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1170zr | How accurate are Rick Riordan's novels in portraying ancient mythology? | I'm asking, because I just had a conversation with somebody who said her kids were very interested in history, and proceeded to explain that they loved things like Rick Riordan's books. I've never read them, but the impression I had was that they're not worth much (historically) - maybe they're great fiction, I don't know.
She seemed to be under the impression that his books accurately portrayed the mythologies he wrote about. Can anybody enlighten me, please? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1170zr/how_accurate_are_rick_riordans_novels_in/ | {
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"He had it toned down for younger readers. For instance, in the first book of the Egyptian mythology trilogy, Isis was already pregnant with Horus when Set/Seth locked Osiris up in a coffin. Few years later Set blows up the coffin in front of Isis and little Horus, reducing Osiris to a half-dead god. Then Horus grows up, defeats Set after seven years of fighting and claims the throne of Egypt.\n\nIn the real mythology, Set killed Osiris and chops him up, so Isis (not pregnant yet) goes treasure hunting for the body bits but unfortunately Osiris' dick was eaten up by a fish. So she created a dildo as replacement, brought Osiris back to life and they both did it. That resulted in Horus, and when Horus grew up he cummed onto Sets' favorite lettuce, which Set ate up unknowingly. Then Horus proved his dominance over Set by summoning his sperm from inside Set. And that was only a little episode in the eighty year long war, which also included a crappy boat race and Set losing one of his balls. Something definitely not for young teens.\n",
"The short, simple answer: the books are very well researched, they represent the mythological characters reasonably faithfully, and they draw on a large range of tropes that are also found in ancient myths. They don't represent *stories* faithfully, because they're not telling the ancient stories: they're telling new stories, which happen to feature some characters from the ancient ones.\n\nThe longer, more complex answer is based on questioning the assumptions behind the question! See, the thing about mythology is there isn't really any such thing as being \"accurate\". For the ancients there was no one canonical version of a myth: in that respect it's very different from, say, the mythology of the modern Abrahamic religions.\n\nSo when modern people talk about an \"accurate\" rendition of a myth, I get the impression what they often mean is: \"faithful to a specific version that I learnt from an anthology of myths when I was younger\". Trouble is, *those* versions aren't terribly \"accurate\" if you want to compare them to some well-known ancient versions!\n\nTake an example. In the story of the twelve labours of Herakles, near the end Herakles goes off into the far west to fetch the apples of the Hesperides, which are guarded by a dragon named Ladon. On his way he meets Atlas, offers to hold up the sky for a bit while Atlas goes off to kill the dragon and bring back the apples, and then afterwards Herakles has to trick Atlas into taking back the sky. Right? That's the version of the story that Riordan imitates near the end of *The Titan's Curse*.\n\nTrouble is, although that seems to be the *oldest* version of the story, it definitely wasn't the *standard* version in ancient Greece. Almost all sources that tell the story have Herakles go and kill the dragon and fetch the apples himself! To find the version with Atlas, we have to go to a really boring encyclopaedia of myth that was compiled around the 1st century BCE, which is really fairly late as these things go. In spite of that, we know it's the older version because a scene from it featuring Atlas is shown in the decorations of a 6th-century-BCE temple.\n\nSo in a situation like that, how do you decide what's \"accurate\"? In the story of the Trojan War, is it \"accurate\" for Achilles to be killed by an arrow through the ankle - which in earlier periods is only reliably attested in pictorial sources, by the way! - while he's attacking the gates of Troy; or is it \"accurate\" to say that he was assassinated during a rendezvous at a temple outside Troy in the middle of the night? Both versions are well-attested. \"Accuracy\" just isn't a well-defined concept when it comes to myths."
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4dwih4 | How did the fourth crusade bypass Byzantium's defenses? | Byzantium had defended itself from the east for centuries. How did the crusaders breach the walls that protected Byzantium? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4dwih4/how_did_the_fourth_crusade_bypass_byzantiums/ | {
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"The short answer is that after the death of Manuel I Komnenos in 1180, the Empire endured a long string of incompetent (or in the case of Andronikos I, deranged) rulers that severely undermined Byzantium's position as the first-rate superpower of the Mediterranean and the Near East. In the last years of Emperor Manuel's reign, there had been a series of setbacks in commercial and diplomatic ties with the Latins (specifically the Italian powers, most prominently Venice and Genoa) that made Byzantium look bad in the eyes of the West. Manuel, though I would argue an effective Emperor and loved by the Crusaders, unfortunately failed to secure the Imperial gains that he sought during his reign, and so Byzantium's reputation as a supremely powerful military force was somewhat lessened by the time of his death. Had there been an Emperor even half as effective as the previous three \"Good Komnenoi\" that succeeded to the throne in 1180 (and it's hard to say how well Alexios II Komnenos would have done had he been a little older when his father died), the Empire probably would have been fine. The military under Manuel was strong, and even though the Battle at Myriokephalon in 1176 was seen as a disaster, it does not seem that the Empire's back was utterly broken like it had been at Manzikert in 1071. A competent and lively Komnenian ruler following Manuel would certainly have been able to rally the Empire's forces into another offensive, which the Turks would have in all likelihood lost, restoring the Empire's reputation. The situation with the Latins could have easily been mended with prudent diplomacy and a show of military force, as it always had been. Unfortunately, it was not to be.\n\nAndronikos I, with his obvious anti-Latin policies, allowed the so-called Massacre of the Latins to occur, and purposely destroyed ties with the West at this crucial moment in the Empire's history; he signed Byzantium's death warrant. His paranoid attempts to secure power by persecuting and brutally murdering his political opponents made him hated both inside and outside the Empire. While his goal in decreasing the power of \"the powerful\" was probably the right course of action, it was done in so completely the wrong way that it ultimately mortally undermined the authority of the Imperial throne. Dissent, rioting, and rebellion became more and more common in these later years of the Empire. The Normans, seeing the weakness and instability of the Empire, invaded a second time (the first was in 1081), but there was no Alexios I Komnenos to stop them this time. They ravaged their way across Greece, essentially unopposed, and sacked Thessalonika. And still, Andronikos seems to have continued his grisly persecutions, ignoring the problems that befell the Empire. His death in 1185 at the hands of his own people came not a moment too soon. And yet, the damage had already been done -- ties with the West, steadily improved during the years of Alexios I, John II, and Manuel I, were destroyed in essentially 3 years. The Angeloi (the successors of the Komnenians), a weak and incompetent family of rulers shown to be unfit to rule the Empire not long after their accession, drove the Empire further into a death spiral in the next 20. The army was neglected, diplomacy was neglected or conducted appallingly poorly (especially during the events of the Third Crusade), and the Emperors continued to ignore the problems so continuously mounting against them, choosing instead to retreat to the pleasureful confines of the Imperial palace. \n\nWhen the Crusaders arrived in 1203, they found that the once-powerful Empire had essentially no navy, a less-than skeleton defense force defending the Theodosian Walls (which were, surprise, in disrepair), and having lost many Imperial lands to revolts (notably Cyprus and Bulgaria), it was obvious to the Latins that Constantinople was ripe for the taking, and a much more lucrative and easy to acquire prize than having to march into the death-trap of Turkish Anatolia or Ayyubid Syria, Egypt, or Palestine. Furthermore, the large Italian contingent of the Crusade (spurred on by the Doge Enrico Dandolo) sought revenge for the Massacre of the Latins under Andronikos I. It was only a matter of time before such incompetence (whether born through villainy or ignorance) was to be repayed in kind.\n\n"
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1zl8ot | Need help with history writing prompt | Pick an indigenous tribe living within proximity to English settlers. Pretending membership in the tribe, describe to several counsel elders the “concerns” your society faces and what future issues may be of contention (1690)
I need to hit on all the main conflicts/topics that any specific tribes faced during this time. Please and thank you Reddit | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1zl8ot/need_help_with_history_writing_prompt/ | {
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ltiq0 | el15: the european royal families | Where did they come from originally?
Why were the royal families of so many countries related?
Wouldn't a royal family keep getting larger until it's impossible to give each member his or her own little castle?
What happened when the countries of two related royal families went to war against one another? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ltiq0/el15_the_european_royal_families/ | {
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"Why were the royal families of so many countries related?\n\nSimple, royalty marries royalty. When there is nobody to marry in your own country you go looking abroad. In the past there was also a lot of politics involved. ",
"They were individuals and families that sought and achieved power, sustained it through generations and claimed it was God's will.\n\nIt was considered proper and beneficial for royalty to marry other royalty. This let them achieve peace and own more land. Marrying poor people(which was everyone else) was bad. It was better to marry a cousin than a poor person.\n\nIn the modern day, the Saudi royal family is having trouble with this. There are so many princes it is hard to support them all. \n\nRoyal families often did go to war. \n\nFor example, Frederick of Prussia and the Russian Czar were cousins. They called each other by first name, and wrote letters back and forth. \n\nOne of those letters expressed hope that war could be avoided, but even though the two kings didnt want it, their countries went to war anyway.",
"Why were the royal families of so many countries related?\n\nSimple, royalty marries royalty. When there is nobody to marry in your own country you go looking abroad. In the past there was also a lot of politics involved. ",
"They were individuals and families that sought and achieved power, sustained it through generations and claimed it was God's will.\n\nIt was considered proper and beneficial for royalty to marry other royalty. This let them achieve peace and own more land. Marrying poor people(which was everyone else) was bad. It was better to marry a cousin than a poor person.\n\nIn the modern day, the Saudi royal family is having trouble with this. There are so many princes it is hard to support them all. \n\nRoyal families often did go to war. \n\nFor example, Frederick of Prussia and the Russian Czar were cousins. They called each other by first name, and wrote letters back and forth. \n\nOne of those letters expressed hope that war could be avoided, but even though the two kings didnt want it, their countries went to war anyway."
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11wep8 | Jerusalem during Middle Ages (500-1500) | I have a couple of questions concerning how Jerusalem was run during this period, as well as how this altered the city during the era.
The information is required for a presentation I am having on the subject, with my "problem" being "How did the crusades against Jerusalem, led by both Christians and Muslims during the years 500-1500 A.D alter Jerusalem as a city under this time-period?"
The presentation is for a small class, and should be around 10-15 minutes, the facts are therefore not required to be extremly in depth.
Was the city only controlled by Muslims and Christians, and if so, during which times did the two religions hold it?
How was the behavior towards Jews? And did the Jews retrieve better treatment from one of the two religions?
How was the situation between Christianity and Islam, was there always an extremely violent conflict, or were there any periods of peace between the two religions?
Feedback is greatly appreciated, cheers!
Edit: General grammar
| AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11wep8/jerusalem_during_middle_ages_5001500/ | {
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"In 500AD Jerusalem was still under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire and believe it or not there were fairly few Jews living in the city or its environs. The city was populated mostly by Christians from all over Europe and Asia who came as pilgrims. This was a time when Jerusalem was beginning to take it's central role as the holy city of Christianity. In 614 however, the Sassanid Empire, along with ~20,000 Jewish rebels recruited in Persia, captured the city and it became a Jew-administrated part of the Sassanid Empire. The war then turned against the Sassanids who were forced to abandon the city five years later. In reprisal the Byzantines massacred Jews all across Judea and those who were not killed fled abroad once again. The Byzantines didn't retain it for long; the Arabs conquered Judea and most of the Levant in 638AD.\n\nJerusalem switched hands between the various fluctuating Muslim states for the next few centuries. The Muslim rulers were more or less tolerant of the sizable Jewish and Christian minorities in the city and allowed Christian pilgrims safe passage to and from the city. Non-muslims were required to pay a tax called *jizya* in order to practice their religions unmolested. It stayed this way until 1099AD when the First Crusade captured the city. Immidiately after the city was taken virtually the entire population of the city was butchered, excepting the Eastern Christians who were expelled from the city by the Muslims before the siege. King Baldwin I founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem which encompassed most of Judea and Lebanon. Muslims, Christians, and Jews did co-habitate in the Kingdom of Jerusalem with varying degrees of success. In 1187AD Salah ad-Din, King of Egypt captured Jerusalem immediately sparking the Third Crusade to retake Jerusalem which ultimately failed.\n\nThere would be several more unsuccessful crusades and Jerusalem changed hangs a few times but eventually the Kingdom of Jerusalem was whittled down to nothing and absorbed into Egypt which was now controlled by the Mameluke slave-soldiers in 1291AD. It had become much as it was before the crusades: a multi-ethnic, multi-faith city and pilgrims of all faiths were allowed to come and go. That's the way it stayed until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1517AD.\n\nI hope that answers your questions.",
"Giddeshan provides a pretty solid answer but I wanted to throw out there that the massacre after the capture of Jerusalem during the first crusade is still subject to debate among medieval historians.\n\nNo one doubts that once it was captured there was a brutal sacking (as was typical), but the numbers, and frankly the descriptions given in the primary sources are pretty unreliable. There is a distinct possibility that the descriptions of blood that is ankle or knee deep are unrealistic and are more for rhetorical effect than an actual legitimate description. This is especially worth considering given that many of the main sources (such as Fulcher of Chartres) are not eye-witness accounts.\n\nJust something to keep in mind, and heck it might even make for an interesting point to discuss. \n\nEdit for grammar, for shame, me."
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2upygn | Did divorce exist in Meiji Japan? What was involved? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2upygn/did_divorce_exist_in_meiji_japan_what_was_involved/ | {
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"Indeed, divorce did exist in Meiji Japan and well before it as well. \n\nIt's important to note that marriage was often a family based deal, much like it was in other parts of the world. \n\nMarriage was very much about two families joining and for people of status, wealth, or prestige, marriage might be decided by people other than the bridge & groom-to-be.\n\nThe importance of Meiji Japan on divorce is that it was making steps in equalizing marriage in that wives were now given more room to petition for divorce and it was now legally codified that husbands that refused to grant wives divorces on reasonable grounds \"violates her rights to personal freedom\". \n\nBy 1898, after learning about Western contemporary divorce law, Japanese legislatures drew up their own uniquely 'dual' system and entered it into the 1898 Civil Code.\n\nBefore we move on, I should lay down some context for the times. \n\nin the late 1800s, many Japanese intellectuals were all about reforming marriage, divorce, and the social as well as legal laws that governed how Japanese families interacted. The idea was a a more liberal, progressive family unit would encourage a more open, productive society.\n\nOf course, these liberal thinkers were considered fairly radical by the more conservative Japanese populace, and traditionalists/anti-Western thinkers opposed them whenever they could. \n\n**It's also important to note that divorce in Japan was essentially very free for much of the Edo Period.** The big exception is families of status, namely the nobility, the samurai, and the upper crust clans. For major families, only heads of the household could decide on marriage and consequently, divorce. \n\nBut for most people, divorce was fairly straight forward. The husband would draft a letter of divorce, 三行半 *mikudarihan*, and once handed to his wife and her family, bam divorce complete. *Only the husband could draft such a note.* \n\nNow while this may seem extremely patriarchal, with the wife liable to suffer greatly at the whims of the husband, in practice, it was a bit more balanced and nuanced, if still disadvantageous to the wife in that she could not personally initiate legal action. \n\nFor example, there are letters from the time period of a wife's family having the husband draft up divorce papers in advance and then keeping them, as a warning that if the wife was not treated well or if the husband failed to provide for her, the family would 'accept' the divorce and would retrieve their daughter. \n\nOther times, wives would 'force' their husbands to draft letters of divorce and threaten to use it if they behaved badly, for example, drunken behavior or adultery. \n\nAll this being said, men undoubtedly had the power legally speaking, and there are a multitude of cases of mistreatment or cruelty through divorce/threat of divorce against women. \n\nBut as we move into the Meiji Period, divorce goes through a tumultuous series of changes.\n\nThe Western culture at the time saw the relatively high rate of Japanese divorce as unsettling and embarrassing. Japanese reformers reacted to this by trying to effect a change that would make Japan a low divorce rate society.\n\nFor example, in 1887, Yokoyama Masao penned a book that was published by a magazine company that was Christian leaning, examined various reasons why Japan had a higher divorce rate than other contemporary modern nations, decrying that divorce should not be allowed so freely as it was, describing it to be an evil act. \n\nWhat's really interesting is that as Japan industrialized more, it's divorce rate *dropped*.\n\nEven as women labor independence, education, and marriage/divorce laws became more equal, allowing women legal powers, (all the things that *increased* divorce rates in Western nations) Japan's divorce rate came down. \n\nFor example, in 1930 sociologist Iwasaki Yasu published a study on marriage in Japan and detailed that in 1880, the divorce rate was 3.38 per 1000 and decreased to 1.53 in 1899, AFTER the reforms to marriage law and divorce law were made in the 1898 Civil Code. \n\nThis is an important point to make historically that Japan's various changes during the Meiji Period ***were not simply Westernizing***. Japan wasn't simply copying and pasting wholesale from Europeans and Americans. It was going through it's very own Industrial Revolution and rapid expansion of ideas, cultural thought, social changes, and religions. \n\nIf Japan was simply 'trying to became Western/American/European' many of their values would not be so different. \n\nMoving on!\n\nDivorce was divided into two distinct categories. \n\nOne was *mutual divorce*. \n\nThe other was *court intervened divorce*.\n\nIn court intervened divorce, there needed to be grounds for divorce, usually sexual infidelity, but in general divorce was fairly straight forward even when the government was involved. \n\nWomen were given more legal powers to enact divorce proceedings and was sometimes rewarded a settlement of her husband's property. Men had legal requirement to provide for their wives and not mistreat them or it would be grounds for divorce. This was all thanks to the legal codification in the 1898 Civil Code. \n\n**So why did divorce rates decrease in Meiji Japan?**\n\nWell there are a couple reasons. \n\nFor one thing, marriage was more focused on the household of the married couple, rather than the entire extended family. This meant that the groom's parents no longer had *as much* of a say. This was important because many divorces prior to the Meiji Period were from a groom's parents saying the new bride was incompetent, or simply not endearing and sent home with a divorce letter. \n\nThis is not to say that the extended family still did not play a massive role in marriage. Simply that marriage was refocused and legal restrictions made it more difficult to get a divorce on a whim. \n\nNext, adultery was officially grounds for divorce and no longer allowed by Japanese society. Prior to the Meiji Period, many men had mistresses or visited prostitutes. This was considered the norm and unavoidable by many parts of society, including upper class families. Marriage was not for love but for status, economy, and political reasons. \n\nBut in the Meiji Period, adultery was no longer allowed. This consequently strengthened marriages that would have otherwise probably ended in divorce with the new laws set in 1898. \n\nNext, economic independence of women meant that many women did not need to marry out of necessity any longer. Their families were not pressured into finding a husband that may or may not be a terrible person so that their daughter could be provided for. \n\nThis meant that marriages were often more carefully entered and more carefully maintained. Romantic marriages also became more common since women had a greater variety of choice and freedom in who they married than before. \n\nAnd to tack onto this, rural marriage practices declined greatly with the national standardization of marriage/divorce law. Reinforced by the economic and cultural changes of the Meiji Restoration + industrial revolution, many rural marriage practices, including relatively informal divorces, declined. \n\nI have to get back to work but let me know if you have anymore questions! Cheers!"
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31gs9r | why modern parking lots seem to be configured in confusing and maze-like fashions through the placement of seemingly random medians? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31gs9r/eli5_why_modern_parking_lots_seem_to_be/ | {
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"It probably didn't look so confusing in the top view. ",
"Might be to keep you moving slower for safety?",
"Many factors at play.\n\nOne concern is drainage. you need to dispose of water, and it can only flow down hill. SO you need gutters (and medians) to intercept, channel and dispose of the water.\n\nYou also need to consider turning movement for large vehicles. If a semi or something has to do a reverse turn through the middle, there will be a set motion it will go through, and placing parks around this may look stupid to a normal driver.\n\nAs well there is earthworks concerns, a median is an excellent place to have some steep fall that would be dangerous on the driving surface.\n\nIf the have to satisfy water treatment criteria a certain surface area of vegetated space may be needed, and necessitate the placement of some otherwise unnecessary areas.\n\nMost probably though, a planner or landscape architect had a bit of a \"creative break\" and gone a bit overboard, resulting in an interesting artistic impression on a plan, but a convoluted mess on the ground."
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7th4os | in a deck of cards why is the card called a jack and not a prince? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7th4os/eli5in_a_deck_of_cards_why_is_the_card_called_a/ | {
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"Because it represents a knave (or jack), not a prince.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n > As early as the mid-16th century the card was known in England as the knave (meaning a male servant of royalty)."
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nmxu0 | how phone sim locks work | How do SIM locks on phones work?
Where do the special codes come from that allow them to be unlocked?
How do places like "Joe's Cell Phone Batteries and Perfume" get unlock codes for phones?
