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How does hacking work? I understand the idea behind it, but what does a hacker actually do?
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Look up the stories about the guy that just got ten years for hacking celebrity phones/emails to get those naked pictures. He pretty much researched their backgrounds, leveraged weak forgot my password questions (high school mascot / pet names) , then got access to large amounts of their information. It's a pretty good example of a relatively simple hack and what somebody is able to get by doing it.
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It's like saying "If a PC is so easy to hack, why hasn't it been solved yet?" They're so easy to hack because they're based on PC's and there are uncountably many ways to do it if you're serious enough
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If all the glaciers in the world melted would the level of water go up or fall down?
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The water level would go up. A great deal of ice is on land. That water would eventually make its way to the ocean, raising the level. Ice already in the ocean melting would not raise or lower the ocean. While ice takes up more volume than water, it does not displace the equivalent volume of water in the ocean, because it floats.
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Almost all land would still be above water. Melting the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps would generate a rise of about 66 meters. This would flood many coastal areas, but not even come close to covering the continents. The amount of water stored in the clouds is negligible.
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Besides the radioactive element, are superheavy elements just like normal elements?
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Chemically, they are not the same as lighter elements. In very heavy atoms, [relativistic effects play an important role in the atomic structure](_URL_3_). Edit: Additional example links because the original isn't working. _URL_1_ _URL_0_ _URL_2_ _URL_4_
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Gold and other heavy elements are thought to be formed naturally in supernovae. Other elements can be transmuted to gold in the lab, but this is extremely impractical and expensive even for very tiny amounts. But this falls within the realm of nuclear physics and not chemistry. [Here](_URL_0_) is a good article about it.
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How does Southwest airlines stay profitable while offering relaxed baggage allowance and free cancellations or changes at the same price as other legacy airlines?
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Southwest focuses on efficiencies. For example, they only fly one type of airplane, so their pilots and mechanics have to be certified on only one kind of plane. Also, Southwest focuses on fast turnover time at the gate, which allows them to have one or two more flights per day per gate than their competition, so that helps profitability a lot.
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As someone who flies American and Southwest frequently, every player in the airline business is doing more than surviving. The weak carriers (USAir for example) have been bought by the strong carriers. Your opinions don't seem to reflect the entirety of airline passenger spending, as both United and American sold a lot of tickets last year.
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Do larger animals have larger cells?
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No, not in general. Cells are limited in size due to the fact that, as three-dimensional structures increase in size, the volume increases faster than the surface area. For cells, the membrane that covers the surface is also how they exchange gases, nutrients and waste with their surroundings. As the volume of the cell increases, it needs more surface area to exchange these, but when it gets too large, the size of the surface area can't keep up with the needs of the increased volume in the cell.
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It depends on what you mean by biggest. *Caulerpa Taxifolia* is a single celled green algae with multiple nuclei, with a connecting root that can reach 3 meters and leaves that can go up to 30 cm. In terms of lenght, this is the biggest. *Syringammina fragilissima* is a single cell organism that can reach up to 20 cm diameter, it has a ball-like structure made of countless interconnecting tubes. It is then the biggest cell in terms of diameter. Ostrich eggs are the biggest in terms of volume and weight, they are 10-15 cm across and have no empty space in their volume.
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What is the appeal for celebrities to take part in an AmA?
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3 main reasons: 1: publicity for their work 2: publicity for a charity 3: they love chatting with fans
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[ Humans are social creatures, psychologists say, and we evolved — and still live — in an environment where it paid to pay attention to the people at the top. Celebrity fascination may be an outgrowth of this tendency, nourished by the media and technology.](_URL_0_)
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What led to Scotland and Wales becoming a country instead of being part of England?
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Not really an accurately worded question. Wales was absorbed into England, and *part of England*, and was only technically recognised as a country within the UK separate from England relatively recently. Scotland was never part of England and was a country in its own right. It had been independent of England for a thousand years until a Scottish King took the throne of England - which united the Crowns in a Personal Union. When Scotland and England eventually united, they did so as a union of equals. Scotland retained its own legal system, it's own education system and judiciary. England never conquered Scotland in the way they did with Wales. Scotland wasn't absorbed into England. They joined to create a new State together. England does not equal the UK.
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I am no expert in this period, but here are a couple of thoughts. 1. With regards to Ireland: It's an island. That has certain strategic advantages. Wales, on the other hand, not only has borders on land, but is also really close to central England, making it potentially easier to more effectively invade (as England did successfully in the 12th century). 2. With regards to Scotland and Wales, it's worth noting that while Scotland had a centuries-long history as a united kingdom, Wales was used to being in divided kingdoms, and had only recently been united (by Llewellyn the Great). After his death, Wales again fell into smaller kingdoms which were at war with each other. Scotland was having trouble figuring out its line of succession at the time of the invasion by Edward I, but it was building on a much greater sense of unity than Wales. Sources: wikipedia [1](_URL_2_) [2](_URL_0_) [3](_URL_1_) and also Sharon Kay Penman's books on the conquest of Wales.
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Is it possible to "Fix" the genetic problems many dogs have (Pugs, Bulldogs, Etc) by continuing to selectively breed?
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No. Selective breeding will actually give rise to new problems, and potentially worsen existing problems. The genetic problems which are common among many dog breeds are due to a lack of genetic *diversity*.
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Selective breeding doesn't create new genes, it only selects for existing ones or ones that arise through mutation. Canines do not currently have the genetic basis for human level intelligence, thus you can breed smarter dogs but not suddenly make them smarter than the genetics allow for.
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Why and how do my feet shrink when I'm cold and/or swell when I'm warm?
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Blood flow. Your body limits blood flow to the extremities (hands and feet) when cold. It increases flow when hot. Different issues with blood pressure can make the swelling worse especially in feet where your veins have to do more work to counteract gravity.
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In general, your feet are the last place which your body warms up. If your internal organs and your brain are cold (which is likely, since those parts of your body were naked) then blood will be diverted from the extremities such as hands and feet to keep these parts warm. Even wearing socks won't keep your feet warm if there's reduced blood flow to your feet. Having said that, if you are in any way worried about this, please see a doctor who will be able to check whether your blood circulation is normal.
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What is actually making the noise coming out of the exhaust of a car?
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Remember that even in idle, thousands of tiny explosions happen every ~~second~~ minute. Far too frequently to make out the individual sounds. And they reverberate through the car and are modified by the muffler.
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Your friend is right, it is caused by a clap of gas rushing into the vacuum sending out the sound waves
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What have been the most successful revolutions and coups-d'etat in postcolonial sub Saharan Africa?
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Probably the best example would be modern South Africa and the end of Apartheid. This definitely was a (relatively) bloodless revolution, and it resulted in the enfranchisement and granting of increased economic and mobility rights to millions of black South Africans. The national elections in 1994 represented a culmination of decades of internal resistance and campaigning, as well as worldwide pressure on the previous regime. To this day democracy remains relatively strong (on African terms) in South Africa, and even though there have been bumps economic participation has widened and is now benefiting a much wider group of people. A very interesting example is that of Bob Denard, a frenchman (wiki link: _URL_0_) who managed to initiate four coups in the nation of Comoros, often on his own. The man was certainly good at overthrowing governments, although he was tried as a war criminal.
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There's a good answer to the Africa part of your question here: _URL_0_ edit: credit where credit is due - /u/khosikulu
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What planets were known to non-Western cultures before modern telescopes, and what names did they give them?
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[This is a nice site](_URL_0_) featuring the possibilities in a wide variety of languages (including Klingon!). In general, people were aware of the planets out to and including Saturn, but not beyond. Words for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are based either on the living languages adoption of terms or the names of the gods who lent their names to these planets after discovery. In opposition, Uranus is on the limits of visibility for people with extraordinarily good eyesight, but it is so dim and slow moving from the earth point of view that it was not recognized as wandering across the star field until after the invention of the telescope.
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They didn't know that it was other things in the solar system. The term "planet" comes from the Greek term "asteres planetai" - which means "wandering star". They knew that it was something strange, but until the first telescopes were turned to the sky nobody knew what was going on up there. Even the simplest of telescopes can resolve the Galilean moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus.
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Is there any support for fields that exist that have no observed particles that they interact with?
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You can easily add extra fields to your theory that just don’t interact with anything, and/or have enormous masses, so you’d never be able to produce that kind of particle. But by definition these things would be unobservable (at least currently), so you can’t experimentally falsify that they exist.
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Yes, this is possible. The study of fields directly led to the prediction of the Higgs field, Higgs mechanism, and Higgs boson (which was not detected until ~50 years later). The existence of a Higgs-like mechanism was already more or less known to be fact, though the details of the Higgs field were not known until the Higgs boson was discovered (and we are still learning more about both today). Other examples of measuring field effects without measuring particles/quanta would be the [Casimir effect](_URL_1_) and [van der Waals forces](_URL_0_). Hope that helps.
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When one twin is gay, what percentage of the time is the other one gay too?
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[One study](_URL_0_), from 1993 and relatively small-scale, found that, among monozygotic ("identical") twins in which one was gay, the other one was also gay in 66% of cases. Among dizygotic ("fraternal") twins, it was 30%.
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Why assume? Science is almost certain that sexual orientation and gender identity are at least partially determined by the in utero environment during fetal development. _URL_0_ It's a developing theory, but it's held up well so far. And knowing this, we can answer your question: the other twin would not by default be gay, because the fetuses may react differently to their environment.
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Is there any truth to the notion that a musical instrument made of wood (guitar, violin, piano, etc.) will sound better the more it is played, due to the vibrations at musical frequencies the wood is exposed to?
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This is a hard subject to track down, doesn't seem to be well researched. Apparently one company even had a service to "age" guitars by exposing them to powerful vibrations. They changed their website so I had to track it down on _URL_1_: _URL_0_ This particular company vibrated the instrument as a service. It sounds like bullshit but apparently there was a change in measurable frequency response. If the graph is true, then it works.
