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{ "a_id": [ "cqfmw7y", "cqg39vs" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "_URL_1_\n\n > After smoking, the initial metabolism of THC takes place in the lungs, followed by more extensive metabolism by liver enzymes which transform THC to a number of metabolites. The most rapidly produced metabolite is 9-carboxy-THC (or THC-COOH) which is detectable in blood within minutes of smoking cannabis. It is not psychoactive. Another major metabolite of THC is 11-hydroxy-THC, which is approximately 20 per cent more potent than THC, and which penetrates the blood-brain barrier more rapidly than THC. \n\nNot sure about what it \"binds to\" in the blood, if that's even necessary.\n\n > THC and its metabolites are highly fat soluble and may remain for long periods of time in the fatty tissues of the body, from which they are slowly released back into the bloodstream. This phenomenon slows the elimination of cannabinoids from the body. \n\nFrom [the wiki article](_URL_0_), this seems to be fairly correct.", "OP, you might also find it interesting to know that cannabinoids are highly lipophilic, which means they are sequestered (stored) in the fatty tissues of the body - and only after 6 weeks are they cleared from the body." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid#Pharmacology", "http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/health-pubs-drug-cannab2-ch47.htm" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dxb8ov6", "dxbf6km" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ "A radio sends commands to a controller in the car. That in turn sends electrical signals to the various motors and solenoids that operate the mechanical parts of the car.\n\nThis can be super basic in a battery powered car with simple steering, or increasingly complex as you approach full sized gasoline powered vehicles. \n\n", "An RC car consists of the radio system \\(transmitter and receiver\\), the motor, motor speed controller, steering servo, and battery. Each function like steering and throttle are on separate channels, usually channel 1 for steering, channel 2 for throttle. When you hit the throttle the radio transmitter sends the signal to the receiver on the car. The receiver will send the throttle signal to the motor speed controller, which then sends power to the motor. When you steer, the receiver will send the steering signal to the steering servo which steers the wheels. The battery pack powers everything." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ewbgekb" ], "score": [ 169 ], "text": [ " The most obvious answer is the election of 1800, but the election on 1796 had some impact on the 12th Amendment as well . The way the constitution was originally structured, electors from each state had 2 votes each with no distinction for president and vice president. It was also the case that many states decided to allot proportional votes (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina). \n\n The 1796 election between Thomas Jefferson & John Adams was the first contested election as it was the 1st that Washington wasn't running in. The election was pretty nasty even by today's standards with party papers for the Federalists accusing Jefferson of being an anarchist and atheist and Republican papers charging John Adams with having monarchist sentiments and eyeing the creation of a \"throne\" which his son could inherit. In the end Adams won the electoral college vote with 71 votes to Jefferson's 68. Federalist electors didn't coordinate their \"second\" votes and split their votes regionally so that Thomas Pinckney (southerner) received 59 votes and Oliver Ellsworth (northerner) received 11. If the Federalists had voted in a block, they would've sent 2 Federalists to the White House. Instead the mix-up allowed Jefferson to finish second and sent him to D.C. to work in the cabinet of a president he had just accused of wanting to destroy the Constitution (Imaging HRC as Trump's VP, it wouldn't be pretty). In the end, Jefferson was relegated to watching over the Senate in what he described as pretty monotonous task (he did oversee a rather unimpressive Andrew Jackson fill an interim Senate term). Jefferson spent his term under the radar and wasn’t serving any advisory roles in the Adam's cabinet. He also played a role in drafting the KY & VA resolutions which sought to directly undermine the Adams supported Alien & Sedition Acts. \n\n In 1800 the same cast of characters ran for the presidency, but this time 2 things had changed: Electors became more disciplined in voting the party preference for President and Veep, and 2 states (NY & VA) independently decided to no longer give proportional electoral college votes. With Aaron Burr's open campaigning (which many saw as unseemly) the Republicans won New York and won the election. Republican electors were too disciplined though and Jefferson and Burr tied with 73 votes each (The Federalist had actually coordinated their votes and allotted Pinckney one less vote than Adams). Burr, being the scoundrel that he was, didn't concede the presidency to Jefferson and, as per the Constitution, the House had to decide the election. This led to 35 separate votes in which Jefferson and Burr kept tying. Eventually on the 36th vote Jefferson was selected as Pres and Burr and VP. Hamilton convinced some Federalists that Jefferson was the least bad option for president-he would undo Federalist policy, but he was at least a known quantity unlike Burr who just seemed power hungry. The whole Hamilton-Burr conflict escalated pretty quickly after that. \n\n So after 2 contested (I mean in the sense that Washington wasn't the unanimous choice) elections it was pretty obvious that no one foresaw how nasty party politics was going to get in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted. So, the 12th amendment stipulated that electors still had 2 votes, but they needed to be marked for President and then Vice-President. The way the text reads it may seem like the intent was to have a separate election for Veep, but it was really about allowing electors to vote for the party ticket." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ekyj6x8" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Thermionic emission is the ability of some materials to emit electrons more readily when heated. Electronic vacuum tubes (valves) use heated cathodes to take advantage of the effect. \n\nThe thermoelectric effect happens when two different metals are joined. Temperature difference can be converted to electric current and vice versa." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d9tuyot" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Because the climate is complicated and modeling it is hard and expensive. Being sort of right is good enough and spending the money to be right slightly more often (meteorologists aren't actually that bad at predicting the weather) isn't worthwhile for, say, a news station." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cup0iez", "cup7zri" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "That extension to the Northwest is the modern Gansu Corridor and some areas along the Tarim Basin. These areas were strategically important because they controlled key overland trade routes with India, Central Asia, and the Middle East -- the proverbial Silk Road. This area was important for commerce, but also strategically because it helped encircle and contain the Tibetan Empire which at that time controlled nearly the entirely of what is today Qinghai Province.\n\nThe actual amount of functional control that the central government in Chang'an was able to exert over their border territorries varied considerably over time, especially in the later Tang when the area was repeatedly menaced by both Tibetan and Muslim military incursions, and an unstable central government devolved ever-greater powers on their regional military governors. Which is one of the reasons that contemporary historical atlases vary so much on their depiction of Tang-Chinese \"ownership\" of this area.", "The western borders \"jut out\" because the Tang dynasty defeated the Western Turks and the city-states of the Tarim Basin (what is now southern Xinjiang). Under Emperor Taizong, the Tang pursued a divide-and-conquer policy that they called *yi yi zhi yi* (\"using barbarians to control barbarians\"). They destabilized the Western Turkic confederation by recognizing competing claimants such as Isbara yabghu Qaghan in 641 and I-p'i shih-kuei in 642 and encouraging infighting between tribes among the Western Turks. \n\nAs the Western Turkic empire declined, the Tang dynasty was able to expand its control over the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim Basin. The oasis kingdoms were important to the Tang because Silk Road merchants traveled through these oases from Persia, Central Asia, and the Byzantine empire in order to enter China. Karakhoja was annexed by the Tang in 640, Karashahr in 644, and Kucha in 648. Additionally, Kashgar and Khotan submitted to Tang rule in 632 and Yarkand in 635. By 649, Kucha was established as the seat of Anxi-protectorate general. \n\nChinese military garrisons were stationed in Kucha, Khotan, Kashgar, and Karashahr to supervise Tang control of the Tarim Basin. In 657, Chinese forces and their Uyghur allies defeated and captured the last qaghan of the Western Turks, ending the confederation. With the collapse of the Western Turkic confederation, their territory came under Tang suzerainty. The Tang emperor installed puppet rulers (Ashina Mishe and Ashina Buzhen) to exert their control. \n\nIn the 7th century, the oasis kingdoms ping-ponged between Chinese and Tibetan rule. The Tang dynasty became weakened by a revolt led by a former Tang general, An Lushan. The Tibetan Empire annexed the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim Basin as the Tang withdrew from Central Asia.\n\nSources:\n\n*The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 3: Sui and T'ang China, 589-906 AD, Part 1* and Jonathan Karam Skaff's *Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors: Culture, Power, and Connections, 580-800*" ] }

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[ "http://images.chinahighlights.com/chinamap/ancient/tang-dynasty-map1.gif", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty#/media/File:Tang_Dynasty_circa_700_CE.png" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "fkmsd0n", "fkmv52b", "fknav6k", "fko3f5p", "fkojfb9", "fkojsfo", "fki2ix1", "fki3ygh", "fki5pc5", "fkicb3h", "fkidv3t", "fkip5d8", "fkiukap", "fkspn0b", "fkjbf1i", "fkjjwqa", "fkjnnhb", "fkl6p6h", "fkllig8", "fklqzcf", "fkqiwft", "fkr77k7", "fkrgfww", "fkrig2w" ], "score": [ 4, 5, 3, 2, 5, 5, 32, 174, 57, 23, 20, 18, 6, 2, 7, 5, 18, 2, 9, 12, 2, 4, 2, 5 ], "text": [ "In the generations that followed The Black Death, did any particularly interesting patterns of government or economics pop up?\n\nWith such a massive number of people dying, I can't help but think that the collective trauma might have had some far-reaching effects", "This weekend we saw young Americans in cities all over the country ignore the risk and go out to bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Young adults were the highest-risk group during the Spanish Flu. Was it difficult to get them to respect quarantine guidelines back then, despite the risk?", "This all got me very interested in how WWII forced adherents of laisez-faire economics to drastically intervene in the domestic sphere.\nWhat are some good books about the war economy?", "What do we know about viruses and vaccines now (or by 2000, I suppose, per the 20-year rule) that we didn’t know during the Spanish Flu outbreak? How much have we learned?", "Has the flu always been a winter annoyance? If not, why does it spread so much nowadays? I know that it's existed for millenia but I can't find many sources on it being a \"yearly\" issue prior to the 1800s.", "How did nation states coordinate their response to the Spanish flu in 1918? Did citizens know about the pandemic through news reporting or government announcements? Were the most afflicted areas poorly prepared or did they not properly understand the threat?", "What were state responses to previous pandemics like? I was specifically thinking of the 1665 outbreak of bubonic plague in England but am curious if any large scale intervention efforts existed in the past, considering people on the whole were less scientifically literate.", "This current pandemic is falling on a presidential election year in the United States. How did the 1918-1920 flu pandemic affect the 1920 presidential election?", "How do historians determine that past epidemics and plagues such as the plague of Athens or the Antonine Plague are diseases known presently to us instead of previously unknown novel diseases (from isolated populations or animal species) that died out?", "Great idea, I would like to know the history of the cold, do we know its origins and when it became the perrenial seasonal infection? Has the greater development of transport heightened its strength? \n\nI also ant to plug a previous AskHistorians podcast episode about the outbreak of Plauge in Marseille and thelocal and national response.\n\n_URL_0_", "Did people hoarding household supplies (e.g. toilet paper), food, or other items on the eve of a big scare (biological or otherwise) have a substantial impact on a country's economy? I'm interested mainly in 20th century examples, but also from any earlier time in the modern era.", "The Spanish Flu is named Spanish Flu because they apparently didn´t censor their media as heavily on it as other nations did. If that is the case, why wasn´t it censored as heavily as in other affected nations?", "I have a history meme that I'd like to get verified if any medieval scholars happen to know: \nI heard a Pope lit holy fires around the Vatican to prevent the spread of the plague. The meme part goes that fleas are attracted to fire (thermal stimuli) and jumped in - thus saving the Vatican.", "There is a lot of talk about ways that the COVID-19 outbreak is likely to change American society forever. What lasting societal changes came about in America as a result of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic?", "Was a memorial ever dedicated for victims of the 1918 influenza outbreak? Or any other modern pandemic?\n\nI can think of war memorials, memorials for accidents, and memorials of natural disasters, but can't think of any for diseases.", "What are some good books on the overall history of pandemics, comparing how deadly they were, how they were treated, how they were rationalized, the effects of each pandemic on various societies, etc?", "Why do so many diseases throughout history appear to originate in China? Is it a function of their population density? The Silk Road trade? Did some of them actually originate elsewhere but the nearest known place the Europeans could trace it back to was China?", "When the Bubonic Plague was afflicting Europe, were there governmental efforts to suppress people who were selling fake cures?", "How big of a role did the Plague of Athens play in the Peloponnesian War? I don't know much about the Plague of Athens, but I read somewhere that it ended up killing roughly 25% of the city's population. Was the plague enough to give the Spartans a considerable enough advantage?", "I work in a university that (as of Monday) is stopping lectures because of the Coronavirus.\nThe most recent example that I could find of a similar action was when Cambridge closed for the 1665 outbreak of plague (which famously sent Newton out into the countryside where he got bopped on the head by an apple, and also invented calculus because he was bored).\n\nHave there been any other examples since then of universities (especially in Britain) closing because of an outbreak of disease?", "With retail and gatherings shutting down, what can we expect after the pandemic is over? Historically, did people adjust to the new normal (whatever that was) or was there a boom of festivals, gatherings, and new commerce once the pandemic was over?", "Why is it that when it comes to the Spanish Flu, there seems to be a dearth of media representation? I cannot think of a film or book that depicts characters having to live through it, whereas I can number off plenty depicting World War I and the Roaring Twenties in general. Was it just not as collectively well remembered?", "In previous pandemics such as the plague of 1348, without medical attention and the false beliefs of the people, how were the diseases stopped before everyone was dead?", "Like we are making memes about the Covid 19 pandemic, Is there any evidence of jokes/humour being made about a past pandemic (eg. Spanish flu or the plague)?" ] }

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[ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules" ]