Why can phones like the iPhone only be unlocked by hacked software? Is it because AT & T has not provided codes to do it? And how does this go back to my previous question? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nmxu0/eli5_how_phone_sim_locks_work/ | {
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"A carrier, has specific codes on each sim, so that they can identify which is their own sim.\n\nWhen you insert a sim, it sends a signla to tower near by and ask to identify itself ( tower after realying to Cell providers) tells sim, you are on ATT, so when you insert T mobile sim, Tower tells SIM you are Tmobile sim on this device, then instruction comes from tower to tell sim NOT to be work in this device since it is ATT device. \n\nTHe code is nothing but a secret code which is once broadcasted to cell tower & thus opertor tells them the device can use any SIM \n\nThe unlock code is generated via a program/algorithm which produces this random numbers, so Once someone finds out what is algorithm to get that random number, he-she can make a program which will unlock the cell \n",
"A carrier, has specific codes on each sim, so that they can identify which is their own sim.\n\nWhen you insert a sim, it sends a signla to tower near by and ask to identify itself ( tower after realying to Cell providers) tells sim, you are on ATT, so when you insert T mobile sim, Tower tells SIM you are Tmobile sim on this device, then instruction comes from tower to tell sim NOT to be work in this device since it is ATT device. \n\nTHe code is nothing but a secret code which is once broadcasted to cell tower & thus opertor tells them the device can use any SIM \n\nThe unlock code is generated via a program/algorithm which produces this random numbers, so Once someone finds out what is algorithm to get that random number, he-she can make a program which will unlock the cell \n"
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lu4a4 | In the human body, does being in (great) pain = damage? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/lu4a4/in_the_human_body_does_being_in_great_pain_damage/ | {
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"No. Your sensory system can be mistaken. (e.g. [allodynia](_URL_0_))",
"[Cluster Headache Syndrome](_URL_0_) is accepted as one of the most painful things(if not *the* most painful thing) a human can experience. I have suffered from frequent clusters for years now with no noticeable damage at all.",
"Not necessarily, but the most damage can sometimes equal [no pain at all.](_URL_0_) ",
"Then there's phantom limb pain. _URL_0_\nPain that can remain even after the damage has healed. ",
"No, while pain is essential to learning normal self preservation behaviours there is a type of pain called psychosomatic pain in which you experience pain without there being any reason. Also as previously noted allodynia can occur in which normal stimuli are perceived as pain due to over sensitised nociceptors.",
"No necessarily. In come cases it might be due to irritation of a nerve which will cause a considerable pain, such as in [trigeminal neuralgia](_URL_0_) which is caused by irritation and over sensitization of the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve and will result in \"very painful, sharp electric-like spasms in parts of the face\" where in actuality there is no damage to these facial structures. ",
"Capsaicin in hot peppers activates the same nerves as those that sense being burned. Your body *thinks* you're being burned, even though there's no actual cellular damage happening. Another counterexample.",
"Med student here. I agree with the previous talk about chronic pain. Acute pain will cause elevated blood pressure and heart rate which might put you over the edge for a heart attack or pop a vessel in your brain, but that's only if you already have previous pathologies such as plaques or weaknesses on the artery wall. With chronic pain you're in constant stress, your body will react by releasing inflammatory markers, as if you were constantly infected. This puts you at risk for a host of permanent changes in your arterial walls, GERD, and even a tight anal sphincter. These can cause heart attack, esophageal cancer, and anal fissures, respectively. \n\nFun fact: being obese puts you into the same category of constant inflammation and makes you as susceptible to heart attack as a non-obese person who has already had one.",
"Someone wanna explain the pain from childbirth?",
"I think a distinction should be made here between nociception, the neural detection of noxious (i.e, damaging or potentially damaging) stimuli, and pain, the subjective experience concerning nociception. \n\nYou can have pain without damage, and you can also have damage without pain, but generally, large amounts of pain is generally the result of damage, due to the various responses your body has to noxious stimuli generated from somatic damage.",
"Nurse here. Chronic(constant, recurring) pain/stress leads to cortisol levels increasing which causes weight gain, lowered immune response, and weaker bones among other things. So the simple answer is yes, pain does cause damage in your body.\n\nLearn more\n\n_URL_0_",
"Pain is a tricky tricky thing.\n\nAs pretty much everyone has said, yes and no. While pain is supposed to equal damage, it does not always equate. A lot of people have given examples, and here is kind of an explanation for it all. You have to first look at what pain is. Pain is (for the most part) the triggering of nerves and many thing that don't cause damage can do this. The perfect example provided from another member is 'capsaicin'. Here is a great [article](_URL_0_) on pain.\n\nEdit: also, just how pain can be a warning (like you feel pain from heat before you burn yourself), a lot of pain can be a big warning. Also a lot of pain can be psychological (ex: you physically damaged you body and it looks so bad you freak out and 'feel' excruciating pain.)",
"No. Your sensory system can be mistaken. (e.g. [allodynia](_URL_0_))",
"[Cluster Headache Syndrome](_URL_0_) is accepted as one of the most painful things(if not *the* most painful thing) a human can experience. I have suffered from frequent clusters for years now with no noticeable damage at all.",
"Not necessarily, but the most damage can sometimes equal [no pain at all.](_URL_0_) ",
"Then there's phantom limb pain. _URL_0_\nPain that can remain even after the damage has healed. ",
"No, while pain is essential to learning normal self preservation behaviours there is a type of pain called psychosomatic pain in which you experience pain without there being any reason. Also as previously noted allodynia can occur in which normal stimuli are perceived as pain due to over sensitised nociceptors.",
"No necessarily. In come cases it might be due to irritation of a nerve which will cause a considerable pain, such as in [trigeminal neuralgia](_URL_0_) which is caused by irritation and over sensitization of the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve and will result in \"very painful, sharp electric-like spasms in parts of the face\" where in actuality there is no damage to these facial structures. ",
"Capsaicin in hot peppers activates the same nerves as those that sense being burned. Your body *thinks* you're being burned, even though there's no actual cellular damage happening. Another counterexample.",
"Med student here. I agree with the previous talk about chronic pain. Acute pain will cause elevated blood pressure and heart rate which might put you over the edge for a heart attack or pop a vessel in your brain, but that's only if you already have previous pathologies such as plaques or weaknesses on the artery wall. With chronic pain you're in constant stress, your body will react by releasing inflammatory markers, as if you were constantly infected. This puts you at risk for a host of permanent changes in your arterial walls, GERD, and even a tight anal sphincter. These can cause heart attack, esophageal cancer, and anal fissures, respectively. \n\nFun fact: being obese puts you into the same category of constant inflammation and makes you as susceptible to heart attack as a non-obese person who has already had one.",
"Someone wanna explain the pain from childbirth?",
"I think a distinction should be made here between nociception, the neural detection of noxious (i.e, damaging or potentially damaging) stimuli, and pain, the subjective experience concerning nociception. \n\nYou can have pain without damage, and you can also have damage without pain, but generally, large amounts of pain is generally the result of damage, due to the various responses your body has to noxious stimuli generated from somatic damage.",
"Nurse here. Chronic(constant, recurring) pain/stress leads to cortisol levels increasing which causes weight gain, lowered immune response, and weaker bones among other things. So the simple answer is yes, pain does cause damage in your body.\n\nLearn more\n\n_URL_0_",
"Pain is a tricky tricky thing.\n\nAs pretty much everyone has said, yes and no. While pain is supposed to equal damage, it does not always equate. A lot of people have given examples, and here is kind of an explanation for it all. You have to first look at what pain is. Pain is (for the most part) the triggering of nerves and many thing that don't cause damage can do this. The perfect example provided from another member is 'capsaicin'. Here is a great [article](_URL_0_) on pain.\n\nEdit: also, just how pain can be a warning (like you feel pain from heat before you burn yourself), a lot of pain can be a big warning. Also a lot of pain can be psychological (ex: you physically damaged you body and it looks so bad you freak out and 'feel' excruciating pain.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodynia"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn#By_depth"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigeminal_neuralgia"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol"
],
[
"http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145750.php"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodynia"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn#By_depth"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigeminal_neuralgia"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol"
],
[
"http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145750.php"
]
] |
||
2st7gp | can a woman get pregnant by multiple men and have all of their babies ala triplets/twins/etc? (for example multiple ethnicities) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2st7gp/eli5_can_a_woman_get_pregnant_by_multiple_men_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cnsmta2"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Very unlikely but possible. Female must have released 2 separate eggs at the same time, thrn have them both fertilized by sperm from two different males"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3fht4e | what does the foam/bubbles in shampoo do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fht4e/eli5_what_does_the_foambubbles_in_shampoo_do/ | {
"a_id": [
"ctor2ai"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Not much actually. Look up Sodium Laureth Sulphate. Nearly all soaps have some form of this chemical. It is sometimes listed by different names. It slightly increases the products ability to dissolve oils, but its main purpose is a \"foaming agent\". It's added simply because people expect soap to make foam and bubbles. Without foam and bubbles, no one thinks the soap is working so they won't buy it.\n\nFor a long time certain groups have pushed to have it banned, claiming it served no purpose, and was possibly harmful. But extensive testing has never shown that it is harmful.\n\nI have used shampoo which did not have a foaming agent. They are very hard to find, over priced specialty items. They are also surprisingly hard to use. You can not tell how much product is in your hair or if you have worked it in well. But they cleaned well enough.\n\nFor me, the issue was solved by male pattern baldness. Now I use shaving cream instead, which, by the way, also contains sodium luareth sulfate."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
4kvd3j | Founding of Rome: What other legends are there besides the Romulus tale. | While reading about stories of the founding of Rome, Romulus brothers tale seems to be the most well known one. However, I did also see that apparently some other minor stories/sources are out there, too. I'm just wondering what they are... or is there any other at all? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4kvd3j/founding_of_rome_what_other_legends_are_there/ | {
"a_id": [
"d3i8haw"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The founding of Rome by the twins Romulus/Remus is but one part of the legend, the other being the prehistory of the founding of Rome under Aeneas. The story of the founding can thus be divided into three parts: the coming of Aeneas to Latium after the fall of Troy, founding a settlement called Lavinum; the founding of Alba Longa thirty years later by Aeneas' son Ascanius/Julius (this bit became more popular under Julius Caesar since his house claimed to be the descendants of Julius); the founding of Rome itself three hundred years later by a descendant of Ascanius/Julius. This legend however did not always form one whole. Rather, they were both independent attempts at explaining the same phenomenon - the founding of Rome. The story of Romulus was Latin in origin, while the story of Aeneas was Greek. \n\nLater sources such as Servius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus allow us to trace a pattern in the growth of the legend. As far back as the 5th century BC, the founding of the city was later ascribed to an eponymous 'Romulus,' who was later associated with the god Quirinus. Likewise, in the fifth century, writers such as Agathocles of Cyzicum attributed the founding to another character named 'Rhomos.' Others, such as Hellacinus of Lesbos, states that Rome was founded by Aeneas, naming it after a Trojan woman called 'Rhome.' Timaeus of Tauromenium states that it was founded by a man called 'Rhomos,' who was the grandson of Aeneas. \n\nAt some point, the Greeks became aware of the Latin Romulus, who 'existed' simultaneously with the Greek 'Rhomos.' Alcimus the Sicilian states that Rhomos was the one who founded Rome, but was the grandson of Romulus, who was the son of Aeneas. Callias of Syracuse states that a trojan woman named Rhome married a Latin king and had a son named Romulus, who founded a city in her name. \n\nAs you can see these accounts are quite awkward and confused, and the Romans must have realised that they needed a concrete foundation myth to match those of other rival cities (such as Praeneste, whose foundation myth was traced to Ulysses and Caeculus). It is unclear when the Romans decided to fuse the Aeneas/Romulus traditions, however. The Greek writers did not account for the 400 year gap between the landing of Aeneas and the founding of Rome, so it is likely the Romans created the list of kings of Abla Long to bridge the gap. The Latins also transformed the awkward Greek 'Rhomos' to the Roman-Etruscan 'Remus,' and seized upon the Greek literary trope of twin rivalry (Romans loved to borrow all manner of Greek aspects; the twin rivalry thing can be seen in cases such as those of Pelias and Neleus or Castor and Pollux). It's unknown why Remus had to be killed - maybe as a symbolism of shaking off Etruscan influence, since Remus was an Etruscan name. Or maybe it was just to simplify the myth and concentrate the importance upon one dominant figure. \n\nRegardless, the greatest evidence of syncretism between the two legends can be seen in Vergil's *Aeneid,* which is very much *the* main story for the founding of Rome. As seen, however, the unitary, coherent foundation myth was not always so, having to incorporate other elements from various Greek versions of the same legend, and then altering them throughout the centuries.\n\nSources:\n\nBrinkman, J. A., “The Foundation Legends in Vergil,” *The Classical Journal*, vol. 54, no. 1 (1958), pp. 25-33.\n\nDonlan, Walter, “The Foundation Legends of Rome: An Example of Dynamic Process,” *The Classical World*, vol. 64, no. 4 (1970), pp. 109-114."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
82emcl | Was the U.S. the first country with Public Schooling? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/82emcl/was_the_us_the_first_country_with_public_schooling/ | {
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"To make sure I'm answering your question correctly, can you say more about what you mean by \"public schooling\"? ",
"The short answer is \"no\" and the longer answer is \"it depends on how we define \"first\", \"all\", and \"traditional.\"\n\nRegarding \"traditional\", governments throughout history have had varying degrees of interest, oversight, and influence on the education of a country's children (which has mostly meant the sons of men with social status.) For example, the Persian and Spartan states provided an education to boys from the age of seven until 15. The Athens government built and paid for the upkeep for gymnasia for educational purposes. While the academies were privately funded, the state had a say over class size, teacher qualifications, and location. Finally, the Jixia Academy located in the Qi state of China was founded around 300 BCE by King Xuan with the goal of providing a state-funded education to interested scholars.^1 While children through various ages and in various places received educations from their parents, tutors, at church-sponsored schools or academies their parents funded, it's hard to say there's a universal tradition of education being a private endeavor. \n\nGenerally speaking, we can see the evolution of a public education system for *all* children if we look at compulsory education laws, which, unless otherwise specified, apply to children of all genders, ethnicities, social status, and religion within the state. America provides an example of the complexities of this. By the end of 1920's, states, including Mississippi, had laws on the books requiring public schools provide an education to every child that showed up at a public school. However, the state repealed their laws around the time of *Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka*. The repeal was clearly about keeping Black children out of schools funded with tax dollars. It meant that if a Black parent tried to enroll their child in a particular school, the school could refuse the child admission, claiming they had no obligation to provide the child an education. The law wouldn't go back on the books until 1972. Additionally, prior to the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1975, it wasn't uncommon for schools or districts to refuse admission to children with disabilities they deemed too severe for inclusion in public education. \n\n\"First\" gets into some murky territory in terms of nation-states and open access to all children. Prussia is generally recognized as the first European country to institutionalize public education for children of all genders and from all social classes in 1763. By 1870, 67% of school-aged children were enrolled in a state-funded school. Having laws, though, didn't necessarily mean all families would chose public education. Greece passed compulsory education laws in 1834 and by 1870, only 20% of children were enrolled.^2 Prussia, though, ceased to be Prussia before cultural norms shifted around the education of children with disabilities so it's hard to say they provided an education to all children. And while some regions of the US colonies had ad hoc systems of private and charity schools funded with land grants and tax dollars prior to 1776, they were were small and regional and typically excluded white girls, Black or Indigenous children, and white boys with disabilities. So, no, the United States wasn't first.\n\n___\n1. Hartnett, R. A. (2011). *The Jixia Academy and the birth of higher learning in China: A comparison of fourth-century BC Chinese education with ancient Greece*. Edwin Mellen Press.\n\n2. Soysal, Y. N., & Strang, D. (1989). *Construction of the first mass education systems in nineteenth-century Europe*. Sociology of education, 277-288."
]
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[],
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||
2mf0dv | What's stopping the NSA from monitoring and/or controlling the Tor network? | If the NSA has massive resources, could they monitor so many nodes that anonymity was broken? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2mf0dv/whats_stopping_the_nsa_from_monitoring_andor/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm3wqap"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"[Diagram of how tor works](_URL_0_)\n\nTor uses [onion routing](_URL_1_). The sender builds a curcuit of nodes. Each node is only aware of the previous and next node. To compromise the circuit and find who is sending to where, you need to own/operate every node in that circuit. The sender **alice** needs to build a circuit of only NSA nodes to know the sender and receiver. By this I mean they know **alice** is communication with **bob**, but not necessarily the contents as it might be encrypted. \n\nIf an attacker operates just the first node, they only know **alice** is using Tor. If the attacker operates just the last node (exit node) they know the message that is being send to **bob** if its not encrypted, but they don't know who is sending it.\n\nIn recent news there were hidden services taken down. Somehow their identity was revealed. More here: _URL_2_\n\nOne possible scenario is that the service selected a node which was compromised. The node purpose was to reveal the existence of a hidden service. The above link has more details.\n\nTo answer your question, it's possible for them to run Tor nodes all over the world. However, it's not reliable of an attack."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Tor-onion-network.png",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_routing",
"https://blog.torproject.org/blog/thoughts-and-concerns-about-operation-onymous"
]
] |
|
2j3h70 | unless you're a genius mathematician, whats the point of being a mathematician? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2j3h70/eli5_unless_youre_a_genius_mathematician_whats/ | {
"a_id": [
"cl81ywv",
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"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Most people that have a degree in Math enter graduate school. It can be applied to an type of engineering or finance. Or they could continue in academia. ",
"This question has been answered many times. Math is important, learn it as best you can."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
i1s6e | Is birth order romantic compatibility pseudo-science? | _URL_0_ | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/i1s6e/is_birth_order_romantic_compatibility/ | {
"a_id": [
"c206pgp",
"c207ey5"
],
"score": [
5,
4
],
"text": [
"You can rest assured that there is no science to this. It is one step away from horoscopes and numerology.",
"Well, yes and no. I tried looking up some studies to check this out, and there are plenty of studies that examine the effect birth order can have on individuals. However, they are hugely vulnerable to selection bias, small sample sizes, lack of experimental controls, etc. \n\nThis was the only one I saw that addressed something similar to this though\n\n > One hundred male and female college students\nanswered survey questions on jealousy, attitudes toward love, love styles, attachment, and their own romantic relationships. The middle birth order position participants reported significantly higher jealousy ratings than the oldest birth order position participants, and the youngest birth order position participants reported significantly higher romantic ratings than the oldest birth order position participants. Other results reveal trends for a possible birth order effect in romantic relationship styles and attitudes.\n\nThere are a huge number of problems with this study though, unequal distribution of youngest, middle, oldest in the survey, college students tend to have different relationship mentalities than adults, vague definition of 'middle child,' etc.\n\nBasically, there isn't any real scientific evidence of that, let alone any hint at a causal connection. 'Relationship attitudes' are probably affected by millions of various parameters (e.g. parents' relationship, early romantic experiences, psychiatric disorders, and millions of other things) all of which are impossible to control for in these studies.\n\n**tldr** There have been some studies, all of them have been deeply flawed and failed to produce any significant conclusions. Many more complex human behaviors are difficult to pinpoint a specific cause to."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.ivillage.co.uk/how-your-birth-order-affects-your-romantic-compatibility/82285"
] | [
[],
[]
] |
|
9plnls | why is amy schumer hated by everyone? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9plnls/eli5_why_is_amy_schumer_hated_by_everyone/ | {
"a_id": [
"e82klyj",
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"score": [
11,
2,
6,
4,
3,
3
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"text": [
"Not everyone thinks she is funny. Perhaps that's her choice of comic topics, or her coarse language, or maybe she's not funny.",
"There are several reasons, and varuous \"camps\" of dislike.\n\nPeople of color tend to dislike her because she benefits from white privilege in a lot of ways. She isn't particularly talented, but she made a career anyway, and makes a lot of money, in comparison to older, more established, more talented comedians of color, who struggle. Further, she has made quite a few racist jokes, which is obviously bad.\n\nNow to the other camp. They'll rail against this every day, but their words are quite clear. They do dislike her because they think she's ugly. I don't think she's especially pretty, but in this camp, most of the insults are about her looks and about how they don't find her fuckable. Her comedy isn't just not funny, it's not funny in comparison to her looks. If she were attractive, it wouldn't matter how unfunny she is, but she isn't, so it does matter that they won't laugh at her jokes. And considering most of her jokes are sexual in nature, she isn't \"allowed\" to be crass to this camp, because she's not fuckable.\n\nAnd then there are just people who don't find her funny. ",
"She's clearly not hated by everyone, as she has a reasonable career in popular entertainment.\n\nThat being said, I suspect that she's disliked by some because her prominence in media accounts tends to supersede her talent. She's a halfway decent standup comedian, but hasn't managed to translate that into any truly exceptional performances.",
"She isn't funny.\n\nThere's really no ELI5 for this. Many people think of her as the female Carlos Mencia.",
"Both Amy Schumer and I have something in common.\n\nNeither of us are funny.\n\nI don't have a senator in my family to help propel me to stardom, however.",
"I don't hate Amy Schumer. I don't feel anything for her anymore.\n\nWhen her show Inside Amy Schumer came out, I could have fallen in love with her. She was self deprecating, the bits were hilarious, and she seemed like an awesome person in the street interview bits.\n\nOne she blew up in popularity, I started realizing her show writers had more to do with the funny than she did. Her self deprecating jokes turned out to be more a persona than a point of view.\n\nI've tried watching her specials and they do nothing for me. I thought Trainwreck was boring (outside of Cena and Co) and I've just lost interest in her.\n\nShe's not my cup of tea. I don't begrudge anyone who enjoys her though. "
]
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[],
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[],
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||
1ija6n | how electrical impulses work between neurons and can they jump the dendrites or does it all work through synapses only? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ija6n/eli5_how_electrical_impulses_work_between_neurons/ | {
"a_id": [
"cb4zml4",
"cb59f30"
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"score": [
2,
2
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"text": [
"Think about neuron-to-neuron communication as going like this:\n\nElectrical - > chemical - > electrical - > chemical ...and so on. Of course, at such a tiny scale, it gets real obvious that electrical *is* chemical.\n\nI'm not sure what you mean by \"jump the dendrite,\" but I can give you a general ELI5 account like this:\n\nWhen a neuron is triggered to fire (there's no one rule for this--this is complicated, and it depends on what that neuron's job is, and what kind of mood it's in), certain gates open and close along its long trunk, called an axon, creating an electrical charge difference that travels down that trunk. \n\nWhen it gets to the axon terminals at the end, that spark triggers little bags of signaling stuff to pop out of the end into a tiny space--the synapse--between them and the next neuron's dendrite. \n\nWhen those bits of stuff lock onto certain places on the next neuron's dendrite, they can change the way it behaves by making it open or close gates in itself--that makes it more likely or less likely for that next neuron to build up enough charge to fire, and repeat this process.\n\nAlmost right away, right as this stuff has sent the message, it's scooped back up and/or broken down, so it doesn't *keep* sending that message over and over.",
"Yes. Please explain THIS like I'm five. I'm going to need A LOT of references to juice, crackers, and children's television."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
7zr4s6 | how does water pressure work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zr4s6/eli5_how_does_water_pressure_work/ | {
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"duq3op0",
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"text": [
"If you're washing people away by flooding, like water washing through streets or something, it's all going to be at atmospheric pressure anyway. You would need to worry more about volume. A given volume can be driven through a given size hole at a given pressure, or a smaller hole at a higher pressure.",
"In fluid mechanics it's called the hydrostatic equation, it describes the pressure in a fluid at a depth when the water is still, like in a reservoir. Pressure = density*gravity*depth. Since only the depth changes in equation for a given system you would want your reservoir to be a high as possible. \n\nThis is way water towers are generally one of the taller structures in a town so it can provide emergency water pressure. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
||
10su8s | the word "jihad". | Why are there so many different definitions of the word? Why do some people consider it to mean crusade and others say it's just a Muslim struggle to keep faith? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10su8s/eli5_the_word_jihad/ | {
"a_id": [
"c6gc574",
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12
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"text": [
"It's a really old word, and the longer a word is around the more meanings it picks up. The reason for this, and part of the problem with things like \"Jihad\" is that a lot of people aren't using the religious texts for guidance, but to justify things they already decided, and when someone asks them about it, they say, \"No, this is what it really means!\"\n\n(This line of reasoning applies to pretty much anything that exists as a law at one level or another.)",
"Jihad is the last of the seven pillars of Islam. To answer your question simply, it's both fighting a war to protect the religion and fighting off Shaitan (Satan) in one's own struggle to remain true to the religion.\n\nThe first part was really only applicable a long long time ago in history when enemies of Islam (people who were Muslims and deliberately disobeyed tenets of the religion and teachings of Prophet Mohammad) were out to kill the Prophet and his family and followers. They had to fight then, because of issues like land and kingdoms and religious rule of different lands, and, you know, the fact that the Prophet and his family's lives were at risk.\n\nThese days, the religion itself and its leaders aren't in mortal danger, and we no longer have kingdom/land issues (I'm not going to get into Israel/Palestine here--that's an entirely different issue) that require war. So they don't fight wars for the purpose of jihad anymore. In modern times, jihad is really only practiced in that second way: an inner struggle to stay true to the religion and to fight off Shaitan.\n\nJust for clarification, jihad is not and has never been a crusade. It's basically patriotism, but for your religion. You fight in wars because your religion/leaders are under attack (actual attack, mind, not some offensive badly-dubbed video insult), to protect it/them, to defend. Not to needlessly mass murder people in the name of God/religion."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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] |
|
6yexus | how does meditation physically alter the brain's structure? | There are several scienctists that claim meditation physically alter the brain's structure.
Meditation is about focusing on the breath and letting thoughts come and og - not about blocking them out. So why do this activity - sitting down and focusing on the breath - alter the brain?
They say we get more grey matter. What is the purpose of this grey matter? Are there other activites that produce more grey matter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yexus/eli5_how_does_meditation_physically_alter_the/ | {
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"Imagine you're a guitarist. When you start playing, your fingers don't do what you want them to, they're \"slow\" and \"heavy\". After a while, they get lighter and more agile. Same goes with chords. Some chords start off by seeming like an impossible positioning of fingers. After a while, they're also really simple and immediate to do, you barely have to \"think\" to do it. What is happening is that you're developing muscle memory, both in your fingers and in your brain. It strengthens the connections between neurons and muscles. \n\nThat's what meditation does; meditation trains your brain do to certain thinks: namely, control your focus or your lack of focus. In long term, your brain becomes better and better at taking control of your focus during long periods of time, which results in being able to do so with less effort. The brain is a muscle, and muscles can be trained -- and in the case for the focus, meditation is the training. ",
"This is one of those things that's true but completely overblown.\n\nLook, *everything* physically changes the brain's structure. Reading this very sentence has altered your brain's structure. That's how our brain works. If our brain couldn't change, we'd never *experience* anything, because synaptic connections is how the brain does stuff. \n\nYour brain also creates new brain cells *every single day of your life*. \n\nOur brain is not static. It's constantly changing. \n\nNow, meditation is still a very beneficial practice. It helps you focus, which is a very, very useful skill. But it ain't magic! ",
" > There are several scientists that claim meditation physically alter the brain's structure.\n\nThat is not just a claim, it has been proved with visual evidence using magnetic resonance (MR) images.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"Ever meditated? It will actually burn you out like hard math problems which indicates to me atleast that your brain is being trained in some way or another. So it doesnt really surprise me",
"Put your finger on your forehead. Right behind there is the part of your brain that tells the rest of your brain what thoughts are important and which ones aren't. If one part of your brain is going \"I want cake!\" and another part's going \"I want to lose weight!\" this part of your brain sorts through those thoughts and decides which takes priority. The more tired you are, the more this part of your brain struggles to work, and the more likely you are to do what the more impulsive parts of your brain want to do.\n\nWhen you meditate, you \"work out\" this part of your brain, making it bigger and denser. This makes it better at its job and improves what we call \"willpower.\"",
"Jordan Peterson says long term meditation has been shown to grow the hippocampus and shrink the amygdala.",
"It shrinks your Amygdala, which pumps out cortisol, which is a fight, flight, or freeze chemical, and if it's overactive will make you anxious.\n\nIt grows your prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for planning complex cognitive behavior. \n\n"
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1mbdko | How does having multiple cores solve the CPU heat barrier? | I mean by the law of conservation of energy, if multiple cores generate more performance, wouldn't it use more energy than a single core and thus release more heat? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1mbdko/how_does_having_multiple_cores_solve_the_cpu_heat/ | {
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"Given a constant chip size (and fab process, voltage, etc.), having one core vs. multi-core doesn't necessarily change the amount of performance in an *ideal* situation. You keep every circuit on both running at some utilization level (let's say 80%) and you get the same amount of information processing done. And the same amount of power dissipation (heat generation). \n \nA problem that multi-core chips help solve is that we can't effectively keep that utilization level going. Software isn't written to always use the same amount of different types of tasks, for example floating point vs integer arithmetic. No matter how much we try, it is very difficult to keep the whole processor running at a high utilization level all the time. And if it isn't doing so, in order to *save* power (reduce heat) we need to figure out what to shut down and when. \n \nMulticore also helps simplify the task of distributing the computational load. A computer may have many tasks that can run concurrently, but making a single core handle that (via techniques like multi-threading) adds a degree of complexity. Simply devoting different tasks to different cores helps to reduce that complexity. \n \nIf those things are being done, then when a core isn't being utilized much we can run it at lower frequency/voltage or temporarily shut it down, saving power. This can be done (and is) internal to a single core device, but it can be trickier to correctly partition what portions to do it to...it simply becomes a very complex problem that some of the processor's resources must be dedicated to, rather than dedicating them to actual computation. It also makes the job of ensuring design correctness (\"verification\") much more difficult. Instead of independently managing the power of a bunch of small things that are interdependent and located in many places on the die, we manage the power of a few large things which are co-located. ",
"The short answer is that you are correct - multiple cpus are going to burn more power than a single (identical) cpu.\n\n\nThe reason we have switched from faster single cores to multi-core is that making faster single cores costs a lot of power (higher overhead from support structures, and more speculation - wasted work). Multiple cpus will not give uniform increases in application performance, but they are easy to build.\n\n\nSo, instead of designing faster single thread cpus, we have polished old cpus and put more of them on die. Power has remained the same (or gone down), because we are not pushing the design envelope as hard."
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3f36bp | What did the T-Rex actually look like? Is there any consensus among paleontologists? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3f36bp/what_did_the_trex_actually_look_like_is_there_any/ | {
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"Are you asking about their looks at a surface skin level, or the actual dimensions of it's structure? Bone records help with the height and weight estimations, but skin is harder to theorize since it's a protein - and within fossilized records it is typically believed that skin dissolves within those first million years. That governing thought process meant no one has ever really looked for a sample until recently - I think three years back scientists found a soft tissue sample still viable in iron, and that acted like a formaldehyde\n\nNo idea about feathers or colors, if that's what you mean."
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44mun0 | What do we know of Sir William Marshall as a knight and a warrior? | Do any of the texts specifically mention how skilled he was in battle at all? Was he as dangerous and as effective as modern historians have made him out to be, and what separated him from other knights of his time? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44mun0/what_do_we_know_of_sir_william_marshall_as_a/ | {
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"[Here are a couple of posts](_URL_0_) on Marshal. He was a phenomenal tournament knight, he supposedly captured 500 men during his career, respected warrior, defeating Richard the Lionheart, and died regent of England for Henry III. Aside from his political achievements Marshal is so well known due to a biography commissioned and written shortly after his death. *L'histoire de Guillaume Le Marchel* gives an unparalleled insight into the life of a knight at the turn of the thirteenth-century. This text paints Marshal as an unparalleled warrior, perhaps unsurprisingly considering his son commissioned it, but the wealth and power he generated through his participation in tournaments and as the martial head of Henry the Young King's household corroborates much of it. \n\nThis text has been translated for the Anglo-Norman Text Society. David Crouch had written an excellent historical study (although Thomas Asbridge's more recent *The Greatest Knight*, based on his BBC documentary may be more readily accessible). "
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1chmnm | In many historical war films, enemy kings or generals often ride out to confront each other before battle. Did this sort of thing really happen? | If so, did anyone ever take advantage of this? Or would it bring too much shame, dishonor? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1chmnm/in_many_historical_war_films_enemy_kings_or/ | {
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"[We know from Polybius](_URL_0_) that Scipio may have met with Hannibal before the battle of Zama, and talked a bit about the causes of the war, and each tried to claim that they were fighting a just war against an aggressor.",
" > And, if so, did anyone ever take advantage of this\n\nOne famous example of this takes place in Xenophon's Anabasis. After Cyrus was killed in his failed attempt to take the throne of Persia, the band of Greek mercenaries he'd hired turned and marched for home.\n\nThe King of Persia was not thrilled by the attempt to overthrow him, to say the least, and there was a tense standoff between the Persians and Greeks. A truce was formed, but it was a suspicious one, and both sides watched one another closely. One of the high ranking Persian leaders, Tissaphernes, invited the Greek officers to a meeting. They were captured and executed.\n\nThe Greeks rallied together, and elected new leaders, among which was Xenophon, the writer of the story.",
"During the middle ages it was far more usual for the heads of the armies to communicate before a battle with each other using [heralds](_URL_0_).\n\nThe wiki page cites the example of Agincourt.",
"Although not a king, [Wat Tyler was cut down by the king's men during a meeting](_URL_0_) in the Peasant's revolt in England. Historical accounts range from \"they cut him down for daring to speak to a king like an equal\" to \"he drew a knife on the king and the mayor of London defended him\"."
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xr7ms | So, Redditors of NASA, JPL, and related researchers... what have we learned from this important off-planet mission? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/xr7ms/so_redditors_of_nasa_jpl_and_related_researchers/ | {
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"I work for neither of those three, but we have just discovered a new, viable landing system for larger payloads =0"
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2p2tyy | why is plastic surgery for hands so ineffectve? we see many ageing celebrities with young-looking faces, but their hands always give away their true age. there's surely a market for it, so what's holding it back? | Probably the best example of this phenomenon is [Madonna](_URL_0_), whose face is as tight as a 20 year-old, but whose hands reveal her to be in her mid-50s. She definitely has the money and motivation to make her hands look younger, so there must be a technical reason why it can't be done. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p2tyy/eli5_why_is_plastic_surgery_for_hands_so/ | {
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"There are procedures to make hands look more youthful. Chemical and laser or light procedures to remove brown spots. Fat injection or filler injection to restore volume. As for why Madonna possibly does or does not do those things, well, the decision is hers. ",
"You absolutely can use fillers (like Juvederm and Radiesse) in hands and restore a more youthful appearance, so I wonder why she doesn't. ",
"I'm guessing because gloves are so much less expensive\n",
"Another give away for a persons true age that plastic surgery does not seem to help is neck. A lot of celebrities have had their faces done, but they have these necks with lots of droopy skin (chicken necks). They hide it by wearing scarves.",
"You ever notice how people with a lot of work done on their faces can't be very expressive because their faces don't move as much? Now imagine the mobility in your hands is that limited. People are willing to sacrifice some ability to move their faces (which everyone will see and notice) more than dexterity in their hands.",
"Because there are no muscles in your hand, just tendons. You can't inject tendons with botox. Botox permanently relaxes muscles therefore removing wrinkles.",
"Toebesity is a much greater issue. I can't even wear sandals.",
"In addition to what is said here, plastic surgery is an investment for lots of celebrities, to get more work. \n\nThis may not be relevant for Madonna, but hands are rarely seen on camera, and even if there's a problem a director will use a body double to get the shot (or just shoot the weird hands/feet as they are and hope nobody notices)."