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When playing an instrument, what really matters is the relationship between notes. That is, it was important, like it is still today, that the difference in frequency between tones was fixed. If you were going to play in an ensemble, one instrument would be chosen and the others tuned according to it.
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If one mole of a substance is made up of a large molecule and a mole of another substance is made up small molecule, how according to Avagadro's Law can these very different substances in terms of size still occupy the same volume at STP if the larger molecules have less room to move around?
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All of the relations of ideal gases only hold if the average distance between molecules is much larger than the size of the molecules, so that their sizes don't matter. If the molecules are close enough for their size to matter than you have to start taking into account intermolecular interactions. One model of this is the van der Waals gas. If it's in a different state than a gas, gas laws don't apply.
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Stuff moves in/out of the cell via the cell membrane. More cell membrane = more stuff able to move in/out. For cells of increasing size, the cell membrane size grows as the surface area (A = 4 pi r^2) but the cell volume grows faster (V = 4/3 pi r^3).
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In Norse mythology, the god Baldur dies. Was this a dynamic event for the Norse religion, where there was a specific, recorded point in time when Baldur died?
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The death of Baldur is a prophesied event, and not something that was to have happened already. Völuspá is divided in three parts, so to speak. It begins with the Völva, which is a seeress or a prophet, recounting the creation of the world, then she talks about some of Odin's secrets to confirm her powers, and then she goes into prophecies such as Baldur's death, Ragnarök and the world being reborn Baldur's death, and later return from Hel after Ragnarök, happens during the prophecies. So they are supposed to be events that have yet to happen. This is what I remembered from Norse mythology classes, of which there are plenty in Icelandic curriculum. But I used _URL_0_ to verify what I remembered.
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hi! here are a few related posts for more info ... Religion? [Norse Viking Religion?](_URL_0_) A bible? [Why did traditions like the baltic and norse pagan religions not rely on any written accounts, even when by the time they were replaced by Christianity, there should have been enough people capable of writing it down?](_URL_3_) a bit of insight about one myth [In Norse mythology, the god Baldur dies. Was this a dynamic event for the Norse religion, where there was a specific, recorded point in time when Baldur died?](_URL_1_) ... and lastly, a very interesting [4-hour lecture series](_URL_4_) at Cornell University, the *Viking Mind* by [Professor Neil Price](_URL_2_), which describes Norse beliefs and practices, as derived from contemporary accounts, Norse sagas etc, and archeaological evidence.
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Does increased exposure of suicides lead to more suicides?
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Yes. It's called suicide contagion and has been in the news lately (sniff, Robin Williams, sniff). This [NY Times piece] (_URL_0_) has a nice recap, including lots of links to peer-reviewed papers. Coverage of suicides can make people think that it's an acceptable option.
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Evolution can only remove factors which are solely or mostly genetic. Suicide is not.
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In a recent Nerdist interview, Josh Brolin blames the failure "Jonax Hex" in part on revenge trading. What is revenge trading?
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'Revenge trading' is when you make impulsive financial decisions based on losses. My suspicion is that what he's talking about is a situation where the movie started running over budget and the financiers started interfering heavily with the shoot to save money at any cost.
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Revenge is personal. You get revenge on someone that harmed you. You avenge someone by getting revenge on behalf of someone else. For example, you kill the man who wounded you, you got revenge. You kill the man who wounded your friend, you’ve avenged your friend. Edit: grammar
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Different cultures draw the line in different places, but how do different groups within science define death, for humans in particular?
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There is *circulatory* death, when your heart stops working. This is a well-defined death. There's also *brain* death, when your brain stops functioning. It is defined by the moment your brain cannot longer think, and (try to) control movement. Automatic movement in response to stimuli like a heartbeat and other vital functions could still happen. There's not one definition, even within one scientific area.
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Having worked in Papua New Guinea I love this story.... Years ago there was a huge epidemic of deaths in PNG and no one knew why; hundreds a year. Some astute epidemiologists noticed a predilection to women so they began observing closely. Turns out the funeral practices involved the women eating the brains of the deceased thus being infected by the prion then dying and re-transmitting. It was called kuru. _URL_0_
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Why was Coors Beer not allowed to be sold east of the Mississippi in the 1970s?
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it's not that it was illegal - that was just a made up plot point for the movie. Coors wasn't sold east of Texas for the simple reason it was a regional product. As more people bought Coors, Coors was able to expand out farther. Here's a newspaper clipping from Lawrence, KS in 1977 talking about how Coors was beginning expansion into Washington state and Missouri: [Lawrence Journal-World, "Coors Plans Beer Sales Expansion", August 2, 1977](_URL_0_)
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A great account of how breweries adapted to Prohibition can be found in [this section](_URL_0_) of [Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition](_URL_1_) by Daniel Okrent. As others have posted, they experimented with various non-alcoholic products (with varying success), and by selling materials that allowed for legal and semi-legal home brewing. Most bided their time in hopes of the repeal of the 18th Amendment. Few were able to do so. When the legitimate beer market returned in 1933 after Prohibition, several mega-breweries that had survived Prohibition came to dominate the market. Great book, entertaining and informative, highly recommended.
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Why do some construction projects take so long?
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Manpower is crazy expensive. It is by far the most expensive part of almost any construction project. If 100 guys can do in an hour what 10 guys can do in 9 hours, you hire the 10 guys. Every truck in that video has a driver in it who is spending most of his time sitting around waiting for the other trucks to get out of his way. That's a costly inefficiency. So unless you absolutely need it done fast it's almost always cheaper to do it slow.
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Primarily land and labor costs. If you want to build a new road, you very often have to buy the property from the present land owner who will want a premium. Once the land is purchased, you then have to hire a private company to build it to modern building codes, which not only has to account for its own rather high skilled labor rates, but equipment and material costs, along with a decent profit margin. Before you know it, even a relatively "simple" project like a small bridge runs into the millions of dollars, which has to be paid for with taxpayer dollars in a country that hates paying taxes, even if it's for the greater good.
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How come you can push your tongue out since a muscle can only contract?
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This here should answer your question _URL_0_ The genioglossus muscle is responsible for "protrud(ing) the tongue as well as depressing its center"
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The tounge is actually a collection of many muscles that can only move in on direction but because of their locations and number your tounge mouth and face are able to create really complex shapes
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How did the organisms after the Last Universal Common Ancestor get energy in the 200k years till the first organisms with photosynthesis?
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It's likely that the earliest organisms were heterotrophs, surviving by consuming naturally occurring molecules (i.e., molecules produced by non-biological processes, such as geothermal vents, etc. [It's been theorized that LUCA and their immediate descendents harnessed inorganic proton gradients, such as those known to form at geothermal vents](_URL_0_)
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We don't know, frankly, because a) the fossil record is woefully incomplete, and b) we have no way of knowing whether biomass density or photosynthetic efficiency would have been exactly the same. In addition, a lot of oxygen comes from oceanic cyanobacteria - *Prochlorococcus* ([Partensky et al., 1999](_URL_0_)), for instance.
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Why is cold water heavier than hot water?
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Colder things have less kinetic energy in their molecules, meaning their particles move slower. This means more particles can be in the same space compared to something with more kinetic energy. Thus making cold water more dense, more mass can fit in less space, so the same volume of cold water is more massive than warm
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Cold water is denser than hot water (actually it is densest at 4°, but above that this is true). This means 1 liter of cold water is heavier than 1 liter of hot water. If you fill cold water into a canister, close the lid and heat it up, the weight will not change (in any measurable way), only the volume will increase.
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What is the best guess of the shape of the Universe?
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With the flat topoly the universe has, it is most likely infinite, thus the question of the shape is meaningless. Perhaps the universe has a small curvature, but this doesn't seem to be the case (our measurements could be too inaccurate). Another possibility would be a flat universe with a finite size, but we don't have found any evidence (repeating structures) for that either. So for the best knowledge we have, the universe is a flat and infinite one. Note that flat doesn't mean it has the shape of a paper sheet (afterall it's threedimensional), but that it generally follows euclidian topology, or in other words it's flat like an airstrip or the surface of an table in any direction you would go.
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It would help to have a link to the other conversation, to know exactly what you mean. As far as I know, there is no "flat universe theorem," only a "flat universe theory." The key difference between the phrases is of course that a theory is just one of many possibilities. You're right that randomly guessing the universe is flat would be as much of a mistake as randomly guessing that the earth was flat. The universe could be flat or positively curved (like a sphere) or negatively curved (like a saddle), or more likely, some mix of the three. However, just as we can discern the shape of the earth by noting that ships disappear over the horizon, we can also discern some of the shape of the universe by looking at the behavior of galaxies very far away. This Wikipedia article will explain some of this in more detail: _URL_0_
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Why we're supposed to drive with one foot instead of both
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When driving two footed, if your right foot is on the gas and you need to brake NOW, the instinct is to slam both feet down, but car engines almost always overpower car brakes, and so you will keep going, or best case slow down much more slowly than you would otherwise. For manuals you always use the left foot for the clutch, and the right foot for the brake and gas. Occasionally some people will do a heel-toe start where you push both the brake and the clutch with the left foot but that is a VERY niche case. Not sure if this is reversed for right hand drive countries or not.
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I would imagine it's for balance reasons seeong as how we swing the arm opposite of the foot we're putting forward but I don't know the details however.
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I just turned 40 so I'm technically an internet grandpa. Someone please explain to me hashtags. I see them everywhere, TV, news stories, social media. What is the point of them?
