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5g3stv
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On a biomolecular level, what does it actually mean when someone has a "good" immune system instead of a "bad" one?
|
Does it mean that your body can detect lower concentration levels of pathogens in the body, in more places, and mount a response faster? Does it mean your body can produce more white blood cells? That your body is more energy efficient in doing so? Causes less severe symptoms in doing so?...
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5g3stv/on_a_biomolecular_level_what_does_it_actually/
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"Could be a mix of all of the above.\n\nThe immune system is split into the innate and active/adaptive systems. The innate are, to use a video game analogy, all the non-specific \"passive\" defenses of the body. For example, inflammation, skin, and enzymes designed to digest viral-specific dsRNA are all innate portions of the immune system. Like passive systems in video games, the innate system is designed to slow down pathogens until the active system comes into play.\n\nThe active system is the hunter-killer of the immune system. Immune cells are basically split into 3 important types: killer T cells, helper T cells, and B cells. Killer T cells recognize cells that are infected with viruses and destroy them. Helper T cells bind to \"trash collector\" cells that go aroud digesting cellular debris. B cells are recruited by helper T cells to produce antibodies that bind to the recognized pathogens and act as \"kill me now\" flags.\n\nThe one flaw of the active system is that since each killer and helper T cells are specific to only one pathogen, it can take a very long time for a specific T cell to be able to detect and recognize the pathogen and create an immune response.\n\nPeople with stronger immune systems may have more immune cells, systems able to better move immune cells around, or may be just lucky (since the protein on T cells that recognize pathogens is randomly generated).\n\nThis is a ridiculouslu simplified version. There are dozens of other nuances and steps in the immune system.",
"It's true that people have different efficiencies in their immune systems, but when people talk about this stuff, it probably more accurately reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the immune system works. When I hear this kind of thing, what I hear are comments like \"I got sick 6 times this year, therefore I must have a weak immune system.\"\n\nIn reality, this person got sick 6 times because they were EXPOSED 6 times to 6 different strains of a virus. Their immune system works just fine so they recovered normally each time. \n\nSometimes I think that laypeople expect their immune system to destroy every virus they are exposed to before it causes symptoms, but that's just not how it works. ",
"This is a broad question with a lot of different answers. I'll offer one perspective.\n\nYour immune system can be broken up into two categories: adaptive and innate. Adaptive immunity is something that has to be primed. Its specific. The body is trained to identify (via antigens) and destroy (via antibodies) something very specific. This is what happens when you get vaccinated - you are showing your body what to destroy.\n\nThere's also the innate immune system, which identifies more general signs of an infection via multiple mechanisms.\n\nSo a \"good\" immune system can be a number of things. The body has to balance in how sensitive to bad stuff it is. If its too gung-ho, you run the risk of developing autoimmune diseases (ex - diabetes type 1, celiac disease etc). If it is too conservative, you run the risk of being prone to infection.\n\nHaving a good immune system could be interpreted as having a sensitive, but not too sensitive immune system.\n\nAnother factor could be how many antigens you have been exposed to via your adaptive immune system. Playing in dirt as a kid means you were exposed to lots of stuff, and thus you could have antibodies for more pathogens than a normal person.\n\nAlso, breastfeeding infants allows infants to use antibodies from the mother, meaning while breastfeeding the infant has antibodies for what the mother has been exposed to.\n\nImmunology is a really complicated subject, and this is just a oversimplified and overly short list. ",
"From a strictly scientific standpoint there is no such thing. Host-pathogen interactions are really complex and there isn't one \"it\" factor that makes for a good vs bad immune system. So the answer to all your questions, is a very unsatisfying, sometimes. But I'll go into more detail. \n\nEarly detection is important and the earlier the body detects a pathogen the earlier it can respond, this is why we get vaccines. However, early detection of a pathogen doesn't mean we won't get sick. And depending on our immune history, different exposures may or not make us sick. Then of course there are examples where immune system activation is a bad thing, e.g. allergic reactions, different auto-immune diseases. \n\nAnecdotally we can all think of people who are sick all the time, and there are those who rarely get sick. The simplified answer to this is that the immune system is part of your body, if you take care of your body (eating right, exercise, being outside, not smoking) you are going to be healthly and as a result so will your immune system. Of course more complex factors are also involved (e.g. genetics, epigenetics, the microbiome, immune history, etc.) \n\ntl;dr host-pathogen interactions are a shit-show, but healthy people generally have good immune systems ",
"People here are giving vague overviews because immunology is complicated, so I'll just add a concrete example of something that is measurable that can result in better or worse immunity. And this is the MHC repertoire that you have, which is genetically encoded. MHCs are the molecules that present fragments of proteins (for example, from viruses infecting your cells) from cells in your body to immune cells for recognition. These vary widely from human to human, and you can have up to 6 different types for MHC class I, for example. Having a more diverse set of MHC molecules allows for presentation of a wider range of peptide fragments and therefore better immunity. This has been studied fairly extensively and is termed the \"MHC heterozygote advantage.\"",
"As everyone said. The answer is a mix.\nI'll give you an example. You can have a mutation in a protein that essentially makes you immune to HIV. Does that mean you have a better immune system? Not necessarily. You might be more susceptible to something else. Barring some mutation, to say that someone has a better immune system or not is a pretty BS answer. One example that does work and has been suggested in how diverse your Majorhistocompatibility complex (MHC) repertoire is. There are some genetic differences that make your immune system more \"active\" but that also increases the chance of autoimmunity....\n\n\nSo basically to answer your question... On a biomolecular level, nothing means you have a good or a bad system. (Barring mutations that make people super sick, immunodeficient/autoimmune disorders).",
"I would say having a \"good\" immune system would mean having a robust enough system to fight off invaders, but simultaneously having a system that can turn \"off\" effectively. More immune cells is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, a huge amount of disease processes are caused by an overreaction of the immune system and too many WBCs.\n\nAnother important characteristic of a \"good\" immune system (beyond regulation) is genetic. We have certain genes known as HLA genes that encode for receptors that recognize foreign invaders (through a biochemical \"fitting\" process). Having higher diversity in these genes allows you to find the right match sooner and mount a more rapid immune response.\n\nInterestingly the two concepts are related. There are certain HLA genes that predispose individuals to immune dysregulation and autoimmune disease (e.g. HLA-B27 for ankylosing spondylitis).",
"The immune system is vast. There's no single biomolecular mechanism that determines where somebody has a healthy or unhealthy immune system. It's kind of like asking \"What fundamentally causes crime?\" If you want to look at specific examples, look at disorders of the immune system and what we hypothesize is the molecular basis.",
"To understand what makes a \"strong\" immune system vs a \"weak\" one, you first have to understand what the immune system actually is. The immune system is actually over 2 dozen different body cells that behave in certain ways, each with their own specific jobs. I found [this video](_URL_1_) particularly helpful in understanding just how complex the immune system is, and how your body fights infections.\n\nFor a more detailed explanation I also found the [Crash Course videos on the immune system very educational (#45 to #47 on the playlist).](_URL_0_)",
"Good is very subjective-the properties which allow for superior reaction to pathogens is also probably not great for you in the long run, causing inflamation, oxidative damage, and occasionally self antigen recognition. Then there is the issue of immune longevity, as once we reach adulthood, our thymus (organ responsible for training our adaptive immunity) slowly atrophies. In old age, you might want the ability to fight pneumonia or a tumor. Tune the violin too loose, nothing happens, too tight, and you snap. Sometimes, less is more.",
"Most people are talking about their passive immune system if they never get sick. But part of that can be exposure. Part of it can just be keeping clean like regularly washing your hands. And part of it can be keeping fit, because your lymphatics that pump all the garbage to be broken down are not pumping, then the infection will just grow there. \n\nIf you get sick but get over it quickly, your immune system can remember. And if it sees something it remembers it can fix you up in days verses weeks. Having this memory comes from exposure. There is a theory that babies stick everything in their mouth to get a good exposure for later in life. So maybe a good immune system comes from drinking out of the toilet as a child. I don't know.",
"T-cells aren't specific and B-cells don't need T-cells for anything. T-cells act innately, through molecular signals called cytokines that recruit other innate immune lymphocytes to the area where the pathogen is such as macrophages or neutrophils that can engulf the foreign pathogen or release toxic granules that destroy the pathogen. If it is a viral or bacterial pathogen it recruits immune cells that will kill the infected \"self\" cell eliminating any chance of that infected cell from spreading. Every cell has generic receptors(major histocompatibility complex-MHCs) that present pieces of a pathogen from inside the cell (class I MHCs) special immune cells like dendritic cells that hangout between tissues have both class I and class II MHCs, class II MHCs present pieces of a pathogen from the extracellular environment. These pieces of pathogen on these special complex bind to T-cells receptors, but the pathogen isn't specific to the T-cells it binds, in fact MHCs cells present your own fragments of cellular proteins constantly as a way of telling your immune system that everything is all good in this cell/this area. \n\nB-cells are part of the adaptive immune system. They have immunoglobulins that only recognize and activate the immune specific pathogens. You could go your whole life with the immunoglobulins necessary to fight a parasitic pathogen but if you never get the parisite the B-cells making those specific immunoglobulins will never be activated to become \"adaptive\". What we mean by that is once activated, that B-cells will secrete free floating immunoglobulins called antibodies and that specific B-cell with specific capability to fight that pathogen will replicate a lot making memory B cells that, given the opportunity to encounter the same pathogen later on in life will be able to respond much more quickly and efficiently. That's how it is adaptive. \n\nIt should be mentioned that T-cells and B-cells are constantly working on different pathways and sometimes in concert but recruit and utilize many of the same immune cells just by different means and for different end goals. T-cells are first responders, B-cells because they are a little \"smarter\" and unique have a slower reaction time but have a sustained effect. \n\nA good immune system is one that can distinguish between self and nonself (determined in immature T-cell lymphocytes in the bone marrow and lymph vessels through negative and positive selection-which is more of a theory) by killing off t-cells that bind too well to self or by not killing off t-cells that don't bind well to self(+/-)\n\nMutations in the gene regions that code for antibodies is also a way the immune system could be limited, but at the same role that is somewhat how antibodies are able to have such a massive(3.0x108) diversity, it could even be more than that I don't remember entirely. \n\nSo much more has to do with it and all parts of the immune system work I'm conjunction so it's hard to tell. This is a huge area of research that has blown up in the last decade because of our ability to more easily manipulate genes and cells lines, so we are now starting to be able to fight things like Cancer by pulling T-cells out enhancing them and reapplying them to a patient specific tumor. \n",
"Alright, this answer is stupid complex, and can go on for days. There are whole semesters devoted to the understanding of the human immune system, and disciplines in how it works, and those disciplines have sub specialties. This is a deep deep DEEP rabbit hole one can fall down, but also awesomely fascinating. My background. A year of microbiology and bacteriology, and a year of anatomy and physiology, and I am a nursing student. My understanding of it scratches the surface, but I hope it can help answer your question. To quote Carl Sagan, \" If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.\" \n\nThe name of the game in immunology is for the body to fight off infection before it gets out of control. The bad stuff out there is bad because of many different reasons, bad stuff like HIV, Ebola, Plague, TB, Smallpox, C.Diff just to name a few all kill us, some fast, some slow, and are difficult to treat, or cure, or prevent, for more reasons than I can even tell you.\n\nOn the basic level, we have two main branches of our immune system: Innate and Adaptive. Calling them branches is doing a disservice, it's more like the top of a cascade web. Part of the team is the innate, the other part is the adaptive, and they work together for the bad stuff. \n\nThe innate, or basic immune system is just that, not descriptive, and works right away when exposed. This system is HUGE! So many parts to it, I will try and touch on a few. \n\nWe'll use dendritic cells, they are commonly found in your skin layers deeper than the outer layer of skin, the water repelling one. When they see a pathogen, they will commonly take it up, put it into a sac, and put lysing agents into it to break down the cell, these can be many things, but it's not important what they are, just that they break down the cell. These cells are special, they have a part called an \"Antigen Presenting Complex\", or APC (Sometimes APC is also used for antigen presenting cell, but its essentially the same thing). The APC is important, because it is a special Major histocompatibility complex or MHC. Every cell in your entire body has a MHC class 1 cell, or MHC-1 (except for red blood cells, its why RBC can be infused easily, but a kidney cant just be tossed in anyone without compatibility). Those special cells with the APC have MHC-2. You can think of MHC as flag holders. MHC hold your own cells. Your identifier. MHC-2 is like holding a flag and saying \"These guys are invaders, let's kill them!\"\n\nOk, so we have the difference between, MHC 1 and 2. This is very important. With your innate immune systems, it sees bacteria easily as foreign invaders and can easily keep up with a lot of infections, and eats them as they go. Your main eating cell, a neutrophil eats everything as they go, but do not have an APC. They are also the main makeup of pus for instance. \n\nWell let's say the infection is a bit faster than the innate immune system in its killing. So that same dendritic cell, still working like it does, takes a part of the bacteria it just took in, and puts its in its MHC 2 spot. It then ventures to the lymphatic vessels, looking for help. Now the MHC-2 is very specific. When you are young, your immune system is still building, making a ton of different cells, with slight variabilities. Flags was a bit too generous they are more like keys. So your dendritic cell in essence is taking its key and trying to unlock every lock it sees, until eureka, it finds one. This lock is typically a helper T cell. The helper T cell is activated by a chemical signaling released when it pairs with that APC, no pairing, no chemical signaling. \n\nOnce activated the helper T cells whip into action. They start coding cytotoxic or \"killer\" T cells for their activated antigen. (For this I will write them as Tc-cells, and helper T cells as Th-cells). So with Tc-Cells being activated, Th-Cells also start dividing and activating B-Cells. \n\nB-Cells turn into plasma cells and start releasing different antibodies to help the innate immune system do its job. On the basic level your adaptive immune system is activated. This system is not fast though, at all. On first exposure to a new pathogen it can take on average 10-14 days to activate. On secondary exposures it can activate faster because while those Th-Cells divide to make new Th-Cells to activate more stuff, they also make T-memory cells. Essentially putting more locks out there to be unlocked by a key, and takes anywhere from 12-72 hours to hit its peak. \n\nSo what does this adaptive immune system do? Well to understand that fully, you need to understand a few things first about MHC 1. Ok so like I said, nearly every cell in your body has MHC 1. What is it? Its like a flag, but a barcode. That barcode is essentially a piece of your DNA, that says \"I am self, do not kill\" when read. If the cell is infected with a virus, it instead puts a piece of this virus in that MHC 1 complex, and when it is read, is flagged to be killed. You can feel this happening for instance, when you have a sore throat from the flu, its the cell death. \n\nOk, so what next? So I kinda scratched the surface of innate immunity. There are lots of ways this is done, but on a basic basic basic level, innate immune system destroys invading pathogens by either eating them or causing them by way of something called the \"Complement system\" that involves many proteins that bind together and punch holes in the cell and destroy it. Plasma cells assist in this, a lot, making the innate systems job easier. Plasma cells are like mortar fire in war, they don't directly kill things, but release antibodies known as immunoglobulins, there are many kinds, but they break down to major types. IgG, IgE, IgA, IgM, and IgD. Each plasma cell releases antibodies specific to its coding for that pathogen. For the most part, they are Y shaped, or combinations of Y shapes. They two top tips of Y are specific binding, the single tale usually is not. So what do these antibodies do? Well a lot of things. They congregate pathogens so phagocytic cells can take a \"bigger bite\" IE work efficiently. Those non specific also are markers to make it easier for phagocytic cells to \"see\". They also can activate the complement pathway. \n\n----------------------\n\nOKAY! So we have set the universe up on a basic basic basic level. So maybe I can kind of answer your question. Based on what you have said, all those are theories, and possibilities. Genetic diversity is wildly large. We can look to other creatures for some insite. Alligators for instance have amazingly strong innate immune systems. Think about it, they live in a swamp filled with all kinds of pathogens, and haven't died out from their own plague, getting scrapes, cuts, and all kinds of things that compromise their barriers. They also have other parts of their innate immune system that makes it work better. Penicillin is from a fungus that produces a beta-lactam ring that comprises bacterial cell wall synthesis. Descendants of black plague survivors have an immunity to HIV, because of a mutation where HIV binds to. Sickle cell disease offers resistance to malaria, if you know anyone with it, when they get sick they can have a sickle cell crisis from it. Ebola is so dangerous because it spreads fast because it suppresses part of our immune system in synthesis, its not ebola that kills you, its your immune system trying to keep up that kills you. Hepatitis B, your immune system is responsible for the liver damage. Autoimmune diseases can come after an infection that had a pathogen present similar to some of your cells. Newborns don't have many of the specific immunities form the T cell pathway, due to not having an immune system, and thus get their antibodies from a mother's breast milk, who was likely exposed to the pathogen as well and is fighting it off unnoticed. \n\nGood lord that got long, and I hoped I answered your question somewhat. It is wildly complex.",
"-walk 3-4 miles minimum every day (park in the back of the parking lot even when its cold)\n-take a multi-vitamin every day\n-don't over-wash your hands, nor your childrens (germs can be good, especially later in life)\n-take extra vitamin C, always\n\ni dunno if this actually works but I haven't been sick in over 10 years & I just visited the hospital today due to a bike injury: perfect blood pressure & cholesterol even though chipotle is a weekly visit.\n\nwalk more - its fun & you get to know your neighbors & local businesses.",
"It would definitely be better to have a good immune system. I'm immunosuppressed which basically means my body no longer produces them. Every week I have to stick 5 needles into my thighs and infuse 10 grams of the immunoglobulin treatment which keeps me alive. So thank you plasma donors!!!!! You're the real MVP. Lol\nAnyway, it takes 80-100 people to make one just one dose of my meds and I've been going strong for 2 years....every.single.week once injected the drug only has a shelf life of 14-21 days then it's gone. That's why living with CVID is a pain in the ass lol"
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139wiz
|
why linux is so special among unix flavors (unices?)
|
Unix was around long before Linus Torvalds came along, right? And there were all sorts of different competing varieties. Then Linux was introduced, and now it's taken over the roles that would have been filled, and the competition's between different kinds of Linux. So what makes Linux so special that it's considered separate from Unix, and why is it so popular?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/139wiz/eli5_why_linux_is_so_special_among_unix_flavors/
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"Unix was first released in 1970; Linux started about 20 years later.\n\nWhy is it popular? It's free, reliable, and supports a lot of hardware. *Free* separates it from most of the early Unix implementations. *Reliable* and *supports a lot of hardware* helps make it popular.",
" > So what makes Linux so special that it's considered separate from Unix\n\nWell, first of all Linux is *not* Unix. Unix has a specific meaning, going back to the original product and progressing down through all the licensing to its modern day forms. Linux is instead Unix-*like*, it's designed to be compatible with Unix in many ways. A contrasting example would be Apple's OSX, which really is Unix-*based*. The similar system structures mean that a lot of stuff works in similar ways and many programs are very easily compatible with both types, but linux is entirely written from scratch and does not include any original Unix code. That's actually an important legal point that's been contested in the past.\n\nWhat this really means is that Linux is independent of Unix's licensing. Not only this, but it is a big flagship example of the free software and open source licensing community. Right from the beginning, it's been developed as a community effort with contributions from all over the place, leading to its modern position supporting an amazing number of different systems with an amazing amount of flexibility both in theory and in practice. Actually, this part turns out to work extremely well, the linux kernel and all its associated tools for the tasks it dominates are considered extremely high quality and are popular for this reason.\n\n > and why is it so popular?\n\nIt's become popular because a mixture of the above properties turn out to work really well for many different people. Its massive flexibility and free availability make it the obvious choice for many different tasks. For instance, if you want a simple OS to run your DVD player or TV recorder, you don't want to have to build your own from scratch or to buy one, it's simply not important enough...but thanks to linux you don't have to. Or a more modern example...if you want to build a phone OS to compete with iOS and don't want to build it from scratch, the linux kernel is already there with all those features you need baked right in.\n\nIt's also popular for more standard computer tasks such as servers or supercomputers. This is mostly because it's really well designed and supplied for the job, partly because it's so popular and its open nature feeds this popularity back into further development. This kind of relatively technical application also avoids the areas where it's traditionally fallen down, such as user friendliness (not to say that it still does so...progress recently has been very good).\n\n > and now it's taken over the roles that would have been filled, and the competition's between different kinds of Linux.\n\nI don't know how true this is exactly, but in general this is again for the reasons above. It's popular, flexible and open, so there's both the drive and the technical ability to make it run on practically any hardware. Not only this, but it means then all your hardware can have the same base and be developed in the same way.",
"Linux is:\n\n* free\n* runs on cheap PC hardware\n* lightweight\n* reliable\n* embraces free, open source software\n* has incredible community support\n* gives you full access to how it works, and allows, nay, encourages you to improve it\n* infinitely configurable"
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41xpat
|
what causes old dogs to sleep and lay around all day?
|
My dog seems to do nothing and still manage to be tired (she's a 10 year old border collie-black lab mix). I run her every few days whenever she wants to play. But, she'a always sleeping and seems tired
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41xpat/eli5_what_causes_old_dogs_to_sleep_and_lay_around/
|
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"It's just old age. As living creatures get older they slow down, take longer to recover from exercise, or just get tired from day-to-day activities. Also most dogs sleep about 12 hours a day and some breeds even more. When dogs are bored or don't have anything better to do, they will sleep or just rest. An older dog, it just makes sense that they are probably going to sleep a bit more than a younger dog. They're also more likely to have joint problems, like arthritis, and other ailments related to old age. ",
"My uncles lab is 11 and she seems to save every last bit of energy for when people get home (or to tip the trashcan) she lights up and her billy club of a tail starts knocking everything over.. I just realized I'm not answering the question at all. \n\nI know she hurts and had quite a few vet visits this year but she still makes a huge effort for her humans. "
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1f6pwt
|
Have there been things that we, as westerners, view as traumatic (rape, war, molestation, child abuse) that individuals from other civilizations were not traumatized by, and vice versa?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1f6pwt/have_there_been_things_that_we_as_westerners_view/
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"I suggest trying over at /r/askanthropology",
"According to *Memories of silk and straw* by Junichi Saga, an oral history of small-town and country life in early 20th century Japan, infanticide because of poverty wasn't uncommon or considered traumatic for the mother. One of the people interviewed tells Dr Saga that her parents tried to kill her as an just-born infant by putting a moist cloth over her face, but after she stubbornly refused to die, they decided to keep her after all.\n\nAnother farmers daughter tells how her mother goes into the mountains, heavily pregnant, and returns in the evening with a large bundle of firewood and a baby. Giving birth in the woods or on the lake (one girl is called Utako, child of the lake) wasn't uncommon either.",
"The practice of 'Sati' that was followed in India till the 1800s could be an example. (Thankfully this practice has been stamped out)\n\nEssentially the wife of a dead man would be burned alive along with his dead body on the funeral pyre. This was definitely traumatic and fatal to the poor woman, but was completely acceptable to the people. ",
"There's a polygamist tribe in Papua New Guinea, the individual is ready to marry after their rite of passage, usually around 12 years old (as usual in simpler natural societies). The twist here is that it is advised that the first partner should be around ten years older as to teach them everything in the ways of love and sex.\n\nIn this sense, child molestation (as viewed in the U.S, for teens) looses its meaning.",
"Well, in perhaps obvious \"now normal but traumatizing in the past\" examples, many new transportation technologies were legitimately traumatizing for many people when they debuted. When the first passenger trains began service, many people refused to ride on them. In fact, there was legitimate discussion over whether human beings would even survive at \"high\" speeds such as 30 miles per hour. Fainting was a not uncommon occurance.\n\nPlanes obviously provide an even more apt example. Of course, even some modern people are traumatized by flying, so it may not be quite as unusual to us as being afraid of traveling 30mph on the ground.",
"I'm reading \"The Better Angels of our Nature\" by Steven Pinker and would highly recommend it. It's an exhaustive exploration of the history of human violence.\n\nI would answer your question by saying that there are things we view as \"traumatic\" today in western society that we viewed as no big deal in those very same societies even a few decades ago. Child abuse laws didn't really come about until the 1930's and ironically enough the first cases were actually brought to court by animal rights organizations. The concept that children are innocent and need protection and shouldn't be expected to be economically productive until they are fully grown is a very new concept.\n\nSenators and congressmen were routinely photographed at lynchings, with the whole town turning out to watch the event.\n\nIt was commonly thought that children needed to be beaten regularly in order to be socialized and turn into stable adults.\n\nRape was originally a property crime and husbands and fathers were seen as the offended party, not the women involved. This didn't truly change until the 1960's-1970's. \n\n\n\n",
"When a Viking chieftain died a women would be killed along with him for the funeral. She would drink for ten days, have sex with all of the men, and then they would strap her to the bed the chieftain was on and stab her.\n\nThis is from [Ibn Fadlan's] (_URL_0_) account. If I'm not mistaken Ibn's writings are what Crichton based his book Eaters of the Dead (now called The 13th Warrior since the movie) on. It's an entertaining book, though I'm sure it's not all that historically accurate.",
"Something you might be interested in looking at are many of the works regarding moral relativism as often examples that fit your question are used as examples. [*Custom is King*](_URL_0_) (Google Books preview, hopefully it works) shows a rather short and simple example of this. Ruth Benedict also has some writings that use examples with one I remember being where if someone died in a Northwest tribe, members of that tribe would go out and kill a random number of people to feel better. \n\nAs others have pointed out, infanticide was rather common in multiple cultures for various reasons. Something I haven't seen mentioned were nomadic tribes that left behind the old and sick to starve to death. Within the tribe, this was the norm as they couldn't help these people as the entire tribe would probably die as a result.",
"[Romans](_URL_0_) had a ritual of exposure of newborn infants, wherein the child would be placed outside the home on the stoop and the father would have to 'claim' the child as his own by bringing it inside.\n\nThe child was not always brought inside.",
"This is actually very nicely tied in to my Master's thesis research. One could argue, with significant primary source evidence to back it up, that violence on the battlefield was not nearly so traumatic for ancient Roman soldiers as it is for the modern soldier today. This is due to a number of factors, many of which are not so obvious as one might think. Bullets, bombs, and such certainly make warfare different today than it was 2,000 years ago- and most authors assume that this is the reason we see the rise of Posttraumatic Stress in the 20th century and not earlier. However, hand-to-hand combat- the kind which most resembles ancient battle- is actually *more* traumatic for modern soldiers than distance combat ([source](_URL_0_)).\n\nRoman soldiers saw things differently. They were much more exposed to death and contact with death on a regular basis than a modern American would be, and therefore more desensitized. Additionally, their society informed them that killing, in the proper context, was glorious, redemptive, and honorable ([source](_URL_1_)). While one could say the same of modern culture, the Romans did not have an underlying value system which taught them that harming others was *always* inherently wrong, which comes about with the rise of Christianity. The modern soldier needs moral justification to kill, whereas the Roman soldier achieved moral justification by killing. \n\nSo what *did* traumatize Roman soldiers? Things which may not be so traumatizing to us. Although guilt associated with killing is not common between ancients and moderns, the drive for self-preservation certainly is. At the same time that his society told him he needed to kill to accrue honor, a Roman soldier was not unaware of the risk to his life. But to outwardly express the fear of death signalled the soldier as an outcast to his peers. A Roman soldier who was afraid of death felt that he deserved to die.\n\nSources: This last bit is mostly drawn from Tacitus and Josephus, but the primary sources are replete with examples of soldiers and generals who, after running from battle or committing atrocities to stay alive, go insane or commit suicide.",
"Footbinding in China has died out within the last 100 years. It's a very painful process that left women essentially crippled, and was once very widespread, but was stamped out by the Cultural Revolution. It influenced, apparently, aspects of Chinese architecture (footbound women couldn't easily climb stairs, etc.) foreign policy (they couldn't easily travel long distances, so forming permanent settlements abroad was virtually impossible) and even language ([Nushu script](_URL_0_), a language spoken exclusively by women) but the practice was deemed incompatible with China's future as a world power by Mao. Stuff You Should Know had an episode on it recently, and it's a good introduction. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_funeral#Ibn_Fadlan.27s_account"
],
[
"http://books.google.com/books?id=ILa7WmdUXIMC&lpg=PA20&ots=bA6McHvU8Z&dq=custom%20is%20king&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=custom%20is%20king&f=false"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Greece_and_Rome"
],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Learning-Society-ebook/dp/B003XREUV2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369753450&sr=8-1&keywords=on+killing",
"http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Honor-The-Fire-Bones/dp/0520225252/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1369753700&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=barton+roman+honor"
],
[
"http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nüshu_script"
]
] |
||
266a3h
|
why is it so hard to permanently cure allergies such as nut and shellfish?
