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3esjmm
|
why cant leaf blower noise be muffled?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3esjmm/eli5why_cant_leaf_blower_noise_be_muffled/
|
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"It can, if you want a 70 pound leaf blower. You can't just wave a wand and make noise go away. You need a lot of very absorbent material with plenty of room for gasses to expand, and also has a clear channel for exhaust to flow through, and even then, it'll still probably be loud. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
31ctli
|
was/is there a reason there was looney tunes and merrie melodies? why didn't they just have one show?
|
I've tried to read up, it seems that some characters bounced back and forth between the two shows. Any actual reasoning why? Maybe something to do with ownership of certain songs / characters / names ect
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31ctli/eli5_wasis_there_a_reason_there_was_looney_tunes/
|
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"Both shows were produced by Warner Bros, so I think the separation was done to allow the company to fill up more timeslots with 2 shows instead of 1, which gave their programming more airtime. ",
"[The Straight Dope covered this](_URL_0_). Basically, they started out as being made by two different production teams, but after a certain point, they became essentially interchangeable, but they kept both names going.",
"Merrie Melodies was originally produced by a separate company. It was later acquired by Warner Brothers, and eventually phased out in favor of Looney Toons. Incidentally, Silly Symphonies was Disney's version."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1057/whats-the-difference-between-a-looney-tune-and-a-merrie-melody"
],
[]
] |
|
1ssenc
|
Why is the perception of pitch and loudness logarithmic rather than linear ?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ssenc/why_is_the_perception_of_pitch_and_loudness/
|
{
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"text": [
"A log scale gives you a more nuanced and differentiated perception of weak sounds, compared to linear. A linear scale would \"compress\" weak sounds into a much more narrow perceptual range, compared to log.\n\nIt is probably advantageous for all creatures to have a more rich understanding of faint sounds, at the limit of audibility, as that's where \"interesting\" things happen - such as a predator stalking you from the shadows."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4dbc5z
|
Was there freedom of speech in Prussia of Frederick the Great?
|
In some internet discussion, one guy claimed that Prussia of Frederick the Great had greater freedom of speech than modern United States. This is so unbelievable that i asked him for sources, he of course refused to cite any, as expected.
I did some research of my own and found that freedom of speech in 18th century context meant criticism of religion was allowed, not criticism of king, the government, the army and war.
Is this accurate impression? What kind of speech and press would be allowed in 18th century Prussia?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4dbc5z/was_there_freedom_of_speech_in_prussia_of/
|
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"text": [
"The person you spoke to seems to have a very limited understanding of Early Modern censorship, which was infintely more oppressive than today. As such we will look at two examples.\n\nFirst, Frederick and Voltaire. While the two became friends, [in this article, you can see a very prickly history with Voltaire and Prussia](_URL_0_). This is rather common as most countries up until later in the 19th century to have rampant censorship with banning of books or phamplets that they considered untrustworthy, false, or generally something they didn't like for whatever reason. Censorship is less about getting rid of enemies but presenting an image about the Crown and government that's being discussed, but the two go hand in hand.\n\nConversely, Emperor Joseph II, Emperor of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire was the most progressive of the Enlightened Monarch with a push for education, ending any sort of Serfship, and loosening of censorship. He would mainly loosen censorship in Vienna (but not the rest of Austria) because he says that \"the Viennese are happiest when they complain.\" However, as a result, phamplets and books that spread false rumors about the Emperor spread quickly and the censorship would return.\n\nSo, no, Prussia isn't an ideally place of free speech."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-202311672/voltaire-s-satire-on-frederick-the-great-candide"
]
] |
|
1o0cwm
|
why do race cars have stickers for headlights? why not just real headlights or no stickers?
|
Do the stickers serve a purpose other than aesthetics?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o0cwm/eli5_why_do_race_cars_have_stickers_for/
|
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"text": [
"what stickers? i don't see any [here](_URL_0_)",
"Because it would blind other racers. The roads already have lights that have lightened up the entire track, so headlights would only be a problem.",
"Nope.\n\nIf I had to guess (not an authoritative answer, but an educated guess), I'd say that - in NASCAR at least - it stems from the original NASCAR (*N*ational *A*ssociation of *Stock Car* *A*uto *R*acing) cars having been stock cars. They were normal cars that you could go to a dealer and buy, then fixed up to be fast. But as the sport progressed and the cars became less and less like the real thing, they did just that. They became less like a stock Camry, or Monte Carlo, or Ford Taurus. Thus things like windshield wipers and headlamps and indicators became useless, vestigial. They apply stickers to maintain some sort of resemblance to the stock cars. ",
"The most likely reason there are no headlights is because they would be unnecessary. Considering NASCAR tracks are already lit up, the headlights are removed to reduce the weight on the stock car and allow more space/lighter weight.",
"Some racecars have lights, some don't, it all depends on what type of racing you are talking about. Certain series' run on fully lit tracks, NASCAR for example, and the lights would be pointless (another point here, the lights on a NASCAR track would be useless due to the banking). Some other 'Lit tracks', such as SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) have what are considered 'lit tracks', only running during times with light. Now even there, some cars have real headlights, basically it is how much the race car has to share with its street going counter-part, provided it even has one.\n\nThere is certain series' that only run long races (2+ hours), these are endurance series', which must have headlights, as they run on tracks that are not completly lit through out the entire race. \n\nSome good pictures:\n_URL_1_ (a NASCAR, the lights there would be useless)\n_URL_2_ (A good picture of two very different classes, both run during the day, but the car on the left is a purpose built race car, where as the cars on the right have only been modified for racing from street cars)\n_URL_0_ (A purpose built race car, built for endurance races, and feature headlights)\n\nTl;Dr Some do, some don't actually, those that dont have headlights don't need them and it is purely aesthetic, and some cars have them, and even then, only some use them. The rules dictate this in the end.\n\nHope I helped :)",
"Because if they shatter they will spread glass on the track, which could puncture tires."
]
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"http://www.cfrscca.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/CFR-Banner.jpg"
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|
1xmxmy
|
to keep the physics oriented questions going: i've always wondered what is outside our universe. if the universe is expanding (or contracting), shouldn't there be a space outside of our universe that's allowing for that expansion/contraction?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xmxmy/eli5_to_keep_the_physics_oriented_questions_going/
|
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"It's space itself that's expanding. The universe is (probably) infinite in extent, so when we say that it's \"expanding,\" what we mean is that things are getting farther apart.\n\nIt's not expanding \"into\" anything, because there's nothing outside of the universe (by definition). Not an easy concept to grasp, but it is what it is.",
"Read Flatland. It's a quick read. Like, two days. Once you've read that, you'll have the context to read Flatterland and Sphereland, both of which are themselves quick reads and of which will give you some insight on what infinite space might really, physically be. It won't answer your question per se, but you may be satisfied the the result."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
whqd6
|
Are there neuroprostheses (namely limb prostheses) that use the electrical impulses directly from severed nerves as control input? If not, why isn't it done?
|
I have heard of prostheses that do something like what I'm describing, but, if I recall correctly, they connect the severed nerves to rarely used, existing muscles and take the control signals from there. Has anyone ever directly connected a nerve to a device and received input that way?
I ask because it seems like such an obvious way for neruoprotheses to be designed, but I am not an expert in this field and am not going to kid myself that I am. Thanks!
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/whqd6/are_there_neuroprostheses_namely_limb_prostheses/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5dijti"
],
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],
"text": [
"I don't know anything about prostheses, but I've done lots of nerve recordings. The problem is that a \"nerve\" may contain several thousand individual axons, each of which (or at least groups of which) target different portions of a muscle (or different muscles). I know of no technology that would allow you to segregate the signals from thousands of individual axons in a nerve so that you could target different portions of a prosthesis. Sure, measuring a \"bulk response\" is not difficult, but extracting fine-resolution detail is a problem."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6lw0vm
|
Why does light travel a longer distance through different medium?
|
I learnt that light doesn't actually change its speed in a medium that makes it seem like it slows down, instead it only makes it travel a longer route? How does it do that? and why?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6lw0vm/why_does_light_travel_a_longer_distance_through/
|
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"text": [
"[Check out the FAQ.](_URL_0_)"
]
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[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/wiki/physics/light_through_material"
]
] |
|
37v0ij
|
why do you have to be over 18 to buy wd-40?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37v0ij/eli5_why_do_you_have_to_be_over_18_to_buy_wd40/
|
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"text": [
"Apparently some genius decided it would be a great idea to inhale the WD40 fumes and get high that way. A bunch of people picked up on it, and so stores set up a policy that only allows adults to purchase these aerosol items. Which is kind of dumb, tbh. As soon as you turn 18 you suddenly stop being stupid? Not bloody likely...",
"Because some people have used it as an inhalant (huffing). When a benign product gets abused like that, it often becomes age restricted.",
"Is this true everywhere? I've never heard of this and I've never been questioned purchasing it. Maybe I just look old anyway.\n\nThere are plenty of products that can be inhaled or misused. You can't control what dumb kids do. I'm sure they can find wd-40 or something else at home depot worth getting high off of.",
"You seen how many different things that shit does? \n\nToo much power for someone who doesn't understand how to control it.",
"There is the huffing concern, of course.\n\nThe other possibility (and these aren't mutually exclusive) is that the propellant is propane, and the oil burns really well. This makes it a very effective incendiary."
]
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22b59u
|
why do people have trouble comprehending large numbers?
|
I'm lookin for more than a "because they're dumb" answer.
People seem to understand the difference and relevance between 500 and 20,000, but the different between 500 million and 20 billion seem to get lumped in as 'big numbers' and people don't seem to comprehend them well.
This is seen frequently in political talks about how tax money is spent. People can't comprehend that 500 million tax dollars on "xxxxxxx" is chump change compared to 60 billion on "xxxxxx". People get equally offended over either it seems.
The example that prompted this thought is the HR Block ad program that has been running in the USA since before the Super Bowl. They advertise "get your billion back" america saying that americans who do their own taxes lost out on a billion dollars last year. Thats really nothing if you break it down per tax payer. maybe 20 bucks? Nobody notices this stuff because they just seem impressed by big numbers.
soooo. why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22b59u/eli5_why_do_people_have_trouble_comprehending/
|
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"text": [
"Because humans don't deal with scales that big it's easiest to describe it with time.\n\nIt's easy to think back a year or a decade because we experience that length of time we can understand it. But tell someone to think about 10 billion years ago. It's hard we have nothing to base that on making it hard to grasp.",
"It's because most people have no frame of reference when it comes to very large numbers. People know that a million is a big number, and that a billion is bigger, but people have never seen a million OF anything, nor a billion, so it's hard to put into perspective. It's easy for a person to imagine a thousand of something, because they will most likely have SEEN a thousand (or ten thousand even) of something, be it people or coins or whatever. When it comes to much larger numbers, the only things that really physically exist in those amounts are either very, very small or cosmologically large, and so it tends to only be people with a scientific background who have had practice at thinking about them and have some kind of real-world reference for the magnitudes involved.",
"Because value isn't linear.\n\nIf you have me a thousand pencils, that is probably more than I will every use in my lifetime. If you gave me a million, same deal, for practical purposes, both of those numbers might as well be infinity.\n\nThe same is true with money. Unless I wanted to because a venture capitalist or a supervillain, my $500 million lifestyle wouldn't be much different than my $60 billion lifestyle.\n\nWhat's more, I can relate to $500 and $20,000 in my daily life. One is a TV, the other is a car. I really have no concept of what I could buy with $60 billion, but couldn't with $500 million."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
dfwpkw
|
When birds (specifically geese, but any birds) fly in a large pattern, how do they know their next move? Are all the birds following the bird at the front? Or do they all know where exactly to go, and just fly in a pattern for efficiency?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/dfwpkw/when_birds_specifically_geese_but_any_birds_fly/
|
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"text": [
"If you are asking about migration behavior, the most entertaining answer has to be a movie from the 90's called \"Fly Away Home\" based on the IRL efforts of Bill Lishman. The birds (Canada geese in the movie, whopping cranes IRL) have a migration instinct to take to the air when the right time of year comes. But they learn from their parents or older birds where exactly to go. As far as formation flying is concerned, they've developed the very energy efficient method of riding a leader's slipstream as a cooperative scheme - meaning different birds will take the more exhausting leader position to spread the work around the entire flock.\n\nIf you are asking about non-migratory flocking behavior, its a bit different. It seems that while computer simulations and mathematical models have been developed to explain observations. But as far as I'm aware, the phenomenon is still an active area of research.",
"In addition to the other answers, it's also important to realize that simple rules can sometimes lead to apparently complex behavior. The tendency is to look at complex behavior and think that the animal must be doing something complex, when the reality is just that you don't understand the simple rules that generate the behavior.\n\nSee, for example, [\"Do Dogs Know Calculus?\"](_URL_1_), the story of how a Welsh Corgi was remarkably accurate at optimizing related rates problems despite not even being able to differentiate simple polynomials. Or, see [\"Fly Ball or Frisbee, Fielder and Dog Do the Same Physics\"](_URL_0_) for the story of how dogs trace out complex curves called cardioids when they're chasing Frisbees, when the reality is that they're continuously picking a path that causes the Frisbee to look like it is travelling in a straight line.\n\nSo, even though ducks and geese in V formation flying look like they're doing something complex, the reality is probably that they're doing something simple like minimizing the drag they feel or keeping the birds ahead of them in a straight line."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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"https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/07/science/fly-ball-or-frisbee-fielder-and-dog-do-the-same-physics.html",
"http://www.indiana.edu/~jkkteach/Q550/Pennings2003.pdf"
]
] |
||
1iwvjo
|
How do you build a liquid fuel rocket?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1iwvjo/how_do_you_build_a_liquid_fuel_rocket/
|
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"text": [
"Hopefully you're already familiar with hobby-grade solid-engine rockets, as that would be the jumping off point for most beginners. Liquid engines are a bit more complicated, and usually have higher thrusts, so they're meant for bigger rockets.\n\n[Here's](_URL_1_) a good resource for getting started.\n\n > Which is best for amateur rocketry: solid, liquid, or hybrid propulsion?\n\n > The question gets a lot of debate. As with anything else, it depends on a number of factors, and there's no definite answer. Factors that should be considered include: your personal background and knowledge; size of rocket; impulse required; specific impulse desired; thrust; monies available; reliability factor; materials and equipment available; legal aspects; etc.\n\n > Generally, very small rockets (up to several kg or tens of kg) are easiest to build as solids or hybrids, and a lot of the technology is already available. Liquids provide the highest specific impulse and are most economical in larger sizes but are more complex. Hybrids tend to bridge the gap between liquids and solids, providing better impulse in mid-size than solids and being simpler than liquids.\n\n[Here's](_URL_2_) a great technical resource, \"HOW to DESIGN, BUILD and TEST SMALL LIQUID-FUEL ROCKET ENGINES.\"\n\nAs you can see from the above source, you probably need access to machine tools to build your own liquid-fuel rocket. There are places like [this](_URL_0_) where you can buy plans for small liquid rockets, but I can't speak to those.",
"A good home for this question is /r/AskScienceDiscussion."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://home.total.net/launch/",
"http://www.rocketry.org/faq/faq.php",
"http://www.risacher.org/rocket/"
],
[]
] |
||
zljap
|
What effect does cooking have on best before/expiry dates?
|
Say you have some chicken that is due to expire in one day, and then cook it, will it last a further three days, or still expire in one? I'm imagining the cooking kills any present viruses and bacteria, which is what I assume the original expiration date was based on; but obviously new ones might accumulate when it's taken out of the packet & during cooking.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/zljap/what_effect_does_cooking_have_on_best/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c65nnw1"
],
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"text": [
"The expiration dates on food are simply for quality and not safety. Cooking chicken to 165F for 15s (internal temperature, not surface) is sufficient to reduce non-spore forming pathogenic bacteria to non-dangerous levels. If you cook the chicken and cool it down properly (135- > 70 in 2 hrs, then 70- > 41 in 4hrs; or faster) to refrigeration temperatures then the chicken will last 7 days. Very very few pathogenic bacteria can grow at refrigeration temperatures and generally the only one to worry about is Listeria. Listeria will often cause pregnant women to miscarry; for everyone else it causes vomiting and nausea. If you freeze the chicken you can hold onto it indefinitely. However, once you thaw it you must resume the 7 day period where you left it off. For example, if you freeze it 3 days after cooking the chicken, when you thaw it you only have 4 days left, including the day you thawed the chicken.\n\nEdit: I inspect restaurants as part of my job.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
364n8e
|
What determines the brightness of a light emitting object such as a light bulb or the sun? Is there more photons per every unit of surface area or are the wave lengths just more energetic?
|
I would like to think that the surfaces of all light emitting objects would release photons evenly assuming they were all spherical in shape. If one of these object had slightly more energy than the other, would it appear brighter or would it change color cause it's wavelengths are getting more energetic? I guess I'm basically asking what happens at the atomic level that determines the wavelengths of the photons emitted and the number of photons per unit of surface area of a spherical object?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/364n8e/what_determines_the_brightness_of_a_light/
|
{
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"crax4eu"
],
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"text": [
"Brightness is associated with intensity - which correlates to the number of photons. \n\nA single photon can, indeed, carry more energy than another. Since Energy is related to frequency and wavelength, a change in energy will simply change the wavelength of the photon. \n\nYou know this phenomenon as color. Blue light has a shorter wavelength and thus more energy than red light. Thus \"blue photons\" carry more energy than \"red photons\".\n\nIf you are interested in learning about the way light bulbs emit light, you should read up on [black body radiation](_URL_0_). This phenomenon explains the relation between the temperature of an object and the intensity at which photons of each frequency are emitted. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation"
]
] |
|
2l492l
|
Why did Rome and Greece have more artists than the Vikings?
|
Hi!
I'm born and raised in Denmark, and therefore I have heard ALOT about the vikings and our ancient history.
But lately I've been thinking about art and ground-breaking artists.
In ancient Europe, Rome and Greece had a lot of ground-breaking artists and philosophers. The list is very long.
But weren't the scandinavian vikings around for almost the same amount of time as Rome and Greece?
Well, the thing is, here in Denmark, we always hear about how insane and extreme the vikings were war-wise, but didn't they have any big artists and philosophers? ..or was it all about war and plundering?
The question in some sort of TL;DR, would be something along the line of; how come almost all the biggest artists and philosophers where based in Southern Europe, and why didn't we have that many of them up here at that time?
:)
--
(if there are any spelling- and/or grammarerrors, so sorry. English is my secondary language) :)
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2l492l/why_did_rome_and_greece_have_more_artists_than/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clrhmm1"
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"text": [
"Another Dane here, hej :).\n\nSo, the viking age is not actually the same period as what you might think of as the classical era. The viking age is usually considered to have been from 796 to 1066 CE (e.v.t.), while the \"classical era\" when most of the famous Greeks and Romans lived would have been, extremely broadly, from 800 BCE to 500 CE. That's 270 years of vikings versus 1300 years of classical civilization.\n\nThe reason that we do not know much about any possible great viking philosophers is the same reason we know comparatively little about viking thought in general: Not much written material has survived. There were many more literate people in the Greek city states and the Roman empire than in Scandinavia. The vikings, it seems, did not write things down as often as the mediterranean civilizations, and when they did, the tree they would have been writing on would have rotten away some time between then and now.\n\nAs to great artists, well, art appreciation is subjective. I think the detail on the [Oseberg ship](_URL_0_) is incredibly beautiful, for example. \n\nThere is a general tendency throughout medieval and especially renaissance Western thought to identify with the Roman empire and the Greeks which has perhaps made us a bit blind to the culture of, well, anywhere else."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_art#mediaviewer/File:Osebergskipet-Detail.jpg"
]
] |
|
257mqs
|
how do we know cern's large hadron collider isn't just creating new particles that otherwise wouldn't or do not exist??
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/257mqs/eli5how_do_we_know_cerns_large_hadron_collider/
|
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],
"text": [
"The point of particle colliders is to generate scenarios that occur in other parts of the universe, but are hard for us to detect. High-energy particle interactions happen all the time, like in the centers of stars.\n\nIt's a *little bit* tricky to get sensitive measuring equipment into the center of the Sun, though. So, what we do instead is build something that replicates those high-energy conditions, but in a way that it can be controlled and measured.",
"Sure the actual particles might be uncommon in nature, the particles themselves are not the important part, in quantum field theory every particle represents the excitation of some *field* which exists in our universe.\n\nThe ~~Highs~~ Higgs for instance is a pretty heavy particle and because of this, it isn't the most commonly expressed particle, you need a lot of energy to dredge it up, but the ~~Highs~~ Higgs field is everywhere all the time and it's *important* and does a lot of important things. Using the LHC to actually make a coherent Higgs signal simply let's us know that the field is indeed around."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4tgnhn
|
why is it so difficult to keep the pokemon go servers from crashing?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4tgnhn/eli5_why_is_it_so_difficult_to_keep_the_pokemon/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d5h3zc7",
"d5h44xn"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Imagine that you're in the ocean in a massive school of fish. A fishing boat casts it's net overboard and traps all of you. The crew tries to pull you all in but the wench isn't strong enough, so you all just sit there idling in the net. The school of fish are pokemon go players and the wench represents the servers.",
"First of all, there is *nobody* expected it to be *this* popular. It's more popular than *Twitter* right now. The entire infrastructure is completely unprepared for the level of use. Server-wise, they are Google customers. Google can throw server after server at it for days, they have more than anyone. It doesn't matter.\n\nMore importantly, bottlenecks. It's not a matter of just throwing more servers at it. You could have servers that could support 100 million concurrent users and it wouldn't make a difference because everything is bottlenecked. Pokemon spawning on your screen has to be synchronized because it also spawns on everyone else's screen (without incense). This means the data centers have to talk to each other and constantly maintain consistency. Involving more data centers doesn't make it better or faster because they still have to talk to each other, and that is the bottleneck.\n\nOn top of that, the app itself, the infrastructure behind it at Niantic, everything is just really fucking buggy. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
57efaa
|
how come if i nick my leg shaving it bleeds like a gunshot wound?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/57efaa/eli5_how_come_if_i_nick_my_leg_shaving_it_bleeds/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d8rdvyr"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"5% of all the blood in your body hangs out in your skin and your legs have lots of blood vessels near the surface. On a tiny, tiny level in your skin, when you cut your leg with a razor, it's so sharp it doesn't leave ragged edges like a normal cut would from something not so sharp. That makes it harder for your body's natural ways of clotting to stop the bleeding because they can't hang on to those ragged edges like they normally would. Source: I'm a physiology teacher?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2k493t
|
why do mechanical pencils squeak sometimes while you write?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k493t/eli5_why_do_mechanical_pencils_squeak_sometimes/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clhqxf4"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Has to do with the \"lead\" used in them. They don't make points like old fashioned pencils and when they get flat on the tip, it creates a specific friction that causes a gross feeling and I'm assuming the squeaky noise you refer to. (I'm Deaf so I'm kinda going off people saying \"Hey bro, your pencil is making a terrible squeaky noise.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
en5yx9
|
Can a liquid/gas get stuck to an adhesive?
