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2fvdp5
|
What did the public think of Castrati? How was life for them past their singing age? Did the public accept/approve the castration for music practice?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fvdp5/what_did_the_public_think_of_castrati_how_was/
|
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"This forum has a resident castrati expert, hopefully he sees it and answers the question. They are a fascinating subject. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nThis is your man with the answers.",
"Oooh one in my subject area!! Best mark this in my diary, this only happens twice a year or so. :) Can I ask what made you think of the castrati? \n\nIt’s a little hard to say what “people” thought of them, because the castrati kinda got around! Castrati went to work in England, France, Spain, most German courts, and even Russia! So in many places where they travelled they were not just castrati, but also representatives of Italy, Catholics, and the entire noble beast that is Italian music. So sometimes attitudes about the castrati overlapped pretty heavily with attitudes about these other things. I’ll talk about their home country Italy, although I can answer for the other European cultures if you’re curious. \n\nFor the basic concept of what gender they were, most of Europe was still on a humoral (the four humors, think of medical bleeding!) understanding of medicine, and part of that was the one-sex model, which had men and women on sort of a sliding scale between masculine and feminine. Children were one sort of blank gender, and during puberty a boy got a burst of “vital heat” that made him into a man, women did not. On this model castrati are best understood as sort of permanent boys. They wouldn’t have been thought of in any way close to our various understandings of trans* people, intersex people, etc. today. This permanent boyishness also made them something like an idealized sexual object, both for men and women. You can see this echoed in opera to some extent - castrati always played the lovers, until the takeover of the tenor. \n\nThey were a socially marginalized people, because they were denied the basic human right of marriage. However, inside of Italy there was a fair amount of celibate (meaning unmarried, not necessarily sexually inactive) people in society, such as nuns, monks, priests, etc, so while they were denied marriage by the Catholic church, they weren’t too unusual there, lots of people in society had roles that denied marriage. Outside of Italy, especially in places where there wasn’t as much social celibacy, you’ll sometimes see castrati who got married, usually in Germany, as the Lutherans didn’t have any big problem with them getting married. There was a guy named Filippo Finazzi who pretty much “went native” in Germany, converted to Lutheranism, and married the widow of a blacksmith in 1765. \n\nIn general terms though, the castrati were generally considered a normal subset of professional musician and accepted as such, but also they were objects of pity or scorn, often they were subjected to rather crude “farmyard” jokes (ask me how I know all the words for castrated animals! capon, barrow, ox, etc.), sometimes treated as a threat to the masculinity of those around them, sometimes considered as a threat to the virtue of women as they were offering risk-free sex, often they were considered overpaid whiny children, and sometimes they were well-respected wealthy professionals. Some castrati were nice, some were douchy, and most just wanted to make a living. \n\nLife after their singing age was actually pretty good for them. Castrati had pretty long-lasting voices in general, and they usually didn’t retire until at earliest their 50s, usually they could sing into their 60s. If you know modern opera voices this isn’t too unusual, most opera singers don’t hit their vocal peak until their late 30s or early 40s, and they can usually go on working into their 50s-60s if they wish. After this point your successful castrato might have enough money just to retire entirely, but some also would teach singing or stay active in music this way. One other interesting example of their post musical life would be the small corps of castrati who worked at the French royal chapel in the 1700s. The French didn’t have a place for castrati really, they weren’t acceptable in opera, and no one else had them on staff, there was only this small bunch of them in all of France. These men sort of lived in a commune, they had a shared house and left all their money to each other when they died.\n\nThere’s a good argument that Italian society’s acceptance of castration was high in the 1600s and dropped off after maybe 1700. In the 1600s you can find pretty hum-drum matter-of-fact records of castration, for example a contract between parent and teacher specifying the teacher has permission to castrate the boy if he thinks it appropriate and will pay for the procedure, petitions from boys (or someone writing for the boy) requesting a local lord sponsor him and pay for his castration, records in court accounting books of paying for castrations, etc. After 1700 you don’t find so many of these records, and most men after this period also have a little tale or excuse for their castration, a “childhood accident” of some vague sort. (There are exceptions, Caffarelli told no tales about his castration, and in his grandmother’s will there’s the very plain language that she bequeaths to him “a wallet with greatly fitting music, for which Cajetanus is said to have a great inclination, and a desire to be castrated and become a eunuch” and also the income from a vineyard to pursue music. He was castrated some time after this document, maybe 1722. Caffarelli was an odd duck though.) By the 1800s castration had completely soured in public opinion, and very few castrati were made after the turn of the century, the last known musical castration around 1865.\n\nLet me know if you have any other questions! :) "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1finf8/ama_eunuchs_and_castrati/"
],
[]
] |
||
g3vpg8
|
why does our teeth not erode away when we are brushing our teeth (and using them in other ways) every single day?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g3vpg8/eli5_why_does_our_teeth_not_erode_away_when_we/
|
{
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5
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"text": [
"If the tooth enamel is only gently weakened it can regenerate. Toothpaste is specifically made to help your teeth do this regeneration. If you significantly damage your tooth enamel it is gone forever and your tooth underneath will likely begin to rot."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
amhg3w
|
what's the significance of the queen's guard's hats? bonus explanation: what purpose do they serve in a modern attack with glowing uniforms and massive heads?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amhg3w/eli5_whats_the_significance_of_the_queens_guards/
|
{
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"text": [
"The queen's guard aren't commandos that get sent on covert Missions.\n\nThey're meant to stand out, and be a very visible show. They aren't just ceremonial, though. They're full trained soldiers in their own right on full guard duty.\n\nBut to do their job there is no need to hide or blend in. They want to be a very visible deterrent. ",
"If i recall some info I learned correctly the style was adopted from napoleans soldiers to appear bigger and more intimidating as well. I'd assume that's what youd want from a royalty gaurd."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3jbmcg
|
Origins of Japanese and Korean, and why they sound similar?
|
I wouldn't call myself fluent, as I don't really get to practice, but I can understand quite a bit of Japanese, and when I went and listened to a K-Pop song, I kept thinking that it was Japanese, but I couldn't understand one bit. Do Korean and Japanese share common roots? Is there any other background that would help me understand why they sound so similar?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3jbmcg/origins_of_japanese_and_korean_and_why_they_sound/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cunx0tj"
],
"score": [
9
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"text": [
"Korean and Japanese are both *language isolates*, that is, languages not provably related to any other language. Okay, recently a dialect of Japanese has been moved to related language, but so far there are no ties between Korean and Japanese. A proposed Altaic superfamily would still leave them less connected than Gaelic and Sanskrit.\n\nSo your mind is messing with you.\n\nWhat you may be hearing is a little sprachbund effect, where disparate languages approach each other because a lot of people use both. This usually shows up in vocabulary borrowing, so it shows how slight the sprachbund is in that you heard nothing reasonable.\n\nYou see, Korea was part of the Japanese Empire from the later 1890s, ending the Joseon Dynasty's rule, until the end of WWII. So they had half a century of Japanese influence, but of a hostile memory, so they may have purged any borrowings."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
hp1gn
|
Can you actually hear bullets whizzing past your head?
|
I mean in the movies, it's always very audible, but I'm wondering how accurate it is that you could hear the whiz of a bullet that missed you by a few feet. Does it depend heavily on the caliber of the bullet?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hp1gn/can_you_actually_hear_bullets_whizzing_past_your/
|
{
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"text": [
"Yes you can. I've heard it.\n",
"I was told by a Vietnam veteran that the whizzing sound is a misconception. He said it is more of a clapping sound when a bullet goes by you when your being shot at, due to the bullet breaking the sound barrier. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
a6i477
|
How did Native American tribes’ tactics to resist European encroachment evolve? With expulsion being a common fate for those lucky enough to survive, did streams of survivors travel to Western tribes, warning them of U.S. strength and brutality? If so, how did this change Native responses?
|
I’ve seen plenty of online debate on Native American reactions and tactics to European invasion, with both sides cherrypicking examples of “peaceful Natives” or “warlike savages”. This question is not asking about how Native American tribes acted; I understand there is are hundreds if not thousands of culturally diverse tribes and it’d be impossible to meaningfully group responses. Rather, are there patterns or “phases” of Native American tactics? From my broad and obviously thin understanding of history, it seems that initially tribes were a force to be reckoned with, from the Iroquois Confederacy to Tecumseh’s alliance being major opponents to the U.S. military, but eventually tribes started becoming more of a pushover for white settlers and soldiers, although conflicts became increasingly violent and on the white part genocidal. Was there an evolving understanding of the U.S. from tribal perspectives? Did survivors of Tecumseh’s alliance and the Trail of Tears warn of the futility of resisting the U.S. military, encouraging tribal leaders to more readily resort to diplomacy? Did survivors of Great Plains tribes warn of trusting U.S. treaties as anything more than shams, encouraging total war like with the Apaches? Or was the U.S. simply too large and diverse for information to reach tribes before American guns did?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a6i477/how_did_native_american_tribes_tactics_to_resist/
|
{
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"ebv4vea"
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"text": [
"I think this question assumes a homogeneity among native tribes. Often tribes were fighting amongst themselves. Europeans often played a role as another tribe to be reckoned with, either as an ally or as an enemy, as a trading partner and/or arms supplier. The long term narrative is of the constant invasion and rape of the tribes and land doesn’t accurately reflect the day-to-day interactions.\n\nYou only need to read about something like [King Philip’s War](_URL_0_) and all its background and aftermath to see the complexity. Tribes would engage with and ally with settlers for their own advantage, and vice versa, trying to get a leg up on historical enemies.\n\nThe biggest advantage Europeans had was they had an endless supply of reinforcements. Sometimes the natives were horrified and upset by the extreme lengths the Europeans would go to, like completely destroying whole villages including non-belligerents, women, children, animals, crops, and houses would all be destroyed. But they often got terrible retribution for that, to the point of failure and near extinction of early colonies.\n\nEuropeans also had many technological advantages. They also brought a sense of superiority in the white race and inferiority of natives, and a mandate to convert and uplift the heathen. Don’t underestimate the power of even a misguided and erroneous philosophy in the hands of zealots.\n\nDisease also played a role, especially smallpox. There are stories of intentional infection, but that doesn’t reflect the day to day reality. Europeans had centuries of innate immunity in their genetic code, and natives were never going to be able to obtain that. The losses and decimation were brutal in some cases.\n\nAll this took more than two centuries to happen, the image of a big war with massive migration that many people picture when viewing the whole of “New World” history just doesn’t apply. Remember, for decades, places like the middle of what is now the middle of Massachusetts was completely native territory which if any white person ventured would not live. It’s why banishment from a colony was such a huge deal as a punishment. It was basically a death sentence, either by exposure, dehydration, starvation, or disease. If you were lucky, you got a quick death at the hands of an animal or native tribe, though frequently people would be tortured to death or enslaved for entering native territory.\n\n\nCaveat: I am not a professional historian, but this particular topic has always been of great interest to me (ie, How did what started out as a small group of people come to dominate an entire continent that was already occupied, sometimes by advanced peoples)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip's_War"
]
] |
|
4lqv2o
|
how do snakes grow?
|
This is a stupid question but since snakes have all those ribs and can get the size of a leviathan, depending on the species. How do they grow? Do their ribs get bigger and stronger per their size, so does the spacing increase?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lqv2o/eli5how_do_snakes_grow/
|
{
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"d3pem8h",
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2,
3
],
"text": [
"The same way other animals do?\n\nDo you think you were born with a full-sized adult ribcage?",
"The number of vertebrae is genetically determined, as with us, and does not increase during the snake's lifetime. Their bones grow, just as with ours, and judging from the skeleton on-hand at work, although the relative space seems to remain more or less constant, indeed, in absolute terms the spacing increases."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
8a0mqz
|
how do tv game shows tax people who get cash on the spot?
|
I see game shows like How too make a deal give away cash on the spot. Are these people taxed? I know if you win showcases etc taxes are collected on items, but what about cash handed on the spot?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a0mqz/eli5_how_do_tv_game_shows_tax_people_who_get_cash/
|
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"text": [
"Any cash prize (including lotteries) is generally considered income in the eyes of the IRS (or similar entity for other countries). \n\nThe person/entity giving the money will report the transfer of money to the IRS (and in some cases, offer to withhold the expected taxes) , and it becomes the responsibility of the recipient to submit a payment of the expected owed taxes in a timely manner and to report the earnings when the time comes to file taxes for the year.",
"Often they don't actually give money away on the spot, that is just for the cameras. At the very least, the show has to gather sufficient information to report the award to the IRS.\n\nI was reading something about *Cash Cab*, about how it was one of the realest shows on The Discovery Channel, the only thing fake about it was handing out cash. There is paperwork off camera and the winners wind up with checks.\n",
"There have been documentaries on this, specifically related to the Price is Right.\n\nSurprisingly the fact that you have to pay taxes on lottery winnings and tv show prizes isn't as common knowledge as you'd think. If you win you have to fill in paper work and deal with the original vendor that donated the prize. Contestants are told about this after the show is over and quite often will abandon the prizes (cars, trips etc) because they can't fork over the cash for the taxes needed to pay for them.\n\nPrice is Right is apparently a stickler for not allowing you to take cash value for your prize. As a result the Price is Right supposedly has a depot that stores cars, and all manner of prizes that have appeared on the show but were unclaimed. The show is required to hold onto them for X period and then afterwards dispose (auction? re-use?) them.\n\nThat's one of the reasons that show like Jeopardy, Who wants to be a Millionaire, Family Feud, etc give out cash prizes. It's just easier to manage.\n\nInterestingly though Canada has no such law, and Canadians can claim lottery and prize winnings tax-free. If a Canadian wins on a show like Price is Right we have to pay the taxes upfront and then have to go through a laborious process to get the taxes back from the IRS because they can't tax us for that.",
"Surely depends how much money. If it's under 10 grand I'm quite sure it works exactly how they do bingo parlors.\n\nWhen you win anything over $1199, they rig it so you win multiple 1199's so it's not one lump taxable sum.",
"So you're telling me prize money is not tax-free in the US like it is e.g. in Germany? o.O",
"Canada does not tax windfall gains, so lottery/casino/game show winnings are pocketed in the amount shown. This is also why Canadians play American big-prize lotteries, as it is possible to keep much more of the winnings than American citizens do."
]
}
|
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[],
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4sg7vd
|
why did civil war soldiers not use revolvers exclusively?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4sg7vd/eli5_why_did_civil_war_soldiers_not_use_revolvers/
|
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"text": [
"Range, revolvers have a very limited range. If you exclusively rely on revolvers the enemy will sit out of range and pick you to pieces. In addition the reloading speed of revolvers is slow compared to that of the rifles and carbines of the period so the number of shots per minute were relatively few. Pistols were only really useful for cavalry who could use a small weapon on horseback fire a rapid number of shots and then charge home or get rapidly out of range.",
"Revolver rifles, or repeating rifles of that ERA were somewhat unreliable. They could discharge all of the six ammo at once and after 6 shots they were pretty slow to reload. Ammo was harder to make on field and most of the militants were without a proper training for using those guns. Also the ammo was way more expensive.\n\nAlso having six shots would give wrong idea to the soldiers. Using a gun with one shot would make them aim, while having six they could just shoot them down the range. Ammo were scarce so they didn't want to waste it. \n\nAnd last but not least, they were seen as wasted resources. \n\nEDIT: And the accuracy was really a thing and mattered. Remember that they had very limited ammo, and they melted their own personal posessions to make ammo.",
"The revolver design was used in rifles at that time. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nThere seems to have been reliability issues with the possibility of chain fire, where all one shot ignited all the chambers and could be potentially quite destructive. Chainfire was a problem with a handgun revolver too, but less risky to the user because handguns didn't need to be fired with one hand in front of the chambers. \n\nBut they were used in some quantity, along with a great many other weapons. ",
"First of all, I'm not sure why you think accuracy doesn't matter. Direct, close range, charges were not common and when they did occur the two lines would be separated by hundreds of yards to start. The Napoleonic line tactics fell out of favor pretty early in the war and the small unit tactics that developed were not that different from modern warfare (in fact, the number of shots per causality was much lower than it is now). Late in the war, many battles turned into long sieges in which snipers accounted for a large percentage of the casualties. \n\nSecondly, a revolver is a relatively low power weapon. A revolver fires a small ball with about 250 ft-lbs of energy. By comparison a rifle firing a minie ball might have over 1000 ft-lbs of energy and offer superior ballistics (so it kept it's energy for a longer distance). Beyond 50 yards a revolver was fairly ineffective. \n\nLastly, they developed much better solutions than percussion cap revolvers in either handgun or rifle form. Most notably the Spencer rifle and similar lever actions guns were developed which were cartridge fed and so much faster to reload than a cap and ball revolver. These might have completely replaced the muzzle loading rifle in the North if not for limited manufacturing capacity. \n\n\n\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_revolving_rifle"
],
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||
2y2421
|
Since kittens are born in litters from one pregnancy, does that make them twins/triplets/quadruplets?
|
If they are all born together, does that make them genetically identical or something? Why or why not? Can humans experience anything similar to a "litter" without having twins?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2y2421/since_kittens_are_born_in_litters_from_one/
|
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"cp5zm0n",
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"text": [
"It would make them fraternal twins/triplets/etc, for the most part. They're the product of multiple eggs being fertilized by different sperm, just like human fraternal twins are. However, in cats, multiple eggs being released from the ovaries is normal. It's still possible to have identical twin kittens, but it's not significantly different in its occurrence than it is in humans.",
"They would be fraternal, not identical quadruplets/septuplets/whathaveyou. Unlike humans, female cats don't release eggs until after they have mated, sometimes after multiple times. With the sperm of several tom cats floating around in there, it is easy to have litters with very different looking kittens- definitely not identical cat twins. I think the closest human phenomenon is fraternal twins/triplets but in that case there is only 1 father."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
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12nwt4
|
how commonly known would the story of the Iliad, have been in the second century BC classical world?
|
in 119BC would many people between the near east and Spain have read or at least known the story of the Iliad?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12nwt4/how_commonly_known_would_the_story_of_the_iliad/
|
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"text": [
"A cup with a depiction of a scene of the Illiad was found in a grave of the first century AD in Denmark. I guess they knew what the scene meant.",
"Few people would have read it because few people could read. But most people would have known it, at least in a vague way, because it was so much part of the culture. (As Aerandir points out, scenes from the Iliad might be on your drinking cup.) Think of all the stories you know, more or less, without having actually read (possibilities include Bible stories, Norse myths, various classic books like Moby Dick, even the Greek myths themselves).",
"The works of Aristophanes, a 5th/4th century BC Athenian comic playwright, frequently allude to or directly quote the Iliad, and there are quite a number of other plays and pieces of literature which refer to it and the Odyssey. Probably any educated person would know it, and it's likely that anyone living in a Hellenistic culture in the 2nd century would be familiar with the gist of the Iliad."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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[]
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|
dbem0h
|
Was it common to actually eat the bizarre dishes seen in the cookbooks of the 1970s and earlier?
|
I have seen some truly bizarre recipes in cookbooks from the 1970s and before with salads encased in jello, bananas and hollandaise with ham, and many other recipes that just seem bizarre and unpleasant from their conception. Have tastes really changed that much? Recipes from that era like tuna noodle casserole are still around but these bizarre concoctions, did people actually enjoy eating them or were many of them just attractive ways of using up leftovers?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dbem0h/was_it_common_to_actually_eat_the_bizarre_dishes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f22vhde"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Yes, they were certainly a thing. Taste is capricious. /u/searocksandtrees has collected [answers about jello oddities before](_URL_1_), feat. /u/gothwalk, et al.\n\n/u/PeculiarLeah interprets it as [part of the recovery from rationing in World War II](_URL_0_), specifically mentioning bananas and ham with hollandaise."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://new.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/aqbi9r/why_was_mid_century_food_so_weird/egxytoi/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9abesk/whats_up_with_those_gelatinous_american_recipes/"
]
] |
|
1jqfv8
|
how is it that i'm left handed but do some activities like a right handed person would?
|
Like the title says, i'm left handed. I seem to do small-movement type things (write, brush my teeth, pour coffee, hold a fork, hold the TV remote) with my left hand, but at the same time; use my right hand to throw a football, I shoot right in hockey/golf etc.
Is that common? I only know a handful of lefties and they don't do anything like a right-handed person would.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jqfv8/eli5_how_is_it_that_im_left_handed_but_do_some/
|
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"text": [
"As I understand it, left/right-handedness isn't a 100% binary thing. You can be left-handed for *most* activities, but still be right-handed on a few/some others depending on how you were taught, how you grew up, etc.",
"I'm a leftie too, but I use cutlery, knit, play guitar etc \"right handed\". Just the way I was brought up I guess!",
"I am right handed. I only use my left hand for one thing. That is because I use my right hand to control the mouse. So maybe some of it is training. So much training. ",
"I'm a lefty from a family of all right-handed people. I favor my left hand in most things (writing, throwing, batting, kicking,) but do some things right-handed (guitars, drums, mouse, fork & knife, scissors.) I think this is mostly due to the set-ups and equipment available (typically favoring right-handedness) when I was learning.\n\nIt's ultimately led to a higher level of ambidexterity."
]
}
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[] |
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[
[],
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|
6s3glr
|
if some humans have neanderthal dna while others don't, does that mean some humans are at least somewhat of a different species than others.
|
This has been really bothering me lately and due to my OCD has been constantly on my mind has been causing me a lot of distress. I recently learned that some humans have Neanderthal dna due to interbreeding while others don't. Given that Neanderthals are a different species (I understand the definition of species is somewhat loose), am I not fully human and instead a human-neanderthal crossbreed, whereas some of my friends who likely would not have Neanderthal dna be fully human and therefore a different species? Or would we both be considered equally human beings?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6s3glr/eli5_if_some_humans_have_neanderthal_dna_while/
|
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"text": [
"No. The definition of a species is whether or not members can interbreed. All humans can interbreed as a species. We're all one breed much less not the same species. ",
"Homo sapiens neandethalensis (neandertals) is a sub-species of homo sapien sapien (modern human). Both are homo sapien (human) because they are very close cousins, close enough that they could breed and make successful offspring together. The definition of a separate species is that it must be another group of organisms that cannot mate with the main group to produce viable(fertile) offspring. So by definition neandetals were not a different species. ",
"The definition of species is indeed somewhat loose but most agree on the basic that successfully interbreeding and having fertile offspring means that you are part of the the same species.\n\nThis is why many people now think that Neanderthals should be considered a different subspecies of humans not a different species altogether.\n\nIt is similar to wolves and dogs which can interbreed and are the same species but still obviously different enough to tell them apart.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6c3uzf
|
How do dogs make ATP?
|
Every being needs energy. Animals cells make ATP from sugar and oxygen. So where do dogs (and other meat eaters) get sugar from if they eat exceedingly meat.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6c3uzf/how_do_dogs_make_atp/
|
{
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"text": [
"Gluconeogenesis is the production of glucose from protein-rich sources. This is quite commonly used for production of energy across all living beings (plant and animal alike). In humans this is frequently seen in ketogenic diets or diets treating diabetes (and, to an extent, also the Atkins diet that was popular in the early 2000s). \n\nGlycogen can be produced in this manner from fatty acids and amino acids with pyruvate (as well as lactate). It is also associated with the Cori cycle as a part of the larger Krebs cycle. \n\nWhile carbohydrates are more easily converted to glucose/glycogen, gluconeogenesis fills the pathway to ATP production in the absence of sugar stores. ",
"Most of the energy for respiration in carnivores comes from fats, not protein. Protein amino acids are generally reused in the consumer rather than broken down for energy.\n\nFirst of all, you have to realize that cell respiration doesn't really take glucose as an input. The molecule that is fed to the citric acid cycle is acetyl-CoA. In the glucose pathway, several steps have to happen first to turn the glucose into pyruvate (glycoloysis) and then pyruvate into acetyl-CoA.\n\nFats also need to be prepared for respiration, but the process is actually simpler. The long fatty acids are cleaved off the glycerol backbone, then they can be tranferred to the mitochondria there they're chopped up into many acetyl-CoA molecules. The glycerol can also be respired via a pathway that converts it to pyruvate."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
157tf9
|
on gawker websites i need to spam the back button to actually go back, why?
|
It's almost like I'm being redirected, then I go back to the redirect page but it pushes me forward.. so spamming it lets me go back faster than the redirect page works... It's like this for me on every gawker website (kotaku, gizmodo, lifehacker)
Chrome Version 23.0.1271.97 m
windows 8 pro 64
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/157tf9/on_gawker_websites_i_need_to_spam_the_back_button/
|
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"text": [
"I'd also like to know why this happens, not just for Gawker sites but twitter and a few others",
"What happens when you click on one of their links is you get taken to a proxy page. This proxy page basically acts like a handler for requests. It then passes you on to the relevant page. When you press back on any webpage the browser you use automatically re-enters any data it did the first time around. An example of this is like when you enter data on an internet form. Lets say I'm entering a username and password. I then get somewhere. I then decide to go somewhere else. When I press back to go to the page where I went *after* I entered the data my browser automatically re-enters that same username and password I entered. The same thing is happening on sites like gawker. Personally I feel that it is often a very poor way of handling things and results in forcing people, as you have noticed, to either open a new tab or window, or to mash the back button.",
"I find that right clicking the back arrow and selecting where I need to go is the best way to get out of that loop. It's tedious, having to use the mouse to navigate back, but you gotta do what you gotta do.",
"protip : right click the back button, at least in firefox. opera/chrome probably instead requires that you hold is pressed for a second or so.",
"some web developers think they understand usability better than anyone and so they incorporate clever features like this into their websites, because no one ever uses the back button.",
"Open in new tab. Middle click the link to do that. Middle click the tab to close. On chrome of course.",
"I stopped giving them my page views. So terrible. Let's put an ad on everything, make some of our posts ads, then make them view ads before seeing our ads. Oh, and create sensationalist nonsensical posts to pull views. \n\nIf you're really interested in tech news I've found _URL_0_ to be pretty great. No nonsense. Well a little bit, but it is the internet."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"news.ycombinator.com"
]
] |
|
1xzfw0
|
often people say when you get a splinter your body will learn to push it out at some point. how does it happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xzfw0/eli5_often_people_say_when_you_get_a_splinter/
|
{
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"cffzjuo"
],
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"text": [
"Your body doesn't learn to push it out, it's just that tissue regrows in such a way that the splinter is eventually moved towards the outside of the body, which eventually results in the splinter emerging from the skin."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5b2ofw
|
how do prince rupert's drops work?
|
I just watched a video on those peculiar glass objects called Prince Rupert's Drops.Amazingly, if only a bit of its tail is clipped of then the entire structure gets demolished in an instant.How does that really happen, I mean what is the physics behind it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b2ofw/eli5how_do_prince_ruperts_drops_work/
|
{
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"d9laml3",
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6
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"text": [
"Because the glass is rapidly cooled it sets up a state of high residual stress, compressive stress on the surface and tensile stress in the center. This effectively toughens the glass of the head similar to how Gorilla glass is toughened on cell phone screens. The residual compressive stress in the glass resists crack propagation and shattering.\n \nSince the tail is very thin it isn't subject to the differential cooling effect and doesn't set up residual stresses. So it's just ordinary glass. A hammer blow here will shatter it and the crack propagation through the inner tensile stressed material of the head will release the enormous potential energy in the head making it disintegrate.",
"If I were to explain it to a 5 year old, I would say the following: \n\nBecause when the glass cools in water it cools very very quickly, there's a lot of tension and stress still stored up in the \"drop,\" much like a rubber band that's been pulled to as far as it can go and then stuck there. When a little tiny part of the drop is broken, much like cutting off a tiny bit of a rubber band, all that tension goes away, and the whole thing shatters"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
36ghz3
|
why/how did smoking become less painful on my throat and lungs over time?
|
To clarify this is more pertaining to smoking trees than tobacco and cigarettes.