[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6njkxj/askhistorians_podcast_090_la_peste_the_great/" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dimlx5v" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "As you'll see in [this article](_URL_0_) there are a number of theories, none of which are confirmed and all of which have problems. \n\nI think as the article states at the end that the most likely answer is that it rhymes with \"nix,\" meaning eliminate or negate. Wouldn't shock me to learn that a bit of rhyming slang just caught on and became popular somewhere, and then ended up in a book/movie and so became popular everywhere. \n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/86.asp" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dibzia6", "dibzihn" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "We sneeze to clear irritants out of our noses. As a multistep process to keep whatever it is out of our lungs.\n\nOur bodies are fallible though, sometimes it overreacts. Like seeing pollen as a dangerous intruder.", "There is no concrete answer, but the leading theory is that when something irritates the lining of the nose, the brain sends a signal to the lungs to take a large breath and then exhale forcefully. The thought is that since the mucus linings of the nose can be an entryway into the body for infection/disease, if the brain senses something, it would behoove the body to get rid of it immediately." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ccfs5hs", "ccfu5cs", "ccfuj7r" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 4 ], "text": [ "Mechanism of delivery < > information\n\nTake all the methods of communication we have. We can deliver messages verbally, written down, on the computer over the wire. The mechanism of delivery is different but the information is the same.\n\nThe reverse is true too. Take how a computer knows if to add or subtract a number in it's registers. The mechanism is the same, a low voltage = 0 a high voltage = 1, however it has a set of gates that says if it's 0101 add the next two numbers, versus 0111 subtract the next two numbers.\n\nThe human brain has a base set functions, these are what handle the information sent and received similar to the various gated functions in a cpu. It doesn't matter what the mechanism is, the information is what matters.", "The timing of the nerve impluses can vary, as well as their path. Although each neuron usually has only one axon (\"outgoing\" path), it can have many different dendrites (\"incoming\" path), and respond differently depending on where the signal it is recieving came from.", "In the same way that when your doorbell rings you go to the front door, and when you phone rings, you pick up the phone, even though both of them use electricity to make the ringing happen.\n\nWhich is to say that even though the physiological mechanisms are the same, their pathways in the nervous system are not the same (so the brain can know where the signals came from) and their connections to various parts of the brain are not the same (so the brain can process them differently).\n\nEdit: typo" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c8020lj", "c805m01", "c80i7rn" ], "score": [ 9, 5, 2 ], "text": [ "[Is it possible that you and I see the same colors differently?](_URL_0_)", "The thing you're asking about has a name, [qualia](_URL_0_), which is the experience of consciousness. Such as, what do you perceive when your eye looks at something blue, or what does spinach taste like. This tends to be difficult to study, but here is a good example. The reason why kids tend to dislike vegetables is because they're more sensitive to compounds that are bitter, as we age, we lose some of our sensitivity to bitter. This is an example in the change in qualia over time.", "Physically, the same wavelengths of light will excite the same photoreceptors in the eye, but people have varying concentrations and distributions of these photoreceptors. Emotional repsonses to colors also have variations between people. [source](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefaqs/comments/qfqad/is_it_possible_that_you_and_i_see_the_same_colors/" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia" ], [ "http://www.ca.uky.edu/hes/fcs/FACTSHTS/HF-LRA.151.PDF" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d3fkp8e", "d3fmwa1", "d3fogyb", "d3ft5ze" ], "score": [ 5, 17, 4, 2 ], "text": [ "It could be enough liquid explosive to blow a hole in a plane cabin, but blowing it up in a huge airport in a trashcan would be fairly harmless. ", "Honestly, you're going to have a hard time finding logic in most of the TSA's guidelines. It's more about security theater than actual security.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, the thought is that if people -feel- safe and secure, they'll act safe and secure. And if people -think- security is high, they won't try to bypass it. It's not completely useless, but it's also not based in, you know. Facts.", "From what I know most liquid explosives require very careful mixing before they actually function as such, so if you just dump it all into a trash can chances are nothing bad will happen.", "I believe the answer is in your question. Airport security is well aware that the liquids are not actually dangerous.\n\nImagine, if you will, that they stop someone and find that the passenger is carrying some TNT, a grenade, and a bottle that reeks of gasoline. It is simply impossible to imagine that they would drop these items into a bin and continue working next to that bin for hours. Naturally, they would demand that the items be stored far away - if only for their own safety!\n\nThe people amassed in long lines, of course, pose a different question: Why is airport security purposefully creating the perfect conditions for a terrorist to cause maximum casualties in an airport *before security*?" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmellrw", "cmepl7t", "cmeys4j" ], "score": [ 13, 20, 2 ], "text": [ "Depends on how you define triumph.\n\nOn one level it can be seen as a triumph in that so many troops were successfully evacuated and the little ships can be seen as a great propaganda scoop.\n\nHowever on the other hand it can be seen as a complete disaster. For a start most of the British equipment was dumped ranging from tanks to even small arms leaving Britain venerable for quiet a while. There is also the perceived fact that the British concentrated on British soldiers first meaning that most of their allies were left behind.\n\nThere is also the fact that the evacuation showed up the limits of the royal navy to evacuation people from a major port (admittedly under air attack) to the point that civilian vessels had to be drafted to assist. Taken out of context such an act would be seen today as military incompetence.\n\nSo while at the time it was seen as a triumph it probably was in reality a defeat for Britain.", "The Evacuation of Dunkirk was essentially a defeat (and as close to a rout as it got) for the British Expeditionary Force that had its image turned around due to good PR on the part of the performance of the Royal Navy, Merchant Navy and civilian volunteers who helped shuttle retreating soldiers from Dunkirk, as well as Churchill's famous *We shall fight on the beaches* speech delivered to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940. \n\nNow despite the fact the BEF was completely surrounded and on the verge of annihilation at Dunkirk, German forces stopped short of annihilating them as they awaited evacuation from the beach. Now the common myth goes that Hitler ordered German Commanders to hold their positions around the BEF rather than finishing them off, though most contemporary historians tend to agree that it was more likely German commanders felt constrained by their supply lines as they had rapidly advanced through France and the Low Countries faster than their supply lines could keep up as well as German forces wishing consolidating their forces before making a final push, giving the BEF time to evacuate as many troops as they could from Dunkirk before the German offensive resumed. Had the Wehrmacht possessed adequate supply lines for the majority of their forces as they reached Calais, (and this veers into what-if territory) it's very likely the entirety if not the majority of the BEF would have been annihilated or captured by German forces. What this would have resulted in is hard to say, though I'd like to think Britain would have still been able to keep herself in the war without concern, as the Germans were not anywhere near well equipped enough to carry out a successful cross-channel invasion. Knowing this, it's clear that the BEF was essentially defeated at Dunkirk, but was sparred the final crushing blow. Though it should be noted, a still considerable number of BEF forces were captured or killed before they were able to be evacuated from Dunkirk, so while the evacuation was seen as a miracle and success, it was not without it's share of setbacks. \n\nThe eventual evacuation of Dunkirk of well over 300,000 BEF soliders and personal by the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy as well as civilian volunteers greatly helped turned this defeat into the perfect example of what good PR can do to turn morale or opinion around. Churchill's speech delivered to the House of Commons on the last day of the Evacuation further solidified the idea for the British that the Evacuation of Dunkirk was not so much a defeat as it was a miracle and an example of the British spirit to keep the fight going even when facing overwhelming odds. \n\nSources:\n\n[*Inferno: The World at War: 1939-1945*by Max Hastings](_URL_2_)\n\n[*Why the Allies Won** by Richard Overy](_URL_0_)\n\n[Churchill's *We Shall Fight on the Beaches* speech](_URL_1_)", "I think one of the problems in this question is with assigning simplistic words to complex situations. It was a bit of both really. The BEF never had the manpower to resist Germany alone, it was required to fight alongside the French. Once the French collapse started and the Germans had cut the BEF off from the rest of France it was 400,000 or so British troops vs twice that number of German (and with more readily available) and they were in a defensively poor position. Evacuation was inevitable and not specifically a result of any failure of the British Army.\n\nDunkirk wasnt a traditional X vs Y battle, but an inevitable siege and retreat one, and was of that nature right from the start. Thus, from this point of view it was somewhat of a triumph, as the vast majority of men trapped in the pocket managed to escape. The focus of the Battle of Dunkirk, the victory conditions as it were, wasnt the destruction of the Germans and the reconquest of northern France, but the safe recovery of the valuable troops trapped within. This was largely achieved and that is why this triumph/defeat thing remains an issue. On a broad scale of course it was a defeat, in that it was one of the parts of the Battle of France, which was lost. But in and of itself it was a triumph. A defeat would have to have been the capture or killing of the majority of the men trapped, which didnt occur. Naturally there is no small amount of PR spin around the event, but I still think looking back on it objectively it was a triumphant and successful retreat.\n\nSources:\nThe Second World War - Sir Winston Churchil" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.worldcat.org/title/why-the-allies-won/oclc/33948454&amp;referer=brief_results", "http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/128-we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches", "http://www.worldcat.org/title/inferno-the-world-at-war-1939-1945/oclc/763181172" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c6hv0i1", "c6hy8qd" ], "score": [ 24, 3 ], "text": [ "Computers like powers of 2, and people decided that 2^10 = 1024 was close enough to 1000 to use the kilo- prefix.\n\nBut then some marketers came along, and decided they could make hard drives look bigger if they used 1000 for kilo instead of 1024. So things got confusing.\n\nThere are some alternate prefices, kibi-, mibi-, and gibi-, that have been proposed use with powers of 1024, keeping kilo-, mega- and giga- for powers of 1000, but they are not commonly used.", "To elaborate on kouhoutek, computers store memory in 1s and 0s, no doubt you've seen something like 00101101, known as \"binary code\". Well, each 'bit' is actually one of these 1s or 0s, so the code I just showed you is 8 bits in size. \n\nAs it turns out, the number of possible combinations of 1s and 0s I could arrange, is 2 * 2 *2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 2^8 since there are 8 bits, each with a possible 1 or 0 (2 options)\n\nNow, there are 8 bits in a byte, so what I showed you is actually a byte of information. So, a byte is actually 2^8 possible 'information states'. Where what I mean by information state is any arrangement of the eight 1s and 0s in a byte.\n\nSo, if I want to know how many of these possible information states I could have on my (hypothetical shitty cd) that has 1 kilobyte of information (2^10 or 1024 bytes), I can simply calculate: 2^8 * 2^10 = 2^18 . Or for a megabyte, 2^18 * 2^10 = 2^28 You get the picture.\n\nHey! That was way simpler than if I had dealt with a clunky number like 1000." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ctr016f" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Slavery as in West (west of Indus) never existed in India until Muslim conquests into India(Legally). There were no Historical stories which mention about slavery, other than few anecdotes. \n\n\nDue to high population and economical/social segregation of Varna system, Slavery as seen in west was observed in the west although , Dasee(women who are dedicated to temple or queens) are not uncommon. \n\nTraditionally slavery was never justified by religion in Indian sub continent . " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "difh5r7", "difh8by", "difhafq", "difhcyc", "difjuos" ], "score": [ 5, 32, 3, 2, 7 ], "text": [ "About 7000 nuclides are predicted to exist according to certain calculations in theoretical nuclear physics. Of those 7000, about 3000 have been found in nature and/or produced using particle accelerators/nuclear reactors.\n\nSo we can produce a huge range of nuclear species for experimental purposes.", "It takes a *lot* of energy to attach and rearrange those pieces. Think about burning a log: you're rearranging the *chemicals* by changing the bonds between different atoms, so that you turn cellulose into carbon dioxide and water (and some other byproducts). Doing so requires you to add energy to the system (a match) and produces excess energy. Or electrolysis, which is using electricity to turn water (H20) into hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2), which requires even more energy in and you get less energy out of it than you put into it.\n\nThe bonds between protons and neutrons is *much* stronger. How much stronger? [Here are some atoms being rearranged violently to form different chemicals](_URL_0_), and [here's some protons and neutrons being rearranged violently to form different atoms](_URL_1_). There is a *lot* more energy involved in making different elements compared to chemical changes. The technology to produce that energy and, more importantly, to control it simply doesn't exist at the moment.\n\nEDIT: That said, this is pretty much exactly what particle accelerators do. That's how we \"discover\" more elements: we smash smaller elements together to form bigger elements. We just do that at a very very small scale (a few atoms at a time). But we use larger elements, which require less energy to get to fuse. We could conceivably get smaller elements to fuse, but it wouldn't be economical at all to do so.", "Basically, we can. There are many different ways to arrange subnucleonic particles into atoms, and we have created many elements that don't exist in nature cause they are very short lived and unstable. But even creating a few common atoms requires complex machinery and a lot of energy, so making a complex device out of them isn't efficient or even feasible, especially since we can just mine a lot of the materials and create the ones we don't have through relatively easy to manage large scale chemical reactions.", "For one it wouldn't be \"from nothing\" you would still need to isolate particles which is in no way an easy task. Then you have to discover how to manipulate neutrons which is really hard because they dont have a charge so moving them through conventional means is really hard. Then you would have to force the protons close enough together which is really expensive and takes a TON of energy, and also releases a ton of energy which has to be contained or else you have a bomb. Keep in mind that forcing protons together is pretty hard, because they dont want to be near each other due to electromagnetic forces, and the more protons you are pushing together the more energy it requires. TL;DR nuclear-synthesis takes a massive amount of energy that we simply dont have. ", "Protons, electrons and neutrons are so tiny, it's not like you can get a tweezers and connect them just how you want them.\n\nNo, you have to smash them together at high speeds, millions of times, and hope that you get the thing you want. It's like building an alarm clock by shooting springs and bells and gears at each other.\n\nAnd even after all that work atom smashing work, you typically just end up with a handful of your special new atom. In order to get enough to look at, even just a tiny speck, never mind enough to hold in your hand, you need billions and billions." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zhBxfNm3rJE/maxresdefault.jpg", "http://bestanimations.com/Military/Explosions/nuclear-atom-bomg-explosion-animated-gif-6.gif" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dkm7bff", "dkm7fhz", "dkm7i7a" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 5 ], "text": [ "An interpreted language does not need to be compiled, this means that it is faster to change something and try again, so potentially better for learning to program. These days it's pretty fast either way, though, so makes little difference.\n\nIt's also easier to create a simple interpreted language and interpreter than it is a compiled one and a compiler.", "Some programming languages are simply interpreted, or compiled. Those that are interpreted read/process the actual written code on the fly, and tend to favor ease-of-development over raw performance. Those that are compiled take the written code, and use it to create a compiled program that can be read directly by the processor. They tend to be more difficult to actually program in, and it's necessary to compile them prior to use, but the tradeoff is raw speed.", "Compilers came first, they took your code and brought it down to machine code ahead of time so it can run directly on the processor quickly when you needed it to.\n\nCompiling is/was a reasonably slow process and was done on slow equipment so it was good to do it in advance. You could optimize the code during the process as well, reorder some instructions for better hardware usage, and overall just make things run faster\n\nAn interpreted language runs on an interpreter, basically a precompiled program that takes what you've written, compiles and executes each line in order using precompiled function calls. There is little to no optimization being done because the code is read in at run time so if you access your array in a non-ideal fashion you're going to pay the price but a compiler would generally rearrange things so you end up accessing it in an ideal fashion\n\nAn interpreted language is going to be slower, you're running code on top of code and missing out on lots of optimization, but doesn't require precompiling in advance and porting the executable to the target hardware" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ck33idy", "ck33jgm" ], "score": [ 5, 5 ], "text": [ "Smoking might induce the body to produce more blood than otherwise, but so would doing something like donating blood. Unless we are to accept that the Red Cross is harming donors it wouldn't be reasonable to consider the minor monoxide poisoning to qualify as a harm on such a report.", "Read the article. It says that marijuana use has no \"significant correlation with health service utilization or health status.\" It's not talking about short-term effects like mild anemia while actually being used. It's talking about long-term indicators. And that's generally what people are talking about when they talk about something's impact on health." ] }

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[ "http://dailyfreepress.com/2013/09/25/marijuana-has-no-adverse-effects-on-health-bu-study-suggests/" ]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d46k2u7", "d46p25h", "d46trpg", "d46uzzp" ], "score": [ 411, 10, 5, 42 ], "text": [ "So Alexander the Great's great cause he conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Until he passed over the Indus, all the lands he had conquered had either been Persian satrapies or at least within the Persian orbit. This included everything from Thrace, the Levant, Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia itself, all highly developed societies with an organized and ancient tradition of rule.\n\nThough every generation saw its share of separatist movements, Persian satrapies were generally quiescent and obedient to Persian rule. Once Alexander showed up as an unstoppable menace however, Persian satraps would often betray the Persian central authority and surrender themselves and their services to the conqueror. The political result of Alexander's conquests being that satraps were either trusted Greek advisors placed to the position by Alexander or they were holdovers from the preceding Persian state. Further, the officials serving within state ministries continued to hail from the local area, as they had under the Achaemenids.\n\nWith Alexander's attention focused on his military conquests, oversight of his empire was slack as long as the necessary materiel and soldiers arrived for his campaigning. Alexander notoriously conscripted men from his conquered provinces (much like the Persians had) and expected to collect the same sort of tax revenue as his predecessors. But with his constant warfare, he wasn't going to conduct a full audit of his empire's finances. \n\nSatraps realized this. Basic quotients of money and goods traveled to Alexander or back to Macedon on Persia's famous road system. But beyond what was needed to slake Alex's immediate demands, the administrators of the Persian bureaucracy could act nigh indiscriminately. The Macedonian army wasn't traveling through to set up a longstanding, permanent civilization; they moved at lightning speed, conquering a continental empire in less than a decade. Thus the local politicking of each court, in Susa, in Sardis, in Babylonia, went completely unchecked. Corruption spread as the only state obligations were to Alexander, a foreign conqueror who moved increasingly further away. Sometimes, they revolted, and Alexander executed several of them for this (Arrian VI.26) on his way back from India. Normally, however, they sent goods where they needed to go as the state apparatus built up by Darius and Artaxerxes could easily handle both completing Alexander's limited fiscal desires and fleecing their own pockets.\n\nIn addition to receiving replenishment from centralized redistribution Alexander's army could expect to collect sustenance and good grace from any ruler through whose lands it passed. There was of course the underlying coercive aspect to parking the greatest empire the world had ever known next to anybody's palace, but most kings, satraps, or rajs (if that's what they were called yet). When local supplies were limited, such as in the Central Asian steppelands, high mountain passes in the winter, or in the Gedrosian Desert, his army had serious problems with attrition. In sum, they were a much more live off the land type army, though they did it in a rather \"civilized,\" rather than Hunnic fashion.\n\nSources: \nPaul Cartledge's *Alexander the Great*\n\nArrian: _URL_0_\nSeriously, check Arrian out. Alexander brought a bunch of historians with him to document his conquests, and what gets passed down to us is nothing short of pulp fiction. It paints Alex as a mega badass who successively beats Achilles, Hercules, and Dionysus in his feats.\n\nDuncan Ryan *The Achaemenid Empire* -super fast breeze through Achaemenid history. Not too much content, but does give a rough trajectory of their empire. I recently read it just to cover my bases as I begin to do more research into Near Eastern history", "Follow up question. I heard a story of Alexander the great pouring out his water in front of his soldiers while crossing the desert, saying something to the effect of \"If my men don't drink, I don't drink.\" Any truth to this story?", "Anybody have any feedback on Donald Engels book \"Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army\"? I thought it addressed this topic in some depth.", "Donald Engels wrote what is kinda the definitive work on this subject, and I highly recommend it, as it's a fascinating subject, because the accomplishment of Alexander the Great cannot be overstated. (1)\n\nThere were large bodies of men not well disposed to this young Greek traipsing through their territories with his army, but more importantly there were vast swathes of often quite hostile landscape across which Alexander had to move his men. Alexander was able to meet these strategic, tactical, and logistical concerns with seeming ease. Much ink has been spilled over the millennia concerning Alexander’s strategic and tactical genius, less so his ability as a logistical commander, and that is a damn shame because he was a genius.\n\nFirst and foremost was the preparation that took place under his father, Philip. Key among these preparations was the organization of the Macedonian Army into the most efficient campaigning force the Mediterranean had ever seen. A key part of this plan was expanding the prestige of the infantry unit, which would prove so essential to his battle plans. Philip accomplished this by making the soldiers of the infantry loyal to him personally, in a shift away from their home region or city. These ‘foot companions’ enjoyed the prestige of being considered directly connected to their king just as the aristocracy already had been for generations. (2)\n\nBy making the men individually and as a unit loyal to their commander and king, Philip was aiming to wage war in a way that Greeks had not done before. Greek discipline operated in a way that might be alien to our modern idea of discipline, which places an emphasis on following orders.\n\nThe main focus of Greek discipline was on the opinion of your fellow soldier-citizens, and in trials for failure to obey orders, the key concern was whether the soldier-citizen had disobeyed orders for reasons of cowardice. Cowardice was the principal concern. Philip’s reforms to the Macedonian military are key to understanding the way he changed the army’s discipline. The existing institution of the Cavalry Companions, consisting of the elite of the Macedonian state, had enjoyed extensive freedom to question their commander and king bluntly. By expanding this and other privileges to include the infantry, Philip was also able to induce a constriction on the freedom of all his soldiers to disobey. The soldiers, having theoretically gained the right to question their king, gave up their traditional freedom to disobey. Effectively, the old nobility were given new obligations, and a new nobility was recruited on the basis of professionalism, meritocracy, and most important of all - loyalty.\n\nIt would not have been difficult to impress upon the men that loyalty meant obedience, by demonstrating that the rewards for loyalty flowed to those most obedient to commands. Therefore, reforms such as Philip’s forbidding of wagons and restricting the number of servants each fighting man was permitted created a situation wherein the armed force was able to field four combatants for every one servant. The men accepted such restrictions, and requirements to carry their own supplies, because to do so meant they would be rewarded. (3)\n\nUnder the hitherto existing Greek system, men would go so far as to bring their commanders up on charges for giving them orders they did not like, even when those orders were to help a wounded comrade to safety. Under Philip’s system, both discipline as obedience and discipline as courage are improved.\n\nSo, reforms are in place, time to invade Persia!\n\nEngels’ breakdown of the logistical framework after the crossing of the Hellespont estimates about 48,000 soldiers, with support personnel bringing the total army’s size to 65,000 individuals. The number of pack animals necessary to carry sufficient rations and other noncomestibles at this point would be, by Engels’ calculations, around 10,000, a sufficient amount to ensure that the army was sufficiently well fed for up to ten days. (Engels, p12) \n\nDuring the initial campaign in Persia, it is most likely that Alexander took a relatively coastal route. Arrian tells us “He sent Parmenio to take over Dascylium; and this was done without trouble, as the guards had abandoned the town.” (Arr. 1.12.9) Dascylium lay directly between Granicus and Sardis. Alexander relied on the fleet for most of his supply solutions until Miletus, and then transport of his siege train through to the battle of Issus, which was preceded by a near-disaster. Darius, acting on the belief that the Macedonian forces remained scattered in Cilicia, and due to his own supply issues in the Amik plain, accidentally flanked Alexander’s army. (Arr. 2.7.2-3)\n\nAlexander, of course, immediately turned around, met Darius, and was victorious.\n\nHaving won a crushing victory at Issus, capturing some three thousand talents on the field itself, with Parmenio capturing more treasure at Damascus, any and all issues in paying for anything his army needed were resolved, as his new wealth proved sufficient to see him to Gaugamela.\n\nThere is a lot more to say about the rest of his campaigns through Hyrcania, Parthyaea, and Bactria. Then there's the total fucking disaster of the Gedrosian campaign, and god damned Nearchus.\n\nGo read Engels's book, for real. It's very good. He leaves a few questions unanswered, like how reinforcements and discharges were sent to and from the Mediterranean to Alexander’s army on campaign in far off places. Certainly they used the same routes and methods that were employed for purposes of communication and supply, and it is clear enough that Antipater’s needs on the home front led Alexander to cease sending all the way to Macedonia for reinforcements after 331, but how discharges from the army and the receipt of reinforcements was handled, there are questions unanswered that may well be unanswerable. That being said, Engels is extremely thorough.\n\n1) Donald Engels, \"Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army.\" University of California Press, 1978\n2) Bosworth, A.B. \"ΑΣΘΕΤΑΙΡΟΙ.\" The Classical Quarterly 23, no. 2 (November 1973): 245-253\n3) John Keegan, \"The Mask of Command.\" Penguin, 1987" ] }

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[ [ "https://archive.org/stream/cu31924026460752/cu31924026460752_djvu.txt" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cea8eum" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "The first question to ask is what message the portrait is intended to convey. Through to the eighteenth century, portraits were primarily commissioned by either the clergy or the nobility and so reflected the social norms and customs of those two groups. In particular, open-mouthed smiling in art was considered somewhat lewd and unattractive. Women especially were encouraged to demonstrate restraint in displaying their emotion; coyness, grace and subtlety were the goal of all portrait commissions of young noble ladies.\n\nBut once you step outside of portraits of the saints, of clergy and of nobility and look at depictions of less \"serious\" folk, of people *expected* to show lewdness or lack of restraint, you can find tons of open-mouthed smiles and toothy grins. For example:\n\n* Court jesters ([1](_URL_19_), [2](_URL_0_)), \n\n* Court dwarfs ([1](_URL_17_), [2](_URL_9_))\n\n* Children ([1](_URL_8_), [2](_URL_7_))\n\n* The drunk ([1](_URL_14_), [2](_URL_10_))\n\n* The insane\n\n* The poor ([1](_URL_16_))\n\n* Musicians ([1](_URL_18_), [2](_URL_13_))\n* And, well, the artists themselves. ([Leyster](_URL_4_), [Liotard](_URL_12_), [Rembrandt](_URL_6_), and the Reddit-famous [Ducreux](_URL_15_))\n\nYou can also find nice wide smiles in the art of non-European cultures. There are several Mesoamerican sculptures of grinning ball-players ([1](_URL_3_), [2](_URL_20_)), for example.\n\nBack to Western art. Informality *starts* to creep in once art opens up to the middle class, who are more willing to buy portraits showing a little more geniality. ([1](_URL_5_), [2](_URL_1_)) The truly toothy grins are reserved for when the subjects themselves are supposed to be the object of ridicule - [political caricatures](_URL_11_) or just [funny cartoons](_URL_21_).\n\nOpen-mouthed grins in photographs of important figures are primarily a twentieth-century development. Aside from the change in acceptable levels of informality, there are two other factors to consider. First off, dentistry. It was not particularly good for most of the periods we've been discussing. Compounding this, the models used by the artists were drawn primarily from the pool of prostitutes and destitutes - neither of which are famed for good oral hygeine even among their contemporaries. Look at the mouths of Ducreux or Liotard above, where they're not making an effort to prettify the subject. Lots of black discolouration and gaps. Very unsightly.\n\nSecondly, early photography required sitters to remain entirely still due to the long exposure time. Holding your mouth open and motionless for that long is a burdensome task if you don't have a specific reason to do so, and the results would look rather fake regardless. The development of film technology (pardon the pun) allowed for more spontaneous and candid shots. Politicians largely still wanted to project an aura of sober authority most of the time, but you can find the odd glimpse of a cheeky grin or a laugh (\"[DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN](_URL_2_)\" springs to mind immediately). In the U.S., it's Kennedy who truly popularised flashing your pearly whites for the camera - it worked towards the image he was trying to put across of youthful vigour (when the truth was actually somewhat different behind the scenes). Since then, bright white smiles and good hair have been fixtures for successful Presidential campaigns.\n\nSo, in summary and in decreasing order of importance - changing attitudes towards informality, the invention of polaroid and digital cameras, prettier smiles." ] }