|
Unfortunately i have both, and i want to know if a cure is a realistic goal in the near future.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/266a3h/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_permanently_cure/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cho24nw"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Not likely.\n\nAllergies aren't like most diseases.\n\nMost diseases are caused by something acting weird, or something extra growing somewhere, and are easily treated and cured.\n\nAllergies though, are the body attacking things that it shouldn't.\n\nInstead of knowing that it should attack bacteria, and leave that peanut oil alone, it attacks both, thinking both are trying to hurt the body.\n\nThink of the immune system as a protective husband, him and his wife (the body) are walking down a dark street. They see a gang of thugs (bacteria) coming down the street, so he pushes her into the bushes so that if he ends up fighting the bacteria, she is out of the way and safe.\n\nBut instead, they see a bunch of carollers out, he thinks that they are dangerous, tries to hide her in the bush, she slips on ice, get's hurt, while he gets into it with a bunch of people dressed as Santa and his elves.\n\nAllergies aren't a disease as much as they are a mistaken immune response, which is incredibly hard to cure, and is often only treated, which is why so many people have epi-pens."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
7b6jcv
|
why is it so much easier to set our biological clocks one hour back than it is to set them one hour forward?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7b6jcv/eli5_why_is_it_so_much_easier_to_set_our/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dpfoepm"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Most people are some level of sleep deprived, and can easily \"catch up\" on an hour of sleep.\n\nMissing an hour of sleep is rough, and it's still pretty rough trying to get to bed an hour earlier."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6sxk73
|
how does the first person receive a transmitted disease?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sxk73/eli5_how_does_the_first_person_receive_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dlgazjm",
"dlgb07g"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Sometimes when a new disease arises, it's because of a mutation in an existing bacterium or virus that already is common in humans, but didn't cause disease before.\n\nSometimes it's because of a mutation in an existing bacterium or virus that is common in animals that humans interact with, but didn't cause (human) disease before. \n\nSometimes it's because of a mutation in a person that makes them susceptible to a particular bacterium or virus.\n\nThose are the usual ways a new disease pops up. Animal to human transmission usually happens in a farming or hunting context, where people come in close contact with animal blood, saliva, hair, etc.",
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: How does patient zero get a sexually transmitted disease? ](_URL_0_)\n1. [ELI5:How did the first human being get a Sexual Transmission Disease. ](_URL_1_)\n1. [How did someone originally get an STI? ](_URL_2_)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1k0a6c/eli5_how_does_patient_zero_get_a_sexually/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a1e3x/eli5how_did_the_first_human_being_get_a_sexual/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/6occt5/how_did_someone_originally_get_an_sti/"
]
] |
|
291ggl
|
Why is lead so much more abundant than gold?
|
They are so close on the periodic table, yet lead is something like 3000x more abundant. I know that gold isn't unstable, so why is there so much less of it?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/291ggl/why_is_lead_so_much_more_abundant_than_gold/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cigntb8"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Lead stable isotopes are near a closed nuclear shell. That makes their production in stars much more likely. Also, all of those heavy actinides decay down into lead. So even if it was produced at the same rate in stars as gold was, it will still have more due to the decay of actinides and other heavy nuclei. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
52m3rc
|
why are most if not all of the zippers on my clothing made by the brand ykk?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52m3rc/eli5_why_are_most_if_not_all_of_the_zippers_on_my/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7lcc88",
"d7lcizd"
],
"score": [
3,
5
],
"text": [
"Summed up, proven reliability.\n\nYKK has a good track record, their zippers are known to work reliably. Further, they own the entire production process, and are hence very secure from trouble caused by suppliers, and this also increases their consistency. ",
"About half the zippers manufactured are made by YKK, a Japanese company. Zippers are finicky and YKK makes reliable zippers. One reason it has managed to stay on top of the game is that it controls almost the entire manufacturing process, from smelting its own brass to making the final product, which guarantees it can keep making reliable zippers and has the added bonus of helping to hide its corporate secrets from competitors. There are some competitors which are cheaper, mainly in China, but the zippers break more easily and a lot of the developed world is wary of lax regulation in China and don't want lead in zippers. Additionally, starting a zipper manufacturing company would take a lot of capital and you would have to get a pretty big market share to make a sizeable revenue stream, so there are high barriers to entry. Here's an article that goes into more depth: _URL_0_\n\ntl;dr: YKK makes good zippers, controls the whole process, and it's hard to get into the zipper game."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.slate.com/articles/business/branded/2012/04/ykk_zippers_why_so_many_designers_use_them_.html"
]
] |
||
6yp7tc
|
My government textbook says the option for states to withdraw from the union was discussed at the Constitutional Convention but eventually left out because of a lack of consensus on how to do it. Is this true?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6yp7tc/my_government_textbook_says_the_option_for_states/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmp7z3s"
],
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"text": [
"I don't have a clear source on the Constitutional Convention itself, but the subject of inserting official language about secession into the Constitution was a definite feature of some of the state ratifying conventions.\n\nThe most notable of which is the Poughkeepsie Convention in New York. Anti-federalists had been pushing to insert such language into the Constitution. Amar elucidates:\n\n > But exactly how were these states united? Did a state that said yes in the 1780's retain the right to unilaterally say no later on, and thereby secede? If not, why not?\n\n > Once again, it was in New York that the answer emerged most emphatically. At the outset of the Poughkeepsie convention, anti-Federalists held a strong majority. The tide turned when word arrived that New Hampshire and Virginia had said yes to the Constitution, at which point anti-Federalists proposed a compromise: they would vote to ratify, but if the new federal government failed to embrace various reforms that they favored, \"there should be reserved to the state of New York a right to withdraw herself from the union after a certain number of years.\"\n\n > At the risk of alienating swing voters and losing on the ultimate ratification vote, Federalists emphatically opposed the compromise. In doing so, they made clear to everyone -- in New York and in the 12 other states where people were following the New York contest with interest -- that the Constitution did not permit unilateral state secession. Alexander Hamilton read aloud a letter at the Poughkeepsie convention that he had received from James Madison stating that \"the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever.\" Hamilton and John Jay then added their own words, which the New York press promptly reprinted: \"a reservation of a right to withdraw\" was \"inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification.\"\n\n[Amar, NY Times](_URL_0_)\n\n[Amar, NY Times(wayback machine version if NY Times paywall is a problem)](_URL_1_)\n\nAmar, *America's Constitution: A Biography*\n\nAttempting to address the specific context you might be talking about, Madison did briefly address something arguably secession-related during the Convention:\n\n > ...The last clause of Resolution 6. [FN11] authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole agst. a delinquent State came next into consideration.\n\n > Mr. MADISON, observed that the more he reflected on the use of force, the more he doubted the practicability, the justice and the efficacy of it when applied to people collectively and not individually. -A union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. **The use of force agst. a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. He hoped that such a system would be framed as might render this recourse [FN12] unnecessary**, and moved that the clause be postponed. This motion was agreed to nem. con. \n\n_URL_2_\n\nHere Madison acknowledges that using force against a 'delinquent state' as something to be abhorred, and hoped to prevent the need to resort to any sort of activity by framing systems to avoid it. This is not the same thing as discussing (much less approving) the right for secession. In fact, this seems to argue the opposite: that using force on a state will make it secede, not the other way around.\n\nMadison's very concerns here were later articulated in 1861 when Lincoln had to delicately handle Fort Sumter without unduly being seen as the provocateur."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/conventional-wisdom.html?mcubz=0&_r=0",
"https://web.archive.org/web/20150529184850/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/conventional-wisdom.html",
"http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_531.asp"
]
] |
||
584gso
|
how can you see things in your mind with your eyes shut?
|
You go to sleep and dream. In your dream there can be newspapers, books and magazines. If you read them in your dream who wrote those words and how can you read them with your eyes close? What is happening in your brain??
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/584gso/eli5_how_can_you_see_things_in_your_mind_with/
|
{
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8,
6,
2
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"text": [
"Thanks for asking. I have wondered the same thing. I can be fully awake and concious with my eyes shut, and see a clear image of something I am thinking of. Very strange.",
"I'd probably say its along the same lines as how our eyes detect light and translate that into a signal our brain converts into an image to help keep itself alive as an evolutionary trick (since not all animals have eyes and begs an even deeper question of: What are their dreams like compared to ours?).\n\n\nI think its just the brain processing the events of the day coupled with a backlog of previous experiences in life, being combined into randomised signals similar to the ones the brain interprets for us on a daily basis. \n\n\n\nI've had dreams where I've heard something, or felt forces (like inertia from falling) and I think, since all our brain does is process electrical pulses from all our receptors like eyes, skin, tongue, then it all goes into a big boiling pot that forms your dream state.\n\n\n\nIts probably not too far from how you can hear a song in your head, its just a more immersive experience because sight is arguably the most useful sense for having a sense of 'being' in that situation. \n",
"They're not really there. You think they're there and your brain fills in the rest. The brain hates gaps. It hates not processing data so it will make it up. \n\nHence things like deja vu, pareidolia, false witness testimony, and (let's get flaming here) some spiritual beliefs. ",
"Your question appears to be asked from a logical position that information is taken in by the brain from the world around us through our 5 senses, processed, than stored and regurgitate as a memory when 1 or all our 5 senses are \"offline\". But that doesn't explain how blind from birth people can 'see' with their minds eye.\n\nHave you given some thought to reversing your logic? \n\nYour brain is a transmitter, like a radio and has the capacity to pick up on different channels (frequencies). The dial is your emotions and what's played on that channel depends on which channel (frequency) you tuned into. Feeling happy? Your emotion dials into the happy channel (frequency) your brain transmits it to your 5 senses which sends out a frequency and your seeing the world through rose coloured glasses. You get the picture. \n\nSometime though our emotions are jumbled because we tend to be lazy and allow our emotions to be defined by our surroundings so our brain is trying to tune into too many stations (frequencies) at once and voila! STATIC \n\nWithout your 5 senses activated by the world around you, you can still feel, smell, see, hear and taste but without the conditions dictating the outcome thus mastering visualization can result in unconditional emotional response to your liking and more importantly, laser focused so the channel is coming in crystal clear and your dancing in the rain happy as a lark for no good reason....like a 5 year old😊"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6tnc76
|
In times of war, do the attacking forces generally try to avoid cultural icons like Big Ben or the Cologne Cathedral, or are they treated like every other structure and subject to bombing raids, etc?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6tnc76/in_times_of_war_do_the_attacking_forces_generally/
|
{
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"text": [
"It's perhaps tangential to your question, but there are a number of international agreements in place to just that: obviously mark and (hopefully) preserve objects and locations of cultural heritage in times of war. (Please note: I am by no means a scholar of international law.)\n\nThe first major piece of international law meant to protect cultural landmarks in war was [Section II, Article 27 of the Hague Convention of 1899](_URL_0_), which mandates that \"...all necessary steps should be taken to spare as far as possible edifices devoted to religion, art, science, and charity, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not used at the same time for military purposes. The besieged should indicate these buildings or places by some particular and visible signs, which should previously be notified to the assailants.\" However, there's no provisions for what shape those \"particular and visible signs\" should take, nor on their size.\n\n[Section IX, Article 5 of the Hague Convention of 1907](_URL_8_) was more or less an addendum to that of the 1899 Convention regarding the protection of cultural artifacts, this time dealing with naval bombardment, making it the responsibility of the commander of the attacking force to spare those same locations specified in the 1899 Convention. Notably, however, the 1907 Convention makes it the responsibility of the inhabitants to mark such locations in a specific manner: \"It is the duty of the inhabitants to indicate such monuments, edifices, or places by visible signs, which shall consist of large, stiff rectangular panels divided diagonally into two coloured triangular portions, the upper portion black, the lower portion white.\"\n\nSimilarly, the proposed [Hague Rules of Air Warfare](_URL_2_), written in 1923 but never adopted, extended similar protection from aerial attack in articles 24 and 25.\n\nIn 1935, the United States and nine other countries in the Americas signed the [Roerich Pact](_URL_4_). [Nicholas Roerich](_URL_1_) was a Russian artist and thinker, an early champion of the defense of cultural artifacts in wartime, and his ultimate goal was to create a symbol and a body of international law that was for cultural property what the Red Cross was for medicine. The Pact was the first realization of that goal, and though its legal reach is fairly limited as only ten countries ratified it the Roerich Pact was greatly influential in its ideas, in particular after World War II. Roerich's proposed symbol was the [Banner of Peace](_URL_3_), and while it is still a legal protective sign in the ten countries which ratified the Roerich Pact it has since been superseded.\n\nRoerich's idea was far more fully realized in 1954, when the [Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict](_URL_5_) was signed, and currently 128 states are party to the treaty. In addition to protections for fixed properties such as buildings and monuments, this convention specifically protects *moveable* cultural properties--books, paintings, sculptures, etc--as a reaction to the Nazis' theft of artworks in the Second World War. Also, [a special protective sign](_URL_6_) was specified to mark protected cultural properties. The [International Committee of the Blue Shield](_URL_7_) was established in 1996 as a direct analog of the International Committee of the Red Cross for the protection of cultural property, taking its name from that symbol. The 1954 First Protocol was extended in 1999 by a Second Protocol, adding categories for special protection, creating a fund to protect cultural property, and providing for punishments for those who violate the protections of the treaty.\n\nSee also: [Wikipedia's page on protective signs.](_URL_9_)\n",
"I just finished Thomas Madden's book about Venice and he talks a little about this in WW2. \n\nBasically there was a concerted effort on the allies part to not bomb Venice at all. They could afford to do this of course because there was very little strategic value in Venice. \n\nThere was however a single bombing campaign to destroy Axis shipping that was going through Venice. It was done with a great amount of planning and precision and they were able to take out the targets without harming the city. The citizens of Venice watched the raid from their rooftops. \n\nThe book also includes the quote \"Provided you weren't Jewish, Venice was the safest place in Europe to be during WW2\"\n\n",
"**I can't speak to the entire span of human history, but on a more modern note, Colin Powell discussed this very subject in [his autobiography](_URL_2_).** (I'm away from home at the moment and don't have the book with me, so this will be less specific than I'd like.) During the run up to the Gulf War in spring/summer 1990, he and other American military commanders were discussing potential bombing targets in Baghdad. Anti-aircraft installations, military bases, airfields, and offices, and communications/transportation infrastructure were obvious targets for crippling the Iraqi military's ability to fight. However, they also drew up a list of statues and monuments that they felt had propaganda value to the Hussein regime and could demoralize the Iraqis if lost. The list was given to the military's legal branch for approval, and the legal eagles refused to sign off on bombing anything in the latter category because they could be considered culturally-significant artifacts and had no strategic importance. So yes, even ugly statues of Saddam Hussein were to be left unmolested by the Air Force, and anyone caught violating or overlooking this could potentially be handled a dishonorable discharge or jail time. Someone dryly remarked that the lawyers were running the war.\n\n**General Powell and his British counterpart were also concerned about Saddam Hussein's potentially unleashing chemical or biological attacks on coalition soldiers, and not without reason.** While the American military had trained and equipped its soldiers for this possibility, it was still one that Powell was terribly worried about, and he wasn't sure how best to prevent it. He sat down one day and drafted a potential letter to be sent to Hussein in the event that war was formally declared, and warned that, if any chemical or biological attacks were detected, the U.S. military would destroy the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in retaliation. The only possible result would be the catastrophic flooding of Baghdad and enormous human suffering. The letter was never sent -- Powell admitted that it was an empty threat and that no one in the U.S. military or government would ever sign off on it -- but I don't remember offhand if he or anyone else came up with alternative ways to convince Hussein to stick to conventional weapons.\n\nSo the answer with respect to American rules of engagement in the early 1990s is that, yes, cultural icons enjoyed a special protection, as did houses of worship, hospitals, schools, markets, residential neighborhoods, and critical infrastructure like dams and sewer systems. Basically, anything that was likely to exercise disproportionate impact on the civilian population was off-limits.\n\n**P.J. O'Rourke also had an amusing tidbit in *Give War a Chance,* which contains an account of his time as an ABC radio reporter during the Gulf War.** Someone from the U.S. military was fielding questions at a press conference about potential bombing targets in Baghdad. (And by the way, if you want a funny look at how dumb many of these questions really were, *Saturday Night Live* ran [a skit on Gulf War briefings](_URL_1_) on February 9th, 1991 that was within shouting distance of reality. [Transcript here](_URL_0_) if you can't see the video.) \n\nA reporter got indignant and said something along the lines of, \"Aren't we going to leave the Iraqis any government offices at all?\" A British wire reporter sitting nearby said, \"We'll leave them the Department of Tourism. See the ruins.\"\n\nEdit: Fixed a word."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp#art27",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Roerich",
"http://lawofwar.org/hague_rules_of_air_warfare.htm",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_of_Peace",
"https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/325?OpenDocument",
"http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_the_Blue_Shield#/media/File:Distinctive_emblem_for_cultural_property.svg",
"http://www.ancbs.org/cms/en/about-us/about-icbs",
"http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hague09.asp#art5",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protective_sign"
],
[],
[
"http://snltranscripts.jt.org/90/90lgulfwarbriefing.phtml",
"https://vimeo.com/45593328",
"https://www.amazon.com/My-American-Journey-Colin-Powell/dp/0345466411"
]
] |
||
2125kc
|
Why did 'Beatlemania' happen?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2125kc/why_did_beatlemania_happen/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"Would you like the short answer on the long answer?\n \nThe short answer if that 4 fairly attractive men could make music good together and people were attracted to them because of that. \n \n \nThe long answer is that Lennon/McCartney spent more time studying what made a song popular, or catchy, or relevant than any musician ever has, for or since. \n \nThey tried to write in different styles, and especially once they'd already been successful, they experimented, but realistically, for the most part, they always tried to innovate on what had already been successful- take something good and make it better. \n \nBut most of the innovation happened later, once Beatle-Mania was already firmly entrenched, and regardless of the styles the wrote in.\n \nSo, I guess the real answer (long or short) is that the first boy band ever happened to all be geniuses who knew their history an tried to emulate it as well as their contemporaries...and did it well. and also, their looks didn't hurt. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
62ispk
|
why some people are "nightowls" even though humans a supposed to be active in the day time
|
I've always been a late night person, I ussually default to going to bed at 4-5am and waking up around 2-3pm
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62ispk/eli5_why_some_people_are_nightowls_even_though/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dfn0d05",
"dfn254k",
"dfn94iz"
],
"score": [
10,
23,
5
],
"text": [
"There were night people long before there were computers and TVs and phones.\n\nI don't think there's any doubt there's a nocturnal predator gene lurking about, though I don't have any scientific knowledge about that.\n\nI have been a night person all my life and before I became a consultant where I could set my own schedule my working life was hell. Let's not even talk about school. My natural \"day\" ends at about 4 am and always has.\n\nI'm an avid backpacker. I adapt, in solo hikes, in about 2-3 days to a day that runs from about 10 am to 2 am and that's pretty much only because all-night hiking misses too much scenery, otherwise that's probably what I'd do. When I hike in a group I have to adapt to that silly day people schedule completely and it's tough.",
"In addition to what others say about how there are fun screens and toys and gadgets keeping us awake (I consider myself a night owl if only because I'm terrible at going to bed on time. Gotta play one more game of Overwatch), there's also a theory I've seen floating around that there's supposedly a predisposition to being more active at night somewhere in our DNA as a result of us being hunter-gatherer tribes that needed *somebody* to stay up and watch for predators/rival tribes/etc. ",
"Not true. People have different time cycles. Some are more night active. Mostly studies have shown that the average waking sleeping cycle of most humans is a little longer than 24 hours. So if left without sunlight a person will slowly stray from the cycle that work and daytime force on him.\n\nThere are extreme cases too. A woman in scandinavia started to live a 48 hour cycle after she was retired. Staying awake 24 h sleeping 24 h. It was what her biorythm naturally adjusted to."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
89iveo
|
why does the rotation of the earth not influence a mechanically driven gyroscope? or does it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/89iveo/eli5_why_does_the_rotation_of_the_earth_not/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwr8qnp"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It does. Gyro compasses use this principle to operate and indicate true north rather than magnetic north. For a more accessible demonstration, some science museums swing a very large pendulum. These are many metres long with a heavy weight so that they can swing for hours without stopping. The direction of swing will rotate with the earth so that if you start it swinging east-west and then come back in six hours you'll find it swinging north-south."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3mubyb
|
how we have all this scientific data and information about the universe but we didn't know about flowing water on mars until yesterday.
|
How do we have all this information on other planets, black holes, stars, other galaxies, etc and only found flowing water on Mars recently. This seems like it would have been found sooner being Mars is our closest planet.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mubyb/eli5_how_we_have_all_this_scientific_data_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvi5azo",
"cvi5lcq"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Mars is a really big place, and we've only really explored a very small portion of it in any detail. There's only been a handful of landers/rovers exploring the surface directly, so most of our data has come from remote viewing. \n\nWhile we now are pretty sure that water does sometimes flow on Mars, it's a relatively tiny amount of water, and only under certain conditions. It's not like there are big lakes or rivers flowing all of the time that nobody noticed until now. \n\nThere have also been a number of hints of flowing water before, it's just taken until now for astronomers to find really compelling proof. I think it's safe to say that many people who've been studying Mars were not entirely surprised by yesterday's announcements, although they were still excited by it.\n\nIt's also worth noting that much of what we \"know\" about other planets, black holes, stars, galaxies, etc. are just theories based upon the available data and our current best understandings of physics. But a lot of it is just educated guesses. There is a ton about them that we don't know, since we haven't been able to study any of them up close. \n",
"The flows are in very specific areas only in a few specific months of the year. We don't have the resources to have cameras on 100% of Mars 100% of the time. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2d992g
|
what are the differences in the formations in soccer?
|
I mean I know that a 4-3-3 has four backs 3 mids and 3 strikers but why play it as opposed to a 3-5-2? What would be the best formation out of all of them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d992g/eli5_what_are_the_differences_in_the_formations/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjnappd",
"cjndxfi"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"There is no one best formation, it's very tactical and based on the players you have. Basically think of it like a sliding scale between defensive minded and offensive minded. Midfielders can typically sort of feel both roles, but that requires them running up down the pitch, all game long, where as a defender or striker will typically only cover 1/2 the field, or so.",
"The formation you use is based on the type of players you have. I'm going to simplify this a lot but it's never this simple. Let's say you have 3 great Center Backs, 5 Great Mids and 2 Great Attackers. You're not going to use a 4-3-3 you're goign to run a 3-5-2 because that is what your personnel calls for. \n\nThe type of tactics you can use are also determined by the types of formations you use. For example a 5-3-2 formation (5 defenders) is far more likely to be used as a primarily defensive formation then a 4-3-3 which has 1 less defender. \n\nDifferent coaches favor different tactics. Van Gaal for example the Netherlands (now Manchester United) coach has perfected the 3-5-2 which turns into a 5-3-2 when the team is defending. What that means is the 2 players who defend the wings play as wingers in attack but as soon as the team loses possesion they run back and form a line of 5 players and defend with that amount. This is a very difficult strategy to break down.\n\nIs Van Gaals approach the best? Many people didn't expect anything from Netherlands. People didn't think they would even get out of a group that featured Chile and Spain. They made it all the way to the Semi-Finals. However there are probably a dozen other teams who tried the 3-5-2 and failed mizerably. It all depends on the personnel.\n\nShort Answer: There is no best formation. It all depends on what players you have available and what the coach likes to do. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3lk1mn
|
Why does snake venom turn blood into a gel?
