OS X 10.7 Lion, in 2011. Users can view emoji characters sent through email and messaging applications, which are commonly shared by mobile users, as well as any other application. Users can create emoji symbols using the \"Characters\" special input panel from almost any native application by selecting the \"Edit\" menu and pulling down to \"Special Characters\", or by the key combination . The desktop OS uses the Apple Color Emoji font that was introduced earlier in iOS. This provides users with full color pictographs.\n",
"Research has shown that emoji are often misunderstood. In some cases, this misunderstanding is related to how the actual emoji design is interpreted by the viewer; in other cases, the emoji that was sent is not shown in the same way on the receiving side.\n",
"New emojis have been added, as well as additional features related to emoji. Emojis appear 3x bigger if messages are sent with up to three emojis and no text, the keyboard can now predict emojis to use, and an emoji replacement feature attempts to match words in messages and replace them with emojis of the same meaning.\n",
"Another problem is that emojis can look different depending on the operating system, applications, and fonts used. Not all browsers support emoji domains. On Google Chrome and Firefox, emoji display as Punycode in the address bar. In Safari, on the other hand, emoji are visible in the address bar. Emoji domains are also visible in Google and Bing search results.\n",
"Emoji are pictograms that can be used and displayed inline with text. They are similar to previous symbol typefaces, but with a much larger range of characters, such as symbols for common objects, animals, food types, weather and emotions. Originally developed in Japan, they are now commonly installed on many computer and smartphone operating systems. Following standardisation and inclusion in the Unicode standard, allowing them to be used internationally, the number of Emoji characters has rapidly increased to meet the demands of an expanded range of cultures using them; unlike many previous symbol typefaces, they are interchangeable with the ability to display the pictures of the same meaning in a range of fonts on different operating systems. The popularity of emoji has meant that characters have sometimes gained culture-specific meanings not inherent to the design. Both colour and monochrome emoji typefaces exist, as well as at least one animated design.\n"
] |
Did the Romans have some concept of 'standardized spelling'?
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I think this depends entirely on what era you're looking at.
So far as I am aware, there wasn't an institution in Rome that said "Ok, everyone, amicus is a second declension noun, not a fourth declension one!" I'm not sure how linguists would approach this issue, so I can't speak to how everyone agreed that it should be "amicus, amici." There doesn't seem to be the same variation of dialects that you get with ancient Greek writings.
However, the educational curriculum was extremely conservative insofar as people studied the same Latin texts regardless of where they were in the empire. By the late antique period, people studied Vergil and Cicero (and a few others), and being able to write like them was considered the gold standard of Latin writing.
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[
"In its spelling, it retains medieval Latin orthography, sometimes using \"oe\" rather than \"ae\", and having more proper nouns beginning with \"H\" (e.g., \"Helimelech\" instead of \"Elimelech\"). Unlike the edition of Rome, it standardizes the spelling of proper names rather than attempting to reproduce the idiosyncrasies of each passage. It also follows the medieval manuscripts in using line breaks, rather than the modern system of punctuation marks, to indicate the structure of each verse, following the practice of the Oxford and Rome editions, though it initially presents an unfamiliar appearance to readers accustomed to the Clementine text.\n",
"The languages that use the Latin script today generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and proper nouns. The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization. Old English, for example, was rarely written with even proper nouns capitalized; whereas Modern English of the 18th century had frequently all nouns capitalized, in the same way that Modern German is written today, e.g. \"Alle Schwestern der alten Stadt hatten die Vögel gesehen\" (\"All of the sisters of the old city had seen the birds\").\n",
"BULLET::::- Although it is normal to use lower case when writing Latin in modern times, this article, dealing as it does with etymology, presents Latin in the capital letters used by the Romans, and modern innovations such as , , ligatures, macrons, and breves have been avoided.\n",
"Latin spelling, or Latin orthography, is the spelling of Latin words written in the scripts of all historical phases of Latin from Old Latin to the present. All scripts use the same alphabet, but conventional spellings may vary from phase to phase. The Roman alphabet, or Latin alphabet, was adapted from the Old Italic script to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. The Old Italic script had in turn been borrowed from the Greek alphabet, itself adapted from the Phoenician alphabet. The Latin alphabet most resembles the Greek alphabet around 540 BC, as it appears on the black-figure pottery of the time.\n",
"The lower case (minuscule) letters developed in the Middle Ages from New Roman Cursive writing, first as the uncial script, and later as minuscule script. The old Roman letters were retained for formal inscriptions and for emphasis in written documents. The languages that use the Latin alphabet generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and for proper nouns. The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization. Old English, for example, was rarely written with even proper nouns capitalised; whereas Modern English of the 18th century had frequently all nouns capitalised, in the same way that Modern German is today.\n",
"During the age of the Roman Empire, translation of names into Latin (in the West) or Greek (in the East) was common. Additionally, Latinised versions of Greek substantives, particularly proper nouns, could easily be declined by Latin speakers with minimal modification of the original word.\n",
"Some proposed simplified spellings already exist as standard or variant spellings in old literature. As noted earlier, in the 16th century, some scholars of Greek and Latin literature tried to make English words look more like their Graeco-Latin counterparts, at times even erroneously. They did this by adding silent letters, so \"det\" became \"debt\", \"dout\" became \"doubt\", \"sithe\" became \"scythe\", \"iland\" became \"island\", \"ake\" became \"ache\", and so on. Some spelling reformers propose undoing these changes. Other examples of older spellings that are more phonetic include \"frend\" for \"friend\" (as on Shakespeare's grave), \"agenst\" for \"against\", \"yeeld\" for \"yield\", \"bild\" for \"build\", \"cort\" for \"court\", \"sted\" for \"stead\", \"delite\" for \"delight\", \"entise\" for \"entice\", \"gost\" for \"ghost\", \"harth\" for \"hearth\", \"rime\" for \"rhyme\", \"sum\" for \"some\", \"tung\" for \"tongue\", and many others. It was also once common to use \"-t\" for the ending \"-ed\" where it is pronounced as such (for example \"dropt\" for \"dropped\"). Some of the English language's most celebrated writers and poets have used these spellings and others proposed by today's spelling reformers. Edmund Spenser, for example, used spellings such as \"rize, wize\" and \"advize\" in his famous poem \"The Faerie Queene\", published in the 1590s.\n"
] |
if someone were to dip a live electrical wire into the ocean, wouldn't everyone swimming in the ocean at that time be electrocuted?
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No. Electricity moves from one place to another place, along the path of least resistance. It doesn't spread out and electrocute everything that happens to be in the same body of water.
In the case of an electrical wire in the ocean, it'd likely prove dangerous to things within a few feet of it (maybe even a few dozen feet), but that's about it.