|
[deleted]
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/en5yx9/can_a_liquidgas_get_stuck_to_an_adhesive/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fe04vkt",
"fdyyccc"
],
"score": [
3,
6
],
"text": [
"Well first it depends on the liquid \nU got water which compared to other liquids doesn’t have great surface tension which causes it to not just stick to itself \nNow u got something like mercury that will not stick to anything because the surface tension is so high that it will only stick to itself",
"Super glue is often vaporised used to highlight things such as fingerprints in forensic investigations. The wiki: _URL_0_ says many of the ways this adhesive attaches to oils and even humidity in the air"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate"
]
] |
|
5lob76
|
why can games such as pac man have a maximum level counter value of 256 (maximum 8bit integer value) when the score can go past it? (ex: 293370)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lob76/eli5_why_can_games_such_as_pac_man_have_a_maximum/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbx6m0e",
"dbx6ujc"
],
"score": [
3,
7
],
"text": [
"Computers aren't restricted to a single size for all numbers. When a developer has limited memory to work with, they'll use the smallest size they can get away with for each number to use the least amount of memory. \n\nThe size is almost always a multiple of 8 bits because that's how computers handle memory- if you ask for 5 bits, the computer has to give you 8 and you just waste three of them.\n\n So for the level counter, which wasn't expected to go very high, they used an 8 bit number. But they could have used a 24-bit or 32-bit number for the score. ",
"They decided to reserve 8 bit for the level counter and 16 bit for the score. You have to keep in mind that memory was a rare good when Pac Man was developed, so developers tried to make use of the memory in a distribution that made sense to them.\n\nIf you are an expert Pac Man player and think 256 levels are too few, this would be an analogy for you: Today when you plan a shelf for your books, you might consider 20 yards of rack sufficient for your books of today and of the future. You just do not want to dedicate more of the precious space of your house or flat to books you do not even own yet. Even if this assumption does not hold true for the (rarer) cases where people need more storage for their books at some point in their life, it was probably the right decision, because for most people it was sufficient."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1ulh8q
|
When astrophysicists say that a planet is the same size as Earth, do they mean in terms of mass or in terms of diameter?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ulh8q/when_astrophysicists_say_that_a_planet_is_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cejebpd"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Well, you probably won't catch an astrophysicist using a term as vague as \"size,\" particularly not in a research paper - scientists will be specific when talking about radius, mass etc. But when these things get reported out and covered outside the primary literature, the word \"size\" can indeed mean different things. Ultimately, you have to read the context to see what they're talking about.\n\nThere's another term that might give you context, though: \"Earth-like.\" If a planet is referred to as Earth-like, or something similar, it generally means it's _roughly_ comparable to Earth. The makeup (rocky, like Earth, not gaseous like Jupiter), density and diameter will be comparable to that of Earth. They might call it a \"heavy\" Earth, which means it's comparable in density, but with significantly more mass, which means it's going to have a higher diameter."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5dv4qg
|
[other] why is there no requirements for us cabinet members?
|
Some of the positions seem like it would be quite beneficial to have a good, educated background in, particularly the more "sciencey" positions. I believe the Surgeon General MUST be an MD so why not say the secretary of energy be a doctorate who specializes in that?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dv4qg/eli5other_why_is_there_no_requirements_for_us/
|
{
"a_id": [
"da7ifdj",
"da7ihqg",
"da7j8vm",
"da7k0yo"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
" > so why not say the secretary of energy be a doctorate who specializes in that?\n\nBecause when you start placing such rules on appointments whoever makes those rules now is in charge, not the President.\n\nAlso everyone reports to the President in the Executive Branch so trying to take away his authority is pointless. \"Oh, my choice 'doesn't qualify'? Here, I appoint this person who does: Now obey everything my appointee tells you to or I will fire you.\"",
"Since there are no requirements constitutionally the president can appoint whoever he wants. Unless we amend the constitution which would be incredibly difficult this will continue to be the case. In the past presidents have generally appointed people who are qualified because it's the right thing to do. ",
"A cabinet level position is pretty much like being the CEO of that company. For example, from [Obama's cabinet](_URL_2_), which industry should the [Department of Energy](_URL_1_) be a specialist in? \n\nDOE covers more energy sectors than any energy company in the world as far as I know. Nuclear, coal, crude oil, refined distillates, natural gas, renewables, production and distribution of those products, generation and distribution of electricity. Some security/management of nuclear weapons. And the security of sensitive operations and facilities. \n\nUnder Obama, [Ernest Moniz](_URL_0_) is educated in nuclear physics. But someone with a background in power plants, or maybe oil and gas would be equally suitable. So would a solar/hydro/wind energy background.\n\nDick Cheney has a background in political science, and was secretary of defense. Should the Secretary of Defense have been a former enlisted or officer? \n\nMost cabinet level positions are not fluff positions, where you can appoint a lackey. How they manage their department impacts how the administration performs. \n\nFor example, Michael Brown, was FEMA director when hurricane Katrina hit. It was most likely a fluff appointment of someone not qualified for that level of job. History as well recorded the consequences of hiring the wrong person. ",
" > I believe the Surgeon General MUST be an MD\n\nI don't think that's actually true, it seems that the president could nominate anyone he wanted to that post as well. \n\nAnyway, here in the US, we have only very basic qualifications for holding office and for voting because the belief is that the people should be trusted as much as possible to make their own decisions. Also, in the particular case of cabinet members, they have to be confirmed by the Senate. This means that a lot of people would have to drop the ball to allow someone wholly unqualified to serve in the cabinet."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Moniz",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Energy",
"https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet"
],
[]
] |
|
4dqhnf
|
what is tau in math, and why do some people prefer it to pi?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4dqhnf/eli5_what_is_tau_in_math_and_why_do_some_people/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1td409"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Numberphile did a video on this topic, it adresses most of the points:\n\n[Tau replaces Pi?](_URL_0_)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ofi_L6eAo"
]
] |
||
2cwv6e
|
Where and how did the "haunted church" trope originate?
|
Being a sacred place of worship, I've always wondered why there are stories of ghosts (which seems so unholy) in churches. How did this originate?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2cwv6e/where_and_how_did_the_haunted_church_trope/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cjk31o0"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Can I just tell you, thank you. Seriously. Thank you. People rarely ask about ghosts, and even more rarely about their interaction with sacred space- and here you’ve come along and made my day by asking the perfect question.\n\nSimply put, ghosts have a long history of appearing in churches and other religious structures throughout European history. The association between religious sites and spirits, whether the departed or otherwise, is not unique to Christian history, and predates it considerably, so I am afraid we are out of luck as far as an actual *origin*, but that doesn’t stop us from charting the history of ghosts through Christian tradition.\n\nNow stories of ghosts are present throughout Late Antiquity, though Augustine notably refutes the possibility of the dead returning in [*De cura pro mortuis*](_URL_0_), but stories of the dead returning to visit the living took hold in European Christianity in spite of his assurance that what the living see can only be an illusion manufactures by devils or angels. The purpose and appearance of the dead throughout the medieval period became increasingly entwined with purgatorial suffering as the doctrine slowly takes shape and root in medieval theology. Likewise, the proliferation of ghost stories can also be tied to the formalization of death liturgies- essentially over the course of the first thirteen hundred years of Christianity, we see the development of a liturgy and theology that creates a reason for the dead to return to visit the living, namely the alleviation of purgatorial suffering. \n\nTo be clear, I am only addressing ghost stories as they appear in the writings of ecclesiastics and other religious authors- we have few, basically no, stories that originate in what we might qualify as ‘popular’ narratives. However, that does not mean that their influence is absent. Of course, we can only speculate on the origin of these stories, but historians such as Jean-Claude Schmitt have tied the increased concern in local events, in particular ghost stories, with a general millenarian atmosphere that pervaded church writings at the time (yes, medieval author’s had their own doomsday vibe going for them too). The result is that around the year 1000, we see an explosion of ghost stories in histories and treatises on miracles that are, more than ever, rooted in ‘local’ reports related to the author by a ‘reliable’ source.\n\nSo why churches? Like to today, church yards were not the only places that ghosts appeared, but the stories that involve them are certainly some of the most fascinating. Schmitt, who also applies anthropological methods to his assessment of ghost stories, notes the importance of kin-relationships. The dead tend to return when something goes wrong in the larger ritual process of dying- a mass is not performed properly, prayers are not offered, grievances are left unresolved- and for ecclesiastics this is intimately bound up in the various liturgies that were crucial in aiding the departed through their purgatorial journey. In other words, stories of ghosts in ecclesiastical writings can mirror the author’s anxieties in regards to social relationships and considering the concerns and focuses of medieval ecclesiastics, the backdrop for these stories is often set against the complex anxieties surrounding sacred and religious space in medieval Christianity- churches, altars, monasteries, etc. \n\nIn short, the association between the dead and churches is quite old, and from the perspective of medieval authors, religious space often serves as the backdrop where anxieties associated with purgatorial suffering, ecclesiastical authority, and appropriate liturgical practice are addressed. As to when exactly the association between ghosts and churches became rooted in popular thought, I cannot speak to with any confidence, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the association between religious sites and the restless dead is old, and what I have addressed here may simply reflect how medieval theologians and authors contextualized ghost stories according to their own cosmological outlook. \n\nI’ll leave you with my favorite church haunting from the Middle Ages. Consider, for a moment, the story of the immolated priest of Deventer, as recorded by Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg in the early eleventh century:\n \n > After I was told of this occurrence, I related it to my niece, the abbess of the monastery of Saint Laurent, who at the time was ill in bed. She was not at all surprised, and went on to tell me the following story about Bishop Baudry, who at one time was in charge of the see of Utrecht. The bishop arranged for the church at Deventer to be renovated and re-consecrated after its destruction [by the Slavs], and a priest was placed in charge. Early one morning the priest saw dead people inside the church celebrating mass and heard them singing psalms. When he told Bishop Baudry what had happened, he was ordered to sleep inside the church; whereupon the next night the priest, and even the bed on which he was resting, were thrown out o the church by dead people. Thoroughly shaken, the priest went back to the bishop, who ordered him to equip himself with holy relics and sprinkle holy water around. On no account was he to leave the church which was his charge. Obedient but fearful, the priest lay awake inside the church the next night until the dead, coming at the usual time, lifted him up and placed him on the altar. Then they killed him by kindling a fire and holding his body in the flames and embers. When the bishop heard this, he ordered that a penitential fast should be held for three days to obtain succor for the priest’s soul.\n\nGood Stuff\n\nFurther Reading:\n\n1. Caciola, Nancy. “Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture.” *Past & Present* no. 152 (1996): 3–45.\n\n2. Le Goff, Jacques. *The Birth of Purgatory*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.\n\n3. Schmitt, Jean-Claude. *Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/augustine-onthecareofthgedeadnpnf1-03-39.asp"
]
] |
|
fee12l
|
why do our bodies twinge or feel a wave/rush when viewing a video of someone having an accident?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fee12l/eli5_why_do_our_bodies_twinge_or_feel_a_waverush/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fjndlrm"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"mirror neurons \n\nWhen we see someone perform an act, your brain fires as if you were performing the act. So your body cringes instinctively because your brain is acting like you just had an accident."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
s5d7p
|
Could adaptation be considered short-term evolution?
|
For example, how some bacteria are becoming antibiotic resistant in recent years.
What is the distinct difference between the two?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/s5d7p/could_adaptation_be_considered_shortterm_evolution/
|
{
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"c4b7kya",
"c4b8w97",
"c4bbtls"
],
"score": [
3,
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Strictly, in the biological sense, evolution is the successive modification of heritable traits across generations. Traits, in the evolutionary sense, are defined as an observable expression of a gene. \n\nSo it depends on how you define 'adaptation'. Humans adapted, that is to say evolved, to colder climates as they spread across the world. That would be called evolution. Their actual genetics changed through generations.\n\nMy body adapted to a new diet this year, but that would not be considered evolution. None of my genes were changed, and this adaptation would not be passed onto my progeny. ",
"Evolution is changes in allele frequencies over time. So if the trait is due to a change in allele frequency, then it's evolution, though there are non-genetic ways some organisms can adapt.\n\nThat said, bacterial antibiotic resistance is not just genetic, but spread by horizontal transfer and clearly under selection pressure, so it is most definitely evolution.",
"For your example of resistance to antibiotics, there is no difference. This is evolution."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
c9dkkn
|
Was there some sort of "reverse-Orientalism" (Westernism?)?
|
Could I, say, find a Persian philosopher dealing in details with the theme of "Western despotism", or an Indian novelist setting his novel in the mysterious, magical and erotic land of Northern Lancashire?
To give some chronological boundaries, I'm mostly interested in what happened before the 20th century (so not, for example, the perception of the West by Showa-era Japan) and the conscious / suffered Westernization of many countries. I'm also mostly interested in the Middle-east and India.
Edit : I'm not sure about the "shopping" flag, but hey, why not! Who wants to buy my mysterious and folded 2500 times French sword?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c9dkkn/was_there_some_sort_of_reverseorientalism/
|
{
"a_id": [
"esz36ql"
],
"score": [
27
],
"text": [
"/u/Zooasaurus and I talk about two different eras--19th century and Middle Ages--in [this earlier thread](_URL_1_). I'll c-p mine here, but you really should check out theirs as well!\n\nOh, and I don't know if this interests you, but I also have an earlier answer on [medieval Arab Orientalism re: Persia and especially China](_URL_0_), although it's almost entirely about Arab writers' reported experiences in real-China. The underlying situation is basically this: our modern idea of \"Orientalism\" is heavily shaped by the *Arabian Nights*. Well, in the various original (or at least original Arabic) *1001 Nights*, many of those stories aren't set in \"Arabia\"--they're set in China.\n\n~~\n\nThe existence of \"Occidentalism,\" or, as he prefers, \"Ifranjism\" in medieval Arabic/Islamic literature is precisely the argument of Nizar Hermes in *The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture.* \n\nHermes takes his term from what Muslims in the Near East called the crusaders (Ifranj = > Franks). It is more fitting because, after all, Iberia is as occident as continental Europe gets and parts of it were under Islamic rule for basically the whole Middle Ages. It's still a little wonky because he includes Byzantium with Latin Europe at a few points. However, as he and Nadia El-Cheikh have shown, the medieval Arabic literary relationship with Byzantium is complex and fickle, and Muslim authors often use Byzantium as a foil for the Ifranj.\n\nHermes makes the following points that align Ifranjism with the general understanding of Orientalism:\n\n1. Medieval Arab Muslim writers were fascinated by Europe (beyond the religious polemic sense). The rest of the book bears this out and it seems obvious, but Hermes points out that--shades of Orientalism!--scholars had long just *assumed* Muslims only cared about Europe for religious polemic/conversion reasons.\n\n2. Religion was the primary framework through which they defined Us and Them. When Ibn Fadlan visited \"Viking\" groups along the Volga, he took a purely practical attitude towards the Jurjanis--explaining how they dealt with the cold weather, not using \"cold climate\" as an explanation of their supposed barbarism...*because the Jurjanis were Muslim*. Once he realized the Oghuz weren't going to convert, Ibn Fadlan pulled out *all* the stops to paint them as barbaric. The use of anthropological and climatological factors to define that Other that had already been defined along religious lines was not uncommon. Al-Masudi argued for a version of the ancient Greek climate zones--the farther north you went, the stupider and angrier the people got. He was differentiating, essentially, between Franks and Slavs (as well as between Christians and Muslims).\n\n3. Writers treated Islamic culture as the subject and Christian culture as the object. They saw what they wanted/needed in their object of study--a combination of similarities and differences that highlighted both the superiority of Islamic culture and the validity of the comparison.\n\n3. They emphasize the barbarity and sexuality of the Franks, including by unflattering comparison to the Greeks. (Who, El Cheikh showed, also come in for accusations of being oversexed in other literature). Pagans receive harsher treatment than Christians on these grounds; there is almost more of an air of a dance: al-Ghazal's famous (probably fictional) account of his embassy to (maybe) Ireland or Iceland and the seduction attempt by the Christian queen; Yahya's commentary on the women of Rome as *especially* beautiful paired with the idea of Romans' sexual prowess.\n\n4. They craft an air of mystery, mythology, and exoticism around Europe and Europeans, especially the city of Rome. Islamic apocalyptic held that Muslims' conquest of Rome was one of the signs of the end of the world, so writers like Harun ibn Yahya emphasized the good points of the city as *marvels*.\n\n5. The ultimate purpose is to define their own culture by turning the other into what they want to stand against. 10th century polemic stresses the impurity of Christians; a poem from a 9th century prisoner of war in Byzantium depicts Christendom as a place of alienation and separation--that is, utter foreignness.\n\n6. As with Orientalism, the above points paint far too blunt a picture. Of course day-to-day interactions between Muslims and Christians broke the \"rules\" all the time. But even Arabic literature admits moments of complexity and nuance.\n\nReading the book, I sort of had the impression that Hermes strove for \"Ifranjism\" because he had to tack on A Thesis to a really fascinating exploration of medieval Arab Muslims' writing on Christian Europeans. It's definitely a political stance, too--an assertion of the power of a culture that was/is Orientalized, and a demonstration of the ubiquity and timeless of the need to exoticize the Other. \n\nI'm rarely convinced by the \"everything we write is defining ourselves\" argument. Nevertheless, I think ultimately Hermes presents enough evidence for a mix of description, mythologization, comparison, and *fascination* with Christian Europeans to justify the term \"Ifranjism.\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9zy1x6/the_middle_eastern_folktale_aladdin_was_actually/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9x0tvb/were_there_eastern_parallels_to_orientalism_at/"
]
] |
|
5mzg14
|
why do we physically shake our heads to help change our train of thought?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mzg14/eli5_why_do_we_physically_shake_our_heads_to_help/
|
{
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"dc7jfwc",
"dc7ktv8",
"dc7loi5"
],
"score": [
2,
8,
7
],
"text": [
"Thoughts and memories are stored physically in your brain. A little mild brain damage caused by shaking your head may break some of those connections, enabling new ones to be made. ",
"Anything that can cause you to change your focus allows you to change your train of thought. The act of shaking your head gives you something else to think about for a second to allow your brain to stop what it was working on previously and then move on to something else.",
"Your brain is like an etch-a-sketch. When you shake it all the magnetic dust falls back into the bin so you can draw new stuff nobody wants to see."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2kitz2
|
when i 'know what i mean', but can't seem to explain it in words, what is happening in my brain?
|
i'm writing an essay write now and i keep hitting that point where i feel like i know what i'm trying to say, but i can't seem to actually articulate it. just wondering if there was any interesting rationale for this maybe?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2kitz2/eli5_when_i_know_what_i_mean_but_cant_seem_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cllpu2p",
"cllzyns"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"I think you are describing \"presque vu\" (French: almost seen) which is another word for Tip of the Tongue syndrome. There are a few different hypothesis as to what is happening. As far as I understand it, it is when your brain can't retrieve the total information. It can retrieve part of the desired information (such as synonyms), but not the desired information in it's entirety. ",
"Words are simply one way you can represent what's actually stored in your memory. For example, think of telling someone how to find your house. Chances are you didn't memorize the exact phrase for directions to your house from any arbitrary point. Instead, you have a visual image of your house and the surrounding area. You then translate this image into verbal directions.\n\nLikewise, you can instantly recognize the smell of sulfur or the feeling of love. But describing the former in words is annoyance for scientists while many poets have made a career on translating the latter into words."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1vjlvf
|
Was anything like animal husbandry ever attempted on humans?
|
Slaves being the most obvious group, but I guess I don't want to limit my question. I knew slaves were sold at higher or lower prices according to physique and ability, but were there attempts to "breed out" unwanted traits like, say, aggressiveness?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vjlvf/was_anything_like_animal_husbandry_ever_attempted/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cet3ctf"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"The word you are looking for is \"eugenics.\" That is not a good answer, but hopefully knowing the terminology will help you find answers more easily if you search /r/askhistorians. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1ksa8n
|
Questions on red shifts and expansion of universe
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ksa8n/questions_on_red_shifts_and_expansion_of_universe/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbs3m8v"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"1. Redshift due to relative velocity is indistinguishable from redshift due to expansion of the intervening space.\n\n2. The expansion of the universe isn't a force itself, to properly characterize it you need an understanding of general relativity. It is happening everywhere in the universe constantly.\n\n3. Yes, objects can recede from each other at faster than the speed of light. However, when they do so, they can't see each other (since light beams can't close the distance) unless the Hubble Constant (the rate at which space expands) decreases. The Hubble Constant is decreasing, but slowly. Note that the rate expansion of the universe is still increasing, but since the Hubble Constant is the rate of expansion of the universe divided by the current scale factor (a measure of size) of the universe, it can still decrease.\n\n\n4. As the photon travels, the very space through which it is traveling expands and stretches the wave. The energy changes throughout the travel."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
t62l6
|
Why does loud, low-pitched noise from powerful rockets and jet engines also have a distinctive high pitched crackle?
|
Watching the recent Coor's Light rocket take-off commercial reminded me of a question I have wondered about. Why is it that jet fighters and rocket launches can make a deep, powerful roar, and then also at the same this load high pitched crackle sound. I have been to several airshows and a shuttle launch, and I always hear it; they even include that sound in the Iron Man movies. Where does the crackle come from? What about these sources cause this kind of sound?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/t62l6/why_does_loud_lowpitched_noise_from_powerful/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4jv4xq"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"This is probably more the product of the sound [clipping](_URL_0_) due to its high amplitude at the mic. The sharp edges at the clipping point are high frequency components in the fourier series of the sound wave. This sounds like \"crackle.\" If you saw the launch in person, you wouldn't hear the crackle. The Coor's Light commerical is fake but they emulate the clipping because that's what most people are familiar with when watching videos of rocket launches.\n\nYou can generate your own clipping by turning up a stereo too loud. Clipping also can damage your voice coils so be warned."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_%28audio%29"
]
] |
|
21brs9
|
what do some people find appealing in communism?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21brs9/eli5_what_do_some_people_find_appealing_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgbhyab",
"cgbj3v5"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"On paper, it sounds great. Everyone has what they need all the time. Sounds like a Star Trek-like utopia to me.\n\nProblem is, in application, it never works, and those who truly believe in it are either benefiting from it (Cuban, Chinese, or NK leadership), or think that they can implement it properly (they would be wrong).\n",
"What do you mean by \"communism\"?\n\nThe actual definition of the term is of a society in which there are no class distinctions and no money, and the means of production are accessible to everyone. In this idyllic world, everyone is equal, everyone co-operates to produce exactly what we need when we need it, nobody needs to fight a war, nobody needs to be jealous of another's income, there is no crime (because everyone has what they need, when they need) and we all live among fluffy little bunny-rabbits and rainbows and unicorns. This is actually a very attractive scenario, but reaching that goal is going to be about as likely as finding scientific evidence for the existence of leprachauns, so don't hold your breath.\n\nIf you mean dictatorships that *call* themselves \"communist\", such as North Korea, then the very easy answer to that question is: Nobody, except the ruling elite of North Korea and some clueless westerners who have no idea what they're talking about.\n\nNot that the North Koreans deliberately built that kind of society for themselves. The best-known allegory of this style of communism is Orwell's \"Animal Farm\": the animals (representing the Russian people) usurped their corrupt and cruel farmer (the Tsar), and initially things seem to improve -- they work together to run the farm, plant crops and so on, but of their own volition instead of being beaten into submission. But the pigs, who as the most intelligent have assumed leadership, become increasingly power-hungry -- not overnight, but slowly, bit by bit -- until they end up just as bad, if not worse, than the cruel farmer they'd thrown out.\n\nIf by \"communism\" you mean attempts by governments to regulate the market and redistribute wealth, there are many, many models for that and none of them are actually communist. Generally, this doesn't get much further than a sort of \"socialism lite\". The attraction here is that in our western societies, wealth is clearly concentrated in the hands of a privileged few: in the US, the richest 1% own more wealth than the 95% poorest. Most people consider that to be grossly unfair, and so argue for ways to correct this.\n\nUltimately, the term \"communist\" has different meanings depending on who you're talking to and, to an extent, what their personal biases are."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6fxx2q
|
why do we have decussation (cross over of nerves) in our nervous system?
|
Does it serve any purpose or advantage compared to if there is no crossing over? Because I'm sure it'll be a whole lot easier for our body (development stage wise) to make nerves control same side of the body.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6fxx2q/eli5_why_do_we_have_decussation_cross_over_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dilxeue"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"This is one of those questions that science currently doesn't have a concrete answer to.\n\nOne of the most popular hypothesis is that nerve crossover occurred when animals went from ventral to dorsal nerve cords. A long long time ago, a rudimentary nervous system developed in some animals. This is usually a kind of neural net, like the one starfish have. This would eventually develop into a hollow tube.\n\nThis tube first started at the ventral side of an organism. Like crayfish: _URL_3_ the hollow nerve chord is on the ventral (bottom) side. Humans are one of the very few animals that stand upright, so our ventral is side is the front.\n\nLater, this tube moved to the dorsal side of the organism (organisms that have this are called chordates). In this human embryo: _URL_0_ you can see that the dorsal hollow nerve tube is in the \"back\" or dorsal side.\n\nWhen this switch occurred, it's hypothesized that chordates basically underwent a 180 turn from their brain-stem or equivalent down. \n\nAs a result, you have the left side of the brain controlling functions on the right and vice versa.\n\n\nIf you'd like to read a bit about this, here's two research papers that deal with the topic: _URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://s3.amazonaws.com/classconnection/957/flashcards/1145957/png/screen_shot_2015-01-15_at_65126_pm-14AF0A75FA2524A9B29.png",
"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10953772_When_does_a_ganglion_become_a_brain_Evolutionary_origin_of_the_central_nervous_system",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24040928",
"https://infovisual.info/storage/app/media/02/img_en/025%20Internal%20anatomy%20of%20a%20crayfish.jpg"
]
] |
|
4c1sqg
|
What happened to the tribes of Europe? When did their role start to fade and what caused it?
|
I'm reading a book on African tribalism and clan system and it got me wondering... Did Europe ever have a clan system as today exists in Libya, Somalia etc, and what happened to them? I've heard about the various Germanic and other European tribes but when did their role in everyday life of common people begin to fade and states and churches take that role?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4c1sqg/what_happened_to_the_tribes_of_europe_when_did/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1eue4o"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Well, these social groupings have been important well into the twentieth century. In the middle of the century, a leader arose in a particularly warlike central European tribe who combined millinarianism with mystified teachings regarding tribal identify bolstered by a fabricated lineage. Eventually a coalition of surrounding tribes were able to beat them back, and this lead to them establishing a supra-tribal council to mediate disputes. \n\nSo I'm assuming you are wise to my game here, my point being that \"tribe\" and \"clan\" is not a well defined or solid category. This is not to say that forms of social organization peculiar to this or that culture, bit the designation of \"tribe\" generally has less to do with any scientific categorisation than with a generation desire to establish distinction between \"civilized\" and \"uncivilized\".\n\nThis really delves into anthropology, and people like /u/khosikulu and /u/firedrops can handle it better. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
v1ktf
|
Is the Nicotine responsible for the feeling you get when you smoke or is it the Carbon monoxide?
|
I'm currently studying Heath sciences. so I know some basics, And I know that the Carbon monoxide might reduce the hemoglobin affinity for the Oxygen therefore, less oxygen to the brain. but is this the reason of the "Feeling good" or is it the Nicotine itself?