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[ "http://www.google.com/search?q=medieval", "http://www.google.com/search?q=\"Lincoln\"&amp;tbm=isch", "http://www.google.com/search?q=daguerreotype&amp;tbm=isch", "http://www.google.com/search?q=greek", "http://www.google.com/search?q=rennaissance", "http://www.google.com/search?q=\"Obama\"&amp;tbm=isch", "http://www.google.com/search?q=victorian" ]

[ [ "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Buffone.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/The_Laughing_Audience_%28or_A_Pleased_Audience%29_by_William_Hogarth.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Deweytruman12.jpg", "http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ao/web-large/DP230687.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Judith_Leyster_-_Self-Portrait_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/William_Hogarth_002.jpg/300px-William_Hogarth_002.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Rembrandt_laughing.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Judith_Leyster_A_Boy_and_a_Girl_with_a_Cat_and_an_Eel.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Bartolom%C3%A9_Esteban_Perez_Murillo_-_Boy_with_a_Dog_-_WGA16362.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Vel%C3%A1zquez_-_Francisco_Lezcano,_el_Ni%C3%B1o_de_Vallecas_(Museo_del_Prado,_1643-45\\).jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Judith_Leyster_A_Youth_with_a_Jug.jpg", "http://imgur.com/EsEqrAD", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Jean-Etienne_Liotard_01.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Judith_Leyster_Merry_Trio.jpg", "http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/images/paintings/yag/large/ny_yag_yorag_809_large.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Ducreux1.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/B174_Rembrandt.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez_-_The_Dwarf_Don_Juan_Calabazas,_called_Calabacillas_-_WGA24421.jpg", "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Judith_Leyster_Serenade.jpg", "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Court_jester_stockholm.jpg", "http://imgur.com/H9YBe0p", "http://imgur.com/GL4kXbB" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doh5f20" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There is a spectrum of wines! Both red and white have it. \n\nThey range from dry to sweet. That's how you get semi-sweet, etc.\n\nIt's determined by how much natural sugar from the grapes is left in the wine. You can stop the fermentation process early to make a sweeter wine (or add sugar afterwards). If they ferment until there's no sugar left, it's dry.\n\nThat's how you get dry wine.\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c24h0m3" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "With the exception of some very very exotic and speculative reproductive technologies, no.\n\nEvolution is just long-term adaptation to our environment. If, say, our brains start getting smaller because we can offload thinking to technology, then that *is* the process of evolution in action. If the main standard for mate selection becomes having a great OKCupid profile, then there will be an evolutionary pressure for good writing skills." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c4njcf6", "c4njyoa" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "No. Entanglement is nothing more than a correlation between the outcomes of measurements. If you measure the state of the first particle, then you will be able to predict with certainty the outcome of a similar measurement on the second particle. It has nothing to do with controlling the second particle with the first.", "It depends what you mean by \"change the state of\", or indeed what you mean by the \"state\" altogether.\nIf you treat quantum mechanics from an operationalist perspective, as many quantum information theorists do, then all that the quantum state refers to is preparations and measurements in the laboratory. And indeed, since your choice of measurement at some location cannot transfer information to the other location instantly, it would seem that the answer to your question is no.\n\nHowever, if you ascribe reality to the quantum state (which is commonly done, at least informally, by many physicists applying quantum theory to specific problems), that is, if you claim that the element of Hilbert space corresponds to a real, ontological physical entity, then the answer to your question is still not yes, but a little more murky. For a two-particle system, if the particles have interacted and become entangled, then there simply does not exist \"the state of the far-away particle\", but only the *composite* state of the *entire* two-particle system. A measurement of either particle will affect the composite state, and indeed, the changes to the measurable properties of the far-away particle are felt instantaneously after the nearby measurement, regardless of the distance between the two. It is wrong, however, to say that the state of the far-away particle has changed, because one cannot separate an entangled system into two single-particle states." ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/tk86o/china_successful_in_teleportation/", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "d5i4o6f" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "You'll be interested in my response [here](_URL_0_), as well as the discussion elsewhere in the thread. I and the others definitely welcome follow-up questions. It's a claim backed by a few people with monetary investments (read: tourism) in the site, based on results that have not been replicated by any one else. I'm also going to sacrifice my integrity and vouch for the quality of the details in the Wiki article." ] }

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[ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_pyramid_claims" ]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/396xjd/how_much_do_we_know_about_civilizations_before/cs10e5x" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c576o52" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "This is typically called [sexual selection](_URL_0_) and yes, it occurs in many species of animals (humans included). One good example is the tail of a male peacock. The color, size, luster etc, of the plumage works to attract the females of the species (peahens). This makes for a pretty good example because we too can appreciate the beauty of a peacock's tail." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "caxrzep" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Because all the major movie producers agree to listen to what the MPAA says. There's nothing stopping some rogue producer from ignoring them, but you'd have a hard time finding that producer's movies." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "chuynw7" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Might just have to have a look at that..." ] }

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[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryNetwork/comments/26vv2d/iama_winston_churchill_ama/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "d8qa1gy" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "There are 35 worldwide reports of explosions or fires from Note 7s, 2.5 million were sold. That's 0.14% that have had a problem. Its very possible that its just bad luck none of the phones they tested had the issue." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c5r0geh", "c5r0htz", "c5r1198", "c5r11ec", "c5r1w0a", "c5r26vg", "c5r7lhb", "c5r7ru8", "c5r8uys", "c5rbk72", "c5rd4dg" ], "score": [ 31, 190, 647, 9, 20, 39, 100, 2, 3, 5, 3 ], "text": [ "In a situation like this taking samples is vital.", "My guess is that it would be ballooning silk/thread from a spider or other arthropod and that it shrunk after drying out and/or becoming increasingly cohesive/adhesive, and perhaps disappeared because it was either dissolved by water (rain, dew, normal humidity), or consumed by an animal (spiders often recycle their silk, ants might eat it, as might larger animals like a dog), or that you just weren't able to find it again due to its size.", "Really great video that should put bugs above in perspective. (Starts slow for first minute but get super interesting) _URL_0_ (1:27 for your answer)", "/r/whatisthisbug should help. my non expert opinion is that it is from a spider. ", "You might have [star jelly!](_URL_0_)\n\nMaybe. I know it is known for 1) Being found in random ass areas and 2) disappears / evaporates. I've read more interesting articles than the wiki there, but maybe?\n\nEDIT: After looking at your pictures, probably not. But still, tell people you found some star jelly. Way cooler than bug shit.", "Spider Ballooning: _URL_0_", "You are seeing a migration of balloon parachuting spiders! :) They invade Chicago quite frequently, actually. They use their spider silk to form parachutes, and migrate! Really, really neat little buggers! They can actually travel upwards of 1600km using this method -- a hatchling will climb to a high location and create a balloon of spider silk, then take to the wind.\n\n_URL_1_\n_URL_2_\n_URL_0_", "Ballooning spiders? since you mentioned midwest, there was that time when [Hilton warned guests to keep windows shut](_URL_0_) because of the great spider migration.", "Very interesting and refreshing, I really didn't knew anything about bugs flying THAT high! Don't the bugs suffer from oxygen starvation?", "Spiderweb. little spiders spin these spiderchutes, they catch the wind, travel for ages, and come down all over the place. I lived in southern Australia in the country growing up, and in the right season, the land would be covered in the stuff.", "Looks like a spider web to me." ] }

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[ "http://imgur.com/a/fZcVM#1" ]

[ [], [], [ "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QxfOYhpjro" ], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_jelly" ], [ "http://www.livescience.com/4142-spiders-fly-hundreds-miles.html" ], [ "http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v23_n2/JoA_v23_p75.pdf", "http://www.snerdey.com/sky/index.html", "http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v20_n2/JoA_v20_p107.pdf" ], [ "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/13/flying-spiders-chicago-hi_n_1671373.html" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "di4gakc" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "No, no. Ports are used so the **device**, identified by it's IP address on the network, knows which application should handle the data, *not* so that the network knows where to send the data.\n\nIt's essentially the same as a ship harbour - the IP address is the coordinates of the harbour, and the Port is the... well, the port the ship should dock at. \n\nYou shouldn't get multiple applications sending or listening on the same respective ports, however a single application can send or receive on many ports at the same time.\n\nA practical example is the internet. Most HTTP websites are served via port 80, and most HTTPS websites are served via port 443. Other websites, for whatever reason, might be served on another port, a common alternate to port 80 is port 8080. In your web browser you would navigate to _URL_0_ in order to access that resource (note the colon).\n\nThere is a sort of 'good practice' when it comes to assigning ports to applications, but it is not mandatory, and hence the server administrator can select any free port they like to serve data on." ] }

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[ [ "http://example.com:8080" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cggcgdu" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "well, this could be a brief answer to your question _URL_0_ " ] }

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[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cz2kaku" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Many Australian banks will offer loan money to customers as soon as they're approved (at least for personal loans, mortgages can be more complex). Transfers between accounts within a bank are also usually instant.\n\nWhat often takes a long time is transfers between banks. [This is complicated](_URL_0_).\n\nPayday loan companies can bypass this issue by having agreements/accounts with the banks so any transfers they make to customers are within the same bank network." ] }

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[ "https://nimble.com.au" ]

[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1VuBkHinyU" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c2ub6q6", "c2ub6q6" ], "score": [ 4, 4 ], "text": [ "Viral infections such as those caused by [HPV](_URL_0_) often exhibit latent, asymptomatic phases. The virus may remain in the host for many years, cycling through periods of heightened activity before being suppressed [but not cleared entirely] by the immune system.\n\nSo, to answer your question: it's not that they are necessarily predisposed to re-infection, they simply never cleared the infection to begin with.", "Viral infections such as those caused by [HPV](_URL_0_) often exhibit latent, asymptomatic phases. The virus may remain in the host for many years, cycling through periods of heightened activity before being suppressed [but not cleared entirely] by the immune system.\n\nSo, to answer your question: it's not that they are necessarily predisposed to re-infection, they simply never cleared the infection to begin with." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_papillomavirus" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_papillomavirus" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cuuyj84", "cuuynvl", "cuuzi3d" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "It has to do with the federal nature of our government. One of the core goals of our Constitution was to give all regions of the country a voice in the government. The way that that was done was to create a bunch of separate, winner-take-all districts.", "It kind of has. Part of it (the House of Representatives) is based on a system where the number of seats a state has in there is proportional to that state's population. As populations go up, so do the number of seats. The other house though (the Senate), has an equal number of representatives per state.", "It goes back to the early days of the country when the US was viewed more as a collection of separate states than as a single country. The issue of representation was a huge issue when writing the Constitution. To oversimplify the situation, big states wanted proportional representation since they'd have the most power. Small states wanted each state to have equal numbers of representatives so they couldn't be pushed around by the bigger states. There were also regional issues and concerns about whether groups of states with similar interests could become too powerful. Multiple proposals were made, but the system that was eventually adopted involved a 2-house legislature with 1 house based on states' populations and the other house giving equal representation to each state. This was known as the Great Compromise of 1787.\n\nIn the modern US, it would be possible to switch to a strictly proportional system. However, it would involve completely changing the way the legislature operates and drastically change the balance of power in one party's favor. Needless to say, one of the parties would lose a tremendous amount of representation, so they'd oppose it strongly. Making such a large change would have to be done via a change to the Constitution itself. The process for doing this involves support from 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states. Needless to say, if either major political party was opposed to such a change or was even mixed, adopting this change would be impossible. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c5y4j5f", "c5y6btm", "c5y76nw", "c5y7xr7", "c5y85ov", "c5y9530", "c5y9d35", "c5y9m6t", "c5ya25k", "c5yd5p2", "c5yf1fd" ], "score": [ 59, 7, 3, 2, 4, 19, 4, 6, 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "You know how everyone in your class always tries to colour in the lines? Because pictures always look better when you colour in the lines, right? And the sky should be blue and the grass should be green and if you follow all those rules your pictures will always be pretty. ...And they'll all kind of look like everyone else's.\n\nWell, modern art is that kid that said, \"Meh. I'm drawing however I want. I don't care about your stupid rules. And my pictures are still going to be pretty!\"\n\nPostmodern art is the kid who saw that and said, \"What? There's no rules? Cool! I'm going to pee on my desk!\"\n", "Let me give it a go. Because the word *art* is so vague, there's pretty much no limit on what humans consider art. Because of this, art is able break free of the bind of \"looking good\". A lot of the weird shit you're talking about (much of the time) is just intended to invoke any sort of emotion, even if it's a bad one. Artists like to try to transfer emotion through visual mediums, even if that feeling is the\"what the fuck am I supposed to feel\" feeling.", "While we're on the topic... What about abstract art? Now that I really don't understand. Why does a painting of shapes and/or lines - whatever - deserve to be hung in a gallery? Some paintings are visually appealing, sure, but can't anyone paint stuff like that?", "I find that Modern art is about the process of making a piece, and the relationship the artist has with his/her piece. The audience is not always taken into consideration, nor is profit. ", "This would be more effective if you gave some examples that seem to make no sense to you and maybe someone can explain the beauty of it with some context, theoretical understanding, etc.", "art is relative. If it doesn't provoke any feeling or emotion in you, move along.", "Art today and art from the past are two different things. Art from the past was representation of something and documentation. Meaning art, specifically sculptures and paintings, were meant to seem as close a representation of real life as possible. This was what they used since they had no cameras. Eventually art became more about personal expression. The artist wants the viewer of the art to \"feel\" something or \"experience\" something. For example different colors make people feel different ways. Red elicits anger while blue is calming. So if you see a painting that look like a bunch of random red brush stokes it probably is meant to make you \"feel\" angry or visually show the feeling of anger. While a piece that is a simple blue gradient make you feel tranquil. A lot is left to interruption to make the piece different for everyone's experience. After saying that many people have criticized art for being to abstract being to far out there for any one to get. The way I like to say it is that too much of modern art doesn't make sense unless you read the place card placed on the wall next to it. Often times too art is just an experiment in the medium. The artist wants to know what can be done so they try it. Sometimes it looks cool. It may very well be completely meaningless beyond just being different for the sake of being different and to a lot of people that is great.\n\nedit: words", "A long time ago, a bad guy invented photography. All the painters were suddenly jobless so they went nuts. Voilá, modern art.", "After working in an art museum for 5 years I can offer this point of view. If you learn even a basic timeline of art history and the why and how each movement lead into the other. You would find pleasure from a much larger amount of art styles. You would also still not like art that you find to be crap or pointless. But it would eat at you, a lot less since you would better understand why crap (sometimes literally) can be considered art. Hope that helps. ", "Art is any creation that aims to evoke an emotional response in the person experiencing it. (I'll get to modern art. Bear with me.)\n\nOver the years, this is the most accurate description of art I have been able to come up with. With this definition, I'm desperately trying not to put the concept in too small a box. For instance, some people would use the word aesthetics somewhere in there, but that rules out the art associated with creations people generally don't associate with aesthetics, but that are still art. I even use the word \"creation\" because it doesn't have to be a \"thing\". Art can be a concept itself without a physical manifestation. I even balk a bit at the phrase \"evoke an emotional response\", because within that, I would hold that the lack of emotional response in the viewer/listener/experiencer, if that is what you're going for, is included in this definition. If you want someone to feel nothing, and they feel nothing, you've successfully done art. Ok, whatever.\n\nWhen you think of art you typically think of a painting or music or something along those lines. If you ever get involved in some kind of artistic discipline (for me, it's photography), if you really delve into it you may eventually find that you are attracted more to a particular genre within that artform. You may even find that your interests get narrower and narrower still as time goes on. (You may not, of course.)\n\nAs you chase the dragon, trying to improve your art, you will inevitably ask yourself: what constitutes an \"improvement\", anyway? Maybe if you do the thing you're trying to do it will improve your art...maybe it will make it worse, though. Who's to say?\n\nWell, here's what I think. Like anything else, there is a component of art that is subjective, and this informs whether you personally prefer it or not. But there is also a component of art that is objective, and it is fair to judge art based on that part against a standard measuring stick (which is not to say that this is easy or straightforward). In other words, this informs whether the piece is *good* or not, in an objective sense.\n\nConsider wine to make this clearer. If you taste a wine that has muddy flavors, lacks acidity, and could easily be achieved with any grapes from any plot of land the world over, this is an objectively bad wine. Perhaps you like that particular combination of flavors though, you would buy it and enjoy it. Ok, fine; there's no accounting for taste. Now consider a wine with clear notes of strawberry and pepper, with just the right balance of characteristics that allow those flavors to ring clear as a bell on your palate. This is an objectively good wine. The winemaker really had to know what they were doing to get that out of the grapes. Maybe you hate strawberries, or pepper, or the combination, though. This would be a good wine that you don't like. Fine.\n\nThe same holds true of art. There is a difference between enjoyment (subjective) and appreciation (objective). The objective aspects of art, for me, have to do with communication. (I believe that this communication is mainly accomplished by deft management of the experiencer's expectations, but I'm not sure that matters much for this particular answer.) If the artist is able to convey what they want to convey in all its intended detail (or vagueness), it is good art. If they can convey even subtle nuances, it is great art. If an artist is unable to convey any kind of intention to anyone outside themselves, then it is indulgent art. None of this has anything to do with whether you happen to like the piece or not. If you are a collector, you probably care more about the objective significance of the art and the universality of the piece; if you are buying it for your own enjoyment, you probably care more about the impact it has on you and you alone.\n\nOk, so where does this leave us? You can decide if your art is going to be improved by something based on whether you think it will help communicate to the viewer whatever you're trying to communicate. You do this by playing on the universal qualities of human nature. (This is why exploring the \"other\" is so fawned over in art circles...by exploring what the differences between people are, you can home in on what's the same. You can leverage those invariants to increase the universality of your art.)\n\nAs you explore ways to communicate more effectively through your chosen medium, you begin to focus on technique. If I make a composition like this, what does it do to the viewer's expectation? You eventually begin to understand the language of your chosen medium, and master it.\n\nI believe the exploration of these techniques is where most modern art comes from. If I'm studying composition, for example, I'll try to reduce it to the simplest elements. Playing with those elements can often hit upon one of those universal truths for how people experience that medium, and often that would result in something that's interesting.\n\nFor example, what's more interesting? A frame that is divided by a single line down the middle, or one that divides the frame by the golden ratio? Survey says: golden ratio. So for me, if someone presents a canvas with a single line on it, I'm trying to figure out what they hit upon. I probably don't get it b/c I'm not that good at art, but at least I'm trying.\n\nAnd then there's stuff like a blank canvas, which is just stupid because it's indulgent. Again, my opinion. :-)", "Well I can try to answer that. Art is not a matter of taste, its a knowledge. I might be wrong but I believe the question you want to ask is about contemporary art, not modern art, because its a common mistake to confuse the two. I'll cover modern art anyway. Modern art is pretty straight forward (guys like Picasso, Monet, van Gogh, etc.). Basically artists were tired of the canons imposed until then, in periods that came before like the Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Many people think those artists lacked the skill to paint realistic paintings, when in fact most of them could do it by the age of 15, thats why they wanted to break the boundaries of painting, sometimes by refusing the tri-dimensionalism, as the Cubism did (not always, because sometimes the Cubism tried to represent the 3rd dimension by painting other geometric planes that the perspective they were representing couldn't see, and also Cubism has an african esthetic because at the time Europe was flooded with exhibitions of african exploration and tribal art, Picasso owned many tribal items), or by the stroke technique, as the Impressionism did, with a more emotional and expressive stroke of the brush (among many other movements with other objectives). The propagation of photography also made the realistic paintings obsolete among many other things that contributed to the Modern art era. Contemporary art is a whole other thing, more confusing because, well, we're living it. I guess you'll need the time distance to understand it completely although many people try to explain it like its an absolute truth. And I guess the unexplainable its kind of an attractive quality of it. although many movements from the early stages of Contemporary art are already studied and fully understood. You have a more personal experience with the piece of art. Next time you go see a contemporary piece, try to get something out of it instead of waiting for it to deliver. I guess its all about that.\n\nI'm a wee bit drunk and english is not my mother tongue, so I apologize for any mistakes. In the morning I'll try to edit this. I'm sorry." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c740fz2", "c7417li" ], "score": [ 9, 10 ], "text": [ "They have rubber rollers that descend onto the stack of paper and then push the paper sheet by sheet into the printer. ", "Rubber rollers with a lot of friction, spread across the sheet. This is really easy for thin sheets. (text weight paper)\n\nSometimes on the bigger industrial printers they are air-fed. A blast of air separates the top sheet and guides it foreword to a rubber roller.\n\nI work with these printers." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dzwo8kq", "dzwo8ok", "dzwoe52" ], "score": [ 4, 3, 3 ], "text": [ "Aside from the fact the packages are tracked and logged, it is unlikely an individual would want to risk there income for a £10 loot crate", "Besides honesty? Nothing except security cameras and the fear of one day finding the police searching their house in response to a suspicious pattern.", "1) It is a Federal offense to do this, and postal employees have that made clear to them up front.\n\n2) Postal employees have a salary, benefits and pension plan. They have way less motivation to steal. \"Should I risk all my support over the chance of pilfering a cool Funko Pop?\" I doubt many of them even get to the point of asking themselves that.\n\n3) I don't know if every postal location does this, but it is not uncommon for orientation to include being shown footage of prior employee's lives being ruined for being caught stealing mail.\n\n4) the mail handling is not done in private places typically, in fact there are overseers usually who watch the staff. Not only that, but it is not unheard of to have undercover staff checking on them (on the ones who handle the mail). This is also known to postal staff.\n\nSo the summary is risk versus reward makes it a very very unattractive idea to steal." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ckcfjjy" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Measuring the sideways motion of galaxies isn't something we can really do. However there are nearby galaxies with have negligible velocity (relative to us) in the radial direction; in these cases, you can safely assume that their sideways motion (relative to us) is the larger component." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c37lhkv", "c37ltxi", "c37lhkv", "c37ltxi" ], "score": [ 7, 3, 7, 3 ], "text": [ "Different character encoding standards. \n\nYour computer only recognizes the number that's being sent, not the character. Computers only understand zeros and ones. A computer will assign each letter a different set of 8 zeros and ones, but problems happen when two computers use a different system of matching these numbers to the letters. Unicode is the most common system, but there are many others. The guy writing the site is using a weird set of numbers for his symbols and probably doesn't know it. \n\nGoogle Chrome was unable to detect what encoding this site is using, but it's not Unicode or the European standard. ", "On computers, we store text as a sequence of numbers. Each number represents one *glyph* (human letters), but there are many different formats (called *encodings* or *character sets*) to choose from, and each has a different number for each glyph.\n\nWhen we save text on a computer, we don't always save the encoding it uses along with it; if you're saving everything into one format then you don't technically need to. However, if you send your text to another computer (which happens when you visit a website) that is using a different encoding, that computer needs to translate your text before it can show it to its user. If for some reason the second computer guesses the encoding your text is using incorrectly, its translation won't make any sense.\n\nIn the case you've shown, that's what has happened. The reason you're able to read *almost* all of the text is a fluke from the history of text encoding; almost all encodings happen to share roughly 128 glyph numbers in common (the ones used for ASCII), and those happen to include upper- and lowercase English letters and common punctuation.\n\nAnd finally, the reason why those characters in particular are displayed incorrectly is that ASCII only has one type of quotation character for both single and double quotes; this character is used to both begin and end quotations as well as represent apostrophes. Other encodings have both opening and closing quotation glyphs (as well as ASCII's version) which are angled. Most word processing programs use the newer quotation styles, especially Microsoft Word. Articles are often written in word and then copied into *HTML* (web page) documents. HTML documents default to an encoding which doesn't use these newer quotation glyphs directly; instead it has sequences of text which will be replaced with the glyph by the web browser. For example, ' & amp;amp;' will be replaced with the ampersand glyph ( & ). If the person copying the article doesn't replace the special characters with these text sequences, the web browser will try to read them and fail exactly the way it has on that page.", "Different character encoding standards. \n\nYour computer only recognizes the number that's being sent, not the character. Computers only understand zeros and ones. A computer will assign each letter a different set of 8 zeros and ones, but problems happen when two computers use a different system of matching these numbers to the letters. Unicode is the most common system, but there are many others. The guy writing the site is using a weird set of numbers for his symbols and probably doesn't know it. \n\nGoogle Chrome was unable to detect what encoding this site is using, but it's not Unicode or the European standard. ", "On computers, we store text as a sequence of numbers. Each number represents one *glyph* (human letters), but there are many different formats (called *encodings* or *character sets*) to choose from, and each has a different number for each glyph.\n\nWhen we save text on a computer, we don't always save the encoding it uses along with it; if you're saving everything into one format then you don't technically need to. However, if you send your text to another computer (which happens when you visit a website) that is using a different encoding, that computer needs to translate your text before it can show it to its user. If for some reason the second computer guesses the encoding your text is using incorrectly, its translation won't make any sense.\n\nIn the case you've shown, that's what has happened. The reason you're able to read *almost* all of the text is a fluke from the history of text encoding; almost all encodings happen to share roughly 128 glyph numbers in common (the ones used for ASCII), and those happen to include upper- and lowercase English letters and common punctuation.\n\nAnd finally, the reason why those characters in particular are displayed incorrectly is that ASCII only has one type of quotation character for both single and double quotes; this character is used to both begin and end quotations as well as represent apostrophes. Other encodings have both opening and closing quotation glyphs (as well as ASCII's version) which are angled. Most word processing programs use the newer quotation styles, especially Microsoft Word. Articles are often written in word and then copied into *HTML* (web page) documents. HTML documents default to an encoding which doesn't use these newer quotation glyphs directly; instead it has sequences of text which will be replaced with the glyph by the web browser. For example, ' & amp;amp;' will be replaced with the ampersand glyph ( & ). If the person copying the article doesn't replace the special characters with these text sequences, the web browser will try to read them and fail exactly the way it has on that page." ] }