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[
"There is no visible warning to electrified water. Swimmers will be able to feel the electricity if the current is substantial. If the swimmers notice any unusual tingling feeling or symptoms of electrical shock, it is highly likely that stray currents exist and everyone needs to get out. Swimmers should always swim away from the suspected current source. In most cases this means swimming away from docks and boats and toward another safer portion of the shoreline.\n",
"It is also recommended to install residual-current devices for protection against electrocution. The greater danger associated with electrical shock in the water is that the person may be rendered immobile and unable to rescue themselves or to call for help and then drown.\n",
"Once the victim is safely on shore, first aid may be needed. Treatment depends on the specifics of each case, but is likely some combination of the treatments for electrocution and drowning individually. Even if the victim seems well, examination by healthcare professional is recommended as latent effects from the electricity may be undetected.\n",
"The primary method of rescue is to get the swimmer away from the current source by any means possible, EXCEPT by sending out rescue swimmers. This means Row and Throw, but do not Go. If stray currents are suspected, a rescue by another swimmer should never be attempted. For cases where swimmers can feel mild tingling, getting flotation devices out to them can aid them to swim away from the current source under their own power. In cases where the current source is obvious, it may be possible for bystanders on foot to disconnect it. Dockside power hookups often have integrated or nearby breakers by which the source can be de-energized.\n",
"Besides boats and dockside power hookups, several other potential causes exist. Lightning strikes over or near water have caused electric shock drownings. Faulty hydroelectric generators or damaged underwater power lines can cause leakage currents, potentially creating a hazard. In general, anything electrically active that comes in contact with water has the potential to create leakage currents and contribute to this type of safety hazard.\n",
"Over 80% of trans-oceanic telecommunication cables are located in water depths 2000m. There, the risks posed by fishing and shipping – the main causes of cable damage – are small. Accordingly, a typical cable is a 17-22mm diameter tube, the size of a domestic garden hose. It is composed of optical glass fibres, a copper power conductor and steel wires to add strength, all of which are encased in chemically inert, marine-grade polyethylene. Antifouling agents are not used. Furthermore, the amount of power in a cable is small being around 0.6 to 1 ampere, which is less than a laptop computer. Deep-ocean cables are laid on the seabed surface with minimal disturbance to the benthic environment.\n",
"The tube would be placed underwater, deep enough to avoid water traffic and weather, but not so deep that high water pressure needs to be dealt with—usually 20–50 m (60–150 ft) is sufficient. Cables either anchored to the Earth or to pontoons at the surface would prevent it from floating to the surface or submerging, respectively.\n"
] |
why did we domesticate chickens for the use of eggs and not other birds?
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Most likely because they tend to be slow, their eggs full of protein and they can't fly. Chickens are probably a lot easier to domesticate over a pigeon, for example.
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[
"The domestication of poultry took place several thousand years ago. This may have originally been as a result of people hatching and rearing young birds from eggs collected from the wild, but later involved keeping the birds permanently in captivity. Domesticated chickens may have been used for cockfighting at first and quail kept for their songs, but soon it was realised how useful it was having a captive-bred source of food. \n",
"Bird eggs have been valuable foodstuffs since prehistory, in both hunting societies and more recent cultures where birds were domesticated. The chicken probably was domesticated for its eggs (from jungle fowl native to tropical and subtropical Southeast Asia and Indian subcontinent) before 7500 BCE. Chickens were brought to Sumer and Egypt by 1500 BCE, and arrived in Greece around 800 BCE, where the quail had been the primary source of eggs. In Thebes, Egypt, the tomb of Haremhab, dating to approximately 1420 BCE, shows a depiction of a man carrying bowls of ostrich eggs and other large eggs, presumably those of the pelican, as offerings. In ancient Rome, eggs were preserved using a number of methods and meals often started with an egg course. The Romans crushed the shells in their plates to prevent evil spirits from hiding there. In the Middle Ages, eggs were forbidden during Lent because of their richness. The word mayonnaise possibly was derived from \"moyeu\", the medieval French word for the yolk, meaning center or hub.\n",
"Worldwide, more chickens are kept than any other type of poultry, with over 50 billion birds being raised each year as a source of meat and eggs. Traditionally, such birds would have been kept extensively in small flocks, foraging during the day and housed at night. This is still the case in developing countries, where the women often make important contributions to family livelihoods through keeping poultry. However, rising world populations and urbanization have led to the bulk of production being in larger, more intensive specialist units. These are often situated close to where the feed is grown or near to where the meat is needed, and result in cheap, safe food being made available for urban communities. Profitability of production depends very much on the price of feed, which has been rising. High feed costs could limit further development of poultry production.\n",
"The chicken (\"Gallus gallus domesticus\") is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl (\"Gallus gallus\"). It is one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of more than 19 billion as of 2011. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food (consuming both their meat and eggs) and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BC).\n",
"Until the domestication of the chicken, eggs were available in limited quantities and were considered a delicacy, as in ancient Egypt. The most common birds – turtledoves and pigeons – were reared for their meat and not for their very small eggs. Biblical references to eggs are only in reference to gathering them from the wild (for example, and ). Eggs seem to have increased in use for food only with the introduction of chickens as food, and were commonly used as food by Roman times.\n",
"Chickens are gregarious birds and live together in flocks. They have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a \"pecking order\", with dominant individuals having priority for food access and nesting locations. Removing hens or roosters from a flock causes a temporary disruption to this social order until a new pecking order is established. Adding hens, especially younger birds, to an existing flock can lead to fighting and injury.\n",
"Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, and turkeys).\n"
] |
Does the "subconscious" really exist?
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As DeathSquid5000 said, it's really just a catch-all term for cognitive processing that you're unaware of, for example, a lot of decision-making processes (most of which seem to occur outside of awareness, although you'll likely be inclined to think otherwise). In terms of the singular, nebulous, primal, almost mystical construct that Freud discussed... evidence is currently not working in his favour.
An interesting unconscious process can actually be seen in the phenomenon of [blindsight](_URL_0_), which is seen in people who lack conscious visual perception due to the destruction of their primary visual cortex (a.k.a. striate cortex, V1, or Brodmann Area 17), or at least part of it. They still retain above-chance ability to react to objects presented in the blinded areas of their visual field, which suggests some unconscious processing in other brain areas (~10% of retinal neurons don't project to V1), or in the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus (which is the step before V1). Some people have suggested that their may be "islands" of intact striate tissue remaining, though, but it's hard to be sure due to the fact that researchers need to use human patients with pre-existing cortical damage, which will pretty much never be uniform from one patient to the next. (Of course, surgical cortical lesions could be done in monkeys, chimpanzees, etc., but I'm not sure of what's happening as far as research into non-human blindsight is concerned.)
