q_id
stringlengths 5
6
| title
stringlengths 3
301
| selftext
stringlengths 0
39.2k
| document
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 3
values | url
stringlengths 4
132
| answers
dict | title_urls
list | selftext_urls
list | answers_urls
list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3hduel | why is bed-wetting associated with serial killers? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hduel/eli5_why_is_bedwetting_associated_with_serial/ | {
"a_id": [
"cu6ixk3",
"cu6jh02",
"cu6wzdx"
],
"score": [
40,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It is part of the Macdonald triad. The Macdonald triad proposes that three behaviours in youth (extended bedwetting, fire-starting, cruelty to animals) are indicative of later violent tendencies.\n\nThe thing is though, we aren't actually sure if the Macdonald triad is actually statistically a thing. Some studies say it is, some studies say it isn't, some studies say that those behaviours (among others) are linked to childhood neglect and abuse which puts a child more at risk of violent tendencies. The people who believe in this say that bed wetting longer than average can lead to feelings of shame and loss of control, which can then result in fire starting and animal cruelty (trying to regain that control), especially when they are punished by parents for this bed wetting. But like I said, there is a lot of debate if it is a thing at all.",
"I find them scary all right?! Jeez!",
"I think it's shame and bullying. The worst accusation you can make of a kid in grade school is that they wet the bed. Those who are known to are shamed and bullied and thus especially if the kid doesn't have a good support network he ends up feeling like people are assholes and that he deserves revenge."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
6q6lu8 | when watching a screen, do our eyes focus purely on to the distance of the screen or the percieved depth of the picture? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q6lu8/eli5_when_watching_a_screen_do_our_eyes_focus/ | {
"a_id": [
"dkuycti"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Purely on the screen. Same if you're looking at a photo: the depth isn't real and doesn't affect your focus."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
2yg1nq | do my dogs think i'm just a big dog? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yg1nq/eli5_do_my_dogs_think_im_just_a_big_dog/ | {
"a_id": [
"cp955vx"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's hard to say what dogs actually *think*, but there are some things we can infer from their behavior and from their body chemistry. We have recently come to understand that dogs' brains are capable of generating oxytocin in the same way ours are, and under the same circumstances. When you interact with other humans, when you hold hands or hug or put an arm around someone's shoulder, your brain generates the hormone oxytocin, and this hormone strengthens human relationships. It's been referred to as the love hormone, because it's the chemical that seems to be most responsible for feelings of love and affection. \n\nThe fun thing is that dogs' brains do this as well when we interact with them. When they're being loved-on, hugged, petted, etc., their brains also produce oxytocin. Our best guess is that dogs probably realize that we are not dogs. They know that we're not dogs. They probably don't have the means to comprehend what we actually are, but they know we aren't dogs. But through tens-of-thousands of years of selective breeding, they've still come to view us as vitally important to them. They absolutely see us as part of their \"pack.\" The part of your dog that is still a wolf tracking through the wilds with its pack sees you as a part of that pack."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
4bt6pn | why do we only see fog when it is at a distance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4bt6pn/eli5_why_do_we_only_see_fog_when_it_is_at_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1c6hfk",
"d1ceto8",
"d1cfon5"
],
"score": [
52,
8,
3
],
"text": [
"Fog is a collection of tiny water droplets suspended in air at or just above ground-level. They are too small to see individually but they bend light never the less. As you get further away, there are so many droplets bending light that the objects further away from you can't be seen because the light from those objects isn't (entirely) traveling to your eyes.",
"Fun fact: you see this effect in normal, clear air as well. \n\nIf you ever looked off toward the horizon, you may notice that the further out you look, a bit of a haze develops. Even in clean air. \n\nIf you looked at, say a building right in front of you, the details would be sharp. Take note of the distance between you and the building. That's how much air you're looking *through*.\n\nIf you go really far away and look at the building, even through a powerful telescope, you'll see that the details aren't as clear, and the color is a little off. The distance between you and the building you're looking at is much greater. Consequently, you're looking through a lot **more** air. \n\nThis happens when you're in fog, or air with pollutants in it as well. The only time this doesn't happen is if you're looking through a vacuum. ",
"Nah, you see it right there in front of you. Have you never walked through fog? It's beautiful."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
30w622 | At the time of the American Revolution, were there any other republics in the world? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/30w622/at_the_time_of_the_american_revolution_were_there/ | {
"a_id": [
"cpwhidy",
"cpwjj0p",
"cpwjysz"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"**Commenters:** Please keep in mind that top-level answers at /r/AskHistorians should be informative and comprehensive. Answers will be removed if they are only a single sentence long.",
"The Netherlands was a republic from 1581 to 1795. However, it's not exactly what we think of when we think of a modern republic. [Federalist #20](_URL_0_) covers Madison's thoughts on it's structure.",
"The Swiss Confederacy was a federation of states, named \"cantons\"; it was formed over time, starting in the middle ages, as different communities in the Alps developed a series of alliances.\n\nIt was a part of the Holy Roman Empire but it fought against the Habsburgs and did gain independence. That was formally recognized as an independent state by the europeans powers in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia.\n\nIn Italy, the republics of Venice and of Genua were born as city states, mainly concerned with sea trade within the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nLater, after the discovery of America and of the route to India around Africa, the Mediterranean become a bit of a backwater, and both cities expanded over land. Venice in particular did gain vast territories, expanding to the west nearly to Milan and controlling the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea (Dalmatia).\n\nThe were some other small republics in Italy, that based on the city state of Lucca and the tiny city state of San Marino (which is still existing today !). Also there were some city states that were nominally members of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, but that in practice were mostly autonomous.\n\nKeep in mind that those republics could all be defined as oligarchies: the power was concentrated in the hands of the members of a very small number of wealthy families, mostly very successful trading houses. Membership in the ruling councils was mainly by co-optation by the existing members, only extended to members of the families.\n\nSo nothing like the suffrage that was established in the United States, that was certainly not universal at the start but that was mush more effective and direct.\n\nAlso, many of those entities were destroyed by the revolutionary and napoleonic wars and the by the Congress of Vienna, with the exception of the Swiss confederacy. Venice was given to Austria, Lucca to the Duchy of Parma, Genua to the Kingdom of Savoy and Sardinia."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._20"
],
[]
]
|
||
3z5ybj | What was Attila the Hun's full name? | Did the Huns even use surnames? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3z5ybj/what_was_attila_the_huns_full_name/ | {
"a_id": [
"cymvt6l"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"So far as we can tell, his name was Attila. As you've guessed, Huns did not use surnames or family names, and only a non-Hun would call him \"the Hun.\"\n\nInteresting trivia: *Attila* does not seem to be a Hunnish name but Gothic, like *Totila*. The Huns were not one tribe but a confederation of tribes including the Goths who did not flee them and the Sarmatian Alans. These tribes tended to adopt Hunnish culture, like cranial deformation and facial cicatrization. But it means that depictions of Attila as a Mongol might be quite a ways off: Goths were Germanic tribes, as in Ostrogoth and Visigoth (tribes that did flee the Huns).\n\nIngraham, *People's Names*."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1pfzea | what would happen to you if only your head was above water for a long, long time? | Let's say you are given proper food, air, sunlight and temperatures. Also, what would happen given the above but your body was inside a vacuum instead of being submerged? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pfzea/eli5_what_would_happen_to_you_if_only_your_head/ | {
"a_id": [
"cd207ox"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Depends how long and what kind of water.\n\nThe skin is capable of passing stuff in and out of the body. If you're under water this presents a problem, if the water is pure enough the overall transfer will be water into the body and salts/minerals out of the body (bones and blood would have major issues). If the water is very salty the process reverses to drive up salt in the body effectively dehydrating you (this is why you can't drink seawater). If the water had just the right amount of all the necessary components then it's harder to say what will happen, I can't give you an answer there.\n\nA vacuum would be less forgiving, lets assume a space-like vacuum.\n\nAny moisture in your skin exposed to the vacuum would boil away, the skin would draw more moisture from the body and the process goes on until you're a dried out meat husk. Not to mention of course that your digestive tract is a hollow tube from end to end, if only your head was protected then everything would be sucked out the rear anyway. There's slightly more to it but the end doesn't get any better for you. The whole ordeal won't take long at all, only a few minutes at most.\n\nObviously less intense vacuums would be much less severe, but given enough time death would be the likely outcome. Our lungs are designed to work with equal pressure, if the outside of the chest is a vacuum then exhaling becomes more difficult, your chest will want to expand into the vacuum. While not as dramatic as in space your skin will still dehydrate faster than normal, this could make you bleed and, as air is required for clotting, it might not stop."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
cvqyfg | why are paddling pools blue etc instead of black to absorb the heat and keep warm? | Surely it would be better to have a black/heat absobant base than blue/white which seems to be the standard so that the water keeps warm.. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cvqyfg/eli5_why_are_paddling_pools_blue_etc_instead_of/ | {
"a_id": [
"ey5tmra",
"ey5yeq4",
"ey64juz"
],
"score": [
28,
8,
3
],
"text": [
"Blue reminds people of the seas and oceans (or rather shallow water near the beach). Black would be creepy to many people (b/c it looks like deep water). \n\nAbsorbing heat can make the water too hot, and most pools are sold in areas with a lot of sun, and people want their pools to stay cool. \n\nLighter color makes it easier to see dirt, so you know when the pool is clean.",
"Blue pools are A) familiar and B) remind people of \"clear blue waters\". That being said, my parents new a guy who had a black bottomed pool. It was the coolest thing about his house.",
"Who wants to swim in a hot pool in the dead of summer?\n\nWho wants to swim in a dark pool?"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
rxivv | A few questions on Wave interference | Hi! :) I'm an AS level student and I have a few questions on how two wave-producing sources cause destructive and constructive interference.
See, textbooks describe how when two sources produce waves close to each other, they produce patterns of increased intensity waves (when they are in phase) and gaps where waves cancel out(anti-phase). Questions in exam papers routinely describe real life examples (i.e. when two radio transmittors are operating nearby, there are areas of less/no reception in a specific pattern... because interference). Problem is, I never observe this effect.
Headlights don't interfere with each other. Nor do lights in the same room. The two speakers on my desk are playing Wiosna from KS right now. Again no interference. If there is an observation of this phenomena, can someone give me an example?
Second question is, when waves first cancel out due to destructive interference, how do they revert back to full intensity after moving out of superposition? I thought the point was they cancel out...
Third(this is my head continuing to ramble), if earth was orbiting a binary star, would there be a day/night effect besides the rotation of the earth.
Really sorry if I'm wasting time with this... or if these are stupid questions where the answer is an oversight on my part. Doing homework atm. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rxivv/a_few_questions_on_wave_interference/ | {
"a_id": [
"c49fvo4"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Observing interference is a little harder to do in those situations. Things like headlights and music are made up of lots of waves with many different wavelengths so the interference pattern is very complicated and you won't notice it.\n\nThere are two ways you could observe wave interference at home:\n\n1. Set up your speakers as far away from each other as you can and point them towards each other, a few meters would be good. Instead of music, play a continuous note of a single pitch through the speakers. You should be able to google something to play single pitch sounds. Then, if the distance between the speakers is a few multiples of the wavelength, say 1:3 or 1:4 (pick either but be as precise as possible!!), you should set up a nice standing wave pattern, ie. constructive interference that doesn't change with time. To observe it, start with your head at one speaker and move your head along a line towards the other speaker. If your speakers are good enough (decent computer speakers should be) and you have set up the distances precisely, then you should notice changes in volume along the path.\n\n2. With a wide pan or bowl of water you could dip you fingers in and out quickly at two different spots to make ripples which will interfere as they cross over each other. Watch closely though!!\n\nYou'd need better equipment to observe this effect with light. But if you have a laser pointer you could maybe do it with the [double slit experiment](_URL_0_)."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_slit_experiment"
]
]
|
|
1ak6jj | Why don't orbiting electrons radiate? | I know that electrons in the lowest-energy bound state can't lose any energy because their energy is quantized, and they're already in the lowest-energy state they can *be* in, and I know they're not whizzing around the nucleus like planets around the sun. But they still have some orbital angular momentum associated with them, which means they ought to radiate. So why don't they? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ak6jj/why_dont_orbiting_electrons_radiate/ | {
"a_id": [
"c8y5lh7"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"It's not enough for you that they're in their lowest energy state? Clearly, they can't emit energy in the form of a photon and _gain_ energy doing so - that'd just blatantly violate of conservation of energy. \n\nBut fair enough then. If the electrons behave quantum mechanically (which you've accepted) and the field is behaving classically (which you're sort of implying), then it _still_ can't emit any radiation, even if the electrons have orbital angular momentum (not all bound states do though). \n\nBecause they're behaving quantum-mechanically, the electrons have no definite positions in space. You only have the electron probability-density (= charge density) around the atom. In the ground state and other energetic eigenstates, the state is _stationary_. The probabilities of where the electrons are likely to be doesn't change with time, so the charge density is stationary. There's no charge flux, no acceleration of the charges, nothing capable of emitting radiation. \n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
45i9rk | How does LIGO know that the gravitational waves they observed were from 2 black holes? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/45i9rk/how_does_ligo_know_that_the_gravitational_waves/ | {
"a_id": [
"czy82wq"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"The shape of the signal they detected -- how long it lasted, how its frequency changed, how its amplitude changed -- distinguished the event as a black hole merger, and even allowed determination of the masses of the two black holes.\n\nThere was a lot of modeling of various phenomena using general relativity to see what kinds of gravitational wave waveforms they'd produce, so that when there was a signal, the could recognize what kind of signal it was.\n\nYou can read a press release about the modeling of black hole mergers [here](_URL_0_).\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://www.rit.edu/news/story.php?id=54611"
]
]
|
||
3gzsfg | does poison ivy really get worse each time? why? | I've heard that every time you get exposed to poison ivy it's worse than the last time. Google results appear to confirm, but describe little more than your body having "the memory of the last infection" or something to that effect. Is it really worse each time, and if so why does that happen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gzsfg/eli5_does_poison_ivy_really_get_worse_each_time/ | {
"a_id": [
"cu2y7o1"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
" > \"the memory of the last infection\"\n\nYour immune system has greater reactions to things it recognizes more quickly, and it recognizes things more quickly by being exposed to them in the past. I think this is why you can develop allergies to things like super powerful epoxy if it touches your skin too much. \n\nEssentially, when your body recognizes a foreign and potentially dangerous substance, it produces antibodies that attach to that substance and serve as markers for other parts of the immune system to destroy things. After the threat is neutralized, your body continues to circulate antibodies for that substance, in case it shows up again. Then if you are exposed to that substance again, the immune reaction is even faster and more dramatic as a result, because there are already a lot of antibodies for the thing floating around. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
6eep78 | Why do some vaccines, such as Hep B or HPV, require multiple shots spread out over time? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6eep78/why_do_some_vaccines_such_as_hep_b_or_hpv_require/ | {
"a_id": [
"diawo5x",
"dia89j0"
],
"score": [
4,
7
],
"text": [
"Several things come into play here. The initial immunization that triggers the first immune response results in the generation of memory B and T cells as well as long-lived antibody-secreting plasma cells. After that in subsequent immunizations, you are re-activating memory B and T cells, which can respond more quickly and fully leading to stronger and more specific immune responses. So you get more high affinity antibody, more IgG and other class-switched antibody (the primary immunization will give more IgM antibody, which is less effective in controlling infection), more long-lived antibody-secreting cells and more T cell responses (either cytotoxic T cells or helper T cells). The outcome of this is that you protected much better against infection if you receive multiple doses of the vaccine. Another thing that plays into this is that many initial vaccines are given to babies. This is important to protect them from serious diseases, but their immune systems are immature. And hence they do not respond as well to a vaccination as an older child or adult would. This makes it doubly important to do multiple vaccinations to achieve the best results.",
"If you inject too much of weakened disease thingy's into your body at once, it can still overwhelm your immune system. You also need to keep your \"database\" up to date. Think of the immunity to the disease as something expirable. After a while of not using it, your system will toss it into the trash bin. It needs to be reactivated to stay effective. I think that's basically it."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
387aou | why are services like uber and airbnb considered by some to be disruptive to the economy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/387aou/eli5_why_are_services_like_uber_and_airbnb/ | {
"a_id": [
"crsunn5",
"crsusbd",
"crsutkw",
"crswncq",
"crsxkay",
"crszog5",
"crt223u",
"crt2fg1",
"crt2hek",
"crt3y0t",
"crt4soq",
"crt5vc5",
"crt6eng",
"crt6pk7",
"crt6t6d",
"crta06y",
"crtd2cb",
"crtf28j",
"crtfh2u",
"crtfmcg",
"crtip6y",
"crtk44m",
"crtk5ma",
"crtkosq",
"crtlzi8",
"crtp06m",
"crtpvjp",
"crtqcep",
"crtrwqb"
],
"score": [
792,
153,
8,
39,
55,
8,
21,
27,
3,
3,
4,
8,
5,
9,
11,
4,
4,
3,
2,
3,
2,
5,
2,
2,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Hotels and cab companies are regulated and taxed, they have to follow certain rules in order to keep their operating license. If I rent you my house for a short stay or pick you up and drive you around the government doesn't get any tax revenue from that and I'm not bound by the same licensing requirements. Because the hotels and cabs I'd be competing against do have to pay taxes and follow those regs I'm operating at an unfair advantage. Of course I can charge less than Yellow Cab, I don't have to pay for official inspections or cab medallions.",
"When they're described as 'disruptive' it's referring to how they disrupt an industry, not the economy.\n\nIt happens when a business enters a traditional market which has an entrenched way of 'doing things' and does things in a completely new way.\n\nIn the case of Uber for example, they used smartphone, geolocation, mapping and app technology to disrupt the industry.\n\nEveryone with a smartphone can be their customer, and everyone with a car can be their driver. \n\nThat advantage is huge and when combined with the reduction in overheads it means they can outcompete most traditional cab companies.",
"They are not disruptive to the economy, the are disruptive to the barrier of entry for a specific section of the economy thus penalising companies that work in the walled in section.",
"Hotels have to adhere to certain safety standards that can be very costly. They have to have fire escapes, trained staff, emercency plans and so on. It's all heavily regulated. If you however rent your room with airbnb you don't have to have any safety measures. So you have an advantage that lets you rent your room out a lot cheaper than a hotel can.\nEdit: grammar\n\nAdditionaly especially in cities with very high rents airbnb can lead to even higher rents because it's more profitable to rent your appartement to tourists for a couple days than to rent it out long term. So while less people go to hotels people living in these cities are facing higher rents because normal appartements are converted in to commercially used airbnb rentals.",
"Everyone so far has missed the real reason these services are disruptive to the economy. All of these services, when you work for them, classify you as \"independent contractors\". Essentially, this means that you are in work for yourself. The company doesn't employ you, just provides a matching service between people who have a need and yourself. \n\nThis is disruptive because it's indicative of a greater trend in the economy. Post WW2, the political economy of the U.S. was built upon the relationship between you and your employer. Many of the social services and safety net programs provided by the nation state elsewhere were provided or supplemented by your employer here such as medical insurance, retirement savings, vacation time, disability insurance, etc. Now, since more and more jobs are considered independent contractors, and our laws haven't moved in to fill the gaps, it has shifted the responsibility for these things to the individual, which has some interesting consequences long term.\n\nIn addition, this also further highlights the changing relationship between capitalism and the individual. Originally, companies were very reluctant to engage in layoffs when they were running into hard times because there was an implicit agreement of mutual responsibility for each other between the two parties, reinforced through unions. Also, the number of people you employed was a matter of prestige for your company. Slowly, this he shifted to the current situation where companies are rewarded by the market for laying off employees quickly when needed. The next step is an ideal where you actually employ as close to zero employees as possible. I heard it described on NPR yesterday that the ideal form for a company now is a completely self sufficient and self contained money making algorithm that requires no input in the form of human capital. \n\nSo, basically, these services are disrupted because they're accelerating the breaking down of traditional employer-employee relationships and our \"old economy\" at a time when we don't seem capable of making the changes in our society that would ease this transition. Depending on your particular viewpoint, you might consider it to be increasing the overall misery in the world.",
"If you owned a multi million dollar taxi company your would also say that it's disruptive to the economy. \n\nIt's always about people with money getting less money. You can use my rule of thumb:\nIf a ceo of any company says something it bad for you, not safe, harming the economy, ect. It's becouse he is losing money. (there are some exceptions)\nRule 2: \nIf a politician says anything from rule 1 he is being payed to say that from said person in rule 1.\n\nTLDR:greed. ",
"Same argument the British used to keep the Indians from making their own salt. Artificially propping up a market is not a free market.",
"People are claiming that this disrupts business models only, not the economy. However, that's not entirely true. As far as AirBnB goes, they're highly disruptive to economies with a high cost of living and a large amount of tourism. I live in NYC, where there are thousands of AirBnBs throughout the city. People have been renting out multiple apartments and putting them up as mini hotels, which displaces people who actually want to live there. It ends up pushing down the number of available apartments in an area, which pushes rents higher and sends prospective tenants to up-and-coming neighborhoods, which pushes longtime residents out even further. High disruptive, indeed.\n\nFor those who claim that this practice is just smart business, I think the others below/above start to answer these concerns: these hotel/apartments aren't regulated; they aren't insured; there's no oversight whatsoever. Not to mention that they're blatant violations of lease agreements for those very reasons—not just because of greedy landlords (though of course every city has those, too).\n\nFor those who own their apartments it's slightly different, but also disruptive. I own in a Brooklyn coop, and its value takes into account a lot of things. One of those things is that I'm living with other tenants who (hopefully) want to be there long-term, and put energy into making my building more lovely, livable, and ultimately, more profitable. Having hotelesque visitors running in and out of apartments runs antithetical to all those, and ultimately affects property values (and my sanity level). Again, highly disruptive.",
"Because they provide better service at a better price than the older businesses in the local economy.",
"I think this is a pretty good example of people thinking government is out to fuck them, where in reality it's government doing exactly what they're supposed to do: keep the public safe (through insurance and safety regulations).\n\nNow, that's not to say cab medallions are extortionist and that corruption doesn't exist, but for the most part, keeping Uber in check is probably a good thing.",
"If you have the time, I recommend you listen to [this episode](_URL_0_) of the Freakonomics podcast. It's called \"Regulate This\" and it does a great job of presenting both sides of the discussion. I believe the production value is top notch and very ELI5 friendly.",
"How do half-truths/lies like this get upvoted? Uber drivers do report and pay taxes on their revenue (otherwise they'd be evading taxes, which is illegal). It's disruptive because the taxi medallions are an anti-competitive restriction used to artificially constrain supply and keep prices at above-market levels. With Uber, prices have lowered to market levels and a lot of taxi drivers don't like to accept what that means for their bottom line. ",
"Because people don't understand how capitalism works. \n\nIf you provide the best service for the lowest price, then typically you gain the majority market share.\n\nDinosaur companies that aren't able to evolve to match the new competition then get upset, and demand something be done to help them (see black cab drivers in London).",
"ITT: People saying: \"They aren't taxed or pay a license fee\"\n\nPaying less in taxes or fees isn't *disruptive* to the economy, guys. The government is not the economy. Any time anyone does something more efficient, it's a bonus to the economy. It's disruptive *to their specific industry*. Which makes sense, as outdated, less efficient business models *should* be disrupted by a more efficient, more versatile company.\n\nAlso, don't feel bad for the industries that are 'forced' to get a license, and thus have a 'disadvantage' when competing with companies like Uber. Those onerous licenses have acted as a barrier to market for decades - artificially suppressing the number of people in the industry and giving them far higher job security and profits than the market suggests they deserve.",
"Let's look at airbnb first. Let's compare them to a major hotel chain...Hyatt, perhaps. Airbnb has virtually no cost to add an additional room to their offerings. Hyatt, on the other hand, would have to build an entire hotel, staff it, and maintain it, just to offer *one* additional room. Airbnb has over 1M properties in over 190 countries around the world. Hyatt is has about 550 properties, in 50 countries. When you think about the economies of scale and agility, Airbnb has disrupted on many fronts. Not to mention the fact that they have 600 castles. CASTLES. Hyatt has none.\n\nNow we can think about Uber. As a company, it costs them next-to-nothing to add a new driver or a new car. They have disrupted the economy by allowing drivers and passengers to work/ride where they want, when they want. Uber has set the pace for the on-demand economy, empowering consumers and workers to rise above the scarcity-based economy to one of abundance.",
"As far as AirBNB goes, just in case no one has said this, I live in California along the coast. There are a lot of little houses, cottages and such. People live there, day in and day out, go to work, eat dinner etc. Then some rich fuck wit buys the house next door for an \"investment property\"... and starts renting it out on AirBNB... all of a sudden, your nice, quiet little neighborhood becomes a fucking nightly raucous party by assholes on vacation by the beach for 2 days and think that just because they have the days off, everyone in the neighborhood does too... that has become a bit of a problem.",
"Interesting note from airbnb's research, people who stay in their homes leave more cash, in more diverse neighborhoods than hotels.\n\nFor example, a tourist comes to NYC, there's a high likelihood they stay in midtown (where many hotels are zoned) at a Hyatt (to pick a chain). They (tourists)!cluster their spending in midtown, and much of the money spent on lodging flows back to Huarte corporate\n\nContrast that with an airBnB stay. They're much more likely to stay on the boroughs (or places besides midtown), they spend more on local mom and pop's and their lodging costs go back to the owners, who live (and spend) in that same neighborhood. \n\nThis data is a big part of why cities have gone from outright opposition to working to harness airbnb. ",