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[ "http://www.betrepublic.com/news/nfl-betting/Black-Sunday:-Super-Bowl-XIII/2009012213182644" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "c9fkmp4", "c9foubn" ], "score": [ 31, 12 ], "text": [ "Not at all. Medieval peasants grew livestock and used their produce for their own sustenance - chickens, pigs, goats, and cows were all consumed by members of all classes. If they lived near a river or the sea, they would also probably eat fish as well.\n\nThe difference between classes, as far as culinary was concerned, was the higher classes' ability to get stuff like spices. These sorts of things usually grew outside of Europe and had to be imported by merchants, thus becoming very rare and precious.", "Actually, eating meat was fairly common 900 years ago, however if you go back to the 18th and 19th Century then it actually changes. Industrialisation changed this because many peasants had to buy meat, rather than killing livestock they already owned, this made it become more expensive.\n\nUnder Louis XVI's reign the price of bread itself was between 60-80% of a workers weekly wage, meaning they lived on bread alone, and even so usually lived on an estimated 1,800 kcal/ day lifestyle, which was slowly starving them.\n\nSo meat actually became rarer, as the population moved away from farming, but the rural population ate meat as usual.\n\nSource\n\n Tilly, Louise The Food Riot as a Form of Political Conflict in France (Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol 2, 1971)" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cqvk9a8" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "This is a [progress of China's borders](_URL_0_) through out history.\n\nNotice both Tibet and Mongolia were part of China's Qing (1644 to 1911) dynasty. China's Yuan (1271–1368) dynasty was actually Mongols, which of course includes Mongolia. China broke apart into several warring factions after 1911. Tibet, Mongolia and other outlaying regions became self governing. After communist took over in 1949, their first order of business was to reclaim Tibet, Mongolia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Taiwan and Hong Kong were both islands protected by the US/British fleet. Russia forced Mao to give up Mongolia as a condition of alliance. \n\nKorea was considered a vessel state to China's ming (1368-1644) dynasty. As in they would contribute soldiers and pay tribute to Ming. But they were always self governing. After China was taken over by the Manchus and established Qing dynasty, Korea did not became a vessel state to Qing." ] }

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[ [ "http://i.imgur.com/WMSvbjf.gif" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjk8ifw", "cjkezty" ], "score": [ 3, 4 ], "text": [ "An episode of the [AskHistorians podcast](_URL_0_) deals with this topic. I've pinged /u/gingerkid1234 in case he has more to add.", "א שיינעם דאנק פור די שאלה!\n\nYiddish is, as the podcast and others have said, closely related to German. It's got loans from Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages, and occasionally romance loans (beyond what exists in German dialects), and it's got pronunciation differences like a German dialect would. It formed by Jews in German-speaking areas migrating east but still speaking Yiddish, forming eastern Yiddish, while those that stayed had their language diverge from German and spoke western Yiddish, which is extinct. \n\nMeasuring mutual intelligibility is difficult. I've seen lots of German-speakers say they can figure out Yiddish, but usually that's standard Yiddish on YouTube or something. Colloquial Yiddish has lots more loans from other languages and can have funkier vowel shifts than standard Yiddish. Yiddish speakers can't always understand each other!\n\nIt's also easy to construct a Yiddish sentence unreadable to Germans because of vocabulary. Like \"der rov leynt a seyfer\" means \"the rabbi reads a book\", but rov, leynt, and seyfer are not German words. Or an actual example from /r/Yiddish, \"kulem hobn nekudes toyves\", meaning \"everybody's got good points\"--all words but \"hobn\" are loans " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/22t0vn/askhistorians_podcast_episode_008_discussion/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "djo6rfx", "djoaf6p" ], "score": [ 15, 2 ], "text": [ "Sugar, salt, and fat are critical for the human body to work. Our brain users more sugar than any other part, salt is needed to conduct electricity, and fat is of course an excellent store of energy. \n\nYou and I are unfortunately a very old model, stuck in modern times. Human beings haven't had a major evolution in 35,000 years. We are essentially designed to be the perfect hunter gatherers, but that's not been our role in a very long time. Our tastes turn us on to exactly what our ancestors needed the most, but in the age of the Big Mac that's exactly what we have too much of. ", "Back in the day, when humans were living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, bodies adapted to burn primarily fat and protein, since carbohydrates (via vegetables and fruits) were so scarce. \n\nDue to the scarcity of carbohydrates, our bodies and brains adapted to crave them whenever available for their quick energy source. Our primal brain tasted carbohydrates (e.g. a field of fresh strawberries) and said, \"Woah!! We got some quick energy, eat it up while it lasts!\"\n\nUnfortunately, we still have this primal brain in our heads today. It's in there, and says the same thing every time it gets even a little taste.\n\nAnd the Food Industry Incorporated, filled with biochemists who know how the body works, makes food that capitalizes on these systems by intentionally optimizing the amount of sugar to the [Bliss Point (Wikipedia)](_URL_1_ \"Bliss Point\").\n\nCheck out [r/keto/](_URL_0_) if you're curious about living sugar/carb free." ] }