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11i02y | the dangers of looking at someone welding/soldering stuff | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11i02y/eli5_the_dangers_of_looking_at_someone/ | {
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"Welding often emits ultraviolet radiation, which can harm your eyes- the same reason you shouldn't stare at the sun. I don't know about soldering though- as far as I know there's no reason why you can't look at a soldering iron at work."
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7iu9h3 | human ancestries.. have males always been generally the more dominate sex? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7iu9h3/eli5_human_ancestries_have_males_always_been/ | {
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"Human males have historically been the more dominate sex. In humans, the male is large and physically stronger which makes them better at hunting, gathering, and defending the tribe. Added on to this is the long gestation period that makes females less physically capable for periods of time.\n\nThe result of this is males were better at the necessities for day-to-day survival and this translated over into the social constructs of society.\n\nWe are now past those primitive needs, but as males have been the dominate sex for all of recorded history (until very recently), there is a lot of baggage involved now that the sexes are both equally capable of conducting the functions of day to day life. ",
"Men are expendable (one male can fertilize many women) and getting the valuable animal protein requires a gamble and time to hunt. Women simply don't have time to hunt with a pregnancy 9 months and several years of nuturing a very dependant child. Each male/female roles were/are equally valuable with sure bet of gathering with high risk high reward of hunting. Hunting requires a certain \"brutality\" and physical/mental strength that naturally creates a dominant person...Not to mention, high stress and lack of food, like hunting expeditions, tend to make women temporarily infertile.",
"Human male dominance in many societies isn't a trait that started with Homo. sapiens, but a trait that we share with the vast majority of catarrhines. \n\nCatarrhines are basically any monkey or ape species you can think of that don't live in the Americas. In almost all of them except the baboons, societies are male dominated.\n\nThis makes sense because when you think about what it takes to successfully produce offspring, females have it a lot harder than males. Females have to gestate the fetus in their womb and then have a lactational period where they feed the baby breast milk. This is a very, very labor and energy intensive process.\n\nMales on the other hand, literally have to just ejaculate. So comparatively, female primates have to put in a lot more energy than male primates, and, more importantly, male primates can **always** produce new offspring, while females can only produce offspring during certain windows (When they're not gestating or in lactation).\n\nSo whenever there is a newly estrous female, a *bunch* of males compete over her, in a way that never happens the other way around. You never see females competing for males in many catarrhini species. Since multiple males are competing for females, this selects for bigger, stronger males, which causes sexual dimorphism in many primate species. And since multiple big males are competing for a few smaller females, this unsurprisingly leads to male dominance.\n\nHumans are just a byproduct of this whole system, but we developed certain unique things (pair bonding, for instance) that differentiate us from other great apes. Male dominance continued for quite some time though, but its starting to disappear culturally in many communities. ",
"First, we'll need to specify what is meant by *dominant.\n\nLet's talk about sexual dimorphism first of all. Sexual dimorphism is an apparent physical difference between sexes in a given species. For example, male lions have manes and lionesses do not. Male narwhals grow tusks, females do not. Peacocks are brilliantly coloured and have a large fan tail, peahens are brown and have a short tail. Good? Good.\n\nMale humans could be defined as \"physically dominant\" (ie, larger, heavier, stronger) in the sense that the average adult male can physically overpower the average adult female. In terms of sexual dimorphism, male humans have broader shoulders, thicker brow and jaw bones, more muscle mass, and body hair than females - to name a few main things. Anthropologists believe that before the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago, most human societies lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Men were mainly the hunters and defenders and their physical strength lended itself to this role. \n\nNow, physical strength is one thing, but dominance and strength aren't the same thing. When we look at our closest relaive, the bonobo chimpanzee, the males are stronger but bonobo society is matriarchal. In gorillas, the males are stronger and gorilla society is patriarchal. So dominance is more about how the individuals make up the society and less about strength. \n\nA few more examples:\n\n-Male elephants are stronger than females but elephants are strictly matriarchal\n-Male orcas are much larger than the females but orca society is also strictly matriarchal \n-Male elephant seals are 3 times the size of females and the males govern the beach colonies during mating season\n-In birds of prey, the females are most often larger and stronger than the male and they dominate the males\n-Male wolves are usually slightly larger than the females but the pack is governed by a dominant pair\n\nSo differences in size and strength exist all throughout nature, but to say \"stronger equals dominant\" as a general rule is wrong.\n\nBack to humans. Prior to the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, many human societies were matriarchal. All over the world many societies were led by respected elder female members of the tribe. The Inuit, Apache, Navajo, and Iriquois are a few good examples from North America. These cultures existed for thousands if not tens of thousands of years. Many societies were also egalitarian, and decisions for the tribe was made by a council of mixed elders.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSo when did this change? With the advent of wealth accumulation. As us humans started keeping more \"stuff,\" we were also building farms and houses and cities. We developed currency. All this land and wealth needed to be physically protected to ensure the survival of that particular society. Men, being physically stronger and suited to protect resources and attack to acquire resources, became the dominant sex in most wealth accumulating societies. This is almost always true. While women sometimes were able to attain a high status ( female kings in ancient Egypt, a lady emperor in feudal China), at the time they still were not regarded as equal to their male counterparts and most of these women got shut down at some point. The further humans have developed, the deeper these power structures have become entrenched. \n\nIt is only in the last century that things have started to change. While developed nations (\"first world\" countries) have experienced a higher degree of movement towards gender equality, developing nations (\"second/ third world\" countries) are still struggling."
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75plpv | what does the silica packets in boxes of shoes do and why? | When anyone buys shoes, sometimes it comes with silica packets in them. Why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/75plpv/eli5_what_does_the_silica_packets_in_boxes_of/ | {
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"Silica is highly hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water from the atmosphere. It is present in shoe boxes (and in certain dry foods, and other items) in order to ensure the enclosed environment remains as dry as possible, so that the product does not degrade, mould or swell.",
"Its a desiccant. It absorbs water from the air, so that even in humid environments the shoes stay dry.\n\nYou will find those packets in a lot of packaging for things that get damaged when wet.",
"Silica packets absorb ambient moisture in the air. When you figure these shoes are made in places like Vietnam, Malaysia, and other southeast Asia nations with muggy weather before they're shipped across the Pacific and distributed to wherever, it's a good measure to reduce the possibility of mildew getting into the shoes.",
"The silica gel absorbs moisture from the air. Keeping the air dry helps to prevent mildew and friends from setting in while the shoes are in shipping and storage. That way, when you open the box, you get the nice 'new shoes smell' instead of the '3 month old damp rag' smell."
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6txcun | Was there a "retirement plan" for old slaves in America? How often would slaves reach old age, anyways? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6txcun/was_there_a_retirement_plan_for_old_slaves_in/ | {
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"This is a really interesting question and one that can be approached in many ways depending on region, state, or years of interest. For the sake of time, I'll answer this from a more general perspective, and use specifics when I can. I'll use the perspective of those who were enslaved primarily in the Revolutionary Era, but will also try and address the 19th century even though that isn't my specialty. So I'm going to answer your second question first, since mortality rates are important to understand prior to knowing how their lives fared after they reached old age.\n\nGenerally speaking, many slaves did not live to \"old age\" as one may put it. For starters, many historians have poured themselves into the research into most enslaved people's first experience with slavery: the middle passage. Historians have suggested that at least [around 4.5% of slaves died while on shore prior to their deportation and 12.5% of slaves died during the passage over to the New World, and another 7.5% died during \"seasoning\" once they reached their destination.](_URL_4_). From here, mortality rates were entirely dependent upon where an enslaved person ended up. Enslavement in the Caribbean, for instance, was much harsher than being more north in the American Colonies. Conditions were so terrible, that slave owners like George Washington used the threat of selling their slaves to owners in the Caribbean against their own slaves because their slaves had heard the horrors of the West Indies. ([Washington even did this on several occasions to different slaves](_URL_0_).) Also worth noting that only about 6% of all enslaved Africans were sent to the American Colonies, [with the majority of the rest heading to the Caribbean and South American colonies](_URL_2_).\n\nLife in the American Colonies were difficult for enslaved persons even if they had \"good\" masters. Slaves typically worked from dawn until dusk if they worked outside, and even slaves who worked inside had long days [although some slaves were given Sundays off](_URL_3_) (many kitchen or personal servants typically worked from 4AM to 8PM).\n\nBabies had it even worse. [It is estimated that about half of all enslaved babies did not survive until their first birthday](_URL_5_). That same research institute also listed these as the biggest ailments facing slaves:\n\n > Common symptoms among enslaved populations included: blindness; abdominal swelling; bowed legs; skin lesions; and convulsions. Common conditions among enslaved populations included: beriberi (caused by a deficiency of thiamine); pellagra (caused by a niacin deficiency); tetany (caused by deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and Vitamin D); rickets (also caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D); and kwashiorkor (caused by severe protein deficiency).\n\nSo what was the life expectancy of slaves? Not very high as most can imagine: [21.4 years old, verses over 25 years old for whites by 1850, with only 3.5% of the population living to be 60 years old(4.4% of white Americans lived to be 60 years old).] _URL_7_). But, to be fair, reaching the age of 50 was considered old during this period. \n\nSo what happened to slaves when they got old? Well, a few things. First, if a slave happened to reach the age of 25, that individual was considered very valuable in most cases, causing slave owners to begin caring more for that individual's care. Second, some slave owners did free their slaves, and in some cases, like with George Washington, could free their slaves upon their death and with his personal servant, he even ensured he would receive a pension. [Washington also decried that all slaves that were too old to work or move on to new professions were to be cared for at the estate while still gaining their own freedom.](_URL_6_) While Washington was able to free over 100 slaves this way, he was the only founder who owned slaves that did this. \n\nAnother factor is that impacted elderly slaves in many states were manumission laws. While these laws sometimes barred all slaves from being freed at various points in history, one important factor is that some manumission laws prohibited the freeing of slaves passed a certain age. For instance, in Maryland, that age was 45. This was done because many slave owners had a habit of using slaves for most of their youth, and then freeing them in their 50s, [when they would be too feeble to work](_URL_1_). These types of manumission laws were men to protect enslaved Americans by forcing slave owners to either free their slaves earlier, or be willing to take care of their slaves in their old age. \n\nTaking care of old slaves was something that many slave owners opted to do in many cases, although using the terms \"care for\" is a loose term. In the best cases, slaves would be assigned simple tasks to complete in their old age, and in the rarest cases, slave owners would allow their slaves to retire on the property but their needs would still be taken care of by their masters. I cannot stress how rare this is ever recorded. (*Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Social History* pp. 93). This same book I just cited also outlines how slaves were still sometimes sold, even into their 60s if other owners still had needs for less physically demanding work. But again, this was rare to ever happen since only 3.5% of all African-Americans, including free African-Americans, lived until the age of 60. \n\nHope this answered your question. Let me know if you have any follow-ups.\n\nEdit: grammar\n "
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"http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/intromsa/pdf/slavery_pamphlet.pdf",
"https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery",
"http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/private-lives-of-slaves/",
"https://web.stanford.edu/~hklein/Klein_etal_Mortality_ST_WMQ-2001.pdf",
"http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery",
"http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/slavery/washingtons-1799-will/",
"http://geriatrics.stanford.edu/ethnomed/african_american/fund/health_history/longevity.html"
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1h24j5 | Book Recommendations on the History of Medicine? | I'm a pre-med student, and I'm really interested by the history of medicine, especially in the area of the Mediterranean and the Near- and Middle-East in Classical antiquity and before. I'm looking for books or articles you'd recommend, either on those periods/areas specifically or on the history of medicine in general. I think I'm more interested in the specifics of how medicine and surgery were practiced/researched in history than in a listing of "the big discoveries," say. I'm also interested in how early drugs were developed, such as how a usable form of penicillin could be extracted from the fungus and how medicines (useful or not) were extracted from plants.
I've read some primary source stuff, some Celsus, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, some of the Hippocratic corpus. However, a lot of it is pretty thick and oddly-written/poorly-translated, and I found them a tad difficult to get through. I'd prefer something at least a little accessible (though it doesn't have to be Malcom Gladwell or anything, just something not purely aimed at academics). However, an aggregation of several of these works or a good translation of any of them (or any other good primary source) might be good.
Some books I'm considering:
* A Brief History of Disease, by Michael Kennedy
* Man and Wound in the Ancient World, by Richard Gabriel
* A Short History of Medicine, by Erwin Ackerknecht
* Blood and Guts, by Roy Porter
* Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology
* The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson
Many thanks! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1h24j5/book_recommendations_on_the_history_of_medicine/ | {
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"For the history of medicine, you can't beat the [Clio Medica](_URL_2_) series. They're focused primarily on the period 1600-1900, though, which is probably not what you're looking for. Each volume contains a series of essays which take on a theme from multiple angles (I'm particularly fond of \"British Military and Naval Medicine, 1600-1830\"). The wide variety of niche topics addressed, the depth to which the topics are analyzed (a 50ish page treatise on the historical development of the truss comes to mind), and the fact that the essays are largely written by authors in the Humanities rather than doctors make this series my go-to source for medical history. Furthermore, the extensive bibliographic information accompanying each essay makes further research pretty easy.\n\nMoving backwards towards Classical medical sources, I'd say an interesting bridge source for you might be the writings of [Paracelsus](_URL_0_), alchemist and surgeon (really a good place to get a feel for the transition from occult/magical ritual medical practice to the science of medicine that began in the Renaissance). Keep in mind that Paracelsus is an alchemist and writes about his experiments in a very abstract philosophical manner- you'll have to do a lot of work to interpret what he's saying in order to see the themes of medical/chemical/scientific inquiry develop. I think of him more as a philosopher of science/medicine than an actual scientific/medical authority. \n\nThe medical historian John Scarborough has written pretty extensively on the subject of the history of medicine in the Classical Mediterranean. If you have access to JSTOR, there are several articles written by him available which you might look into (\"Roman Pharmacy and the Eastern Drug Trade\" treats with the interplay of Far/Near/Middle-Eastern medicine with Roman medicine, could be a good jumping-off point for further study). I've also heard good things about his [*Roman Medicine*](_URL_4_).\n\nFor Middle-Eastern and Near-Eastern medicine, if you don't want to flounder around the ritual medicine contained in the mystical texts such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, you're probably going to want to look into the medical documents found in the [Cairo Genizah](_URL_1_), a collection of fragmentary Jewish texts concerning a vast variety of subjects. If you don't know ancient Hebrew/Arabic/Aramaic and aren't studying at Cambridge (where the collection is stored) see if your librarian can get ahold of [*Medical and Para-medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections*](_URL_3_) or [*Medical Prescriptions in the Cambridge Genizah Collections: Practical Medicine and Pharmacology in Medieval Egypt*](_URL_5_).\n\nHope this helps!",
"Howard Clark Kee has a wonderful volume [Medicine, Miracle and Magic in New Testament Times]( _URL_0_)",
"You sound like you may be interested in Majno (1975) [*The healing hand: man and wound in the ancient world*](_URL_0_), which examines, synthesizes, and comments on a staggering swathe of primary sources in from Rome on back. I think it's also clearly what the Gabriel book you mention was making an homage to.",
"If you think you'd be interested in translated documents from the medieval period from 500-1500, I recommend the wealth of texts in Faith Wallis' [*Medieval Medicine: A Reader*] (_URL_0_) (2010). It's loaded with interesting excerpts."
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"http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=CLIO#volumes",
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"http://www.amazon.com/Medical-Prescriptions-Cambridge-Genizah-Collections/dp/9004234888/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1372195226&sr=8-2&keywords=genizah+medical"
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2w6eno | During the US-Soviet space race, what were other country's space programs doing during this time period? | It seems like the only two nations participating in the Space Race (A quick google says it was from 1957 to 1975). Why weren't any other countries involved? Did Britain or France have their own active space agencies at this time? Or any other country for that matter. I'm interested in any space programs/experiments that were occurring during this time period that is not a part of the US-Soviet space race.
If, during this time period, the Soviets and the US were the only two nations exploring space/launching satellites/doing whatever it is you do with space, then when did other nations begin their own space programs?
If I'm basing this question on a false premise, or you know of any examples where its some country working jointly with the US/USSR then I would like to hear about that as well. I'm just curious about what the rest of the world's space programs were doing in a time period that is pretty much dominated by the US-Soviet race. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2w6eno/during_the_ussoviet_space_race_what_were_other/ | {
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"My reply will probably be incomplete and I'm sorry, but I hope it will respect the guidelines. \n\nThere weren't countries that participated in the space war in the same extent of USA and ~~URSS~~ USSR\n\nI can speak for my country, Italy, that cooperated with the NASA and sent a satellite the San Marco 1 in orbit during the 1964, becoming the first nation after USA and ~~URSS~~ USSR to send something in orbit. \n\nIt so was also a member of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organization (ESRO) established two years earlier, that later merged in the 1975 forming the European Space Agency. \n\nHope it will answer some of your questions.\n\nEDIT: Clearing something, ~~UK~~ and Canada launched a satellite before Italy, ~~but it was built by NASA, the Italian satellite was built by an Italian Team and launched from a US facility.~~\n\n\nEDIT: Canada sent a Satellite completely made by them 2 years before Italy, making them the first country after the two superpowers to launch a satellite. \nThank you /u/MuffButter for clearing that up!",
" > or you know of any examples where its some country working jointly with the US/USSR \n\nAustralia certainly assisted the USA in some small way. Probably most famous (although even then not that famous) is the Parkes Observatory _URL_0_\n\nFrom that link...\n\n > During the Apollo missions to the moon, the Parkes Observatory was used to relay communication and telemetry signals to NASA, providing coverage for when the moon was on the Australian side of the Earth.\n\nIt and other facilities in Australia have since fulfilled a similar role for a bunch of other missions.",
"The United Kingdom developed a launcher, Black Arrow which was a satellite launcher and Blue Streak which was a missile but was cancelled before entering production (it was given to the ELDO that Antorugby mentions and became part of the European launcher.)\n\nBlack Arrow successfully launched Prospero, the first successful satellite built in Britain and launched by a British rocket. The first UK satellite was Ariel 1 but it was launched by a US rocket, and built under contract in the US. \n\nThe UK has never had a 'space program' as such, the UK space sector is comparatively large (worth £9bn p.a.) but has generally been restricted to the private sector and academia, and the relativity limited involvement in the European Space Agency.\n\nThe UK didn't have a 'space agency' until 2010, previously it was an office in the relevant department (Trade and Industry, Business Industry and Skills etc.)",
"A word about France:\n\nLike the US, USSR and other nations, France started researches in rocket technologies in the 1940's for military applications. These efforts were geared to acquire the capability to hit USSR with nuclear missiles (first nuclear bomb detonated in 1960, first launch of the AGATE test rocket in 1961, first operational IRBM silos in 1971). \n\nThe CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales , basically the French space agency) is created in 1961.\n\nFrance becomes the third nation to put an object in orbit in 1965 with the launch of Asterix on top of a Diamand A rocket.\n\nin 1964 was created the ELDO ( European Launcher Development Organisation ) to develop the Europa launcher. After nearly 10 years of development the project is canceled after a series of failures. Then came the ESA (European space agency), established in 1975, and the ultimately very successful Ariane first flight in 1979.\n\nFrench space initiative in the 60's can be seen through the lens of the policy of president De Gaule to give France independence in every sectors perceived as strategic.\n\nEverything I've said so far (and much much more) can be found on this very 90's looking French site (sorry) _URL_2_ . While made by an amateur, this website is extremely well documented and corroborated by other sources.\n\nWP articles:\n\n* _URL_1_\n* _URL_4_\n* _URL_3_\n* _URL_0_",
"I believe that the short awnser to this (which I am woefully unqualified to give) is that ,yes , other programs did exist , and yes they did contribute to mankind's exploration of space.\n\nI think the first and most important thing to do is to place your question into context. The key driver of the Space race was the cold-war imperetive to achieve technological pairity as a part of the arms-race . With global power now largely defined by ones access to (and ability to deliver) nuclear weapons , the superpowers raced to develop better bombs and better means of getting them to their targets. This led to unprecedented funding for things like strateigic bombing aircraft , nuclear submarines , and of course ultimately the ICBM and its orbital spin-offs. \n\nNow , whilst the US and the USSR led movement and were able to dedicate a vastly greater amount of resources into development , they were not alone. In the 1950s and 60s other \"Great Powers\" , specifically China , Great Britain and France scrambled to create their own bombs and delivery systems in an effort to prove their geopolitical importance. Despite their increasingly limited strategic positions and shrinking budgets , Britain and France invested heavily in their nuclear deterrent , including the development of ICBMs. British efforts resulted in the Blue-streak / Black-Knight missile programs that successfully launched the Prospero satellite into orbit from Australia in 1971. Ultimately , they decided to withdraw funding from the project in favor of developing a submarine based nuclear deterrent , and Britain remains the only space power to have effectively abandoned its satellite launch capability. ( See: _URL_1_) France took a similar avenue with its Diamant Launch system , initially proposed by the military as a weapons platform , and which launched Frances first Satellite from Algeria in 1965. Both programs were later subsumed into a joint European Space agency that , along with Programs in Italy and Germany , would become the foundation of the ESA. More on that later. In the East , China launched its first satellite in 1970 atop a \"long march\" rocket , though the space program suffered extensively during the chaos of the cultural revolution and the death of Mao. To Summarise , several major world powers were launching their own rockets into space by the start of the 1970s.\n\nAnother aspect that you inquired about is co-operation between space programs and the Superpowers. Both political camps established programs that sought to facilitate their allies efforts to reach space , for both scientific purposes and for pure propaganda. between 1978 and 1988 the Soviet Interkosmos (_URL_0_) sent cosmonauts into space from as far afield as Cuba and Vietnam. Indeed , several participants came from outside the communist sphere , most notably France and India. For their part the USA were also willing to take specialists from its allies and partners once it had established its shuttle program in the early 1980s and had space capacity. Off the top of my head I can think of Astronauts from Great Britain , Israel , Mexico and West Germany who all got their first taste of space courtesy of NASA. Outside the manned space program both sides had extensive networks of co-operation with smaller space agencies and academic institutions that provided experiments , equipment and funding for space probes and Satellites. In the West the USA provided a cheap launch facility for many countries (A key factor in Great Britain abandoning its own launch facilities in 1971) , and in the Soviet Block the Vega series of probes carried instruments provided by several Warsaw pact states.\n\nBy the 1980s and the end of the Space race the emphasis had turned to co-operation. Following the Apollo-Soyuz test mission in 1975 the US and the USSR never had the same sort of antagonism that had marked the Space race of the 1960s. Morever the European space powers had begun to pool their resources into the ESA, which began its highly successful Ariane program in 1979. Though they remained reliant on US technical assistance well into the 1990s , the ESA is perhaps the best example of a non-superpower , non-national space agency making real contributions during this time period. When NASA found itself unable to pay for a mission to Halleys comet in 1986 , it was the ESA (in the Form of the Giotto space probe) that led an armarda of spacecraft to collect priceless data.\n\nIll stop there , im spewing space history out of my ass and its probably not a good idea! Hope this awnsers some of your questions and gives you some avenues to research\n",
"East Germany developed (among other things) a high tech camera for the Soviet space program: [MKF 6 multi spectral camera](_URL_0_). The development costs were about 82 million Mark and it was considered at that time as the best space camera in the world. It wasn't even allowed to be exported to non Warsaw Pact countries."