"Think of them as \"Loophole businesses\". They found a method that allows them to skirt government regulations and taxation to provide a advantage over their established competitors. The proper way to fix this is new tax laws and regulations to close these loopholes but this can causes backlash against politicians who do this. The elimination of these loopholes is happening now and this is why the backlash is happening.\n\nThe biggest loophole business is Amazon as it and other Internet sellers often don't require sales tax. Imagine if Walmart suddenly didn't have to collect sales tax and how much a drain that would be on government budgets. \n\n",
"I was just in Barcelona and was reading about multiple protests locals held to demand airbnb be banned. Their arguments were twofold. 1) Rowdy drunk tourists were now spread out across the entire city rather than concentrated in hotel areas. If an airbnb opened next to your home, it met an end to your sleep and peaceful evenings. 2) It increased speculation in the housing market, investment companies had a increased incentive to purchase residential homes, thus driving up costs, and possibly creating a housing bubble.\n\nThat said I used airbnb to say in the guest house of an amazing older couple, and saved a ton of money while meeting some great locals.",
"I feel like Uber is a service that lets you hitchhike for cheap, and AirBnB lets you couch surf for cheap. Without some regulation/insurance behind them, they're considerably riskier than established services. Hence, why said established services probably cost more.",
"Because big conglomerate companies aren't getting a cut and it's cutting into their business. Those same business owners stuff the pockets of politicians who go on a tirade and make media say things like it's bad for the economy. If you are a product, which most people are, they don't want you to own your own life and avoid paying the mafia like entities that control the world.",
"Big problem is they don't adhere to laws and standards that apply to taxi companies or hotels including insurance and licensing. Uber drivers don't need taxi plates, don't have commercial insurance of even first party insurance, and don't pay the fees that other taxi drivers need to.",
"Because of taxicabs and hotels?",
"Let's pose the opposite question, just for balance. One day, while you're complaining about your grandmother getting into a car accident because her Uber driver was driving like an idiot (or even drunk) and she wrecked her back in the accident that wasn't properly insured... on that day you'll be talking with friends, saying, \"Why isn't the government regulating this? There should be rules and limits on who can drive people around! There should be regulations and protections for consumers! I would gladly pay more for better safety and reliability of service.\" \n\nAnd then the owners of the taxi companies that have all become upper-end limo companies due to the competition at the bottom end of the market will shake their heads.",
"They skip the government mandated policies and laws and can make more money by contracting the work out to unlicensed taxi drivers who maintain the cars at their own expense. ",
"Unmeasurable, untaxable revenue generation means people think the economy is worse than it is. \n\nHowever, I don't know why this is a bad thing. ",
"These services consolidate profits that were once broadly dispersed by various firms with many employees and dependent businesses to one firm with very few employees. This narrows the stream of revenue resulting in the exploding billionaire count we are seeing now. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nAnother example are the old switch operators for telephone calls. those jobs were lost to the transistor...",
"apart from all the other good reasons in this thread, Uber and Lyft do scummy shit like charge you 4 or 5 or 6x the standard fare, almost randomly, depending on what block you're on. you could take a ride that would be $10 or $15 in a taxi and owe $75 on uber. and that rate can drop or increase dramatically within the span of a few blocks, so if you call the car to the wrong spot, you're out a lot more cash."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://freakonomics.com/2014/09/04/regulate-this-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction"
],
[]
]
|
||
2c6h05 | What is the definition of a "Great Power" and what makes a country one? | I see this phrase thrown around a lot, but what exactly does it mean? I've heard the definition of "a nation that can influence other nations", but I get the impression that there is more meaning than that. The second part of my question is what makes a nation a great power? What are the requirements to get this status, basically? For example, what did Sweden do in the 30 years war and Prussia do in the seven years war that gave it the status of great power? Was the term even used to describe a current nation, or is it a historical term? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2c6h05/what_is_the_definition_of_a_great_power_and_what/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjcm455"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"I was a history and international relations major as an undergrad, and here is where the two disciplines meet. The term \"Great Power\" comes from the Realist tradition in international relations. Without going too far down the rabbit hole of explaining what Realists believe, they essentially view international politics as a struggle for survival between nation-states and they see power rather than ideology as the key variable that leads nations into conflict (ideology may be an important reason why a war is worth fighting for the common man, but the conflicts are ultimately driven by competition for security between nations rather than conflicts over ideology.) \n\nRealists like John Mearsheimer would define great powers generally as those which have a significant military capability (including latent capability) and an influence on affairs that extends beyond it's immediate region. Great powers can also extend their territorial influence beyond their defined borders in the absence of another power stopping them from doing so. There's not really a hard-and-fast way to differentiate great powers from lesser powers, but a nation that stands a realistic chance of defeating another great power in a war is generally going to be considered a great power. \n\nThe term was much more relevant in the absence of *superpowers*, which are essentially magnified great powers capable of projecting power over vast regions of the globe. *Great Powers* are much more important when there are powerful states with great military capabilities with no clear hegemon dominating a region. Historically, Western Europe has often been characterized by competition among Great Powers including Russia, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. Certain of these countries have dropped off the list of Great Powers at different points as their ability to influence affairs beyond their boarders lessened and their military capabilities became weakened. Now, some people would characterize Germany, Japan, the UK, France, and Russia as Great Powers (although these are all arguable) but most IR Realists would say that the United States is the sole Superpower in the world, rendering Great Power status fairly useless. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
13umtn | Just how credible is the Abiotic Oil Theory vs. the organic algae/zoo-plankton theory? | Hey folks, after an argument with my stubborn brother over (him saying) how abiotic oil (which I only just heard of today) is "pretty much fact" after him hearing it on some talk radio show, I've been scouring the web and looking at a few articles. A lot of them seem really biased against it and I'm not exactly sure what to think. Can someone point me towards a credible article link explaining/disproving abiotic oil? From what I hear it's pretty much been disproven but I'd like a credible article to print out and show him. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/13umtn/just_how_credible_is_the_abiotic_oil_theory_vs/ | {
"a_id": [
"c77g7sh"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[This review from Resource Geology shoots it down pretty hard.](_URL_0_) Really, the most obvious criticism is that there haven't been any big oil discoveries that can be conclusively credited to this hypothesis.\n\nThis hypothesis might have been worth consideration back in the 1950s, when the Russians came up with it, but it doesn't mesh with what we now know about the world."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf"
]
]
|
|
dfgrq7 | what is happening when the body develops a cauliflower ear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dfgrq7/eli5_what_is_happening_when_the_body_develops_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"f3376h3",
"f338mir",
"f33dsrs"
],
"score": [
17,
7,
3
],
"text": [
"The ear fills with blood and fluid that calicifies and hardens over time if it isn't drained and taken care of right away.",
"From what I hear most people don't have it drained, because it's one of the msot painful things you can do. \n\n\nWhat I never understand: Does the blood just clot and stay there forever? Doesn't it break down or something at some point?",
"The question has been answered at this point, but I don't see anyone talking about how much it hurts when it's fresh. I had a bad bout with it my junior year of hs (drained 5 times over a several month period). At it's worst, it hurt my ear to walk, because it was so full of fluid that it bounced. I still sleep on my left side because of it, and woke myself up during the night rolling over."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
dkpq6f | Have there been any major Civil Rights movements in the US which ultimately failed totally and completely? | I added the phrase "totally and completely" at the end to emphasize that I'm looking for a movement which accomplished none of its major goals and, preferably, would not see widespread support if it resurfaced today. It doesn't necessarily need to have had some spectacular implosion in order to qualify.
I often see the assertion during Civil Rights debates where Side A will accuse Side B of being on the wrong side of history. Almost always, this is the pro-*whatevers* saying this to the anti-*whatever*, and for the most part my knowledge of US history supports that trend. Once a movement becomes widespread and well known, it seems to inevitably effect lasting change. We still have racism and sexism and homophobia, certainly, but it looks to me like we're always moving in the "right" (I accept this is technically a matter of opinion) direction, with civil liberties ultimately being expanded.
Then I was thinking about the anti-vaxx movement (I know this violates the 20-year rule, and don't want to ask questions about it specifically, but I only have this contemporary example to help explain my point). Arguably, this is a civil rights issue relating to religious freedom and parental sovereignty which has gotten massive amounts of support and media coverage and spread far beyond just the US. Whether or not they will be ultimately successful only time will tell, but the current trajectory looks grim for them and it made me very curious if there have been movements that had a similar amount of momentum behind them but eventually collapsed.
Thank you in advance! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dkpq6f/have_there_been_any_major_civil_rights_movements/ | {
"a_id": [
"f4l76jb",
"f4op1y4"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Well, there's the modern pederasty movement. By pederasty I mean movements defending adult - adolescent sexual relationships, especially of the homosexual kind. It arose during the 60s and 70s, along with other parts of the sexual revolution and civil rights movement. NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) was founded in 1978 and describes itself as a political, educational and civil rights association whose goal is to end \"the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships\". So they (the few members) describe themselves as being part of civil rights, but I don't know how much other civil rights would agree with that (I think not much, at least from what the statements I've read of gay civil rights associations, that try to dissociate their image as much as possible from them).",
"You might argue that the welfare rights movement of the 1960's-70's (which tried to expand to more of a poor people's movement but never quite made it) is an example of a failed social movement. They did get some changes in terms of reducing racism in determining benefit eligibility, but by 1980 Reagan's anti-government rhetoric and the (false) image of the welfare queen became firmly lodged in people's minds. After that we entered into a long period of cutting and reducing social spending of all kinds and reducing taxes. Still today it is hard to argue for government support of almost any social program in the US."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
7gor1m | if someone were pushed into a bottomless hole, what would be the first thing that killed them and how long would it take? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7gor1m/eli5_if_someone_were_pushed_into_a_bottomless/ | {
"a_id": [
"dqkknap",
"dqkksyw",
"dqkkxlp",
"dqkl13b",
"dqklorb"
],
"score": [
2,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"If they could theoretically fall forever, my guess would be dehydration would kill them eventually. ",
"The air pressure would get too high and they would die due to oxygen and nitrogen toxicity once the air pressure got over 10 atm, probably within the first hour or two.\n",
"Dehydration would be the first to kill them.\n\nDuring the fall you would hit terminal velocity, which simply means the speed at which you could go no faster. At that point, you would just continue falling at that speed, but the wind blowing past you would accelerate your dehydration.\n\nIf this hole were in the earth, you would just keep falling back and forth, alternating gravitational orientation until you dried up like a raisin.\n\nThere are no other forces that would be in place here. ",
"In 7 minutes you would be 75,000 feet underground, where the pressure would cause organ failure, unconsciousness, and brain hemorrhaging. It would be possible to technically be alive for another couple minutes, but by 10 minutes anyone would be toast.",
"It's heat - assuming you're doing this experiment on earth. In under 6 minutes you'd die\n\nThe earth gets really hot as you go down. The world's deepest mines humans go in are almost 4km down, and are so hot they require cooling systems or people couldn't work there.\n\nThe terminal velocity of a falling human in air is 195km/h.\n\nMost humans will suffer hyperthermia after 10 minutes at 140 degrees f (60c) or above.\n\nCoincidentally, this is roughly the temperature of that 4km deep mine.\n\nSo basically after about 90 seconds of falling you'll hit lethal temperatures, it'll keep getting hotter, so about 5 minutes later or less your body will just shut down and die due to heat. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
1eihup | Can one neuron within the human brain have several types of neurotransmitters that binds to it? For instance, can a neuron that usually allows binding by GABA neurotransmitters also allow binding from other types of neurotransmitters, such as NDMA, DA, 5-HT, etc? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1eihup/can_one_neuron_within_the_human_brain_have/ | {
"a_id": [
"ca0jv7e",
"ca0l0du",
"ca0ldnh",
"ca0mynq",
"ca0nlrv",
"ca0pjy0",
"ca0t44h"
],
"score": [
148,
13,
6,
6,
7,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Yes. Neurons can have, for instance, both excitatory and inhibitory inputs, mostly mediated through glutamate and GABA",
"Yes, the neurotransmitters bind to receptors (specialized for that molecule) which protrude from the neuron. Each neuron can have multiple receptor types on its surface which can elicit varying degrees of responses depending on the neurotransmitter cocktail that is released into the synapse. Some neurons specialize with certain receptor types but it is very possible that a neuron can contain multiple types of different receptors which are triggered by different neurotransmitters. ",
"Follow up question: Is it possible (read: existing) for one synaptic terminal to have more than one type of signaling neurotransmitter, or for there to be different synaptic terminals with different neurotransmitters whose axons originate from the same cell body? ",
"Yes!! Not only can a single neuron bind multiple types of neurotransmitters, but it get's even more complex!\n \n* Receptors can *complex* together and have unique response patterns compared to the same receptors apart. This can occur as receptor dimers (two receptors stuck together) or oligomers (multiple receptors stuck together). This can occur with receptors of the same type, or different types. \n \nAn example of this in a lab I am involved with is a hetero-oligomer complex in the Striatum (part of Basal Ganglia): D2 receptor (dopamine) / A2A receptor (adenosine) / mGluR5 (metabotropic glutamate receptor).\n\n[You can see this type of complex discussed in this article.](_URL_0_) \n_____________________________________________________ \nedit: formatting",
"Definitely. While this is fairly ubiquitous throughout the CNS, a quick example to illustrate this is seizures. Seizures result from excessive neuron stimulation via glutamate (CNS excitatory molecule) and resultant depolarization. One method of treating seizures are by medications which agonize GABA receptors (CNS inhibitory molecule), which raise the depolarization threshold, lessening the chance of depolarization/firing.",
"NMDA (N-methyl D-aspartate) is actually not a neurotransmitter. It is a synthetic analogue for glutamate that activates a subset of glutamate receptors (aptly named the NMDA receptors).",
"Yes, to summarize: one neuron can have thousands of synapses.these synapses are unlikely to all have the same neurotransmitter that excites them. Even within a single synapse there are likely more than one neurotransmitters binding to receptors."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899312000935"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
23awy0 | how do google glasses work if i can't focus on anything within three inches of my eyes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23awy0/eli5_how_do_google_glasses_work_if_i_cant_focus/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgv86bh",
"cgvaqq7"
],
"score": [
2,
17
],
"text": [
"I've wondered this too. Commenting to keep an eye on this thread in hopes someone will explain.",
"You can't focus on anything within three inches of your eyes because the lens in your eye can't accommodate (become stronger) well enough. You can only make the lens so strong and it turns out that the shortest focal point you can get with just your eyes is around that distance, so you can't focus on anything closer than that.\n\nWhat Glass does is focus the light for you. A little projector projects light onto a prism (the glass thing) and the prism will actually focus the light onto your retina, so your eye lens doesn't have to accommodate.\n\n[See this infographic.](_URL_0_)"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"http://www.newsphil-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/google-glass-infographic1.jpg"
]
]
|
||
acznaz | the difference between functions, methods, objects, classes, and oop languages. | I can't wrap my head around when to use which, or why they are used.
Also, what makes an object oriented language different from the other type. How does it go about doing the above? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/acznaz/eli5_the_difference_between_functions_methods/ | {
"a_id": [
"edc72p0",
"edc79pu"
],
"score": [
7,
2
],
"text": [
"A *function* is a block of code which runs some commands and can be called on from elsewhere in the code.\n\nexample:\n\n def function():\n print \"I do something.\"\n\n # now we can call the function from other code, like this, and it will always print \"I do something\".\n function()\n\n\nA *class* represents an object. A thing. It can contain both *data* and *functions that operate on the data*.\n\nA function which is attached to a class is called a *method*. It can only be called through the class.\n\nSo, for example:\n\n class Car():\n def __init__(self):\n self.model = \"Honda\"\n self.color = \"red\"\n\n def drive(self, destination):\n # do something \n\n henry = Car()\n henry.drive()\n\n\nin this example, I have a \"car\" class with two attached methods. One of them, __init__, is something used by python to create the object. The other one, drive(), does something about driving.\n\nthen i created an *instance* of the car class, and called the method 'drive' on the instance.\n\nSo: function() is a 'function', meaning a block of code that can be called from elsewhere and run when it is called. 'Car' is a *class*, which is a collection of data and functions that operate on that data; the functions contained within a class are called 'methods'. So *drive* is a function contained within Car, meaning it is a method.",
"An object is almost anything - it's a conceptual term. Almost everything should be an object in OOP. A school, a room, a teacher, a pupil, an arm, a finger - all objects.\n\nClasses are a collection of stuff, usually to create an object (things like abstract classes are a bit different but if you don't know what a class is, you probably don't yet need to know what an abstract class is) that implement the behaviour of something. So you'd have a School class, a Room class, a Person class, a Pupil class that extends Person, a Teacher class that also extends Person, and so on.\n\nFor the sake of ELI5, methods and functions are basically the same thing."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
cc1m32 | What technological breakthroughs between 15th century to the 19th century were required for the creation of pistols and rifles? | Hey all, first post here so if I've made any mistakes let me know, especially if this breaks the 'Example Seeking' rule.
I'm looking for what advances in technology were required to get from early cannons found in China to hand held standardized guns classic to 'Old Western' style America. I know generally that rifling, the creation of factories and being able to produce gunpowder would of been key features but beyond that I'm looking for any specific scientific or engineering breakthroughs that would have enabled this change in technology. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cc1m32/what_technological_breakthroughs_between_15th/ | {
"a_id": [
"etjyeu3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Depending on the specific cutoff date you've got, I'd argue that smokeless gunpowder in 1886 is the single most important breakthrough. Smokeless powder paved the way for firearms as we know them today. Smokeless powder burns slightly differently than black powder (rapid burn rather than low explosive) and is significantly cleaner on firing. Although the immediate effect is apparent in the name - less smoke means it's easier to see on the battlefield - the more significant benefit was the significantly cleaner result of firing, meaning guns no longer had to be designed around regular cleaning after fewer than a hundred rounds. This in turn allowed bores and bullets to decrease in size (as the utility of large bores with respect to getting more shots between having to clean was gone) while velocities went up, allowing for flatter-shooting, longer-ranged weapons. Smokeless powder also proved far more conducive to autoloading systems thanks to higher pressures and cleaner burns, which made machineguns a truly viable weapon on the battlefield.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nPrior to that, percussion caps and brass drawing were very important steps. Percussion caps at first allowed for a quicker and more convenient way to prime a gun compared to a flint lock, but they ultimately provided the foundation for the primers in every modern cartridge. Meanwhile, brass drawing provided an effective and consistent means to contain cartridges that could be mass-produced. Unlike paper cartridges, they left no residue in the chamber after firing, and unlike rolled brass cartridges, they were sturdier and easier to produce."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
9zcc6n | What was the impact of the Albigensian Crusade on the centralization of France ? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9zcc6n/what_was_the_impact_of_the_albigensian_crusade_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"ea81nqu"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Hi there - unfortunately we have had to remove your question, because [/r/AskHistorians isn't here to do your homework for you](_URL_0_). However, our rules DO permit people to ask for help with their homework, so long as they are seeking clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself. \n\nIf you have indeed asked a homework question, you should consider resubmitting a question more focused on finding resources and seeking clarification on confusing issues: tell us what you've researched so far, what resources you've consulted, and what you've learned, and we are more likely to approve your question. Please see this [Rules Roundtable](_URL_1_) thread for more information on what makes for the kind of homework question we'd approve. Additionally, if you're not sure where to start in terms of finding and understanding sources in general, we have a six-part series, \"[Finding and Understanding Sources](_URL_2_)\", which has a wealth of information that may be useful for finding and understanding information for your essay. Finally, other subreddits are likely to be more suitable for help with homework - try looking for help at /r/HomeworkHelp. \n\nAlternatively, if you are not a student and are not doing homework, we have removed your question because it resembled a homework question. It may resemble a common essay question from a prominent history syllabus or may be worded in a broad, open-ended way that feels like the kind of essay question that a professor would set. Professors often word essay questions in order to provide the student with a platform to show how much they understand a topic, and these questions are typically broader and more interested in interpretations and delineating between historical theories than the average /r/AskHistorians question. If your non-homework question was incorrectly removed for this reason, we will be happy to approve your question if you **wait for 7 days** and then ask a less open-ended question on the same topic."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_homework",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4cb022/rules_roundtable_8_the_raskhistorians_homework/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/theory#wiki_monday_methods.3A_finding_and_understanding_sources"
]
]
|
||
cb47eh | How do Historians recognize/rule out humor or sarcasm from historical texts? | For instance what strategies would/do you take to rule out whether or not a story from the early Roman empire is a tale that was meant as a comedy, sarcasm, or parable and not a factual story. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cb47eh/how_do_historians_recognizerule_out_humor_or/ | {
"a_id": [
"etdvpln"
],
"score": [
46
],
"text": [
"To answer this, I'm going to first start with an example and work through why the historical account is contested. One of the most infamous cases of this is probably Caligula, the \"depraved\" Roman Emperor. In pop culture (e.g. things like the series *I, Claudius*) he's portrayed as a truly despicable human being. He murdered people for no reason, openly slept with married women, wasted money, claimed he was divine, and slept with his sisters (he eats his sister's fetus in *I, Claudius*...there are no historical accounts of that happening).\n\nThese stories are from a variety of stories. The main two who were contemporaries of Caligula were Philo of Alexandria (in his work *Flaccus* where he discusses Caligula's treatment of Jews...Caligula claimed to be a god and they refused to worship him) and Seneca the Younger (whose analysis of anger in *De Ira* is considered a thinly-veiled critique of Caligula...though he does not mention Caligula by name). They paint the picture of someone unstable and crazy (considering himself a god and punishing the Jews for not worshiping him) and unstable and full of rage (challenging the gods to fight and lashing out at all those around him).\n\nThe other two sources, and all of the \"juicy\" stuff that people remember come from Suetonius (in his work *De Vita Caesarum* - The Twelve Caesars) and Cassius Dio (in *Historia Romana*). These are where the accusations of incest, wasteful spending, and the desire to appoint his horse a consul of Rome. The important thing to note here is that Suetonius was born almost 30 years after Caligula died and Cassius Dio was born over *100* years after Caligula's death.\n\nSo, that leads us to our first clue: the truly \"juicy\" stories don't come from his contemporaries but from people who were born decades after Caligula's death. Suetonius' work is, essentially, a massive piece of hearsay. Interesting for sure, but ultimately problematic when compared with previous writings on Caligula. It's possible they had access to sources that have since been lost but this isn't the only reason to be skeptical.\n\nThe other major reason that these stories are suspect is that Caligula was...not well liked by some powerful people. The Senate in particular hated him. In the end, he was assassinated by members of his own Praetorian guard. These same people would have a vested interest in painting Caligula in the worst possible light and spread scandalous stories about him to make the assassination seem more \"justified\".\n\nSo, to sum up, there are a number of things historians look for. Consistency in accounts are particularly important. It's likely that Caligula did have a temper as both Philo and Seneca mention it. It's not likely that all of the salacious details from after his death are accurate. Contemporary accounts are also incredibly important as it's less likely the stories will be distorted over time (e.g. perhaps Caligula was not serious in his threat to make his horse a consul, it was a way to call his opponents in Rome incompetent, but that's not how it was told to Suetonius). Looking at the motivation of those writing/relaying the history is also quite important as a highly biased source is not as trustworthy.\n\nedit: noticed a couple typos\n\nedit2: I should also note, history is not as...clean as most schools before higher education tend to show. In many cases there is no one \"truth\", even for more recent events than Ancient Rome. This is where lively debate comes into play. Historians will get into - sometimes quite heated - debates about what truly happened as you will frequently have sources that either contradict each other or make outlandish claims. Historians try to create a plausible hypothesis for events based on their evidence and present their findings to the academic community."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
2p4tdd | why does the box of my ps4 say it comes with 500 gb when it only comes with 407.2 gb? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p4tdd/eli5_why_does_the_box_of_my_ps4_say_it_comes_with/ | {
"a_id": [
"cmtd6wz",
"cmtdbg7"
],
"score": [
4,
14
],
"text": [
"Technically it does come with a 500gb hard drive but the ps4's firmware and updates need a bunch of that space. Doesn't matter though, they still provided you with a 500gb drive.",
"GB can technically mean 2 different things. One is the computer definition. That works off binary and powers of 2. So, there are 8 bits in 1 byte. Then we start counting bytes by doubling 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024. 1024 bytes is a kilobyte (KB). If you do the same thing, counting KB, 1024 KB is a megabyte (MB). If you do the same thing, counting MB, 1024 MB is a gigabyte (GB) and so on to terabytes (TB), etc.\n\nNow, in non-computer contexts, the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera all mean a thousand, a million and a billion. So, while computers themselves use the first system to count up space, the manufacturers can use the definition of \"a billion bytes\" for GB on the packaging without the FTC coming down on them for lying in their advertising.\n\nThe bigger the hard drives get, the bigger the difference between the 2 methods of calculation get. \n\nAnd, because this went to court a couple of times a while back, you'll find that the packaging itself usually has fine print explaining this in legalese."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
1gl482 | Why didn't the Germans bombard southern England with artillery? | Even at the very beginning of the war, the Krupp K5 and K12 artillery pieces seem to easily reach many populated areas of southern England, with ranges of 64km, and 115km, respectively, and were built in relatively large numbers. Many of them were already placed to fire on shipping in the Channel, but it seems they weren't aimed at England proper.
