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5fk5gh | graphic card memory | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fk5gh/eli5_graphic_card_memory/ | {
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"Graphics card memory is RAM that's built directly into the video card itself.\n\nUnlike general RAM which can be used for whatever, this stuff is reserved for *just* graphics, and being hooked right to the GPU makes it fast and easy fo rthe GPU to use it.\n\nTypically, things like textures are stored in this memory. More memory means higher resolution textures can be stored, [which gives you nice graphics like this.](_URL_0_). Things like lighting and shadows also use memory, if there isn't enough memory available to remember what's in light or shadow the game may simplify or skip over how it handles lights.",
"The graphics card is like a small computer with its own processor, memory, bus, input and output. Notice that ASUS and Gigabyte are motherboard manufacturers while AMD and Intel are making both kinds of processors, both CPU and GPU. When you are playing the game there are different types of workload. All the logics of the game like the AI, game rules, etc. is best handled by a linear processor like the CPU. However drawing graphics (and physics but this is often using spare CPU power) requires the same operation multiple times and is best handled on a parallel processor like the GPU. This means that all assets needed to draw the graphics will be loaded into the graphics memory for easy access by the GPU so it does not have to go to the main memory all the time. The CPU tells the GPU where the camera and other objects are in the scene but the graphics memory contains all the polygons and textures in the scene. If you have more memory you can fit more details such as more polygons or higher resolution textures."
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1h8qs3 | Terms in electrolysis which confuses me. | **What is it meant by a negative and positive electrode, and negative and positive terminal of electrolysis?
**
In a simple electrolysis setup, there is an anode and cathode. The anode which is positively charged is where electrons are flowing away from and the cathode, which is negatively charged is where electrons are flowing to. Hence, is the anode the positively charged electrode, negative electrode? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1h8qs3/terms_in_electrolysis_which_confuses_me/ | {
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"Current is said to flow from positive to negative because scientists guessed it did a long time ago. It turns out they were wrong and it was particles moving in the other direction, but it was too late to change all the books and terms so electrons are said to flow from negative to positive.",
"I work with electrochemistry and you have NO IDEA how annoying the terminology is. So literally every time I go through any conversation, I restate what I mean by each term. There are 2 conventions that use opposite meanings. \n\nHere are the facts:\n\n1) Electrons have a negative charge\n\n2) Crowding electrons together builds up negative charge, and makes that space have a higher energy\n\n3) Things always flow from higher energy to lower energy\n\n\nSo anode can mean either one. ALWAYS SPECIFY WHAT YOU MEAN. Electrons move away from the negatively charged electrode (which I call the anode) and towards the positively charged electrode (which I call the cathode).\n\n\nEDIT: Let me clarify that I am using terms opposite of IUPAC convention. I will restate with current conventions.\n\nFor most people, think of the perspective from the device measuring current, not the solution. You have some potentiostat (or battery, or voltameter) hooked up to 2 electrodes. It receives electrons from one and gives electrons to the other. The electrode it is receiving electrons from is called the ANODE. In the solution, ANIONS move towards it and give off an electron (this means the anion in the solution is being OXIDIZED) that is carried to the device. So electrons are flowing solution -- > anode -- > measuring device. Likewise the CATHODE is the one that the device is giving electrons to. In the solution CATIONS move towards it and receive an electron (this means the cation in the solution is being REDUCED) and thus pull electrons from the cathode. So electrons are flowing measuring device -- > cathode -- > solution.\n\nI hope this clarifies it some.",
"The anode is ALWAYS the electrode where the oxidation reaction occurs. Similarly, the cathode is the electrode where reduction reaction occurs. Just remember \n\n*AnOx, RedCat*\n\nThe anode and cathode switch depending on whether the cell is galvanic or electrolytic.",
"My time to shine. The word anode is originated from the greek word *anodos* 'way up', from *ana* 'up' + *hodos* 'way'. Now, picture how most electrolysis chambers are built. As /u/Spewis mentions, anode is where oxidation, or a net loss of electrons, occurs. As in, electrons escape from the chamber via this electrode (think up up and away).\n\nSimilarly cathode is *kathodos* 'way down', from *kata-* 'down' + *hodos* 'way'. This is where reduction happens (a net gain of electrons), or where electrons go down into the chamber.\n\nEdit: wording, grammar."
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17s69i | what would happen to italy if we got out the euro? | What would be the consequence on the economy? I mean, everyone on television says that if Italy (or any other country in the euro) should get out, there would be awful consequences on that country's economy.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17s69i/what_would_happen_to_italy_if_we_got_out_the_euro/ | {
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"No one really knows and that is what makes it so scary.\n\nOne problem is that your debt would still be in Euros, so going back to the Lira would not get you back in control of your debt. While debtors do not like the idea that you would inflate your way out of debt, they prefer that to the idea of default. So it is easier to borrow if you can borrow in your own money because debtors know that if push comes to shove, you can always print money to pay them back. But with you debt in Euros, lenders would worry about default.\n\nThere is also the problem of contracts written in euros. What would happen to those. Would a contract between Italians be translated into Lira? How about a contract between an Italian and a German. What about your bank deposits. You put Euros in the bank. But would you get Lira when you take it out? Probably so. It would probably all get translated into Lira at some rate. That means it all has to be done quickly and as a surprise to avoid a run on the backs because people would have more faith in the euro and want to get euros in had before the switch.\n\nAnd if Italy had to default on it debt in Euros, it might make it very hard for them to get new loans in Lira.\n\nSo the fear is that there would be confusion and chaos. \n\nBut it might be better the continuing with German demands for more and more austerity. The problem with austerity, is that every time you cut back on government spending to reduce the debt, the economy takes a hit, unemployment goes up, and tax receipts go down. The reduction in taxes offsets your cut in spending so that your deficit is no better but your economy is worse. There is no way to pay off your debts with so many people unemployed not producing any wealth to pay off the debts with. If you had the Lira, its value would be going down as people became worried about the debt, and everyone would take a hit. The whole country would be poorer because their money would be worth less, but the would still have their jobs and would still be producing wealth that lets you dig your way back out."
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9vg7qy | How do you store plasma? | I know it can be generated in various ways but can it be stored for any meaningful length of time? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9vg7qy/how_do_you_store_plasma/ | {
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"Magnetic fields can be used to store a plasma. This is done in fusion reactors, for example. Alternatively you can just keep it in a regular container but keep supplying energy to ionize new atoms while others become neutral."
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lx6ac | Is it possible to generate every possible combination of every pixel on your screen to create every image that could ever be taken? (For a specific resolution, anyways) | Theoretically possible I mean.
I know the amount of data and computational power necessary for that far exceeds what we can currently do... but how much data would it be? How long would it take with current technology? And again, is it possible? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lx6ac/is_it_possible_to_generate_every_possible/ | {
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"I'll assume a 1920x1080 resolution. Each pixel has three red, green, and blue sub-pixels that can each be in one of 256 brightness values, therefore each pixel can display as many as 256^3 = 16,777,216 colors.\n\nA 1920x1080 resolution screen has 1920*1080 = 2,073,600 pixels. Therefore, there are 16,777,216^2,073,600 possible images that a screen with that many pixels could display. That number has nearly 15 _million_ decimal digits. That's a big number. At this point I think you can see that even the most advanced technologies would still take an incomprehensible amount of time to go through all of them.",
"It's pretty easy to write code that will iterate through every color value for every pixel. The problem is that the number of iterations is unimaginably huge and all but a tiny, tiny fraction of those images will be completely meaningless noise.\n\nFor example, trying to generate valid English words by trying every combination of letters. For 3 letters, there's 3^26 = 17,576 combinations, but only a few hundred of them are valid words (_URL_0_). At 5 seconds a word it'd take just over 24 hours to check the entire list for valid words by hand.\n\nNow extrapolate that for (x*y)^c where x*y is your resolution and c is the number of colors. Before you get to a resolution where any meaningful images can be made, you've got more iterations than you could go check for meaning in a lifetime.\n\nI suppose you could connect it to some kind of computer vision system that would try to extract meaning from the images so you didn't have to look at every single one, but that would still generate a huge number of false positives.\n\ntl;dr - You can ~~do it~~ generate the images easily enough, but most of the images will be garbage and there's no way of easily extracting the meaningful images from the noise.",
"I think that [this thread](_URL_0_) would interest you.",
"This is conceptually similar to [The Library of Babel](_URL_0_), a thought experiment in which a library contains every possible combination of letters that could compose a 410 page book. I figured you might be interested.\n\nIn the library is a 410 page book about the first year of your life. And another one about the second. And so on. There are books with 410 page summaries of your entire life, including years you have not yet lived. But there are many, many more books of 410 page summaries of your entire life that are only accurate up to this current moment, and they diverge from there, with no way to tell in advance which one is right, out of the nearly infinite copies that have your life right so far. Oh, and there are accurate translations of all of the above into all the languages covered by the alphabet you use in the library. \n\nMostly, though, almost all the books are pure gibberish.\n\nTaken to the current thought experiment, you'd have many accurate photos of your own life - when you were born, your first day at school (from every angle), etc., including photos of you in the future doing things you'll actually do. There's an even larger set of inaccurate photos of you. There are even textual descriptions of things not yet discovered.\n\nBut again, almost every image is ugly, ugly noise.\n\nPhilosophically, that brings me to my next point. Quine's reductio (see wikipedia page I linked) allows you to actually recreate the Library of Babel using finite resources, just repeating pages as necessary. In that way, you could just have some sort of Library of Pixels where the physical manifestation of the image you're looking up is generated on the fly as you search for it, from the search algorithm itself. So yes, it is possible to generate the library of images in a human-conceivable amount of time and computation power, but the images won't actually come into existence until you pull them up.",
"Assume 320 x 200 with four colors, i.e. CGA circa 1981.\n\nThat is 64,000 pixels, each with one of four color states.\n\nThis is 4^64000 different screen images.\n\nThat is approximately 7 x 10^38531.\n\nThat is a horrific number and well beyond anything you handle if you are talking about physical reality.\n\nThe algorithm is simple, it just takes essentially infinity time.\n",
"I created simulation in JavaScript [here](_URL_0_). It clearly shows how ludicrous amount of time it would take.",
"You can create something functionally equivalent to having the results of this image generation.\nLet's say you finish this task. You now have a folder full of images which let's say you've named according to the order in which you generated them (1.jpg,2.jpg,...N).\nNow you want to go open a specific image. It's way too much to scroll, so you just type in a number. \n > > open 123409871234.jpg\n\nExcellent! You've gotten very lucky, and this is a historically accurate rendering of Abe Lincoln riding a velociraptor.\n\nWell, as you can see from other comments, this is a very unlikely scenario because the size of the universe puts some pretty serious limits on how many images you'll be able to save to your hard drive.\n\nHowever, it would be pretty easy to write a program that allows you to act as if you have all the files on your computer already. The program could make it so that\n > > open 123409871234.jpg\n\nWould simply cause the 123409871234th image to be generated and displayed.\n\nMy point is that there is no reason to actually save all the images. Regardless of what you use them for, it will always be better to simply generate them on demand. Any possible agent that interacts with the set of all images would do better to simply interact with a program that generates the Nth image.",
"256 bit color, which is what you probably have, supports 255^3 or 16581375 colors.\n\nFor k pixels, there would be k^16581375 possible images. For instance, my screen is 1440 by 900. That would be 1296000^16581375 images, or 10^80 images. If they were to flash on the screen for 1/60th of a second, about the time it takes for you to see 1 frame of vision, it would take about 10^70 years to finish, or about 10^60, that's 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times the amount of time the universe has been around.\n\nTheoretically possible, yes. Tractable? No.\n\nAnd, as stated above, one pixels requires 256 bits of color. So multiply 10^80 by 256 to get a rough amount of the bits required to store all of it.",
"I'll assume a 1920x1080 resolution. Each pixel has three red, green, and blue sub-pixels that can each be in one of 256 brightness values, therefore each pixel can display as many as 256^3 = 16,777,216 colors.\n\nA 1920x1080 resolution screen has 1920*1080 = 2,073,600 pixels. Therefore, there are 16,777,216^2,073,600 possible images that a screen with that many pixels could display. That number has nearly 15 _million_ decimal digits. That's a big number. At this point I think you can see that even the most advanced technologies would still take an incomprehensible amount of time to go through all of them.",
"It's pretty easy to write code that will iterate through every color value for every pixel. The problem is that the number of iterations is unimaginably huge and all but a tiny, tiny fraction of those images will be completely meaningless noise.\n\nFor example, trying to generate valid English words by trying every combination of letters. For 3 letters, there's 3^26 = 17,576 combinations, but only a few hundred of them are valid words (_URL_0_). At 5 seconds a word it'd take just over 24 hours to check the entire list for valid words by hand.\n\nNow extrapolate that for (x*y)^c where x*y is your resolution and c is the number of colors. Before you get to a resolution where any meaningful images can be made, you've got more iterations than you could go check for meaning in a lifetime.\n\nI suppose you could connect it to some kind of computer vision system that would try to extract meaning from the images so you didn't have to look at every single one, but that would still generate a huge number of false positives.\n\ntl;dr - You can ~~do it~~ generate the images easily enough, but most of the images will be garbage and there's no way of easily extracting the meaningful images from the noise.",
"I think that [this thread](_URL_0_) would interest you.",
"This is conceptually similar to [The Library of Babel](_URL_0_), a thought experiment in which a library contains every possible combination of letters that could compose a 410 page book. I figured you might be interested.\n\nIn the library is a 410 page book about the first year of your life. And another one about the second. And so on. There are books with 410 page summaries of your entire life, including years you have not yet lived. But there are many, many more books of 410 page summaries of your entire life that are only accurate up to this current moment, and they diverge from there, with no way to tell in advance which one is right, out of the nearly infinite copies that have your life right so far. Oh, and there are accurate translations of all of the above into all the languages covered by the alphabet you use in the library. \n\nMostly, though, almost all the books are pure gibberish.\n\nTaken to the current thought experiment, you'd have many accurate photos of your own life - when you were born, your first day at school (from every angle), etc., including photos of you in the future doing things you'll actually do. There's an even larger set of inaccurate photos of you. There are even textual descriptions of things not yet discovered.\n\nBut again, almost every image is ugly, ugly noise.\n\nPhilosophically, that brings me to my next point. Quine's reductio (see wikipedia page I linked) allows you to actually recreate the Library of Babel using finite resources, just repeating pages as necessary. In that way, you could just have some sort of Library of Pixels where the physical manifestation of the image you're looking up is generated on the fly as you search for it, from the search algorithm itself. So yes, it is possible to generate the library of images in a human-conceivable amount of time and computation power, but the images won't actually come into existence until you pull them up.",
"Assume 320 x 200 with four colors, i.e. CGA circa 1981.\n\nThat is 64,000 pixels, each with one of four color states.\n\nThis is 4^64000 different screen images.\n\nThat is approximately 7 x 10^38531.\n\nThat is a horrific number and well beyond anything you handle if you are talking about physical reality.\n\nThe algorithm is simple, it just takes essentially infinity time.\n",
"I created simulation in JavaScript [here](_URL_0_). It clearly shows how ludicrous amount of time it would take.",
"You can create something functionally equivalent to having the results of this image generation.\nLet's say you finish this task. You now have a folder full of images which let's say you've named according to the order in which you generated them (1.jpg,2.jpg,...N).\nNow you want to go open a specific image. It's way too much to scroll, so you just type in a number. \n > > open 123409871234.jpg\n\nExcellent! You've gotten very lucky, and this is a historically accurate rendering of Abe Lincoln riding a velociraptor.\n\nWell, as you can see from other comments, this is a very unlikely scenario because the size of the universe puts some pretty serious limits on how many images you'll be able to save to your hard drive.\n\nHowever, it would be pretty easy to write a program that allows you to act as if you have all the files on your computer already. The program could make it so that\n > > open 123409871234.jpg\n\nWould simply cause the 123409871234th image to be generated and displayed.\n\nMy point is that there is no reason to actually save all the images. Regardless of what you use them for, it will always be better to simply generate them on demand. Any possible agent that interacts with the set of all images would do better to simply interact with a program that generates the Nth image.",
"256 bit color, which is what you probably have, supports 255^3 or 16581375 colors.\n\nFor k pixels, there would be k^16581375 possible images. For instance, my screen is 1440 by 900. That would be 1296000^16581375 images, or 10^80 images. If they were to flash on the screen for 1/60th of a second, about the time it takes for you to see 1 frame of vision, it would take about 10^70 years to finish, or about 10^60, that's 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times the amount of time the universe has been around.\n\nTheoretically possible, yes. Tractable? No.\n\nAnd, as stated above, one pixels requires 256 bits of color. So multiply 10^80 by 256 to get a rough amount of the bits required to store all of it."
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1lmuu4 | I just recently read that there's a black hole at the center of our galaxy, would it be logical to assume that there might be one at the center of most galaxies and nebulae, thus causing them to contract in the first place? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1lmuu4/i_just_recently_read_that_theres_a_black_hole_at/ | {
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"Not really. Most galaxies have them yes but not nebulae. For galaxies it's still a chicken an egg question, did supermassive black holes form very early and take part in galactic formation, if so how did they collapse? Or were they simply an outcome of the collapse of the central regions of proto-galaxies already forming? Right now it isn't known. We can see similar things in some globular clusters but smaller black holes, intermediate mass black holes. Again which came first isn't known . To be clear these black holes are not massive enough to cause the entire galaxy or cluster to orbit them but they may be a disruptive presence which assists collapse and formation.\n\nOn the topic of nebulae there are a few types. Planetary nebula and supernova remnants are from dying stars, they didn't collapse to form the nebula. Star forming regions and diffuse nebulae do collapse but it is not really due to one gravitational body, as far as I'm aware a supermassive black hole has never been found in a nebulae (ignoring galactic centres, which are sometimes somewhat nebulous). You do sometimes find black holes in star forming regions but this is to be expected, stars are forming including massive ones (which can die fast) and gas is collapsing (direct collapse to a black hole is possible). It does not mean they formed the nebula, I'm quite sure none found in nebulae are massive enough."
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6hv5e2 | In animals with a larger brains than humans, what is the purpose of their extra brain mass and volume? | Intelligence across species is best predicted by brain mass to body mass ratio, and not by absolute brain mass. For example, an elephant's brain is ~5kg whereas a human's brain is around 1.5kg, but humans are more intelligent than elephants.
What is the function of this additional brain mass in elephants and large animals? Presumably it is in someway required to control the elephants' larger bodies - but this seems strange. Why would an elephant require over triple the brain mass to control an equivalent number of body parts?
Surely an elephant leg, despite being much bigger than a human leg, wouldn't require over triple the brain mass to control a limb that is functionally equivalent to the scaled-down human version.
What am I missing? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6hv5e2/in_animals_with_a_larger_brains_than_humans_what/ | {
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" > Surely an elephant leg, despite being much bigger than a human leg, wouldn't require over triple the brain mass to control a limb that is functionally equivalent to the scaled-down human version.\n\nThat's where you're wrong. While the elephant's leg is effectively just a blown up version of a human leg on a macroscopic level, at a microscopic level the cells are all basically the same size. Larger limbs means larger muscles, and that means more muscle cells and therefore more motor neurons required. The same thing goes for sensory neurons - more surface area and volume mean more sensory receptors, which means more sensory neurons are required in the CNS to receive and process all of those signals."
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1l9p0e | Why do baby boys or boys below puberty age get boners? | I have read on an askreddit thread that moms/women are fascinated by the fact that babies get boners. WHY?
A teenager/grown man gets a boner cause seeing either porn or a very attractive woman causes blood to flow to their penis but what about babies? or pre-puberty boys? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1l9p0e/why_do_baby_boys_or_boys_below_puberty_age_get/ | {
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"Why questions are very difficult to answer, as they frequently have very nebulous answers. Adult males get erections every night. It's one of the methods they use to detect whether impotence is psychological or physical. They put a paper band tightly around the base of the penis, and if it breaks in the night, then your problem probably isn't physical.\n\nGiven that it seems to be a conserved biological mechanism like that, it's probably got an important function. A plausible hypothesis might be that it serves a function in maintaining the correct functioning of the erectile tissues of the penis. "
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xrin2 | AskScience, why is the landing of Curiosity so important? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/xrin2/askscience_why_is_the_landing_of_curiosity_so/ | {
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"Curiosity rover is the biggest, most sophisticated explorer we've landed on another planet.",
"briefly; Recent exploration of Mars has failed to find sub surface water reservoirs, and hence no likely spots for this water to reach the surface are known. With no water there's little point sending up another life finding laboratory, NASA has plenty of other things to spend the money on.\n\nSo it's sent a geologist to see if there is historical evidence of water exisiting on the surface, investigating parts that seem to have been created by flowing water etc. This will allow a historical perspective on the atmosphere and surface conditions. ie the question has changed from is there life?, to is there water? to was there water?"
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1370dw | Discounting infant mortality, at about what rate has our life expectancy been increasing? | I know that human life expectancy has been increasing pretty steadily for a very long time, but I've also heard that the majority of this increase is due to lower infant mortality rates. I'd be interested to know at what rate our life expectancy has been increasing if we discount all of the people who died before the age of 5 or so. If anyone could give me even a rough estimate I would appreciate it. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1370dw/discounting_infant_mortality_at_about_what_rate/ | {
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"Wolfram alpha has the data. try:\n_URL_0_\n\nBetween 1980 and 2000, life expectancy for 5 year olds males in the US has increased from about 71 years to 75 years."
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10e2yq | What is the formula to convert gigabytes to gibibits and which is right, google or ddg? | As asked in title, and why does [google come up with 16 Gib](_URL_0_) and [ddg/wolframalpha come up with 14.9 Gib](_URL_1_)? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10e2yq/what_is_the_formula_to_convert_gigabytes_to/ | {
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"Google is wrong, Wolfram Alpha is right.\nA Gigabyte is 10^9 bytes. A gibibit is 2^30 bit.\n\nThe giga- prefix is defined in base 10, the gibi- prefix in base 2.",
"Wikipedia's article on [binary prefixes](_URL_0_) also answers your question and gives the correct conversion factors, along with some history and other information you might find useful.\n\nAnd tliff answered your second question -- Google is wrong, Wolfram Alpha is right."