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[ [], [ "https://reddit.com/r/keto", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki%2FBliss_point_%28food%29" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eleahgp" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "From my understanding, neither the maximum amount of insurance possible on the church, nor the insurance bond of the construction company doing the restorations, come anywhere close to the BILLIONS it will take to rebuild." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "dfl14p2", "dfldgos" ], "score": [ 6, 4 ], "text": [ "It was fairly different. Though as the war went on, people took the restrictions less seriously and there was always a thriving black market. \n\nThe main differences were the number of men leaving to join the military was very different, the lack of military age males meant for the first time large numbers of women joined the work force, and they joined in large range of jobs, blue to white collar. \n\nThey rationed food, gas, oil, and tires. \nNo one went hungry, but many goods were hard to get, meat and fresh vegetables were more scarce, and this prompted people planting \"victory gardens\" in the yards or even open lots in their neighborhoods. \n\nThe gas rationing was serious enough, that unless you had a job that required you used a car, you really had to cut back on driving. Tires were rationed, and didn't last as long back then. \n\nThere was a black market on ration books and hard to find goods. Gas ration coupons were a very popular item in these markets. \n\nEveryone knew at least someone who was off fighting, most extended families had all their young men off fighting. In some cases they would not come home for several years, and the only form of communication for most people was letters. mail to and from GIs could take months. \n\nNews was via Radio and newsreels at movies. TV had just begun in the US, but broadcasts were suspended during the war. \n\nSome jobs had waivers, so they could not be drafted, police, firemen, civilian pilots, etc. These people could still join of their own accord, and many did leaving many cities with thinner police and firefighting forces. In some cases retirees came out of retirement to help fill positions. \n\nEdit to add more. \n\nALL automobile manufacturing was suspending, so even though getting gas to drive wasn't impossible, getting a good car got harder as the years wore on. Right after the war the car makers went back to the 1941 models and it wasn't until the late 40s new redesigned models started coming out. \n\nAnyplace there was a lot of factories, or a port, or both, like the DC, the CA, Bay Area, Washington state around seattle, LA and San Diego etc, all had housing shortages. Mix in military bases already there or that were built, and you had lots of people packed into the cities. \n\nMany companies that made consumer goods went to all military production. You were not going to get you hands on a new radio for the house, or a new fridge, or even a toaster or sewing machine. ", "Another aspect I didn't cover was the Khaki Wacky situation, and the DoDs concern over venereal disease causing big problems line they did in WWI. \n\nThey had a lot of combat ineffective men in WWI due to rampant social disease. The Army and DoD really learned a lesson on this, and going into WWII they were prepared. \n\nUS Law enforcement was less prepared for the large numbers of US women, young women became camp followers and they more than paid prostitutes caused the spread of VD of various forms. Penicillin was not readily available until late in the war, so getting VD was a big deal until then. \n\nThe U.S. military had a system, and they set up stations, when men when out on liberty, they were supplied with classes on VD and how to avoid it, and issued condoms. \n\nThe stations were in place to clean the soldier or sailors junk when he came back from the night out on the town, and they were told to go there and use the station if they had any kind of exposure, condom or not. \n\nThe stations was basically and inspection and washing station. Men who came in were not punished in any way for doing so. The ones who did not come in, and then got VD who were in deep water. Rates of social disease were much lower in WWII than WWI for US troops. \n\nAnd it wasn't because there was no sex going on, don't let the movies of the time fool you, you great great grandparents had sex too, and liked it!\n\nAnother aspect was the big Hollywood studios were all backing the government and went to work making patriotic films and propaganda pieces. They even helped the Army training films, like this one. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis one is about tanks on the march, and was filmed on a hollywood backlot, with a company of tanks sent for the filming. \n\nThere was not a lot of opposition to the war once it got going, there was some politicking and grandstanding by some political figures about war industry corruption, but it was mild by today's standards. \n" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Ns24Xhv6M" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cl3muvs" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Knitting uses two needles\n_URL_1_\ncrocheting uses a hook \n_URL_0_\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://nerdigurumi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sideview.jpg", "http://easyknitting.jodisworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/needles.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cnnlbhq" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "If you mean buzzcuts in the modern sense, no; at least not for the US Army. They absolutely, however, had grooming standards; its a basic tenet of military hygiene. Hair had to be short at the sides and back; away from the collars and not covering the ears. [Haircuts happened when they could](_URL_2_) and the frequency of them were never guaranteed. However, especially in the US, battalions could rotate off the line with frequency at the end of a drive or series of attacks; so obviously it isn't a case of 'hair growing back.' One has to remember that 'being at the front' doesn't mean you're constantly dodging bullets; it could mean your Battalion is in division reserve, or that you're in a low-activity area; lulls happened even in the high tempo operations of WWII.\n\nThe idea of 'high tops' in hairstyles isn't out of the ordinary across any armies of WWII; the general rule of ['short sides, above the collar in the back'](_URL_1_) generally applies to every branch and army, with obvious variations. \n\nFinally, and as always, lets never forget that Band of Brothers is an interpretation of a book made for our entertainment; and such content will always have inconsistencies, as myself and /u/rittermeister have [discussed before](_URL_0_). \n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mnys4/why_is_the_101st_easy_companys_neutralizing/", "http://cdn.ipernity.com/113/72/98/6847298.25ed17e7.640.jpg?r2", "http://www.90thidpg.us/Research/Original/Hairstyles/Images/Large/haircut.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c3d7d68" ], "score": [ 222 ], "text": [ "Its unlikely that they would survive. [Polar bears](_URL_5_) are adapted to eating seals, but its very hard to hunt them in the open water so they hunt on land. Two common ways of catching seals include: crashing through the ice using their paws and kill the seals in their dens or stalking air holes and kill seals as they surface for air. These conditions are not as common in Antarctica because it is an area where land is covered in ice, with no seals under it but the Arctic is ocean covered in ice with seals under it. (There are seals in Antarctica, they would just be harder to hunt). Of course assuming you transferred the polar bears to areas with penguin colonies they would have pretty good (but seasonal) food source - unless it is the [Emperor](_URL_3_) which winters in Antarctica. But over time, the penguins being defenceless against polar bears would probably be exposed to intensive hunting pressure from which they may be extirpated from the region. \n\nIts probable that polar bears could survive Antarctica temperatures - they have many [adaptations to the cold weather](_URL_4_) - thick fur, lots of fat, skin that is black ~~to absorb the sun's heat and clear fur to allow the rays in~~. I do not know the absolute lowest temperature that a polar bear can survive but I do know that [Antarctica](_URL_0_) experiences colder temperatures than the [Arctic](_URL_1_). \n\n\"The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89 °C (−129 °F)...Temperatures reach a minimum of between −80 °C (−112 °F) and −90 °C (−130 °F) in the interior in winter and reach a maximum of between 5 °C (41 °F) and 15 °C (59 °F) near the coast in summer. And Antarctica is colder than the Arctic for two reasons. First, much of the continent is more than 3 kilometres (2 mi) above sea level, and temperature decreases with elevation. Second, the Arctic Ocean covers the north polar zone: the ocean's relative warmth is transferred through the icepack and prevents temperatures in the Arctic regions from reaching the extremes typical of the land surface of Antarctica.\" and from the Arctic article...\". Average winter temperatures can be as low as −40 °C (−40 °F), and the coldest recorded temperature is approximately −68 °C (−90 °F).\" So polar bears if transferred to Antarctica would possibly have to face temperatures as low as −80 °C which is colder then what they are normally exposed to at −40 °C. This could potentially be problematic, but not unsurmountable.\n\nThe problem with penguins is that they are essentially adapted to living in an environment where they have very few land predators - only sometimes are eggs/chicks killed by predatory seagulls. Adults main predator is killer whales from the ocean. Anyway... penguins in the Arctic would have a hard time of making it because of land predators like the polar bear, arctic fox or wolf. Even if they lived on cliffs like [puffins](_URL_2_) they can't fly so they would not be able to get to and from the sea. It would be better if they were transferred to a location - island - where no land predators can get them, but bare rock is available in summer for nesting (if the species requires). In terms of food there would be plenty of fish in the Arctic ocean for them to hunt, probably something like pollock. Also, temperatures in the arctic are warmer, so they wouldn't have to deal with being too cold so much as being too warm, especially in the summer months if they live in areas where it gets above what they might normally be exposed too. \n" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic#Climate", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Puffin", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Penguin", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear#Physical_characteristics", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dmkb1q1" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Typically organisms with shorter life spans have a survival strategy based on rapid and mass reproduction. A fly for example would be expected to grow many larvae to maturity, mate, and lay their own eggs within a month because flies die all the time to various things. If a fly needed to survive for 5 years before it could reproduce then it would never work as the mass of flies required every generation would be impossible to achieved. From the other side it is equally untenable as there is no way to grow a whale up to full size in 28 days. There simply isn't enough available food even if the organism could grow that quickly." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c4a1j5u", "c4a4sod", "c4a5dws", "c4a5tuk", "c4a7fjg" ], "score": [ 478, 13, 9, 2, 8 ], "text": [ "Modernism was a cultural movement that began around 100 years ago. Modernist writers are the folks who rejected big, dramatic stories about glorious heroes defeating sinister villains, chosen people going on exciting adventures, comedies about elaborate social disasters, etc and instead focused on intimate and in-depth characterisation, subtlety, social realism, and on the psychological side of things. If you've ever read Virginia Woolf, she is a great example of modernism; she wrote what was later named \"stream of consciousness\", where the book is just a character's brain being poured out, unfiltered, directly onto the paper. It came about during a time when psychology was just taking off as a field, and took from that. Modernists deliberately broke the established rules or preferences to achieve the impact they wanted; this passage by James Joyce is a great example of all of the above.\n\n > Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic\n\nSo part of the goal of modernism was to be \"true\", to be \"accurate\" and show things as they really were, with all the stagey drama stripped away. And that became quite popular for a while. \n\n**Post**-modernism is a movement that popped up in response to how popular modernism had gotten. Post-modernism's essence is basically \"Yo modernism, fiction *can't* be true, *can't* be accurate.\" Post-modernists threw away the goal of realism that modernism had, but also threw away the \"convincing illusion\" goal that earlier art and fiction had. Rather than using fiction to represent reality, or using fiction to create fantasy, post-modernists used fiction to mock fiction, or point out how silly fiction was. The characters in a post-modernist book may be aware of their status as fictional characters, and ask the author to make sure they have good fates. Or the author might just cut a chapter out and say \"Just imagine whatever you want happening here.\" Post-modern artists might just slap their name on a urinal and say \"There, that's my new piece of art.\" It is basically a cultural movement that points out how silly/pointless previous cultural movements are.\n\nModernist/post-modernist movements exist in architecture and other fields as well, but I don't know anything about those. Presumably it is, in some way, the same essential concept as modernist/post-modernist literature.\n\nAlso note that post-modern is a pretty vague term, different people have used it in different ways, so it's not as clear and agreed-upon a label as something like 'romanticism' is. Moe Szyslak defines it as \"weird for the sake of weird\" and in casual conversation, more often than not, that's what it means.", "Post modernism is a set of values that have been applied to philosophy, music, fine arts, literature, theater, and pretty much every academic field such as anthropology.\n\nModernism is a reflection of the success of the industrial revolution and the building of modern western civilization. It embraces the certainty of science, and truth, and the idea that the world is ordered and knowable. Works of art should be original creations, based on traditional structure.\n\nPostmodernism is a reflection of the chaos and disaster of the 20th century. It suggests that an organised system of knowledge is false, and that no idea can really be objectively true. Works of art should reflect this disorder, and are encouraged to invert, make fun of and sample other works of art.\n\nFrogsfrogsfrogsfrogs is right about postmodern literature, but it might help your understanding if you think of Joyce and Wolfs' chaotic and unpredictable writing as being important precursors of postmodernism, as opposed to the traditionalism of Lord of the Rings.\n\ntldr, modernism = searching for truth, postmodernism = embracing chaos.", "Since Post-Modernism has been overlooked a little:\n\nIt's important to point out that postmodernism does exist though it isnt a unified \"movement\" in the way Modernism turned out to be, and it is cross-disciplinary in unpredictable ways.\n\nFor example, in literature post-modernism is really \"writing after modernism\" (and not in the style of modernism or any previous periods: the post-modern style). The focus in literature seems to be on the undermining of \"grand narratives\": history, science, etc. In some sense an ironic trivializing of human affairs, which is in the large part quite legitimate. I'm thinking of Midnight's Children here, where the author occasionally invites the reader to doubt the veracity of the reported history, and indeed he inserts factually false information which is brought to the readers intention. The result is that authorship as the principle source of truth or (at least) source of a definitive account is undermined.\n\nIn philosophy post-modernism would be best characterized, i think, by people like Derrida who seek to undermined the semblance of objectivity in a variety of ways. I mention Derrida here because he's claims about interpretation are implicit in post-modern literature: that there is no True interpretation of a text (though some maybe more useful than others), that the Author's interpretation isnt automatically privileged and so on.\n\nFoucault's approach to philosophy, that is, genealogy seems quite post-modern: rather than stepping into disciplines and analyzing their claims from within, you see how they function from without. The philosophy of physics would step into physics to analyze and assess claims about relativity but a genealogist would not care whether the claims were true or false but see how scientists as actors and how society as an arena of discourse (, power, knowledge, etc.) interacted with science's claims about relativity.\n\nIt is for this reason that post-modernism is often confused with a bleak kind of relativism, indeed it seems many philosophy-hipsters who have watched a Zizek youtube video seem to proffer relativism as a badge (and thus slander quite a large group of philosophers).\n\nI've written this out mainly to jog my memory into coming up with something helpful, not to be exhaustive or particularly accurate. \n\nMy conclusion is however, that you may say the unifying characteristic behind post-modernism is the lack of concern for truth.\n\nAs you might expect that's a rather peculiar and dangerous^ approach, some might accuse it of the worst kind of sophistry: just espousing any old idea recklessly (a charge which, incidentally, I think might fairly be leveled at Zizek). But it isn't sophistry, it is just an alternative meta-philosophy.\n\nThe meta-philosophy of the analytics is an attempt to find out something true, of the continentals to find out something worthwhile, and of the post-modernists to find out how something functions.\n\n(In the proper post-modernist style, I should point out that several statements here are rhetorical: designed to be slightly mis-characterizing to express a personal opinion.)\n\n\"New Atheism\" is an interesting arena to look at alternative approaches. Early on everyone was concerned with analytic claims, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins would talk about the origin or morality, the origin of the universe, the design argument: assessing religion from the inside. Hitchens however, being more literary, took a radically different approach: he rarely discussed the truth of the claims, but asked how they function, namely, how do they affect the mind of believers, their communities and society as a whole. I recall Dawkins later on addressing the question, \"What happened before the big bang?\" with \"I dont know, ask a cosmologist\" - which I found functioned as a rather poignant conclusion to millenia of rationalization.\n\nEdit: ^ many within disciplines (eg. science) have no idea how their claims will function, true or false. Many find it undermining to even ask such a thing, it seems to suggest that the questioner would prefer something thought to be false if that were useful, which may be true of some post-modernists.\n", "Since everyone here seems to want to write a college essay in the 5 year old room, you might want to check [this](_URL_0_) in the simple wiki.", "I had an art history teacher who led us to a neat little summary:\n\nModernism is about answers. Postmodernism is about questions.\n\nI'm going to come from the perspective of fine arts, because that's where I know most about the topic. In very abbreviated terms, Modernism was about building systems: systems of thought which could be used to give structure and meaning to the world around you. A very extreme example is the painter Piet Mondrian, whose work you would probably recognize. I like it and find it visually appealing, but if you read his reasoning behind the way he painted, especially when he was doing the stark blue-red-yellow squares he's mostly remembered for, you'll find he had a hell of a developed system of thought behind what he did, even if it was very outlandish.\n\nPostmodernism was about pointing out the inherent limits of structures, about poking holes in ideas without necessarily proposing alternatives. To the postmodernist, \"problematization\" is enough of a goal. Actually, inherent limits are pretty apparent when you look at the work of spare high modernists like Mondrian. It's often messy, chaotic, and appeals directly to the viewer's sense of outrage or visceral reactions - consider something like Pietro Manzoni's *Merda d'Artista* or \"Artist's Shit,\" which was actually just a can of his shit, priced at the equivalent weight in gold. There's not, intellectually, much more to it than that, and I think sometimes the directness of postmodern art throws people off because they expect it to be convoluted and depend on complicated \"systems\" that they don't understand, like some Modernists' confusing work, whereas it often amounts to a kind of whining about a perceived problem in very direct and sensually violent terms.\n\nSome other (possibly) overbroad categorizations of modern vs. postmodern:\n\n* answers vs. questions\n* thinking vs. reacting\n* structure vs. deconstruction\n* distilled ideas vs. chaotic cultural reference" ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-modernism" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ct3oa5x", "ct3ph3v", "ct3pouy", "ct3poxo", "ct3szys", "ct3urtj", "ct3wsvx", "ct41v3i", "ct444mf", "ct4672l", "ct4anru" ], "score": [ 96, 40, 10, 18, 6, 4, 2, 2, 6, 6, 2 ], "text": [ "The only way I can think of would be if your sample size is larger than your population of interest. For example, if you want to figure something out about a population of 10,000 people and you poll 20,000 people, you've clearly polled at least 10,000 people that are not part of your population of interest.", "Yes, if you are doing regular old null hypothesis testing and aren't measuring effect size (tsk tsk tsk!). \n\nConsider the one-sample *t*-test: *t* = (x & #772; - & #956;*_0_*) / (s / sqrt(n) )\n\nwhere n is the number of subjects.\n\nRewriting this: *t* = sqrt(n) * (x & #772; - & #956;*_0_*) / s\n\nSo you can see that as n -- > inf, *t* will also go to inf so you will always get a statsitically significant difference.\n\nThis is also true for independent-samples tests. \n\nHere's the graphical explanation: \n\nWhen we do a t-test, we compare the mean of a [sampling distribution](_URL_3_) to 0 (in the case of a one-sample or dependent-samples t-test) or we compare two means (in the case of an independent samples test) like [this](_URL_0_). The more the distributions overlap, the more similar we say they look, and the harder the means are to tell apart. This is particularly true if the distributions are wide (have large standard devquestion high variability) as opposed to narrow (small standard deviations / little variability). But if the distributions are [far apart](_URL_4_) or if they are very narrow like the third picture [here](_URL_2_), we can be more confident that their means are distinct. This is the basic logic of the t-test. \n\nThe standard deviation of the sampling distribution is computed by taking the standard deviation of the sample and divided it by the sqrt(n). You can think about it this way: the sample has a certain mean and variance. But those are specific to the one particular sample that we drew. If we went out and repeated the experiment, we might get a different mean and a different variance. But, because we're drawing the samples from the same population (and because we make certain assumption about our samples and sampling procedure), we believe that all of these sample means are close to the true mean of the population. The sampling distribution is a distribution of these means. It is narrower because we expect the sample means to be more closely distributed around the population mean than any individual sample. This is why the standard deviation of the sampling distribution (aka the standard error) is smaller than that of the sample. That means that the sampling distribution gets skinnier and skinnier the more samples you have. That means that if you have two groups and two means that are very similar, but you have a huge n, then you're going to end up with very very narrow sampling distributions that won't overlap very much, but will be very close together and the t-test will say that the means are different.\n\nThat's why it's important to also compute the effect size. This tells you not just that two means are different (in the case of a comparison of means), but by how much. You might end up with a statistically significant difference between two groups, but the means might differ only by 0.0001. That's probably not very interesting. However, even small differences can be important in certain settings like medical ones. If a medication is going to improve my outcome even by as little as 3%, that might be worth knowing. So small effect sizes aren't by themselves a bad thing -- the context matters.\n\nAddendum: Further discussion [here](_URL_1_) highlighted that my examples may be misleading. An important point to make here that I did not explicitly distinguish is that the null hypothesis that two means are exactly equal is almost never true. This means that as you increase sample size, you will be more likely to find a real but practically insignificant difference. The point I was trying to make in this post is that even if the null hypothesis really is true, simply by increasing the sample size while keeping everything else exactly the same, you can get a statistically significant result when you didn't have one before with the smaller sample size. This is how I interpreted OPs question.", "Sure, because samples can be expensive both to collect and to compute and (depending on the data) the extra precision often isn't worth the associated costs. There's a saying that given unlimited time and resources anyone can build a bridge that doesn't fall down, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that just *barely* doesn't fall down, on a budget and on schedule. Statisticians frequently work under analogous conditions.", "It can be troublesome if you're running correlations and t-tests. If you run a huge sample size, you could end up with correlations that are statistically significant even though with a normal sample size they'd be statistically insignificant. \n\n[This article](_URL_0_) explains what I and another commenter are referring to.", "A power analysis will also provide you with an idea of how many members of each study group are needed.\n\nFor example, say you run a power analysis with an alpha of 0.05 for a study that looks at a cholesterol medication vs placebo, and you determine that to provide a 10% difference between the groups you need 500 patients in each group. Enrolling 10,000 patients at that point is excessive.", "Basically all comments are talking about mistakes people could make with big samples that could cause problems. When following best practices, then, no. Your ideal statistic is sampling everybody, and the closer to it you get, the better. As long as everything else is equal, that is unconditionally true. There is no scientist in the world who would ever turn down doubling his sample size for free when conducting an experiment.\n\nYou just have to watch out for not falling into traps like the one /u/albasri outlined in significantly more detail by using more sophisticated estimators for effect sizes and standard errors.", "We ran into one at my work related to \"using\" statistics.\n\nA larger sample size can introduce data that is more easily misinterpreted by someone (or some group) that doesn't understand the methodology or wants to mis-represent the data.\n\nLet's say are testing samples for contamination (for fun let's say it is a known toxin). The test will have a a predicted variation of measured concentration that in our case was always less than 1% of the allowable limit. \n\nThe larger the sample size, the more likely you will pick up an outlier (for any number of reasons, probably related to a sampling or testing error) that they can point to and say \"See - this is unsafe sometimes\".\n\n\nAlso data dredging becomes easier.", "Imho what still missing is the destructive testing approach. If your samples get destroyed during testing, then you want to keep your sample size as small as possible (but as large as necessary to get a certain confidence level).\n\nClassical example: light bulb lifespan. To test it you got to run the bulbs until they burn out. So to bigger your sample size, the more money you lose.", "In addition to the point of understanding the difference between simple test statistics and actual effect sizes, there is the issue of cost and efficiency associated with data collection. It's partly the point of power analysis, not just to establish you have the ability to detect a given effect if it exists, but also to inform the study what target you need to hit.\n\nFor particularly small effects and interactions, the sample sizes needed can be quite large. That's difficult in and of itself to gather, so at some point it's too costly or inefficient to continue.\n\nShorter answer, if you know what sample you need, it can be bad in the sense of waste to gather a larger sample size. ", "Most of the other comments in here are missing a major consideration of research design: ethics.\n\nMany bio medical research studies either use animal or human subjects. In the case of animal studies, you're subjecting creatures to the pain and suffering of procedures, surgeries, or untested compounds. In the case of human studies, you're subjecting people to potentially harmful medications. A outrageously large sample size will be able to detect very small differences between your control and experimental group, but the question is: are those differences clinically significant? A drug that causes a significant 0.001% increase in function is essentially useless. As such, there is no justifiable reason to use a sample size that large. \n\nThis is why running a power analysis beforehand to decide your n is important. Research design should *ALWAYS* have a strong ethics basis.\n\n", "You'd get some in depth responses over at /r/statistics. \n\nIt is generally a good thing, but with a major caveat: If you increase sample size **until you get significance**, you are essentially p-hacking.\n\nWhy? Because for any test, some random set of data will give you a significant p-value even if there is no actual effect. By simply increasing sample size until you get significance, you are essentially pulling random data until you get one that gives you the p-value you want.\n\nThis is especially possible if the power of the statistic you are calculating is far too low. In other words, if the true effect size is much smaller than your anticipated effect size. For example, look at [this chart from Gelman](_URL_1_). \n\nEDIT: /u/albasri's [comment](_URL_0_) goes into more detail with this.\n\nEDIT 2: /u/lehmakook points out that \"random\" is not the right word to use in this context. I was trying to say that by collecting data until you reach significance, you are essentially making the same mistake that you'd be making if you did the following:\n\n1. Collect sample\n2. Is significant? If yes, stop and bask in the glory of a publication\n3. If no, goto 1\n\nThe result of which would be that your 'significance' would be do to the randomly selected sample, rather than any real significant effect. \n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/spss/output/ttest1.gif", "http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3dbqk5/when_doing_statistics_is_too_large_of_a_sample/ct4hy1a", "https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FkXVG_-nozY/URUyfSZchdI/AAAAAAAAAXI/QqxA28RZeks/s1600/myttest-1.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_distribution", "https://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/2182g7.gif" ], [], [ "http://blog.minitab.com/blog/statistics-and-quality-data-analysis/large-samples-too-much-of-a-good-thing" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3dbqk5/when_doing_statistics_is_too_large_of_a_sample/ct3ph3v", "http://andrewgelman.com/2014/11/17/power-06-looks-like-get-used/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "etcwyvo" ], "score": [ 32 ], "text": [ "Adapted from [an older answer](_URL_1_): \n\nIt's a myth that \"only the richest American families\" in southern states could own slaves, which is perpetuated mainly by Confederate apologists hellbent on arguing that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. \n\nSpoiler alert: it was about slavery. \n\n*Many* people in the antebellum South owned slaves. I wrote an answer on this awhile ago, adapted from the multiple times it's come up before. Before we get to that, here's a handy chart adapted from the 1860 census that looks at percentages of families who were enslavers, and percentages of enslaved people, in the seceding states and border states: \n\n## Enslavers and enslaved population by state \n\n### Seceding states \n\nState | Enslaver families by % of population | Enslaved people as % of population \n---|---|----\nAlabama | 35 | 45\nArkansas | 20 | 26\nFlorida | 34 | 44 \nGeorgia | 37 | 44 \nLouisiana | 29 | 47 \nMississippi | 49 | 55 \nNorth Carolina | 28 | 33 \nSouth Carolina | 46 | 57 \nTennessee | 25 | 25 \nTexas | 28 | 30 \nVirginia | 26 | 31 \n\n### Border states (did not secede) \nState | Enslaver families by % of population | Enslaved people as % of population \n---|---|----\nDelaware | 3 | 2 \nKentucky | 23 | 20 \nMaryland | 12 | 13\nMissouri | 13 | 10 \n\n[The answer I referenced above](_URL_7_): \n\nIt's funny you mention Twain, because he classified lies into three categories: lies, damn lies, and statistics. That statistic you quote is used by Confederate apologists to make it sound like the war wasn't about slavery. (It was about slavery.) To answer your second question first, while many enslaved people worked on slave labor camps (Monticello, Mount Vernon, etc), many households in the South owned \"only\" one or two enslaved people. \n\nAdapted from [an older answer](_URL_4_): \n\n > What percentage of whites owned slaves?\n\nIf you ask this question in this way, you'll get what seems to be a low number because it counts only property owners, who are heads of households, and not families/households who would benefit from the slave. (Think about it in this way: in my household I own a car, but my wife and child also benefit from my ownership of the car -- she drives it, he rides in it, we all use the groceries it brings home, etc.)\n\nIt also depends on whether you look at the percentage of slave owners (or slave-owning households) in the overall population of the U.S., or in slave states particularly.\n\nSo the better question is what percentage of *households* owned enslaved people. Here's a resource for the 1860 census which breaks down slave ownership by state: _URL_5_\n\nI wrote about this awhile back in the context of a border state: _URL_0_\n\nTo expand on that just a bit, the reason why how you count slave ownership matters is that if you state the question as \"what percentage of whites owned people in 1860\", you get a number that's about 8 percent of families owning enslaved people. (See the 1860 census link for context.) That number is often used by Confederate apologists to \"prove\" that the war couldn't be about slavery, because such a low percentage of households owned enslaved people. \n\nSo now we get into some basic stats. The 8 percent number is accurate, but it's also misleading, because fully half the states in the United States banned slavery, and those states held well over twice the population of the southern states -- about 22 million in the North, about 13 million in the South. Further, in the South, about 4 million of the population were slaves. So 22 million people were ineligible to own enslaved people right away, plus there were about four million enslaved people themselves -- so the question has to center on the population eligible to own enslaved people, that is, the remaining 8.2 million. \n\nIf you take a look through that [census link](_URL_5_) it's quite illuminating; slaveholding families ranged from a low of three percent of the population in Delaware, to highs 46 percent in South Carolina and 49 percent in Mississippi. It's also interesting to look at enslaved people as percentage of population, where 57 percent of South Carolina's population and 55 percent of Mississippi's were enslaved people. \n\nFor more on this, see also these threads: \n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_6_\n\n_URL_2_" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2200dc/if_i_was_an_average_american_citizen_either/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/axtec4/precivil_war_america_if_very_few_people_in_the/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4vmrd0/at_the_peak_of_slavery_in_the_continental_united/d5zqps9/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/46ixsh/how_financially_privileged_was_slave_ownership_in/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4al3zm/approximately_how_many_americans_owned_at_least/d11yv26/", "http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2200dc/if_i_was_an_average_american_citizen_either/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/axjfp4/how_common_was_it_to_own_slaves_in_precivil_war/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dao79fh", "daomp4l" ], "score": [ 3, 8 ], "text": [ "Well, the first mammals had internal testes. Having external came much later. Rhinoceroses having internal testes has evolved secondarily.\nOn of the arguments is, that early mammals might have had a slightly lower body temperature and didn't need to have external testes for efficient spermatogenesis. But really, it's mostly guesswork.\n\nThere is more in the Wikipedia entry for the mammalian [testicle](_URL_0_).", "This has more to do with the sperm than the testes.\n\nTemperature tolerances of proteins can vary quite a bit with very small changes in the amino acid sequence used to make them. The bonds between amino acids not linked together by peptide bonds are typically pretty weak so the extra movement with temperature (the average **kinetic** energy of a substance) can rattle this long twisted string apart.\n\n\nAnimals with external testes have sperm that have proteins with lower heat tolerances and require a lower temp to be viable.\n\nIf the proteins of the sperm have a high enough tolerance, the testes can remain inside, which reproductively is advantageous (since they're less likely to be accidentally lost).\n" ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicle#Evolution" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c5gmkkw" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "People like to communicate. When we communicate, sometimes we tell each other secrets - things that nobody else should know.\n\nIf you are sending a message containing a secret to somebody you might fear that this message will fall into the wrong hands and the wrong people will know your secret. So to outsmart the bad guys you can modify your message to seem like gibberish to anybody else.\n\nFor example let's say your secret message is \"I'm high\". You can substitute the letter \"h\" with the letter \"z\" and your message will become \"I'm zigz\". You tell your buddy \"listen, I don't want people to know I'm high, so when I write you messages I will swap the 'z' and 'h' letters.\". If the wrong person gets the message they won't understand it.\n\nChanging your message to seem like gibberish to other people is called encoding.\n\nWhen the recipient receives that \"gibberish\" message and turns it back into a meaningful message, we say that he decodes the message.\n\nWell obviously with a little detective work a person might find out that \"I'm zigz\" probably means \"I'm high\". So we use more complicated methods for encoding our messages, usually involving some complicated mathematics. But the idea is the same." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cw6vrfw" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "For children coloring, white and clear mean the same thing, on a white piece of paper. If they want to show something as white, they don't fill it in, it'll be the white of the paper. If they want to show something as clear, they'll leave it blank, and it'll be transparent to them." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e89pfjk", "e89rnun", "e89uynz" ], "score": [ 12, 9, 4 ], "text": [ "When one does drugs or smoke or eat junk food, our brain responds by giving you a “feel good” feeling. This feeling is caused by chemicals aka neurotransmitters, in our body like dopamine and endorphins. Our brain remembers what caused us to feel this way and knows in the future what it needs to make yourself feel good like before ., which leads to cravings. \n\n\nWith quitting drugs, particularly opiates, painful or just unpleasant withdraw happens because our body grew accustomed or dependent on the drugs to make the body produce the feel good chemicals and it didn’t think it needed to produce anymore of its feel good chemicals on its own. Once the drugs stop, the body takes time to readjust and build its own supply back up on its own. ......in the mean time, the person is in agony. \n", "Our brains get \"rewired\" when we use drugs, alcohol or develop an addictive behavior. This isn't just to the substance but to the *ritual* involved.\n\nAlcoholics like the sound of a beer tab, or bottle cracking open; gamblers love the feeling of walking into a card game or casino, etc. The ritual becomes part of the addiction. Even smoking cigarettes is as much about opening the pack and lighting up as it is getting the nicotine high.\n\nThe brain associates those behaviors, as well as the chemicals triggered, with feeling good/better.\n\nSource: recovered/recovering alcoholic/pillhead", "Basically your brain is using the same circuits as are active in extreme hunger, to motivate you to seek the drug the same way you would seek food if you hadn't eaten for five days." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e0sm4rz" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "It's kinda like how you straighten hair the carbon bonds are weak in hair heat allows the breaking of bonds and forms it straight under the flat surface " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "e3dn4xw" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "A computer prints the numbers on the scratchoff tickets as they roll through the printing presses at a thousand tickets a minute and the machine also coats the tickets with the scratch off coating in the same process. So when they come out of the press all the employee sees is the completed tickets in a giant stack. They have no way of knowing which tickets are winners unless they are upper management of the company who program the software. Those employees are heavily scrutinized at all times to make sure there is no way they can cheat the system." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cn24p3s" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "Solar stills might be more viable there than in other parts of the world, but the problem is that they still aren't very viable.\n\nThe parts of Africa that have trouble accessing clean drinking water generally aren't coastal regions, those tend to be quite prosperous areas that have wells or other forms of water.\n\nThe parts of Africa that we see that need help, are sub-Saharan, middle of the continent Africa. Where they can't reach the Ocean.\n\nThis combined with the high amounts of corruption throughout the continent mean that plants would inevitably end up in the hands of someone who would make it hard for the poor to access it. It'd just be another resource for certain group to try and control." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "catjncc", "catp0qv", "catdkel" ], "score": [ 4, 2, 5 ], "text": [ "Irredentism is a fairly common phenomena. For a long, for instance, Greece had ambitions to take back eastern anatolia, which had once been part of the Greek Byzantine world, from the Turks, regardless of the fact that Turks mostly now lived there, and launched numerous wars to that effect. ", "Would the [Reconquista](_URL_0_) fit the same pattern?", "Check out the [Back to Africa Movement](_URL_0_) from 19th century America. It lead to the foundation of Liberia (fun fact: the capital of Monrovia is named after James Monroe!) \n\nSierra Leone has a similar history of resettlement in the foundation of the Province of Freedom, which was founded for the \"resettlement\" of black loyalists who fled the Revolutionary war in America, as well as other poor, free blacks from around the empire. \n\nNeither of the projects had smooth sailing.\n\nSource: Took a class called \"Small Wars in the Global Context\" Mostly covering cold war proxies and African civil wars. There were no overarching books on those topics, only some memoirs from reporter and child soldiers. " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista" ], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjr60s9", "cjr82ht", "cjr9qdv", "cjr9r1e", "cjrbobb" ], "score": [ 4, 16, 10, 73, 5 ], "text": [ "Off the top of my head, there's the blind spot (_URL_0_) in our visual system.\n\nA typical camera (point and shoot, or cell phone for instance) would not have such a blind spot.\n\nEDIT: Fixed link...sorry, link isn't working due to the parentheses in the URL.", "Cameras cannot capture visual anomalies that are caused by neural effects. For example, it's not going to be possible to take a photo of the things that someone sees when they close their eyes rub their eyelids.\n\nHuman eyes and cameras operate using the same principles, but cameras have a much wider range of capabilities. So it's likely that for anything that happens outside the body, an appropriate camera can make a picture. There are obviously going to be camera - phenomenon combinations that will miss something. For example, black and white film can miss color information that a human would typically notice.\n", "The human eye is able to sense polarization (though it is very difficult, especially for the untrained eye). When looking at a polarized light source, humans are able to perceive the polarization by the so called [Haidinger's brush](_URL_0_). Its orientation depends on the lights plane of oscillation.\n\nA normal camera without a polarizing filter can not distinguish between polarized and unpolarized light. Even on a photograph that was shot using a polarizing filter, it is in general impossible to determine the polarization of a light source.\n\nOf course, one could in theory create a camera, that was able to exactly recreate this effect.", "I can think of a couple:\n\n- Extreme dynamic range. You've probably noticed most cameras can't take a picture containing some items in direct sunlight and others in shadow: either the sunlit areas are blown-out to white, or the shaded objects are solid black. This is because our eyes have a greater dynamic range than most sensors. HDR photography is a way of compensating for this with multiple exposures.\n\n- While it's pretty rare, some people can see polarized light. Looking at the blue sky about 90 degrees from the sun, they will see a pattern of blue and yellow.\n\n- This one's controversial, but there's some evidence that certain females may be \"tetrachromats\"--they have a fourth variety of cones in their retinas that would allow them to see a color between red and green, a true yellow. Since cameras emulate the *typical* human eye's sensitivity, they detect red and green, but make no distinction between red+green yellow and true yellow.", "Not sure if it's related to what you're looking for, but a very famous illusion involving the moon might fit. A full moon very close to the horizon appears much larger than a full moon at a higher angle. Cameras don't pick up on this because the discrepancy is due to how your brain interprets what the eyes see (a lower moon might be compared to other structures on the horizon)." ] }