|
Why does snake venom interact with blood by turning it into a gel or solid of some sort?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3lk1mn/why_does_snake_venom_turn_blood_into_a_gel/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cv738ee"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Some snake venoms have the ability to cause massive clots in your blood which is why it turns into a gel. The reason it can do this is because it activates your coagulation pathway in your blood somehow. There are a few mechanisms that can cause this. The snake venom could be an activator of prothrombin, fibrinogen, protein C, factor X, factor V, factor VII, etc. What mechanism is used to activate the coagulation pathway depends on what the prothrombic molecule is in the venom.\n\nHere is a list of some that I just found by googling: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nEDIT: you can google the coagulation cascade if you'd like. You'll find it to be extremely convoluted which is why snakes can evolve many mechanisms to activate the cascade."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.practical-haemostasis.com/Miscellaneous/Useful%20Information/snake_venoms_haemostasis.html"
]
] |
|
fw5lkv
|
how do cinemas get original copies of a certain movie . do they buy it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fw5lkv/eli5_how_do_cinemas_get_original_copies_of_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fmmco8c"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Via a film distribution company. The distributor is usually separate from the production company. Many films have a distribution commitment before they get made, but others -- especially indie films -- are produced, shown at festivals, and then, based on the festival performance, get a distribution deal. This is why festivals are so important for indie films. Some major media companies (e.g. Disney, Warner, Paramount, etc. have both production arms and distribution arms). \n\nThe distribution company is responsible for all the marketing of the film as well as getting copies to (and back from) cinemas. \n\nThe distribution company makes deals with the cinema chains. The cinema usually keeps a percentage of the gross of ticket sales (but all of concession sales) and returns the rest to the distributor. The distributor keeps their cut, and passes through the remainder to the production company. \n\nSo, no, the cinema doesn't buy the copy of the film. It's more like they \"borrow\" it from the distribution company for a period of time, as they are required to return it to the distribution company along with a percentage of ticket sales."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
e8v4z3
|
why is the "cherry" at the end of a lit cigarette hard?
|
I want to know why the heat causes the soft tobacco to go into a more solid state, before turning to ash.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e8v4z3/eli5_why_is_the_cherry_at_the_end_of_a_lit/
|
{
"a_id": [
"faepvpw",
"faevwwl",
"faeymba"
],
"score": [
41,
3,
8
],
"text": [
"As far as I understand, the heat causes the paper and tobacco to turn brittle and hard, before it finally burns the rest of the fuel and turns it to ash. It's a transition of the unused tobacco to its final stage of usefulness that makes it hard. Like how wood turns to charcoal and then ash, it's full of unused fuel but because the fire was on the outside it makes the outer side hard.",
"You know how if you burn wood in a fireplace, it turns to charcoal before turning to ash? The cherry is like a charcoal. \n\nIt’s the carbon residue that is left after the volatile organic compounds burn off as smoke.\n\nIt’s not a change of state from solid to liquid to gas, it’s the result of a chemical reaction (burning aka oxidization).",
"The heat makes water in the tobacco disappear before the tobacco gets used up, so it turns crunchy for a bit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2czqqk
|
why does rain hurt when it hits you during a sky diving free fall
|
I have talked to a sky diver and they said one of the reasons they hate jumping in the rain (something not really recommended anyway) is because the rain really hurts, but dont all things fall at the same rate? Why would the rain drops inpact you and hurt.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2czqqk/eli5why_does_rain_hurt_when_it_hits_you_during_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjkmyg9",
"cjkmz83",
"cjknlie"
],
"score": [
3,
4,
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],
"text": [
"Gravitational acceleration is constant for all objects in a given gravity field, so things would fall at the same rate in a vacuum. But in this case air resistance comes into play and a raindrop has much more surface area compared to mass than a human body does. This is because while 3D objects scale up their length and width they also scale up their depth; for every raindrop's worth of surface area exposed to the wind you have many more equivalent masses piled up behind it. So a skydiver falls faster due to their mass in relation to wind resistance, making them collide with rain at some apparently significant speed.",
"Everything falls at the same rate, yes, but there's air resistance. It's why a feather and a pencil don't fall at the same rate, unless they're in a vacuum. \n\nMy lay-theory is that the water droplets are encountering more air resistance than you are, being kicked around easily by high altitude winds and generally kept from themselves achieving terminal velocity (think about it: how much would terminal velocity rain *hurt* to those on the ground?). When you the skydiver fall through the rain, you're travelling at about 120 mph, and the rain is travelling significantly less than that. The slower the speed of the rain, the greater the difference between your two speeds, the faster it feels like it's hitting you in the face. \n\nAgain, not a physics guy, but it seems reasonable enough. ",
"All things on earth are subjected to a roughly constant acceleration due to gravity. Other factors such as drag forces(from air) affect the max speed an object can fall at. Rain simply does not fall anywhere near as fast as a human. So when people skydive through rain the rain hits them much faster than if they were standing still."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2qxbpk
|
why are seas different from open ocean? why do we name some swaths of water but not others?
|
This has been on my mind for a while, and I've never gotten a real answer. Why do we name seemingly arbitrary places in the water a sea? Are there any differences between the sea and another part of the ocean? Why are these artificial boundaries created?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qxbpk/eli5_why_are_seas_different_from_open_ocean_why/
|
{
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"text": [
"We name all swaths of water. Locals will often name stock ponds and tanks. \n\nA sea is smaller than an ocean and separated/partially separated from it in some way. \n\nThese boundaries are created like all boundaries are and are just as arbitrary. Boundaries show who owns what area, clarify the location you are talking about, and help general navigation. ",
"Can you name one sea that is unnamed? I didn't think so. ",
"I'm not sure this is officially true, but I think it works somewhat this way. Sea's are generally quite shallow. Either they are on the inside of the continent, or it borders the continent and is still part of the lithosphere of the continent (lies on/above this lithosphere). They are some several hunderd meters deep. \n\nOceans, on the other hand, are located above oceanic lithosphere. This lithosphere is thinner and heavier and lies a lot deeper than the continental (those lie for the biggest part above sealevel). Oceans are a few kilometers thick and, because they cover the entire oceanic lithosphere, oceans are (mostly) freakin' big. \n\nIf the earth would have less water, it might fit all in the oceans so you wouldn't have seas. If the waterlevel if higher (like it was in the Cretaceous) it floods bigger parts of the continent so you will have more of those shallow seas.",
"We name things to differentiate them from other things that are similar.\n\nWe have one moon, so it is just \"the Moon.\"\n\nMars has two moons, so we named them to tell them apart from each other, and from ours, which is the first and original.\n\nA random square mile of water in the open ocean won't have a name because there is nothing special about it, and no need to refer to it specifically, as opposed to something else. There needs to be a difference, because we name things to differentiate them.\n\nFor example, the San Francisco Bay. In the North, there is a part of it called San Pablo Bay. Bring it up on google maps. You can see why people named that part of the Bay a specific name... it's different! It's a bay within a bay!\n\nAny body of water with a name is named that way because someone, usually the people that live near there, wanted to name it to differentiate it from something else.\n\nThere's really not a hard definition of \"sea\" versus \"ocean.\" In fact, why do we have different \"oceans\" when they are really all one big ocean? Again, to differentiate in some way."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1vicwz
|
do those "4g lte coverage maps" in advertisements actually represent anything realistic?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vicwz/do_those_4g_lte_coverage_maps_in_advertisements/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ceskfys"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I think you're referring to something like this.\n_URL_0_\n\nThat's simply a **high-level approximation to what the maximum coverage** by a network (Verizon, AT & T) is for a particular spectrum.\nNote that this doesn't guarantee you signal, nor does it say anything about signal strength. That depends on how your distance from the tower, weather, terrain, trees, etc.\n\nHowever, if you're outside the shaded area, you're not going to get any 4G coverage - because the companies would not have invested in infrastructure in these areas.\n\nVerizon and AT & T are the biggest players, they've invested a lot in infra, and it shows."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://opensignal.com/network-coverage-maps/verizon-coverage-map.php"
]
] |
||
do0t4x
|
what is determinism?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/do0t4x/eli5_what_is_determinism/
|
{
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"f5iy1sz",
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"text": [
"Determinism argues that basically all choices and actions were previously determined by things in your past/genetics and other things like that.\n\nBecause of this, Determinists argue Free Will doesn’t exists and any impulsive actions you think you’re doing have been doing were actually decided way beforehand.\n\nThis is a huge simplification, hope it helps!",
"Determinism is the idea that all of the outputs of a system are determined by its inputs. For instance, mathematical addition is purely deterministic. The output is always decided exclusively by the inputs. Taken very broadly, determinism cal be applied to our universe. There is an ongoing argument about whether or not our universe is deterministic. This raises interesting conundrums in many respects, but as far as I know the two biggest ones are randomness and free will. For instance, in a deterministic world, can randomness exist? If the outputs only depend on the inputs, then there should not be room for randomness, right? In the case of free will, the question is thus: Are people's choices completely dependent on their prior experiences/genetics/current situation? Or is there some other factor at play?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
10mnek
|
Are there chemicals/foods that negate the effects of caffeine or remove it from the blood stream?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10mnek/are_there_chemicalsfoods_that_negate_the_effects/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6erihg"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"You can eat foods with fiber to try and absorb the caffeine, but it truly needs to pass through your system (just like alcohol - it's about time, and there's really nothing you can do to just stop the effects). If you're desperate you could try something like Benedryl to knock you out. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
s5ndd
|
Cultural identities
|
[1]Can you help explain to me places that have some very distinct cultural identities and how they would be better to be put together? (for example some middle east counties mostly post colonization right)
[2]I was wondering how long it took for some countries to meld cultural identities?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/s5ndd/cultural_identities/
|
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"text": [
"The reason you haven't gotten any answers yet is that this is an incredibly broad (and vague) question.\n\nYou'll want to start with the concept of \"nation\" in history. The wikipedia page isn't great for that, so I googled and found [this quick overview](_URL_0_).\n\nI know it doesn't really answer your question, but it should get you started.",
"A few examples that come to mind:\n\n*The Pashtun people in Afghanistan/Pakistan. This people shares a cultural identity and language, but is divided by the border (Durand Line) drawn as a result of a war with Great Britian.\n\n*Hungarians divided between Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary due to the Treaty of Trianon at the end of World War I.\n\n(aside) basically ALL the borders drawn by colonial powers in the Middle-East, Africa, or Near-East are a mess culturally. The people drawing the borders very rarely had in-country experience at the level of understanding tribal boundaries and such.\n\n\nAs for #2, I can speak a bit about Italy and Germany. Neither of these were 'united' countries until the mid-late 19th century. Previously they had been part of various empires, city-states, and independent kingdoms. While you can still see a lot of regional differences today, 150 years later most people will identify themselves as 'German' or 'Italian' and there is clearly a national cultural identity associated with the terms.\n\nHope that helps a little. \n",
"For question 2, Southeast Asia (sometimes called the Balkans of Asia) would be an interesting case study. Almost all Southeast Asian countries (Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore) have large Chinese and/or Indian ethnic minorities. How has integration fared in these countries?\n\nIn most of these places, there is a consciousness that certain people are Chinese, but these people have nonetheless typically been mostly assimilated into the local culture (Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines). They often (but far from always) adopt the local religion, adopt local names, and speak the local language at home.\n\nIn Singapore and Malaysia it's pretty darn different. Singapore has largely erased the local Malay cultural identity and substituted a weird national identity created from scratch. It's not taken that strongly IMO; most Singaporeans preserve separate cultural identities, traditions, names, and languages. In recent years Singaporean national culture has become increasingly associated with Singaporean Chinese culture.\n\nMalaysia is quite similar to Singapore in these respects, except substitute \"Malay\" for \"Chinese\" when it comes to the national culture. Because the non-Malay minorities are more numerous in Malaysia (more so than any other country in Southeast Asia), there is substantial pushback, however.\n\nIt's still an open question whether Malaysia or Singapore will ever adopt a unified national culture or identity. Definitely there's no foreseeable way I can see that that will happen in our lifetimes, although it would be an interesting surprise if it did happen.",
"I'll echo Sebatinksy's comment that the question you've posed is a bit too open-ended to produce any fruitful results. However, I would recommend Benedict Anderson's *Imagined Communities* (1983) as a great place to start. Then, I would tackle Ernest Gellner's *Nations and Nationalism* (also 1983). Those two texts, both of which are relatively quick reads and accessible to non-specialists, are seminal works in this line of inquiry. Reading those will be of tremendous help in starting to answer your questions, plus allow you to craft more a more specific question.",
"Part of what you're looking for is [invented traditions](_URL_0_), which play a huge role in creating cultural identities in certain parts of the world. A good example is Germany in the 19th century when it finally became a unified country, and how they created legends and traditions in order to unify the different cultures into one national one."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/rise-of-nationalism-in-europe-a-short-overview-748824.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_traditions"
]
] |
|
14mei3
|
When were helicopters first used in a significant way in combat? What tactical/strategic changes were made because of their introduction?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14mei3/when_were_helicopters_first_used_in_a_significant/
|
{
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"text": [
"If think you'd have to define combat here for us to really have an answer. Helicopters were pretty common in the Korean War, for example (fun fact: MASH takes place during the Korean war. The opening credits give you a pretty good idea of what a Korean era Helicopter looked like) but the advent of the jet-turbine powered helicopter really propelled them into battlefield ubiquity. \n\nPrior to jet-turbines, helicopters were more like jeeps that could fly than anything else. They could carry a small payload into some pretty insane places, provide vital intelligence, move high value assets around the battlefield, and engage in extremely limited air-to-ground operations. After the jet turbine they became heavy lifters and with that came heavy armaments, missiles, and serious cargo capacity. \n\nTo that end, I'd say -- at least from the standpoint of the American experience and large scale conflict -- that helicopters were first used significantly in Korea in a support capacity but didn't take on a really central combat role until Vietnam. The French, I believe, fielded some rotary combat aircraft in the Algerian War and the US experimented with rotary aircraft during and even before(?) the second world war... though all of that was pretty far out of the main-stream.\n\nThe short answer to your question -- the first part anyway -- is Vietnam.",
"Adding to Killfile's entry, the German Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri was used in the battle of the Bulge, and destroyed two tanks. They were also used for artillery spotting. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nthe reverse (tactical/strategic changes leading to their introduction) is interesting too:\n\n*While the Air Force saw the atomic bomb as a great new calling, the Marine Corps saw it as a danger to the doctrine on which it had built its success in the Pacific-amphibious warfare. Marine Lieutenant General Roy Gieger watched the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll following the end of the war with Japan. As the mushroom cloud billowed skyward Geiger saw everything the Marines had learned island hopping going with it. Geiger saw beyond the great power that the atomic weapon gave the United States and realized what such a weapon was capable of in the hands of an enemy. Specifically, he envisioned what it could do to an amphibious assault force as it made its way across the beach. In his quickly-drafted letter to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, he wrote that “since our probable future enemy will be in possession of this weapon, it is my opinion that a complete review and study of our concept of amphibious operations will have to be made.”*\n\n...\n\n*The board came to the conclusion that the helicopter was “the answer to the amphibious prayer.” Shepherd and his staff made three key recommendations that the Commandant immediately implemented: the establishment of an experimental helicopter unit to test the new aircraft, the creation of a program to study the future of helicopter development, and the initiation of work on a doctrine for the successful employment of the helicopter.*"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/armstrong.html"
]
] |
||
28wla0
|
how do young earth creationists rationalize radiocarbon dating?
|
Not trying to stir the pot, just genuinely curious about how they do it. Since it is based on relatively simple math, and relatively simple science, on what basis do they reject it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28wla0/eli5how_do_young_earth_creationists_rationalize/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cif5knd",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"They believe one of two things, depending on the denomination of their churches:\n\n1. God manipulated it to test our faith. Or...\n2. Satan manipulated it to fool us.",
"[Here is Ken Ham's explanation] (_URL_0_) for why radiocarbon dating is not a proof that young-earth creationism is wrong.\n\nNotice that the fact that it is nonsense is camouflaged in scientific-sounding language. Many young earth creationists will actively avoid reading science books that aren't written by young earth creationists, and so they will trust that this is real science (after all, it sounds very science-y), and not double-check its logic against other science.",
"I grew up in a moderately fundamentalist community, so I'll speak from personal experience. \n\nFrom the point of view of a fundamentalist, you are approaching the problem backwards. When you and I look at a problem such as \"how old is this item,\" we look for a method or data point to work from. When a fundamentalist looks at the same problem, they start with their interpretation of the bible. The earth is X,000 years old. Therefore, the item must be less than X,000 years old. Any information that supports this is correct. Any info that contradicts this must be either divine interference, a mistake, or a lie told by someone attempting to disprove God's existence.\n\nA perfect example of this. I went to a private school growing up. In our \"science\" textbook, was a section on radiocarbon dating. Our book included a graph showing us how reliable RC dating was. According to the text, after 5000 years, RC dating is unreliable.\n\nI will qualify all of this by saying that I know very few young earthers. Most practicing Christians that I know only believe that its been roughly 6-10 thousand years since Adam and Eve. They feel that any amount of time from Genesis 1:1 to the end of the garden of Eden could have been any amount of time. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://answersingenesis.org/geology/carbon-14/doesnt-carbon-14-dating-disprove-the-bible/"
],
[]
] |
|
90p1ln
|
how do big manufacturing companies like apple trace who leaked information about future products to third parties?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/90p1ln/eli5_how_do_big_manufacturing_companies_like/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e2s4dbh",
"e2s8skp"
],
"score": [
7,
18
],
"text": [
"In many cases it’s the monitoring software that most companies have on employee devices and their networks. There are other tricks like tagging the media itself in various ways. ",
"There have been cases where companies have played Tyrion Lannister's trick: tell a bunch of people slightly different things and see which version of the story leaks. Fire the guy you told that version to."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1mea24
|
why does the death of a ceo decrease stock prices?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mea24/eli5_why_does_the_death_of_a_ceo_decrease_stock/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cc8darn",
"cc8dgdb"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"The market hates uncertainty. It's as simple as that really. ",
"My best guess is that for an easy example say when steve jobs died, all of a sudden all the choices he made that might have made apple the way it is now might not be made the same way by the new ceo, the new ceo might have a different idea of what is good and bad and the company could flop because of it"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4g8vac
|
why is there so much incest on the front pages of porn sites?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g8vac/eli5_why_is_there_so_much_incest_on_the_front/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2fi0mb",
"d2fihfr"
],
"score": [
20,
35
],
"text": [
"Because whether or not we like to admit it, forbidden is exciting and sexy. Incest is the ultimate of forbidden in our society and therefore it makes the porno seem all the more exciting in the back of our minds despite knowing the actors probably never met each other before in their lives",
"In addition to the \"forbidden fruit\" explanations already offered, it may also have to do with limited supply.\n\nImagine there are 10,000 views spread over 100 high-quality \"blonde with big tits\" videos, and 2,500 views on 10 high-quality \"incest\" videos. In this scenario the \"blonde\" videos receive 100 views each, while the videos in the much less popular \"incest\" category receive 250 each, thus ending up at the top."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
259c1m
|
Is there any objective way of determining the north pole of a magnet other than saying it points to the "top" of the earth?
|
For example, hypothetically you create a magnetic field in space and have an unmarked magnet within it. Is there anything you could measure to say that, "Yes, if this magnet were back on earth this half of it would point north."?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/259c1m/is_there_any_objective_way_of_determining_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"chf3viw"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Sure, there are all kinds of experiments you could do. I don't really understand the parameters of your question, though. Are we only allowed a magnetic field in space and our unknown permanent magnet? If so, and if we know the vector value of the magnetic field, then the experiment is simple: we allow the unknown magnet to freely rotate (with a little friction in the bearings), and when it comes to rest, the magnet's north pole will align in the direction of the local magnetic field vector.\n\nThat's just playing with the definition of \"magnetic field\" though. The actual experiment you would do (assuming you had no other known permanent magnet) would be to create an electromagnet out of a loop of wire and a battery. When connected to the battery and current is flowing counter-clockwise in the loop, it is an electromagnet with the north pole hovering above it, and south pole hovering below it. Then observe the attraction and repulsion to the unknown magnet. \n\nOr: fire a beam of electrons just over one of the poles of the magnet. If it is the north pole, the beam will deflect to the left. If it is the south pole, the beam deflects to the right."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2b8ns1
|
why can't we insist on nobody touching anything else from the malyasian ukraine flight shoot down without international press and civilian oversight?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b8ns1/eli5_why_cant_we_insist_on_nobody_touching/
|
{
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"text": [
"We can insist whatever we want, but we have no bite behind our bark as long as Russia is involved, and the rebels (and Russia) know it. So, they can screw with the crash site as much as they want. They know we aren't going to parachute in and kick their butts for ignoring our warnings.\n\nAll we can do it shake our finger at them, and that's not really going to stop anyone.",
"We can insist. But since Reddit doesn't have direct physical control over the area in question, that insistence would not have much effect.",
"Because it is a war zone."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3epdwi
|
A book about military formations in the ancient era?
|
Well, as the title says. I've always had an affinity for ancient warfare and their military formations so i'm asking here. Google can't seem to provide me an answer or maybe i don't phrase it enough.
I'm looking for a book or reference that provides detailed information about military formations in the classical world. How would a general deploy his troops and where would he put them, for example.
My Roman history professor showed us an outline of Roman formation on how Scipio defeated Hannibal at the battle of Zama or Cannae (i think) but she is no longer working at the university (sad).
It doesn't matter what society you guys had studied nor read.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3epdwi/a_book_about_military_formations_in_the_ancient/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cth6wsh"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\nThis book seems to fit your request, although it's only about The Roman Army, but it also goes through the changes of the Roman Army. Changes in types of troops and tactics. It also goes through the wars of the roman army."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.amazon.com/The-Roman-Army-Greatest-Military/dp/1849088136"
]
] |
|
2x0m9e
|
how did the hippy generation afford to travel cross country and enjoy the hippy lifestyle without having careers?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x0m9e/eli5_how_did_the_hippy_generation_afford_to/
|
{
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"covshxs",
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"covyl27",
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3,
11
],
"text": [
"The hippy lifestyle is fairly inexpensive, and the phrase \"Gas, grass, or ass\" sums up the trading that would go on. It doesn't take much money to get a cheap car driving around, and sleeping in the car cuts down on costs.",
"There are a lot of assumptions in this question which I'll ignore. My mom came from a poor farming family and paid her way through college. She has remarked that she was not able to participate in a lot of \"hippie culture\" because the people by and large were actually rich kids, that is, children of wealthy parents who would provide for them.\n\nNow as to who was actually migrant and what percentage of the subculture they were as well as income trends will require someone more versed in anthropology than myself. \n",
"Born before 1960 and hitched from NYC to LA and back once.\n\nForget all statistics you hear about 'with inflation.' If you want to know what a dollar was worth in any year get a newspaper from the time and check prices/wages in ads. \n\nA good read on the time/life style is 'Hell's Angels' by Hunter Thompson. Also try the novel 'The Wanderers' by James Michener.",
"There were two brands of hippies. The rich ones who were enjoying the lifestyle to piss off their parents and after a few years would return home and get a job through their network. My parents hung out around these types - they got a car for their college present and then skipped class to go follow around Grateful Dead, and my broke-hippie dad and his friends would pile in the car. \n\nBroke hippies did their thing by generally doing odd jobs here and there, and taking advantage of how cheap food and crappy lodgings were. Sleep in a car, go to the gas station deli and pay a dollar for a sandwich big enough for 2 meals, etc. Sharing culture also helped out a lot; not only were drugs cheap as hell, people would generally be happy to share what they had. \n\nYou also have to factor in that you didn't really need any type of financial means to have sex as a guy. Not that you \"need\" to spend money to get laid today, not by any means, but most guys today do feel the need to make enough money to buy nice clothes, have a decent car, have a decent job, and be able to take her somewhere other than Subway. Trying to have a good sex life if you're broke today (and not selling drugs) is not easy. Back then it was. \n\nAs Dave Chappelle said, if a guy can fuck a chick in a cardboard box, he's not going to buy a house. Hippies could meet all of their needs - food, drugs, somewhere to sleep, and people to fuck - without spending too much money. If you could get a decent gig for a few months doing some oddball job, you could save up and finance a hippie lifestyle for the remainder of the year. \n\nAnd if you got in with some rich hippies - who unlike the rich kids of today were not that cliquish at all - you'd be a part of a mixed group where some people had money, some people didn't, and few fucks were given because people shared decently well. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1ssqep
|
reddit's link karma system
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ssqep/eli5_reddits_link_karma_system/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce0udio"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"What do you mean? When you post links (to other sites, not self posts like this one) you get the net difference between the upvotes and downvotes on your submission in karma."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
d8px95
|
Just how ‘heavy’ was the Late Heavy Bombardment?
|
I was watching a BBC production which said mars received a total of 53 tonnes of rock fell on every square metre of Mars.