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You're probably aware that the most basic language for writing a website is called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). There has been a function in HTML forever called "named anchors," where you could link to somewhere halfway down a page. As an example, if I link you to the start of Section 2 of a Wikipedia article: _URL_0_ If you click that link, it'll take you halfway down the page to the anchor named Engraving. HTML uses the "#" symbol to say that whatever follows the # is the name of an anchor on the page, not part of the URL. So we've been using this functionality for 10+ years, and then Twitter comes along, and Twitter uses this functionality to allow people to embed links in their tweets. A Twitter hashtag becomes a link that allows people to easily see other tweets about the same topic. So if I'm watching the moon landing, I can tweet "Really enjoying watching the #moonlanding" - and anyone can click on #moonlanding and see everyone else who has made a tweet with the same hashtag.
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Teach your Grandma to use Facebook, then teach her to use Reddit and see which one goes better. Facebook Imo is currently much more appealing to the average joe. Not to mention Reddit is anonymous and it in no way helps you connect with friends and family. If I post a picture of myself here, a bunch of people would tear it apart and leave comment like "You know this isn't Facebook right?" Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter are all very different things with very different uses.
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How does a major motion picture (such as Batman vs. Superman) have enough footage for an "epic" trailer, but have nearly a year left before release?
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Depends on how the were shot and what the editing process is In modern films it takes almost as long to edit and add the CGI as it does to shoot the film so somebody would storyboard the trailer and they would finish the footage needed for this first
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As LasertagSP mentioned, these writers have a general idea for how long their script will shoot for. When they have a script ready for development, it goes through many revisions and many eyes take a look at this script. It is edited/re-edited constantly. Scripts go through table-readings to ensure it's approximately the right length. When filming, directors ensure they have about 40 hours of recorded film per 1 hour of final product. A lot of these are redundant but can help the editor/director flesh out the show if need be.
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I captured the following back to back shots of a lightning bolt this evening. Why does the bolt appear so broken up in the second shot?
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Your second picture looks very much like [bead lightning](_URL_0_). It appears at the tail end of a lightning strike, it's seen often enough that people believe it's a real phenomenon (and not a camera artifact or something like that), but rarely enough that it's a special treat to get a picture of it (congratulations), and no one really knows what it is.
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When lightning strikes, the air long entire path of the bolt is superheated, creating a pressure wave which is what we hear as thunder. Lighting bolts may stretch out pretty long with some parts of the bolt closer to you than others. Sound takes time to travel through the air, so you end up hearing the sound generated by the part of the bolt closest to you first, but it continues to rumble as the sound generated from the parts of the bolt further away reach you.
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How are baths considered hygienic
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soaking has its benefits, however generally baths are more for relaxation, and less for cleaning. Having said that, oils will float to the surface. You can test this by pouring cooking oil into a glass of water.
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Towels are designed to absorb the water on your body after a shower. Even though the water itself is clean, and your body is clean too, the towel will be wet and will need to dry up during that process the towel is moist, if you took a hot shower, your bathroom is probably relatively hot and humid too these are the perfect conditions for mold to grow, therefore, over time, your towel will be filled with mold if you do not clean it up, even though you are clean when you use it By the way, you're not completely bacteria free even after a shower, soap and shampoo is not made to kill everything on your skin, it would be too aggressive
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On Moon, where does the height of mountains "begin", when there is no sea level?
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Altitude is calculated from a reference sphere with a radius of 1737km. So the sea level (or altitude 0) is defined as being 1737Km 'above' the center of mass of the moon.
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OK. Triangulation. Now, how big is impact of the form of the mountain? Usually, when climbing, there are many false tops - you keep climbing and climbing just to discover that what you assumed was a top, was actually just a bump. And what is height exactly? It's said above sea level, but it probably means accumulating lots of errors? The definition would be more clear if the Earth was an ideal spherical ocean, with mountain peaks sticking out of it, but even the ocean isn't spherical. Wouldn't that mean that heights would be different if we started going from different shores? What about tides? They probably mandate starting the measurement at a specific time, when the tide is low/high/middle?
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Is it possible to remove time as an independent variable from equations?
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If I understand your question correctly, if you took an example of a rocket lifting off, it is possible to take an equation like f=mdv/dt and turn it into, say, a function of velocity with respect to mass v(m). I had to do this on a test once, I can probably find it and upload it if you would like to see. The math for the particular problem I had was hideous though haha *edit:* [_URL_0_](_URL_0_) -here is the question I was referring to. My handwriting isn't the best :/
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No one knows the answer to that question. Time could be fundamentally continuous or fundamentally discrete, or it could even be that below a certain time scale we will need to replace time by some new concept.
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How common was it for WWII Veterans to serve in Vietnam?
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Any soldiers who served in both Vietnam and WWII would have been field grade or higher officers, or senior NCOs. As far as I'm aware, there are no available numbers for men who served in both wars, but the army has kept track of three-time Combat Infantryman Badge awardees, almost all of whom saw combat in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. 324 individuals are on the list, making it a very prestigious club. These represent men who met the following standard: 1. Be an infantryman satisfactorily performing infantry duties. 2. Be assigned to an infantry unit during such time as the unit is engaged in active ground combat. 3. Actively engage the enemy in ground combat.
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I don't have a number for you, but I can say that there were many jobs to be done in the military that didn't involve combat. In the Canadian Army of the Second World War, it reached a point where it took 7 support personnel (ie. Service Corps, administration) to support one infantryman (Source: Burns, Manpower in the Canadian Army 1939-1945). Some criticized this large "tail" vs. "teeth" ratio as an overly bureaucratic waste, but I imagine it was much the same in the American Army. Combat roles were becoming more technical, and fitness and training more important, so, there had to be a large support base, and thus, many veterans who were in roles where they never faced combat.
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How is that the ideologically secular Baath party became associated with Shia Alawites in Syria and Sunni Arabs in Iraq?
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The Syrian military was a means for the historically underrepresented and poor Alawite minority to improve their social standing and become educated. Also, during the French occupation many Alawites were recruited by the French in Syria. The Sunni middle and upper class had always viewed a career in the military as something better suited for those of lower social standing. The Baath party had started as a purely political movement but after a number of military coups and purges the military came to control the party. The last of those purges was initiated by Bashar Al Assad.
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Simply, after the death of Mohammed the Islam world got into a political conflict on to decide who would be the caliph(some sort of pope). Ali, who is the nephew and son in law of the prophet and has the strongest claim to the throne gets killed in a mosque during a prayer by the opposition. Those who believed in him became Shii and those in others Sunni. Basically the god, prophet and book is the same but practicing methods are different. You can get a lot of info on the net. Kurds may be from both sides, you've heard from them cause they are stuck between Syria(shii), Turkey(Sunni) and Iraq(both) and currently having an ongoing conflict with extremist Sunnis, Isis.
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why are those pipelines not straight? just 90 degrees to their destination. why do they have "bumps"?
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Thermal expansion will cause pipes to expand in Summer, and shrink in water. So, the bend allows it to flex, so that it doesn't break the pipe. Normally, they use expansion gaps for that, but when you're transporting liquids or gasses, leaving a gap in the pipe tends to have sub optimal effects. It's known as a loop expansion joint.
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_URL_0_ This is what a tube looks like on the inside. When its pushed out, an small amount of each stripe is pushed out in a similar ratio.
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Is it easier to start a bonfire when it’s hot outside or when it’s cold outside?
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Hot or cold may play a small factor in how much your fuel has dried out, but fundamentally you can have hot wet wood or you can have cold dry wood. The important thing is you have lots of small dry tinder, with some dry twigs and grass on top, slowly building up with larger and larger pieces before you get to your logs. And the core of your fire, where your dry stuff is should have good airflow. If you have enough dry stuff with adequate airflow at the core/base of your fire the rest will take care of itself wet or dry.
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The _tip_? The tip is not the hottest part. The _base_ is. One only needs to look at the colour of the flame. The light emitted is due to blackbody radiation of soot and other molecules in the flame. Therefore, the hotter the flame, the lower the wavelength of photon emitted. Let's examine a typical [candle](_URL_0_). You can see that the base is _blue_, while the upper part of the flame is yellow/red. Blue is higher frequency, therefore higher energy light, and it comes from the _hotter_ part of the flame. Now, what you _experience_, probably, is that you can get closer to the base of the flame than you can the tip, and that has everything to do with convection. Cool air is drawn into the base of the flame, where it gains lots of heat, rises up and diffuse outwards. As a result, you can have your fingers very close to the sides of the base of the flame, compared to approaching from the top.
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How do we know what's on the other side of our galaxy? Past the galactic core.
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Gas and dust scatter and absorb much of the visible light which comes from behind the center of the galaxy. However infrared, microwave and radio aren't attenuated as much, so we can get a picture using those regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Just like how visible light is scattered by clouds but you can still listen to the radio on a foggy day. But there is still quite a bit which we still can't get a clear picture of. About 10% of the sky is obscured by the center of our galaxy. _URL_0_
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We don't know what the milky way looks like. However, we know what Andromeda looks like, we know that the milky way has at least one 'arm', and we have some idea of the typical patterns that galaxies make. With this, we can predict or guess what the milky way looks like. Also, we are not able to send a satellite out of the milky way, pictures that you have seen are usually from Andromeda. TL;DR We don't, so we take a guess and show pictures of other galaxies.
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Why are major news outlets and newspapers allowed to endorse and donate to candidates? Is that not a conflict of interests with a clear bias?
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There's a common myth that the media need to be unbiased. This is false. Most media outlets are privately owned, and are free to have any amount of bias they want.
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I know a little bit about this, because my husband ran for office. Most of the money we raised went to advertising - campaign signs are expensive, mailings and postage are expensive (a single 5x7 glossy mailed to 10k people, cost about $9K dollars when you factor in design, printing and mailing). Some (very small) amounts went to a fundraiser we had (we paid for food, which we cooked and served ourselves). When the election was over, we gave small checks to two of the people who'd done a ton of work for us, and gave the rest to another local candidate.
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Why was Vercingetorix crowned at Bibracte and not Gergovia?