Edit: actually I just reviewed the monoxide effect on hemoglobin, it doesn't really lower the affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen but rather make it stronger which means hemoglobin won't give oxygen as easy. Sorry for the misunderstanding!
And thanks for the answers. I hope I can get a more scientific answer though.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/v1ktf/is_the_nicotine_responsible_for_the_feeling_you/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c50ieie"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"It's pretty easy to test since there are non-smoking nicotine products, like snus. In sweden, where I live, snus is probably more popular than cigarettes. The \"highs\" are quite similar. Perhaps I'm not being scientific enough here but I'm not speculating."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1stoph
|
what causes "brain farts"?
|
We have all had that moment when we are having a conversation and try to think of a word or name that for some reason remains just on "the tip of your tongue". Why do our brains some times just completely go blank trying to pull a memory that is completely lost, almost like the file containing that information is gone, but you are still trying to reference it? How do our brains eventually recover and suddenly we remember what we couldn't?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1stoph/eli5_what_causes_brain_farts/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce15vym"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"When this happens, you've rarely actually lost the memory. What usually happens is you've lost a way to find it.\n\nWhen you learn something, your brain makes pathways to find it later. If these aren't very strong, they can go away. If you didn't make many and most go away, it'll be really hard to find. \n\nLet's say you want to remember somebody's name. You can remember your mom's name, right? That's because you've made lots of connections involving it. Anytime you want to access that knowledge, your brain has lots of paths to go find it. But let's say you want to remember the name of some guy you met at a party 15 minutes ago and haven't seen since. Can't remember it? That's because your brain didn't make many connections to that. It wasn't judged hugely important. But now you remember it again! Why? Because some *indirect* path was found. It took longer, but now your brain found a way to access that info.\n\n**tl;dr** - you remember things via pathways in your brain. If you forget something, the direct paths have been broken for some reason. If you remember it again, chances are good your brain found an indirect pathway\n\nSource: Cognitive Psych class"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
42ltox
|
Why everyone hates Inflation Theory? What is the best model to explain the beggining of the Universe?
|
I have been hearing for a couple of months that the inflation theory, just as the string theory, is "the target drawn around the dart", but I never really get the point of that affirmation. Why is that? Why the inflation theory is "not mathematically elegant"?
Besided the Inflation Theory, what is the best scientific model to explain how the Universe began?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/42ltox/why_everyone_hates_inflation_theory_what_is_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czbgv3v",
"czbi5n9",
"czbopvf"
],
"score": [
4,
4,
5
],
"text": [
"Can you provide a source for this? Inflation is quite well thought of by most physicists (as far as I'm aware)",
"I thought that the inflation theory is pretty well supported? We observe things moving away from each other, wouldnt that mean that at one point they were all closer together? Aren't we able to \"see\" the beginning of the universe because of the background radiation of the Big Bang?",
"I see there's some confusion here - \"Inflation\" doesn't refer to the general theory that the universe is expanding, it refers to a particular period in the early universe when the universe was expanding extremely rapidly. \"Inflation\" was a one-off (and fairly theoretical) event, but the expansion of the universe is continuing, and is on solid observational ground.\n\nI have not seen any serious argument against the expansion of the universe, and the universe's origin as a hot dense \"soup\". The observations here seem quite clear.\n\nHowever, there is some wiggle room. There are some details of this expansion that don't satisfy everybody, and here this is room for debate. That is, everybody sensible agrees that the universe is expanding, but there are sensible disagreements about *how* the universe is expanding.\n\nFor example, the standard models require dark matter, dark energy, and inflation, all of which are currently theoretical. We have very good reasons that support and justify these things, but someone could quite reasonably present an alternate explanation without being a crackpot. They'd be in the minority, but it could still be quite valid science. And these alternate theories would still have a universe that expands from a hot dense soup.\n\nOn the other hand, you get the more crackpot theories. These are things like the \"electric universe\" or \"plasma cosmology\" guys. These guys at best show no real understanding of the science they claim to explain, and at worse are bewilderingly incoherent - it's usually best to ignore them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3ph1qa
|
what is it that psychologists do and how do they actually help people other than being someone to talk with?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ph1qa/eli5_what_is_it_that_psychologists_do_and_how_do/
|
{
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"cw6843b",
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"text": [
"There's loads of different kinds of therapy out there for all different issues. Cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to be effective and is quite common. The therapist helps you to alter your perception of a situation and how you feel about the situation. So something you felt was really negative or you couldn't cope with, may have caused you to feel depressed. But a therapist can help you to find the positives in a situation and/or give you strategies to help cope with the situation so that maybe you have several small hurdles to get over which you can deal with, rather than thinking you've got a mountain to climb. This is especially useful if you've got anxiety/depression due to several small things building up or several bad things happened in a short space of time and you can't cope with them all at once. And in some instances, they can help you to realise that you can't solve everything and that you shouldn't necessarily take responsibility for other peoples problems. And help you realise that you shouldn't feel guilty for not being able to sort other peoples issues out on top of what you're dealing with. ",
"Psychology aimes to quantify the experience and behaviour of humans. It is an emperical field of studies, very much concerned with statistical analyse. \nThey may for example help businesses understand their customers better.\n\nHowever, what I think you refer to is psychotherapy - the one with the couch, right?\n\nBasically the psychologist helps his / her patiens overcoming hurdles in their life in (!) desired (!) ways. \n\nWe humans are not such special snowflakes after all.\nWith certain leeway (gender, culture, age etc.) you can assume that what works for one also works for the other with regard to well-being and mental health. \nIt is the job of the psychologist to identify where the problem is, what the circumstances are, how much it already influenced the well-being of the patient and then \"map a way out of the woods\".\n\nDepending on the problem at hand it may be as simple as to make the patient more aware about the problem and the implications. \n\nMaybe so they can understand themselves better - e.g. why do I have a short temper.\n\nMaybe so they can understand others better - e.g. How do my peers feel / see me when I loose my temper.\n\nAnd finally to find ways to developing new, healthy and sustainable behaviour. ",
"I can only explain from experience and how I benefited. \n\nHaving someone to talk to has been important, however, it's been even more important having someone to listen. \n\nMy psych has helped me to set goals and if needed helped me to draw on my own skills to reach them. For eg: In the past I've found socialising very difficult and I started avoiding social situations. So we set a realistic goal to meet with friends and to build up my confidence over time, and within a short period of about 3 months I'd invited a couple over for dinner and I go out on a regular basis now. \n\nI have severe ADHD and he has also taught me how to be aware of my symptoms and how to control them better. \n\nUltimately I've learnt how to cope with stress and how to restrict how much unnecessary stress I bring upon myself. \n\nI learnt that I'm no where as fucked up as I was led to believe! \n\nSo I guess Ive been guided into a greater and more healthy self awareness than I started with. I'm also more confident and satisfied with my life now. But the work was done by myself, I was guided by the Psychologist. ",
"A therapist can also help people to figure out how their actions and reactions to situations and emotions may be self sabotaging and damaging to their happiness.\n\n For example a person who had a parent leave the family at a young age may have a fear of being abandoned. This may lead them to over react at the first sign of trouble in a relationship or be overly needful of reassurance or be jealous and insecure. All of these things may then cause the other person to break off the relationship, thus reinforcing the persons belief that everyone abandons them. It creates a negative emotional loop that can be difficult to break without some intervention. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
6w6fxf
|
Were Confederate Memorials erected in the Deep South as a response to the Civil Rights Movement?
|
There are many people (not so much in the media, but more like local politicians and Facebook pundits) stating that many Confederate Memorials were put up in the 1960's as a way of reinforcing segregation. However I can't really find any list to either prove or disprove this assertion.
I don't really think this is true, I think the golden age was from about 1900 through WW1. But I could be wrong.
Could anyone enlighten me with some facts?
Is there a comprehensive list of all the Civil War memorials with the date of completion?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6w6fxf/were_confederate_memorials_erected_in_the_deep/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dm5u5p5"
],
"score": [
19
],
"text": [
"Not to deter further discussion, but...\n\nThere's a very comprehensive [Monday Method's thread from just a few days ago](_URL_0_) featuring many flaired users discussing the statues, their importance (or lack thereof) to historical study, and the circumstances of their erection and removal to an extent, as well as some other examples of national memorials and how they were handled after regime changes.\n\n/u/The_Alaskan gave [a fantastic answer here](_URL_1_) to the question of why many confederate memorials were raised in Union states as well as some territories which weren't incorporated as states during the Civil War.\n\nAnd /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov gave [his own answer](_URL_2_) to a question on the phases of memorialization and then commemoration of the Confederacy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6v1yj5/monday_methods_collective_memory_or_lets_talk/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6u6rtk/why_were_confederate_monuments_raised_in_union/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6u4hs2/what_is_the_history_of_the_confederate_monuments/dlqe193/"
]
] |
|
2stivd
|
what does it mean when an abandoned car on the highway has a white bag or object hanging out from the window?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2stivd/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_an_abandoned_car_on/
|
{
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"cnsramn",
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22,
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61,
4,
8
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"text": [
"Sorry they're downvoting you bro. /r/nostupidquestions is the place you're looking for. Have an upvote.",
"Around here, vehicles get an orange sticker put on them. Such tags have instructions for the owner to pick up their junk before a printed date or it will get towed.",
"There are certain laws pertaining to cars left on the side of the road. After a certain amount of time the car is considered abandoned and will be towed off the road.\n\nA white object (like a shirt or towel) is the the sign that you will be returning to the car and are not just abandoning it. \n\n\n",
"What about an orange sticker on the window? Tagged for towing? ",
"I haven't seen this before, is this an American Phenomenon? "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2cq9vl
|
"why do my eyes change color?"
|
I've been noticing recentlly that my eyes change their shade throught the day, at seemingly random intervals.
For example, when I was shaving this morning they were a dark forest green (really awesome looking really), but as the day progressed the became a very pastel green, and at one point were almost white.
I've also noticed they indeed change color as well. When they were previouslly dark green, they became a dark hazel, likewise for the other shades.
Is this phenomenon normal? Or am I just super-special ('cause that would be fucking awesome)? And does it have a name?
Thank you in advance.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cq9vl/eli5_why_do_my_eyes_change_color/
|
{
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4,
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"text": [
"I would like to know this too. My eyes change from deep blue to green all the time. Some have told me it depends on what I'm wearing and or what my surroundings are. To make sure I wasn't going crazy,as to my eyes changing color, I have even asked random people I know what color my eyes are; some said blue while others said green. ",
"Oh my lordy, someone else whose eyes change color!\n\nMy wife uses it like a mood ring. \"Something is bothering you...\"\n\n\"How can you tell?? \"\n\n\"Your eyes are yellow today.\"",
"I too would like to know what is going on here. My eyes are a combination of green on an outer ring with an inner ring of brown, which in turn will sometimes change to more of an orange or rust color. Sometimes the green is nearly impossible to see, others it looks like I was born with completely green eyes. Would be interested in knowing why this happens.",
"When the pupil size changes, the pigments in the iris compress or spread apart, changing the eye color a bit. So when your eyes are dilated in a darker room, your eyes will look darker, and when you're out in the sun (or a room with florescent lighting) they'll be lighter. \n\nSome people say this phenomenon happens when you're in different moods- I imagine this is because of pupil size changes, as well.\n\nEye color change as you age happens in 10-15% of white adults, especially those with light eyes.\n\nDrastic eye color change can be a problem as an adult, too. It can be a warning sign of certain diseases, such as Fuch's heterochromic iridocyclitis, Horner's syndrome or pigmentary glaucoma. This is mostly if one eye changes color drastically and you end up with heterochromia (two different-colored eyes) late in life. Heterochromia in babies is not usually serious, though, and is just a genetic mutation most of the time, though it can be part of a genetic condition overall.\n\nAnd since everyone else is sharing their stories- after I cry, my eyes are kelly green, if I'm in a dark room they're olive, and if I'm out in the sun, they're spring green/aqua. Crazy stuff!\n",
"Our eyes do not change color. It may appear that way but changes in light and what you are wearing can make your eyes seem to change, but they don't. Case in point, my eyes appear more hazel, golden, when I wear yellow. It's not that our eyes can actually change the colour of your iris."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6eo7la
|
how do weed killers like round up decipher between weed roots and plant roots?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eo7la/eli5_how_do_weed_killers_like_round_up_decipher/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dibqk3d"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Round up doesn't decipher, it kills almost any plant that absorbs enough of it, by inhibiting an enzyme plants need to grow. It doesn't generally kill woody plants, because it's typically sprayed on a large portion of the larger plants sensitive areas. \n\nThe most popular targeted weed killer targets dicots (plants with two starting leaves) because most grasses are monocots (plants with a single initial leaf) and there are additional biologic differences in the plants so some hormones only affect one group. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4wsfjf
|
if red light is least scattered by air molecules, why is green a more visible color in laser pointers?
|
Red is used in cautionary signs and is a connotation of danger because it is the visible to the human eye, right? So why are green laser pointers easier to see at day and night over long distances?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wsfjf/eli5_if_red_light_is_least_scattered_by_air/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d69isrr",
"d69k4vr",
"d69m7gz"
],
"score": [
4,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The human eye is most sensitive to green. Green is also scattered by air more than red. You can't see a laser from the side at all if there's nothing to scatter the light to you. This combination makes green lasers more visible than red ones.",
"If you mean seeing the beam, scattering is why you can see it. A laser whose light doesn't scatter at all is invisible unless you're looking at it straight on, so naturally light that scatters more is more visible when it comes to something like a laser..",
"The answers previously stated here are correct but it is also worth mentioning that the color of a laser is determined by the substance that is producing the lasing, called the 'active material.' Active materials can range anywhere from solids like crystals (ruby and sapphire are common active materials in lasers, albeit not usually handheld laser pointers), to gases and ionic plasmas. \n\n\nSome active materials lase 'better' (at higher output powers) than others. Typically red (~671 nm) laser pointers are laser diodes, which lase due to semiconductor diodes very similar to the way LED lights work. The maximum output power of this material is often only around 1-50mW. By contrast, green or green-blue lasers are built using a myriad of lasing materials (a common active material is neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet or Nd:YAG for short) that can output powers in the 100-500mW range. More power = more photons to be scattered = better sight of the beam."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1dqbk1
|
Is the siege and razing of Jerusalem in 70CE recorded in Jewish religious texts? If so, then what is said and what is the perspective on the event?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dqbk1/is_the_siege_and_razing_of_jerusalem_in_70ce/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9sv0bs"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Flavious Iosephus recorded it, but that isn't a religious text, and Talmud was written only a few centuries later. So the first hand perspective is probably missing for the most part from the religious literature due to the fate the Jews met. In any case you should repost this question to /r/judaism, the Kosher Konsumers should know better."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
76ew51
|
Is it logically possible for humans not to have had a mitochondrial Eve?
|
Is a mitochondrial eve a logical necessity for humans given how mitochondria work in the context of human (or mamalial?) (or any) evolution?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/76ew51/is_it_logically_possible_for_humans_not_to_have/
|
{
"a_id": [
"doecasx",
"doecex1"
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text": [
"I can see how you might have a mitochondria introduced from, say, interbreeding with neanderthals and then have a separate mitochondrial population hanging around in Europe, but then you could just go back to the common ancestor of neanderthals and modern humans and find a mitochondrial Eve there. Of course, you could have a similar interbreeding event between that species (heidelbergensis?) and one of its relatives, but statistically it's pretty unlikely for those two mitochondrial strains to have both survived until today and if that was the case then you'd just have to keep going back until you hit your true Eve.",
"I don't think it is logically possible for humans not to have had a mitochondrial Eve. \nThe concept of mitochondrial Eve follows logically from the fact that if traced back far enough, every human on earth is related to every human on earth through a common ancestor. \nSince mitochondria are inherited solely from the mother, we can deduce that all mitochondria found in the human population can be traced back to this ancestor. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3ik9ug
|
what did humans think time and gravity were before einstein and newton?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ik9ug/eli5_what_did_humans_think_time_and_gravity_were/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cuh699z"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Newton didnt really change anything about how we percieved time that I can think of. Stuff falling down was intuitive to people, it didnt need explaining. Its just the way things were. And if it did need explaining \"because god made it that way\" was a perfectly valid answer to them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2sppy2
|
Has the White House ever been burglarized?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2sppy2/has_the_white_house_ever_been_burglarized/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cns7drl",
"cnsas3n"
],
"score": [
4,
2
],
"text": [
"Do you mean other than being looted and burned down in 1814?",
"[Dolly Madison **totally** stole a portrait of George Washington from the White House.](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-dolley-madison-saved-the-day-7465218/?no-ist"
]
] |
||
88emhp
|
Why were live-in domestic servants so much more common in the 19th and early 20th centuries than they are today?
|
I've been doing some family history research recently, and it appears that a number of my ancestors had servants/maids (not slaves) who lived in the house and assisted with domestic duties. None of these ancestors were exceptionally wealthy. For example, my paternal grandmother grew up with a servant in her household, and her dad earned about $5,000 a year (equivalent to about $90,000 a year today) according to the 1940 Census.
Today only the extremely wealthy have live-in servants. What accounts for this difference?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/88emhp/why_were_livein_domestic_servants_so_much_more/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwkknc1"
],
"score": [
21
],
"text": [
"I'm giving this answer mostly based on two books by the same historian, Frank Trentmann:\n\n - The Empire of Things (2016)\n - The Oxford Handbook of the History of Consumption (2012)\n \nFrom their titles alone, you may be able to guess that Trentmann would give a very goods-based answer.\n\nThere's the obvious answer that domestic tasks became far less time consuming numerous thanks to inventions during the interwar years. To give just a few examples, the first electric dishwasher was created in 1929, fridges from 1913 (and had leaps in technology in 1920s with the development of freon to aid cooling), and electric irons from 1926 (though it took until the 1930s for any commercial success). All of these were the preserve of the upper-middle classes before WW2, as the upper class retained live-in servants, and the lower-middle class and working classes performed some combination of hired help and own work. Increasingly available home plumbing and electrification after WWII (particularly in Europe due to the need to rebuild) helped these technologies spread to most people, reducing the *need* for domestic servants.\n\nConversely, Trentmann also argues that the *want* for domestic servants was actually reducing during the 19th Century. The Industrial Revolution was at its height, allowing for a gluttony of consumerism of manufactured goods from Europe, and cheap availability of rarer goods from the world. The abolition of slavery in Europe in the early 1800s also played a minor role, as the overt 'use' of people became slightly tainted (exploitation of Europe's empires remained just dandy though...) As a result, many people, particularly the middle-class, began to shift how they wished to exhibit their wealth. Whilst in previous centuries, a key form of wealth display was by employing others to work for you, it became far more fashionable to show off your refined taste in goods such as fine china and houseware, or high quality clothes and furnishings. One example that sticks in my mind is an American woman in the early 1800s who proudly served her houseguests dinner on delicate china while the wind whistled through the windows; Trentmann's point is that there was a fixation on indulging on certain parts of one's life, even at the obvious cost to others (same as today to be fair). \n\nTaken together, changes in what was considered the best way to exhibit wealth in the 1800s, and technological improvements both becoming widely available and desirable in themselves, meant that the demand for domestic servants had drastically reduced by the mid-20th Century. \n\nHope this helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
9zyznb
|
the mpemba effect, and does it really work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zyznb/eli5_the_mpemba_effect_and_does_it_really_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eaf5apc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"When you freeze water, normally cold water will freeze faster than hot water. This makes sense - 200F water needs to become 150F water before you can freeze it so you'd expect to see 150F water take less time to freeze. Usually, this is the case.\n\nThe Mpemba Effect describes how, in certain circumstances, hot water will actually freeze faster than cooler water under the same conditions. There's a bunch of theories about *what* it happens but nobody's really sure how it happens (or even how to consistently reproduce it). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5r3dme
|
how come calculators are the only computers we've commonly adapted solar panels into? why haven't we intergrated them into things like laptops or cellphones?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5r3dme/eli5_how_come_calculators_are_the_only_computers/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dd4357g",
"dd436dj",
"dd47ezn"
],
"score": [
19,
4,
3
],
"text": [
"Handheld calculators require very little power; tiny solar panels can power them.\n\nYou'd need massive panels to power a smart phone. The power consumption difference is more than you'd think.",
"They don't require nearly as much power. Even more powerful calculators like he Ti-whatever need batteries",
"Calculators only need to power a few things. On demand. Like the LCD screen which doesn't require much power at all. Or the logic units in its brain. These units can be kept off and when they are on, they work very little while you are using the calculator. Think about how often you press the \"=\" sign. That's peak power consumption.\n\nWith a smatphone or a laptop, its very different. You have a high resolution color LCD display. Many, many more pixels than the one in calculators. These devices are always broadcasting or receiving signals over the air. This requires a lot of power. These devices run complex operating systems that manage a huge set of resources. All of this requires a substantially large amount of power.\n\ntl;dr: the vastly different feature sets offered by the two devices are responsible for the difference in power sources."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
a6xs9a
|
why do usb connectors have 2 sides? every time i go to plug one in i have to turn it around...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6xs9a/eli5_why_do_usb_connectors_have_2_sides_every/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ebytfes",
"ebytxpd",
"ebyu183",
"ebywavp"
],
"score": [
3,
6,
2,
16
],
"text": [
"The real question is why are they rectangular and not trapezoid. Like the USB mini or printer connector.\nIf a computer expects 10signals/wires in order 1-10 it will usually not be happy if it receives 10-1 so they make it you cant plug it in upside down. ",
"The standard Type-A connector has four pins. The leftmost and rightmost, if you're looking at the connector with the pins on the bottom, are the ground and +5V pins respectively.\n\nThe connector is not symmetric (i.e. it can't be inserted upside down) for two reasons: one, the pins are all on the same side; if the cable didn't have the obstruction, the pins wouldn't connect.\n\nThe second reason is so that the pins match up to their proper pins on the port side. It could be pretty disastrous if the voltage pins were reversed.\n\nUSB Type-C has its pins arranged such that no matter which way it's oriented, the pins present the same function to the port.",
"USB is over 20 years old. When it first came, the electronics to give you a reversible plug would have been prohibitively complicated & expensive. You need to remember that the standard needed to support cheapo mice & keyboards.",
"The thing is to realise that USB cables weren't created out of the blue; they were a solution to a problem, and that problem was the frankly nightmare situation that existed in the 90's of different connection standards. The rear panel of a PC would routinely have several formats of serial ports, perhaps a parralell port or two. You might even see a SCSI or two.\n\nUSB (Universal Serial Bus) was a way of unifying all of these different things with not only a standardised pin layout, but also a communications standard so that plug and play became a possibility (prior to which you had to install specific drivers for absolutely everything, plug in stuff before the PC was turned on, and constantly restart the machine). For USB to get widespread industry take-on it had to be simple, cheap, and easy to implement.\n\nPrevious connector designs had a whole host of fragile pins which could easily break or bend. Particularly when people were mucking around at the back of a machine in the dark and kept jamming the plug into the socket the wrong way around. USB did away with this by using contacts that were reinforced against a plastic base. This made it impossible to insert the plug the wrong way around, and meant damaing the pins was almost impossible.\n\nI cannot sufficiently express how welcome USB was when it started replacing the nonsense that had gone before. YOu know those people who have drawers and boxes of old defunct cables? That is because they were bullied into it by years of incompatible standards, and fragile things breaking, which meant you NEVER threw away a spare, and you always kept hold of old ones 'just in case'.\n\nUSB has evolved a lot, and the new USB3.1+ Type C is indeed reversible. It took as a while to get here, but we got there in the end."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
cqu5ns
|
space debris artificial vs. natural
|
There are always plenty of information/videos available about the dangers of space debris to satellites and ISS but not a lot about the other natural objects like comets, asteroids or other natural debris. Does that mean they are not as dangerous as the man-made debris?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqu5ns/eli5_space_debris_artificial_vs_natural/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ewzt5cj",
"ex017rh"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"There really isn't any appreciable natural debris in the areas where satellites orbit. In the millions and millions of years of the Earth existing before we started sending stuff up all the rocks, dust and particles were dragged into Earth's atmosphere.\n\nHowever, Earth's orbit does carry it through the paths that comets have traveled along in the past. These paths contain a larger concentration of dust and other bits. Humans on Earth often see that in the form of meteor showers such as the Perseids and Leonids. That dust and stuff does pose a potential danger to satellites but it's so small it can't be tracked and there's really not much the satellite operators can do about it.",
"They're just as dangerous, but far more rare.\n\nEarth is getting heavier by about 100 tons every day due to minute amounts of dust being swept up in its gravity well.\n\nSome of this may hit satellites but because satellites are so small and there's so much space between them, that the probabilities cancel out and it doesn't happen much.\n\nAny time an Astronaut goes on a spacewalk and sees a new bullet hole in the ISS solar panels, chances are much higher that was caused by a screw or a fleck of paint, not a space rock.\n\nAs far as protecting stuff goes, they use Whipple Shields or just bet that nothing will happen anyways."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1k77jn
|
The absorbance/reflection of light is affected by the colour of the surface it hits; does this also apply to sound?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1k77jn/the_absorbancereflection_of_light_is_affected_by/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbm3tae",
"cbm4hkg"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Absorption & reflection of light is not affected by the colour of something, it is *precisely* what gives something its colour. The colour that we perceive is a result of the electronic structure of an object and how light interacts with it. So a black surface does not absorb light because it is black, it is black because it absorbs light efficiently. \n\nSo no, colour has no effect on sound in this way.",
"The color of a surface has no incidence on the way it reflects sound.\n\nThe reflection is affected by the material of the surface. A hard surface will reflect most of the sound, while soft surfaces will absorb some of the energy. A surface may be more or less reflective depending on the frequency, absorbing more the low or high frequencies, which is what would be the equivalent of color for light. (maybe that painting a wall will have an effect, but it is not the effect of the color, but of the paint itself)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
36oi3k
|
What is the relationship between the planck length/time and the speed of light?