But this is supposed to have occurred over 300 million years though right? So would somebody standing on the Martian surface back then be able to look up and see multiple incoming meteorites in the sky at any one time?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/d8px95/just_how_heavy_was_the_late_heavy_bombardment/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f1e3jgr"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"According to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (and sources therein), there should have been ~22,000 craters > 20km in diameter formed in the LHB on Earth. So if you divide this by 300Myr you would get one every 14,000 years. Obviously there would likely be more smaller meteorites involved in an event but I don't think the sky would be filled with them.\n\nOn a further point, I should note that the theory of the Late Heavy Bombardment has become less widely accepted amongst the scientific community recently. [Here](_URL_1_) is a good summary of why. Essentially the theory was originally based off of a cluster of radiometric ages from the Apollo missions, but since then people have searched for corroborating evidence and not found it, whilst also coming up with new explanations for the original data."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment",
"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/7/285/htm"
]
] |
|
gc9b7
|
Potentially a really stupid question, but when you make 2 mirrors face each other, why does it get continuously darker the further you look down?
|
Maybe my brain isn't functioning properly today, but I just can't seem to understand it.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gc9b7/potentially_a_really_stupid_question_but_when_you/
|
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"score": [
148,
25,
29,
3,
2,
4
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"text": [
"Oh, it's just because mirrors aren't perfectly reflective, so some percent of light gets absorbed during each reflection.\n\n\nI actually never noticed this effect before. Next time, I'll keep an eye out.",
"Because not all the light is reflected, a small portion is absorbed into the mirror. So if 99% of the light is reflected, after 50 bounces it will have lost 40% of its brightness.",
"Each reflection loses some of the photons; either they're absorbed (because mirrors are imperfect!), or they're reflected to the side of the other mirror. So the images of further reflections are darker.",
"the medium between the mirrors is also kind of lossy which is contributing to the effect you see.",
"There really isn't a such thing as a dumb question. Acquiring information is always smart. ",
"While everyone is right in saying that mirrors don't reflect perfectly, I wonder if there is another reason.\n\nI am guessing that the light rays aren't perpendicular to the mirrors, so light must be bouncing out of the space between the mirrors. No? Is the photon concentration too high for this to make a difference?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4ne379
|
why do you have to send a zip/rar file through the internet instead of sending a folder?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ne379/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_send_a_ziprar_file/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d434auj",
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],
"score": [
3,
4
],
"text": [
"Because a folder isn't a thing. The only thing that exists on your hard drive is files. What is sent back and forth on the internet is files. \n\nAll a folder is, is a file structure marker. When you open lets say the pictures folder, the hard drive scans all the files the picture folder points to and displays those ignoring all the rest. ",
"Folder is a very special file that your operating system and hard drive file system use to collect things on your hard drive.\n\nFolder, as a file, is only a couple of bytes large. It tells you its name, when it was created, who created it, that kind of stuff, and that it's a folder, and it lists physical locations on your hard drive where your files begin.\n\nSending such a file would be pretty silly because those physical locations on your hard drive would not correspond to anything. So you'd have to send each individual file separately and create a new folder for them(because even after sending, those physical addresses won't match). But then people figured that hey, what if we make a special file that just contains all the files + the file structure(folders etc) of those files?\n\nThat special file is called Zip. There are multiple other, older and newer, formats intended to solve that same problem, but for Windows .zip has been the most popular solution for as long as I know.\n\nZip and rar deal also with a related problem: Now that you have this package of folders and files in a single file, could you compress it down for transfer? Usually there is redundancy in the file structure allowing for much smaller transfer sizes. For Linux the standard solution for this problem reflects evolution of this: Instead of .zip, you see lots of .tar.gz's, where .tar means it's folder structure condensed into a single file, and gz means gzip compression utility has been run on it. .zip and .rar combine these two into a single thing, so many people may think of them as simply compression tools, but that's only half of their utility. The other half, being able to send whole folders as a single file, is another important half of their utility."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3lzjgb
|
Why are wasps hanging around their fallen nest?
|
I am in northern Colorado, and had a paper wasp nest (Polistes dominula AFAIK) attached to the underside of a fence support. I noticed it a few weeks ago, and made sure it wasn't an aggressive species. I went back to it today and it had fallen off the fence onto the rocks below (strong wind?). There aren't any wasps inside the fallen nest from what I can tell, but there are still several wasps hanging out on the attachment site, a few feet up. I think one of the remaining wasps may be the queen (looks bigger). Is it normal wasp behavior for them to stick around their nesting site, even after such damage?
Some pics:
[Nest before it fell](_URL_1_)
[Nest after falling](_URL_0_)
[Wasps hanging out where it was attached](_URL_2_)
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3lzjgb/why_are_wasps_hanging_around_their_fallen_nest/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvb5rfq"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Wasp colonies typically live only for one season. In spring, the queens start to build nests and the colony grows over time. At the end of summer, new queens and males are being produced, which leave the nest. The queens hibernate and will start the cycle again in the next year. \n\nThe workers though, will die before it becomes winter (food sources decline and there are no larvae anymore). As the nests are made of paper, they are vulnerable to rain and storms. Once it is destroyed, they will not attempt to make a new one, not in this time of the year anymore. The queen has probably stopped laying eggs already. The reason the wasps are not going anywere is that they instinctually stay near the nest. Imagine if there were workers with the intention to leave, this would not benefit the colony at all. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://i.imgur.com/xEYGp76.jpg",
"https://i.imgur.com/1QpIXmk.jpg",
"https://i.imgur.com/xvb0Q1e.jpg"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
3qpo11
|
what are the societal/cultural basics of the islamic (or muslim) religion?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qpo11/eli5_what_are_the_societalcultural_basics_of_the/
|
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"text": [
"I can answer the first question... every other question is not really something I feel confident enough to explain, and leave to others.\n \nThe religion itsself is called Islam. People who practice this religion are called Muslims. ^(why this is? I can honestly say I have no idea. I believe it has to do with the meaning of the words)",
"the religion is Islam\n\nyou refer to things that are of Islam as Islamic (like you may refer to something that is of Christianity as Christian, Islamic values, Christian values)\n\nPeople who follow Islam are Muslims. \n\n",
"Well, this doesn't get into the Hijab (which I don't know much about), but the very very high level beliefs of Islam are characterized by what are called the five pillars:\n\n* You believe that \"there is no god but god\" and denounce false idols\n\n* You give some of your money to the poor\n\n* You pray 5 times/day\n\n* You fast during Ramadan\n\n* You attempt to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your life\n\nHowever, a great many Muslims don't even do all of this (many don't pray 5 times/day). It's a big religion and it's been influenced by a ton of different cultures over the last ~1500 years and it's really hard to pin down lots of things that *all* Muslims do. \n\nOne of the other things that people don't really think about in Islam that, IMO, is pretty important to recognize is that there has never really been a separate tradition of government and religion in Islam. From the very beginning, Muhammad was a political leader as well as a religious one and, unlike the early Christians, the Muslim community was a polity as well as a religious body.",
"One important thing to keep in mind is that Islam is a very diverse religion and has been for most of its existence. Despite the common association in the Western mind of Islam with the Middle East (which is where it historically began), the bulk of the Islamic world is actually in South Asia. Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are the countries with the 4 highest Muslim populations. As you might imagine, the Islam that you find in an urban center in Indonesia is very different than what you'd find in the hills of Afghanistan which in turn is very different than what you'd see in Morocco. Oftentimes pre-existing cultural norms get mixed in with Islam, and it can be hard to separate the two.\n\nAll of this is to say that the answers to most of your questions are going to vary widely depending on what type of Islam and where it is. I know Ismaili Muslim women of Indian ancestry who don't cover up, don't pray 5 times a day, will have a beer with you and will go out dancing dressed like any other 20 something lady. And I know Sunni women from Palestine who choose to wear hijab.\n\nThere are common threads that unite nearly all Muslims. They worship the God of Abraham and consider Muhammed to be his prophet or messenger. Muslims accept that God sent other prophets (Jesus is considered to be a fellow prophet, and very important one, but not the son of God), but that the revelation they delivered became distorted. The Quran is believed to be God's revelation as relayed, word for word, to Muhammed by the angel Gabriel. This perfect and pure revelation corrected the distortions of the previous prophets' revelations. \n\nIslam itself means 'submission,' as in submission to God's will, and Muslim means one who submits. Muslims typically worship by praying 5 times a day while facing Mecca, although that's not a hard and fast rule. Friday prayers are the main communal worship event at the Mosque, similar to Jewish Sabbath on Saturday or Christian Sunday services.\n\nModest dress is something that in the Quran applies to both men and women. The Quran and the teachings of Muhammed are often oriented towards producing a healthy society and community as much as an individual religious development, and that may be the best way to understand the origins of hijab: that it's better for society as a whole if we don't go around distracting each other with immodest dress.\n\nIn practice, this requirement to dress modestly has obviously skewed more towards women than men. Some, both Muslim and non-Muslim, consider this to be a sexist attempt to control women and to make them responsible for men's lust. To others, it's a way to ensure that women are treated decently and fairly rather than as sexual objects. It's almost like a suit of armor that protects you from being objectified. In the West and other societies where Muslims are not the majority, some women choose to do it as an expression of their identity and faith more than anything else, almost like a Christian or Jew wearing a cross or star of David on a necklace.",
"Former Muslim here. Hmm, what can I think of?\n\nThe religion is called Islam, it's practitioners are Muslims. \nMuslims worship Allah, who is the same One and Only (caps for emphasis) as the Abrahamic Yahweh/God of the Jews and Christians.\n\nMoses and Jesus are other prophets, but Muhammad was the last.\n\nMuslims also revere (worship would be the wrong word. Muslims only worship God/Allah) the Prophet Muhammad (commonly, his name is followed by the customary \"Peach Be Upon Him\", or PBUH) who they claim was contacted by the angel Gabriel to spread God's message in the godless and largely tribal Middle East in the early 600's. \n\nHe made a journey to Medina (\"nearby\" city) I think because he was shunned from Mecca. Then came back. That journey is honored and is supposed to be emulated by every Muslim who can afford to go to Saudi Arabia.\n\nMuslims vary in terms of conservatism. There are militant radicals, orthodox conservatives, moderates, and liberals like any other major religion. I grew up going from moderate to liberal (to non-religious).\n\nShaking hands is fine from what I know. Maybe not in conservative sects, but I never spent much time around extremely conservative Muslims. With that said. I'd say in Islam, \"moderate\" might be more similar to a Christian conservative, as I'd say the religion as a whole is somewhat more conservative. Part of this is that according to the faith, religion is the ONLY thing that really matters. You are expected to completely devote yourself to God.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
37khlq
|
why is it that some victims of sexual assault, whether as children or as adults, are more capable of handling the trauma/experience, mentally, than others?
|
Made a throwaway, because obvious. I was molested twice as a child and have known a few close friends throughout my lifetime that have had similar experiences, yet we are all completely "normal". You wouldn't know it unless we told you outright. Why is it that some victims of sexual assault become so emotionally scarred over their past while others just glide on by? (Especially if it happens to someone as an adult, where they are more than capable of reasonably explaining how and why something happened, whereas children cannot.)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37khlq/eli5why_is_it_that_some_victims_of_sexual_assault/
|
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"text": [
"honestly it is how well the trauma aligns with the victims coping skills. so if it is the physivsl cotrol thwt\n\n\nok**. Abmian** making typouin imopssibl*\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n ",
"This is a hard question to answer without some basic psychology knowledge, but basically it goes like this. \n\nPeople differ in personality traits, the generally accepted model is modern psychology is the big five traits. These are:\nConscientiousness\nOpenness\nExtroversion\nAgreeableness\nNeuroticism\n\nEach of these is on a continuum, at one end, extremely low levels of said trait, at the other end extremely high levels. For example a person high in neuroticism will be highly anxious were as a person low in neuroticism will be low in anxiety. \n\nEach person falls in a different place on the continuum for all these 5 traits. The combination of these traits and the different points on the continuum on which a person lies will result in different behaviours, cognition and emotions for two different people experiencing the exact same thing. \n\nSo, with the above perspective in mind, two people who suffer the same or similar horrific abuse as a child will differ in how they interpret that event as a result of the individual difference in their underlying personality traits. ",
"As someone who was sexually abused as a child, I can tell you that while someone may look like they are handling it well from the outside, there is residual fallout that never goes away.\n\nI thought I was okay until I had a daughter. Then feelings that must have been buried deep came out and I had to go to counseling to make sure I did not visit all my baggage on my innocent daughter.a\n\nThen, when I reached my fifties, more stuff came out of no where. My therapist said it was quite common for abuse issues to surface at these times (having a child and reaching your 50s (or 60s).",
"Sometimes molestation is only the tip of the iceberg.\nIn some cases there may have been other traumatic experiences in the persons life which can be painful to deal with on top of the molestation. Also, much depends on the support which is given throughout a persons development years."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
91c5yo
|
if salt water is left alone does it separate into na+ and cl- ions?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/91c5yo/eli5_if_salt_water_is_left_alone_does_it_separate/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e2wxzub"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Yes they do. Most salts, including NaCl, naturally dissociate into cations and anions in water. \n\nLooks like this: _URL_0_\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.mammothmemory.net/images/user/1.13.5%20NaCI%20dissociation%20in%20water.jpg"
]
] |
|
6r0xwv
|
Were there ever any female gladiators?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6r0xwv/were_there_ever_any_female_gladiators/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dl2035b"
],
"score": [
316
],
"text": [
"Hi there, it seems that there is very few and patchy sources that would lead us to information about female gladiators, but you might find [this answer](_URL_0_) by /u/Daeres interesting.\t"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dsa7m/how_would_a_woman_come_to_be_a_gladiatrix_female/"
]
] |
||
2n2j23
|
why do birth defects increase when people give birth when they're older?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n2j23/eli5_why_do_birth_defects_increase_when_people/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm9t00q",
"cm9ta8f"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"The quality of the woman's eggs declines as she ages. In simplistic terms, the good quality eggs are used first. ",
"A woman's ova (eggs) are all made in early puberty (say 10 or so), which means that as time goes on each egg is older as it gets released during ovulation. The older the egg, the more likely it has become worn over time. From a genetics point of view, the chromosomes within each egg are suspended in a particular position by tiny molecular strings so they can interact with the sperm's chromosomes during fertilisation. As time goes on, these tiny molecular strings can loosen or break which can lead to genetic abnormalities such as Down's Syndrome or unknown miscarriages."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
14pdqe
|
How hard was it to navigate the roads before the institution of the national highway system under Eisenhower?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14pdqe/how_hard_was_it_to_navigate_the_roads_before_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c7f8d75",
"c7fcfi2",
"c7fgmoq",
"c7fk3rh",
"c7fs1e9"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Until the real historians arrive, you might be interested in this related article: _URL_0_\n\nEisenhower was part of that expedition.",
"I dont understand what you mean by 'hard'.. Maps were available for purchase, and as other posters pointed out the numbering system for roads was mostly the same as the current interstate system. You can still travel the old routes too, if you are so inclined. Take a journey to a destination and dont use the interstate. \n\nThe most common difficulties encountered by long distance road travelers were related to time and cost. Prior to the post WW2 era cars were debatably less reliable, people had less disposable income, and travel time was considerably longer. ",
"It depends how far back in time you want to go. The Federal Government did not begin to subsidize road building until 1916, but some of the more populous states in the North East had began to fund road construction before that. In 1919, Thomas MacDonald became the chief of the Bureau of Roads in the Department of the Interior. By 1926, he had developed a comphrehensive network of interstate highways, which still exist today, as Federal highways, with a white shield with black numbers route signs. \n\nSome of these federal highways were built over already existing roads. Route 30 between New York City and San Francisco followed the path of the Lincoln highway, which was the best publicized and well funded of the private attempts to build long distance highways. However, the actual accomplishments of the Lincoln highway fell well short of completing a transcontinental highway. The Federal government also used pre-existing roads, built by turnpike companies that went out of business during the 1800s due to railroad competition. The Natinal Road became route 40, the Santa Fe Trail became Route 66, the Theodore Roosevelt Highway became Federal Route 6, are just three examples of this. During the 1920s, Thomas MacDonald began to pave these roads and put signs up to aid the traveller. During the 1920's many states also began to lay out their system of state highways, and received generous Federal appropriations to build them. The petroleum companies also began to offer free road maps at their gas stations, which sprang up like mushrooms in the USA during the 1920s. That was the first time long distance road travel really became practical for the average car owner. Prior to 1920, the roads were too poor and the cars were too fragile for long distance auto travel to be practical. ",
"[This](_URL_0_) article has several maps from the 1930's estimating travel times leaving New York City in 1800, 1830, 1857 and 1930. It shows that in 1800 a trip from NYC to St. Louis could have been up to six weeks, while in 1857 railroads has shortened that same trip to three days. Which, while the railroads are beyond the scope of your question, they would have spurred improvements in the communities they served, and their connections to communities beyond the scope of the rail lines.\n\nThe maps themselves seem to have been pulled from [this](_URL_2_) book, Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, Paullin, 1932.\n\nAlso look into the history of [Turnpike or Toll Roads](_URL_1_) (Wikipedia link which is as good a place as any to start on this topic...) which were the main system of improved roads in the US before the Federal Government got into the road building business. Basically if you built a tunnel or road, and kept it improved, you could charge a fee to people transporting items on it.\n\n(As an aside, these turnpikes were named for the rotating gate at the entry where you paid to pass, literally a pike or spar, turning on a hub. This is also where you get the Pike name for roads in Kentucky and Tennessee.)",
"I'm no historian, so I won't be surprised if this is removed, but in the documentary series *America, the Story of Us*, it was said that Eisenhower's motivation for the highway system was a trip he took across the US in an army caravan. It took them something like 60 days. With the interstate system, now it only takes 3 days."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Motor_Convoy"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/public-transportation/how-fast-could-you-travel-across-usa-1800s/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_road",
"http://books.google.com/books/about/Atlas_of_the_Historical_Geography_of_the.html?id=NbU5xRPiM-QC"
],
[]
] |
||
x3oyh
|
What is the point of Variance?
|
I understand that it is the Standard deviation squared, but what is it actually used for?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/x3oyh/what_is_the_point_of_variance/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5iwvan"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Variation is much easier to compute directly in many situations, and has a more 'natural' definition when building up from discrete probability. They both measure distribution, and while standard deviation is commonly used as a quick measure of distribution for experimental data, variance is (at lease when I've seen it) much more useful for theoretical work. \n\nNote, I am not a statistician, but I often use variance in probabilistic proofs. I have never seen standard deviation used in mathematical research."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1nu68k
|
what is touching the inside of a body piercing?
|
So when people get ears, eyes or bellybuttons pierced, and they heal, what is the stuff that is touching the piercing (i.e inside the body)? Is it skin that grows over like grass would, scar tissue or something else? Does it change depending where you are pierced?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1nu68k/eli5_what_is_touching_the_inside_of_a_body/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccm2bfb"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The hole (tunnel) is called a fistula and once healed it should be lined with skin. \n\nIf you ever get the sort of funky cheese discharge once the piercing is healed it is mainly shed skin from inside the fistula. \n\nThe type of skin will depend on where exactly you are pierced but will fairly similar to the skin around it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
a2thhy
|
How much did a late medieval county bring in in revenue?
|
Take for example I am a baron in late 15th century Hungary. I am in control of a modest-sized county. By this point how many florins do I bring in per year in income? Or (even by this date) are most taxes still paid in lifestock, crops, etc? Did the crown bring in most of its revenues through taxes or mining? Thanks for any responses: hard to find information on this!
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a2thhy/how_much_did_a_late_medieval_county_bring_in_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eb5iqbv"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Talking about Hungary, there were many forms of tax an average serf had to pay in the 15th century. There was the ninth and the tenth, 10-10 percent income tax to be paid to the king and Church, respectively. Then they had to pay through work (*robot*) to their landlord - few days a year until 1504, then 12 days/year after. There was the census and munera which were basically obligatory gifts in coin and livestock to the landlord. The plot tax to be paid to the king. Subsidium or war tax, could be imposed once a year. Miling tax, because peasents didn't have their own mil. And quite a few other non-regular forms of tax or tax-like obligations like billet or portage. These were all detailed in registers called urbariums.\n\nSo the question how much did a county bring in isn't that simple because some of the income went to the ruler, some to the Church and some stayed with the landlord, plus they can't all be exactly quantified. As you guessed most taxes are still paid in goods - there were simply not much money on hand at serfs, and they normally didn't need much of it either. Like today taxes had deadlines and there were designated places to pay them, which were called dézsma-place (dézsma is folk butchering of the world decima). Also to clarify counties weren't owned by barons or nobles - they were administrative units managed by ispáns (comes parochialis in Latin), a baron may have owned all land in a county and so was practically lord of it, laws made it clear he was not the leader of a county. Notably the counies administration was responsible for collecting taxes for the king.\n\nThen there were other sources of income, namely customs and mining (gold - silver and salt- mines), so naturally counties varied one after another in respect of these numbers. I found a pretty precise breakdown of royal income in 1485: of 628 thousand florin, 61% were taxes from serfs, 13% from salt mines, 10% from minting and mining guilds, 8% from customs, 3,5% from towns, the rest is various smaller taxes such as those paid in by Jews or Saxons. \n\nThe average serf household has an annual income of 1 to 3 florins. Let's check the numbers! In 1485 the serfs payed in total of 385 thousand florins, At about 300-400 thousand households it comes out to 1 florin per hh. This is in line with the common line I read that households payed in over half their yearly income. With roughly 6-9 thousand household per county, a single county contributed about 6-9 thousand florins to the treasury. So how much did a landlord owning the entire country get? Well he got the ninth which is 10% of a households income, so about 10-30 denarius (100 denarius = 1 florin). Plus the robot but at time that was only a few days a year. The mentionned gifts were comparable in worth to the robot. Sticking to about 20 denarius per household, your county-owning noble enjoyed 1000-2000 florin income a year from his serfs. But keep in mind lot of this was in form of goods not coins, and there were big differences going from coutny to coutny depending on population size, economic profile and activity. Also Hungary had like 90 counties at the time, so someone owning a county wasn't necessary a very relevant person.\n\nSources I used:\n\nHungarian Ethnographic Lexicon\n\nHistory of money in Hungary, Márton Gyöngyössy\n\nFinancial and economic plicy in the Kingdom of Hungary, Bálint Hómann\n\nLife of Serfs, György Domanovszky"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9ywr6p
|
why are e. coli outbreaks such a common occurance these days?
|
Are there root causes for all food or is it different with different types of food such as meat, poultry, or vegetables? Are there measures that can be taken to help curb these outbreaks?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ywr6p/eli5_why_are_e_coli_outbreaks_such_a_common/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ea4ndd3",
"ea4ogbr"
],
"score": [
3,
5
],
"text": [
"Much of the reason is the massive scale of our food production. Agricultural monocultures and industrial scale meat production a) increase the likelihood of bacterial contamination and b) result in ENORMOUS volumes of food being potentially contaminated by an outbreak.\n\nUnfortunately this is a tough thing to counteract without sweeping reform to modern food production which would be very costly and challenging.",
"A.) more food comes through a single production line\nB.) it's probably actually not all that increased we just know what it is, and can broadcast it now more vs before we had mass media. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
b2zg9g
|
How did computers get from the size of rooms to the size of a fingernail?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/b2zg9g/how_did_computers_get_from_the_size_of_rooms_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eixj7rz",
"eixqo72"
],
"score": [
9,
2
],
"text": [
"The early computers used vacuum tubes. The invention of transistors replaced the tubes. Then the invention of silicon based integrated circuitry replaced transistors. And then the ability to jam more and more circuitry into tinier spaces continued the trend toward small. ",
"A modest refinement every year, and the power of compound interest.\n\nThe last great revolution of computer manufacturing technology was the ability to make small planar transistors in an integrated circuit using optical technologies to sort of project a pattern of circuits onto silicon. That happened in the 1960's. Since then, it has mainly been about figuring out how to scale down the transistors in the integrated circuits. Tweaking the process in slight ways every year to make things a bit smaller every year."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3sj8ug
|
What were European armies like before the advent of mass conscription after the French Revolution?
|
Did European powers not see the advantages of being able to levy larger armies before Napoleon did it? Or were things just too decentralized for mass conscription to be feasible? Were European armies in the 18th century before the revolution all just fairly small by modern standards?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3sj8ug/what_were_european_armies_like_before_the_advent/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwxq7ux"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The *lever en masse* started during the French Revolution with the main philosophical ideology starting with Rousseau, suggesting that a conscripted citizen army would prevail in the defense of their homeland. Taking this, Carnot, the man responsible for setting up and managing Revolutionary armies (also known as \"the organizer of victory\"), would have conscription quotas based on departments and population.\n\nNow, how is this different than armies before the French Revolution? Well, it's one of almost night and day. A pre Revolutionary army was recruited by Head hunters that looked for people that wanted adventure, were drunk and unknownly accepted a comission, or the dregs of society and those that were criminals. So, the near exact opposite of a *levée en masse*. The reason armies were small was because the state was paying for everything and this was at a time when Royal expenses were a part of the state budget.\n\nHowever, in the beginning of Revolution, the armies were small. It would take the slow enlarging force of Napoleonic strategy to increase the armies of Europe."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
wxj77
|
what is a rss feed and what's the best way to use them?
|
I know it's some kind of automatic update when blogs + sites release new content, but I don't really know how that all comes together for the user. Is it worth using them instead of checking several websites daily?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wxj77/eli5_what_is_a_rss_feed_and_whats_the_best_way_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5hbtxe",
"c5hc4lq",
"c5hcdqa"
],
"score": [
14,
8,
16
],
"text": [
"I use Google Reader to view my RSS feeds, but there are plenty of others out there. \n\nBut you have it exactly right, it aggregates all of the different sites you've subscribed to so that you don't have to manually go to every single one of your favorite sites to see if anything new or interesting has come out. It also lets you group them, so that you can view postings from multiple sites at once. And the best part I've found is just the ability to scroll through all of the posts without having to keep clicking 'next page' or going to a different site. \n\nMost sites have an RSS feed these days, just click the logo, and it will take you to a page that will allow you to subscribe, or a lot of times you can manually add a feed by adding .rss to the end of a URL. ",
"An RSS feed is a small document that contains a list of \"articles\" (which may be anything and not just news articles) on the site. When a new article is posted, the site's software automatically updates the RSS feed with a listing of the new article.\n\nAn RSS reader is a piece of software that keeps a list of RSS feeds and periodically reloads them. When it sees articles in an RSS feed that weren't there before, it tells the user, so that the user doesn't have to visit each site by hand.\n\nThere are other software that uses RSS feeds as well. For instance, Firefox has \"Live Bookmarks\" which are bookmarks linked to an RSS feed; the bookmark displays the most recent 10 or so entries from the RSS feed. It doesn't actually notify the user when a new article is there; it just lets the user easily refer to them.\n\nRSS feeds are a great way to save your time, and are also really handy for sites that update very infrequently since you don't have to waste time with what is usually a pointless check, but you still find out right away when they update.\n\nPersonally, I use Google Reader, an online RSS reader, but there are many other options.",
"Imagine that you had a friend who loved to tell you stories and you loved listening to because of the way they tell them, but they only tell you stories when you're both in the same place, and if you miss the story, you have to go find them again and get them to repeat it.\n\nSo you set up a mutual deal with your friend's sibling, to record the story in writing and put it into a folder for your later viewing. After a while, you go to the sibling and they pull out the folder of stories that your friend has told and let's you read them, taking out your favorites to save for later.\n\nIf you have multiple friends who tell stories you can do the same thing with them. Then instead of asking your friends to tell each story individually, you can go to your story-keeper."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3c6dni
|
Why were the British able to beat the French militarily so consistently throughout history?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3c6dni/why_were_the_british_able_to_beat_the_french/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cssrawx"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"I'll quickly butt in as a reminder that the British did [not](_URL_0_) consistently beat the French throughout history. Now, the \"French\" and \"British\" of 1066 weren't exactly the same as they are now, but it'd be poor history to discount the Norman conquest."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings"
]
] |
||
7bi854
|
What determines how electrons return to the ground state after they are excited?