Also, the idea of "accessing" the subconscious may be taken to imply that it's a singular entity or cognitive store, which it really isn't. Still, hypnosis and lucid dreaming appear to allow us to tap into some of our unconscious processes, since they can aid in memory recall and, in the case of lucid dreaming, even allow us to analyse our emotional states and aspects of our memories and lives that we normally don't seem to be able to consider. Also, hypnosis patients sometimes report that there is an almost separate subconscious aspect to themselves that is able to perceive things that are happening when their "conscious mind" is hypnotised, although, like with any hypnosis research, you do get a lot of skeptics out there.
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[
"The word \"subconscious\" represents an anglicized version of the French \"subconscient\" as coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet (1859–1947), who argued that underneath the layers of critical-thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness that he called the subconscious mind.\n",
"Charles Rycroft explains that the subconscious is a term \"never used in psychoanalytic writings\". Peter Gay says that the use of the term subconscious where unconscious is meant is \"a common and telling mistake\"; indeed, \"when [the term] is employed to say something 'Freudian', it is proof that the writer has not read his Freud\".\n",
"It has been argued that consciousness is influenced by other parts of the mind. These include unconsciousness as a personal habit, being unaware, and intuition. Phenomena related to semi-consciousness include awakening, implicit memory, subliminal messages, trances, hypnagogia, and hypnosis. While sleep, sleepwalking, dreaming, delirium, and comas may signal the presence of unconscious processes, these processes are seen as symptoms rather than the unconscious mind itself.\n",
"In the social sciences, the term subconscious, was resurrected in an article by Stajkovic, Locke, and Blair (2006) who referred to subconscious motivation as occurring \"without intention, awareness, and conscious guidance.\" A review of early research on the subconscious can be found in Latham, Stajkovic, and Locke (2010).\n",
"The concept of the subconscious appears in the writings of Rabbi Salanter well before the concept was popularized by Sigmund Freud. Already in 1880, the concept of conscious and subconscious processes and the role they play in the psychological, emotional and moral functioning of man are fully developed and elucidated. These concepts are referred to in his works as the \"outer\" \"[chitzoniut]\" and \"inner\" \"[penimiut]\" processes, they are also referred to as the \"clear\" \"[klarer]\" and \"dark\" \"[dunkler]\" processes. They form a fundamental building block of many of Rabbi Salanter's letters, essays and teachings. He would write that it is critical for a person to recognize what his subconscious motivations \"[negiot]\" are and to work on understanding them.\n",
"Scholars have used other adjectives with similar meanings, such as unconscious, preconscious, and nonconscious, to describe mental processing without conscious awareness. The distinctions among these terms are subtle, but the term subconscious refers to both mental processing that occurs below awareness, such as the pushing up of unconscious content into consciousness, and to associations and content that reside below conscious awareness, but are capable of becoming conscious again.\n",
"In short, the [neuronal] causes and correlates of conscious experience should not be confused with their \"ontology\" [...] the \"only\" evidence about what conscious experiences are like comes from first-person sources, which consistently suggest consciousness to be something other than or additional to neuronal activity.\n"
] |
Does tourettes exist in all languages and if so does it manifest itself differently in different cultures?
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Verbal tourettes is just a very small part of the disorder at about 12% of the individuals who have it and of those only a small percent expel curse words. Most manifestations occur in physical repetitive motions such as tapping or twitching and can be as grand as siting down repeatedly. So yes it happens in all cultures in many different ways
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[
"Tripura has several diverse ethno-linguistic groups, which has given rise to a composite culture. The dominant cultures are Bengali, Manipuri, Tripuris, Jamatia, Reang, Naitong, Koloi, Murasing, Chakma, Halam, Garo, Hajong, Kuki, Mizo, Mogh, Munda, Oraon, Santhal, and Uchoi.\n",
"In South Asia, they are known as \"hangkok\" in Meitei, \"udumbu\" in Tamil and Malayalam, \"gohi\" (गोहि) in Maithili, \"ghorpad\" घोरपड in Marathi, \"uda\" in Kannada, in Sinhalese as \"kabaragoya\", in Telugu as \"udumu\", in Punjabi and Magahi (and other Bihari languages) as गोह (goh), in Assamese as \"gui xaap\", and in Odia as ଗୋଧି (godhi), and in Bengali as গোসাপ (goshaap) or গুইসাপ (guishaap) and गोह (goh) in Hindi. \n",
"The typical clinomorphism of Tourette's is both an oversimplification and a conflation of various aspects and conditions pertaining to some persons with Tourette syndrome. Some people with Tourette syndrome do have involuntary offensive speech which is termed coprolalia and is sometimes clinomorphised into the term \"compulsive swearing\" or \"compulsive profanity\", terms which have clinomorphic currency outside the use of the term \"Tourette's\". However, coprolalia is actually a relatively rare symptom of Tourette's.\n",
"Tourette syndrome is an inherited neurological disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by the presence of motor and phonic tics. Tourette's is a misunderstood and stigmatizing condition, often mentioned in the popular media. Tourette syndrome was once considered a rare and bizarre syndrome. It is no longer considered rare, but is often undetected because of the wide range of severity, with most cases classified as mild. Tourette's is defined as part of a spectrum of tic disorders, which includes provisional and chronic tics. With increased knowledge of the full range of severity of Tourette syndrome—including milder cases—it has shifted from a condition only recognized in its most severe and impairing forms, to one recognized as a condition which is often mild, and which may be associated with some advantages and some disadvantages.\n",
"Old French \"tournment\" was in use in the 12th century, from a verb \"tornoier\", ultimately Latin \"tornare\" \"to turn\". The same word also gave rise to \"tornei\" (modern English \"tourney\", modern French \"tournoi\"). The French terms were adopted in English (via Anglo-Norman) by 1300.\n",
"The term \"Faremido\" has a clear explanation: the inhabitants of Faremido use a language consisting purely of musical sounds (thus, their language is harmonic in the most literal sense). Every word is transcribed in the novel using syllables of solfege: sequences of the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Si. For example: \"solasi\", \"Midore\", \"Faremido\" etc. (Such a language had indeed been devised earlier: See Solresol.) In fact, all terms should be intoned instead of pronounced. Thus, in this world a musical language is used. The protagonist remarks that their speech is both wise (in the meaning) and beautiful (as music), thus thought and feeling are blurred to be the same for these beings.\n",
"Touré is the French transcription of a West African surname (English transcriptions are \"Turay\" and \"Touray\"). The name is probably derived from \"tùùré\", the word for 'elephant' in Soninké, the language of the Ghana Empire.\n"
] |
How close to the Moon would you have to be before you would fall to the Moon instead of to the Earth?
|
"Zero velocity" is a little ambiguous in this context, since the earth and the moon are each moving with a different velocity. Let's take that to mean zero velocity with respect to the center of mass of the Earth-Moon system. In that case, we can define r_moon and r_earth to be your height from the center of each body, with the constraint that r_moon+r_earth=400,000 km, the approximate earth-moon distance. This tells you that r_moon/r_earth =sqrt(m_moon/m_earth) =0.11. So something like 90% of the way to the moon is where you would start to fall towards the moon and not the earth.