Were they too inaccurate at long range to even hit a city? Was it too expensive to make all the shells? It seems like they could have rendered southern England into a waste land similar to a WW1 battlefield if they had wanted too. Everything I have read makes it seem like they did want to, considering the multiple Vengeance projects. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gl482/why_didnt_the_germans_bombard_southern_england/ | {
"a_id": [
"cal9xuw",
"calb0nu",
"calbwma",
"calf1n4",
"calgiln"
],
"score": [
269,
236,
13,
7,
5
],
"text": [
"They did, to an extent. The Germans had quite a bit of cross-channel artillery at Calais, which they used to fire on Kent for years. Economically though, it probably wasn't all that useful. The German guns and their barrels and ammunition probably cost more than the damage they did to anything on land. The firing rate of the German guns was often less than one round per hour, and obviously they didn't have any spotters to help them zero in on targets.\n\nOn the other hand, the cross-channel guns were highly useful for attacking British shipping passing through the straits of Dover. The Germans had radar there, and anything passing through the straits could expect to be fired upon.",
"They could [and did](_URL_0_). Dover and surrounding towns, as well as Dover Strait and shipping lanes through the Channel were under continuous bombardment from 1940-44. The British installed their own guns along the coast to counter the German shellfire...the first two were nicknamed Winnie and Pooh. \n\n > This gunnery duel, along with heavy German shelling and bombing of Dover strait and the Dover area, led to this stretch of the Channel being nicknamed Hellfire Corner and led to 3,059 alerts, 216 civilian deaths, and damage to 10,056 premises in the Dover area and much damage to shipping. Much British shipping, perforce, had to pass through the bottleneck of Dover strait to transport essential supplies, particularly coal. \n\nSo coastal artillery did quite a bit of damage, though it wasn't nearly as effective as the Blitz (which killed tens of thousands) in terms of terrorizing the civilian population. It was a far bigger threat to shipping, particularly since counterbattery fire only managed to silence the majority of the coastal batteries by 1944. \n\nThe reasons why it wasn't effective as a tool for bombarding British cities & military installations have to do with the cost and complexity of extreme-range artillery.\n\nAfter the sheer cost of huge coastal guns, [Fire control](_URL_2_) was probably the biggest impediment to long-range cross-channel artillery. Launching a ballistic shell and hitting a target 40 miles away is far more complex than simply punching in a map coordinate & elevation. Even if the target is stationary, like, say, the Port of Dover, the shell might have to traverse one or more weather systems, wind patterns, even temperature gradients, any one of which could alter the trajectory of the shell. Time-of-flight for a shell traveling 40 miles is in the neighborhood of 160 seconds, which means that even more exotic factors have to be included (Coriolis effect, muzzle wear in the artillery piece, etc.). Naval artillery is firing from a moving platform, and so the ship's direction, speed and roll also has to be accounted for. Coastal & naval guns used mechanical computers [to calculate firing solutions based on all of this information](_URL_1_). \n\nHitting a moving target, like a ship or train, requires even more calculations and a spotter for target acquisition. Since you're basically aiming at where the target's going to be 60 seconds or more in the future, you need a radar signature (I don't know if they used radar targetting in WWII), or better yet a trained artillery spotter team for target acquisition, and to send back speed & direction information. This was dangerous work for aircraft, and extremely dangerous for agents working behind enemy lines on both sides of the channel. \n\nArtillery spotting had to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the war. Think about it: you're either a French citizen working with the Resistance, or you're a British citizen working with the Wehrmacht. In order to relay target information, you're probably using a portable teletype machine, and using cryptographic code to transmit details that are probably going to get some of your neighbors killed along with soldiers, police, etc. The Gestapo is listening in, so you have to hope they aren't close enough to triangulate your signal. You have to hope the Germans haven't been able to break the code Whitehall gave you. Then hope if you get captured that you'll be able to hold out under torture long enough for the people you're going to implicate to make plans to be elsewhere.",
"On a tangentially related note to OP's question:\n\nDid Germany ever plan a D-day style invasion of Southern England?",
"Besides the already mentioned - there were also plans to attack London with artillery ([see V3 cannon](_URL_0_)), however that never happened due to problems with the development of those guns. And by the time they more or less ready it was already too late. \n\nThough in 1944 two smaller versions were used on the western front to attack Luxembourg which alreaddy had been liberated... with not so great results. ",
"Mainly the fact that the Germans bombarded targets in England with concentrated bombing attacks and once the English fought off the Blitz and formed their defenses, those attacks stopped and couldnt be made effectively with artillery.\n\nAlso that artillery at that range is beyond the visual guidance of the gunners and it requires forward observers in place to guide the fire, not being able to cross the channel and have observers in place on the ground in England would have made artillery useless, just would have been pounding random coastline and countryside. Considering that at even its narrowest point at the Pa De Calais the channel is 19 miles wide and just to far and limiting for effective bombardment of any viable targets.\n\nThe fact that the allies would have to counter that fire with their own counterbattery fire, bombing attacks and naval gun fire from the channel, it simply would have been pointless and impossible to attack England with artillery in any effective manner."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Channel_guns_in_the_Second_World_War",
"http://nigelef.tripod.com/fc_ballistics.htm",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-control_system"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-3_cannon"
],
[]
]
|
|
z2k0a | What is chemically happening when pasta sauce stains tupperware? | When I wash pasta-sauced dishes in my dishwasher and brand new, white tupperware, the tupperware comes out stained. Why is this? And what is happening chemically to my plastics? Should I be concerned that my plastic might be leaking chemicals after this? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/z2k0a/what_is_chemically_happening_when_pasta_sauce/ | {
"a_id": [
"c60wltv"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Without having a source I would rather say that there is nothing happening on a chemical level\n\nIt is just the Carotine (rather the Lycopin) that makes tomatos red, that is stuck to the plastic.\n\nSince Carotine is liposoluble, you should try to rub it out with oil (just normal cooking oil). I learned that this hould help."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
13u6zk | Wouldn't a diver get serious hearing damage if he was to swim close to the pistol shrimp? | The sound it emits is over 200dB...
While a jet taking off is about 150dB, which is sufficient to rupture your ear drums... | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/13u6zk/wouldnt_a_diver_get_serious_hearing_damage_if_he/ | {
"a_id": [
"c77mf2r"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's important to note that that 218 dB is at a distance of 4 cm, and is relative to 1 µPa. Now, first off, by convention the source level you quoted for a jet is equivalent to a measurement at a distance of 1 m. Taking that into account, the source level of the shrimp drops to 190 dB. Moreover, it's important to consider that dB is a relative scale of pressure. Sound Pressure Level and pressure are related through the reference pressure, by the equation P=Pref*10^SPL/20, where SPL is the sound pressure level in dB, and Pref is the standard underwater pressure reference of 1 µPa. Sound levels in air, on the other hand, are measured with respect to 20 µPa. If we make the appropriate conversion, we find that the appropriate sound pressure level should be 164 dB re 20 µPa @ 1 m.\n\nThat's still pretty high, right? Well, that's because we're talking about pressures. The thing that really matters is intensity, which is the amount of power per unit area of the wave. Well, since water and air have different acoustic impedances, even if the pressures are the same, the intensities will be different. If we take that effect into account, the level of the shrimp will be further reduced to SIL=128 dB re 10^-12 W/m^2. So, the shrimp is quieter than a jet engine, but still pretty loud.\n\nTo take this a step further, the sound generated by a jet is a consistent sound, while the sound of a pistol shrimp is a loud POP. What if we compared this sound to a similar loud POP, like a gun? From wikipedia, the M1 Garand Rifle has a source level of 168 dB at a distance of 1 m. 128 dB, in comparison, carries about 1/10000th of the energy. So, while it would be loud, it wouldn't be instant deafness.\n\nSo, despite the very large looking number of 200 dB for a pistol shrimp, the actual amount of sound they put out is not excessively dangerous to nearby swimmers. \n\n*Edit: A colleague pointed out that the 128 dB is actually rather close to the sound level of a balloon popping, which [this Express Letter from the Acoustical Society of America by Patynen](_URL_0_) found to range from 120-138, depending on the size of the balloon. It should be noted that the way the pistol shrimp actually stun their prey is with the shockwave that is generated by the bubble cavitation. This shockwave only has a very short range.*"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v129/i1/pEL27_s1?view=fulltext&bypassSSO=1"
]
]
|
|
3am0gy | why my dog loves his collar so much? | He's a small 6 year old dog, but every time I take off his collar he follows wherever it goes until someone puts it back on. Even outside! Why does he like it so much? I'd think he'd love to have it off every now and then | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3am0gy/eli5_why_my_dog_loves_his_collar_so_much/ | {
"a_id": [
"csdum0n",
"csdxbfp"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It probably feels odd to have it off. If he wears it all the time it would be like having a necklace on all the time, you'd notice when it wasn't there and feel a bit 'off'. ",
"Do you always use a leash when you walk him? The leash is attached to the collar, so he might be able to associate the collar with going out."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
1lz4uo | When I was in the USA I noticed the First World War memorials were dedicated to soldiers who died in The Great War of 1917-18. Why is it not described as 1914-18? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lz4uo/when_i_was_in_the_usa_i_noticed_the_first_world/ | {
"a_id": [
"cc46idj",
"cc46iwo",
"cc46ql9"
],
"score": [
38,
26,
11
],
"text": [
"This seems too obvious, but wouldn't it be because the United States only joined the war in 1917?",
"The US didn't enter WW1 until 1917.",
"Does the related WW2 memorial only list from 1941-45? Curious if this an inconsistency."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
1d4rd1 | Ionization Question - Ionization Energy | For ionization to occur to an electron, does it have to be hit with a photon of energy that is greater than it's ionization energy? Or does it just have receive enough energy to put it over it's highest energy state.
I know that if a photon doesn't have the right amount of energy to push an electron to a higher energy state, it will go right through it.
For example:
If an electron only has 3 energy levels(states)
E1 = 0
E2 = 5
E3 = 10
First off, is the ionization energy anything over 10 energy, or is it always a certain energy.
Secondly, If the electron is already at E2=5 (5 being the amount of energy it contains at this point in time) energy and gets hit with a photon of 10 energy, will it ionize or will it go right through it.
Thanks | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1d4rd1/ionization_question_ionization_energy/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9mw5dy",
"c9n7ehv"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"for electrons on atoms, the electrons are either bound or unbound depending on their total energy relative to the potential well ([a morse potential](_URL_0_)). if the electron in question has total energy less than the dissociation energy (the ionization energy), then the energy is quantized to discrete states (your E1, E2, E3, for example). as energy increases closer to the dissociation energy, the density of states (literally, the number of states per amount energy increased) increases dramatically, and there are many states near the dissociation energy. beyond the dissociation energy, the energy levels are so close together that they form a continuum of states, in which an electron can exist with any amount of energy. because of this, **a photon that can impart any amount of energy to make the total energy of the electron greater than the dissociation energy will lead to dissociation.**",
"An atom doesn't just have a fixed number of energy levels. They actually have an \"infinite\" number of energy levels. However, the energy difference between the energy levels approaches zero as you go higher up, to the point where there _is_ a fixed amount of energy required to \"eject\" an electron out of an atom. That is the ionization energy.\n\nIf a photon has more than that amount of energy, the excess energy must be accounted for, be it another photon being emitted, or in the form of kinetic energy of the ejected electron."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_potential"
],
[]
]
|
|
91u76b | why is china airlines from taiwan? why not call it taiwan airlines instead? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91u76b/eli5_why_is_china_airlines_from_taiwan_why_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"e30qwel",
"e30r5lm",
"e30r6p3"
],
"score": [
11,
4,
9
],
"text": [
"Because Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China (ROC).\n\nAlso, China Airlines was founded back when the Taiwanese government still considered itself the government of China (though exiled)\n\n",
"China had a civil war between the communists and the nationalists. The communists won and the nationalists had to flee to Taiwan, but both of them still claim to be the sole legitimate government of China. Because of that, Taiwan's official name is actually the Republic of China, not the Republic of Taiwan or anything like that. And if they called themselves (or their airlines) \"Taiwanese\", it would mean that they'd be tacitly giving up their claim to the mainland.",
"The exact legal status of Taiwan has never really been settled after WWII.\n\nThis goes back to the Chinese Civil War. You had two sides: The Communists and the Nationalists. WWII screwed everything up and, after the war, the Communists ended up in more or less complete control, except for the island of Taiwan, which was controlled by the Nationalists. The United States, seeking to contain Communism, backed the Nationalists in Taiwan enough that the Communists couldn’t/wouldn’t invade and that’s basically where things have stood for 50 years now.\n\nEach side considers themselves the *real* China and the *other* China to be in rebellion against their *legitimate* authority."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
17s3be | Planets revlove in an ellipsoid trajectory around the sun - but what are the foci? | I imagine the sun is one since it's mass is a large source of gravitational force, but what is the other? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/17s3be/planets_revlove_in_an_ellipsoid_trajectory_around/ | {
"a_id": [
"c88bbta",
"c8ac7gg"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"One of the foci is, strictly, the centre of mass of the system, rather than the centre of the Sun itself, but effectively the difference is minute. The other focus doesn't have any astronomical meaning.",
"Let's consider what a two-body system with gravitational attraction can do.\n\nFirst, lets assume one of the bodies (the Sun) to be so massive as to effectively be the center of mass for the system. This is the only unnecessary step I'll take, but it's convenient to picture. With the Sun fixed, the only degrees of freedom we'll have to worry about are those of the planet. This gives us 6: three for position, three for momentum. (We're not looking at rotational degrees of freedom for the planet itself now.)\n\nNext, the gravitational attraction is isotropic, it has no preferred direction. This means that the orbital angular momentum is preserved and does not change throughout time. This fixes 3 degrees of freedom. Energy is conserved as well, that leaves us with only 2 degrees of freedom left. This corresponds to the position and velocity on a closed curve in a plane.\n\nBut what is that closed curve? It turns out - and this is not trivial at all - that there is another symmetry, and another conserved quantity in such a system, specific to the gravitational interaction. I won't bother you with the details, because they provide little insight, but it locks another degree of freedom. You can use all this to transform the problem into that of the planet on a one-dimensional potential as a function of planet-sun distance. And what does the planet do? It oscillates inside that potential, back and forth, getting closer to the Sun, then getting further away from the Sun again. Back, and forth, back and forth. That's the ellipse. The planet moves to its aphelion, then to its perihelion and back again. And what's the special case? The planet is at rest at the bottom of this potential well, its distance to the Sun stays constant. It's on a circle.\n\nHow does an elliptic orbit relate to having 6 degrees of freedom?\n\n1.) The energy determines whether a planet is captured in a closed orbit, or simply passes through in a glancing blow. It also determines the size of the orbit. Higher energy = further out.\n\n2,3,4.) The angular momentum determines the shape of the orbit and its orientation in space. High angular momentum makes a very elliptic orbit.\n\n5.) The position of the perihelion (and thus also the aphelion) ties down the exact orientation of the ellipse in space. This is undetermined in a circular orbit.\n\n6.) The position of the planet itself on the orbit is time-dependent, yet predictable for all times. Its velocity is also perfectly predictable, it's highest at the perihelion, lowest at the aphelion."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
c02y6c | how does tidal energy not break conservation of energy? | So the moon pushes makes the tide go up and down by orbiting the earth in a stable orbit, and then electricity can then be generated as the tide moves up and down, but where did this energy come from? What is being used up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c02y6c/eli5_how_does_tidal_energy_not_break_conservation/ | {
"a_id": [
"er085qk",
"er0a21e"
],
"score": [
9,
4
],
"text": [
"In short, the moon is constantly slowing the rotation of the earth. Eventually the moon and earth will always be facing each other.",
"The energy from the tides actually comes from the kinetic energy of the moon. the tides are slowing down the moon and thus slowly pushing it away from earth very slowly and also slowly slowing down the earth's rotation and making the day slightly longer.\n\nThe moon uses to rotate at a different speed than it down now but the tidal forces have slowed it down enough so that it now shows the same side to earth all the time. It has become tidal locked. If earth wasn't so much more massive than the moon than eventually it would become tidal locked to the moon too. As it is now it seems that Sun will likely expand to eat both of them before that can happen."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
2e559f | does putting "i do not own this song" on youtube videos actually prevent it from getting taken down from the record label? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e559f/eli5_does_putting_i_do_not_own_this_song_on/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjw5ik8",
"cjw5tjd"
],
"score": [
19,
6
],
"text": [
"Nope! Some people think it's polite though, which is kind of strange, because the people are pretty much saying \"Yes, I knowingly violated the copyright on your product, but at least I'm not claiming it's mine\"",
"No, for two reasons. The first is that, in most cases, the video is still violating copyright law. Whether they know or admit to it or not is irrelevant, because it's still illegal.\n\nNow, in some cases they're not actually in violation of the law under Fair Use clauses, but that's also irrelevant. It's not the government taking the videos down as a matter of criminal punishment, it's Google taking them down out of fear of a lawsuit. It doesn't matter if the video is actually legal, because any potential legal action will be a pain to deal with, even if Google wins the case. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
3sgxdf | what damage can be done if someone gets access to your wi-fi password? | I've recently had a bit of a network 'break-in' in which someone gained access to my network and started streaming videos onto my Xbox via SmartGlass. I assume this was a prank but I'm still unsure how this person got past my WPA encryption. How can somebody get into my network and what damage can they do? What do they/don't they have access to? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sgxdf/eli5_what_damage_can_be_done_if_someone_gets/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwx45an"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"There are definitely a few guides out there detailing how to beef up your network's security, check them out when you have a chance (on mobile, can't link any at the moment).\n\nThere are a few implications when someone has access to your network:\n\n* If they're doing something bandwidth-heavy (gaming, streaming HD, etc.), it can slow down the connection for other devices on the network.\n* If they're doing illegal things, you are the first person your ISP will come after or warn. \n* There is software out there that allows people to \"sniff\" the traffic of other people on the same network that is being sent back and forth from the device to the network. They can't explicitly see what you're doing, but the software can glimpse at the data being sent back and forth and steal cookies, passwords, and other data being transferred.\n\nELI5 Version:\n\n* You start taking a shower on the first floor, but only have lukewarm water because someone else in your house has been running the hot water in the shower on the second floor for the past hour.\n* I stole something with your name on it, started beating people with it, and left the object with your name on it behind as the initial piece of evidence.\n* You snuck into a dark closet with your friend, shut the door, and told them who your crush is. But before you came in, someone else snuck in, hid, and overhead you telling your friend who you have a crush on. They now have your sensitive information."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
46gqgg | why do politicians and the media never just call people liars? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46gqgg/eli5_why_do_politicians_and_the_media_never_just/ | {
"a_id": [
"d04xvkh",
"d04xx9h",
"d050b26",
"d05132g",
"d052bdh"
],
"score": [
18,
47,
9,
4,
11
],
"text": [
"They do, often. Have you not seen any of the presidential candidate's debates this season?",
"Because that can be considered defamatory, leading the person to file, and win, a lawsuit against you. This will have the effect of making them look like a victim, and making you look like an asshole while paying them a bunch of money.",
"You didn't watch the GOP debate last week did you?",
"1. Most people in the media are journalists. Journalism has a certain code of ethics based around objectivity and reserving judgement. They like to just put out the facts and let the viewer make the jump of judging the person as a liar. Ex. there is no ethical problem with putting out a story saying \"Donald Trump said the war in Iraq was a good idea in 2005, but then said it was always a bad idea in 2016\", but there is a problem if (as a journalist) you say \"Donald trump flip-flopped on his beliefs about the war in Iraq. He is a liar.\" Also, there is the possibility of lawsuits for defamation, but this generally is not a problem if you are being truthful and is not the sole reason for avoiding calling people liars. \n\n2. Politicians regularly call people liars. As an example, look at last weeks debate.",
"Politicians rely on the media to forward their careers, and the media need politicians to give them stories. Neither side is eager to piss on their chips."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
3qjhq1 | string theory and m-theory | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qjhq1/eli5_string_theory_and_mtheory/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwfpmxi"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"String theory: everything in the universe is connected by invisible strings and can be interacted with through the forces of nature.\n\nI can't even imagine how someone would explain M theory to a five year old...\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
1s1exv | How brutal was the USSR to the people in Nazi territory when it helped beat the Third Reich in World War II? | In general, how ruthless were the advancing Soviet Union troops to local civilians and Nazi officials during World War II? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1s1exv/how_brutal_was_the_ussr_to_the_people_in_nazi/ | {
"a_id": [