]
} | []
| [
"https://www.google.no/search?q=gibibit+converter&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb#hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Qs9&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&channel=fflb&sclient=psy-ab&q=2GB+in+gibibits&oq=2GB+in+gibibits&gs_l=serp.3...7493.7556.0.7996.2.2.0.0.0.1.137.225.1j1.2.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.W5sHBZsqL_E&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=58f465a66cc1be8&biw=1280&bih=911",
"https://duckduckgo.com/?q=2GB+in+Gib"
]
| [
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix"
]
]
|
|
3pjbgs | If I traveled back in time with modern medical knowledge, would I be able to make antibiotics/vaccines? | Suppose you get sent back to the year 1800, or 1600, or 200BC, etc. with no equipment and just your knowledge. Could you make penicillin? Could you develop vaccines? What technology would you need, and how far back could you go and still do it? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3pjbgs/if_i_traveled_back_in_time_with_modern_medical/ | {
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"I can't speak to vaccines, but I work with antibiotics, so I'll just comment to that effect.\n\nCould you make penicillin? Maybe. In order to make it you'd need to do two things: 1. find a microbe that produces it, and 2. purify it from the microbe.\n\nPart 1 might be relatively easy, if you knew what you were looking for. You could culture a normal bacterium, then add environmental samples until one produces [a zone of clearing](_URL_0_) around your sample. From there, you just get more and more fine separations until you find the microbe (eg. penicillium fungus) that produces the antibiotic. The challenge would probably actually be making sterile media without modern lab apparatus. Today, we use [autoclaves](_URL_1_) to sterilize nutrient broth, and add [agar](_URL_2_) as a solid support. You might be able to get away with a different sterilization method, and gelatin can work in the place of agar, but it would be pretty work-intensive. \n\nPart 2. is harder. It took [Chain and Florey](_URL_3_) 15 years to isolate penicillin after [Fleming](_URL_4_) found it. To make the antibiotic it takes large sterile growth vats, followed by chemical separation techniques to get the pure antibiotic. That's really hard to do without at least 1900's lab equipment.",
"If I remember correctly my highschool history book talked about Native Americans using some kind of mold to treat infected wounds which turned out to be a primitive form of penicillin. \n\nAs for small pox several people groups developed ways of [Inoculating](_URL_0_) against small pox. One such practice was to make an incision in one's shoulder. Then take a small portion of puss from an infected person's sores, which would be placed in the shoulder before sewing the cut back up. This had a much higher mortality rate than more modern versions on the vaccine, but it was still a drastic improvement.",
"What /u/superhelical said. More generally, with few exceptions, the timing of inventions and discoveries is not a coincidence; there is usually a long chain of enabling technologies that leads to a particular discovery, and another long chain of enabling technologies that leads to a widely available invention. \n\nFor example, you won't be able to create a safe and widely available vaccine without hypodermic needles and sterilization equipment, which depend on metallurgy and manufacturing that became available in 18th and 19th century. \n\nThere was an excellent show on PBS called \"How We Got To Now\" that explores this type of cumulative advancement. Highly recommended. ",
"Penicillin: If you prepared for it by learning how the extraction was done before you left.... I think you could. The mold itself is easy to identify and grow. The rest would be a simple acid/salt extraction. Figuring the process out took a long time, but in the end the process was not all that complicated. The hard part would be getting the organic and inorganic chem knowledge to make the extraction reagents you need...but I think that's doable.\n\nVaccines....it depends. You could certainly recapitulate the smallpox vaccine. Just learn to identify cowpox and use the fluid from those lesions. Others...it gets more complicated. There are two main ways we make vaccine : inactivated virus and attenuated virus. \n\nFor inactivated virus, you just get a bunch of it and kill it with heat or chemicals. Killing it is easy. \"Getting a bunch\" is hard. You would need some kind of system that allows you to grow enough of the virus safely. That would be difficult.\n\nAttenuated may be easier, if you prepare. For attenuated virus, you take the regular virus and infect some non-optimal host (some other animal). The easiest would be something that works in fertilized eggs. You then harvest the virus that comes out and pass that through the same non-optimal host. Repeat that over and over, and eventually Darwin gives you a virus that is better suited to that host. That's your vaccine. \n\nYou'd have to learn all the ways it's done before you went on your little jaunt. The actual making of the drugs and vaccines generally isn't very hard. The hard part is figuring out how to make them. And that part you can take with you."
]
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| []
| [
[
"http://www.antimicrobialtestlaboratories.com/Zone_of_Inhibition_Test_for_Antimicrobial_Activity.htm",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agar",
"http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/chemistry-in-history/themes/pharmaceuticals/preventing-and-treating-infectious-diseases/florey-and-chain.aspx",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming"
],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/"
],
[],
[]
]
|
|
1o6som | Given that energy can't be created or destroyed, will wind/tidal power remove energy from the wind/tides and thus affect the environment in their own way? | Sometimes I think that it would be great to have the world powered by an "alternative" energy.
But then I can't help that think that wind power must remove energy from the wind, tidal power from the waves. Surely solar power must reduce the amount of solar energy directly wearming the earth, and geothermal must remove heat from the earth.
On the small scale of course this must have approximately zero affect, but if scaled up to the size required to power the world, will the above scenareos happen, and perhaps affect the environment?
It can't be great to reduce the wind energy, tidal energy, solar energy etc | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1o6som/given_that_energy_cant_be_created_or_destroyed/ | {
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"It does. But so does erecting tall buildings that block the wind and form turbulence. Ultimately, the amount of energy extracted is insignificant compared to the amount present, even scaled up to supply the world's energy needs thousands of times over. A mature hurricane, for example, is driven by moist convection with an energy output equivalent to a 10 megaton nuclear explosion every 20 minutes - an energy level sufficient to cover the entire world's energy needs as defined in the 1993 World's Almanac. And that's just *one* hurricane. "
]
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| []
| [
[]
]
|
|
1529d7 | - why do we only ever see white people with down syndrome | I have never noticed a black/mexican/asian with down syndrome, why is that?
Edit: im sorry, i truly have never seen someone with downsyndrome who isnt white | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1529d7/eli5_why_do_we_only_ever_see_white_people_with/ | {
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"text": [
"Nobody is exempted from having Down Syndrome. But, there may be a variety of factors at play that have resulted in your lack of encounters with non-white people with Down Syndrome.\n\nFirst, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the mortality rate for black infants with Down Syndrome is higher than for white infants. \n\nSecond, there is some interesting sociological evidence to suggest something called homophily in general social networks, which means that people tend to interact, by and large, with people like themselves. I'm assuming some things about you with this explanation: You're relatively young, white, middle-class, and from the US. If my assumptions are accurate, your exposure to a wide enough range of black/mexican/asian folks is limited enough that you're less likely to encounter someone in those racial groups with Down Syndrome.\n\nThird, DS is fairly rare. 1 in 691 children, roughly, is born with DS. (again, according to the CDC). It occurs more often in children whose mothers are over the age of 35. There may also be some cultural/sociological issues at stake there too, younger motherhood rates amongst those populations in the US, for example. (That's just a guess on my part, though I wouldn't be surprised to discover it to be the case)\n\nBut, I suspect that the second reason is the most likely explanation, at least in part, for why you haven't ever noticed a black/latino/asian person with DS. ",
"Only 0.1 percent of the world's population have down syndrome. White is the most common demographic (in most western countries). The reason why you never see a black or Asian with down syndrome is because there are simply less people total to get the condition."
]
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| []
| [
[],
[]
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|
|
snbl7 | Does torture work? | Putting aside ethics, morality, politics, and all those pesky things, can torture be used in the hands of a trained interrogator to obtain information from someone unwilling to divulge said information? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/snbl7/does_torture_work/ | {
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"text": [
"Torture is *very* good at getting people to talk. Unfortunately, it is *not* good at getting people to tell the truth. The victims usually just end up admitting to whatever their torturer wants them to admit, regardless of how true it is.",
"Torture works best to confirm information that you already have. If you don't have any information, as the others below have noted, you won't know if what you are getting is fact, or if the person is admitting to something to make the pain stop. In that role, and if the victim sincerely believes he or she will not be killed, it works.\n\nOTOH, if you just like a guy for a crime and you beat the shit out of him, he may confess to the crime, but you will still have to prove it in court."
]
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[],
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471u02 | What was life like for a Spanish citizen living in the new world in the 16th and early 17th centuries | During the time of the conquistadors I have heard of small communities existing around catholic churches. What were these villages like in a daily sense? Also curious about towns in the American south west and central American during the same time period. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/471u02/what_was_life_like_for_a_spanish_citizen_living/ | {
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"A reply to /u/thomasin500\n\nThe situation was different at different periods in different locations. But in the 16th-17th centuries, what tended to happen was that explorers came first, while clergy and administrators came later, and sometimes much later. This is due to the limited extent that the Spanish monarchs were able to control their own agents. Columbus' own efforts at exploration and colonization serve as a good example whereby he had quite a bit of time to truly mess things up before a proper administration was put in place, and clergy sent to ensure the spiritual aspects are looked after. This same pattern repeated itself with each exploration effort. \n\n > small communities existing around catholic churches\n\nSo this is highly vague, I am not sure what you mean exactly. \n\nIn the early phase of exploration in a new area, the church had to catch up with the explorers/colonists. Later on, as the Spanish wanted to stabilize their frontier in the north, the church came first and then built small colonies around the churches. \n\nYou should read /u/RioAbajo 's posts [here](_URL_0_), and /u/anthoropology_nerd 's post [here](_URL_1_). In the northern frontiers, Franciscan missionaries established *missions* that are built around the church, and are run in the *encomienda* fashion. \n\nAs for the day-to-day activities, you may want to look up the *encomienda* system as it provides a starting point that became the effective template in the colonization / extraction phase. "
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hrlno/how_did_the_spanish_defend_their_colonial/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2acb7w/how_did_the_spanish_mission_towns_in_california/ciwgach"
]
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|
|
1ohj8u | How does the polarized light that reflects off of the screen in a 3D movie theater retain its polarity? | I understand the basic principle of the modern 3D movie theater. One projector corresponds to each eye; one projector shines its light through a vertical polarizing filter, and the other projector shines its light through a horizontal polarizing filter. The glasses you wear also have a vertical and horizontal filter for each eye respectively, so that each eye only sees the light from one projector. What I don't understand is how the light waves retain their polarity after they bounce off the screen. When a photon strikes the screen, doesn't it bounce off at whatever random angle due to the tiny imperfections in the screen? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ohj8u/how_does_the_polarized_light_that_reflects_off_of/ | {
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"The light is partially scattered/randomised by the screen but not entirely, visible light has a wavelength of 400-700nm which is fairly big from a molecular point of view, imagine throwing a frisbee at a bumpy wall, it is unlikely to bounce back rotated 90 degrees. The majority of light rays will be at roughly the same orientation they hit the screen at. Polarised filters also allow polarised light through at a wide range of angles although it gets dimmer the larger the angle. This is why 3D movies are dimmer when viewed with glasses than when viewed without.",
"Also worth noting that some 3D Film projections aren't vertically/horizontally polarised, but rather circularly polarised in different directions (otherwise the effect wouldn't work if you turned your head)."
]
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[],
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4zwrt4 | why is michael jackson so associated with pedophilia? has he ever even been convicted of it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zwrt4/eli5_why_is_michael_jackson_so_associated_with/ | {
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"text": [
"Michael Jackson reportedly had a large collection of 'paedophilic' content at his Neverland Ranch in 2003, according to police reports cataloging the property following a search. \n\nThis info was released to the public just recently."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
||
1ei971 | How similar (or different) are the techniques used for cloning both animals and human cells? | I was discussing the recent news from [OHSU](_URL_0_) about the successful conversion of human skin cells into embryonic stem cells with a friend. She told me of a cloned foal she had on her farm at one time, and described (though I'm not sure how accurately) the basics of how it was accomplished: that an embryo was cloned (she gave no further info on how) and then it was carried to term by a surrogate mare.
I think it's important to mention here that we discussed the viability of these cloned animals. She said that the foal seemed sickly, and aged before it's time. This has her questioning the viability of the cloned human cells and whether they'd have the same issues. (She is also much more educated about it than I am, mentioning telomeres, and other various things that I'm not at all educated about.)
I mentioned to her that perhaps comparing animals and human cells may be a little off the mark, since they likely use different (and more reliable?) techniques ... but that got us both curious. I did some reading on my own and found information about types of cloning: gene cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning - but that also left me with more questions. Not being a scientist, I thought I'd see if someone would be willing to explain it a bit more!
So, my question (and I hope it isn't too broad) in better terms: How accurate is it to compare the cloning of entire animals to the cloning being reported by OHSU, and how different/similar are the techniques? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ei971/how_similar_or_different_are_the_techniques_used/ | {
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"At the heart of it, cloning is the same. However, the difficulty in successfully cloning varies between species. Cloning frogs is relatively easy and was first done several decades ago. Cloning mammals is more difficult and so that's why Dolly the sheep was publicised so much in the 90s. However, cloning primates is more difficult still. Scientists have not been able to clone monkeys but they have been able to create an early embryo from which they can extract stem cells that are genetically identical to the donor monkey. This research has led to the latest news where this was done in humans. Again, cloning in humans is even more difficult because the egg cells are more fragile.\n\nThe techniques across all of these species is largely the same, but the method is continuously being improved and modified to allow cloning of more complex organisms."
]
} | []
| [
"http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/about/news_events/news/2013/05-15-ohsu-research-team-succe.cfm"
]
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[]
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5fk0x4 | why is dreaming about not wearing pants such a common childhood nightmare? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fk0x4/eli5_why_is_dreaming_about_not_wearing_pants_such/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It's embarrassing in today's society to be naked. In a child's brain, which (among other things) is highly concerned with social groups and social development, the fear of being put in social situations where you are made to feel vulnerable and losing social status frequently manifests itself as nightmares. Of course, culture plays a role--you hear about how people get nightmares of being naked, and therefore you learn to fear that yourself.\n\n"
]
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| []
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rflvn | How do we get footage inside insect colonies? (And other insect and ant film questions) | After watching [this](_URL_5_) amazing film ([BBC's Ant Attack](_URL_7_)), I became curious how we get the footage inside insect colonies, especially footage of the queen's chambers.
Do we construct fake colonies in a controlled setting, then juxtapose that footage with natural clips? Do we stab the ground with spike camera's till we get lucky? Or, if we maneuver tiny camera's into real colonies, how do we do that without disrupting the ants? Similar questions for bees / other bugs too.
Related, how do we find a migrating colony (and its queen!) in the first place - surely the odds of finding a queen are minimal?
Lastly, how does a "living ant bridge" start?
**Highlights:**
Internal colony footage throughout the movie, but great scenes at [8:00](_URL_4_), [13:35](_URL_3_), queens chamber [14:47](_URL_5_#t=14m47s), ant sex **[17:10](_URL_2_)**, termite battles [36:40](_URL_1_), and ant architecture [27:15](_URL_0_). | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rflvn/how_do_we_get_footage_inside_insect_colonies_and/ | {
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"**1)**The [BBC's website](_URL_0_) provides a clue as to how filmmaker John Brown filmed honeypot ants: \n\n > To film them he caught some females that had just mated and set them up in a fake colony in his studio. He also had a wild nest in the field where he filmed the above ground behaviour of the ants.\n\n**2)** In many ant species, queens can be found during their [nuptial flight](_URL_1_) phase.\n\n**3)** [Dr. Scott Powell](_URL_2_) provides some insight into how a living ant bridge begins:\n\n > \"When the ants bump into a hole they cannot cross, they edge their way around it and then spread their legs and wobble back and forth to check their fit. If they are too big, then they carry on and another ant will come along and measure itself in the same way. This carries on until an appropriately sized ant plugs the hole.\"\n\n**Edit**: added more references.",
"While my take might say Micrbiology|Microbial Symbiosis, I actually work on the microbes associated with particular types of ants, and I work in an \"ant lab\". We've had a few filming groups come in a few times since I've been here to film our lab colonies and interview various people in the lab about what makes ants unique and awesome to study.\n\nI'm not incredibly familiar with the ants (African driver ants) in your linked video, but there are a few ways to get footage like that. For the surface stuff, regular macro video will work. And there are people who specialize in filming things like insects. One way to get the internal colony shots is with endoscopy cameras. For some of the species I work on, they live in trees. So other groups will drill a small whole into the tree, tape it shut, give the colony a week or so to settle down, and then return and put the camera in. That's how we've gotten footage of some of their behavior that happens only inside the tree.\n\nBased on what I saw in the video, I would assume African driver ants are near impossible to maintain in the lab. But for the types of ants that can be maintained in a lab, that is obviously another source of where footage can come from.\n\nEDIT: Oh, as to your finding a queen question. Again, I can't speak to African driver ants, but I can tell you for the field station I've been at in Costa Rica, there are people who work there that have an idea of where to find the larger mobile colonies (army ants are the most notorious in Costa Rica). They can generally help guide filming crews and help them find colonies. Often times the footage isn't as in the middle of nowhere as it appears.",
"I can't let a thread about ant colonies go by without linking [this classic](_URL_0_).",
"\n\nTo piggyback on this, how do they get this footage of wasp larva inside of a caterpillar: _URL_0_ (kind of NSFL depending on how squeamish you are.)\n"
]
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| [
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A#t=27m15s",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A#t=36m40s",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A#t=17m10s",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A#t=13m35s",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A#t=8m0s",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6E66UBbu0A#t=14m47s",
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0079022"
]
| [
[
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-14474376",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuptial_flight",
"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6692853.stm"
],
[],
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozkBd2p2piU"
],
[
"http://youtu.be/vMG-LWyNcAs?t=30s"
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|
3i93ej | What are some good books on the Battle of Kursk? | I checked out the book called "Kursk: The Greatest Battle" which is on the Books and Resources list on the sub, but i saw that it only has four reviews on Amazon with one of them saying that it's only an introductory work, and the other calling into question the facts stated on it. So i was wondering if there were any other alternatives out there. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3i93ej/what_are_some_good_books_on_the_battle_of_kursk/ | {
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"text": [
"I can confirm that *Kursk: the Greatest Battle* is a good book, it has a few bits and pieces that could be better. But its a solid work none the less. However another good book is *Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk* by Dennis Showalter.\n\nYou can't go wrong with either one."
]
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48o3v3 | why do people tend to idealize the past and catastrophize the future? | Is it the nature of reality that things tend to get worse as time passes (i.e. entropy), or is this tendency a function of fear and anxiety? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48o3v3/eli5_why_do_people_tend_to_idealize_the_past_and/ | {
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"It's good for us as species to pick stuff that were succesfull in the past and make decisons so that the same success continues in the future.",
"Entropy applies where thermodynamics are concerned, but as far as human civilization goes thus far, the overwhelming trend is that things get better. In general, people live longer, are healthier, wealthier, and less likely to die in particularly horrible ways (famine, war, disease) the closer you get to today. \n\nPeople tend to idealize the past because the past is a known quantity (or at least they think so). The future is unknown, and that naturally scares people. Also, people only tend to do this if their past was actually nice, which, compared to the world in general, is a startling minority of people. You don't often find racial or ethnic minorities, homosexuals, women, or people in developing countries romanticizing the past, because for them the further back in time you go the more likely they are to be persecuted, treated as property, or live in destitution. If you go back far enough, even us straight white dudes start to get that treatment. \n\nEDIT: If your grandpa is American, and is nostalgic about the mid to late 70s, he misses Muhammad Ali and Fleetwood Mac and the free, easy days of his youth. If your grandpa is Cambodian, and he is nostalgic about the mid to late 70s, he is probably a murderous psychopath. The mid to late 70s were a great time in Cambodia. A great time, that is, to be a murderous psychopath.",
"Look back at your high school years or college years. You probably think of those years as being fun and awesome (for at least some of us). People tend to remember the good times and not the small day to day shitty stuff. Sure you'll remember something that may have traumatized you or something that was really bad but mostly people remember the past as being a better time because they don't remember the bad. ",
"Ultimately, because the past is completely safe for us, no mattter how unpleasant it may have been, and the future is deadly. After all, there's a 0% chance that you will die in the past, and a 100% chance that you will die in the future (even if you have access to time travel, you can't die in your personal past, only in your personal future). So our brains interpret that as \"Well, we already know we can survive that; let's keep things that way!\"",
"Mainly because humans have a selective memory. They tend to forget bad things over a long period of time, or at least convince themself the bad things wern't that bad. At the same time, humans are way better to remember good things. \nThis doesn't happen over night tho, so memorys close to the present time are more accurate and, therefore more negative then old memorys. So the past always seems better compared to the present. \nThat is the idolizing the past part.\n\nI'm not one hundred percent certain on the future thing, but I would guess that it's partially because you think it can never be as good as the past - since in your memories, the present already is worse than the past - and partially because the future is something unknown, which scares a lot of people."
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3u0e2r | What is the "youngest" species we have discovered? | If the title isn't clear, what I mean to say is, what is the species we know to have diverged most recently? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3u0e2r/what_is_the_youngest_species_we_have_discovered/ | {
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"According to [this](_URL_0_) BBC article, the answer may be senecio eboracensis, having originated mere decades ago. It's worth keeping in mind, though, that there's no clear set of guidelines for what makes an organism a separate species. The definition has been changed numerous times with new scientific discoveries, and will probably always be arbitrary. Single mutations that don't immediately leave the gene pool are enough to make the mutated line different, but wouldn't be considered a new species.\n\nUltimately, what makes a species a species is arbitrary, and the concept of species only exists to us humans. Just as there's no fundamental measurable \"Tuesday\" in the universe like there are neutrons or hydrogen, the concept of species is one we invented to try to keep track of a complex phenomenon. Also like days of the week, they aren't perfect, and as we continue to make new scientific discoveries (such as now knowing we need to add leap seconds to force our concept of days of the week to continue to work), \"species\" as a concept will almost certainly evolve and be redefined again."
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8hijrh | the stomach has neurons, but what are they for? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8hijrh/eli5_the_stomach_has_neurons_but_what_are_they_for/ | {
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"most of your body has neurons, thats just what your nerves are called. Your stomach uses them to tell your brain if there is pain like any other neuron.",
"How would you feel if you had pain in your stomach or the temperature changes in your stomach.",
"Neurons are not only useful for sensation you feel but to allow areas of the body to communicate information to other areas. For example if the senses detect food it is helpful to be able to start up the digestive process such as salivation and increased stomach activity. Similarly the stomach is going to need to be able to sense when there is food inside it in order to digest it, both with muscle action and balancing acidity.",
"some opiate receptors are in the stomach, this is one of the reasons the chyme travels slower and leads to peristalsis or constipation.\n\npressing a receptor will do different things, enhancing mucus secretion or acid production, sometimes it will cause vomiting of a gag reflex."
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7pejjy | air quality index (aqi) reports | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pejjy/eli5_air_quality_index_aqi_reports/ | {
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"There is no standardized way to measure \"air quality\", everyone is free to label it as they wish. The number indicated by one system isn't intended to be compared with other systems, but with itself over time. If the number is going up the quality is deteriorating, that kind of thing. It's like ranking temperature outside on a 1-10 scale, everyone has their own idea of what 1 and 10 represent. But at least we can all agree that a 6 is better than a 2, whatever they might be.\n\nActual concentrations of pollutants are always given with the unit of measurement included: parts-per-billion, milligrams per cubic meter, whatever. If you want to compare results, compare the actual measured concentrations, not the AQI.",
"The three factors that go into most aqi, or aqhi, are pm2.5, ozone, and NO2, all of whoch have health impacts.\nDifferent places can have different measurements (air quality, especially for NOx, is very volatile) or different weightings for the equations. A lot of east asian cities have SO2 included, which is pretty nasty, but SO2 levels in most western cities is functionally 0.\n\nAny major metropolitan area is not going to have great air quality, but just try to live a little away from a highway and/or tall buildings and you will be just fine.\n\nI actually research this stuff so let me know if you have questions about it."