One problem with this position is that the moon would be zipping sideways from you, and as it gets farther away you would start to fall back towards the earth again. A more useful number is the [L1 Lagrange point](_URL_0_). Here we assume "zero velocity" means that you stay between the earth and the moon. This means you have to add in some centrifugal forces to balance things out, but it turns out that at that point you would hover between the earth and the moon without falling towards either one. Less intuitively, there are four other points that have this property: one behind the moon, one behind the earth, one "ahead" of the moon's orbit, and one "behind" the moon's orbit. They are useful places for [satellites](_URL_1_).
|
[
"BULLET::::- (~3 meters in diameter) may have passed as close as 0.97 lunar distances (371,000 km) from Earth (0.68 lunar distances (261,000 km) from the Moon on either April 14 or 15th, 2014, but the nominal orbit calculates an approach of 1.29 lunar distances (495,000 km) from Earth (1.23 lunar distances (473,000 km) from the Moon).\n",
"The distance between the Earth's and the Moon's surfaces is, on average, approximately . This distance is sometimes used in the same manner as the circumference of the Earth; that is, one might say that a large number of objects laid end-to-end \"would reach all the way to the Moon and back two-and-a-half times\".\n",
"BULLET::::- January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at 356,397 km in recent history, and the next one will be on January 1, 2257 at 356,371 km.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Moon was at its closest point to Earth in the 20th Century, at 221,451 miles distance (356,375 km). On March 2, 1984, the Moon would be furthest away during the century, at 252,731 miles. The closest approach in the 21st Century will be 221,535 miles, on November 14, 2016, and the most distant took place on March 14, 2002 (252,728 miles).\n",
"Because of Apollo 13's free-return trajectory, Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise flew higher above the Moon's 180° meridian (opposite Earth) than anyone else has flown (254 km/158 mi). Coincidentally, due to the Moon's distance from Earth at the time, they simultaneously set the present record for humans' greatest distance from Earth, reaching an altitude of 400,171 km (248,655 mi) above sea level at 0:21 UTC on 15 April 1970.\n",
"BULLET::::- January 15 – The Moon moves into perigee at the same time as the lunar phase reaches its fullest. This is the closest moon distance (at 356,397 km) in recent memory and it will not come closer until 2257.\n",
"As a near-Earth object, often comes within ] of Earth. On 29 April 2014, it traveled to 0.0843 AU from Earth, about 33 times further than the Moon. Below is a list of close approaches until 2100 where travels closer than 0.1 AU to Earth.\n"
] |
What would it mean if we proved that P = NP, or P != NP ?
|
A side remark: polynomial time is usually taken to be a short amount of time, and in the limit of large inputs it is much much *much* smaller than exponential time. However, even if someone proved that P=NP, it could still be the case that the complexity of a problem scales as n^(100000000) or something ridiculous like that. Talking about crypto for example, it means that there could be crypto protocols that although are broken in polynomial time, they take forever and a day to break for all practical purposes. So the possibility that they are secure wouldn't be completely ruled out.
P and NP, and the 'polynomial hierarchy' in general, are really coarse grained gauges of the complexity of a problem. P=NP would mean that we would have to go to 'finer grains' to distinguish the difficulty of problems.
|
[
"The question of whether P equals NP is one of the most important open questions in theoretical computer science because of the wide implications of a solution. If the answer is yes, many important problems can be shown to have more efficient solutions. These include various types of integer programming problems in operations research, many problems in logistics, protein structure prediction in biology, and the ability to find formal proofs of pure mathematics theorems. The P versus NP problem is one of the Millennium Prize Problems proposed by the Clay Mathematics Institute. There is a US$1,000,000 prize for resolving the problem.\n",
"The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. Informally, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified by a computer can also be quickly solved by a computer; it is widely conjectured that the answer is no. It was essentially first mentioned in a 1956 letter written by Kurt Gödel to John von Neumann. Gödel asked whether a certain NP-complete problem could be solved in quadratic or linear time. The precise statement of the P=NP problem was introduced in 1971 by Stephen Cook in his seminal paper \"The complexity of theorem proving procedures\" and is considered by many to be the most important open problem in the field. It is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute to carry a US$1,000,000 prize for the first correct solution.\n",
"A proof that showed that P ≠ NP would lack the practical computational benefits of a proof that P = NP, but would nevertheless represent a very significant advance in computational complexity theory and provide guidance for future research. It would allow one to show in a formal way that many common problems cannot be solved efficiently, so that the attention of researchers can be focused on partial solutions or solutions to other problems. Due to widespread belief in P ≠ NP, much of this focusing of research has already taken place.\n",
"The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in computer science. It asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified (technically, verified in polynomial time) can also be solved quickly (again, in polynomial time).\n",
"Although the P = NP problem itself remains open despite a million-dollar prize and a huge amount of dedicated research, efforts to solve the problem have led to several new techniques. In particular, some of the most fruitful research related to the P = NP problem has been in showing that existing proof techniques are not powerful enough to answer the question, thus suggesting that novel technical approaches are required.\n",
"PP also contains NP. To prove this, we show that the NP-complete satisfiability problem belongs to PP. Consider a probabilistic algorithm that, given a formula \"F\"(\"x\", \"x\", ..., \"x\") chooses an assignment \"x\", \"x\", ..., \"x\" uniformly at random. Then, the algorithm checks if the assignment makes the formula \"F\" true. If yes, it outputs YES. Otherwise, it outputs YES with probability 1/2 and NO with probability 1/2.\n",
"A generalization of P is NP, which is the class of decision problems decidable by a non-deterministic Turing machine that runs in polynomial time. Equivalently, it is the class of decision problems where each \"yes\" instance has a polynomial size certificate, and certificates can be checked by a polynomial time deterministic Turing machine. The class of problems for which this is true for the \"no\" instances is called co-NP. P is trivially a subset of NP and of co-NP; most experts believe it is a proper subset, although this (the formula_6 hypothesis) remains unproven. Another open problem is whether NP = co-NP (a negative answer would imply formula_6).\n"
] |
Why are mid-air manifestations of electricity jagged? (i.e. sparks, lightning bolts etc.)
|
This was a really interesting question that I didn't know the answer to so I looked it up. [This Scientific American article](_URL_0_) does a pretty good job of explaining it.