"cdt9l39"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Soldiers of Waffen SS when captured by frontline troops were shot on spot. If they got lucky and were captured by 'trophy company' or by MPs, they will be put in POW camps. Many survived - there's a book in preparation (in russian) with recent interviews of former POWs, many from Waffen SS. So, despite all supposed horrors of russian POW camps many are still alive. \n\nIn general, advancing russian soldiers didn't have much time to interact with local civilians. They were in hurry to end the war. In 2-3 days at most - all populated places were controlled by military police (*военная комендатура* - at a time), which was supported also by NKVD troops. There were strict orders from all Front Commanders in Germany proper to minimize interactions with local populace which stated that anybody found harming german civilians will be punished - up to death penalty for serious crimes. \n\nNow, I'm not saying there were no instances of civilian abuse at hands of soviet soldiers, and I would say that amount of abuse was unexpectedly high for Stavka - that's why there was a special orders, specifically spelling out punishments and conduct guidelines. \n\nMany incidents have happened in small window of lawlessness - when frontline troops moved away, but MP didn't moved in yet. And perpetrated by support troops, which did not have strong chain of command, while their senior CO being far away.\n\nHere's one visual example of purported abuse I've came across recently (it doesn't involve murder or rape):\n\n* Ever seen the photo of bike which is [pulled from hands of a woman by a russian soldier](_URL_5_)? Seems very clear what is going on here - a marauding soldier is taking away property of civilians.\n\n* Now let's see the same photo, [published on The Life magazine cover](_URL_0_). Note the lines below photo: *A Russian soldier involved in a misunderstanding with a German woman in Berlin, over a bicycle he wished to buy from her.* Now it seems not as clear-cut as before.\n\n* But here's [the original from the archive](_URL_1_). One more sentence added to the description: *After giving her money for the bike, the soldier assumes the deal has been struck. However the woman doesn't seem convinced.* Wow - now scene goes from dramatic to comic. Note also how image was cropped more and more.\n\nMoving on to the favorite source about Soviet Army brutality - Beevor's book *\"Battle of Berlin\"*:\n\n* anonymous account from a cog of Goebbels machine (talking about *\"A Woman in Berlin\"*) cannot be taken at face value without scrutiny. Sadly, Beevor did not scrutinize it properly. He just say \"oh, she was OK, it's all must be true\" - without any verification of details.\n\n* another reason why I cannot seriously consider Beevor to be accurate: he never mentioned a practice of *sex for food* and never takes it into account in his calculations. Which is really strange, since it mentioned quite often in memoirs of russian soldiers.\n\nHere's detailed criticism of Beevor - [What is the basis of Russian criticism of Antony Beevor's work?](_URL_3_)\n\n**Sources** \n\n1. [Nikolai Litvin - 800 Days on the Eastern Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II](_URL_6_) . That's memoirs of a driver from support troops. Boring - you won't find glorious battles, but if you want to know day-to-day routine of soldiers - read it.\n\n2. [From Stalingrad to Pillau: A Red Army Artillery Officer Remembers the Great Patriotic War](_URL_4_). Memoirs of jewish gun commander. Frontline troops. Very critical at times and does not hesitate to poke at observed issues.\n\n3. [Sex for food - memoirs of Prussian women](_URL_2_). Unflattering and rather biased against soviet soldiers, but at least with some verifiable facts.\n\n\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/_lord_/674963/159803/159803_original.jpg",
"http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/HU036516/russian-soldier-tries-to-buy-bicycle-from",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=cSFri4ZpQK8C&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=sex+for+food+russian+soldier+memoir&source=bl&ots=r4bp8YNeyr&sig=0Gv6opYFjilZrBmy3qS76tetxcM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nwmfUqrtLqrHigLT-YGoBw&ved=0CHgQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=sex&f=false",
"http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5901/what-is-the-basis-of-russian-criticism-of-antony-beevors-work",
"http://www.amazon.com/From-Stalingrad-Pillau-Artillery-Remembers/dp/0700615660/ref=pd_sim_b_5",
"http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/_lord_/674963/159551/159551_original.jpg",
"http://www.amazon.com/800-Days-Eastern-Front-Remembers/dp/0700615172"
]
]
|
|
2tqgeu | Was Bohemia very bohemian? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2tqgeu/was_bohemia_very_bohemian/ | {
"a_id": [
"co1ekfa"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"hell yeah dude, it was pretty much all bohemians! ... with a bunch of germans thrown in\n\non a more serious note, these threads are probably what you are looking for: \n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ws8yo/why_do_we_describe_artsy_type_communities_as/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vfbsg/why_are_hippies_beatniks_and_other_freethinking/"
]
]
|
||
7w2922 | why do most foods, drinks etc have to be refrigerated after one use? what happens to the contents after just one use? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7w2922/eli5_why_do_most_foods_drinks_etc_have_to_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"dtwz3wo",
"dtwz479",
"dtwz4hh",
"dtwz5fu",
"dtwza66",
"dtwzevu",
"dtxaumu",
"dtxbtaf",
"dtxc7gp",
"dtxcl3c"
],
"score": [
220,
1801,
15,
15,
4,
93,
5,
26,
7,
2
],
"text": [
"For some products, they are packaged in a environment and method so that the package is sealed, and pathogens are not present. This results in a product with a long shelf life when unopened. Once the package is opened, it is no longer sealed from the environment, and it is possible that bacteria may come in contact and grow rapidly in a warm setting.",
"In many cases, the contents have been pasteurized. So they're \"clean\" and \"free\" of bacteria sealed as they are. The second you open it, they become exposed to bacteria. Refrigeration slows the growth of bacteria.",
"Opening it has introduced microbes from the air, your mouth, or hands into the bottle, which will now reproduce and release toxic wastes (food poisoning) into the drink or food. So you have to refrigerate the food or drink to slow them down. The food or drink was pasteurized during packaging which killed the microbes inside, but opening the container recontaminated the food or drink.",
"What happens is bacteria, spores, and other contaminants get inside the packaging. Most food producers take great care to have exceptionally clean facilities, and many packaged foods are frozen, pasteurized, or otherwise treated to kill bacteria after the package is sealed. This keeps them fresh, until you open the package. After they're re-exposed to contaminants they need to be refrigerated to inhibit the growth of bacteria/mold/etc.",
"It comes into contact with the air and all the various contaminants that are in it. Within its packaging it has been sterilize or close to it so will not grow bacteria. ",
"Take an example of a sealed bottle of apple juice. When the juice was bottled, it was sealed and pasteurized. So any harmful bacteria that might have been in the bottle or juice was killed during pasteurization and vacuum sealing prevents any harmful pathogens or oxygen from reaching the product. \n\nOnce opened, any bacteria that might have been on the bottle lid, or in the air can reach the product inside. Refrigeration keeps the product cold, and slows down the growth of bacteria/yeast. \n\n40 F - 140 F is called the \"danger zone\" in food safety, that's the temp range where bacteria can rapidly grow and multiply. So that bottle of apple juice that you took a sip from has been contaminated with bacteria in your mouth/lips/saliva, and any that settled in from the air. Kept in on the counter, it's basically a giant petri dish with an all you can eat buffet. \n\nA fridge should be colder than 40 F, often set to 37F, so out of the danger zone, bacteria can still grow, but slowly.",
"You broke the seal and now bacteria and mold got into what was a (relatively) sterile environment.\n\nNow you have to refrigerate it to slow the growth of all the nasties you just let in.\n\nHate to sound jaded but is this not something you learn by the time you're 2-3?",
"How does something so easily googleable get so high on the list but if I posted this it would be 5 trolls telling me to google it or it would be closed because its been asked already...",
"TLI5 (try like i'm 5) experiment:\n\nBuy some cheap jam. Open it. Lick a spoon and stir the jam a few times with it. Close it and leave it somewhere at roomtemperature for a week. Open it and look at it. You now know why it would have been better kept in the fridge.\n\nOthers have explained it well enough, but this can easily be made visible with a very cheap experiment.",
"Many packages have what is considered 'modified atmosphere' with a lower oxygen level than normal air. These packages are gas flushed with a mixture of CO2 and Nitrogen to remove oxygen. This extends the product's shelf life because it reduces oxidation of fats. When the package is opened this modified atmosphere escapes and normal air enters, starting a more rapid oxidation and spoilage process, so refrigeration is suggested to reduce the spoilage rate for further usage. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
9ytv3i | how can people sell video game merch or art on etsy? | Like the title says, I’m confused as to how people are allowed to make art based on popular video game franchises (like Legend of Zelda and Kingdom Hearts) and sell it on Etsy. Wouldn’t that be a copyright violation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ytv3i/eli5_how_can_people_sell_video_game_merch_or_art/ | {
"a_id": [
"ea3z0of",
"ea3z1ec"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"Some companies don’t bother with the costs of a lawsuit because it would mean too much cost for little payback. A good lawyer will probably cost way more than a % of the profit a Etsy artist makes ",
"It’s not legal for sure, but they probably aren’t making enough to be on anyone’s radar. There is also the slim chance that they are doing really well for themselves and managed to get some sort of license. \n\n\n_URL_0_"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/fan-art-and-fair-use-one-truth-and-five/39402098770"
]
]
|
|
zruiy | What are the ergonomic effects of sleeping without a pillow? | Pillows are an item about as commonly used as beds themselves. What happens to the spine when an individual sleeps on their back without any object supporting their head? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/zruiy/what_are_the_ergonomic_effects_of_sleeping/ | {
"a_id": [
"c67720b"
],
"score": [
42
],
"text": [
"I think this was linked before when this topic came up. _URL_0_"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119282/"
]
]
|
|
39wapz | why can websites appear to be down for me but be online for everyone else? | I just tried to access a website, and I went on _URL_0_ to check if it was really down - it was. That got me thinking - what causes this? Why is there a need for websites like this, and is there a way to prevent it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39wapz/eli5_why_can_websites_appear_to_be_down_for_me/ | {
"a_id": [
"cs71xfx"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Unless a website has different servers for different people (very unlikely if it's within the same region) this should not happen ever. If you experience a website that is down and others don't, the problem is on your end and could be your internet connection."
]
} | []
| [
"http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/"
]
| [
[]
]
|
|
9rfc82 | why is it that if you drop something electrical into a pool it affects the whole pool, but if you drop something electrical into the ocean, it dosent electrocute the whole ocean | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9rfc82/eli5_why_is_it_that_if_you_drop_something/ | {
"a_id": [
"e8gfp32",
"e8gg7am"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"The pool is ≠ the ocean, in any way.\n\nThe electrical thing you throw in the pool doesn't affect the whole pool either. Electricity is very, very good at finding the path of least resistance and following that. It's almost never through a human or a fish. Those metal drains and grounded lights are just a better path.",
"Simply - it does affect the whole ocean, but the effects at any distance from the device would be very small.\n\nWhen an electric device falls in water, electricity flows from the high-voltage live parts inside the device to the low voltage grounded parts. Now, most of it will flow almost straight across, because that is the shortest and easiest route. But the electricity will take all routes, including long, looping ones. But as it has to travel a long way, it is hard for the electricity to follow that path, so not much does.\n\nSo some of that power following a longer, looping path would reach a person swimming nearby, and as the insides of them are salty and conduct electricity more easily than fresh water would, it would then flow through them. And it doesn't take much electric current to kill a person, or stun a fish.\n\nBut the further the electricity would have to flow, the less electricity flows. By the time the loops are many meters long, the amount of power flowing is very small, and no longer has any effect."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
3mch15 | how does the current "competitive healthcare market" benefit the patient? | All I keep seeing in the media when Single-payer/Nationalized healthcare is brought up is how the free market is better in terms of competition. But providers don't advertise pricing or results i nany manner resembling other aspects of free-market commerce (grocery stores, car companies, etc.). How does "competition" make things better? Or does it only make things better for the insurance companies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mch15/eli5_how_does_the_current_competitive_healthcare/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvdupxl",
"cvdxcvi"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"The idea is that the insurance companies will compete with each other and this will cause lower prices for the patient. Sort of like the cell phone companies (Sprint, Verizon, AT & T, etc...). Unfortunately, this hasn't really happened, and I'm unsure if it ever will. ",
"Hasn't happened in my experience. Too much collusion in a mandated and regulation captured market in the U.S. (What competition?) Instead most prices and the passing on of costs not covered by insurance appears to have increased since the ACA.\n\nReally needs further reform with caps set on some things and opening the market to imported pharmaceuticals to lower costs along with requiring insurers to fully cover certain costs in order to qualify under the mandated program.\n\nEurope and Canada have the much better deal even given what they pay in taxes. And if anyone has been paying attention, their public healthcare hasn't been exclusive. If you're willing to pay, private healthcare is still available if you want it."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
71wgtt | How can Burning wood (carbon) generate UV radiation? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/71wgtt/how_can_burning_wood_carbon_generate_uv_radiation/ | {
"a_id": [
"dnfaf9x",
"dnfo0fg"
],
"score": [
4,
4
],
"text": [
"Do you expect a lot of UV for some reason?\n\nThe thermal emission will contain tiny amounts of UV. In principle chemical reactions can directly lead to UV emissions as well but I'm not aware of specific reactions that would occur in a wood fire.",
"Found my own answer. \nThe question should be different. \nAt which temperature does something emit uv radiation. \n\n[blackbody radiation](_URL_2_) \n\nTypical bonfire temp exceeds 1000C\n[source](_URL_1_) \n\nWood can burn op to 1900 Celcius\n[wood fire temp](_URL_0_) \n\nWhich is between 1400-2150 kelvin\n\nWhich based on the first link does not emit UV light. \n\nANSWER: to emit UV light your fire temp needs to exceed 3500-4000 Kelvin = 3700 Celcius. \n\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://skysaver.com/blog/how-hot-is-fire/",
"http://sciencing.com/hot-bonfire-8770.html",
"https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planck_law_log_log_scale.png"
]
]
|
||
4ffpbt | james holmes killed 12 people and injured 70, but is charged with 24 counts of first degree murder and 140 counts of attempted first degree murder. why does he has 2 charges for every murder/attempted murder he did? | just curious. saw it on the wiki article [here](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ffpbt/eli5_james_holmes_killed_12_people_and_injured_70/ | {
"a_id": [
"d28g4rp",
"d28o0b6"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"From a ways down that page:\n\n > For each person killed in the shooting, Holmes was charged with one count of murder with deliberation and one count of murder with extreme indifference.",
"He also probably got 1 count of attempted murder for each person in the room that he didn't kill."
]
} | []
| [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Holmes_(mass_murderer)"
]
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
j00ei | What is the current state of knowledge on the long-term effects of caffeine on productivity/well-being? | [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) lists a few studies, but I was surprised not to find large "epidemiological" studies studying the long term effects of caffeine, given how widely consumed it is. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/j00ei/what_is_the_current_state_of_knowledge_on_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"c280zzs",
"c281095",
"c2814hr",
"c2818r3",
"c281r68"
],
"score": [
2,
14,
57,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"I would like to know this also so upvote.\n\nAnecdotal tidbit: Nikola Tesla said in his biography that he had heart problems until he realised it was the cup of coffee he consumed each day. ",
"[Coffee and Health: A Review of Recent Human Research](_URL_0_) (2006)\n\nEdit: in the same journal, there’s an other review appeared this year, but the access is not free. I hope that this one, still fairly recent, will satisfy you curiosity.",
"What do you mean by long-term effects on productivity and well-being? There are tons of studies on the long-term biological effects of chronic caffeine consumption. Some of them say caffeine can be good, others say caffeine can be bad. It depends on the area/system of the body, and it depends on the methodology/outcome measures used. Caffeine also has a lot of metabolites, and numerous factors (tobacco use, alcohol use, liver health, etc) make a big difference in the biproducts produced during caffeine metabolism. \n\nAs for long-term effects on productivity and well-being? Those are really broad terms and the answer really depends on what exactly you're asking. There are a host of studies showing that caffeine improves performance on certain tasks requiring working memory, selective and sustained attention, memory encoding, and processing speed (mostly cognitive abilities in the immediate moment). There are many other studies suggesting that caffeine could disrupt more long term memory consolidation and retrieval, and could have a negative impact on some language functions (namely, word retrieval). \n\nThe thing to remember is that caffeine is a nonselective adenosine antagonist. While it's half life is typically between 4-6 hours in a healthy adult (LOTS of other factors play into speed of metabolism, and this number can be much higher in some people), there are some studies suggesting the actual effect on cognitive alertness and attention may be much shorter, on the order of 15 minutes or so. This is why drugs that mimic the adenosine antagonistic properties of caffeine haven't been used in treating ADHD. \n\nHope this helps somewhat. If you clarify your question, perhaps I can provide more information. ",
"Looks to me like there's a huge data set for human productivity just begging to be used in a research paper.\n\nIt'd be interesting to compare the financials of those companies who provide free coffee to their employees to others in their sector who don't.\n\nThough in the tech industry, it may be hard to find one that doesn't. (hmm... does that by itself suggest that caffeine probably has productivity benefits)",
"I realized today that a lot of people in this subreddit need to read [this](_URL_0_) book, as the pervasiveness of lore and hokum in this thread is alarming."
]
} | []
| [
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Memory_and_learning"
]
| [
[],
[
"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10408390500400009"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Buzz-Science-Lore-Alcohol-Caffeine/dp/0140268456"
]
]
|
|
2a98k7 | Was there a particular flag that the Union used during the American Civil War other than the traditional 34-star flag? | It would seem rather counterintuitive for the Union to have its own flag, but I've always been curious to see if there was one produced purely for the Union States. I've been using [this website](_URL_0_) to search the time period, but nothing came up. Thanks in advance! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2a98k7/was_there_a_particular_flag_that_the_union_used/ | {
"a_id": [
"cisygew",
"citgd46"
],
"score": [
13,
3
],
"text": [
"I assume you're asking was there a flag that didn't have stars representing the Confederate States? In that case, no, not officially. Even when West Virginia broke away from Virginia, the official flag gained a [35th star](_URL_1_) (which still included Virginia and all the other rebelling states). In the view of the US, you can't actually secede from the Union (there was a [Supreme Court Case](_URL_0_) affirming this). They viewed the Confederacy as a group of rebelling states rather than an actual nation. Creating a flag without those states could be seen as official acknowledgment that they were in fact their own country, which as you said, would be a little counter-intuitive on their part.",
"There were unofficial flags made called \"[exclusionary flags](_URL_3_)\" that only had stars for the states that were still in the Union. Generally the number was in the mid-to-low 20s. This was carried over from an [earlier abolitionist practice of making flags which only had stars for free states](_URL_0_). The same technique was later used by [suffragists](_URL_2_) and [proponents of marriage equality](_URL_1_).\n\nOfficially there was no distinct flag for the North, and the government discouraged people from removing stars for the reasons captmonkey has said."
]
} | []
| [
"http://www.loeser.us/flags/civil.html"
]
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/US_flag_35_stars.svg"
],
[
"http://www.flagcollection.com/tour.php?CollectionTour_Code=tourpage05_exclusionary&CollectionTour_Name=United%20States%20Exclusionary%20Flags#leaf",
"http://makeitequal.org/",
"http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/.a/6a00e553a80e10883401a73dd24ad4970d-500wi",
"http://antiquescouncil.com/antiques/index.php?page=out&id=487"
]
]
|
|
102yj2 | If you were on a spaceship in the absolute black void of space, how could you measure your speed without any points of reference? | On a spaceship. Sitting stationary in the absolute far-flung black void of space. You fire up the engines, and being to accelerate. Without any immediate point of reference, is there a way to measure your speed?
I know with old ships on the middle of the ocean, they used a small
chunk of wood thrown into the water to help measure speed (and then knots on a rope, etc). Would they have to do a similar thing? Try to put an object free floating in space and then accelerate away from it, measuring your speed as you go? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/102yj2/if_you_were_on_a_spaceship_in_the_absolute_black/ | {
"a_id": [
"c69xl93",
"c69xmuf",
"c69xu0e",
"c69xunp",
"c69yo3d"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
4,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"You couldn't, using only local measurement. That is the whole point of relativity - there is no difference in local physics based on how fast you are moving (no preferred frame of reference).\n\nYou could measure the *difference* in your speed by keeping track of your instantaneous acceleration and integrating that. \n\nFor external references, you could use Doppler shift of spectral lines in the distant stars.",
"If you weren't accelerating, you wouldn't have any defined speed without a reference point. (You could use yourself as a reference point; then your speed would be zero.) If you accelerate, you can measure the amount of acceleration and from that deduce your change in speed. So if you say your initial speed was zero, you can find your speed relative to that.",
"You can't.\n\nI suppose you could make really precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background to try to figure out your speed relative to its dipole anisotropy frame.",
" > Without any immediate point of reference, is there a way to measure your speed?\n\nWithout some sort of reference point, the very concept of \"speed\" is undefined.\n\nIf you're accelerating, you can find out your change in velocity, and thus determine what your speed is relative to your pre-accelerated state, in which case your initial speed is your point of reference.",
"All speed measurements must me made in regards to a reference frame. [All measurements are relative.](_URL_0_) There is no \"true\" velocity. All velocities measured in inertial frames are equally valid."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity"
]
]
|
|
ak51x8 | how do different antibiotics target different parts of the body? | There are different antibiotics that seem to be used to target infection in different areas of the body, but mainly taken orally. Is it the type of antibiotic that targets a specific area or do we get the same infections in the same area of the body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ak51x8/eli5_how_do_different_antibiotics_target/ | {
"a_id": [
"ef1lhsu",
"ef1oqqg",
"ef28xfh"
],
"score": [
4,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"The thing about antibiotics is that they only effect bacteria, which are very different from your cells (if you’re 16:bacteria are prokaryotes and your cells are eukaryotes). So as previous reply said, the antibiotics disperse throughout your body and attack the bacteria... all of them. Including the good ones in your gut. That’s why a common side effect of antibiotics is the runs (the poops, the scoots, diarrhea, etc)",
"When you swallow an antibiotic tablet, it passes into your stomach and then your small intestine. At some point, depending on the drug, it is taken into the blood stream. The blood carries it to the liver and then throughout the body. \n\nAt this point it’s easiest to imagine that the drug then leaks out through the blood vessels into all the tissues of the body. Skin, muscle, bone, lungs etc. It acts on your entire body, hopefully killing (bactericidal antibiotic) or preventing growth of (bacteriostatic) the bacteria causing infection.\n\nIn the case of a kidney or bladder infection, after the antibiotic has gone all around the body, it is then excreted by the kidney and passes into the bladder. \n\nDifferent antibiotics have different chemical structures and characteristics. This makes the drug more likely to target certain areas. For example if you have a brain infection, you will need an antibiotic that can cross over from the blood into the brain through the “blood brain barrier”. If you have pneumonia, you will need a drug that is likely to spread into the fluid that lines the lungs. Certain areas of the body have different acidity levels, different protein concentrations and different blood flow arrangements, allowing them to be more accurately targeted rather than the shotgun approach I explained above. \n\nAn injection is just a way to get the antibiotic into the bloodstream, bypassing the digestive tract.",
"In general, oral antibiotics don't target different parts. But different parts of the body are prone to infection by different types of organisms, which respond to different antibiotics.\n\nThere are targeted antibiotics which are not oral, like ointments, eye drops, ear drops, wound-packing materials impregnated with antibiotics (I'm not sure how much clinical use this last one sees), etc. \n\nThere are also antibiotics that don't get absorbed when ingested, and are usually given by injection, but which can be given orally if the goal is to treat the gut itself."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
1okmm8 | Does a positive correlation exist between the length of a gestational period and the intelligence of the birthed animal? | If the gestational period of a fish is ~28 days, and elephants ~640 days, and if we assume elephants are more intelligent than fish, can we say that a positive correlation exists between gestational period and intelligence?