|
Is the speed of light the fastest thing possible *because* it is the shortest possible distance over the shortest possible time, or are those values defined by the speed of light itself, which is the maximum speed for some other reason?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/36oi3k/what_is_the_relationship_between_the_planck/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crfpebl"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"The Planck lengths and times are **defined** such that their ratio is the speed of light. The only difference between them is a factor of c. The Planck units are not inherent universal pixel sizes, although that's a fairly common misconception."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8kzrxq
|
Why was Ottoman Empire so unprepared for first Balkan War?
|
Their army was larger than any Balkan nation and they still lost, at least spies could get to some info.
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8kzrxq/why_was_ottoman_empire_so_unprepared_for_first/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dzc0axg"
],
"score": [
72
],
"text": [
"In his study of Ottoman performance during the war, now routinely cited by Ottoman historians, Edward J. Erickson identifies the following as the primary factor involved in the Ottoman defeat:\n\nBeginning in 1910 the Ottomans had, in conjunction with German advisors, adopted what was at the time understood to be state-of-the art strategic doctrine favoring offense over defense. The Ottoman strategy in the war was thus not to defend from entrenched positions, but to launch offensives designed to envelop and destroy the enemy armies. In Erickson's view, this strategic doctrine forced the Ottomans to abandon their greatest potential advantage. Furthermore, they failed to concentrate enough force in any one theater of the war to achieve localized victory. Their forces were too widely dispersed, sought to achieve too many objectives simultaneously, and were thus \"defeated in detail.\"\n\nThe army's performance was greatly inhibited by the fact that the 1910 military reorganization was incomplete at the time of the outbreak of the war. Changes had been made to the command structure and divisional organization of the army but there had not been sufficient time to fill out these new organizations with trained officers or to train the reorganized army in their new maneuvers. The fact that several Ottoman divisions had to be perpetually deployed to Yemen and the Balkans prior to the war further inhibited their reorganization and retraining. The empire's generals were likewise inexperienced with the use of the new doctrine in practice and frequently misjudged operational requirements. The unexpected ability of the Greek navy to dominate the Aegean also forced the Ottomans to divert large numbers of troops to the defense of potentially vulnerable coastal regions, and inhibited the arrival of reinforcements and supplies to Ottoman armies fighting in the western Balkans, further weakening the offensives on which Ottoman strategy was based. Erickson does not believe that the doctrine of enveloping offensives was inherently doomed to fail, but in conjunction with the Ottomans' failure to concentrate sufficient force for their operations, and the incomplete nature of the army's reorganization, it led to the Ottomans giving up their defensive advantage and leaving themselves extremely vulnerable once their offensives failed.\n\nEdward J. Erickson, *Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913* (New York: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1apix7
|
If a person injected alcohol directly into their bloodstream would they become instantly drunk?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1apix7/if_a_person_injected_alcohol_directly_into_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8zl3dw"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I would say that around/above 0.20 BAC is when you are piss drunk, and 0.20 BAC means \"0.2% of a person's blood, by volume, is alcohol\". For the average human with (according to google) 5 liters of blood, this comes out to 1/3rd of an ounce (_URL_0_), which is 10 cc's. \n\nIt looks like bomertherus's suggestion of half a CC of 95% pure alcohol may be right.."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=5+liters+times+.002+in+ounces"
]
] |
||
hxsuk
|
How can some animals live for several centuries without dying off from cancer far earlier?
|
In an earlier thread on [extending life spans](_URL_0_), many concluded that at some point cancer rates would overwhelm treatment. As we age, the risk of cancer increases due to likelihood of certain errors increasing with time.
So, how do certain [animals](_URL_1_), with very long life spans, overcome this problem?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hxsuk/how_can_some_animals_live_for_several_centuries/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c1z983n",
"c215dwd"
],
"score": [
12,
2
],
"text": [
"First, the examples in your second link seem mostly to be *maximum* lifespans, which is not the same as average lifespans. A single individual living far beyond the average lifespan isn't really indicative of anything, just that they're \"lucky\" enough to avoid mortal accidents, cancers, etc.\n\nNext, many of the animals on that list have slow metabolisms, especially the invertebrates and cold-blooded organisms. I believe it was discussed in your first link that the slower the metabolism, the slower the aging and the slower the growth of cancerous cells. It may be much more likely for the organism to die of other causes than of slow-growing tumors.",
"Here's a great paper which touches on some of these questions. _URL_0_\n\nHe argues that evolution gives us tumor suppression mechanisms that work extremely well as long as we are reproductively viable. Since we can increase our lifespans with medicine beyond our fertile ages, evolution of our cancer fighting abilities hasn't caught up. \n\nSelection can exert pressure on animals with longer reproductive viability. Also, most simpler organisms need much simpler defenses against cancer. Vertebrates especially have a much harder time fighting cancer due to the nature of our cells and development."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gw56g/how_close_are_we_to_being_able_to_live_forever/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms#Animals"
] |
[
[],
[
"http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/71/11/3739.short"
]
] |
|
34ufxu
|
How hot is the moon during an eclipse?
|
So I was thinking about the fact that the reason we have seasons is because the earth is tilted and each hemisphere is either closer or further from the sun depending on the time of the year. I was wondering if the same effect happens to the moon; What is the difference in temperature between when there is a solar eclipse versus a lunar eclipse?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/34ufxu/how_hot_is_the_moon_during_an_eclipse/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqy86z2",
"cqyff55",
"cqyxl6z"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Solar eclipse has no effect on temperature because the exact same amount of sun is still hitting the moon. A lunar eclipse would cause a slight decrease in temperature but they are so short it wouldn't be any impressive level. ",
" > each hemisphere is either closer or further from the sun depending on the time of the year\n\nThat's not why we have seasons.\n\nThe tilt causes less light to fall on the surface for 2 reasons.\n\n1. The light is spread over a larger area\n2. The light needs to pass through more atmosphere to get to the ground\n\nWhen the winter season comes, the tilt makes the hemisphere get light from the sun come from a smaller angle causing 1 and 2 above.\n\nThe Moon will be subject to similar effects with a few differences. \n\n1. The Moon does not have an atmosphere to absorb some of the light.\n\n2. The tilt of the Moon is not the same as Earth's and will have different impact. \n\nI am not sure how the Moon tilt works exactly, but it will have a shorter season period because the Moon orbits the planet as well as the sun.\n\nEclipses have little impact, however, a lunar eclipse will reduce the surface temperature since the Sun's light does not hit the surface for a short period of time.",
"The Earth to sun average distance is about 149e9 m and the earth to moon avg dist is 384Mm.\nDuring an eclipse, the sun-moon avg distance can be estimated at around 148,6Mm, which is 99,73% of the avg. \nGiven that the moon doesn't have a descent atmosphere, we can say that the temperature on the exposed side will drop by about 0.27%"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
9wd6ul
|
When did people first start associating functions to y and x graphs? Why?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9wd6ul/when_did_people_first_start_associating_functions/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e9k3pll",
"e9ko1bh"
],
"score": [
10,
25
],
"text": [
"I would like to encourage more history of science questions on this sub. However, if you don't get an answer, consider posting to /r/askhistorians, /r/historyofscience, /r/historyofideas, /r/philosophyofscience or, in this case, /r/math",
"Mid 17th century. René Descartes published his *La Géométrie* in 1637, proposing the union of algebra and geometry, and a 1649 Latin translation expanded and clarified this to the two-axis system we know. We still call it *Cartesian* coordinates after Descartes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3cq3ro
|
in movies when they show pictures of the protagonists when they were younger do they get the actors to bring in actual pictures from their childhood or do they photoshop/use other actors for the pictures?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cq3ro/eli5_in_movies_when_they_show_pictures_of_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csxwdhn"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Vast majority of the time, they will use young actors. There may have been a couple occasions in which an actor used his actual own photo."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
69jgsu
|
if our stomach acid is so strong, why do things that make us sick/give us food poisoning not get destroyed during digestion?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69jgsu/eli5_if_our_stomach_acid_is_so_strong_why_do/
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"Many organisms thrive in acidic environments, or at the very least are able to survive in them. We frequently ingest organisms that could cause illness, but in small enough populations that, even if they survive, they can't get enough of a foothold in our bodies to actually cause symptoms of illness. When a large enough population is introduced all at once, there's not a lot your stomach acids will do for you, and some organisms will actually grow faster in a highly acidic environment.\n\nOn top of that, not all food-born illnesses are caused by living organisms. Listeria is a common cause of food born illness because the organism itself doesn't make us sick, rather it produces waste products that are poisonous to us. If a large enough population of Listeria is allowed to breed in food that is then cooked, the organisms themselves will die during cooking, but the toxic waste byproducts they created don't actually break down when cooked.\n\nMicroscopic organisms are extremely resilient, because they have to be.",
"The bugs/chemicals that do end up making us sick are the ones capable of bypassing this acidic barrier. The few who are able to do so are able to make us sick by two main reasons; they irritate the stomach lining by attacking the cells that make it up, which leads to an immune system response in a part of the brain called the chemoreceptor trigger zone, causing nausea/vomiting to remove the toxins from the stomach.",
"Your stomach acid isn't very strong (or more properly, concentrated), in the scheme of things. Much of the work is done by enzymes, in conjunction with the acid. Furthermore, the acid is produced as needed. You don't walk around with half a litre of concentrated acid sloshing around.\n\nThe acid is produced by special cells. Some people, like me, have over active ones. We take drugs known as proton pump inhibitors, so we don't make too much acid (protons).",
"Great question. When we eat food the stomach helps break it down but not so much that we end up with elemental carbon in our gut instead of sugars fats and proteins right? So it helps break the food up but doesn't destroy everything like ripping apart protein chains. \n\nFood poisoning may usually be caused by bacteria, but it's not a bacterial infection that makes us sick, it's the metabolic byproducts of that bacteria. Take botulism for instance; the bacteria create a poison as they multiply and it's the poison that makes us sick, not the bacteria. That poison ends up deposited in the food and so eating it is literally eating poison. And much the same way the stomach doesn't turn protein into carbon, it doesn't turn poison into carbon, it stays as poison. \n\nEven from a bacteria stand point our stomachs don't sterilize the food we eat with acid. Living bacteria makes its way into the gut where it has to compete with the colonies already living there. Along with our own immune system we end up with a good balance of beneficial bacteria with malign invaders not gaining a toehold in our gut. We benefit from this because gut fauna help us digest our food even better and get more nutrients from it than we would without it. ",
"Two main reasons stand out for me. The first is that many of the bacterial/microbial molecules which make us sick are glycosylated (decorated with sugars) which make sensitive areas resistant to acidic and enzymatic breakdown. The second example is that H. pylori which resides in your stomach takes advantage of the gradient of acidity in your stomach. The lumen (open area further from the lining in contact with food) is most acidic (though not always! Depending on what you eat/drink, the pH of your stomach can be pH 6, or slightly acidic) followed by a gradient of acidity through the protective mucus lining, finally reaching pH 7 (neutral) at the cell lining. So H. pylori will attach to epithelial cells at pH 7, and will sense when the cells have been released into the lumen by sensing the pH, letting go and swimming back toward the pH 7 environment.",
"Maybe this isn't what was being asked, but we often get sick from microbes, especially viruses such as influenza, that cause infections in the upper respiratory tract and lungs. The infection starts in your nose or throat before the microbe would even come in contact with stomach acid. The term \"stomach flu\" is a bit of a misnomer as a viral infection starting in the stomach wouldn't be caused by influenza, but could be from other viruses, which I think has been covered in prior responses.",
"There are certain bacteria that are more easily destroyed by the stomach when its acid production is at full capacity. Clostridium difficile is one, and people taking acid suppressors appear to be at greater risk of having C. diff colonize their gut, especially in a hospital setting. ",
"On the flip side, if I think I ate something tainted, and I quaff a few shots of whiskey, will that kill the bacteria in whatever I ate?",
"I know you probably have more than enough information to answer your question, but I'm just gonna throw in my quickie. \n\nWhen the acidity of your stomach is off balance from what it usually is, it can cause a purge of it's contents in an effort to resume proper pH levels.",
"Hi, I'm a second year microbiology student. Microbes are quite a cool bunch with lots of adaptations that make them able to colonise quite a broad spectrum of places. Whilst the stomach is highly acidic, which is generally good enough to kill most microbes that enter the gastrointestinal tract. There are some microbes, such as helicobacter pylori that are able to evade this acidity by secreting neutralising agents, along with burrowing into the stomach cells and hiding in a sense. Other times, the microbes actually don't survive, but their exotoxins (the things they secrete that make us sick or cause injury to our cells) are stable enough to survive their time in the stomach. They then pass through into the intestine where they can cause a range of diarrhoeal diseases. I can't think of any off the top of my head. But hopefully this is helpful.",
"There is a great [Radiolab episode](_URL_0_) about Dr. William Beaumont and the experiments he conducted on Aexis St. Martin and the contributions they made to the study of digestion.\n\nIf I remember correctly, St. Martin had a fistula in his stomach, and Beaumont would drop food in to see what would happen. He noticed pores in the stomach wall lining secreting a liquid that would begin to break the the items down. He also took samples of St. Martin's gastric acid to break food down outside his stomach. Before this, it was thought that digestion was performed by the stomach squeezing and mashing food.\n\nI cannot remember and am not sure Beaumont realized the difference between stomach acid and enzymes, however.",
"No one is mentioning the fact that the stomach acid *does* kill off a lot of bacteria. You need a certain amount to get past the stomach acid and other factors. See _URL_0_ for ecoli and salmonella",
"You get food poisoning by two ways,\nFirst the microbes had already made there toxins(poison) outside your body and then you eat that food so you have ate the poison and this will take up to 1-3 hours to get the symptoms.\nSecond you eat the microbes then it makes the toxin(poison) when it is in you gut and this will take longer time to make symptoms .\nYou can get food poisoning or GIT infection by many microbes and every one of them have its own infectious dose, so to be infected by certain organism you will need 1, for another you will need 1000, the more the organism is resistant to the acidity the less its infectious will be.\nExcuse my English it's not my first language.",
"Something not mentioned E. Coli is one of the more common reasons people get food poisoning. E. Coli already lives in your gut and helps you digest food. When it senses a new strain is present it can tell your body you are sick to try and kill off competition.\n\nAlso some bacteria and microbes can form little shells around themselves to help them scoot through the acid section.",
"Chemist here. I wanted to point out something that I don't know if has been said. Not a big thing, just a detail.\n\nThe stomach, even full of acid, cannot dissolve many things. Something is dissolved by acids if has alkaline character. For example, if you eat limestone (which is alkaline), the acid will break is quickly. But if you eat glass, which is acidic, the acid won’t do anything.\n\nFor example, the amide bonds in proteins can be attacked by acids, but only slowly. That's why the body uses enzymes to speed things up. But it can happen that many toxic compounds have acidic character and won't be affected by the acid, and some bacteria might have protective compounds on the cell surface that don't react with acids, working as a barrier.\n\nThis is another reason why getting sick can happen. Everything everybody else said is also true. But this is a reason why, for example, hydrogen cyanide can hurt you (is an acid, son the acid in the stomach won't destroy it). In fact, you usually eat the salt, sodium/potassium cyanide. And it is when it founds the acid in the stomach it gets converted to the poisonous hydrogen cyanide. So in that example the stomach acid is part of its toxicity.",
"Meat curer hobbyist here. There are two things going on.\n\nStomach acid does kill bacteria. But it kills only a percentage and mostly, it prevents it from growing. If the infection is high enough, or the bacterium is resistant to acid, it will still grow. Iirc, salmonella will infect you if you get more than about 110 cells per gram of food. E coli can infect you with only a few cells! Some acid tolerant bacteria are beneficial or harmless, such as lactobacillus. So the amount of infection you eat, along with how dangerous the bacterium is matters.\n\nBut there's another process at work, too, most notable with botulism and other bacteria and fungi (Aspergillus flavus, e.g.). **The bacteria doesn't need to be alive, and the byproducts are what's dangerous.** It's not an infection, but rather, the toxins they leave when they're alive.\n\nThis is why cooking food that's gone bad is not proof against getting sick. It works for many things, but definitely not all.",
"Things don't get \"destroyed\" by your stomach acid. It merely gets broken down to the collection of molecules that will then be absorbed by your body (or excreted). That being said, things that poison you usually do so because they have a detrimental effect on your body (often, primarily on the liver or brain). These things will typically still be absorbed and, once they are, you become ill. I am speaking in terms of man-made poisons, by the way. Microorganisms and viruses are a whole different story.",
"food poisoning comes in two flavors. \n\n\n < 24 hrs after ingestion is toxins. The bacteria were allowed to colonize the food, making toxins, then cooking kills off the bacteria, leaving the endotoxin. \n\n > 24 hrs after ingestion is live pathogens infecting you. ",
"So just to make sure your food is safely digested before reaching your intestines, is there a specific eating order to risky foods? Like should I eat my chicken before my potatoes? just to make sure it get's thoroughly digested? or would eating smaller amounts of food result in a lower chance of dangerous bacteria reaching my intestines?",
"Can I add a question to OP?\n\nCan someone talk about the relationship between chewing and digestion?\n\nWill I digest more efficiently and have better nutrient uptake if I chew thoroughly? Or does it depend on how much I eat e.g. thorough chewing important if stuffing my face, but not so much if only a small meal? \n\nI've heard the stomach empties within about 2 hours or something, so is there kind of a maximum volume of food that it can properly break up in that time which may or may not be modulated by how much I chew? And so if I over-eat on that metric, I just won't be able to fully or efficiently absorb all of the nutrition from that food?\n\nI realise digestion continues in the intestines, but in different ways, so I'm specifically referring here to the part the stomach plays.\n\nCheers!"
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4e3111
|
why does wine come in large bottles, while beer comes in cases of much smaller ones?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e3111/eli5_why_does_wine_come_in_large_bottles_while/
|
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"Probably because of the fizz. Suppose beer came in one big bottle. Then if you open one you would have to consume it all at one time because if you don't it will eventually go flat. Wine does not have this problem.\n\nEdit: Now this makes me wonder about champagne...",
"There are many shapes and sizes of wine bottles (and beer!) but one reason why the 750mL bottle became the standard for wine hundreds of years ago is because [\"It was the capacity that an average glass-blower was able to shape in one steady blow.\"](_URL_0_) "
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[] |
[] |
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[],
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"https://www.vivino.com/wine-news/a-simple-guide-to-wine-bottle-sizes/standard#style"
]
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||
rtqr1
|
What do historians think of Mikhail Gorbachev? Was his leadership of the USSR's break-up viewed as a success or a failure?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/rtqr1/what_do_historians_think_of_mikhail_gorbachev_was/
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" > Was his leadership of the USSR's break-up viewed as a success or a failure? \n\nGorbachev never wanted the Soviet Union to break-up, so the answer is neither.",
"He seemed like a good guy, to me, in history class. [This made me really respect him, though.](_URL_0_)",
"It depends entirely on where the historian lives/was born. Western scholars have, in general, painted Gorbachev in a really favourable light due to the fact that he promoted the policies (Glasnost and Perestroika) which served as the catalyst for the USSR's dissolution; even if that's not at all what he intended. Russian scholarship has been...less adulatory to put it mildly.",
"I don't understand people in this thread who say 'he seemed like a good guy'. \n\nA simple example, he permitted a unified Germany to join a hostile military alliance run by the global superpower, though Germany alone had almost destroyed Russia twice in the century. \n\nFrom a Russian perspective, how can this be even considered remotely 'good'? Lets keep ethics, morality and personal bias out of history please.",
"Mikhail Gorbachev promoted Glasnost and Perestroika which led to the dissolution of the USSR. The policies would be progressive, however there was no system in place to handle the consequences. The government was not economically isolated, but financially; which led to fiscal problems that culminated in mid 1980's. Gorbachev propagated an idealist position that unfortunately was unsustainable in the then current political economic environment. Yeltsin seized power in ~1992 and implemented policies that the Russian economie is reeling from today. The privatization of government sectors had lack of sufficient planning, and leading to a situation that was exploited by associates of Yeltsin, former KGB, Foreign Affair Officers, Engineers (the USSR's soviet had a large percentage of engineers serving as technocrats especially from the oil and metallurgy sectors), among others. The situation was uncontainable but there is little that could be done about it after 1988. Many Russians' feel exploited by the position his leadership gave to the structures of crony capitalism that exists today. In terms of HDI statistics, Russia has only lately improved past the conditions under the USSR (mind that's 20 combined decline and recovery). [UN HDI on Russia](_URL_0_)\n\nTL;DR He paved way for changes that the country was unprepared for.",
"Gorby has always been viewed better in the West than he was at home. The Russian expats I have dealt with (I have a fair amount of contact with them), despise the man. The break up of the Soviet Union was a complete economic disaster for Russia. \n\nAlso at least at the time of soviet collapse, the Russians didn't like him at all:\n_URL_0_\n"
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"http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-20/news/mn-5066_1_soviet-union"
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||
2vbpig
|
The Royal Frankish Annals contain references to "Saracens" and "Moors". Is there a precise distinction between these two terms for the Franks?
|
In the Royal Frankish Annals, their Muslim enemies are variously referred to as "Mauri" and "Sarracenos". My Latin sucks, so forgive me if I have written the wrong declension.