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4y0ryq | Is there any species of mammal where there are not sex differences in behavior/temperament? | It's often thought that males are dominant and aggressive among all mammal species, but this isn't true. However, is there any species of mammal where there's not sexual dimorphism in behavior? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4y0ryq/is_there_any_species_of_mammal_where_there_are/ | {
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"AFAIK, mammals all reproduce sexually and use hormones as a mechanism to differentiate sexually during development. This difference in development includes differences in brain development, at the very least for sex-related behaviors. [This review article](_URL_0_) goes into greater detail about how hormones affect the development of the mammalian brain.\n\n > Despite many unresolved issues, it is now clear that steroid hormones effect permanent changes in the development of multiple interconnected regions of the mammalian forebrain that participate in the neural control of reproduction and influence other homeostatic functions as well. Estrogen and testosterone regulate most major developmental events including neurogenesis, neuronal migration, cell death, and neurotransmitter plasticity. In addition, sex steroid hormones specify sex-specific patterns of neuronal connectivity by affecting axonal guidance and synaptogenesis. The signaling events mediating these developmental activities interact at multiple levels with neurotrophin and neurotransmitter signal transduction pathways. In addition, sex steroid hormones signal to the nucleus through their ligand-activated receptors to influence a broad array of gene-expression events that contribute to the important developmental role of these hormones in specifying the architecture of forebrain pathways that are fundamental to propagation of mammalian species."
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36bwic | why do hit radio stations, who have access to thousands of songs, seem to always play the same exact playlist all day, every day? | Like WTF? It's so annoying. Please explain to me why the hell they do this... Thanks!! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36bwic/eli5_why_do_hit_radio_stations_who_have_access_to/ | {
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"Because in their (very measured) experience, they select the song rotation that maximize the number of listeners they have. What ou say you don't like is what people measurably DO like (or at least what measurably elicits the behavior the station wants).",
"Thats how they stay on top. People like listening to what they know so those stations play what they know. ",
"Record companies underhandedly pay radio stations to keep their artists' songs in rotation. Interesting article [here.](_URL_0_)",
"The answer is in your question: \"Hit radio stations,\" which are programmed differently from indie stations, oldies stations, classic rock, etc. They tend to stick to the Billboard Top 40, with an emphasis on the Top 10. \n\nIf they do play something that's not on the current Top 40, it will most likely be from a past Top 10.",
"One point being left out of the discussion is that most people don't listen all day. They listen in the car on their commute or their way to the grocery store or whatever. So it's the radio station's best bet to play a limited playlist people will definitely be interested in rather than a more risky variety to cater to the few people who listen all day.",
"I used to work in radio, and my program director once explained it to me like this: \n\nA radio station is like a can of pop. If you buy a Coke, when you open it, you wanted to taste like Coke. When you put a can of Coke to your lips, you have an expectation of what flavor sensation you will get. The same is true for a radio station. When you tune in, you have an expectation about what sounds you're going to hear. If you hear something that defies that expectation, you might metaphorically \"spit out the drink\" -- flip the dial, in other words, and try to find that thing you were seeking. This terrifies radio programmers to no end, so they go out of their way to program music that perfectly fits that \"flavor\" of their station's sound. Sadly, this usually manifests itself in a highly constructed and very narrow set of songs that a station feels \"safe\" to play.",
"I work in a factory where qe have the same shit radio station on every day Gem 106. Same songs every day without fail. That Ed sheeran one is twice a day and uptown funk can be three times a day in an 8 hour shift. ",
"For us it's like this (Wall of text inc.):\n\nWe make surveys on the phone where we play different 10-second soundbites of songs to people and let them rate it from 1 to 6 (German school grade system, 1 being best) and this determines how popular different songs are by making an average from these grades. \n\nThat means that the songs that are \"picked\" by the public are the best songs. So you play them in order to get listened to. \n\nHit Radio stations don't want to differentiate themselves with the music because that's the riskiest strategy. People who listen to these songs, actually like them. You and me may get sick of listening to \"Take me to church\" for the thousandth time but the target audience of the station likes to hear it when it comes on.\n\nRadio stations rather like to differentiate themselves via the program elements like \"We pay your bills\" or \"Answer the phone with our catchphrase and win money!\" because that is the safest route to go. \n\nTo sum up: Going with what is PROVEN to be the most popular is a definite hit while playing all different songs every day can be a hit or miss. Because you don't have data to back up the listeners willingness to stay tuned in. \n\nAnd that is your absolute livelyhood, people staying on your station. Because every quarter there is (here in germany) a big survey where people get asked which station they listen to.\n\nThese surveys determine how many listeners you have, which determines how much money you can charge for ads. \n\nIf someone only listened to you for a few minutes, he's not gonna remember/say your station name but if they listened for a few days, they're likely going to remember your station. \n\n\n\nTLDR: It's safer to go with what people want to hear collectively because that's how they keep the listeners and make money. \n\n\nHope that clears it up.\n\nSource: I work at a \"Hit Radio\" station\n\nEDIT: /u/abedmcnulty made a good point about people not listening all day. The playlists are designed so you only listen for a few hours and in those hours, nothing should repeat itself. \n\nalso great point by /u/wipeoutpop it's exactly like that",
"As people have noted, radio stations get paid by labels and most listeners probably listen less than an hour a day.\n\nBut really, they play the songs people *like*. If they didn't they would not be in business because no listeners = no ad revenue.\n\nIf you really like the Eagles, you will own all their albums and play those in your car. If you are a big fan of one or two genres that have no radio station? You will probably use your phone or an MP3 player to listen to your carefully selected playlists. Or maybe you will listen to books on tape.\n\nIf you enjoy the latest, top hits it is so much easier to listen to those stations than to somehow buy the next big album, every big album the week it comes out. Which does point out how circular top 40 is. Top 40 is top because its on the radio.",
"I work in London and the hit radio station is awful and plays the same songs literally 6 or 7 times a day, and then when i go the gym i have to hear it all again :(",
"A list = 25 plays a week\n\nB list = 15 plays a week\n\nC list = 10 plays a week\n\nThis is the case for BBC Radio 1 in the UK but I'm sure other big radio stations have a list of bands they promote more than others.",
"People still use the radio? ",
"Because they generally make money one of two ways:\n\nI) they take money from record companies to play their songs\n\nII) they make money from ad revenue\n\nBoth these conditions require them to maximise their audience so they play the most popular current songs that they know people like. They do this because they know what songs work right now, and then when the song stops working they swap it out with something else until they find a new hit.",
"I've been working in radio for just over 3 years after completing a radio broadcasting program in college. As much as most people want to believe in the giant record company twisting the pop music market to suit their needs, that honestly isn't even the biggest contributing factor. I work for a rather large radio company in Canada - but you'd never realize that if you came to my station. The other jocks, as well as the administrative side of the station, are all great people who have a lot of fun at what we do. Its hard not to like a job that is 4+ hours of Reddit browsing for potential show prep/news/ entertainment updates... and the people who enjoy discussing these topics and helping me build a better show is always a great environment. But, just like every other job; people find a way to create shortcuts. In short, there is a certain percent of certain songs we need to play every day. In Canada, 30% of music played during a broadcasting day MUST be Canadian. This is a big reason as to why Nickleback is so popular. They play rock, they are Canadian, and they consistently release generic music. They are the safe bet of the Canadian music world. On top of that 30%, there are also other obligations like Current Rock, Gold Rock, Top Rock, literally dozens of sub categories that need to be balanced, every hour, of every day. So put yourself in a corporate radio stations Music Director's shoes. You have to choose the music for 16+ hours a day, every day, while balancing different catorigies of music and a percent of Canadian music, and keep within the lines your broadcast company gives you for whatever reason. I'm not saying those reasons can't be money in their pocket - but it could also be because 1 guy had a busy week, and used the same old programmed day to save 20 minutes. Its radio; we like to have fun, not be evil. \n\nTL;DR - Google \"Payola\" ",
"What it comes down to is research. We subscribe to multiple sources that track down what people want to hear. Anything from the charts at Mediabase, to Rate the Music, PPM, call out research, and auditorium tests. \n\nThe mentality of radio is that we are getting new listeners every 20 minutes. The people that listen to the same station for 10 hours are a rare breed (I know this isn't necessarily true, but like I said it is the mentality). So in order to please the listener wanting to hear that hot new Taylor Swift song, we put it on a shorter rotation. \n\nTypically we have these categories\n\nA (Power)\nB (Medium)\nC (Light)\nD (recurrent)\nG (Gold)\n\nThe A category is reserved for the top current songs in the country and will typically only have about 5 songs in it, so if a station plays 2 As an hour, then you are getting a quick rotation on those songs. But that is what we want because then we are more likely to satisfy those listeners that are only in their car for a short period of time. They get their Swift and hopefully we get a nod. \n\nB songs are either on their way to A or on their way back down from A. This category usually has 8-10 songs in it, so the rotation is a but slower. \n\nC is reserved for new stuff. It can have anywhere form 5-10 songs depending on what the program director wants to do. A lot of PDs will use this category to introduce a new song from a well known artist before moving it up to B then A, or will use it to slowly introduce a new artist no one has heard of before. Either this new artist is successful and moves up the ranks, or it disappears. \n\nRecurrent is a category for those songs that have recently been successful, but are no longer \"new\" and have fallen down or off the charts. Keep in mind, songs in recurrent have a \"time limit\" which is dictated by the PD of the station. Usually this category has less than 50 songs. \n\nGold is the final category. Gold songs are old songs that were big hits at one point, but that isn't the only factor. They not only have to have been hits, but still resonate with the stations audience. The majority of songs that top the charts are forgotten, but the ones that fill this category are the nostalgic hits that make you smile and turn up the radio. So how many songs go here? around 200. \n\nThe goal is to play familiar and popular music for the listener who is in their car listening for that 20 minute increment. \n\nAnd FYI, it is illegal for us to get paid to play music. We have very strict payolla/plugolla rules in place that would see us fined and fired very quickly should this take place. \n\nAlso, if your wondering why your station never plays (insert artist or song here) it's because there is no popular demand for it. \n",
"What kills me is they'll never fucking admit it. I've called in requests to small \"independent\" stations for an offbeat song by an artist they play regularly. Sure enough, when my song comes up, it's the artist I asked for, but not the specific song. Just one of the same old songs they play by that artist regularly. I've asked via the phone and other means, and never an answer. It's like they either refuse to admit to it, or they're so deep in denial they think it's normal.",
"Yesterday I saw a big girl crying \n\nI walked up and asked \"what's wrong?\" \n\nShe told me that the radio's been playing the same song all day long...",
"Remember that radio stations are in the business of selling ads, not playing music. If they could get people to listen to ads all day, every day, they would. But they have to put some songs in between to keep people listening. They do extensive callout research to see what people want to hear, and then they play that. They plays the current hits simply because that's what the most people want to hear currently, which gives them the largest possible audience so that their real customers will buy more ads and spend more money for the higher reach.",
"Radio was destroyed by Bill Clinton and Congress when they deregulated it in the 90's, allowing for just a few corporations to buy up all the local stations. What's left is simply the rotten corpse being picked over by corporate vultures.",
"Oh wow, I can actually answer this one!\n\nOkay, so there are some good responses here as to why the \"Top 40\" idea has stuck, but no one seems to be addressing how this happened in the first place.\n\nIt came from a guy (think he was a DJ? I'll research it later and update) who during the 50's, would go to all the popular hang-outs for them crazy teens, and check the number of plays on the records in the jukeboxes. He realized that no matter where he went, there was always roughly about 40 popular songs that people listened to, and then the numbers dropped off after that. People can only handle so many songs being in, or hot, or whatever you want to call it, and the closest and easiest number was to use 40. He used that to shape radio shows, and it worked! These radio stations became very popular and have now solidified this tradition of Top 40 which we're still using today.\n\nAlso, fun other fact, the reason most pop songs are around 3 minutes, is because the original recording medium for these songs were essentially wax candles (weird, right?), and they could only hold about 3 minutes worth of music on each one.",
"Most of the media is owned by I think 3 make companies. Clear Channel dictates what plays on the radio. It's all corporate created lame music"
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24yjaq | Were there any notable cases that caused the public to distrust the "insanity defense"? | It's certainly a common literary trope by the mid-20th century that pleading insanity at trial is an easy way to avoid punishment for a serious crime: the idea seems to be you will be sentenced to a mental institution and then released swiftly once "cured". That's certainly not how legal insanity works these days, but is there a historical precedent for someone successfully and outrageously gaming the system in a infamous case that led to its ubiquitous literary use, or is its prevalence simply a literary device feeding on itself? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24yjaq/were_there_any_notable_cases_that_caused_the/ | {
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"Probably the most high-profile successful insanity defense was probably too late to inspire the literary trope, but was nevertheless very important: the case of John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Regan in 1981. Hinckley was obsessed with actress Jodi Foster and apparently believed that as an assassin of a president, he would be a public figure and therefore her equal. The jury in his criminal trial found him not guilty by reason of insanity.\n\nThere was a fairly substantial backlash to the verdict--how could a man who shot the president be not guilty? A number of legal reforms resulted. As an example, in 1984, the United States Congress passed the Insanity Defense Reform Act, which applies to federal crimes (for those not familiar with the US legal system--most criminal offenses are state-level, so this doesn't directly control, for example, your average murder trial. A number of states also changed their laws, though). This act required the accused to prove insanity by clear and convincing evidence rather than requiring the government to prove the accused sane, as under prior law. The act also prohibited experts from testifying that the defendant was sane or insane--they can only talk about the mental diseases. Finally, it limited the defense to people who can't appreciate the nature and character of their acts. Under prior law, and the law of some states, people could also make the insanity defense if they essentially knew what they were doing and couldn't stop themselves (so-called \"irresistible act\"). \n\nSpeaking of iressistible acts, one literary example of the defense being used as an escape is the book and film Anatomy of a Murder. I've never read the book, but the film is fantastic and deals directly with the insanity defense generally and the \"irresistible act\" prong specifically. The book was written by then-Michigan Supreme Court judge Paul Voelker, so the story has a lot more legal grounding than the usual courtroom drama. The reason I mention it is that it was based on a real trial defended by Mr. Voelker as an attorney. So while that real trial wasn't necessarily so high profile that it caused the trope because of a general anti-insanity defense fervor it was a real case that inspired one instance of the trope. "
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2fwdyn | Is there any evidence of Soviet/Communist involvement in the black civil rights movement? | Nixonland says it was pretty common for politicians and the press to associate the two, but was it at all justified? What was the Soviet view of the civil rights movement and activists like MLK? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fwdyn/is_there_any_evidence_of_sovietcommunist/ | {
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"Someone else actually asked [a similar question](_URL_2_) a few months back. My answer was: there is some evidence that the Soviets attempted to infiltrate and co-opt the civil rights movement — they weren't providing support to the movement out of solidarity, but rather saw an opportunity to foment dissent and attempt to destabilise American civil/political society.\n\nThe KGB's 'Service A' was tasked with carrying out \"active measures\" around the world — these operations varied in nature from misinformation, to political propaganda, to assassinations. In the case of the civil rights movement, the KGB hoped to use MLK and his colleagues as a political weapon against the US. When that effort failed, they instead tried to discredit him, in the hopes of opening the door to the emergence of a more compliant, sympathetic leadership.\n\nThe below is from a book I quote regularly and at length as one of the definitive sources on the history of Soviet foreign intelligence — *[The Sword and the Shield](_URL_5_)* by Christopher Andrew and KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin:\n\n > King was probably the only prominent American to be the target of active measures by both the FBI and the KGB. By the mid-1960s the claims by the [Communist Party of the USA] leadership that secret Party members within King’s entourage would be able to “guide” his policies had proved to be hollow. To the Centre’s dismay, King repeatedly linked the aims of the civil rights movement not to the alleged worldwide struggle against American imperialism but to the fulfillment of the American dream and “the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”\n > \n > [...]\n > \n > Having given up hope of influencing King, the Centre aimed instead at replacing him with a more radical and malleable leader. In August 1967 the Centre approved an operational plan by the deputy head of Service A, Yuri Modin, former controller of the Magnificent Five, to discredit King and his chief lieutenants by placing articles in the African press, which could then be reprinted in American newspapers, portraying King as an “Uncle Tom” who was secretly receiving government subsidies to tame the civil rights movement and prevent it threatening the Johnson administration. While leading freedom marches under the admiring glare of worldwide television, King was allegedly in close touch with the President.\n\nOn the other side, King's opponents sought to cast him as a communist sympathiser and a Soviet stooge in an effort to discredit him as a voice in the US political discourse. This was the height of the Cold War, and the height of J. Edgar Hoover's [COINTELPRO](_URL_0_) operations, by which the FBI attempted to systematically undermine groups they deemed \"subversive\" — particularly the CPUSA, but also the civil rights and black nationalist movements, and others; especially those they deemed likely targets for infiltration by communists. \n\nIn the event, active measures against MLK and the civil rights movement largely failed in co-opting the movement, but it may have contributed to the FBI/Hoover's conviction that King was a communist fellow traveller. But the FBI's efforts to discredit him also proved ultimately unsuccessful; COINTELPRO became a national scandal after Hoover's death, and in the context of the Church Committee investigations.\n\n(As an aside: there's a great deal of scholarship and research on COINTELPRO — you can read [a huge amount of primary source material online](_URL_4_). I'd also look at *[The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.](_URL_3_)* by David Garrow and the more recent *[Enemies: A History of the FBI](_URL_1_)* by Tim Weiner.)\n\nWere there communists involved in the civil rights movement? Probably/almost certainly. Were they a prominent force in that movement? No, not really — certainly not as much as the FBI believed, or conspiracy theorists will *continue* to tell you.\n\n*Edit: new link.*",
"I don't know much about Soviet involvement, but there was certainly domestic communist involvement in the civil rights and black liberation movements as a minority position. Most notably, this took the form of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Black Panthers were Marxist-Leninists whose radical black liberation plan was a multi-racial socialist revolution, rather than the black nationalism of other alternative black power groups. In practical day-to-day activity, the BPP was primarily concerned with community organizing and community self-defense (a concept that led to violent clashes with the police). \n\nThe Panthers were one of the biggest targets of the FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which saw the FBI infiltrate them with agent provocateurs, distribute false flag materials, pursue heavy surveillance, and carry out political assassinations.\n\nMartin Luther King, Jr. was also a major target of COINTELPRO, in which the FBI spied on him and attempted to coerce him into abandoning his movement (or killing himself, depending on the interpretation). King was never a communist, despite FBI suspicions, though shortly before his assassination, he was organizing the \"Poor People's Campaign,\" in which he was attempting to march a multi-racial army of poor people on Washington. King's rhetoric was also taking a more economically leftist turn, though the civil rights movement had long had ties to the labor movement and other leftists. The mainstream civil rights movement's political and economic positions can better be understood through these links, whereas the Panthers were certainly the most radical element.\n\nAs for international communism, the revolutionary government in Cuba had ties to the black community in the United States ever since Fidel Castro stayed in Harlem during his 1960 visit to the United Nations. Che Guevara, in his 1964 speech at the UN, condemned the abuse of blacks in the United States, along with a condemnation of Apartheid. Pre-revolutionary Cuba was institutionally racist in fundamental ways. After the Cuban Revolution took over in 1959, racial discrimination was declared illegal and effort was taken to bring about racial equality, though the effects were mixed and some racial problems persisted in Cuba with little state concern. Several Black Panthers fled to Cuba to escape arrest in the United States, including co-founder Huey Newton, who returned to the U.S. after a time. Assata Shakur, the only woman on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list, remains in Cuba to this day."
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"http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro",
"http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Enemies.html?id=fpqq_hATMy0C",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27cclt/did_the_ussr_ever_actually_become_involved/",
"http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_FBI_and_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.html?id=CtMWAQAAIAAJ",
"https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22COINTELPRO%22",
"http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Sword_and_the_Shield.html?id=9TWUAQ7Xof8C&redir_esc=y"
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1qf4c7 | Why are some types of firewood more likely to "pop" when burning? | Specifically, woods like hedge (maclura pomifera) and other dense, high-heat wood (typical for use in wood stoves). We split wood regularly and it's common knowledge that hedge is not very suitable for camp fires or fire places due to its tendency to "pop" and send embers flying in every direction. This is not such a problem in woods like oak or walnut.
Note: This occurs even in properly aged wood, so I'm fairly certain it isn't related to high moisture content. I'm also aware that pine is also prone to this phenomena, but I suspect it has something to do with the sap which I wouldn't imagine being a problem for hedge.
Edit: I picked Biology as my tag, but I'm not really sure what field to qualify it as. Seems interdisciplinary. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1qf4c7/why_are_some_types_of_firewood_more_likely_to_pop/ | {
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eketzg | Are all planet's cores made out of iron? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/eketzg/are_all_planets_cores_made_out_of_iron/ | {
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"Mostly, but there are a couple scenarios where it might not happen:\n\n* A planet may form by dynamic stability in the outer planetary disk--basically the gas bunches up on its own without need for a solid core to form first, and the resulting planet is thus predominantly gas.\n* A planet with a high water content may oxidize all its iron during formation, and so end up with iron oxide distributed through the rocky interior rather than concentrated in the core.\n* A planet may form small and cool quickly, like Ceres or Callisto, such that it doesn't fully differentiate--so it's left with a rocky core, though with more iron mixed in than outer layers.\n\nWe're also not totally sure if the gas giants like Jupiter have a rock and iron core--all our models suggest they should start with them, but some people think they may be dissolved into the surrounding metallic hydrogen.",
"No, not even Earth's. It's primarily iron, but has enough \"not iron\" to qualify as \"not really iron\". Most of the \"not iron\" is nickel, but also the huge majority of Earth's complement every metal heavier than iron is in the core. The core could be as much as 25% nickel, but is probably less, maybe 8-10%. This is expected to be similar to the composition of iron meteorites, as these likely formed in the same way.\n\nMost of early Earth's heavier stuff sank, as the planet was an emulsion of different materials, which then sorted itself out by weight (this stratification is known as \"differentiation\" in astronomy). The least dense material, silicate and light metal oxides (lithium, sodium, magnesium, aluminium), were forced upwards while the denser metals sank. The silicates formed the crust and outer mantle. Olivine and pyroxene are the two main components of the outer mantle and are both silicates.\n\nWe think all the inner planets, have substantial quantities of iron in their cores. Jupiter and outward likely do not have iron based cores, due to how different elements fractionate in a protoplanetary disc. They'll have some iron, of course, because it's hard to be iron-free. Smaller objects, like Pluto, Eris, etc. will have rocky cores. New Horizons was equipped to detect any significant iron or other metallic component to Pluto's core, and found nothing."