Does the amount of time spent developing in the womb (length of gestational period) affect/increase the overall level of intelligence an animal? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1okmm8/does_a_positive_correlation_exist_between_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"ccswz03",
"ccsxlnc",
"cctc4ju"
],
"score": [
46,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Your comparison of a fish to an elephant is a little broad. But generally I would say no, the gestational period does not translate to inherent intelligence. The length of 'childhood' or child rearing may be a better indicator of intelligence. Certain animals have a long gestational period and hit the ground running (literally). Certain creatures are helpless when they are born and can only persist when taught proper environmental and cultural skills and behaviors. \nI promise you, that if you investigate, you will see that species that child rear display more complex or 'intelligent' behaviors than those that don't. You can also expect, as a general trend, the longer that child-rearing period, the more complex the behaviors will be. Remember though, time does not scale evenly for all species.",
"The most basic mammal brain started off with just three neuron clumps: a hindbrain to connect with the spinal column, a midbrain, and a forebrain to connect to the sensory organs. Over time, more complex bodies and behaviors evolved in mammals and the brain kept building outward to the front, away from the spinal column. The forebrain developed a new outer shell, which included the hypothalamus to control basic motivation, hippocamus for memory, and the amygdala for emotional learning and responding. These structures constitute the limbic system, latin for border, because they wrap around the rest of the brain, forming a border. \n\nAs social mammals replaced dinosaurs, a new layer of neural tissue developed and spread around the old limbic system, creating the neocortex, latin for new covering. Of particular interest is the frontal cortex, which instead of being dedicated to specific tasks, this area is available to make new associations and to engage in thinking, planning, and decision making, mental processes which you might consider as a measure of \"intelligence\" in an animal. \n\nTo bring this all back to your question, this expansion of the cranial reason is cited as the cause of the cessation of gestation for the human at 9 months. An extended period creates a scenario in which the cranium no longer can fit through the birth canal. So it would seem by gaining intelligence, the human has actually forced a shorter gestation period, creating a negative correlation between gestation period and intelligence. Your example fails to consider the many evolutionary factors that may play a far greater role in the matter. In many egg-laying animals, rapid gestation may be required to avoid predation. In elephants a voluminous birth canal may allow for longer gestation periods, increasing the survival chances of young. \n\nIn short, your answer is no. There are many factors that contribute to gestation period and the need for development isolated from the external environment underlies all of them. However in many species, much of the development of the frontal cortex takes place after birthing.",
"Smartest Animals and their gestational periods:\nChimpanzee: 8-9 months\nPigs: 4 months\nDolphin: Approx 12 months\nParrots: (incubation) 35 days\nElephant: 2 years\nOctopus: Approx 7 months\nCrow: (incubation) 18 days\n\nAs you can see, even though many of these animals are highly intelligent their gestation periods are highly variable, inferring that there is no direct correlation between gestation period and intelligence. However, in an evolutionary sense, one particular advantage of keeping a baby inside for longer is to allow for greater development. There becomes an interesting problem though, where, for humans in particular, the gestation period actually shortened because human baby's heads were too large to fit.\n\nAfter reading everybody else's response the answer seems to be that in a broad evolutionary sense a longer gestational period may allow for a greater development of traits associated with intelligence but it's in no way a direct correlation and doesn't work on either a species-specific or a general sense.\n\nMy personal favorite example of this would be the Tuatara which, after mating, will take almost 2 years to hatch their babies. Their lineage is so ancient they are reptiles but not lizards despite their massive number of physical similarities. But they also possess no marked intelligence. Despite their massively long incubation period they are no more intelligent than your average (though still distantly related) lizard cousins. In fairness, every monitor lizard will have a much shorter gestation period but be measurably more intelligent."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
3rb6y5 | " A small splinter group of the Muslim army crossed the Pyrenees and was defeated by Charles Martel near Tours in 732, a minor incident in this whole story and, in no way, the turning point in European history as it has sometimes been portrayed" | How true is this statement ? He goes on to say the army under Tariqs' lines were too long and an assault across the Pyrenees was impossible. From A history of the Church in the Middle Ages by F. Donald Logan. I've always been taught the importance of Martels' "stand against Islam" from a western perspective and find myself fairly ignorant of the 700's AD. Thank you in advance for any responses. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3rb6y5/a_small_splinter_group_of_the_muslim_army_crossed/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwmrhi3",
"cwn304b",
"cwn4rt8"
],
"score": [
11,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I think it depends largely on what perspective you are viewing this from, and I would love to hear a comment from a European medievalist on how this was viewed at the time in France or Europe, but I think the line you quoted is broadly in line with the thinking of historians of the Arab conquests.\n\nThat's largely because the broad conclusion is that the Islamic empire was incapable of expanding very far beyond its borders in 732 and that had the Arabs won at Tours it would not actually have changed the situation very much.\n\nThat sounds like a counterfactual but it has some good supporting evidence, namely: \n\n1. In 750 the Ummayad dynasty was replaced as rulers of the Arab/Islamic empire in the Abbasid revolution. The internal violence of this revolution, within a matter of decades, led to some significant fracturing of the empire, especially at the periphery in North Africa and in Islamic Spain. The survivors of the Ummayad dynasty escaped the slaughter of the Abbasid Caliph al-Saffah and established their rule in an independent Islamic Spain, which would have been the logical jumping off point for any renewed expansion into Europe. In fact they proved incapable of doing so and as a peripheral kingdom of Islamdom they could not muster the kind of forces that were available to the Abbasids. And if the Abbasids wanted to expand in that direction (which they did not) they could only have done so by going through the Ummayads, not to mention the other independent dynasties that would pop up in North Africa. \n\n2. Contrast the loss at Tours in 732 to the *victory* at Talas in 751. Despite crushing the Chinese army of the Song dynasty, the result of the battle was not massive civilizational change or Islamicization of China, rather it was the consolidation of Arab/Islamic control over their central Asian territories.\n3. Given the above, and the eventual reconquista of Spain, it strains credulity that an Islamic conquest of France, let alone all of Western Europe, was ever possible. \n\nI think the conclusion is that that Tours was important as a high water mark, but a high water mark *that was going to turn back somewhere or other*. If the Arabs had won at Tours, it's difficult to imagine them continuing their victories for much longer, and nearly impossible to imagine that they would somehow have wiped out European civilization or something (not that the Europeans were very civilized at this point, but that's a separate issue!)",
"Adding onto this, would you say that the sieges of Constantinople in 674 (although I've read claims that there was no siege in 674...) and later the 2nd siege in 717 was a bigger battle in terms of containing Islamic conquests? Since if Constantinople fell the Islamic armies would have definitely crossed the Bosphorus",
"Had Martel lost, the important question is whether the Umayyads could have continued pressure into France. This becomes more likely if Martel had died in battle.\n\nHad Martel died at Tours, that would leave Carloman and Pepin leading the Franks at around 20-26 and 18, rather than 15 years later when Martel actually died. \n\nIf Pepin doesn't keep power as Mayor of the Palace and Carloman doesn't retire to a monastery early, it's possible Charlemagne never rules. **That** completely changes the long term power balance in the area."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
o1fc2 | If I urinated on an electrified fence, would it shock me? | Assuming the fence is charged with a high, constant voltage and my urine was a steady, powerful stream. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/o1fc2/if_i_urinated_on_an_electrified_fence_would_it/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3dm0cj",
"c3dm1kc"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Yeah.. it would fucking shock you",
"If you can get close enough to produce a steady stream then yes, you would get shocked by the fence, because urine is electrically conductive, but you have to avoid 'fragmentation' of your urine. \n \n[Here's](_URL_1_) a vid of a guy doing it, and [here's](_URL_0_) a Mythbusters vid of the same effect but using the 3rd rail instead of a fence. I know it's not a scientific paper or anything, but I hope it sufficiently demonstrates what's happening."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDY-0ijiOEQ",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu_Plte-PbU"
]
]
|
|
58v1zd | how do we make extremely, extremely high frame-per-second cameras? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58v1zd/eli5_how_do_we_make_extremely_extremely_high/ | {
"a_id": [
"d93jkrv",
"d93kmnq",
"d94ah92"
],
"score": [
209,
8,
8
],
"text": [
"The sensors in most cameras are perfectly capable of capturing at a higher frame rate than what they are normally being used for, but the challenge is getting the data and putting it somewhere fast enough. If your storage subsystem is too slow, you won't be able to ingest the flood of incoming data fast enough. Some of the fastest high-speed cameras have ridiculous amounts of RAM to initially capture the video, and then they take a minute or two to dump that to a slower hard drive or SSD afterwards.\n\nAnother issue with super extreme high speed cameras is light sensitivity of the pixels, as well as cooling of the sensor. When you get into the *really* high speed territory, the individual pixels in the sensor have less time to gather light before the next frame, so you have to use extremely bright external lighting, or even sunlight to get a usable video. The sensors that are capable of such fast frame rates require additional cooling which makes the cameras bulky and loud.",
"What will the potential upper limit be? Could it get to \"plank time\"? What's the upper limit currently?",
"How researchers made a [1,000,000,000,000 FPS CAMERA](_URL_0_)\n\nStarts at about 5 minutespeed\n\nTL;DW: Film the same experiment many times with a normal high speed camera, then use software to compile the data into a composite super high speed film"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[
"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mfgsQX78hg8"
]
]
|
||
vrdik | why are most (not all) military personnel right wing and anti-obama/universal anything if they are part of a government run, universal healthcare providing, free almost everything military? | If find this odd. I grew up on military bases and know that most of the members of the forces tend to be either right wing, or lean that way. They criticize universal healthcare and "socialist" initiatives, but in the military gain:
- Free house
- Free healthcare
- Free food
- Free services
and if it is not free at a completely discounted price, paid for by the government! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vrdik/eli5_why_are_most_not_all_military_personnel/ | {
"a_id": [
"c56y7iw",
"c56yd2c",
"c5761vp",
"c577srw"
],
"score": [
8,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The majority of America's military volunteers come from regions in the US that are majority conservative. That gives way to a majority conservative military. That being said, I've met plenty of liberals who served in the military, who are pro-gun, pro-gay, and anti-war.",
"Because it is not the same as a pure universal system.\n\nThey only get free housing because it is a necessity so that they can live where they are ordered to work. Many of the lower ranking soldiers can not afford to live in apartments and own homes.\n\nThey do not get free healthcare. Soldiers pay premiums like everyone else in the country. The premiums are just typically much lower. It is also a job benefit because of the high hazard work. Soldiers are at very high risks of injury and are offered a benefits package like you would get at places in the private sector.\n\nFree food is typically only applied to people living in barracks and is hardly universal. The same applies for the other \"free services.\"\n\ntl;dr - there is nothing universal and/or free about what the military gets.",
"My hypothesis: because they see themselves as putting their lives on the line for their benefits while the rest of the population doesn't.",
"None of those things are \"free\" it's part of their salary package. They earn them. Being in the military is a 24/7 job."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
3zwr9x | Is there archaeological support for the stereotype of Roman infanticide as sex selection? | It's clear that Roman slave women had their children killed all the time.
But there are many stories about boys being killed for political purposes. There are also stories about women having their children killed - if those children were the product of adultery or as a punishment against the woman.
So it is very likely that there was non-sex selected infanticide imposed on slave women and on free women who had their children with the wrong partner.
But is there any evidence for specifically sex selective infanticide? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3zwr9x/is_there_archaeological_support_for_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cypnco5"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"I can't speak for Roman society generally, but I am familiar with one specific case of sex-selective infanticide from Tel Ashkelon, Israel. We excavated a Roman/Byzantine bathhouse in Grid 38, (you can read the publication report for free at _URL_2_, just download the massive PDF of volume 1 and you can find some descriptions of the \"baby drain\" on page 295, and the publication of the DNA analysis on page 537), and found literally hundreds of infant skeletons in a drain underneath the bathhouse. Why were hundreds of dead babies thrown into the drain of a bathhouse? Why were they nearly all male? (Answer, it may have also been an illegal brothel). I have sat on this drain to do paperwork many times, and am excellent friend with the person who oversaw the excavation of the infant remains. Part of the drain is actually still there, it being made of Roman concrete and all. [This](_URL_1_) is a picture of the drain as it was excavated. [This](_URL_0_) is a picture of it basically as it is today, taken by one of my colleagues. The drain is the concrete thing that all the people are standing on, they are standing on the same thing the guy is standing on in the other picture."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://imgur.com/tf1ptjr",
"http://archive.archaeology.org/image.php?page=9703/newsbriefs/jpegs/ashkelon.jpeg",
"http://digashkelon.com/current-projects/"
]
]
|
|
3xlur2 | how do courts decide who to send to white collar prison? | Is it the crime itself? Celebrity status? Net worth? If I had an inco.e of only 100k a year but was found guilty of inside trading, would I go to WCP or standard prison? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xlur2/eli5_how_do_courts_decide_who_to_send_to_white/ | {
"a_id": [
"cy5pnxa"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There's a point system that takes into account a number of things (age, gender, crime committed, whether the person is an escape risk, and whether they have violent tendencies). The more points the convict gets, the higher level of prison security they get."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1u1krl | How have small speakers (cellphones, beats pill) improved in quality so much recently? | The last time I read up on speaker technology Apple had been using small, thin rectangular speakers in their ipod touch.
Today, I can go to best buy and play with things like the beats pill and other small audio devices. They are small yet thump hard.
Right now I'm typing on my nexus 5 and it projects sound quite well. The Samsung galaxy s4 is another example of a high quality small speaker.
Has there been any new developments or ideas in the speaker world? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1u1krl/how_have_small_speakers_cellphones_beats_pill/ | {
"a_id": [
"cedo0ko",
"cee2hdu",
"cee5kts"
],
"score": [
10,
13,
2
],
"text": [
"I'm not an expert on small speaker design, but here's the best I can come up with.\n\nFirst off, let's split up the question into \"mini-speakers\" like the beats pill, and \"micro-speakers\" that one might find in a mobile phone.\n\nMini-speakers are not all that different from normal loudspeakers, and making them sound better largely comes down to intelligently designing the enclosure to work with the drivers. If I had to venture an educated guess, I would say that companies like beats are designing their own drivers, and not just using the cheapest thing on the shelf.\n\nMicro-speakers, on the other hand, are usually fighting hard against their own fragility. Because their membranes are thin and delicate, pushing the membranes too hard can cause them to warp or tear. This is made more difficult because the drivers heat up when being run, and the temperature changes their response. Thus, monitoring the temp and adaptively adjusting the gain to manage the incoming signal helps to run the micro-speakers at max volume without damage or clipping. I would assume that advances in that sector mostly comes from better adaptive gain control algorithms, more durable membrane materials, and possibly creating more room in the phone itself for larger speakers (since bigger is better in terms of generating acoustic volume velocity). Of course, the move towards larger screens has the side benefit of making more room for acoustics.\n\nThat said, those are just my educated guesses as someone involved in acoustics, but I would welcome any thoughts from someone with more first-hand knowledge of portable speaker design!",
"Hoffman's iron law of speaker design/performance dictates that you can only pick 2 out of the following three things:\n\nSmall enclosure size, High efficiency, deep bass. \n\n\nThat means that in order to chase deep bass in a tiny enclosure, phone and mobile speaker makers have most likely sacrificed speaker electrical efficiency. Given the impressive gains in class D amplification efficiency and technology (which would offset the reduction of speaker/driver efficiency) over the last decade or so, this doesn't seem that implausible. The other side of the equation is that power handling and excursion of a small speaker must also improve, which can be overcome with good driver design, smart equalization, and materials science. \n\n\nNow Hoffman's Iron Law is not hard cast - it's slightly malleable/ductile and can be stretched using several shortcuts such as passive radiators (which are functionally the same as vents/reflex, but have much smaller volume requirements), BMR and other high tech drivers, virtual bass and other DSP algorithms. \n\n\nI would say that the biggest driver of everything going on here is simply consumer dollars - people want better sound from their mobile devices, and large manufacturers are now willing to spend good money in R & D and engineering talent trying to achieve differentiation (as opposed to side projects by independent speaker builders with limited resources). \n\n\nWhatever the driver is, consumers are the beneficiary. I personally recommend the UE mini boom and the UE Boombox as my goto mobile bluetooth speakers - they have the hardest hitting bass in their respective classes. ",
"One interesting thing I noticed while disassembling an iPhone 4 (and I'm sure other manufacturers use the same trick) is that the speaker was not oriented like you might expect. Instead of using a tiny speaker pointing toward the bottom grille they laid it flat. The speaker was facing the front of the device enclosed in a little chamber which had an opening facing the bottom grille. This allows for a much larger speaker than the other configuration. You can get a sense of what I mean [here](_URL_0_). This doesn't explain any advances in speaker technology but is rather a trick for getting better sound out of a small space.\n\nI also remember that in the case of earbuds, the seal they make in the ear make a lot of difference in terms of bass response when using a speaker that small. I do not have the technical details of this and maybe somebody else can explain why, but it is something I remember from some basic research on this topic in the past."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+4+Speaker+Enclosure+Replacement/4360"
]
]
|
|
56vqit | At what point and location did the English language split among the use of the article "the" before "hospital"? | In other words, did Shakespeare ever write of 'going to the hospital?' Or did George Washington ever write that a soldier must 'go to hospital?'