The Franks referred to their ally al-Rashid as the king of Persia (regis Persarum) in year 807 of the annals. Did they have a name for their mutual Umayyid enemies? Or were they just "Saracen"/"Moor" as whims dictated?
edit: removed link because you require a U of Toronto library membership to access.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vbpig/the_royal_frankish_annals_contain_references_to/
|
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"The word Saracen is so old that its ultimate etymology is unknown; however it is believed to derive from Abraham's wife Sara. The Saracens originally inhabited the Syro-Arabian desert and harassed the Roman Empire. Starting out as a geographical identifier, the term again evolved to mean any Muslim, especially during the Crusades and Middle Ages. This term, more than any, has withstood the test of time due to the fact that the word was coined within the Roman Empire.\n\nMoor is a geographical identifier at first relating to persons from Morocco and Algeria, areas in Northern Africa, and is later used to identify Muslims from that part of the continent.\n\nJust some background info...not sure about specific Frank usage.",
"I cannot comment on the Annals, but in the Song of Roland, it's clear from the text that the author has very little real knowledge of those the author calls Muslims. He makes all sorts of descriptive mistakes that a person with even passing familiarity would not make (For example, Muslims are extremely monotheistic, yet the author does not seem to recognize this.)\n\nIn fact, the poem's main story is about a battle (IRL - The Battle of Roncesvalles) between Charlemagne and Spanish Muslims. Among the many poetic embellishments the author makes is to turn the Christian Basque peoples Charlemagne actually fought into Muslims. \n\nI suspect the answer to your question would be \"no\" there is no precise distinction made by the author(s) of the Annals, and even if there were, it's unlikely we'd be able to determine what it is, given the confusing nature of their knowledge (e.g. what if the distinction is based on a perceived difference that we do not recognize or understand?). \n"
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7653cb
|
why do bodies of water (e.g. oceans, lakes etc...) do not sink into the ground that they are surrounded by.
|
This was a question I recently heard about a toddler that asked, "Why is that when it rains the water is absorbed in the ground but the ocean water does not"
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7653cb/eli5_why_do_bodies_of_water_eg_oceans_lakes_etc/
|
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"the ground below a lake or ocean is already fully saturated with water. if you fill a jar with sand and start \"raining\" water into it, you will saturate the sand and a pool of water will eventually develop on top of it. ",
"The ground can only absorb so much water before it is saturated. If you pour water onto the soil it will percolate down until it reaches the bedrock, but once it gets there it has nowhere to go. That means, if you go deep enough down you'll reach a level where the soil is saturated with water and no more can be absorbed. This level is called the [water table](_URL_0_).\n\nA river or lake occurs where the ground level is below the water table. The water cannot be absorbed into the ground because the ground has already absorbed as much as it will take. Any rain that falls above this level will percolate down through the soil until eventually it ends up in the river."
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7np80f
|
How do historians draw general "rules" or find trends in empires, such as Rome and Britain, that can be indicators of rise, or even decline and imminent fall?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7np80f/how_do_historians_draw_general_rules_or_find/
|
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"There are many models that seek to plot the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of empires, but perhaps the best-known at present is the one set out by the British historian Paul Kennedy in his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987). Kennedy's book does not cover the Roman empire, but does consider the British, Habsburg, Russian and German ones, among others. Famously, it also contains a predictive chapter analysing the position of the US as a great power and attempting to predict its likely future. This not only helped the book to become a best-seller, but impacted on US policy-making , in the 1990s in particular.\n\nAt heart, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers aims to explain what makes a state a “great power.” Kennedy's core thesis is that this status is conferred by relative superiority in economic production, and is most threatened by diversion of resources - essentially, by investing in a military machine that can only be \"productive\" in wartime, and often not even then, states risk squandering resources and allowing rivals to catch and surpass them. Kennedy suggests that the most common cause of an empire's \"fall\" is what he calls \"imperial overstretch\". This is caused by a state acquiring too many commitments, especially ones that involve protecting a far-flung empire, which are not justified in terms of the productive capacity of the imperial possessions that have to be protected. (I can't go into this next point in depth owing to AH's \"20 year rule\", but it's certainly arguable that the US commitment of billions of dollars to economically unproductive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past couple of decades might be a match for this part of the Kennedy model.)\n\nKennedy starts by saying that we may define the term \"great power\" in two ways. The simple definition holds that a great power is a state that can reasonably hope to defeat any other one power in combat; the more social definition holds that a great power is a state that other states recognise as a great power. So the status of “great power” remains more a matter of mutual recognition than the passing of some arbitrary threshold.\n\nThe “great powers” Kennedy concerns himself with are, initially, dynasties centered on Spain, France, and Austria. Later in the book, he examines new entrants to the “Great Power Club”—including Russia, Great Britain, and Germany, among others.\n\nFor Kennedy, “all of the major shifts in the world’s military-power balances”—meaning the relative strength of sovereign states—“have followed alterations in the productive balances.” While his conclusion appears to be that victory follows wealth, it is not so simple; great powers make mistakes, even if they have significant resources. More often than not, then, great power conflicts can be prolonged and bloody, even if victory usually goes to the more prosperous of the two powers in conflict.\n\nThe first “rise and fall” Kennedy discusses is that of the Habsburg Empire, whose story unfolds between 1516 and 1689. In 1516, the Habsburg dynasty celebrated the coronation of Charles as Carlos I, King of Spain. But through his ancestors, he was also Charles V, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire—a political body that encompassed large parts of Austria, the Netherlands, Naples, and other territories around Europe. This “empire” was not a centralised authority like a state; it remained an association of distant provinces ruled by a single family.\n\nLooking at why the Habsburgs failed, Kennedy argues that despite the enormous wealth from their holdings in Europe and the New World (Spain’s territories in South America), the Habsburgs could not afford to fight wars on many fronts over 140 years. They built their own warships rather than use trade ships, they maintained internal and external trade barriers, and they expelled Jews from their territories. In short, the Habsburgs failed “to recognize the importance of preserving the economic underpinnings of a powerful military machine.”\n\nThis revealed to Kennedy an important lesson: “the manufacturer and the farmer were as important as the cavalry officer and the pikeman.” A state must maintain enough productive capacity to fund its military commitments.\n\nA great power fell, then, as a consequence of neglecting financial matters. In its wake, five great powers arose: Great Britain, the remains of the Habsburg Empire (Austria-Hungary), Prussia (a territory today incorporated into northern Germany), France, and Russia mounted the stage. Kennedy points to the “military revolution” of the time, as European states equipped, paid, and directed large, professional standing volunteer armies in Europe.\n\nGeography and finance, Kennedy writes, are factors of comparable importance. Maintaining a professional army in peacetime required the state to borrow from financial markets. And great powers had to consider all the possible geographic fronts from which an invader could launch an attack. Given these circumstances, states that raised extensive funds to become “great powers” and fight one another fanned the flames of their own growth, pumping money into their own industries to house, equip, and train their military.\n\nThe historian John Brewer calls this phenomenon the “fiscal-military state” and notes its characteristics as “high taxes, a growing and well-organized civil administration, a standing army, and the determination to act as a major … power.” In essence, the strongest fiscal position supports the strongest military position. As Kennedy puts it, no battlefield blunder was “enough to cancel out the advantages which that [combatant] possessed in terms of trained manpower, supply, organization, and economic base.”\n\nThis logic pervades Kennedy’s exploration of history. As he points out in his assessment of World War I, the victorious powers enjoyed “a marked superiority in productive forces” after the United States joined the war in 1917. This “marked superiority,” however, does not only reflect the quantity of available resources; it also reflects how those resources get deployed.\n\nKennedy discusses Germany’s Hindenburg Programme, a program intended to double the production of munitions. Germany made a “massive infrastructural investment” in new industrial resources such as blast furnaces for gun-making. But accomplishing this required the country to redirect all of its skilled labor, and to allow its other industrial and agricultural output to succumb to chronic neglect. In the end, Germany’s loss stemmed as much from neglecting its economic diversity as it did from any external military force.\n\nSimilarly, Kennedy’s account of the end of World War II shows that the “middle powers” (Britain, France, Germany) exhausted themselves, both by maintaining far-flung empires and by engaging in a grinding total war against one another. They followed this well-worn path to decline, leaving the Americans and the Russians as the world’s two dominant opposing powers.\n\nIn addition to exploring the roots and dynamics of the multipolar international system in Europe (a system in which many nations were competing for supremacy), Kennedy discusses how these dynamics resulted in the emergence of the bipolar international system between 1945 and 1991. But Kennedy remains most interested in discussing how the US—in its Cold War bipolar contest with Russia from 1945 to 1991 and after—may follow old patterns and find itself in decline.\n\nThe end of World War II in 1945 left the Soviet Union and the United States facing one another in Europe. Stalin consolidated control over Eastern Europe. He also pushed his armies into Central Asia, while “maintaining a high level of military security … to deter future aggressors” and keep its future conquests from falling into the American sphere of influence. In contrast, the United States attempted to create and maintain what it called a global “Pax Americana.” Although the term refers to peace and prosperity under American rule, it disguises a great deal of internal violence in developing countries of the southern hemisphere. Kennedy believes the term references the “Pax Britannica” of the late nineteenth century, a time of relative stability when Britain’s “productive power and world influence” were predominant. But two things made this twentieth-century global contest between great powers fundamentally different from its predecessors: the role of ideology and nuclear weapons.\n\nBoth blocs remained committed to their respective ideologies. In earlier eras, states would fight on a religious basis, or for abstract “national interests.” But the Cold War antagonists genuinely saw international affairs as a global struggle between good and evil. And unlike previous great power standoffs, the entire world had a stake in the outcome of this one as the great powers had amassed arsenals of nuclear weapons. Both the United States and Soviet Union had the means to eradicate all life on Earth at the push of a button.\n\nGrand rhetoric—language intended to persuade or inflame—surrounded the Cold War. But Kennedy’s analysis of the conflict rests on the same logic as his analyses of previous great power struggles. It comes down to industry and economy rather than military. In the course of the Cold War, it became clear that the USSR’s military and nuclear prowess “was not matched by parallel achievements at the economic level,” especially in terms of technological innovation. Kennedy hesitates to predict the future of international politics (in doing so he would leave history and enter the realm of political theory). But he does reiterate that “without a rough balance between these competing demands of defense, consumption, and investment, a Great Power is unlikely to preserve its status for long.”",
"Cliodynamics is a relatively new field or framework that tries to apply mathematical models to patterns in history. Its reception has been mixed among historians, though archaeologists and anthropologists have been cautiously optimistic about it.\n\nThe most relevant cliodynamic theory would be structural demographic theory. Structural-demographic theory models societies as made up of commoners and elites. The equations are similar to the equations used to study ecological predator-prey dynamics. When there's a lot of commoners, the elite population grows, but the elite population can overshoot what the population of commoners can support, and the elite population can also grow larger than the available positions of power within a state. The commoner population can overshoot its \"carrying capacity\" too; when that happens, it also benefits elites, because it reduces wages and bargaining power for commoners, and allows the elites to exploit them more.\n\n*(It's a gross simplification, which I know some historians hate; but models are simplifications by their very nature, and ecologists have successfully used models to describe systems just as chaotic and contingent as human history, so it's not, in principle, an unsound way to study history. Its success will depend on the merit of the models and whether the data is available to test them)*\n\nThe elite-commoner population dynamics result in societies going between integrative and disintegrative phases. In the integrative phase, living standards for commoners are good, inequality low, and competition between elites is low. In the disintegrative phase, living standards for commoners stagnate and decline, inequality rises, and the elite population balloons, which pits the elites against each other and impairs the ability of the society to act as a collective. So structural-demographic theory explains general crises that seem to be a perfect storm of unrelated problems; famine, epidemics (which spread best when living standards are low and people are malnourished), and political instability often coincide because they are driven by the same underlying processes.\n\nThe cycles of stability and instability don't necessarily correlate to an empire's rise or fall; late Republican Rome was in the disintegrative phase, with frequent civil wars, but still managed to conquer large parts of the Mediterranean. However, the later Crisis of the Third Century was a disintegrative phase, and the next disintegrative phase led to the fall of the Empire in the West. The Chinese dynastic cycle also closely mirrors the integrative phase-disintegrative phase cycle. So, generally speaking, low inequality, good living standards, and cooperation between elites is a sign that a state is on the rise, while declining living standards, rising inequality, and competitive elites are a sign a society is facing instability (and possibly decline)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
c5wrgh
|
why does the us have so many federal law enforcement agencies, many with overlapping objectives instead of having just one or two for all crimes?
|
You got the FBI who investigates all federal crimes including drug and weapons trafficking but the DEA also investigates those things, the ATF pretty much does the same thing as the FBI as well and so on. Why have so many different agencies that besides a few minor things, mainly investigate the same things? I understand the Air Marshal Service and Border Patrol but cant the FBI do what all the other agencies do?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c5wrgh/eli5_why_does_the_us_have_so_many_federal_law/
|
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"The FBI also investigated domestic terrorism and kidnapping, the DEA operates overseas. They have different missions and objectives.\n\nThe ATF and DEA might be merged into a single agency but they’re highly specialized in those fields.",
"Also governments like to keep them separate. A single organization with enough mandates would have excessive power.",
"You have a school project to make a science experiment and poster board to present to the class. You have groups of 5. Tommy’s mom is rich so he’s buying the supplies. Tina’s mom is very hands on and likes to help, so Tina is doing the actual experiment. You are a good speaker so youre the one presenting. Luna is a good artist so she’s making the posterboard. That leaves Ike. Ike was added to your group late because he missed a day of class and you were one short. Ike starts to help by making some of the posterboard, but Luna doesn’t really need the help, and Ike is more adept at making computer presentations than hand drawn art anyways. But there isn’t anywhere else Ike is needed and it makes more sense for him to stick with the artsy stuff because he is still an artist afterall. Youre teammates and you all get together to solve this conundrum of what Ike can do, and decide he should make a power point for when you present because you’ll have the only power point and it can be a highlight of your presentation. \n\nSo Ike then leaves Luna to the posterboard and makes a power point for your group. That means everyone is doing their part of the project now and Ike has found his place in the group. He may overlap some with Luna because they want to collaborate to use the same fonts and color scheme on the two art parts, but overall they are firmly seperate. And you and Ike might collaborate on making the power point better since you’re the one presenting it. And Luna and Tina have to collaborate with Tommy since he’s the one getting the materials for the project. \n\nThis translates to the US agencies easily in that you have X agencies doing their own part of the whole picture (stopping crime), and when a new type of crime pops up, one of the existing agencies splits into two each specialised in their own thing. Sometimes the criminals force an overlap in specialities and make the agencies collaborate with each other.",
"Lawyer and former state-level prosecutor here,\n\nHow:\n\nThat's the way history happened. The Federal Gov't has limited power, and didn't really do much in the early years, e.g., under Pres. Washington. Each time a need for a specific task would arise, say to investigate counterfeiting, a new police force would be born! Here, the Secret Service.\n\nThis happened in different Fed'l offices for different reasons throughout US history, giving us countless Fed'l police forces, each with overlapping authority and jurisdiction.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nWhy it's arguably a good thing: \n\nEvery organization is prone to \"group think,\" where everyone in a group develops similar perspectives. By having separate groups independently doing their own thing, redundancy becomes built into the system.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nedit: clarity"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2v1k4z
|
how come only some parts of a city highway have streetlights?
|
Sometimes huge sections of a highway will have lights and sometimes it won't. Why are there lights anyways. If it isn't deemed necessary for all parts of a highway why is necessary for some parts?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v1k4z/eli5_how_come_only_some_parts_of_a_city_highway/
|
{
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"text": [
"They go in at intersections, interchanges, and other higher traffic volume areas, to make lane changes and merging safer. It's not worth the cost to light all parts of every freeway. Plus, highway lights damage crops, so their use is discouraged in rural areas."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
nf4b7
|
Is there an evolutionary advantage to having a good singing voice?
|
I know some animals have mating calls and stuff- did humans?
(I was homeschooled by my christian parents, so I don't really know much about evolution)
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/nf4b7/is_there_an_evolutionary_advantage_to_having_a/
|
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"Sexual selection is both societal and evolutionary. It's why birds with big bright colorful plumes have more and better offspring. It's also why having a good singing voice gets a human laid. So long as there's no corresponding negative that causes offspring to be less adapted to the environment (both natural and social), it should be selected for and become a part of human evolution.",
"Anything that makes people more likely to want to breed with you is an evolutionary advantage, so yes.",
"essentially if you are more attractive because you can sing well, i.e people enjoy your singing, then there is definitely an advantage in finding a mate.",
"We don't know why humans can sing.\n\nCertainly it's not as clear cut in the case of bird song. Many humans mate successfully without ever having to sing; this in itself is not a good sign for the \"music as mating call\" hypothesis. However, there is evidence that musical ability is correlated with mating success in humans. (Being a good musician gets you laid.) But that's not good enough to say that's *why* it evolved, unlike the case with birds where it's pretty clear-cut. It might not be musical ability itself that women like, but other things that are correlated with it that they're picking out directly.\n\nFor instance, there is evidence in humans that a sense of rhythm is correlated with neurological health. And certainly being able to modulate tone is important in language. So the components of music- rhythm and tone- both are indicators of other beneficial traits, such as neurological health and communication ability.",
"I think a valid point to be raised here is that however you choose to define a gene in evolutionary terms, selection is acting on genes, not necessarily on thier observed modern phenotype. The genetic influence on a good singing voice - as we define a good singing voice in modern society - could be an enormous range of genes that have been selected for entirely different effects. \nSo, to write a just-so story, perhaps a mutation that expresses itself as a louder, clearer voice at longer range would be beneficial for communicating while hunting in a group. It establishes itself in the ancestral hominin population. Add it into the whole range of possible influences on a singing voice, and perhaps it improves the ability of modern humans to sing, despite having nothing to do with singing, per se.\n\nThe point that I am trying to make is that what we observe the effects of a gene to be might actually hide the nature of the origin of the gene, since a phenotype (the observed character of a geneotype) can change as the environment in which it is expressed changes. ",
"The ability to sing is determined by the strength and flexibility of your vocal chords. This is something that is trained. Some people have an innate ability to sing, which is likely just a lucky configuration of the vocal chord muscles. The majority of good singers have the ability due to lots of intense practice at a young age. There is also the affect that hormones have on the voice. Castratos have their testes removed so that testosterone doesn't deepen their voice. Transgendered individuals use estrogen hormone treatments to lighten their voice.\n\nSome species (birds are a good example) use their singing ability to attract mates, so those ideal configurations are being selected by the natural process. A bird's singing ability can be unnaturally adjusted by administering estrogen hormone treatments. It could be speculated that their ideal singing ability is based on range (which is dictated by their hormone levels) vs volume.",
"First, I should point out that generally, humans find a good singing voice attractive. This by itself is clearly enough to improve reproductive fitness by securing a fit mate. What you're probably asking, though, is why:\n\nThere are several potentially plausible, but somewhat unproven, possibilities here. By \"unproven\" I mean not directly linked to singing specifically. \n\n1. A good singing voice relies in large part on good respiratory health. If you can sing well, you don't have strep throat, for example. As such, it may serve as a direct indicator of fitness. \n\n1. It is in many ways a learned skill; it may be possible that the ability to devote time to improving it may serve as a sort of handicap, similar to many sexually-selected features in other animals (such as bright coloration). This indicates that the individual is fit enough to waste some of that energy on an unimportant skill, or an actively-handicapping bright color. This may serve as an indirect indicator of fitness; \"I have time/energy to burn.\"\n\n3. A deeper singing voice is a clear signal of testosterone levels, given that testosterone is the primary cause of male sexual differentiation. Testosterone is a very metabolically expensive hormone, and as such is extremely variable over very short periods in response to even very limited food stress ([fasting in monkeys](_URL_1_); [skipping a single meal in humans](_URL_0_)). Less fasting may result in consistently high testosterone levels over time, which may result in a lower voice. This may serve as an indirect indicator of long-term fitness. ",
"Sexual selection is both societal and evolutionary. It's why birds with big bright colorful plumes have more and better offspring. It's also why having a good singing voice gets a human laid. So long as there's no corresponding negative that causes offspring to be less adapted to the environment (both natural and social), it should be selected for and become a part of human evolution.",
"Anything that makes people more likely to want to breed with you is an evolutionary advantage, so yes.",
"essentially if you are more attractive because you can sing well, i.e people enjoy your singing, then there is definitely an advantage in finding a mate.",
"We don't know why humans can sing.\n\nCertainly it's not as clear cut in the case of bird song. Many humans mate successfully without ever having to sing; this in itself is not a good sign for the \"music as mating call\" hypothesis. However, there is evidence that musical ability is correlated with mating success in humans. (Being a good musician gets you laid.) But that's not good enough to say that's *why* it evolved, unlike the case with birds where it's pretty clear-cut. It might not be musical ability itself that women like, but other things that are correlated with it that they're picking out directly.\n\nFor instance, there is evidence in humans that a sense of rhythm is correlated with neurological health. And certainly being able to modulate tone is important in language. So the components of music- rhythm and tone- both are indicators of other beneficial traits, such as neurological health and communication ability.",
"I think a valid point to be raised here is that however you choose to define a gene in evolutionary terms, selection is acting on genes, not necessarily on thier observed modern phenotype. The genetic influence on a good singing voice - as we define a good singing voice in modern society - could be an enormous range of genes that have been selected for entirely different effects. \nSo, to write a just-so story, perhaps a mutation that expresses itself as a louder, clearer voice at longer range would be beneficial for communicating while hunting in a group. It establishes itself in the ancestral hominin population. Add it into the whole range of possible influences on a singing voice, and perhaps it improves the ability of modern humans to sing, despite having nothing to do with singing, per se.\n\nThe point that I am trying to make is that what we observe the effects of a gene to be might actually hide the nature of the origin of the gene, since a phenotype (the observed character of a geneotype) can change as the environment in which it is expressed changes. ",
"The ability to sing is determined by the strength and flexibility of your vocal chords. This is something that is trained. Some people have an innate ability to sing, which is likely just a lucky configuration of the vocal chord muscles. The majority of good singers have the ability due to lots of intense practice at a young age. There is also the affect that hormones have on the voice. Castratos have their testes removed so that testosterone doesn't deepen their voice. Transgendered individuals use estrogen hormone treatments to lighten their voice.\n\nSome species (birds are a good example) use their singing ability to attract mates, so those ideal configurations are being selected by the natural process. A bird's singing ability can be unnaturally adjusted by administering estrogen hormone treatments. It could be speculated that their ideal singing ability is based on range (which is dictated by their hormone levels) vs volume.",
"First, I should point out that generally, humans find a good singing voice attractive. This by itself is clearly enough to improve reproductive fitness by securing a fit mate. What you're probably asking, though, is why:\n\nThere are several potentially plausible, but somewhat unproven, possibilities here. By \"unproven\" I mean not directly linked to singing specifically. \n\n1. A good singing voice relies in large part on good respiratory health. If you can sing well, you don't have strep throat, for example. As such, it may serve as a direct indicator of fitness. \n\n1. It is in many ways a learned skill; it may be possible that the ability to devote time to improving it may serve as a sort of handicap, similar to many sexually-selected features in other animals (such as bright coloration). This indicates that the individual is fit enough to waste some of that energy on an unimportant skill, or an actively-handicapping bright color. This may serve as an indirect indicator of fitness; \"I have time/energy to burn.\"\n\n3. A deeper singing voice is a clear signal of testosterone levels, given that testosterone is the primary cause of male sexual differentiation. Testosterone is a very metabolically expensive hormone, and as such is extremely variable over very short periods in response to even very limited food stress ([fasting in monkeys](_URL_1_); [skipping a single meal in humans](_URL_0_)). Less fasting may result in consistently high testosterone levels over time, which may result in a lower voice. This may serve as an indirect indicator of long-term fitness. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.21079/full",
"http://endo.endojournals.org/content/128/3/1532.short"
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[],
[],
[],
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"http://endo.endojournals.org/content/128/3/1532.short"
]
] |
|
156e7y
|
Can only gravity *slow* down a spacecraft?
|
As I understand it, Gravity can be used to slingshot a spacecraft and make it go faster - if this is the case, is there a way to interact with gravity to make a spacecraft slow down *without interacting with a stellar body or transfer of energy from mass to mass* (i.e. crashing into a planet will obviously stop the spacecraft, as will a cloud of gas make it go slower)..?