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e6msvv | Why was Britannia's economy so dependent on the rest of the empire? And what exactly happened after the Romans left? | Asking this because more than once I've read that the Anglo-Saxons were able to assimilate the Britons because after the Romans left Britain's urban society collapsed. Why is that so? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e6msvv/why_was_britannias_economy_so_dependent_on_the/ | {
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"Roman Britain tended to be a fairly peripheral western province during its existence : its conquest was less motivated by its relative or potential prosperity, and more by political gains (essentially prestige operations and ensuring regional stability at the benefit of Rome) and Britain was fairly importantly militarized in comparison to its meager population : 40,000 men (an 1/8 of the Roman army) was stationed in a province with maybe 2 millions inhabitants). Overall, you can notice that militarized provinces in Europe tended to be the regions where post-Imperial *romanitas* dwindled to the point of assimilation (especially along the Danube; Roman Germania being more of a case of cultural mixing), because these provinces tended to be on the \"edge\" of Roman way-of-life, half pastoral and half-agricultural economically, with relatively few cities and *villae,* etc. although being unmistakably part of the Roman world.\n\nThis army was the prime motivator of development of trade and local production as it needed to be fed, clothed, garrisoned, supplied, etc. and all this being equal, importing these goods was cheaper for the imperial military budget than massively turning to a limited local production (in metals or salts, for instance), this fiscally subsided trade being accompanied by non-strictly military imports sold to soldiers, veterans and romanizing local elites. But what I'm describing there existed no more, not just in the Vth century, but since the IIIrd century onwards.\n\nThe Third Century Crisis hit Britain as hard as other provinces of the Empire, in spite not being as importantly damaged by the Barbarian raids and Civil Wars than in Gaul or Italy. Where the army's presence had motivated urban life and production dwindled while the subsided trade couldn't be sustained out of budgetary crisis (the Empire couldn't even afford to regularly pay its armies to begin with) and because productions in other provinces took a significant hit as well. Its consequences were in Britain, but also in other more or less peripheral provinces, an important institutional and social reorganization (mostly an important polarization of society between richer and poorer classes) but an economical one as well as local production (especially if it wasn't related to the former economical model) outright blossomed out of this : local pottery or tableware replaced imports; local, quasi-monumental, villae were built in important numbers in lowland Britain as well as modest farms a bit everywhere; new markets towns emerged and were directed under the control of local elites rather than imperial institutions and harbouring their own specialists and craftsmen; old cities being centers of trade, redistribution and wealth because of the remaining presence of the elites, rather than urban activity itself and where monumentality was inceasingly privatized, etc.\n\nAll of that led to the formation of a provincial *romanitas*, mixing both classical and native influences, which was eventually more more present in the island than the previous imperial culture model.\n\nBritain's agriculture became able to not only sustain the provinces (trough a network of public granaries and redistribution by local elites), but to produce surpluses. These surplus were used both to pay in kind the annona, but as well to obtain products that couldn't be produced locally (spices, fruits, jewels, precious tableware, olive oil, wine, etc.) eventually redistributed by local elites trough the new or revivified markets centers, in order to display both their romanity and their own social status. An important products that I not yet mentioned, but that filled this role, but note solely, was coinage. The renewed fiscal capacities of the Late Empire allowed it to inject in Britain, trough wages an subsides to local elites public service, a top-down monetarized economy, ensured by the connection of British elites to the empire.\n\nIn the Vth century, it was no more, because the empire was collapsing in the West, after decades of local raids gradually eating up the limited capacities of late Roman Britain while troops were gradually withdrawn out of it as defending Italy and Gaul was considered much more important strategically. As the empire \"downsized\" its assets, it had major consequences : the end of a monetarized economy and the economic and cultural binder it was, especially in maintaining urban life and structures; the end of a motivation to produce agricultural surplus for fiscal and exchanges purposes and the loss of purpose of extensive farming and villae; the end of a relative sense of security against periodic raids from North Sea, northern Britain and Ireland.\n\nRoman Britain was basically institutionally and financially exhausted into a political collapse, economical simplification and social changes decades before attested Germanic settlement in eastern Britain. But while the former diocese was ruined, it doesn't mean that it was a post-apocalyptic landscape either : the newcomers met with Brito-Roman populations, and their remaining elites, in still existing farms (altough it appears several lands were deserted), even in \"de-urbanized\" towns : the political collapse of the Empire in Britain, shortly followed by its collapse in the West, didn't put an end to their roman identity by itself and it didn't in western Britain : what was at stake was a sense of social insecurity, and how to maintain one's position in a post-imperial world; and adopting a new identity was often a convenient way to either feel \"socially reassured\" or to access, trough matrimonial ties or other, better opportunities.\n\nThat's well and good, but social and political shifts as well happened in Frankish Gaul with Roman elites intermarrying with Franks or even disguising themselves as Barbarians (or a rather transformed idea, shared with Franks, of what a Barbarian should look like) but early medieval Francia was essentially a late Roman society evolving from a late imperial foundation, while early medieval Britain was gradually Germanized, trough and trough, until only western peripheries remaining. You even had, possibly earlier, Saxons settlements in Normandy and Picardy which were quickly absorbed by Franks while keeping a distinct identity until the late Carolingian era. Why the difference?\n\nI, above, described Germanic settlers as \"newcomers\" and that's precisely what they were : while Franks not only existed as a periphery to the Roman Empire since they emerged as a coalition but also were integrated in Late Imperial institutions and society since the IVth century, peoples that came in Vth Britain were often peoples with only an indirect connection to the Empire and that basically settled as \"cultural and social aliens\" in a ruined Britain that couldn't either repeal them or institutionally aggregate them.\n\nWe often refer to them as Anglo-Saxons, in your post for instance, but that's a significantly later term probably born out of both folk traditions and references to classical texts (especially for Angles) : the idea that whole peoples, even kingdoms, were \"translated\" from Germania to Britain can't be supported archeologically (and the idea they formed stable peoples since Antiquity is really dubious historically, especially for Angles, whom later use to name some English people might find its origins in Merovingian courts).\n\nRather, they were probably disparate familial groups, not that differently from Slavic migrations in Balkans, settling among remaining Brito-Romans, and adopting several native features such as land allotment or agricultural practices, toponymy (e.g. Tamesis - > Thames; Cantium - > Kent), etc. from their new neighbours and for the Vth century, eastern British societies were undergoing, so to speak, soul-searching; and without a strong state or power to \"guide\" identity definition and decision as in the mainland (but also in western Britain where the lesser dependency on late Imperial features saw the earlier rise of petty-states), the lack of identity features associated to Rome (institutions, Latin literacy, roman goods) and an elite social shifting were probably main factors in the overall linguistic and cultural shift as indigenous Germanic petty-kingdoms emerged out of it, especially as leading families had a direct connection to international trade and prestige goods from the Rhine as western British elites did trough Atlantic (the opposition between them being quite probably a further factor into cultural differentiation).\n\nWe'll probably never know what happened *exactly* during the Vth and early VIth period in eastern Britain, if emerging royal lines were even royal to begin with or even descendants from Germanic migrants (there's some suspicion due to early names, that it might not be fully the case for the kings of Wessex), but it's probable that it stemmed from an indigenous dynamic rather than a passive \"assimilation\" by newcomers.\n\n\\- *Britain after Rome : the Fall and the Rise - 400 to 1070*; Robin Fleming; Penguin Books; 2010\n\n\\- *The Ruin of Roman Britain : An Archeological Perspective*; James Gerrard; Cambridge University Press; 2013"
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doaz4r | why are the people planting lots of trees not worried about the impact on the nutrients in the soil? | I don't know much about ecology on that level as far as the soil balances but won't planting that many new large things that fast effect the soil for a while? Are there plans in place to feed the extra needed nutrients to the soil? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/doaz4r/eli5_why_are_the_people_planting_lots_of_trees/ | {
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"Trees bring plants that add nitrogen to the soil, plants die and decay as do all the animals that feed on the plants and live in them. It becomes a cycle that also gets nutrients from the outside.",
"While you do have the semi correct idea, it doesnt apply to the million trees. The idea is to plant trees where trees used to be. Deforrested areas. Also, trees in a functioning ecology will replenish the soil.",
"As others have touched on, a forest is far more than just trees. Once trees are planted there, the land will stop being used for other purposes, and the natural life cycles of plants and animals that move into the area will replenish the soil.",
"There are forest that have existed for millions of years so is is quite clear that you can have sustained growth for very long time without human interaction. The problem when you grops crops is primary that we remove what is grown and use it somewhere else so stuff that is the plants do not return to the ground.\n\nThe plans of plating 20 million trees is a minuscule compared total number of tress that is around 3 trillion in the world. It is also a small program compare to the [350 million trees in a day](_URL_0_) in Ethiopia this year.\n\nForestry companies also plant many times that amount each year, just in Sweden is is around 400 million trees is planted per year. But it is not exactly the same because they cut down the old trees a few years before that.\n\nThat said the program can have a huge effect especially if you plant threes in urban environment or where they stop soil erosion. What trees and where you plant them can be a lot more relevant then the number of trees.\n\n \nBut you have to remember that it 20 million trees is not a lot and programs of global reforestation would require billion of trees. The best way is not just to plant trees but stop the cutting down of forest for framing primary in tropical part of the world.",
"A potential source of confusion that hasn't been touched on yet is that trees are not primarily made out of soil. They derive only trace materials from the ground but are instead composed almost entirely of materials obtained from water and the air.\n\nThis means that new trees planted somewhere will be able to grow without huge impacts on the soil.",
"Most of what you see in a tree is cellulose, trees make that from water and air (and sunlight). I'll ignore the nitrogen cycle for now, just know that some bacteria, plants and even symbiotic fungi living in the soil around the tree can \"fix\" nitrogen for you from the air into compounds you (as a tree) can use. Many species build up a whole ecosystem of fungi living out of sight that that effectively trades sugars that the tree produces in the leaves for various fertiliser services.\n\nThey do need trace minerals from the soil, but mostly just trace minerals. There are several ways these minerals can get into the soil in the first place.\n\n* Decomposing plants - old plants die and leave their minerals behind - both from the previous tree that lived in your spot, and blown in from other areas\n* Animal Waste & Dying animals. Those animals coming along to your forest to eat your fruit and leaves will defecate and die, spreading minerals around.\n* Symbiotic organisms such as Fungi and Lichen can break down minerals in the soil (clay and even rocks) releasing the minerals in them. This is a VERY slow process, but in a forest this is not a problem.",
"To add to other comments, plants and trees protect the soil from sun, wind, and rain impacts which otherwise would lead to erosion. The plants allow the soil to retain moisture, and allows fungus to colonize. Fungus will dissolve rock with acid, these minerals are then used to by the fungus to exchange with a trees via its roots for sugar. The tree then uses the minerals to grow biomass. Leaves from the tree are made of these minerals, and eventually die, decompose and become fertile topsoil."
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cqgxzm | how can you have two electrical switches that perform the same role independent of the other switch? | In many houses you have, for example, a corridor with two light switches at either end. When you turn either switch on/off then the light turns on. Similarly, either will turn the light off, independent of the other switch's position. This does not seem to follow either series or parallel circuit logic, so how can this be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cqgxzm/eli5_how_can_you_have_two_electrical_switches/ | {
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"I have a corridor in my house which works as one might think it would. Only lights up if both switches are “on” which is hella annoying",
"It's called a three-way switch. The two light switches are wired up to each other, and also to the light. There's an extra piece of wire connecting the two switches to each other.\n\nWhen both switches are on, the light goes on. When both switches are off, the light goes on. If one switch is off and the other switch is on, the light turns off.\n\nThat way you can control the light from either side. It doesn't matter if an individual switch is on or off - they just need to be in the same state as the other switch.",
"It's called a three-way switch, and works because the switches are very much *not* independent. Here's how it works:\n\nOn one switch, you have an \"input\", and two \"outputs\", A and B. The switch position routes the (power) input to either A or B.\n\nThe second switch has two inputs, A and B, that both come from the first switch, and one output. This switch's position controls which of the two inputs goes to the output (which then feeds power to the light).\n\n[In the jargon, it's two SPDT switches with their common terminals connected to line and load, and the switched terminals connected by \"traveler\" wires.]\n\nThe result is that no matter what state the switches are in, switching one of them will toggle the state of the entire circuit."
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30nc22 | how does an induction stove boil water so quickly and not burn your hand? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30nc22/eli5_how_does_an_induction_stove_boil_water_so/ | {
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"Because magnetic fields.\n\nInduction stoves require special pots — the pots have been \"tuned\" to respond to the alternating magnetic field put out by the stovetop, and it is the pot itself that heats up. Your hand — and the jewelry you wear on it — are not able to have a current *induced* in them that would be resisted and then create heat.",
"ELI5: A piece of magnetic metal is made up of a million small pieces of metal. Each tiny piece of metal is a magnet pressed tightly up against each of the magnets next to it. Let's talk about that one magnet. \n\nWhen you run a current next to it, our one magnet \"flips\" over. By doing that, it rubs against all of the magnets next to it. By rubbing, it generates heat, similar to if you rub your hands together to stay warm. \n\nThe stove will force each of the million magnets to flip up and down, each time creating a little bit of heat multiplied by a million! This makes for a million hot magnets or one hot pan!\n\nThe stove, on the other hand, contains no such magnets, and so it doesn't get hot. \n"
]
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[],
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2eensh | ; why do cable companies block out certain programs like sporting events even though i pay for the service? | I couldn't watch the little league World Series because it was blacked out in my area. Thank you DTV | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eensh/eli5_why_do_cable_companies_block_out_certain/ | {
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"text": [
"The local channels are airing it and don't want their viewers stolen by the cable/satellite provider. So the MLB (or other org) forces the cable/sat providers to block it out.\n\ntl;dr: follow the money."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
33byhy | how do dogs know the difference between the road and the sidewalk? | Do they just see it, or can they smell it, or they just not know? I don't know, but I'd like to know | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33byhy/eli5_how_do_dogs_know_the_difference_between_the/ | {
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"Mostly in the same way you know the difference. Dogs can see the different shape/size, different texture, different markings, cars drive only on roads, people walk on sidewalks, they probably do smell different, etc. Each dog may figure it out through a different combination of these clues, or not figure it out at all, but a smart dog will use all these clues to tell the difference."
]
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[]
] |
|
9xex0c | What effects does the Gulf stream have on Europe's climate? | I have found a couple of sources that say that it isn't the gulf stream that makes the climate in Europe mild, that this is just a myth.
One source ( _URL_2_ ) says that it is due to winds from America
The other ( _URL_1_ ) says that atmosphere and stationary waves dictate the climate
However I have read that Europe had a heat wave this year due to a weaker northern jet stream, which would mean that winds make Europe colder than it would be without winds, meaning that these winds don't matter? I do not know.
Furthermore I have found some sources that say that the Gulf stream does have an effect, by heating up the air for example.
_URL_0_
_URL_3_
So here is my question:
What effects does the Gulf Stream have on the climate in Europe? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9xex0c/what_effects_does_the_gulf_stream_have_on_europes/ | {
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"Your first set of sources is correct: the warming effect of the Gulf Stream on Europe is vastly overrated by popular science and textbooks. It's not zero, but it's quite small. The author of your first source is one of the definitive experts on the subject.\n\nThe first reason Europe is warmer in the winter than North America is simply that the ocean stores summertime heat, and so areas downwind of the ocean (Europe) benefit from that stored heat. The second reason is that mountain ranges create a wave pattern in the atmosphere that brings cold air from northwest to southeast on the American side of the Atlantic, and warm air from southwest to northeast on the European side. Ocean currents come in a distant third in importance.\n\nThis was first demonstrated by [Seager and Battisti (2002)](_URL_0_). They used a computer simulation of atmosphere and ocean that matched the observed transatlantic temperature difference. They did two experiments with it: first, they compared the standard model with one in which ocean currents were shut off. Second, they compared the standard model with one that had no mountains. By comparing the transatlantic temperature difference in all three experiments, they found that at least 80% of Europe's warmth compared to North America comes from ocean heat storage and atmospheric waves; ocean currents were responsible for no more than 20%.\n\nWhy do your second set of sources disagree with this to conclusion? The first is a rather out-of-date encyclopedia with no bibliographic citations. The second cites sources, but only from the late '90s, *before* Seager and Battisti's important paper."
]
} | [] | [
"https://web.archive.org/web/20110723020158/http://www.asparis.net/lowerschool/2dgrade/maps/climate/europe.htm",
"http://ocp.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/",
"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250969019_The_Source_of_Europe's_Mild_Climate",
"https://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/north-atlantic-drift.html"
] | [
[
"https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1256/qj.01.128"
]
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|
2bj2x4 | why and how do some users moderate 300+ subreddits? obviously they can't do it all, so why are they a mod? | Please don't link usernames and bash them. Unless you need to mention the user to answer the question, leave it out please. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bj2x4/eli5_why_and_how_do_some_users_moderate_300/ | {
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"Many who mod that much founded most of those subreddits. They often put other mods in place to do the job and they just are the top of the chain in case they want to change the community in some way, or the mods go overboard and they have to remove them.\n\nOn reddit subreddits are first come first serve, but there isn't a limit to the number of mods.\n\nI'm a mod of ELI5, probably 1/3 of our mods aren't very active (including the top one, bossgalaga) but because he made the community he doesn't want to step down (and no one can make him, and none of the mods want him to). But he added other mods who help out, and those mods added other mods.\n\nThankfully if you don't like a subreddit you can make your own, and YOU get to be the top mod."
]
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[]
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|
3tn75m | why do people feel afraid or like they're being watched when they're alone? | I'm taking about scientific or psychological reasons (sorry no ghosts or angles please). If you know you're alone and secure with no outside danger present why do you sometimes feel a quick spike in fear or hesitation to walk up the stairs into the dark hallway? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tn75m/eli5why_do_people_feel_afraid_or_like_theyre/ | {
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"the fear of the unknown. you really don't know for sure what's up those stairs and that makes us feel uncomfortable",
"I can't say for sure, but I feel like it's evolutionary, and something buried in us from our ancestors as a defense mechanism. Think about how nervous and on edge animals at a watering hole are in an Attenborough special. Furthermore, since we are social, we are probably used to having other people around as an alert system. I am sure our distant relatives had to keep on guard in the past when danger was everywhere, and a lot of human behavior can probably be tired to those kinds of hold overs. I could very well be wrong though, but that seems to make sense."
]
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[],
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|
ba4bdh | What was the American condiment landscape like before Heinz ketchup came to have a dominant market share? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ba4bdh/what_was_the_american_condiment_landscape_like/ | {
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"I'm not sure if this exactly answers your question, but Malcolm Gladwell did an article back in 2004 about the history of ketchup and mustard, specifically focusing on how no one has been able to create a successful challenger to Heinz, but he does talk a little bit about the ketchup market before Heinz, and the circumstances that led to Heinz ketchup.\n\nEssentially, there was an establishment group of ketchup manufacturers, for lack of a better term, who used unripe tomatoes and a preservative called benzoate. This led to watery ketchups. In a sense, it wasn't that different from now. There were more names on the shelf, but they all had more or less the same taste. In the early 1900s, the Department of Agriculture decided that benzoates were bad. The establishment disagreed, but a group of manufacturers led by Heinz decided that vinegar could be used as a preservative instead, which would allow the tomatoes to ripen. Over time, the establishment was pushed out because the market decided that the vinegar and riper tomatoes provided a much better taste, and now we have the single massive company that everyone associates with the word ketchup.\n\nSource: _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/09/06/the-ketchup-conundrum"
]
] |
||
6iqusl | Why did Castilian become the default "Spanish" language, instead of the Aragonese language, after Castile and Aragon were united as Spain? | Today the default Spanish language is, or is descended from, Castilian. This is evident because Spanish speakers in the Americas often referring to the Spaniard's accent as "Castilian". But if Castile and Aragon were united peacefully and supposedly equally into the Crown of Spain, then why did Castilian become the dominant default language instead of Catalonian (or Aragonese)? Why did Castilian win out over the Leonese dialect earlier when Castile and Leon were united even earlier? Why did none of the colonies in the new world develop populations of colonists speaking the regional Iberian languages (Catalan/Leonese/Basque) that must have traveled with the colonists, but ended up restricted to their own corners of Spain in modern times while Castilian became known as the Spanish language?
And on a related note, why DIDN'T Spanish leave more of an impact on areas such as Southern Italy and the Netherlands that the crown of Spain had controlled for so long? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6iqusl/why_did_castilian_become_the_default_spanish/ | {
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"/u/LateNightPhiloshopher\n\nAragon and Castile were not united as Spain when Isabella and Ferdinand married and ascended to their respective king/queen-ships, rather they were put into a personal union. Navarra was joined into personal union only after the death of Isabella. \n\nThe rise of Castilian as the language of Empire, is best summarized in J. H. Elliott's magnum opus *Imperial Spain, 1469-1716*,\n\n > > \\[Elio Antonio de Nebrija's\\] interests, like those of many humanists, extended also to the vernacular, and he published in 1492 a Castilian grammar – the first grammar to be compiled of a modern European\nlanguage. ‘What is it for?’ asked Isabella when it was presented to her. ‘Your Majesty,’ replied the Bishop of Àvila on\nNebrija's behalf, **‘language is the perfect instrument of empire.’**\n\nThe domination of Castilian culture, language, and politics, was a deliberate effort started by Isabella and Ferdinand, where it was elevated as the means of power. This effort in turn followed the rise of Castilian culture and prestige during the Reconquista, during which time it displaced Leonese culture. Castilian culture was indeed vibrant, what with a strong [humanist movement](_URL_0_) and [founding of universities](_URL_4_). \n\nThe Catholic monarchs had designs to [change the political and religious system of Spain](_URL_3_), against the interest of the aristocratic class and with designs to control the clergy. They founded the *Santa Hermandad*, the holy brotherhood, with them at its head, as a \"national\" police force that is supported by additional local taxes. This gave them significant power against local nobility, as they had the power to investigate, judge, and execute. The holy orders such as the Calatrava was [corralled into royal obedience](_URL_2_). \n\nThere were many strong arguments in support of such an institution, as crime was unacceptably high in that period following Henry IV Castille's incompetent rule. When the Spanish inquisition was founded, evidence suggests they had similar ideas, although in most literature Ferdinand was seen as the true architect.\nTo quote Ferdinand, *\"The Hermandad would soon be joined with an Inquisition and, together, employed as an instrument of terror and obedience.\"*\n\nIn this period, the Crown of Aragon was undergoing a crisis demographically and economically. To give you an idea, the population of Catalonia in 1365 was 430,000 but in 1497 it was merely 278,000 -- a whopping 37% decline. The territory of Aragon may have appeared vast, but they were ruled through various courts, with little direct control by the monarch of the Crown of Aragon. \n\nIn Castile, on the other hand, a rising state had economic, demographic, political, and military strength. Thus, it made sense that it became the leading culture of the empire. As a succession of kings further depended on it -- despite the Revolt of the Comuneros where Castilian nationalists rose against a \"foreign\" Charles I who aspired to become Emperor Charles V of the HRE -- a symbiotic relationship between Castilian nobles and their king led to a strong direct rule. Is it a wonder that Spain's empire in the Americas and the Philippines was subjected to the Council of Castile? \n\nIn this period of rising strength, [the identity of \"Spain\" developed](_URL_1_), centered around the dominant Castilian culture. \n\nLater on, [over-dependence on Castile](_URL_5_) became a major factor in Spain's decline. ",
"So this is a complex question with several layers:\n\n*Language in the 15-16th c was not codified so speaking of separate languages is difficult especially in a region like Iberia. The first formal grammar of Castilian was not composed until 1492 and the Real Academia Española (official institution overseeing the Castilian language) was not established until 1713. In the 16th century if one were to walk from Lisbon to Cadiz to Valencia to Madrid to Barcelona one would not notice abrupt changes in language, rather there would be a spectrum from a largely identifiable Portuguese, to Castilian, to Valenciao, to Catalan, etc. Also many of these languages were much closer in this period than they are today. But the question still has merit why did the dominant language of Castile become the language of a unified Castile and Aragon.\n\n*Both Ferdinand and Isabela although monarchs of kingdoms with differing dominant dialects were both members of the House of Trastámara, a Castilian noble house. So it is a bit erroneous to consider Ferdinand as a staunch defender of Catalan, most of his relatives were Castilians even if he ruled as king of Aragon.\n\n*For most of the Habsburg era (1517-1700), Castile and Aragon were governed independently of each other, as each were distinct kingdoms with their own laws, institutions, and traditions. Yet, Castile tended to have greater prominence because of its larger territorial area. Although the mediterranian territory of Aragon was expansive (the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardina, Naples, Sicily, etc.), after 1492 all of the Americas and the Philippines were annexed to Castile, but not Aragon. This also made the kingdom of Castile the largest income producing kingdom for the kings of Spain. \n\n*When Charles V came to power in 1517, he had almost no experience in Iberia, he inherited the throne as a co-monarch with his mother Juana la Loca. He did not speak Castilian or Catalan. He was born and raised in the Low Countries, his father's dynastic territories. He spoke flemish, eventually he would learn Castilian and speak with an accent for the rest of his life.\n\n*Philip II, Charles' son, was raised primarily by Castilians and would have been raised speaking Castilian even though he was also king of Aragon. Concurrently, by the mid-sixteenth century most of the major advisers to the monarch were Castilian and Castile had become the more powerful of the two kingdoms. Later in life, Philip II would also rule as king of portugal from 1580 as would his son and grandson until 1640. \n\nFor reading on the period see:\n\nEdwards, John. The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474-1520. A history of Spain. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.\n\nElliott, John Huxtable. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964.\n\n\nKamen, Henry. Spain, 1469-1714: A Society of Conflict. 3rd ed. Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005.\n\nRuiz, Teofilo F. Spain's Centuries of Crisis: 1300-1474. Malden; Oxford: Blackwell Pub., 2007.\n\nThomas, Hugh. The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2010.\n",
"I was wondering also the same for Standard Italian. Why this specific variety of Italian and not the others ?",
"We talked about this about a year ago (see [Why did Castilian become the dominant language of Spain, as opposed to Catalan or Leonese?] (_URL_1_). This thread here, thanks to /u/Itsalrightwithme and /u/historianLA, probably has better answers. You still might want to check that earlier thread out, too.\n \nIf I may add something to the answers above is to give a bit of background, as a medievalist, on different languages spoken in the peninsula before the two Crowns were united and address your questions on Leonese, Aragonese and the like. This might help you understand why other languages had no chance (besides the fact that Castile had the numbers and the Aragonese court had been heavily influenced by Castilians even before Ferdinand and Isabella got to their thrones). The whole issue was really decided in the late 1200s. \n \nAs historians, we tend to pile all Iberian languages in the Middle Ages as Romance/Vernacular as opposed to Latin and Arabic (and Basque). This helps us avoid splitting hairs as to whether it's say Castilian or Navarro-Aragonese, etc. The language varieties that form Catalan (or the Catalan-Valencian-Balearic language, if we're being pedantic) are noticeably distinct from Castilian or Portuguese. But to the west of the Catalan-speaking area there's not that much difference (see my comment to the earlier thread). Even today, for a standard Castilian speaker from Madrid most other language varieties (Asturo-Leonese, Aragonese, Mirandese, etc) just sound like some sort of hillbilly Spanish, not as distinct languages in their own right. Their medieval varieties were even closer to each other. It is quite telling that even Spanish linguists had long considered the earliest extant lines in Navarro-Aragonese Romance, the *Glosas Emilianenses* (early 11th century) to be in Castilian.\n \nSo what we have in the Middle Ages is basically a bunch of people speaking a bunch of mutually intelligible language varieties across a dialect continuum spanning the whole peninsula, effortlessly switching between them on an ad hoc basis [1]. Some thought they spoke Latin and called it so (particularly if they were Romance-speaking Christians living under Muslim rule in the South). However, by the 1000s there's growing awareness across the Romance-speaking Europe that what we speak now is not really Latin. By the 1100s there's a whole body of literary works in vernacular languages in some regions (mostly epic or courtly poetry, that is the works were meant to be learned by heart to be later performed in front of an audience rather than *read*, though). Most importantly, in the 1200s Romance vernaculars emerge as *written* languages in their own right, making forays in what had previously been the exclusive realm of Latin - charters, legal documents and the like. If you read French, there's an excellent overview of the process by Marc van Uytfanghe (*Le latin et les langues vernaculaires au Moyen Age: un aperçu panoramique*, In: *The Dawn of the Written Vernacular in Western Europe*, ed. Michèle Goyens, Werner Verbeke, Leuven, Leuven University Press 2003 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia. Series I. Studia 33), pp. 1-38).\n \nLanguagewise, Castile was a truly pioneering kingdom. The royal chancery, a conservative institution by default, with an infinite supply of Latin-speaking clerics, made steady use of vernacular as early as 1217. That's more than a century before France, say. Even though Castile's was not the first Christian Iberian chancery to start doing this [2], they were early enough. But for a really stunning breakthrough you'll have to wait until 1252 when Alfonso X the Wise ascends to the throne. He had shown an early interest in languages from back when he'd been a mere prince. When he got his hands on an Arabic treatise on astrological and magical uses of gems after the conquest of Murcia in 1243, he ordered his physician Yehuda to translate it into Romance in 1250 *so that everybody could better understand it and knew how to take advantage of it*. After he becomes king he sets up an important translation school and workshop in Toledo where tons of manuscripts are translated into Romance from Arabic and Hebrew. Apart from having important books translated into Romance, the learned king himself wrote several legal, scientific and historical treatises in that language. Now that was a real scandal because everywhere else in Europe Latin would remain *the* language of science for centuries to come. \n \nBy the time of his accession to the throne about 70 per cent of the output of the royal chancery is in vernacular. After he becomes king, it's 100 per cent, with Latin only used in correspondence with foreign dignitaries. \n \nMost important, though, is which language variety he chose for all of this. Languages spoken in his realms included Castilian (several varieties), Asturo-Leonese (several varieties), Galician-Portuguese, Basque and Arabic. The latter two were out of the question, of course, but he could have chosen any of the Romance varieties - some of these were quite respectable and widely used at court. Galician, for example, was *the* sophisticated language of courtly love poetry and the learned king himself penned several poems in it. Yet the rest of his work (and the whole body of the royal charters) is in Castilian. \n \nCompare this to what was the modus operandi in all the other Iberian chanceries. They would pick this or that vernacular depending on the addressee or on which language this particular scribe spoke, etc. The earliest vernacular charters from the Navarrese court are in Occitan. The earliest vernacular charter from that of Aragon is in Navarrese and when vernacular became really common they would use either Aragonese (writing to kings, nobles or their own princesses married in Castile and Portugal, to their ambassadors to these two kingdoms, to Santiago and Calatrava knights, to the Moors in Granada and to their own Muslim subjects, to nobles and city councils in Aragon and Murcia) or in Catalan (to their heirs, to their ambassadors and envoys to Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia or Rome, in all things concerning the royal household, to nobles and city councils in Catalonia and Valencia, to Maltese knights, etc). Yet the Castilian bureaucracy now only uses Castilian varieties, irrespective of who a given text is addressed to. \n \nThis, too, had a precedent. When Alfonso's father, Fernando III the Saint, became king of Castile in 1217 he made Juan de Soria his chancellor and the chancery started issuing charters, etc. in Castilian with some frequency. Meanwhile, the Leonese chancery, with its strong links to the Archbishopric of Santiago, continued to work in Latin until the death of the last king of Leon in 1230. After that Leon was annexed to Castile and the same Castilian Chancellor, Juan de Soria, was now responsible for its Chancery, too, switching it to *linguistically Castilian* vernacular. Scholars like Inés Fernández-Ordóñez ([*Alfonso X el Sabio en la historia del español*](_URL_2_), In: R. Cano Aguilar (ed.): *Historia de la lengua española*, Barcelona, pp. 381-422) cite several factors: Fernando was king of Castile first and the Leonese nobles had to submit to him as such; Castile was the dominant power in the realm; unlike Leon, Castile had already had a history of using vernacular in royal administration and that vernacular was Castilian, etc (besides, this Soria guy was, well, from Soria in Castile, I hasten to add). But the consensus seems to be that with Alfonso the choice of Castilian was a deliberate policy that ensured neither Asturo-Leonese nor Galician had a future in the kingdom. Notably, in royal charters and in Alfonso's legal writings whenever this language he now uses is referred to it's called something like *the parlance of common folk* (i.e. as opposed to Latin), *our language* or simply *Romance*. Yet in his writings that had no legal status he called a spade a spade, normally using terms like *the language of Castile*, *Castilian* or the *Castilian language*.\n\n*(cont. below)*\n\n[1] My favourite example is a medieval Troubadour who said he spoke German and Portuguese and noted that that the best variety of the latter was the one spoken in Provence. So, 'Portuguese' was just an umbrella term for all Romance languages for that guy. \n\n[2] The first was, understandably enough, the multi-cultural, pluri-lingual Navarre that had strong links to the Occitan region in the South of France, *the* European centre of this linguistic innovation, i.e. using a vernacular as a written language. Their first royal document in a vernacular language dates back to 1169 (vs Castile's 1194) and there are more charters in vernacular than in Latin after 1234 (cf. Castile's 1245 or so). Leon, though, continued to produce exclusively in Latin until their kingdom got annexed by Castile in 1230. In Aragon, the use of vernacular only surpassed that of Latin in the 14th century (the first royal document in Catalan dates back to 1240). In Portugal, apart from a few isolated cases like the royal will of 1214, the chancery only starts using vernacular in the 1250s and makes the decisive switch in 1279. For all of this and more see:\n\n* Inés Fernández-Ordóñez. *La lengua de los documentos del rey: del latín a las lenguas vernáculas en las cancillerías regias de la Península Ibérica*, In: *La construcción medieval de la memoria regia*, ed. Pascual Martínez Sopena, Ana Rodríguez, Valencia, 2011, pp. 323-362 [PDF warning] (_URL_0_). \n\n* Wright, R. *Latin and Romance in the Castilian Chancery (1180-1230)*, In: *Bulletin of Hispanic Studies*, 72(2), 1996, pp. 115-128."