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Vercingetorix wasn't crowned at Bibracte--other than Caesar's statement that he was hailed as king by his followers and Florus' use of the title king when speaking of him we don't know whether he was actually conferred monarchy or not. I find it unlikely that he was every *actually* made king, as Caesar doesn't call him that and his father had been put to death, despite already controlling Gaul, for trying to make himself king. Vercingetorix was made commander of the Gallic armies in revolt at Bibracte in 52. Very different. Vercingetorix had returned from his exile in Gergovia some time before, and had begun the revolt from there. By the time Vercingetorix was at Bibracte the Aedui were no longer a Roman ally but had joined in the revolt--Caesar says that Vercingetorix was made commander during a council of all the Gauls, which had been summoned at Bibracte.
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Caesar does make the point in de bello gallico, that Gallic was actually fairly close to Latin. He apparently had to start sending messages in Greek because the Gauls understood (but did not speak) Latin. Think that the name Vercingetorix shares some features with Latin, it means something along the lines of "great warrior king." Rix is the word for king, in Latin the word is Rex, it's not hard to imagine that they shared quite a bit of vocabulary.
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Why do we see things better when we squint?
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Light passes trough your lens which focuses it on a part in the back of your eyes called the "retina". When you squint, you are letting less light trough your eyes, you are shielding of light coming from above, below, and from the sides. Now your eyes only get the (little) light coming from the front and can focus that more easily to make a sharper image. You are also changing the shape of your lens (a little) which makes the light passing trough fall on your retina better* *not always, mostly true for older people. ***Note: it's a bit simplified, but complete.***
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Squinting helps focus the light and cuts out the "extraneous" visual stimuli. _URL_0_
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How do historians even retain that much information?
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Teaching, research and writing. I hate to be that bland, but that's what it amounts to for most of us. When you teach a particular subject year after year, it locks the details in. When you do archival research and write at least some of that detail into publications or even just notes, it locks in more of it. To some extent you are the beneficiary also of fellow historians and their eye for detail and information--e.g., in some fields, enough people notice and repeat some of the same illustrative details and they become part of our collective disciplinary memory.
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In the same way that the other commenters have said, oral histories are generally measured for accuracy by weighing what's been told against what's likely and what other oral histories, written evidence, archeological evidence, and other sources have to offer. Frequently, however, given that there's many ways in which oral histories can become factually fallible, it's often more useful to use them in a way that investigates meaning, rather than just mining for facts. There's a great many oral histories that contain information that we either definitively know to contain factual inaccuracies or can reasonably assume to be factually inaccurate. That doesn't make them useless. Quite the opposite. The way we shape stories, remember things, and present our own histories can be a much more meaningful source of information about a person, culture, or event than just a basic recalled fact.
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Can crimes be committed in space, considering you're not under any country's jurisdiction?
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Space more or less works like ships on the Ocean. Spacecraft belong to the country that built them, and that countries laws apply onboard, just like it would if you were sailing on a ship that flew that countries flag. This is a little more complicated on the International Space Station, where each individual module remains the terriroty of the country that built it.
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Have you ever been working in a tight space, with a low ceiling, crouched down, and then, without thinking, you stood up and banged your head? If you're not careful, that happens *every time* in space. Imagine pushing off from one end of a tube with about the same amount of force as, on earth, you'd use to get up on your tip-toes. When you reached the other end, your impact would be like walking, normal-speed, into a door. It hurts and you can break things. People in space move their bodies and their equipment slowly on purpose, because otherwise they'd go crashing into the walls and end up covered in bruises. (Besides, they don't have far to go. Space is unfathomably huge, but the space station is tiny.)
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Why does your hands tend to dry out more easily if you wash them multiple times a day?
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Your skin being moist and not dry requires a balance of water and oils. Washing your hands strips oils away from your skin making them dry.
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Your skin is covered in oils that keep it from becoming dry. When you wash your hands, especially when you use soaps, you remove these oils, thus drying out your skin.
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Why does saffron dissolve perfectly in hot water, but not at all in hot oil?
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Oil is generally hydrocarbon chains which prefer interaction through dispersion forces while water interacts primarily through dipole dipole interactions. So saffron must be composed of primarily more polar molecules which mix with water and not oil.
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Hot water doesn't actually dissolve fat, that's one of the fundamental properties of fats and oils, they aren't water soluble. What happens is that hot water increases the temperature of fats, transitioning them from solids or thick viscous liquids into a much thinner, less viscous liquid. Basically it melts them, since many fats have a relatively low melting point. In the warmer state the fat or oil is more susceptible to being broken up or deformed.
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How did Hamiltonianism come to be?
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You might want to clarify what you mean by "Hamiltonianism." Do you mean the economic plan supported by Hamilton in opposition to Jefferson?
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Hamiltonanism was a political/economic belief in a Strong central government, encouragment of national industries and commercial economy and a distrust of the common man. The ideas of it still have no left us according to Michael Lind. It has been a persistent battle between Jeffersonian agriculturalists vs Hamiltonian commercialists. Its platform was carried by prominent politicans like Henry Clay in the 1830s and was somewhat carried out by the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. _URL_0_ Michael Lind: *Land of Promise: An economic history of the United States*
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If water is a incompressible fluid why does pressure increase when going under water? Wouldn’t the pressure stay the same since the density of the water doesn’t change?
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First of all, water *is* compressible. Just not very easily. For most purposes, we can think of it as being incompressible. So let's do that. Things work the opposite of what you are thinking. If the water was compressible, it would absorb the force (caused by its weight). That force would literally be used to overcome the repulsive forces between molecules. But instead, that force doesn't get absorbed by the water molecules, and is instead passed on to everything in the water in the form of pressure. Think of it like this. You and a buddy are holding opposite ends of a long sponge. Your buddy pushes on the sponge. Do you feel much force? No, because the sponge just gets compressed instead. Now imagine that instead you and your buddy are holding opposite ends of a baseball bat. He pushes. Do you feel it? Yes, because the bat doesn't compress much.
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I think your question is more "why are liquids incompressible" than anything. Liquids are made up out of molecules (elemental mercury is, well, an element. This means it is made out of only 1 kind of atom), in this case water (2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen) and Mercury. The mercury atom is very large and very heavy which is a large part of the density of the liquid. In solids and in liquids the atoms/molecules are already as close as they can be; trying to compress them causes the electrons around them atoms to resist this compression.
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Did the Dothraki fear the sea before the discovery of the numerous kaiju that inhabit the narrow sea?
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Godzilla's rampages of Dany's fleet destroyed the Dothraki's prophecies; of the Stallion who mounts the world. So that began their distrust of the sea, and the repeated kaiju landings at Slaver's Bay and other sea based cities such as Meereen both ravaged the economy and led to the widespread thalassophobia in the Dothraki.
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While we wait for a new answer, it might be worth reviewing the [FAQ entry](_URL_5_) on the Sea People. Quite a few questions have been asked about them over the years, and some of those previous answers might help to inform our thinking about the subject!
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Why did people in Homer's mythical stories of ancient Greece mix wine with water and other things?
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Hi!! I'm new to this sub so I hope that I've done this comment right/by the rules. I'm not a historian but I did recently take a class on Classics where the professor (Professor Patricia Rosenmeyer from UW-Madison) actually covered this. From my notes, they mixed wine with water in a krater, a vessel just for this purpose. The actual dilution of the wine was because they considered drinking undiluted wine a social faux pas and could be a sign of drunkeness. Also since they often got together and drank for long periods of time, the dilution was a natural step so they didn't consume that much alcohol. I can't help for the other part of the question but I hope that helped!
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One thing to think about while you consider this is that the way that ancient Greeks did not read the Iliad, but rather listened to trained singers reciting the poem. This means that it was usually listened to in a community fashion, and that it was not listened to in consecutive order. Singers could choose which parts of the story to highlight, and with what emotional emphasis to perform. Homer was considered the greatest poet by the Greeks, and the Iliad and the Odyssey informed and provided a basis for all later writers (who explored the stories in widely varying ways). My own thinking is that you cannot simply the Iliad to a single theme or group of themes; it is the culmination, or rather the gathering-up, of many of the myths of Homer's time.
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Why do retail clothing stores have lots of large sizes, but rarely any smalls?
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This depends on the store and their ordering system. Often for a big box chain, they don't order specific sizes, they order batches. So for example a single batch might have 3 small, 3 medium, 5 large, 5 extra large. After selling, they have 1 small, 0 medium, 2 large, 2 extra large. So they order a second batch. Now they'll have 4 small, 3 medium, 7 large, and 7 extra large. Repeat that a few more times, and soon you only have a ton of large.
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Because they'd rather get $5 from you than nothing at all. It's no different from a popular clothing store actually - the fact is, people will buy something they don't necessarily want just because it's on sale. The difference is that you can't just pirate clothes from a store, so the sales on digital goods have to be even more extreme.
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why we get constipated
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No has mentioned the solution for really bad constipation: Digital disimpaction. Hey that sounds cool, like a cool production technique for dropping killer beats. Or maybe something like autotune. Nope Digital disimpaction is where the nurse reaches up your ass with a gloved finger and scoops out the fecal matter. Happens a lot in retirement facilities. Something to look forward to when you get old. Getting finger blasted by the lowest paid staff on the ward.
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Well you have muscular sphincters and such that constrict and relax to allow or stop food from passing. Soluable fiber acts like kind of a gelatin to absorb water and turn poos solid. Plus I think one of your large intestine's jobs is to absorb liquid from the waste as it passes through so you don't open up like a high powered lawn sprinkler upon pooing. Usually.
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How did tax collectors collect taxes during the time of the bible?