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2fkns9 | How come urine and feces are generally always yellow and brown, and smell generally similar, even though people consume hugely varied diets? | I don't mean this to be funny or flippant, it just confounds me a little bit. You'd think there would be more variety in our waste products to reflect the variety in our food and drink, and I don't know why this is not the case. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2fkns9/how_come_urine_and_feces_are_generally_always/ | {
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"See [this thread](_URL_6_), as well as searches for [urine](_URL_1_) and [feces](_URL_7_) color.\n\nThe short answer is that the breakdown of heme produces [urobilin](_URL_3_) and [stercobilin](_URL_0_), which are responsible for the colour of urine and feces, respectively. As this process is a constant part of your body's maintenance, your body's waste will always contain these compounds. There are things that you can eat that alter the colour of bodily waste, such as [rifampin](_URL_2_) that colour your urine red, [Pepto-Bismol](_URL_4_) that colour your feces black, or [beets](_URL_5_) that colour both urine and stool red."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetroot",
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rhm91 | What is the melting point of roads? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rhm91/what_is_the_melting_point_of_roads/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nMixing is generally performed with the aggregate at about 300 °F (roughly 150 °C) for virgin asphalt \n\n\n"
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1hrudk | why do large and already established companies feel the need to advertise their company in general? | I saw an ad for McDonald's the other day. It wasn't promoting any new meals, competitions, services or anything, just plain old McDonald's. Everybody already knows about McDonalds, so it's not like they're trying to create awareness. Why, then, would they create non-specific advertisements? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hrudk/eli5_why_do_large_and_already_established/ | {
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"They actually are trying to raise awareness. They want to make it so that when you think about fast food, you think about McDonald's. That way, when get an urge to eat fast food, your first thought is to go to McDonald's. Most people don't want to spend a huge amount of time deciding where to go, so they will go to the first place that they can think of. If McDonald's didn't show ads, but Burger King did, your first thought would be to go to Burger King, and that's likely where you would go. This is also why many companies show ads that are funny, but don't actually do anything to convince you that their product is good. A funny ad is more likely to stick in your head than an informative one, which means it will influence your decision next time you want to buy something.",
"To help retain existing customers. Everyone knows who McDonald's are, but people may easily forget about them if some new exciting fast food brand starts advertising their products.",
"Sometimes the company paying for advertising is not so much interested in capturing the consumer's attention as it is controlling the media source by way of advertising contracts.\n\nFor example, you might see news channels with loads of ads for coal energy or weird things that a consumer has little interest in. Those ads are not always for you and I, they're more about controlling the news company who now has a huge amount of revenue to lose if they emphasize negative stories about a coal plant poisoning the local water source or whatever.\n"
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1s8jws | Rolling Stone recently published a fascinating article about JFK and how he faced down the military brass during the Cuban Missile Crisis, thereby preventing all-out nuclear war. They make it sound as if he nearly lost control of the generals. Is that sensationalized or factual? | _URL_0_
> From the outset, the Pentagon, the CIA and many of JFK's advisers urged airstrikes and a U.S. invasion of the island that, as a Soviet military commander later revealed, would have triggered a nuclear war with the Soviets. JFK opted for a blockade, which Soviet ships respected. By October 26th, the standoff was de-escalating. Then, on October 27th, the crisis reignited when Soviet forces shot down a U.S. reconnaissance plane, killing its pilot, Maj. Rudolf Anderson. Almost immediately, the brass demanded overwhelming retaliation to destroy the Soviet missile sites. Meanwhile, Castro pushed the Kremlin military machine toward a devastating first strike. In a secret meeting with Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, [Attorney General RFK] told him, "If the situation continues much longer, the president is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power."
Bonus question: The article builds a very strong case for why the military-industrial complex benefited from JFK's assassination, implying a solid motive for a conspiracy to get rid of JFK and install the pro-war LBJ. Do we have any firm evidence that JFK would have pulled out of Vietnam in the early 60s had he lived? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1s8jws/rolling_stone_recently_published_a_fascinating/ | {
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" > as a Soviet military commander later revealed, would have triggered a nuclear war with the Soviets.\n\nIs *this part* sensationalized or factual?\n\nWhy would a Soviet commander want to destroy his own country for the sake of a distant island?\n\nAbout this other point: \n\n > Do we have any firm evidence that JFK would have pulled out of Vietnam in the early 60s had he lived?\n\nWasn't Eisenhower already reducing the military presence in South Vietnam? What did JFK do about Vietnam during the three years he was in the presidency? \n\n",
"There is a counter-argument written by Sheldon Stern in *The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory* [available here](_URL_1_). Mr. Stern argues, compellingly, JFK was largely responsible for the crisis and its escalation. \n\nBenjamin Schwarz recently wrote a summary in the Atlantic Monthly [here](_URL_0_). \n\nSchwarz concludes Kennedy mucked up the outset, but did help once the catastrophe was there:\n\n > Although Stern and other scholars have upended the panegyrical version of events advanced by Schlesinger and other Kennedy acolytes, the revised chronicle shows that JFK’s actions in resolving the crisis—again, a crisis he had largely created—were reasonable, responsible, and courageous. Plainly shaken by the apocalyptic potentialities of the situation, Kennedy advocated, in the face of the bellicose and near-unanimous opposition of his pseudo-tough-guy advisers, accepting the missile swap that Khrushchev had proposed. “To any man at the United Nations, or any other rational man, it will look like a very fair trade,” he levelheadedly told the ExComm. “Most people think that if you’re allowed an even trade you ought to take advantage of it.” He clearly understood that history and world opinion would condemn him and his country for going to war—a war almost certain to escalate to a nuclear exchange—after the U.S.S.R. had publicly offered such a reasonable quid pro quo. Khrushchev’s proposal, the historian Ronald Steel has noted, “filled the White House advisors with consternation—not least of all because it appeared perfectly fair.”\n\nEdit - clarity",
"It's important to note the source on this, RFK Jr. Kind of odd a major magazine would allow an author to try to do a serious story about their own uncle. ",
"The Soviet troops stationed around and in Cuba were effectively cut off from the top brass. They threw in their lot with Castro and legitimately admired and respected him and his ideals. The men on the ground were armed with low tonnage tactical nukes that they would have used in the case of an invasion, because as far as they saw, they were on their own. \n\nWith that, there were also nuclear submarines in the vicinity and they came very close to firing on the American blockades, due to provocative actions(such as dropping depth charges and firing tracers). \n\nMeanwhile the Americans are flying sorties all over Cuba so low that the Soviets wete never sure if they were about to get bombed, and AA batteries even killed a pilot as tensions rose.\n\nAll of this was happening without even the military commanders being in control. There were a million and one ways it could have turned nuclear, and it was obvious the longer it went on the less on control Kennedy and Khrushchev were, as is evidenced by Khrushchev's personal letter to Kennedy. \n\nI would very much make the case that any control either leader had was tentative and unstable at best, because even of General LeMay and co. were kept on a leash, there were thousands of men on the ground who could have set things off.",
"I don't have any citations handy for this, but I did write a senior thesis on early CIA history and the Bay of Pigs was pretty central to it. I haven't gone any further in academic history, so this isn't much of a credential at all. I can't find my original bibliography at the moment, but I'll keep looking for it.\n\nIn my understanding, the JCS expected the Bay of Pigs to be a starting point. Once committed to the assault, JFK would commit more and more resources until Cuba was fully US-occupied. \n\nOn the other hand, JFK was being told by his own agencies and the JCS that the resources already pledged to the invasion would be sufficient on their own, and repeatedly said he didn't intend to escalate beyond the operation on paper.\n\nFrom my own readings from the outside perspective, related more to the Bay of Pigs than the Missile Crisis, it wasn't exactly that JFK was a peacemonger, nor was it that the JCS were warmongers. It was more a breakdown in communication. The JCS used language they had developed under previous presidencies and thought JFK understood that when they said 5, they really meant 50, so to speak. JFK was stubborn by nature, and so when confronted with that same hypothetically 5:50 ratio would dig in his heels. He viewed it more as throwing good money after bad.\n\nAt the end of the day, that makes JFK seem pretty dovish, but I interpreted that more as JFK not liking anyone trying to control his actions by giving him phony advice.",
"While I'm not hugely knowledgeable on the subject, I feel the documentary \"The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara\" touches nicely on your question. Definitely worth a watch if you haven't already.",
"Political psychological accounts of the event rely heavily upon the idea that the generals were much less of a factor in the CMC because of the role they played in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. I think this is a complicated issue though so I'm going to start with the Bay of Pigs. It is relevant, I promise.\n\nThomas Preston (2001) argues that the type of Presidential personality Kennedy developed was one that allowed for cognitive flexibility and more importantly, learning. When he came into office, the invasion of Cuba had been planned and set into motion by the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy, not wanting to underwhelm the generals who were heavily pushing for it started to show signs of cognitive rigidity and his inner circle started to show signs of what is called groupthink (Janis 1982). Some signs of groupthink in this case were that RFK had started to suppress other aids who might have spoken out against the pseudo-invasion. Eventually, all of his aids started to tow the line, having relied upon the 'expert advice' of the generals who were advocating for the continued invasion. In this case, these groupthink symptoms overwhelmed JFK's cognitive flexibility and the BoP was a massive failure.\n\nWith the background set, flash forward to the CMC. JFK treated this situation far differently than the BoP as he wanted to avoid more failure. He did what he could to emphasize cognitive flexibility and reduce groupthink. For instance, Kennedy did not really trust the generals as 'experts' anymore. They were policy makers like anyone else. Additionally, Kennedy would intentionally sit out of meetings so that his staff could speak candidly without any real or perceived nudging by the President. RFK stopped acting as a 'mindguard' of JFK and instead offered honest counsel. In general, Kennedy treated the information and advice he was recieving much more critically and was unwilling to rely just on prestige or expertise.\n\nSo at least from the political psychological accounts, the generals played a much smaller role in Presidential decisionmaking than they had earlier in the Presidency. That might be why RFK made that statement.\n\n---\nSources:\n\n[Janis, I. \\(1982\\). Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.](_URL_1_)\n\n[Preston, T. \\(2001\\). The President and His inner circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Affairs. New York: Columbia University Press.](_URL_0_) ",
"A related question: \n\nOliver Stone's movie \"JFK\" presents a very similar account to the OP about JFK's handling of the crisis. \n\nIs his movie (but those scenes in particular) generally considered an accurate portrayal? \n",
"I can't remember the exact details regarding your question but it is discussed in length in Michael Dobbs' *One Minute to Midnight* if you, or anyone else in the thread, is interested in more on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dobbs presents the Cuban Missile Crisis from all three countries' points of view and he discusses a lot of the cabinet and brass meetings with Kennedy. "
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85y0n6 | why should i worry about companies (such as fb and google) data-mining my internet profiles? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/85y0n6/eli5_why_should_i_worry_about_companies_such_as/ | {
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"In the popular FB-deleting current trend, data was obtained from 50 million people. Psychological profiles were executed on these individuals. Based on their psychological type, targeted ads, even with fake news, were targeted towards these individuals to influence their decision on who to vote for. This can be dangerous, corrupt, and potentially immoral. \n\nThis is one example. I know people do research to see what color you prefer to buy from, so they can change their ad to cater to you. This seems somewhat manipulative, but not totally exploitive. Although the lines between these two examples are fine. \n\nPersonally, I just don't want someone to know much about me. I had a flip phone for the past couple of years but recently went back to the iPhone. I might switch back soon...",
"While a lot of people are a bit weirded out by unknown parties looking over their shoulders, the main point is that the data being used likely is being used in ways you don't recognize. It can also be used in ways we haven't seen yet, so far as we know.\n\nFor example you don't think you see targeted ads because you use an ad blocker. But are you **sure** you aren't seeing ads? For example when you open YouTube the videos you see suggested are based on your collected data and can subtly impact your behavior by adjusting the media you are exposed to. They might as well be ads.\n\nWhen you search for something on Google do you think the results are the same for everyone? Of course not! They are customized for your particular profile and they can steer you towards certain things; it might be that they predict you are looking to buy a table saw and prefer to steer you toward pages that include a brand that is paying Google for advertising. Or maybe they skew your search results toward pages that include positive language regarding a political candidate that would benefit the company.\n\nGetting money from you by predicting your desires is perhaps the most benevolent use of the data collected. They could make you angry about certain issues, or complacent, or ignorant, or change your mind without you even knowing. When political races hinge on a percentage point or two even a subtle tweak to the national consciousness can make all the difference, so even if you are convinced it could never happen to you because you are special and immune to manipulation, it can work on some people. Enough to make a difference."
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3qr059 | why is "whistleblowing" such a heavily punishable offense? | For example, why does Edward Snowden have hide in another country to avoid being charged for exposing human rights violations? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qr059/eli5_why_is_whistleblowing_such_a_heavily/ | {
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"Whistleblowing is usually the act of exposing the wrongdoings of the people in power.\n\nThe people in power - in this case, branches of the US government - do not want their wrongdoings to be exposed, so they use their power to discourage people from doing it.",
"Whistleblowing is not a punishable offence in and of itself, but the desemination of classified information is, especially if you agreed in your employment not to do so. Someone reporting the find, like Wikileaks, has done nothing wrong. But snowden violated a number of conditions in his contract that are designed to prevent him from leaking classified information since he was a member of an intelligence gathering agency. Right or wrong he committed a crime, the crime was not the whistleblowing itself however.",
"Well, to respond specifically for the case of Edward Snowden, because he broke the law in a pretty big way for exposing classified documents. Whistle blowing comes with a sense of sacrifice. \n\nAnd the reason for that is because it's incredibly difficult to craft whistle blower protection statutes. They almost always include provisions for exposing \"agency misconduct,\" and it's hard to define what that is. ",
"He's not in trouble for whistleblowing. He's in trouble for disclosing classified information, which is a crime pretty much everywhere.\n\nThe way he went about whistleblowing involved the felony he knowingly and willingly committed. He wanted to ensure that the information got out there -- and the only way to do that was to commit a crime. He knew this, which is why he was already out of the country by the time his crime was known."
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cylfba | What would a dark age church service look like? | Let's say you are a peasant living in France. Right now the black plague is still bopping it's way along the silk road and you have never even heard of it. You and your family farm rye in order to survive. when you go to church for service, what events would happen? what sort of sermon would be given? What sort of tithes would you give? (Not religous, just curious) | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cylfba/what_would_a_dark_age_church_service_look_like/ | {
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"There are a great number of possible variations on the following, but I'll do my best to give you an idea.\n\n**Tithing**\n\nFirstly, my family are rye farmers. Much depends on what that means. If we're at the bottom of the social pile producing rye for another citizen farmer then we probably get enough food to live but no income of marked coins (either that issued by the state, the manor or the church). Our tithes are taken care of by the farmer whose land/seed/tools we use. If we're running our own farm or, more likely, strips of land then our tithe is one tenth of the rye we produce because that's the literal meaning of tithe. We may have to give more for church ales (think fundraising event, medieval-style). That's not to say that we don't give more to the church for other reasons, but I'll come back to that later.\n\nIf we're a landowner higher up the scale then there's a good chance we're actually collecting the tithes or performing some other important task in the burg or liberty (effectively the town/district), and we're probably not breaking our backs collecting our own rye. That depends on exactly how the church and the district are set up and who they were set up by - it might be our family that built the church and own the chantries, I'll come back to that later too.\n\nOne more possibility of many is that we're actually wards of the church, we might live on church-owned land in which case everything we produce is the property of the church. Again, we'll get what we need to survive (which may be surprisingly little) but we *may* have the added advantage of better medical care. That's not a great improvement to life but it will help some people.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**The Church**\n\nThe following is all dependent on the size of the church - small village churches would have a high altar and a few additional altars, wealthy town churches would have a high altar, numerous specific chapels and many altars dedicated to particular saints, while cathedrals would have a high altar, any number of chapels and many *many* additional altars. Sizeable stone buildings would be astonishing to most people of the time, even a small-ish church would have been quite something, and cathedrals must have been mind-blowing. \n\nYou'll know that churches can be divided into two main sections: the chancel (where the high altar stands) and the nave. Cruciform churches (in a cross plan) also have a crossing (the centre of the cross) and transepts (the north and south wings of the church). The chancel and the high altar are only accessible to those who have been ordained. Everything that happens in there is hidden by a chancel screen (or \"rood screen\"). The general public can hear the mass being performed, they can smell the mass, but they can not see it. The chancel would have been brightly candle-lit so the effect would be quite theatrical - some churches would have a golden rood (cross) hanging above the rood screen where it would be lit by candles. The ghostly, ethereal singing and the golden cross hovering in the drifting candle/incense smoke would have been deeply dramatic.\n\nAll this heavenly celebration wouldn't just be happening on Sundays, there would be masses all week round and, depending on the size of the church, for most of the day. Nor would the High Altar be the only place where stuff would be happening - the church would have numerous altars (depending on size) and possibly a chantry chapel dedicated to a wealthy benefactor. Chantry chapels would be near the high altar, often to the south with secondary chantries built to the north, and would commemorate a specific deceased person or family. Priests would be employed to perform regular masses in the chantries, sometimes these would alternate with high mass or take place as part of it. During main festivals like Nativity, Annunciation, Assumption and Easter there would be processions of the clergy through the local area and into the church where people could see the service that was being done for them. \n\nThe sides of the church would be lined with additional altars raised by guilds or local families, each of these would be dedicated to a particular saint and tended to by the altar's benefactors. Masses would take place at these on particular days of the week with the regularity depending on the donations. If a church had nave aisles and arcades (the arches that run down the main body of the church) then each arch would be separated into a bay by a parclose (a dividing screen), there may be seating in each to allow more comfortable prayer for the visitor or any priests who were specifically appointed to that altar. With that said, most of us would spend our visit in the nave, probably facing east. The first-millennium tradition was for baptisms in the West end and funerals in the East because in life we travel towards the light. Easter/Oster/Oester (we get the name East from the same root as oestre, or egg, or life) is the most important direction in Christian building and liturgy, a practice that goes back long before Christianity and which was specifically adopted by Sees around the 6th Century. Norman churches continued this tradition - if we were receiving a blessing or communion we would be expected to be facing the East window and altar, even if we couldn't see it through the rood screen. Interestingly, a priest saying prayers or preaching a sermon would also be facing east, not west towards the congregation as is the custom in many churches today.\n\nAlthough we know that some churches had seating in the main body of the nave it was considered unusual and was very rarely fixed in place. The public would stand in the nave and receive blessings or simply replenish their holy goodness through their presence in the house of God - and it's easy to imagine that it really felt that way to somebody in the 1300s. Of course, the public wouldn't just be there to recharge their spirit - we know that all kinds of public matters took place in church naves and porches, meetings, trade, markets, ales (a local festival that also acted as a bit of a fundraiser for churches), and pretty much any public event. In larger churches there would still have been a mass going on in the chancel or chantries.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nBasically, how much we pay for that depends on who we are and our importance in the community. Our visit to the church would be a smoky, sweet-smelling experience with the light of the cross visible from the murky dimness of the nave, and the sound of heavenly (ish) singing echoing around the body of the church.but all in all it must have been a quite magical experience.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n**Sources:** not exhaustive but they cover the above and give a good grounding in Norman medieval Catholic churches in Europe, that particularly covers France and large parts of England\n\n*Prof. English:The Lords of Holderness*\n\n*Prof. Warwick: The Archaeology of Churches*\n\n*Dr. Taylor: How to Read a Church - A Guide to Symbols and Meanings in Churches*\n\n*Hitchcock: History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millenium*\n\n*Weidenkopf: A History of the Catholic Church*"
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12dyrb | Who was the first person to have their own army? | I understand that there have probably been people with armies since prehistoric times, so maybe a better question would be who had the first real army, as in a well-organized and lasting military force? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12dyrb/who_was_the_first_person_to_have_their_own_army/ | {
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"As far as I am aware, the first recorded individual was a ruler named Sargon of Akkad. He apparantly created a standing army of 5400 men:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nKeep in mind we have pictorial evidence of people fighting in organized bodies prior to that, but Sargon was the first individual with whom a military force was *personally* associated with.\n\n"
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"http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gabrmetz/gabr0004.htm"
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h00ru | Are there cultures where smiling is not used to show happiness? If not, how did it develop to mean this across the world? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/h00ru/are_there_cultures_where_smiling_is_not_used_to/ | {
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"Like birds know to fly south in the winter, humans are born with certain facial expressions as a representation of emotion. Facial expressions associated with disgust, happiness, surprise, fear, anger, and sadness have been found to be the same across the world, including cultures isolated from the rest of the world. It's been measured using multirater consensus as well as facial muscle group used to create the facial expression. They are innate motor reflexes.\n\nWe just covered this a couple of weeks ago in the Psych 101 class I taught this semester, so your question came just at the right time for me to answer well. I hope this is helpful and answers your question.",
"Oooh I was watching about this on BBC's The Human Animal the other day. Basically if you watch chimps fighting on youtube you will see that when they are fighting if they have had enough and just want to be left alone they will pull the corners of their lips right back as a sign of fear or to say \"I am not a threat\".\n\nAs human we do the same thing by smiling, in order to say that we are not a threat. It is also hard to fake a smile because some of the muscles are hard to consciously control.",
"How about in the US, where it's used for politeness? We are well-known for excessive and elsewhere inappropriate smiling. The counterexample I read about was Russia, where people smile very rarely but genuinely. ",
"smiling is also probably less associated with the physical expression (the grimacing and showing of teeth is associated with fear and aggression responses in other animals) and more about voice tone. smiling tenses the vocal chords, giving one's voice a higher, more infantile quality. ",
"In [Korea smiling can mean embarrassment](_URL_0_), much to the consternation of many a foreign traveler."
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"http://books.google.com/books?id=h9-DOFiUI5oC&lpg=PA48&ots=KVVokQX4Ox&dq=embarrassed%20smile%20korea&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q=embarrassed%20smile%20korea&f=false"
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3qzgda | Was bronze ever used for (chain) mail? | I'm wondering about whether bronze was ever used as material for mail. I was under the impression that it was not, but then I read the wikipedia article about the [lorica hagmata](_URL_0_) and it implied bronze was used in the construction as an alternative to iron.
Googling didn't give me anything except a dead link that seems to have gone to a forum where some artwork evidence had been posted ([second link](_URL_1_)) but as the link was dead I have no idea.
Thankful for any input on whether bronze was used for the hagmata, or any other kind of mail (and as a side question, was any other material except iron and steel used?). | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3qzgda/was_bronze_ever_used_for_chain_mail/ | {
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"The Roman period is before my period of expertise, so I can't say much about the Lorica Hamata.\n\nHowever, in the Middle Ages there are occasional uses of latten (a copper alloy, generally containing Zinc - basically brass) to make mail. The most common use of this is a decorative border on the edge of a mail garment - the hem of a mail skirt, cuffs, etc. There are a number of examples of this surviving, such as [this example at the Wallace Collection](_URL_2_). This shirt also has a latten 'signature' link identifying the mail-maker - you can see it [here](_URL_1_). In Thom Richardson's description of the Tower of London inventories of the 14th century, he mentions a mail collar ('pizzane') decorated with latten borders and pendants of butted (IE not rivetted) latten links attached to the collar proper. The borders of latten links create a contrasting, decorative border that seems to be made of gold. Similarly 14th and some 15th century plate armour sometimes has decorative applied borders of gilt latten. You can see this in the famous ['Breastplate number 10'](_URL_0_) from Castle Churburg in South Tyrol.\n\nIn the accounts of the Tower of London from the 14th century there is a mail shirt 'of latten' mentioned repeatedly in inventories through the decades (from 1344 to 1362) - probably the same shirt. In one of these accounts it is identified with mail shirts 'for the tournament'. If this was a mail shirt entirely made of latten, it may have been made for early forms of club tournament where whalebone swords were used, and not for battle. In this case protection against piercing by lances/arrows/swords was less important, and a more visually striking but less tough metal could be used."