]
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[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/66rnvz/how_much_influence_did_erasmus_have_in_spain/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3wsw9h/rise_of_great_powers_ama_part_un_western_europe/cxyzbou",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4f4pm2/late_medieval_society_in_the_age_of_thrones/d268eos/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ey7f0/queen_isabella_was_never_fond_of_the_spanish/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3k9877/i_heard_that_martin_luther_translated_the_bible/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/36d5di/why_was_spain_not_able_to_keep_up_with_the/crd0eu1"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/filoyletras/ifo/publicaciones/23_cl.pdf",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4f6ukl/why_did_castilian_become_the_dominant_language_of/",
"http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/alfonso-x-el-sabio-en-la-historia-del-espaol-0/html/023c114a-82b2-11df-acc7-002185ce6064.html"
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|
4jixi3 | why is that american music/albums are sold in foreign countries but foreign music/albums aren't sold in america? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jixi3/eli5why_is_that_american_musicalbums_are_sold_in/ | {
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"Lots of foreign bands sell music in America. Look up your favorite bands and see where they come from. For example, Justin Bieber is Canadian. The Beatles were British. They sign music deals with American companies so they can utilize their massive resources and easily sell their music here. I think you've vastly underestimated how much foreign music is sold in America.\n\nAs for why Americans don't import more exotic music, that's primarily because it's not in English. Americans stereotypically can't be bothered to learn another language, meanwhile people in other countries tend to learn English, since it's pretty much everywhere due to English colonization.",
"Foreign music is sold in America.\n\nLorde is a New Zealander, One Direction is British, Bjork is Icelandic, Die Antwoord is South African, etc.\n\nUS pop just tends to penetrate better globally because the US produces a HUGE amount of media. US music and movies and TV are much bigger business than in smaller countries and thus have much bigger budgets.",
"They are. However, the reason that they aren't in the CD aisles in Target/Walmart is simple, money. A very minuscule amount of Americans would buy that music. Many people in foreign countries listen to English music, even if they don't understand it. \n \nEven though K/J Pop is decently popular in America, it's still a very small percentage."
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47aflq | Genghis Khan and his army shot composite Mongolian bows, but what kind? | I've been scouring the internet to find out what bow Genghis Khan's army had used in his successful campaigns, but I cannot find anything specific besides, Mongolian bows. However, I am not satisfied with the answer, surely there had to have been a particular Mongolian bow type. (ex: with cars. You buy a Honda car, but you can get a Honda Pilot or a Honda Civic). I did find this [thread post by JBL](_URL_3_) on _URL_2_ claiming that Mongolian bows today are actually Manchu, but nothing else to back it up.
anyone have information backing up that claim or are the Mongolian bows on [site 1](_URL_0_) and [site 2](_URL_1_) really what Genghis Khan would have used. It is kind of confusing with multiple bow types on their site that look very similar to the specifically named, Mongolian Bow. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/47aflq/genghis_khan_and_his_army_shot_composite/ | {
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"Right – so a cursory Wikipedia search (bear with me here) mentions that it is a “recurved composite bow”, which, whilst specific to some degree, is still quite broad. Similarly, a quick look over that tells us almost nothing that can be verified (the sources themselves are quite iffy), but that doesn’t make it wrong. \n\nThe Mongol bow used during Chinggis/Genghis’ era was a recurved composite bow not particularly unlike the typical type of composite bow used across the Eurasian steppes in Central Asia and the Middle East – made of layers of horn, animal sinew, and glue, wrapped around a wooden (various theories as to what type of wood – not yew, for sure – possibly elm, spruce, ash, bamboo, birch) core. However, whilst we know what made up the bows that the Mongols used, it’s been fairly well established that the specific techniques of creating the bow have been lost – but, from both the descriptions of such features such as siha (what Peers says to be “forward-angled rigid end sections…which acted as levers”) and their corresponding appearance in various manuals/pictures/inscriptions/paintings/etc. of reliable contemporary accounts (e.g. Rashid-al-Din, Firdawsi, as well as several 13th century Chinese scrolls, paintings, and inscriptions) we can be fairly confident in how they looked (see sources section for some pictures). \n\nTherefore, in comparison, both sites have bows that look passably similar to those used by the Mongols. In terms of material composition, however – looking around, recurvebowshop seems to make most of their bows out of glass fiber, wood (not specific, I’m not an arborist so I certainly can’t say for sure by looking either), and leather, so not too accurate. Sevenmeadowsarchery seems to be repeating the same composition of something like ash tips, wood laminate, some coloured leather, so again, very likely not too accurate. \n\nSources\n\n* Chris Peers - The Mongol War Machine (pages 41-43)\n\n* Timothy May - The Mongol Art of War (page 72-73)\n\n* Timothy May - Culture and Customs of Mongolia (page 121)\n\n* Antony Karasulas - Mounted Archers of the Steppe (pages 18-21)\n\nPictures\n\nNote: Most of these were pulled from Karasulas' book\n\n* [Mongol cavalry pursuing routed enemy - Rashid-al-Din](_URL_2_) - specifically look for the definitive tips that go at the end of the bows\n\n* [Mongol rider shooting at full gallop - Firdawsi, *Shahnameh*](_URL_0_) - a bit stylised as you'd expect from a poem rather than a historical account, but the main features of the Mongolian recurve bow are seen here as well\n\n* [Archer making what has been termed a \"Parthian shot\", firing backwards at an enemy - Chinese scroll](_URL_1_) - other than, again, the shape of the bow, one thing I found of interest whilst going through some of the sources was that, whilst in all pictures the archer is using two hands, this one is facing backwards. Also, whilst it might not be too clear, its been fairly well established that the Mongols were using stirrups on their horses, which would have likely made this maneuver a bit easier. Just a fun fact.\n\n* [Archer shooting upwards, ideally landing vertically on their target. This one is supposedly hunting rather than fighting - c. 13th century Chinese scroll](_URL_3_)\n\nAs you can probably guess, these pictures are very likely artistic renderings/copies made from the original sources (I mean, they surely didn't paint in black and white on perfectly white backgrounds), but there are sources for most of these if you're interested in those."
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1t799y | why are milk advertisements for milk in general rather than a specific brand? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t799y/eli5_why_are_milk_advertisements_for_milk_in/ | {
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"In 1993, Californian dairies agreed to put three cents from every gallon sold towards an overall marketing campaign to promote milk. Since they are all contributing, the ads don't favor one brand over another.",
"Beef farmers will all pitch in for a general beef campaign. They don't know which brand they'll specifically sell to, so they do an overall campaign. People buy more beef from companies, so companies buy more beef from farmers.\n\nSame thing with milk",
"Because advertising certain product's brands don't add to the brand's sales as much as other products.\n\nFor example, Coke can advertise because it's got a unique taste, it's able to be differentiated from Pepsi or Fanta or Mister Pib. Now, Milk, on the other hand, is always milk. Obviously, goat's milk, or any other kind of milk are different from cow milk, but as a product, cow's milk is indistinguishable from brand to brand if you take it out of the packaging. From brand to brand you always get what is basically the same product. Sure, some people have brand loyalty, but rationally, it's more effective to buy the cheapest Milk on sale than the one advertising. The one advertising, as well, is paying large sums that are driving up prices. So, that company is double dipping into it's own problems.\n\nAlso, sometimes with \"healthy\" products like Milk or vegetables, the Government may subsidize advertisements, but it cannot be seen as favouring one brand over another, so they use generic ads instead of brand-specific ads.",
"If you pay close attention, those commercials usually say they're by the \"something or other dairy board\" or the \"dairy farmers of such and such\". These are groups of companies that make, process, or distribute milk, who've all agreed to come together and pitch a small amount of money each, towards advertising milk in general. \n\nThe idea is that no single farmer could afford to produce a TV ad, so they collaborate with other farmers, form some kind of union to produce advertisements which will benefit everyone involved.",
"There's actually some interesting economics behind this:\nSince milk is a rather homogeneous good (that is, milk brands don't really taste all that different) the decision to advertise for milk follows the structure of a classic prisoners dilemma. If one company decides to advertise, none of the other milk companies will, and the word will get out about how milk in general is great, but it's unlikely to make anyone prefer that specific brand of milk. So the company that advertises is not really getting any benefit.\nAt the same time, everyone not advertising for milk is not a solution, either. So milk companies all band together and advertise their milk as a whole product--splitting both the costs and the increased consumption.\nThe same thing can be seen in the recent ads for \"Cotton\".",
"Have you watched the commercials? They say \"brought you by the dairy council\""
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3cka3x | Does the English name for the Hungarian people come from contemporary Europeans erroneously thinking that the invading Magyar were the return of the Huns? | I read some where that people in Europe thought that since the Magyar fought similarly to the Huns (utilizing light horse archers in great number) people of the time thought that they were the Huns who had returned to terrorize Europe once again. WhIle this is false and the Magyar and the Huns are not the same, is it true that the words Hungary and Hungarian come from this misconception. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3cka3x/does_the_english_name_for_the_hungarian_people/ | {
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"Actually no, the name comes from *UNGARI* which in turn comes from Ugor (Ουγγαροί, Ogór, ) which means \"tribe\" in ancient pre-Hungarian tongue of the Bulgarian-Magyar peoples.\n\nVarious languages added different consonants tot he begining of this word to make it roll off the tongue easier. For example (H)UNGAR(ians) - in English , W(ĘGRZY) in Polish, (В)енгры in Russian etc.\n\nThe Hungarian name for themselves \"Magyarok\" comes from ugrofinic \"magy\" and \"yar, ear\" both of which means \"man, person\".\n\nSo essentially, as many other original ethnic names, their name can be loosely translated to \"The People\".\n\n\nsee: *The Occupation of Our country and Linguistics*. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó."
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2vw07k | Was the 1950s largely middle class, american dream portrayed in modern media a reality in its time? | It seems like when ever anything 1950s US is shown in the media its shown as men in suits and hats driving new cars to office jobs, women being good house wifes and teenagers hangout in their cars in milkbars and burger joints. So the question is was this a time of a rising middle class, obviously there was still poor and blue collar workers but was this really a time of cultural and financial independence\growth or is there a fair amount of cold war propaganda that has just stuck and now thought to be reality? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vw07k/was_the_1950s_largely_middle_class_american_dream/ | {
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"Would-be commenters: Please read through our rules about [answers](_URL_0_) before posting. Answers should be informative, comprehensive, and sourceable. Anecdotes, speculation, and jokes will be deleted.",
"Depends on the person or family's circumstances. President Johnson famously declared a \"War on Poverty\" in 1964. At the time, the US poverty rate was around 19% (according to the census, the rate in 2013 was 14.5%). Social Security, food stamps, and other programs were part of the effort to raise vulnerable Americans out of poverty and meet basic needs. There were also institutional barriers to education and employment -- the Civil Rights Act didn't pass until 1964. Protections for women and disabled Americans were largely non-existent. The 50s and early 60s were a pretty hard time to be member of a marginalized group--elderly, rural, minority, disabled, single mothers. The post-war era was a time of prosperity and income growth for a certain segment of Americans, but there were many, many people either forcefully excluded or left behind.",
"The pictures/images you paint are consistent with the dominant *ideal* of what \"the good life\" was supposed to be like in the 1950s. These images weren't just Cold War propaganda, they were also replicated and idealized in advertisements, in film and on TV, and in advice literature as well. \n\nMany factors went into making this the dominant picture/stereotype of the \"ideal\" family; one is is that a whole generation of people who had grown up during the Great Depression and WWII were *very* happy to have the chance to have a family and live a more stable life after the war ended. Americans whole-heartedly embraced the \"domestic\" ideal of focusing of marriage, children, the home, and the consumption of commercial goods as the primary means of making themselves happy after the war. As part of that, large numbers of women either chose or were admonished (often a bit of both) to believe that their highest calling in life was to be a wife and a mother - they faced enormous social and cultural pressure to find a man, settle down, and become a housewife. At the same time, the federal government made a conscious policy choice to encourage massive consumer spending to help grow and feed the American economy after the war; things like the GI Bill (and the cheap mortgages which it allowed veterans to get), interstate highways (which spurred the growth of suburbs) and a whole range of other policies underwrote and encouraged Americans to buy and idealize the one-family, suburban home. And these policies *worked:* the post-war period was a time of tremendous economic growth and prosperity, which meant that large numbers of American families could afford these things. \n\nBut the ideal was just that: an ideal. It's definitely a mistake to look at \"Leave it to Beaver\" and think that this actually how most 1950s families lived. I don't watch a lot of TV these days so forgive the dated reference, but that's basically like watching *Friends* and assuming that everyone in the 1990s lived like Ross, Chandler, and Rachel (in massive, wonderfully furnished apartments that would have been way beyond the means of these characters in real life). \n\nWhile stats like [home ownership](_URL_2_), the [unemployment rate](_URL_3_), and [ye olde baby boom](_URL_0_) do suggest that there's more than a grain of truth to our stereotypes about the 1950s, there's also a lot of data that *contradicts* what we think we know about the 50s. In reality, employment rates for married women [rose steadily](_URL_5_) throughout the 1950s, and was well over 30/40 percent by 1960. And note that it was rising for *both* white married women *and* black married women - the cost of living and spending rates were on the rise, and the idea that a man could earn enough to support his entire family wasn't really the reality for many families. You also need to acknowledge that for black families and other minorities, the ideal of the suburban home was almost completely unachievable: they were denied access to the jobs that would have enabled them to live that life, while racist housing policies + practices kept them out of the suburbs and confined to predominantly black neighborhoods.\n\nThen there's the question of whether everyone was actually as *happy* doing these things in the 1950s as the ideal suggests - and while the answer here is (kind of) subjective, there's a lot of [evidence to suggest](_URL_1_) that many of housewives who *did* stay home were *miserable* doing so, that many of the \"domestic bliss\" marriages of the 1950s [ended in divorce in the 1960s,](_URL_4_) and that many of the kids who grew up in these homes had little to no interest in replicating their parents' lives when they themselves came of age.\n\nHere are some books I'd recommend if you're looking for the full story on all of this:\n\nElaine Tyler May, *Homeward Bound*\n\nJoanne Meyerowitz, ed., *Not June Cleaver*\n\nLizabeth Cohen, *The Consumer's Republic*\n\nStephanie Coontz, *The Way We Never Were*"
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fghus | Why do living things want to survive? | I know this sounds like a stupid question, but I'm serious. What's the point of evolution and reproduction? Why do living organisms so desperately want to live and continue the species? I'm an atheist who believes in evolution, so please don't take this as an attack on evolution or anything like that. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fghus/why_do_living_things_want_to_survive/ | {
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"If you envisage an environment which allows for variation and self-assembly/replication of systems, only those systems that are good at replicating will persist. Over time, they will accrue features which make them better and better at this. Those that don't replicate so well will eventually disappear.\n\nAll living things today come from a strong billion-year heritage of being good at surviving long enough to replicate.",
"Because all the ones that didn't want to survive didn't.",
"To reiterate what others have said, things that don't want to survive aren't fit. If the desire to survive is a heritable trait, then wanting to survive will be more successful than the desire to die.",
" > Why do living things want to survive? \n\nThings for which survival is an imperative tend to survive better, so they're the ones that leave descendants.\n\nIf you have two monkeys, one that's afraid of snakes and one that thinks snakes would be cool to play with, the one that's afraid of snakes has babies and the other one is snake poop. \n\nSnake poop doesn't reproduce sucessfully.\n\nActually, come to think of it, that last sentence would work alone.",
"An extension of your question is \"Why do living things want?\"\n\nAnd the answer to both questions is:\n\nBeneficial 'wants' or 'directed attainments' increase survivability. It is not that the organism actually wants the thing, it is simply that wanting is beneficial to not wanting in some way."
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7kj42b | What causes our palm creases, and what affects their length, boldness, etc.? | I read a comment about palm reading, and I realized I didn't know anything about it, so I looked it up and decided I wanted to know what the scientific causes of palm creases are, and to see if perhaps palm reading "means" what it does because of certain types of palm lines being caused by certain actions and behaviors over time. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7kj42b/what_causes_our_palm_creases_and_what_affects/ | {
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"Its just how your skin folds upon itself when you open/close your palm, and you do that alot so the creases appear with time. Some paralysed people lose their creases over time (years) due to not being able to move the bodypart where the creases are."
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3184b5 | why do a lot of businesses start their day at 8am? | Why do most businesses and offices start their day at 8am? Why not 7? or 10? When was it decided that the world will start at 8am?
Bonus Question: Why is the 8 hr day standard? 8-5? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3184b5/eli5_why_do_a_lot_of_businesses_start_their_day/ | {
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"\n'In larger cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles the problem comes from traffic and parking. By coming in earlier the traffic is thinned somewhat. Some states give companies a tax break for helping out with traffic congestion.\n\nTime differences across the nation can be another factor.\n\nIf you have children it's nice to get home earlier to check on them.\n\nDaylight savings time gets people out of bed earlier also. People like to get home when there is still light out and do things with the family.\n\nCompanies found out if they could keep their employees happier without having to put out more money they got better products and production levels would go up.\n\nIt's a myriad of factors.'",
"Bonus Question Answer: In the old days, workers had the benefit of having lunch in the middle of their shift. This lunch hour continued to the present day. Therefore, in order to make up for the extra lunch hour, the hours are 8-5 instead of 9-5.",
"It depends on the type of business. 8 AM is pretty standard for an office setting while 5-6AM is standard for fast food since they have to serve people before they get to work.\n\nSo why 8AM for most office settings?\n\n1. They can get their breakfast and coffee or whatever they consume.\n2. A reasonable time that everyone could arrive at after doing what they have to do for their personal lives.\n3. Based on traffic like reason 2. But for more severe cases like DC or NYC, there's plenty of offices that starts at 9 AM. My office is flexible to allow you to choose anytime from 6:30 to 9AM.\n4. Depending on location, the mode of transport and its operation hours.\n5. Depending on type of work, offices that deal with international stuff has to compromise on the work hours to have live communication. Most office work are not urgent so they just go with what's most reasonable for the employees(unless you have a crappy boss)\n6. Generally work hours have to align to other organizations or people you have to deal with on a daily basis, so work hours will be similar to the ones that matters most.\n\nTL;DR It is based on a reasonable time for everyone, the purpose of the work, and traffic pattern.",
"Why 8 hours? \nPeople used to work much longer hours and the 8 hour day didn't start to become a talked about issue until the time when slavery was being abolished. White Americans didn't want to work like slaves, so eventually the 8 hour day became law and common place shortly after World War I. In 1912, a social scientist, Goldberg, wrote a book called Fatigue and Efficiency. By World War I, this book prompted the manufacturing sector to start measuring worker's efficiency and after lots of data analyzing, they proved it was counterproductive to have workers work longer than 8 hours a day. \n\nWhy 9 to 5? Why 5 day work week? \nWork hours used to be sunrise to sunset on a farm, every day, as we were mostly farmers when US was settled, and electricity hadn't been invented so we worked only in daylight. This changed when some of us moved out of farming and then realized we needed time to eat and commute to work. In the 1920's, people wanted time off on weekends to practice their religion, Sunday for Christians and Saturdays for Jewish. It took some companies many years to set up the five day week, but Henry Ford was the first, many thought he was foolish. Eventually everyone adopted the forty hour work week, especially once consumerism became popular, people needed time to shop instead of getting everything from the farm or ordering from the Sears catalogue. \n\nWhat is interesting today, especially in tech firms, is one can choose when their work day starts. I have friends who start at 10am and they find it fits with their rhythm well. I know one other that works remotely and loves working until 3am. The challenge today with changing work hours is ensuring people are around to collaborate, or talk to other businesses. Most progressive companies now have a rule that everyone must be reachable, preferably in the office from the core hours of 10 to 3, and leave the defining of 40 hours to the worker. The other challenge is the hours of the school system, most like to have dinner with their kids, or see them off to school, so it presents a challenge in changing the well established work week. Kids' schedules are likely the reason why people like to start at 8am so they are home for dinner time and some time before their kids go to bed. \n\nThere are some countries talking about shorter days, shorter work weeks. France, for example, went to a 35 hour work week in 2000 in hopes to reduce unemployment and have a more balanced work/home life. This was also experimented with during the Great Depression because so many were unemployed, better to have everyone getting some money and worth than not. I think as we get more technology advanced and socially aware, the term 9 to 5 will be history and we'll still work hard, just with more flexibility and efficiency. \n",
"TIL 8 am is a normal start time in a lot of places. In NYC most non banking jobs are 9:30-6 or 9-6. "
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b45jds | When the telephone was invented, would it just ring forever since there were no answering machines? | Could a person making a call leave it ringing until somebody answered? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b45jds/when_the_telephone_was_invented_would_it_just/ | {
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"Well, you have to remember that until the advent of Bell Electronic Switch Systems, in the 1960s, most of the calls were handled by a live human operator that would connect the call from the caller to the destination number through a plug switchboard. So, there was no \"ringing\" or \"busy tone\", the operator would just say something like \"the destination number is not answering, sir\", after a few attempts.\n\nBefore the popularization of ESS switches in the 1970s, the most advanced telephone markets in the world would use of rotary switches (electro-mechanical) to connect calls without an operator. Those entered the market in the early 1920s, 50 years after the telephone was invented. Those would disconnect the call automatically after a preset number of rings without call pick up, in order to avoid central line and telephone exchange congestion.\n\nSo, for almost 100 years after the telephone was invented, calls would not ring indefinitely as they would be, most of the time handled by a live human operator that would just tell the caller there wasn't anyone to answer the call in the destination.\n\nHere are some good links about the history of telephony switching:\n\n[History of the Switchboard](_URL_0_)\n\n[History of Telephony Switches](_URL_1_)",
"To properly answer this we need to understand a bit about the history of how telephone calls were completed in the early days. While in theory you could just run a line between two stations (a private line), this isn't very useful because a) you might want to talk to more than one station and b) it quickly becomes overwhelming if you want to implement a solution for a). To alleviate this, telephone exchanges were created. All calls that were placed were manually completed by an operator at a switchboard in the exchange.\n\nTo do this, the caller would take the receiver off the hook and manually activate a magneto that would send a ringing current down the line. This would alert the operator on your trunk appearance and they would pick up and ask you who you wanted to call. You would give that information and they would attempt to connect to the distant station through a similar mechanism on their switchboard. It's not well documented in anything I can think of as to how long they would alert the far station of the call, but it would be at most a minute or so. If the far station was answered the calls would be bridged together. If not, the operator would tell the calling party that no one was there and to try later.\n\nNow, obviously there are scaling problems here. So relatively quickly, machines that could provide automatic switching of calls were provided. This is an incredibly detailed field and there's no way I can get into all of it here, but the first automatic switches are generally attributed to Almon Strowger. He received his first patent for them in 1891. At this time the Bell System control over the US telephone network was strong and as he didn't work for them, they didn't generally install his equipment. However, many smaller independent companies did. These systems allowed for the subscriber to call directly to another subscriber without operator intervention. They were initially not particularly complicated systems but they grew in complexity quickly.\n\nThese systems are all built in a hierarchical fashion. Your call steps through various levels of the system based on the digits that you dial. The dialing of digits causes manual switches to move to complete the electronic connection.\n\nTo get to your question, early switches did not have any sort of way of monitoring whether a call was in the ringing state for an extended period of time. However, the offices where these switches existed were generally staffed 24 hours and technicians would note whether calls were in a stuck state. Over time circuits were created to alert on long calls and to also limit the length of unanswered calls. More advanced switching systems did this by default and could be programmed to limit the length to a value that the operating company felt was appropriate. It was often assumed that ringing times of over 20 seconds would more often than not result in an unanswered call. Fully electronic systems that began appearing in the 1960s had what was called \"ringing timeout\" parameters that could define this.\n\nSo, in conclusion, while in some circumstances you could do this, technology was quickly developed to limit the ability.\n\nSources:\n\n*A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, Vol. 1, The Early Years*, 1975, Chapter 6\n\n*Applicability of Automatic Switching to All Classes of Telephone Service*, Arthur Bessey Smith, Trans. AIEE, Vol. 38, p. 1567, Dec. 1919\n\n*The Rape of Ma Bell*, 1988, Kraus & Duerig, Chapter 17"
]
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4to2zs | Why does Xenon form covalent bonds with atoms like Fluorine? | I was looking for an answer to a question and came across [this thread](_URL_0_). While it does explain that the large electronegativity causes fluorine to be able to take these electrons, I'm unsure as to why this forms a covalent bond, rather than an ionic one. Can someone help me out? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4to2zs/why_does_xenon_form_covalent_bonds_with_atoms/ | {
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"Xenon is a (relatively) massive element which means that those outer electrons are easy to take away. Fluorine is a relatively small element with an incredibly high electronegativity (which is why HF is so bad), which makes it easy to steal electrons from Xenon (or most other elements for that matter). As to the covalent bonding, I'm stumped. I'll look into it and edit my answer if i find anything.\n",
"So in order to understand how this works we need to take a look at the molecular orbitals. Xenon is 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s2 3p6 3d10 4s2 4p6 4d10 5s2 5p6. The interesting electrons are the 5s2 5p6 as these are easily available for bonding or excitation. So Xe can form XeF2 or XeF4 and this is dependent on whether or not the 5p orbitals are excited. If they are then two of those electrons in the 5p orbitals are moved to the 5d shell and then this creates four unpaired electrons on Xe and making it sp3d2, which would gladly welcome the stability from fluorine. If they are not excited then the 5px orbital is split into two and bonds with fluorine are created. This violates the octet rule, but the geometry (trigonal bipyramidal) lowers the energy. Hopefully that helps! I am running on about 4 hours of sleep, so if you have any more questions ask away!"