|
If all excited electrons must return to the ground state, then what determines if they do this in one continuous drop or several discrete ones? Using hydrogen at as the example, what determines whether an electron at, say, n=6 returns to n=1 as part of the Lyman series, or to n=2, exiting visible light, and then separately n=1, releasing ultraviolet light.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7bi854/what_determines_how_electrons_return_to_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dpi8ceg"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"If the atom starts in a given excited state, it has some probability to transition to each lower energy level. It's probabilistic, but some are going to be much more likely than others.\n\nWhat determines the probabilities for transitions to each final state is a few things.\n\n[Fermi's golden rule](_URL_0_) states that the probability is proportional to a matrix element multiplied by a phase space factor (the \"density of final states\"). The density of final states ensures that energy is conserved, and depends on the energetics of the decay, and the final states available.\n\nThe more important factor for electromagnetic decays is the matrix element part. This represents a quantum-mechanical overlap between the wavefunctions of the initial and final states of the atom. The matrix element will be high for similar states, and low for very different states. There are some selection rules (angular momentum and parity) which will make the matrix elements for certain transitions **zero**.\n\nThere are some general rules that can be stated about electromagnetic decays, without delving into the mathematical details. Transitions which carry away small amounts of angular momentum tend to be highly favored over transitions which carry away more angular momentum.\n\nFor a given angular momentum, \"electric\" transitions tend to dominate over \"magnetic\" transitions (whether a transition is electric of magnetic depends on the angular momentum and parity carried by the transition).\n\nTransitions between states which are far apart in energy tend to be favored over transitions which are close in energy, but the angular momentum rule I mentioned above tends to overpower this.\n\nSo in your example with the n = 6 to n = 1, it depends on *which* orbitals in the n = 6 and n = 1 shells you're talking about. Between two similar orbitals, you're more likely to get a direct transition. Between two states with very different structures, you're more likely to get a cascade of multiple photons before reaching the final state."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%27s_golden_rule"
]
] |
|
bboodd
|
without getting too political, why is the president able to remove and appoint people in completely separate organizations than his own cabinet?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bboodd/eli5_without_getting_too_political_why_is_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ekk7wie",
"ekk90my"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"The President is the head of the Executive branch of the government. A lot of the organizations in the government are part of that branch, it isn't just the cabinet.",
"The President is the leader of the entire Executive branch of the US Federal Government. Not just his cabinet. \n\nThe President is also in charge of nominating Judges for Federal seats as they become available, and the Senate is responsible for vetting and approving or rejecting the nominations. These authorities are part of the Checks-and-Balances system of the US where each Branch has some power over the other two.\n\nAlso, what organization do you think is completely separate that he is doing this to?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4e4aq5
|
Why did Mathieu Kérékou rename Dahomey to Benin?
|
I can understand attempts at decolonization, but I don't understand why they'd use a Nigerian kingdom that was located some hundred(s) (of) miles to the east. Was there cultural ties between Dahomey and Benin?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4e4aq5/why_did_mathieu_kérékou_rename_dahomey_to_benin/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1x4i2c"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"I won't repost my whole comment here, and there's always room for discussion if someone knows the internal politics, but the basic question [has been asked in the past](_URL_0_). In short, the name comes from the Bight of Benin, which itself took its name from the kingdom of Bénin. It is not therefore a direct appropriation. Dahomey was a Fon state, and Bénin was (and still is) an Edo/Bini one with Yorúbà cultural ties, so there was no direct connection historically except that mediated by Oyo or other Yorúbà states. The name change itself had more to do with de-centering the colonial past and the Kingdom of Dahomey in the new dispensation of the mid 1970s."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3e9fim/the_historic_kingdom_of_benin_was_in_nigeria_why/"
]
] |
|
43wdct
|
how do scammers get away with contacting amazon and telling them their item (such as an xbox one/ps4/expensive video card) never arrived, and immediately get sent a replacement, or are refunded? how do they get away without an investigation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43wdct/eli5_how_do_scammers_get_away_with_contacting/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czlguyn",
"czlgwfa"
],
"score": [
5,
4
],
"text": [
"Amazon knows that a certain number of items are stolen from front porches, and that it's hard to catch the criminals or prove what happened since most people don't have security cameras. If the problem gets too bad they'll increase the scrutiny or require signatures.",
"They often don't. But...when they do it is because the cost of investigation exceeds the value of the goodwill when it is a legit claim and/or the cost of the item being investigated. \n\nThe investigative process is a deterrent, but it's not cheaper in small volumes than replacement. They have algorithms and an entire department devoted to fraud, and systems that are used to detect fraud and that they escalate when red flags are triggered. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1n2i4b
|
Simply: does the space station get hit with space rocks or debris?
|
With the puncturing and what nots.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1n2i4b/simply_does_the_space_station_get_hit_with_space/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccf0far"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Yes, and sometimes it causes damage. [Example](_URL_1_). Actually, on a [quick search](_URL_0_) on the subject, I found [this](_URL_2_):\n\n > **Do you believe in that the design of the ISS will cause a problem in case of a meteor shower? Why?**\n\n > That's a really good question. The space environment is a very harsh environment: there's radiation and micrometeorite strikes, and other things in the environment that cause it to be very hazardous. So, one of the things that we've designed the space station for is to protect the astronauts against micrometeorite striking the outer shell of the space station. Now, in doing so, the basic design philosophy of the pressurized modules has been to develop an inner shell, which contains the pressurized interior of the space station, and then a layer of insulation around that inner shell, and then an outer armor plating, if you will, to the exterior. And what that does is protects against small pieces of debris that strike the station and can cause leaks. Now, for larger pieces of debris: they actually track them and have to actually move the space station out of the way of the larger pieces that could cause serious damage to the station.\n\nAnd [this](_URL_3_):\n\n > Expedition 30/31 flight engineer Don Pettit had inspected the outside of the Dragon capsule with binoculars the previous day and reported no micrometeorite damage. Martel asked Pettit to describe what micrometeorite damage would look like and if he had seen it, how that would have changed the procedures for berthing or hatch opening. \n\n > Pettit's answer, in summary, was when micrometeorites impact the aluminum structure they make little craters, a millimeter or two in diameter, that have sharp edges. If the tiny pits are on mating surfaces for pressure seals, they can prevent a good seal. From inside the Space Station, Pettit used binoculars to inspect the mating surfaces on the Dragon capsule that would be mating to the bottom flange surface of Node 2 to create the pressure seal between the inside of Dragon and the inside of the Space Station, thus keeping Space Station air from leaking out into space. No micrometeorite bombardment is good news for spacecraft and astronauts. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.google.com/search?q=international+space+station+micrometeorite",
"http://news.softpedia.com/news/Micrometeorite-Hits-the-International-Space-Station-Punching-a-Bullet-Hole-349617.shtml",
"http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/webcasts/shuttle/sts111/iss-qa.html",
"http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/CosmoSparks/May12/ISS-PSRD.html"
]
] |
|
1yjoy3
|
Where their any pro-union groups of guerrillas operating in the south during the Civil War?
|
I know there were confederate guerrillas operating in the border states, but were there union guerrillas operating in the south?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1yjoy3/where_their_any_prounion_groups_of_guerrillas/
|
{
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],
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18,
48,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Yes, there were Union \"guerrillas\" operating in the [Trans-Mississippi] (_URL_0_) Theater of the war, largely along the Kansas/Missouri border areas.\n\nIn fact, the term \"Jayhawker\" which is known better known as \"Jayhawks\" as in the Kansas State Jayhawks were Union guerrillas who performed raids and attacks in pro-slavery territories of Kansas and Missouri. \n\nHowever, in reality, most of these groups, both Union and Confederate used the excuse of the Civil War to basically become armed bands of thugs and thieves who operated under the guise of being partisans, when all they really wanted was money and loot.",
"Newton Knight was a complex pro-Union Southerner. Knight lived in Jones County in Mississippi where a number of folks opposed secession. In fact, they even elected an ant-secessionist to represent them at Mississippi's secession convention. (This candidate ended up succumbing to political pressure, switching his vote.) Knight originally fought for the Confederacy, was discharged a year later, rejoined, and then went AWOL. Knight had grown increasingly despondent with the Confederacy--for example, they seized his home and he was outraged when the Confederacy allowed wealthy landowners--one white male per 20 slaves--to skip military service. The CSA army arrested the AWOL Newton, and they destroyed his farmstead and some say they tortured him. He eventually escaped. As the war continued to turn dire and as Confederates began deserting more and more, Jones County became a haven for deserters. In late 1863,the deserted formed the Knight Company, electing Knight as their captain. Knight led his company in fourteen skirmishes against the Confederate army. Local legend says they actually seceded from the South, forming the Free State of Jones. After the war, Newton divorced his wife in the 1870s. He then, despite the miscegenation laws that were on the books since 1822, married Rachel, a former slave Newton's grandfather owned. \n\nSee Victoria E. Bynum's \"'White Negroes' in Segregated Mississippi: Miscegenation, Racial Identity, and the Law\" in *The Journal of Southern History* 64.2 (May, 1998)",
"Not sure if it counts as guerilla warfare, but the [Loudoun Rangers](_URL_0_) was a union cavalry unit composed of disaffected Virginians, tasked with raiding their home county. Some of them came from Cole's Maryland Cavalry, which was a similar unit of border raiders. One of their main foes were their relatives in a similar independent raiding unit, the 35th VA cavalry. \n\nContrary to the source I linked, which says *\"Like the Loudoun Rangers, the 35th Virginia had been raised for the specific purpose of \"ranging in the border counties,\" and the men never resigned themselves to being forced to follow the main army into distant regions in violation of their special enlistment contract.\"*, the Confederate unit was the first into Gettysburg before the battle, and made a little girl cry by stealing her pet pony. (page 85 of Trudeau's Gettysburg)",
"In Texas there were numerous German immigrants, some of whom were associated with the liberal and even socialist revolutionaries of 1848 before migration. They were generally pro-Union, and raised their own militias to protect themselves (presumably from the Confederacy) during the Civil War. However, they did not actively engage in attacks against he Confederacy.\n\nThere is at least one incident where German militiamen from the Texas Hill Country attempted to march to Mexico, and make it to Union territory from there. They were ambushed by Confederate soldiers along the way and never made it.\n\nI'll see if I can dig up a source on that. I remember a really good one available online but don't have it bookmarked or anything."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Mississippi_Theater_of_the_American_Civil_War"
],
[],
[
"http://www.loudounhistory.org/history/loudoun-cw-rangers.htm"
],
[]
] |
|
6y2ovh
|
why can’t modern productions of ww2 footage get the speed right?
|
I’m new here. Sorry if this is a re-question.
It just seems tragic that such a serious time in our history is portrayed with an almost comedic flair.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6y2ovh/eli5_why_cant_modern_productions_of_ww2_footage/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmk7xfk"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"The problem is that some of the film cameras were hand cranked, giving them an irregular rate of frames per second."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
76zq31
|
; why is nautical speed measured in knots and not kph or mph?
|
Wouldn't it be simpler if everyone used either kph or mph?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76zq31/eli5_why_is_nautical_speed_measured_in_knots_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dohv3o1",
"dohv4l1"
],
"score": [
85,
11
],
"text": [
"Knots are based on the size of the earth, so that one nautical is equal to one minute of latitude (and 1 knot is 1 nautical mile per hour). When you're talking about things like planes and seafaring boats, it makes sense to measure speed/distance based on a fixed property of the globe/maps. ",
"They are called \"knots\" because back in the days of the High-Sea exploration they had a wooden board called a chip-board with a length of rope that was knotted at regular intervals. Then thrown into the water and the rope was allowed to run free. After a period of time, the rope was stopped and pulled in and the number of knots that had passed was recorded as the ship's speed."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
24jyz4
|
How can the universe have a shape? This is mind-boggling to me...
|
I cannot understand the concept of [the universe having a shape](_URL_0_)
If something has a shape than that something "borders" something else. Please read the link above (it's from NASA's official website). It considers three possibilities:
1) The universe is spherical
2) The universe is curved like the surface of a saddle
3) The universe is flat "like a sheet of paper", and infinite in extent
In the first scenario, the universe being a sphere, what surrounds that sphere? It does not say that it is infinite, so there must be a "beyond it", right? I could say more or less the same to the second "saddle" hypothesis.
In the third case, if the universe looks like an infinite sheet of paper, I understand we couldn't travel to its extremities to reach the end of its extension, but how about traveling "up" or "down" its "height"? Does that make any sense?!? Please help, I'm having an existential crisis... (hopefully the matrix will open up)
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/24jyz4/how_can_the_universe_have_a_shape_this_is/
|
{
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"text": [
"Actually, the terminology is somewhat confusing, but they are not talking about the shape of space but its global curvature. The universe could have a global curvature that is like that of a flat sheet of paper, i.e. zero, but it doesn't have to be a flat sheet of paper.\n\nAlso, the universe could actually have a shape on top of having a curvature. Take a toy universe you are probably familiar with if you have played computer games. If you wander around on the map of an old final fantasy game or an asteroids game, if you keep going in one direction, you'll just pop up on the opposite side of the map at some point. All those maps are flat, but have a toroidal \"shape\".",
"When you imagine a sphere, you are probably thinking of an \"[embedding](_URL_0_)\" of a 2D sphere in a 3D space - a particular representation that is easy for humans to think about. But mathematically, it is actually possible to think about a 2D sphere without ever invoking the concept of 3D space. The surface of the sphere exists by itself. You can measure and talk about values like curvature or distance without ever assuming 3D space exists. Our universe does not need to be embedded in some higher-dimensional space, there needs not be anything \"beyond it\".\n\nHave you ever tried to imagine a \"flatworld\"? Try to imagine a whole world that exists in two dimensions, like a sheet of paper. You are looking down on it and see little 2D people or even 2D planets moving about. But that sheet of paper, that 2D world exists by itself, there is no need to ever assume that there is a third dimension to it, right? You can visualize it in pure 2D? Well, mathematically, you can have all of that AND add curvature to it, without needing anything additional.",
" > If something has a shape than that something \"borders\" something else.\n\nThis isn't actually true when you get into the mathematical details. Rather than \"shape\" the word usually used is \"[topology](_URL_0_)\" (basically a more rigorous mathematical definition of \"shape\"), and there are certainly topologies for a space where there are no boundaries, but a finite amount of total volume. There is nothing \"outside\" or \"beyond\" that volume which is also part of the space.\n\n > In the first scenario, the universe being a sphere, what surrounds that sphere?\n\nThere is a big difference between \"being a sphere\" and \"being spherical\" here. The shape of the universe isn't actually a sphere, it would be only the points which lie on the *surface* of a sphere. An ordinary sphere is a 3-dimensional space, but its surface is a 2-dimensional space (you only need 2 coordinates to specify anywhere on its surface) with a finite area but no boundaries (it wraps around onto itself).\n\nLikewise, if we live in a spherical universe, then it is actually like the surface of a hypersphere (4-dimensional sphere with a 3-dimensional \"surface,\" a volume), slightly curved everywhere and eventually wrapping back around onto itself.\n\n > It does not say that it is infinite, so there must be a \"beyond it\", right?\n\nNope! It is finite, in the sense that there is a finite amount of volume (\"space\"), but it also has no boundaries; you can travel in any direction and you will eventually end up where you started. There is no \"beyond\" in any spatial direction.\n\n > I could say more or less the same to the second \"saddle\" hypothesis.\n\nThe \"saddle\" hypothesis is a bit different. Another name for this is \"hyperbolic topology.\" In this case, the universe is actually infinite (it has infinite volume). It also has no boundaries, but if you pick a direction and start travelling you will never end up back where you began. You will just keep going forever, and there is no \"beyond\" forever.\n\n > In the third case, if the universe looks like an infinite sheet of paper, I understand we couldn't travel to its extremities to reach the end of its extension\n\nWe never could; it would be impossible.\n\n > but how about traveling \"up\" or \"down\" its \"height\"? Does that make any sense?!?\n\nThe universe would not be 2-dimensional like a sheet of paper, nor would it have a finite \"height\". It would be a 3-dimensional infinite volume (a flat, infinite Euclidean-like space); infinite in every direction, length, width, and height.\n\nAs you can see, in all 3 situations, there is no \"boundary\" that can be crossed (even in principle), no matter what direction you travel in.\n\nHope that helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html"
] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedding#Differential_topology"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology"
]
] |
|
14wd8e
|
When I boil water, I don't see any steam coming off until AFTER I turn off the heat. Why is that?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/14wd8e/when_i_boil_water_i_dont_see_any_steam_coming_off/
|
{
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"score": [
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23,
4,
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2,
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"text": [
"You can't see water vapor (aka steam), it's a gas, so the \"steam\" that you see is actually water droplets of from steam condensing and forming a fine mist. When the water is boiling the temperature directly above the pot is hot enough that the water vapor doesn't condense, so you can't see it. By the time it's cool enough, it's traveled far enough that it is too diffuse to form large enough droplets to refract light, so you still can't see it.\n\nWhen you turn the heat off, the temperature drops, and the water vapor can condense in a more concentrated location, making larger droplets which can be seen visually. \n",
"Also, if you have a gas range, the heated air from underneath the pot will convect up along the sides of the pot over the steam-formation region, preventing water droplets from condensing near the pot. \n\nYou'll see much more steam coming off an electric range than a gas range.",
"Related question: I hold a flame to a cigarette, lighting it. I take the flame away, smoke appears. I put the flame back, the cigarette is smoldering more than it was before, but it emits no smoke until I take the flame away. Why is this?",
"I have a somewhat related question. I notice when I boil water that the steam seems to move in a circular motion, from the pot it spins like a small whirl wind. Is this the movement of molecules in reaction to heat or what? I mean, obviously it's a reaction to heat but has there been studies done about the organization or the way water vapor moves in relation to the heat source. Sorry for the nube question but I'm a cook so I've been thinking about this for a while. ",
"Kind of related: \nI assume you get bubbles when you're boiling water due to the water at the bottom reaching the boiling point first and it then having to escape. If you managed to heat the water at the top first, would there be any visible bubbles?",
"If you can see it, that's condensation, not steam. \n\nIf you boil water in an old tea kettle, get it to a good boil and watch the spout closely - there's a clear gap between the spout and the white stuff you can see (what people usually call 'steam', but isn't). That's where the steam is, and that's where it's hottest.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
9m9cf9
|
why do foods so often use artificial flavoring to replicate the taste of something, rather than just using the original thing to flavor it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9m9cf9/eli5_why_do_foods_so_often_use_artificial/
|
{
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4,
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"text": [
"there are two key reasons why this is done. First is simple cost because the flavour comes from something that is expensive so to cut down on the cost they make an artificial alternative. The second is spoilage if they were to use the actual ingredient then the product would have a much shorter shelf life. Using the artificial alternative makes the product last much longer.",
"The main reason is per-unit cost. While you may spend $50,000 to develop a new artificial flavor, you can then make 500 million units of that flavor cheaply.\n\nA second reason is preservation. Some artificial flavors last longer, under rough conditions.\n\nA third reason is exact control. Natural flavors in plants vary with time, and even depending on what farm and what soil they came from.",
"Cost efficiency and quality control. \n\n\nOn the cost efficiency, the production cost can be better managed and it is less likely to be affected by supply issues (Eg. Natural disasters affecting the plantation or the supply routes). Also it is easier to store large amounts of artificial flavoring compared to the natural ingredient, this can be due to storage condition (Eg. refrigeration) or the space required. \n\n\nOn the quality control, artificial flavoring allows for consistency across production batches and production location. This allows more control on the final product, and allows the manufacturer greater ability to tweak the formula towards the local palate."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
bm3tol
|
How do bugs become fossils by being trapped in amber? Cant other small animals can be fossils the same way?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bm3tol/how_do_bugs_become_fossils_by_being_trapped_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"emtn3cf",
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10,
2
],
"text": [
"Yes, anything can be preserved in amber. Aside from small critters like arachnids and insects, we’ve also found pieces of larger animals like the tail of a feathered dinosaur. Bugs are most common because they can be fully encased and tend to crawl around on trees a lot.\n\n_URL_0_",
"[According to this](_URL_0_) it’s not just insects. Plants, lizards, and dinosaur feathers have also been trapped.\n\nBeing trapped in amber is basically what it sounds like. You get caught in amber. The trick is that amber isn’t a solid substance when it starts life. Amber is a liquid, a very thick liquid, at first. It’s released by trees as resin and then slowly hardens, if the conditions are right, over thousands of years. \n\nHave you ever had pine resin get on you? It’s *very* sticky, and even if you scrape it off you’re likely going to have to wash your hand to get all of the residue off. A bug, plant, small lizard, or feather, can’t do that fast enough to escape. It gets stuck in the resin flow, and then eventually completely covered by resin. \n\nThe resin provides an oxygen free environment, which protects the remains from deteriorating in such a way that we can still see what’s inside. The animals and plants had bacteria on them, though, so a fair bit of their composition will break down a bit. We can’t just extract DNA, perfect cells, or organs, as they’re mostly broken to bits by radiation, bacteria trapped with them, and other things. \n\nThe result, however, is a very well preserved specimen. We can see the structures it had in incredible detail. The article above mentions that we can see that an insect was carrying eggs, for example. We can still see the exact pattern of leaves or scales or feathers. \n\nSo, the meaning of being trapped in amber is to be preserved. Literally speaking, in a resin substance that coats a thing and preserves it. As mentioned, it’s not just insects, but anything small enough, with enough resin, to be preserved by the process. (Large animals like a dog would be almost impossible, as the animal could easily escape.)\n\nEdit: \n\nAs per /u/foramsgalorams I have altered every instance of \"Sap\" and replaced it with \"Resin\". They are different things, and I did a stupid in not double checking which one it was.",
"You have to remember that amber is fossilized tree resin and resin isn't known to move extremely fast. In order for an animal to be trapped in it, it needs to be either slower of weaker than the resin. Besides that they need to actually be where the resin fall. So you could (and do) have other animals fossilized in amber, but it's much more rare than bugs as it would be harder for them to get out of the resin than larger animals."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/feathered-dinosaur-tail-amber-theropod-myanmar-burma-cretaceous/"
],
[
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaenamontanari/2015/08/13/the-six-most-incredible-fossils-preserved-in-amber/amp/"
],
[]
] |
||
2d8zkq
|
Why was gin so prevalent in the roaring twenties?
|
Surely it would have been easier to make vodka?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2d8zkq/why_was_gin_so_prevalent_in_the_roaring_twenties/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjn9kgo",
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],
"score": [
24,
6
],
"text": [
"Juniper berries can conceal a multitude of sins. \n\nDuring Prohibition, there was a thriving industry in [\"renaturing\" industrial alcohol](_URL_0_) that had intentionally been made unfit for human consumption. \n\nCocktail historian David Wondrich probably has a great deal more to say on the subject, but he's cited [in this Old Tom gin article](_URL_1_) as saying: \n > ...fundamentally driven by the fact that before the introduction of the column still, capable of producing very pure “neutral” spirit, the base alcohol for early gins would have been crude and distinctly flavoured—indeed much of the botanical flavouring might have been there simply to try and make the spirit more palatable, as might any sweetening or deliberate ageing in wood (something which lies at the heart of whisky making).\n\n",
"This isn't a top-level reply and I will delete it if asked, but as a follow up, I have heard that the term \"gin\" was much less defined a hundred years ago. Juniper was present but the typical juniper/citrus/coriander makeup that we see now is a recent standardization. Can anyone elaborate on this? I'm not referring to sloe gin or Dutch Genever either. If memory serves, any rot-gut someone made and put juniper in was a gin, however palatable it may have been."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html",
"http://instituteforalcoholicexperimentation.blogspot.com/2011/04/group-test-10-old-tom-gins-compared.html"
],
[]
] |
|
24bbm4
|
why does my girlfriend seem so warm while sleeping at night?
|
She seems to get as hot as an oven, and I've heard of people in similar situations. Why does this happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24bbm4/eli5_why_does_my_girlfriend_seem_so_warm_while/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ch5icel"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"2 human bodies together generate more heat than 1 alone is the simple answer and your not used to it. If you used to sleeping alone than you are def used to it being cooler. Also a normal human should have a core body temp of 98.6F which is pretty warm if you think about it so that + that fact that people usually sleep under covers and between sheets means a lot of heat being trapped."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2iczkv
|
What are the biggest problmes people would enconter living in Mars 3.6 m/s² gravity?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2iczkv/what_are_the_biggest_problmes_people_would/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cl12n1j"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"We don't know for certain.\n\nWhat we do know is that living in microgravity affects the immune system, and it causes bone mass and muscle mass loss. This is under active reasearch, especially in the ISS.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nBut we (still) don't have enough studies to conclude if 1/3 g would be enough to prevent these problems.\n\nBone mass and muscle mass loss are *relatively* easy to handle with exercises that mimic gravity, but still a long time of recovery is needed.\n\n_URL_0_\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast02aug_1/",
"http://www.nasa.gov/content/study-reveals-immune-system-is-dazed-and-confused-during-spaceflight/"
]
] |
||
22uuxk
|
how come reddit is so massive and influential yet all of the people i've spoken to don't know about it and i never see it used on tv like twitter or facebook is used?