What I mean is, when I first hit a small pipe in high school I coughed my lungs out and it burned like hell. Also, I thought my throat was on fire after a gravity bong hit when I was a novice smoker first beginning.
Now, a couple years later I can clear bongs no problem. Hits that would have left my throat aching for an hour now don't seem to bother me at all. The only time I get the urge/pain to cough is usually after some dabs or the end of a blunt where the smoke gets really hot.
So why/how have I conditioned my throat and lungs do not be in as much pain? I see the same effect with my friends, some don't smoke much and on special occasions when they do hits that don't bother us kill them in regards to pain/coughing fits.
Thanks for the help! And tobacco/tree smokers feel free to share if you've had the same experience.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36ghz3/eli5_whyhow_did_smoking_become_less_painful_on_my/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crds3cx"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You destroyed the nerves that were on the surface, and the cilia that are in your lungs that cause coughing when a foreign substance is introduced. Cilia are fine hairs in your lungs that move out mucous. Smoking burns them away. \n\nIf you stop smoking/weed for a length of time, you will regain your lung response to the smoke you are breathing into them. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
bsm778
|
how is a glass of wine everyday good for you? :)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bsm778/eli5_how_is_a_glass_of_wine_everyday_good_for_you/
|
{
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],
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"text": [
"It is NOT healthy at all.\n\nThe thing you heard is only a myth. Take a half aspirine instead.",
"It is not. There is proof to suggest that the antioxidants in wine are good for you. \n\nBut with that said, current consensus is that *any* alcohol is bad for you, and for virtually all drinks, the downsides outweigh any upsides. Drinking is always bad and should be avoided for optimal health."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
vijwg
|
What are some recent major depopulation events?
|
Was just thinking about population growth and things that have happened in the past.
Some that I can think of from the top of my head.
- WWII - 60+ mil - 2.5% of world population
- 1918 Flu - 50mil - 3% of world population
- Smallpox
- Black death - 45-50% of European population
- Mongol invasions
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vijwg/what_are_some_recent_major_depopulation_events/
|
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"text": [
"European discovery of the Americas. Close to 90% of Native Americans died to diseases. ",
"In Australia, both world wars caused reasonable depopulation of rural/remote areas as young men enlisted (and, in many cases, didn't return). Just under 10% of the population ^([416,809]) of Australia enlisted during WWI (then a country of under 5 million people) and of that, [~216,000 were killed, wounded, gassed or taken prisoner](_URL_2_): that is, 51.8% of all enlisted men. The total casualty rate was 65% - [the highest of any country in the war.](_URL_0_)\n\nI can't seem to find a source for it, but when I was studying history at the University of Adelaide we were taught that roughly 10% of the population of South Australia (which was mostly concentrated in Adelaide) had died, leading to severe labour shortages in the rural districts.\n\nDuring the Second World War, a similar trend emerged, the effects of which you can briefly read about in [this extract from my Honours thesis.](_URL_1_) (Start from the last para on p. 17 through to the first para on p. 19).\n\nDuring the Great Depression in Australia, the Victorian government introduced rules for receiving sustenance (welfare) that meant workers had to seek work constantly, preferably in the country, and were not allowed to claim sustenance in the same place twice in a row (sustenance was provided every 3 weeks). There's a citation here somewhere in the books on my desk but it'll take me a while to find it; if you want it I can track it down for you.\n\nDuring the 1960s-90s there was quite a lot of migration from South-East Asia as the various wars destroyed peoples homes and lives. Though the scale of migration by boat to Australia has been a lot of movement out of Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Burma to various countries around the world.\n\nNow that I've noticed your inclusion of the Black Death and Mongol invasions (these are.. recent?) I suppose I should also include the Gold Rush in the early 1850s, which sucked huge numbers of people out of the various cities and colonies on the Australian mainland as people went to find their fortune. Didn't last, though. ",
"Wikipedia has a large (though not exhaustive) [list of famines](_URL_0_). This includes ones from the 20th century - natural or otherwise.",
"Europeans killed every single Tasmanian aborigine by the mid nineteenth century, if that is what you're after.",
"If you are worried about global overpopulation, don't. Industrialized nations all around the the world eventually reach a climax where thereafter populations stay stagnant for a while, then decline. If you don't believe me check population records of nations like the US, France, the UK, Japan, and South Korea. South Korea's population is declining so quickly that the government operates a pretty substantial pro-pregnancy campaign. \n\nIn short, there is plenty of Earth to go around as long as the rich nations help the poor ones industrialize."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/enlistment/ww1.asp",
"https://dl.dropbox.com/u/718663/thesisextract1.pdf",
"http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww1.asp"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
37mnem
|
how does motorcycle rpm and gearing work.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37mnem/eli5how_does_motorcycle_rpm_and_gearing_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crnzamg"
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"text": [
"The RPM of a motorcycle engine as well as how the gearing works, functions on the same principles as any other engine. The whole system is setup slightly different as space is an issue. But the basics are all the same. To answer if your engine is doing the same work at 5k RPM on 2nd gear vs 5th simply, is no, it's not doing the same work. If you ever owned a Bicycle with gears it's the same principle.\n\nAt the low gears, it's super easy to pedal because the rotation is very small. However, you don't output very much energy on the lower gears. At high gears it's the opposite, it's difficult to pedal, but you output much more energy than you're putting in. \n\nBreaking the inertia of a bicycle/motorcycle/car can be a very difficult task, that's why we start at low gears and work up to high gears."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2fgs6s
|
what would happen if coke stopped advertising for a year?
|
Just randomly thought of this in class, but since you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't know about Coke, what would happen if they completely stopped advertising for a year?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fgs6s/eli5_what_would_happen_if_coke_stopped/
|
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"text": [
"Pepsi would advertise so much it would drive us all insane!...plus coke advertisements are kind of an American tradition now so Christmas would be sad with no polar bear commercial.",
"I'm assuming you mean advertising as in media (TV, radio, billboards, etc). You should note that Coke advertises EVERYWHERE and you may not even realize it. The soda machine with a giant coke bottle on the front? Glasses with a coke logo at TGIF? That's all advertising too. Even if they stopped all \"ads\", stopped endorsing NASCAR and sporting events, etc, there would still be Coke logo's in your face all over the place.\n\nLets look at 2 scenarios:\n\n1. Coke stops advertising but Pepsi does not: Pepsi's market share increases, as people get bombarded with Pepsi marketing and try it out. However, there's only so far they can go because restaurants with existing Coke equipment aren't going to switch because of TV ads. Coke's revenue decreases more than Pepsi's increases because without advertising, some people will just drink less soda.\n\n2. Both companies agree to stop advertising: People drink less soda in general. Would it offset the amount that they each spend? Who knows, my guess is not because if it did, then the companies would already have stopped advertising.\n\nAdvertising at that level is not about \"making people know about Coke\" it's about having Coke be the first thing you think of when you think \"I want a drink\"\n",
"the coke logo is one of the most recognizable logos in the world, i doubt it would do much to their bottom line in that year. although, i wonder what they would do with the almost 3 billion dollars they spend annually in advertising. ",
"I used to wonder why some companies, like McDonald's and Coke, don't just skip advertising for a while. Maybe only do it every other year. They'll save millions, and it's not like there's any people out there who aren't already familiar with their products.\n\nBut you know, I think they have a very good reason to advertise so much, despite such good brand recognition. There's a reason they'll show you commercials with big burgers up close, and billboards of cold Coke bottles covered in droplets of condensation.\n\nAnd that reason is for impulse buys. They want you to suddenly think \"Hey you know what, I could go for a burger right now\" while you're driving home from work, or \"Yeah some Coke sounds great\" as you're driving to the grocery store. \n\nSo yeah, I believe that if they stopped advertising, they would see a large drop in sales. No, nobody will suddenly not be aware that there is Coke out there, but a lot less people will suddenly buy Cokes on impulse. ",
"In all honesty coke would most likely gain money from not advertising because they are already so advertised without spending any money on it like threw reatraunts and coke machines. Everyone already knows what coke is and society already does most of its advertising anyway. And think about it...who really watches t.v ads or listens to radio commercials anyway. ",
"probably not much. at this point they're so engrained they really need to. it's like hershey. when's the last time you saw an add for the actual chocolate bar?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3yhc8f
|
why does online shopping shipping cost so much more than personally sending packages?
|
For example; just paid $8 in shipping to (insert photo printing service of choice) and the same size envelope would cost $1 at the post office.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yhc8f/eli5_why_does_online_shopping_shipping_cost_so/
|
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"text": [
"a few examples.\n-amazon (not books)- free under certain conditions, reasonable when not-free. probably has a deal with ups/usps for volume discount.\n-amazon - books - media mail at usps costs $2.65. there is not really a cheaper way to send a book. if you pay less than $4 for a book + shipping the seller is taking a loss.\n-ebay - ebay charges fees based on final bid price not shipping, so some people mark up the shipping to hide costs\n-random other website - for low volume stuff, that $8 includes troubling larry to get up, prepare your package, and drive it to the post office. or the cost of the box +tape + etc.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1w16xt
|
how can our brains, while sleeping, create images of people/things we've never met or seen before and how can dreams create deja vu/seemingly predict future occurrences?
|
I find dreams fascinating and mysterious. I've been having these crazy dreams lately and I've also had a few instances where I can't remember if something actually happened or if it was in my dream - Requesting reddit assistance.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w16xt/eli5_how_can_our_brains_while_sleeping_create/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"i once watched a report that stated you only dream of people you have already seen at least once. maybe you are not aware of meeting that one person but your subconscious remembers everything.\nthe deja vu thing is easily explained: you experience something and your brain accidentally stores it in the long-term memory instead of the short-term memory. so you think: oops I already experienced that before. Which isn't actually true.",
"Dreams don't actually create déjà vu. That phenomenon is actually created by a slight delay between sensory reception and neural recognition. Basically you witness something via sight, sound, etc, but for whatever reason your brain takes a few extra nanoseconds to process the information, so you feel as though you've experienced it before, and often feel like you can \"predict\" what will happen next, but only as it is actually happening.\n\nAs far as creating entirely new content in dreams - that isn't possible even while awake. All of human creativity is limited to our experiences. Our minds are just able to reassemble these experiences into new combinations. (There are a few exceptions to this, such dealing with things such as scale or color, but those are debatable). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
94xtej
|
what are turkeys being pardoned from if they have not done anything?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/94xtej/eli5_what_are_turkeys_being_pardoned_from_if_they/
|
{
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"e3okn03"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"They are \"being pardoned from the sentence of death for being a turkey at thanksgiving\". It is just a silly tradition. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1gg3du
|
How did the Norway GDP increase by ~$22k in a 4 year span?
|
$22278.095 to be precise.
[Source](_URL_0_)
I'm not very good with economics so I pretty much no very little about this. Can someone who's good with economics/math explain this?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1gg3du/how_did_the_norway_gdp_increase_by_22k_in_a_4/
|
{
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"text": [
"edit-- not an economist so maybe someone else will prove/disprove the following\n\nGDP per capita increased by USD 22k in 4 years. The important thing to note here is that it is in USD, so let's just run a quick conversion from USD to NOK for 2009 and 2013:\n\n77k USD - > 77/0.14 - > 550 NOK in 2009 at the rate of approx 1 NOK to 0.14 USD\n\n99k USD - > 99/0.17 - > 582 NOK in 2013 at the rate of approx 1 NOK to 0.17 USD\n\nI've used imprecise numbers but from this, it is absolutely clear that the increase is due to exchange rates.",
"I think you mean GDP/capita.",
"Your source is giving the GDP in current (nominal) prices, which is largely irrelevant when measuring the growth of the economy because it doesn't account for the rise in prices relative to the past (inflation). If an industry sold 100 units of product X@ $10 in 2009, the **nominal** GDP of that industry is $1000. If prices rose the next year to say $11 and they sold the same quantity (100), the **nominal** GDP rises to $1100 even though no actual growth was present. \n\nA better measure of growth is **real** GDP, which fixes the prices to a base year. This makes it possible to only account for actual growth by measuring the quantity sold and disregarding the prices.\n\n[**Real** GDP in Norway actually fell](_URL_0_) from 2009 to 2011(the most recent FRED data). Your source's use of nominal GDP along with /u/kyv's explanation are the reasons why the numbers are what make it seem like there has been massive growth present in Norway when in fact there hasn't been."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=72&pr.y=17&sy=2009&ey=2012&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=142&s=NGDPD%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPGDP%2CPPPPC%2CLP&grp=0&a="
] |
[
[],
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|
1noq8l
|
Why were so many large college football stadiums built in the US in the 1920's?
|
I know it was a boom time in the roaring 20's but what else drove the construction of so many of the worlds largest stadiums?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1noq8l/why_were_so_many_large_college_football_stadiums/
|
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"text": [
"The Colleseum in Los Angeles was built for the 1932 Olympics. Cleveland built their Munincipal Stadium in an attempt to augment their bid for the 1932 Olympics. Not only did they not get the Olyimpics, they could not convince the Cleveland Indians to play there until the 1950s. They did have an NFL team, the Rams, that played there from 1937 to 1945. The Rams won the 1945 championship on a fluke play. Sammy Baugh threw a pass from his own end-zone that richocheted off the goal post and scoring a safety for the Rams. The Rams moved to Los Angeles for the 1946 seaon and played in the LA Colessium until the early 1980s, when they moved to Anaheim. Al Davis moved the Raiders to Los Angles and played at the collessium for less than ten years before they moved back to Oakland, the same year the Rams moved to Saint Louis. Al Davis left because an earthquake damaged the collessium and would have been to expensive to repair. \n During the 1920s, the National Football leaugue was still in an embryonic stage of development. Without television, it was not yet a popular sport. College football was popular though. Especially in the Ivy League and Big Ten states. Schools like Michigan could build a stadium with 100,000 seats and sell enough tickets to fill them all. The revenue generated by a successful football program gave the presidents of other schools an edifice complex. They want to build a stadium tha was comparable in size and get their own piece of the pie. During the 1920s college football replaced boxing and horse racing in popularity, and only baseball remained more popular. There were sound business reasons that colleges built such large stadiums. \n "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3hyt85
|
why is computer image recognition so hard?
|
I talked to someone who worked on the robots that play soccer, and they said the greatest challenge was to get the robots to recognise the ball.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3hyt85/eli5_why_is_computer_image_recognition_so_hard/
|
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"I know we aren't supposed to post just links, but I don't think there's a better explanation than [this WaitButWhy article](_URL_0_). Scroll down to \"The Road From ANI to AGI\" paragraph.\n\nEdit: For those about to tl;dr - over millions of years of evolution our brains became really good at recognizing objects, because that's what is useful (even necessary) for survival. Computers are very primitive in comparison to our brains, and they can't (yet) teach themselves without any human assistance, so we have to manually \"wire\" them for image recognition.",
"Your biggest problem is recognizing which pixels belong together to one object, and then classifying this object. Life has had over a billion years to develop a semi-decent algorithm for that, which is mostly hardwired into our brain (and because even simple brains are insanely complex and don't work at all like computers, pretty much impossible to reverse engineer)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html"
],
[]
] |
|
4hynmm
|
If protons & neutrons are each composed of 3 quarks, is the atomic nucleus just a jumble of quarks, or is each set of 3 quarks a distinct particle?
|
_URL_0_
This graphic shows a neutron as a set of 3 quarks bound together with a 'shell' around them. This shell is presumably not an actual massive object (what would it be composed of after all?). But in an atomic nucleus, several (up to 100s) of these quark sets are combined together. Does each nucleon (proton and neutron) remain a distinct particle or is the nucleus simply a jumble of up and down quarks? If the former, what prevents quark sets (nucleons) from dissembling, moving around and mixing like atoms in a gas or liquid? If the latter, why even bother talking about protons and neutrons as an intermediate step?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4hynmm/if_protons_neutrons_are_each_composed_of_3_quarks/
|
{
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"text": [
"These pictures of 3 quarks making up a nucleon is a crude simplification. A proton is a very complex bound state that consists of the 3 valence quarks as well as a fluctuating part of gluons and quark anti-quark pairs. \n\nEven though the nucleons are a seemingly a mess, they can be more or less be seen as distinct particles that bound together make up atomic nuclei. The predicitions from this assumption lead to pretty good results (shell model of the atomic nucleus).",
"The quarks are bound together through the strong interaction, that is they exchange gluons, which may only couple to coloured particles. Once you get three quarks together (one of each colour), the resulting heap is colourless, and will not see the strong force anymore.\n\nAn analogy in electromagnetism would be asking if a pile of table salt is just a bunch of Na and Cl ions together. That's not really the case, since once these ions pair up, there is no force to bind them together, and you can distinguish salt molecules.\n\nThere is an additional phenomenon going on with the proton, however: the residual strong force (or nuclear force). Two nucleons may trade quarks, but these quarks have to travel together in the form of a pion such hat they remain colourless. This is what allows nuclei to remain together. The scale at which this occurs is much greater than the scale at which the quarks interact together, since the former does not have to deal with colour confinement but the latter does.\n\nFinally, as was mentioned before, nucleons also contain all manner of gluons and virtual quarks, which are the results of higher orders of interactions between the valence quarks (the three long-lived quarks that define the particle)."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AQuark_structure_neutron.svg"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1gzmkd
|
Do eggs change weight as they develop?
|
When a chicken, for example, lays a fertilized egg, does that egg weigh the same as the day before a fully-developed chick hatches?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1gzmkd/do_eggs_change_weight_as_they_develop/
|
{
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"capexh3"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Yes, the [egg loses weight during incubation](_URL_0_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.isapoultry.com/en/support/technical-bulletins/management-hatchery-and-ps/~/media/Files/ISA/Information/Technical%20Bulletins/Management%20Hatchery%20and%20PS/From%20egg%20to%20chicken1.ashx#page=40"
]
] |
|
136w1d
|
intelligence quotient / iq, what exactly is it and what are its criticisms? why is it potentially wrong?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/136w1d/intelligence_quotient_iq_what_exactly_is_it_and/
|
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"My understanding is IQ is broadly an analytical way of assessing a person's capabilities. It uses a combination of problems, pictures and other tests to assess a person. It is a good measure, but it is not the best indicator for a person's abilities. You may be bad at identifying sequences, but still be good at arriving at conclusions. It also does not take into account a person's emotional intelligence and hence it is argued that this is not a definitive indicator of person's abilities and cannot be used to predict whether or not someone will be successful in life.",
"There are many different kinds of ways humans can demonstrate intelligence, so it's absurd to think that a single number could measure that.\n\nFor example, someone may be a musical genius, but bad at spatial reasoning. Or someone may be excellent at math and spatial reasoning, but horrible that leading others.\n\nThere are also people who think that the IQ tests are culturally biased. If you think that's a load of bunk, take this [fake IQ test](_URL_0_) based on Australian aboriginal society. Now compare it to [this one](_URL_1_) based on westernized norms. Do you see why the former test may do a better job of measuring intelligence in Australian aboriginals than the latter one?",
"IQ is a measure of how 'intelligent' you are compared to the average person your age where you live.\n\nHaving an IQ of 100 by definition means that you are exactly average for your age and area.\n\nA 20 year old and 12 year old writing the same test and marking the exact same answers would get different results. The 12 year old having answered everything the same as the 20 year old would get a higher IQ because older people are expected to get more answers right than children.\n\nSimilarly the test is reclibrated based on region, but this is not a big difference in practice. The result however is that the average IQ in the US is exactly the same as the average IQ in for example Pakistan: 100 because that is how the whole thing is defined.\n\nSome criticisms are based on the age thing. Some children develop faster than other which might lead to having fantastically high IQs as children which later when they reach adulthood go down to only normal 'very smart'.\n\nOther somewhat controversial criticisms are for example about the fact that IQ test are supposedly culturally biased in some way or another.\n\nEven more controversial theories attack the concept of intelligence itself and demand that it be more inclusive. Some people believe that certain other skills and abilities such be seen as forms of intelligence, that for example someone who is not good with numbers or words or spatial reasoning or abstract ideas but is a really good dancer should be considered to be 'intelligent' in that area. While there might be some kernel of a rational and worthwhile argument at the core of this theory it has been pretty much co-opted by people who use it unintelligently like parents who refuse to admit that their child has below average intelligence and insists that he is merely differently intelligent as evident by the fact that he is good at sports.",
"I can't tell you why it's considered inaccurate, but I can give you a few famous cases of incredibly smart individuals with a comparatively low IQ.\n\n[Dr. Richard Feynman](_URL_1_), Nobel Prize winner in physics, had a reported IQ of 125, yet he is widely regarded as one of the smartest minds of his generation, and is known as the creator of modern theories of quantum and sub-atomic computing.\n\n[Dr. James Watson](_URL_2_), Nobel Prize winner in biology, reportedly had an IQ of under 130. Watson is best known as being a co-discoverer of DNA's structure. \n\n[Dr. Francis Crick](_URL_3_), Nobel Prize winner in biology, also reportedly had an IQ under 130, and worked with Dr. Watson on the discovery of DNA's structure.\n\n[Dr. William Shockley](_URL_0_), Nobel Prize winner in physics, was one of three men who first invented the transistor, the circuit that allows the computer on your desk to exist. Also had an IQ under 130.\n\nTo put this in perspective, I have an IQ of roughly 137, yet I'm struggling through my CS program at Purdue University. Even assuming I was able to do my work effectively, I am certainly not as smart as any of the four men listed above. ",
"\"wrong\" is a terrible word to use, it is not \"exact\" in a strict mathematical sense, but it is reliable, in that if you take a test today and another one a week later the scores will be very close. Basically the thing it measures is your ability to take the test. ",
"It means you did well on the IQ test, it doesn't do much more."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
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"http://www.wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceOriginalAustralian.html",
"http://www.wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceAustralianAmericanTest.html"
],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Watson",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crick"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
5ojn69
|
when someone talks about rendering a video, or an animation, what does that mean? and how would not rendering it affect it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ojn69/eli5_when_someone_talks_about_rendering_a_video/
|
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"Rendering means having a machine draw each frame (picture) used in the video. Not rendering it means it would be blank.",
"Think of \"rendering\" as a painter painting a still image. In an animation/video, the computer renders/paints each frame of the video.\n\nIf you do not render it, it would not exist.",
"Let's compare video editing to building a car.\n\nSo you're editing your video, but really it's a collection of parts. Multiple footage clips, effects like color correction, etc. The computer is able to tell you that \"yes, these parts put together make a car\" but rendering is where the parts actually get put together and consolidated into one piece. It's a little more complicated than that I think, but ELI5. \n\nIf you try to play your video/move your car without rendering, the smoothness really depends on if your computer is strong enough to pick up x amount of parts at the same time. Rendering is like putting some of the car together so it can drive a little smoother.",
"Animation, effects, etc. are a collection of 1000's of frames. It would take forever to make those 1000's of frames manually with the tiny changes in each one think about how simplistic old cartoons are that were done that way. The background scrolls and the character has limited motion. Now, compare to something like a Pixar movie where you see individual hairs move as a character moves, etc. The only way to get that is to create a few key frames and have computers render, or figure out the missing frames in between, to complete the entire action.",
"The other aspect of it is that generally when we think of rendering we are also talking about packaging the video elements into a file that is able to sent and played by others (like a .mov or .mp4). Unlike when you are editing it, these are self contained files with all the parts (footage, effects, sound, titles) baked into each frame so that youtube or whatever can play it. While editing the video, the parts are all being pulled from their locations on the hard drive and the computer processors are temporarily configuring them in a way that you can preview it. Or in the case of an animation the computer is \"drawing\" a model based on what you created. This allows you to make changes and see them instantly since the computer will have to redraw the image again either way (think of how a video game would function). But this takes a lot of computing power and so may play slowly or at a reduced resolution until rendering. Also the file will probably only be usable by that particular animation or editing software. Once you are finished, rendering allows the computer to take all the parts and calculations and \"bake\" it in. Basically, instead of drawing the image it instead is just taking what you as a viewer sees and putting that into a digital video file format. \n\nAnother metaphor might be a simple modeling clay figure. You mold it with your hands into a shape, and you can even still move parts of it around or change its features. Once you are done, you take a picture and now you can go show it to your friend without having to bring a block of clay and tools to do it all over again in a different place. ",
"Rendering takes all of the different assets that may be in a video (clips, audio, etc.) and orders them and is more or less a set of instructions...I.E. \"draw a pixel at this location with this color and play a sound\" instead of \"find the sound and video assets in storage, put it in RAM, run calculations on it THEN draw on screen/play sound.\"\n\nVideogames, conversely (for further illustration), are rendered at runtime. Since the character could be anywhere on the screen, particle effects could or could not need to be drawn on the screen, sounds could be true or false, obviously it's not going to be pre-rendered because we don't know what's going to happen yet! \n\nThats why you need a good graphics processor for gaming and video rendering, and why you don't need much processing at all for playing even 4k movies.",
"When speaking in terms of complex 3D animation. There's no way that a computer would be able to process an animation in real time by drawing and manipulating every object in the scene. Rendering is basically just going through each frame of a scene, waiting for it to load, then taking a screenshot. Then you just have a collection of 2D frames, which are far less flexible to manipulate but are much easier for a computer to play back in real time than true 3D, since you're trashing all of the 3rd dimension information as well as lighting, shadows & reflection information, which are some of the most CPU intensive parts of producing a good looking scene.",
"Rendering a video and rendering an animation are two completely different things. To produce a 3-D animated movie, you actually have to do both.\n\nRendering an animation is taking the 3-D scene the artist works with, and computing what the end result would look like. The artist isn't working with the whole thing, they are often using a simplistic lighting model and the final render actually traces out paths of light and how they reflect and refract and absorb across complex objects. Oftentimes there are also physical simulations being rendered. Animators don't model what water looks like, they just have a water simulation that needs to be processed by the computer to figure out what the water should be doing and what it should look like. \n\n_URL_0_\nThis video is an example of what artists actually work with when making the movie (with glitches, obviously). See how the models are simple with no textures and simple lighting? That all gets added in for the final render."