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2lwk6e | How can an electron be permanently orbiting an atom if it can be everywhere and anywhere in the universe at the same time? | So I'm relatively new to quantum physics and this in particular has been confusing me. I don't understand how if an electron can exist anywhere and everywhere at a certain time then how can we know that there is an electron orbiting an atom, surely it can't be there for sure because its moving to many different points in the universe. It's for me to properly word but I'm hoping someone will understand | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2lwk6e/how_can_an_electron_be_permanently_orbiting_an/ | {
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"Quantum objects do not behave the same way as objects with which we are normally familiar. To say that an electron is orbiting a nucleus is not a wholly accurate image. A single electron \"in orbit\" around a Hydrogen nucleus can be thought of as a probability cloud, rather than the nice elliptical orbits of planets around the sun. \n\nUnlike the planets, it is impossible to determine both the velocity (speed and trajectory) and the location of the electron at any point in time. In the absence of attempts to observe the particular electron, it is best just to think of it as a cloud. \n\nRemember, it is also behaving both as a particle and a wave.\n\n_URL_0_\n"
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hnpgp | Are there a lot of gasses floating around in outerspace? Which ones, and in what quantities? | Basically I am curious as to what actually makes up "space". I have a hard time fathoming the idea of there being a such thing as "nothing". Also what happens when oxygen is sucked out of a spaceship, like can you make concentrated "community" of gas in space? This was originally posted here: _URL_0_ | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hnpgp/are_there_a_lot_of_gasses_floating_around_in/ | {
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"In outerspace, it's composition is predominately hydrogen and helium in concentrations of about 1 atom per (edit)~~square~~ cubic meter.\n\nAny other gases or elements are in too low concentrations to be measurable."
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21xtur | why do women crave sweets (specifically chocolate) during "that time of the month" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21xtur/eli5_why_do_women_crave_sweets_specifically/ | {
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" > A craving for chocolate during the early menstrual cycle is often because of higher levels of hormones that are triggered as insulin increases. This causes low blood sugar. When blood sugar is low, the brain sends signals to the body that it needs more fuel, which is often a misguided message to eat chocolate and other types of sweets. Instead of chocolate, increasing the intake of complex carbohydrates such as whole grains will help counter fluctuating blood sugar levels, which in turn helps lessen cramps.\n\n[source](_URL_0_)\n\nand probably because it's a comfort food, pleasure to dull/distract from the pain.",
"There has been at least one study done that shows that if a person is distracted (say, by being in pain, feeling generally gross, or being irritable and trying not to take it out on people) they are much less able to choose a healthy option when presented with healthy and unhealthy food. \n\nSo it's not so much that women especially crave sweets during their period. It's more that their consistent desire for sweets and chocolate is showing, where usually they resist it.",
"Also, eating chocolate releases those \"feel good\" endorphins, presumably lessening pms symptoms like moodiness and irritability caused by fluctuating hormones \n\nEdit: words",
"Other commenters have addressed the hormonal basis of cravings, but craving chocolate *specifically* is a cultural thing.",
"I had a friend who was in the midst of a male-to-female transformation. She said that chocolate actually tasted different as a female than as a male . . .",
"I actually rarely crave chocolate. Around ovulation (right before my period) I crave copious amounts of cheese and salty things. Apparently calcium can be beneficial for pregnancy...although I've never been. ",
"Just came here to say, I don't ever experience that time of the month and I crave sweets all the time. Wish I knew why.",
"At my house, the cravings are for salt not chocolate. ",
"Your body knows what it needs, and when it's short, it craves things that fill that need. If you're exposed to something enough, your body gets used to it and knows what's in it. Your system doesn't know how many grams of sugar are in that chocolate bar, but it's seen enough to know if you eat it, you'll get sugar. \n\nYou can even see this in cases of things that you've never eaten before. I saw a documentary on Discover, back before everything was about ice road truckers who hunt ducks and such, about a gentleman who was lost at sea on a life boat. He just happened to be surrounded by a school of fish, so he had food the entire of time he was missing until a freighter passed. But after sometime, he started getting weird cravings. He didn't want the flesh anymore. He was drawn towards the eyeballs, liver, etc. The thought disgusted him days before, but now he felt compelled to eat these. His body was saying, \"We're not getting what we need. Try something else!\""
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b367fw | what is the point of "late fees"? if people couldn't pay a bill on time in the first place, how are they supposed to pay more than the missing bill? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b367fw/eli5_what_is_the_point_of_late_fees_if_people/ | {
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"It doesn't make much sense from an ethical standpoint, but it's a way of ensuring people pay in the first place and well it all comes back to profit",
"A lot of late payment is because people forget to pay their bills or even tries to pay the bills late intentionally so they can collect interest on it. The late fees is both to cover the lost interest, the cost of reissuing the bill and as a penalty to make people pay on time. If people do not have the money to pay the bill they should not have taken on the bill in the first place.",
"It mostly stems from the same place that interest on a loan comes from. If I have money that I loan to you, the interest is basically you paying me for the inconvenience of no longer having the money I just loaned you. Similarly, late fees are you paying me for the inconvenience of not having this installment at the time we agreed upon. When you consider something like late fees on a cell phone bill for instance they're considering the prior month's services loaned to you.",
"\n1. Because these companies have their own expenses they have to pay each month (their own bills plus their employees paychecks), they're depending on your money. If they don't get the money from you when they're expecting it, it puts them in a bind. They may have to get a short term loan to cover their costs until you pay them. The late fee helps cover the extra time and expense of dealing with that.\n\n2. The extra cost to you for being late gives you an extra incentive to pay on time. There's plenty of assholes who just won't pay a bill of they can get away with it. The late fee makes it hurt more if they do that. Or a more cynical example: if you have two bills and can only afford to pay one, you're going to pay the one that'll hit you with a late fee if you don't.\n\nEdit: As a side note, I have found from personal experience that if you call a place and explain your situation, they'll often waive the late fee. The folks who answer the phones are just people like you and me. Also, the company would rather get even just some of the money than no money at all.",
"RARELY it's because they couldn't actually pay the bill.\n\nMostly it's because they \n\n* forgot to mail it, or \n* wanted to wait to the last minute, and waited a bit too long or \n* waited until the last minute, but neglected to account for a holiday, or\n* believe that they're Sticking It To The Man by not paying for something, or\n* believe that Big Business Doesn't Set Rules For Me\n\nor some other mindgame that only they know the rules of."
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6f1zic | why are credit/debit cards not coded with the card type? | Frequently when I purchase something with my credit card, the machine asks whether I'm using a credit or debit card. I've even chosen the wrong one before out of curiosity and the transaction went through just fine, and showed up normally on my statement later.
So if it's going to work regardless of which button you press, is there a reason this information is necessary in the first place? And is there a reason the card type isn't just encoded on the magnetic strip or chip? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6f1zic/eli5_why_are_creditdebit_cards_not_coded_with_the/ | {
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"The system by which debit and credit transactions are processed are different, both historically and today. Most cards nowadays are able to work with either one (i.e. debit cards can be run as credit too).\n\nIt's giving you the choice because your card supports both, not because it can't tell which one you have. As you pointed out it usually doesn't matter, but I know of plenty of local shops that have a minimum for using one method, or a flat rate added to the other method, etc. There are times when you'd want to explicitly use one or the other.",
"It seems you misunderstood. It's not that the terminal is stupid, it's because the terminal is smart. \n\nThe reason some payment terminals ask you the type is because your card is of both. It has credit side which means your bank pays for you and then sends you a bill later, and debit side which is attached to an account with your own money and no one bills you for that transaction later. The system is merely giving you the choice to select which part you want. \n\nThis is quite typical in Europe. ",
"Its asking you whether to process through the ACH system or the credit card system. ACH does checks too and pulls directly from your bank account. Credit only does credit accounts so it uses Visa/Mastercard/etc, one of those backs your debit or you wouldn't be able to run it as \"credit\".\n\nACH is much looser and has fewer protections in addition to making you input the pin. I strongly prefer credit but my card likes to default to ACH because its cheaper for the merchant.\n\nI've had a \"debit\" only card before and it would fail if you tried to use it as a \"credit\" card. On many terminals nothing stopped me from trying it as EBT (foot stamps) or a gift card. Obviously those transactions did not go through. \n\nIts kind of like a website asking you to log in with facebook, google, or a local account.\n\nACH = _URL_0_",
"A lot of great answers, but I'll try my hand and ELI5:\n\nWhen you use a card for a transaction, the modern process works kind of like a car going to a set destination. \n\nFor example, you may be able to take back roads or a highway; both will get you to the same place, but in a different manner.\n\nIn your card's case, you could say the \"back roads\" are a PIN debit network (common ones are Cirrus, Pulse, Star, etc.). While the highway could be a credit card network (MasterCard, Visa, and by proxy the various processors that process the transaction such as First Data, FIS, or Fiserv).\n\nSo, why two paths? Well that's complicated, but the ELI5 reason is money, called interchange.\n\nThe various networks work kind of like tolls; the back roads may charge 1.25, while the highway costs 2.50. these fees are paid by the merchants to the networks and ultimately back to the Financial Institutions as income for offering you a card and a convenient checkout option.\n\nThis is often why merchants may have a minimum charge; if you buy something for 50 cents, and the minimum interchange is one dollar, then the merchant actually loses money (note, these values are just hypothetical examples, interchange rates vary widely by network and category).\n\n"
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4djfkg | Book on America's various regional subcultures? | I am looking at Woodard's *American Nations* and Garreau's *The Nine Nations of Noth America.* I'm limited on funds, and I don't have the time to fact check what I read, so I was wondering if someone here can recommend one as more historically credible. Or any third option if you have one. Thanks | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4djfkg/book_on_americas_various_regional_subcultures/ | {
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"Woodard openly credits Garreau's work as one of the foundations of his own book, so he would say *American Nations* represents a refinement or update of the same principles.\n\nI have read Woodard but not Garreau. Woodard's book is extensively endnoted but I cannot say I've researched any of his sources. But while his sources speak to a kind of historicity, it seems to me that Woodard favored instances that supports his thesis, and didn't really account for other factors (effects of urbanization, socio-economic classes) that undermine his pat generalizations. That said, I still found it to be an interesting read and good food for thought.\n\nApropos of nothing: he does not mince words when it comes to the Deep South. "
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1sxqyg | why hasn't wikipedia gone to an ad based model yet if they are losing money? | Almost annually Wikipedia asks for money to help support their costs. I don't see how the one time a year they ask for money solves anything and it's only a matter of time before they go to ads. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sxqyg/eli5why_hasnt_wikipedia_gone_to_an_ad_based_model/ | {
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"Because they really don't want to. Wikipedia has always been ad free and user supported. People donate year round, not just at the donation drive. They start the donation drive when money gets thin. So far, its always worked. As long as they only have to pester you for a short time out of the year, they see that as far more ideal than having ads year round. One of the big tenants of wikipedia is also neutrality. The many wikipedia pages are (usually, and if not they get fixed) written in a manner so as not to support any one side, but remain factual. Having ads on wikipedia would be inherently not neutral.",
"To maintain their ability to be neutral in their content. The minute they start accepting ads, they start having to worry about making their sponsors happy, and objectivity becomes compromised.",
"Wikipedia was never intended to make money - it's a non-profit organization. Them asking for money is like your local PBS station having a pledge drive.",
"If you look at [this](_URL_0_), you would see that Wikipedia pulled in thirty five million dollars last year, and spent less than thirty. ",
"wikipedia is not losing money, its non-profit, which just means they don't make excess money (nothing is left after paying wages, costs etc.) ",
"Wikipedia has [an article on why they don't use ads for revenue](_URL_0_).\n\nI seem to recall someone, possibly Amazon, serving a copy of Wikipedia with embedded advertisements. I worked at Amazon, so this might have been some random person only slightly higher level than me speculating on something we could do, rather than an actual product offering or even something suggested at the VP level.",
"My husband and I give $5 a month. More than worth it since we use it almost daily. It is a great service and if you can afford it, you should make a donation to keep it that way. ",
"Because ultimately either those of us who consume media have to decide: are we products, parasites, or patrons?\n\n\"Products\" means that we (our eyeballs, spending habits, etc) are what the media company sells to advertisers. We're not the masters of our own destiny, our only choice is what forms of content we wish to take in. If it's all crap, we only get to decide what flavor of crap we like. The problem is, this has become so institutionalized that many, like the OP, cannot conceive of another way of paying for artistic endeavors besides as a vehicle for delivering commercial messages.\n\nAs an alternative to passive consumption, many younger, more tech-savvy people are choosing to escape the advertising messages while still enjoying the content. Being a parasite seems great at first - you get all the content, for free, with no immediate downside. But collectively you kill the host, and the innovators who drive our culture forward get left out in the cold while the same old regurgitated crap gets recycled because that's what the passive and profitable \"products\" prefer^1. \n\nSo if you want to be more than a spectator in the advancement our culture, we actually have to look back to an even earlier time. Painters and playwrights used to be commissioned and paid by the person who expected to appreciate the artwork directly--the patron. In the Middle Ages, only a wealthy person could afford the capital^2 necessary to be a direct patron of the arts. But technology has changed everything - look at Kickstarter, there is a HUGE demand for people to be able to directly dictate what products will be available for them to consume.\n\nThe problem is, we've been trapped in a paradigm where art has become a product to be sold, instead of an experience to be shared. And it has been historically so over-priced^3 that when we consumers have finally been given a chance to \"Stick It To The Man\" and recoup some of the outrageous profits that have been taken from us^4 over the years.\n\nThe challenge in the 21st Century will be restoring the ancient paradigm where we are directly engaged in paying for (and even commissioning) creative content, while we massively expand patronage to all people for the first time in history. When you play it forward over the next several decades, this is the only real alternative to a massively-locked-down, overly-intrusive-DRM future in which we keep trying to force people to pay obeisance to obsolete systems. We have to reclaim ownership of our own culture. And in the end, that means paying for it.\n\nPlease note, I'm not advocating that we all jump in line and pay 99 cents a song to enrich Steve Jobs' ghost. I'm saying that collectively, we have to try to find ways to directly support and engage with artists and other content creators, to offer them an alternative to the traditional commoditizing of their work as a vehicle to sell light beer and herbal supplements. Any time you have the chance to directly pay a creative artist for their work, cutting out the middlemen, you should. We need to make that the new cultural norm, until not doing so is as much a *faux pas* as not tipping at a restaurant^5. \n\nDoes anyone else remember the early days of Napster? When you could listen to any song you wanted, anytime, no hassle? It was glorious! Now imagine if that was the rule for everything - music, news, movies, video games, museums, etc. The only corollary to make the whole thing work would be that if you liked it, as a matter of custom you were expected to make the requested donation. This is already happening for many indie game developers and musicians and I really think it has the potential to revolutionize our culture. The only downside would be that because you would pay AFTER consumption, a bunch of marketroids and PR flacks would have to get day jobs, since profits would be based on the quality of the finished product, rather than running a slick marketing campaign.\n\nThe reason I donate to Wikipedia is that I'd rather give $5/month directly to an organization than indirectly cause them to be given $5/month from various merchants trying to use any manner of annoying ads to sell me crap I don't need. Especially when I think I personally get far more than $5/month worth of value personally from them, AND they also are actively working to fulfill one of the craziest dreams in human history - making a huge portion of the sum total of human knowledge available to everyone, everywhere, for free. Does anyone remember doing research on the Web before Wikipedia? It was basically wading through poorly-sourced web pages that were as reliable as anonymous press releases.\n\nSo yeah, I think Wikipedia represents one of the biggest and most tangible first steps to helping us move from being passive (or active) consumers of content, and into being active participants in our culture. And the fact that they have been (and continue to be) so successful speaks volumes as to the viability of this model for revolutionizing our society. \n\n[If you feel likewise, I highly encourage you to sign up for a recurring donation (can be as little as $3 a month).](_URL_0_)\n\n\n_______________________________________________________________________________________\n^(1This is why there's like 10 crappy Top-40 and country stations in every market but the one \"alternative\" station that plays decent music is always on the verge of folding.)\n\n^(2 i.e., the oil paints, acting troupe, or block of marble needed to create the artwork)\n\n^(3 Many have paid for the same Beatles song on LP, 8-track, cassette, CD, and mp3.)\n\n^(4 Yes, technically you always had the choice NOT to play the only game in town. But culture is what makes us fully human, and it's only an accident of history and technology that small cabals came to control access to large parts of our shared heritage)\n\n^(5 Incidentally, this is one of the clearest proofs that such a system CAN work. It's not required, but everyone does it, because everyone does it)",
"Wikipedia is not \"losing money\" at all. Every year they take in substantially more revenue than their operating costs. This why before I donate to anyone, I always check exactly where that money is going, and how crucial it is."
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2fs1mc | when using microsoft word, why can't you save a file title that has a colon, semicolon or quotation marks? | When using Microsoft Word, why can't you save a file title that has a colon, semicolon or quotation marks? But you can save a file that has a title with a dash and parentheses. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fs1mc/eli5_when_using_microsoft_word_why_cant_you_save/ | {
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"Those are reserved characters for file paths, or they are command operators. If you could use them in filenames, it would create ambiguous paths or commands.\n\nHere's a list of characters you can't use in Windows filenames:\n\n\n < (less than)\n > (greater than)\n : (colon)\n \" (double quote)\n / (forward slash)\n \\ (backslash)\n | (vertical bar or pipe)\n ? (question mark)\n * (asterisk)\n"
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|
23qpv0 | Why does India have so many languages while next door China which is much bigger in size not so many? | Thank you all for the responses. But my query was more India centric in the sense that what conditions led to so much fragmentation in the Indian subcontinent in terms of language, culture etc. (this is my first post on reddit so pls excuse me if I'm not doing it right) | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/23qpv0/why_does_india_have_so_many_languages_while_next/ | {
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"Actually, as a person learning from Chinese from a teacher who makes a point to teach us about China and has been to China, the nation has many, many languages and dialects.\n\nShanghai has its own dialect, so does Beijing, the Southern region its own language (Cantonese). Then there are the many native languages in YunDong and GuangDong Provinces, not to mention the different languages in Xinjiang and Tibet. You just don't hear about them so much because everyone learns Beijing Dialect because that's what all the TV broadcasts are in. ",
"India and China both possess a significant number of languages.\n\n[If you take a look at Ethnologue for India](_URL_0_) and [China](_URL_3_), you'll see that India has ~460, and China ~300. So, call it 160 languages more in India than China. Out of those, India has more extinct languages than China does - so China's doing better on the retention level for their variety of tongues.\n\nIn linguistics, there's a phenomenon observed with numbers of language and geography: namely, that geographical features such as mountains and rivers will halt the spread of languages and dialects; it's why places like [Papua New Guinea will have 800+ languages](_URL_2_]! Take a look at [this map of India](_URL_1_) and [this map of China](_URL_4_) ; you'll find that the majority of these languages that are \"small\" and help add to India's numbers are in the mountainous areas - and that China's major varities of languages happen around their mountainous regions, too. Geography is a large contributor.\n\nI'm sure /r/linguistics would be able to provide a better answer (I'm drawing on my years of linguistics in uni for this, while I try to track down any actual books that would address this specifically).\n\nI live in India and have friends in China, and I'm also inclined to hypothesize that some of it has to do with cultural retention vs homogenity: India has a large number of official languages (22), and China has only one. India's individual states virtually all have their own language, and it is not uncommon for a child to grow up with a mother tongue, and speak a state language and Hindi and English as well.",
"Nooooo. A dagger to my heart!\n\nSinitic languages alone number around a dozen, arguably more. There's Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Min, Hakka, Pinghua, Hui, Waxiang, Jin, Xiang, Gan... But then within a few of those, Min for example, they can be broken down into 5 or more mutually unintelligible dialect groups which are languages in their own right.\n\nAdd to that Tibetan, Uyghur, Zhuang (all on the money, by the way) as well as smaller languages like Hmong or Thai, and China's actually quite a diverse landscape, linguistically. Then on top of *that* you have multiple Korean dialects, Russian, Xibe (Manchu, basically), and the list goes on. That Mandarin is the lingua franca doesn't detract to the underlying diversity that's very visible in even just a short amount of time here.\n\nAnd just to add to that, populations of non-Han ethnicities (and therefore their language use) are under-reported.\n\nAnyway, this is largely an issue of perspective and an uneven exposure to the two countries' linguistic makeup. If you can add some detail to your question I'll happily spend a good chunk of time clarifying my own answer. As it is, your question is somewhat vague, and the initial question is based on a misconception, albeit a wide-spread one, so if you'd like a deeper more detailed answer the question will need to be added to somewhat.\n\nedit: Left a sentence half-finished. Oops.",
"Beyond the semantics of your question, which others have covered in detail, the question seems to deal in part with the *perception* that, in most parts of the world, you can say \"Chinese language\" and people will assume you're talking about Mandarin, or maybe Cantonese. However, saying you want to speak \"Indian\" will get you funny looks. \n\nMost of what I gather is the difference is based off my reading of Fukuyama's *Origins of Political Order*, which runs the risk of being dubious pop history, but I'll go with it. Basically, the idea is that China has historically tended towards being a unified state. Certainly there were things like the Warring States period, and many parts of what is now China entered and exited its sphere of influence over time, but the concept of 'China' as an unified political entity that should exist has been around for a long time. While there are many dialects and local languages, the longevity of the concept of China meant that Mandarin came to be dominant.\n\nIn contrast, India wasn't regularly unified in the same way. There were a few periods of unity, even then the whole subcontinent never had one ruler for very long until the British came in, but mostly the trend was a large number of independent states. As such, no one language came to dominate politically like in China. ",
"Another reason is the evolution of the Chinese written language, which unlike most languages in the world today, does not have written alphabets that somewhat correspond to phonetics.\n\nIn Chinese history, as the main Han Chinese ethnic group encountered other ethnic groups and other languages, they would often adopt new words and create new Chinese characters that are phonetically similar to the other language, in order to make conversation easier.\n\n(The Chinese do this even today, creating new Chinese words for English words that cannot be translated easily).\n\nAs many of the minority ethnic groups in China (in ancient time) did not have their own writing systems, the Chinese writing system (and the spoken words) became more in common use.\n\nThis creates an appearance that the Chinese language (especially the written system) is 1 single system, when in reality, the Modern Chinese language evolved from a merging of many many (100's) of local languages.\n\n"
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[],
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"http://www.ethnologue.com/country/IN",
"http://www.muturzikin.com/cartesasie/10.htm",
"https://www.ethnologue.com/country/PG",
"https://www.ethnologue.com/country/CN",
"http://www.muturzikin.com/cartesasie/9.htm"
],
[],
[],
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|
62v24z | How much of my ancestors' genetic material do I really have? | We have traced our family lineage back to 1350 AD along the northern border of what is now France and Germany. It's been a little over 26 generations between when they lived and now. Can any one estimate how much genetic material actually resides within me from that time? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/62v24z/how_much_of_my_ancestors_genetic_material_do_i/ | {
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"No, you would need to have a sample of there DNA. It's almost certain that your ancestors shared alleles or were related (hopefully distant relatives). Also, not all DNA is crosslinks the same, so this would further complicate things. Mitochondrial DNA AND Y chromosome DNA have haplogroups that are directly inherited. 23 and me is great and will tell you a lot about your ancestry based on haplogroups of your parents. ",
"The lineage you traced is just one branch of your ancestry. They are no different from any other branch. They all your ancestors. So the answer of you main question would be 100%. All of your genetic material come from your ancestors. Where else would it come from? \n\nIf you are asking about specific branch of that ancestry there is no way to know other than to test it. Because any marriages outside of that branch would decrease it significantly. "
]
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[],
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xuhl7 | Oceanographers: What is on the bottom of the majority of the Pacific Ocean? | Several questions that I seem unable to find through a Google search:
* Which areas of the Pacific ocean floor have lots of life?
* Is there a depth at which the amount of life drops off significantly?
* Is the entire Ocean floor filled with hydrothermal vents? Or are these only found in certain locations?
Thank you! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/xuhl7/oceanographers_what_is_on_the_bottom_of_the/ | {
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"The pacific plate is composed primarily of [basalt](_URL_8_) basement. To varying degrees, based on age, depth, and over-lying productivity, this is covered with sediment; [calcareous ooze, silicious ooze, and clay](_URL_2_).\n\nBenthic life is concentrated under the areas of highest primary productivity at the surface. That is, along the tongue of [upwelled water near the equator](_URL_9_), and in the upwelling zones in the [Eastern Pacific](_URL_1_).\n\n[The amount of life](_URL_6_), in terms of biomass per square meter, drops exponentially with depth. Therefore, the shallow slopes have the greatest abundance of benthic life.\n\n[Hydrothermal vents](_URL_5_) are concentrated along the spreading centers. Most notably the [East Pacific Rise](_URL_10_), [Endeavor Ridge](_URL_3_), and several locations in the Western Pacific, such as the [Lau Basin](_URL_7_). Hotspot vulcanism also supports hydrothermal activity, such as at [Loihi Seamount](_URL_4_) of Hawaii, and [Vailulu'u Seamount](_URL_0_) off Samoa."
]
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"http://www.pnas.org/content/103/17/6448.full",
"http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fed/oeip/db-coastal-upwelling-index.cfm",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagic_sediment",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endeavour_Hydrothermal_Vents",
"http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/loihivents.html",
"http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/geology/vents.html",
"http://www.coml.org/",
"http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/laubasin.html",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt",
"http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap11/equat_upwel.html",
"http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991E%26PSL.104..513H"
]
] |
|
5iawmd | how was the colosseum built? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5iawmd/eli5how_was_the_colosseum_built/ | {
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"Manpower (not just workers but good engineers who used arches) and wealth (remember that this was when Vespasian made Rome great again) as well as concrete the likes of which match modern day concrete.",
"The Romans were good builders, but Damm near legendary engineers. Plus it wasn't their first arena they had built. Gladiator combat and shows were popular throughout Roman history, they just upped the scale.\n\nCombine quality concrete, large amounts of both slave and plebian labor, and a bunch of money they wanted to blow on ambitious projects and you get incredible works."