|
[
"ESD can create spectacular electric sparks (lightning, with the accompanying sound of thunder, is a large-scale ESD event), but also less dramatic forms which may be neither seen nor heard, yet still be large enough to cause damage to sensitive electronic devices. Electric sparks require a field strength above approximately 40 kV/cm in air, as notably occurs in lightning strikes. Other forms of ESD include corona discharge from sharp electrodes and brush discharge from blunt electrodes.\n",
"ESD events are characterised by high voltages of many kV but small currents and sometimes cause visible sparks. ESD is treated as a small, localised phenomenon, although technically a lightning flash is a very large ESD event. ESD can also be man-made, as in the shock received from a Van de Graaff generator.\n",
"Because the electrostatic discharge of terrestrial lightning superheats the air to plasma temperatures along the length of the discharge channel in a short duration, kinetic theory dictates gaseous molecules undergo a rapid increase in pressure and thus expand outward from the lightning creating a shock wave audible as thunder. Since the sound waves propagate not from a single point source but along the length of the lightning's path, the sound origin's varying distances from the observer can generate a rolling or rumbling effect. Perception of the sonic characteristics is further complicated by factors such as the irregular and possibly branching geometry of the lightning channel, by acoustic echoing from terrain, and by the usually multiple-stroke characteristic of the lightning strike.\n",
"Lightning which strikes the earth results in ground currents which can pass over buried conductors and induce a transient that propagates outward towards the ends of the conductor. The same kind of induction happens in overhead and above ground conductors which experience the passing energy of an atmospheric EMP caused by the lightning flash. Surge arresters only protect against induced transients characteristic of a lightning discharge's rapid rise-time and will not protect against electrification caused by a direct strike to the conductor. Transients similar to lightning-induced, such as from a high voltage system's fault switching, may also be safely diverted to ground; however, continuous overcurrents are not protected against by these devices. The energy in a handled transient is substantially less than that of a lightning discharge; however it is still of sufficient quantity to cause equipment damage and often requires protection.\n",
"BULLET::::- \"Power flash\" - A sudden bright light caused when an overhead power line is severed or especially when a transformer explodes. These can be caused by intense winds (or debris) from tornadoes or downbursts, but the most prominent example occurred in New York City during Hurricane Sandy when its storm surge flooded a Con Ed power plant.\n",
"Just as lightning makes no sound until it strikes, the Negro Revolution generated quietly. But when it struck, the revealing flash of its power and the impact of its sincerity and fervor displayed a force of a frightening intensity. Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse, and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper. [...]br\n",
"Weatherbug, a Germantown, Maryland-headquartered weather tracking system reported on January 6, 2006, that, “the evidence suggests that the lightning strike could have caused the explosion due to the correlation between the timing and location of the lightning strike and seismic activity.” The company's equipment detected 100 lightning strikes in the region within 40 minutes of the explosion. A single, powerful lightning strike registered at or near the mouth of the Sago mine at 6:26:36 a.m. This strike carried a particularly high positive current of . (A typical strike is and relatively rare positive strikes tend to be especially destructive.) Dr. Martin Chapman, PhD, a Virginia Tech research assistant professor, found that two independent sensors recorded a minor seismic event, possibly from the explosion, 2 seconds later at 6:26:38 a.m.\n"
] |
"Photons" of different EM spectrum?
|
All electromagnetic waves are made of photons -- visible light, radio waves, X-rays, gamma rays, ultraviolet light, infrared light, you name it.
|
[
"EM radiation can have various frequencies. The bands of frequency present in a given EM signal may be sharply defined, as is seen in atomic spectra, or may be broad, as in blackbody radiation. In the photon picture, the energy carried by each photon is proportional to its frequency. In the wave picture, the energy of a monochromatic wave is proportional to its intensity. This implies that if two EM waves have the same intensity, but different frequencies, the one with the higher frequency \"contains\" fewer photons, since each photon is more energetic.\n",
"Photonics is the physical science of light (photon) generation, detection, and manipulation through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though covering all light's technical applications over the whole spectrum, most photonic applications are in the range of visible and near-infrared light. The term photonics developed as an outgrowth of the first practical semiconductor light emitters invented in the early 1960s and optical fibers developed in the 1970s.\n",
"Optics and photonics are defined as the fields of science and engineering encompassing the physical phenomena and technologies associated with the generation, transmission, manipulation, detection, and utilisation of light. It extends on both sides of the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum as far as the same concepts apply.\n",
"Photonics is related to quantum optics, optomechanics, electro-optics, optoelectronics and quantum electronics. However, each area has slightly different connotations by scientific and government communities and in the marketplace. Quantum optics often connotes fundamental research, whereas photonics is used to connote applied research and development.\n",
"In quantum theory, photons describe quantized electromagnetic radiation. Specifically, a photon is an elementary excitation of a normal mode of the electromagnetic field. Thus a single-photon state is the quantum state of a radiation mode that contains a single excitation.\n",
"The photon is a quantum of radiation, or one unit of radiation. Therefore, this is a single unit of EM radiation that is equal to Planck's constant (h) times the frequency of light. This quantity is symbolized by γ, hν, or ħω.\n",
"The word 'photonics' appeared in the late 1960s to describe a research field whose goal was to use light to perform functions that traditionally fell within the typical domain of electronics, such as telecommunications, information processing, among other processes. The term \"photonics\" more specifically connotes:\n"
] |
why is being deaf or blind much more common than say having no taste, touch, or smell?
|
Part of it is confirmation bias. Blind people are really obvious, deaf people are fairly obvious. You wouldn't know someone couldn't smell or taste just by looking at them.
Localized loss of touch is not uncommon. But you have so many touch receptors in so many places, there are few conditions that will systemically shut down all of them.