Dropping the article in front of other seems like a stereotypical fake Russian accent. In American English, believers 'go to church' or 'go to temple.' When and where did these exceptions for the use of a definite article before certain, apparently 'special' objects of the preposition arise? When and where did they fall? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/56vqit/at_what_point_and_location_did_the_english/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8nftyg",
"d8nw5do"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"This is not a historical development, as such. Though nor is it usage which may be explained with a hard and fast rule, as there is some dialectal variation with respect to it. \n \nWhat we are observing, essentially, is that English nouns require an article where they are countable, singular and concrete (“I found *a* quarter”, but not “I found quarter”) and do *not* require an article where they are abstract and uncountable (“the boy has spirit” is acceptable), or countable and plural (“the boy has legs” is acceptable). \n \nBut the prior category can give way to the latter in particular in cases where what is otherwise or previously a count noun is treated in an abstract fashion which construes it as uncountable. The extreme case of this is word such as “heaven” or “hell” which for conceptual reasons, cannot be enumerated in a given cultural context. One goes “to heaven” rather than “to the heaven”, as to qualify *which* heaven one is referring to, or how many, would be nonsensical (in a majority of English Christian contexts), making a countable use of the word impossible, and the interpretation of the word as uncountable the natural development. And indeed, in a less extreme case, when we say we go “to church”, we are implying our attending the uncountable abstraction of the church concept, rather than a specific edifice which is therefore countable. Though in this case, both approaches coexist, as they often do. Which nouns conventionally see this usage or these changes in countability is, however, as I say, subject to dialectal variation.",
"Thanks to Google Ngrams, you can see this historical development for yourself. [Here](_URL_2_) for British usage. [Here](_URL_1_) for American. And [here](_URL_0_) for all books written in English worldwide.\n\nSaying \"going to hospital\" arose in British usage around 1850, becoming more popular between 1920 and 1960. It has declined since then. It never became a thing in the US. Why some British writers started using this in 1850 is a point for an historical linguist.\n\n > In other words, did Shakespeare ever write of 'going to the hospital?' Or did George Washington ever write that a soldier must 'go to hospital?'\n\nShakespeare never wrote \"the hospital\". Washington never wrote just \"hospital\"."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+the+hospital%2Cgoing+to+hospital&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20the%20hospital%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20hospital%3B%2Cc0",
"https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+the+hospital%2Cgoing+to+hospital&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20the%20hospital%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20hospital%3B%2Cc0",
"https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=going+to+the+hospital%2Cgoing+to+hospital&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=18&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20the%20hospital%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgoing%20to%20hospital%3B%2Cc0"
]
]
|
|
3vrtho | Did the reforms of the Gracchi Brothers actually influence Rome? | The recent rise of Jeremy Corbyn perked my interest in the Gracchi due to them often being dubbed the first socialists. However their reforms were all revoked after their deaths, can we see any influence lasting beyond the reforms that they had? For example is there any evidence they set precedence and inspired later politicians? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3vrtho/did_the_reforms_of_the_gracchi_brothers_actually/ | {
"a_id": [
"cxqbpgs",
"cxqgipv"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"TL:DR Yes, absolutely. At least in aristocratic memory.\n\nWho is Jeremy Corbin?\n\nFirst of all, the Gracchi were one step in a line of \"trouble-making\" tribunes. Lily Ross-Taylor wrote an important article \"The Forerunners of the Gracchi,\" in *JRS* 52 (1962) if you can get it. She challenged the traditional narrative that the Tribunes had been subverted by the Senate and shows there were basically always Tribunes who used the powers of the Tribune to subvert Senatorial control. So they weren't all that strange; and about a generation later you get M. Livius Drusus, who was REALLY radical (and perhaps a direct consequence of the Gracchi's activities, but more on that later).\n\nAll the sources report that Tiberius was concerned about the gr owing urban poor and the collection of land among a few very wealthy land holders. Rosenstein at OSU (*Rome at War* I think is the title of the book) has fairly recently (10 years ago?) challenged this narrative - his argument is that there was no dearth of small farmers; they just didn't want to enlist in the army anymore, but since the question is about the Gracchi's influence, let's stick to the narrative the Romans told themselves. The aristocrats were gathering up huge tracks of land owned by the state meant to be rented in amounts no larger than 500 jugera/citizen (don't ask me to translate that into acres- I am not up to math at the moment and I have no idea anyway). According to Plutarch, Ti.'s plan was to seize public land illegally held and redistribute that land to the urban poor. The poor would have land, the state would have soldiers, and everything would be great.\n\nThis required a survey though, to find out who held too much land and to redistribute it in the appropriate amounts to the right people. To this end Ti. passed a law to form a commission of three to conduct the survey etc. after some politicking, but the Senate refused to fund the commission. At this point Attalus, king of Pergamon, died and willed his state and fortune to Rome. Ti. proposed a law to use this money to fund the commission, and after more politicking, got himself lynched by a mob of angry senators. However, the land commission went ahead with a new commissioner.\n\nGaius, Ti.'s little brother, was a member of the land comcimission, and in adjudicating the redistribution of land managed accidentally to redistribute land that was not Roman public land, but both properly held private land and land belonging to the Allies (this is from Appian, *BC* 1). The Allies, not being Roman citizens, could not represent themselves in court, and got Scipio Aemilianus to represent them, But he died under mysterious circumstances in 129 BCE. Gaius also ended up getting himself assassinated for politicking shenanigans.\n\nThe land problem was left open for about 30 years after C.'s death. Rome's relationship with the Allies turned increasingly sour. in 91 the Tribune M. Livius Drusus tried to pass a law granting the Allies citizenship, and ended up stabbed to death on his front porch. The Allies snapped and fought a very nasty war against Rome which Rome very nearly lost, and only ended when Rome extended (or imposed - the question is still up for debate) the citizenship to (or on) the Allies. That war left Sulla in command of an army, as Consul elect, and directly set up his conflict with Marius for the Pontus command, which in turn led to Sulla's dictatorship and set the pattern for Roman politics until Augustus.\n\nSo, yeah, the Gracchi influenced Roman politics. They were not original in using their position to mess with the Senate, but they took it further and forced the Senate further than anyone else, and demonstrated the power the people had to oppose the Senate when organized properly. This proto-communist stuff I'm not so sure about; they didn't seem, to my eyes at least, to have an ideological commitment to social equality, but instead sought to address specific problems (lack of solders, urban poor) and, according to their enemies, use those that benefited from these reforms to further their own careers.\n\nThis is the story that all the surviving sources give us, from Cicero to Cassius Dio. Much of this has or is being questioned by modern scholars. [EDIT: a sentence dropped out before my coffee this morning: You don't have to believe the revisionists.] Not everyone believes Rosenstein, for instance. But as far as what Romans themselves thought, yes, the Gracchi did have significant influence on the course of Roman history.",
"I'd add to what /u/LegalAction said that, on the subject of the Gracchi being \"the first socialists,\" the current balance of opinion is that such a claim is pretty ridiculous, the Gracchi were no such thing. There's a perception for some reason that politicians who appealed to popular support were necessarily in favor of popular reforms, and during the late Republic that's not necessarily true in the least. Gaius Gracchus, for example, actually limited the powers of the tribunate, by preventing tribunes from vetoing the assignment of consular provinces, a law that the OCD points out \"shows how far he was from being a 'democrat.'\" Tatum points out, which /u/LegalAction sort of mentioned when talking about Tiberius Gracchus' intended replenishment of the military classes, that the Gracchi's reforms were generally decidedly in favor of the status quo, particularly the maintenance of the property classes. In a speech preserved by Gellius (which, genuine or not, is still useful to our point here), Gaius Gracchus declares openly that nobody approaches the Roman people without the hope of getting something from them--in this very speech Gracchus hopes to raise the taxes on Roman citizens! And even the Romans didn't necessarily see the Gracchi as opposed to the aristocracy at all. Plutarch mentions that Gaius Gracchus' land reforms included a provision that the recipients pay rent to the public treasury, something not too different from the current state of affairs, whereas Livius' released them from lease payments entirely. Gaius Gracchus' planned colonies were to be settled by \"the most respectable of the citizens\" (τοὺς χαριεστάτους τῶν πολιτῶν), a term that brings Cicero's *boni* to mind--Plutarch places this in opposition to Livius' intention to found twelve colonies and settle them with the urban poor (τῶν ἀπόρων). "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
bvq81k | How was the iconography of the Confederacy reframed into something that's treated as honorable/worthy of obsession? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bvq81k/how_was_the_iconography_of_the_confederacy/ | {
"a_id": [
"eps0l8s"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
"Civil War memory is something I write a lot about, so I'd point you to [this older answer of mine](_URL_0_) which focuses more on the evolution of Confederate statuary than the Lost Cause itself, but I think does speak well to your question, although I'm of course happy to do my best with any follow-ups you may have."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ai9s2d/did_the_construction_of_confederate_monuments/eem9o53/"
]
]
|
||
827fob | What happens to the body when your cortisol levels are constantly too high? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/827fob/what_happens_to_the_body_when_your_cortisol/ | {
"a_id": [
"dv8dr3h",
"dv8q4g9"
],
"score": [
10,
8
],
"text": [
"This is a really broad question, since excessive cortisol in the human body can have a lot of implications. I'll just talk about one of them.\n\nOne area of your brain that has a lot of cortisol receptors is the hippocampus. There is some evidence that excess cortisol can cause the hippocampus to be damaged in various ways. Individuals with excess cortisol have been show to have smaller hippocampi, suggesting that certain cells called pyramidal cells in the hippocampus likely atrophy due to cortisol activity. Another idea is that cortisol in the hippocampus suppresses neurogenesis, or the formation of new neurons. Both of these are likely causes of depression, and SSRIs both work to reverse these effects of excess cortisol in the hippocampus.\n\nExtremely high cortisol in a short time can also impair memory. This is why individuals often can't remember times where they're extremely emotional.\n",
"The short answer is this condition exists in a genetic form known as [Cushing's Disease.](_URL_0_) This leads to a well established pathology of [insulin resistance](_URL_1_) and all the complications that comes along with excess insulin exposure to include:\n\nWeight Gain\n\nHigh Blood Pressure\n\nMemory issues\n\nHeart Disease\n\nCancer\n\nEtc"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cushing%27s_disease",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20829623"
]
]
|
||
4i99pg | how do electromagnetic pulses (emp) destroy electronics and is it possible to deploy it in bombs for warfare? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4i99pg/eli5_how_do_electromagnetic_pulses_emp_destroy/ | {
"a_id": [
"d2w6gpb"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"it is basically a very strong signal that is capable of frying weaker systems. It can be used for warfare, but its use is some what limited by the fact that military hardware is tough and most known systems are not big enough or thorough enough to take down civilians areas with any effectiveness. Either would take a nuclear sized blast to get anywhere, and by that point your already nuking them."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
7bps5m | why do headphones sound tinny until you put them on? | When i hold my headphones about an inch away from my ear they sound tinny but when i actually put them on they sound amazing.
What sort of physics is behind this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7bps5m/eli5_why_do_headphones_sound_tinny_until_you_put/ | {
"a_id": [
"dpjuecx",
"dpl5026"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Bass waves travel the least amount of distance, while higher pitched waves will reach your ears. Your ears are best at picking up and discerning those higher pitched sounds because they are most like the sounds you would normally be hearing. All of this considering the headphone speakers are very small and produce a relatively small decibel level.",
"Because the sound is tiny relatively. Normally when you hear things they are pretty far from your ears. If you took your tv for example would be a comfortable listening volume while sitting on say a couch would be painful if you were forced to hold your ear right to the speakers. Also if they aren't on your head then the speakers are likely being aimed away from you which might make them sound even smaller. The whole point of headphones is to have tiny speakers that produce tiny sound but sound normal because they are in close proximity to your ears and oriented specifically for the purpose."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
z5h8p | Were Serbs exceptionally effective in the war against Austria during WWI? | What led to the failure of one and the victory of the other? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/z5h8p/were_serbs_exceptionally_effective_in_the_war/ | {
"a_id": [
"c61mevn"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Serbia's army had experience from the [Balkan Wars](_URL_0_), unlike the Austrians who were quite green. Austrian troops were better equipped, but had far less patriotism due to the fact that most of them weren't Austrian, but Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, etc. The Serbians also could match the Austrians in terms of numbers, since the bulk of Austria's army was engaged with Russia for most of the war. The land itself isn't exactly a bunch of flat open plains, and favored the defender. All-in-all, it isn't a surprise that Serbia performed how they did."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars"
]
]
|
|
s4gx7 | the d & d alignment system, particularly the distinction between "neutral good/evil" and "chaotic good/evil." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s4gx7/eli5_the_dd_alignment_system_particularly_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"c4b0i20",
"c4b0zof",
"c4b3xon",
"c4bbi7f"
],
"score": [
22,
3,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"It helps to just view the alignments one axis at a time -- lawful, neutral, chaotic; good, neutral evil.\n\nLawful means you will follow certain rules.\nChaotic means everything is random -- rules are made to be broken.\nNeutral is somewhere in between these two; really, most people you meet with in real life would fall in the neutral spectum.\n\nGood means you put others above yourself.\nEvil means you willingly harm others, either for your own good or because you have been told to.\nNeutral will generally not kill innocents, but certainly will not sacrifice themselves for others.\n\nNeutral good would be someone who puts others above themselves, but isn't following a set pattern to it -- not helping others because their god said to, just because they want to. Neutral evil would be similar -- not killing just for the heck of it, but not killing just to obey a higher order.\n\nChaotic good is a character who is out for the greater good, but feels \"the man\" gets in the way, so (s)he will buck the rules constantly. Chaotic evil is one of those who just wants to watch the world burn.\n\nCheck the [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) page; it gives a pretty good overview of each of the nine types.",
"I always broke it down this way: the suffix of good/neutral/evil has to do with how they interact socially. Good = \"for the common good with self-sacrifice,\" evil = \"for myself, damn everyone else\" and neutral = \"no set sense of self,\" which is why a lot of non-intelligent creatures are set as \"true neutral.\" Chaotic, lawful, and neutral as a prefix is how this is delivered. Chaotic=\"no set plan,\" lawful = \"structured plan\", and neutral is \"either/or.\" \n\nSo a neutral good/evil person approaches how they act according to whim, but sides for either good of others or selfishness. Chaotic good/evil is someone who truly believes in their cause, but never plans anything. Take Star Wars:\n\n- Neutral good: Han Solo. He thinks mostly about the moment, but basically a good guy. Becomes more chaotic good as the series progresses.\n- Neutral evil: Jabba the Hutt. Nothing personal, it's just business... you dick. He might be lawful neutral, but he does kill a lot of people.\n\n- Chaotic Good: Luke Skywalker. Intergalactic boy wonder.\n- Chaotic Evil: Count Duku. This guy is fucked up, completely taken by the dark side.\n\nDarth Vader and the Emperor are more lawful evil because of all the pre-planning he does.\n\n",
"\n\n**Lawful Good:** Yoda (* Believes in order and in good*)\n\n**Neutral Good:** Obi Wan (*Good, but also sarcastic and adventurous*)\n\n**Chaotic Good:** Luke ( *Roguish, lone wolf, good above all*)\n\n**Lawful Neutral:** Stormtroopers (* Follow orders above anything else*)\n\n**True Neutral**: Boba Fett ( *No affiliation to anything except himself*)\n\n**Chaotic Neutral:** Han Solo ( *Outside the law and selfish, becomes CG*)\n\n**Lawful Evil:** Darth Vader ( *Follows orders but believes in evil*)\n\n**Neutral Evil:** The Emperor (* Pure evil* )\n\n**Chaotic Evil:** Jabba the Hutt (* Murderous crime lord*)\n",
"Lawful good characters believe in the rule of law for the good of society. They follow the law and advocate using the power of the law to help people.\n\nNeutral good characters believe in altruistic actions and outcomes, whether allowed by the law or not.\n\nChaotic good characters believe that maximizing individual liberty will produce the greatest benefit for society. \n\nThere are two types of lawful neutral characters. The first values the rule of law over altruism and selfishness; this kind of person would rather live in a society where the law is firmly enforced, whether or not for a \"good\" or \"evil\" purpose or outcome. The second type is a follower of a traditional moral code; much like the first type of lawful neutral person, whether the moral code is altruistic or selfish is less important than it being traditional.\n\nTrue neutral characters also fall into two types. The first, and most common, are people who are a roughly equal mixture of altruism and selfishness, law-abidingness and individualism. They don't put much thought into morality and often act according to peer pressure or their needs at the moment. The second type, which is more rare, believes in striving to maintain a balance between law and individuality and altruism and selfishness. The first type is somewhat apathetic about morality; the second type is very active and generally has some kind of religious motivation for seeking a balance.\n\nChaotic neutral characters favor the freedom to act over any good or evil outcome.\n\nLawful evil characters favor using the power of the state for their personal advantage or to persecute their enemies.\n\nNeutral evil characters favor selfishness and personally-beneficial outcomes, whether by law or illegally.\n\nChaotic evil characters disregard rules and seek selfish outcomes and complete freedom to act. Psychopaths are an example."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)#Alignments"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
3pjo5p | why can my dog eat shit and be fine, but not grapes or chocolate? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pjo5p/eli5_why_can_my_dog_eat_shit_and_be_fine_but_not/ | {
"a_id": [
"cw6v31s"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because dog shit doesn't contain a compound (Theobromine) that is toxic to dogs. It *may* contain pathogens that make them sick, though."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
7yr4kn | Why didn't the overthrow and regicide of Charles I prompt massive retaliation from other monarchs the way Louis XVI's did? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7yr4kn/why_didnt_the_overthrow_and_regicide_of_charles_i/ | {
"a_id": [
"dujon0g"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"For much of the time of the English Civil War(s) Europe was still involved in the Thirty Years War. And the concurrent Franco-Spanish War, which blurred with the Thirty Years War but lasted longer. For the Holy Roman Empire and Spain the Thirty Years War was a much more pressing threat against their power than an English squabble. For France the potential shifts in continental power was a much more important and interesting situation.The Thirty Years War was over around 1648 and Charles lost his head in 1649. And France and Spain continued to be at war until 1659. So, there wasn't a lot of money or interest in mounting another major invasion. \n\nCharles, who could be very competent in other areas, had also made a bit of a mess of foreign policy prior to the civil wars. He would, of course, blame this on not being funded by Parliament. But he made a poorly advised attempt at war with France while, at the same time, being at war with Spain. He did come to peace with both and had a fragile alliance with Spain. But he hadn't done much to endear himself to those powers. \n\nThe very nature of the wars was also not very well understood at the time or, honestly, still. As has already been discussed, it was not the overthrow of all vestiges of authority as the later stages of the French Revolution came to be (and remember much of Europe didn't intervene in France until it got to the stage or even later.) The tensions between royal authority and parliamentary authority were absolutely at stake. But there was also a strong religious component to the wars. With the royalists being associated with Laudianism and the parliamentarians being associated with puritanism. The reality was more complex but Europe wasn't itching to get involved in another religious war, at this point, either. \n\nAnd the English (or at least the nobility) seemed to have a nasty habit of rebelling against and killing their kings. It's funny to think of now with the UK being one of the few monarchies left. But Edward II, Richard II, Henry VI, and Richard III were all killed and that's not counting Edward V. Only Richard III in a proper battle. King John, Henry III and Edward II all faced serious rebellions by barons concerning their rights and privileges and the Parliamentary forces intentionally mimicked the stances of those fights. (I leave out the revolt against Richard II, War of the Roses and rebellions under the Tudors because in many ways those were about succession and/or the fitness of the ruler but the earlier conflicts were about limits of royal power and the \"traditional\" rights of the barons.) In some ways, this was framed as a very English conflict fighting over ancient grudges. And it was very intentionally presented this way by the Parliament even when they were going far beyond the traditional rights of the institution. It wasn't something obviously and markedly different the way the French Revolution became in its final stages. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we see it as something distinct from all of those conflicts. They didn't necessarily, at the time. \n\nAnd I know that is an absurd thing to claim because a king was not only killed but he wasn't replaced. Oliver Cromwell was not a king. Nor did he have any even plausible birth claim to the throne. That's a huge change from the past. And that can't be ignored. But from the outside little had really changed radically under Cromwell despite his title. Also Spain had been fighting protestant insurgents in the Netherlands for decades so the existence of powerful protestant uprisings wasn't a foreign concept. Despite wars between nations through out the century, Europe in the late 18th century was in many ways a more settled place than Europe in the mid-17th century. So, the occurrence of such an uprising was more of a shock to the system. \n\nAll that being said, it is not as though other kingdoms did *nothing*. France did take in Charles's family. Although France eventually allied with the Cromwell government, they did so because they needed allies against Spain in their continuing war. Spain made an alliance with Charles II and gave him some money for troops. The Battle of the Dunes had English royalists on the Spanish side and Cromwell's forces on the French side. (The French won.) Charles II was just never given enough money to invade England, which would have been a massive undertaking. Neither France nor Spain condoned killing a sovereign monarch. They were just consumed with each other and not in a position to do all that much about it. Other powers of Europe were devastated by war and not as close to England's orbit. \n\nLong story short, there were plenty of wars going on on the continent to distract the major powers of Europe. And, at the same time, the English Civil War was not as monumental a shift in power as the French Revolution eventually became. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
24ib45 | how credits were added to film | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24ib45/eli5_how_credits_were_added_to_film/ | {
"a_id": [
"ch7elfe"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Assuming you are talking about the older days before computers, credits where often printed onto a a sheet which was attached to two rollers, kinda like a treadmill. Then they could just film it.\n\nThey could also layer films over one another to superimpose credits on a live action scene."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
56s0ym | Sources on pre-modern/medieval arms race | I'm interested in the history of European personal weapons, from pre-history to Renaissance, and especially the Middle Ages. I'm particularly interested in the idea of an "arms race": that, for example, the development of plate armor made "slashy" swords get [progressively "stabby"](_URL_2_), until plate armor was ultimately obsoleted by… (halberds? crossbows? guns? I've read conflicting theories).
I've read some [Oakeshott](_URL_1_ ), and while I appreciate the wealth of detail and actual archaeology, I found the overall history to be a bit difficult to follow. The Internet has a wealth of information from mediaeval enthusiasts of various kinds—for example the [ARMA](_URL_0_)—but I find it to be fragmentary and contradicting.
I'd like recommendations about well-researched, primary-sourced, academic books or articles about the rise and fall of various personal weapons (military and/or civil), armors, and the historical conditions leading to such developments. My ideal book would start with Stone Age tools and end around Renaissance, tying everything together into a historical narrative; but I'm also interested in works about specific periods or weapons, as long as they suggest the reasons for expansion and abandonment of each weapon.