]
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| [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorica_hamata",
"https://www.google.se/search?q=lorica+hamata+bronze&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=y_U0VpOpJuOeygOMmqKwBQ"
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"http://www.tforum.info/forum/uploads/post-21950-1309115935.jpg",
"http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=DynamicAsset&sp=SU5mxm4Yx%2FVaV1DPqh%2B3byn7vHPO0vGEbSO2CZa%2FyluWyUdAw6XbIJo%2FXSd3RdPIQGDltaCq%2FweZm%0AHsV76GnM8XFlKwOoejtfLb4rovvvgK7ogYiTww824Q%3D%3D&sp=Simage%2Fjpeg",
"http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t1.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=0&sp=2&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=2"
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2mrqro | what is the point of ticketmaster if it just brings you to another site to but the tickets? | I don't really understand buying tickets for concerts online. Every time I do it brings me to different sites and I end up paying a good bit more than the actual ticket price. Does Ticketmaster have a fee just to send you to the website that is actually selling the tickets? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mrqro/eli5what_is_the_point_of_ticketmaster_if_it_just/ | {
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"text": [
"Ticketmaster gets a commission from every ticket sale made from another website. The cost for that commission is ultimately paid by you."
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| []
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[]
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|
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2fkqpl | why is it so difficult for people to admit they are wrong about something? | Have there been any studies on this? Is it psychological, societal, or what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fkqpl/eli5_why_is_it_so_difficult_for_people_to_admit/ | {
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"I don't know about any studies, but I think it's probably something to do with either pride, or they don't want people to think badly of them for not being right",
"Very well understood psychology at this point:\n\n1) People hate loss more than they like gains.\n\n2) The harder you challenge someone's beliefs, the stronger they will cling to them and resist change.\n\n3) Dunning-Kruger effect: You can be so ignorant you don't know you're ignorant. This validates the old adage \"The wise are full of doubt while the foolish are cocksure.\"",
"Pride. The position you take on something becomes wrapped up in your sense of self. If you admit that you were wrong, it means that you yourself have failed, and others will think less of you. Of course that's not always true, but it's the psychology that most people fall prey to. ",
"In the States I believe it's societal, there's such a screwed up culture here of \"You're not getting over on me\" that it permeates and trickles down through just about all the lesser educated population which is to say a large majority. \n\nIt's a symptom of intellectual insecurity, and of course this is seriously exaggerated online where anonymity gives the idiots a free forum."
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284i5r | why do i sleep like a beautiful princess after i wash my sheets and make my bed? | Edit: I'm serious I actually want to know. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/284i5r/eli5_why_do_i_sleep_like_a_beautiful_princess/ | {
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"Check your box of detergent, if it says that it makes your clothes softer or includes a softner then you might have found a company that actually tells the truth.",
"After a shower and a shave - I'mma sleep till NOON. ",
"This should have a \"serious\" tag. Not many people are going to take this question very seriously. ",
"Because the [nesting instinct](_URL_0_) isn't actually limited to pregnant people, or women, for that matter. You've cleared the cave of debris, checked every rock for snakes and scorpions, and now you can sleep safely.",
"Your sheets are free of particles and crumbs."
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[],
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6j42tf | why it is metres per second per second instead of metres per second? | If a thing is moving 10 m/s^2 it means it is moving 10m every second, right? But the extra 'per second' means it is moving 10m every second every second, right? So why do you need the extra second? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6j42tf/eli5_why_it_is_metres_per_second_per_second/ | {
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"They refer to different things.\n\nm/s refers to a speed. How much distance you cross per second.\n\nm/s^2 refers to *acceleration*, or a change in velocity.",
"When you say m/s2 you're not talking about linear movement. You're talking about accelleration. This object is accellerating 10 meters every second.\n\nIf it's linear you'd just talk about m/s.",
"10 m/s^2 is an acceleration, not a movement, it means that for every second, it moves 10 meters per second faster.\n\n10 m = length\n\n10 m/s = speed\n\n10 m/s^2 = acceleration",
"You're confusing acceleration with velocity.\n\n10 m/s^2 means your velocity is increasing by 10m/s every second.",
"You're confusing speed (change in distance over time, i.e., meters per second, or miles per hour, or kilometers per hour) with acceleration (change in speed over time, i.e., meters per second per second).\n\nAn object can't be moving at 10 m/s^2, but it can be accelerating at 10 m/s^2. If it had no speed initially, it would be going 10 m/s after one second, 20 m/s after two seconds, etc.",
"Meters per second is a measure of velocity.\n\nMeters per second per second is a measure of acceleration. \n\nIf you are moving at 10m per second, you are moving 100m in 10 seconds.\n\nIf you are moving at 10m per second per second, you are travelling around 550m. 10m the first second, 20m the second, 30m the third, etc.",
"m/s^2 is a measure of acceleration, not velocity. It means the object's velocity is *increasing* by a measure of 10 m/s, *per second*.\n\nSay the object was starting at rest and accelerating at that rate. 1 second later, if you measure velocity, it is 10 m/s. Another second later, and it is 20 m/s. After a total of 10 seconds, the object is traveling 100 m/s.",
"Metres per second per second is acceleration. Metres per second is speed. Speed is how quickly your position is changing. Acceleration is how quickly your speed is changing. Metres per second means you are just moving. Metres per second per second means you are speeding up or slowing down."
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u8xg5 | shifts in what is considered attractive | Example: statues or paintings from past eras had chubbier women as the ideal of beauty, nowadays slimmer women are generally preferred | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/u8xg5/eli5_shifts_in_what_is_considered_attractive/ | {
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"Let's pretend you go to school 500 years ago. Not everyone had enough food to eat because a lot of people were too poor to afford a good meal every day. Then Clarice comes to school. She's a little chubby, so you can tell her parents have enough money to feed her every day. Which means your babies will have enough food every day. \n\nLet's say you go to school now. Clarice is chubby. That means her parents are poor, because they can only afford to feed her cheap, processed foods. Which means your babies will be fat and unhealthy. ",
"Another point is that now tan women are generally preferred because it means you have time to work/play outside as opposed to sitting in an office all day. However, it used to be considered attractive to be pale because it meant you didn't have to work outside in the fields."
]
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v4r2e | how come some countries' money is cheap and others' expensive? | I am speaking not about the numbers but about the value money represents within a country and then how that value reflects in the exchange rate. As in how come the average citizen of India has to work X amount of hours to buy a TV or a gallon/liter of gasoline or a pair of shoes while the average citizen in Switzerland has to work much less for the same? I find this geographical predetermination of the value of human effort somewhat disturbing. Please explain it to me. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/v4r2e/how_come_some_countries_money_is_cheap_and_others/ | {
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"What's stopping a country from secretly printing a lot of money and exchanging and buying things it needs from another country without the other countries realizing that they have been duped with their now deflated trade off?",
"Milton friedman won the Nobel prize for the quantity theory of money. Which says that the value of currency in a country is directly proportional to the production it can buy and inversely proportional to the amount of currency in that economy. The peso is worth less than the dollar because there is less goods for it to buy in relation to how many pesos are out there. This is why printing money doesn't create wealth it merely increases prices. Ever since we left the gold standard money has been created through government deficits and fractional reserve banking. With all this currency being created the dollar has lost 99% of its value since then.",
"Tehhunter's answer to this question, while not inaccurate in and of itself, I think is incorrect. What OP wants to know why it is that the average worker in India gets paid less than the average worker in Switzerland, and why the price of goods is generally lower in India (when expressed in dollars) than it is in Switzerland. \n\nThe answer to this question has nothing, or very little, to do with government or debt. The answer is about labour productivity, and the affect labour productivity has on wages. In ELI5 terms:\n\nWorkers in Switzerland and India have different levels of labour productivity. Swiss workers have higher labour productivity than workers in India, which means that a worker in Switzerland can produce more goods, and/or produce more higher value goods, than a worker in India. The dollar amount of the stuff a Swiss worker produces will be higher than the dollar amount of the stuff an Indian worker produces. \n\nThis is the case for a number of reasons, and is complicated by the fact that, more than likely, Swiss workers will be working with better and more advanced machines. But even if they had the same kind of machines, Swiss workers would still produce more. They're more educated than Indian workers, and have a greater ability to put to use knowledge which might improve output, even if they're working with the same kind of machines those in India are working with. Of course, there are lots of things aside from education which enable them to do this, and if you like you can look at average educational quality as a way of describing all the small yet significant things which make a worker in a specific country productive.\n\nWage rates, in general, are determined by labour productivity. It's really that simple. It's not a relationship which always holds, and it's strength varies over time, but in general it's true. As such, workers in India are paid less, because they're less productive. And so it's not geographical determination of human effort as such, rather it's the simple fact that Indian workers are less productive.\n\nAt this point you might be trying to apply this to a scenario in your head, and wondering how this applies to workers who don't even use machines. Why is it that even the local 7/11 shop attendant in India gets paid less than s/he would in Switzerland. I'm sorta worried that a full answer to this might complicate things a bit to much. In short, it's because wages in the sector in which the price of the good produced is determined internationally, determine to a large extent the wages elsewhere in the economy. I can expand on this more if you like.\n\nApologies if this isn't an ELI5 answer.",
"A citizen of Switzerland is more *productive* in terms of the global economy than a citizen of India. Not that he works harder, but he produces more wealth.\n\nMost of India's 1.6 billion citizens are farmers, and many of those subsistence farmers. For all of there efforts, all they create is what is leftover after they feed themselves.\n\nA Swiss citizen is more likely to work in manufacturing or finance. Making watches, testing pharmaceuticals, or matching borrowers to lenders, that produces more economical value than growing a small amount of food.\n\nSo when they go to buy a TV from Taiwan, they are essentially trading what they produce for it. It takes more onions to buy a TV than it does watches."
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w1gto | Why do whirlpools cast shadows? | Why do whirlpools cast a shadow while stagnant water is transparent? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/w1gto/why_do_whirlpools_cast_shadows/ | {
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"text": [
"Stagnant water can still cast a shadow.\n\nA whirlpool casts a different shadow due to the turbulence in the water which causes different directions in which the light scatters."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
|
5rfwhu | Were there any Christian or Muslim rulers who converted to a non-Abrahamic faith in History? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5rfwhu/were_there_any_christian_or_muslim_rulers_who/ | {
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"The one person who comes to mind is the Roman emperor Julian (360-63), who, though raised Christian, turned back to the Greek religion of the Homeric gods and tried to reestablish that faith as the principal religion in the Roman empire. For that reason the Christian historiography referred to him as \"apostata\". Since he fell in battle three years after his ascension to the throne nothing came of his efforts (and, as Christianity was already quite wide spread at the time, it would arguably be doubtful if that would have been reversible at all). A good overview about Julian and his political and religious aims is given in: Adrian Murdoch, The Last Pagan."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
||
7490b9 | What factors lead to Opera's decline in popularity in the United States? | While it still has fans, it seems that opera is, at least in America, not incredibly popular among the general public. Has opera's niche appeal always been the case, or did opera's popularity decline over time? Why did the art form lose its popularity if it did decline? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7490b9/what_factors_lead_to_operas_decline_in_popularity/ | {
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"Kindly release opera from its grave! Just because you don't personally consume something, doesn't mean it's dead. For America in particular, I can comfortably state that you live in the best time of all for consumption of opera. As of today opera is the most accessible and affordable to Americans that it has ever been, every major US city has an opera company, DVDs and Youtubes and albums abound, available at prices almost always lower than a lower or lower-middle class working person's single day of wages, which is virtually unthinkable for most of history. [I expand a bit here,](_URL_1_) unfortunately my link to statistics about American opera consumption died, so [here it is rebirthed.](_URL_0_) Unfortunately they haven't been able to redo that survey to update, but as of 2012, a steady percentage of 2% ish of Americans consume live opera every year. 2% seems small, but it's roughly, by some people's estimates, currently the number of Americans who are vegan, and yet I can get both my opera fix and my LightLife Smart Bacon fix with ease in my city. Of course we can't compare this to 18th century Italy, but to put it in perspective, for the oldest opera house in America, the Met, in 1900 if they sold every seat and standing place in the house (which, no way), it would have accommodated 0.112% of the city's total population on any given night. "
]
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| []
| [
[
"https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/highlights-from-2012-sppa-revised-oct-2015.pdf",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2goadq/when_were_classical_music_opera_and_jazz_at_their/ckl2bpg/"
]
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|
eabnrn | What is the difference between a hypernova and a super luminous supernova? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/eabnrn/what_is_the_difference_between_a_hypernova_and_a/ | {
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"I'm definitely not an expert in this topic by any means so take this with a grain of salt. \n\nFrom the cursory research I've done, it seem that the difference is in mass vs light. A hypernova is exceptional in the kinetic energy of it's mass ejections, whereas a super luminous supernova is exceptional in the amount of electromagnetic radiation it gives off.\n\nPerhaps someone more knowledgeable could elaborate on what exactly causes them to be different in particular (aside from just being larger or differently classed stars)."
]
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| []
| [
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||
13mlq6 | chicago note style (in academic papers) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13mlq6/eli5_chicago_note_style_in_academic_papers/ | {
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"If you want an actual guide to formatting, the [Purdue OWL](_URL_1_) academic writing lab is incredibly helpful as a guide. If you have Firefox, the [Zotero](_URL_0_) extension automatically creates perfect citations according to the official formats (for Chicago and other research citation formats) where you just input the information, so it is a very helpful tool (I personally used both Zotero and OWL in a major English research paper last year). I'll try to provide some background on why Chicago style exists. I am assuming that you know what MLA and APA are, what a bibliography is, and what footnotes/parenthetical citations are, since you are asking an academic research question.\n\nThe brief ELI5 answer on why people use Chicago over other formats: footnotes instead of parenthesis, and smoother-looking styles that appeal to humanities students instead of rock-solid formats that the sciences prefer.\n\nDetails:\n\nDifferent disciplines prefer different citation styles based on the demands of their own research papers. MLA and APA are popular with social sciences and the hard sciences, but Chicago is usually used with the humanities (English, history, etc). Chicago style gets its name from the University of Chicago where it was developed. It has the benefit of defining a format for footnotes *and* bibliography citations, which the humanities LOVE. Open any literature research paper, you will probably see footnotes. This is probably because the humanities like to have their reading uninterrupted by parenthetical citations (which, if I'm not mistaken, MLA and APA both have). \n\nSo instead of throwing all the citations right in the body of the paper, the humanities like to put all the sources on the bottom of the page and the bibliography at the end. This is why Chicago style is so helpful. The sciences prefer formats that use parenthetical citations because the more important aspect of science research is having evidence for every scientific claim you make. But for English, history, and similar studies, they prefer to read your academic work and understand your interpretations and conclusions, and *then* verify your sources.\n\nOh, and one nice thing about Chicago is that it just looks pretty. You get to write an author's name as \"Charles Dickens\" instead of \"Dickens, Charles\" and you can use italics on some parts, which makes things easier to read when surrounded by quotation marks, periods, and other funky things you commonly see in a bibliography."
]
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"http://www.zotero.org/",
"http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/"
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8b3db3 | How does coordination work? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/8b3db3/how_does_coordination_work/ | {
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"Your muscles have a bunch of nerves in them that communicate with the brain not only to contract/relax, but how the muscle is being stretched and how it’s moving. It’s called proprioception. This, combined with the vestibular system in the ear and visual input from the eyes provide information to the brain that combined, let you know where you are in space. Conscious and unconscious proprioception are communicated to the brain through different nervous pathways, which is why you don’t have to think every time you do basic physical activity activity, and why some motions become “muscle memory”. The brain can learn patterns of movement based on how the muscles respond and stretch in response to stimuli. "
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||
24hk6m | At the Battle of Ulundi, during the British-Zulu war, how did the British win while only destroying such a small part of the opposing Zulu force? | These were the stats of both armies, via wiki,
* **British**
* 4,200 British[2]
* 1,000 Africans
* Two Gatling Guns
* 10 cannons
* **Zulu**
* 10000-15000 men
The results of the battle were such that the British suffered ~100 causalities and the Zulu ~1500.
This still leaves the Zulus outnumbering the British possibly 2:1. Did they just give up in the face of superior British firepower (i.e gatling gun, nine pounders, etc)?
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/24hk6m/at_the_battle_of_ulundi_during_the_britishzulu/ | {
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"It's important to know that battles are not determined by how many casualties each side takes. Without getting into a lengthy discussion about strategy, in general, the goal is to make the other side withdraw. Whether this be a rout (enemy cohesion breaks, disorderly retreat, time when most casualties occur) or an organized withdrawal doesn't matter in terms of who \"won\" the battle, though it may have very large strategic implications. \n\nThe British commander, Lord Chelmsford was being replaced. The British suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Islandlwana under his command. However, he had some time before his replacement would arrive. Chelmsford used this opportunity to provoke the Zulu forces into attacking in order to claim victory and repair his tarnished reputation.\n\nTo his credit, Chelmsford learned from the lessons of Islandlwana. There, the British were taken by surprise and used standard battle tactics. As seen [here](_URL_0_), the British forces had formed a standard battle line with their flank protected, but the maneuvering of the Zulu forces, and their superior numbers, allowed them to outflank and encircle the British forces. \n\nChelmsford would not let that happen again. For the Battle of Ulundi, he formed a [square](_URL_1_) because he knew the Zulu were aggressive and would try to encircle the British forces. As the Zulu had some firearms, and were able to pick off British soldiers, but not enough to abandon their traditional hand-to-hand fighting. But the British were prepared. The cavalry provoked the Zulu into charging, and the square was 4 ranks deep. The Zulu tried many times to rush the square, but were beaten back by massed rifle, Gatling gun, and artillery fire. \n\nThis goes to my earlier point - they may have only lost a \"small part\" of their force, but the withering fire broke their morale. The British cavalry charged and rode down the fleeing Zulu warriors."
]
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"http://www.britishbattles.com/zulu-war/isandlwana/map.jpg",
"http://www.britishbattles.com/zulu-war/ulundi/map.jpg"
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4kiozn | Historian's with a specialty in religion, how have your studies impacted your faith? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4kiozn/historians_with_a_specialty_in_religion_how_have/ | {
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"[Here](_URL_0_)'s a similar question I asked a while ago, and received an amazing reply from /u/sowser.",
"For me, being a historian of religion has made me very skeptical of claims that modern people make like \"Judaism teaches x\" or \"According to Christianity, no one may do y.\" Because for most claims like that, the important people associated with the religion said pretty much the opposite at some point in their history. History has taught me that \"Christianity says,\" functionally, means \"Christians say.\" And people have beautiful crazy complicated different lives, so they say beautiful crazy complicated different things. \n\nIt's also helped me really understand that, for most people, religious statements aren't truth-apt propositions. Understanding the all-encompassing nature of medieval religion helped me understand that, for me and the people around me, religion is a way of life, not a system of proofs. I sort of knew that before, but it's easier to understand when you study people who have religious practices that seem kind of absurd to us but that make total sense to them. They're not stupid, they're just having a different conversation. "
]
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| []
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[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4if1dq/is_it_more_of_an_advantage_or_a_disadvantage_for/"
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10s1dc | I've heard that "the equations of particle physics and of general relativity cannot be reconciled in the mathematically expected manner", can someone elaborate? | Where exactly does the math not add up? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10s1dc/ive_heard_that_the_equations_of_particle_physics/ | {
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"It's complicated. When you do a calculation in quantum field theory (what particle physics is based on), you eventually get an infinite result, and you essentially get around it by subtracting another infinity from that until things work out. It's called renormalization and mathematicians hate it, but it works well for the problems it attempts to solve.\n\nYou can attempt to take a classical field theory (like general relativity) and quantize it. General relativity can be described by a spin-2, mass-0 field, described by something called the Einstein-Hilbert action. If you try to renormalize this, you will not be able to. The infinities will not go away.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is the most basic explanation I know of, that probably still requires graduate level physics."
]
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| []
| [
[
"http://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.3555v2.pdf"
]
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|
|
3z8i85 | Is Albert Speers book on the Third Reich a good source? | I imagine there might be some bias and one could get a distorted view from reading it? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3z8i85/is_albert_speers_book_on_the_third_reich_a_good/ | {
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"Hello - I read this book two summers ago and may I say I found it to be a riveting read. It provides details into the intimate workings of the Reich, and Albert Speer's relationship with Hitler that would be difficult to find elsewhere. In particular I was struck by the inefficiencies and haphazard administration of the Third Reich, and how its politics were administered. \n\nI don't think that Speer's book could be considered biased from the standpoint of being 'Pro-Reich' or anything of the sort. The one thing you could probably criticize him for is shifting blame for the holocaust away from himself.\n\nOverall definitely worth reading but, like all primary sources, should be read with a grain of skepticism.",
"Tough question. Speers book is definitely a good source of what Speer wants the world to think about him. On the other hand, it is absolutely a unique insight into the inner workings of the Third Reich.\n\nUltimately, most of the interesting episodes described in his book are personal stories where he is the only source, so it is impossible to fact check a lot of the information.\n\nRead it for what it is: an interesting auto-biography of somebody whose life was defined by the Nazis. For proper historical analysis, go elsewhere."
]
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[],
[]
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1t5wtc | How was it to attend or work in a university in Nazi Germany? | I know that's an impossibly broad title, so I'll try and narrow my query down here. There's really a few key things I'm interested in. Firstly, a lot is made of Nazi ideology being implemented in school curriculums, but if one was studying, say, a political course at a university in Nazi Germany, was there room for academic discussion of political philosophies antithetical to Nazism, or were students expected to simply regurgitate Nazi ideology? Relatedly, to what extent were working academics expected to make their research conform to the propagandistic aims of the Nazi party? I'm aware of people like Heidegger and Carl Schmitt, but they weren't the only professors around at that time. So could one have produced a critical analysis of, say, a book written by Carl Schmitt and avoid incurring the wrath of the Nazi party, or was Nazi Germany an effective dead period for academic discussion outside of positive reiteration of fascist ideology?