|
[
"This interplay of various ways of conceiving the world could be compared to the experience of synesthesia, where stimulus of one sense causes a perception by another, seemingly unrelated sense, as in musicians who can taste the intervals between notes they hear (Beeli \"et al\"., 2005), or artists who can smell colors. Many individuals who have one or more senses restricted or lost develop a sensorium with a ratio of sense which favors those they possess more fully. Frequently the blind or deaf speak of a compensating effect, whereby their sense of touch or smell becomes more acute, changing the way they perceive and reason about the world; especially telling examples are found in the cases of \"wild children\", whose early childhoods were spent in abusive, neglected, or non-human environments, both intensifying and minimizing perceptual abilities (Classen 1991).\n",
"This being the case, a single person could be described as hearing by one person and Deaf by another because the first person was thinking simply about the subject's sensitivity to sound whereas the other person was thinking, partially about the persons ability to rely on residual hearing, but also about their personal views, their identity, or perhaps their ignorance of cultural norms.\n",
"When a person shows signs of sensorineural deafness there is usually muffling of speech, difficulty understanding words, especially against background noise or in a crowd of people. A person might also frequently ask others to speak more slowly, clearly and loudly. They might also withdraw from conversations or avoid some social settings because everything sounds muffled, even when there are loud noises. Sensorineural Deafness indicates that the patient has difficulty hearing not due to environmental factors, but through genetic mutation in the KCNJ10 gene. This gene affects the potassium channel count and their productivity in several parts of the body.\n",
"When a person has become blind, in order to “see” the world, their other senses become heightened. An important sense for the blind is their sense of touch, which becomes more frequently used to help them perceive the world. People that are blind have displayed that their visual cortices become more responsive to auditory and tactile stimulation. Braille allows the blind to be able to use their sense of touch to feel the roughness, and distance of various patterns to be used as a form of language. Within the brain, the activation of the occipital cortex is functionally relevant for tactile braille reading, as well as the somatosensory cortex. These various parts of the brain function in their own way, in which they each contribute to the effectiveness of how braille is read by the blind. People that are blind also rely heavily on Tactile Gnosis, Spatial discrimination, Graphesthesia, and Two-point discrimination. Essentially, the occipital cortex allows one to effectively make judgements on the distance of braille patterns, which is related to spatial discrimination. Meanwhile, the somatosensory cortex allows one to effectively make judgements on the roughness of braille patterns, which is related to two-point discrimination. The various visual areas in the brain are very essential for a blind person to read braille, just as much as it is for a person that has sight. Essentially, whether one is blind or not, the perception of objects that involves tactile discrimination is not impaired if one cannot see. When comparing people that are blind to people that have sight, the amount of activity within the their somatosensory and visual areas of the brain do differ. The activity in the somatosensory and visual areas are not as high in tactile gnosis for people that are not blind, and are more-so active for more visual related stimuli that does not involve touch. Nonetheless, there is a difference in these various areas within the brain when comparing the blind to the sighted, which is that shape discrimination causes a difference in brain activity, as well as tactile gnosis. The visual cortices of blind individuals are active during various vision related tasks including tactile discrimination, and the function of the cortices resemble the activity of adults with sight.\n",
"Another important aspect of cortical deafness that is often overlooked is that patients \"feel\" deaf. They are aware of their inability to hear environmental sounds, non-speech and speech sounds. Patients with auditory agnosia can be unaware of their deficit, and insist that they are not deaf. Verbal deafness and auditory agnosia are disorders of a selective, perceptive and associative nature whereas cortical deafness relies on the anatomic and functional disconnection of the auditory cortex from acoustic impulses.\n",
"When patients are completely deaf in both ears they begin to rely more strongly on their other senses. Because hearing relies on external sound waves, a deaf patient will feel the vibrations, rather than relying on what would normally be perceived as sound. As a patient relies on \"feeling\" sounds rather than hearing them, they subconsciously hear with their sense of touch, therefore reacting to auditory stimuli without actually hearing sound.\n",
"Hearing people may use the term \"hearing-impaired\", perhaps thinking it is more polite than \"deaf\", but Deaf people tend to reject it, for a variety of reasons. It is more likely to be used for people with a mild or moderate hearing loss or for people who have acquired deafness in adulthood rather than by those who have grown up Deaf. By contrast, those who identify with the Deaf culture movement typically reject the label hearing-\"impaired\" and other labels that imply that deafness is a pathological condition, viewing it instead as a focus of pride. Further, the term focuses entirely on the physical condition of deafness, while ignoring the linguistic and cultural distinction between those who sign and identify with Deaf culture, and those who do not.\n"
] |
how can the un give sanctions for nuclear weapons to some countries and not to others?
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The nuclear nonproliferation treaty recognized the then-nuclear states as legit, and called on them to disarm to some degree (which they haven't) and tried to prevent nuclear capability from further spreading. It's called, creatively, The Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) of 1970.
Edit: India is not a signatory to the treaty, North Korea un-signed it, I believe. It permits Russia to have their weapons. Russia, France, the U.K., the U.S., and China are all permanent security council members with vetoes - that means that any of them can unconditionally strike down any legislation from the U.N. that they don't like.
|
[
"According to the Charter of the United Nations, only the UN Security Council has a mandate by the international community to apply sanctions (Article 41) that must be complied with by all UN member states (Article 2,2). They serve as the international community's most powerful peaceful means to prevent threats to international peace and security or to settle them. Sanctions do not include the use of military force. However, if sanctions do not lead to the diplomatic settlement of a conflict, the use of force can be authorized by the Security Council separately under Article 42.\n",
"On 24 September, Britain, France, and Germany appealed to the European Union to enforce new sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear program, with a diplomat explaining that \"we think there is still time for a political solution, a diplomatic solution, and this is what we are working for. But we cannot accept nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran.\"\n",
"In 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1696 which demanded that Iran halt its uranium enrichment program, and in December 2006 passed Resolution 1737 to impose sanctions after Iran refused to comply. Initially, U.S. sanctions targeted investments in oil, gas, and petrochemicals, exports of refined petroleum products, and business dealings with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It encompassed banking and insurance transactions (including with the Central Bank of Iran), shipping, web-hosting services for commercial endeavors, and domain name registration services. Subsequent UN Resolutions have expanded sanctions against Iran.\n",
"On December 26, 2006, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1737, demanding that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program or face economic sanctions. On February 22, the Governor-in-Council made new regulations under the United Nations Act: Regulations Implementing the United Nations Resolution on Iran. Together with existing relevant provisions of the Canada Shipping Act, the Export and Import Permits Act, and the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, these provisions allowed Canada to bring economic sanctions against Iran as requested in resolution 1737. The sanctions include a ban on any trade that could contribute to Iran's activities in enrichment, reprocessing heavy water, or the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems. The regulations also deal with freezing assets and notification of travel by Iranian officials in Canada.\n",
"The United States have not been followed yet by other countries. But the UN sanctions are the first international sanctions levied on Iran. The United States is pushing for more economic sanctions against Iran. Under a proposal by Germany, which holds the EU presidency during the first semester of 2007, the European Union is also considering imposing sanctions that go beyond the UN sanctions but has not made any decision yet.\n",
"From October 2008, Australia imposed sanctions in relation to Iran's proliferation sensitive nuclear and missile programs and efforts to contravene United Nations Security Council sanction. These sanctions relate to gold, precious metals, and arms.\n",
"In response to an appeal made by ICAN, over eight hundred parliamentarians around the world pledged their support for a ban treaty, calling upon \"all national governments to negotiate a treaty banning nuclear weapons and leading to their complete eradication\" and describing it as \"necessary, feasible and increasingly urgent\". The countries they represent included members of both the world's existing nuclear-weapon-free zones as well as NATO states. Of the five nuclear-armed permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the United Kingdom was the only one to have elected representatives lend their support to the initiative.\n"
] |
What language/script is this? Where can I have it translated?
|
This is almost certainly Yiddish(essentially late medieval German in Hebrew script). I do not myself read Yiddish but /r/Judaism and /r/Yiddish would be able to help here.