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The Roman empire had a very small bureaucratic system, and couldn't spare the resources to set up an equivalent of our IRS. So instead of trying to manage taxes centrally, they privatized the system by selling the right to collect taxes to local collectors. These collectors would be required to pay Rome the amount assessed for the specific province, in exchange for which they'd have Roman muscle backing up their demand for payment from their fellow countrymen. And of course, it was understood that if they managed to collect more than they were required to pay Rome, they could pocket the difference. This is the context for biblical characters like Zacheus, who was rich because he collected much more than he was required to pay to Rome. This was perfectly legal, but it didn't make him or his fellow tax collectors popular, because they were getting rich by selling out their neighbors to a foreign conqueror.
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Can you winnow this question down more, whether geographically, temporally or both? It's quite broad, considering that taxation was introduced, disappeared, and reintroduced at varying times as well as varying regions throughout history. Are you talking about taxation in antiquity? Late medieval European feudal taxation? Or specifically state taxation of the early modern period? Taxation in coin, or taxation in kind? Please be more specific.
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Why is it so easy to become dehydrated while it is not as easy to become rehydrated again?
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Because the body needs time to absorb water and process it to parts that need it, whereas it's fairly easy to expend water as needed for things like sweat. Think of the body as many little storerooms that get supplies from a central hub. It's easy to empty the storerooms, but it takes a long time to fill all of them back up again, due to their far-flung structure
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For the most part it's the other way around. People get dehydrated because they have diarrhea due to sickness, etc. When you have diarrhea you aren't absorbing the water from your digestive tract, which causes the dehydration.
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Why do perpetual calendar watches have to be adjusted in 2100?
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2100 is a once-a-century exception when we skip a leap year (actually three times every four centuries - we put the leap year back in for 2000 because it's divisible by 400). Ignoring that exception, the watch just needs to keep track of when the last leap year was and include one every four years. Modifying it to keep track of whether it's also a century year and having it skip that day would be a lot of work when it only makes a difference once a century.
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They didn't. Even modern mechanical watches need to be reset once a week or so, and it was common for early clocks to gain or lose 15 minutes a day. You just had to set it a lot.
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Why is holocaust given more importance and exposure than any other deadlier events in history?
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Other deadlier events? The Holocaust killed 12 million people in a very intentional and systematic manner. They weren't "collateral damage" or anything like that, their deaths weren't side effects of war, people were methodically rounded up, arrested and sent to extermination camps to be shot or gassed to death, or labor camps to be worked to death. That has never happened before nor since on such a large scale. But that being said, the Armenian Genocide, the Belgian colonization of the Congo, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the Irish Potato Famine, all of those were very large scale, mostly intentional mass killings of civilians, and I don't think people try to minimize those or anything. Arguing over whose atrocity was bigger is pointless.
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Very few people deny the Holocaust. More people believe the events were greatly exaggerated to suit certain political agendas. Along the lines of, "make our enemies seem worse and more powerful than they are and when we beat them we'll seem greater than we are."
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if children have milk teeth, why do they have to frequently brush their teeth? They fall out anyway.
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Brushing isn't just about teeth health, its mouth hygiene for gums, tongue etc. Plus it's good practice to get them into the habit early.
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IANAA. Early man didn't have toothbrushes (but maybe they had some plants they could chew to scrub their teeth and freshen their breath), but they also didn't have refined sugars, so they might not have needed to clean their teeth as often in order to keep them.
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Why do obese people's legs remain under developed?
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Well first, not all obese people have underdeveloped legs. If an overweight person is active and heavy, chances are they kick like a horse. Their core might be better developed than you'd think as well, since a lot of abdominal muscles act to keep the torso in line and that becomes more difficult when reacting to shifting weight. I know several people who, due to thyroid problems are quite overweight, but are in much better shape than I am, Second, if an obese person has underdeveloped musculature, it is because they are sedentary. This can be caused by a lot of factors. A lot of people develop joint problems in their knees and ankles when they gain weight that make it difficult or painful to walk. The subset of obese people who are depressed will avoid activity because that's one of the things depression does to a person. Type 2 diabetes can result in bloodflow and nerve problems in the peripheries like hands or feet that make it difficult to move.
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Your assumption is right. But it does not make them (us) stronger in effect, because it is impossible to put the weight down. And with losing the weight the muscle mass which is then not needed anymore shrinks, too. The obese person would have to carry a backpack with thr weight they lost all day around to keep it. But since the weight can damage the joints and feet this is not recommended! Edit: Afterthought: This applies only to those who are not too fat to lead a normal life, yet. I don't think those who don't walk (much) anymore build up muscles.
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What is this huge light circle around the moon?
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You my friend have discovered the 22 degree halo: _URL_0_ Ice crystals in the atmosphere have a somewhat regular shape which refracts light in a way causing this shape. You're looking at moon light after it's been bounced off the ice crystals. In some places, the conditions required are very common and it'll happen almost every night.
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[Ice crystals in the upper atmosphere](_URL_0_) creates the 'halo' around the moon effect.
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Why are geese flying on February 19th on a day that's -10c in Canada.
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As long as geese are able to find open grass and unfrozen bodies of water, they have no need to migrate at all. Due to this being a warmer than usual winter, they have not had a need to migrate.
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There are some impressively bad answers so far. He asked why they leave the south, not why they go south in the first place. There are two big reasons. First, there's too much competition for too little food for these birds to stay south all year round. Remember that there are already native birds living there. Food for birds is more abundant in the spring in the north than it is any time in the south. Second, as you get towards summer, days are longer up north. Most migratory birds can use longer days to accomplish more hunting and such.
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Why are so many books "bestsellers?"
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It doesn't have to be #1 to be a bestseller. Every week, the New York Times publishes their lists of bestselling books. They are divided by category and format (fiction, non-fiction, e-book, print, hardcover & paperback). If a book was listed as the #10 best-selling book for young adults by NYT last week, the book could legitimately be called a bestseller. And that's just the New York Times list. Other publications have lists as well, and they often feature different books. Amazon's lists get updated every hour. If you have a book that shows up on their top 100 list for an hour, you are an Amazon Bestselling Author.
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Well, where is it a 'Best Seller?' In the same way that many products can be 'Top Rated,' everything is recommended by '4 out of 5 doctors,' and everything on TV is 'Extremely Popular,' it depends on where the statistic is coming from. If I publish a small magazine of 5,000 readers, and consider your book #1, and I publish statistics showing that your book sold really well in my little community - congradulations, you're a number 1 best seller *in my little community Its the same way that every move has rave reviews, even the ones that suck - it goes something like this: "Movie XYZ was an absolutely horrible piece and you should never ever see it, it will make you want to never watch movies again" Becomes "SEE IT!" - misquoted movie reviewer It's just marketing and cherrypicking from the appropriate data sources. #1 New York Times Best Seller, but only for one category, or one particular search metric, so on and so forth.
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What happens if Obama gets the flu?
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He can and would stay in bed for a week if he's sick. Why would you think otherwise? Presidents can take time off for illness or even just vacations.
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Each flu has it's own "strain". A type. A shape and identity. Once it gets into your body and starts reproducing, it doesn't matter much if you get a few additional cells of influenza in your body, it's a drop in the ocean. And once your immune system identifies and develops a resistance to it (based on it's shape an identiy, antibodies that are literally shaped to stick to it's surface) then your body can fight off those cells pretty easily. We get infected with a BUNCH of bad bugs all the time and don't even notice because our immune system does it's job. Likewise, you can french-kiss the wife you gave your cold to. You've been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the immunities. (although the bugs CAN mutate enough in a few jumps to thwart that immunity)
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If human cells all contain the same genetic code and very only in the expression of genes, then why can researchers not take a dermal cell, change what genes it expresses, and "create" a different type of cell such as a stem cell?
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To put it simply, they [can and do](_URL_1_). I should mention that the process isn't quite as simple as switching the expression profile of the cell from 'dermal' to 'stem' in one go. Our ability to fine-tune expression within cells is limited. Instead, a now-common way of changing differentiated cells into stem cells is by causing them to transiently express certain [transcription factors](_URL_0_), which causes them to revert to a more stem-like state. These induced cells are not the exact same as embryonic stem cells, though they share some important qualities.
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Every cell (human or otherwise) contains many genes in its DNA, but only some of those genes are active (expressed) at any point in time; others are inactive. The area of biology that studies this is called [epigenetics](_URL_0_). So, in human cells, every cell has the same genetic material, but different cells express different subsets of it, and therefore function differently.
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Why would China stay on North-Korea's side, opposed to the Western countries?
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China has more to lose by abandoning North Korea. at the moment, China is pretty much the only thing keeping north korea functioning. You'd think N.K falling would be a good thing, but you're forgetting that North Korea has about 25 million citizens. Many of these citizens are uneducated, unskilled, and heavily brainwashed. Who is going to take care of that if North Korea falls? The only 2 options are South Korea (imagine the European immigration crisis now x 100), or china (which has the resources to theoretically, but it would cost a ton of money). So you can start to see how making sure North Korea stays afloat is beneficial for them
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It's one of those [might makes right](_URL_0_) kind of situations. None of the other south east Asian nations have the military strength to oppose them. If china choses to ignore international law, not much anyone can do about it besides go to war. Even if the issue was brought to the UN, China is a permanent security council member, so they could just veto any resolution against them.
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What is the hollow plastic ball in a can of Guinness Draught for?
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Guinness is a nitrogen pressurised beer (opposed to co2) it never kept well in cans until they started filling the little ball with nitrogen and infusing the beer as soon as you opened it I think it's called a widget BTW
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Nitrogen is often used in beer. If you have ever drank a Guinness draught can or bottle, they have a plastic disk or bullet shaped object in the bottom of each that releases nitrogen into the brew to give it a smooth, creamy, mouth feel that is reminiscent of getting a beer right out of your local pubs tap. It's also used to pressurize kegs instead of CO2 to avoid oxidization.
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Why are computer drives assigned a letter starting from C? Why are A and B neglected?