]
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||
2pu2xh
|
why do so many americans blame obama for practically everything?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pu2xh/eli5_why_do_so_many_americans_blame_obama_for/
|
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"Uhhhhmm, every president gets blamed for everything. This is not a slight, or a joke, its nearly the main reason they exist.",
"Isn't this true everywhere? I know David Cameron gets blamed for most stuff that goes wrong in the UK.",
"Because most American citizens have very little idea of how their government actually works, and how limited the president's power is, domestically and economically. The president is the most well-known governmental figure, and it's a lot simpler to blame him than to go watch C-SPAN or check voting records and see that it's actually your representatives and senators who are screwing you, in many cases, *specifically* because they know you'll blame Obama for it and they want his approval rating to go down.",
"Most people haven't played Sim City before. I am being serious, playing that game has shown me that you just can't win when you are mayor of a town, everyone wants everything but complain when taxes need to be raised to make money and people start opposing changes. \n\nPlus, the president is basically the scapegoat, they get blamed for almost everything that happens.",
"If you're at the top, it's your fault. If you can't handle it, you shouldn't be at the top.",
" > Uhhhhmm, every president gets blamed for everything. This is not a slight, or a joke, its nearly the main reason they exist.\n\nThis is sadly true. The President of the US is a scapegoat for nearly everything that goes wrong. It's near impossible to please everyone in our country, let alone the world. However, if we take into consideration all the good things he HAS done instead of what he HASN'T done, we can begin to see he ain't half bad. DADT was repealed - Civil Rights progression; The Obama family endorsed Same Sex Marriage - More progression in Civil Rights; The debt crisis has been nearly resolved; Have you seen the gas prices lately?; Oh, the wars have ended and the troops are coming home. There's plenty to be said. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and please, add more. ",
"Over here in Australia, Abbott is blamed meticulously. \n\nIts not just Obama, its every president. Human beings have this tendency to be unique and different, so in every population you will have haters regardless of their class, race religion etc etc.",
"American \"politics\" has become more about making opponents look bad than yourself good. The major political parties in the U.S. are the Democrats and the Republicans, the Republicans try and make the Democrats look bad and the Democrats try and make the republicans look bad. Obama is a very popular Democrat and his character and actions are seen by many as representational of the entire Democratic party.\n\nBy blaming Obama for problems, they are hoping to gain political advantage over the Democrats; I.E. \"Look how BAD the democrats are, our side is clearly the GOOD one, vote for us.\" This only really works because there are only two viable political parties in national politics in the U.S.\n\nThe sad part is, really complex issues that have major impacts on the lives of millions are are boiled down to and decided by this \"THEY BAD, WE CLEARLY NOT AS BAD\" fight.\n\nedit: words",
"Why do so many Americans blame ~~Obama~~ Bush for practically everything?",
"At least on reddit the \"Thanks Obama\" that you see everywhere is usually just a joke.\n\nOther than that there's just a lot of people who disagree with his ideas. I'm not a huge supporter because he hasn't really done much but just my $.02.",
"People like/need a scapegoat. \n\nEverything has random fluctuations and when things go 'down' people like to think it was somebody's fault.\n\nAt least that's how I percieve it.",
"Obama may not be directly responsible for a lot of things, but he is very influential when it comes to laws, etc. Also, being better than Bush could still mean being terrible. Only less terrible than Bush was. ",
"In the Democratic world the leader of the country is essentially the elected fall guy. He/She is the person who takes all of the blame for all situations regardless of who actually caused them. Every single leader in the world is like this. Harper gets the blame on Reddit for every single Canadian problem. People are uneducated in terms of provincial-federal jurisdictions, how courts work, and or how bills are designed. The leader of the country is responsible for all of the bad things and the only good things about that person are international agreements.\n\nWhen you look at George W he instituted a major and important way to which US education works, and the process actually [helped](_URL_0_). Many people criticized it and his legacy should be that he gave Americans a fighting chance in schools.\n\nWhen Bush left office there was the financial crisis. Some felt he caused it because he was the president. But anyone who knows anything about finances knows it takes a decade of financial planning to cause something like this. To that extent the blame went to Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan.\n\nSo as intelligent people the only things we can really blame Bush for are the PATRIOT Act. But we're going to blame it on Obama... because he's President now and he's kept it in place.",
"Because that's the way responsibility works. He's in charge. He gets blamed for the bad things. If he's lucky, he gets credited for the good things.\n\n > Most of the world also seem to agree that hes much better than Bush was.\n\nProving, yet again, Orwell's adage that sanity is not statistical.",
"Well besides the normal everything is the presidents fault aspect. He did heavily support the reform in health insurance which many are upset about and people are upset about executive orders they don't agree with",
"Presidents are like quarterbacks in football. They get way too much credit when something goes right, and way too much blame for when something goes wrong. ",
"President Truman famously said, 'the buck stops here.' Even though Obama isn't responsible for everything bad ever, he is the face of the operation. It's kind of like in sports how the qb or pitcher is credited with his team's success and failure. "
]
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||
fhln5a
|
Why is Neptune warmer than Uranus?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fhln5a/why_is_neptune_warmer_than_uranus/
|
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"There isn't a great deal between the two, but because of the huge distance that both are from the Sun neither gets much warmth from the Sun. Instead some heat is generated by internal motion within the planet, partially assisted by the Sun striking the pole as Neptune is \"tipped over\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8015il
|
why can't another wifi device interfere with another one
|
Like the phisher wifi device say "Hey, I'm the router, send me your information" as Man in the Middle Attack
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8015il/eli5why_cant_another_wifi_device_interfere_with/
|
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" > Hey, I'm the router, send me your information\" as Man in the Middle Attack\n\nThey can do exactly this. It is known as an [ARP poisoning attack](_URL_0_) and it is a type of man-in-the-middle. An attacker sends spoofed ARP packets to other machines on the network, causing them to route all packets through the attacker's computer. The attacker will then forward the packets onto the actual gateway, so the connection functions normally but the attacker can intercept and modify the traffic (unless it's seperately encrypted, of course).",
"Because it's encrypted information usually which is essentially useless for your without the necessary certificate ",
"**First of all some terminology just to help you translate my reply:**\n\nSwitch - A device that allows multiple end-point devices like a PC, a printer, phone etc to be connected together. Think of them like a street, with the devices being houses. \"Switches build networks\"\n\nRouter - A device that allows multiple different networks to communicate with each other. Think of them as street intersections. \"Routers join networks together\"\n\nWireless Access Point or WAP - A wireless switch. Think of it as a road for flying cars (sorry weird analogy I know)\n\nA commercial grade \"router\" like you would buy at BestBuy for your house is a combination switch/router/WAP all in one device. Where-as for a business these are typically separate devices.\n\n**Ok so onto the answer:**\n\nShort answer is yes, they actually can interfere with one another. It's only a question of how they do it, and what can they see.\n\nWireless signals are omni-directional, not uni-directional. Think of a Wireless Access Point as a person standing in the middle of a room acting as a kind of traffic cop for peoples conversations. Each person in the room (computer) has to speak to the access point, and the access point passes their message onto another person (computer).\n\nWhen a person goes to talk they are basically shouting so that everyone around can hear. Any device in the area and within range can hear that person shouting. In order to differentiate between peoples shouts, each shout has a different and distinctive pitch of voice (frequency) and since frequencies can overlap each conversation also includes as an associated serial number (MAC address) to identify the person shouting.\n\nThe Wireless Access Point and your computer use this information to sort through which signals it cares about, and which ones it doesn't. When a device receives information that it doesn't care about it is discarded.\n\nThis does however mean that if another Access Point was in the room it would overhear all the conversations going on in the room. Spying on wifi signals is theoretically just that simple. If the hackers WAP was smart enough it could also duplicate or spoof the serial number of the other access point or computer and send false signals back to those devices.\n\nThe way you get around this is through encryption. That passcode that you have on your wifi encrypts the packets being sent between the PC and the WAP so that another access point can't read them. It would be like standing in a room and listening into a conversion in a language you don't understand. Sure you can listen in but it would just be a bunch of gobbledygook to you.\n\nA common attack related to this would be to setup a fake access point that broadcasts a spoofed SSID (wireless name) and make people connect to it. You would be otherwise unaware that you are connected to the wrong network. That WAP then passes on your information to the internet as the normal WAP would, but without you knowing that they are looking at all your internet traffic in the process.\n\nNow keep in mind in industry we have technologies that help protect our users against this sort of thing. But as a home user the most important one is the encryption on your own WAP and the fact that banking websites and such have additional encryption on top of this to help protect you."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARP_spoofing"
],
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] |
|
48j5cd
|
if we could take a snapshot of every atom in the universe, could we effectively predict the future?
|
So, a very theoretical question considering it's near impossible to complete any part of it.
However, if we could somehow capture the orientation/position/type/energy states/nature of subatomic particles/etc. of every atom in the universe, compiled this information into a supercomputer and ran it in some sort of physics emulator, could it track the positions of where the atoms will end up based on their surrounding atoms, current momentum, etc (assuming our universe isn't effected by something outside of it)? Basically, are atoms predictable?
To my understanding, even though the logic would be difficult beyond belief, I think that this *would* be possible. And if so, a fast enough computer (technology we probably won't ever be able to/need to create) should be able to run the simulation of the newly captured world at an accelerated pace, allowing us to literally see into the future. I can't really wrap my mind around the concept of accelerating time though, and there are most likely properties of physics which we don't even know exist, so I have my doubts. There are a lot of 'ifs' in this problem..
Thoughts?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48j5cd/eli5_if_we_could_take_a_snapshot_of_every_atom_in/
|
{
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"score": [
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],
"text": [
"Quantum Mechanics at least suggest, if not prove, that there may be an element of inherent randomness that cannot be eliminated. If that is the case, then it is certainly at least plausible that there is some degree of unpredictability that also cannot be eliminated in macroscopic events.",
"A computer simulating the universe would also have to simulate itself, simulating itself, simulating itself... You see where this is going. It's a logical no-go",
"Maybe. This ideal is often referred to as the \"laplacian theory of deterministic predictability\", or \"Laplace's Demon\". In 1814 Laplace was the first to propose this idea that now seems intuitive to us that with sufficient information we can understand the outcome of any system, and that the universe is just another system. \n\nYou can read about the objections to this \"theory\" on the wikipedia page:\n\n_URL_0_",
"In your premise, yes we probably could.\n\nHowever, your premise is inherently impossible. We cannot ever know the position **and** velocity of an atom."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon"
],
[]
] |
|
3jbep7
|
why are males naturally attractive without make-up?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jbep7/eli5_why_are_males_naturally_attractive_without/
|
{
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"cunveru",
"cunvp1d",
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2,
4,
2
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"text": [
"Because we are conditioned to believe that girls need make up to be attractive, not to mention that women have used make up for a long time creating a \"norm\"",
"They aren't. Most men would look better with a bit of makeup. It's just not our cultural norm.",
"I love a woman who is naturally beautiful, without makeup. Somebody who doesn't need makeup and knows it. That's a keeper.",
"In. Lot of ways men and women are attractive for different reasons, on a basic animal level so to speak. Men's attractivness often relies on their strength, or their available resources (think of fit, or or with lots of money). On the other hand, women are attractive based on ability to bear and raise young. If a woman appears healthy they seem more suitable for child raising. Things like healthy skin (which shows overall body health), and youth makes, at least from an anamalistic level, more attractive. Thus makeup becomes more important for women. To attempt to portray both of these.",
"The same could be asked about their nails. You'll rarely see a guy getting a mani/pedi, but they always have the best feet."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
fwfj39
|
Were Asian Americans Segregated and considered "Coloured" in the 1950's to 60's?
|
Were Asian Americans Segregated and considered "Coloured" in the 1950's to 60's?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fwfj39/were_asian_americans_segregated_and_considered/
|
{
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"fmo44l8"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Yes they were. Asians were subject to segregational practices in many cities. I wrote a bit about this topic previously [here](_URL_0_), but am always happy to add on to it or have more of a discussion on the topic. Filipinos, for example, were prominent targets of attacks by white people. This was often rooted in white men feeling threatened by Filipino masculinity; it manifested in arresting or even attacking or shooting Filipinos who were seen with white women during periods where anti-miscegenation laws were in place, as well as the invention of stereotypes about Asian men that are still widely believed today. In general, Filipinos were seen as less civilized than whites."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b9fpg3/during_segregated_america_1860s_1960s_were_other/ek5q6ym/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf"
]
] |
|
25fvb5
|
in traffic, why do cyclists by default have to use the road instead of the sidewalk? aren't motor vehicles and cyclists a bigger danger to each other than cyclists and pedestrians would be?
|
Doesn't seem reasonable to me from a risk-reward-perspective.
Edit: I wrote this ELI5 from the perspective of a slow cyclist who is intimidated by cars and would feel much safer on the sidewalk. The regulations- and predictability-argument makes a lot of sense - but when I'm driving on a busy street with 15 km/h I feel EXTREMELY uncomfortable with cars (who might otherwise be driving with 50 km/h) lining up behind me (passing a cyclist still requires you to keep your distance, you can't just squeeze by)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25fvb5/eli5_in_traffic_why_do_cyclists_by_default_have/
|
{
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"chh0v38"
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"text": [
" > Bicyclists on a sidewalk or bicycle path incur greater risk than those on the roadway (on average 1.8 times as great), most likely because of blind conflicts at intersections. \n\n\n\n\n[here is a good post about it](_URL_0_)",
"When I ride, I ride on the roads. This is because: \n\n- That's [The Law where I live in the US](_URL_0_), and [where I live in the UK](_URL_3_)\n- I Follow the traffic signs and lanes. I also use hand signals. \n- Pedestrians do not move for you, ever. So why ride where pedestrians are? Also, sidewalks are overall crappy. They [End abruptly](_URL_1_) aren't [always clear or well maintained](_URL_2_) and are sometimes [quite curvy](_URL_4_)\n",
"Bicycles and cars are supposed to follow the same rules, and both drivers and riders are responsible for maintaining situational awareness. This is intended to create a predictable flow.\n\nAs others have mentioned, while there are notions about how best to walk on a sidewalk, there aren't really any rules or regulations. A bike coming up behind a car can make a fairly accurate assumption about what the car is going to do next based on signals used by the car and/or the lane the car is in. Sidewalks are pure chaos. ",
"Visit us in the Netherlands. You would shit bricks. \nBike lanes everywhere :D",
"ELI5 explanation: Cars and bicycles are vehicles. Roads and rules of the roads are designed for vehicles. Sidewalks are designed for people.",
"Apparently you've never seen a pedestrian get hit by a bicyclist.",
"Been told by police that it's perfectly fine riding on the sidewalk.\n\nI'm in LA, and riding the bike on the street is the quickest way to get killed!\n\nI ride about 70 miles a week and every single time there's someone running a red, a speeding semi, or someone in a rush that doesn't bother to look for pedestrians. I don't see the point in being turned into ground beef just because I had the \"Right of Way.\" That's just being blind to the realities of the road.\n\nHell i've seen people going highway speeds into blind corners where there are bike lanes!",
"I've considered riding a bike to work, but people die too often on them for me to be comfortable with it. These bike accidents seem to occur mainly due to drivers having trouble detecting the bikes in time. They are so small compared to other cards or even motor bikes.\n\n\n\nOne idea would be to add a new law saying that you need to slow to 25 mph while bike riders are visible in front of you. Think of them as mobile speed limit signs. This would allow people behind you, who might not see the bike yet, to slow down which would give them more time to react when they do see the bike.",
"\nHere is my opinion:\n\nI think it depends on the city. In a densely populated area with a ton of pedestrians and slow auto traffic bikes belong in the street. \n\nIn more suburban areas with few or no pedestrians (have you been to phoenix?) bikes belong on the side walk. Bikes in the street here are a real hazard because traffic flows at 50mph while bikes travek at 10-15. It is much safer for all if the cyclist is on the sidewalk and use cross walks at intersections. Its awkward as a car when you try to turn right but then have to wait because a bicycle is coming up from behind about to pass you on your right. Its quite dangerous."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1vom7j/cyclists_belong_on_the_road_cmv/"
],
[
"http://www.biketexas.org/es/infrastructure/texas-bicycle-laws",
"http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users16/pooftracy/default/sidewalk-ends--large-msg-121644053796.jpg",
"http://www.ci.independence.or.us/sites/default/files/imagecache/gallery500/bad_sidewalk.jpg",
"https://www.gov.uk/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82/overview-59-to-71",
"http://www.pedestrians.org/images/episodes41to50/episode47.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4twh57
|
why is the taste/smell of licorice so polarizing?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4twh57/eli5_why_is_the_tastesmell_of_licorice_so/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5ktkil"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"This is the same with most bitter foods like coffee and beer. People have an inherent disgust for things bitter and you have to learn that something bitter is good. After you have related the bitter taste of licorice with the sweet taste, or the bitter taste of beer with alcohol you start ignoring the bitter taste in these foods."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
62dk1r
|
how does all dna of a fully grown human fit in a baby?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62dk1r/eli5how_does_all_dna_of_a_fully_grown_human_fit/
|
{
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"dflmzcg",
"dfln5ll"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
2
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"text": [
"DNA isn't very big.\n\nAll of your DNA fits in a single cell.\n\nMost all of your cells have all of your DNA.\n\n_URL_0_",
"It's better than that -- all the DNA fits in almost every one of the trillion cells in a human body! How? Because DNA Is written extremely small, using just a tiny molecule (an amino acid) to represent each \"letter\" of the information. And DNA takes the shape of a long string of such \"letters\" which is all folded up.",
"DNA fits in cells, and so it fits just as easily inside the cells of a baby as an adult.\n\nIn terms of relative size, there's no real connection. It's sort of like asking how the blue prints for a skyscraper can fit in the architect's office."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://factmyth.com/factoids/all-cells-in-a-human-body-have-the-same-dna/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
ldwtt
|
If you were to ingest or inject yourself with ATP, would it provide you with energy? Would consuming more act like a sugar rush or an energy drink?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ldwtt/if_you_were_to_ingest_or_inject_yourself_with_atp/
|
{
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2,
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"text": [
"ATP is fairly large, and it's purine functionality would make it difficult to enter the cell without transport. Outside of the cell it acts as a signalling molecule, which plays a role in regulating heart rate, blood coagulation, and inflammatory/immune response. The metabolic byproducts of ATP degradation are also signalling molecules, and would have their own psysiological effects.\n\nSo, in short, not much would make it into your cells as usable energy, and it would likely feel more like getting poisoned than a sugar rush, depending on how much you injected. \n\n\nSee: [This review](_URL_0_) and [this paper](_URL_1_)",
"[Creatine](_URL_0_) increases ATP. Some people report increased mental energy but its effect is primarily on muscles. From what I understand, increased ATP only has an effect if you are already deficient.",
"Injected adenosine is a treatment used in an emergency to interrupt dangerously fast heart rhythms. Without getting into the science it essentially blocks electrical stimulation of the heart and the patient \"flat lines\" for a moment. The effect is very short lived (only a few seconds), but it is something to see. It is usually not an enjoyable experience for the patient. The idea is that when the heart starts beating again the rhythm will be more organized and at the correct rate. It works pretty well.",
"Just going to pop into here and say that although ATP might not yield the same effects, [NADH](_URL_0_) (another energy intermediate) is being looked at for fighting fatigue. Its also found in relatively high amounts in the herb [Trichopus Zeylanicus](_URL_1_) that is a folk medicine for vitality in areas of India. (Note to the mods, I work for that site; so if by linking it it somehow is deemed inappropriate please notify me and I will edit this comment. I linked since its the only summary I know of)\n\nNot sure the validity behind NADH as a supplement though; haven't looked into it too much.",
"ATP is fairly large, and it's purine functionality would make it difficult to enter the cell without transport. Outside of the cell it acts as a signalling molecule, which plays a role in regulating heart rate, blood coagulation, and inflammatory/immune response. The metabolic byproducts of ATP degradation are also signalling molecules, and would have their own psysiological effects.\n\nSo, in short, not much would make it into your cells as usable energy, and it would likely feel more like getting poisoned than a sugar rush, depending on how much you injected. \n\n\nSee: [This review](_URL_0_) and [this paper](_URL_1_)",
"[Creatine](_URL_0_) increases ATP. Some people report increased mental energy but its effect is primarily on muscles. From what I understand, increased ATP only has an effect if you are already deficient.",
"Injected adenosine is a treatment used in an emergency to interrupt dangerously fast heart rhythms. Without getting into the science it essentially blocks electrical stimulation of the heart and the patient \"flat lines\" for a moment. The effect is very short lived (only a few seconds), but it is something to see. It is usually not an enjoyable experience for the patient. The idea is that when the heart starts beating again the rhythm will be more organized and at the correct rate. It works pretty well.",
"Just going to pop into here and say that although ATP might not yield the same effects, [NADH](_URL_0_) (another energy intermediate) is being looked at for fighting fatigue. Its also found in relatively high amounts in the herb [Trichopus Zeylanicus](_URL_1_) that is a folk medicine for vitality in areas of India. (Note to the mods, I work for that site; so if by linking it it somehow is deemed inappropriate please notify me and I will edit this comment. I linked since its the only summary I know of)\n\nNot sure the validity behind NADH as a supplement though; haven't looked into it too much."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://stke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/2/56/pe6",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12270951"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine"
],
[],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21982120",
"http://examine.com/supplements/Trichopus+Zeylanicus/#main_summary_full"
],
[
"http://stke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/2/56/pe6",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12270951"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine"
],
[],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21982120",
"http://examine.com/supplements/Trichopus+Zeylanicus/#main_summary_full"
]
] |
||
u25rf
|
Can we reproduce every wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum?
|
So from what I understand, x-rays, gamma rays, microwaves and visible light etc are all just different wavelengths of a photon. And that we reproduce these wavelengths differently; a light bulb for visible light, a magnetron for microwaves, etc.
[EM Spectrum](_URL_0_)
So can we reproduce every wavelength?
*edit:* I was talking more about the different technologies we have to reproduce wavelengths. We have ways to produce x-rays, microwaves, etc.
I understand that we can't reproduce prohibitively large or small wavelengths, that makes sense - What are the highest and lowest wavelengths we can reproduce?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/u25rf/can_we_reproduce_every_wavelength_of_the/
|
{
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"c4roch9"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"Even if I only have an LED, which emits light at one singular frequency, we can still get any wavelength we want by moving that LED and let the Doppler effect take care of the rest."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://astronomyonline.org/Science/Images/EMSpectrum.gif"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
2rhld1
|
Is topical Vitaminc C effective for boosting collagen or is the beauty/skincare industry somewhat falsely claiming this?
|
Is there any literature or research showing Vitamin C in topical skin care creams/lotions/serums is actually effective for boosting collagen? Have there actually been clinical trials proving this? I understand that Vitamin C itself boosts collagen production, however isn't this true only when the Vitamin C has access to deeper layers of the skin and dermal cells (fibroblasts)?
I haven't been able to find any literature that shows that skin care products with Vitamin C actually do anything for the skin.
It's also my understanding that Vitamin C cannot penetrate into deeper levels of our skin (like the dermal layer) without proper carriers since it is water soluble (hydrophilic) and the top layer of our skin, the stratum corneum is lipophilic. This means that the stratum corneum would have to be compromised in some way in order for the Vit C to penetrate into deeper layers, or the Vit C would have to be encapsulated in a carrier/vehicle that is hydrophilic on the inside and lipophilic on the outside, which I believe would take great amount of money/time to create such a vessle.
Please correct me if I'm wrong about anything.
Thank you!