I'm sorry if this was asked before; I found lots of questions about medieval combat, but couldn't locate one which would scratch my particular itch. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/56s0ym/sources_on_premodernmedieval_arms_race/ | {
"a_id": [
"d8mxo3r"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"You are entirely right that much internet information on weapons is fragmentary and contradictory. Part of this is because a lot of the information out there is by enthusiasts of different knowledge levels and there are a lot of old sources and bad scholarship mixed in with good sources and sound methods.\n\nBut part of this is because the entire history of weapons and armour is a vast topic and any summary will be fragmentary and contradictory by necessity. Weapons and armour do not exist in a vacuum - they are not simply better or worse than each other, but exist within a tactical, technological and economic context. Weapons do not necessarily fall out of favor because they are inferior - often it is because the manner of war changes. The form of weapons is not just dictated by how efficiently they are shaped for attacking - it is also dictated by how weapons are produced, and the technology available to produce them. We cannot understand weapons and armour without understanding how these factors shaped them. And this is hard, because it requires us to study military history, the history of technology, art history and social/economic history.\n\nAll of this is to say that the history of a few weapons or a specific type of armour in a single period is a complicated topic. The history of weapons and armour and the way they interacted throughout history is a massive topic, too big for a single scholar, since it requires too much background knowledge. This is really why historians specialize in general - acquiring in-depth knowledge of a period is itself a full time job - acquiring in-depth knowledge of thousands of years is not possible in a human lifetime. This is why my flair area covers one region and only 350 years.\n\nZeroing in on the period that I know about, the later Middle Ages in Western Europe, all the factors that I mention mean that the development of weapons and armour is more complex than better weapons driving the creation of better armour. Plate armour was partly, perhaps, a response to crossbows and other weapons, but it was also the product of an increasingly sophisticated steel making process in Medieval Europe - larger blooms from bloomeries could be turned into larger plates (allowing the forcing of large iron plates like breastplates), while waterwheels powered the bellows of the bloomeries and blast furnaces, the drip hammers that pounded the blooms into sheets, and the polishing wheels that polished the finished armour. Similarly the form of swords was dictated not just by their use in battle but also the state of metallurgy - the all-steel one-piece sword blades of the late middle ages could be formed into shapes that would not have been possible in the early Middle Ages. Similarly, we need to place armour and weapons in the context of how they were used - Italian knightly armour and weapons of the 15th century (armour that includes many overlapping and layered plates, a heavy lance, a lance rest mounted high on the breastplate) is well suited to heavy cavalry combat, but not well suited to fighting on foot. As soldiers change how they fight, their tools change to fit the task. Ultimately full plate armour wasn't simply rendered obsolete by stronger and stronger guns, but it stopped -making sense- on the late 16th century battlefield, for a number of reasons. I deal with this more in [this answer](_URL_0_). In general, the development of armour and weapons in the Middle Ages is not a two-sided arms race of more powerful weapons against stronger armour, but a multi-faceted story involving many causes.\n\nSo with that said there are some books to recommend that deal with the development of weapons and armour - heavier on the armour than the weapons.\n\n*The Knight and the Blast Furnace* by Alan Williams is a history of plate armour in medieval and early modern Europe, as told through its metallurgy. This book deals heavily with the technological developments that made plate armour possible, and looks at how it developed over time. Partially in response to different weapons (mostly firearms), partially as a result of changing industrial processes and economic/social forces. *The Sword and the Crucible* by the same author deals with swords. Currently I am reading it.\n\nTobias Capwell's *Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450* is a hyper-focused text (the first of two volumes covering only 15th century England) that shows just how the form of armour is developed to suit the purposes it is used for - the way that people fight.\n\nI should point out that all the books mentioned here are massive - folio-sized. Both The Sword and the Crucible and 'Armour of the English Knight' approach 400 pages or exceed it. The Knight and the Blast Furnace is 900 pages long. And there is still so much to be said about these topics.\n\n"
]
} | []
| [
"http://www.thearma.org/essays.htm",
"https://amzn.com/0486292886",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakeshott_typology"
]
| [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4y2d1k/how_and_why_did_armies_move_from_using_iron_armor/"
]
]
|
|
36rom5 | If light has properties of waves, would it be possible to phase-cancel two laser beams? If yes, what would happen? If no, why not? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/36rom5/if_light_has_properties_of_waves_would_it_be/ | {
"a_id": [
"crgry7r",
"crgxsu5",
"crgysp0"
],
"score": [
10,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"Yes. This is called interference and is a property of all waves. The prime apparatus that demonstrates laser beam interference is a Michelson interferometer. Basically, a laser beam is split into two different laser beams (so that they are coherent because significant interference requires coherence) which travel along different paths and then using mirrors are recombined and then hit a camera or a screen. One of the paths is a different length or through a different material so that one of the laser beams acquires a phase lag. On the screen, you get a series of dark and light rings (called an interference pattern). The dark rings are where the two laser beams are out of phase and cancel each other (called destructive interference). However, energy is not destroyed. Rather, energy is redirected to the areas with constructive interference (the bright rings). \n\nAnother approach is the double-slit setup. You send a single laser beam through two slits, which turns it into two coherent laser beams. These laser beams interfere, producing a pattern of light and dark bars.",
"Yes! But if you're wondering if you could cancel out the two beams entirely, the answer is generally no. In practice, you'll never actually achieve a perfect plane wave, like you see in textbooks. There are always effects due to diffraction etc. that mean you cannot get a perfect plane wave, so that when you do try to do a phase-cancelling you'll cancel it in some places, but end up increasing the amplitude of the light somewhere else.\n\nNature has a nasty habit of always finding a way to balance the books.",
"Most of the time, phase cancellation of light is something that you're so used to that you don't notice it. The phase cancellation of light is a fundamental part of quantum electrodynamics, which is a theory that explains most of the things that happen to us on a day-to-day basis.\n\nThe most familiar 'special' application of phase cancellation of laser beams is probably holography. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
2khy1d | Do all terrestrial bodies which experience a planetary wobble and orbit a star have four seasons? | Are the four seasons we experience something that is common in the known universe? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2khy1d/do_all_terrestrial_bodies_which_experience_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cllh2ll",
"clljy7e"
],
"score": [
12,
2
],
"text": [
"The Earth's wobble (precession of the equinoxes) doesn't cause the seasons. The seasons are due to the axial tilt and the orbit of the Sun.\n\n\"Seasons\" isn't an astronomical term. Any planet whose axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital plane will have solstices and equinoxes. If you wanted to, you could define four seasons between those solstices and equinoxes. That's not quite the same thing as \"the four seasons we experience\", though, since the seasons (in terms of weather and biosphere) don't have to follow the equinoxes and solstices. Also, a planet with only very slight axial tilt will have only very slight changes in insolation throughout the year.",
"[Here](_URL_0_) is an illustration of how the seasons are determined by the Earth's tilt. In the summer (for the man in the northern hemisphere), the sun is much higher in the sky, days are longer, and thus the temperature is generally warmer."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[
"http://www.zullophoto.com/Images/seasons_diagram_sm.jpg"
]
]
|
|
2rlp1l | why do japanese swords only have one edge? | So I'm curious as to why katanas and other similar Japanese swords only have one edge, whereas many other swords of European origin have two edges. Is there a distinct advantage/disadvantage that having one edge gives? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rlp1l/eli5why_do_japanese_swords_only_have_one_edge/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnh13x2",
"cnh152a",
"cnh15pf",
"cnh1602",
"cnh1nmg",
"cnh2jkr",
"cnh4z6w"
],
"score": [
5,
8,
5,
4,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Two advantages of a single edge is that with a thicker back the greater the stiffness than a comparable double-edged sword, which in turn greatly improves the blade's thrusting capability.\n\nAlso with a thick and flat back edge it is better for defending a strike from your enemy. ",
"Japanese swordfighting styles are suited to slashing with a sharp, curved edge to negate the style of armour (or non-armor) popular at the time. European, medieval styled swords are double edged with a point to infiltrate the heavy, plated armour that was used. Thick armour, but many joints and separations can be penetrated by a point and heavier, \"blunt\" strikes.",
"The katana is a slashing weapon, curved to cut through the layered armour of warriors wore. The edge is a hard steel, meant to retain it's edge and hold up to wear and tear. The spine of the blade is a softer steel to lend it flexibility, again to improve the durability of the blade. This is why you see the temper line (hamon) as the two metals of the blade meet. Having only one edge allows the blade to be curved as it is to improve a dragging slash technique when cutting, eg when cutting the you both swing and pull the blade back with your wrists. blocking is done mostly with the flat of the blade because edge on edge contact with serious strikes results in chipping and ruts along the cutting edge.\n\nInterestingly this curve is achieved when the blade is cooled during forging and the spine steel shrinks, pulling the bonded edge with it. \n\n",
"By having only one cutting edge, it means you can leave the opposite edge, the dull side, thicker. This adds both to mechanical strength of the blade, as well as increased weight, allowing for more momentum during a slashing motion. Here's an image of the [cross-section](_URL_0_) of the blades.",
"Katanas were designed primarily as slashing weapons. It turns out that curved blades with a wedge-shaped cross section work really well for that. The stereotypical Western sword was more of a multipurpose weapon that could be used for stabbing or slashing in a variety of ways--the arms manuals of the medieval period show a great diversity of techniques and fighting styles. There are also numerous Western sword types that are more similar to the katana in their design, such as cavalry sabers, cutlasses, falchions and (adding in the Middle East) scimitars.",
"It's already been said, but the difference in the metals (blade and spine) provides greater durability. Also, the curvature of the blade means it can slice things with greater ease. They use to rate how well a blade was made by how many prisoners it could cut through in a single blow. The curvature also allows an easier extension of the arm. You can still stab with the katana, but it's meant for slicing. A katana could hold up rather well to the medieval armor, so long as they went for weak points or a straight stab. You have to remember, different areas had different ways of fighting. You may protect yourself one way for one occasion, but another attack from someone else foreign could prove fatal. Most swordplay is motion/circular based. The curve helps with this as after the initial cut, there is still more blade going along the same path the cut deeper. European swords being double edged gave them the advantage that if one side dulled the other was still good to use. You could use most katanas and double bladed swords with one hand, but a lot used both hands for greater control. Katanas are a very unique sword and highly regarded as one of the best created. ",
"For much the same reason as scimitars (Western) and falchions (Middle Eastern). It adds more mass to the sword whilst allowing a thin profile, thus making a slash far more effective. \nDoesn't matter how sharp a sword is. If it has no mass it won't penetrate very far. Think a razor. Swing it hard at someone, you might give a nasty cut, but it won't actually be very deep. You could actually cut deeper with a steel-ruler. All down to mass."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Katana_brique.png/420px-Katana_brique.png"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
|
|
3zcy8r | how does professional poker work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zcy8r/eli5_how_does_professional_poker_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"cyl4h88",
"cyl5mh1"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I am not a professional poker player, but I do know three pros personally. They are not big name pros, but they do earn a modest living ((think mid-five figures) playing poker.\n\nOne of them got his start by making the final table of a large multi-table tournament at a casino with a smallish ($200 or so) entry fee. He then ran that 25k up quickly and has settled into a routine playing $2-$5 hold'em, 2-5 Pot Limit Omaha, and slightly larger games when they are available at his home casino.\n\nThe other one saved his money working an 8-5 job until he had a decent amount of money to make a go at it (he said it was $10,000) and then ran that money up playing similar limits live and online.\n\nThey also invest their poker profits in other players that they know are above average.\n\nYou mention elimination in your question. I think you may be referring to tournament poker, which is only one of many, many forms of poker. Tournament poker is definitely one way to make money when playing poker professionally, but the pros that I am aware of make most of their money playing \"cash\" or \"ring\" games where you sit at a table with set limits on starting cash (typically at least 100 times the small and big blinds) and play against other players. So a 2-5 table might have a $200 minimum requirement and a $500 maximum, though many casinos do raise the maximum requirement to as much as twice that.",
"I will answer your questions in reverse order.\n\n > How can it be considered a sport?\n\nProfessional poker players are always calculating the chances of the card they ned coming up in the hand. They also have to calculate the return on their investment (bet). Ok, grranted, it ain't a physical sport, but it is as much a mental sport as baseball or football. \n\n > How does elimination work? \n\nIn tourneyment play, each player is allowed a certain \"buy-in.\" That is how much the value of their chips are at the start of the tourneyment. When all of a player's chips are lost in a tourneyment the player is eliminated. The saying, \"A chip and a chair is all it takes\" has a lot of meaning to the pros. \n\n > Do they have to bet with their own money?\n\nMost do. Some don't. Some of the pros will need corporate sponsorship. Some will win their way in and not have to play with their own money. Some elite touneyments may require $1M buy-in. If you ain't got that kind of money, but you got a good history, you may find a sponsor to put up that money for you. Then if the sponsored player wins, he may have to pay the sponsor say half of the winnings. The other way to get in without your own money is to win a few lesser tourneyments and with a win, you get to play in a higher stakes touneyment. There was a guy a few years ago who entered in a free play tourney and kept winning until he won the World Series of Poker with never having invested a cent of his own money. \n\n\n > How does a person become involved in professional poker?\n\nSame as you do in any other career field. Give up any other source of income and make your living playing poker. \n\nJust so you know, I played Hold 'em and I got good. Not good enough to win titles, but enough to know that I would never make it past the minor leagues and be able to go pro. If you like doing math problems for fun, you may be able to be a poker pro. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
6iavqm | Is there a difference between the chubby and skinny Buddha? | I usely see the the Buddha with more meat around around restaurants while the boney Buddha is surrounded by quotes. Is there a reason for this or is it just a coincidence?
P.S Idk if this is the right subbreddit | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6iavqm/is_there_a_difference_between_the_chubby_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"dj55j95",
"dj55m7o"
],
"score": [
5,
38
],
"text": [
"Hi, you may be interested in some earlier threads on this question. See this answer by /u/Notamacropus, and follow the links for more\n\n* [Given that Siddhartha was likely very thin, when and why did depictions of the Buddha come to be fat?](_URL_0_)",
"Similar to \"what race was Jesus,\" Buddha has different versions depending on what country you're in or what time period. Also, while there is one, original Buddha, there are also many other Buddhas, people who have achieved enlightenment and become immortalized in statue form.\n\nIn Japan, there are examples of monks who would starve themselves in a self-mummification ritual and then be built into a statue. I saw an example of this at the Tokyo National Museum and I *thought* I had taken a picture of it but I can't find it, so I think it's in the \"no photo\" gallery. I *believe* it was [this statue here](_URL_8_), but I can't be 100% sure. [Here is an image](_URL_15_) from Discover magazine of a similar statue that originated in China, [with a brief story](_URL_14_) on the history of such practices.\n\nI've got a few different photos of Japanese Buddhas to share. [This Buddha](_URL_18_) is from 8^th century Nara Japan. Nara was based in the southwest of Honshu and their Buddhas share many common traits with Korean and Chinese examples. [This multi-armed Buddha](_URL_9_) is from the 14^th century Nanbokucho period, also from the southwest region. You can compare these Buddhas to [this one from Seokguram, Gyeongju Korea](_URL_11_) and notice that they share a lot of similarities - the almond shaped eyes with a tiny slit, the fairly narrow nose (although the Nara Buddha has a bit wider and flatter nose), the same hair style (even on the Nanbochuko Buddha, the little heads above the main one share the hair). [This Korean statue](_URL_3_) from the 8th century Silla dynasty again shows similar features - almond eyes, hair, and a wide nose, ala Nara Buddha - and [this Buddha statue](_URL_0_) from the 14^th century Goryeo dynasty shows a more Chinese influence - rounded face, different hairstyle. It should be noted that the Silla kingdom was based in Gyeongju, a stones throw from the southeast coast of Korea. Also, the Silla and Paekche kingdoms fought with the Paekche losing and many of the Paekche upper-class fled to Japan. Furthermore, China, Japan, and Korea all traded across the southern Korean coast with Korea frequently acting as an intermediary, so it is no surprise that the Buddhas are similar. Goryeo, on the other hand, encompassed all of modern South Korea and most of North Korea and they based their capital in the Seoul region. They had more contact with the Chinese at that point. These last two statues I mentioned were both stolen from Tsushima Island Japan a few years ago by Korean patriots/art thieves/opportunists and brought back to Korea. It's been claimed that Japan plundered them and a court recently ruled that the standing Buddha must be returned to Japan since no one in Korea was claiming it, but a temple in Seosan claimed the seated Buddha. Earlier this year the court ruled that that statue would stay in Korea, but it's been going through the legal system with a hearing before the Supreme Court just this March.\n\n[Here is a photo of the Buddha at Bongeunsa Temple](_URL_7_) in Seoul. I know I've got photos of this one, I've been here dozens of times but I just can't seem to find any. [Here's a funny commercial regarding this statue and the origins of pizza.](_URL_13_) Anyway, note the large ears on this guy. [Here is a Buddha statue at Seoraksan National Park](_URL_10_) - again, note the giant ears. This one also has his eyes slightly open, at least more-so than any of the others I've shown have had. This particular Buddha was built in the 90's, [being finished in 1997](_URL_2_). [A statue at Beobjusa Temple](_URL_5_) in Chungcheongbuk-do South Korea is the tallest standing bronze Buddha in the world. Again, note his large ears. This statue was finished in 1989. [At Donghwasa temple in Daegu](_URL_17_), a 30 meter tall Buddha was finished in 1992 and his ears make Dumbo's look tiny. [At Mangbolsa temple in Gyeongsangbuk-do](_URL_19_), you can see two Buddhas with big ears. They also have [the Buddha I think you're talking about](_URL_1_).\n\nThis statue represents Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. It was said that he exercised and starved himself in an effort to overcome the minds desires and that when he finally sat down beneath a tree to meditate, he was so emaciated that this was what he looked like. These statues are supposed to show the dangers of being too extreme and to show that transformation is possible.\n\nThere are a couple of different chubby or laughing buddhas. [Here is one from Jogye Temple](_URL_6_) in downtown Seoul. Then there's [Budai](_URL_12_) who was not actually a Buddha, but the incarnation of Maitreya, a future Buddha.\n\nSo to sum up, there are many different Buddhas - there is the original Buddha who founded the religion and then anyone else who has achieved enlightenment. Depending on the time and place, each Buddha can be depicted differently. While I made a point of noting that Korean Buddhas have large ears, it should be pointed out many other countries Buddhas have them too. However, Korean Buddhas tend to have all around large ears whereas other versions tend to only have elongated lobes. You can also see the similarities between Buddhas in regions that share a common Buddhist history, i.e. China, Korea, and Japan. So to answer your main question, you're seeing two different Buddhas from specific points in their histories. Budai is only one form of Maitreya - [he could look like this Chinese carved Budai](_URL_4_) or [like this Korean made Maitreya](_URL_16_)\n\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2v31nm/given_that_siddhartha_was_likely_very_thin_when/"
],
[
"http://img.yonhapnews.co.kr/etc/inner/EN/2016/04/11/AEN20160411005000315_01_i.jpg",
"https://i1.wp.com/koreantemples.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Picture-024.jpg",
"http://www.buddha.co.kr/html/company53.htm",
"https://www.buddhistdoor.net/upload/file/20150728/6992/3287fdeb8d0d4b0c986892c830824889_350__2.jpg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya#/media/File:Maitreya_and_disciples_carving_in_Feilai_Feng_Caves.jpg",
"https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0e/90/7d/0e907d5fe2e7135b45c7c646d3a04d93.jpg",
"https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0d/17/cb/d0/laughing-buddha.jpg",
"https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/09/5b/86/07/bongeunsa-temple.jpg",
"https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/73/fb/10/73fb103b302f780850cb8752e8ff12a0.jpg",
"http://imgur.com/hK3cS3i",
"http://imgur.com/vY8NOZc",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seokguram#/media/File:Seokguram_Buddha.JPG",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Budai.jpg/1200px-Budai.jpg",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiLA6Bk_ivs",
"http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/02/23/x-rays-buddhist-statue-mummified-monk/#.WUiw_cmx83g",
"http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/files/2015/02/liuquan1.jpg",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya#/media/File:SeatedMaitreyaKoreaMuseeGuimet.jpg",
"http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KHCY0PkUVK0/VjnbAQTF1UI/AAAAAAAAUO8/1knLKZY9bec/s1600/20151003%2B%25ED%258C%2594%25EA%25B3%25B5%25EC%2582%25B0%25EA%25B5%25AD%25ED%2599%2594%25EC%25B6%2595%25EC%25A0%259C%2B%25288%2529.JPG",
"http://imgur.com/rSk6J0w",
"https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/cc/aa/c0/yeongcheon-manbulsa-temple.jpg"
]
]
|
|
d4qwkd | how do completely torn ligaments such as atfl heal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d4qwkd/eli5_how_do_completely_torn_ligaments_such_as/ | {
"a_id": [
"f0fj1az"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Fairly complicated, the simple answer is that cells communicate. A cell can tell other cells where is it, what type of cell it is, and if it’s in some kind of “distress”. There is also a 3 step response when tissue tears, and the first step is basically inflammation. In this step, a ton of different cell types (tissue, stem, blood, immune, etc.) rush to the site of trauma and they all have different jobs. This is where a lot of communicating occurs, and your body is essentially trying to figure out what happened and how it can best be fixed.\n\n\nCells that make up what’s left of the ligament will communicate, and with the help of other cell types, will slowly undergo mitosis and other cellular processes to repair the ligament."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
2mp006 | How do you continue studying history after graduation? | I am currently in law school/graduate school and am no longer studying Classics. My undergrad degree is in Classical Language. While getting that degree, I also had to take courses in Classical Society. I enjoyed those classes and readings and would like to continue to learn about the period. Those of you who are no longer in school and do not have a job that keeps you involved with your area of study, how do you go about continuing to learn?
I know most people will probably answer "read". I do that, but it seems like when I read for my own pleasure I do not remember as much as I did when it was for a grade.
Any suggestions would be great. I hope I posted this in the right place. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mp006/how_do_you_continue_studying_history_after/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm69ovx",
"cm6bgpt"
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text": [
"Keep up with the big journals, and go to some of the big conferences. You'll stay up-to-date with the most recent research, and get to keep interacting with people who hold a similar academic interest. \n\nOnce you have your JD, there's always the option of (potentially) writing academically on classical law on the side. Additionally, if you have the option for electives, take some on ancient law if they're available to you.\n\nHope this helps a little. Happy reading!",
"A few years ago in Seattle there was an unaccredited language academy that taught Latin and Greek for only a couple of hundred a course, instead of the $4gs the UW charged. It was really more like a book club than anything else. I don't know if it's still operating. You might look for something like that. And do try to get on the mailing list of your local Classics department. Talks are usually open to anyone who wants to attend. Another option: there is a local pastor in my town who occasionally sits in on ancient Christianity classes with one of my professors. Not all professors will be cool with that, but it can't hurt to ask if something runs that you're interested in."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
1cxfm3 | Aside from the obvious (algebra, chess, etc.), how did Western science benefit from encounters with Islam and the Middle East during the Crusades? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cxfm3/aside_from_the_obvious_algebra_chess_etc_how_did/ | {
"a_id": [
"c9kwoqm",
"c9kz8ij"
],
"score": [
5,
9
],
"text": [
"I don't know if you mean strictly science, but after encountering civilization that payed much attention to every-day life comfort and hygiene, westerners began equipping their homes with furniture. ",
"In my understanding that old idea of information transmitted through the Christian East has been rather debunked. Most of the things that the Islamic World transmitted to the West came through Spain, not Syria and Palestine. The eastern contacts were more important for economic reasons, moving goods into the Mediterranean that originated in the Far and Middle Easts. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
3jn2dw | Are artificial food dyes different than dyes used in craft supplies? | My kid is one of those kids who is sensitive to artificial food dyes.
We’re talking bouncing off the walls (literally), speaking gibberish kind of sensitive.
Red 40 is the devil.
Are the dyes used in face paint, rubber stamp ink or coloring markers different?
We avoid soaps and shampoo that contain dyes (listed on the ingredient panel) but craft supplies don’t usually list ingredients.
Does anyone know what the mechanism causing the reaction is within the food dyes?
Tired of being paranoid about this. I’d like him to enjoy some “normal” kid stuff.
If the reaction wasn’t so dramatic and sometimes dangerous, I wouldn’t worry.
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
| askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3jn2dw/are_artificial_food_dyes_different_than_dyes_used/ | {
"a_id": [
"cuqrbwx",
"cur3s8k"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Dyes that are approved for use in food or hygiene products have undergone testing to various degrees in order to ensure that they are non-toxic in the quantities you'd find in those products. Crafts supplies have no such regulations in place, and there is no telling what materials are present in the dyes or pigments used. The best guarantee you can hope for is that they aren't toxic merely by being in their presence. For example, the glass containers you can buy for dirt cheap at a craft store are often full of lead, and they will usually say that they are not meant for the storage of food or drinks. \n\nUnfortunately, we are a long way off from knowing what the specific effect of food dyes on children with ADHD is. The state of the field is that researchers are still trying to establish that there even is a reproducible link between food dyes and hyperactivity. If that research is successful in nailing down a precise link, other scientists can begin work on figuring out exactly how that effect comes about. ",
"Red 40 is one of several food colourings that have been linked to ADHD in children, however the precise nature of the reaction has yet to be determined. It should be noted that the American FDA has disputed these findings, although its dispute seems to be somewhat semantic: as far as I can tell the FDA is relying on the fact that no link has been established between behavioural changes and grown ups.\n\nRed 40 is what chemists call an azo-dye. Many, but not all, of the dyes that have been linked to ADHD in children are azo-dyes. It is likely these dyes are broken down into something that affects behaviour. Establishing a definite biological pathway and dose-response link will take some time and is difficult because there is no chemical test for hyperactivity.\n\nThe dyes in question are all reds and yellows. I recommend feeding your child only blue foods from now on."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
3l5vg6 | How does the UV Catastrophe relate to the quantization of energy? | It's said that this problem can't be resolved using classical mechanics, yet it seems intuitive enough since temperature is related to frequency that a blackbody at a given temperature would have a lower probability of emitting a wavelength of light more probably found at a higher temperature. I don't understand why the energy of the intensity vs frequency curve would approach infinity like classical mechanics originally thought it did. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3l5vg6/how_does_the_uv_catastrophe_relate_to_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cv3gsea"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The basic problem can be thought of like this: in classical thermodynamics there is the [equipartition theorem](_URL_0_) which means that each mode has the same (finite) average energy. The electromagnetic field has an infinity of modes, hence the problem.\n\nedit: corralled some runaway words "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipartition_theorem"
]
]
|
|
puth7 | Is it possible to condition your own bladder to hold more liquid? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/puth7/is_it_possible_to_condition_your_own_bladder_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"c3shg7n"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The feeling of needing to urinate stems from mechanoreceptors in the bladder, it's certainly possible to learn to develop tolerance to the desire to urinate and as such increase the length of time between urinating. Drugs such as Tolterodine and various bladder training techniques have been shown to help increase the volume stored within the bladder but these were patients with over-active bladders."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
cjf4ug | Why were the Anglo-Saxons one of the only Germanic groups who didn’t assimilate into the cultures they conquered? | The Goths integrated into the local cultures of what is now Italy, Spain, Portugal and Eastern Europe. The Franks adopted Gallo-Roman culture in what is now France. The Normans assimilated into French culture and other Viking groups integrated into Slavic, Irish and Scottish culture. Why didn’t the Anglo-Saxons assimilate into the Celtic-Roman culture they conquered? Was the scale of migration much larger than other Germanic groups or were there other factors? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cjf4ug/why_were_the_anglosaxons_one_of_the_only_germanic/ | {
"a_id": [
"evdzbzt"
],
"score": [
15
],
"text": [
"Who says that they didn't? Robin Fleming argues in *Britain After Rome* that the idea of the Anglo-Saxons as a purely Germanic culture is misguided and not supported by the evidence that we have available through archaeology. She points to the blend of clothing and jewelry styles that emerged following \"Anglo-Saxon\" migration to Britain as evidence that these two cultures were assimilating into something difference from either that came before. She views this process as more or less a peaceful one. While they was some endemic violence inherent to the time period, she does not see evidence for the mass violence that is often assumed to have accompanied the Germanic migration into Britain.\n\nHowever Peter Heather offers another explanation that is worth mentioning. He posits that due to the fragmented and small scale nature of migration into Britain, combined with a fluid cultural identity for the native British there was little reason for the native British to hang onto their culture in certain parts of Britain so the population assimilated into the new Germanic one.\n\nAlso worth bearing in mind is that the label of \"Anglo-Saxon\" as applied to the migrators themselves is misleading. While many of the Germanic people who came to England did come from Jutland or Saxony, others came from Norway, Frisia, Ireland (not even Germanic people!), and Sweden. Also that the process of assimilation was not as smooth in some of these places as you might imagine. For example, Frankish Law (or Salic Law) maintained legal distinctions between Franks and Romans for centuries following Frankish control over northern Gaul. Even though the populations \"assimilated\" in the end, we should not imagine that this process was quick, easy, or assumed."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1tb10p | why do my muscles hurt after using them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tb10p/eli5_why_do_my_muscles_hurt_after_using_them/ | {
"a_id": [
"ce6542r",
"ce658y9",
"ce66i0y"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"You are literally damaging them on the cellular level. That's what prompts them to rebuild and become stronger.",
"Lactic acid build up within the muscle may cause pain. Muscle tightness also may cause pain in the muscle.",
"Teeny tiny tears in your muscle that repair themselves."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
]
|
||
534uvf | Why does my vision change when I focus intently on anything around me? | Let me paint a picture to further explain:
I'm sitting in a dimly lit, small room. I stare at a wall or anything with sharply contrasting colors and shapes. If I focus long enough on a single point, the outer regions of my vision turn black; eventually this blackness fills up all of my vision besides the focal point, but recedes quickly if I shift my vision even a centimeter.