I have heard of [Dynamical Friction](_URL_0_), but the wikipedia "intuitive" entry seems to only reference clouds of particles or gas, i.e. transfer of energy from matter to matter.. Can there be enough force *solely* from the interaction with gravity to slow a spacecraft down?
If this is the case, where does that energy of momentum go? Is it just changed in direction or is it transferred to the gravitational body?
If I fundamentally misunderstand something, please correct me!
Thanks!
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/156e7y/can_only_gravity_slow_down_a_spacecraft/
|
{
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"text": [
"You can do the gravity assist in reverse to get rid of speed. This has been done by many probes travelling to inner solar system.\n\nI wrote a fairly lengthy [response](_URL_0_) to a gravity assist question here a little while ago.",
"_URL_0_\n\nHowever, from my understanding there is no such thing as gravity assist that doesn't \"transfer of energy from mass to mass\". That is all gravity assists require some ability to change direction which often is done via a fuel. In this process energy is created from mass (ofcourse only a small part of the energy is released. \n\nBut yes, a gravity assist can be plotted in such a way to speed up or slow you down. This is because your toying with the concept of getting in a \"closed orbit\". If the orbit is tighter then a closed orbit then you can slingshot but if you are relatively close to a closed orbit you can use this to lose momentum.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > As an example, the MESSENGER mission used gravity assist maneuvering to slow the spacecraft on its way to Mercury; however, since Mercury has almost no atmosphere, aerobraking could not be used for insertion into orbit about it.",
"u/Olog wrote:\n\n > You can do the gravity assist in reverse to get rid of speed. This has been done by many probes travelling to inner solar system.\n\nThis also happens naturally to comets - a comet might have an orbit of say 50,000 years, but then interact with one of the large planets, and this changes the orbit to, say, 100 years. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamical_friction"
] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/13if8l/how_fast_can_man_made_crafts_go_using_planetary/"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist"
],
[]
] |
|
crcmq2
|
why is the "t-pose" the default pose used when animating 3d models? why is this pose easier to work with then others?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/crcmq2/eli5_why_is_the_tpose_the_default_pose_used_when/
|
{
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"ex3tiac"
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"text": [
"The \"T-Pose\" isn't easier to animate with, the reason it was used it because it kept joints in the body away from other joints in the body (ie the upper arm bone, or humerus, is a good distance away from the spine bone, etc). This was useful for a couple reasons. For motion capture it allowed you to determine bone position without overlap and it was very easy to see if things were out of place. For skinning (when a cg model is bound to the skeleton in the computer) it was useful to prevent bones that shouldn't have influence over certain parts of the skin from having an influence. As an example, again think about the humerus and a spine joint, if the arm bone is closer to the geometry of the side of the chest than the spine bone, the computer would add the point on the chest to be influenced by the arm instead of the spine (or perhaps ribs if they are being built into the skeleton).\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe full \"T-pose\" is not used as much anymore because the position of the shoulders and elbows are in a pretty extreme position when fully extended and raised. This cause issues with deformations, as the further away from the default pose you got, the more deformation there was, which typically meant more error. Usually these days we use the \"A-pose\" which has the arms down at about a 45 degree angle and the elbows slightly bent and sometimes arms slightly forward. This keeps the joints away from each other as the \"T-pose\" did but means that the shoulders and elbows are in a more mid position so that is the shoulders, for example, are raised or lowered they only have to move half as far as the \"T-pose\" to a fully lowered position. This of course has limitations, for example the human shoulder can actually more pretty close to 180 degrees, so the \"T-pose\" would seem to be more of a mid point, but in general every day motion the shoulders stay below the straight out position, so we usually build for the more common case and \"fix\" it in cases where the shoulders might rotate all the way up.\n\nThere are other reasons for some of the positions of joints in a model (such as to avoid gimbaling), but the main reasons for the \"T-pose\" are the above ones."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
fsh70q
|
How do anti-inflammatories work exactly?
|
Do they tell our brain "hey, that body part isn't really having trouble, don't worry about it!", do they block pain transmitters or do they actually go there and fix the problem (how?)? And how do they know where exactly to go?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fsh70q/how_do_antiinflammatories_work_exactly/
|
{
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"fm1w2hw"
],
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"text": [
"In inflammation, an enzyme called COX2 is upregulated which increases the production of prostoglandins that have a number of functions, among which binding to receptors on nerves that then causes the perception of pain and can induce fever. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) block the COX2 enzyme and the production of prostoglandins and consequently prevent the sensation of pain and fever. \n\nThere's no specificity of area, just a blockade of the natural inflammatory response, regardless of where it is in the body. They don't fix the problem, just block the perception of pain from it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
216dz8
|
How much is actually known about Rurik, the legendary Varangian founder of Russia?
|
Did he really exist? If so, how did he establish his rule over the Slavs? Were the nobles of the Rurikid family actually descended from him, or was this just a myth to legitimize their authority?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/216dz8/how_much_is_actually_known_about_rurik_the/
|
{
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" > Did he really exist?\n\nThe answer, as you might suspect, is that it is unclear. \n\nOur earliest surviving reference to Rurik comes from the Russian Primary Chronicle which was compiled by Russian monks between 1037 AD and 1118 AD.\n\nHowever, according to the chronicle, Rurik enters history when he devastates the settlement of Staraya Ladoga in the year 862. From there, he goes on to settle in Novgorod and lead that city until his death in 879.\n\n So, the Primary Chronicle is recounting a story that is at least 150 years old when it is written down. Also, there are numerous areas in the early sections that seem to have been presented in order to legitimize the rule of the Rurikid dynasty. The most notable example would be the narrative of the \"invitation of the Varangians\" which as you suspect, is a way to legitimize the contemporary Grand Princes of Kievan Rus. \n\nOn the other hand, the Byzantine chronicle *De Administrando Imperio* written in the mid-10th century refers to Igor, the supposed son of Rurik, as well as mentioning Sviatoslav, the grandson of Rurik, who was alive at the time the chronicle was compiled.\n\n > how did he establish his rule over the Slavs? \n\nSo, there is not very much doubt that there was Norse settlement along the river Dnepr and the establishment of trading settlements at Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod, Kiev and elsewhere. \n\nHowever, there are two schools of thought about how important this Norse element was, and what exact role they had in the development of the Kievan Rus state. \n\nThe Normanist school holds to a literal reading of the Primary Chronicle, and insists that cohesive groups of Norse traders and adventurers established themselves as ruling Princes at these trading centers, ruling over Slavic people unable to rule themselves. \n\nThe anti-Normanist school holds that Norsemen arrived in small waves of immigration, and were not large enough to establish themselves as rulers over the native slave population. This school posits that the Norsemen primarily engaged as traders, and quickly married in to local Slavic notable families, and Norse influence was quickly assimilated into the local Slavic culture. \n\nAn important consideration in weighing these two competing schools is the recognition that in the 8th and 9th centuries, the Khazar khaganate had extensive power along the lower reaches of the Don and Dnepr rivers. This muslim Khaganate had extensive trade contacts with the Abbassid caliphate, and the trade in Abbassid silver seems to have been an early driver of Norse exploration of Rus lands. An established power in the lower reaches of the Dnepr would seem to leave little room for the establishment of new governments by encroaching Scandinavian armies. And yet, by the mid 10th century Kievan Rus was at least influential enough not to acknowledge Khazar overlordship.\n\nSo, the Russianist historian Wladyslaw Duckzo posits that Slavic peoples observed Khazar forms of social organization, and established a Rus Khaganate by the 830s, prior to the date that the Primary Chronicle gives for Rurik's arrival at Ladoga by some 20 years.\n\n\n-----\n\n1) [Viking Rus: studies on the presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe](_URL_1_) By Wladislaw Duckzo. Chapter 2 explores his hypothesized Rus Khaganate.\n\n2)[Medieval Lands](_URL_0_) by Charles Cawley. This is an uploaded version of his chapter about Rurik and the Rurikid dynasty. In it, he addresses some criticisms of the Primary Chronicle."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/RUSSIA,%20Rurik.htm#_ftn3",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=hEawXSP4AVwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false"
]
] |
|
7x6mab
|
Why is the dutch colonial legacy in Indonesia so much more muted than the colonial legacy of other powers?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7x6mab/why_is_the_dutch_colonial_legacy_in_indonesia_so/
|
{
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"text": [
"I answered a closely related question in the following thread, and perhaps that is helpful.\n\n_URL_0_",
"If we are going to talk about the Dutch language and culture in the former Dutch East Indies, we have to also talk about how the Indonesian language came to be the national language and how it came to be the dominant first language today. This is instructive because it recalls the DEI's colonial policy in the early parts of the 20th century. \n\nIn short, the Dutch never advocated widespread use of the Dutch language, nor the propagation of Dutch culture. The Indonesian language rose due to pragmatic compromise made by liberal-minded colonial policy, in line with rising nationalist groups, while literacy in Dutch language was very poor. Over WW2, the use of Dutch was suppressed. Following WW2 enmity between the independent Republic of Indonesia and the Dutch government ensured there was no space for the Dutch language. Over time, government policy determined that Indonesian became the *only* official language. \n\n**The Dutch East Indies**\n\nIn the Dutch East Indies (DEI), by the later 19th-early 20th century there was already awareness that the teaching of Dutch language has advantages and should be encouraged. Even at the end of the 19th century, there were many more speakers of Dutch than there were speakers of Malay -- which was later to become the Indonesian language -- in the Dutch East Indies. After all, it was only in the 1880s that Malay-language newspapers started to be printed. \n\nWith the rise of Ethical Policy in the DEI, further primary and secondary education was made available to the public. See [this thread](_URL_7_) where /u/MrTimmer , /u/davepx , /u/itsalrightwithme discussed some numbers on education rates. \nHowever, there was a major difference between primary and secondary education, and what was available to the masses versus some of the native elites. The *sekolah-desa* system that was founded was a 3-year education in native languages. Dutch was used in schools reserved for the elites. Thus, effective literacy rates\nremained poor. \n\nWith rising nationalism, the issue of language came to a head again in the early 20th century, along with the question of whither the entire DEI should become one independent country or if it should become several. The current government would like all of us to think the former had always made sense. [But did it?](_URL_4_) Even if it did to remain a united country, what should it be? \nOrganizations such as Budi Utomo (for Javanese only, or at best Javanese-culture) focused on regional identity, while Sarekat Islam (only for Muslims) wanted a pan-DEI Islamist country, while the Indische Partij (IP) of Douwes Dekker the notable Indo eurasian, along with his partner Mangunkusumo, proposed a multi-ethnic, secular Indonesia. The history of IP is quite important but is overlooked, even as they played an important role in furthering public education through the so-called *Wild Schools* in the 1920s, founded following their *All Indies Congress* in Bandung. Thousands of students were enrolled in education given in the Dutch language. \n\nAround this time, the use of Malay as a national language was being advanced in the Eurasians and Chinese communities, who were ahead of native Indonesians when it came to literacy rates. \nMalay was the chosen language since it was easy to learn and they were commonly used in the coastal regions exposed to trade. The Eurasians were used to speaking it as they dealt with native traders, and the Chinese often used elements of Malay to speak among themselves in order to bridge the various Chinese ethnic dialects. The DEI colonial government itself promoted the use of Malay. After all, the *Volksraad* (People's Council) had two official languages: Dutch and Malay. \n\nFurther, in 1928 the 2nd (Nationalist) Youth Congress in then-Batavia declared the Indonesian language (based on Malay) to be the national language, and *Indonesia Raya* to be the national anthem. To most nationalists, there was no contradiction in seeking education in the Dutch language, as it gave them access to government and the economic apparatus of the colonials. And importantly, the nationalists themselves were working hand-in-hand with the colonial Volksraad when it came to the language issue. The colonial government itself founded *Balai Pustaka*, a publishing house, to promote literacy in the Malay language. Over time, it came to be one instrument through which the Indonesian government promoted the Indonesian language.\n\nThus, that was the situation approaching WW2, namely that education was highly uneven, the nationalists were pragmatically promulgating a \"new\" national language, while at the same time the use of Dutch in instruction was still sought. This was aligned with the policy of the colonials. However, literacy in Dutch and Malay were still very poor outside the elite. \n\nWe can quote van Mook, the Dutch Minister of Colonies, lamenting in his exile in England in 1943 that,\n > > *A common language is the surest measure for spreading culture and loyalty. The British always encourage the speaking of English in their dominions and colonies. We have not done this in the Netherlands East Indies. Let us do it after the war.*\n\n**WW2 and Independence**\n\nThe Japanese administration of the former DEI was [done very poorly](_URL_5_), up to and including suppression of Dutch personnel and administration, resulting in widespread famine and suffering. As the Dutch administration and citizenry were torn down and put into prison camps respectively, so did the use of Dutch as a language. \nRegardless, the Japanese knew they needed local collaborators and promoted nationalist leaders such as Sukarno, who further promoted the use of Indonesian. \n\nAt the end of WW2, the relationship between newly-independent Indonesia and the Netherlands was fraught from the get-go. See for example,\n[1](_URL_3_),\n[2](_URL_6_),\n[3](\n_URL_2_). \n\nWhen the Dutch launched the Police Action they faced opposition almost everywhere, even if they were largely not yet fully organized with each other. The Dutch leveraged a combination of post-war loans, British military presence, and available British war materiel. The 1945-1947 period saw chaotic fighting with all sides committing atrocities against opposing civilian and military groups, prisoners of war, civilians recently liberated from internment camps.\n\nThe US was concerned that continuing instability in Indonesia would provide an inroad for Communism: and it did. It was known that the Dutch East Indies had a large population and significant mineral wealth -- a key flashpoint in the new emerging world order. But Sukarno and Hatta's suppression of the 1948 Communist uprising in Madiun demonstrated to the US that they may end up being friendly to US interests in the region.\nRegardless, the Dutch insisted on a weak federal republic, the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (RUSI) and they had significant economic goals to pursue in the negotiations. Thus, they launched their last major offensive at the end of 1948.\n\nThe US and UN strongly opposed this offensive and forced the Dutch to negotiate. Unable to secure further loans -- the cost of the Police Action had risen to 20% of the Dutch national budget -- the Dutch had no choice. Truman also threatened to withhold further Marshall Plan aid.\nIndonesian negotiators agreed to a federation, RUSI, in a symbolic union with the Netherlands. They also agreed to return and respect the properties of Dutch companies and to allow Dutch nationals to continue to control those companies.\n\nHowever, the Dutch insisted that RUSI assume the total cost of war, a magnificent 6 billion guilders in debt ($1.7 billion USD), and income from exports of tin and foreign exchange!!! The translation of this, that RUSI had to assume the cost of war against it. Unsurprisingly, Indonesians refused, instead offering to assume debts but only up to 1942. The US envoy finally forced a compromise that RUSI accept the agreement to assume 4.3 billion guilders of debt, and at the same time that West Papua remain under Dutch control. All this in exchange of promise of aid from the US.\n\nMost importantly to this thread, the Indonesian Constitution declared Indonesian to be the official state language, with no space for the Dutch language. It became the *only* official language. Starting in the 60s-70s, the government standardized education and most publications to use the official Indonesian language, through institutions such as *Balai Pustaka*. \n\n**Whither India?**\n\nBy contrast, as India secured her independence in 1947, it was recognized that language was a major issue, and a compromise was made in the next few years whereby Hindi was *to be* the official language, but that the use of English for government purpose was allowed up to 1965, with the option for extension. Over time, English retained its place even if periodically this rose to become a political issue. See for example, [4](_URL_1_), [5](_URL_0_).\n\n**References**\n\n* J. Bresnan, *Indonesia: The Great Transition*, ISBN-13: 978-0742540118, 2005.\n\n* R.E. Elson, *Constructing the Nation: Ethnicity, Race Modernity and Citizenship in Early Indonesian Thought*, Asian Ethnicity (2005) 6 (3): 145-160."
]
}
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[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6wgwch/english_is_ubiquitous_in_india_but_dutch_has/"
],
[
"https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/11/06/the-problem-with-the-english-language-in-india/#56e64a2f403e",
"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/asia/17iht-letter17.html?mcubz=0",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4opwzo/why_dont_the_netherlands_have_a_larger_indonesian/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4x7es4/why_did_the_independence_of_the_dutch_indies_not/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3v3m36/why_did_the_dutch_east_indies_became_only_one/cxkcofh/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/59d3z4/what_was_the_japanese_reasoning_behind_the_mass/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5hp6tt/why_hasnt_sukranos_greater_indonesia_vision_also/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hz6n1/what_was_dutch_colonization_of_indonesia_like/"
]
] |
||
ax5zch
|
History and thought process behind Seppuku
|
I'm new to Japanese history and recently picked up the Historical Fiction book Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa. A few examples of Seppuku presents itself, but I find some of the reasons baffling and I'm now fully aware just how much I don't understand about Japanese culture!
A great example is when Hirate Kiyohide tires of admonishing his master Nobunaka over and over again about his childish behaviour, so he commits Seppuku to give Nobunaka a real lesson. I don't understand how Kiyohide concludes that his own suicide will fix Nobunaka's behaviour. It's like, trying to prove someone a point by killing yourself. But now you're dead so....did you even win that argument?
Can someone just explain to me the history and what their thought process is with all this?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ax5zch/history_and_thought_process_behind_seppuku/
|
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"There were a variety of motives to committ *seppuku.* In general, *seppuku* is an elite practice, restricted to the samurai class and their families (on a side note, this is what makes the battlefield suicides of ordinary Japanese soldiers in the 1930s and 1940s so remarkable, since the values of a bygone elite had been inculcated in ordinary soldiers by the pseudo-*bushido* mythos created after WWI). *Seppuku* is also generally done as a means of saving face, and avoiding personal or familial humiliation. \n\nOne of the arguments made by books like *The Sword and the Chrysanthemum* is that Japanese is a \"shame\" culture, where external pressure strongly-affects personal behavior, whereas Western cultures tend to be more driven by internal guilt. This thesis is obviously a bit controversial. Some people think it's a bit overstated. However, I think there's a large grain of truth to it. Protecting one's personal reputation is a certainly factor behind many acts of *seppuku.*\n\n1. Avoiding capture. Oda Nobunaga does this after he's betrayed by one of his generals and trapped in a burning building. Several of his followers also kill themselves. A few, including the only black samurai in Japanese history, manage to escape.\n\n2. Avoiding execution. Condemned samurai were usually given the chance to kill themselves, rather than suffer a degrading execution like a commoner. Most of the famous 47 Ronin are ordered to essentially self-execute after their raid on a prominent court official. Their master had already been forced to kill himself for assaulting said court official. \n\n3. Apologizing for mistakes. After his army took heavy losses, one general in the Russo-Japanese War petitioned the Meiji Emperor to kill himself. The Emperor refused, although he still killed himself after the Emperor died.\n\n4. Following your master into death. There were a variety of motives for this one. In some cases, samurai without a guarantee of employment might choose to kill themselves rather than be left unemployed and impoverished. In other cases, it was a gesture of respect and a reputation-building display of personal loyalty. \n\n5. Following orders. You have what are essentially non-criminal self-executions where courtiers are ordered to kill themselves. Toyoyomi Hideyoshi does this to a few of his male relatives after he suspects they're plotting against him or threatening the succession of his biological son.\n\n[This podcast also does an excellent job breaking down some of the reasons](_URL_0_). The Samurai Archives Podcast is one of the best, if not the best, English-language podcast on Japanese history out there. \n\nThe producer helpfully showed his work on this one and provided a [list of sources](_URL_1_) that are also worth checking out.\n\nRankin's *Seppuku: A History of Samurai Suicide,* is especially good. It was very helpful to me in writing this post!"
]
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[] |
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[
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"http://samuraipodcast.com/seppuku-samurai-suicide-tales-of-the-samurai-1",
"Https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/japanese_history/s-a-podcast-discussion-megathread-faq-t747-s25.html#p5061"
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|
3ma62s
|
why japanese people have problems with l/r letters?
|
Been in Japan and heard things like "Herro" (hello) or "Prease" (please), si Im courious
Edit: Thanks linguist guys and others folks for really nice explanation.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ma62s/eli5_why_japanese_people_have_problems_with_lr/
|
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"They have no real L in their vocabulary. It's similar to how Hispanics say Tree instead of Three. Because the concept of the sound Th makes isn't there. Same goes for Japan. This is a dumb down version of the real answer, but someone else will do that. ",
"Basically in their Gojunon(fifty syllables), \"r\" and \"l\" are the same, and whoever romanized the Gojunon, decided to put \"r\" instead of \"l\".\n\nCommon sense, true Japanese doesn't speak English, they speak similar sounding arranged syllables from the Gojunon.",
"Most East Asian languages don't have two distinct \"sounds\" for what English speakers would call L and R. Either they have one sound that sort of sounds like them both (as in Japanese) or they have one of the two but not the other (as in Cantonese).\n\nAs such, people from those languages learning English often find it difficult to distinguish between the two letters and will often mix them up.",
"Hi, I'm a linguist!!\n\nThe reason is that in Japanese, these two sounds are *allophones* of the same *phoneme*. An Allophone is the actual physical thing that your mouth does when you make a sound. A Phoneme is the mental representation of that sound in your head. In Japanese, the phoneme /l/ is realized as [l] or [ɹ], depending on context. Every language has it's own rules like this. \n\nFor example, in English, if a /t/ or /d/ sound appears between two vowels, it gets realized as a [ɾ] (flap). Similarly whenever a nasal sound (/n/, /m/, or /ŋ/ (\"ng\")) appears in front of a stop (/p/ /t/ /k/ /b/ /d/ /g/), the nasal sound changes so that it's pronounced in the same place as the stop. For example, in the words \"input\", \"internet\", and \"incredible\", the second sound is not /n/, as it is written and as it exists in your head, it is /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/, respectively. \n\nYou don't think about it, you do it automatically. No imagine a language where, if you turn your /t/ into a flap between two vowels, or if you turn your /n/ into /m/ before a /p/, the word means something different or none at all. You would find it very difficult to pronounce any words with those sequences in them right. Just so with Japanese speakers and the /l/ sound (and Korean speakers with the /s/ sound which in their language, is occasionally realized as [ʃ] (\"sh\")"
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2nrzta
|
if black friday is all positive revenue why don't they do deals and stuff more often than once a year?
|
If 'being in the black' is profit for companies, why do they limit their deals to one day of the year?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nrzta/eli5_if_black_friday_is_all_positive_revenue_why/
|
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"The idea for black friday is that it is the day when every one starts doing Christmas Shopping. So the deals would not have the same effect on other days ",
"Because then the deals wouldn't be exclusive and people would think \"Oh I'm not going to buy X today because they will have another sale soon\". Seriously there's like a sofa place in the UK which seems to have a never ending sale (DFS for people interested) and it just doesn't make the sales exclusive anymore because those ad's are constantly on TV. ",
"Deals and discounts are usually done for two reasons.\n\n1. To get rid of any long standing inventory to free-up room for new orders\n\n2. In anticipation of high volumes of demand (surge in amount of customers)\n\nWhen demand is expected to be extremely high, companies can afford to mark down items and offer sales, the minimal loss in revenue from marking down products is in theory supposed to be easily made up by the added amount of revenue the company will receive from the increase in demand.\n\nCompanies aren't usually only striving for one of the above reasons, Black Friday is inherently a combination of both. Stores experience large surges in the amount of shoppers, so they start off by marking down the prices on inventory which they are trying to get rid of first. Usually the items marked down in price the most are items which have been on the shelves for quite sometimes, or are items which are being replaced by newer models (or seasonal). \n\nDeals similar to Black Friday aren't done other times during the year, due to the cyclical nature of retail shopping. It is much more difficult to sell products like televisions or other electronics during the year as compared with the holiday season. Some companies in fact lose a good amount of money maintaining their inventory during the year, only to regain all the lost revenue during the holiday season due to the increase in consumer demand. \n\nTL:DR\n\nGiving discounts is not cost effective unless there is an increase in overall consumer demand for the products you are selling during that time period.",
"It is a gimmick. If you overuse a gimmick, people stop falling for it.",
"First, note that \"revenue\" and \"profit\" are not the same thing. Revenue is what you sell something for (more precisely, it's your aggregate sales over a certain time period); profit is your revenue *minus your expenses* (so it's your aggregate sales minus what you spent^1 over that same time period).\n\nSecond, note the difference between gross profit and net profit. Gross profit is the difference between your sale price and the price you paid for the good (also known as gross margin). Net profit is gross profit minus all your other expenses.\n\nSo say you run a store that sells TVs. You buy these TVs for $100 each. If you were to sell them for $101, you'd make $1 on each TV so as long as you sell at least one TV you'd be in the black, right? Well... only if you have literally no other expenses. You probably also have to pay rent, employees, utilities, taxes, etc. In order to make a net profit you need to make enough gross profit to pay all your other expenses.\n\nSo, basically it's possible to \"be in the black\" for every transaction, but still lose money overall. That's why it's insufficient to simply makes money on every transaction: you need to make *enough* money on your transactions to actually have a profitable company.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n^1 Technically \"expenses\" isn't exactly \"money spent\" because you can spent money in ways that aren't expenses (e.g. it's not an expense to buy another company, that's a capital purchase not an expense. Also, it's not an expense to buy inventory: buying inventory is an asset transaction and your inventory is only expensed once you sell it or it loses its value."