|
[
"The text has also been widely translated under different titles into Asian languages such as Burmese, Khmer, Thai, Malay, Persian, Sinhala, as well as into Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Spanish and Russian. \n",
"It has been translated into at least 17 languages, including Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, German, Catalan, Finnish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Norwegian, Polish, French and Turkish.\n",
"In the first example, where the text is translated into Italian then back into English—the English text is significantly garbled, but the Italian is a serviceable translation. In the second example, the text translated back into English is perfect, but the Portuguese translation is meaningless.\n",
"Translated texts include Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's \"The Little Prince,\" Charles Dickens' \"Christmas Carol,\" Mark Twain's \"Letters from the Earth,\" Shakespeare's \"King Lear,\" and Edgar Allan Poe's \"Fall of the House of Usher\". There are also many poems, both translated and original.\n",
"Each page of the Hebrew/Aramaic text is in the classic Vilna style, with various classical commentaries (such as Rashi) surrounding the text of the Mishnah and Gemara. Each Hebrew page is opposite a page of English translation—one Hebrew folio takes approximately six to eight pages of English to translate. The literal meaning of the text is shown in bold, while supplementary words and phrases that ease the quick transition of topics are shown in regular font.\n",
"This is a tight meaning based translation based on the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Biblical texts. It is the work of a Mongolian/expatriot team working with those texts. In 2001 \"Wycliffe Bible Translators\" and \"United Bible Societies\" drew up a formal agreement with \"Bible Society of Mongolia\" to carry out a full Bible Translation Consultant check of the whole. After it had been translated into Mongolian, the Bible was machine translated into an interlinear literal in English so enabling consultants of \"Wycliffe Bible Translators\" and \"United Bible Societies\" to thoroughly check it against the Biblical texts and approved it for publication. It is widely available. This Bible does not mingle Bible belief with Mongolian religions, so does not use terms based on Buddhism or shamanism for God or key terms.\n",
"The texts are from the 16th century Czech-language Bible of Kralice, and are available online with some translations into other languages. The English and German titles in the following list are taken from the original vocal score, not from any English Bible.\n"
] |
What oscillates in light?
|
The thing that oscillates is the electromagnetic field of the photon itself. It is a self-sustaining electromagnetic field. A changing magnetic field induces an electric field, and vice versa.
|
[
"When discussing the quantum theory of light, it is very common to use an electromagnetic oscillator as a model. An electromagnetic oscillator describes an oscillation of the electric field. Since the magnetic field is proportional to the rate of change of the electric field, this too oscillates. Such oscillations describe light. Systems composed of such oscillators can be described by an optical phase space.\n",
"The first practical oscillators were based on electric arcs, which were used for lighting in the 19th century. The current through an arc light is unstable due to its negative resistance, and often breaks into spontaneous oscillations, causing the arc to make hissing, humming or howling sounds which had been noticed by Humphry Davy in 1821, Benjamin Silliman in 1822, Auguste Arthur de la Rive in 1846, and David Edward Hughes in 1878. Ernst Lecher in 1888 showed that the current through an electric arc could be oscillatory. An oscillator was built by Elihu Thomson in 1892 by placing an LC tuned circuit in parallel with an electric arc and included a magnetic blowout. Independently, in the same year, George Francis FitzGerald realized that if the damping resistance in a resonant circuit could be made zero or negative, the circuit would produce oscillations, and, unsuccessfully, tried to build a negative resistance oscillator with a dynamo, what would now be called a parametric oscillator. The arc oscillator was rediscovered and popularized by William Duddell in 1900. Duddell, a student at London Technical College, was investigating the hissing arc effect. He attached an LC circuit (tuned circuit) to the electrodes of an arc lamp, and the negative resistance of the arc excited oscillation in the tuned circuit. Some of the energy was radiated as sound waves by the arc, producing a musical tone. Duddell demonstrated his oscillator before the London Institute of Electrical Engineers by sequentially connecting different tuned circuits across the arc to play the national anthem \"God Save the Queen\". Duddell's \"singing arc\" did not generate frequencies above the audio range. In 1902 Danish physicists Valdemar Poulsen and P. O. Pederson were able to increase the frequency produced into the radio range by operating the arc in a hydrogen atmosphere with a magnetic field, inventing the Poulsen arc radio transmitter, the first continuous wave radio transmitter, which was used through the 1920s.\n",
"Since light is an oscillation it is not affected by traveling through static electric or magnetic fields in a linear medium such as a vacuum. However, in nonlinear media, such as some crystals, interactions can occur between light and static electric and magnetic fields — these interactions include the Faraday effect and the Kerr effect.\n",
"In classical electrodynamics, light is considered as an electromagnetic wave, which is described by Maxwell's equations. Light waves incident on a material induce small oscillations of polarisation in the individual atoms (or oscillation of electrons, in metals), causing each particle to radiate a small secondary wave in all directions, like a dipole antenna. All these waves add up to give specular reflection and refraction, according to the Huygens–Fresnel principle.\n",
"Photoacoustic spectroscopy is the measurement of the effect of absorbed electromagnetic energy (particularly of light) on matter by means of acoustic detection. The discovery of the photoacoustic effect dates to 1880 when Alexander Graham Bell showed that thin discs emitted sound when exposed to a beam of sunlight that was rapidly interrupted with a rotating slotted disk. The absorbed energy from the light causes local heating, generating a thermal expansion which creates a pressure wave or sound. Later Bell showed that materials exposed to the non-visible portions of the solar spectrum (i.e., the infrared and the ultraviolet) can also produce sounds.\n",
"Light can be described as a waveform propagating through free space (vacuum) or a material medium (such as air or glass). Mathematically, the (real valued) amplitude of one wave component is represented by a scalar wave function \"u\" that depends on both space and time:\n",
"Light consists of electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths. Therefore, when the elements or their compounds are heated either on a flame or by an electric arc they emit energy in the form of light. Analysis of this light, with the help of a spectroscope gives us a discontinuous spectrum. A spectroscope or a spectrometer is an instrument which is used for separating the components of light, which have different wavelengths. The spectrum appears in a series of lines called the line spectrum. This line spectrum is called an atomic spectrum when it originates from an atom in elemental form. Each element has a different atomic spectrum. The production of line spectra by the atoms of an element indicate that an atom can radiate only a certain amount of energy. This leads to the conclusion that bound electrons cannot have just any amount of energy but only a certain amount of energy.\n"
] |
Medieval French translation help (again!)
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Looks like an ancient french version of the actual « cuillère » ("spoon").