I'm particularly interested in the humanities, here, but if there's any interesting material on other fields, then send them over. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1t5wtc/how_was_it_to_attend_or_work_in_a_university_in/ | {
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"One thing you have to keep in mind about the Nazis is that from fairly early on they began a program of \"coordination\" which made sure that practically all organizations that had any sort of state connection were rearranged along very linearly hierarchical lines of authority, ultimately leading towards people at the top who were very loyal to the Nazi party line. The university system, then as now (I believe) was a form of civil service employment, operated by the state. So it underwent this kind of \"coordination\" as well. This included, among other \"reforms,\" the immediate firing of all \"non-Aryan\" faculty with the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in 1933, and meant further than Party officials had direct connections to the operation of universities and departments.\n\nThere was very little room for academic discussion of much of anything that had political implications, and what had political implications could be a moving target (some, like anthropology, were obviously related to the Nazi political platform; some, like physics, were not but could be tied into it). There was an enforced conformity with the ideals of the Nazi state, and this enforcement could take many forms, from the very direct (losing jobs, choice of new hires, etc.) to the very indirect (many of the German university student groups were very pro-Nazi and would hold rallies, protests, and the like regarding what was taught). \n\nThe case of German physics is one of the most famous examples of this but also one of the most popularly misunderstood. The basics of the story is this: a number of German physicists had, especially since WWI, campaigned to return to a \"true\" German physics of hard empiricism and experimentalism, rejecting the more abstract physics that was popular in the UK and had many connections with German Jewish physicists. (A connection created out of the circumstances of prejudice — the best physics positions were experimentalist positions and as such routinely denied to Jews. Theoretical physics was originally less prestigious and thus was a place where a Jewish scholar could thrive. By the 1930s the prestige had shifted.) Some of these advocates for \"German/Aryan\" physics were early supporters of the Nazis, and attempted to get the Nazi Party interested in their argument that physics had a \"racial\" component. In the very early years of Nazi rule these physicists had some success in getting various parts of the Nazi government interested in attacking \"Jewish\" physics of relativity and quantum mechanics, but the Nazis never really embraced it as a fundamental part of their operations. They succeeded in harassing a few physicists for awhile (like Heisenberg, though he was able to use personal connections to avoid serious consequences), and they succeeded in making sure a few new academic appointments were filled with like-minded physicists. But by the time of the war their influence had been largely neutralized, the \"Aryan\" physicists thought the Nazis had abandoned them, and the theoretical physicists had gotten insulated by their work on atomic energy. \n\nI like this story both because it points out the way in which the ideology _could be used as a resource_ by people _within the system itself_ — that is, not just a \"top-down\" approach — as a means of trying to enact policies (some academic, some professional, some personal) that they wanted. The Nazi party could sign on to it but also reverse course if they found it useful. In some ways this is comparable to the way that party ideology operated in the USSR as well — sometimes as a doctrine that is handed down from the top, but more often as a resource that some academics could use to attack other academics. (An instinct that any academic will find instantly recognizable.)\n\nI know less about the humanities than the sciences; I would expect that the more explicit the conclusions were with regards to the various parts of the Nazi political/ideological platform, the more obvious the constraints would exist, with the caveat that sometimes the connections between the content and the ideology could be unexpected."
]
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| []
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[]
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a1yuso | How does the heart work differently in space compared to earth? | On earth, the atrium gets filled with blood and the blood moves by gravity to the ventricle before muscle contraction. If you're on the ISS, or on your way to Mars where you are not affected by gravity, how does the ventricle actually fill with blood? Is the cardiac output strong enough to make the blood circulate the whole body? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/a1yuso/how_does_the_heart_work_differently_in_space/ | {
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"text": [
"Blood does not fall into the ventricles, the atria contract and force it in. If the circulatory system relied on gravity we wouldn't be able to lie down or hang upside down."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
|
d6gntv | how do the cells stay alive when you fall asleep on a body part for an extended period of time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d6gntv/eli5_how_do_the_cells_stay_alive_when_you_fall/ | {
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"Your arteries are high pressure hoses that stay open even if you compress them. They are deeper in your body too so they wont get compressed easily.",
"The numbness that comes from putting pressure on a body part is from compressing the nerves and disrupting their communication, not preventing blood flow, if that's why you ask."
]
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[],
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484hf0 | how did early television shows record episodes for later broadcast? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/484hf0/eli5_how_did_early_television_shows_record/ | {
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"There really was little thought of \"later broadcast\" (as in reruns) for very early TV, meaning late 1940s/early 1950s. Some \"live\" shows were filmed directly from a TV monitor screen (these filmed copies were called \"kinescopes\") for archiving and for rushing to the west coast for broadcast 3 hours later. Filmed shows (shot on 35mm or 16mm originally) were broadcast by running the film through a film chain, where the frame rate of the film was synchronized to the video camera to the frame rate of the film (24 frames per second) to eliminate the \"flutter\" of broadcasting black frames (the projector's shutter between frames).\n\nBing Crosby was an early backer of the development of video tape, which allowed more flexible time shifting. Video tape began to be employed during the late 1950s. "
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24ipj4 | A domed building a good place to be in a tornado? | I was watching a video (_URL_0_) and the announcer said during a tornado that happened during the game that a domed building was a good place to be during a tornado. Is this true? Why or why not? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/24ipj4/a_domed_building_a_good_place_to_be_in_a_tornado/ | {
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"Probably more of an engineering question.",
"it is true, a sphere has the least surface area:volume ratio possible, and a dome is half a sphere sticking out of the ground, this means the amount of surface for the tornado to blow on is much less than say a rectangular building like a casino.\n\nthat being said, form factor and center of mass also matter, a dome has identical surfaces regardless of the direction of the wind(tornado) and if mass is distributed equally, the center of mass would be near the base of the dome, meaning it is not top heavy, so that it cannot topple over (a skyscraper would topple because it is top heavy/has a high center of mass).\n\nanother noteworthy thing is that domes and pyramids have a \"negative aerodynamic lift\" when being blown, this means the wind is literally pushing the dome/pyramid down as they are blowing across"
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1jlt2g | how does a proposition become a law? | Hey,
I was wondering how a proposition goes from an idea to an actual law. Who writes it? Where does it get submitted? What's the editing process like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jlt2g/eli5_how_does_a_proposition_become_a_law/ | {
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"text": [
"[Schoolhouse Rock: I'm Just a Bill](_URL_0_)"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0"
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|
7yrvn5 | If wind is primarily generated by the rotation of the Earth, then how are some days windier than others? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7yrvn5/if_wind_is_primarily_generated_by_the_rotation_of/ | {
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"The answer to \"If X, then why Y?\" is often \"Because X isn't true.\"\n\nWind is not *principally* caused by the Earth's rotation: the main cause is differences in air temperature. Air heated by the sun rises, and cooler air moves in to take its place. This movement of cooler air is the phenomenon we call \"wind\".\n\nThe Earth's rotation does contribute to wind, however, because as the Earth rotates, parts warmed by the sun during the day cool down during the night. The other effect that Earth's rotation has on wind is the Coriolis effect, which causes wind to spin in cyclones and anticyclones rather than moving directly from one place to another.",
"It turns out that the winter Olympics is a good time to ask this question!\n\nThe Earth is heated near the equator and cooled at the poles, so cold air sinks at the poles, and warm air rises at the equator and tries to move to the poles to create a closed-loop overturning circulation.\n\nHowever, because the Earth is rotating (and the air on it is too), the warm air runs into a problem. Like an ice skater pulling her arms in during a spin, as the air tries to move toward the pole it starts to spin around the Earth's axis faster and faster. This creates a strong west-to-east wind -- the jet stream. And just as it takes more strength for the ice skater to pull her arms in as she spins faster, it gets harder and harder for the warm air to move uniformly toward the pole -- in fact it eventually becomes impossible.\n\nSo the warm equatorial air can't move uniformly toward the pole, but its *heat* can still be transported. Individual blobs of warm tropical air can move toward the pole, trading places with blobs of cold polar air moving to the equator in a series of vortex patterns. (It's as if the ice skater moved one arm toward herself and one arm away, causing no change in spin rate. Also, she's got lots of arms like an octopus... hmm, this metaphor is getting away from me.)\n\nThese vortexes are the storm systems that weather forecasters try to predict. They are vital for carrying heat toward the poles and allowing cold air to return. They're typically about 1000 km across, and they change position, shape, and size constantly, so the wind patterns associated with them are always changing too."
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45i564 | the most modern understanding of human evolution/origin? | I read having Neanderthal DNA was linked to a increase in mental health issues.
I thought we all evolved from neanderthals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45i564/eli5_the_most_modern_understanding_of_human/ | {
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"Not quite. Neanderthals are more of a 'cousin' as it were, as the current evidence suggests that homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis diverged from a common ancestor some 350k + years ago (that species, we believe to be Homo heidelbergensis).\n\nHere's a nice [graphic](_URL_0_) giving a generalized idea about the current interbreeding hypothesis between modern humans and neanderthals - basically we separated then came back together, co-existed for a while, and then we displaced the neanderthals and they went extinct some 40k years ago.\n\nEdit: A competing theory suggests that the neanderthals were 'absorbed' by modern humans through interbreeding, rather than displaced/gone extinct.",
"Nope! Neanderthals were actually a branch of hominids which died out.\n\nI think you are a little mistaken on how evolution works. For one, it doesn't have goals or aims, it just does things that work in the moment. If a species needs to change color suddenly for some reason, it will either do so or it will die out, and most of the time they die out. The same happened to Neanderthals. They weren't able to survive as the world changed, possibly due to competition from us. It seems that the branch of hominids which eventually became us were able to breed with Neanderthals, but were also significantly smarter than them.\n\nIn addition, evolution really cares about most common ancestors rather than lines of lineage. We aren't descended from Neanderthals (mostly), but we are both descended from a single common ancestor which lived somewhere in Africa several million years ago.",
"Neanderthals were either another species of the *Homo* genus or a sub-species of Homo sapiens. They went extinct around 40,000 years ago.\n\nGenetic evidence seems to suggest that Neanderthals did interbreed with humans; something like 1 to 4 percent of genes of modern non-African humans come from Neanderthals.",
"No, it goes like this:\n\n1. Homo erectus. A few H. erectus leave Africa (able to survive only in the tropics of Eurasia, lacked fire); some of these Eurasian H. erectus groups evolve into new hominid species.\n\n2. Meanwhile, back in Africa! Homo erectus has evolved into several new hominid species, most notably Homo heidelbergensis. A few H. heidelbergensis leave Africa; Eurasian H. heidelbergensis began to evolve into a new species, but that proto-species got divided across opposite ends of Eurasia so it ended up becoming two species: Homo neanderthalensis (Europe and Middle East) and Homo denisova (SE Asia, although the only surviving remains are in Siberia). At around this time the Homo erectus in Eurasia begin to disappear, possibly due to the Heidelberg/Neanderthal/Denisova clan.\n\n3. Meanwhile, back in Africa! Homo heidelbergensis has evolved into several new hominid species, most notably Homo sapiens. Some H. sapiens branches head down to SE Africa, and next to Central Africa. At this point a few Homo sapiens leave Africa for Eurasia. One branch begins heading out along the tropical coastline immediately; when this branch gets to SE Asia, there is some denisova/sapiens banging. Another branch later north through the Caucasus, where there is some neanderthalensis/sapiens banging, and then breaks up, heading west into Europe and east into East Asia.\n\n4. Meanwhile, back in Africa: no new species! We do have some hominid/hominid banging, possibly with two different species, but we don't really know the details because fossils don't survive in tropical climates, so we don't have any DNA from those species.\n\nMake sense? Both the main trunk of the human family tree and the Neanderthals (plus Denisovans) evolved from *Homo heidelbergensis.* Subsequently happenstance brought these cousins back together, and they were sufficiently closely related to have children. So a very large fraction of the world population is descended from two or three branches of this family tree; they're not *evolved from* Neanderthals, they *are* (part) Neanderthal, even though the majority of their genes come from the Homo sapiens branch."
]
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1xwati | Why did the Marshall Mission, the American attempt to create a unified government between Chinese Communist Party and Nationalists following WWII, ultimately fail? | The [Wikipedia page](_URL_0_) is very vague. So, I have a few questions that I hope can help focus this discussion.
* What differences could not be settled between both parties?
* What missteps did American diplomats and/or George C. Marshall make?
* What impact did the Soviet Union have on these negotiations? I assume they helped stop them.
* What was the final straw or last events that caused George C. Marshall to leave?
* What impact did the failure of this negotiation have on the eventual Communist victory over the mainland?
Of course, any other more pertinent issues or interesting and relevant anecdotes can be entertained! I hope I worded this well enough. Edit: Formatting
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1xwati/why_did_the_marshall_mission_the_american_attempt/ | {
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"Hello, and thank you for this thoughtful and well-worded question! I'm unfortunately not an expert on the Chinese Civil War, but I'll try my best to provide some background.\n\nThe very short answer to everything is that Mao Zedong and the Communists never had any intention to cooperate with the Nationalists or the Americans in the long term. Before George Marshall even set foot in China, the CCP created plans to \"neutralize the United States\" or, as Zhou Enlai later expressed, \"[make] use of the United States... [and] make every effort to delay the onset of civil war.\" Their position is quite understandable, of course: the United States wanted China under a non-communist government, and its policies consistently favored the Nationalists. Chiang Kai-shek, on his part, was initially amenable to negotiations, if only to pacify both the United States and the Soviet Union, even though his advisers warned that Mao would simply exploit the opportunity to consolidate his forces and that the United States would likely blame the Nationalists for any failure to maintain peace. \n\nThe Soviet Union played a major role in these developments, as you suggested. When the Red Army occupied Manchuria in August 1945 near the end of the Second World War, they handed over an enormous quantity of captured weapons and other materiel to the CCP: according to one source, \"700,000 rifles, 1100 light machine guns, 3000 heavy machine guns, 1800 cannons, 2500 mortars, 700 tanks, 800 ammunition depots, and ordnance factories kept by the former Japanese Kwantung Army.\" The Politburo then recommended to the CCP a month later that they adopt the strategy of \"expanding toward the north and defending toward the south\"--that is, secure their position in Manchuria--to which Mao wholeheartedly agreed. In the meantime, while the Red Army allowed the CCP to maneuver freely throughout the region, they prevented Nationalist officials and troops from expanding their foothold. The Soviets finally agreed to withdraw after Chiang protested, but they delayed it until March 1946. This, along with the temporary ceasefire with the Nationalists later brokered by Marshall, bought extra time for Mao.\n\nSo the Marshall Mission never really stood a chance. Marshall himself failed to resolve the fundamental differences dividing the Communists and Nationalists (and I don't see how he could have); on the other hand, while he later reported that \"almost complete, overwhelming suspicion\" between the two parties limited any meaningful chance for mediation, Marshall also complained about the CCP's \"unwillingness to make a fair compromise.\" You might consider this the \"final straw,\" though Truman recalled him in January 1947 so he could serve as Secretary of State (allegedly without Marshall's prior knowledge). As for the military dimension, I'll defer to someone better-versed on the topic. I hope you find this helpful nonetheless! :D"
]
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s4fiv | Can anyone explain this mythbusters result? Because it seems to break my understanding of Newtonian physics. | [here](_URL_0_) Is the full scale test and two small scale [bench test](_URL_2_) [next step up]( _URL_1_)
Unless I am missing it this breaks Newton’s law
edit: ok the "next step up" video stops before the test | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/s4fiv/can_anyone_explain_this_mythbusters_result/ | {
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"The movement is from the small amount of air that rebounds in the opposite direction off the sail.",
"The gist of it is that the air from the fan bounces off the sail and winds up flowing backwards. So the combination of forward-pointing-fan+sail is equivalent to a weaker fan pointing backwards. (Weaker because some of the air that bounces off the sail gets sucked in by the fan to make another cycle.)\n\nBecause the net motion of air is backwards, the boat moves forwards to compensate, just like a rocket.\n\nI wrote a [blog post about this](_URL_0_) at the time which you could read if you want more detail. (I'm sure this has been discussed on other blogs but I don't happen to know of any good ones offhand.)"
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJz-BVXCI4"
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q3l4x | why whenever i eat fruits i still feel hungry, but eat fatty foods and feel full. | Thanks guys, great to learn. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q3l4x/eli5_why_whenever_i_eat_fruits_i_still_feel/ | {
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"Well, for one, they just don't have a lot of calories. There's only about 60 calories in an entire orange. Fat is calorie-dense so you're just plain eating more.",
"Fats and proteins are recognized by your digestive system and a signal is sent to your brain (after a half hour or so) that you have eaten or are \"full\" (ELI5).\nFoods have different \"satiety values\" (not ELI5, but maybe ELI15), which determine when you are \"sated\", or full; fats and proteins determine this value by how much of them is present in the food you eat.",
"According to [this article](_URL_0_):\n\n\"When the fat remains stable in the acid environment of the stomach, it empties into the small intestine more slowly and increases satiety.\"\n\nHowever, for a more ELI5 version:\n\nThink of your stomach as a bonfire. When you put in a piece of paper (e.g. the apple) it burns it very quickly and it provides relatively little heat. However, when you put in a large log (e.g. the fatty meat), it burns slower and releases its heat slowly over a longer period of time. \n",
"Think about an apple. That apple is made of something called carbohydrates. Your body uses carbohydrates to fuel itself, kind of like a car uses gas to go down the road.\n\nNow, think about a hamburger. That hamburger has a lot of fat in it. Your body uses fats to give itself energy, kind of like that car using gas.\n\n\nNow, let's think about a couple of other things. You see a basketball and you can pick it up because it's light, like air. The carbohydrates are light in energy, kind of like that basketball.\n\nHave you ever tried picking up a bowling ball? They're super heavy and dense. The fats in the hamburger are dense with energy, just like the bowling ball.\n\nAny questions?",
"visit /r/keto :)",
"Fruits are almost entirely water. Leave an tomato slice on your table for a few days and it'll shrivel up into almost nothing.",
"[/r/Paleo](/r/Paleo) is a good place to ask this question as well.",
"Fruits contain sugars. Sugars create an insulin response. Insulin levels raise, and when they fall you feel hungry. Insulin also makes it possible for your body to store fat, by the way. This means that you get fat by eating sugar; not fat.",
"Incoming keto bombardment in 3...2...1...",
"Thats the [entire premise](_URL_0_) of a Keto diet as well",
"I'm not liking any of the responses I'm reading so here's an ELI20 answer.\n\nFatty acids and protein stimulate I cells in the duodenum which secrete Cholecystikinen in the duodenum. Also, G cells are stimulated to release Gastrin, and S cells (due to protons) are stimulated to secrete secretin, but that doesn't really differentiate fat from fruit. Satiety is complex notion to think about, but partly arises from the length of time food is in the stomach, how much GLP-1 is secreted due to food, etc. \n\nCCK, Gastrin, and Secretin all slow down gastric transit which keeps food in your stomach longer. Carbs do not stimulate I cells or G cells so gastric transit is faster. Additionally, fruits easily break down into their simple sugars and since they are already being worked on from amylase in saliva they can be rapidly absorbed in the proximal jejunum without much pancreatic juices. Fats however, although worked on by limited lipases in the mouth, need much more pancreatic juices to break down the food and thus gastric transit must be slowed down greater than it would need to be from fruits. As a slight addition, unless you are eating butter or drinking oil you normally have protein with the fat, and protein has the same effect on G cells and I cells."
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[],
[],
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"http://www.ifr.ac.uk/info/news-and-events/NewsReleases/090602feelfuller.html"
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[],
[],
[],
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"http://youtu.be/FSeSTq-N4U4"
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4hnxu2 | how does a stylus work on a phone screen, but other objects won't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hnxu2/eli5_how_does_a_stylus_work_on_a_phone_screen_but/ | {
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"The screens are capacitive. Basically, things like your skin change surface voltages, and that's how it detects where you're tapping. It will work with sausages (though you'd get your screen greasy). \n\nIf something can't change the voltage (like a cotton swab), it won't register on your phone screen."
]
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||
s1aim | why does touching metal to a metal cavity filling hurt like crazy? | Why does touching metal to a metal cavity filling hurt like crazy?
Even if you barely tap it the pain is insane. What causes this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s1aim/why_does_touching_metal_to_a_metal_cavity_filling/ | {
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"so what happens is the saliva, metal and tooth form an electrochemical cell i think. and electricity flows from the tooth to the metal and back using the saliva as a little bridge. i would explain a little more but i have class right now lol here's a link for more reading: [Electrochemical Cell](_URL_0_)\n\nEDIT: i am a chem major... but a pretty bad one soooo, yea, i don't remember much from this topic",
"Have you ever touched a 9-volt battery to your tounge? Similar thing. Along with other stuff in your mouth, certain metals brought together make a very small and weak battery. While weak, you have sensitive nerves in your tooth, and the metal filling makes it very easy for the electricity to reach them.",
"The best short answer for the 5 year old is: it's magic! ;)\n\nThe best long answer for the 5 year old is: Metal A pulls Teeny Tiny Metal Bits (called electrons) off Metal B and the rushing of the Teeny Tiny Metal Bits makes a magic called Electricity which you can feel thru your teeth.\n\nThe grown-up answer is:\n\nGalvanic Corrosion (also called 'dissimilar metal corrosion' or wrongly 'electrolysis').\n\nThis refers to corrosion damage induced when two dissimilar materials are coupled in a corrosive electrolyte.\n\nWhen a galvanic couple forms, one of the metals in the couple becomes the anode and corrodes faster than it would all by itself, while the other becomes the cathode and corrodes slower than it would alone. For galvanic corrosion to occur, three conditions must be present:\n\nElectrochemically dissimilar metals must be present\nThese metals must be in electrical contact, and\nThe metals must be exposed to an electrolyte\n\nI hope this helps. : )\n"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemistry#Electrochemical_cells"
],
[],
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2sqbrh | Did the Mughals cultivate special breeds of elephants, as Westerners do with horses? | ...or did any other South Asian cultures do this? What traits did they value most? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2sqbrh/did_the_mughals_cultivate_special_breeds_of/ | {
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"Due to the long lifespans and long gestation periods of elephants, breeding them as one does with horses was impractical at best. There are no known acknowledged \"breeds\" of elephants (aside from the Asian and African varieties that we know of today).",
"Since /u/BuddHasLittleWarlock has already pointed out the problems with breaking certain traits in elephants. I just want to add that there really wasn't a need for the Mughals to breed selective types of Elephants. The current type of elephant in India already did exactly what the Mughals needed them to do.\n\nThe Mughals used elephants as:\n\nA) pack animals\n\nB) platforms for their generals to observe the battlefield and give commands\n\nThe size and power of the Indian elephant was already perfectly suited to these tasks so they really had no reason to breed smaller ones or even bigger ones. \n\nAs a fun little fact, armies would often use marksmen to pick off the generals on the elephants, or they would target the elephants with artillery sending them panicking through their own lines. ",
"It is very difficult to breed Elephants in captivity, even using modern methods such as artificial insemination, as captivity significantly reduces fertility in both males and females. \n\nEven today with modern science it's considered a BIG deal if a zoo can produce a healthy calf from captive elephants. \n\nPre-modern societies that used Elephants would not have been able to selectively breed them, there may have been cases where captive births happened, but they would not have been able to systematically control this as they would have been able to with dogs or horses. Instead they would have relied on replenishing their stock from the wild. \n\n_URL_0_",
"While this doesn't answer the question, I would like to add that the Mughals did not use Elephants like Westerners used horses. In fact one of the reasons that the Mughals were successful against the ruling elite of Northern India was that the Mughal's battle tactics were able to frighten the elephants used by them. \n\nAlso, the mughal armies had *Sowar (सवार)* or horse mounted knights just like western ones.\n\n**Source:** *Medieval India: A Textbook of History for Middle Schools*\nBook by Romila Thapar"
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[],
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"http://nationalzoo.si.edu/SCBI/ReproductiveScience/ElephantBreedRepro/"
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3isdsd | What did the North Vietnamese Army do to all of the South Vietnamese Army once they captured Saigon and ended the war? Were a lot of people killed on the South Vietnamese Army side once the Americans left? | I just read a basic understanding of the Vietnam War and this is what popped into my mind after learning about it.