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2rhld1/is_topical_vitaminc_c_effective_for_boosting/
|
{
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"cng165p",
"cng854e"
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3
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"text": [
"Vitamin C can diffuse through the cellular membranes but it's very slow and it has to be from high concentration to low.\n\nHere's some literature about topical Vitamin C :)\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_",
"This is the problem with most supplements. Vitamin C is absolutely essential for collagen synthesis (see: [Scurvy](_URL_0_)) So it isn't *unreasonable* to theorize that by supplementing with vitamin C you could perhaps increase collagen synthesis. This is a reasonable hypothesis, but unfortunately the biochemistry involved isn't nearly as straightforward as we like it to be. Is the vitamin C biologically available when applied topically? Is there no previous biochemical transformation that must happen elsewhere first? Even if it does increase collagen synthesis, does this translate to an improved clinical condition? These are all important questions that good science must answer before one can say for sure that a supplement or drug does what it claims. \n\n The only way to really tell that it works is to do a controlled trial and verify that topically applied vitamin C improves skin conditions compared to placebo. I read some of the articles that /u/babbelover1337 posted and it looks possible that topical vitamin C might be effective just based off of these, but a total review of the literature would be necessary before I could confidently say one way or another - and depending on the literature available, I might not be able to have confidence even then. \n\nTL;DR: Yes, vitamin C is necessary for collagen synthesis, but without a rigorous series of randomized trials to prove its efficacy compared to placebo, it's impossible to say whether supplementing vitamin C helps rejuvenate skin. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2033086",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16029672",
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11407971"
],
[
"https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8&q=scurvy"
]
] |
|
f60z3a
|
Why on earth did Krushchev try to put offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba in the first place?
|
I've been reading about the Cuban missile crisis recently and this element has so far been completely glossed over. It seems like an absurdly reckless move that would inevitably lead to a crisis (though if you think otherwise I'd be eager to hear your view). Did Krushchev really expect that Kennedy would just sit back and let the USSR stockpile missiles in the US' backyard? Was he just hoping they would go unnoticed? What was the thought process here?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f60z3a/why_on_earth_did_krushchev_try_to_put_offensive/
|
{
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"fi24gl5",
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"text": [
"There's a lot to it, but the gambit was that a) the US had put missiles in the USSR's back yard (the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, to say nothing of the [over a dozen](_URL_0_) nuclear deployments that the US ringed the USSR and China with in the late 1950s), and this was both payback and a stimulus to remove them; b) this was also tied up with Khrushchev's feelings on the Berlin crisis, and he thought it would give him leverage there; c) Castro wanted the missiles so that the US would (once again) not try to invade his island, as they had tried to with the Bay of Pigs. \n\nThe idea that the US would freak out about this was not obvious. The US leaders themselves acknowledged, privately, that the missiles in Cuba did not in any meaningful way change the balance of military power. The US itself had been engaging in \"absurdly reckless\" behavior of the same order for several years. The US chose to escalate it to a full crisis; it was not obviously one, and the Kennedy administration could have had many different responses to it than the one they had (which brought them to the brink of war and was only really released because Khrushchev allowed them a way out of it). The Soviets were extremely surprised by the intensity of the US response.\n\nWhich is to say: when you look at it from an exclusively American perspective, yes, it looks crazy. But if you look at it from the Soviet perspective, the US reacted in a very dangerous and irrational way to what was, at worst, a tit-for-tat operation.",
"I would like to add something to the above answer. With the mentioned points I mostly agree with, but I'd like to add directly from Khrushchev's own memoirs as I think these would be quite relevant to this question. \n\nKhrushchev wrote about this in his memoirs. It must be noted he wrote these memoirs in the late 1960's, while in forced retirement - and the Cuban Missile Crisis was cited as the reason for ousting him from power by the Politburo in 1964.\n\nKhrushchev's later remarks are not necessarily what he truly thought at that moment, and he tried to save his legacy, but it does tell us something about his line of reasoning.\n\nHis version of events begins with the Cuban Revolution and the fact that for a while, the Soviets did not expect Cuba to turn communist anytime soon. They did have a KGB officer who had coincidentally befriended Castro's brother a few years before and told Moscow that Raul Castro was a Communist. Eventually, Cuba began to receive aid, and started nationalizing US assets, followed by the Pig's Bay invasion in 1961. Unexpectedly, Castro declared his regime Socialist, and according to Khrushchev the Cubans began to form a symbol. If Cuba became a success, more socialist revolutions in Latin America would follow.\n\nAt the same time, the USSR and NATO butted heads in Europe over West-Berlin, as the Soviets demanded West-Berlin to become a neutral ground and that NATO would withdraw its troops. However, Khrushchev writes he was fairly confident the West wouldn't start a war from West-Berlin. About Cuba however, he was not so sure. He was convinced that after the failed invasion of 1961, the US would continue to try to overthrow Castro.\n\nWhat could the USSR do to prevent this? Khrushchev argued that making firm statements and issueing stern warnings would not deter the US if it was not backed up by \"real force\". In his view this is how \"imperialists\" are to be treated: they only understand force.\n\nCuba had to be protected at all costs: if America could crush Cuba, it would undermine the \"revolutionary will among many other peoples and nations\". Cuba needed to survive as an example for other countries to follow suit. If I may say so, it almost sounds like an inverted Soviet version of the domino theory: if one revolution fails, all will fail.\n\nThen also comes the problem that Soviet missiles at that time could not yet reach US territory from the Soviet Union, and its strategic bombers would have to go on suicide mission to deliver one atomic bomb to the US. \n\nKhrushchev worried deeply about \"losing Cuba\". He worried about the blow to Marxist-Leninism in the world that would be, he worried about Soviet prestige (Khrushchev's personal ego was deeply connected with Soviet prestige) and he wanted to show the world the USSR could do more against US agression than expressing mere protest at the UN.\n\nThe \"obvious\" solution to Khrushchev for defending Cuba was to do what the US had been doing to the USSR already: placing nuclear weapons. Khrushchev also sounds a bit vengeful, as he wanted to threaten New York and make America \"feel threatened\" like they had done to the Russians.\n\nAccording to his memoir, he developed his plans in private while visiting Bulgaria, and continued not to discuss it with anyone, because he knew that if he and Castro would do this, it had to be kept absolutely secret. Eventually when he had decided to do this, he presented the plan to the leaders of the Central Committee and gave them a week to think about it. \n\n\"Cuba must become a torch blazing in the night\", Khrushchev wrote. \"A magnet of attraction for all the oppressed peoples of Latin America fighting against exploitation by the American monopolies\".\n\nKhrushchev's Politburo colleagues cautiously supported his decision, but basically told him it was his decision and they would support whatever he decided. He felt the burden of responsibility not to let things escalate into war, but, he tries to argue his strategy was one of agression to preserve peace. If the USSR continued to be \"weak\", back away, and do concessions to the imperialists, he wrote, then this would inevitably embolden them and lead to war. Khrushchev believed he had to draw a line to protect Cuba, show his teeth to the US, appear threatening, and thereby maintain balance in the Cold War and with it, peace.\n\nHe concludes in his memoir that the Cuban Crisis \"brilliantly set off our foreign policy\" and considered it a \"brilliant success without firing a single shot\".\n\nI hope this further illuminates some of Khrushchev's thinking during the Crisis. I must warn that this man changed his thoughts and ideas as often as the weather, depending on his mood and temper, and that his memoirs above all reflect his own reconstruction of what he was doing.\n\nNikita Khrushchev & Sergei Khrushchev (ed.), \"Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev Volume 3: Statesman (1953-1964)\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/US-nuclear-bomber-deployments-1945-1958.jpg"
],
[]
] |
|
4df32u
|
What is the smallest possible Goldilocks zone for any star?
|
I just finished reading the second Ringworld book and it got me thinking about the smallest possible Ringworld that could be built and inhabited. Niven's Ringworld has a circumference just slightly larger than Earth's orbit (5.9x10^8 versus 5.84x10^8 miles). If it was as wide as the Earth is from pole to pole (it is actually *much* larger), the ring would still have 76 thousand times the surface area of Earth. (Using a series of rough math and quick googling.)
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4df32u/what_is_the_smallest_possible_goldilocks_zone_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1qq0sy"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Probably a red/brown dwarf where the goldilocks zone will be close to the star itself, adjusting the mass and temperature of the star so that it's right outside of the Roche limit for a rocky planet."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
cuwqii
|
why can't dental crowns be whitened/have something placed over them to make them whiter?
|
I've had crowns on all of my top front teeth and they absolutely look awful. My dentist picked an awfully discolored yellow for my crowns, and the only way to fix them is by spending well over $5,000 to have them all replaced. Why hasn't someone been able to create something to make crowns whiter or something that you can mold over the crowns to make them look whiter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cuwqii/eli5why_cant_dental_crowns_be_whitenedhave/
|
{
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"exzteks",
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"text": [
"Crowns are made of non-porous material that is very, very hard. They don't discolor or stain, so it's uncommon for them to need to be whitened. Crowns are matched to your natural teeth colour, so if you plan on bleaching your teeth, you should bleach them prior to the crowns being colour-matched, or let the dentist know about your plans so they can take that into account (none of which helps you now). \n\nYou cannot mold something over crowns because that will alter the shape and function of your teeth, which could create a lot of problems, from misaligned bite to sores to crowns breaking or coming off. But mostly things just don't stick to crown material very well. You also probably don't want thick, fake-looking teeth. \n\nYou should ask your dentist what colour he selected for the crowns and ask him to double-check that the lab made the crown with the correct colour. If the lab messed up, they should be willing to remake the crowns and your dentist should be willing to put in the correct ones for you.\n\nIf everything was ordered correctly, you could look into \"clip on\" veneers if they're very bothersome. Which is basically temporary veneer, kind of like invisilign but opaque. \n\nAlso, be aware that natural teeth aren't super white -- I believe the average natural tooth colour is A3, which is substantially yellowed. Blindingly white teeth are all achieved artificially.",
"Ug nothing to add except the state of dentistry seems appalling to me. Like, why don’t we have paint on enamel replacement/supplements? Why don’t we have near-invisible “patching”? Like why is it when the tiniest thing goes wrong the first instinct seems to be “let’s bring your tooth to a stump, and put a crown on it - which will need to be replaced in a few years and fuck up your bite, and when your bite is fucked up we’ll just put more crowns on the surrounding teeth!”",
"Crowns and Veneers are made out of specific materials. Your most common options are; Porcelain fused to metal, Lithium Disilicate, Porcelain fused to Lithium Disilicate, Zirconia, and Porcelain fused to zirconia. There are more materials available but these are the most common. And they all have a common attribute, they are made from glass or metal oxides. They are impermeable. \n\n\n\nThink of your glassware at home. How can you color it? By putting glass based colored powders on it and firing it in an oven. It's a lot easier to bake the color into the ceramic while building it, rather than masking the color out.\n\n\n\nOften a Dental Laboratory will error toward making crowns lighter, because it is much much easier to make them darker with an additional firing of color. But making crowns that are finished, lighter, is almost never an option. It involves cutting away the porcelain and rebuilding in a different color. Which the lab would call a REMAKE, but often redoing from start can be easier depending on how much modification is needed.\n\n\n\nIf your dentist delivered your crowns or veneers and you thought they were too dark, you should have let them know, and then stood your ground. They would of course tried to talk you out of a remake, but you can totally refuse to have them bonded. \n\n\n\nCould you send me a picture in a message of your teeth? I can give my honest opinion.\n\nTooth colors in the dental field from light to dark go BL1, BL2, BL3, BL4, B1, A1, B2, A2, etc....\n\nThe most common color used and the most natural is an A1, and maybe a bit brighter.\n\nWhat we see in the USA a lot is people want toilet bowl white teeth. Teeth brighter than BL1. \n\nSo often the patient is talked out of such an unnatural selection and talked into a BL4, and the patient feels it is yellow and dark, even though it is far from it.\n\nWould love to see your smile and let you know what I think."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7i4pmt
|
What's myth and what's truth about the legend of Rasputin?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7i4pmt/whats_myth_and_whats_truth_about_the_legend_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dqw8ndj"
],
"score": [
537
],
"text": [
"* /u/kieslowskifan has a fantastic post on the [creation of the Rasputin mythology](_URL_0_) out of contemporary Russian court gossip and post-Revolution anti-Romanov polemic. It addresses the \"power\" aspects of the legend\n* /u/carlton_the_doorman addresses the rumors specifically connected to [Rasputin's assassination](_URL_2_) using Edvard Razinsky's *The Rasputin File*, a fascinating book based on the massive reports from early Soviet/Revolution interrogations of czarist political figures. One thing to note here is that he acquired some of his sources privately through an auction house, leaving a fragment of a question about reliability--[here's a review](_URL_1_) from a Russian history professor addressing that issue which is nevertheless overall positive."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5f6ol4/why_is_rasputin_famous/dahvokl/",
"http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/06/11/reviews/000611.11dani.html",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2yk3gb/has_there_been_a_scientific_analysis_of_rasputins/cpb057x/"
]
] |
||
5lq7a5
|
how do some websites offer free returns on unwanted goods?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lq7a5/eli5_how_do_some_websites_offer_free_returns_on/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbxnaxw",
"dbxyye7"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Some of it is about price. Whether that comes from charging the customer more, or getting the goods cheaper. Some websites (such as Amazon) have stipulations about free returns depending on who you purchased from or what good it is, unless you pay for Prime, so it isn't actually free. And of course, there are always stipulations about the condition of the item when returned. For example, a fragrance has to be in the original cellophane. So they may eat the cost of return shipping but they get a sellable good back.\n\nFinally, it's about a commitment to quality and a willingness to stand by their products, even if it costs them a bit. A site selling legitimate goods (as opposed to counterfeits, tampered or with undisclosed flaws or damage) seems, on average, more likely to offer free returns as they have confidence that the buyer will be satisfied with their genuine article and its condition upon arrival.",
"It's a cost retailers bake into their business model, and it's a trade off for customers not having physical ability to try on or examine a product. So they might pay shipping on a returned good 1/10 of time but that's still cheaper than maintaining a physical network of stores, or more stores, or stores with much more additional inventory and staff to cover distributed demand. And the lack of risk to customers boosts sales substantially. Plus, online retailers have reduced rates negotiated with shoppers so they aren't paying what you or I would to ship a similar package -- Zappos might pay $2 for what would cost us $10."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
14cwfz
|
What is the oldest translated book?
|
By book I mean any text really.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14cwfz/what_is_the_oldest_translated_book/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c7by3ay"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"An actual historian can give you a more detailed answer, but you should check out the Wikipedia page on [ancient literature](_URL_1_). The short answer would be the Sumerian texts discovered in Abu Salabikh and the Akkadian legend of Etana. While there are earlier examples of writing that has been translated, these are the first things that can really be called \"texts\". If you're interested in reading some really old texts check out the [Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature](_URL_0_). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_literature#Bronze_Age"
]
] |
|
5bwyv2
|
posting for a friend, "so color is just a specific reflection of light, correct? would that mean that a planet under another star (ex. krypton and it's red sun) would have completely different colors?"
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bwyv2/eli5_posting_for_a_friend_so_color_is_just_a/
|
{
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"d9s3kbx"
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"score": [
3,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"No, not completely. The colour of an object is depending on what light it reflect but our eyes can only see colours within certain wavelengths. That doesn't change on another planet. Certainly a different colour from a light source changes the colour you see from an object but that can be shown on Earth no need to go to another planet. A dark room for photo development for instance is lit normally by red light. That makes the objects seem red because the only wavelengths of visible light is red so only that is getting reflected. If the sun only gave off light in a narrow wavelength then it would change our perception of things.",
"Color is not a specific reflection of light per se, but rather a specific *wavelength* of light. When light hits an object that object will absorb most of it and reflect some of it. This reflection is what we see and label as it's \"color\". If we go to a different planet where the star is purple, the objects would have a purple hue due to the ambient light, but that wouldnt change the specific wavelengths these objects reflect. Green things would look the same as a green thing on earth in a room lit by a purple light.",
"A very red sun would make it more difficult to see colours but the human eye is very good at adapting to different lighting conditions. For example, we can see colours quite well by candle light even though the flame is only about 1500K compared to our sun's 6000K. Modern digital cameras do a reasonable job of automatically choosing a colour temperature too; pro cameras can set colour temperature manually.\n\nThe key is that objects at a particular temperature give off a range of colours so even if \"Krypton and it's Red Sun\" had primarily red light, there would still be some green and blue light. The graph showing colour intensity at different frequencies looks like a bell curve with intensity tapering off only slowly for colours/wavelengths away from the central colour.",
"We evolved eyes suited for the light wavelengths produced by our sun. Things might appear blander under another planet's sun, due to the absence of some color we are used to. Or perhaps so obscenely blue and bright that our eyes and skin burn.\n\nBut it wouldn't make colors that couldn't be seen in a computer monitor or printer paper under a white (= all colors mixed) fluorescent light. It wouldn't add exotic new pigments to our eyes to let us see a different set of wavelengths.\n\nLook up ultramarine for a color that might appear shocking to be displayed on your monitor. It's so unnatural. But that's just because real stuff that makes it is so rare, it's still just a particular tingling of your existing photoreceptors."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5wie8d
|
why is an accounting firm responsible for the academy award envelopes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5wie8d/eli5why_is_an_accounting_firm_responsible_for_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"deaabwq"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Tabulating vote data, ensuring its accuracy, and security from disclosure are all things that fall under the realm of accounting/auditing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3j8mq5
|
Just how successful or influential was the global protest movement in shaping the course of the Vietnam War?
|
That many millions of students, academics, political activists and other people protested American involvement in Vietnam is one of the most widely known and proverbial features of that war -- but what impact did it actually have? I have read breathless accounts of various protests, marches, sit-ins, teach-ins, civilian congresses, conferences, and goodness knows how many other things... but missing from many of these narratives is any reliable sense of just how effective any of it all was.
I'm as interested in broad strokes as I am in individuals, here. I know that U.S. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, for one, did sometimes participate in debates and discussion with protesting groups and individuals. Do we have any record on whether or not it helped shape his thought on American involvement in the war? What about Robert McNamara, who seems to have remained comparatively more disengaged from such protests?
This is probably a hopelessly broad question, but I'm intrigued nonetheless. The protest movements of the 60s and 70s are frequently recollected as being heroic and important -- but does this stand up under scrutiny?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3j8mq5/just_how_successful_or_influential_was_the_global/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cunl7d9"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Have you read Todd Gitlin's [The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the New Left](_URL_0_) (1980)? Gitlin is now an academic, but during 1963-4, he used to be the head of the SDS, the main student activist organization in the US, and was involved heavily with the anti-war movement. He wrote in detail about how the media skewed the protest movement in order to contain and control its impact. Rather than the protest movement itself, Gitlin actually credits the mass media and its distortion of the Tet Offensive with turning the national tide against the war, with implications for policy makers in Washington. He argues that the anti-war movement was heavily instrumentalized by the media in order to justify their headlines. In any case, it's worth a read, and it also points to a number of follow-up sources on the political impact of Tet, although they're a bit dated by now. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=00iwHPO73mkC"
]
] |
|
3tyhxd
|
When in high school I remember somebody telling me the fire us made of a different sate of matter (different being not solid, liquid or gas) called plasma. Is there any truth to this statement and if so what exactly is plasma?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3tyhxd/when_in_high_school_i_remember_somebody_telling/
|
{
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"text": [
" > Is there any truth to this statement and if so what exactly is plasma?\n\nAbsolutely it is true!\n\nThe standard response is that plasmas are the fourth state of matter, just like you can heat a solid into a liquid and a liquid into a gas you can heat a gas into a plasma. The transition happens because individual atoms receive enough energy to ionize, ie one (or more) of their bound electrons are stripped off. You are left with a gas made up of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons.\n\nIn a flame this happens because it is high temperature. Hot electrons collide with atoms and cause them to become ionized. \n\nThe definition actually extends broader since things like an electron+positron gas is a plasma or a collection charged dust particles with electrons is a plasma. The exact transition from gas- > plasma is also slightly blurry since we would consider things like the photosphere of the Sun (at ~6000K) to be a plasma despite it only being something like 1 part in 10^4-5 ionized. This is also the case in your flame where the gas will only be weakly ionized. However, [if you put a flame in an electric field you can easily tell it is a plasma!](_URL_0_)\n\nOther examples of plasmas in your life are: plasma tvs and (there is a tiny plasma inside every pixel!) flourescent tube lights. Also almost everything these days has been made with plasmas at some point. All electronic chips are manufactured using plasma etching and deposition along with coatings on any number of objects...mirrors, phone screens, plastics, chrome on cars...etc.\n\nThis is how we really hone in on what makes a plasma. Plasma behaviour shares some broad similarities with a gas but due to the electric charge of the composite species it ends up very different. The reason why is simply because gasses interact mostly by short range forces during binary collisions, whereas plasmas interact via long range electromagnetic forces.\n\nThese electromagnetic forces give rise to a set of collective behaviours that are unique to plasmas, the range of these behaviours is vast. The most useful (in my opinion) definition of a plasma is that it is a gas where there are a sufficiently large fraction of charged particles to enter a regime where the collective electromagnetic response is more important than the binary collisions of a gas. This is a characteristic of all the examples of plasmas I gave before.\n\nI could probably write several more pages on what a plasma is (and I did when I wrote my PhD thesis) but I'll stop here before every single person has stopped reading.\n\nedit:clarity",
"I hate it when people talk about states of matter as if there were only three. There are many thermodynamically stable phases of matter. \n\nLiquid crystals have liquid, smectic phases, solid etc. \n\nThere are many phases of liquid helium, especially mixtures of He4 and He3. \n\nAnd of course there are the different phases observed in cold atomic vapors, BEC, Mot insulator, Efimov states, etc. (my area of research)\n\nMany physicists spent there whole life studying the phases of matter. And there are probably many phases of matter that nobody has even thought of yet. ",
"I had a professor that claimed the effort to call plasma a fourth state of matter is just a PR effort. Really, plasma is superheated gas which gains electromagnetic properties as a result.\n\nI'm hesitant to believe his word on it just being a PR thing. In general it is considered a separate state of matter as far as I know. Whether that's technically accurate, I am not sure.",
"It is completely true. Plasma is a state of matter where the electrons of the ionised atoms gain enough energy to leave the nuclei behind,what you get is a soup of free electrons and positively charged nuclei (ions) because of the free electrons fire is also conductive. If you go to even higher energies (a few orders of magnitude i think) you get Quark-Gluon plasma where the nuclei themselves decay into free protons and neutrons. Hope this helps",
"There was a good thread on this, especially /u/zeug 's answer:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn summary: If you're talking about distinguishing states of matter by their mechanical properties (stress-strain relations), then it doesn't make sense to say that gas and plasma are different. If you aren't, perhaps including electronic properties as well, then there are many many more states of matter than just four -- for example you would need to distinguish insulator and conductor phases of solids."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.askamathematician.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/candle_flame_plasma_in_E-field_450x337.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/39ub7v/in_my_highschool_science_classes_when_we_talk/cs6uor8"
]
] |
||
9i8rbf
|
Why does damped oscillation depend on velocity?
|
Through Newton's Second Law, we can express damped harmonic oscillation as F=-kx-bv, where b is the damping coefficient. In a system, you would expect friction to be the main thing that causes damping-- yet its equation (F=uN) does not depend on velocity at all. What gives?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9i8rbf/why_does_damped_oscillation_depend_on_velocity/
|
{
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"text": [
"Friction forces are not typically considered damping. You are confusing energy dissipation (which can come from anything, including friction) with damping. Damping is a type of energy dissipation, as is friction. But damping is a specific type of energy dissipation, specifucally given to energy dissipation proportional to velocity. \n\nDamping also fits in to our differential equation models extremely nicely since it is dependent on velocity, another state that we can calculate with our existing differential equations. Friction does not fit differential equations very well; as energy dissipation due to friction is nonlinear in nature (either on or off, no middle ground). As such, friction is always modeled as an external force instead of a damping force. ",
"The linear damping force -bv is sometimes chosen because it models a particular physical force reasonably well, but more often it's chosen simply because it leads to relatively easy to solve equations. The solutions are useful for gaining intuition about how damped oscillators behave, so they are used even when they aren't the best models of real world phenomena.\n\nSome people tend to have very rigid ideas about the definitions of particular terms, but in practice many technical terms are used in a variety of ways. For example, \"damping\" can mean:\n\n* Anything that takes energy away from an oscillator and makes its amplitude decrease.\n\n* A force proportional to velocity as is produced by an idealized model f= -bv.\n\n* A force produced by a damper or \"dashpot\", which is a device that mostly appears in introductory textbooks but occasionally appears in real life as well, and is designed to produce a force that is approximately proportional to velocity.\n\nIf you are interested in the actual behavior of some particular oscillator, the right model would depend on the particular energy loss mechanisms. You could describe one of interest, but consider a rotary mass-spring oscillator in a watch. You have friction in the bearing (constant force) wind resistance (which could be modeled as linear, but it might be better modeled as proportional to the square of velocity), and hysteresis loss in the spring (which is inherently nonlinear but could be modeled as linear as a rough model). To know what would be a good model, you might want to consider:\n\n* What do you want to assess with the model? Just the frequency of oscillation? The precise trajectory? \n\n* What are the relative sizes of the various loss-related forces?\n\n* How heavily damped is it--how big are the loss-related forced compared to the spring force?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
qhf4c
|
Why are low-pitch sounds generally relaxing while high-pitch sounds are annoying?
|
I'm a musician but I'm not a physicist, so I don't actually know what happens once a sound wave hits our ears. Why is it that low pitched frequencies are usually very soothing and relaxing, while high pitched frequencies can get very annoying, regardless of their volume/context?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qhf4c/why_are_lowpitch_sounds_generally_relaxing_while/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3ygnxt"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because the higher the frequency the more waves are hitting your ears (and all the stuff in them) per second and the lower the frequency the less that is.\n\nSay I punch you in the arm at a rate of 4 times per minute, it's not as bad as being punched 400 times per minute. Just pretend the movement of your arm from my punches are like the vibrations of your ear drum!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3kjx1m
|
why is a viral disease, cat leukemia, named as a cancer type?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kjx1m/eli5_why_is_a_viral_disease_cat_leukemia_named_as/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuy0252",
"cuy06jm"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"This virus causes the cats to get this type of cancer.\n\nJust like some strains of HPV result in cervical/penile (and throat) cancer in humans, some viruses will integrate into the genome of some of your cells and cause them to turn cancerous.",
"Cancer isn't one disease is a catch-all term for a pile of diseases that make cells grow out of control. There are lots of cancers that can be caused or at least correlate with viral infections. In humans HPV (human papillomavirus) Is credited with an increased risk of cervical cancers for instance. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
9kbg2p
|
Is it true that Germans didn't actually use the term Blitzkrieg themselves?
|
I was watching a history channel on YouTube when I noticed a highly upvoted comment that said that the German command didn't actually use the term Blitzkrieg or think of their offensive approach to WW2 as a unique war doctrine. Rather, to them, they were using the same old German tactics but had integrated tanks and airplanes.