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They aren't. A and B are reserved from floppy drives (which aren't used anymore) because older computers ran purely off of floppy drives (no built in hard drive). The naming convention has persisted despite the change in technology. EDIT: parentheses.
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The a: and c: nomenclature come from IBM PC and MSDOS. In those early PC, there was one or two drives: floppy drives. They were the primary persistent memory. The first floppy drive was a:. The second one was b: Later on hard drives became an option and were thought of as an accessory after the main floppy drives, thus they were c:. Eventually the hard drive became the main drive in a PC, thus you’re most familiar with the c drive. Cd rom drives came later and are often d:. Dvd drives replaced them later and were still usually d:
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Would Varangians in early Kievan Rus have practiced Slavic or Norse religion?
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It is believed that the Varangians in the Rus weren't 'slavicised' until the late 11th century so it's pretty safe to assume that the Varangians were still following the Norse religion until the Christianization of the Rus in 988AD. Unsurprising considering that Christianity in Denmark wasn't widespread until Harald Bluetooth was christened in ~960AD.
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Could you please tell where have you learned that Kievan Rus was a matriarchal society?
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How do people raise money by walking across a country/cycling around the world/ climbing Mount something / go q month without eating chocolate for charity
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It's basically the same thing as asking all your friends for money, except the idea is that you're saying "if I ride my bike across America, then will you donate a pledged amount to this charity?" The idea is that you're doing something hard or complicated, and in return/as a "reward" of sorts, your friends give to charity. In real life you could just give to charity, or ask your friends to, and not ride your bike across America at all. The bike riding is in no way integral to the process, it's just an excuse to ask.
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Pledging. Families/companies say that they'll donate a certain amount of money if a certain number of people run the marathon. Plus it is generally made into a big event so the cause gets publicity.
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How did the Roman senate justify appointing Augustus as Rome's emperor?
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Augustus was never declared an Emperor by the Senate, and he wanted it that way. The Roman people had a strong dislike of monarchy or rule by a single person. He was given the title of First Citizen: it conferred on him most of the powers of an Emperor but kept the illusion of a functioning republic in place. Historians were the first to call him an Emperor; he never used the term himself.
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Basically, Augustus was brilliant:) The political maneuvers that he pulled to secure his power are known collectively as the Augustan program. After successfully prosecuting the war against Mark Antony, he made a show of returning the republic to the senate. They were the ones who voted him dictator for life. Instead of calling himself a king(rex in Latin), he called himself "first among equals" - or princeps. Princeps is where we get the word prince from. Technically, Rome wasn't an empire, and it's ruler wasn't an emperor. It was a principate run by a prince. This page will give you a fairly thorough treatment on Augustus and how he pulled it off: _URL_0_
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Why is there a mini pocket within most pants pockets?
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Historically, it's for pocket watches. These days, it's just for lighters or whatever you want to do with it.
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It comes from the British Commando which were a WWII special unit that were supposed to go deep behind enemy lines to attack them where they were most vulnerable. This meant that they would often carry very light gear to be fast and travel far. Any unnecessary equipment were left behind and required equipment were even modified to become lighter. And when life and death were dependent on how little you carried then some pieces of clothing were unnecessary.
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Did the successor governments of the former Axis powers honour the pension commitments of WWII service personnel?
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I can only speak to West Germany, as I am not aware of any specific pensions paid to Wehrmacht personnel in the East. I suspect this wasn't as much of an issue there as many former soldiers enlisted with the armed forces in the East. First, it's important to note that, as far as I am aware, the Wehrmacht itself only had an official policy of paying pensions to disabled veterans and 'career' soldiers (i.e. officers). This was changed by the Western occupying powers in the early 1950s thanks to agitation by veterans organizations. This was helped by the threat of the Eastern Bloc felt by the west in Germany, and pensions were restored to non-SS personnel around the same time as West Germany itself began rearming. However, these pensions would have been relatively modest if anything at all, and most of the men of early 1950s Germany who were former soldiers but found themselves destitute would have re-enlisted in the new Bundswehr.
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Retirement benefits is the major one. Dishonorable...no retirement, pension, GI Bill, basically anything soldiers are entitled to, you are no longer entitled to.
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Why outside temps of 18c can be pleasent mild and warm yet 18c setting on air condition is bloody cold?
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It's all about humidity. At a given temperature, more humidity means you feel warmer, because sweating is less efficient. The way air conditioners work, they lower the relative humidity (RH) in the process of lowering the temperature. In an indoor environment you want the RH in the 40-60% range. The outside air might be much higher (e.g. in coastal areas) while the air straight from the A/C might be lower.
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Because air conditioning is not common in many parts of Europe, and people are not used to the hot weather. It is especially stressful for people who are old or sick.
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Can anyone tell me more about the Agrianes - the elite javelin men of Alexander's army?
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From what I've read, they were an elite group of warriors that Alexander often used in unconventional ways. They were great in combat, they could serve as skirmishers as well. They were used for night raids and scouting as well. At one point, when Alexander reached a city that was high in the mountains, he had the Agrianans climb up the (supposedly unclimbable) mountain to prove to the city that he could reach them. This is all from a biography of Alexander. I can get you the name of it when I get home from work.
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Well a hoplite formation requires flat terrain to operate in, if they can find that space to fight in then cavalry could as well. The reason you don't hear about Greek cavalry is because they didn't have enough land to support them. Land that's supporting horsebreeding is land that's not available for farming and there's generally a lack of good farmland in Greece. In Thessaly and Macedonia there's much more pasturage allowing more cavalry. Secondly as /u/GoShartYourself pointed out, it wasn't just Alexander with his companions on the battlefield. He had the pikemen in the centre, his cavalry on the wings, and really good light infantry (his Agrianes). He also used them intelligently and to maximum effect. Alexander (presumably with his companions though the texts don't say specifically) waited till his father drew the Athenians out of position at Chaironeia which opened up a gap between the Athenians and Thebans - into which Alexander charged.
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Which civilization is technically the first to invent paper?
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The surfaces for writing on in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East were papyrus, clay (where papyrus was unavailable), wax on wood (for short-term notes), and parchment. Paper didn't arrive in the Mediterranean until the 8th century CE, at which point the idea was imported from China. European paper at that time was made of linen or hemp rather than wood. Put another way, paper was invented once (in Han China) and from that one-time invention it eventually spread over the world. I don't have access to Bauer's book, but it would be easier to assess the exact nature of the claim if you could tell us her exact wording and context when she makes this implication, and/or what evidence she cites. If, for example, she claims only that the Egyptians invented the first paper-*like* writing material, that would be more defensible.
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That's a really broad question. Which civilization and when?
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Where does the Layout for QWERTY keyboards come from?
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The QWERTY layout first appeared in 1874 on the Sholes and Glidden typewriter later renamed to the Remmington No. 1 (yes the gun manufacturer). We do not have the internal documents describing the development of this new model of typewriter and the development of the QWERTY layout. However we do have the advertisements and marketing documents which claim that the typewriter is much less prone to jamming when typing fast. It is still a debated topic to this day how the QWERTY layout helped prevent jams or if it helped at all. We do know that other typewriter manufacturers adopted the QWERTY layout but we again do not have the documents describing why they did so. The only surviving records describing the decision to use the QWERTY layout was after it had become popular and standardized so people did not have to relearn to type when getting a new typewriter.
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Yes! There are more efficient ways to lay out a keyboard. In fact, the modern QWERTY keyboard layout was basically designed to be as inefficient. It was originally created for typewriters. Early typewriters had various different layouts ([See here](_URL_0_)). The problem was that typists started to get too fast. The hammers which print the word in the correct place couldn't move out of the way before the next hammer would fall. The solution was to lay out the most commonly used letters so that they would be further apart on the keyboard. The result was QWERTY. Now, people are so used to the layout that it will probably never change.
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What is this country/province marked on this map about the dividing of Germany after ww2?
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That is the Saar Protectorate. After WWI, the Saar was not part of Germany and remained free of Nazi control until 1935, when it voted to rejoin Germany. After the war, France managed to separate it from the rest of Germany, administered under the zones of occupation. This let it be controlled solely by France, instead of under the joint allied jurisdiction of the Allied Control Council for Germany. There were customs controls in place between it and the rest of Germany; it had it's own currency and stamps; and was very much separated. This lasted until 1957, when after a referendum, it voted to rejoin West Germany, and become the state of Saarland. _URL_0_
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What do you mean? Do you mean why Germany is where it is and not where China is?
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Without observing the sky, is it possible to prove that the earth is rotating/orbiting?
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In the case of the Earth's rotation, yes, for instance, a relatively straightforward demonstration of the rotation of the Earth can be obtained with a [Foucault pendulum](_URL_0_).
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Yes! We would be able to see a signature of rotation in the cosmic microwave background. You can find a short description of how such an experiment works [here](_URL_0_). Long story short, people have looked for signs of rotation, and found at most a marginal detection of a small amount of rotation. So, i think that the best way to think about the experimental evidence is that we have no observational evidence that the universe is rotating -- in other words, we have an upper limit on the (small) amount of rotation.
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Why do some orders of words sound better than others?
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There's a phenomenon (well, more a grammatical rule) that comes to mind, about a seemingly unspoken and untaught rule in English where adjectives must follow a certain order to sound "correct" (link discussing this here _URL_0_). With regards to what you are talking about (such as names or common sayings), it most likely only sounds weird because people have heard it one way and only one way their whole lives.
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Usually because they just spitting out the words, since they do not know what is ahead they cannot put inflection into the words.
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The Polish government-in-exile, the remnants of the leadership of the second Polish republic, existed from 1939-1990. During that time they had numerous presidents and prime ministers. How did it function as a democracy, if in exile? Who was doing the voting?