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[ [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)" ], [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dnu9t7t", "dnu9wda", "dnuagyh", "dnuqx6z", "dnv2ak1" ], "score": [ 15, 5, 5, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Every point is expanding away from every other point. There's no \"center of the expansion\".\n\nImagine an infinitely large rubber sheet, with a 1\" grid drawn on it.\n\nNow stretch out the rubber sheet so that the grid lines are 2\" apart instead, everywhere. Is there a \"center\" to this stretching? Every point is moving away from every other point.", "The idea is that space itself was a product of the big bang. So every point around you and in the universe was concentrated at a single point at the beginning. This would make every point in the universe the center of the universe.\n\nSo the universe is expanding relative to every point in the universe. A result of that is that no matter where you look from, the universe is always expanding outwards.", "If you were to bake a fruitcake, you put the raw mix into the oven and it begins to expand and rise.\n\nThe pieces of fruit inside the cake are moving away from each other inside the fruitcake mix. From each piece of fruits perspective every other piece is moving away from it. If there is any center, then the individual piece is it because every other piece is moving away with expansion.", "This is a common question both [in ELI5](_URL_1_) and is in the /r/askscience FAQ ([once](_URL_2_), [twice](_URL_0_)).\n\nTip: askscience will get you more accurate answers.\n\ntl;dr There is no center. The universe is infinite. Everything expands away from everything else.", "There is no center. All points are expanding away from all other points. As a result, if you want to get down to brass tacks, the Big Bang occurred at **all** points in the Universe." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/wiki/astronomy/shapeoftheuniverse", "https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=expanding+into&amp;restrict_sr=on&amp;sort=relevance&amp;t=all", "http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qk58k/what_is_space_expanding_into/c3y7opc" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d00j6hf", "d00jzgf", "d00r7ld", "d00rjj6" ], "score": [ 11, 9, 5, 18 ], "text": [ "This is one of those impossible scenarios not addressed here.\n\nThere are no real edges. That is hard to understand. Think of it this way. If matter exists there is space around it. So nothing can get to the edge.\n\nWe will never travel to an edge. We will not even travel a billion light years. Not in a billion years will we do this. We can see light which has come from far away. That is it. We can detect radiation from the big bang. It can be detected in all directions.", "This is a interesting question, the answer is no because we live in a universe with at least 3 dimensions.\n\nThe fundamental of your question is whether if you were in a space ship flying directly away from something massive, would you eventually slow down, then start falling back down? Is it possible to go fast enough to never slow down? The answer is yes, you can actually be moving fast enough away, so that it is possible for the universe to not crunch together.\n\nThe explanation is much more mathy and complicated. So skip it if you don't like that kind of thing.\n\nFirst we need to describe some applied mathematics.\n\nGravity pulls you towards the Earth. It is acceleration, which is changing velocity over time. If we multiply acceleration by time, we get velocity. Think about this (it is a deep statement). Remember that multiplication is just like adding up over and over.\n\nSo now what we want to do is add up all the gravity from here, to somewhere that is 'infinity' away. If we get any number, then we are good, we just need to go faster than that number. If we get infinity, then this means that no matter how fast you are going, gravity will always pull us back.\n\nThe second idea we need to understand is a more simple one. To get the area of a box, we multiply the base by the height. This representation of multiplication as area will be used.\n\n(Have a look at the graph here.)[_URL_1_]. Those are the shape of gravity in a 2d universe (1/x, blue) and gravity in our 3d universe (1/x^2, violet). So to add up all the gravity, we want to take the area from some number (let's say 2) all the way to infinity. [See this picture.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt turns out that the red area is always a finite number (using calculus). Because it is a finite number, this means that if you go faster than this number, all the gravity from where you are to infinity is not enough to slow you down.", "1) No scientists believe that the universe is infinite but empty outside its edges. If the universe is infinite, then it is \"filled\" relatively uniformly throughout.\n\n2) If it were infinite but empty outside of some edges, then it would have a center of mass and gravity would have pulled all of the matter to this center, making the entire mass of the universe a single black hole. Thus the effect curvature caused by gravity would not be to curve space around but to curve it all down toward this center of mass.\n\n3) If the universe is not infinite, then indeed it would be curved just as you said, and if you go in a straight line you would come back to where you started. There would still be no edges.", "Reading through this thread I'm imagining this discussion taking place 500 years ago and we're all monkeys grunting and banging sticks to explain our individual understanding of this .\n" ] }

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[ [], [ "http://imgur.com/WdNceXC", "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+y%3D1%2Fx+and+y%3D1%2Fx^2" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cttomt9", "cttov29" ], "score": [ 8, 3 ], "text": [ "The bomb generated extreme heat, around 3000 degrees Celsius and given that humans are mostly water, they literally steam cooked and exploded at the same time ", "Here's a video. You can see the multiple stages of the atomic bomb detonation. First there's flash, which causes the spontaneous ignition of many materials.\n\nNow a burning can survive having it's outer layer vaporized away. A human has more trouble. Next there's the airblast which can blow away both humans and structures.\n\nThe reason this building survived the blast is because it was nearly directly beneath. Normally structures are build to survive downwards forces (such as gravity) and much weaker to sideways forces. Most other buildings were destroyed.\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

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[ "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Bomb_Dome" ]

[ [], [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_QKv4tea6I" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eaj73d0", "eak5qy0", "eakkm2j" ], "score": [ 3197, 93, 27 ], "text": [ "Yes, there are galaxies from which we will never receive any light at all. (Any galaxy beyond a current distance of about 65 Gly.) There are also galaxies whose light we have already received in the past but which are currently too far away for any signal emitted from us *now* to reach them some time in the future. (Any galaxy beyond a current distance of about 15 Gly.) The farthest points from which we have received any light at all as of today are at the edge of the observable universe, currently at a distance of about 43 Gly.\n\nFor more details, [read this post](_URL_0_).", "I know this is essentially already answered, but...\n\nYes, there are things beyond our view that are no longer \"in causal contact\" with your part of the universe. This basically means that nothing that happens in the parts of the universe outside our little bubble of observable things impacts us at all.", "What blows my mind, although somewhat insignificant, is the fact that we could've missed seeing other advanced life forms in the universe by a couple of years. We've only been looking up for a couple of thousands years, but other life forms on different planets could've evolved and completely destroy themselves before humans wete a thought. Craaaazy how big the universe is in time and space" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4msj5s/do_we_suspect_there_are_galaxies_were_already/d3yxrw5/" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dwfdeex", "dwfi892" ], "score": [ 6, 3 ], "text": [ "Encoder - changes data into a certain format or \"code\". Usually it's to conform to certain standards for displaying the information, such as ASCII being the standard for displaying letters and symbols on computers and other devices, or .mp3 being a common format for audio data.\n\nDecoder - changes the encoded data back into it's original form\n\nTranscoder - changes encoded data into a different code, which is generally faster and more efficient than decoding it and re-encoding it to the new format (although in some cases, that's all you can do).", "A human example:\n\nEncoder: hear someone talking, write their words down on paper\n\nDecoder: read words from paper out loud\n\nTranscoder: Read words from paper, type into computer without moving your lips.\n\nOr alternatively, transcoder: Read words from paper, translate into French & write down on new bit of paper." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cbveixa" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Two reasons. First, getting to the moon is *incredibly* difficult. It's not like \"Yeah, it's hard to figure out but once you crack it it's easy.\" I mean it's *incredibly* difficult. The energy requirements are really enormous. You just wouldn't believe.\n\nThe other, better reason is that the moon's a shithole. There's no reason to go there." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cbmjesz" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I assume you're talking about an *acknowledged* illegitimate kid?\n\nIf so, and you're a boy, you'll probably be made a duke or an earl and the king will pay for you're upbringing and you'll have a very comfortable life, including favouritism for a political career if you want one. If you're a girl, you'll probably be married off to a peer.\n\nAlso, while it's unlikely, you may potentially be a candidate for the throne; both Henry I and Henry VIII had illegitimate sons that were at times considered potential successors." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "djer3wb", "djer4z6", "djhc4lh" ], "score": [ 13, 4, 2 ], "text": [ "The hot gas does leave the muzzle equally. \n\nHandguns are held from the bottom and the recoil goes backwards through the barrel on top, so there's a torque force which wants to rotate it a little. \n\nEven if the recoil force translated directly through the hands and wasn't off center (which would make aiming tricky), the gun would still tend to rotate a little to point more upward by virtue of human anatomy - elbows only bend in one direction. ", "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so shooting a bullet also pushes back at you. Since the gun barrel isn't centered right where you grab, the gun will push back and start rotating around the fulcrum aka a pivot point, which is where your hand holds the gun. If you want to simulate something like this (without the gun), you can try putting an object on the edge of a surface, like a table. You put it so that the center of mass of the object is past where the object touches the table. You should see the object start rotating around that point of contact and falling off the table. Gravity is like the recoil, and where the object touches the table is like where you hold the gun. I hope that made sense :)", "This is a question I know! I discovered the answer one day as I was preparing for an upcoming shooting competition!\n\nSo first of all, what is a gun? A gun is a tool that fires a projectile. Then HOW does it fire that projectile? The hammer hits the strike pin, igniting the gunpowder in the bullet shell. This ignite is the equivalent of a small explosion in your hands, which then sends the brass, copper, or lead projectile outwards at a target. The force of the explosion and travel of gasses cause the muzzle to jump. (Regardless of my competitive rifle, handgun, or shotgun. Specifically for pistols though, is the most noticeable for recoil.) Since your hands absorb most of the shock and there's nothing restricting the slide's movement, that is a major reason it jumps 'up' \n\nSo, the explosion is a major force. Some guns have something called a recoil spring, which acts as a lot of shock absorption and can change the way recoil is received. Some guns, like the Hudson H9 have a recoil spring that is deliberately placed lower to send the shock to your hands rather than the muzzle.\n\nBut based on the way you hold it also affects the movement of the muzzle. If you hold it at a 90 degree angle so it's parallel to the ground, it would still travel through the 'top' of the gun, aka the slide." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cfztazq", "cfztf1e", "cfzv5we", "cfzxhiw", "cfzxxmf", "cfzysnp", "cg007n7", "cg00wgx", "cg01b5y", "cg01cvc", "cg01j4w", "cg01u5i", "cg022ve", "cg0jv2a", "cg1mdzd" ], "score": [ 3, 6, 549, 80, 14, 7, 9, 16, 4, 2, 11, 2, 20, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "First of all, the family members may not be correct. Second of all, you can't just \"ping\" a cell phone like you see on TV. It just doesn't work that way. Third of all, the way cell phones work, it might not be unusual at all for a phone to ring and then disconnect and not go to voice mail. ", "Because, realistically, it would be a dead lead. There is absolutely no way any of the crash victim's phones are actively communicating with *anything*, especially not service towers that would allow family members to call the phones. \n\nWhat seems more probable to you: That cellphones thousands of feet under the ocean are some how in active use and accepting incoming calls (as the family members claim) or that either 1) there was some sort of glitch in the communication network wherein the family members heard a ring instead of instant voicemail or 2) grief stricken family members are trying to *do* something in anyway they can, even if it means grasping at improbable straws? \n\n", "Phones don't really work that way. When you dial a phone number it's sent to the telco. The telco could choose to send you a ring tone while it's attempting to locate the phone. Unable to find the phone it can just send you to voicemail which is located at the telco not on the phone.\n\nJust because you hear ringing isn't a promise that the other phone is actually ringing or reachable.\n\nAlternatively the telco can just sit there and play ringback tone forever because thats how it's configured. None of which is a promise that it can reach the phone.", "Why are people reporting a plane flying overhead to possibly be the lost plane? It's been days, there's no fucking way it's still flying.", "I was under the impression that the reason no one was using this to track them was because those whose phones still rung had their calls redirected to another line, so their phones weren't actually ringing, but rather, a landline or work phone. ", "The first 2 or so rings when you usually call someone is your provider trying to connect to the provider of who you're calling.\n\nAKA: First 2 Rings is AT & T trying to get T-Mobile's attention.", "The key here is that the plane was equipped with cellular communication hardware, supplied by AeroMobile, to provide GSM services via satellite. If the plane was to undergo a slow decompression due to cracks near the SATCOM antenna ([**which has been reported to be an issue, and would explain the loss of location data**](_URL_0_)), the phones would have rung, but the unconscious people on board would not have answered. The GSM services do not go through the SATCOM to my knowledge.", "No one here mentioned the social media activity of 3 of the people on QQ", "The ringing you hear when you call a phone is NOT the other phone. The ringing you hear is sent to your phone by your carrier. They then send a signal to the other phone to make the ringtone/vibrator ring/buzz. Then, when they answer, they connect your call.\n\nThink about it. If I change my ringtone on my phone to a song, when you call me you don't hear that song.\n\nThe phones are still ringing because your carrier plays the ringing sound in your phone when you make a call.", "If their phones are under water, then how can their relatives still call them? The calls should automatically be transferred to voice mail.", "A local news channel were discussing about the possibility of plane getting sucked in to A 'Dark Hole'", "The phones appear to be ringing because they are calling QQ, NOT the phones. For God's sakes, stop this \"OMG their phones are still on\" nonsense. \"Some of the relatives have said passenger QQ accounts (a Chinese web chat service like Gmail Chat) are still online. Tencent, the company that administers QQ, says if a user has not logged out of QQ, but merely turned their phone or computer off, they could still seem to be there, even if they are not. \" source, the _URL_0_", "You folks have way too much faith in technology. During Hurricane Katrina, my husband was in the middle of the storm, and I was 150 miles north-- I was still pretty much in the shit storm, but I had cell service and everyone within 80-100 miles of the coast (where he was) lost cell service. When I called him, it rang and rang and rang and rang, never went to voicemail even though he had that set up. There was no cell service where he was, so the call couldn't be sent to his phone, and I just heard \"ringing\" when the phone wasn't actually ringing where he was. Hopefully you can see how this principle would apply to the phones on board the plane.\nEDIT-- I removed my \"elite bullshit text sigh\" since it was so very, very way far the hell out of line with internet etiquette. ", "Waterproof cell phone cases?", "I learned from this thread that GPS on phones is READ ONLY but that they will broadcast their location to a connected cell tower.\n\nHow about on the satellites themselves? Surely there must be some identifier whenever a phone requests its co-ordinates and surely we can read the logs from the relevant satellites to discover where any phones on this plane with GPS switched on were last seen?" ] }