Source : french and historian
|
[
"The Medieval Translator (French \"Traduire au Moyen Age\") is an annual volume of studies dedicated to translation in the Middle Ages and the study of translation of medieval texts. First published in 1991, it has been published since 1996 by Brepols. The volume comprises a collection of papers read at the Cardiff Conference on the Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages. The first four volumes were edited solely by Roger Ellis, who is currently a general editor, with C. Batt and R. Tixier.\n",
"Together with other scholars such Jose Lambert and Gideon Toury, Hermans built upon the work of Itamar Even-Zohar, particularly his functional approach to translation studies, which broke down the barrier between translation and transfer research. He is also known for the use of metaphor in translation for his work on late medieval and Renaissance period. Hermans maintained that literal translations have dominated the medieval regime and this view has been supported by other historians such as Peter Burke.\n",
"Another proposal concerns the use of Norman French in medieval England; as the English dialect of the 11th century had no qs, one must watch their usage in court or discourse with the French Norman conquerors. \n",
"BULLET::::- « La Réécriture argumentative impliquée par la traduction du livre de la Genèse : l'example des énoncés car q dans \"The Medieval translator, the Theory and practice of translation in the Middle Ages\", R. Ellis [ed.], Paris, Brepols, 2005.\n",
"Translations were made into medieval Latin or Church Latin, then Europe's \"lingua franca\", or into medieval Spanish, which was the vernacular language of that time and place. Early translations included works by Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Avicebron, etc.; books on astronomy, astrology, and medicine; and the works of some of the Ancient Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle, who unlike Plato had previously been relatively unknown and largely ignored in European Christendom. The philosophical translations were accompanied by the Islamic commentaries, e.g., on Al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Ibn Rushd (Averroës), to the point of there being an identifiable Averroist school of philosophy in Christian Europe.\n",
"The first French translation dates from the thirteenth century, as does the first Catalan Bible, and the Spanish \"Biblia Alfonsina\". The most notable Middle English Bible translation, Wycliffe's Bible (1383), based on the Vulgate, was banned by the Oxford Synod of 1407-08, and was associated with the movement of the Lollards, often accused of heresy. The Malermi Bible was an Italian translation printed in 1471. In 1478, there was a Catalan translation in the dialect of Valencia. The Welsh Bible and the Alba Bible, a Jewish translation into Castilian, date from the 15th century.\n",
"There were also a lot of translations during the 15th and 16th centuries. The \"Llibre de les Dones\" was translated into Spanish. One of the Spanish translations was used for the education of the four daughters of the Catholic Monarchs. The \"Llibre dels Àngels\" had great international success and was translated into several languages: Spanish, Latin, French and even Flemish (it was possibly the only book from the medieval Catalan literature that was translated into that language). And the \"Vida de Jesucrist\" was translated into Spanish and French.\n"
] |
Who were the Desert Fathers? What was their impact on early Christianity? What happened to them and the desert monastic movement?
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The desert fathers emerge toward the end of the fourth century as Christianity transitioned from a fringe cult to an accepted community in the pantheon of faiths. While earlier Christian communities had faced persecution and martyrdom, in this new period asceticism became the hallmark of true commitment to the faith. Thus some Christians sought to lead a life marked by exceptional ascetic rigor while pursuing constant prayer and fighting the temptation to return to the world. These figures spent their time alone in caves, atop pillars, or in the ruins of old roman structures now reclaimed by the wilderness and often gained a reputation for sanctity and holiness in their local community, becoming—ironically—something of an attraction and public figure. St. Anthony, whom historians consider to be the first of these "Desert fathers," retreated to the desert sometime in the late third century after giving away a large inheritance he had recieved from his parents. As a hermit living in an old military outpost, his commitment to prayer and the memorization of the bible attracted a number of followers that he organized into a informal monastic community that continued until his death in probably 356.
Some later emulators took Anthony's message of retreating from the world a little too seriously. My favorite example is [Saint Symeon the Stylite](_URL_0_), who, frustrated at the incessant visitors who came to him for prayers, placed himself atop a pillar to escape their pleas.
The communities that formed around these Desert Fathers became the earliest monasteries, ordering themselves around a communal set of principles. These "Rules" by which they lived their life formed the backbone of the monastic movement as it spread across the Late Antique world, although the earliest focused on physical work and communal prayer, not the intellectual work and reading that later monasticism would become known for.
This is merely a cursory sketch of the very large question you have outlined. I might suggest some further reading if you feel interested. [Peter Brown's The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity (1971)](_URL_1_) remains the fundamental text for understanding the growth and social importance of these figures. For a more general overview, I would still recommend Peter Brown. His World of Late Antiquity is now in its Third Edition, and has an excellent chapter on the desert fathers and the growth of monasticism.
|
[
"The Desert Fathers were Christian hermits, and ascetics who had a major influence on the development of Christianity and celibacy. Paul of Thebes is often credited with being the first hermit monk to go to the desert, but it was Anthony the Great who launched the movement that became the Desert Fathers. Sometime around AD 270, Anthony heard a Sunday sermon stating that perfection could be achieved by selling all of one's possessions, giving the proceeds to the poor, and following Christ.(Matt. 19.21) He followed the advice and made the further step of moving deep into the desert to seek complete solitude.\n",
"In the mid- to late 3rd century, the deserts of northern Africa became home to a deeply devout group known as the Desert Fathers or Desert People. These individuals were highly influenced by the intellectual components of Coptic Christianity. They led quiet lives and communicated the Gospel with those whom they traded with. Their movement became the template of Western eremitism and monasticism. The architect of the template was Saint Anthony, the foundational Desert Father.\n",
"Onophrius was one of the Desert Fathers who made a great impression on Eastern spirituality in the third and fourth centuries, around the time that Christianity was emerging as the dominant faith of the Roman Empire. At this time many Christians were inspired to go out into the desert and live in prayer in the harsh environment of extreme heat and cold, with little to eat and drink, surrounded by all sorts of dangerous animals and robbers.\n",
"The Desert Fathers (along with Desert Mothers) were early Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. The \"Apophthegmata Patrum\" is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, in print as \"Sayings of the Desert Fathers\". The most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony died in AD 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example—his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, wrote that \"the desert had become a city.\" The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.\n",
"Many Egyptian Christians went to the desert during the 3rd century, and remained there to pray and work and dedicate their lives to seclusion and worship of God. This was the beginning of the monastic movement, which was organized by Anthony the Great, Saint Paul, the world's first anchorite, Saint Macarius the Great and Saint Pachomius the Cenobite in the 4th century.\n",
"Many Egyptian Christians went to the desert during the 3rd century, and remained there to pray and work and dedicate their lives to seclusion and worship of God. This was the beginning of the monastic movement, which was organized by Anthony the Great, Saint Paul, the world's first anchorite, Saint Macarius the Great and Saint Pachomius the Cenobite in the 4th century.\n",
"Many Egyptian Christians went to the desert during the 3rd century, and remained there to pray and work and dedicate their lives to seclusion and worship of God. This was the beginning of the monastic movement, which was organized by Anthony the Great, Saint Paul of Thebes, the world's first anchorite, Saint Macarius the Great and Saint Pachomius the Cenobite in the 4th century.\n"
] |
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