Is there any truth to this?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9kbg2p/is_it_true_that_germans_didnt_actually_use_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e6yaqo1"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It’s true the term “Blitzkrieg” does not come up often in German plans, old memoirs, or communiques. It’s closest word or phrase that the Germans/Prussians may have used more often was Bewegungkrieg or maneuver warfare. The term Blitzkrieg however pops up more post-war to describe the tactics of their Wehrmacht during the WW2. But to be honest the Prussians and later Germans have been practicing these kind of tactics for years and the end result was this form of warfare during WW2. \n\nThe reason Blitzkrieg is so prevalent when talking about the Germans is because it’s a buzzword that most people recognize and can understand automatically."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4yx3o5
|
how would we know how much *successful* voting fraud is happening, if by definition successful attempts at fraud go undetected?
|
The number of prosecuted and convicted cases of voter fraud is demonstrably low, but could it be that these cases are the minority of fraud? When we collect statistics about how much fraud is happening, how do we know how much is happening *that we don't know about*?
I'm not saying that there is or there isn't a lot of undetected fraud, but I don't understand how we could find out how much there is.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yx3o5/eli5_how_would_we_know_how_much_successful_voting/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6r1d1d"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"This is a bit like Russel's Teapot--it's very difficult if not impossible to prove that there *isn't* a teapot floating around somewhere between Mars and Earth. It's more useful to focus on the fact there is no evidence to suggest that there *is*.\n\nThere are many ways we could detect large-scale in-person voter fraud if it existed. When someone votes, the fact that they voted is recorded. (Unlike in some countries, their ballot is a secret; it's that they showed up to vote that is recorded.) If fraudsters frequently impersonated registered voters, then two things would happen: when that genuine voter comes to the polling place, it will be discovered that someone has already voted in their name. And looking back at the voting records, which are public, we would find that the records reflect more frequent voting than the registered voter claims.\n\nBoth events are relatively easy to test. Any loser in an election has an incentive to investigate this, and it would be a scoop for any news organization, and both have the means to do so. Yet we do not find them occurring often, in fact rarely ever."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1eiu53
|
why do i get automated phone calls that promptly hang up?
|
Why would a company want to call and hang up?
I've been getting phone calls that hang up as soon as I answer. When I call the number back the line goes dead. I'm assuming these are automated. I looked up the number and it's from my ISP.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eiu53/eli5_why_do_i_get_automated_phone_calls_that/
|
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"Assuming that you don't owe the ISP money, there's a good chance that the person making the calls on the other end is a machine. If you pick up, AND the operator isn't on another call, the machine will connect you two. \n\nOr, it could be that the operator on the other end has to log a certain number of calls a day, and hanging up automatically allows them to say that you weren't answering. That makes the lack of resolution your fault and not theirs. Plus, it allows them to knock out more calls per day. \n\nIt could be happening because someone signed up for internet service and gave the ISP your number instead of their own, intending not to pay for the service. ",
"As I understand it these companies call multiple lines at once, and the first to pick up cuts all of the others of. You're one of the ones who gets cut off. If you know the company responsible then report them for cold calling.",
"According to [unca Cecil](_URL_0_) it could be line testing of some sort.",
"I believe they're called 'robocalls' and they're done to see if your number is a live line, in which case your number is sold to spammers",
"the same thing was happening to me. some time later i noticed that some extra money was being added to my phone bill every month--some company was charging me for these calls and getting paid by the phone company. they must be masking their phone number. you should destroy your phone immediately and get a new phone number unless you want to be stuck footing the bill",
"Some companies use auto diallers to call you then if you pick up transfer you to a human, if there are no available humans the machine hangs up.",
"I get many of those too. After about 15 minutes I usually get a telemarketer calling me.\n\nThey have a long list of numbers to call, and can't waste time risking people won't answer. So the computer goes on and calls a block of numbers. If they answer, they are marked as \"available\" and as soon as someone is free, they call you again to sell you stuff.",
"Telemarketing -- They will call thousands of phones at once, and get a few bites. But they don't have enough operators to serve you all at once, so the dialing system (on their end) hangs up if it can't connect you.\n\nIf you have an equivalent of a \"telephone preference service\" in your country, consider registering for that.",
"[Please read the FAQ and forums at _URL_0_!](http://_URL_0_) where you can search the number robocalling you and potentially find your answer.\n\nBriefly (probably with an error or two), one operator in the US buys 30,000 - 60,000 numbers, set up their own telco exchange, robocalling out of Belize spoofing the caller id. As a telco they earn a fee from network switch interconnect reciprocity. That's right, they earn money by the act of calling. They also operate several telemarketing call centers that you are sometimes redirected to when you answer; the product is irrelevant (duct cleaning, Google SEO, Amex), if some fool signs up they just earn more free money. This is why the human voice can be really rude to you or just hang up, you are irrelevant to them as they've already earned money from you answering.\n\nThe 800notes site, and another linked there that I forget the name of, has a long description on the (ill)legality, previous state government litigation, and extreme difficulties of prosecuting these scum."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/774/what-causes-ghost-rings-on-the-telephone"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"800notes.com",
"http://800notes.com"
]
] |
|
4159wn
|
why is the lesbian/gay/transgender community referred to with so many different acronyms, many of which are long and confusing?
|
Also, who decides these acronyms?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4159wn/eli5why_is_the_lesbiangaytransgender_community/
|
{
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"Organizations focusing on inclusiveness, but also trying to respect individual differences. Thus: gay - > gay & lesbian - > gay & lesbian & bi - > lesbian & gay & bi & trans - > etc.\n\nUnfortunately there is no single term that seems to encompass all of these, so they end up using a long list of words, which is then so long that they turn it into an acronym.",
"Individuals don't decide these terms. We in the community are just as confused as everyone else sometimes. \"Oh, so that's what we're calling ourselves now.... okay\" \n\nAny marginalized community has smaller groups in it that are further marginalized by that community and society at large. They get double hate. I know some gay people that have said horrible things about transgender people and bisexuals. There comes a point where the group says, \"We shouldn't hate on ourselves\". Subgroups start getting more recognized. This leads to new terminology and respect for the subgroup and redefinition/fragmentation of the group name at large. Initially, it causes confusion for everyone. Utimately, it leads to positive visibility, inclusion, and understanding. This what most people want.",
"There isn't a committee or something that decides these terms. They just kind of evolve over time.\n\nThere isn't really a single community - there are *many* different communities, some of them very different from each other, who are brought together by common needs and interests. And because what constitutes *\"common needs and interests\"* is subjective, who exactly is or should be included in this acronym depends on who an when you ask.\n\nBack in the 40's and 50's, the word \"gay\" tended to be used alone. But this term was overwhelmingly associated with men, and in the 60's and 70's women fighting for a more visible presence in the movement started using the term \"Gay and Lesbian\" to refer to all non-heterosexual people.\n\nIn the 90's bi and trans people fighting for recognition started to become more visible, and Bisexual and Transgender were added to the list - giving us the acronym GLBT. In the early 2000's this got reordered to LGBT.\n\nBut this term is still evolving. And a big problem with an acronym that tries to list every group of people being included in it, is that it implicitly excludes anyone *not* specifically listed. Are asexual people part of this conglomerate community? What about intersex people? Poly folk? The BDSM community? What about people from other cultures, who see their identities as similar to but distinct from the social categories that have evolved in the US - e.g., Hijra?\n\nThe acronym GSM (Gender and Sexual Minorities) seems to be gaining traction as an alternative. Because it doesn't list every group of people included, it can get the general idea across without getting excessively long. But there are concerns that this will lead to the marginalization of minority groups within the community - that GSM will become effectively synonymous with \"Gay\", putting us in a situation similar to where we started in the 50's."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4110pp
|
why do people lose their senses of hearing and sight, but not their sense of touch, taste, or smell?
|
Do people not lose their sense of touch, smell, or taste? Or if they do, how does it happen and what are the effects?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4110pp/eli5_why_do_people_lose_their_senses_of_hearing/
|
{
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"text": [
"People can also lose their sense of taste and smell...you are just a lot less likely to notice them.\n\nPeople also can lose there sense of touch over part of their bodies, but there are not a lot of neurological disorders to totally remove touch...at least not without also killing you.",
"On the contrary, We certainly lose our sense of touch, taste and smell as we age. Part of the challenge of being a caregiver for an elderly person is to encourage them to maintain a good calorie intake while the food tastes and smells more and more bland. \n\nElderly people are at risk of burns and skin injuries due to a lessened sense of touch. Even an electric heating pad can cause major burns in the elderly due to lack of pain perception."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
26hvyy
|
If shoot a gun in a car at 10 m/s, and the car is travelling at 5 m/s relative to an outside observer, is the bullet really moving at exactly 15 m/s? Do velocities really transfer fully?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/26hvyy/if_shoot_a_gun_in_a_car_at_10_ms_and_the_car_is/
|
{
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"chr8blk",
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2
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"text": [
"For the numbers you mention, the answer is for all intents and purposes yes. But according to special relativity velocities u and v add according to the formula w = (u+v)/(1+uv/c^2) where c is the speed of light. For small u and v this works out to very close to just w = u+v.",
"Yes. Here is a good video demonstrating that the initial motion of the projectile matters in determining its velocity in relation to a static point when the projectile is fired. \n\n_URL_1_\n\nThey rig up a pitching machine on the back of a truck to fire backwards at the exact speed the truck is moving. From the point of view of the truck the baseball is shot away at (whatever speed it was moving). From the point of view of the camera the ball drops straight to the ground.\n\nThe exception to the vector addition of velocities is for things that move at light speed. Regardless of its relative motion, light will always move at C. Scientists in the late 1800s conducted experiments testing for the speed of light from a source in relative motion were surprised to find that no matter the speed at which the source of light was moving, light had a constant velocity. \n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPHoUbCNPX8"
]
] |
||
32mmx0
|
why didn't other european powers shut down hitler as soon as he violated the versailles treaty?
|
As I understand it, the treaty disarmed Germany and forbid militarization. This being so, it seems like other countries could have swooped in and stopped Germany when it was at like 10% military power and on the rise rather than waiting until they got to ~100%.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32mmx0/eli5_why_didnt_other_european_powers_shut_down/
|
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"text": [
"That would require mobilization of troops and resources that many European powers just didn't have. World War I decimated many European countries in manpower, resources and financially and the Great Depression didn't help any.\n\nNot to mention that many politicians wanted to avoid war because it would have been detrimental to their political career.",
"Because of WWI. It was called the \"war to end all wars\" and the countries involved lost so many people, so many towns and cities that there was an extreme reluctance to entering another war. Until Hitler invaded France, there was a feeling that if they just appeased him enough and gave him the Sudetenland and Austria and Poland, that there would be an end to his conquests. In retrospect, it was obviously foolish, but this was the prevailing sentiment in Europe at the time. The first war was that devastating that people were willing to ignore the evidence right in front of their faces. Anything to avoid another war. There were some loud voices calling the West to stop him, such as Churchill, but they didn't gain enough traction until it was too late.",
"Because the European powers:\n\n* Were terrified of another war after WWI\n* Agreed that the Versailles Treaty was too harsh on Germany and was willing to let Germany bend it bit by bit\n* Thought that Hitler was a reasonable man and would stop once he gets his bid to please the people in Germany\n* Did not want to be the \"leader\" who threatened world peace and thought that other countries would stop Germany\n",
"How come a plane full of people couldn't stop 7 guys with box cutters? How about in a checkout line when someone freaks out? Everyone shuts up, or pretends not to notice. The fact is, crazy people rule the world because humans are pack animals, like dogs. We're meant to follow leaders, unlike cats."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
235hx5
|
Why did the Germans seemingly abandon their colonial holdings in Asia during WWI?
|
Forgive me, I am completely ignorant in this subject. From what I understand, as soon as the war started, the Germans barely put up any fight in holding their new colonies in Asia. Wasn't one of Germany's biggest desires, around this time in history, to start being a world power like Britain? Why, then, would they not put more effort into defending them?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/235hx5/why_did_the_germans_seemingly_abandon_their/
|
{
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"cgtm9a7"
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"They were un defendable these colonies were right on the doorstep of Australia and New Zealand two British colonies with millions of people compared to the German colonies couple of thousands. If they had tried they would have failed. Any attempt to reinforce would have resulted in the ships sinking by the Royal Navy.if they had attempted to reinforce before the war then they would be blockaded and surrender. The action the Germans took was the only option."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
ashwlm
|
how is netflix able to provide seemingly perfect subtitles to basically every show/movie on their platform and what allows them to do this so well?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ashwlm/eli5_how_is_netflix_able_to_provide_seemingly/
|
{
"a_id": [
"egufh76",
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2
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"text": [
"The people that make the show or movie write down the subtitles, from the script. They package that as a subtitle file inside the video file, and Netflix opens that up to show it to you if you enable subtitles.",
"When a show is delivered to Netflix it must conform to their specifications, including subtitles. Netflix is not generating these files. \n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/215758617-Timed-Text-Style-Guide-General-Requirements"
]
] |
||
mbbe8
|
how does venture capitalism work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mbbe8/eli5_how_does_venture_capitalism_work/
|
{
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"text": [
"On one end, there are the big money funds. Some groups that have tons of money. Enough that they've already put a lot into traditional stocks and bonds and money market stuff. Now they want to take some more and put it in a different area: new companies that aren't on the stock market yet.\n\nOn the other end, there are the entrepreneurs. These guys want to start a new company or maybe they have already started it and it's humming along. Either way, starting and growing a young business is hard. It's hard to make stuff without hiring people and it's hard to pay your hires if you haven't already made and sold the stuff. If you just had a bunch of money to start with, it would be a lot easier to get the ball rolling and make something great.\n\nIn order to bridge the gap between the funds and the entrepreneurs, the big money funds hire money managers. Those are the VCs. The VCs travel around looking for new companies that would be able grow in value by a large amount if they had a cash injection to kick it off. (There are also VCs who use their own money rather than simply representing a fund. That type of VC is traditionally called an \"angel investor\".)\n\nIf the VCs find a company they really like, they sit down with the company founders and hammer out a deal. There are lots of options and variations and details in VC deals, but usually it goes something like this:\n\n > Lets argue for a long time about how much the company is currently worth. It's really hard to pin that down because your aren't making any money right now, but there's a lot of potential. OK, we all agree it's currently worth about $10 million? How about we put an additional $10 million in cash into the company? Then it will be worth $20 million and we'll both agree that moving forward 50% of the value of the company belongs to you and 50% belongs to us. Sounds fair? Hopefully, together we'll be able to use that extra $10 million to grow this company to $200 million in about 5 years or so. That would be awesome.\n\nThat would be the most straight-forward VC deal ever. Real deals have lots of details covering all of the possible events that could happen to the company. But, the general theme is that if the company takes off, gets bought by Google, has a big stock market IPO, or whatever, the fund that the VCs represent gets their share of the earnings.\n",
"On one end, there are the big money funds. Some groups that have tons of money. Enough that they've already put a lot into traditional stocks and bonds and money market stuff. Now they want to take some more and put it in a different area: new companies that aren't on the stock market yet.\n\nOn the other end, there are the entrepreneurs. These guys want to start a new company or maybe they have already started it and it's humming along. Either way, starting and growing a young business is hard. It's hard to make stuff without hiring people and it's hard to pay your hires if you haven't already made and sold the stuff. If you just had a bunch of money to start with, it would be a lot easier to get the ball rolling and make something great.\n\nIn order to bridge the gap between the funds and the entrepreneurs, the big money funds hire money managers. Those are the VCs. The VCs travel around looking for new companies that would be able grow in value by a large amount if they had a cash injection to kick it off. (There are also VCs who use their own money rather than simply representing a fund. That type of VC is traditionally called an \"angel investor\".)\n\nIf the VCs find a company they really like, they sit down with the company founders and hammer out a deal. There are lots of options and variations and details in VC deals, but usually it goes something like this:\n\n > Lets argue for a long time about how much the company is currently worth. It's really hard to pin that down because your aren't making any money right now, but there's a lot of potential. OK, we all agree it's currently worth about $10 million? How about we put an additional $10 million in cash into the company? Then it will be worth $20 million and we'll both agree that moving forward 50% of the value of the company belongs to you and 50% belongs to us. Sounds fair? Hopefully, together we'll be able to use that extra $10 million to grow this company to $200 million in about 5 years or so. That would be awesome.\n\nThat would be the most straight-forward VC deal ever. Real deals have lots of details covering all of the possible events that could happen to the company. But, the general theme is that if the company takes off, gets bought by Google, has a big stock market IPO, or whatever, the fund that the VCs represent gets their share of the earnings.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4waexw
|
What was the general public perception of Dunkirk immediately after the rescue throughout the nations involved in WWII?
|
For example, whilst I'm under the impression that in the United Kingdom the public were reasonably joyous that their "boys" had made it home safe, was it seen much more as a defeat everywhere else, e.g. America/France?
What was the German peoples' reaction? Was the focus more on the swift defeat of France or their inability to subdue the British? Were they nonetheless confident that Britain would inevitably fall?
Whilst I'm happy to discuss official (i.e. government level) opinions on the events surrounding Dunkirk, I am more interested in what the general populations of the warring countries thought about it.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4waexw/what_was_the_general_public_perception_of_dunkirk/
|
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"I can give a broad summary from the point of view of the British as, like so many other British War myths, it is more complicated than it has subsequently been reduced to and therefore infinitely more interesting as a result (in my admittedly nerdy opinion).\n\nSo I will assume the common narrative is widely known, the surprise and certain defeat, the plucky English resolve, Churchill and rousing speeches and the little boats. Now much of this lies in well founded fact, though shaves off a lot of the complexities which then simply reduces the nature of British society and politics during the war.\n\nFirst things first the reaction was not simply joyous. It was a clear defeat and setback which signalled a grave turn in the war. And while the absence of more death and capture was certainly good for morale at home it did not distract from this fact far beyond the last boat reaching blighty. Indeed the press, bouncing off this disaster, had a field day attacking the ex-PM Chamberlain and his ilk for their inadequate preparations. Linking implicitly, and at times explicitly the disaster - perhaps a little unfairly - at the door of Chamberlain. A great example of this feeling was the pamphlet *Guilty men* which opened a rabid attack on interwar government with the beaches of Dunkirk, casting the honest soldiers there victim of the ineptitude and complacency of the uninspired grandees of the previous decade. The anonymous writers (a Tory, Liberal and Labour supporter and future leader) emphasised the futile bravery of the front in marked contrast to the antagonists. To quote its evocative first chapter's final line: \n\n\n*It is a story of an army doomed before they took the field.*\n\nDespite publishers avoiding it, *Guilty men\" sold 200,000 copies.\n\n\nNow this was perhaps a little unfair, while there was plenty of blame and there were problems which led to this disaster, to lay this in the laps of solely the old political order was a little much. Without wanting to get into the monkey knife-fight that is appeasement historiography on the internet, Chamberlain perhaps did not deserve the image portrayed in this book. However, it certainly did not do Churchill any harm to have his rivals in the party (Chamberlain and Halifax, the preferred contender for the PM's office against Churchill) so publicly savaged. His wartime coalition shedded meaningful need for these individuals and as a result became easier to manage. It also saved the reputation of many men still involved in the war effort yet perhaps also partially responsible. Anything else one wishes to add is speculation so far as I understand, whether this was a happy coincidence for Mr Churchill or something more orchestrated lacks firm evidence one way or the other.\n\nAside from this the cultivated and co-opted press loudly triumphed the official narrative of heroism on the day. From the Daily Mirror proclaiming the heroic retreat as *\"bloody marvellous\"* to War Illustrated outlining the *\"Immortal story of Dunkirk\"*. However this struggled at times when squared with the experiences of retreating men. Gardiner emphasises the combination of the chaos of war with the wounded pride of retreating men creating a toxic atmosphere of recrimination. For example in one village pub a patron recounted an NCO whose:\n\n*\"loud-mouthed criticism of junior officers of his Ack-Ack unit seizing the only available transport and making for the French coast, leaving their NCOs and men to fend for themselves\"*\n\nor the sister of a soldier, Harry Woolf, who recounted:\n\n*\"he saw his cousin dead on the beach & another man on the street. He was talking to a chap who was showing a silk handkerchief bought for his joy lady. That moment a bomb killed him. Harry took the handkerchief. Harry has had eno' of this war and is certain of our defeat - got no arms & no aeroplanes - how can we do anything\"*\n\nThe civilian population, though clearly depending on a multitude of disparate and ever shrinking factors, was mixed in its reaction. Women assisted in aid stations, some cheered paraded troops (one commentator noted that the lining of the streets and accolades were more frequent then than during the soldier's embarking to France). Church membership rocketed up, with Calder pointing out that:\n\n*\"even Guildhall was not big enough to accomodate more than half the congregation that flooded to the united service\"* \n\nwith 2000 listing outside on loudspeakers. \n\nElsewhere Donald Johnson, a medical officer, recounted:\n\n*\"From the moment you woke up, you thought, ‘Oh, my God’ as you realised [Britain’s] position afresh …It was only after two or three beers at lunch that the situation did not seem quite as bad; but by three thirty in the afternoon it was desperate again—and it was quite time to go back to the mess for another drink. In the evening, the outlook depended entirely on the amount of alcohol you consumed. I use the plural ‘you’ because everyone was in the same boat.”*\n\nPeople carrying gas masks increased from basically 0% to 30%, black marketeers trade slightly declined and strikes fell in the month following. There was a 25% increase in production as workers worked longer, without holidays and weekends one must distinguish between patriotic fervour and invasion-panic.\n\nAn interesting example is how one pigeonholes the famous \"fight them on the beaches\" speech made to the Commons, and delivered in extracts by a BBC announcer to the wider public. While it has been proclaimed as a masterful oratory, public reaction was mixed. Addison in his wonderful work based on Mass Observation, one of my favourite-ist things going in this period points out the following extracts:\n\n*\"he grave tone of Churchill’s speech made some impression and may have contributed in some measure to the rather pessimistic atmosphere of today. […] The contents of the speech were on the whole expected but some apprehension has been caused throughout the country on account of the PM’s reference to ‘fighting alone’. This has led to some slight increase in doubt about the intentions of our ally [France].\"*\n\nHowever it is worth noting the the general consensus from the different areas of the British Isle was that the speech was well received if not fervour-rousing. Though, as a *further* caveat, even its immediate effect was perhaps not brilliant, as Winston's wife said afterwards about the House of Commons and the original speech:\n\n*\"a great section of the Tory Party were not behind Winston & had received his great speech […] even in sullen silence.\"*\n\nThis may point to the esteem the 'double-rat' and wilderness-dweller Churchill held amongst his backbenches, shocked & pessimistic immediate reaction to the news or the quality of the speech (or any of the above in combination).\n\nInterestingly, the rumour summaries for each day (may I say you should really get [his book](_URL_0_)) emphasise a rich and at time bizarre array of rumours emanating from the disaster which demonstrates a society perhaps not entirely unified. A common a pressing one was the well-trodden discontent of the army with the RAF, the latter being perceived too weak/suspiciously absent during the evacuation. The report nervously notes that this should be checked though an official statement as its effects would be:\n\n*\"most unfortunate in military and civilian circles\"*\n \nAdditionally paranoia of infiltrators and aliens underlined the daily rumour mill. From arrests of German parachutists in the Midlands (usually neither German nor parachutists) to Belgians children being denied access to play groups in London (probably not because they are Belgian), suspicions ruled supreme. This is just a taster -there were many other examples of rumours showing a society confused, angry and scared, all suggesting a society ill-at ease.\n\nNow clearly self-interest and patriotism are interlinked and are certainly not mutually exclusive, but it would be wrong to characterise the work ethic which followed as simply a \"we are all in this together\", long lasting and significant shift in the relationship workers had with the wartime economy. While people were more acutely aware of their national predicament and therefore willing to sacrifice this may well have been as much for narrow self-interest than a stoic submission to the needs of Britannia. \n\nAs the immediate fear of invasion fell back so too did these positive and negative effects. Indeed this boost in production fell back a few weeks later as workers tired and the propaganda around immediate invasion rang increasingly hollow. Gas mask-uptake fell back down to 10% by August and the black market returned to booming normal. Even the rumour mill died down, which is often an excellent barometer of public feeling. Therefore it is difficult to view Dunkirk as a profound rallying of the public will. As (a) it caused as much division and ill feeling as it did unity and (b) its effects were temporary. \n\nHowever there is an interesting argument that Dunkirk, though much of the effects on soldiers and civilians was indeed negative, acted as a positive 'bookend' to the war. Essentially it acted as a shift in narrative between the war of the 'old guard', complacent, elitist and slow to the war of the people. A more dynamic war effort and one where society had a greater stake. Now indeed it helped that the old guard were functionally out of office and replaced with an evolving coalition of all major parties, so this potentially toxic narrative did not disrupt politics too greatly immediately. However I have seen Addison argue that this is in part a reason for the result in 1945, so intimately connected was the mainstream Conservative party to this clique in the minds of many. I perhaps would not go that far, but it certainly added to the milieu of the time.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.amazon.co.uk/Listening-Britain-Intelligence-Britains-May-September/dp/0099548747"
]
] |
|
814gkk
|
How do you calculate the focal length of a multi-lens setup?
|
[deleted]
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/814gkk/how_do_you_calculate_the_focal_length_of_a/
|
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],
"text": [
"In my opinion, the cleanest formalism for linear optics is using [transfer matrices](_URL_0_). There is a fixed matrix for each type of optical element, and to find the optics of a series of optical elements, you just multiply the corresponding matrices in the right order. Then you get one final matrix that describes the transport of a ray with any initial condition. Certain elements of the final matrix can be associated with the total focal length, the magnification, etc.\n\nIf you have a doublet consisting of a thin focusing and a thin defocusing lens with a drift in between them, you can see what the matrix looks like on slide 15 [here](_URL_1_) (ignore that the slideshow is about charged particle optics for particle accelerators, it works the same way as light optics).\n\nFor two lenses, this is not really that difficult. You could just memorize that effective focal length equation like people do in Physics 101.\n\nBut this formalism gives you the power to chain together arbitrarily many cells like this. And even add other optical elements, rather than just thin lenses and drifts. There are some other nice features, like being able to analyze the stability of the system. If the focusing isn't strong enough, or if it's *too* strong, the trajectories of individual rays may not be transported through the entire optical system. Analyzing the stability of the entire system is as simple as taking the trace of the final matrix."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_transfer_matrix_analysis",
"http://slideplayer.com/slide/11344380/"
]
] |
|
bmjywd
|
how do they measure the visual acuity of animals?
|
You always hear birds and other various animals have better vision than humans. How do we know this and quantify it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bmjywd/eli5_how_do_they_measure_the_visual_acuity_of/
|
{
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"emxl614"
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"text": [
"One of the oldest way to test it is the following:\n\n1. set up 2 doors: one with food and one without. Put a label on top of each door with black square (door no food) and black square with a single white stripe (door with food).\n2. During the first few times, open both door and let the animal go. After a few times they'll learn that door with white stripe has food.\n3. Close both doors in such a way that the animal can still open it easily, but cannot see through it. Then let the animal go. Since they remember that the one with the stripe has food, they'll pick the door they see the stripe.\n4. Reduce the width of the white stripe. Then let the animal go find the food (repeat this a few times for reliability). Repeat this process until the animal is unable to reliably locate the door with a white stripe. \n\nSource: remember watching a video of eagle vision test (couldn't find it now). The stripe was so small that humans cannot see it with naked eye. The stripe was made using computer-assisted tool."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1tg4ff
|
how can north korea have work camps and not get in trouble for it?
|
How can places like North Korea not get in trouble with United Nations or any sort of world police when they have these innocent people in death camps?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tg4ff/eli5_how_can_north_korea_have_work_camps_and_not/
|
{
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"text": [
"The UN is mostly toothless, and there's no such thing as \"world police\". \n\nFurther, no one is willing to go up militarily against a nuclear state for fear of starting World War III.",
"Because they're a country. They're not a person and can be arrested by the police. The only way to force another country to do something is either from the threat or application of military or economic action. \n\nNorth Korea has a military 9 million strong and doesn't have an economy to ruin.",
"North Korea would undoubtedly see outside interference as a pretext for war. Nobody wants a conflict with North Korea. They come across as the equivalent of the proverbial bull in a china shop, but the china is nukes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
yuncy
|
Does mental/emotional trauma halt maturation of the mind?
|
Hey all,
A friend of mine and I were discussing the effects that trauma at an early age has on a developing person. Specifically we were talking about repeated sexual abuse and rape experienced by someone who was about 14.