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Follow up question for someone who might be in the know- the gov-in-exile was based in France until the fall, then London until 1990. How did they react to UK having diplomatic relations with Soviet Poland? Did they cause trouble, ferment resistance, have any pull with the Brits, etc.? Or was it more of a, "thanks for having us, London!" Attitude?
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Hey there /u/Steamboatcarl! To follow up on /u/Sunagainstgold's removal, the issue here is that your title post is framed as a modern hypothetical. The way to go here is to reframe your question around the historical examples you specified. This will give the question better direction and make it much more likely you'll receive a quality answer: "What happened to citizens of Yugoslavia or East Germany who were abroad when their countries ceased to exist? How were their rights and passports handled?" Something like the above wording might serve you well.
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How does something become radioactive? How are the chemical properties of a radioactive substances different than a non-radioactive substance?
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Non-radioactive objects can be made radioactive via nuclear transmutations and excitations. You either have to excite the nuclei of the atoms that make up the object, or you have to cause nuclear reactions, which change them into different, radioactive species. The chemical properties are mostly determined by what element it is. Different isotopes of the same element will behave in a very similar way as far as chemistry is concerned. So if you have some radioactive isotope of some element, it will behave chemically just like stable isotopes of the same element. Except of course, the nucleus will decay and emit radiation.
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A material is radioactive if the nuclei of the atoms of that material are for some reason unstable. Due to this instability the material is radiating away particles. Other materials are mostly not too affected, the problem is that the radiation is ionizing, which means it can charge materials. Ionizing radiation is dangerous as it can partially destroy dna and cells which can lead to cancer.
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How much longer does it take 2 (electrically neutral) masses to reach eachother gravitationally when they travel parallel at equal relativistic speeds?
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Your intuition is correct. To see this, note that we can transform to a frame in which they start out at rest, reducing it to the original problem. That frame is the rest frame of the system, and however long it takes them to collide in that frame is the amount of *proper time* it takes them to collide in any inertial frame. If, in the lab frame, the gamma factor of the system is 2, then proper time is half of coordinate time, so it will take twice as long in terms of coordinate time for them to collide.
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I'm not trying to hijack the thread, but I've often thought about a similar thought experiment. Lets say you have two masses (I assume it doesn't matter if they have large or small mass) and they are separated by the 'entire universe'. would they eventually fall into each other and collide? given an infinite amount of time. And when they collide would they be moving at a significant fraction of the speed of the light? Basically if you could create your own universe and you make it as big as possible and place two masses at opposite ends, would they meet in the middle due to gravity?
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Why do certain studies show drinking milk from animals is not natural, and others suggest we need milk for a healthy diet?
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They're both right to a certain degree. Most mammals stop being lactose-tolerant shortly after they start eating other food. And indeed, most humans do too. Lactose *tolerance* is mostly prevalent in people of European origin. As it turns out, milk is a good source of calcium, which is hard to get from other sources. So for those who can drink milk, it is encouraged.
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If human milk was more cost effective and less time consuming than cow milk, we probably would drink it. As it is, the animal that has the most amount of product for the least amount of work is the cow. And that's why we use them.
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What are "cold cranking amps" in regards to automotive batteries?
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Cold cranking amps are the amount of amps a battery can provide at freezing level (32'F 0'C). Battery performance goes down as temperature goes down so it's important to know what kind of amperage a battery can put out at certain temperatures so that it can actually start a vehicle.
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Batteries depend on chemical reactions to work...when a car battery is left in the cold, that reaction slows down due to the cold causingthe battery to not deliver as many amps to the starter which uses quite a bit of current. By the same token, if you put batteries in the freezer, that too slows down the chemical reactions inside the battery which keeps it fresher longer. You need to warm the batteries up otherwise they too won't deliver full current until they are warm. Lead cell car batteries are more sensitive to cold temps then your normal alkaline D, C, AA cells
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what does it mean to be in escrow?
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If you and I make a bet, we both give our money to a friend we can trust. It helps make sure neither one of us backs out. The friend can be said to be holding the money in escrow. Escrow shows up with a number of important deals. It's difficult to force someone to transfer a house back, so a seller usually wants to be sure the money is secure before transferring the ownership to the buyer.
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In short they don't. They're just a middle man. Some of the sellers on those sites depend on their reputation. The others can use escrow or just wait for someone who doesn't care. Others, for very high end and rare items, can use escrow. This is a third company with a good reputation. When you buy the good the seller gives the item to the escrow company. The buyer gives the escrow company his money. The escrow company validates the authenticity, then sends the money to the seller and the good to the buyer. The tests run are typically spelled out in the sale contract, as well as who pays for the escrow service and other contingencies.
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is the space shuttle capable of leaving earth orbit?
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No, it was never designed to leave low earth orbit.
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The Shuttle could only go to low earth orbit. It usually flew at an altitude of 200 miles, but occasionally as high as 400 miles. Besides the impossibility of going to a much higher orbit - let alone leaving orbit - there were other practical issues: If you're going to lunar orbit or visit an asteroid, it would be an enormous waste of fuel to take the wings, tail, landing gear, now useless main engines etc. with you. As the saying goes, "Reach low earth orbit, and you'e halfway to anywhere in the solar system." The Shuttle was designed for taking payloads low earth orbit, and doing construction while there. Including assembling a spacecraft to go elsewhere.
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Considering how serious the California drought has gotten, why hasn't there been any water restrictions or any legislation passed to limit water usage?
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Because the biggest user of water in California is Agriculture, not individuals. Agriculture not only has an immensely powerful lobby, but also brings in huge amounts of money. Politicians don't like passing laws against where the money lies.
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Keep in mind that less than 10% of the water California uses is for indoor residential use. Even under the worst-case scenario, nobody is going to go thirsty or lose the ability to shower or flush the toilet. The biggest user of water is agriculture. California produces a huge percentage of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States. If the drought continues, some crops may never be economical again, and a lot of that farmland will probably switch to crops that can get by with a lot less water. That may make the price of some produce go up a lot because it will have to come from elsewhere in the world. Or, maybe less with be grown in California. The price of water in California will go up. But yeah, those are the likely scenarios. No doom and gloom, just change.
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Difference between TAR and ZIP files?
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A TAR file is a form meant for a Tape ARchive - it just stores the files and directory structure as one file in a standard format, no compression. A ZIP file is a newer format, combining compression and archiving. Most tar files will be served as .tar.gz or tar.bz2, which means they were put into TAR format before being compressed with gzip or bzip2. For historical reasons, Unix and Unix-like systems tend to use tar files (they preserve the more-complex file permissions) with later compression, while PC systems tend to use zip. There are other systems out there, some of which were multi-system. There's a [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) giving more detail, if you like. In the 1990s, you could expect to find a wide mixture of compression and archiving formats, but these have pretty much won out (except DMG files on Mac OS X, and RAR files for big things that need to be split into multi-part files). Can't recall the last time I saw an ARJ, though it was one of the better compressors in its DOS heyday.
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Tar doesn't do any compression at all. It's just a way to put several files into one file. The program was originally written to write files to tape -- tar stands for Tape ARchive. People would then compress them to save space. The most popular compression program on Linux is gzip, so tar.gz is simply a compressed file of files. The comparable format for DOS and Windows does both functions, and is called ZIP.
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What does the foil on the inside of chip packets do, and how does it work?
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The foil is essentially an incredibly inexpensive airproof, lightproof and waterproof container that won't weaken or dissolve due to the contact of the greasy chips inside. You could use pure plastic like they do in the little tiny bags of Hallowe'en chips, but it would be thicker and not as pretty.
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They use foil for the inside because it is the cheapest packaging material that is not too permeable to small molecules. If it was permeable and had little holes in it like paper or some plastics, the candy bar would dry out in storage and not taste good anymore.
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I've read that for all their lamentations over the evils of slavery, only George Washington among the southern Founding Fathers bothered to free his slaves in his will. Was this true? How unusual an act would this have been for the time?
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Side question: Any examples of the other founding fathers “lamentations over the evils of slavery”? I know they signed the document that said all men are created equal when they obviously didn’t mean all men, but are there any times they lambasted slavery and it’s evils specifically? I feel like the title is referring to some specific anti-slavery speeches or writings, but I’m not familiar.
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Washington was in a battle between human rights and slavery. Perhaps this may help give a perspective: "I never wish my people to work when they are really sick, or unfit for; on the contrary, that all necessary care should be taken of them when they are so; but if you do not examine into their complaints, they will lay by when no more ails them, than ails those, who stick to their business, and are not complaining, from the fatigue and drowsiness which they feel as the effect of night walking, and other practices which unfit them for the duties of the day." He also stated: "It is not my wish, or desire, that my Negros should have an oz of meal more, nor less, than is sufficient to feed them plentifully." Source: Washington to Pearce, Philadelphia, May 18,1794. (ibid., 33:360,474) For further reading, you can check out George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal by Fritz Hirschfeld.
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How does an audio equalizer actually WORK? (Not how do I use one)
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It is all just [filtering](_URL_0_. By careful selection and placement of time-based elements in your circuit like capacities and inductors, you can filter out frequencies. In essence you can think that a capacitor takes a certain amount of time to charge. When fully charged, the capacitor acts as an open circuit and does not let any more current flow. Frequencies that are too fast will not let the capacitor charge/discharge between cycles, giving you what’s called a low-pass filter (it only lets low frequencies through). In general you can create most types of filters in circuits, but modern equalizers will do it with dedicated chips or even in software. The mathematics behind filtering is Fourier analysis, and most Fourier transforms have a circuit equivalent.
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Your eardrum is a reverse speaker - do you ever wonder how you can hear multiple instruments at once? Anyway, the different waveforms just add together and all of the different frequencies are still present. If you look closely at the grooves of a record, the vinyl is just cut to represent that complex shape. When you turn it back into sound, via an amplifier and speaker, the original sound is reproduced with high fidelity.