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5ltbnq | In the time of Cleopatra were the Pyramids still being worshipped and kept in repair? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5ltbnq/in_the_time_of_cleopatra_were_the_pyramids_still/ | {
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"More of a clarifying question, but were the pyramids themselves worshipped? Were old pharaohs buried in them still worshipped ? ",
"We have only a little information about the state of Egyptian structures in the late Pharaonic/Roman period, so it's difficult to be precise as to the state of repair of the pyramids - or any other Egyptian monuments - at this time. However, the short answer to your question is that, at least while Egypt retained some independence, occasional restoration work was done on some monuments, usually for religious/magical reasons to do with aiding souls that had already passed into the afterlife. For this reason, Pharaonic restoration work tended to involve erecting new inscriptions rather than making extensive repairs to old monuments.\n\nEven this work seems to have largely ended by the time Egypt passed under Roman control (at least we have no evidence of its continued practice), and the Graeco-Roman period is often considered to mark the start of \"tourism\" to Egpyt. Certainly it was in this period that many of the monuments famous today first seem to have been visited on a regular basis simply because they were remarkable sights.\n\nThat's the summary; here are a few salient details:\n\n• We do know that Egyptians [completed some repairs to the sphinx](_URL_1_) soon before the reign of Thutmosis IV began in about 1420 B.C. The monument was then almost buried in sand (as it later would be again), and Thutmosis, who was one of the then pharaoh's sons but not actually in line to succeed him, had it excavated and built a retaining wall to prevent it sanding up again too easily. His workmen also re-secured some blocks from its back in their proper places. This was not, however, a typical thing for an Egyptian ruler to do; [we know from the so-called \"Dream Stele\"](_URL_0_) left at the site that Thutmosis's motive for the restoration was that he had had a dream in which the sphinx promised him he would become pharaoh if he would restore it.\n\n• Later, in the reign of Ramesses II (c.1280 B.C.) the two main pyramids at Giza appear to have undergone some restoration. This work is attributed to Ramesses' som Khaemwaset, who added hieroglyphic inscriptions to monuments at Giza, Saqqara and Dashur. Although Khaemwaset is sometimes called \"the first Egyptologist,\" these additions had explicitly religious functions; although a contemporary inscription records that the prince \"loved antiquity and his noble ancestors,\" and could not bear to see old monuments fall to ruin, his texts were created because they \"literally renewed the memory of those buried within, benefitting their spirits in the afterlife,\" Manassa notes.\n\n• Possibly associated with this same period is evidence from within the Great Pyramid of limited repair and replastering work that hardly fits the MO of the typical tomb robber. It's not possible to date this but it's usually attributed to the Pharaonic period.\n\n• About a century later, during the 12th Dynasty, a ruler named Khnumhotep set up an inscription (first transcribed by Percy Newberry in 1890-1) which imply some Pharaonic-style conservation work took place in this period. His inscription boasted: \"I caused the names of my fathers which I had found destroyed upon the doors to live again...\"\n\n• At some point during the Middle Kingdom, at the height of the Cult of Osiris, the royal tombs at Abydos were excavated in search of Osiris's tomb. When the diggers uncovered the First Dynasty tomb of Djet, they took it to be the deity's resting place and so restored it, building a new roof and an access stairway.\n\n• In the Third Intermediate and Late Periods, older monuments were studied so that their styles could be replicated in new buildings. Some dilapidated temples were restored at this time. The work was not extensive however and with the decline of the state funds for restoration probably weren't available in any case. Thompson states that \"by the Roman period, Egypt was little more than a mass of ruins.\" What survived was generally that which had been built most solidly - not least, of course, the pyramids.\n\n• Both Strabo (writing within 6 years of Cleopatra's death, in 24 B.C.) and Diodorus Siculus give accounts of the Great Pyramid that imply they personally visited the site and were taken around it by local guides, who told them stories about its construction. Diodorus, who visited in around 50 B.C., writes in chapter 64 of his Universal History of the Great Pyramid that he saw \"the entire structure undecayed\" – though it would be unwise to assume this was a careful description.\n\n• That's not least because Roman era graffiti was found inside the Great Pyramid early in the 19th century, written in soot on the roof of the subterranean chamber, which again strongly suggests that the pyramid was open to at least some visitors at this time; that the pyramid's Descending Passage was left open, not sealed, argues against the idea that the local people were keeping the monuments \"in repair\" in Cleopatra's time, and might suggest they no longer considered them sacred in this period, several centuries after the arrival of dynasties of Greek rulers.\n\n• We also know that Romans often visited other Egyptian sites to see their wonders - popular destinations include Armana, Abydos, Hatshepsut's mortuary temple, Karnak and the Valley of the Kings. Unfortunately all we have in these cases are inscriptions, not accounts of what exactly these sites looked like at the time. But again this argues against Pharaonic monuments being considered sacred and inviolate in this period.\n\n• There are numerous other Graeco-Roman grafitti on various Egyptian monuments, perhaps most famously on the plinths and legs of the pair of sandstone colossi commemorating Amenhotep III (reigned c.1350 B.C.) near Luxor that are popularly known as the [Colossi of Memnon](_URL_2_). One of these statues was felled by an earthquake in 27 B.C., only three years after Cleopatra's death, and it was after that occurred that the statue famously began to emit an unusual sound, said to have been like the string of a broken lyre, soon after sun-up on some mornings. Largely thanks to this phenomenon, the Colossi acquired a reputation as an oracle. Because of the fame thus acquired, and the graffitti left by visitors, we know something of their history around this time and it's clear that while the damaged statue was not immediately repaired, the fallen portions were replaced about 200 years later – [a restoration popularly ascribed to Septimus Severus](_URL_3_), who visited the statues but failed to hear the sound shortly before 200 A.D.\n\n**Sources**\n\nThomas W. Africa, \"Herodotus and Diodorus in Egypt,\" *Journal of Near Eastern Studies* 22 (1963)\n\nColleen Manassa, *Imagining the Past: Historical Fiction in New Kingdom Egypt*\n\nMaria Swetnam-Burland, *Egypt in the Roman Imagination*\n\nJason Thompson, *Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology 1: From Antiquity to 1881*"
]
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"https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QrMRBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT191&dq=thutmosis+dream+stele&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjt9LzNgqnRAhVsCsAKHVw9DLIQ6AEIPzAG#v=onepage&q=thutmosis%20dream%20stele&f=false",
"http://www.guardians.net/hawass/sphinx2.htm",
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Colossi_of_Memnon_May_2015_2.JPG",
"https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OldbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA13&dq=septimius+severus+restoration+statue+of+memnon&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUka-ogKnRAhUqLcAKHc4ZD-kQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=septimius%20severus%20restoration%20statue%20of%20memnon&f=false"
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||
3vvqqc | Accounts of WWII shipbuilding? | I was looking into Bath Iron Works today, as the Zumwalt just went out to sea, and was astounded by the sheer number of huge ships produced there during WWII. What was it like to be building ships there? How many people were moved there to work? Any kind of information that gives an idea of the scale would be appreciated, thanks! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3vvqqc/accounts_of_wwii_shipbuilding/ | {
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"Congrats! Not many folks will have had such a unique, historic experience. \n\nIf you're looking for a book about the firsthand experience, you might consider Augusta Clawson's *The Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder,* which was a bestseller when it was released in 1944. Clawson, a writer from New York, traveled west to work at Kaiser's Richmond No. 1 shipyard, and her writing is breezy, with a lot of \"gee whiz\" attitude. It's not a historical work, but it's a first-person account written contemporaneously with events, and it's a fun one at that.\n\nBath is a bit of an odd duck in terms of WWII shipbuilding, but only because of the vast scale of the wartime industry. Bath dates to the 19th century, and even before the United States entered the war, it was running full-tilt with U.S. Navy contracts and some from the British government, too. It benefited greatly from wartime expansion (financed with low-interest loans from the federal government), but it was an existing facility with a workforce that was already present. A lot of the prototypical \"Liberty Ship\" shipyards that we think of, like those created by Kaiser or Higgins, were developed particularly for the war. They sprang up without pre-existing infrastructure or industry, and so they garnered a bit more attention.\n\nNationwide, the figures are astonishing: The United States built more than 50,000 landing craft, 3,100 Liberty ships (including EC2 and VC2 types together), 1,100 more merchant ships (mostly tankers), and more than a thousand warships. Entire shipyards were built in Wisconsin, Illinois, Oregon, California and elsewhere to meet the demand. Hundreds of thousands of Americans moved to these new shipyards, demanding vast new housing complexes, schools, restaurants and other facilities. "
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3xtird | Did Ancient Rome have copyrite and trademarks? | For example, if someone invented a new pottery wheel for his pot factory, could a competitor simply copy his invention?
Or if a certain play was a big hit, could another playwrite simply copy the original characters and produce a sort of "unlicensed" sequel?
| AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3xtird/did_ancient_rome_have_copyrite_and_trademarks/ | {
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"J.A. Crook's Law and Life of Ancient Rome says that one of the generalizations concerning Roman commercial law is that \"[t]here was no law of patent or copyright, [and] no protection for property in ideas.\" Rome didn't have modern technologies to speed book copying along, so most copies were made by booksellers using literate slaves as scribes. You wouldn't save much money or time over a bookseller by making a copy yourself.\n\nEven though copyright didn't exist, plagiarism as a concept did. Vitruvius related an occasion where King Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt held a poetry contest, and had Aristophanes judge. Aristophanes surprised everyone by saying that the poet who least impressed the audience should win, because he is the only one who made his own poem, while the rest had stolen their poems from older works. He then proved it by having books from the library brought in order to show the source of the verses.\n\nAs for unlicensed sequels, the closest thing I can think of is the Aeneid. It's basically Illiad fan fiction written for political reasons. It takes the character of Aeneas from Troy, and has him escape the destruction of the city and go on to help found Rome."
]
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4g452z | why are some people paid salary and others hourly? wouldn't it be easier just to pay every employee a salary? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g452z/eli5why_are_some_people_paid_salary_and_others/ | {
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"Being salaried generally implies that you are working a set number of hours every week, being hourly generally implies you work a variable schedule.",
"If I, as an electrician, were paid a salary, there would either be no incentive to work overtime (time away from my family), which is sometimes necessary, I would be working overtime for no additional pay, or my employer would have the headache of hiring a skilled worker either temporarily (next to impossible) or full time for little benefit. Bonuses are variable, not guaranteed, and would, I imagine, engender lots of lawsuits for unpaid work. The hourly wage system is much better for my type of employment.",
"In the US, it is illegal to pay certain types of jobs salary. \n\nA salaried employee is called and *exempt* employees, because employers are exempt form some labors laws, like those governing overtime and mandatory breaks.\n\nIn order to be considered exempt, you job has to be self directed to some degree. You don't just show up, operate a machine for 8 hours and go home. You decide what needs to be done and how to do it. The idea is that you have the authority to decide how many hours to work and when to take your breaks, and don't really need a law to protect you.\n\nExempt employers are typically managers, administrators, and technical people who make above a certain amount.",
"First, check out the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees: _URL_0_\n\nDepending on what the employee does, it may actually be illegal to pay them a salary. Usually that's because paying a salary to those people would just be a sneaky way around other laws like minimum wage.\n\nOutside the legal stuff, companies usually put workers into two categories. Generally people who are salaried are people who work on projects with deadlines measured in weeks or months. The company frankly doesn't care if they work 8 hours x 5 days a week, or 14 hours x 3 days a week as long as the work gets done by the deadline and it's high quality.\n\nHourly people are usually there to do a task with deadlines measured in minutes, hours, or days. Take the next phone call, assemble the next unit, etc. They also are used where the amount of work getting done matters less than having a person there for a set number of hours. A receptionist can be the most efficient worker ever, but there still needs to be someone at that desk when the next person walks in the front door.\n\nIn another comment you implied your company has people doing the same work and some are hourly while others are salary. The real answer to that is there isn't necessarily a hard and fast rule. There are laws about certain employees who *cannot* be paid salary, but other than that businesses are free to set things up how ever they want, even if it's stupid."
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7yl2is | if all ingested carbohydrates are just reduced to glucose anyway, what makes "simple" carbs (soda, pastry, wonder bread) different compared to "complex" carbs (whole wheat, rice)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7yl2is/eli5_if_all_ingested_carbohydrates_are_just/ | {
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"Simple carbs are broken down very quickly, while complex ones are broken down much more slowly. Complex ones offer a more stable source of energy. You'd have to eat a lot more of simple ones to get the same result.\n\nComplex ones also have other compounds in them that are helpful to metabolism in general.",
"I'm far from an expert on any of this but this is my understanding. Imagine you have a backpack (your fat stores) and someone is giving you apples (the glucose). So when you drink a soda its like someone handed you 20 apples all at once, you can't eat all those so you shove them into your backpack. If you eat a complex carb, it's more like someone giving you a couple apples every hour. Maybe you can't eat them all so some get put in the backpack but not nearly as many as the simple carb. ",
"Ever built a fire? \n\nEver notice how fast and hot dry leaves and twigs burn as compared to a solid log? \n\nSimple carbs are your twigs and leaves. They burn super-fast, dumping all their energy pretty much right now - and then they're gone. \n\nAs a result, you get a spike of fun high blood sugar making you all peppy - and then an hour later, you've got *fucking nothing*. This 'sugar crash' makes you miserable and hangry, and you go snack some more. \n\nOn the other hand, your complex carbs take way longer to break down. You get a long slow wave of blood sugar that builds slowly, lasts a long time and fades slowly as well. No spike, no crash, just a sensible blood sugar level that lasts you half the day. "
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5v9vnd | Why didn't Nixon immediately destroy his recordings once reporters first started investigating Watergate? | Woodward and Bernstein took a while to reach the President in their investigations -- plenty of time for Nixon to destroy his voice recordings. Why didn't he? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5v9vnd/why_didnt_nixon_immediately_destroy_his/ | {
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"Wonderful question! It's [something that still comes up today](_URL_0_), and there's no certain answer unless you've got a telepathic time traveler handy. That said, **we do know that Nixon considered destroying the White House tapes at least twice, but he decided against doing so because he was convinced they were protected by executive privilege, that they would be useful to his memoirs, and later, he came to realize they might be useful in an impeachment defense.**\n\nBefore we discuss why Nixon might want to *destroy* the recordings, we need to talk about why he wanted them in the first place.\n\nOne of the clearest, easily available answers is [that given by Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldemann during an oral history interview with the Library of Congress in 1987](_URL_3_). As Haldemann explains, the sheer volume of information the president had to deal with made keeping accurate records critical. Otherwise, there was no way to confirm who said what, to whom, when, and using what words. If someone came out of the White House saying something that was a lie, the president needed to have a way to confirm that it was a lie.\n\nLyndon Johnson had used a taping system in the White House (as had Kennedy for some portions of his presidency), but where Johnson liked technology and gadgets, Nixon was a techno-phobe. He ordered the taping system shut down and removed, replaced with a system of human note-takers and \"color memos\" that described the mood and atmosphere in particular meetings. According to Haldemann, word got back to Johnson about the trouble Nixon was having, and Johnson said Nixon was an idiot for not keeping good records. That led to the taping system, which started working on Feb. 16, 1971 in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room. A few months later, it was expanded to Nixon's other offices and rooms.\n\nThe first time Nixon considered destroying the tapes [was April 9, 1973, months before they became public knowledge in the Senate hearings](_URL_2_) into Watergate. In 1997, the *Washington Post* published an account of newly released tapes that (in a very *meta* moment) featured Nixon talking about destroying the tapes. (Note that many of the tapes remain untranscribed and unreleased even today, due to the sheer volume of conversations).\n\nAccording to the transcripts published by the *Post* in 1997, Nixon decided on April 9 to pull a few tapes for safekeeping and destroy the rest. A week later, he had changed his mind. \n\n > On April 18, Nixon told Haldeman to \"take all these tapes\" and review them, \"as a service to the [future Nixon] library.\" He also wanted Haldeman to determine how damaging they were and whether any might be helpful.\n\n > \"In other words, I'd like it if there's some material there that's probably worth keeping,\" Nixon told his chief of staff. \"Most of it is worth destroying.\"\n\n > The president also made clear that he did not want to shut the \"damn\" system down. \"You know what I mean,\" Nixon said. \"You never know what conversation is [going to be] interesting and so forth and so on.\"\n\n > Haldeman agreed. \"[It's] not a bad thing for you to have,\" he told Nixon.\n\nThis 1997 revelation backed up what Nixon had shared in his interviews with David Frost. Here's an excerpt from *The Nixon Interviews with David Frost, Vol. 5*, which transcribes those interviews:\n\n > And after going through that period, I then felt, after listening to the tapes, that perhaps Haldeman not having taken the system out, that it was probably a good idea, because the tapes in many respects contradicted charges that had been made by Mr. Dean. And Mr. Haldeman was to say ─ talk to me later, when we talked about this matter, that he agreed that one of the reasons that perhaps he didn’t move on the instruction to destroy only those, except for the important national security matters that I have mentioned and domestic issues of importance that I mentioned, was because, he said, after all, he said, you’ve got to have a record in the event that somebody says something and it proves to be untrue. Now I’ll conclude on this point. I didn’t destroy the tapes because, first, I didn’t believe that there was a reason to destroy them. I didn’t believe that there was anything on them that would be detrimental to me. I also, I must admit in all ─\n\nFrost interrupts for a moment here. \n\n > ─ candor I don’t believe that they were going to come out. The second point was that I didn’t destroy them because I felt that if at a later time, that had I done so, it would have been an open admission, or at least appeared to be an admission, well, I’m trying to cover something up.\n\nThe second time Nixon considered destroying the tapes was in July 1973, immediately after White House aide Alexander Butterfield revealed their existence in testimony to the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in. Those tapes were immediately subpoenaed, but Nixon contested the court order, saying that they were a matter of executive privilege and classified for national security reasons.\n\nThe court battle lasted until the summer of 1974, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in *United States v. Nixon* ruled 8-0 in favor of the subpoena. Nixon had to release the tapes, and he did so, having released edited transcripts in April 1974.\n\nIn his memoirs, Nixon wrote that he did not consider destroying the tapes until Butterfield's testimony, something we now know was untrue. That said, the memoirs ─ if they are indeed trustworthy ─ indicate that Nixon considered deleting them in summer 1973 but [decided against it because they were \"my best insurance.\"](_URL_1_) Nixon would be able to use the tapes to provide reasonable doubt in any impeachment hearings, he believed, and he thought that the Supreme Court would possibly be split 4-4 on the ruling of executive privilege. That would have let him keep the tapes confidential. \n\nNixon gambled right up until the end, and in hindsight, he absolutely was convinced that he made a mistake in not deleting the tapes.\n\nIf you're looking for more reading, you might consider two sides of the same coin: John Dean's *The Nixon Defense* and Haldemann's own *The Ends of Power.* I think reading both is a good balance.\n\n",
"There is strong evidence that he did destroy a particularly damning tape, known ever after as [the 18 1/2 minute gap](_URL_1_). The WH attempted to explain it as an accident, caused by Nixon's personal secretary, Rosemary Woods, when she was transcribing it; she claimed that she leaned waaay back in her office chair to take a phone call, leaving her feet on the pedals of the dictation machine, and then held the stretch while the tape got erased. [She re-enacted this explanation for reporters,](_URL_0_:) thus providing a moment of comic relief in a national crisis. As the *Post*'s recap notes, experts determined there were four or five separate erasures. "
]
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"http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/237296-rnc-on-clinton-even-nixon-didnt-destroy-the-tapes",
"http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1552&context=nlr",
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/nixon/103097tapes.htm",
"https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1988/summer/haldeman.html"
],
[
"https://www.google.ca/search?q=rosemary+woods+photo&rlz=1C9BKJA_enCA661CA661&oq=rose+mary+woods&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j0l3j69i60.8262j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=Qdhh7QCLcfdQSM",
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/16/the-missing-18-12-minutes-presidential-destruction-of-incriminating-evidence/?utm_term=.95a37c1911ab"
]
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498to8 | if we could harpoon the moon with a set amount of rockets, could we drag/move the moon closer to the earth? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/498to8/eli5_if_we_could_harpoon_the_moon_with_a_set/ | {
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"Harpooning it with rockets and tugging on an attached cable wouldn't work terribly well. (It would work horribly.) \nHowever, mounting a rocket motor on the Moon's equator, and firing that motor when its exhaust is pointing in the same direction as its orbit around the earth, you could lower its closest point to the Earth by a little bit. Wait half a lunar month, and fire that motor again, and you'll lower the \"top\" of the orbit, in a process known as circularization. Rinse and repeat, and you can put the Moon in any Earth orbit you want. \nI highly recommend Kerbal Space Program if you want to get an intuitive understanding of orbital mechanics. In KSP some of your missions are \"Go out and grab an asteroid (a small moon) and put it into such-and-such an orbit.\"\n\n/r/kerbalspaceprogram rocks.",
"If we could harpoon the moon, why not harpoon a second earth like planet and pull it into the same orbit as ours, and make a second earth? Great r/showerthoughts"
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5lgw1c | why is there a separate security code on credit cards? if the three extra digits make it that much more secure, why not just make the number three digits longer? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lgw1c/eli5_why_is_there_a_separate_security_code_on/ | {
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"Two main reasons:\n\n1. They're in a different spot than the main credit card number, so if you get a picture of the credit card you still can't use it because you don't have the security code.\n\n2. On systems that save your credit card number, they are not supposed to save your security code, which means you need to type it in in order to place an order. That means that if someone else gets access to my computer or login, they can't order stuff for themselves because they don't have my security code. The same goes if the seller's system gets compromised, enabling hackers to access our credit card numbers - but they can't use them without the security code.",
"To add to /u/Dacke comment... Android Pay is actually way more secure because when it transmits a credit card, it actually transmits a one-time credit card generated just for this transaction, so stealing it is pointless.\n\nAs with any security system any time you have _static_ or non-changing information it is considered easy to individually compromise. \n\nThe new chip in new credit cards in america means that you never actually transmit the credit card number to the payment system. Instead you transmit an identifier and a rolling code. The code is verified by the server to verify legitimacy. Since reading the code is pointless since it changes by algorithm every few seconds you have a much more foolproof system. So _at least_ the card readers in every store are no longer attack-vectors for credit card theft. Previously you hack a credit card reader provider and you get _everything_.\n\nedit: I'm sorry I think I mixed up android pay and the older Google wallet. ",
"In the olden days, credit cards were often not scanned with the mag strip, because the equipment was still too expensive for smaller retailers.\n\nWhat they did instead was use a carbon paper and a roller machine to take an imprint of the front of the credit card with the numbers. This was commonly part of the receipt, and one copy would be torn off and given to the customer.\n\nThe problem with this, of course, is that now all these receipts you are just throwing away left and right have your whole card number on them. \n\nThis is where the extra numbers on the back to confirm an online(or at the time, over the phone) purchase can be used, if you only had a receipt you found with the front of someone's card, you would not have all the numbers needed to complete a transaction. ",
"It's not just three extra digits, it's a separate code that is used very differently. The credit card number identifies the card, can be read by card readers from the magnetic strip, and is stored by merchants' systems that store your card information. Or, if they use the old machines that make an imprint of the card, that number is on the imprint (which means the full credit card number is on the receipt).\n\nThe CVV code (the three extra digits) is just written - on the back of the card, with no raised plastic, so it won't appear in imprints and won't be as easy for people to see or photograph. It is *not* stored when your card number is stored, and PCI (the standard in the US that companies that take credit card numbers are required to abide by) places more restrictions on where you can keep that number. It can only be temporarily kept for use during a single transaction, and that's it.",
"Those numbers are not \"stored\" or \"remembered\" by merchants. This makes purchases more safe by verifying that you likely have physical possession of the card. If you just added the three digits to the main card it would defeat the purpose of the security measure. Merchants who do not check this code each time are more likely to process orders with stolen credit card information. These codes are something for merchants to check, not to help you. What you(as a credit card user) just need to do, is check your money activity regularly. You can get your money back due to fraud via a backsies(a chargeback) as long as you notice it within 120 days(visa rules) from the transaction date. The money will then be taken from the merchant for being a meanie who ran your card. Even if the merchant checked your billing address(called AVS) and this code(CVV) they will still be responsible if you say it isn't you. ",
"There is a set of regulations that dictate the payment card industry called PCI. if you want to do anything with payment cards you have to be PCI compliant. One of the major things in PCI compliance is you cannot store the CVV (those digits). You also cannot store the mag stripe data.\n\nThis makes it hard to copy a card from legitimate hardware. It also allows companies to tell how you used your card. Merchants are charged different rates for \"card present\" (you physically swiped your card) and \"card not present\" (you typed in your card number, like an online purchase). There are other categories and large companies can negotiate rates.\n\nThe numbers are also present on the back of the card, which makes copying the numbers more difficult. If I wanted to steal your credit card number with the CVV I'd have to see both sides of your card. This means is most likely need physical possession of the card, I cannot sneak a picture.\n\nWhen you combine these features it makes it more difficult to steal someone's card number. It doesn't make it impossible but does out up enough barriers to stop a good amount of low-level thieves. Furthermore the way the numbers are used with mandatory industry standards they serve a purchase for the men behind the curtains that run the show.\n\nLastly I've called the digits CVV but different companies and networks may have a different name for them. They serve the same purpose though.",
"Because no one seems to specifically address the last part of your question: let's say my CVV is 123. You now know it, yet you can't do much about it.\n\nThere are of course tons of advantages to having the card number (basically serves as ID number for the card as others have mentioned), but the simple fact of having to match two things makes it much more secure. \n\nAs others have pointed out, the CVV is printed in a way that it can't just be carbon copied and it's not in the magnetic tape so it's difficult to get both pieces of the puzzle in one \"hack\"",
"isn't the CVV also a checksum to ensure that a valid cards details are entered?\n\nfrom what I understand, this 3 digit number is not completely random, but is derived from an algorithm running through the 16 digits and expiry date of the card. \n\nthe algorithm can reach any of a set of multiple 3 digit ids, though - one of this smaller set of numbers is assigned at random to every credit card. \n\nthe way the checksum works is that when a credit card number is entered, the algorithm is played back in reverse to validate the details entered - this is usually done on the page itself.",
"there is a separate security code (CVV2) on the back of your credit card to allow there to be a different code for cardholder manual entered transactions (e.g. online and phone, not fallback) to those done with magnetic swipe (CVV) and in more recent times yet another one when the chip is used (iCVV). \n\nThe most obvious of demonstrable reasons to have this is so that your card can't be skimmed and then used to do online or phone transactions. Unfortunately given it is static in nature its can obviously be bypassed by taking a photo of the back of the card. To add extra levels of security Visa\\Mastercard\\etc do have services like secret question\\answers etc.\n\nIn regards to why they don't just make card numbers longer... quite a few reasons but a few are - \n\n- if they've stolen your number it doesn't matter if its 5 digits or 50 digits. \n\n- 16 is enough. thinking of just visa and cards starting with 4, theres 140 trillion valid card numbers or something. More than enough really. (Do note that the card number itself has its own check digit at the end)\n\n- it makes more sense to think of these CVVs (Card Verification Value) as codes to validate that the piece of plastic being read or referenced is actually from your bank. Technically the code is generated using a key known to your bank and the card scheme, the card number, the expiry date (in some format) and the service code (basics of what kind of card it is, and some rules. Generally this number is substituted so you get a different CVV codes)"
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9m8zln | How does the brains of conjoined twins process sensation? | Like if they touch a hot surface does that immediate response to move away get sent to both brains or just one? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9m8zln/how_does_the_brains_of_conjoined_twins_process/ | {
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"It depends on where and how they are conjoined. If they're conjoined at the hip through a very narrow bit of tissue they will have fully independent nervous systems. If they're conjoined at the chest they might each control an arm and share what's below since their spine is fused below a certain point. There's even a pair of conjoined twins that have interconnected brains and can see through each others' eyes.",
"for reaction to move away from hot surface specifically this nervous impulse does not reach the brain and is treated in the spinal cord by interneurons (reflex).\n\nso the impulse would go to the spinal cord which its nervous cell's axon reaches, in the case where there are 2 different spinal cords. \n\nrefer to Dubanx's answer for more detail on how conjoined twins can differ depending on where they are joined.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n & #x200B;"
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2y209n | can private military companies be used to fight is? | From what I understand there are still thousands of contractors who are still in Iraq. Would it be possible to send them to fight against IS or are there laws preventing that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y209n/eli5can_private_military_companies_be_used_to/ | {
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"Can they - yes.\n\nCould the US afford to pay them to do it - also yes\n\nAre they willing to do it - probably not\n\nWill they make a total hash of it - probably yes",
"We dont \"send\" them like we send troops.\n\nWe ask how much to go to Isis territories and fight the locals. They give a price on a man per month basis. We say Ok. They pack up and go."