I was told that trauma at that young of an age can cause a person to get stuck at the age the trauma with respect to mental and emotional development are concerned and the only way for them to start development again is to deal properly with the trauma.
Via what might be called subjective observation I can see a bit of truth to what I was told, but I think I would describe that as anecdotal at best.
Is there any truth to what I was told about trauma and development?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/yuncy/does_mentalemotional_trauma_halt_maturation_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5yzfu6"
],
"score": [
16
],
"text": [
"Clinical psychologist here. The effects aren't nearly that predictable or lawful. Various effects are possible, its not a straightforward case of arrested development. Some victims of abuse are amazingly [resilient](_URL_0_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1885202/?tool=pmcentrez"
]
] |
|
bcr935
|
who pays for the plane ticket back to your home country if you’re denied entry to a country?
|
I’m currently watching border control videos on YouTube. When people get denied entry to a country they have to get the first flight back to their home country.
I was wondering who has to pay for that flight.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bcr935/eli5_who_pays_for_the_plane_ticket_back_to_your/
|
{
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"ekstbmk",
"eksthtr",
"eksuoat",
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"score": [
13,
14,
4,
2
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"text": [
"The airline that took the person in has to take them back out again, however the airline can then get the money back from individual (or attempt to).",
"The passenger legally has to pay, but the airline is required to take them back no matter what. If the airline will actually get their money is another question.",
"Many countries will not allow you on to an international flight to a foreign (not your native) country without a round trip ticket.",
"It's worth pointing out that when you check in for an international flight, especially from the US, the airline agent will be looking at the basics to make sure you're admitted.\n\nEnsuring you have a passport, valid for the required length of time of the destination, any required visas, etc.\n\nThey can't foresee (or check) every issue that could get you turned away, but they try to catch what they can before you leave home to begin with.\n\nAs passenger data and information sharing (especially amongst allies) gets more advanced, airline agencies are capable of catching more and more \"deny entry flags\" before someone even checks in."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1b11zu
|
I heard in a PBS documentary that Napoleon's policies set the framework for what would become modern France. How specifically did he help build this framework? And to what extent did Napoleon pick up on the shortcomings of the French Revolution to spur the country into its 'modernity'?
|
It's a broad question, so please let me know if I need to disambiguate anything.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1b11zu/i_heard_in_a_pbs_documentary_that_napoleons/
|
{
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"text": [
"Oh man, I have tons of notes on this subject from a previous class but they're all stuck on a windows partition that just shit the bed today.\n\nBasically, Napoleon reorganized how France was governed in the form of departments and greatly increased the bureaucracy. This allowed for much more efficient governing as well as harnessing the resources of the state to a greater degree than any other country in Europe. When France conquered most of Europe, this system was brought to these other states and usually the longer that the French stayed, the more entrenched the system became. A prime example of this would be Belgium. He essentially set the framework for modern states and did away with much of the remnants of the old noble governing.\n\nThe framework was built upon a mix of meritocracy and nepotism. Napoleon did like appointing friends and family, but usually to high positions rather than heads of departments.\n\nI wish I could expand more but I haven't revisited this subject in two years and have been focusing my studies elsewhere as of late.",
"Napoleon did a number of things which built the framework for modern France. Some of the more substantial things were making all Frenchmen equal before the law, regardless of social class or other factors, he greatly increased the efficiency of the French bureaucracy (something which was picked up by many European states, including conservative ones), he abolished the system of feudalism in many areas of Europe, and weakened many noble rights which were in place. \n\nEven after he abdicated many of these changes remained. If you look at the French Charter of 1814, which re-established the Bourbons as the Monarchs in France, you will see many of these policies. After Napoleon popularized many of these policies there was simply no turning back without huge revolts from the masses, and almost all of the political leaders at the time wanted stability more than anything (If interested look up The Concert of Europe).\n\nHope that helps! ",
"By \"set the framework for modern France,\" the documentary was probably referring to the [Civil Code](_URL_0_) of 1804. That link provides the Code in its entirety, so you can peruse at your leisure.\n\nThe Civil Code standardized legal jurisdictions across all of France regarding subjects such as inheritance, civil rights, marriage, finance, etc. To understand what a monumental achievement this is, it's important to realize what law was like under the Old Regime. Each region in France was governed by a set of overlapping juridical bodies that often vied for power: local nobles argued with the king's functionaries (notably the royal tax collectors, the _intendants_), the _parlements_ (regional judicial bodies) argued with the crown over matters of authority, guilds argued with municipal authorities over labor rights, and so forth. There was no such thing as a single, universal law that applied to all of France, and such a concept would have been anachronistic under a system regulated by privilege based on social class and geographic location.\n\nThe Civil Code changed this by standardizing legal codes and partitioning France into the _départements_ (administrative units, sort of like American or British counties) it still uses today. [Here](_URL_5_) is a convenient visual of that administrative structure. Most importantly, the Code greatly facilitated a process of state centralization begun under the Old Regime that the French still debate to this day.\n\nBonaparte, however, didn't create a standardized law _ex nihilo_. Rather, he modified developments that were already under way during the French Revolution. The idea of a universal law was a concept articulated by [The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen](_URL_1_). Also, the system of _départements_ was originally proposed by the National Constituent Assembly in 1790. Divorce [became easier](_URL_4_) during the Revolution and [feudal privileges were abolished](_URL_2_) on August 4, 1789.\n\nIn other words, the ideas and structures that Bonaparte implemented were outgrowths of the French Revolution. Martin Lyons [makes an explicit point](_URL_3_) to view Bonaparte and his accomplishments as children of the Revolution, rather than understanding the coup on 18 _brumaire_ as a radical break or an end-point."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/c_code.html",
"http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=qfD9Aswfi98C&dq=feudal+privilege+abolition&source=gbs_navlinks_s",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=QTdAbbNhHaEC&dq=martin+lyons+napoleon&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wapRUbH1FoLr2QW0pIGgDg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=zYSiCSy9tx4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=desan+revolution&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CatRUf7mIe_W2wWrnICwCA&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=desan%20revolution&f=false",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Administration_territoriale_fran%C3%A7aise.svg/685px-Administration_territoriale_fran%C3%A7aise.svg.png"
]
] |
|
623qan
|
why african americans are not given the prefix of their country of origin while european's are?
|
An example being Solvenian-American and such
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/623qan/eli5why_african_americans_are_not_given_the/
|
{
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12,
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4,
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"text": [
"Because most of them are descended from slaves, and don't know what country they're originally from, what languages their family originally spoke, etc. Slaves weren't usually permitted to talk about that stuff, families were broken up and sold off so many slaves never knew their parents, non-English/French languages were forbidden.\n\nThat's also why there are Irish-American bars/parades/traditions/pride things, German-American, English-American, etc, but just 'black' for the descendants of slaves. They don't know.",
"Many do not have records of their ancestors' country of origin.\n\nMany have ancestors from numerous different African countries.\n\nSome of the countries in Africa where slaves were usually kidnapped from no longer exist.",
"Because Black Americans who are descendants of slaves usually don't know their family's country of origin. Slave owners and traders were not interested in the ethnic origins of their slaves and kept only the most rudimentary records. Many Black Americans find it impossible to trace their families back more than a few generations.",
"Because most African-Americans are descended from slaves, and thus don't know their country of origin. Even if distinct \"countries\" as we understand them could be said to have existed at the time of the slave trade, detailed records were not kept.\n\nFor more recent immigrants and their descendants, it certainly would not be uncommon to adopt a \"hyphenated\" ethnicity, e.g. Nigerian-Americans or Ethiopian-Americans.",
"In addition to what others have said, at the time that slaves were being taken from Africa, there didn't exist countries in that area in the sense that we think of today - essentially every country that currently exists in western africa is a relatively modern political concept, and many of these countries have complicated mixes of different ethnicities within them.",
"I have previously asked some friends of mine this exact question, because some of them DID know where they came from (generally-ish, at least), but all still wanted to be thought of and called African American or black.\n\n\nThe reasons varied a bit, but could be paraphrased like this: \"Black Americans are their own culture and totally different from African Africans of any type. I'm not one of them, I'm different. I'm not my country of origin, I'm a unique culture that only exists here.\"",
"In addition to this, I've always been interested in the American system of putting a prefix in there at all. I've noticed Americans saying 'I'm Irish' or 'Italian', when in other countries, it's more typical to just say that you're the nationality you were born in.\n\nIs it because America still holds a lot of value over the idea that they're a 'nation of immigrants'? A lot of countries are, but they don't tend to hold onto that idea as much. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1np8qu
|
What Really Happened Between Edison and Tesla?
|
So it is apparently really difficult to get through all the exaggerations, misquotes, and outright fabrications about these two geniuses and the bad blood that is between them. Is there anyone that can explain, without a whole lot of speculation, what happened between these two? More specifically, what caused Tesla to leave Menlo Park?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1np8qu/what_really_happened_between_edison_and_tesla/
|
{
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"text": [
"Tesla claims, in his autobiographical [*My Inventions*](_URL_1_), the following regarding his time at the Machine Works in NY:\n\n > For nearly a year my regular hours were from 10.30 A.M. until 5 o'clock the next morning without a day's exception. Edison said to me: \"I have had many hard-working assistants but you take the cake.\" During this period I designed twenty-four different types of standard machines with short cores and of uniform pattern which replaced the old ones. The Manager had promised me fifty thousand dollars on the completion of this task but it turned out to be a practical joke. This gave me a painful shock and I resigned my position.\n\nWe don't know for sure that \"The Manager\" was Edison, and the use of that title suggests it was someone else. Tesla resigned in 1885, when Edison's involvement in company operations was very limited (the death of Mary in 1884 had deeply affected him), and day to day management was the province of [Samuel Insull](_URL_2_). Insull apparently disliked Tesla; he referred to the prospect of dealing with him over his patent for certain lamps to be \"most objectionable\" in 1887. Of course, it was also a good way for Tesla to tell that part of the story without running the risk of a lawsuit. We don't know the details beyond that, because here's what Edison had to say about this period with Tesla in his own papers:\n\nNothing.\n\nAbsolutely nothing. \n\nNot in the Edison Electric Company papers, not in Edison's personal papers, nowhere--no reports from others at the Works, no angry notes from Tesla, nothing. I've been in those papers for this very period, and all we have is evidence of him being on the payroll before this time. If we had the records of the European company in better order there might be something there (he worked in Europe before coming to New York). But the truthfulness of this claim will never be established, and it has been taken as gospel and magnified by every author since O'Neill's hagiography in the 1940s. Some of the embellishments appear to have no actual source.\n\nBut it gets better and more suggestive than that, even. Edison and Tesla corresponded in the 1890s over X-rays and may have worked together; we don't have Tesla's letters to Edison, but Edison wrote to Tesla on 18 March 1896: \"My dear Tesla, Many thanks for your letter. I hope you are progressing and will give us something that will beat Roentgen.\" (LB062322) That's hardly the language or activity of mortal enemies. I've never seen the original letter Tesla sent, or what he was offering--was it collaboration, purchase, contract? Edison even seems somewhat protective of Tesla in this time; in response to a critical essay to be published in the *Electrical Review* in May of 1896, Edison said he didn't care what the article stated for his own sake, but that Tesla \"was of a nervous temperament and it will greatly grieve him and interfere with his work. While Tesla gives vent to his sanguine expectations when he should not do so, it must not be forgotten by [the article author] Mr Moore that Tesla is an experimenter of the highest type and may produce in time all that he says he can.\" (LB062498) Again, if the bad blood was between those two, why this expression of confidence in Tesla's work and ambitions? There's more to this story, and it may be hiding among Tesla's papers in Belgrade in any of a dozen languages. *Good luck, researchers!*\n\nMy personal suspicion was that any clash probably involved Insull, and that were any idle offer made, Tesla did not really believe it--he was idealistic, but not *that* naive. It's worth pointing out that Insull was alive in 1919 (until 1938 really) and controlled an empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and he didn't get there by being nice--so Tesla would be suicidal to cast aspersions on someone of Insull's power and reach. Of course after Edison died, Tesla tossed a few barbs at his crude methods of experimentation, which was totally in keeping with his opinion in 1919. But if either had another grudge, the War of the Currents had probably been the real poisoner of the well. In that case, Tesla had cause to be angry at Morgan and Westinghouse in the aftermath more than Edison. \n\n(For sources, the numbers and letters after the quotes above refer to the digital edition of the [Edison Papers](_URL_0_)--plug in the doc number and up it will come. Not everything has been digitized--some things are still on microfilm--but the hardcopies at West Orange don't seem to include any Tesla surprises.)\n\n[edit: too many semicolons; added TLDR]\n\n**TL,DR: Tesla says there was a joke offer of money he took seriously and quit over; Edison says nothing about Tesla at that time, nothing at all. Evidence suggests that the two were at least cordial until the late 1890s, contrary to popular belief.**"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://edison.rutgers.edu/NamesSearch/NamesSearch.php3",
"http://archive.org/details/MyInventionsTheAutobiographyOfNikolaTesla",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Insull"
]
] |
|
29d09f
|
why do dogs drink out of the toilet, even though you give them fresh water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29d09f/eli5_why_do_dogs_drink_out_of_the_toilet_even/
|
{
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"The toilet water is renewed more often than most people refill their dog's bowl. They probably think it tastes better after a fresh flush than in a bowl filled with standing water. \nIf you close the bathroom door and fill their bowl with clean cool water a few times a day they might stop going to the toilet for a drink.",
"As far as the dog's concerned, a source of water is a source of water. All he'll care about is that there's always water there, it's clean (by the dog's standards) and at a convenient head height for drinking. Dogs are also creatures of habit and will keep going back to the same places for food and water just because that's what they're used to doing.\n\nIf a dog's drinking out of the toilet, encourage him to drink from his own bowl by making sure that his bowl is always kept full of fresh water, that it contains enough water for him, that the bowl is always accessible and that it is always in the same place (preferably close to where he eats and/or sleeps). Also, reinforce good behaviour by giving him treats for drinking from his own bowl.",
"For the same reasons that they drink out of mud puddles, and eat carrion if given the chance. It doesnt matter to them. A humans idea of clean or safe is a complete abstraction that dogs dont understand. Also a dogs digestive tract and immune system is WAAAAAYYYYYY more robust than that of a human. My own observation of dogs is that they prefer gross stuff to clean stuff."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
a0s77w
|
How large was the U.S involvement in the Boxer rebellion?
|
I was reading a bit about the Chinese Boxer rebellion and noticed that the U.S participated in taking down the rebellion. I was wondering how large of an involvement the U.S had in the war in comparison to Britain, or Japan. Also, what was the general U.S citizen's sentiment towards the war?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a0s77w/how_large_was_the_us_involvement_in_the_boxer/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eak8uym"
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"text": [
"The Boxer Rebellion, which took place at the start of the 20th century, was a 3-way power struggle between Chinese peasants, the Boxers (a xenophobic, anti-Christian, anti-modernization, mystic religious group), the Qing Empire and (mostly) Western foreign powers.\n\nThe United States desired to set up commercial operations in China (Open Door policy) before the rebellion to compete with other European powers, especially British dominance, but had no interest in involving itself in military matters. However, after realizing how serious the rebellion was becoming, the McKinley Administration through Secretary of State John Hay, approved military action combined with European powers (the Eight Nation Alliance included Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, Russia, France, Japan & USA), despite its diplomatic tradition of avoiding entangling alliances, and the policies of the Monroe Doctrine, to avoid getting involved in the politics of European colonial powers.\n\nThe defeat of the Qing Empire in Tianjin and siege of Beijing by the Boxer rebels in July 1900 caused major world powers to intervene more directly, and the Eight Nation Alliance arrived in Beijing (Peking) to lift the siege.\n\nUS Troops were sent from the naval base in the Philippines and included the 9th Infantry, 14th Infantry, 6th Cavalry, 5th Artillery regiments and a Marine battalion under the command of Lt. Gen Adna Romanza Chaffee and was known as the \"US Army China Relief Expedition\". This was the first time US forces fought on Chinese soil, and also set a historical precedent where the president could intervene in a sovereign nation's affairs without the express authorization from Congress.\n\nJapan sent the largest contingent of troops: 20,840 and 18 warships, but they also suffered a disproportionate number of casualties: more than half of allied casualties in Tianjin, and almost two-thirds of the losses in Beijing. The reason is that (according to a British military observer), the Japanese were aggressive, used densely-packed formations and were over-willing to attack.\n\nThe British was also engaged in the Boer conflict at the same time, so they had limited troops available, and had to rely on the 'China Squadron' and troops from India. They were the third largest contingent after the Japanese.\n\nThe Russians had the second largest force, of 12,400.\n\nAustria-Hungary sent a single cruiser and sent some sailors to defend positions in Tianjin.\n\nThe Germans initially had a garrison of about 2,000 men around Qingdao (Tsingtao), and sent a larger force of around 15,000 later in the struggle, but they arrived too late to take part in any major action.\n\nThe French sent three battalions and a brigade of marines.\n\nThe Italians had around 2,000 troops, initially made up of sailors from warships and later included troops dispatched from Italy.\n\nAfter the rebellion was culled, the signing of the Boxer Protocol of 1901 which was signed between the Eight Nation Alliance and the Qing Empire then allowed Britain and the USA (and to a lesser extent the other 6 nations) to have a great deal of influence in Beijing and to be in control of how the country could be partitioned.\n\nBefore the rebellion, there was a lot of discussion in the media about the rebellion, and The Washington Post, for example, had a field day publishing reports about it, mostly factually incorrect, as they had no reporters on the ground; there was a major disconnect between the information in China and the US public and it could be argued that the public opinion in the US was shaped by American and Chinese interest groups to support the rebellion and draw US forces into the war. \n\nAfter the rebellion, there was a great deal of debate about the US involvement. It was revealed that a number of atrocities were committed by foreign troops, and precious artifacts and treasures were heavily looted from places like the Forbidden City. Mark Twain gave his famous \"I am a Boxer\" speech that mocked and criticized Christian missionaries and the US government involvement in China. Furthermore, the reparations payments on China were extremely high and they were forced into virtual disarmament."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2hcjc6
|
what is happening in our heads that allow thousands of people to sing, shout, clap or speak in almost perfect unison?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hcjc6/eli5_what_is_happening_in_our_heads_that_allow/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ckren44"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"I haven't been able to find anything completely definitive, but the phenomenon you're talking about is called [entrainment](_URL_0_) (specifically, beat induction), and is similar to how fireflies synchronize their flashes.\n\nThere's a neural deficiency known as [beat deafness](_URL_1_) that prevents people from being able to detect the beat in music. This appears to be caused (in at least some cases) by issues with the left auditory cortex, which is involved in beat detection (as opposed to the right audio cortex, which detects harmonies).\n\nSo the short answer is \"our brains are hard-wired to be able to find beats in music (including that produced by people around us in a crowd), and to coordinate our actions with that beat.\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment_%28biomusicology%29",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_deafness"
]
] |
||
1r8b8y
|
Are alligators and crocodiles actually living dinosaurs? Or did their ancestors just exist at the same time as dinosaurs?
|
Or is it just birds? Thanks!