If I'm able to maintain focus without waver, eventually the blackness in my vision shifts to what I can only describe as an image in high contrast and black and white. It's hard to put this into words but imagine a picture that is in HDR with the contrast turned all the way up and in black and white.
Can anyone shed light (no pun intended) on what I'm experiencing? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/534uvf/why_does_my_vision_change_when_i_focus_intently/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7r4n3t"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"When you [stabilize an image on your retina](_URL_1_) for a long time, you adapt to portions of the image and stop noticing / seeing them. The auditory equivalent is when you do not notice the hum of a light or a fan until you pay attention to it again. Normally, your eyes are moving many times a second, even when you are fixating on something, in order to provide some change in the sensory input to a portion of your retina. This is called a [microsaccade](_URL_0_). "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsaccade",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabilized_images"
]
]
|
|
2sjd79 | what is going to make future 5g internet, faster than current 4g networks? | 'Gigabit' Internet, better coverage and signal efficiency on a *mobile* network?!
How are they doing it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sjd79/eli5_what_is_going_to_make_future_5g_internet/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnq07ip"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Well, there was a mobile network CEO or tech apecialist recently that described how the 5g network will work. It will be closer to skynet in terms of the net will be smarter, faster, more organized, and better equipped with newer generation technology that enables up to gigabit. There will be bigger, thicker cables to every cell tower so that connectivity will be wider spread and more reliable. The network will be smarter in the sense that it can tell when your battery is low and it'll start pinging your phone less, and more organized since there will likely be a prioritization system set up that deals with making business lines have a higher priority than our own commercial lines. Generally, the network will be smarter and more efficient for every cent spent on it."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
155sy2 | How was life as a Carthaginian compared to life as a Roman? | A bit of background:
The Creative Assembly(CA), developers of the upcoming game Total War: Rome 2 have started to talk about the factions, and Rome and Carthage are included.
However, their descriptions caused quite the rage on the TW forums.
Rome is described as "militaristic" and "able to exploit the masses to improve public order", while Carthage is described as a democracy.
So i decided to ask a real historian - was the average Carthaginian more free than his Roman counterpart? Was Rome really "militaristic"?
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/155sy2/how_was_life_as_a_carthaginian_compared_to_life/ | {
"a_id": [
"c7jjrrz",
"c7jlin8",
"c7jnf4p",
"c7jnkrw",
"c7jq31d",
"c7jqy37",
"c7jru7f"
],
"score": [
38,
83,
37,
8,
10,
13,
2
],
"text": [
"Eckstein in *Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome* argued that Rome was no more militaristic than any other Mediterranean state. He was bucking the traditional claim that Rome was super-militaristic, but I think he's convincing.",
"So there's this incident where Claudius is headed to what is now England in a ship. He gets spotted by a Carthaginian ship, and it's one group of rowers against the other. Claudius argues the reason his rowers won (and escaped) was that they were free men, while the Carthaginian rowers were slaves. But that was much later, and we're talking a very different Carthage than the one during the Punic wars.\n\nNot only that, to believe the argument, you have to trust the ancient sources, and the modern one (Graves, in this case). For your basic question, \"Was Rome really militaristic,\" the answer can only be yes. Was Carthage a democracy? that's a modern question, which may not actually be relevant in ancient terms.\n\nThey *did* have election of kings, but we would describe it as an oligarchy. Look up \"Tribunal of 104\" if you're interested. Your average Carthaginian citizen was more interested in trade than fighting, so they depended heavily on mercenaries from subjugated provinces for their military. The struggles for power would have been familiar to any Roman: political murders, bought offices, intrigue and deceit. Both systems thought of themselves as republics.\n\nOne other problem: most of the writers we base our view on were actually foreigners, in many cases hostile foreigners. It's difficult, under such circumstances, to make real assertions. But some basic things are clear: Rome had a plunder economy, while Carthage was based slightly more on trade. Land power vs. sea power. Citizen military vs. mercenaries. All those are oversimplifications, but have some truth to them. The modern concept of freedom can't be said to apply.\n\nI haven't researched the \"rage on the TW forums,\" but if they're pro-Rome, they're probably misreading. Arguing that the Romans were a positive influence is another modern simplification. They made life suck for any non-Roman area (such is the nature of a plunder economy), and for the majority of Romans themselves. Their whole system was based on the idea that \"We're going to kick your ass and take all your stuff.\"",
"I suspect the CA guys were being intentionally provocative to counteract the widespread perception of Carthaginians as sinister, debauched baby murderers. ",
"In a related question, do was have any of the Punic language around? I know Hebrew and can sometimes figure out inscriptions of other Canaanite languages when they're transcribed into Hebrew letters, and I'm curious.",
"From my understanding, the Carthaginians lived under a mercantile timocracy (not a democracy). The Roman Republic, although not as democratic as some of the governments of Greece, gave each property owning free male a stake in government and involvement in war. This resulted in what Victor Davis Hanson has called \"civic militarism,\" essentially explaining how the Romans were able to fill their ranks after losing between 50 and 75 thousand men at Cannae. Hanson contrasts the Roman \"citizen soldier\" with the Carthaginian mercenary. To say that Rome was \"militaristic\" at the time of Punic Wars is not a very precise or enlightening statement. It was more nuanced than simple \"militarism.\"",
"If you're interested in Carthage, you might be interested in [this previous AMA about Carthage](_URL_0_).\n\nAs for Rome... it was also democratic. Possibly more so than Carthage. Theoretically, every Roman citizen could vote for the magistrates every year (even if not all tribes actually got to vote in any given year). Romans were extremely free. They lived in a much less regulated society than most modern \"free\" democracies. \n\nAnd, in terms of militarism... At the time of the war with Carthage, service in the Roman military was entirely voluntary but expected (if that makes sense). While there was no law *requiring* men to join the army, there was an expectation that all men who owned property (and therefore had something to defend) would join any military attempt to defend that property. Also, men in the army of that period were not paid (this came later), and were expected to provide their own weapons and equipment. The Roman military at this time was considered purely defensive, and was an honourable duty required of the propertied classes. However, the instant that any threat was removed, the army disbanded, and the soldiers went back to their normal lives as senators or merchants or farmers.\n\nSo, it looks like the Creative Assembly developers have over-simplified these two cultures to the point of inaccuracy.\n",
"If you're looking for a fairly comprehensive book on the subject I would recommend \"Carthage Must Be Destroyed\" by Richard Miles"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/111l4s/saturday_ama_carthage_and_its_phoenician_origins/"
],
[]
]
|
|
3cua55 | How did the United States of America arrive at their valuation of Greenland in 1946? Could the area have been worth the cost of purchase in terms of economic output, or was the value purely strategic? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3cua55/how_did_the_united_states_of_america_arrive_at/ | {
"a_id": [
"cszkfpd"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Initially, America very much wanted it for strategic reasons. The GIUK Gap was hugely important. Specifically, it was important to the Soviet Union's submarine fleet.\n\nIf you look at the terms of the [Montreux Convention](_URL_2_), it was impossible to \"sneak\" a submarine through Turkish waters. If you look at a map of the Baltic Sea, or more specifically the [waters around Denmark](_URL_0_), it's similarly unlikely that you could ever sneak a submarine past even a semi-aware detection network. Denmark, of course, was one of the founding dozen of NATO.\n\nThis means that if the Soviets actually want to conduct any submarine operations with any degree of stealth, they need to be based out of Murmansk in the White Sea or somewhere in East Asia (Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, Magadan, or Sovetskaya Gavan. Realistically, if the Soviets wanted to have their submarines remain undetected, they really could only use those five ports. And if you wanted to operate in the Atlantic, you weren't going to put your HQ on the northwestern coast of the Pacific. You were going to put it in Murmansk.\n\nThis, effectively, meant that any ships the Soviets sent to the Atlantic had to pass through the GIUK Gap. And it would be relatively easy to detect (and subsequently track or shadow) them if you had assets in the area beforehand. And it's kind of hard to be all sneaky and such when the USN is dropping [practice depth charges on you](_URL_4_). They couldn't do any meaningful damage, of course, but it's an implicit threat: the USN was basically saying, \"we could sink you at any time.\" \n\nAs for the overall economic value of Greenland: that's up in the air. We [already see](_URL_1_) Greenland being exploited for hydrocarbons. The USGS released a review of hydrocarbons in the region [here](_URL_3_). I believe they described it as \"a genuinely stupid amount of dead dead plants buried in the sea floor.\" (Okay, that wasn't their exact phrasing.) (._.)\n\nTheoretically, yes, Greenland would've paid for itself. Eventually. If the estimates actually pan out. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Belte_inter.png",
"http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/09/24-greenland-energy-mineral-resources-boersma-foley/greenland-hydrocarbon-map-page-size.jpg?la=en",
"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention",
"http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1750",
"http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/"
]
]
|
||
3yj1wt | has the physiological damage caused by trauma been the same through out history? | I hear many stories of people being raped or kidnapped and tortured and the person suffers physiological damaged for years, possibly for life. However, in the past rape and torture and all manors of horrible harm were infected on people on a routine basis. Was nearly everyone in the past emotionally and physiologically damaged from the struggle of day to day life, or does our modern soft life make us more susceptible to physiological and emotional pain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yj1wt/eli5_has_the_physiological_damage_caused_by/ | {
"a_id": [
"cydtqt0",
"cydtxjk"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"No. Trauma has been present with humanity throughout our history. The difference is that nowadays, we are allowed to actually speak about our traumas, and help them heal, whereas in the past there was mostly an attitude of 'why are you acting like this, stop it'. Or if it was mentioned, it was mentioned in vague terms that do not always translate well to modern ears. The deadly sin sloth, for example, initially didn't really refer to simple laziness. It was meant for apathy and loss of interest in life, exactly the sort of symptoms commonly associated with depression (potentially due to former trauma). ",
"Yeah, no, it wasn't nearly as common as you seem to think. Why do you think things like the Salem Witch Trials or the Spanish Inquisition are such a big deal in history books a century later? People only get tortured and raped by every other guy on the street in the movies.\n\nThe fact of the matter is, by the time it got to torture, most people didn't survive it. And those who did, well... we don't know how damaged they were, because it almost always ended with them confessing to something they were going to be executed for anyway. As far as rape goes, depending on what part of the world you were in, you could either be killed for being raped, or forced to marry your attacker - there's no record of what women suffered under those conditions because no one cared. That does not remotely begin to mean they were okay."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
3g5fna | Why was the USS Indianapolis sailing without an escort when she was sunk? | Was it normal for cruiser with limited anti submarine weaponry to operate alone?
I realise the delivery of the atomic bomb would have been classed as top secret, but why not at least attach a destroyer to escort her? Would it have made any difference to operational security? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3g5fna/why_was_the_uss_indianapolis_sailing_without_an/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctvmm7e"
],
"score": [
16
],
"text": [
"It's normal for a cruiser to operate alone without destroyer escort in some circumstances. A heavy cruiser is an important asset, but it's not a capital ship that will shift the balance of naval power if lost. Destroyers were always in high demand for various roles in world war two and there were usually not enough to go around. A cruiser task force going in to action might normally include some destroyers, but not each individual cruiser on a non-combat mission.\n\nAnti-submarine weaponry in World War Two was generally only effective *after* the submarine was detected. An escorting destroyer would not have been able to detect the submarine and prevent the Indianapolis's loss, (high speed reduces the ability of surface ships to detect submarines) although it may have meant a ship was present to rescue survivors or counterattack the submarine. A heavy cruiser is much faster than a submarine (surfaced or submerged) and a fast speed and zig-zag pattern course (which the Indianapolis should have been following but wasn't) will generally provide as much protection as possible against the submarine's first salvo of torpedoes.\n\nThe main reason to avoid including destroyers as escorts to a heavy cruiser is range. Destroyers have a much shorter operating range than cruisers, especially at high speeds, and the voyage from Honolulu to the Marianas would be too close for safety to the maximum operating range of a WWII destroyer. Destroyers accompanying major task forces have to periodically refuel from supply ships or larger warships, which is time consuming and creates a moment of vulnerability.\n"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1x45w6 | What adaptations do humans have that allow them to remain balanced without a tail? | For example, raptors had a similar body plan, being bipedal. They required a long, thick tail to shift their center of balance. Why do humans remain balanced while climbing, running, standing on one leg or other doing other activities? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1x45w6/what_adaptations_do_humans_have_that_allow_them/ | {
"a_id": [
"cf7zcww"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"During the time our tails were disappearing (and they still are, if you look at our skeletons), we began to evolve a sense called Equilibrioception—or balance.\n\nEquilibrioception makes use of a variety of sensory input to keep us from falling over while walking or standing:\n\n1. Visual cues, like the horizon and the horizontal angle of local references (e.g. flat surfaces, the level of other's eyes).\n\n2. Vestibular system—there are specialized, liquid-filled canals in our ears that contain super-sensitive hairs that can track the internal movement of the liquid when the head changes position. This gives us information on the angular and rotational movements of our head, much like a smartphone's accelerometer.\n\n3. Proprioception—the body's own perception of where it is in space, made possible by special nerves located within joints and muscles attached to our skeletal system. These nerves allow our limbs and joints a general idea of relative distance to each other, and also clue them in on some motion/acceleration information by sensing the physical effort currently being exerted by muscles (e.g. during running, jumping, etc)."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1ayjco | "Rubbing Alcohol" is the main ingredient in most skin care (and other) products but we've all been told to basically not use it for anything except an antiseptic. Why? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ayjco/rubbing_alcohol_is_the_main_ingredient_in_most/ | {
"a_id": [
"c91yf9u",
"c91yl92"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"If I remember correctly, there are two big reasons for this:\n\nWhen the skin dries up, it flakes off and ends up in the pores which will cause more blemishes then when you originally started.\n\nSecond, because it dries up so much, your skin will try to regain a balance and then overproduce oils, creating a longterm problem.",
"Alcohol is used in these things to solubilize the other ingredients. As it's able to dissolve organic and polar substances. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
||
5m2l4c | When did the US Government begin doubting that China/Taiwan would ever retake the Chinese mainland? | I mean before they recognized CCP as the new China legally. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5m2l4c/when_did_the_us_government_begin_doubting_that/ | {
"a_id": [
"dc0sgnr"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"The US was never really under any illusions that the nationalists would somehow turn things around in the Civil War after they retreated to Taiwan. Even before the end of WW2 there had been multiple American observers and experts in China who had reported the Communists enjoyed much broader popularity than the Nationalists, and by 1949 the GMD was very obviously overwhelmed.\n\nBefore the Chinese entered the Korean War, the US was expecting an invasion by the mainland to finish things off, and the US government had diplomatically indicated that they weren't going to do anything about it. Only when the Chinese entered the Korean War did the US send the 7th Fleet to the Strait of China to prevent the invasion. They also began to provide the Taiwanese military with equipment and weapons.\n\nAfter the war the US certainly hoped that the CCP would crumble, but their support of Taiwan was based on denying the CCP territory, and especially on keeping China's UN security council vote out of the hands of the Communists. There was no real belief that Taiwan could attack the CCP."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
ky24g | How do physics and astronomy undergrad majors differ? | Right now I'm a physics undergrad but astronomy/astrophysics is where my real interests lie. I was just curious (since my school only offers an astronomy minor) how similar they are. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ky24g/how_do_physics_and_astronomy_undergrad_majors/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2o6ezu",
"c2o6ezu"
],
"score": [
7,
7
],
"text": [
"They are very similar, but you'd do better to get a degree in physics if you're really interested in high level astronomy. Astronomy degrees can focus too much on what may or may not be relevant to your interests. It's better to get a broad understanding of physics, rather than an astronomical based understanding of it. Your appreciation and understanding of astronomy will only benefit.\n\nIf you plan on going to grad school, many people recommend a math degree with either a duel degree in physics, or at least a minor. Almost everyone regrets not taking more math.",
"They are very similar, but you'd do better to get a degree in physics if you're really interested in high level astronomy. Astronomy degrees can focus too much on what may or may not be relevant to your interests. It's better to get a broad understanding of physics, rather than an astronomical based understanding of it. Your appreciation and understanding of astronomy will only benefit.\n\nIf you plan on going to grad school, many people recommend a math degree with either a duel degree in physics, or at least a minor. Almost everyone regrets not taking more math."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
252kku | how do octopuses avoid giving themselves brain damage? | Octopuses, in general, are probably one of the most intelligent non-human animals on this planet, which speaks to a highly developed brain structure.
Yet, they're also extremely flexible and lack any sort of supporting skeleton (for the most part) How do octopuses avoid damaging their brains when they squeeze into tiny spaces or (in the case of captive octopuses) leaving their tanks? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/252kku/eli5how_do_octopuses_avoid_giving_themselves/ | {
"a_id": [
"chd0t6m"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"They don't really have a localized brain, like we do. Rather, it is spread throughout their body, with a lot of neural tissue in the tentacles."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
3q1dai | why did we go from round headphone wires to flat ones? | As far as I know they both get equally tangled. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q1dai/eli5_why_did_we_go_from_round_headphone_wires_to/ | {
"a_id": [
"cwb7t8j",
"cwbc8ms"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"i'm not sure what you mean. all headphones i've bought in the past few years have round wires. can you give an example of these \"flat\" wires?",
"Flat wires do have a harder time getting tangled. Also some prefer them for aesthetic reasons. That's pretty much it. It's worth noting though that the conductors inside most \"flat\" wires are still round. Just the insulation is molded to look flat."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[],
[]
]
|
|
3spya0 | who was the last living person to hold the position (however ceremonial) of a roman senator? When was the last time the Roman senate met? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3spya0/who_was_the_last_living_person_to_hold_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cx05k5j"
],
"score": [
31
],
"text": [
"The Roman Senate continued to meet throughout the first part of the sixth century, and even enjoyed a renaissance of sorts under the barbaric rulers beginning with Odoacer and especially under Theodoric the Great. The Gothic Wars, though, devastated Italy in the mid-sixth century, and Rome was no exception. In 536, it was recaptured by the Eastern Romans; a siege began shortly thereafter in March 537 and lasted for a year; sacked in 546 by Totila (during the siege of which, a famine haunted the city); captured again in 550 by Totila; and finally captured for good by the Eastern Roman General Narses in 552. \n\nNonetheless, the Roman Senate did survive all these events, albeit in diminished form. We know that they continued to meet in some fashion because they pleaded Emperor Tiberius II Constantine for help against the Lombards in 578, sending an envoy to Constantinople with 3,000 pounds of gold. (The Emperor returned the gold, saying there were no troops to spare and instead advised the Senate to spend it on using it to secure support from Lombard and Frankish rulers)\n\nBut by 593, Pope Gregory I wrote the following in his Homilies on Ezekial (essentially a reflection on the dire state of the world):\n\n > Where is the senate? Where are the people? The senate is vanished, the people have perished... Rome is empty and yet Rome is burning.\n\nBy 593, Rome of course was not empty, and was probably a city of some 30,000 - 50,000, making it still one of the largest cities in Europe at the time even though it was a shadow of its former self. So what he said should not be taken literally, but it's indicative of the decline of the Roman Senate.\n\nThe last time the Senate is mentioned though is in 603 in the Gregorian Register, in which it is noted as having acclaimed new statues of Emperor Phocas and Empress Leontia. But, it's referenced in the register as, \"by the whole clergy and the senate.\" Moreover, the Pope ordered the statues to be moved to the chapel of the Imperial Palace on the Palatine. So it seems clear that in whatever form the Senate existed by 603, it was clearly no longer a significant body. After that time, there's no more references to the Senate, and we know that in 630, its meeting place (the Julia Curia) was converted to a church.\n\nI think it's worth quickly noting though that the Eastern Roman Senate continued to meet in Constantinople for hundreds of years afterward. It was mostly a ceremonial body during this time, although it did have some influence (in 1197, they exempted Constantinople, and thus themselves, from a special tax that the Emperor had specifically convened them to approve). \n\nAs for the last person to hold the position, I have no idea. Boethius is probably the last well-known Roman Senator (don't take my word for that), but the Senate continued to function for decades after his death in 524. The last consul was Anicius Faustus Albinus Basilius in 541. After him, the title was added to the Imperial title until Emperor Leo VI got rid of it altogether in the late 9th century. \n\nSome sources:\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://books.google.com/books?id=vQFBAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false",
"https://books.google.com/books?id=Qf8mrHjfZRoC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=senate+3000+gold+pounds+578&source=bl&ots=1e4_Wi7nGu&sig=m3FvwFmHbMZnGmlfpBKtpaHdpIY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBGoVChMI88e4_MmQyQIVwZseCh2G7gs6#v=onepage&q=senate%203000%20gold%20pounds%20578&f=false",
"https://books.google.com/books?id=Zod9AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=pope+gregory+593+roman+senate&source=bl&ots=rlrMg2wjuQ&sig=jHHuIvz6KpJhmGTJm9k5jRwC2CE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDEQ6AEwA2oVChMI182EzcqQyQIVgpoeCh0nZQxa#v=onepage&q=pope%20gregory%20593%20roman%20senate&f=false"
]
]
|
||
5pmhiw | American and Russian submarines during WW2 | I remember my physics teacher telling us this story.
How he told it was, that a US submarine was following (?) a Russian submarine. For some reason, the Russian one had to go somewhere as soon as possible, so they went full speed forward. The Americans then didn't like that (doesn't make much sense, but thats how I remember it) and shot a torpedo after them. The Russian submarine however, was faster than that torpedo.
What the fun part about this is, that Americans were boasting that they have the best and fastest submarines back then.
So my question is, is that true? Did my memory mix up the nations? And does anyone have an explanation or a link to this, or some similar story? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5pmhiw/american_and_russian_submarines_during_ww2/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcsgxxh"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"During WWII the United States Navy used the Mark 14 torpedo. The torpedo had a speed of 46 knots. Now it is unclear what class of Soviet submarine was being used but I can assure you that it would have been hopelessly outmatched in terms of submerged speed. From what I found the submerged top speed of most submarines of that era top out at around 10-14 knots. And actually that torpedo would be able to catch the fastest submarine in the world, the Soviet K-222 which had a top speed of 44.7 knots and was commissioned in 1969."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.