|
Edit: So it seems that it's not as massive and influential as I thought it was. Thanks for the responses though guys :)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22uuxk/eli5_how_come_reddit_is_so_massive_and/
|
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"Because it's not. Reddit is not known for anything other than being a place that has both cat pictures and porn. Reddit isn't and will never be as massive or influential as Facebook or Twitter. \n",
"Here's a Time article with reddit references:\n_URL_0_\n\nA redditor posted a meme confessing to murder last year. That made national news. _URL_1_\n\nMy local news and comedy talk shows sometimes do a bit on a reddit post. \n\nI keep quiet about my redditing because I like being able to post things anonymously. I won't share my screen name with my friends/family and I would prefer they not look for me. ",
"Ya alot of people don't know about it but most if the time when reddit comes up the people around me know what it is but they don't use it because its complex to use\n\nTL;DR reddits commonly known but hard to use so they don't",
"The only advantage reddit has which the other two don't is that reddit has giant conversations. It is hard to communicate on the 1002nd comment on facebook when you are 19 thousandth and on twitter it is difficult to even see replies as conversations are mainly 2 person - with reddit, you can communication all the way down a thread with little branches coming off.\n\nThe problem with reddit is that: it isn't a clear \"share\" or \"retweet\" because of the algorithms, everything gets pushed off the front page regularly quickly and it is too customizable (you could stay in a small subreddit and not know of all the cool things. I unsubbed from AskReddit for my first year because I thought it was similar to blogs and that is probably the most popular subreddit interaction wise - shows how even the biggest stories aren't seen.).",
"Most people I have talked to say they do not like the format of reddit. It seems to confuse first time users as the interface is not \"clean\" and doesn't look organized is what they say...",
"Because it isn't. Reddit hits a certain demographic, I think its white males from 18 - 35 its most popular in, so its popular among demographics. Not to mention its a lot of the same opinions, liberal views mostly. The simple fact is among mostly white males its influential to a point, but the average bear on the street who doesn't use the internet too much it means nothing to them.\n\n",
"I've spoken to several people who like to browse reddit on their phones. That may only be because they're in the military and with work in the military, its either- busy all day or not busy at all.",
"Reddit has created a poor stigma for itself, since half of our pictures are of cats or nsfw. Everything else, has usually been taken from other sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, etc. and news sources would rather use direct sources instead of Reddit. ",
"Actually, in the recent Jack Ryan movie, they checked \"Twitter and Reddit\" for the terrorist.\n\nSo there you have it.",
"Because reddit is not really a social media site people use to keep in contact with friends and family as Facebook or Twitter.\n\n\nPeople tend to use reddit to keep track and/or discuss topics related to their interests, so it is something one can perfectly keep to oneself and enjoy privately. On the other hand, using Facebook or Twitter and not telling your acquaintances... kind of goes against the point doesn't it?\n\n\nIn that sense, 4chan and reddit are alike, as much as 4chan would hate to hear that.",
"You only believe Reddit is so massive and influential because people and posts on Reddit tell you that it's massive and influential. ",
"I'm thinking it might be to do with the fact it can't be commercialized as easily in terms of content. On Facebook and Twitter popular companies will get liked/followed, and then those people receive all the shite those companies put up. On Reddit, that doesn't happen. It's about the content, not the poster, when it comes to how well seen something is.",
"Reddit seems massive and influential because you're a part of Reddit. When you're on a computer for most of your time, you kind of get absorbed into Reddit culture. \n\n\nThought experiment: Try to think of what you did on the internet before you went on Reddit.",
"I wanted to add my 2 cents so here it is...\n\nI've been on reddit for a few months now and it was hard for me to understand the site at first. It's overwhelming at first because there is so much information and I wasn't used to reading threads so it took some time to understand reddit. When I figured out how to find subreddits and customize my reddit experience I started getting more into it and now I rarely go on Facebook, I get all my news, gossip and laughs from reddit AND I can post my opinions without losing friends over it! \n\n\nAlso, it was very hard to maneuver reddit on my phone but I found alien blue and that helped a lot. Another thing I found hard was learning all of the acronyms that are used (TIL, CMV, AMA, etc). I'm still not even sure how to do formatting, that confuses me and I even know some basic HTML! \n\n\nI do constantly talk about reddit now and I find a lot of people have heard of reddit but aren't sure how to use the site. I tell them it took me about a month to really learn but it was worth it! I'm actually going to send my stepdad some info on reddit so it's easier for him to get into it.",
"It attracts a different type of audience. Facebook and twitter allows any idiot to show how cool they are with their 3edgy5me statuses and their pictures where they think their affliction shirt selfie looks cool. Also, it feeds their need for attention.\n\nHere, most of your posts will be labeled shit posts and if you can't provide anything (witty comment, facts, etc) you're a faggot, fedora tipping neckbeard, or just down voted. You think you look cool with your selfie holding a razor to your throat? Facebook just gave you 57 likes, Reddit made you front page of /r/cringepics",
"People come to Reddit for anonymous conversation.\n\nTwitter and FB are used as a public face for your social interactions.",
"Lol, cause people who browse reddit have no social influence or power whatsoever.",
"I'd question the \"massive and influential\"-part. ",
"Because it lacks credibility, it's 100% confirmation-bias.",
"I'm surprised the top answer here isn't just plainly: reddit is not that massive nor is it very influential",
"Clearly it is not \"so massive and influential\" as you think.",
"It's because you're addicted to the internet and they aren't. ",
" Is it wrong that I don't want Reddit to be commercialized? I think its perfect the way it is. If you were a forum user before Facebook and all the social networks, then its pretty clear. Best. Worldwide. Forum. Ever.",
"It's not influential. ",
"Because it's the only proof left for a loving God. Why would anyone want Reddit to become like Facebook or Twitter? ",
"Reddit isn't that massive or influential. ",
"please see the 1st rule of fight club",
"Jeopardy used it in a couple of clues and @midnight on comedycentral is twitter/reddit essentially.",
"Anonymity has a lot to do with it I think. "
]
}
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[],
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"http://techland.time.com/2013/10/01/the-six-most-important-moments-in-reddit-history/",
"http://rt.com/news/reddit-confession-fbi-investigation-536/"
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|
1rp63i
|
why do operating system messages give useless (to most) error codes instead of simple explanations of what went wrong?
|
Example: Windows Update was failing. A string of numbers was the error. Turned out to be a simple matter of the system time being off. Why can't they just SAY "Check system time"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rp63i/eli5_why_do_operating_system_messages_give/
|
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"There are thousands of error codes in the systems and the OS is translated in many languages..\n\n* It's cheaper to use codes because you can keep adding them all over and not have to send them for translation\n* although some error codes have a common cause, others can because caused for various reasons and thus the explanations would be really long.\n* numbers are also easier to pass up through the system if something low level failed.",
"In addition to the answers ElectroSpore gave, another issue is that often problems within computers require background knowledge of computing to understand. Computers are complex and people can spend years of their life studying computing to properly understand how OSs work, so in a lot of cases there's no way to produce a simple, succint explanation for what went wrong that laypeople are going to understand.",
"As a software developer, I would like to get reports from users in the form of specific error codes rather than long sentences of what went wrong. It would indeed be less helpful for the end-user to figure out the problem but on my end, ~~but~~ with specific error codes I can more easily pinpoint where in the code this error is being produced, without asking for a bunch of other details from the user. This should lead to easier tracking of bugs, so I can release updates that might benefit a good number of other users who are experiencing the bug / error as well.",
"I just had this same problem, sort of. In Ubuntu (Gnu/Linux distro) when an application requires administrative privileges, Ubuntu doesn't tell you which one exactly. So what if, for example, I opened multiple programs at once and just for the heck of it, one of them actually happened to be a virus that could harm Linux...\n\nNow I don't know how to make my choice if I can choose to block only one because I don't know which program is requesting this. ",
"**Actually, they do give great info. It’s just Windows that has a really really shitty culture in that area.**\n\nOn Linux, MacOS X, BSD, and basically any other Unix/POSIX/… operating system, you have a system log, and you can configure the log level for every process there is. You can set it up to `debug`, which is such a detailed level that you’ll practically get flooded. Or just filter out everything that goes above a certain severity threshold. (Like only show warnings or worse.)\nOn Linux you can even color-code messages according to their severity now.\n\nThat actually is one of *the* main reasons I use Linux. Because getting errors but having *no* way of finding out what happened and why… being forced to poke around in the dark… drives me *crazy*!\n\n(With a small tool called `logcheck` you can even have it take all new messages, filter out everything you deem normal (by using a text file listing regexp patterns), and mail you the rest. You won’t miss a thing! \nI couldn’t live without it anymore.",
" > Why can't they just SAY \"Check system time\"?\n\nBecause the line of code that failed doesn't know that the problem is that your system time is wrong. When you do a search for error codes or when you go look at the MS knowledge base you're looking at common causes for an error.\n\nBut when you write code you have something like this\n\nIf some condition is true (do whatever is supposed to happen).\n\nIf not, throw off an error code that indicated this condition failed. \n\nThe solution to the problem is to figure out what caused the condition to be wrong in the first place, but then, maybe it's *supposed* to be wrong some of the time. \n\n\nSoftware is a series of complex interlocking systems, particularly operating systems where you have thousands of programmers who have worked for years. The guy doing a software update is checking to see if time time is valid, the guy who wrote the clock software 5 years ago did so with whatever his assumptions were (that time servers would be accessible for example). \n\nEnter you trying to update. The programmer who wrote the update only knows how to check that the time is valid or not, he has no way to peak into the time keeping code to know that the problem was some time sync failed, and that caused his time to be wrong. He just knows the time is wrong, and there are a lot of potential reasons for that. \n",
"As a programmer, i do put \"useless\" error codes as error messages, deliberately, for people like You :) to discourage You to fix the problem, because in 99% of the cases, people without any background knowledge would make the problem worse. And authors of an application or a operating systems have their lists of error codes and their meanings, so they can fix the problem. Seriously, that is a t least half of the reason.\n\nAnd pure laziness, a lot of it. But then, usually, the operating system code is divided into shitload of pieces, and many different people are working on separate pieces, so when something goes wrong, it may be impossible to give You a straight explanation, because how can a poor programmer know what went wrong if all the computer knows it that we should receive a number but we have a potato ?\n\nTL;DR: We, programers, have no idea what went wrong.",
"TLDR: Root cause analysis of error code is very hard for the computer while it is orders of magnitude easier for a user.\n\nA lot of the times a programmer check for error, it is very localized in the code. Say you have 100k lines of code, then at one place, system time is at an unexpected value, like in the future for example. The simplest strategy is just to output that the time is wrong, then exit gracefully instead of just crashing.\n\nThe real problems starts when you try to determine why is the time wrong at that place. Is it because of a timing issue earlier on? Or the user changed the date settings during the update? To check if the user changed the date settings, you have to write tons of code, many hundreds of lines which can (will) in turn, produce more bugs.\n",
"Related, from a programmer's point of view. \"There was a null reference error. I know which reference was null... but you'll have to figure that out for yourself.\"\n\nMakes me want to punch language designers in the face."
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2xwfv1
|
Since wasted energy in a circuit typically ends up as heat, are electric heaters nearly 100% efficient?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2xwfv1/since_wasted_energy_in_a_circuit_typically_ends/
|
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"Electric heaters can be very efficient, up to 99% efficiency can be achieved, there will almost always be some loss due to some radiation not being absorbed by the room and resistance in the wires outside the room.\n\nIt's important to note that while it's efficient to transform electrical energy into thermal energy it is very inefficient to transform it back.\n\n",
"Yes, electric heaters are 100% efficient at converting electrical energy to heat. However, there are a few caveats:\n\nYou might be thinking this automatically makes electric heaters better than gas or oil powered heaters, where some of the heat is lost to the exhaust. However, the electricity had to be generated in the first place, often by burning gas or coal at a power plant. The turbines and generators that convert this thermal energy to electricity are not all that efficient, 30-40% is typical ([data table](_URL_3_) and [explanation](_URL_1_)). Since the efficiency for a fossil-fuel heater is [around 80%](_URL_2_), it is better to use gas directly for heating (if you live in an area where most of your electricity comes from fossil fuels).\n\nSecondly, we can actually do better than just running the electricity through a resistor. We can use the electrical energy to drive a refrigerator, in this form called a \"[heat pump](_URL_0_).\" A refrigerator cools food on the inside by transferring heat to the outside of the fridge. This is obviously not a favorable process (if you put a cold object next to a hot object, it doesn't tend to become colder), so some energy input is required. Therefore, the heat being dumped outside the fridge is the energy put in to make the fridge work *and* the heat removed from the inside of the fridge. So the fridge is actually more than 100% efficient at using electrical energy to heat a specific location, in this case the outside of the fridge. Now just imagine you put the fridge in your doorway and open the fridge door to the outside, and you have a heat pump. The outside will get colder, and your house will be warmed by the heat dumped at the back of the fridge.",
"I think it's worth noting that you've already experienced a fairly high loss of efficiency in generating the electricity in the first place.",
"Yes, they are (almost) 100% efficient at turning electricity to heat. However, this is a rather pointless measure, as what we usually want is not to turn electricity to heat, but to heat something. \n\nSystems such as a heat pump can provide the same amount of heat using much less electricity. ",
"In HVAC we refer to electric heat as 100% efficient as 100% of the power in is released as heat. The efficiency of furnaces and heat pumps are relative to this standard. ",
"They are 100% efficient *in your house*. There is a TON of inefficiency *outside* your house, the power plant, the wires, transformers, etc, etc.\n\nAdditionally, even in your house you want the house to be warm, you don't just want heat.\n\nSo if you had a heater in your ceiling, and it was 100% efficient - you don't care, you don't live inside your ceiling. You want the hear where you *are*. So in that regard they might not be 100% efficient and putting heat where it's needed.\n\nFor example recessed lighting is putting a ton of heat in a useless place. Or you have a small room with a computer that gets too hot, while other rooms are not hot enough.",
"Yes and no. Electric heating elements are basically high temperature resistors and are theoretically 100 % efficient at converting electrical energy to heat. (There will always be some losses in the real world). \n\nHowever, when most people talk about efficiency as far as heating goes they actually mean converting money to heat. When they say that electric heat is inefficient they mean they can buy more BTU's per dollar using other methods and they are completely correct in that context. ",
"It depends on your definition of efficiency. Normally you'd use something like useful work output divided by energy input. In this case any energy output is useful work if it's just a heater, so yes you'd be 100% efficient.\n\nIf you tighten up the criteria and say that the heater has to heat a specific area or raise the temperature of a room to a set point (practical goals), then a heater will definitely not be 100% efficient.\n\n[/u/pyrophorus has some great points in his post](_URL_0_):\n\n* The electricity used in an electric heater may have been generated inefficiently from fossil fuels. In that case you'd be better off burning fossil fuels directly.\n* Heat pumps can actually bring more heat into an area than energy input if they have a cold sink.\n\n",
"Everything's 100% efficient at making heat. Including your computer, TV, lights. Unless the light escapes a window.\n\nElectricity is relatively expensive heat over gas.\n\nWe often prefer to do an electric heat pump over an electric heater. This is essentially an air conditioner in reverse- it refrigerates the cold outside air further, by taking the air's remaining heat. The heat taken is used to warm the house. They use the same sort of compressor and heat exchange as an air conditioner and almost always are a combo air conditioner/heat pump unit. But they don't work in extreme cold, the outside air doesn't have enough heat to work well.\n\nHeat pumps pump about 5x-10x kilowatt-hr of heat for every kilowatt-hr of electricity used. So this is up to 1000% efficient! That's a bit confusing though, we prefer to use a term like \"Coefficient of Performance\" (COP), a flexible term, often the ratio of output-to-input like this.",
"Rather the opposite: 100% inefficient. The same amount of heat would be created if you were doing something useful with the energy in addition.",
"I work in energy efficiency - in our industry, we generally refer to electric baseboard heaters as 100% efficient. However, the upstream (power generation losses) means that you'll never get a whole lot better than ~30% and it's generally why electric heat is shockingly expensive in many jurisdictions.\n\nI've seen many (correctly) bring up heat pumps as a more efficient means of electrical heating but there is one catch: the costs aren't even close and there are limits to how they perform in very cold conditions. As the ambient temperature falls, there is a sharp drop in the coefficient of performance, which essentially means that you lose a ton of capacity. In Canada, heat pump installations are often installed with 'cheater loops', which use a big electric coil in your furnace to supplement the heat when the heat pump isn't able to meet the need. So while 'efficiency' can reach 400% or so, as it gets colder, the efficiency generally falls to the same as electric resistance.\n\n ",
"Yes, as are incandescent lightbulbs assuming you live in a cold environment.",
"Yes. The definition of efficiency is (useful output) / (total input)\n\nThis makes electric heaters 100% efficient by any practical measure. Some people give electric heaters a lower efficiency because of power transmission losses, but I disagree because those losses are not the fault of the heater.",
"Electric heat is 100% efficient, in the sense that 100% of the energy used by the heater will eventually dissipate as heat energy. \n\nHowever, electricity is a very inefficient way to store and transport heat energy. That is, paying someone to burn fossil fuels, convert heat to electricity, transport the electricity over power lines and transformers, then convert it back into heat... That is much less efficient than simply burning the fuel at home.",
"Yes electric heat is near 100% efficient. 1 kw/hr = about 3414 btu/hr of energy. So that 1500w electric heater you buy will consume 1.5 kw/hr and produce 5121 btu/hr of heat. \n\nEfficient doesn't always mean cheap to operate. Here natuu gas is so much cheaper that even a 80% efficient gas furnace is still considerably cheaper to run. However natural gas is not available where I live. I did the math and propane would cost me more per btu than electricity. My only options for cheaper heat world be wood heat which is lots of work, or geothermal which is costly to install. ",
"It depends on how you define \"efficiency\". One measure that hasn't been mentioned in the thread is [Exergetic Efficiency](_URL_0_), which while full of intimidating formulas basically measures \"how much quality is wasted in this process\".\n\nExergy describes the \"quality\" of some energy. Ambient heat energy is set as \"zero\", and electricity as effectively \"infinity\". Heating processes that have higher temperature differences are less exergetically efficient. It's the difference between heating a room at 20C with\n\n * radiant in-floor heating at 30C\n * water radiators at 80C\n * natural gas burning at 2000C, or\n * electricity at effectively infinity.\n\nBecause you could do so much more with one MJ of electricity (like run electric circuits), or with 1MJ of natural gas (melt steel) than with 1MJ of lukewarm water, using electricity to heat your home is less exergetically efficient than the alternatives.\n\nA more exergetically efficient process uses each bit of heat to its fullest potential. For example, instead of heating with electricity, you could have a Rube Goldberg machine that\n\n * Used electricity to melt steel at 2000C\n * Used the waste heat from the arc furnace to run a pizza oven at 400C \n * Used the waste heat from the oven to boil steam at 110C\n * Used the waste heat from the boiler to heat your house at 30C\n\nThis is obviously more complex, but gets more exergetic value out of the same electricity.",
"Electric heaters are 100% efficient at creating heat, but not 100% efficient at heating a room. That's because there are other ways to heat a room than creating heat, such as moving heat from outside the room to inside the room. A device that moves heat from outside a room to inside is called a heat pump, and their efficiencies can often be 3x higher than an electric heater (exact number depends on inside/outside temperature)."
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"http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=107&t=3",
"http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/furnaces-and-boilers",
"http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_02.html"
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||
ab5c5b
|
how does white noise cause people to hear phantom sounds, such as voices or music?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ab5c5b/eli5_how_does_white_noise_cause_people_to_hear/
|
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"All sounds are basically just vibrations through the air, think like throwing a rock into a pond but in 3d space.\n\nVoices and music in particular are made up of a bunch of these vibrations. White noise is basically just random waves interacting with each other, so like throwing handfuls of rocks into a pond you get a bunch of waves crashing into each other.\n\nWhen we talk we are making very specific vibrations that we've practiced our whole life, and so we are good at interpreting syllables and words that know and are expecting to hear.\n\nWhen you listen to white noise, you occassionally will get blurbs that are similar to the waves a word would make and our brain then interprets as someone talking or singing, because that's what it sounds like so it assumes that's what it is.\n\nThis is how the yanny laurel things work as well. You have sounds that aren't really saying anything, but they are close to other sounds that you are familiar with and so your brain tries to understand that information in context of what it knows."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
64ppzf
|
In Roman times, how long would it take a letter to travel from Rome to London?
|
I have read that a "pony express" system was used for important government communication. Was this true across the empire? What about mail between regular citizens?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/64ppzf/in_roman_times_how_long_would_it_take_a_letter_to/
|
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"text": [
"27 days under ideal conditions (meaning summer) if you travel from Ostia to Narbo (present day southern France) then follow the mountains west and then again by ship north to Londonium. This is also the cheapest route for a passenger (although for transporting goods the sea route through gibraltar is cheaper). \n\nThere is a super cool tool called ORBIS developed by a couple of Stanford historians. It's basically google maps for 1st century rome. You can change around a whole bunch of cool things like season, route, goods vs people etc. _URL_0_\n"
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
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"http://orbis.stanford.edu/"
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|
qni5x
|
is there a correlation between the Sun's activity and Global Warming?
|
The temperature where I live (Ontario, Canada) rose 16 deg. C higher than average for this time of year. This corresponds directly with the solar flare activity reaching earth. Can this be coincidence and can it explain why global warming is occurring?
Edit: Thank you all for your answers.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qni5x/is_there_a_correlation_between_the_suns_activity/
|
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"Solar activity varies between minimums and maximums every ten years. This is a constant trend that has not changed for millions of years. This recent solar storm has occurred because the sun is nearing a solar maximum in 2013. Meanwhile the process of global warming is completely unrelated. We have released so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in such a short space of time that it is having an effect on our climate. Carbon dioxide acts as a blanket around the Earth stopping outgoing radiation from escaping into space. In 1850, carbon dioxide was 280 parts per million, it is now 340. Even if we stopped producing carbon dioxide right now, it is likely that the global average temperature will rise 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Although this may not sound like much, past events in the Earth's history with a similar rise in Carbon dioxide levels and temperature led to mass extinctions and dramatic climate change. Global warming is without doubt caused by human activity. If we continue to produce carbon dioxide at current rates, we could see the average global temperature rise more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit. This would be absolutely cataclysmic for the human race. As for the recent warm front that changed the temperature so dramatically in ontario, this is an isolated event which is merely part of the earth's climate becoming more and more extreme. ",
"Overall the sun's activity is fairly constantly rising since the solar system formed (4.5 billion years ago when the planet formed it was ~70% what it is now) for background look up the faint young sun paradox. But really the main cause for the climate change is greenhouse gases. Whether or not you believe that the greenhouse effect is caused by human interaction it's a fact that it is a major cause of the rise in global average temperature. The closest we have to today's climate change is the paleocene-eocene thermal maximum. There are papers on the event if you are interested in what occurred it is easy to find online.\nEdit: This isn't to say that it isn't cause for singularly anomalous years, but on a geologic timescale it's generally constant.",
"There are several effects that solar activity might have on Earth's climate.\n\nFirst, of course, is direct luminosity changes. If the Sun's energy output varies by even a fraction of a percent then that could still have a significant impact on the Earth. In general the long term average of solar energy output is fairly stable (other than the regular variations of solar cycles) though it does fluctuate a little over longer time periods and the difference between normal sunspot activity and \"maunder minimum\" periods appears to be significant.\n\nSecond, solar activity specifically in regards to the solar wind will impact the cosmic ray flux at Earth, which will affect cloud formation. The effect of cloud cover on climate is still poorly understood but definitely significant.\n\nOverall we can discount short-term effects such as what you have observed as merely random correlations, there's no plausible mechanism for significant temperature changes due to solar flare activity.\n\nOver long time periods there is some evidence that the Sun's activity has an effect on climate, but ultimately we just don't know. We don't have good records of Earth's weather and the Sun's activity to make any firm conclusions. What evidence we do have seems to indicate a correlation between \"maunder minimum\" sunspot lulls and climatic cooling, but even that is rather tenuous.",
"Both solar output and variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt ([Milankovitch cycles](_URL_0_)) correlate strongly to changes in the paleoclimate.\n\nHowever, the warming over the past 20 years is unprecedented -- no paleoclimatic event compares to it in magnitude and speed. So it's likely that there are other forcing mechanisms at work."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm"
]
] |
|
1euspa
|
Did German soldiers in WWII have derogatory names for allied soldiers, such as Kraut and Jerry being used towards them?
|
On that note, what about Japanese soldiers towards US soldiers in the Pacific.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1euspa/did_german_soldiers_in_wwii_have_derogatory_names/
|
{
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"ca3ycxu"
],
"score": [
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],
"text": [
"[There was a similar thread two months ago](_URL_0_). You might find your answers there."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1auwto/did_the_germans_and_japanese_have_names_for_the/"
]
] |
|
2fvedv
|
How prevalent were the sacking of cities in the ancient greek world?
|
Were the sackings a common strategy employed by the cities? Or were they uncommon and extraordinary events? Could you recommend any bibliography about the history of sacking?