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1r8b8y/are_alligators_and_crocodiles_actually_living/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"Crocodylians, which include alligators and crocodiles, are not dinosaurs. They are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs, however (because birds *are* theropod dinosaurs).\n\nDinosauria is a group that was originally defined by anatomist [Richard Owen](_URL_2_) based on a few described taxa, including [*Iguanodon*](_URL_3_) and [*Megalosaurus*](_URL_0_). There are a few more technical ways to define the group, but no matter what it falls out being comprised of two smaller groups: [Ornithischia](_URL_8_) and [Saurischia](_URL_5_), although these groups were not recognized at the time. Ornithischia includes dinosaurs like *Triceratops*, *Iguanodon*, and ankylosaurs. Saurischia includes sauropods and theropods.\n\nCrocodylians, dinosaurs, and a couple other groups (including pterosaurs) are [archosaurs](_URL_17_) (side note: people often refer to pterosaurs as dinosaurs, but they're actually not). \n\nTo get more at the heart of your question: Crocodylians are widely perceived as these unchanging, prehistoric animals. They're really not. Crown-group crocodylians (that is, the group consisting of the common ancestor of all living species and all of the descendents of that ancestor) first show up in the Late Cretaceous, around 84 million years ago. This actually isn't a terribly long time ago, and it overlaps with the non-avian dinosaurs for about 20 million years. For reference, the [oldest known placental mammal](_URL_9_) is 160 million years old. \n\nIt is true that crocodylians do have relatives that extended back much further, because archosaurs started to diversify in the Triassic some 250 million years ago, but the crocs you see today are highly derived, not long-forgotten vestiges of the Mesozoic. It's true that some have had a fairly stable body plan, but it's also a body plan that has cropped up multiple times in vertebrate evolution, including in [temnospondyl amphibians](_URL_18_) some 270 million years ago. In a lot of these cases it has evolved independently.\n\nThe major radiation of archosaurs that includes modern crocodylians is known as Pseudosuchia, and it [first shows up about 250 million years ago](_URL_14_). These early [relatives of crocs](_URL_16_) looked more like [this](_URL_15_) (in that cladogram Crurotarsi = Pseudosuchia). Nothing like a modern croc. \n\nEven as we move up the tree towards Crocodylia, early crocodyliforms looked like [this](_URL_12_). These were fairly gracile, terrestrial animals. Again, a similar croc body plan pops up in a few lineages, like in the [phytosaurs](_URL_13_), which are likely a basal pseudosuchian but not closely related to crocodylians.\n\n[Mesoeucrocodylians](_URL_10_), a grade of crocodyliforms that isn't a valid taxon but useful for referring to groups outside the crown group, often look more like the body plan associated with typical crocodylians, but they also show significantly more morphological diversity than that. Pholidosaurs (like [*Sarcosuchus*](_URL_7_)) and dyrosaurs have a similar body plan. Metriorhynchids like [*Metriorhynchus*](_URL_4_) were marine and had flippers. Notosuchians like [*Simosuchus*](_URL_1_) are very different. *Simosuchus* probably wasn't even carnivorous. It was also pretty adorable. \n\nThe oldest members of crown-group Crocodylia are more morphologically similar to extant crocodylians. However, you still have morphological variation within Crocodylia, such as the [pristichampsids](_URL_6_), which were terrestrial. Terrestriality shows up again even in the family Crocodylidae (with the Mekosuchinae, including *Quinkana*).\n\nThe oldest members definitely attributable the genus *Crocodylus* [date to the Late Miocene](_URL_11_) (paywalled, sorry), and the genus probably diverged in the last 10 million years or so. That's pretty recent in the grand scheme of things, and some 55 million years after the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalosaurus",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simosuchus",
"http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/biographies/richard-owen/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguanodon",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metriorhynchus_superciliosus",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saurischia",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pristichampsidae",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcosuchus",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithischia",
"http://www.livescience.com/15734-oldest-placental-mammal.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoeucrocodylia",
"http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1643/0045-8511%282000%29000%5B0657:PRADTO%5D2.0.CO%3B2",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protosuchus",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytosaur",
"http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=3194824_pone.0025693.g012&req=4",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperosuchus",
"http://web.missouri.edu/~hollidayca/Croc_epipterygoid/Fig%202.jpg",
"http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/what-are-archosaurs/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prionosuchus"
]
] |
|
3sis6i
|
if i drive 5 miles going 40 mph vs. the same 5 miles going 80 mph, will one require more gas than the other?
|
Assuming all factors are the same & not including acceleration time.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sis6i/eli5_if_i_drive_5_miles_going_40_mph_vs_the_same/
|
{
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"cwxkbmw",
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"text": [
"The short answer is that at those speeds yes, air resistance increases and going 80 will take more fuel. If you stick your hand out of the car window when doing both of those speeds you will notice that the air pushes harder on your hand at 80mph. The car engine needs to output more power to hold the speed because the resistance is higher, and thus needs more fuel to do so.\n\nNow going slower using less fuel is not always true. With a modern car the highest fuel efficiency is somewhere around 35-40mph. If for example you did that 5 miles at 5 mph the car would actually use more fuel than at 40 miles per hour. This is because there is some base amount of energy the engine needs to just keep itself running and that becomes a much higher percentage of the total energy used to travel the set distance.",
"Just to summarize some of the comments here. Two main factors affect fuel efficiency at different speeds:\n\n1. Resistance - wind resistance is ~~exponential~~ **quadratic** with speed, so the faster you go, the more wind resistance there will be\n\n2. Driving inside your powerbelt: \nThis is the region where your engine is most efficient. Your car runs best when in the top gear with RPMs in the power belt. For most cars, this is 45-55 mph. A hybrid takes advantage of this by always running a small engine within its power-belt and using it to make electricity then converting the electricity back into moving your car forward. \n\nIn general, a gas car is most efficient at 45-55 mph, which is why they usually have a higher \"highway\" than \"city\" mpg. A hybrid only needs to worry about wind resistance, so its \"city\" mpg is usually higher than \"highway\" (regenerative braking helps here too). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2fn91h
|
what was happening in north america during the bible?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fn91h/eli5_what_was_happening_in_north_america_during/
|
{
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"text": [
"The guys who wrote the bible weren't aware it existed.\n\nEdit: To clarify for people complaining about the answer:\n\nMost (or possibly all) of the events of the bible did not literally occur, making the story as a whole, fictional. Asking what was happening in North America 'during the bible' is like asking what happened in North America during the events of \"A Game of Thrones\". North America did not exist in either of those fictional universes.",
"Gonna have to be a bit more specific on what PART of the bible's timeline you are talking about. Damn book goes from the beginning of the world to the end.... ",
"_URL_0_ \n_URL_1_\n\nProbably a lot more than is shown there, but the indigenous people did not keep written records, so it's hard to know very much.",
"Natives. Literally.\n\nIf we look at the bible as a semi-historical text, it goes back a few thousand years.\n\nPeople started migrating over the Land Bridge into North America from Asia before that. Meaning that while David fought Goliath, Geronima was chasing the buffalo. While Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, Sacagawea was helping prepare food. While Jesus was sitting at the last supper, Squanto was deciding whether or not to travel to the winter camp.\n\nThe Natives have little written history, and even that which does exist, in drawings and oral history has been destroyed. We can't tell what exactly was happening, but we have a decent idea that the Native Americans were just living their lives. Like the Picts were living their lives, the Japanese were living their's, and the Australians, and Indians, etc.\n\nEdited for political correctness, because apparently English versions of Native Names are racist.",
"Well considering the Bible covers a period of roughly 4000 years, what part of it are you talking about? ",
"Some religious folk (I'm looking at you Mormons!) believe there was a bunch of Jewish descendant there, having wars, writing their own Bible and waiting for Jesus to come down and give them all high fives.\n\nAs mentioned by other comments though, the actual historical record is pretty scant. We have some broad educated guesses but the actual details is anyone's guess.\n\n",
"During the bible, let's say 4000 BC to < 100 AD. North America, not including Mesoamerica, was in the Archaic period where we had bands of natives living in some permanent and semi-permanent villages. The end of the archaic saw larger settlements and public-ceremonial building construction. Mounds and earthworks. By 1000 BC or so to 100 AD was the Woodland period where we started seeing more complex societies, more permanent settlements, and much more mound construction especially in the Southeast and Ohio River valleys. \n \nEdit: I can give more detail if I'm given a smaller region/specific time period to work with. \n",
"The Bible makes no mention of it, since the writers didn't know it existed (this gap is where Mormons make their theology).\n\nHistorically speaking, there were civilizations in the Americas at that time, but we know comparatively little about them as compared to the ancient European or Asian civilizations.",
"The Book of Mormon actually talks about the North/south American tribes exposure to the \"spirit of god.\" The book depicts Jesus visiting the continent after he was crucified and gives a rather large and interesting story of the major tribes the nephittes vs the lamenites. The book ends with the nephittes being destroyed by the lamenites. Then a man by the name of Mormon (I think, or Moroni) hiding it in the ground and many years later it's location was revealed to Joseph smith by god. \n\nSorry for any spelling mistakes and my rather crude summary. I was raised in the lds beliefs. I'm not a Mormon anymore, I honestly got tired of religion and rely on thinking with logic and reasoning, having faith in crazy things is just not my way. I was raised Mormon however, was an interesting book to say the least. (I've been inactive for about 3-4 years so be wary of details and such I've said)\n\nEDIT: Don't down vote me, I'm literally explaining a religion's beliefs I'm not a part of. It's not like I'm preaching.",
"Not to offend this sub, but this question would be better for /r/askhistorians. You're more likely to receive a well sourced answer on a subject like this. ",
"The best answer is, no clue. My people had no written records and everything was oral. Much like early Anglo-Saxon tradition when something really important happened it transformed into a tall tale or a song. A lot of these tales and songs were lost throughout the ages and had to be \"reborn\" into a heaping pile of bullshit that is rather meaningless.\n\nThe thing about early aboriginals was that the Americas were a giant land that had tonnes of huntable wildlife, one of the largest fish reserves in the world, and some reputably bad seasonal weather shifts. Being a nomadic people made a lot of sense. The earliest European settlers in North America couldn't stomach the weather shifts so they'd leave when winter arrived.\n\nYes, there were wars. They were not as plentiful as that of Europe and Asia Minor. Without crops and without real land claims there wasn't much a reason to go to war... unless two tribes were hunting in the same region at the same time.\n\nYes there was trade and yes there was politics. The Iroquis nation split the six nations (Seneca, Cayuga, Onandaga, Tuscara, Oneida, and Mohawk) across modern day Ontario and Quebec. Clearly there was enough of an administration and politics involved for six different tribes to form a confederacy.\n\nA lot of the findings we have of early aboriginals is movement records. They're not fun, and they don't make great stories. The earliest written records we had of aboriginals came from the Vikings who setup shop in North Newfoundland and Labrador only to be expunged by a far more violent and far more war like aboriginal tribe (presumably the Beothuks)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_millennium_BCE_in_North_American_history",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_millennium_BCE_in_North_American_history"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5ff27i
|
Humans at one point used to see slavery as a positive good. At what time did this change to where now modern humans are disgusted by its practice?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5ff27i/humans_at_one_point_used_to_see_slavery_as_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dakdpfl"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I can only speak of the American slave trade, and not anything that happened before 1492, but as far as the Transatlantic slave trade goes, slavery was never seen universally as a positive good.\n\nBartolomé de las Casas was a contemporary of Christopher Columbus's and participated in early expeditions to America. He criticized the practice of slavery vehemently, and wrote a book called [*A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies*](_URL_3_) that was published in 1542. The light he shed on what was happening in the Americas led to the banning of slavery by Spain, at least for the time being.\n\nJumping forward and north to British North America, in the first decades of colonization of the future U.S., there wasn't yet full slavery. There was indentured servitude, which still guaranteed some rights to those servants (not splitting up families, you could take your master to court, things like that). In the 1640s and 50s, outright slavery began to be instituted and it was more or less immediately criticized.\n\nQuaker leader George Fox wrote in support of the slaves' struggle [as early as 1657](_URL_1_). \n\nIn 1673, Puritan leader Richard Baxter published [*A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience*](_URL_0_) which speaks against the evils of slavery.\n\nIn 1684, Thomas Tryon published [\"The Negro's Complaint of Their Hard Servitude, and the Cruelties Practised upon Them\"](_URL_4_), another anti-slavery text.\n\nIn 1688, the people of Germantown, Pennsylvania, signed a document now called the [\"1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery\"](_URL_2_) admonishing the practice of slavery and calling for its end. \n\nFrom that same year, there is also [\"Oroonoko or The Royal Slave\"](_URL_5_), a work of fiction published in London that often ridicules the practice.\n\nIt took many decades for slavery to become normalized in the American South, and it never became normalized in the North. New York was the only state north of Maryland where it ever took off, but never to the same extent as in the slave states. Future slavery was banned in New York pretty much the moment that the American Revolution ended. But by then, it had become a widely accepted practice in Maryland, Virginia, and all points south, which led to it being protected in those states when the U.S. Constitution was written."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A26892.0001.001",
"http://www.qhpress.org/texts/oldqwhp/gf-e-153.htm",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/The_1688_Germantown_Quaker_petition_against_slavery.jpg",
"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20321",
"http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A63791",
"http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29854"
]
] |
||
dul0kb
|
Do videos and photos help children remember their early childhoods?
|
Can the memory of an event persist from a very early age by frequently discussing it with the child? Do videos and photos aid in the retention of the memory?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/dul0kb/do_videos_and_photos_help_children_remember_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f78a0k4"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Yes and no? Depends on how you would define memory I guess. \n\nWhen we recall something we rewrite said memory in the way we recalled it at that moment. Stuff we miss-remember becomes part of the memory and stuff we leave out will be forgotten. This has all kinds of implications like the setting in which we remember something influencing the content of the memory, memories that have been recalled many times tend to have more (falsely) added details etc. This is the basic function behind the false memory phenomenon. \n\nSo if you were to remind a child of an event, either through photographs or story telling or whatever, you aren't necessarily reinforcing their memory, you are reinforcing your representation of it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
xt1ao
|
/r/darknetplan
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xt1ao/eli5_rdarknetplan/
|
{
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"text": [
"So websites have names. The place that has all these names is called ICANN. When you type in a website name, ICANN tells you the address for you to go to so you can get to that website. A lot of other fancy stuff happens that makes the information get from one place to another.\n\nThis is good most of the time. Remember a name, get to a website. The big problem is that because all of this information runs through ICANN, among other systems, it's easy to see who was looking for what. That means people can watch what you're doing on the internet. This is important.\n\nNow, say you don't want people to know what you're doing, whether you're talking bad about your government, peddling illegal wares, or just exercising your right to privacy. You need a new way to transfer info without the internet. A darknet will do that. It is an untraceable way to communicate with other over a network.\n\n/r/darknetplan is a just a way for people to organize the best procedure and method of creating this theoretical \"darknet\".\n\nAn alternative option is an easier but less secure method, generally known as an \"undernet\". It's not completely untraceable like the darknet, but still has more anonymity than the normal internet. TOR is an example of this.",
"It's an attempt to set up a delocalised alternative to the internet, where no government or corporation can monitor or shutdown.\n\nWatch [this](_URL_0_) video.",
"the Internet used to be free from government/corporate spying and interference, where people had privacy. but not anymore, so they're making a second Internet that will avoid all of this"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cK73sYM3g0Q"
],
[]
] |
||
4vwe4t
|
what causes baseball pitchers speed to be capped at approximately 105 mph?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vwe4t/eli5what_causes_baseball_pitchers_speed_to_be/
|
{
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"text": [
"The human factor. We are near the peak of human capability in many aspects as science has helped us get very efficient with training and nutrition. You may see a ball a little bit faster, but you're not going to see a 200 mph fastball until we start using bionics and other tech. Same with running. We see under a 4 minute mile right now, but under a 2 minute mile, that's over 30 mph. We're just not built for that without inventing a human 2.0",
"I recall reading a popular mechanics article about this. One interesting aspect was that the amount of torque needed to throw the ball in excess of 105 mph corresponded roughly to the point where a certain ligament in the elbow would tear. \n\nFor reference:\n_URL_0_",
"Not sure anyone can say that 105mph is the maximum speed, just that pitchers today are approaching a max speed. Eventually someone will come along and toss a ball at 106.\nI think of it the same way as Bolt's 100m time being the \"fastest possible\". It's approaching the fastest, but someone will eventually beat it.",
"just watched a Netflix documentary on fastballs called \"Fastball\". One item to note is today fastballs are measured basically right when they leave the pitchers hand. Back when radar guns first game out and they clocked Nolan Ryan at 100.6 they did the detection 10 feet in front of home plate. Calculating for distance/air resistance/etc it's calculated he threw 110 mph early in his career if measured using today's setup. (The ball is slower by the time it reaches the catchers mitt)\n\nAs for ligaments exploding at 105 he regularly threw 150+ pitches per game.\n\nSo 105 isn't the max, but no one seems to be coming around throwing 120 anytime soon.",
"Not a biologist, but I am a big baseball fan who likes science. To start, I think it would be better to say the cap seemed to be at 103mph - [only four pitchers have been clocked at over 103mph](_URL_0_) and only Chapman above 105mph.[1]\n\nThe cap seems to be the ulnar collateral ligament or the UCL which is in your elbow. Scientists believe that the fastball [puts the UCL right at its breaking point](_URL_1_) and that if somebody was throwing much faster they would break it. \n\nIn fact, we often see power pitchers need to have Tommy John surgery where the UCL is repaired with a ligament from the leg. There are even times where [some pitchers](_URL_2_) with a repaired UCL come back throwing faster than before. \n\nI like your observation that \"there are plenty of smaller build pitchers that can throw very fast.\" It makes me think of Pedro Martinez who threw up to 97mph at 5'10\" or 11\" or Tim Lincecum who was [clocked at 101mph](_URL_0_) at 5'11\". \n\nThough the fastest pitchers of all time have been above average height even if not much so: Chapman is 6'4\", Zumaya is 6'3\", and Nolan Ryan is 6'2\".\n\nIf you'd like to learn more you can watch a great Netflix documentary called Fastball. \n\n**tl/dr**: The UCL is the limiting factor so we aren't likely to see pitchers throw much faster, even with better nutrition and conditioning.\n\n[1] We have changed the way we've measured fastballs, so we think that Nolan Ryan might have hit 108.1mph in the 70's. \n",
"I find it awesome how for most pitchers the gold standard for a velocity ceiling is exactly 100. A manmade ball with an arbitrary height and distance of mound...and it produced a benchmark of exactly 100 mph for a long time. Thanks a lot Aroldis Chapman."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a6063/how-the-105-mph-fastball-tests-the-limits-of-the-human-body/"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/fastest-pitcher-in-baseball.shtml",
"http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a6063/how-the-105-mph-fastball-tests-the-limits-of-the-human-body/",
"http://www.fangraphs.com/community/performance-after-tommy-john-surgery/"
],
[]
] |
||
bxnze2
|
Does the availability of Narcan (naloxone) encourage opioid use?
|
[deleted]
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bxnze2/does_the_availability_of_narcan_naloxone/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eq9dh7o"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
"This [National Academy of Sciences review paper](_URL_0_) cites several studies showing that Narcan is associated with lower overall heroin use, fewer opioid-related ER visits, and fewer deaths due to opioid OD. I assume your thought process is that people are more likely to take a more risky dose if they know their buddy is there with Narcan.\n\nHere’s an example of the thought process of some drug users that results in the opposite: opioid users are generally not happy when you hit them with Narcan. First, you’ve completely ruined what I have to imagine was great high, even if it was life-threatening. Second, not only did you ruin it, but they are now actively in withdrawal, and no one is happy to be in opioid withdrawal.\n\nThere is one way that Narcan does encourage opioid use, but not how you expect. Buprenorphine is a drug used for opioid addicts among others. It’s a very high affinity partial agonist of opioid receptors; where rubber meets road, this means it stimulates the opioid receptors enough to keep withdrawals manageable (in theory), but will out-compete any other opioids the person takes, making them useless. Buprenorphine is also given compounded with naloxone to further prevent abuse of other opioids. Because these drugs technically still stimulate opioid receptors, they do have some street value (apparently higher than methadone according to the same article). In that sense they do encourage opioid use, but they encourage use of themselves while discouraging use of other opioids."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK458661/#_NBK458661_pubdet_"
]
] |
|
9lcitd
|
how are horses taught to respond to the controls of the rider?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9lcitd/eli5_how_are_horses_taught_to_respond_to_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e75msh6"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Repetition and reward. It's a long process to train a horse, and there are different methods (Western vs English mainly) but it all boils down to repetition and reward. Just like teaching a dog to sit, or a toddler to use the potty.\n\nThanks Pavlov"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2nv8rc
|
Did Salmon Evolve From Freshwater Fish Or Saltwater Fish?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2nv8rc/did_salmon_evolve_from_freshwater_fish_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmityfn"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"[This book](_URL_0_) says that there has been \"considerable debate\" as to whether they evolved from freshwater or saltwater fish and the most recent theories suggest that they evolved from fish that were already able to survive in fresh and salt water.\n\nOriginally though, all fish evolved in the sea and it must have been a strong advantage to be able to survive in fresh (or brackish) water and lay eggs there, away from predators. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HpE37fWIQwMC&pg=PA216"
]
] |
||
5q2ppy
|
What was warfare like in pre-colonial Indonesia?
|
Before the arrival of the European powers in Indonesia, how was warfare conducted between Indonesian kingdoms? What kind of forces or tactics would we see being utilized in a battle between two warring kingdoms?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5q2ppy/what_was_warfare_like_in_precolonial_indonesia/
|
{
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"text": [
"Warning: Wall of text incoming. But then this was /r/AskHistorians, so you expected this.\n\nFor practical reasons this answer relies substantially on European sources and wars against Europeans, but I did intentionally avoid talking about more modern weaponry like muskets or cannons.\n\n---\n\nThis question is really hard to answer, simply because Indonesia was and is such a diverse region. For example, the distance between [Aceh](_URL_4_) and [Pidie](_URL_2_) is, what, 100 km/70 miles? But a local romance notes the drastic difference in tactics between the two (Charney, *Southeast Asian Warfare*, p. 75-76):\n\n > Fighting in Pidië is quite different from fighting in Acheh, bear that in mind! \n\n > Fighting in Acheh is attended by a lot of stratagems; they hide behind fortifications.\n\n > Outside and inside these they dig trenches, and it is very difficult to surmount the palisades and mantraps.\n\n > These fortifications are half a coconut palm high, whitewashed and plastered.\n\n > What are you to do if you do not take with you chisels and saws?\n\n > You will not gain your object, and the people will be slain without the enemy making an appearance.\n\n > You had better go to war here in Pidië, my son...\n\nSo the answer is that \"a battle between two warring kingdoms\" would be drastically different depending on where you are.\n\nWith this in mind, let's look at warfare in one specific area of Indonesia, the peninsula of [South Sulawesi.](_URL_1_)\n\n# Mobilization\n\nWar has just been declared. What now? If you're a king in South Sulawesi, the answer is simple: send out the *bila-bila*.\n\nThe *bila-bila* are knotted palm leaves sent out to all your allies and vassals. The number of knots tells you how many days there are left until war is to begin. If the leaf is knotted eighty times, for example, eighty days later every lord great and little *must* show up with their armies. \n\nBut who are these armies made up of? There was a core of heavily trained nobles (think knights in Europe) who rode on horseback and fought with swords. Once Europeans showed up, they started wearing chainmail and using guns. But these elite troops were a small minority. In a 1676 war between the kingdoms of Gowa and Boné, the king of Gowa himself and two of his leading nobles approached a Boné fortress with 500 troops - but even among these troops deemed worthy of accompanying the king, only a fifth wore chainmail. \n\nThe vast majority of the army was instead composed of peasants and slaves. Peasants were conscripted as part of their corvee duties (corvee is like a tax, but instead of paying money to the government, you pay in labor). Slaves were conscripted because, well, they're slaves.\n\nSo South Sulawesi armies were basically peasant levees. That explains the huge army sizes reported in many sources. 17th-century South Sulawesi probably had a population between 1 and 2 million, but one Frenchman claims that one kingdom could raise 160,000 troops. While this is almost certainly not true, armies in the lower tens of thousands are well-attested. South Sulawesi's kings had chosen quantity over quality.\n\nBut we shouldn't underestimate these troops, even if they weren't professional ones. They were trained three times an year and specialized in different weaponry; one European observer noted that the only weapons common to the entire army were a helmet, a shield, and a piece of armor for the chest. And in a society where war was glorified, even common troops took pride in being a soldier. And so:\n\n > Being full of these notions, they never beg quarter nor give it, and ten Makassars [an ethnicity of South Sulawesi], with their drawn daggers, will attack ten thousand men; and no wonder, for men who have such principles engrafted in their very nature are void of all fear, and are very dangerous people to deal with.\n\n# Weaponry\n\nBefore the coming of guns, South Sulawesi troops were armed with \"cudgels, lances made of sharp-pointed bamboo or wood of the areca palm, various kinds of spears with a fine copper or iron tip, swords, [daggers], blowguns, and shields made of woven twigs.\" Fairly simple weaponry, you might say. \n\nBut being 'simple' does not make weapons any less dangerous. The [blowgun](_URL_3_) was the most terrifying. South Sulawesi troops never used the bow and arrow. Sure, arrows might be more powerful on their own. But the merest scratch from a dart could be mortal, for they were coated with the sap of the [Antiaris tree](_URL_5_), a deadly poison which stops the heart almost the moment it enters the bloodstream. Local sources report the potency of the blowgun in warfare. In the early sixteenth century, the armies of the kingdom of Gowa were said to have been routed by a single enemy blowgun:\n\n > Thus died one by one the people of Gowa. Sombaya [the king of Gowa] was routed. Those people of Gowa who still lived ran tumbling like chicks abandoned by their mother. Hundreds of people from Gowa died in the battle. If they had stayed, clearly all would have died too, because I Buqle [the name of the blowgun] did not shoot in error. All were cut down.\n\nEven if the victim survived, the poison would linger on - as in the case of the unfortunate Dutchman who was hit in the chest by a dart, then, *three years later*, \"felt a burning in the same spot, followed by a raging fever that killed him.\"\n\nBesides the blowgun, poison was applied on stabbing spears and swords. One clever innovation for close-range combat was turning the blowgun into a bayonet. As the Dutch reported:\n\n > We also had to heed the Blow-pipes themselves, because those warriors in the front ranks of the enemy had fastened them with iron blades, like spears, and smeared these with poison.\n\nThere were ways to save yourself from poison, of course. The oxhide armor most troops wore would have protected them from many darts, while an apparently excellent antidote was human feces. But well-made poison darts kill instantly, and a way to save victims of sufficient *Antiaris* poison from immediate death has never been found, not even today. \n\n# Tactics\n\nSo war has begun. What now? Stockades of rammed earth and thorny trees - big enough for a few hundred troops and sometimes as many as 3,000 people - would be built in strategic locations. But these were temporary, mainly intended to deter ambushes and night attacks. It was assumed that stockades would fall before a well-equipped enemy, so one side was always left open so that the defenders could flee when their position was about to fall.\n\nActual fortifications did exist. In the 1670s the Dutch encountered a formidable complex of three stout forts, protected by a six-feet-deep moat and pits full of sharpened bamboo spikes. After the mid-16th century brick forts began to be made and proved a major obstacle even for European firearms. \n\nBut overall, sieges were uncommon. Most battles were fought in the open, often between two stockades. The fight would begin with the armies in a fixed position; in at least one kingdom, there was a central battle corps and flanks to the left and right, and each division was manned by troops from a specific area of the kingdom. One war poem says:\n\n > As soon as the soldiers heard the command\n\n > they took up their positions.\n\n > Every man was at his post\n\n > almost anticipating his general's orders. \n\nBut we actually have little information about the tactics in these battles. It does seem likely that battles were commonly determined by a mass charge launched toward the enemy. As one European said:\n\n > So soon as they see the Enemy, they try to terrifie him with redoubl'd Cries and hideous Yells. All the Drums beat at a Time, and so soon as the King's Standard has given the Signal, they hasten to engage, and fall on with all their Fury upon the First they meet. [...] And then it is, that they butcher one another in such a Horrid manner, that they have an Abhorrency of it themselves, when the Battel is over, and that they have once recovered their Reason.\n\nThese charges often involved soldiers 'running amok,' or in a state of terrifying frenzy. Troops running amok could supposedly brush aside lethal injuries. One European described such an incident:\n\n > I plunged my lance into his stomach; nevertheless, the Makassar, as if he had no sense of feeling, advanced upon the weapon which I held fast in his body, and made incredible efforts to come at me in order to run me through; and he would infallibly have done it, if the hilt of the blade had not hindered him. I found that my best way was to retreat a little, still keeping the lance in his stomach, without venturing to repeat my thrust, till at length I was relieved by others of the lancemen who laid him dead upon the spot.\n\nCharges also involved cavalry, although Europeans believed that South Sulawesi troops \"were much better Infantry than Cavalry.\" Nonetheless, South Sulawesi was a major center of cavalry and \"indigenous cavalry presented a very real challenge\" to the Dutch as late as the 19th century. (If you're wondering how cavalry can exist in the tropics, [Sulawesi has its own breed of ponies.](_URL_0_))\n\nOnce the battle was lost, the defeated army sought to make an honorable retreat. In one campaign the army of Gowa was forced to abandon their stockades, but as they retreated they fired a salvo of muskets to let the enemy know that they had retreated in an organized manner.\n\nOne final tactic was perhaps the simplest: foraging. Armies would raid enemy territories for provisions and plunder, burning down villages and chopping down fruit trees on the way. This was a potentially devastating tactic because it sapped enemy morale and deprived the enemy army of basic supplies. Rape and pillage could win wars just as much as battles and sieges. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://equineavenue.com/site/horse-breeds/sulawesi-pony/",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sulawesi",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidie_Regency",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowgun",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banda_Aceh",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiaris"
]
] |
|
4dg1lf
|
Hi, taking the family on vacation to Niagra Falls soon, what was life like around the falls before the Europeans arrived?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4dg1lf/hi_taking_the_family_on_vacation_to_niagra_falls/
|
{
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"There are some errors in /u/dbcanuck's post, at least if we're thinking of the area *prior* to the arrival of Europeans. A lot of what's said in that post more closely resembles a later colonial era view. The main issue is that dbcanuck skips over the people who were living in the immediate Niagara area at the time.\n\nAt the time of European contact, or perhaps slightly before, the the Erie had been living east of the Niagara River, with the Seneca being east of them (the Genesee Valley being the boundary). In traditional Iroquoian history, the Erie were once part of the Seneca - and thus part of the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois Confederacy). Eventually they opted for autonomy and left the Haudenosaunee to form their own confederacy; there are two versions of this story - one that says the split happened during a war and another that says the split was peaceful but a war followed sometime later. Regardless, this war is said to be the reason that the Erie Confederacy moved from the eastern Niagara region to the eastern shore of Lake Erie. \n\nTheir departure left the area between the Niagara River and the Genesee River virtually uninhabited. The Seneca were eyeing it for themselves, but so were the Wenro. The Wenro were one of the nations of the Chonnonton / Neutral Nation that existed in southern Ontario west of the Niagara River. Incidentally, the Niagara are one of the other nations in this group and river and falls were named after them. I wrote more about Chonnonton culture in [this post](_URL_0_). \n\nThe Wenro crossed the Niagara River in the late 1620s, thinking the rest of the Chonnonton would back them up if they needed to fight the Seneca. Seneca called their bluff, and the Chonnonton decided to cut the Wenro loose rather than fight the entirety of the Haudenosaunee. Since they were on their own, the Wenro decided to cede the territory to the Seneca and evacuated to the Wendat (Huron) Confederacy north of Lake Ontario. [This map](_URL_1_) so the situation in 1630, just before the Wenro exodus (**EDIT**: I just notice that the map still has \"St. Lawrence Iroquois\" north of the Mohawk. This is inaccurate since the St. Lawrence Iroquoians lost a war against the Algonquins and ended up merging with the Wendat and the Mohawk. So in 1630, that area should be Algonquin.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/413p5a/what_was_everyday_life_like_for_an_aboriginal_in/cz08tw9",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Wenro-Territorium_um_1630.png"
]
] |
||
1vytwk
|
How did france combat the longbow?