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[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-09-26/html/2013-23456.htm" ], [], [], [], [], [ "Telegraph.uk" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d1dz8q7", "d1dzwr3", "d1e45ie" ], "score": [ 22, 4, 21 ], "text": [ "Sell when it's high, stockholders may start selling too which can bring down stock price, buy it all back again. Profit. ", "I think its for tax reason. Sell below capital value to realise a capital loss then immediately buy it back.\n\nLink : _URL_0_", "To realize a loss which lowers the tax burden.\n\nLet's say you buy a share of stock for $100. It drops in value initially, but you believe their product is the best product ever and it will rebound, so you want to hang on to it long term for the capital gain. However, since the price is currently down, you sell your stock for $75 and immediately buy it back for $75. Your portfolio has not changed at all. You still own that one stock. You are still poised to strike it rich once the stock takes off. The difference is now you will pay less income tax since you realized a loss of $25. The loss is written off against your income, thus reducing your taxes. Works the same for companies. For sake of simplicity, this scenario did not take into account the transaction cost for buying and selling the stock. " ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crystallization.asp" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doth9ok", "dou66rn" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "It depends slightly on the type of supernova, and what the core will be made of. However you need to remember a star is much bigger than a nuclear reactor! As such it will emit trillions of times more radiation. \n\nTo go into a bit more detail, stars don't contain many radioactive materials (the radiation comes from fusion instead) until a supernova. At this point the flux of neutrons creates many unstable isotopes, which will undergo radiative decay. A core of a recent supernova and the surrounding material is incredibly radioactive. ", "What kind of supernova? In any event, the answer is: lots.\n\nOne of the main products in a supernova remnant (which, mind you, will be scattered into interstellar space by the explosion) is Nickel-56. This is the product of the \"last\" round of fusion that happens in the core of a star before it explodes. In some supernovae the fusion reactions generate enough energy to blow the star apart entirely (as in a Type Ia supernova), in others the production of a sufficiently large quantity of Nickel-56 in the core leads to gravitational collapse of the core into a neutron star (Type II). In both large quantities of remaining Nickel-56 is blown off into space along with other portions of the stellar envelope (or core, as in the case of a Type Ia). The Ni-56 has a half-life of 6 days, decaying via beta+ (positron emission) into Cobalt-56 which has a half-life of 77 days (and also decays via positron emission to Iron-56, which is stable). This radioactivity is what's responsible for a lot of the longer lived (days) light from the supernova.\n\nRegular beta- decay also occurs, but at a much lower level. There is a whole zoo of short-lived nuclei created by the high neutron flux in the supernova, particularly in a Type II supernova, which creates lots of different new isotopes, some of them with half-lives of tiny fractions of a second, some with longer half-lives (like Uranium and Thorium)." ] }

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[ "https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1o8e67/does_a_supernova_cause_nuclear_fission_when_the/ccpq984/" ]

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{ "a_id": [ "caje300", "caje599" ], "score": [ 6, 29 ], "text": [ "No, it's a change in the way they produce speech which just seems to sound (to some speakers) like another specific accent. The man who gained an Irish accent after a stroke would not have sounded Irish to an Irish person. ", "I'll answer this with the caveat that this is a very rare condition [( < 20 cases worldwide to date)](_URL_0_) and with an etiology that is not perfectly understood. \n\nThe basic idea is that after a stroke regions of the brain are damaged that result in a changed prosody. Most of the time, the change in speech pattern becomes close to but does not perfectly correspond with another accent (not necessarily one known to the patient). The current thinking is that observers hear this atypical speech and attribute it to an accent that they are familiar with, even if there are inconsistencies." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=23499353" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d1xb8ho", "d1xgrgv" ], "score": [ 104, 105 ], "text": [ "While some anthropologists hang out here, you should X-post this to /r/AskAnthropology, as this well predates written history.", "The good fellows over at /r/AskAnthropology gave me some [wonderful answers](_URL_0_)" ] }

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[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/4e65dj/is_the_out_of_africa_hypothesis_still_widely/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "du495kg", "du4c34k", "du4d9qg", "du4m28r", "du555wm" ], "score": [ 683, 146, 18, 7, 6 ], "text": [ "I can tell you how bleach works on some types of stains. So some Compounds have color because of the molecule is a conjugated system. Meaning that more than 8 groups of alternating double then single bonds in a row all share electrons. When light hits this conjugated system it absorbs then releases energy that we see in the visible spectrum. Bleach comes in and breaks double bond(s) in this system making them single bonds. This breaks the conjugated system up either completely or into smaller conjugated systems. So for example, where you had 8 groups of alternating double then single bonds you now have 2 conjugated systems of 4 groups which emit light in the ultraviolet spectrum and it’s not visible, BUT the stain is still there, you just can’t see it.\nI suspect the stains are hard to remove because intermolecular forces between the stain maker to the fabric. ", "It's a matter of what the stain likes more: water or cloth? Stains usually are made up by fatty molecules (oils, fats, etc) that don't mix up with water (think oil and water, they don't mix together and form an emulsion). This means the stain likes to stick on cloth, rather than getting dissolved into water...unless you help the stain in the trip! And to help the stain, you need surfactants! (_URL_0_) \nSurfactants are molecules made by up a \"fatty\" lipophilic part, and a \"watery\" hydrophilic part: these molecules bind the fatty part in the stain, then when you rinse the cloth with water the watery part brings them from the cloth to the water side. Easy isn't it? \nDisclaimer: I hold a master's degree in chemistry. Not exactly surfactant chemistry, but I got to study the subject.", "I'm still looking forward to somebody answering the main question (removing the particles instead of uncoloring them).\n\nPerhaps some points can lead us closer to the solution? Edit: /r/Mortorz managed to answer some of this while I was writing.\n\n* Organic/protein stains are easier to remove on synthetic and cotton clothes than wool and silk, because we can use enzymes and/or bleach, which would destroy wool or silk fibers. Is there any hope of cleaning wool at all?\n* Many of the detergents are \"surface active\". What does this mean? Why does this work?\n* Good old soap contains fatty acids. What I remember is that one of the ends of those molecules is polar (?) and another isn't and that's how they manage to attach to fat and other organic (not so polar) molecules and make them soluble in water (a polar solvent). Is this true?", "There are also enzymes in detergent! Proteases can break down protein stains, lipases can break down any fatty stains, amylases can break down starch based stains, and cellulases break down the cotton that is stained just enough to break down the fibers that are stained without eating holes in your clothes. Fun fact: the cellulases were discovered during the war in Vietnam. They are produced by a fungus and would eat holes into the tents. There still is a lot of research being done to optimize the enzymes and the conditions they work best under. A lot of work went into getting the detergents to work in cold water.", "Stains can be caused by several different processes. Persistent stains tend to be the result of certain chemicals with a strong color, chemically bonding to natural fibers in clothing. \n\nAn example being wine, blood, or coffee. \n\nBlood contains iron(+3) ions which are complexed with proteins that make them reasonably water soluble. However exposure to oxygen and light over time destroys those proteins, which liberates the iron ions. These then form highly insoluble compounds with oxygen, hydroxide, or carbonate ions commonly present in water. This \"sets\" the iron into the fabric fibers and makes it difficult to remove.\n\nThe color of coffee is due to various tannic acids found in many plants. Note that some kinds of tannins have been used to create inks since prehistoric times. \n\nThese have the ability to react with hydroxide (-OH) side groups found in most natural materials. Cotton or wool for example. This reaction occurs slowly under most conditions, but failure to immediately rinse a coffee spill can cause some of the tannic acids to permanently link themselves to the cloth fibers. This makes the stain impossible to remove except by chemical means. \n\nThe process of deliberate dyeing natural fabrics and threads is actually the same one as that which creates these kind of stains.\n\nIn dyeing, the fabric or thread is soaked in a basic, astringent solution called a \"mordant.\" The articles to be dyed is then soaked in a solution containing an acid and the dye compound for hours or days. This causes some of the dye molecules to chemically bond to the fibers. The article is then washed several times in a mildly basic solution containing washing soda (sodium carbonate) this neutralizes any remaining unreacted dye and washes it away, while setting the color in the fabric.\n \nStains may also occur when some type of binding agent that is highly insoluble in water becomes absorbed by clothing fibers, which traps pigment particles. \n\nScreen printing on shirts does this deliberately by applying flexible wash resistant paint to a shirt. " ] }

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[ [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c92lq6l" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "To answer briefly, there was a massive amount of contact between the two cultures. Trade continued between them in the early years, and after the Anglo-Saxon conversions were complete numerous missionaries were sent to different parts of Germany, the most famous being Boniface and Willibrord in the eighth century. I do not know, but I can't imagine that any Anglo-Saxons would have fought on the side of the pagan Saxons against Charlemagne, nor that they would have felt more kin with the Saxons specifically than other Germanic groups on the continent. Connections continued after Charlemagne, with one of Alfred's advisers being John the Old Saxon. If I remember right, there is also some evidence that the Old Saxon poem *Heliand* was copied in England in the late tenth century, but I forget the details on this at the moment." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "fack6tn" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "I've written [pretty extensively](_URL_0_) before on the causes of the war, on [British war aims](_URL_2_) and their [alliance with American Indians](_URL_3_), and how they contrasted with [American goals](_URL_1_). To make a long story short, the British were defending their colonies in Canada and the Caribbean from an American invasion, and they had no interest in conquering the United States, at any point in the war.\n\nHowever, even in a purely defensive war, the British realized fairly quickly that passively defending their borders was not going to end the war quickly, and was unsuitable for the style of warfare preferred by their native allies - early, aggressive successes by British commanders like Isaac Brock earned the British a popular renown among American Indians, which contrasted heavily with Henry Procter. Brock was universally liked and respected by American Indians, and had a famous relationship with Tecumseh, who allegedly reported on meeting him: \"This is a man!\" Procter was likened to a bull, running away with its tail tucked between its legs. \n\nBut aggressive defense didn't necessarily mean that they were attempting to conquer the country, by any means. The goal was either to raid in such a devastating, sustained manner that the country would surrender or the civilian population would no longer support the effort (it was already *highly unpopular*), or to capture key cities and force a treaty on terms favorable to Great Britain. The (brief) capture of Washington was an effort to that end, and it should be noted that the destruction of public buildings was a recognized aspect of long 18th century warfare, and it was practiced on both sides. Burning the White House wasn't *necessary* and was viewed at the time as excessive, but it certainly wasn't beyond the pale, and Americans had done similarly in captured Canadian cities, as well.\n\nBy 1814, there were two large-scale efforts to end he war by capturing key cities. An invasion force assembled in Canada would sweep down into Northern New York, following Lake Champlain. A second force was being assembled in the Caribbean, and would invade the southern coast, capturing New Orleans. Of the two efforts, the New Orleans campaign was the more critical; New Orleans was an economic bottleneck, because it was where the Mississippi river met the sea, and a great deal of American agricultural produce was shipped down that river. With New Orleans in British hands, they would have a powerful bargaining chip with which to end the war.\n\nBoth of these campaigns ended in disaster, which gave a somewhat inflated impression to the American public that the war had been *won* when they heard news of the Treaty of Ghent following the battles of Platssburgh and New Orleans, more or less back-to-back.\n\nThe long term plan, such as it was, was *end the war*, hopefully from a position of strength. Being able to hand back an important city to the United States would be a powerful motivation to cave to British demands.\n\nI'll be happy to answer follow-ups.\n_____\n\nJon Latimer's *1812: War with America* and Donald Hickey's *The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict* are the two best overall histories of the war. For more on the American Indian role, check out John Sugden, *Tecumseh's Last Stand*" ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9mdy7o/who_won_the_war_of_1812_between_the_united_states/e7egpsx/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7xzsty/why_didnt_great_britain_invade_america_during_the/duchphe/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a96zwe/why_did_the_british_gave_away_maine_to_the_us_war/ech2e02/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/950o6u/what_did_great_britain_want_to_do_with_the_usa_if/e3pdyh6/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvl6gdo" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "I'm no expert on this, but I'm currently reading [Steve Silberman's Neurotribes](_URL_0_), which is a cultural history of autism. It's not specifically about homosexuality, but it does delve into the use of electro-shock therapy on autistic children, as what's known as aversion therapy. Basically, the psychiatrist gives an order, and if it isn't followed, a shock is administered. Theoretically, the subject will learn to avoid the behavior on his/her own. \n\n[This article](_URL_1_) from the Huffington Post (but written by an archivist at the National Gay and Lesbian Archives) \nSilberman proposes that those administering these \"cures\" believed they were acting humanely. Given that it was deemed impossible to change the attitude of society toward homosexuality, it was more humane to change the undesired behavior. \n\n[This article](_URL_1_) (from the National Gay and Lesbian Archives) might also shed some light on your question. Remember that homosexuality was considered a mental disorder before 1973, and the prevailing attitude of psychologists seemed to rest on curing disorders, instead of either encouraging acceptance or studying how best to integrate into mainstream society. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.amazon.com/NeuroTribes-Legacy-Autism-Future-Neurodiversity-ebook/dp/B00L9AY254", "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-scot/shock-the-gay-away-secrets-of-early-gay-aversion-therapy-revealed_b_3497435.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cx9zknb" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "Precisely because they were able to calculate the circumference of the Earth. Ancient Greek ships weren't able to handle the open ocean, and it was thought all the way up until Columbus' time that there was nothing but open ocean between Europe and Asia. Sailors and explorers at the time would have wisely figured that they would die of thirst, starvation, or to a storm before they ever made it to the other side, and this was actually a huge obstacle for Columbus himself to get funding since everyone thought he would die. Any Greeks setting out to the West would know they would find a watery grave, and if any tried that's exactly what they got with their ships at the time." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cot7wjc" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "The #2 is a measure of the \"hardness\" of the pencil lead (which is actually graphite, but that's a different thread). \r\r#1 pencils are very \"soft\", meaning they wear fast, smudge often, and it's difficult to keep the writing point sharp. Numbers #3 and higher stay nice and sharp, but make lighter markings, which is why they aren't recommended for machine graded \"fill in the bubble\" forms.\r\rI've used #5 pencils, and I like the sharp points for drawing math equations and graphs. I understand that they are commonly used for drafting. I prefer #3s, or \"extra hard\" pencils which are kinda like a #2-and-a-half.\r\rBut #2 is, for most people, the\"just right\" of pencils, that don't smudge much, stay sharp fairly well, but still make a dark mark when writing." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "de2uu7s", "de2vup8" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Satellites take pictures of things from about 100 miles away. A planet that's 40 light years away is 235,100,000,000,000 miles away. So, you'd need a camera that is about one trillion times more powerful than what's on a satellite.", "Because of fundamental physical limits. If you look at something, you need a mirror with a radius roughly equal to the wavelength you're observing divided by the angular size of the object you're watching.\n\nLets assume we want to at least see continents (~1000km) on those planets and that they're 40 lightyears away. Then we get an angular size of 10^-12 ish. Lets also say we want to watch in optical wavelengths, so we need to observe light with a wavelength of about 500nm. Then we need a mirror with a radius of at least 500 kilometers. Not to mention that the mirror has to be in space, because else the atmosphere would ruin the image.\n\nBuilding something that size in space isn't really feasible at our current stage of technology. " ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "f8bb8h2", "f8bc4ex", "f8bckmf" ], "score": [ 3, 4, 5 ], "text": [ "Instant gratification versus something that has long last impact where the benefit isn't immediately noticeable or required?\n\nYour steam game for example, doesn't just cost you money, it costs you *time* which you gotta invest in.", "You expect your beer to be gone in 5 mins. Even if it's not good, it won't be terrible, dangerous or cause you problems beyond that time. What you're weighing up is the prolonged annoyance caused by a poor decision.", "Where the fuck are you getting a beer for £3.00?" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cx2w8i0" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "It's better to have them released beforehand, so when people see the movie and get excited they can immediately find them on the shelves in stores, than risk a delay and them not getting into stores when demand is highest.\n\nBack when Star Wars (the original movie) came out in theatres, the toys weren't ready yet. For Christmas of that year parents could give their kids a card printed by Kenner that promised delivery of the action figures in February of the following year, IIRC." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "d1n8hb9" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "[Punk in the Soviet Union](_URL_0_)\n\nedit: not in the 60's, but might be interesting." ] }

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[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fb02b/was_there_a_punk_subculture_in_the_soviet_union/?ref=search_posts" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8zjgu1", "c8zk324", "c8zkjts", "c8zkxty" ], "score": [ 2, 5, 9, 4 ], "text": [ "Who said the 4th dimension was time?", "Well if you are considering the 4th dimension to be time then yes you are dead somewhere in the 4th dimension, unless you plan on living forever.", "The way I like to think about all these dimensions, is that the one before it is a just a slice.\nSo like a point is just a slice of a line, a line is just a slice of a square and a square is just a slice of a cube. \nNow we're in the 4th dimension, meaning we can fully experience the first three, which we interpret as length, width, and height. We can only experience the fourth, time, as a straight line, continually moving. Now think back to the points, lines, squares, and cubes. If you drag a point, you get a line, if you drag a line, you get a square (Think painting with the edge/line of a paintbrush), if you drag a square, you get a cube.\n\nSo theoretically, next dimension experiences ALL of time at once (Kind of like how we experience all of the lines of a square at once to form a square), so yes, in the next dimension up, you are already dead, but also alive, all at the same time. ", "The Fourth dimension isn't time, it's just another dimension like length, width, or height. Here's a good way of thinking about:\nA line is an infinite number of infinitely small points placed next to each other, a square is an infinite number of lines with an infinitely small width stacked on top of each other, a cube is an infinite number of squares with an infinitely small height stacked on top of each other, and a four dimensional cube (A [tesseract](_URL_0_)) is an infinite number of cubes placed together in a direction that we don't understand." ] }