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blzc6l
|
why do people in movies/tv make giant slices across their palms for drawing blood (instead of elsewhere) and then go about their business with no discussion of the giant cut across their palm?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/blzc6l/eli5_why_do_people_in_moviestv_make_giant_slices/
|
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"**Please read this entire message**\n\n---\n\nYour submission has been removed for the following reason(s):\n\n* Discussion of fiction, gaming, fantasy, etc. are not allowed on ELI5 (Rule 2). \n\n\n\n\n---\nIf you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](_URL_1_) first. If you still feel the removal should be reviewed, please [message the moderators.](_URL_0_?)"
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69uzg7
|
how does gyroscopic stability work on a tanks main gun.
|
I saw a video yesterday of a tank holding a beer on the end of it's main gun while going over bumps and the beer didn't budge. I was wondering what kind of technology would be necessary for this to be possible.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69uzg7/eli5_how_does_gyroscopic_stability_work_on_a/
|
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"Gyroscopic sensors detect movement of the tank in 3 dimensions. Computers convert that information into movement of the tank barrel, and signal hydraulic systems to move the gun in the opposite direction.\n\nThe system can't compensate for linear movement (the straight up and down component, as opposed to rotation), so it's possible that there was some sort of trickery involved. The _effect_ is valid, the tank can fire accurately while moving to evade return fire."
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6etmhj
|
why are some cities 'twinned' with eachother? what does it mean for cities to be 'sister cities'?
|
For example: Lucca, Tuscany is paired with Colmar, France. Birmingham, UK is paired with Chicago, USA and Leipzig, Germany.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6etmhj/eli5_why_are_some_cities_twinned_with_eachother/
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"It can mean very similar layouts. It can mean it shares partnerships with other cities at local government levels. My city is Adelaide and we have sister cities all over the world. Here is a website with some more information (Video) about it\n\n\n_URL_0_",
"In theory its to share cultural exchanges with foreign cities after WWII and help in reconciliation.\n\nIn reality it means rate payer funded junkets for council members. The more twin cities in desirable or exotic locations, the better...",
"It is a way to create greater diplomatic connection on a local level.\n\nIt is something that became popular after WWII with the general idea being that people would be much less likely to violently murder each other if they knew the people on the other side as more than faceless enemy.\n\nThey created partnerships between towns in different countries and organized cultural exchanges on a local level.\n\nUsually the partner towns are similar in size and have something in common. Sometimes the something can be that both towns have an economy based on the same industry. Sometimes it can be something like the reason Coventry and Dresden became twin cities: They were both bombed a lot during the war.\n\n\n\n\n",
"I live in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia and our sister city is Nanning, China. They send reps here for chinese new year and they give a speech. We send school kids over there for cultural exchange. And some of the Nanning investors are going to invest in some of our local farms, or so we're promised.",
"Twinning cities is meant as a way of cultural exchange. Our town is twinned with a town in France and one in the UK, and we have trips to the twin cities, student exchange, we celebrate special holidays of the twinned cities country (e.g. we have a Guy Fawkes night here, although without fireworks). I have to admit that I am a member of the twinning committee for the English city, not the French, so I have no idea what they are doing.",
"I actually had a first hand experience with city twinning. I was part of a cultural artist exchange program between the cities of Detroit and Turin, Italy. The cities are sister cities due to their respective relationships to the auto industry. The project was officially endorsed by the cities mayors and universities. The universities funded our travel. It was an exchange between musicians and visual artists from the two cities. I went to Turin twice and hosted a photographer from Italy here in detroit several times. It was one of the amazing experiences of my life. It lasted a few years and by the time it was over we had put on some concerts and exhibitions in each city, and I made great new friends in Italy who I later revisited and stayed with. ",
"The organization was established by Eisenhower in 1956. Here's the link to their website for further reading. _URL_0_",
"Wow! Something I can actually answer. I do a lot of translation work for news articles and documents for this in China, so my scope will be limited to China and some of its own cities and their sister cities.\n\nThe sister city program is a way for smaller cities (usually not Tier 1, which was a lot less until a few weeks ago) to get their name out in a country or region by pairing with another city in some way or another, promising better rates and opportunities for business, investors, entrepreneurs, and other notables between the two cities. It helps to foster a bond that will hopefully reap economic benefits sometimes in the near future.\n\nThey provide opportunities for students and other citizens with potential to visit schools and universities in their partner to help foster studying abroad and communication that, again, they will hope will foster economic connections and benefits later.\n\nOne of the more notable ones is Lodz, Poland (I think) and Chengdu being sister cities, which led to the first direct train route being built between the two cities, allowing for a lot more trade to happen between the region and Chengdu, which being a Tier 2 city, did not get some of the benefits cities like Beijing or Shanghai were privy to. Then, more direct routes from their respective airports opened up and have led to a more direct connection, both metaphorically and physically.",
"Bureaucrats like to travel. And the best way to travel is when someone else pays the bill. Instead of doing actual job and helping their community, bureaucrats find a 'twin' town or city - probably on the other side of the planet, where they can travel to 'observe how things are done' and have 'fruitful discussions' - what mostly translates to bills to be paid by the taxpayer.\n\nBasically officials travel, meet each other, eat good food, do sightseeing and have various banquets - what translates to mostly nothing, since not much real work is done: those are basically vacations sponsored by the taxpayers. \n\nProcess of finding a twin town generally happens when the towns have big enough budgets to sponsor such travels, the explanations are mostly nonsensical:\n \"other towns are doing it\" or \"having a twin town can be useful in case of a natural disaster\" (as if other towns could not help without the partnership), while the underlying cause is human greed.",
"Follow-up, what about twin cities like Minneapolis-St Paul? ",
"Oakville, Ontario is twinned with several different cities. \n\nFirst, in 1957, they were twinned with Dorval, Quebec. One of Oakville's major streets is named after Dorval.\n\nThen, in 1984, Oakville twinned with Neyagawa, Japan. There is also a street named Neyagawa, which is close to Dorval.\n\nFinally, and most recently, Oakville twinned with Huai'an, China in 2012. There has yet to be a street named after Huai'an. \n\nThe incentives towards twinning mostly seem to be economic, though there is a strong social incentive of promoting cooperation and understanding between distant groups of people.\n\nSource 1: I work in Oakville.\n\nSource 2: [Here.](_URL_0_)",
"I live in an area that had a lot of German immigration in the 19th century. In fact, you can still find a lot of churches and old buildings with German written into the stone. Some of these communities have German \"sister cities\" in Germany. I always thought it was a neat way to keep that heritage, even if those families have been in the US for well over a century now. (I, in fact, am a descendant of 19th century German immigrants to this area. Admittedly, I feel far enough removed that I've never been interested in \"German Heritage\")\n\nAnother interesting use. In Missouri, there are two smallish cities that are colloquially called \"The Twin Cities\". They are Festus, MO and Crystal City, MO. They are actually right next to each other and if it weren't for the sign, you wouldn't know where one ended and the other began. Businesses and homes sort of overlap each. Even the main thoroughfare with small businesses flanking each side goes through both \"cities\". So you can go to a shop in Festus, and walk next door (attached buildings no less) to a shop in Crystal City. They each have their own mayor, their own emergency services, etc. Although kids in Crystal City go to Festus Schools. \n",
"I don't know if they're officially twinned, but Montreal is absolutely the French Canadian Boston. City feels the same, roads feel the same, getting flipped off and cursed out as you get passed while doing 90mph feels the same.",
"To add on to what others have said, the US has sister states as well. For example, Colorado and Hawaii. I'm at University in Colorado, and I'm actually shocked by how many Hawaiians we have. We supposedly have a tuition reciprocity program where Coloradoans/Hawaiians can attend Hawaiian/Colorado universities under in-state status.\n\nThis shouldn't be confused with other reciprocity programs between Colorado and New Mexico though",
"The relationship with Warsaw, Chicago's first sister city, was established in 1960. Polish language is the third largest language spoken in Chicago.....so lots of immigrants from certain part of the world coincides with those types of 'sister cities' connections.",
"Toledo, Ohio and Toledo, Spain are sister cities. They are actually the oldest formally recognized sister-city relationship in the world.",
"Many years ago I ran the Sister Cities program for a major US city that had 6 sister cities. In that city, at least, the programs were initiated by groups of citizens who wanted to create exchanges, each for different reasons. Most were cultural, but some involved business exchanges. Some groups petitioned the city to make new Sisters in order to make a political statement. \nAt that time that I was there, the city put very little money and effort into supporting the exchanges, which were mostly arranged and financed by the citizen groups running them. So each program was only as active as the citizen group. \nThe Sisters in other countries had differing levels on interest, too. In some, the Mayor's office was very interesting in the exchanges, spent a lot of money and worked very hard to promoted the connection. In other cities you could barely get anyone from the Mayor's staff to answer the phone. \nIn my time at that job I helped to coordinate student exchanges, performances by artists from the Sister Cities, a couple of trade shows. The program was not very active. \nThe bottom line is that each program is different, depending on the parties involved. ",
"Halifax, Nova Scotia is twinned with Hakodate, Japan because both are port cities and both have historical star-shaped forts in the centre of each city.",
"Sister cities, as mentioned elsewhere, are about joint economic growth and partnership. I won't delve into that because there's already been a great response on it.\n\nTwinned cities don't always mean anything besides diplomacy, if that. Certainly in the UK it's largely just a hangover from the war, where it was believed that getting two countries heavily involved with one another would make another war less likely. Twin *cities* will often promote cultural and commercial links and perhaps even international business links, but for the most part twin *towns* (and villages) don't really have any connections besides in name.\n\nE.g. my hometown of Crawley, population ~100,000 in the UK is twinned with Dorsten, population ~80,000 in Germany. And yet, I'm guessing maybe 1 in 20 people from either town would be able to tell you that.\n\nIf you're familiar with how the concept of the EU came about - fostering cultural and financial ties between nations in order to encourage peace and not have another war in Europe - it's basically the same thing at a more local level, although each twinning program is independent and don't necessarily mean anything at all.",
"I don't really understand it, but from living in Chicago, and traveling to Munich, it's sister city. There is a definite cultural understanding each place has for one another. Like doing German festivals in Chicago and vice versa. I am sure it was a unity thing after ww2, or the type of immigrants to a city. But it has deeper roots then that. These cities were matched by population, economy's that could help each other, and to a lesser degree longitudinal placement means similar weather patterns as well. Most small cities/large towns have a sister city.",
"Just a clarification to all the other great comments on here:\n\nWhat you're asking about are sister cities, which is, like /u/darcmosh explained, when two cities that are far from each other decide to establish friendly economic/diplomatic/educational/whatever ties.\n\nThese are different from places that call themselves \"twin cities\" (like Minneapolis and St. Paul) or \"tri-cities\" (like Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, WA), which are just cities that are close to each other, and have just kind of grown to the point where they all run together.",
"Cleveland OH - Gdańsk Poland, no idea what benefits are there in the deal but it's very cool to see a sign in downtown grandkids pointing to Cleveland.",
"Aviles (a small coastal city in the principate of Asturias, Spain) is the sister city of St Augustine, FL. \n\nThis is so because Pedro Menendez (the Gentleman that founded St. Augustine which also happens to be the first permanent settlement in the US) Sailed off from there. \n\nThe sisterhood is mostly social and cultural in nature. For example both cities will gift historical pieces to each other. \n\nFor example: The cities gifted each other this mural commemorating the sistership _URL_0_\n\nAviles for example also gifted St. Augustine a replica of their iconic seven head fountain in front of the Franciscan church \n\nAviles: _URL_1_\nSt. Augustine: _URL_2_\n\n\nIn St. Augustine there are numerous references (in the way of street names and landmarks) Not so much in Aviles\n",
"Mostly sorta like diplomatic and marketing penpals. However sometimes it can get more serious.",
"Paris and Rome are sister cities, because; \n\n > \"Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris.\"",
"It seems to be a \"hey, lets be friends\" thing with occasional publicity more than anything else.\nThe town I grew up in was twinned with Hellovoetsluis in Belgium and Hameln in Germany. I went to Hameln on an exchange trip (brilliant place). \n\nfun story - when I first heard that we were 'twinned' with Hameln (the belgian town came later, i think) I was about 5 and I honestly believed that it was exactly the layout except mirrored (because they drive on the right hand side of the road compared with our left)",
"My town Ipswich is paired with a town in France called Arras.\n\nThe reason for this is that it's where the soldiers from our town were stationed during the war. I guess the partnership is implemented to show some kind comradery and shows a personal side to the war.",
"My daughter will be going on a cultural exchange program to our hometown's sister city, Muroran Japan, later this month. The group is taking gifts and plaques for residents and officials within the city, and will be staying with families there who have volunteered to host them.\n\nMuroran has sent delegations here as well.",
"I live in Boring, Oregon and our sister city is Dull, Scotland. I think we're sister cities because our names are quite depressing.",
"I may not know all the technical or financial reasoning behind it but... Boston is paired with my home city, Belfast (N. Ireland). It is also paired with Nashville and Hefei (China).\n\nAs taken from this source about the Boston connection: _URL_0_ \"The agreement is designed to foster stronger economic development, trade and investment, tourism, youth, cultural, faith based exchange and educational linkages between the two cities, and to increase awareness of both cities as being growth cities in the connected health and life sciences, creative industries, tourism, financial services and the knowledge economy sectors.\"\n\nBut closer to my heart, The Boston connection was benefical for us Ice Hockey fans in Belfast. We have since gotten to host 2 amazing tournaments known as the Friendship Four. 4 NCAA Ice Hockey teams from the US come over to us and play 2 games on a Friday for points in the league. On Saturday, they play again (Winner plays Winner) to win the 'Tournament'. This is the first time I am aware of but nearly certain ever... that an Ice Hockey NCAA game was broadcast from outside of the US. Pretty cool for us riotous muckers. ",
"It doesn't really mean anything. It's just a way to encourage people from one city to look into the other. Sometimes the cities send each other stuff from the government.\n\nThere are statues from my city's \"sister\" around town. But if you never knew about sister cities you wouldn't really miss out on anything.",
"In the U.K. the number of towns twinned with EU towns increased to foster greater interaction with the EU when it was created from the EEC. \n\nI live in Huntingdon which is twinned with Wertheim-am-Main in Germany (there's a road called Wertheim Way) and Szeged in Hungary (there's no Szeged St cos no one can pronounce it apparently)",
"Grande Prairie, Alberta, and Grand Prairie, Texas are sister cities because they share a name and the Canadian one is smaller and often gets confused with the American one. ",
"Stops them from having wars, since our city was twinned with a town in Germany, our city can no longer raise its own milita to fight as we have exchanged groups of school children on \"language exchanges\" this is just a technically to get around UN rules of hostage keeping.",
"Can add a little something, after reunification, a lot of cities and towns in the former DDR (East Germany) were twinned with cities in the old West Germany to help foster bonds economically and socially, and tear down the mental divide for people aka \"die Mauer im Kopf\" ",
"Leeds in the UK is twinned with a city in Germany and in the centre of Leeds we have A massive statue of a German man carrying a barrel. \nThen once every year near Christmas we have the German market where Germans come over and everyone has their own market stall where they cook cheese and other food and everyone just gets very drunk in a massive tent drinking German beer. ",
"Hi! My job used to be managing two sister city relationships for a city here in Japan! AMA!\n\nMy understanding of the sister city program is as follows:\n- The program was originally started as a post-WW2 to heal the relationship between USA and Japan, but after that saw so much success, the idea was spread all over the world.\n\n- The main mission of the sister city program is to try to work towards world peace by building friendships between not just the cities, but the actual citizens themselves.\n\n- The level of activity and kinds of activity for each sister city varies a lot from relationship to relationship.\n\n- In my city, the mayors took turns visiting each other's city every 5 years, usually accompanied by their non-government sister city volunteer organization.\n\n- Activities included student groups, choir and performance exchanges (both amateur and professional), donation of commemorative items for parks, etc.\n\n- Student groups and the youth music exchange groups were particularly meaningful. When the young people communicated through the international languages of friendship, fun, goofing off, and music they easily formed deep bonds with each other. Within the sister city relationship, there were also sister schools, and many times the same families would take turns accepting each other's children as homestays.\n\n*It was very easy for me to see how they were forming bonds and ties and that it was truly inching the world forward away from war and hate and towards peace and love. *\n\nBeing the coordinator for these kinds of things was a lot more stress than you would think, just getting everything sorted out in advance, but when I saw the kids say goodbye to each other and they were just crying and crying, and when I heard the children from both cities singing together, it made it all worth it.",
"I'm so happy to run across this post. Many people do not know these sister city relationships exist. And as someone said earlier, some cities like mine don't really provide funding at all for it and it's completely run by volunteers here except one staff person.\n\nDenver and Brest, France became sister cities after world war 2 when a teacher from Denver's east high school visited Brest which was completely destroyed after the war because the Germans were occupying it and the allies bombed it. The teacher from Denver started a fundraiser and raised enough money to build a children's hospital for Brest. This is the first Sister City of Denver and the second in the nation, started in 1948 and still continues to this day. We do exchanges for high school students every year and will take adult every year from Denver to Brest, France. With a cool route from Paris-Brest , journeying through beautiful Normandy and Brittany. \n\nIn Brest there is a street named after Denver. Rue De Denver and in Brest there is a park called Brest Park. \n\nI think Eisenhower started it and it used to be called people to people. \n\nMany people still don't know Brest Park has anything to do about the Sister City so this year we will propose something to bring awareness about the relationship and history. \n\nIm excited out trip to Brest France starts Monday. \n_URL_0_\n\nLastly, ill give it up to the volunteers in Denver that make this possible and the one full time staff member. \n\nThis is an organization that needs more support from the City of Denver, it does such great work for young people to visit another country where the people have a city connection in common. \n\nIn Brest they put more of a financial investment into their committee. The deputy mayor of Brest visited Denver recently and the Denver mayor has been invited to visit Brest and had to decline this year. Hope he goes soon... \n\nJoin your local sister city committee it's a great way to meet new people internationaly!\n",
"Arguably, Tijuana and San Diego. Many of our citizens have family in TJ, and a large number of our own citizens live in TJ for the cheap housing and cross over to work in San Diego for the better job opportunities. TJ itself benefits a lot from the tourism of people visiting and vacationing from San Diego. We have fans of the TJ soccer team los Xolos living in San Diego and fans of the Padres living in TJ. Many beloved businesses from TJ have also made their home in SD, such as Tacos el Gordo and Braceros, and it is incredibly common for San Diegans to spend their weekends in TJ attending music or arts events. We also have the busiest border between Mexico and the U.S. making our cities the primary gateways to each others separate but deeply intertwined worlds."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/city-living/welcome-to-adelaide/sister-cities/"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.sister-cities.org/about-sister-cities-international"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.oakville.ca/culturerec/sister-city.html"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/524b579b013b4e9cbcea283c744f40da/pedro-menendez-de-aviles-mural-on-aviles-street-in-the-historic-district-d2b683.jpg",
"http://www.roadtosantiago.org/journal_2004/images_journal_2004/04.10.22_Fuente_500x350.jpg",
"http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BJAAER/fuente-de-los-canos-de-san-francisco-fountain-in-st-augustine-florida-BJAAER.jpg"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/News/News-37859.aspx"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"www.colorvoy.com"
],
[]
] |
|
1reaan
|
central banking
|
I am trying to understand better the situation the united states is in with continuing to print money etc, could you please explain the idea of central banking, and the central bank in the U.S.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1reaan/eli5central_banking/
|
{
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"That sums up most of it, I just think the debate on these liabilities has abated, since the housing sector has stabilized. The assets were a hot potato, but it has since been cooled. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3usn38
|
why do prosecutors go for maximum punishment even when they know they shouldn't?
|
Prosecutors most of the time push for the harshest penalty possible even when it is not beneficial for anyone. Why do they do this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3usn38/eli5_why_do_prosecutors_go_for_maximum_punishment/
|
{
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"cxhrh3h"
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"text": [
"The defense will fight their hardest to get the lowest penalty they can.\n\nSo if the prosecution pushes for a \"fair\" punishment, the defense will likely bring that down to a lighter punishment - in other words, one that is *not enough*.\n\nBut if the prosecution pushes for maximum punishment, and the defense pushes for minimum punishment, the end result will be somewhere in the middle - in other words, a fair punishment."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1rdnu4
|
how do we detect light when our eyes are closed?
|
.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rdnu4/eli5_how_do_we_detect_light_when_our_eyes_are/
|
{
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"cdm6qc8"
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"text": [
"Closing your eyes doesn't shut off your eyeballs. Light can still go through your skin. For proof take a small flashlight and push it against one of your fingers. Your finger will seem to glow"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4j6rjn
|
how does the word rem (rapid eye movement) have anything to do with sleeping?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4j6rjn/eli5_how_does_the_word_rem_rapid_eye_movement/
|
{
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"d343vo0"
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"text": [
"REM is a stage of sleep during which your eyes literally move rapidly under closed lids. Eyes can move rapidly any time, of course, but the term REM is associated with sleep because that name was given specifically to that stage of sleep."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4ad6ao
|
whats the difference between key and push-to-start engines ? why do expensive/luxury rides have push-to-start engines ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ad6ao/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_key_and/
|
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"text": [
"Push-to-start is more expensive. A standard key just fits in the tumblers like a door lock; for the newer key fobs where you insert a nub, the car's computer reads the digital signature of the key; for push-to-start, the key fob has to emit a wireless signal and the car has to be equipped with a receiver for that signal. ",
"Push-to-start engines are harder to steal. Whereas a key's ignition is set by a mechanism near to the cockpit, a car's engine will read the key from deeper inside, the button merely serving as an activation if and only if the key is detected.\n\nYou can steal an analog car by breaking open the ignition and shorting it. The button on your digital car does not work if the key's signal isn't present, you'd have to take apart half the dashboard.",
"Up until the 1990s or so, most cars used keyed ignition locks, where the physical match of the key and the lock allowed the car to be started. If the key matched the lock, the key could turn and activate the ignition and start switches.\n\nTo make this more secure, car manufacturers started trying other stuff like putting in magnets or resistors or other weird stuff to the key that the vehicle had to detect to allow the car to start.\n\nBy the mid-2000s car manufacturers had settled on a fairly standardized immobilizer system, where an RFID chip in the base of the key would communicate with the car via an antenna in the ignition lock. When such a car is started, the shape of the key allows the mechanical lock to turn and activate the ignition and starter switches (just like the old-type key). But in addition, the computer that runs the engine queries the RFID chip for a secret code. Without that code, the engine computer will either refuse to start the engine, or limit the vehicle's speed/range, or something like that.\n\nWith this RFID tech well-developed, manufacturers realized they could skip the physical key entirely. Instead of a more expensive carved key, they just give the driver an RFID chip encased in a fob. Instead of a $200 ignition lock cylinder, they wire the same start/run wires to a $0.10 button. As a bonus, by putting this in luxury vehicles first, the car manufacturers not only save that money in materials and assembly, but pretend that push-to-start is an expensive addition and command a higher price for the feature.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
41q2an
|
how do rental car companies make most of their money?