|
I was reading about the Battle of Crècy where it was the first cited combat use and the English only lost 100-300 while the French lost roughly 2,000, then the French ended up winning the war.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vytwk/how_did_france_combat_the_longbow/
|
{
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"If you are wondering about the 100 years war and the part the longbow played in it, I believe I can help you there. In the battle of Crecy, the English victory was due in part to the cunning leadership of King Edward III. His use of longbowmen was legendary, and the first major victory for longbows over crossbows. Their astounding success was due to the tenacity of the English archers, and their ability to **keep their bowstrings dry**. The crossbowmen could not remove their heavy strings. So, on the rain drenched field of Crecy, their crossbows were proven useless. So, their knights marched on without any cover. This allowed the English knights to move around with impunity, and strike wherever they felt necessary. That, combined with the ranged assistance of the English bowmen, won them Crecy. Apparently, it took them a century to fix their poor tactics, as they suffered yet another crushing defeat on the battlefields of Agincourt, under very similar circumstances. However, the crossbowmen were able to adapt, thus giving their army much needed consistent ranged support. That, and keep in mind that the French were able to draw troops from local conscription; the English were not. It would take amphibious landings to receive additional troops. Also, as armour became more and more advanced, they were able to withstand longbows more well. This is where the crossbow became the ultimate knight-killing machine. A crossbow has much more power in each shot than a bow. It was able to puncture armour more effectively, thus rendering English knights more vulnerable. However, both sides used the crossbow, and the longbow, respectively. The French just used the crossbow more, and were able to drive the English from their land, and keep their country.\nI really hope this helps!\n\n\n\n\n\nSource:_URL_0_\n _URL_1_",
"It depends on what the French commander had access to, essentially. They used pavise crossbowmen at Constance, rushed the longbowmen with cavalry before they could prepare their defenses at Patay, did the same but with infantry at Pontvallain, used artillery for psychological warfare purposes at Formigny, and forced the English to attack at Castillon (which is sometimes called \"Crecy in reverse\").\n\nGenerally speaking, when provided with good logistics and experienced commanders, French armies found a variety of ways to defeat English armies and the longbowmen they used. The consistent problem facing the French was usually a problem of logistics, in that French commanders could not be certain what forces would be available to them on the battlefield. This prevented effective combined arms counters to the English combined arms forces, and even blunted the force of those counters when they could muster them - look at Crecy and the inability to supply the Genoese crossbowmen with their pavises!\n\nAfter the *Ordonnance* reforms of the 15th century, French armies were able to ensure that they had certain elements (artillery especially) at hand when battle was joined, which in turn allowed commanders more tactical flexibility in order to beat the English at their own game."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.britishbattles.com/100-years-war/crecy.htm",
"http://www.britishbattles.com/100-years-war/agincourt.htm"
],
[]
] |
|
7huyee
|
how does “i want my lawyer” work when being interrogated?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7huyee/eli5_how_does_i_want_my_lawyer_work_when_being/
|
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"When the police read you your rights (Miranda rights) they tell you that if you do not have a lawyer, that a lawyer will be appointed to you. \n\nYou are also given a phone call, to which you can call your lawyer. Otherwise, the officer/jail will work with you to find/contact your lawyer as they cannot really serve justice without going thru the legal process, which includes you making a statement, etc. \n\nIf you need a lawyer and cannot afford a lawyer, a lawyer is appointed via the public defenders office.\n\nIf you can afford a lawyer, but do not have a lawyer, they will provide you with a phone book, etc, to contact and contract a lawyer. ",
"In the US, the right to remain silent and a request for a lawyer usually go hand and hand. You are basically saying, \"I'm not talking anymore, move on to the next step or release me. \n\nIf you are arrested, you are either released after the arrest, or a bond is set. You don't need a lawyer for either of those things, although a lawyer could argue for reduction or elimination of bail. \n They can also persuade the police to not charge you. If your timing is bad, you can wind up spending a night or two in jail, but that is more about waiting for a judge to set bail than finding a lawyer.\n\nThe lawyer comes into play when:\n\n* you want to talk to the police, but be protected from yourself\n* you want to negotiate with the district attorney\n* you are on trial",
"In the US, your invocation of your right to a lawyer requires the police to stop questioning you until a lawyer is provided.\n\nBecause police know that the lawyer’s advice will be for you to *stop talking no matter what*, asking for a lawyer is ordinarily treated as a de facto exercise of your right to remain silent. When you ask for the lawyer, the interrogation will end. Since you’re no longer being interrogated, there’s no need to go out and find a lawyer for you. By the time your arraignment comes around, you’ll have hired a lawyer or been assigned a public defender. \n\nThere are occasionally exceptions to the above. But that’s the general procedure. ",
"There are a number of possibilities depending on the situation.\n\nIf youre arrested Friday night, you might be in jail until Monday morning, for example, as a judge won't set bail until then. Same with a 3AM arrest, you're likely to be in jail until morning.\n\nHowever, those aren't strictly the same as INTERROGATION-which is the cops asking specifically about specific crimes of which you are suspected.\n\nIf youre arrested for some BS- fighting, for example, you may not need a lawyer at all. If no one presses charges, or if you were caught up in a sweep at a rowdy protest or tossed in the drunk tank, they may just let you walk.\n\nIf not, for most stuff, the cops want you gone. Having prisoners is expensive and a hassle. You'll get all the collect phone calls you want to whoever you want as long as someone will get your dumb ass.\n\nIf you're being interrogated, an attorney is a right you have. It may be a lawyer you call (they have lists) or a public defender. Either way-once you CLEARLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY ask for a lawyer, the interrogation stops. \n\nYou must also shut up. If you start talking again, at all, you essentially consent to being questioned again.\n\nBasically, cops are mostly interested in processing you and ensuring you get your rights within the law so you can't make a fuss in court. Getting a lawyer isn't hard-if you aren't the subject of a criminal investigation they want you to have one to go away and if you are they'll happily provide one so you don't sue."
]
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[] |
[] |
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[],
[],
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||
49kq37
|
why can't people who are very light in weight donate blood?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49kq37/eli5_why_cant_people_who_are_very_light_in_weight/
|
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"text": [
"Because the medical common \"unit of blood\" represent too large a proportion of their total blood - it would be unsafe for them to donate.",
"they have smaller bodies. Smaller body = less blood. They typically (in the US) take about a pint. That can be too much blood to take from a person if they are too small. \n\nI weigh 180lbs and just so happened to give blood today, and even at 180, giving a pint left me a bit dizzy for a while. I had to sit for a good half hour before i was Ok to walk on my own..",
"So, as someone who is ~105 lbs, it really WOULD be unsafe for me to donate blood?? I've always wondered this because I would like to, but the technical min. weight is 110 I believe....however, I'm just 5lbs short! ",
"The estimated amount of blood in a 180 lb. human is about 1.5 gallons.\n\nA pint is 1/8th a gallon. Which comes out to a little more than 8% if that person's blood. In a smaller person, their reduced blood capacity can cause that to jump to over 15%, in which the body begins to get worried, and takes measures to try to compensate.\n\nIf the person is in perfect perfect health, 15% wouldn't do any lasting damage. They might feel woozy or even pass out for a bit. **Nobody** is expected to be in perfect health though, so they only want people whose percentage will be 10% or less. You might feel light headed for a little bit, but that's as far as it should go."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5af6tj
|
How did the Roaring Twenties happen when the decade before saw both WWI and the Spanish Flu Epidemic, essentially wiping out an entire young generation? What were the lasting negative effects of losing so many young people from 1914-1920?
|
I've never understood how 1914-1919 could see such insane volumes of death and destruction, only to be followed by unprecedented levels of economic prosperity in most Western countries.
You would think that losing that much manpower and minds at the age that they would have entered the workforce would have made an immediate economic boom impossible. It's strange and sort of depressing to think that a society can lose that many lives, waste that many resources (on war), and be prosperous anyway. As if it didn't even matter much that the generation was wiped out.
I guess my question is, what were the lasting negative effects of losing so many people from 1914-1920?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5af6tj/how_did_the_roaring_twenties_happen_when_the/
|
{
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"text": [
"With the greatest respect, your question is based on a largely false or flawed assumption that most western countries did experience unprecedented levels of economic prosperity following the years 1914-1920. Certainly this is true of the US, not so much for Europe. The places where the ravages of the Great War, and/or Spanish Flu hit hardest were the ones that fared worst during the 1920's, which is also partly the reason why fascist leaders came to power in Italy in 1922 with Mussolini, in Germany in 1933 with Hitler, and in Spain in 1936 with Franco. Countries that could not take advantage of the post war economy were even less prepared to weather the Great Depression and, as Franklin Roosevelt said in his State of the Union address in 1944, \"People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.\"\n\n**Let's start with the UK:**\n\nOf all European nations, the UK probably fared the best during the Roaring Twenties. However, economically, times were still very tough. Soldiers who returned from the war faced huge levels of unemployment. Between the years 1900-1910, unemployment peaked at 7.8% with it as low as 3.8% in 1913. In 1921 unemployment had risen to 16.9%. Unemployment stayed well above 10%, briefly dipping to 9.7% in 1927, but rose again in '28-'29[.pdf Source](_URL_1_)\n\nThe big reason for this level of unemployment was the lack of demand for British goods. Before the war, the British economy had largely depended on its industrial production of goods and resources. In Liverpool, Manchester, and much of the North East, textiles, particularly in cotton from Egypt and jute from India were enormously important, but developments in new synthetic fabrics from the US, particularly in cotton substitutes like Rayon, hurt the British economy enormously. \n\nSteelworks in Newcastle and Sheffield, without the demands of a war, suffered layoffs and cutbacks from which they would never recover.\n\nCoal mining in Wales was still strong, but as shipping, factories, even domestic heating moved away from coal to petroleum and gas, demand was stagnating. This coupled with frequent strikes and labour disputes put the future of British coal mining on a knife edge.\n\nAs evidenced, the UK's problem wasn't so much a lack of manpower (they hadn't fared nearly so badly as Germany or France), but a shift in the global economy as the US moved to overtake the UK and a global production powerhouse. Massive immigration from Europe helped the US enormously in this regard.\n\n**France:**\n\nFrance, on the other had, hand virtually no unemployment. Hovering between 2%-5%, peaking in 1927 at 11%. [.pdf Source, unemployment tables on page 9](_URL_0_)\n\nFor France, the problem was manpower. Between 1914-1918, French casualties were estimated at 1.6-1.7 million, roughly 4.3%-4.4% of the total population, roughly 1% higher than German casualties as percentage of population. It's important to note that French casualties were higher, or more concentrated in the North and North-East with huge damage done to infrastructure. \n\nFrance made enormous strides in terms of industrial production, as the country continued to industrialize largely rural areas. However the lack of manpower continued to hamstring them. The result was a mixed bag. France struggled to repay its foreign debts, so the nation remained largely poor, but the plentiful work and (comparatively) low working population meant that the coming Great Depression was less severe in France than in the UK or Germany. Many historians have pointed to this as a partial explanation for why fascism failed to make significant inroads in French politics in the 1930's, though communism did. That and the right-wing parties, who were in power during the war, were blamed for the scale of the destruction.\n\n**Germany:**\n\nFamously, Germany fared pretty badly post-war. Not only did it have to make reparations payments for its part in the war, but also trade restrictions and tariffs were placed on German made goods, making reliance on an export economy rather difficult.\n\nRather like France, unemployment was actually fairly low intially, around 2% in 1921-1922, again owing to the casualties from the Great War. For Germany the issue was twofold. Firstly, the German government under Gustav Streseman had tried to kickstart the economy by spending heavily on social services which, without a strong private sector, is very difficult to sustain and was coupled with the aforementioned reparations. Secondly, though industry was on the rebound, exports struggled so they stubbornly refused to become profitable.\n\nAdd to this the infamous hyperinflation Germany suffered in 1923, and the Wall St crash of 1929, which largely scuppered the Young Plan (which was a US led plan to lessen the strain of reparation repayments and to replace the failed Dawes Plan of 1924) and led to many US banks recalling loans to Europe, meant that any small gains the German economy made between 1920 and 1929 were quickly extinguished. As the world economy crumbled, and governments (particularly the US) sought to protect industry at home rather than abroad, world trade fell through the floor and unemployment in Europe soared leading to the Great Depression of 1933 and contributing to the rise of fascist powers in Europe\n\n**Further points:**\n\nUnfortunately, I haven't time to flesh this out properly, so I won't hold it against the mods if they see this as an incomplete answer and choose to remove it, but I hope it provides some context to show that the Roaring Twenties didn't exactly 'roar' for everyone.\n\nA couple more points I want to make very quickly:\n\nWhile I in no way wish to disparage the American contribution to the war effort, American casualties expressed as a percentage of the US population is only around 0.13% which was a loss of manpower the US economy could weather comfortably. Combine that with the mass influx of migrants from Europe and the challenges facing industrial power in UK, France, and Germany, and the relative un-industrialization of the rest of Europe, meant the US was poised to become the dominant economic power, which it achieved comfortably by 1929.\n\nAs an aside, Bill Bryson's *One Summer; America, 1927* provides fantastic context for how America emerged as the dominant economic and cultural power in the mid-late 1920's, essentially, an explanation for why the Twenties Roared so loudly in the US.",
"To point out a few more false assumptions and points for thought: \n\n* Not nearly \"an entire generation\" was wiped out. Yes, lots and lots and lots of people died. But regarding Germany specifically, approx 2million men died in the war out of approx 13million mobilised.That leaves 11million returning. Additionally, not everyone mobilised was at the front, and even if they were they weren't there all the time - the idea of a \"front generation\" is pretty much a myth. This means that while a significant proportion may have returned psychologically damaged, many more returned to a pretty ordinary life. (See Richard Bessel - *Germany after the First World War* for many more stats and the effects of the demobilisation.)\n\n* To be a young person in the 1920s, you likely didn't fight in WWI. If you're 25 in 1925 (to pick an easy example), you were 14 when the war started, 18 when it ended so at most you were drafted for a few months at the end. If you're 20 then, you definitely didn't fight. (Also see Richard Bessel on the generation that was just too young to fight and how this influenced the romanticisation of the war, the idea of the front generation which could be seen as an \"exclusive club\" that those too young had just missed out on, the effects of many jobs being given to returning soldiers rather than those who had not fought etc.)\n\n* The roaring twenties aren't necessarily about rich glitz and glamour. You link them to economic prosperity but I don't see that a necessary linkage compared to the link to a new and different culture. Sure, they are most easily portrayed that way but post-war Germany was culturally avant-garde. The 20s were a lot about a change in *culture* towards the modern e.g. the new woman, identity, youth-movements and independence etc. You can be an \"new woman\", \"independent\" with your \"own identity\" and go dancing, all without being rich. (Endless literature, maybe Peukert - *The Weimar Republic. A Crisis of Classical Modernity* is a good starting point for a critical view of \"modernity\"). \n\n* As others have pointed out, the twenties weren't a big thing everywhere. German history especially is very Berlin-centered and Berlin was a cultural epicentre. That's what you see in those \"roaring 20s\" representations of the era. What you don't see is the life in other parts of the country. (I found Leif Jerram - *Germany's other modernity* interesting regarding how modernity was experienced in Munich, although it's not a comprehensive overview of course.)\n\n* You hear a lot about a the \"crisis\" of the 20s regarding Europe. And the economic crisis was of course real. But what is interesting that while contemporaries talked about crisis a lot, it didn't necessarily have the negative connotations associated with the word today. Instead, crisis means that a decision is about due that could go either way (think of a crisis in an illness - either the patient recovers or he dies, the crisis comes before the decision). Instead, the contingency of the time period was a big thing. This means the openness of it - the decision is nearly due but it could lead to a good future too. (See Föllmer & Graf *Die Krise der Weimarer Republik*, unfortunate only in German). This openness, the possibilities many people saw (and which was expressed in the literature) is, I would argue, part of the defining feature of the 20s where society and culture breaks away from more conservative norms (although of course the conservative nature and authoritarianism also remained a big deal in postWWI Germany - nothing is true for everyone, everywhere!!). \n\nSo it could be argued that the \"roaring 20s\" were culturally strongly influenced *because* of the aftermath of WWI causing a state of \"crisis\" in which new possibilities arose. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/12-88.pdf",
"http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-trends--discontinued-/january-1996/unemployment-since-1881.pdf"
],
[]
] |
|
44pt6m
|
Why do antibiotics cause rapid growth in animals?
|
I read recently that antibiotics are given to farm animals to make them grow bigger, faster.
Some people didn't believe me, so I looked it up again and confirmed it.
What's happening in these situations?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/44pt6m/why_do_antibiotics_cause_rapid_growth_in_animals/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czs81kb"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"You're right, this is a real effect. And as of right now, we're not really sure how it works, though there are a few ideas. I'll quote verbatim from [this paper](_URL_0_):\n\n > At least four mechanisms have been proposed as explanations of antibiotic mediated growth enhancement: [1] inhibition of sub-clinical infections, [2] reduction of growth-depressing microbial metabolites, [3] reduction of microbial use of nutrients, and [4] enhanced uptake and use of nutrients through the thinner intestinal wall associated with antibiotic-fed animals.\n\nNone of these seem like particularly satisfying explanations, but that's what we're working with.\n\nOf course, the use of antibiotics for growth promotion alone in feed animals is a huge problem, and regulatory agencies are only starting to impose restrictions on this practice. I've written about this in more depth, [here](_URL_1_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1081/ABIO-120005768",
"http://superhelical.com/2014/02/11/antibiotic-usage-regulations-too-little-too-late/"
]
] |
|
3mbbde
|
Does love (as a feeling) raise testosterone levels in men?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3mbbde/does_love_as_a_feeling_raise_testosterone_levels/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cve6aq0"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"I don't know how broadly or narrowly you are asking this question. I have not spent any time recently on this literature, but I do know of one study that found that when men fall in love their testosterone goes down. When men are married or cohabiting with their partner, they have lower testosterone than when they were single or not living with their partner. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2cm80k
|
twitter reported a q2 loss of $144.6 million. how do they still afford to run a company and attract investors?
|
Referenced article: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cm80k/eli5_twitter_reported_a_q2_loss_of_1446_million/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjgtwab",
"cjgug07",
"cjgv7xb"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Investors think they will be very profitable in the future, so they keep investing money, despite it currently operating at a loss. At some point, it becomes necessary to monetarize Twitter, which means (you guessed it) ads.",
"Apparently, they have more than $144.6m, and/or access to more funding/credit. That's how they can continue afford to operate. As for why they attract investors, it's hard to say why, but apparently, they are successful in convincing people with money that they'll generate more of it if they let them use it to build their company. You'd have to ask the particular investors why they think that. ",
"Investing is complicated. There are many different types of companies to invest in. Some companies, like Apple, have lots and lots of money. They are a safe investment, and will will investors money over the long run, but will not fluctuate much. \n\nSome investors are looking for companies that could one day ramp up quickly and reward early investors heavily. Those companies tend to have lots of risk associated with them. In many cases, companies will be funded by Venture Capitalists because the idea is good. It takes a while before such a company can make enough money to actually turn a profit. \n\nThat does not mean the company is making zero dollars in revenue, of course. They are just making less money than they spend to run the company. \n\nSo the key for a company like that is a *trend* of upward moving profits... i.e. they lose less and less every quarter until they actually cross the boundary and start to make money. \n\nWay back when, Amazon was the epitome of this sort of company. People were agog at the number of investor's lining up to buy stock in a company that couldn't turn a profit. Amazon eventually got themselves sorted out. \n\nIn Q1 2014, Twitter made $250M. That's still a lot of money. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/29/twitter-shares-jump-on-user-and-revenue-growth-although-its-still-not-turning-a-profit/"
] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1xl3fg
|
github, including what branches, commit and repositories are.
|
Any and all explanations are greatly appreciated.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xl3fg/eli5_github_including_what_branches_commit_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfcbcv7",
"cfcblee"
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text": [
"GitHub is just a git-based code repository. It's used for maintaining a code base, including distribution and version control. There are a lot of them, but git-based ones are popular these days because they work well.\n\nRepositories are communal places to store code and code changes. They can be free and available to all, or restricted to only certain users with certain abilities.\n\nCommits are pieces of code that users have pushed up (committed) to the repository. These commits are changes to code by a user, published so that all other users can see them\n\nWhen I branch code, I'm taking a version that exists, and creating a new version from it. My new version is going to be a new branch, which keeps your changes separate from mine until I...\n\nMerge the branches. Which means I take your code and combine it with mine, to make a single set of code. This new single set of code can be a new head to the tree, or simply a new head to your individual branch, but it's taking multiple branches and making them one.",
"GitHub is an online place for people to store information. Let's say you and your friends are working on a story, so you start typing it up and you store it online in your own *repository* (just your own little place on the website). You give your friends each the opportunity to set up an account on the website and make it so that they can all make changes.\n\nYou need to have good control over what goes on, though. If you are editing the 3rd paragraph and so is your friend Jeff then you really only want one person to be able to save (\"commit\") their changes. The other person would then have to re-download the data (\"pull\") and compare what is different between their working copy and the copy that's in the repository (diff). Once they have resolved the differences to make sure that their changes make sense with the changes you made they can commit their changes, too. In more formal settings it is likely that two people wouldn't be allowed to work on the same part of the story at the same time anyway. Sometimes, though, you will be working on the 3rd paragraph while Jeff is working on the 18th paragraph and the program is able to combine your changes without any problems (\"merge\").\n\nPerhaps some other guy comes along and sees your story and decides that the story would work better using dinosaurs instead of aliens. Thus, he grabs a copy of the repository (\"clone\") and starts working on his own version (\"branch\"). It starts out as the same but it diverges from there.\n\nAs time goes along perhaps someone sees the story and thinks that there's a change that needs to be put in (perhaps they see a place where you used there instead of their). They can make the change on their own copy then recommend the change to you (\"pull request\").\n\nThroughout the entire process you have the ability to go back and look at any version that has ever been committed to the repository. You can even undo a commit if it broke something (\"revert\").\n\nThis whole process is done through a program called \"Git,\" and GitHub is just one of many places where a repository can be hosted--you can host a Git Repository on your own computer is you know what you're doing. \n\nAll of these uses are a little over-the-top when talking about writing a story, but they become invaluable when working on a programming project with several people. It's important to have everyone working on the same code and it's really nice to have the ability to see who made what changes, especially when a bug pops up that didn't exist before. GitHub is especially useful for open source projects since it lets anyone look through the source code of the project and if someone thinks that the project could be modified for a slightly different use then they can make their own branch without bothering you, then suggest revisions to fix bugs that they happen to come across and fix. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
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