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[ [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cpvqun8", "cpw0ahn" ], "score": [ 8, 212 ], "text": [ "If you check our [FAQ](_URL_0_) we have a whole section dedicated to pre-Columbian contact that may answer your question.", "Connections between what is now the American Southwest and Mesoamerican are so well established that it is almost inappropriate to think of them are entirely separate areas. These links were primarily trade based, not political or military, with products like [tropical birds/feathers](_URL_1_) and [cacao](_URL_4_), as well various other products like cotton, rubber, and copper goods flowing north from Mesoamerica in exchange for Southwestern goods, primarily turquoise (Phil Weigand's work is focused on this). There were cultural links as well, with Mesoamerican style ballcourts appearing in the Southwest and an endless discussion of whether symbolic elements of Southwest and Mesoamerican religions were borrowed, adopted, or simply convergent. McGuire's ([1980](_URL_3_)) paper is dated, but represents not only a seminal summation of the evidence for connections, but also a turning point in moving away from the older diffusionist idea that the complex societies in the Southwest were necessarily founded by long distance traders from Mesoamerica. \n\nThe Meso-SW connect, running up through West Mexico, reached its peak in the early (Mesoaemrican) Postclassic, about 900-1200 CE. This is pre-Aztec, after the decline of Teotihuacan and the Classic Maya, during the time when the Toltecs in Central Mexico and Chaco Canyon in the Southwest. There several sites in NW Mexico/SW US which flourished during this period as a result of this connect, such as Alta Vista and La Quemada. After this period, the Southwest and Mesoamerica see a [period of drought and aridity](_URL_0_) (ironically known better as the Medieval Warm Period) which would lead to a decline in these interstitial groups. This climatic change was also a factor in the dissolution of the dense, complex societies in the SW and would spur the migration of Nahua groups from the Chichimec region into the Basin of Mexico, where they would eventually found the Aztec state.\n\nOutside the Southwest, however, there is little indication of contact between Mesoamerica and other North American groups. Indeed, the only Mesoamerican linked artifact found outside the SW-Meso context is a [single obsidian scaper](_URL_2_). The inevitable question is \"why not more connection?\" but \"why\" is rarely a useful question in examining historical trends. One thing to take into account is the immense distances involved and the lack of pack animals. Direct trade between Tula and Cahokia, for instance, would *walking* from central Mexico to Missouri. Moreover, because humans can't graze like pack animals, it would have involved feeding all the porters carrying goods, which meant they would have had to carry supplies for themselves across long distances with uncertain resupply. Hassig in *Aztec Warfare* makes the case that these sort of logistic limitations were key in Mesoamerica being a hegemonic political system, rather than one that routinely exercised direct control. It's a useful concept to consider with regards to long distance trade as well. " ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/nativeamerican#wiki_pre-columbian_trade_and_contact" ], [ "http://www.pnas.org/content/107/50/21283.full", "http://kjknudson.com/publications_and_presentations/JAA_Somervilleetal_macaw.pdf", "http://www.jstor.org/stable/2694879", "http://www.jstor.org/stable/30247838", "http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440311000689" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmdo9bt", "cmdoexw" ], "score": [ 17, 8 ], "text": [ "\"Punk\" was used to mean listless or generally poor. So this could be taken to mean that he was going to a party that was bland and he wasn't having a good time. Would that make sense in the context? Context is everything. References to this use of the term in North American slang appears in the Oxford English Dictionary.", "Punk as a word has been used some time before the explosion of punk rock in the ‘70s to refer to ruffians, street rats, or any sort of person that would be considered below you in some sense, usually lower class. Like in the famous Dirty Harry scene when he asks the \"punk\" how many shots he fired (this was in ‘71, the general accepted time that \"punk rock\" becomes used as a phrase for the scenes popping up in London and New York is about ‘76 or ‘77). That’s how the prostitution definition ties in, because of their association as a “lesser” class. Uses like this can be seen even further back than Dirty Harry. I don’t know when the first usage of it was, but it’s used in in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Act V, Scene 1:\n\n > My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.\n\nSometimes it was used (mainly in prison) to refer to the subservient on in a gay relationship (think like the equivalent of a contemporary \"prison bitch\"). There's a quote of it in the Jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow's autobiography from 1946 about this:\n\n > \"The real trouble between the two gangs was caused by a fact that Big Six, a colored boy, had a white \"punk\". A punk, if you want it in plain English, is a boy with smooth skin who takes the place of a woman in a jailbird's love life. I'm not going to apologize for Big Six; I'm just saying that the Southern boys had their punks too, plenty of them, but they resented a Negro doing the same things they did with a white boy\". (p.15)\n\nThe first uses of “punk rock” started to come along in the late 60’s early 70’s to describe the harder more striped down garage rock sound of bands like ? and the Mysterians. One of the first uses is mentioned in the note for the compilation album [*Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968*](_URL_0_). I’m looking at the booklet included in the ’98 box set reissue, and the producer Lenny Kaye is talking about how him and his associates came to name punk rock by taking this (as he says) “young energy” style of playing rock n’ roll and mixing it with these more “rebellious” lower class aesthetics. They later changed the name to garage rock and “in ’77 the Sex Pistols appropriated it”.\n\nIt seems like overtime punk grew from meaning prostitute and prison bitch, to become anybody who was just the lowest of the low, then later it came to have the connotations of underclass rebelliousness and juvenile delinquency associated with current punk subculture. Without any more context of your relative’s life and the party, it’s hard to tell what exactly he might have meant, I’d assume since he’s upper class he was saying that either the party was full of people that he saw as “punks” or, possibly, he could be saying that at the party he thought it was worthless, or in poor taste. Granted, if he was a stereotypical \"good Christian\" like you say, then his definition of what constitutes a low life and low life behavior might be more expansive than someone else.\n\nReally it's hard to tell for sure without more information." ] }

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[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuggets:_Original_Artyfacts_from_the_First_Psychedelic_Era,_1965%E2%80%931968" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "daijq7k", "daiqgqz", "daiuz9v" ], "score": [ 8, 6, 3 ], "text": [ "Not a doctor. Do know several though that work ER. Since \"butt-chugging\" of alcohol is a thing I would be more concerned about the alcohol getting in there. Or just burning like hell on your bits. But if it did make it in, the effect is much stronger than if you drink it, which is why these idiots end up in the ER. \n\n\nI get what you're after though- is absorbing it thru the skin going to impact you. I don't see how it could make it to the bloodstream, which is where it would need to go. But again, not a doctor. I do agree with others in here though that the fumes would most likely get to you regardless as they would be replacing the oxygen you're breathing. I believe that was actually a brief thing- oxygen bar-type with alcohol instead, but I'm fuzzy on whether that was just a rumor. ", "Im taking anatomy as a premed and i learned about this 2 weeks ago: \nAs someone mentioned earlier, the only way to get drunk this way is if the alcohol enters your butthole. This is because your rectum (butthole) is technically a continuation of your large intestine, which is the one responsible for absorbing water and other chemicals like alcohol. If the alcohol goes into your anus, then it will go into your large intestine without first passing your stomach, small intestine, etc. Which in turn makes you more drunk, but this is dangerous, dont try it!!\n", "Hansen CS, Færch LH, Kristensen PL. Testing the validity of the Danish urban myth that alcohol can be absorbed through feet: open labelled self experimental study. BMJ. \n > Conclusion \nOur results suggest that feet are impenetrable to the alcohol component of vodka. We therefore conclude that the Danish urban myth of being able to get drunk by submerging feet in alcoholic beverages is just that; a myth. The implications of the study are many though. \n \nFrom this experiment, it would seem that we can't get drunk through our skin." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cws2ft4", "cws8ab1" ], "score": [ 9, 3 ], "text": [ "Almost anyone can enlist, and it's basically the entry level to the military. Officers are required to have at least a bachelors degree, and are placed into leadership positions. The [rank](_URL_0_) system is completely different, and they are also sent to different boot camps to be trained in their respective positions.", "Commissioned Officers(2nd LT on up to General) are given a commission by their nation's head of state. The President of the US commissions officers. In the past Kings would commission their army's officers.\n\nThere are a few ways to become an officer in the US Army.\n\n1. Graduate from West Point. Graduates are automatically commissioned as 2nd LT.\n\n2. Attend a ROTC program while enrolled at a university and graduate.\n\n3. Earn a Bachelor's Degree, apply and be accepted to Officer's Candidacy School, and graduate from that.\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://www.militaryfactory.com/ranks/army_ranks.asp" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdgpzju" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "Going to the next page asks reddit to give you the 25 links following the link that's at the bottom of your current page. But the rankings of links are constantly changing - if that link has moved up the reddit rankings since you loaded your old page, it can jump over links you've already seen, and you'll get them again." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ex03xtg", "ex042ah" ], "score": [ 6, 5 ], "text": [ "Spider webs are not completely sticky.\n\nSome of the \"silk\" (sorry, don't know the name in English), is sticky, but spider can produce some that are not.\n\nSo, when a bug come in contact with the web, it get glued on it, but the spider, who know where it put the sticky or non sticky silk, can move around and stay on the non sticky part", "They have small hair follicles on their feet that allow them to move freely on their own web without getting caught." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "eclqogz" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "A manifold is Ricci-flat if the Ricci curvature tensor is zero. This roughly means that small cubes whose edges are geodesics have the same volume as cubes in the corresponding Euclidean space of the same dimension. But the geodesic cube itself may be twisted or curled into a different shape. (Think of distorting a spherical ball into an ellipsoid of the same volume.)\n\nIn general relativity, a Ricci-flat spacetime is one which is a vacuum solution to the Einstein field equations. That is, there are no matter fields: no baryonic matter, no radiation, no energy or any kind. All of the spacetime curvature is caused by gravitational energy.\n\nAll of the classical black hole solutions that get talked about most often (Schwarzschild, Kerr, Nordstrom, etc.) are all vacuum solutions, and thus represent Ricci-flat spacetimes. Minkowski space of special relativity is also Ricci-flat. The FLRW metric, which models our expanding universe, is *not* Ricci-flat.\n\nThere are some interesting mathematical questions about Ricci-flat manifolds. For instance, if a (Lorentzian) manifold is Ricci-flat and geodesically complete (i.e., singularity-free), is the manifold flat? The answer turns out to be \"no\", and one such family of spacetimes is the pp-wave spacetimes, which model a universe with massless plane wave radiation only." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "c6np5z7", "c6npfh8", "c6npwn1", "c6nra5e", "c6nsq9n" ], "score": [ 16, 6, 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "[Three-dimensional integrated circuit](_URL_0_)", "The smallest size possible was thought to be 1 micrometer not so long ago, so any predictions on when the transistor gate length will definitely be too small is a bit early in my opinion. \nArchitectures using silicon and conventional field effect transistors, in theory, can go down to 3nm gate length, 10 times smaller than current technology. At that point, molecular electronics (single molecule channel) could be the stopping point.\nBut, for sure, it will be first easier to go up (stack layers) instead of reducing dimensions to the extreme, so I think in the next years 3D stacked IC will be the next step", "Researchers are also exploring alternative materials to the silicon currently in use for CMOS circuits, such as [graphene](_URL_0_), which could allow faster computing speeds for a given gate dimension.", "Not really answering the question but possibly of interest:\n\nIntegrated circuits used to be made to last about 100 years. These days this is actually no longer possible. Some may say it's because our culture has adapted to throwing things away and it's not necessary to have the same level of quality as we used to, but actually it's because the tracks that electrons are flowing along inside these integrated circuits are being worn out. They are experiencing \"mechanical\" faults.\n\nAlso not answering the question, but still perhaps interesting:\n\nThe reason that there will be a limit with integrated circuits is that once the tracks become small enough, it's no longer possible to guarantee that the electrons will actually stay inside the tracks.", "There's a bit of a problem in your phrasing. An Integrated Circuit is just a circuit without discrete components. For example, a microprocessor, or a DAC on an 8pin DIP, or something along those lines. \n\nAn example of a regular circuit is anything from your wall outlet to mains, a PCB with components on it, etc.\n\nThe point being, the materials used in ICs are not relevant; the thing following ICs is... more ICs. Just using smaller form factors, different materials, etc.\n\nOne example is with memristor technology. We think that a single memristor can be used to replace a whole bunch of transistors, such that the size of the circuit can be reduced.\n\nThere are also efforts in making ICs three-dimensional; the problem with this is energy dissipation. But the point is, there are a number of technologies on the way, and none of them are going to change the definition of \"Integrated Circuit\"\n" ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-dimensional_integrated_circuit" ], [], [ "http://techie-buzz.com/science/ibm-creates-worlds-fastest-transistor-using-graphene.html" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7oqwar", "c7orfdb", "c7ou96e", "c7ouobg", "c7oyk9b", "c7oykqa" ], "score": [ 3, 8, 4, 15, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Some did. The most prominent one in the north was probably Edward Winslow who was one of the political leaders a Plymouth. He was eventually recalled for diplomatic service by the new king. He died on a voyage to the West Indies.\n\nHere's the wiki for some more info.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)", "Well, there were several failed colonization attempts, for example the [Scottish colony in Panama](_URL_0_) in the 1690's. The 300 survivors returned to Europe after only two years. From what I understand, a huge amount of money had been invested in the endeavor, and its failure was an economic and political disaster as well as a national tragedy.", "Early-ish is pretty vague but in the early 19th century as many as one out of three returned to Europe. The Irish were something of an exception averaging only 1/12 returning to Ireland due to unusual circumstances.", "In the seventeenth century it was pretty common for people to settle in the New World for a few years to fish, trap, or log before returning to Europe. Merchants in particular would often only stay in the New World long enough to set up agents or to collect enough goods to fuel their European operations. Newfoundland in particular was notable for a largely temporary and transient population during the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century as workers, merchants, and planters would often return to Europe after a few seasons. \n\nIt may be unfair to call these people settlers since many of them never set out with the intention of permanently staying in the New World. ", "It was not unusual for Irish emigrants to go to the US and return home.\n\nIn the 19th century my great gr-gr-grandfather did it. \n\nIt was not unusual for transient workers and there is a book The Hard Road to Klondike by Michael McGowan describing just that. ", "Quite a few Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony returned to England after their side won the English Civil War." ] }

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[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Winslow#Leadership_at_Plymouth_and_with_Cromwell_in_England" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darién_scheme" ], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbooeah" ], "score": [ 6 ], "text": [ "Granite has a very high thermal mass. This means that it takes a lot of heat to change its temperature - much more than a laminate counter top.\n\nSo, you put some cold food on the granite. The heat transfers from the granite to the food, but since it has so much thermal capacity, its temperature does not decrease as quickly as laminate (its heat capacity is not used up as quickly). And since the rate of heat transfer is greater when the temperature difference is greater, his means that the transfer rate remains higher. The laminate, on the other hand, also loses heat to the food, but since it's capacity is much lower, its temperature drops faster, the heat transfer rate goes down more quickly, and as a result, it takes longer to transfer the heat to the food.\n\n" ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "ci5jvk7", "ci5k09k", "ci5lho5" ], "score": [ 4, 14, 2 ], "text": [ "Encryption is the application of complex math to make files look like gibberish to computers and people.\n\nHackers don't just do encryption, your bank does, the NSA does, the Army does, and when you do online transactions, so does your browser.", "Encryption is mixing up the message, such that it can only be made readable again with a key.\n\nTo explain what hackers do, It might be easier to use an example:\nLet's say you want to send a book to a friend on the other side of the country, but you don't want anyone else to see it.\nYou could stick the book in a box, and send it to your friend.\nA hacker, could intercept the box, open it, and access the book.\n\nYou can also put the book in a box with a padlock on it, and send it to your friend, and send the key in another box.\nHowever, if the hacker grabs both the locked box, and the key, he can open it anyway.\n\nThe last option, is that your friend first sends you a padlock, and keeps the key. You can now put your book in a box, lock it with the padlock your friend sent you, and then send it back.\nEven if the hacker intercepts the box, he cannot open the padlock, and he cannot intercept any keys, since they are not being sent.\n\nYour friend can then receive the box, and open it.\n\nOn the internet, the box, would be a message, and the padlock+keys an encryption.\n\nIn RSA-encryption, one of the most used encryptions today, the padlock and key are both huge numbers, chosen specially.\nWhile the key-number is kept secret and the numbers are long enough, the encryption is impossible to break. (It can be broken, but doing so would take longer than the universe has existed)", "It uses a code to transform your file so that it cannot be read unless you know the key.\n\nA simple code would be the classic A=1, B=2, C=3 etc code.\n\nYour file might say \"Hello\" then when you encrypt it, it becomes \"8 5 12 12 15\"\n\nWhen someone who doesn't know the code tries to read it, it just appears as numbers, but to the person who uses the correct code it turns the file back into \"Hello\"\n\nObviously actual encryption uses far more complex codes than this example. When they talk about how many \"bits\" encryption is (128 bit/256bit etc), it's actually referring to the length of the passkey. In simple terms the longer the passkey (the more bits in it) the more complex the formula for the code and the harder it is to break." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "cjoepjz" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "A little while ago, there we had [a thread](_URL_0_) concerning this rather obscure topic. Perhaps you want to take a look at it." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2c1taj/part_of_the_nazi_party_platform_reads_we_demand/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c987esv", "c98abj4" ], "score": [ 6, 3 ], "text": [ "[Students for a Democratic Society](_URL_0_) was one of the most popular and powerful of the \"New Left\" student groups. SDS was founded in 1960, and permitted Communist party members within their ranks (this was a change from previous leftist student groups). SDS campaigned against the Cold War and militarism. They became the primary student opposition group to the Vietnam war, and grew immensely as that conflict developed. SDS didn't engage in overtly pro-Soviet activities (though they did allow Communists to march with them), but they were widely seen as being sympathetic to the Communist cause and agenda. \n\n\n\n\n", "AFAIK it was common for left-wing intellectuals to not only be \"any less hostile\" but actually be _sympathetic_ to the Soviet ( [see Angela Davis](_URL_0_) ) up to 1973 when [The Gulag Archipelago](_URL_1_) turned the public opinion of the left-wingers against the Soviets." ] }

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[ [ "http://www.sds-1960s.org/" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_davis", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago#Historical_impact_of_the_text" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "crv2cu4", "crv9w4n", "crvb08v" ], "score": [ 12, 3, 3 ], "text": [ "Look up what they did in the Netherlands. They were very effective in gathering intelligence before the invasion, trained, supplied and provided information for the Brandenburgers who took vital bridges during the Invasion of May 1940, and managed to capture almost all Allied spies active in the Netherlands between 1940 and 1943, as part of Operation Northpole.\n\nMy source: Kingdom of the Netherlands during WW2, Loe de Jong", "Their legacy is a rather muddled one as it turns out. From 1935-1944 the chief of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, never appears to be wholeheartedly committed to the Nazi cause and would eventually be executed for high treason. \n\nWithout a doubt, there were likely some diehard Nazi's in the Abwehr but when the chief of the organization is...less than enthusiastic, I cannot imagine getting many results. For instance, he contributed to Francos' decision to refuse German access to Spanish land by providing arguments that Franco would later utilize. He assisted several jews in fleeing the country and made several connections to M16.\n\nSource - Bassett, Richard (2005). Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery. ", "German case officers were given a lot of free reign over their agents and operations. The control was much more decentralized than British Intelligence. \n\nThe careers of German case officers were also much more dependent on the success or failure of the agents each officer personally ran. This meant that even if they had private doubts about an agent (such as suspicions of being a double), they were obligated to keep supporting them as if nothing was wrong. \n\nThere were even case officers who nearly lost their lives based on their agent's operations. The case officer who ran double agent Eddie Chapman (\"Zigzag\" to the allies, \"Fritz\" to the Germans) was an Abwehr officer living the good life in occupied France. After Fritz was sent to the UK and disappeared for a few weeks, the case officer was transferred to the hell of the Eastern front in wintertime. After Fritz reappeared, the case officer was transferred back - but a shadow of his former self. \n\nWhereas the credit or blame for successes and failures of British agents was shared throughout the agency. This allowed the British to run larger, more complicated operations such as the Double Cross and Operation Fortitude. \n\nsource: the Ben Macintyre books: Double Cross, Agent Zigzag, and Operation Mincemeat." ] }

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{ "a_id": [ "crjdp32", "crjdut6" ], "score": [ 4, 4 ], "text": [ "Matching words with words it knows from various languages. Also what characters you input. Like, if you were to input the Kanji lettering for the term \"Horse stuffer\", it'd detect that it was Kanji first, then what words it is, then makes the connection.\n\nOr for other roman lettering, it just knows what words belong to what language. Such as \"Pferd Stuffer\" it knows there's no word in english that's spelled Pferd, so it checks it's database and sees that Pferd matches a word in German.", "Same way you would. You recognizance that the words in this sentence are English words, so you guess that I'm in fact writing in English. Och du ser att orden i den här meningen inte är engelska, eftersom att de är svenska (and you see that the words in this sentence are not English, as they are Swedish)\n\nAnd google can confuse langues sometimes if it only has a limited number of words to work with and the words happen to be the same as words in another language." ] }

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