|
I rented a compact car this weekend from Dollar in Spokane, drove it over 1,000 miles and it was only $11/day. Around Christmas I rented a full-size car in Albuquerque for a week at $14/day. I know it is very competitive market and non-compact models are quite a bit more but I am perplexed at how they make any money.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41q2an/eli5how_do_rental_car_companies_make_most_of/
|
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"Because most people don't drive anywhere near that much. Wear an tear on most cars can be estimated at 50 cents per mile. At $11/day (I've never seen prices that low, but whatever) if you drive less than 20 miles per day, you made them money. Then there are things like insurance that many people buy, which has a much higher margin. Then there is the fact that after the cars have been used for a while, they get sold to recoup a pretty large percentage of the cost. Beyond that, economies of scale. Buying 100 cars at once is cheaper than buying them each individually. Many dealerships will give them discounts not just for bulk, but for the advertising. I bought my last car because of a positive experience renting the model for example.",
"Lower prices means more people renting and less cars sitting idle on the lot. They make money on volume vs price margins. Plus all the stuff Spare Liver said",
"The key is \"this weekend.\"\nCar rental companies do their serious business during the week, when business travelers pay more, sometimes way more.\nI just did a hotwire search for a car in Spokane from next Tuesday to next Wednesday -- a standard car is $24. And that's from hotwire, for someone who doesn't care about the brand. Business travelers have loyalty points, and are willing to pay more for certain luxuries (like not having to stop at the counter).\n",
"I just took two back to back business trips, and paid $500 and $400 for two mid-week rentals. And my car sat in the parking lot 95% of the time I had it. Figure x10 (low estimate) business customers per day for a single location.",
"I have worked as a manager for a rental car company for several years. \nThe key is supply and demand. Most people need cars during the work week and that's when the prices jump. The weekends are actually an off period and the prices will get dropped just the get the fleet on the road. \nOf course there are exceptions to the rule, like the holidays, but overall the good rule of thumb the weekends have better deals because it actually costs money for the rental office to sit \"fat\"",
"I was curious about this myself. I flew into spokane and drove to missoula. The car I rented was $12/day and I was in a brand new vw bug. It seems their profit would be marginal",
"I worked in logistics for one of the biggest rental companies, in one of the busiest districts of their operations. This company was split into two different companies, rental and sales, who were essentially two different companies operating under the same name. \n\nThe rental sector bought cars, looking for manufacturer deals on bulk sales. Sometimes they'd buy the cars at or close to MSRP, but more than 75% of the cars were bought at rates a normal person couldn't dream of. They didn't necessarily buy base model, but usually only bought cars with just enough options to hold value. They then rented these cars out, essentially getting anywhere from 1 to 3 times the amount they paid, from a single car. \n\nFrom here they had algorithms that determined the perfect time to decommission the cars, to both get as much money from renting it and maximize the resale value. After the cars were decommissioned, they were legally \"sold\" to the sales side, who were filled with extremely competent salesmen who then sold the cars to dealers, people, or if they had devalued unexpectedly they were sold through an auction. Any damage to the cars was usually paid for by the customer who did the damage or their insurance, at extremely inflated prices, so when all is said and done they end up making a very sizeable amount from the time the car is bought for the rental fleet until it's sold. It's actually really genius, and they employ hoards of people to keep everything running. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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[],
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[]
] |
|
1373oc
|
What is it about the triple bond in nitrogen molecules that makes it so inert?
|
It seems like something a lot of people take for granted but I keep hearing people say Nitrogen gas is inert because of its triple bond, with the implication being that more bonds means greater strength. However, nothing I have learned so far in chemistry (I'm a biologist so not much) has suggested that there is any correlation between number of bonds and greater stability and in fact generally suggests *less* stability.
Case in point: Oxygen molecules have a double bond but everyone know the stuff is reactive as hell. Alkenes and alkynes are far more reactive than saturated hydrocarbons. Carbon Dioxide is relatively inert but far more types of organism are capable of breaking those double bonds while only bacteria have evolved the ability to do the same with nitrogen.
These examples suggest that the stability of the triple bond in nitrogen appears to be more the exception than the rule. What gives?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1373oc/what_is_it_about_the_triple_bond_in_nitrogen/
|
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"text": [
"In terms of bond energies, triple bonds have a higher energy than double bond, which is in turn higher than single bonds. This tells us that triple bonds _require_ more energy to break. On that basis alone, you might think that triple bonds are inherently less reactive.\n\nHowever, when talking about _reactivity_, you can never just look at one side of the equation. You must also examine the enthalpy change of _reaction_ - not just breaking the bonds of the reactants. If there is a large negative enthalpy change of reaction - that is, the products are much more stable than the reactants - then that reaction is very thermodynamically favourable.\n\nIf a particular reactant can easily undergo reactions to form many stable products, then we would call that particular species \"reactive\".\n\nNote that we've only shifted the question from \"why are triple bonds in nitrogen more/less reactive\" to \"why do nitrogen molecules not readily form thermodynamically more stable products?\" I'll let those more knowledgeable than I to answer this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1mbkjx
|
liberal, conservative, left-wing and right-wing
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mbkjx/eli5_liberal_conservative_leftwing_and_rightwing/
|
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"text": [
"Left-wing > Liberal > Moderate < Conservative < Right Wing\n\nLeft wing is communism/socialism esque beliefs\nLiberal is socialism/equality beliefs\nModerate is middle group\nConservative is everybody has the right to succeed/personal freedoms\nRight wing is free market capitalism/ only the strong will survive\n\nIn 'Murica at least.",
"Great question! :)\n\nHere's the technical definition\n\n* \"Liberal\" refers to a diverse group of philosophers from the 1700-1800s, including Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. They differed on a lot of things, but all agreed on 1) absolute monarchy is bad, 2) state religion is bad, and 3) there should be clear definitions of freedom, such as a \"system of rights\". What those rights should be differ between liberals, from Mill's being a socialist, Smith and Paine sometimes being called \"proto-socialist\", and Locke possibly being seen as proto-capitalist. Liberals often believe these rights to be independent of nations.\n\n* \"Conservative\" refers to a political philosophy which is a response or disagreement with liberalism. Conservatives generally emphasize 1) keeping things the same or even going back to an earlier \"better\" idea for society, 2) nationalism and family affection, and 3) maintaining traditions. Burke is a good example of a conservative philosopher: he advocated a \"hierarchy of affections\" where families form the building blocks of loyalty, and national loyalty is something to be praised. He also believed certain prejudices are good as it allows people to make decisions faster. He believed revolutions are often misguided, and that its the responsibility of every generation to leave society basically the same as how they found it.\n\n\nHere are the colloquial definitions:\n\n* In the US, \"liberal\" is slang for anyone on the center-left. Similarly, conservative is slang for anyone center-right. This is a pretty vague term, as it tends to refer more to parties (Democratic party and Republican party) than to a particular ideology or political philosophy. The parties themselves are not very ideological: they often switch positions and have conflicting ideas.\n\n* Sometimes, and especially outside of the US, \"liberal\" is used synonymously with \"neo-liberal\". Neo-liberalism is a new tradition that is associated with certain modern beliefs about economics. Generally neo-liberals want the government to do very little. They strongly favor the capitalist system of ownership, and markets with little regulation, which they believe will regulate themselves without need of the government. The US Libertarian party is often considered to be \"neo-liberal\". Neo-liberals will likely disagree with a lot of what the original liberals had to say --- for example clearly opposing the democratic socialism of Mills, or Smith's criticism of capitalism --- although agree with other points of the original liberals, such as Mills championing of free speech rights.\n\nedit: ugh not enough coffee... it's JOHN Mill, not James xD",
"In the US liberal ad conservative vary from state to state as well, a conservative in California is most likely more liberal than a conservative in Alabama",
"In revolutionary France there was something called a National Assembly. Political parties sat on this National Assembly and would debate issues, similar to Congress.\n\nIn this area, people who favored change sat to the left of the room. The people who against reform sat to the right. In broad terms the \"left\" is pro-change, progressive, and reformist. The \"right\" is reactionary, and conservative. \n\nWhat the left and right means is often variable from country to country. Every political organization has a left and a right - in the USSR, for example, Stalin led the right-wing factions while Trotsky led the left-wing factions.\n\nNow, the term liberal and conservative is confusing because of this. In Europe, for example, liberal means those who are very similar to the American GOP. This is because the United States was born as a revolutionary liberal state - \"liberals\" in the United States, as a result, are those who are trying to conserve the regime envisioned by the Founding Fathers. In the USA conservatives are generally capitalist, individualist, constitutionalists. The left-wing, often called liberals, are the ones advocating reform. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
85twug
|
how does the extinction of the northern white rhino actually impacts the planet?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/85twug/eli5_how_does_the_extinction_of_the_northern/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dw00u5b",
"dw013jg",
"dw01fj7",
"dw02oed",
"dw07iz5",
"dw0g8pv"
],
"score": [
86,
2,
3,
23,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Going from three individuals to zero isn't going to make a difference now, that ship already sailed when the species' numbers collapsed years ago.\n\nThe issue is that the habitat destruction and poaching that killed the white rhino will continue to wipe out species and alter ecosystems long after the last one dies.\n\nThe loss of too many species of large herbivores will make it difficult to ever repair that ecosystem. There are a lot of plants and scavengers that depend on the roaming plant-processors to disperse seeds and chew through the underbrush.",
"It is impossible to know the long-term ramifications of the extinction of any species. It's possible that the extinction of some species a 500 million years ago will lead to *our* extinction tomorrow.\n\nBut it's less the extinction of *this specific species* and more *our gross cavalier attitude toward the existence of all other species.* While we can quibble over whether this species or that is important to the overall ecosystem of the Earth, or important to the survival of humanity specifically, but it's not really up for debate that we depend on the existence of other organisms for us to survive. And those organisms depend on other organisms. And so forth. We have a vested interest in preserving the web of organisms that supports our very existence, but we do not act that way.\n\nOur callous attitude toward other species is not carefully calculated such that it only affects species that we have determined are unimportant. It is indiscriminate. We are hurting plenty of species that we *know* are important. Fish and Bees are two big ones.\n\nHumans, as a whole, need to adjust our behavior, and the first step is by calling attention to the effects of that bad behavior.\n\n",
"The white rhino is a species humans tried pretty hard to prevent from going extinct, after we did a bunch of things that started it on the path to extinction. The significance of its extinction will depend on what we learn from it as a cautionary tale. The planet is largely unaffected by individual species, other than humans.",
" > actually impact the planet in any adverse manner?\n\nThat's kind of a loaded question in and of itself. \"Adverse\" implies some preferred natural state, but every form of life on Earth could go extinct and it'd just be *different* as far as the planet is concerned.\n\nSo to declare it adverse we need to pick our frame of reference. For instance, if the animal is a tourist draw, its loss is adverse to relevant tourism industries. If it fosters ecosystem biodiversity with land clearance, and that biodiversity is advantageous to farmers, then its loss is adverse to farmers. And so on. If its extinction results in loss of food for some form of vulture, then you could even call it adverse for that vulture. \n\nThe problem with the initial question is that \"the planet\" doesn't really care what is alive or dead. Extinctions just represent a change in the established order, there's no 'better' or 'worse' except as we define it to suit our own ends. ",
"It will have no effect.\n\nIt just shows that human beings are shitty custodians of the planet and the likely result of that fact is pretty horrifying for lots of other species, including ourselves.\n\nIt's like when the canary dies in your coal mine. You're next.\n\nEDIT: You have not grasped my point.",
"I'm a conservationist, but let's remember that extinction is the rule and survival is the exception throughout history. Attempting and expecting to keep the planet in stasis is absurd."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2r3d2n
|
the probability of an event happening in a specific moment.
|
Say I have a galactical timer that has an infinite number of digits showing at its screen, I know that's not very plausible but just bare with me. It's running and at a specific moment, I decide to stop it. I can read a value on the screen, indicating the time that has passed since the moment I started my timer.
It seems to me as if the probability of me stopping the timer at that exact moment is 0. Out of all the possibilites, which are infinite, I picked one. The probability of an event is 1 by the number of possible events. I know I'm wrong somewhere since it has happened, and so couldn't have had a 0 probability, aka impossible.
What's my mistake ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r3d2n/eli5_the_probability_of_an_event_happening_in_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cnc2is7"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The probability of a specific time is, in fact, zero. But here's the quinky dink: zero probability does *not* mean impossible, and you've stumbled onto a pretty classic demonstration of why.\n\nThe problem is that probability is only required to add up for certain \"nice\" kinds of events. If your number of events a large enough kind of infinity (yes, there are different kinds, that's a whole other thread), then the probability of A or B or C or D or blah blah blah is *not* necessarily the probability of A + prob of B + prob of C + etc. If you're talking about a finite number of events, or even a \"small\" infinity, you can do that. But a \"large\" infinity - like the number of real numbers - is too big."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3yqyi2
|
if we want to increase the value of a currency, why don't we just stop printing that currency?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yqyi2/eli5if_we_want_to_increase_the_value_of_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyfumsj",
"cyfuon7",
"cyfupef",
"cyfurqk"
],
"score": [
6,
5,
10,
6
],
"text": [
"We don't want to just increase the value of currency we want a stable currency. We do not want run away inflation or deflation. Both can cause major issues to an economy. ",
"increasing value of currency is called deflation, its detrimental to the economy because it deters spending. Imagine if your money was continually becoming more valuable, would you spend or save?\n\nAnd if you save... prices drop because of high supply and low demand. So you save even harder, and before long the whole machine grinds to a halt.",
"The amount of physical currency in circulation is pretty small compared to the amount of non-physical currency\n\nPrinting currency is really about keeping an adequate supply of it in the marketplace, bills and currency run out, get destroyed, etc. And with a bit of inflation every year, we always need more currency. Stopping it, just isn't a good solution to changing much of anything about the value and will just mess with the practical aspects of using currency.",
"Because deflation hurts the economy. It makes people want to not spend their money in hopes that it will be worth more the next day. This drives the economy down which turns into a feedback loop of people not spending money, prices dropping to spur demand, and people losing their jobs. [TED](_URL_0_) has a video explaining it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/XNu5ppFZbHo?t=1m50s"
]
] |
||
5xdl6x
|
what happens if i do not tip in the us?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xdl6x/eli5_what_happens_if_i_do_not_tip_in_the_us/
|
{
"a_id": [
"deh894d",
"deh8b3g"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Nothing. If they provide horrible service. Then don't tip. It's not a requirement to leave gratuity.",
"Nothing will happen to you, except you'll look like a jackass.\n\nThe server however will be going home with less money than they deserve, assuming they gave you good service.\n\nSide note: 20%, not 15% ;)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6o6pv4
|
How did early Texas ranches feed their cattle through the winter?
|
I understand that keeping cattle through the winter in temperate climates generally involves feeding them hay. Indeed this is the whole point of hay; it's why hay technology was developed.
So how did early Texas cattle ranches, with their enormous herds, get all that hay?
Before the railroad came through, I imagine it would have been impractical to ship the hay in. That means they had to grow it themselves. But huge hay-growing operations are conspicuously absent from accounts of Texas history.
And then there is the issue of keeping the cattle from eating all their winter feed in the summer. That would have required fencing off the hay fields. But ranchers fought hard to keep the area from being partitioned with barbed-wire fences; this fight doesn't make sense if they were already fencing off their own hay fields in this manner.
Something doesn't add up here. What am I missing?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6o6pv4/how_did_early_texas_ranches_feed_their_cattle/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkf2lls"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"Really interesting question here, and it made me want to learn more. In 1850, the U.S. Commissioner of Patents (the Department of Agriculture was not created until 1862) [posted a fascinating report from a rancher in northeast Texas](_URL_0_), who reported, \"Cattle require no feeding. In spring and summer, the grass upon the prairies furnishes excellent grazing, and the wild rye, cane, and winter-grass in the bottoms, furnish food during winter.\"\n\nIn his 1977 report, \"Early Northeast Texas and the Evolution of Western Ranching,\" (published in *Annals of the Association of American Geographers*) Terry Jordan suggests that some ranchers in northeast Texas without easy access to bottomland turned their surplus grain/corn over to their livestock because there was no easy way to transport that surplus out of the territory.\n\nDavid Surdam, in a 1997 *Southwestern Historical Quarterly* article entitled \"The Antebellum Texas Cattle Trade across the Gulf of Mexico\" furthermore suggests that the same problems existed for cattle. While there were drives to the coast and to Louisiana, he suggests that cattle in the pre-Civil War era were valued more for their *tallow and hides* than they were for their beef. Tallow and hides could be harvested and processed in the winter, relieving some of the population stress on the environment.\n\nC. Allan Jones' *Texas Roots: Agriculture and Rural Life Before the Civil War* on Page 178 offers this anecdote from a herder named Kuykendall from the 1830s: \"The prairie, both winter and summer, furnishes the most abundant and nutritious pasture, and even salt is not necessary for the stock, as the dew is highly impregnated with the saline properties of the sea.\"\n\nKuykendall had a league of land near Austin, by the way, and although he seems to offer a pretty optimistic picture, things weren't quite so rosy on the land. Grass, as you know, is subject to the vagaries of weather, and freezing rain or a winter storm could cost ranchers thousands of head. Jones offers other accounts illustrating this.\n\nErnest Staples Osgood's *The Day of the Cattleman* offers some more anecdotes of early (pre-Civil War) herds digging grass from beneath four feet of snow and surviving on that forage without great difficulty. While I wouldn't rely on Osgood for serious work, those anecdotes ring true if crossed with other information."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://books.google.com/books?id=OWVGAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Report%20of%20the%20Commissioner%20of%20Patents%20for%20the%20Year%201850%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage&q&f=false"
]
] |
|
4muq3m
|
why aren't jobs generally rewarded based on their required effort?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4muq3m/eli5_why_arent_jobs_generally_rewarded_based_on/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d3yfybl",
"d3yg4ye",
"d3ygp0i"
],
"score": [
11,
5,
18
],
"text": [
"Jobs are rewarded based on supply and demand.\n\nAn unpleasant job that doesn't add much value will pay higher than a more pleasant one that adds a similar amount of value. However, the CEO of a company creates a lot more value for the organization than the guy cleaning the bathrooms. Even though the latter is less pleasant, the CEO can clearly demand more money out of the organization.",
"First and foremost is skill.\n\nAny idiot can take out the trash. Hence why no one wants to. So you might get a little bump in pay if really no one is available to do it, but fortunately there are enough unskilled people in this world that people will line up every day to take out the trash.\n\nThis sums up pretty much every low wage job.\n\nHigher paying jobs require a lot more skill, even if they'd be things that some people would do for free. This skill requires investment of one's self in a craft, tools of the trade, and knowledge. You get paid more when you yourself are a tool of production (e.g. a developer), slightly less if you're a highly skilled maintainer (e.g. a security engineer) and even less if you're unskilled (dude who replaces mice and keyboards in an office).\n\nThe CEO's skills are networking, planning, vision... and failing, at least as of late. It takes a lot more discussion to explain the outrageous pay of the C-Class, but from everyone else down it's pretty self explanatory:\n\nAvailability of talent + skill/knowledge required = pay\n\nMaking Tacos? High availability, low skill needed = shit pay.\n\nManaging networks? Medium-low availability, high skill needed = Good pay\n\nHealing people (doctors)? Low availability, very high skill needed = You get a BMW!",
"I used to feel this way, but as I've progressed through the career ladder of my life, from factory machinist -- > factory floor supervisor -- > office sales -- > graphic designer -- > art director -- > visual department director, I've come to realize that pay is (in most cases but obviously not all) more accurately described as allocated based on level of *responsibility*. In ELI5 terms, generally the more your neck is on the line, the more you earn. \n\nMy job now certainly looks pleasant from an outside perspective - got my own office, benefits, decent wage etc. - but there are definitely times I pine for the simplicity of the old factory machinist position where all I had to do was show up and stand on the end of a line all night long. There's something to be said for the jobs that are lower stress for sure - I had far less gray hairs and sleepless nights in the factory than I do today. Of course it's rarely ever fair though... If I ran the world teachers, soldiers and nurses would be the ones driving Mercedes, not executives."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3352sm
|
why do so many americans take prescription drugs?
|
According to the [CDC website](_URL_0_) nearly 50% of adults take at least one form of prescription medication.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3352sm/eli5why_do_so_many_americans_take_prescription/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqhlg98"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"Because most prescription medications improve quality of life, and the people taking them can afford to do so."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-therapeutic.htm"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1q1k0i
|
During the early 1800s was there a certain type of abolitionist who believed that slavery should be outlawed in the North but allowed in the south?
|
During the early 1800s was there a certain type of abolitionist who believed that slavery should be outlawed in the North but allowed in the south?
Does anyone have proof that this type of abolitionist thought existed?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1q1k0i/during_the_early_1800s_was_there_a_certain_type/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cd88k69"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I've never heard of such a thing. For the early 1800s, we should use the word \"emancipationist\" instead of \"abolitionist.\" Abolitionists wanted the immediate, uncompensated end of slavery. They didn't really emerge until the 1830s with William Lloyd Garrison. Emancipationists desired a more gradual or gentle end to slavery, with compensation to the owners, often coupled with colonization back to Africa for the freedpeople. \n\nThat said, while the antislavery folks in the early Republic loved their qualifiers, I've never heard of a regional argument. The \"first emancipation\" of the Revolutionary period did occur on a state-by-state basis, so it could be argued that some people didn't see it as their business what happened in other states. There were others who believed that their hands were tied by a proslavery Constitution, and that without an amendment, federal antislavery legislation was impossible, so they might see the political necessity of living in a country with many slave states. Nevertheless, the arguments of the international antislavery movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were based on Christian morality and Enlightenment values, and both of these were universalist."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
17k5r3
|
how can nerves be reconnected, but not repaired?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17k5r3/how_can_nerves_be_reconnected_but_not_repaired/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c86akjl",
"c86bd9q",
"c86cncv"
],
"score": [
12,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's like a wire. You can kinda *splice* the nerves back together, but you can't run new wire to places where the old stuff died.\n\nBut, you say, nerves are so complex! How do they put them back together exactly right?\n\nThey actually don't. The brain just re-learns what the input means. ",
"Wish I knew... my balance nerve in one ear is dead and I get vertigo all the time. :( ",
"They can be sort of repaired. When my peroneal nerve was severed, there was about an inch gap between the two nerve ends, which they bridged with a section of nerve tissue from my left ankle. Nothing has come of it yet (it's considered a hail Mary procedure...) but I'm told that the healthy nerve will use the dead tissue as a sort of map to tell it where to grow. Hope that helps!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
84utya
|
why is toys r us the company responsible for the debt required to buy itself out?
|
So the way I understand how buyouts work a person or group of people buy up all the available shares of a company so that it's no longer publicly traded. What I don't understand is why Toys R Us is responsible for the money spent in the 2005 deal by outside investors to buy itself. It seems a little strange to me that the company that was bought out is responsible for the debt used to buy itself.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/84utya/eli5_why_is_toys_r_us_the_company_responsible_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dvsjhgd",
"dvsm4wb"
],
"score": [
7,
7
],
"text": [
"That's how leverages buy outs work. The debt is on the company and secured by the assets of the company. Rates are higher but lower risk for investors since they are limited to losing their equity investment. ",
"Because the old management team agrees to sell the company to the new management team. This is known as a 'friendly' deal. The new management team, who are technically 'employees' of the private equity team, arrange for the debt too be paid by the cash flows of the company. \n\nELI5: your dad owns a restaurant that produces $1000 of profit per month. Your dad sells it to a friend. That friend goes to a bank and says, \"I'm buying a restaurant and I need a loan. I will pay you $750/mo and that cash will come out of the profits of the restaurant.\" The bank says, \"OK, we have looked at the finances of the restaurant and we think this is a good deal. Here's the money. ***HOWEVER***, if you can't pay the loan, we are going to take the restaurant from you and sell it at a bankruptcy auction.\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
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