Thank you very much in advance.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2fvedv/how_prevalent_were_the_sacking_of_cities_in_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ckdd5gz"
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"text": [
"With regards to other Greek cities sacking was not that common and had significant psychological effects in the Greek world. We know that Alexander, prior to his conquest of the East, sacked the city state of Thebes which shocked the entire the Greek world due to its perceived brutality (our main source for this is diodorus). This is largely due to the Greeks having certain cultural customs in place that granted protection to other Greeks, for example it would be considered a great tragedy for a Greek to be enslaved by another Greek (something which the Spartans were criticised for doing)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2xm4k8
|
Why was Bulgaria so prized by both sides in World War 1 and why and how did they lose specifically on the Greek front and in general?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2xm4k8/why_was_bulgaria_so_prized_by_both_sides_in_world/
|
{
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"text": [
"Prior to and during the 1911-13 Balkan Wars, the largest military in the Balkans, after Austria-Hungary's, was Bulgaria's. After the wars, it was Serbia.\n\nBulgaria had a substantial military, access to the Aegean AND the Black Sea, and it was also well placed: If Bulgaria joined the Entente faction (the 'Allies'), which it did not, it could threaten Turkish control over the straits, and secure the borders of Serbia and Romania. If they joined the Triple Alliance faction (the 'Central Powers), which they DID, they could secure the Ottoman position vis-a-vis the Straits, and threaten the Serbs AND the Romanians. As well, Tsar 'Foxy' Ferdinand I was German, and the Bulgarians were spoiling for a rematch after their humiliation in the Second Balkan War.\n\nWhen the Bulgarians entered the war in 1915, it spelt the death knell for the Serbs and Montenegrin, who were low on supplies, weak from the fighting in 1914, and now had to contend with Austro-Hungarian and German troops to the north, and Bulgarian Armies poised along the entire eastern border of Serbia; the resulting campaign was bloody and fiercely fought, but ended in the occupation of Serbia, Montenegro and Albania. From then on, it was a matter of keeping the Anglo-French and Serbian-Montenegrin forces holed up inside the perimeter of Salonika, \"the largest POW camp on the continent\".\n\nThat was, until 1916, when the Romanians, optimistic after the Russian successes in the Brusilov Offensive, entered the war on the side of the Entente. After the initial Romanian Offensive, which bled the cream of their army, and was halted at the Mures River, the Bulgarians turned their armies north, while the Austro-Hungarians, with some German troops, counter-attacked in Transylvanian. By the time the year ended, the Bulgarians had occupied all of Dobruja, including the south, which had been snatched by the Romanians in 1913; Wallachia was also occupied (essentially half of Romania).\n\nBulgaria also connected the Germans to the Turks, allowing the Germans to supply them, and keep them in the war. Despite the insistence of Lloyd-George and other easterners, Germany WAS the 'prop' of the Central Powers. \n\nBy 1918 however, the effects of having been at war essentially without respite since 1911, began to take their toll. Supplies, especially food, was scarce, losses in combat in Serbia, Romania and at Salonika were adding up, and to make matters worse, Greece had joined the Entente (now the \"Allied and Associated Powers\"), and the French Army of the Orient (AotO), under General Franchet-Despery, counted 500 000 men at Salonika. The Allies opened an offensive in September, and although Bulgarian troops (stiffened by German support) fought doggedly, their lines began to give way, and the AotO advanced up the valley of the Vardar River towards Skopje. Bulgarian troops began to mutiny, a mass of them gathering at Radomir, near the capital Sofia, demanding radical reform and an end to the war. Considering that the Germans were in the process of being shit-kicked back through Belgium and Eastern France by the Allied armies, on September 30th, Bulgaria agreed to an Armistice, and Ferdinand abdicated on October 3rd, in favour of his successor Boris III. The Allied armies, meanwhile, continued their advance into Serbia. \n\nI don't know of any good books specifically about the Balkan Theatre in WWI off the top of my head, but some good general histories include:\n\nDavid Stevenson, \"1914-1918\" and \"With our Backs to the Wall\"\nPeter Hart, \"The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War\"\nWilliam Philpott, \"War of Attrition: Fighting the First World War\"\n\nHope that helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2b0j1s
|
why does the mh17 crash affects the us airline stocks?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b0j1s/eli5why_does_the_mh17_crash_affects_the_us/
|
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"Everyone hears about it. People become scared.",
"Businesses and Investors don't like instability. Instability means more risk and more importantly risk that is hard to mitigate.\n\nA passanger airline being shot down in Ukraine is a pretty serious international incident. This is a very unstable time in the region and for the world as a number of major players (the US, the EU, Russia) are involved.\n\nSo investors are pulling back and taking a conservative stance. They are trying to avoid loses due to the increased risk.\n\n\nEdit: As to why US airline stocks are being affected... somebody just shot a passenger jet out of the sky. People are being reminded that this is possible and that causes a small panic. People are expecting that fewer people will fly now out of fear (despite their being virtually 0 risk of this happening within the US)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1j9u8q
|
How were relations between the native population and Mexican settlers in what is now the Western United States? (pre Mexican-American war)
|
I would like to know how all of the settlers (British, French) interacted with the natives and if almost all of their experiences with settlers were as bad as with Americans.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j9u8q/how_were_relations_between_the_native_population/
|
{
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"The book \"two years before the mast\" goes into relations between the established Mexican society and native Americans in what is now California during 1834-6, which is a few years before the Mexican American war. \n\nEvidently the Mexicans had an informal caste system, with European Spanish being de facto nobility, half breeds in the middle, and native Americans/Mexicans being treated like dirt and used as slaves.",
"Out of the main colonists the French integrated most into the communities, and the English kept the highest degree of separation. With the founding of Mexico, the Mexican citizens continued the same traditions as the Spanish colonists. \n\n[The Pueblo Revolt of 1680](_URL_1_) is a famous example of Indigenous peoples trying to expel the Spaniards from their lands. I just recently learned about the [Quechan Revolt](_URL_0_) (1775-1781), in which the Quechan successfully expelled the Spaniards from their territory.",
"You might be interested in a post on this week's Monday Mysteries where /u/anthropology_nerd gives some background on the [Pueblo Revolt](_URL_0_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.yumasun.com/opinion/history-42962-normally-victors.html",
"http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/one/pueblo.htm"
],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j9zv8/monday_mysteries_verifiable_historical/cbcmpnn"
]
] |
|
bxfn1f
|
how do people make up languages for films/books? do they go through a dictionary word by word and make up a translation for each one? or is it more of a pig-latin type process?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bxfn1f/eli5_how_do_people_make_up_languages_for/
|
{
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"That strongly depends on how competent or ambitious said writer is. Sometimes they actually hire a linguist to help construct their languages and make an actual consistent language from the ground up - with vocabulary, grammar, and idioms to fit a real language. Often this constructed language goes far beyond what actually appears in the work it features in, but it helps give it an air of authenticity. Often they use a real language family as basis, but in some cases it's made up. Tolkien, being the prolific world-builder he was, constructed [several languages to some degree](_URL_0_). Klingon for instance is a real language you can learn. You probably won't get much use out of it in your day to day life, but you could learn it to a good enough degree to hold a conversation. \n\nSometimes you just need to construct enough of the language so that your characters can speak it to the degree required for the book. That language might never have a word for \"Relax\", but it might have a couple of war-related phrases for that big battle sequence. \n\nSometimes it's just pig-latin esque, but that's a bit lazy and is easily found out: language is more than just english with a 1:1 word replacement.",
"Tolkien for example was an academic who specialized in languages. He actually invented his fictions languages and built the world around them first before starting to write a story to use all of that in.\n\nOf course not everyone can be a Tolkien. Sometimes they just make up some random gibberish words that aren't part of an actual language.\n\nWith Klingon the language of the Klingon aliens from Star Trek, they started out with a few random phrases that didn't mean anything, before they got a professional to build a consistent and complete language based on the original meaningless throwaway lines.\n\nThe Language in Avatar was created from the ground up by a professional who tried hard to make more alien than most created and constructed languages.\n\nSome movie makers go the other way and include actual real world languages. Star Wars fro example had multiple instances of actors being encourage to speak in their native tongue as the makers didn't expect many movie goers to recognize exotic languages like Kalenjin and it sounded alien enough.\n\nSometimes writers who haven't actually studied any of that want to try their hand at creating a language. this mostly ends in embarrassment for them. At worst they come up with a cypher that just replaces english words with their made up words but keeping all the other parts of the english. This is especially noticeable when the writer only speaks a single language themselves. \n\nAt best they make up a language based on what they know, but all they know are indo-european descended languages so their alien or fantastic tongue ends up being a lot more familiar than languages actually used here on earth.\n\nMost readers of course won't know the difference, but some writers like to go overboard in their world building and think having an actual language is neat."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_constructed_by_J._R._R._Tolkien"
],
[]
] |
||
29jf39
|
what are music critics listening for?
|
For example, the album "Yeezus" was well received by music critics but many said it would take multiple listenings for it to grow on the general public. And as far as I can tell, a lot of Kanye West fans did not really like it at first. Why is this? How do music critics appreciate music right away without having to hear it multiple times? Am i making any sense? And I know this happens in other genres, but Yeezus was a recent example that I was familiar with.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29jf39/eli5what_are_music_critics_listening_for/
|
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"I don't wanna sound cynical but often they pick up things like arrangement and production techniques that the average and majority of listeners doesn't really listen for or care about.",
"I write album reviews on metalcore/post hardcore and a mix of other genres. Generally, lyricism and execution are what I look for. I do get into the technical aspects but what I really want to hear is something that's not super generic and has great overall sound. For example, I gave Attila's new album a bad score because he literally just sings about partying and cock the whole time. It's interesting to listen to but there's no real substance. I gave Adestria's previous album (not the new one, I did not review it) a great score because there were a lot of awesome elements that made it a memorable album.",
"Variety, for the most part. The way music is produced, written, and recorded means far more than how much you \"like it\" when it comes to critique.\n\n[This](_URL_0_) video shows how tons of songs use the EXACT same chords, and how many of them are incredibly popular despite sounding the exact same.\n\nI don't know much about Kayne's music, actually, maybe someone more in tune with the genre could help you. ",
"Honestly, there really isn't anything special, it really only comes down to personal taste in music, and what the critic expects and can easily over look. Honestly the only thing that really makes a critics voice special is their music literacy, their hopefully diverse range of music to compare the album in question to, and the ability to voice their opinion accurately and coherently.\n\nAs far as the Yeezus thing that has less to do about Music critics seeing something that you're not and more with the accessibility of the album, and the general music literacy of the average listener, as far as their understanding of song writing, production, instrumentation and technical skills on display.\n\nThough, I have pretty wide music tastes, and I thought Yeezus was and still is the most overrated album of the year.",
"I find it depends on the musical training of the individual. not to sound sanctimonious, but i started out at a young age playing clarinet, then trumpet, moving onto percussion and i've been playing drum set for 16 years now, dabbling with other instruments. i've got a pretty good grasp on music theory now thanks to my traditional background but it separates me from musicians who are self taught. writing music has an entire language available to make it easier to translate...but most of it is in italian and sounds silly. believe it or not, if you apply this knowledge you will start hearing why music on the radio is good or bad, acceptable or substandard. many people argue that this is totally subjective but i beg to differ as in any genre music is a language and should be articulated with stride. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
1pxt6a
|
lift (the phenomena, not the english term for elevators)
|
I know how lift is produced, I just don't know how the shape of the wings of an airplane or the shape of a frisbee produces it.
Edit: Please don't just say "It makes the air go underneath" or any other thing that explains lift. I want to know in an engineering sense HOW it produces lift.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pxt6a/eli5_lift_the_phenomena_not_the_english_term_for/
|
{
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"If you force air over an object or force an object through air,the objects shape will have an effect on the shape and direction of the air. If one side is flat and one side is bulbous (like a wing), it will take air longer to travel over the bulbous side then the flat side. The added distance causes the air to spread out. This is where the pressure difference that creates lift comes from."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6dhn4s
|
what did bill clinton do/what contributed to the prosperous economic state in the 90's?
|
Doing a presentation on the 90's as a decade, and one of the topics is economics. This seemed like a nice and stable period time for the U.S. but why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6dhn4s/eli5_what_did_bill_clinton_dowhat_contributed_to/
|
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"Not much. He was serendipidously the President just as internet/tech began to take off. Refused to utilize military for counterterrorism.. so the combination of a robust economy and massive cuts to the military gives illusion he actually had something to do with it (budget surplusses and all) but in reality he was just fucking off most of the time. ",
"Most of anything that happens with the economy is completely incidental to the president.\n\nOne of the big drivers of the economy in the '90s was based on the rapid increase in availability of a new technology: the internet. This created entire new markets and industries that spurred overall growth.",
"Sometimes the best thing a President can do is not screw up a good thing when it's happening.\n\nThe Internet was just starting to boom then, and Clinton *didn't mess it up*. He didn't create it, but he didn't stop it either (and did a good job of making sure others didn't stop it). That may not sound like much, but Presidents/Congresses have purposely or ham-handedly stifled innovation in the past for various reasons. Clinton didn't do that.\n\nHe did do some things to help it too: increased education funding and funding to research universities (where many of the new technologies used by the Internet where invented), increased funding to the National Science Foundation by over 30% (again increasing the creation and adoption of new technologies), and so on.\n\nPaying for basic scientific research often pays huge dividends.",
"The Cold War ended, and the US had the first massive contraction of their Armed Forces since the late 1940's. Commercial internet began which led to a new massive multi trillion dollar industry.",
"Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.\n\nDerided by Republicans as the largest tax hike in American history, it largely repealed the \"trickle-down\" tax cuts for the wealthy in the Tax Reform Act of 1987. This act passed through both houses and was signed by newly inaugurated President Clinton without a single Republican vote.\n\nThe increase in taxes on the wealthy in 1993 saw a dramatic increase in funding for Republican candidates in the 1994 mid-term election. Clinton would spend the remainder of his two terms in office working with a Republican Congress.\n\nThrough the remainder of his Presidency, market growth increased tax rolls to create a budget surplus. Clinton asserted that the surplus would be used to pay down the debt. To many this seemed like a fiscally-conservative move, but it was actually in opposition to Newt Gingrich's proposals to cut taxes to \"give the surplus back to the people.\"\n\nRegardless the economic boom in tech sector also had the effect of dramatically increasing consumer confidence, after all their leaders in DC were arguing about what to do with all that extra money! Sectors beyond technology saw growth as a result of high confidence in consumables and the service sector.\n\n\n",
"NAFTA. Cheaper goods meant a better quality of living by in effect deflating the dollar. This allowed people to buy more which sent the economy into overdrive.\n\n23 million net jobs were created in his 8 years. 3 million in the first two years, 20 million in the 6 years after NAFTA was signed.\n\n(Fun Fact: the Trump WH sent a memo to Congress detailing what they'd like to renegotiate in NAFTA. Nothing of consequence was noted.)\n\nThe second area Clinton and the Democrats in Congress spearheaded was building Internet infrastructure through subsidies.\n\n(But the .com crash at the end of his presidency lowered his net jobs total from 26-27 million to 23 million. To compare, Reagan created 16 million, Carter 10 million (in 4 years), and W Bush 3 million.)",
"Among the other reasons mentioned here, there was also a major scaling back of the military. This lead to a \"peace dividend\" where the money that would otherwise have gone into the military was instead used for things that actually helped the economy.\n\nThings were bad in places that depended on military spending for part of their economy (California was actually hit pretty hard), but that was a temporary situation."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
8gvnlv
|
My teacher brought up the other day that America possibly knew about Pearl Harbor being bombed. Is that possibly true?
|
She mentioned that they sent out their best ships, the aircraft carriers out on patrol, rather than the normal patrol ships. Why else would they have sent out the aircraft carriers?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8gvnlv/my_teacher_brought_up_the_other_day_that_america/
|
{
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"While there’s always more to say on the subject, you might be interested in these previous answers by u/DBHT14:\n\n* [Is the theory that Roosevelt purposely allowed Pearl Harbor to bring the USA into WW2 any credible?](_URL_1_)\n\n* [Did America know that Japan was going to attack somewhere in the pacific and purposefully do nothing about it to get into the war?](_URL_0_)",
"Just to build on those answers, by the Fall of 1941 everyone was pretty clear that war was a very real possibility and was planning accordingly.\n\nFor several years defense bills had greatly expanded funding for the War and Navy Departments, new ships, aircraft, and vehicles were being designed and funded, with peacetime drafts starting in 1940. \n\nBut the idea that Pearl Harbor itself was going to be where the war broke out was pretty far down the list of concerns. And what threats were actively considered where of a different nature. Notably the worry was a quick raid by a sub or light surface forces, perhaps trying to lure the ships in port out into an ambush where they would be sunk or attacked in deep water. Or possibly a rogue skipper on a suicide mission in the vein of Japan's engagements on the Asian mainland in the 30's. Along with the more commonly covered worries about sabotage by enemy agents. That said leaders from Kimmel and Short on down made clear that they did not feel they had sufficient scouting and patrol assets to even guard effectively against those possibilities.\n\nAnd really until late 1940 those options were the only ones actively considered by the Imperial Japanese Navy, as the scheme to get a group of carriers and escorts of Oahu, with fuel to fight, and aircraft that could really do damage required near herculean efforts and a laundry list of new skills and equipment to be developed in a very short time. \n\nAnd in the end anyone and everyone knew that if Japan struck at the US and European powers the initial focus would be South, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, and very likely the Philippines to secure access to and sources of the valuable resources like oil, rubber, and rare earth metals to fuel the war economy. Without seizing them the whole undertaking was pointless and doomed no matter how the US Pacific Fleet acted in the early days of the war. \n\nThat said aircraft carriers, the IJN's included, don't just sit in port all day. In order to do their jobs they need to be underway at sea, even if it is just to get their air group experience so they dont get rusty. While the IJN had also used their carriers to support the war in China and as aircraft transports to their island holdings. By way of comparison both carriers in service by the US Pacific fleet were out on transport runs on December 7th(Enterprise was almost back from a run to Wake, Lexington was on her way to Midway), while a 3rd Saratoga had just docked in San Diego to meet her sir group after a refit in Washington State. While a peacetime navy will have ships spending plenty of time in port, in part honestly to save money if worried, that doesnt mean they dont routinely weigh anchor and get underway. And in 1941 once out of sight of land the only way to get an idea of their location and mission is to either get a sighting report from something of yours like a ship or plane, decrypt their radio signals, and maybe if you know their callsign as it were you could triangulate their position if they were broadcasting and you had the right SIGINT equipment. \n\nThat said the Kido Butai also left for Pearl under radio silence, so at first it was simply that they had dropped off the board or were intentionally being quite. But against the background of tensions, goals clear to all in the SW Pacific, and the huge distances and hurdles to actually attack Pearl all obscure that Hawaii might be at more than a fleeting risk in the general mobilization and fleet movements just before the outbreak of war. \n\nThere were certainly some in the US that showed more concern than others, but hindsight makes grasping half at straws and having a vague sense of worry look much more like great foresight than it was. While additional signs that the threat from the IJN was far more real than might have been considered by many, and their penchant for bold opening strikes(such as in the tradition of the attacks on the Russian Fleet at Port Arthur in 1905) greater appreciated if it were not for a strong veneer of simple racism coloring much analysis of the situation. That is a dimension that simply can't be ignored and permeated how many saw and thought of the Japanese threat and planned accordingly.\n\nYou may be interested in 'At Dawn We Slept' by Gordon Prange. While parts have not aged well it is still one of the major works on Pearl and its planning/movements leading to it. 'Countdown to Pearl Harbor' by Steve Twomey is another newer book too that I quite enjoy. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ve1qb/did_america_know_that_japan_was_going_to_attack/cxmzy6j/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3gwphg/is_the_theory_that_roosevelt_purposely_allowed/"
],
[]
] |
|
1w1hp7
|
why, in most governments, does there seem to be no effort in fighting corruption in politics?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w1hp7/eli5_why_in_most_governments_does_there_seem_to/
|
{
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"cexsczg",
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"cey4vvw",
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"ceyai4a",
"ceyczgr"
],
"score": [
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16,
81,
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"text": [
"Who puts forth the laws to stem corruption? Typically it's those who benefit from the corruption and thus have no incentive to change it.",
"Let's get the money out of politics, and then worry about this.",
"Sorry to break your circle jerk reddit, but actually, there is a great deal of effort to combat corruption. Most people just aren't aware of it because it is:\n\n1. Less than glorious work that looks more like auditing (see: _URL_0_) than the street protests or scandals you're looking for. Each agency and department in the government I have ever worked with (USAID, State, DHS) goes through fairly extensive checks to be held accountable for what they do and where their resources go. Also, more often than not, those investigations don't turn up anything \"newsworthy.\"\n\n2.Passive, the entire structure of the US government, for example, is designed to combat corruption.\n\n\nIn sum, just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Could we do more? Sure. Could politicians do a better job of holding themselves accountable? Of course. However, reddit's view that government is just a money sinkhole run by cronyism and nepotism is bullshit. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but its not like nobody cares about it or is trying to combat it.",
"Because *Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?*",
"I've got the power ... _URL_0_",
"Why don't pimps do something to stop getting all of those blow jobs?",
"On a more micro level than these comments seem to be addressing, in most parts of the world corruption runs rampant on a small scale daily because a lack of accountability has created different societal norms.\n\nExample: I'm currently living in Bucharest. Unless you're crashing, it's pretty much impossible to get an official DUI if you're willing to part with, say 75 Euros, more or less. Why here and not in America? Are cops better people in America? Fuck no. They might however lose their job and worse in America if something like this were brought to the attention of their superiors, especially publicly. This keeps them in line (to the extent that they're in line, anyway). Fear of repercussions. In Romania bribes are accepted and expected by all and anyone in a leadership position used to do the same thing and likely still does, only now on a higher level. Nobody involved, from the driver to the Mayor to the taxpayer sitting at home even has a different expectation. You can't create a controversy when what is seen as supposed to happen happens.\n\nSimilarly, in order to get your Driver's license here, you're apparently expected to bribe the test administer. Otherwise, they will simply fail you over and over. It's funny to me to imagine an American DMV worker trying this. They wouldn't last a day. The norm itself, however, is different here (as in most other historically poor countries).\n\nSimple Answer, micro or macro: $ \n\n\n\n ",
"The answer lies within your question..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.gao.gov/"
],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BRv9wGf5pk"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1878ut
|
How effective was the Soviet war machine?
|
How good were the Soviets against Nazi Germany when they were able to dominate Europe for quite awhile? And how well were the Soviets doing in Afghanistan before they pulled out?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1878ut/how_effective_was_the_soviet_war_machine/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8cd0e5"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I can answer to WWII - half effective as they only got half of Europe before the nuclear check. \n\nIn the years leading up, Stalin had turned Russia into a total war machine and the Soviet society was culled and terrorized so it could wage a global war of conquest. No Joke. Stalin's plan was to ferment a war in Europe (first try was in Spain), then move in and conquer all its population. The goal was not to defeat Nazi Germany (Stalin helped Hitler), the goal was a global communist state with a capital in Moscow. In 1941, Stalin was ready to strike, everything was mobilized for an attack that would build global momentum. The Red Army arsenal was state of the art. 22 June, 1941 on the western border the Red Army had 12,379 tanks, over 10,000 planes (all mostly ground attack, no bombers or fighters as those are defensive), 60,000 artillery pieces. The problem was that the war machine Stalin built was all about offense, operated by men whose loyalty was based on terror. When the Nazis attacked first, chaos ensued - the Red Army was not in 'protect homeland' mode, and this was before the reintroduction of blocking units and penal battalions in 1942. \n\nTank Factoid. American J. Walter Christie designed Soviet BTs - tanks made for fast movement on (European) roads. In 1940 the Red Army had 5,300 BT-7s - more than all other tanks of all makes outside of Soviet Union. \n\nAnother interesting fact. Stalin's industrial complex - about 521 factories setup between 1929 and 1932 - was almost completely all designed by the American Industrial Architect Albert Khan who built for Ford and also later built a similar \"arsenal for democracy\" for US. Soviets paid his bureau $2B which is about $220B in today's money. This while they were exporting grain and anything else they could sell, while there was rampant famine and cannibalism in the country. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2f3xwn
|
Were sharks feared in WWII when planes crashed in the ocean?
|
Hello everyone,
I am currently listening to an audiobook entitled "[Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption](_URL_0_) by Laura Hillenbrand." The story seems fairly well researched and the timeline is pretty accurate to history.
The only thing that surprised me was how much she talks about the fear of sharks. She describes people being afraid of ditching out of their planes in the ocean because they would likely be eaten by sharks.
When some of the characters are stuck on a raft the sharks keep swimming with them for days on end. She describes the sharks as rubbing their fins gently on the bottom of the raft (but never trying to flip the raft over). Then there is scene where they are getting shot at and have to go under water and the sharks immediately try and attack so they kick them in the nose.
Is this at all accurate? I can understand if there was a fear of sharks during this time as people still fear them today... but this seems really far fetched. I've heard that a very small amount of people die from shark attacks a year so I am not sure why sharks would be more hungry in WWII.
I'm guessing the sharks stuff is just over exaggerated to make the story seem more scary but it just seemed weird.
Thanks!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2f3xwn/were_sharks_feared_in_wwii_when_planes_crashed_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck5szd4"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Yes, it's entirely accurate. Sharks were dangerous predators. The reason people seldom are killed by them is that people take lots of precautions against being in a position of danger. People try to avoid being stuck in flimsy boats designed to last only days, as Zamperini was. People who do end up in such dire circumstances seldom survive, and so if they were attacked by sharks, no one would know because there would be no survivors to tell the tale. In Jacques Cousteau's first book, *The Silent World*, published in 1953, he writes (and has photos of) some dangerous shark encounters, and tells about how much his crew fears and loathes sharks, that's about 10 years after Zamperini was downed, but it's clear it's not a new feeling. In *The Old Man and the Sea*, Hemingway writes a fiction about a shark encounter. That was written in 1951. I think what we typically see is that people are vastly more afraid of sharks than is warranted, because they kill people so seldom. So you're right about that. Many are terrified (from *Jaws*) that they're going to be killed during a casual beach visit. But that happens only a couple times a year around the entire globe. But in reality, there are more dangerous situations you can be in when risk of shark attack is serious, and Zamperini was in one of them."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Unbroken-World-Survival-Resilience-Redemption/dp/0812974492"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
f3zily
|
how is soy sauce made?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f3zily/eli5_how_is_soy_sauce_made/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fhmy01v"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Soy sauce is made by fermenting soy beans and wheat using a fungus called koji. You cook soy beans, then put mold spores on them, let the mold grow for a few days, then put all the moldy soy beans into a jar of salty water.\n\n > I have no clue how to make it and I need to for a gathering.\n\nI hope this gathering isn't any time soon, because after you put the soy beans in the salt brine, you let the mixture ferment for months, and sometimes more than a year.\n\nHere's someone's account of making soy sauce at home.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://thethingswellmake.com/how-to-make-soy-sauce-homemade-shoyu/"
]
] |
||
6aowmn
|
how can some people feel bad weather coming in previous injuries?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6aowmn/eli5_how_can_some_people_feel_bad_weather_coming/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dhg9rq6"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Pressure changes. When the air pressure outside drops, the air trapped in joints and old wounds expands. The expansion can be painful. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4dt1zt
|
What were early Mongol attitudes towards islam?
|
The wikipedia page on zoroastrians in Iran says that when Mongols invaded Iran, they mostly directed their attention towards muslims, because being pagans and buddhists, they hated islam. How true is this? Where does this animosity stem from? Why would Mongols differentiate between islam and other religions?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4dt1zt/what_were_early_mongol_attitudes_towards_islam/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1ul3e0"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"I should start by clarifying something. The Mongol Uls (\"confederation\") that Temujin was born into was primarily shamanistic. By the time he became Genghis Khan, the Mongol Uls had conquered and absorbed the four other major confederations to form the Mongol Khanate. The people of this khanate were a mix of shamanists, Nestorian Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, and possibly Manichaeists. The ruling class of the khanate was quite tolerant of religions as long as the people paid their dues\n\nIn fact, one of the early westward campaigns liberated Muslim populations from the brutal Buddhist-Christian oppression of Kushluk. He was a Naiman (an opposing confederation that followed Nestorian Christianity) who had fled to the allied Western Liao Empire (whose ruling class was largely Buddhist), where he then usurped the throne and oppressed the Muslim people. Genghis Khan's army was welcome as liberators\n\nThe issue with Iranians lay with its current dynasty, Khwarezm. In particular, one governor executed a caravan of Mongol merchants. Or spies. It depends on the perspective. Of course, maybe there was some miscommunication. I personally believe that they were merchants because Genghis Khan was currently engaged against the Jurchens to the east, and it would not make sense to turn his attention to Khwarezm in the west. But whatever the truth was, the envoy he sent was executed by the Shah\n\nAs a result, this became a war of revenge, no different from the one waged in the east against the Jurchens. The difference is that Khwarezm happened to have many Muslims. And unlike in the east, Genghis Khan could not find any local populations that would join him willingly, such as the Han Chinese and Khitans who held grudges against the Jurchen conquerors from Manchuria. As a result, the famous \"surrender or massacre\" policy reached its zenith. This policy would be used again and again throughout Islamic lands against polities like the Hashashin and the Caliphate to strike fear and destroy their political organizations. Many Muslims suffered and died as a result of Genghis Khan's policy, but not due to a specifically anti-Islamic intent, at least during his campaign. His grandson Hulegu may have been anti-Islamic, but it seems to me that he was more pro-Mongol in Islamic lands than specifically anti-Islamic\n\nEither way, it is undeniable that the Mongols were quite friendly towards Muslims they liberated and Muslims who paid their dues as citizens in the khanate. But regardless of religion, all enemies were subjected to brutal policies. Tragically, many of the worst atrocities have been connected to Islamic lands and the end of the Golden Age of Islam\n\n** **\n\n**Chinese Sources**\n\n* Bai Yiqi 白逸琦. \"Wengongwulue de Song Yuan Shidai\" 文功武略的宋元時代 [The Civil and Martial Accomplishments of the Song-Yuan Era]. \"Haodu Chubanshe\" 好讀出版社 [How Do Publishing Co, Ltd.], 2004.\n* Song Lian, Wang Yi, et al. 宋濂 王禕 等撰. \"Yuan Shi\" 元史 [History of Yuan]. \"Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan\" 臺灣商務印書館 [The Commercial Press, Ltd.], 2010.\n\n** **\n\n**English Sources**\n\n* McLynn, Frank. Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2015. Print.\n* Weatherford, Jack McIver. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. New York: Crown, 2004. Print.\n\n** **"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
ux5dz
|
Why do neurons have space between them rather than a solid connection?
|
We were studying neuroscience in psychology class today and occurred to me that there's something very out of place with how our neural network is set up. My professor couldn't answer my question, so I'm hoping you can.