How was the ARVN (South Vietnamese Army, for those that don't know) treated as soon as the North stormed through Southern Vietnam and Saigon was captured? Were alot of people executed for being the North's enemy? What about higher officials and officers?
Was there a lot of bloodshed to begin with in terms of the fall of Saigon or was the South pretty much destroyed and dismantled prior to this and it pretty much was a walk in the park for the NVA? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3isdsd/what_did_the_north_vietnamese_army_do_to_all_of/ | {
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"[I have written about this before here](_URL_0_), which might answer some of your questions.",
"Hey I got a related question. I asked about this but never got a response!\n\nAre there records of ARVN units continuing the fight after the cease-fire? What happened to the mostly intact ARVN units in the IV Corps area, did they fight on?"
]
} | []
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j3p9a/im_a_pretty_standard_southern_vietnamese_citizen/cbaxe7b"
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2yxnsa | how do large indoor spaces like warehouses have their own weather? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yxnsa/eli5_how_do_large_indoor_spaces_like_warehouses/ | {
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"In short, they don't.\n\nThe Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, the largest buildings ever constructed in terms of open interior volume, is the typical source of this urban legend. The rumor goes that its air conditioning system, which replaces the entire building-volume's air every hour, is less effective at dehumidifying the air than it is at cooling it. As such, the humid Florida air cools to under its dewpoint, causing internal clouds and even rain.\n\nThat's not what happens. Every air conditioning system dehumidifies as it cools. The water comes out at the air's coldest point: in the air conditioner itself. Air conditioners have varying strategies for what to do with the resultant moisture, but none of them simply pump it all back into the output air. \n\nIt's an urban legend, and an attractive one, but unfortunately it just doesn't happen."
]
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3cytk5 | what does 'bridge' mean in musical terms? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cytk5/eli5_what_does_bridge_mean_in_musical_terms/ | {
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"A bridge is a contrasting section of music that prepares for the return to the 'original' section.\n\nIt is often used to contrast with and prepare for the return of the verse and the chorus of a piece of music.",
"A bridge is a short bit of music with somewhat different themes connecting two larger segments of music. "
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2y023n | How are medical grade sterile cloths made? | I understand that tools can be run through a high temperature washer or autoclave, but gauze can't. How is it done? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2y023n/how_are_medical_grade_sterile_cloths_made/ | {
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"text": [
"Gamma Irradiation normally. But occasionally Ethylene Oxide. They make it, put it in a bag, and then zap the hell out of it with a gamma ray source, usually Cobalt 60."
]
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[]
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oh6hn | What is the deepest someone could breathe underwater through a tube to the surface? | How long could a snorkel be exactly until it reaches a point where air no longer reaches the person's mouth?
**Edit**: spelling | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/oh6hn/what_is_the_deepest_someone_could_breathe/ | {
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"There will be a depth were your breathing muscle (the diaphragm) is too weak to push out against the water. But there will also be the problem that the snorkel might be so long so that not enough air is expelled from it when you exhale, causing you to breath the same air until you suffocate. I have no idea which of those things will happen first though.",
"You'd run into issues pretty quickly. You'll be breathing against substantial resistance with a long tube.\n\n resistance = 8nl/(pi*r^4)\n r is radius, l is length, n is fluid viscosity.\n\nYou could increase the radius of the tube to decrease resistance, but you'd be increasing your functional dead space. The total tube volume couldn't be much higher than 3000ml or so, depending on how healthy you are.",
"A normal adult has a [vital capacity](_URL_0_) of about 3-5 liters, which is the maximal volume of air that can be exhaled or inhaled. Let's use the max and say 0.005 cubic meters.\n \nThe average diameter of a snorkel is 3/4 inch or 0.01905 meters.\n\nVolume of a cylinder is v = (pi) times radius^2 times height. Solve for height of cylinder by substitution.\n\nTherefore, a snorkel must be shorter than 4.38 meters to have *any* new air brought into your lungs.\n\nThis presumes maximum inspiration and respiration (difficult) in someone with very large lungs. \n\nIf you were to narrow the cylinder of the snorkel, you could increase the length, but then achieving maximal expiration and inspiration would be incredibly difficult (think breathing through a straw).",
"Followup question: What if you had a pair of snorkels, one for inhaling and one for exhaling. How long then would it take to run into problems?",
"There is such a thing as compressor diving. Human Planet ('Oceans' episode) does a great job capturing it.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBehind the scenes: _URL_1_",
"Certified SCUBA diver here.\n\nThe power needed to breathe is exerced through the diaphragm muscle, between you lungs and stomach, separating your chest from your belly.\n\nBy assuming you are in a vertical position, with the top of your head at the surface, that’s a height of about 50 centimeters. So your diaphragm has to work against a pressure of 50 cm of water, or .05 bar.\n\nYou would not be able to go much lower than that, at the maximum, it would be about 1 meter deep.\n\nBut you’d run into other issues before then, such as the dead volume in the tube you breathe from; you would re-breather exhaled gases, and before long, you would breathe nothing but exhaled CO², not quite exactly a winning combination…\n\nSCUBA regulators have the second (final) stage right by the mouth, so it delivers breathing air at the pressure felt at the mouth’s level (they are sensitive enough to see the difference of pressure of mere centimeters of water - this is why they free-flow when placed upside down, the pressure gradient between the diaphragm and the opening is enough to open the valve).\n\n(This is why divers always separate their mouth from their noses in masks, so to have the smallest possible volume that is exposed both to fresh breathing air and exhaled air; movies such as The Abyss where divers wear helmets are totally off the mark, as such a helmet would be prone to be filled by stale, exhaled air; and besides, divers need to be able to pinch their noses to equilibrate pressure in their inner ear as they go down. Spacesuits, on the other hand, use a ventilator to force recirculation of air within the helmet, because they use a scrubber to remove the CO² from the exhaled air to recycle it, only replacing the metabolized oxygen, which is why they can provide a dozen hours or so of oxygen to the astronaut - the rest of the body is sealed from the helmet with a neck seal, and in older spacesuits used to be filled with nitrogen, to avoid fire hazards present when pure oxygen is used)."
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqLRcI13QFo"
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6eyvor | why do some medications have to be specifically taken or applied at night? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eyvor/eli5_why_do_some_medications_have_to_be/ | {
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"Usually it is because they have a sedative effect (make you drowsy) so it's safer to take them at night when you are going to sleep anyway. \n\nFor some others it's because it times with bodily functions (cholesterol medication for e.g. because the liver is more active at producing cholesterol when you are asleep)\n\nSome are just more effective when you are less active.\n\n\nThis question would be much easier to answer if you had a specific medication in mind. ",
"Pharmacy student here, most of the facial scrubs that are applied at night are either to protect the medicine from the sun so it doesn't breakdown or to protect his skin from the sun. Many facial cleaners have chemicals that increase your skin photosensitivity causing you to burn easier. Can't sun burn at night. "
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28ekyj | why do republicans and similar think that president obama is directly trying to destroy america? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28ekyj/eli5_why_do_republicans_and_similar_think_that/ | {
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"_URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias"
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6e9fz3 | Why are "elite" forces of the Napoleonic era beefed up standard regiments with special honors while "elite" forces of the modern era are special operations units? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6e9fz3/why_are_elite_forces_of_the_napoleonic_era_beefed/ | {
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"This is just one an example of the centuries long trend in modern military history of increasing dispersion in the face of increasing firepower.\n\nElite troops (i.e. Guard Regiments) in Napoleonic times were elite because they were better organized, braver, more disciplined and sometimes physically larger and more intimidating than other units. They could retain their unit cohesion under fire or when entering melee, where it would be decisive. Under Napoleonic conditions, the side with higher morale that sticks together no matter what usually can win an infantry slugfest.\n\nIn modern times, or even the 20th century, the conventional ideas of bravery and a \"stand-up fight\" have disappeared in the face of increased firepower. Under artillery, machine gun fire and aerial bombardment, troops can't outclass their opposition by being bigger, braver, and more tightly organized. Troops have to spread out, conceal their position and use dispersion to avoid being overwhelmed with firepower. Concentrated groups of elite troops would quickly become targets for firepower they can't even necessarily see. Similarly firepower of a large group of troops tends to depend more on the number of artillery tubes and machine guns a unit possesses, and the expertise of it's officers and specialists, rather than the abilities of individual soldiers.\n\nHowever, with dispersion comes a whole different problem. How can units keep fighting and accomplishing objectives if they can't actually see each other or their chain of command? 20th and 21st century militaries have found various ways of training units to deal with this problem in standard military units.\n\nElite units in modern times go into situations where the utmost dispersion is required: At the tip of a fast moving armored column, suddenly appearing by aerial insertion, or infiltrating behind enemy lines or into a country where they can't operate out in the open due to politics. These situations are ones which are more chaotic than normal and where the additional dispersion might be expected to break down communication and inhibit military effectiveness.\n\nIn these situations, extra training is needed to make sure that the individual soldiers can fight under more chaotic than normal conditions. Soldiers need to use more individual initiative and be comfortable fighting in smaller groups and in more unexpected situations. Extreme physical training in modern elite troops is needed not to intimidate the enemy or overpower him but to provide the flexibility to hike over a mountain or into a jungle and still be combat effective when away from motorized logistics.\n\nNapoleon's Imperial Guard was in thus \"braver and brawnier\" than regular troops. Whereas modern elite forces are \"smarter, sneakier and more flexible\" than their regular army counterparts, and the change is due to an increase in firepower and dispersion in the modern era."
]
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835onc | how can concert tickets and big clothing drops seemingly be already sold out at the exact same second they go live? | For context:
Was just attempting to get Anderson .Paak tickets from TicketMaster however their site was already displaying that they were sold out at the exact same second they went live. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/835onc/eli5_how_can_concert_tickets_and_big_clothing/ | {
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"Either someone had access to buy before that, or a lot of buyers were just faster than you.\n\nThere's many examples of employees buying the entire stock before the sale goes live. And there's also many examples of people making software to buy tickets as fast as possible (seconds) as soon as sales opens, leaving little chance to people who buy manually.",
"People have systems in place to buy them all up for profit. Maybe they have a dozen browser windows open, maybe they straight up have bots, it doesn't matter - if there's a financial incentive to buy up a thing and resell it, people will.",
"Places like stubhub and vivid seats have bots that buy up the tickets within an split second. Im sure here are more companies that do this but those two come to mind. The answer is bots. CAPTCHA? joke. Its easy af to pay some Indian to enter the codes at lightning speed when they popup at his desk. It will screen shot it, send it to him and he puts his answer in the box it moves it to the seller. Sadly this is all perfectly legal and wont change."
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824i4s | What happens to the electrons in the positive plate of capacitor? | So battery and a capacitor are connected.
The electrons are attracted to the positive terminal and will flow from the minues terminal to the capacitor plate. This negative charge of the plate will push electrons away from the other plate, making the second plate positively charged.
What happened to the electrons in the positive plate? I assume those electrons get pushed back into the positive terminal.
Doesn't this now mean the voltage between the battery terminals is less now? Because the positive terminal gained electrons. So then the attraction force pulling electrons is lower than original, right? So the voltage of the battery has dropped. Shouldn't this mean the voltage of when the capacitor and battery are equal is a lower voltage than the battery? Because if we say the capacitor will charge to the original battery voltage, doesn't this imply that even though the positive terminal gained electrons, the battery voltage has remained the same? Kind of weird to think about, if you imagine a +2 charge and two electrons separated. Say one electron goes to the +2 particle, so what's left is +1 particle and 1 electron. Now the force and hence voltage between the electron and positive particle is less because the other electron neutralized one positive charge.
So what I'm saying is:
Yes, I agree the battery and capacitor voltages will eventually be equal.
But the voltage at which this happens is lower than the original battery voltage.
Am I right? Is saying the capacitor will reach the original battery voltage just a simplification? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/824i4s/what_happens_to_the_electrons_in_the_positive/ | {
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"The battery \"pumps\" electrons from its positive terminal over to its negative terminal. That is the function of a battery. That is what makes a battery different from a capacitor.\n\nThe air between the battery's terminals forms a (very weak) capacitor, so the battery always charging a capacitor, even when it is not connected to anything.\n\nWhile the battery is providing current, then its voltage will drop a little bit (this is modeled as [internal resistance](_URL_0_)). But there's no current flowing once the capacitor is charged.",
"There are two things going on here.\n\nFirst, a charge distribution is what actually produces a voltage. Everything wants to be neutral, so if you connect a conductor between the positively and negatively charged components in a charge distribution, it will cause the charges to equalize. \n\nThe second thing is that a battery creates a charge distribution by chemically reacting with the anode and cathode. The type of reaction dictates the equilibrium. It reaches equilibrium because as the charge distribution builds up, it inhibits the reaction. That is why batteries don't just consume all reactants and grow to massive voltages.\n\nNow, if you connect a capacitor, that capacitor will take some of the charges at the terminals. As it does that, the battery is no longer at its \"equilibrium\" voltage, which allows the reaction to continue to produce charge at the terminals. This is where the extra charge comes from. The voltage *does* drop, and this is proportional to the current times the internal resistance of the battery. As the capacitor charges, the voltage difference between the two gets smaller, the current gets LOWER proportional to Ohm's Law and as a result, the battery reaches its equilibrium again. \n\n"
]
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[
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ehbae0 | why is the bathroom always the first room you see when you enter a hotel room? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ehbae0/eli5_why_is_the_bathroom_always_the_first_room/ | {
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"Well, the other option would be putting the bathroom closer to the window than the bed, and that would just give less wall space on which to put a window.",
"Mainly because that layout is cheaper to build. Having the plumbing all as close as possible, towards the hallways means a more compact and efficient layout than spreading it to the outsides of the rooms."
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212jqs | why is there a ball inside of guinness beer cans? | What's it called? So far I've seen it only in Guinness cans, why don't other brands have it? Is it typical for draught beers? How does it exactly work? Thanks in advance for answering! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/212jqs/eli5_why_is_there_a_ball_inside_of_guinness_beer/ | {
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"It's to create a head on the beer when drinking or pouring, as guinness is ment to be drank that way, and it's actually a bottle shaped piece of plastic\n\n\nEdit*I couldn't remember the name of the ball/bottle thing, it's called a widget, \n_URL_0_\n",
"It's a [\"widget\"](_URL_0_) and it helps to form a better foam. \n\nBasically some gas gets pushed into the litte plastic dohickey when they pressurise the can and when you open it the gas in jets out from it forming a better head on your beer.",
"Basically it's definition of draught beer. In \"normal\" beer you have foam and bubbles because it's:\n\n1. Refermenting in bottle/can (Refermentation, by yeast, creates CO2 soluble in beer) \n\n2. Adding external CO2 (like in beer from kegs in pubs) \n\nIn draught beer you have ball with gas (i'm sure is nitrogen in Guinness, probably it's nitrogen in every draught beer, but I'm not 100% sure). When can is closed gas is inside the ball (high pressure keeps it there, basic physics), when you open it you are changing pressure inside (to atmospheric pressure) and N2 is diluting in beer creating bubbles and magnificent foam. \n\nEdit: You asked why. They are thinking that creating it this way is closer to pub experience. ",
"So you could play beer pong",
"Alright, thanks for your answers, everyone! I'm gonna have a cold Guinness now while listening to The Pogues, cheers!"
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/question446.htm"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_(beer\\)"
],
[],
[],
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1eiipp | why does your body feel things to be bigger than they are? | For example I'm eating breakfast and a small piece of egg fell off my fork and hit my leg. Before I saw it I would've said it was about .5inx.5in but when i looked it was maybe .1inx.1in. Or when I get blisters if I'm not looking at them they feel massive on my hands/feet when in reality they're pretty small. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eiipp/eli5_why_does_your_body_feel_things_to_be_bigger/ | {
"a_id": [
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"Let's say you walk on a floor with tiles, these tiles hold a sensor that says YES/NO depending on if it's got a part of your footprint on it or not. \nIf you were to walk on a floor with plenty of small tiles, every tile will register a part of your footprint and the collected result will decide the size of your foot. But if you walk on big tiles that are larger than any of your feet, the tile will still say YES to if there is a foot on it or not, and the *whole* tile will register as being pressed. \nThis is **very basically** how our pressure-sensors in feet/arms/legs etc work. \nWhen it comes to blisters they don't just affect the immediate area of the blister - causing your body to tell you it's bigger than your eyes do.",
"If I understand your question correctly, you're curious why your tactile sense is not as accurate as your eyesight, right? Well it's tricky, but for a good reason, so brace yourself.\n\nYou have incredibly sensitive skin. Practically everywhere, really, but there are some localized differences. Here's an example: find a loose hair or pluck one and lay it over the bare skin of your knee. Try and do this without looking at it and just focus on how it feels. Not exactly that evident, right? Maybe a tingle over your leg hairs (if you don't shave your legs) but even if you shave, it's still probably not that noticeable.\n\nNow do the same with your forearm, again, without looking. This probably will be a little more sensitive, maybe enough to urge yourself to remove the hair, though not exactly irritating. You can \"feel\" that it's a hair or something like a hair, but it could feel the same as if you place a string or a strand of cobweb over it.\n\nHere's the last test: lean your head back, as if you were to add eye drops, close your eyes, and lay the hair across just under your eye to your nose (if you have bags or know the area that bags develop, lay it there). *This* should be a clearly different feeling. You know it's a hair, it feels like a hair, but it also feels like *something-the-mighty-devil-planted-on-your-face-and-has-to-go-away*. Instinctive alarms sound off that make you want to get it off your face, regardless of how patient a person you are.\n\nThe reason for these different sensations is survival, just like most everything else basic about the human body. You are far more likely to bang your knee than bang your eye into something. And you're also likely to bump your arm into something while walking around; since your hands, however, are vital tools to you, you're more concerned with them than your knee. This variation of desensitization is basically the difference between you kneeing a desk, reacting with \"Ow...\" and you kneeing the same desk and reacting with \"For the love of Zeus, this oaken beast is killing me!\".\n\nSo, essentially, this is designed by different kinds of hair and presence of nerves. You have hair everywhere. Literally, it's all over your skin (with the exception of the bottom of your feet, but that's a different kind of situation) and it's there to feel things. Things touch hairs, hairs talk to nerves, nerves scream to brain. The difference in the hairs is kind of complicated, but for simplicity, leg hair < arm hair < cheek hair in terms of sensitivity. On top of that, the same goes for presence of nerve endings. Your hairs on your legs are more spread out than your arm hairs and ever more so than your cheek hairs.\n\n*That* is why you have a hard time judging things by sensation. Your eyes are always the same distance from each other, so they always have the same conclusion when they see something. Your body hairs aren't always the same distance and type and can't make the same conclusion easily.\n\nAs far as your other example, about feeling a blister, that's a little simpler to explain: your brain's dumb. Not *yours* specifically, just the brain of anyone who is \"gifted\" with sight. Let's say I have a collection of wooden pegs, all of different diameters. I write on each one the size and show you this then have you close your eyes. If I held out peg after peg for you to feel with just one finger, you'd spend hours before finally giving up trying to determine their size. It's just not what we're designed to do; feeling is just the sidekick to sight when it comes to survival.\n\n**TL;DR You have a hard time judging size by touch because evolution wants to spare you some black eyes**"
]
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[],
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aiyeh2 | How come that whole state of New York was named after a city? | Title. Was there any particular reason to why this is, or did americans think " Oh yea, the biggest city is New York, so we're gonna name the whole state after it" ?? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aiyeh2/how_come_that_whole_state_of_new_york_was_named/ | {
"a_id": [
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"It's less that the state is named after the city or vice versa, and more that both geographical regions were given Anglicized names at the same time. While the legacy of Native tribes and people can be seen in place names such as Manhattan (based on a Wampanoag or Lenape word used to describe the land mass between the Hudson and East Rivers), name places in New York State reflect the region's appeal to a variety of European colonizers. \n\nPrior to the arrival of Europeans, a collection of Indigenous settlements and communities were spread across what would become New York State, parts of Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The region, described by many Europeans as \"Iroquoia\", would become the home of the Iroquois League of the Five Nations (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) sometime between 1450 and 1550. Eventually, a sixth tribe, the Tuscaroras, joined what would become the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Members of the Confederacy traded with Europeans on an individual, village, and nation basis and multiple name places reflect their presence. Counties in Central New York carry the names of the tribes of the Confederacy. Counties in Western New York (e.g. Erie, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus) take their names from tribes from the western part of the state or place-names used by members of the tribes. \n\nDutch colonizers from the Dutch West India Company lay claim to the land inside the Confederacy, on Esopus land along the Hudson, and on Wampanoag, Munsees, or Montauk lands on the state's southern islands and identified it as New Netherlands. In doing so, they basically ignored the early mapping activities of Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano ([more](_URL_0_) on colonial naming practices from /u/sunagainstgold). They identified the region at the bottom of the colony as New Amsterdam and a region about 150 miles north along the Hudson, as Beverwijck. \n\nEngland took over the land 1664 and immediately renamed several key locations.^1 The colony itself and what had become the two largest settlements in the colony were named after the Duke of York and of Albany, who, in 1685, would become James II of England. The settlement on the Hudson would be chartered as The City of Albany in 1686, making it the longest continuously chartered city in America. New Netherlands became \"New York\" and the area that was New Amsterdam also became \"New York.\" The City of Greater New York was established in 1898, bringing together the various boroughs into the city we recognize today as The Big Apple. New York County, which originally included parts of the Bronx and Staten Island, now includes only the NYC borough of Manhattan. \n\nBut to be sure, the problem was noted from the very beginning. One author in mid-1690's noted that England had \"planted seeds of confusion across the path of one who would seek the meaning of a New Yorker. No other state has to deal with such confusion.”^2\n\n____\n1. For more on the transition from Dutch to British rule,[ this article](_URL_1_) from 1901 gives a pretty detailed timeline of events.\n\n2. Reitano, J. (2015).*New York State: Peoples, Places, and Priorities: a Concise History with Sources.* Routledge."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6h3l8z/why_did_the_europeans_like_naming_cities_after/divuowu/",
"https://www.jstor.org/stable/1834176?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents"
]
]
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1os6xm | why are tank tracks so efficient at traction? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1os6xm/eli5_why_are_tank_tracks_so_efficient_at_traction/ | {
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"text": [
"The purpose of tank tracks is not traction. The purpose is to spread the significant weight of the tank over a large area so they don't sink into sand or mud or whatever."