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Did the divided Germany suffer any military restrictions after WWII similar to WWI? Such as only being allowed to have a certain number of troops in their army or not being allowed to station troops in certain areas and if so, for how long? And do they still continue after their reunification?
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Don't know about your first question but the second one is easy to answer: Article 3 of the 2+4 treaty limits the size of the Bundeswehr to 370.000 (of which 345k can be in the army plus airforce). Germany also reaffirmed its renunciation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. With the general downsizing of armies after 1990 this didn't end up being much of a limitation though (today's Bundeswehr is around 180k strong). _URL_2_
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First off, the Warsaw Pact disbanded in July 1991, ~~three months before~~ a little less than a year after Germany formally unified, but well before all the soldiers withdrew. Secondly, the Soviet Union itself dissolved in December 1991, so the forces remaining in 1994 were Russian, not Soviet. People weren't alarmed by the presence of Russian soldiers within Germany because the border jumped the soldiers, not the other way around. Moreover, Soviet troops had been in East Germany throughout the Cold War, so their presence was nothing new. The USSR maintain several large, permanent bases in East Germany just like the US did in West Germany. In 1991 there were still close to 350,000 Soviet troops in East Germany, and thus they (and later the Russian Federation as the USSR's successor state) were given until the end of 1994 to remove their forces from Germany in the Two Plus Four Agreement. [edit] mixed up my dates in my first sentence.
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If a device that uses suction to hold its contents (Like a needle.) is exposed to space, what would happen to those contents?
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Syringes, suction cups, and straws are some of the things that [won't work in a vacuum](_URL_0_). A syringe depends on air pressure to push liquid into its needle as pressure is relieved from the other side. Straws work the same way. Suction cups work because air pressure pushes them against whatever they are attached to.
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Suction cups operate on the pressure differential. The cup expands in a sealed area and creates low pressure. The higher surrounding pressure keeps it stuck to the surface. When you break the seal, the pressure is normalized and the cup falls off. In an absolute vacuum? There's no pressure differential and you have that energy in the cup - which would act as a spring.. under high pressure? If the pressure is > the force the cup then you would have the necessary pressure differential and it would work. If the pressure was so great that the cup could not create a differential, then the suction cup would fail..
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When does the body produce Melanin?
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Let's limit the question to production and release of eumelanin (="true melanin") in human skin; melanin can be found in other odd places and in different forms. Eumelanin production is stimulated by UV-B-caused DNA damage in the form of pyrimidine dimers in melanocytes, a type of cell dispersed in the bottom layer of the epidermis. Depending on skin color (race) there will also be some basic level of production independent of UV exposure. The melanin is packed into melanosomes, which the melanocytes then transfer to neighboring epithelial cells, to protect their cell nuclei and the layers below the epidermis (the bottom layer of the epidermis is where cell growth happens, the cells just pile up and differentiate as they get into the higher layers). I'm not aware of this process being limited to any particular time, beyond the stimulation following UV exposure (which would usually happen in the middle of the day, but you never know).
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All your questions about the evolution of light skin melanin content are answered in exhaustive detail in the authoritative standard work on the human skin. [Skin: A natural history - N.G. Jablonski](_URL_0_). You can download a copy for free from [this site](_URL_1_). The relevant chapter is chapter 6 (pages 76 to 97).
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What companies still in existence today played a role or cooperated with the Nazis during WW2?
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Volkswagen was created out of a Nazi Labor party. During the Nazi reign, they strove to build what Hitler called the "People's Car," which was essentially an American-esque car that was cheap to manufacture. This eventually turned into the beloved VW Beetle. (Thanks Discoamazing for pointing that out). During the wartime period, Volkswagen spent their time building military vehicles such as [this](_URL_0_) and was charged to equip the German forces. Interesting fact is that 80% of the Volkswagen workforce during the war was slave labor. Siemens is another one, which also operated numerous factories around Germany, and contributed to the "Nazification" of Germany. Most factories were placed around concentration camps to build switches for the military.
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Followup question. Just how popular was the nazi party? Were any repercussions for not joining borne out of popularity or out of autocracy, or something else?
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Why didn't Japan invade India during WWII?
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They tried and failed, see [Operation U-Go](_URL_0_). Japan had hands full in trying to secure oil and other resources in Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. Invasion of India was logistical stretch and not essential.
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The main benefit of Japan joining the Axis was to attack the British and French colonial possessions. The Japanese attacked the British held Hong Kong and French Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). British India was also kept at bay early on by the Japanese, who fought them extensively in Burma. Additionally, the Japanese kept the Americans on edge, and the risk of conflict with Japan helped to discourage intervention in Europe until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The alliance with Japan kept vast swathes of British, French, and American forces occupied. Reinforcements from colonial possessions did help the allies significantly, but tying them up early in the war helped result in the early string of Axis victories. Had Japan not been part of the Axis powers, it is possible that colonial reinforcements would have resulted in Germany and Italy being defeated much sooner.
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Why do people not constantly get sick from all the microbes found in bathrooms and on toilets?
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Because our immune system works well enough to stop new microbes and does a pretty good job of killing off infections, also we are already used to the bacteria in our homes, so an attack from them is likely to be stoped very quickly
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Because it isn't perfect. Because a lot of different things have evolved to try to get us sick and sometimes they work. Because oru dumb asses don't wash our hands after we take a shit so we end up eating our own poo and get sick that way. Or because we don't eat well or sleep or take care of ourselves as much as we should. And we get colds because it isn't one thing but a bunch of different viruses. And the flu mutates into new flue strains.
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why we perform lobotomies and extreme medication instead of euthanasia
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We don't really do lobotomies anymore. "Corrective" neurosurgery has advanced significantly in recent decades and non-destructive techniques such as deep brain stimulation are much more common. Likewise treatment with drugs has advanced greatly as well. The aim is not to make a person 'manageable' but to enable a greater level of function within society.
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These drugs aren't just "kill people" drugs. They are anesthetics and muscle relaxants. You know how much it takes to have the effect, as a function of body mass. You know that if you give a surgical patient too much, you have to revive them. In a death penalty setting, you give them more than enough, and choose not to revive them.
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Why do throwing knives always land on the bladed side and never on the handle?
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They don't; you have to practice to be able to do that. Throwing knives are very well-balanced, which makes it *easier* to control them, but it's still a skill that has to be mastered.
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The first thought is that it is a lot harder than the movies make it... There are two ways of throwing a knife: You can throw it so it travels blade first without rotating, which is harder to do with the same accuracy/power, but means it should always hit properly. The alternative is to throw the knife so it rotates while in the air, and your aim is to have it blade first when it reaches the target - to do this you essentially need to be able to throw very consistently so it always rotates at the same speed, and then judge the distance very accurately - practise enough and you will learn a set of distances where the knife will be blade first, and then by stepping forwards or backwards you can align your target with one of these points so when the knife meets the target, it is correctly rotated.
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How fast do the eyes move?
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So-called *saccades* are a rapid eye-movement (often involuntary) in which the eye rotates into position to "acquire" a target. The angular velocity of the saccade is faster when the eye has to rotate by a larger amount, and slower when the required rotation is smaller. Human saccades can be as fast as [900 & deg;/second](_URL_0_). - Based on the above numbers, one can estimate that it may take as little as 50 milliseconds for the eye to move from staring straight ahead (0 & deg;) to acquiring a target located 45 & deg; to the side. - When visually tracking a moving object, the eye is limited to slower speeds (due to the required feedback control).
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Your eyes do not measure linear velocity. They measure angular velocity. Lets take an example of a car moving 100 km/h in one second of time. At a long distance, it will look like it's moving slowly because the angle between where it was and where it is now, relative to you, is small. Now put the same car in front of you. It just crossed your whole 180 degree field of vision, and thus looks like it moved really fast.
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Why was Wake Island never recaptured by the US during WWII?
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The US never recaptured Wake Island because of its strategy of 'island hopping', which involved bypassing certain Japanese-held territories and invading ones that were of significant importance. This policy of 'island hopping' was started due to the lack of resources that were being deployed to the Pacific theater of operations. Because America agreed to the Allies' grand strategy of dealing with Germany first, with a majority of equipment and troops being sent to Europe, commanders adopted tactics and policies that suited their available forces. So in the case of Japanese bases on Rabul and in this case, Wake, the islands were heavily bombarded in order to reduce their capabilities as staging areas, and were ultimately bypassed. Other islands, such as Guadalcanal and Saipan, were invaded for their ability to hold an airbase and their strategic location (The former being close to Austrailia and the latter having an airbase for B-29 use).
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Because there were more useful locations that were taken instead. Wake was most important for keeping the Hawaii Philippines route open, as well as scouting the Marshall Islands to the South. With the fall of the Philippines the Allies shifted the strategic focus South first to defend Australia, and then to the Solomon islands. However once the counter offensive of the Allies got rolling it bent South of Wake and seized the Marshalls instead. This allowed for the usage of large easily accessed lagoons as fleet bases which was not to be found at Wake. From there the fleet moved West and North again to take the Marianas. Islands there such as Guam, Peleliu, and Tinian were large enough to support heavy bombers like the B-29 to reach the Home Islands. And to then support the invasion of the Philippines and Home Islands. Wake was simply left to wither on the vine and bombarded into impotency.
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How or why did 'white noise' get that name? As opposed to other colors like blue or black or green noise?
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Light comes in a variety of colors, and when you have all of these wavelengths together we see it as "white" light. The name "white noise" is a reference to "white light" where a bunch of different sounds all cancel out to the point where no single sound is divisible from the whole.
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White noise is sound evenly distributed across a broad range of frequencies. The reason it is called white is because white light is also composed of light across a broad range of frequencies. Other related types of noise include pink, red, brown, etc. Each is named for the way that the sound is distributed across frequency, and is also analogous to the color spectrum. White noise is often used as a "masking" sound, because it tends to suppress other sounds from our hearing them.
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