In any other form of information transfer, it seems that having a physical connection is always faster and more efficient than a wireless. There's external interference, added latency, and more power usage when something is wireless, and when your computer is the thing that helps you to survive all three of those things seem like they would be bad.
Why do neurons have a synaptic cleft instead of some sort of tendril that simply connects to whichever node they're trading information with? Is there any benefit to wireless transmission in the brain? Is it just an evolutionary oversight?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ux5dz/why_do_neurons_have_space_between_them_rather/
|
{
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"score": [
3,
2,
2
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"text": [
"An [axon has a gap](_URL_0_) but [so does a field effect transistor](_URL_1_).\n\nBoth of these things have to behave as **switches**. A switch needs to be on or off and when it is off it needs to have a gap of some sort.",
"_URL_0_\n\n\"Chemical synapses have two important advantages over electric ones in the transmission of impulses from a presynaptic cell. The first is signal amplification, which is common at nerve- muscle synapses. An action potential in a single presynaptic motor neuron can cause contraction of multiple muscle cells because release of relatively few signaling molecules at a synapse is all that is required to stimulate contraction.\n\nThe second advantage is signal computation, which is common at synapses involving interneurons, especially in the central nervous system. A single neuron can be affected simultaneously by signals received at multiple excitatory and inhibitory synapses (see Figure 21-3). The neuron continuously averages these signals and determines whether or not to generate an action potential. In this process, the various depolarizations and hyperpolarizations generated at synapses move by passive spread along the plasma membrane from the dendrites to the cell body and then to the axon hillock, where they are summed together. An action potential is generated whenever the membrane at the axon hillock becomes depolarized to a certain voltage called the threshold potential. Thus an action potential is generated in an all-or-nothing fashion: Depolarization to the threshold always leads to an action potential, whereas any depolarization that does not reach the threshold potential never induces it.\"",
"As others have noted, the primary advantage of a chemical synapse over a direct connection is the greater flexibility in signal amplification and modification, the latter in both the short term (computation) and long-term (learning). However, direct connections between neurons do exist. These are called *electrical synapses* and are created by gap-junction coupling.\n\nElectrical synapses allow for fast signaling. However, they also influence neural function in less obvious ways. For one, physical coupling tends to synchronize activity in the connected elements; if you need to make a bunch of neurons fire (more or less) simultaneously, one way to do it is hook them together with gap junctions. Another feature is that coupling alters the passive membrane properties of the neuron due to an effective functional increase in membrane area. This can result in voltage oscillations, which when combined with the the synchronizing effect can generate rapid synchronized oscillations in neural populations. Such activity has been demonstrated convincingly in computational models, but there still some ongoing debate about this effect in actual squishy brains. \n\nLastly, the dogma is that electrical synapses are not modifiable is not strictly true. There are long term changes in efficacy, probably mediated by insertion or deletion of gap junctions at the coupling site. Additionally, electrical synapses can be modified pharmacologically; some gas anesthetics (halothane, for example) work by blocking gap junctions, so there is no reason they could not also be modified by endogenous neuroactive compounds as a part of normal brain function.\n\nEdit: wording."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1615&bih=962&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=gIwDfPrN28uj9M:&imgrefurl=http://www.montana.edu/wwwai/imsd/rezmeth/synapse.htm&docid=9gkbYDanjTlX9M&imgurl=http://www.montana.edu/wwwai/imsd/rezmeth/synapse_files/image003.gif&w=500&h=440&ei=2ybXT6_dEeLdige1yJGdAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1339&vpy=170&dur=463&hovh=211&hovw=239&tx=167&ty=89&sig=107037338523378833782&page=1&tbnh=120&tbnw=136&start=0&ndsp=41&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0,i:164",
"http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1615&bih=962&tbm=isch&tbnid=Nfe8y0r-jy1N7M:&imgrefurl=http://www.circuitstoday.com/fet-field-effect-transistors-introduction&docid=Da-SmbmYXH570M&imgurl=http://www.circuitstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fet-field-effect-transistor.jpg&w=450&h=340&ei=8ybXT_jsD4WfiQea3b2DAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=292&vpy=178&dur=6997&hovh=195&hovw=258&tx=134&ty=96&sig=107037338523378833782&sqi=2&page=1&tbnh=121&tbnw=160&start=0&ndsp=40&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:102"
],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21521/"
],
[]
] |
|
bwf6ty
|
Why do actors talk so oddly in American 1950s sitcoms?
|
In American sitcoms from the 50s and 60s it seems like all male actors spoke with an accent like a circus carny, and female actors had shrill voices. Was this a standard enforced practice similar to how American news anchors today are required to learn a mid-western flat accent? Was it limited to Hollywood exclusively? When did it fall out of fashion?
~~Edit: The accent I am asking about seems to actually be for the 1930s and is named the Mid-Atlantic Accent. A few comments were helping piece together this info, but by nature of this sub they were summarily deleted. Hopefully this clarification can lead to an acceptable comment with more info.~~
Edit2: Mod /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov cleared up some confusion. Sitcoms from the 1950s did not use the same accent as films from the 1930s. It is _not_ the Mid-Atlantic accent.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bwf6ty/why_do_actors_talk_so_oddly_in_american_1950s/
|
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"text": [
"Hi, everybody! So, you've probably clicked on this thread because it has so many upvotes and you assume that means there's an answer - but that's not how /r/AskHistorians works. In general, people upvote threads here because they *want* an answer. The thing is, [it can often take time for a good answer to be written](/r/AskHistorians/comments/7s66yf/a_statistical_look_at_askhistorians_in_2017_part_i/). Our mission is to provide users with *in-depth and comprehensive responses*, and our [rules](/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules) are intended to facilitate that purpose. That's why we remove comments that are very short, based on speculation, or just plain inaccurate. Making comments asking about the removed comments simply makes the problem worse. So please, before you try your hand at posting, check out the [rules](/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules): we don't want to have to give you a temporary ban for ignoring them.\n\nWhile you wait, you can check out places our already-answered questions are featured, including [Twitter](_URL_3_), the [Sunday Digest](_URL_2_), the [Monthly \"Best Of\"](_URL_8_) feature, and now, [Facebook](_URL_0_). Statistically speaking, it's very likely that the question will be answered in a few hours, so please check back in later.\n\nWhile we always appreciate feedback, we ask that any comments about our moderation style and rules be sent to [modmail](_URL_6_), or a [META thread](_URL_5_[META]). Please be aware that we've considered and discarded the idea of an \"answered\" flair and an automatic \"free talk\" comment thread many times already. Thank you!\n\nPlease consider [clicking here for a RemindMeBot reminder](_URL_4_), or using [these alternatives](_URL_7_).\n\nIn the meantime, /u/flaques, you may be interested in this previous answer by /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit on [the accent used by radio announcers in the 1930s and 1940s](_URL_1_).",
"Everyone! A note is necessary here. There is roughly a single fact that people know about mid-century accents, namely the existence of the \"Mid-Atlantic\" accent. [There is a nice old post about them on this subreddit even](_URL_1_) We have removed a bajillion comments which have responded to this question explaining it is the answer. It is bad enough that OP now thinks that is actually the answer. *But it is not*. To quote from one of the removed comments:\n\n > This is an accent of English blending American and British perceived accents to create the \"Mid-Atlantic\" accent. Used widely in movies in the 1930s and 1940s.\n\nI would further add that, as /u/lord_mayor_of_reddit notes in their linked answer, it has a connotation with elite society and poshness. FDR spoke with one, and on film, someone like Katherin Hepburn is a good example.\n\nThis is *nothing like what the question is asking*. It isn't about 1930s films. It is about 1950s sitcoms. It isn't about that well enunciated, posh blend of American and British high society. It is about what OP describes as men sounding like \"circus carnies\" and women with \"shrill voices\". Anyone who is claiming this is the Mid-Atlantic accent is only helping to demonstrate exactly why we maintain such a strict level of quality control here, because you are demonstrating how *incorrect* answers can easily become so dominant as a response without it. The style of speech in question is *not* what one might find in 1930s films like *Bringing Up Baby*. It is what you would find in 1950s sitcoms, something like *I Love Lucy* or *The Honeymooners*. \n\nIf you are able to discuss *that* style of speech with the necessary level of depth and comprehensiveness, we really look forward to your well-crafted response. If you are only here to share that you know about the Mid-Atlantic accent, please refrain from posting it, as we *will* be issuing long, temporary bans for further posts to that effect.\n\nAdditionally, please consider **[Clicking Here for RemindMeBot](_URL_3_)**, or using [these alternatives](/r/AskHistorians/comments/8p0s9b/roundtable_21_be_kindremind_the_mod_approved/) to check back later for a possible answer. In the meantime our [Twitter](_URL_4_), [Facebook](_URL_0_), and [Sunday Digest](_URL_2_) feature excellent content that has already been written!",
"So first, I need to explain that television sitcom actors from the 1950s had a wide range of dialects that was a result of their training and/or performance background. Many of the most well-known actors of the period began their careers in theatre, radio, and/or Vaudeville. Those early acting opportunities shaped much of the development of their popular characters and acting styles once they appeared regularly on a television sitcom. Broadly, actors made dialectical choices for their characters that they had been working on and refining for much of their careers. But, you are specifically asking about the \"circus carny\" sound of men and the strident quality of women in television sitcoms of the 1950s, so I'll try to address that directly.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe vocal qualities you describe for 1950s television actors are addressed by Jessica Taylor in “Speaking Shadows”: A History of the Voice in the Transition from Silent to Sound Film in the United States\" (*Journal of Linguistic Anthropology* Vol. 19 Issue 1, 2009), wherein Taylor frames her analysis of dialect/speech in early American media through the frame of the film *Singin' in the Rain* (1952). Taylor's critical analysis of the premise of *Singin' in the Rain* follows the qualities you identify for female actors of the period: their voices were often perceived as shrill or strident (and thus in need of coaching or adjustment of some kind). So, it's important to note that the ears of the 1950s were perceiving many of the same qualities you are perceiving. Piggybacking on Taylor's article, I would say that characters like Lucy from *I Love Lucy* may have been purposefully working from this expected auditory perception as a way to enhance/alter the visual aspects of her character so as to create a comic affect. (Personally, I think Lucille Ball was a genius at this, but I'll defer to anyone who knows more about her career and character/vocal choices.) As Taylor identifies: audience \"expectations were, in many ways, determined by discourses around appropriate gender performance\" (10). For more on these qualities and how their affect on listeners, I would suggest reading *Women and Radio: Airing Differences* (2014) on the history of women's elocution lessons, perceptions of the female voice, and early radio technology.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nBut back to your question: did actors *choose* to speak this way? The best answer is yes, they did. In the two sources I mentioned above, the authors do much to explain that socio-economic understandings of the early-twentieth century did much to shape the perception of gendered voices and dictated the ways in which actors were educated in dialects based upon their characters and audiences. So an actor with a background performing in Vaudeville shows was trained to reach a largely working-class immigrant audiences and would often employ dialects and accents that would reach those audiences to bring them toward a stronger comic affect. In addition to the sources above, I'll add Jane Hodson's book, *Dialect in Film and Literature* (2014) to the list of sources that explain how early film and radio had strong expectations for gendered voices that, for the most part, achieved the \"proper\" dialectal qualities of the mid-atlantic dialect (the socio-economic and cultural reasons for this are addressed--though not through an analysis of dialect--in Michele Hines' chapter, \"The North Atlantic Triangle Britain, the USA and Canada in 1950s Television,\" in *Transnational Television History: A Comparative Approach*, 2012). With the growth in television ownership across the USA in the 1950s, the sitcom format began to do much of the same type of thing that Vaudeville was doing in the early part of the century: reach the working-class American and counter the affluent sound of the mid-atlantic dialect. The same types of acting strategies that worked for comic performances 30-50 years earlier were affective choices for the TV sitcom as well. I do not mean to suggest that a certain class of Americans actually spoke like TV sitcom characters, but it is a long tradition of comedy to employ exaggerated accents/dialects that give a character the perception of being \"lower\" or less intelligent so as to elevate their audience and make it easier for people to laugh at the ridiculous situations the character finds themself in. In summary, what you're hearing from those characters is likely exactly how the actor wanted you to hear it. But, in the 1950s this vocal quality probably held a stronger affect than it does today as comic expectations and affect changes with time (but that's not to say that sitcoms on the 1950s aren't still funny!).\n\n & #x200B;\n\nA couple other sources I referenced:\n\n*Small Screens, Big Ideas: Television in the 1950s* (2002) by Janet Thumim\n\n*Dialect and Language Variation* (1986) edited by Harold B. Allen and Michael D. Linn\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEDIT: Some grammar and clarity issues.",
"I studied acoustics and electronic music production, and a background in theater and performance history, as well as voice, so I can offer a partial explanation of the phenomenon from that perspective. \n\nFirst of all, we need to differentiate between what you are hearing, and what the actors are doing. One artifact of the mastering technology of the day is that these tv shows were being made for broadcast to domestic television audiences. Frequency response from television set speakers is dismal even now. In 1950 it was atrocious. Thus, the sound was mastered in a very narrow range to emphasize the fricatives and plosives in words so that viewers could understand what they heard. Sound engineers would have tested these levels with real consumer speakers from tvs and cars, and optimized for that delivery system. \n\nFor some technical reasons not worth getting too deep into here, it is easier both to record and to reproduce sounds in certain frequency ranges. Frequencies that are too low require a speaker that is either very large, or very precise, as at lower frequency ranges, even a slight lack of response will mangle the sound and make it muddy and hard to understand. This is in contrast to a more shrill sound, which is easier to reproduce because the speaker is emitting more energy, and the frequencies are less likely to cause sympathetic interference. The same effect is also true of the recording equipment: a low tone requires more sensitive equipment because a lower frequency sound imparts less energy on the receiver (more of the energy passes through the object which is why you can hear low sounds from outside or far away buildings, but not high pitched ones). Again, this problem is encountered once more when the sound reaches your ear. Lower frequency sounds do not interact as much with your eardrums as higher frequency sounds. So they are harder to hear clearly. It is always a balancing act for a sound mixer to choose which parts of the spectrum to focus on. Including too much low noise will always muddy the sound, as this means the speaker is going to be constantly moving, making the higher pitched sounds less distinguishable. One good reason why a surround sound system sounds better is because it uses separate equipment for different ranges of sound. \n\nThat is what you hear. Now to what the actors are doing. First, in 1953 there were no wireless mic packs or lavs, and TV sets often didn’t have boom or shotgun mics for dialogue. They were very rarely looped to allow actors to overdub their lines, so actors were often cast from theater backgrounds for their ability to project both emotionally and physically. A good way to project your voice so that it is clear and audible is to narrow your vocal range and raise your register. This is what stage actors are trained to do. A rumbling low voice or a whispy or husky brogue is not going to carry like a clipped clean crisp voice.\n\nIn fact, look at almost any 3 camera show today, and you’re going to see the same phenomenon at work there as well. Actors speaking louder than natural, and tending to pitch their voices up to cut through and make themselves clearly understood. You are being somewhat distracted by the red herring of audio quality from a 1950s recording. But if we were to use those same recording apparatus today, the effect would not be that different. \n\nNow, that is not the whole answer, as I believe that simple artistic fashion has an influence on the way we expect television actors to perform. However, when we consider the combined effects of a stage background for many of the actors (not to mention crew and directors), the limitations of the technology at the time, and the historical context of early television, we begin to see some things becoming more clear. \n\nI should note again that we mustn’t overstate any one influence. A musicology professor of mine used to lament the tendency of popular history to apply historical filters on our understanding of the past, often when they are not warranted. He noted, for example, that the idea that turn of the century recorded music was made using more vibrato than is usually heard today because of the limitations of recording equipment might be true, but it would not be complete as an explanation. Live performances also included more vibrato than is heard today. Fashions simply change over time. We mustn’t try to narrowly assign causes for those changes to one or two elements."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.facebook.com/askhistorians/",
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/search?q=title%3A%22Sunday+Digest%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all",
"http://twitter.com/askhistorians",
"https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bwf6ty/why_do_actors_talk_so_oddly_in_american_1950s/%5D%0A%0ARemindMe!++2+days",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/submit?selftext=true&title=",
"http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAskHistorians&subject=Question%20Regarding%20Rules",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8p0s9b/roundtable_21_be_kindremind_the_mod_approved/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/bestof"
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/search?q=title%3A%22Sunday+Digest%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all",
"https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bwf6ty/why_do_actors_talk_so_oddly_in_american_1950s/%5D%0A%0ARemindMe!++2+days",
"https://twitter.com/askhistorians"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2oz2r8
|
Why do spinning tops reverse their direction of rotation shortly making contact with the ground?
|
I'm sure I'm missing something here, but it looks like the angular momentum of the top reverses in [this video](_URL_0_) (around 4:25), I'd love it if someone better versed in physics then I could explain what's happening here, because I can't for the life of me figure it out.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2oz2r8/why_do_spinning_tops_reverse_their_direction_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmsss3a"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Before the reversal the sides of the top are sliding over the surface of the table. the spin of the top is actually going against the direction of the sliding.\n\nWhen it slows down enough just at 4:25 the side of the top grips the surface of the table ,which causes the reversal."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwdRD3AZBfc"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
9bukpc
|
why is volcanic soil so fertile?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9bukpc/eli5_why_is_volcanic_soil_so_fertile/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e55t454",
"e56gw5g",
"e56tb0c"
],
"score": [
219,
12,
2
],
"text": [
"The lava that comes out of a volcano is full of minerals containing phosphorus, potassium, etc. The things that plants need to grow.\n\nAs the lava rock gets broken down and mixed with organic material, it creates a nutritious soil for plants.\n\nOver time, nutrients get washed or blown away by rain and wind, returning nutrients to the sea or other areas. The soil becomes less fertile as the nutrients are lost.",
"High water retention and many essential minerals that are otherwise pretty lacking or limited in nature. Phosphorus is the big one.",
"Many nutrients for plants are used in form of ions. Soils typically can hold either positively charged ions or negativelly (depending on soil composition). Volcanic soil can retain both ion types (+ and - charged), making it a really fertile matrix. At least that is what I kept from edaphology classes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5gk1n6
|
how do domesticated rodents know what a wheel is for?
|
I have a hedgehog and the day we got her we got her a wheel (like any hamster or gerbil owner would). From day one she "knew" what to do with the wheel. I understand they must have some instinctive need to run but how do they know that the wheel is for running?
Bonus: [Photo of Juliet the Hedgehog](_URL_0_)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gk1n6/eli5_how_do_domesticated_rodents_know_what_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dasyz3y"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"They will climb on it to investigate and quickly figure out the mechanism of it. Rodents/ many small mammals have excellent spatial skills and abilities.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://imgur.com/a/eygBs"
] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0NxxZWMOMQ"
]
] |
|
3i7972
|
why do governments produce and sell weapons to other entities than their own law enforcement?
|
**EXCLUDING WEAPONS FOR ANIMAL HUNTING!**
^(but they don't need a fully automatic, do they?)
Besides making profit, you can be 100% sure that, at a certain point the producer (government) will be the cause of armed violence against it's own law enforcement.
Does the profit financially outweigh the danger for armed revolution?
Because I think that is BS.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3i7972/eli5_why_do_governments_produce_and_sell_weapons/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cudvbz6"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The US government does not manufacture a single bullet, gun, tank or missile. Private companies make it all and have the right to sell anything that isn't actual military secrets to anyone they want.\n\nWelcome to the Military Industrial Complex!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3a82x4
|
why does it appear american conservatives have pushed so far to the right in the last 15 years?
|
I'm honestly not trying to offend anyone with this question. That's why I say "appear," because I want to include the possibility that the shift is merely my perception, not reality.
That being said, it appears the election of GW Bush in 2000 marked the beginning of a calculated and significant shift to the right among American conservatives.
What was considered moderate during the Clinton administration is often labeled as "progressive" by conservatives today.
Were there market forces driving this? Was there some change in US policy? What happened?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a82x4/eli5_why_does_it_appear_american_conservatives/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csa52ly",
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"text": [
"The Republican Party has pushed right, which also means many conservatives have gone right with them, either to keep with the pack or because they don't know any better. I know many fairly conservative people who are appalled at what the Republican Party now stands for.",
"I was alive then, and somewhat aware. What happened was that the economy had a hangover from the tech bubble and the LTC crisis, and other economic crises. So, the mentality shifted from spending, growth to conserving resources, etc. ( Don't spend on social programs, but cut taxes instead.) Then 9/11 happened which devasted any sense of security and isolated identity Americans had. This then leads to pro-military policies and tougher stances on other countries that could hurt the country and the identity of the country. ( military and pro national/anti-foreign sentiments are usually on the right)",
"According to [The Big Sort](_URL_0_), people are moving into neighborhoods with other like-minded people and listening mostly to those who agree with them. This creates an echo-chamber effect that serves to strengthen people in their previous convictions and push them to more extreme views. Thus, conservatives have been pushing to the right and liberals have been pushing to the left. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php"
]
] |
|
1v8zmf
|
When did Muslims start building elaborate and grand mosques?
|
Pre-Islamic Arabia and even early Islamic Arabia did not have many grand or elaborate temples and later mosques (the kabba wasn't that elaborate). So when did they start building some of their more glamorous structures?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1v8zmf/when_did_muslims_start_building_elaborate_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ceqgul9"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Interesting question! The oldest mosque with elaborate decoration that survives in a reasonably intact fashion is the Great Mosque of Damascus from about 706, although the Dome of The Rock was built c. 691 and it is possible and maybe probable that similarly elaborate mosques were built around the same time as this and have since been lost or wholly rebuilt-for instance, very little of the original decoration of the late 7th century Great Mosque of Kufa survives. It does seem however that the earliest elaborate mosques in the West date to Umayyad times and in particular Syria. Now why Umayyad Syria? Part of this is simply patronage; the Umayyads originated as Syrian aristocrats and their main power-base was in Syria, so it is only natural that Syria should be central to their architectural ambitions. The other part of the answer, though, is the ongoing legacy of Byzantium, from whom Syria had only recently been conquered and who still had close ties to Syria(for example, The Umayyads in particular were very keen to appropriate the Byzantine imperial ideology of divine legitimation and the broader trappings of late antique imperium, and this produced a lot of buildings and artworks that attempted to recast Byzantine power in Islamic form. \n\nThis is most visible in the architecture and decoration of the Umayyad desert palaces but we can also see evidence of it in the Umayyad mosque of Damascus. The buildings depicted mosaics of the courtyard, for instance are quite close both to imperial Roman architectural paintings and to late antique architectural motifs(compare them with for example Pompeian wall painting or even the 'tempietto' in the Echmiadzin Gospels) and the floral motifs in these mosaics also comes from late Roman and Byzantine art, especially the use of the vine as a metaphor for the fruits of paradise that also had imperial and courtly associations. The elevation and layout of the mosque also produce similar associations. The courtyard facade's central entrance echos Roman architecture, especially the use of the pediment, and the interior arcades(arches supported on columns) also call to mind the typical late antique basilica(see for example Old St. Peter's for comparison).\n\nSources and further reading: \n\nGarth Fowden, _Qusayr 'Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria_\n\nK.A.C. Creswell, _A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture_.\n\nFinbar Barry Flood, _The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on The Making of an Umayyad Visual Culture_."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
7l2114
|
The Japanese vs the Russians
|
I’ve always wondered what the extent of fighting was between the Japanese and the Russians, I know they fought at Manchuria but where else did they fight or was it just mainly at Manchuria?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7l2114/the_japanese_vs_the_russians/
|
{
"a_id": [
"drj2qac"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Are you referring solely to WWII or are you referring to a different period?\n\nRussia and Japan had a series of conflicts (not all breaking out into open warfare) dating back to before the Ruso-Japanese war of 1904-5. The two major waves of fighting occurred in 1904-05 and 1945. But other periods of tension include 1895, 1918-1922, 1938-1939. All but the first included fighting in Manchuria."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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