]
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| []
| [
[]
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|
||
22j4v4 | baudrillard's "simulacra and simulation" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22j4v4/eli5_baudrillards_simulacra_and_simulation/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgnjkn1"
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"text": [
"Basically, the treatise states that our world is \"fake\", and that our culture is made up of false symbols. In other words, reality is hidden behind a fake mask that we've created.\n\nIt's saying that most of our current society is a construct that we've created ourselves. It argues that the way we see of the world isn't the way it looks, but rather an exaggerated picture seen through the lens of mass media.\n\nIt describes how he felt society got this way, as well. At first, the symbols (e.g. news, descriptions, any sort of media) people experienced were accurate reflections of reality. People knew they were fake, but they could differentiate between them and reality.\n\nLater, people assigned more weight to the symbols. They became corrupted, but people still saw the symbols as accurate, and reality as wrong. For example, people would romanticize reality, and they (or others) would believe their romantic image over how reality actually is.\n\nLater still, the symbols became so different from reality, that they held no meaning at all relative to the real world, yet people still believed the symbols over reality. This is when media and culture start dictating people's beliefs without any relation to the real world, e.g. \"Brand X toothpaste is the toothpaste of winners! Buy our product and be a winner!\". At this stage, media determines people's \"reality\" more than actual reality does."
]
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[]
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6fom6c | 95% of the moving truck vehicles for families i see are uhauls. how did one company create such a monopoly over the moving business? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fom6c/eli5_95_of_the_moving_truck_vehicles_for_families/ | {
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"One of the innovative things U-Haul did was franchise via gas stations. Existing infrastructure for fuel, office and garage space made the barriers to entry of a new franchisee really low. And there needs to be gas stations located strategically, so you get the coverage. \n\nAlso, the one-way rental is pretty huge, not sure if the other truck rentals have come up with anything similar that doesn't cost a fortune. ",
"There are/have been other competitors of scale... such as Ryder (they were negatively impacted after Timothy McVie used one of their trucks to blow up Oklahoma City federal building but do still exist), Penske, Budget, Enterprise all have truck rentals.",
"Uhaul is fairly well known for pushing a small vehicles frame near it's absolute limits. It seems they are getting better at this but some of their older small box trucks are literally bolted to the frames of small pickup trucks. Other rental companies use truck frames designed for the heavy loads. Uhaul is also known for running their trucks into the ground, which saves money in maintenance. Uhaul also advertises cheap rates but has many fees that most people don't realize until they read the contract. They even charge you for removing the dolly. Basically all of this has allowed them to offer the cheapest and shittiest experience but still give people something that will probably work in the end."
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1dqmep | A question about forces | So forces are the exchange of gauge bosons. But where do quantum fields fit into this idea? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1dqmep/a_question_about_forces/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"In our present understanding, quantum fields are the fundamental concept. The existence of quantum fields leads to the existence of particles such as gauge bosons, as well as to other kinds of physical entities (e.g. bound states and extended field configurations like solitons)."
]
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| [
[]
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31tw28 | How does the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere directly affect coral reef building? | Hi! I'm aware that CO2 combines with water to form carbonic acid, H2CO3, which disassociates into H+ and HCO3-. Calcium carbonate, CaCO3, builds reefs, and is insoluble. I've seen a general trend of "More CO2 in the air reduces CaCO3 concentrations", but how? I would think that extra CO2 creates extra free carbonate, which would increase calcium carbonate percentages, but it doesn't, right? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/31tw28/how_does_the_amount_of_co2_in_the_atmosphere/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq53u02"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The build up of excess CO2 in the atmosphere has slowly began to change the pH of the earth's oceans, making the oceans more acidic, a process also known as [Ocean Acidification.] (_URL_0_) As the ocean acidifies, corals cannot absorb the calcium carbonate they need to maintain their skeletons, which cause the stony skeletons that support corals and reefs to dissolve."
]
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3b6n19 | why do toiletry bags have handles on the side? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b6n19/eli5_why_do_toiletry_bags_have_handles_on_the_side/ | {
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"It's for hanging. When you unzip the toiletries bag and hang it on a hook, you have easy access and may avoid having to place it on a damp counter, etc. ",
"I think the handle on the side is to give you something to grab onto when you work the zipper. I have made a few leather dopp kits: _URL_0_ and I put a small flap under the zipper on one side and a horizontal handle on the opposite side, so whether you are opening or closing the zipper you have something to grab onto to help you move the zipper."
]
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[],
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/Leathercraft/comments/30c7xd/chromexcel_dopp_kit/"
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97vb7p | if i weigh 100 pounds and eat 50 pounds of food, do i now weigh 150 pounds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/97vb7p/eli5_if_i_weigh_100_pounds_and_eat_50_pounds_of/ | {
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"text": [
"Yes. If you somehow ate 50 pounds of food, you would in fact gain 50 pounds to your weight. Now this wouldn't last because you body wouldn't be able to metabolize this vast amount of food. You would probably be sick, gain a decent amount of fat, but in the long run you certainly wouldn't suddenly gain 50 pounds in fat mass.",
"Ignoring the impossibility to eat that much food, the answer is yes, assuming that the food was eaten instantly without any time for digestive functions to occur. Otherwise, you would weigh close to 150 pounds"
]
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2lqp3w | who are the "kurdish"? and why are their female fighters such a big deal in usa media? | I've just seen it pop up here and there and I'm just curious.. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lqp3w/eli5_who_are_the_kurdish_and_why_are_their_female/ | {
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"They are a group of people that inhabit connected regions of Syria, Iraq and Iran. They are very pro-western and have long been persecuted in their countries. The reason they don't have their own country is because the British drew the lines in the middle east and they did so quite arbitrarily (which is a major reason why the middle east is a mess). \n\nI think the women fighters are a big deal because it is an Islamic society that treats women as equals. ",
"The Kurds are an ethnic group living mainly in western Iran, northern Iraq, and eastern Turkey. The Kurds want to have their own country called Kurdistan. Iran, Iraq, and Turkey are against this because they don't want to lose any of their territory. The Kurds are very against ISIS and have contributed some of the most vigorously fighting against ISIS.\n\nThe fact that they use female fighters is an indication that they embrace Western values and the Kurds, although Muslim, do indeed tend to be pro-Western. After all, the Middle Eastern countries they live under have never done anything for them.",
"The Kurds are an ethnicity of people who do not have a country to call their own. They are closer related to Persians than they are Arabs or Turks, and they have a language and history distinct from all three.\n\nThe nearly 40 million of them live in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. \n\nThe reason why the female fighters are so important is because not only is it a big deal that nearly 50% of their army is women, but of all regions of the world this sort of social equality is huge.\n\nIt is also a big story because it shows the Kurds as a people and not an army, all active bodies to protect their brothers and sister."
]
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8a8rg1 | Were there revolutions outside of Europe/North America (pre-20th century) that implemented enlightenment (or something similar to them) ideas? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8a8rg1/were_there_revolutions_outside_of_europenorth/ | {
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"text": [
"Sorry, we don't allow [\"example seeking\" questions](_URL_1_). It's not that your question was bad; it's that these kinds of questions tend to produce threads that are collections of disjointed, partial, inadequate responses. If you have a question about a specific historical event, period, or person, feel free to rewrite your question and submit it again. If you don't want to rewrite it, you might try submitting it to /r/history, /r/askhistory, or /r/tellmeafact. \n\nFor further explanation of the rule, feel free to consult [this META thread](_URL_0_)."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3nub87/rules_change_throughout_history_rule_is_replaced/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_.22example_seeking.22_questions"
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54q7tb | When did Countries became Countries? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/54q7tb/when_did_countries_became_countries/ | {
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"text": [
"Can you clarify your question? Do you mean when did they consolidate as political entities?",
"Do you mean the rise of the modern nation-state? Or are you asking about the transition from hunter-gatherer tribes to organized polities?"
]
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2z0ami | Is the UK/ island of Britain a fatherland or a motherland? | Germany is a fatherland , theres mother Russia. I have no idea what the UK or Britain is called.
( i know the UK isn't Britain because i live here so don't comment that) | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2z0ami/is_the_uk_island_of_britain_a_fatherland_or_a/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Neither, or both.\n\nThis is more a linguistics question in the field of contemporary and historical usage, but in the interests of fulfilling your question, let me talk about these terms for awhile.\n\nFirstly, “Fatherland” and it’s cognates has a well established usage across European languages, especially Indo-European and Romance languages. You can see it, if you know Greek and Latin, in the forms *πατρία and πατήρ/patria and pater*. Anyway, ‘Fatherland’ is not really a common English term, and for many English speakers its associations are caught up in the emergence of the term *Vaterland* in propaganda associated with Nazi Germany. Thus, for English speakers, ‘Fatherland’ sounds like an echo of that ideology, even though *Vaterland* is not itself so definitively tied up in Nazism in the German Language, anymore than its cognates in other European languages are *necessarily* tied to nationalist ideas of that kind.\n\nSeveral other countries and languages prefer to use feminine language/language forms, for their nation, most notably Russia, and the term Россия-Матушка, or ‘Mother Russia’. This personification of the nation as a woman is found even in languages that use patri-based terms. For example, even though Latin has *patria, Roma* is still a feminine form and the personification of Rome as a female entity also played a role in civic and national identity-discourse. I would suggest that personification of the nation as a mother figure has to do with the combination of traditional depictions of the ‘earth’ as feminine and the land/nation as the place that gives birth to a people.\n\nTo come back to English, neither of these is ‘more’ correct or appropriate, there does not seem to exist a longstanding tradition of embedding one of these concepts into the language more firmly than the other. “Mother Country” is used sometimes to refer to the UK by emigrants/descendants in colonial situations.\n\nAll of which is to say, neither or both could be viewed as appropriate. I hope this has been at least mildly informative and answered your question. Feel free to ask follow up questions if you’d like more historical/linguistic information.\n"
]
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1p3xdv | how does the liver function when we consume alcohol? | Sorry but there's more questions...
Is the liver like a sponge that soaks alcohol to prevent it from spreading to the rest of your body?
What happens if you drink a lot (6 shots in an hour) and your liver can't handle it?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p3xdv/eli5_how_does_the_liver_function_when_we_consume/ | {
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"After alcohol is absorbed, it is distributed fairly evenly amongst the body's water reservoirs, so there is no concentrating effect in the liver. The liver's job is to metabolize the alcohol into acetic acid.\n\nNothing special happens when you drink a lot such that your liver can't keep up with the elimination - the alcohol concentration builds up. You'd be surprised to know that this occurs _easily_ - a standard drink (one glass of wine, one shot of liquor, one glass of beer) is enough to overwhelm the liver's enzymes. This is why for most blood alcohol concentrations, alcohol is metabolized in what's called _pseudo-zeroth order_ - a constant rate. In other words, your liver enzymes are already working at peak capacity. Otherwise, you won't be able to get drunk easily in the first place."
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li9nv | why do pc's need to be upgraded for newer games while consoles can handle newer games just fine? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/li9nv/why_do_pcs_need_to_be_upgraded_for_newer_games/ | {
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"When a game is made for a console, it has to be specifically designed such that it will run smoothly on the console. The development of the game is restricted by the system it is made for, and it will only need to be tested for this specific console. \n\nWhen a game is made for a PC, the developer does not have to restrict themselves in order to make the game run smoothly on outdated hardware (which is what consoles effectively are). Of course, they still do to some extent, because they want as many people to be able to run the game as possible. But because there are millions of possible configurations that might be running the game, the developers set minimum system requirements to test the game against to make sure it will run smoothly, and also commonly add settings to tone down the graphical performance of the game to make it run smoother.\n\nFurther, consoles are developed specifically to optimally run a game, only to run games, and to (usually) only run one game at once. Computers are not developed like this, and oftentimes, dozens of other processes are running at the same time as your game, negatively effecting performance.",
"Two reasons.\n\nThe first is that consoles sport 1 hardware configuration each. Every 360 has the same processor, same ram, same graphics card, and understands the same code. As a programmer, this is useful, because you can design your game right around the hardware. Optimization is much easier(and so is debugging, for that matter), and so you can squeeze much more performance out of a given console than its hardware equivalent on PCs. This is also why console games get better looking over the course of the generation even though the hardware does stay the same.\n\nThe second reason is that because PCs can vary in processing power, PC games typically have settings that enable them to far, far surpass anything that the current console generation can do. Case in point: I'm sure you've seen some of the trailers for Battlefield 3 by now. Most of those cinematic trailers, unless stated otherwise, are running the game on Ultra quality on the PC. The console version doesn't look nearly that good and never will. Based on what we know it will probably look somewhere between Low and Medium settings on PC. There are videos showing off the console versions of the game, so you can look and compare. In addition to straight up graphical quality, the resolution on a PC is also higher, meaning more detail is possible on the screen at once. If you look at [this chart](_URL_0_), you can see what resolution most console games run at by looking at the HD 720p box. PC games, provided you have the hardware and monitor to run it, can be as big as the biggest box in the picture. Big difference.",
" > Why do PC's need to be upgraded for newer games\n\nThey usually don't. If you want to run a brand spanking new game on hardware from 3 years ago, it will probably run, but it won't run on the highest settings.\n\nConsole games simply don't have highest settings because the hardware is always the same. Console hardware limits the progress of games, but widens the audience.\n\nIn short: With PC gaming you often get the choice of running games at acceptable settings or cutting edge settings; with consoles you are stuck with just acceptable after the first year.",
"Remember the expansion pack for the N64?\n",
"You're all missing a key point here:\n\nConsoles do not have the levels of AA (smoothing of jagged edges) and high resolutions that PCs have. These two settings at higher levels will HEAVILY drain on your video card/FPS.\n\nMy point: It looks better on PC because you have higher quality/settings and this requries more processing power.",
"Consoles *can't* handle newer games just fine.\n\nTo compensate, the games are heavily optimised for the ageing hardware, and features and abilities of the game engines are turned off or down.\n\nMoreover, PC's as of late have in fact *not* had to be upgraded as much for newer games. Not nearly as big of a problem as it was in the past. Why? Because the games, which have to be capable of running on comparatively shitty console hardware, are often designed for the console environment and then a few bits of tinsel are bolted on for PC. Not always, but often enough for it to be a problem (or saving grace, if you can't afford upgrades and don't mind the lack of progress).\n\nIt means that games can't truly tap the abilities of modern PC hardware because any game-centric features which tapped the power of tech like PhysX, DirectComputer, OpenCL and the latest gen of programmable shaders would make it impossible to replicate on the console, which lacks all the above. \n\nBesides, throw PC game piracy into the mix, and as a games developer, why *would* you care to do twice the work to make a game which gave each platform a solid workout? Ergo, a swathe games with mediocre visuals and generic game mechanics.\n\nAs the current generation of tired, outdated consoles drags on, it will become more and more evident to customers that the consoles are holding the gaming industry back.\n\n",
"This has been said multiple times but it can't be stressed enough: The current consoles are based on 4-5 year old hardware. There is no way to upgrade them, so there is only so much power you can get out of them. Once games advance enough past this point, console makers will make a new console generation with still static, but better hardware.\n\nThis all means that newer games have to be made so the aging consoles can handle the game and it's graphics. A lot of console games COULD have been made to look better, but then then the console wouldn't have been able to run it smoothly.\n\nAlso, a lot of PCs are at the level of the consoles already, so they don't 'need' to be upgraded per se. They can run the game just fine using settings equivalent to those on the consoles. But if at all possible, PC gamers want to see the game at its best settings. This requires a lot more power than what the current consoles can hope to do. This is why games run at max settings on PCs look better than their console counterparts.\n\nThis really depends on whether the PC version is just a 'port' of the console version, or if the PC version has been optimized to work on a PC. Among other issues, ported games tend to have limited abilities to increase graphics quality. The best you can do is play at a little above the console level. Games that get specifically designed to run on PCs often give more room to customize this.",
"The only reason consoles handle newer games is because the newer games are stripped out, have details removed, and have lower quality graphics to make them work well.\n\nTake the PS3 for example, the majority of modern games run at just 720p (1280x720) in order to run acceptably, which is poultry compared to the resolution of most PC displays (1680x1050 and 1920x1080 both being pretty common these days)\n\nThe PS3 uses an nVidia 7800GT graphics processor with 256MB video memory. A chip we used in PCs in *2005* - It's 6 years old at this point. Many newer integrated GPUs can outperform it. Now a GTX 460 with 768MB video RAM is pretty pedestrian for an entry-level gaming rig.\n\nSo while PC games are getting better graphics every 6 months, console gaming has stagnated and not gone anywhere - so there's been no need to upgrade (or rather, the lack of upgrades has caused the stagnation)",
"When a game is made for a console, it has to be specifically designed such that it will run smoothly on the console. The development of the game is restricted by the system it is made for, and it will only need to be tested for this specific console. \n\nWhen a game is made for a PC, the developer does not have to restrict themselves in order to make the game run smoothly on outdated hardware (which is what consoles effectively are). Of course, they still do to some extent, because they want as many people to be able to run the game as possible. But because there are millions of possible configurations that might be running the game, the developers set minimum system requirements to test the game against to make sure it will run smoothly, and also commonly add settings to tone down the graphical performance of the game to make it run smoother.\n\nFurther, consoles are developed specifically to optimally run a game, only to run games, and to (usually) only run one game at once. Computers are not developed like this, and oftentimes, dozens of other processes are running at the same time as your game, negatively effecting performance.",
"Two reasons.\n\nThe first is that consoles sport 1 hardware configuration each. Every 360 has the same processor, same ram, same graphics card, and understands the same code. As a programmer, this is useful, because you can design your game right around the hardware. Optimization is much easier(and so is debugging, for that matter), and so you can squeeze much more performance out of a given console than its hardware equivalent on PCs. This is also why console games get better looking over the course of the generation even though the hardware does stay the same.\n\nThe second reason is that because PCs can vary in processing power, PC games typically have settings that enable them to far, far surpass anything that the current console generation can do. Case in point: I'm sure you've seen some of the trailers for Battlefield 3 by now. Most of those cinematic trailers, unless stated otherwise, are running the game on Ultra quality on the PC. The console version doesn't look nearly that good and never will. Based on what we know it will probably look somewhere between Low and Medium settings on PC. There are videos showing off the console versions of the game, so you can look and compare. In addition to straight up graphical quality, the resolution on a PC is also higher, meaning more detail is possible on the screen at once. If you look at [this chart](_URL_0_), you can see what resolution most console games run at by looking at the HD 720p box. PC games, provided you have the hardware and monitor to run it, can be as big as the biggest box in the picture. Big difference.",
" > Why do PC's need to be upgraded for newer games\n\nThey usually don't. If you want to run a brand spanking new game on hardware from 3 years ago, it will probably run, but it won't run on the highest settings.\n\nConsole games simply don't have highest settings because the hardware is always the same. Console hardware limits the progress of games, but widens the audience.\n\nIn short: With PC gaming you often get the choice of running games at acceptable settings or cutting edge settings; with consoles you are stuck with just acceptable after the first year.",
"Remember the expansion pack for the N64?\n",
"You're all missing a key point here:\n\nConsoles do not have the levels of AA (smoothing of jagged edges) and high resolutions that PCs have. These two settings at higher levels will HEAVILY drain on your video card/FPS.\n\nMy point: It looks better on PC because you have higher quality/settings and this requries more processing power.",
"Consoles *can't* handle newer games just fine.\n\nTo compensate, the games are heavily optimised for the ageing hardware, and features and abilities of the game engines are turned off or down.\n\nMoreover, PC's as of late have in fact *not* had to be upgraded as much for newer games. Not nearly as big of a problem as it was in the past. Why? Because the games, which have to be capable of running on comparatively shitty console hardware, are often designed for the console environment and then a few bits of tinsel are bolted on for PC. Not always, but often enough for it to be a problem (or saving grace, if you can't afford upgrades and don't mind the lack of progress).\n\nIt means that games can't truly tap the abilities of modern PC hardware because any game-centric features which tapped the power of tech like PhysX, DirectComputer, OpenCL and the latest gen of programmable shaders would make it impossible to replicate on the console, which lacks all the above. \n\nBesides, throw PC game piracy into the mix, and as a games developer, why *would* you care to do twice the work to make a game which gave each platform a solid workout? Ergo, a swathe games with mediocre visuals and generic game mechanics.\n\nAs the current generation of tired, outdated consoles drags on, it will become more and more evident to customers that the consoles are holding the gaming industry back.\n\n",
"This has been said multiple times but it can't be stressed enough: The current consoles are based on 4-5 year old hardware. There is no way to upgrade them, so there is only so much power you can get out of them. Once games advance enough past this point, console makers will make a new console generation with still static, but better hardware.\n\nThis all means that newer games have to be made so the aging consoles can handle the game and it's graphics. A lot of console games COULD have been made to look better, but then then the console wouldn't have been able to run it smoothly.\n\nAlso, a lot of PCs are at the level of the consoles already, so they don't 'need' to be upgraded per se. They can run the game just fine using settings equivalent to those on the consoles. But if at all possible, PC gamers want to see the game at its best settings. This requires a lot more power than what the current consoles can hope to do. This is why games run at max settings on PCs look better than their console counterparts.\n\nThis really depends on whether the PC version is just a 'port' of the console version, or if the PC version has been optimized to work on a PC. Among other issues, ported games tend to have limited abilities to increase graphics quality. The best you can do is play at a little above the console level. Games that get specifically designed to run on PCs often give more room to customize this.",
"The only reason consoles handle newer games is because the newer games are stripped out, have details removed, and have lower quality graphics to make them work well.\n\nTake the PS3 for example, the majority of modern games run at just 720p (1280x720) in order to run acceptably, which is poultry compared to the resolution of most PC displays (1680x1050 and 1920x1080 both being pretty common these days)\n\nThe PS3 uses an nVidia 7800GT graphics processor with 256MB video memory. A chip we used in PCs in *2005* - It's 6 years old at this point. Many newer integrated GPUs can outperform it. Now a GTX 460 with 768MB video RAM is pretty pedestrian for an entry-level gaming rig.\n\nSo while PC games are getting better graphics every 6 months, console gaming has stagnated and not gone anywhere - so there's been no need to upgrade (or rather, the lack of upgrades has caused the stagnation)"
]
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],
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"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Vector_Video_Standards2.svg"
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||
397wlb | Exactly how fast can a light sail travel? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/397wlb/exactly_how_fast_can_a_light_sail_travel/ | {
"a_id": [
"cs1du8c"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"According to [this](_URL_0_) paper, it will depend on the mass area loading on the sail, which is equal to (total mass) / (area of sail) \nbut the article says: \n \n > The slowest\napproach in Table 1 passes the 0.01 AU perihelion point and continues out into space at a\nconstant velocity of 0.0014 С (420 km/Sec). \n \nYou should check out Table 1. It has other values up to 0.009 C."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[
"http://interstellar-flight.ru/design/base_e/sss.pdf"
]
]
|
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