]
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j3iir | we did baseball; how about explaining cricket like i'm five (and american)? | As a follow up to [this question about Baseball](_URL_0_) from a non-American, would someone return the favor and explain Cricket like I'm an American five-year-old? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j3iir/we_did_baseball_how_about_explaining_cricket_like/ | {
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"[Asked and answered](_URL_0_)",
"The way I understand it, the game still runs on outs. However, you don't get out by 3 strikes. It's whether the wicket (picture 3 bowling pins) behind you get knocked over. This can happen by: the pitcher hitting it with the ball, you hitting it yourself, and a couple others.\n\nOnce you hit the ball, the other team is still trying to catch it and tag you out. However, whereas in baseball the goal is run in a big diamond, cricket you have to run back and forth. Each length counts as a run (hence the ridiculously high scores)"
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7atz3c | Were the Germans allowed to execute resistance members by the geneva convention? | I was wondering this, would they be classed as POW's if they surrendered just like soldiers or would they be part of a different group? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7atz3c/were_the_germans_allowed_to_execute_resistance/ | {
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"Technically, the captured members of the resistance were not considered as POWs by the Geneva Conventions. This is because the French resistance, for example, did not wear uniforms or identifying marks visible at a distance, nor did they carry arms openly. This is a difficult issue, since they also do not fall into any of the other protected classes under the conventions-- civilians, sick, wounded, shipwrecked, etc. Article 4 of the Geneva Convention Relative To The Treatment of Prisoners of War (12 August 1949) was not in effect during WW2, but this post-war modification seems to specifically exempt most resistance forces from being considered as POWs. Article 4, PARA A discusses who POWs are, and subpart (2) says that resistance forces are included as POWs ONLY if they meet certain conditions: \" a) being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; c) that of carrying arms openly; and d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.\" Since the French Resistance of WW2 (for example) did not comply with subparts b) and c), I would read this as saying that the Germans could have legitimately treated them as common criminals under the law of the German occupation. I don't currently have at hand the version of the conventions which was in effect during WW2, but from memory of when I took a course on the conventions at the ICRC, I believe it left the status of resistance fighters to be defined by the occupiers, and did not include them in POW status. Thus, they basically were left out of the Geneva Conventions, and this status was not changed in the 1949 revisions. German treatment of them as common armed criminals was not prohibited by the conventions. "
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2ixtti | What was the Belgian involvement in the Algerian war of Independence? | I just ran into a guy who claimed to be a paratrooper (or commando) from Belgium who fought, and was captured, in Algeria at the end of hostilities during the Algerian war of Independence. I'd never heard of Belgian involvement in this conflict and was wondering if anyone had any more information. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ixtti/what_was_the_belgian_involvement_in_the_algerian/ | {
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"The nation of Belgium and its armed forces was not involved in the Algerian War. There are no existing records or sources that reference any involvement of the Belgium armed forces for the French cause. Are you certain that this fellow you ran into said that he fought under the Belgian flag? There is of course the possibility that he was a Belgian man in the French paratroopers or perhaps more realistically, a Belgian French Foreign Legionnaire. \n\nI also find it very hard to believe that someone belonging to the paratroopers would find themselves being captured in 1962 when the FLN (and other insurgent groups) were essentially limited to their bases and areas and were actively being fought into tighter and tighter spaces as a result of the Challe offensive.",
"He was either in the French foreign legion or he's lying. I know of no sources that could indicate Belgian militaristic involvement in the Algerian War of Independence."
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2qhkm3 | how would my call be directed to the nearest police station if i were to call 911 on a random highway? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qhkm3/eli5_how_would_my_call_be_directed_to_the_nearest/ | {
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"The most common answer is that your cellular company can tell where (in general) you are by looking at what cell tower your phone is attached to, and (in specific) by looking at the E911 data your cellphone is sending, which usually includes GPS coordinated. \n\ntraditional phone systems used to have a subscriber address on each line, and an \"in-the-ground\" telephone wire connected to a local exchange box. if you had a telephone in the 281 area code on the 523 exchange, then you definitely lived in Houston TX, because that's where that exchange was, and every call from that exchange could route 911 to the Houston city emergency services. no muss, no fuss. \n\nCell phones used to be based on a similar process, but with portable numbers and nation wide coverage that have come into favor in the last 20 years, most companies now use E911 or tower based routing for 911 calls, and most cell phone numbers are now just 10 random digits (see also _URL_0_) \n\nE911 (_URL_1_) is the system that allows callers phones to identify their location to emergency services, and to route that call to the correct emergency services regardless of \"where\" that call enters the network. This is of biggest concern for VoIP phones, which can be hours, days or oceans away from the phone system that hosts them. the phone system could be in California, and the phone making a 911 call might be in a hotel in Belgrade. "
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5b00qx | What was the difference between COMINCH and CNO of the US Navy during WW2? | I know that King was made COMINCH after pearl harbor, and later took over both roles after Stark was transferred to England, but what was the difference in their duties when they each held one role?
Further, how did King's responsibilities change after he took over both roles?
Thanks in advance! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5b00qx/what_was_the_difference_between_cominch_and_cno/ | {
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"King's savior and resurgence of his career was in part the coming together of 3 different factors meeting the world events of late 1940-1942 and the need for high energy in naval high command.\n\n1. Was his eventually close relationship with FDR, and Secretary Knox.\n\n2. His greatness as a naval officer eventually overrode his personal attitude and demons, and his professional reputation was never ruined.\n\n3. His ability to be the fighter and wartime admiral along with his seemingly limitless reserves of energy.\n\nIt is also important to understand the billet of COMINCH, or its previous version, Commander-in-Chief US Fleet, the terribly named CINCUS(King renamed it after Pearl Harbor). \n\nIn the interwar period the USN went through several structural reforms, thanks to the Panama Canal it was no longer seen as crucial to maintain equally powerful Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. Thus the force was combined, you had the \"Battle Force\" made up of the gun line and scouting assets and escorts, and the \"Patrol Force\" of older and secondary ships to support the main force. The commander of the Battle Force typically dual hatted as CINCUS. \n\nIn 1940 Admiral Richardson got into a bad spat with FDR over the decision to move the Battle Force from California to a new main base at Pearl Harbor, he felt it was too exposed and under developed. This led to his term being cut short and a shuffle in high command. It also led to another reform in the fleet structure. The Pacific Fleet and Atlantic Fleets were reformed, while the Asiatic Fleet under Hart had always been a separate side show command. Admiral Kimmel was named CINCPAC, and as the main sea going billet as CINCUS in case the combined force ever did operate together. While King who had tried to get named as CNO had been stuck on the General Board, normally a holding ground till officers had to retire, however Stark who had been named CNO, got him the CINCLANT job.\n\nIn that post he was faced with the challenge of a new naval war in the Atlantic, and cemented his place in FDR's mind as one of \"his admirals\" and a great fighter. This was high praise from the President who loved the Navy most of all, more even than those who had worn the uniform, Asst SECNAV was his longest job besides President itself. \n\nWith Kimmel disgraced by Pearl Harbor some additional changes had to be made. Nimitz was sent out to Pearl and told to \"not come back until he has won\". But the need to organize a global war and coordinate the entire fleet could not happen from a ship. So King is brought in as COMINCH to handle the actual operations of the ships and commands. To \"Fight the Navy\" as it were in the days before Combatant Commanders and the modern force structure. Stark meanwhile continues as CNO, doing much of what the modern CNO does, long term planning, force management, acquisitions and such. \n\nBut Stark's greatest failure was perhaps not his own doing, while yes Pearl Harbor occurred on his watch it was not particularly his undoing. What it was, was that he was simply not Ernie King. King had the work capacity, and force of nature essentially to force a consolidation of the offices, he could do the whole job better than with two splitting the load. He also was able to develop a working relationship with Admiral Leahy in the end, who was FDR's CoS and who had been the CNO before Stark. It also helped that it balanced the Army and Navy 2-2 for the US high command with Marshall and Hap Arnold on the other side. \n\nSo he gets both posts, and Stark gets to save face by going out to England. \n\nIan W. Toll's *Pacific Crucible* gives a great rundown on the Navy in early WW2 and Ernest King and the other senior Admirals as well. \n\nAnd Borneman's *The Admirals* are both great places to start for more."
]
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f3dpgl | What good sources (books, documentaries, etc) exists about the christianisation of Scandinavia? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f3dpgl/what_good_sources_books_documentaries_etc_exists/ | {
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"Anders Winroth, _The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe_, Yale University Press, 2014\n\nNora Berend (ed), _Christianization and the rise of Christian Monarchy - Scandinavia, Central Europe and the Rus', c900-1200_, Cambridge University Press, 2007\n\nJón Viðar Sigurðsson, _Kristninga i Norden 750-1200_, Samlaget, 2003\n\nOddgeir Hoftun, _Kristningsprosessens og herskermaktens ikonografi i nordisk middelalder_, Solum Forlag, 2008\n\nBrian Patrick McGuire, _Da himmelen kom nærmere : fortællinger om Danmarks kristning 700-1300_, Alfa, 2008\n\nSten Tesch (ed), _Skiftet : Vikingatida sed och kristen tro - Ett mångvetenskapligt perspektiv på kristnandeprocessen i Mälarområdet_, Artos Norma, 2018"
]
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[]
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||
4df5wq | how can certain presidents serve almost entire terms without vice presidents (ford, jackson, roosevelt), who takes over the vps duties and why isn't a new vice president chosen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4df5wq/eli5_how_can_certain_presidents_serve_almost/ | {
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"Because at that time there was no provision for filling the vacancy of a vice president. \nIt was only added with the [25th Amendment](_URL_1_) in 1967. \nOtherwise the Vice-President doesn't actually do a whole lot of real functions, just look at what Biden has done this entire time. \nIf a new president got killed before the 25th amendment, the [Presidential Succession Act](_URL_0_) would have kicked in and someone in congress would have been president (exactly who depends on which version of the act, it changed over the years). \nAlso, Gerald Ford became vice-president after the amendment, it took only two days to be nominated, and a couple of months for congress to confirm. \nAfter Nixon Resigned, it took Ford only 11 days to nominate Rockefeller and again a couple of months for congress to confirm"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Succession_Act",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution"
]
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||
191knu | How did Mesoamerican rulers rule without written language? | When I think of whether eastern or western rulers, I think of imperial decrees bearing seals being passed down to the provinces. How did those Mesoamerican rulers who did not have a written language rule their domains and subjects, some of which were quite large? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/191knu/how_did_mesoamerican_rulers_rule_without_written/ | {
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"Sorry for the wikipedia link, but I just remembered a concept that I haven't heard since I was a kid: [Quipu](_URL_0_), mnemonic knots which convey simple messages, akin to the earliest forms of cuneiform in simplicity of content.",
"They did have writing systems. [Several of them](_URL_0_) in fact. Some, like Mayan and Epi-Olmec, represented every sound in the spoken language (e: *probably.* Epi-Olmec hasn't been deciphered yet.). Others, like the Aztec and Mixtec scripts, were mostly pictographic and only loosely tied to the spoken language. But even these were effective enough to record things like history, religious rituals, and accounting information. The reason most people haven't heard of them is because the Spanish branch of the Catholic church burned every single pre-Columbian book they could find. Only twelve manuscripts made it out of the country before the bibliocaust, although a few others were reproduced from memory afterwards.",
"As outlined by Snickeringshadow, there were complex written languages that existed in Mesoamerica. In the Andes however, things get a little more interesting. They did not have a true writing system, but they did have a complex record keeping system based on colored string and knot tying, which resulted in what are known as Quipu. While not as versatile as a full writing system, it was highly useful for organization and record keeping.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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3kvd8n | how is obama getting the iran deal passed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kvd8n/eli5_how_is_obama_getting_the_iran_deal_passed/ | {
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"Technically, the deal does not need to be \"passed\". He just needs to make sure it does not get vetoed by the Senate. A veto needs 2/3 of the votes, or 67 votes. As long as there are 34 senators who approve of it, it can't get vetoed so it goes through. Currently there are at least 34 who won't vote to veto, so no action is needed. "
]
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[]
] |
||
5xutxy | does your depth perception change as you grow up and your eyes get farther apart? | I would imagine it's not a big difference, but I was curious anyway. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xutxy/eli5_does_your_depth_perception_change_as_you/ | {
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"Your brain and your eyes are constantly adjusting. That little change over years are easily accommodated by accommodation. "
]
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[]
] |
|
25jyzq | how do the snapchat "hack" apps work without a snapchat api? | How can they interact with another app on iOS without needing API access? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25jyzq/eli5_how_do_the_snapchat_hack_apps_work_without_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"chhwo39"
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"text": [
"They are jailbroken devices, with full file system access."
]
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[]
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|
3tofif | why do dogs always seem hungry? | Or at least up for a treat? Like, they may have just had food but if someone is eating something a dog will stand there and look at you waiting for a piece. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tofif/eli5_why_do_dogs_always_seem_hungry/ | {
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"Dogs evolved from wolves whose food supply was unreliable -- thus they would eat at any opportunity, because it was never certain where their next meal would come from.\n\nAlso, they evolved to live in packs, where if you didn't eat something right away, one of your mates would eat it."
]
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|
kskd4 | - how does one cash in on stock market crashes, rescissions and depressions? | I Just watched the [video](_URL_0_) of the analist on BBC talking about how the stock market is going to crash hard and how he's been dreaming of it for a long time. He mentioned that if you had the proper setup you could make a S-ton of money when the market crashes...
ELI5 How. How do I do it? How do I set it up, and how do I make money if/when this happens? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kskd4/eli5_how_does_one_cash_in_on_stock_market_crashes/ | {
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"I'm assuming he's talking about shorting stock. When you short a stock you borrow the stock from someone else and you sell it. After a (short) period of time, you buy the stock at the current market price and give it back to him. This way if you think the stock is going to go down, you sold it high and bought it back low. ",
"One way is to bet on the market crashing.",
"I'm assuming he's talking about shorting stock. When you short a stock you borrow the stock from someone else and you sell it. After a (short) period of time, you buy the stock at the current market price and give it back to him. This way if you think the stock is going to go down, you sold it high and bought it back low. ",
"One way is to bet on the market crashing."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bbc-speechless-trader-tells-truth-collapse-comingand-goldman-rules-world"
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[],
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1s36t5 | how is it possible for the universe to stop expanding? | According to this thread (_URL_0_), once we reach a point of maximum entropy, the universe stops expanding? I cant quite grasp this concept, as there should be something on the other side if that makes sense. I suppose I could give a bad analogy, like if I was in a room and a single wall split the room in half, and the side I was standing on was where the universe stops expanding, the otherside would still nonetheless exist, right? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s36t5/eli5how_is_it_possible_for_the_universe_to_stop/ | {
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"Energy cannot be created or destroyed only converted between different types. For example when you put the brakes on in your car the energy the car has from moving called kinetic energy is turned into heat energy, known as thermal energy, and maybe some sound as well, which is another form of energy. This heat and sound will keep spreading out until it is infinitely weak. In the same way the kinetic energy stars planets and any other parts of the universe that are expanding have will eventually, over a massive amount of time, be converted to other types and spread until they too are infinitely weak and everything is stationary.",
"In actuality, the Universe isn't actually expanding. It's actually making more space within itself. Think about it like this. A room with four walls and the space inside the room is getting bigger, there's nothing on the outside pushing on the walls, it's unlimited. To say the Universe is expanding wouldn't make sense because the Universe, already being everything, would be expanding into itself... since it's already everything.\n\nSo really the planets and galaxies aren't receding from each other, more space is just being made.\n\nPretty cool stuff. "
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1s2ou3/if_energy_cannot_be_created_and_the_universe_is/"
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36falb | Any recommendations for books on mythology? | I love learning about various culture's myths and stories but haven't been able to find any good books besides a few on Greek myhtology that aren't too in depth. What are some books that you would recommend that I should check out? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/36falb/any_recommendations_for_books_on_mythology/ | {
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"Edith Hamilton's \"Mythology\" is always a good place to start for Greek and Roman, and a little Norse. Others may be able to recommend for other cultures, my main experience is with Greece and Rome. ",
"There are several books of Irish mythology, the Tain being one of the more famous, which were written by monks in the 12th century. These are not books about Irish mythology, they are the books OF Irish mythology, or as close as you can get. Some Christian spin laid over the stories but they're wonderful nonetheless! Fascinating stuff, and relatively easy to read if you get a good copy.",
"I'd recommend \"The Hero with a Thousand Faces\" by Joseph Campbell. It is from 1949, and there are certainly many critiques on both structuralism in general and Cambells' monomyth in particular. But, seeking commonalities in myth and hero stories he covers a lot of them, the book is beautifully written and much of later fiction is explicitly modelled after Campbell. It is one of my favourite books, I've recommended it before to people with general interest in mythology and they also found it very interesting. In any case, it is an excellent read and you'll likely remember it often when reading other myths, or even just watching films or other fiction. "
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26jvaf | When did the first male / female ancestor appear in the history of life? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/26jvaf/when_did_the_first_male_female_ancestor_appear_in/ | {
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"According to Wikipedia: The first fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction in eukaryotes is from the Stenian period, about 1 to 1.2 billion years ago. _URL_0_ .\n\nIt's a fair bet that there were several starts to sexual reproduction, but we probably evolved from one of these lines. "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_reproduction"
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v80e1 | If the universe is infinite, why is the night sky black? | I hope I'm wording this right, but it's always kind of been on my mind.
If the universe is infinite (or just really, really, really, really big) shouldn't our entire field of vision above our heads at night be the color of stars/planets, and not darkness? Shouldn't every void in space at some point in infinity be filled with either a star or a planet? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/v80e1/if_the_universe_is_infinite_why_is_the_night_sky/ | {
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"\"Olbers' Paradox is pretty simple: if the universe is infinite, and is filled with an infinite number of stars, then when the sun goes down, all we should see is a sky full of light. There shouldn't be any black background for stars to twinkle against, or night vision, or shadowy alleyways full of criminals to give superhero movies a dramatic start. Darkness should be exotic, because every star in the universe should be shining down on us at all times.\n\nClearly, that isn't happening, but why? Because we live in a sad baby universe — it's only 14 billion or so years old, which is certainly a long time, but not long enough for an infinite amount of stars to illuminate us with an infinite amount of starshine. \"\n\n_URL_0_",
"Because the universe has a finite age, only stars/galaxies within a certain distance have had enough time to have their light reach us.",
"Even though Space might be infinite, the radius of the visible universe is calculated to be about 46 billion light years ([source](_URL_1_)). That's where we then see the background radiation which was emitted shortly after the beginning of time. In the far future, we would be able to see farther, but the max distance (Again, radius.) might be 62 billion light years ([source](_URL_0_)) because the Metric Expansion is practically stealing the cosmos from us. And the current cosmic \"event horizon\" is at a distance of about 16 billion light years: A radiation event that happens in a galaxy with that or a shorter distance could be observed by us in the far future, but current events further away would never reach us. This is untouched by the fact that the distance of that \"event horizon\" is changing.",
"The *observable* universe is NOT infinite. We know this because of things like the fact that we can actually see the 'edge' of the universe [(CMBR)] (_URL_1_), and [redshift](_URL_2_), etc. We know that the universe is 13.72 billion years old and scientists are very, very confident of the accuracy of that number (with very good reasons).\n\nNow onto your question:\n\nDuring the [Planck Epoch](_URL_0_), which is, in layman's basically the smallest measurement of time after the big bang, all of the matter in the universe was in a very, very small space. For the next several hundreds of thousands of years, the baryonic (normal) matter of the early universe was either in an unimaginably hot, dense soup of ionized (or doubly ionized, depending on the time after the big bang and thus the temperature), free floating atomic constituents or hydrogen actively fusing. During this time, if you were anywhere in this infant universe, you would see blinding light all around you. Problem is, the temperature would be in the thousands or millions degrees Kelvin (again, depending on exactly how long after the big bang), and would vaporize you instantly. Not to mention the unimaginable effects of gravity that would crush you instantly.\n\nThe only objects in the universe that naturally give off **visible** light (that is, light in the visible portion of the Electromagnetic Spectrum), are stars, active galactic nuclei, and matter that is being heated up due to friction or gravitational potential energy (such as the accretion disk of a quasar or a condensing molecular cloud). Now, technically, ALL matter gives off light. Not in the traditional sense of visible spectrum light, but somewhere along the EMR spectrum. Right now you're radiating light in the infrared part of the EM spectrum. But lets focus on visible light.\n\nThe thing to understand is that when an object radiates light, it does so in all directions at once. Because light is subject to the [inverse square law](_URL_3_), its intensity is diminished over distance. This means, that the farther you are away from an object, the fewer photons (light 'particles') will be hitting your eye (or anything else). Over the vast distances in our universe, photons from each light source get so spread out that they become hard to see. When you look up at the night sky, at any particular point, chances are there IS something there, but it is simply too faint, too far away to see with the naked eye, or even most telescopes. \n\nIf you haven't seen it, I would also suggest you take a look at some of the Hubble Deep Field images. Basically, astronomers were curious to see if there was anything out there, so they pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a seemly black, empty part of the sky, and did a long, ten day exposure to collect as much light as possible. [What they found](_URL_4_) was amazing! In a patch of sky smaller than a dime held at arm's length, there are tens of thousands of galaxies! This just reinforces my earlier statements: Light is EVERYWHERE in our universe. Just because you can't see it because it is in a non-visible spectrum, or just very, very far away doesn't mean its not there!\n\nEdit: existentialhero and KaneHau pointed out the importance of the distinction of the **observable universe**",
"The biggest reason that most of space appears \"black\" is the redshifting of stars and galaxies. Because the universe is expanding, the majority of galaxies and celestial bodies are moving away from us at a very rapid velocity. Think of this like the Doppler effect: a light emitting body moving away from us will experience a \"stretch\" in it's frequency. The wavelength will literally shift in the red direction of the visible spectrum. For objects that are a certain distance away, this shift will be so dramatic that the EM waves we receive on Earth will no longer be in the visible part of the spectrum.\n\nTl;dr: universe expanding. Doppler effect on light.",
"Most of it is very far away and there are a lot of empty spaces in between. When you make a really powerful telescope and zoom in on the gaps you'll find there's actually a ton of stuff there. ",
"The universe may be infinite (hypothetically), but the fact remains that the [visible part of it](_URL_0_) is not (about 46 billion light-years radially). Besides, stars aren't everlasting; unless your premise claims that the universe is filled with infinitely many stars simultaneously, it's likely the case that when one star's light reaches us, it's already been thousands of years dead.\n\nEven when both the universe and the star count are infinite, a bright night sky is not guaranteed. Infinity is a hard thing to play with. It's like an infinitely strong man pushing an immovable object, it messes with your mind.\n\nTo put things into perspective and possibly give a sense of an answer (for I do not claim to have the answer) for you, consider the number sets.\n\n- The natural number set, N, consists of whole positive numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... ∞\nYou would have to agree with me this set is infinitely large.\n- Yet within any pair of that set, say 1-2, there are an infinite number of real numbers: 1.01, 1.001, 1.435636565, etc...\n- I can't justify saying that one set is larger or smaller than the other (not on the spot anyway), but it does indeed have that sense. Read more on [cardinality](_URL_1_) if you wish.\n\nAnother example, consider two mathematical functions:\n\n- y = x\n- z = x^2\n\n > lim^x- > ∞ y = ∞\n\n > lim^x- > ∞ z = ∞\n\nBut it can be proven that lim^x- > ∞ z / y = ∞, meaning that z is infinitely larger than y given sufficiently large x, despite the fact that both y and z are infinitely large (i.e. there can be infinitely more space than stars even though there both is infinite space and are infinitely many stars).",
"This is actually something called [Olbers Paradox](_URL_0_). We also must remember, that light takes time to travel too. So if the universe is infinite, the light has not yet reached us so galaxies and stars that are beyond billions of light years away are not yet visible since their light has not reached us. ",
"Don't we live in an infinite universe with finite stars and worlds? im not trying to impart any knowledge, I'm just wondering if this is a true statement?",
"This question has always been a bit of pet peeve of mine. There are many good answers which have been provided above, but my favorite and the simplest IMO is that an infinite summation does not necessarily equal infinite or even a particularly large finite number which seems to be the assumption the question takes for granted. \n\nEven if our pocket of the universe was infinitely old and infinitely large, the night sky would still most likely (I don't feel comfortable saying certainly without doing the math) be very dark relative to the day because the density of light sources is so low and the distances so great.",
"Other answers here are spot on, but as a radio astronomer I would just like to add my two cents:\n\nWe live smack dab in the middle of the Milky Way (well, not exactly. We're actually rather close to the edge), yet we don't even really know what our galaxy looks like. That's because until recently, we could only see that part of our galaxy which is closest to us. In fact, we still have a hard time seeing the other side of our galaxy! Why? Because our galaxy is dusty and full of gas.\n\nThis gas is mostly hydrogen which clumps together and gets more dense as you get closer to the center of the galaxy. Optical telescopes can't see through it. Until the use of radio antennae as telescopes, we didn't even know how big our galaxy was. Now, with our radio telescopes, we can see things on the far side of the galaxy and get a better picture of what our galaxy looks like.\n\nIf we could see through this gas, the night sky would be so much brighter. The milky way would probably be brighter than the Sun!",
"The night sky isn't black. Your eyes can't see the radiation.",
"It is bright. Your eyes aren't sensitive enough.",
"There is a brilliant documentary based on that single question. It is called \"Everything\", presented by Jim Al-Khalili for the BBC. You should really watch it. Its second part, \"Nothing\" is even more amazing. ",
"Hello! Astrophysics major here. \n\nIn addition to what others have pointed out about the universe only being a finite age, another principle applies. When you shine a flashlight on a surface, it's brighter when the light and the surface are closer together. The same applies to stars. Stars' light is \"spread out\" over distance, which is why every star in the sky isn't as bright as the sun. ",
"Three simple explanations:\n\n1. [Redshift](_URL_2_) causes the light from stars that are further away to shift all the way out of the visual spectrum. \n2. Light from some stars simply hasn't gotten to us yet. They are outside of the [observable universe](_URL_1_).\n3. Absorption and scattering from dust and other matter attenuates the light before it reaches us. This is known as [extinction](_URL_0_).",
"Light dissipates in the drastically larger emptiness, and there is also a lot of opaque stuff blocking light(more gas clouds than stars.) Even more of the unseen stuff(something like 96% unseen.) "
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation",
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"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/HubbleDeepField.800px.jpg"
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1uqyvm | What did people think of the anatomical and cognitive similarities between humans and apes before before evolution? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1uqyvm/what_did_people_think_of_the_anatomical_and/ | {
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"Hanno the Navigator thought that gorillas, at least, were people:\n\n > On the third day after our departure thence, having sailed by those streams of fire, we arrived at a bay called the Southern Horn[11]; at the bottom of which lay an island like the former, having a lake, and in this lake another island, full of savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillae. Though we pursued the men we could not seize any of them; but all fled from us, escaping over the precipices, and defending themselves with stones. Three women were however taken; but they attacked their conductors with their teeth and hands, and could not be prevailed upon to accompany us. Having killed them, we flayed them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage. We did not sail farther on, our provisions failing us.\n\n[Source](_URL_1_), [archive](_URL_0_) since the source is very slow.",
"The ape shows up in medieval life in several places, beginning in the early high middle ages. We find them in a handful of church sculptures. The dominant view is that apes represented some *evil* aspect of human character, some terrible flaw. This is suggested by correlations to some representations in early art from Iberian Islam and some hypothesizing of influence from Aesop's Fables, both of which entered western European culture just before the high middle ages.\n\nMonkey representation really begins to take off later in [manuscript marginalia](_URL_0_). They are often doing human activities which never explained in the manuscript texts. We infer they acted as allegorical representations of aspects of human character and fate. The British Library's manuscript blog is always a fantastic source of thematic surveys, and [they have one on monkeys playing bagpipes and gardening](_URL_2_). It's hard for us to construct precise allegorical intentions, in part because monkeys aren't alone in representing human activity: rabbits, foxes, bears, dogs and cats all have their turns 'as humans'. Many of these allegories are lost to us, and may be highly personal or meaningful to a certain region or even a joke within a scriptorium. But we can see that western medieval peoples encountered the ape and recognized some correlation with humans.\n\nIntriguingly, these monkeys show up in many late medieval manuscripts from Netherlands-Flemish territories - as with the BL webpage above. And a century later they show up in painting of [Two Chained Monkeys](_URL_1_) by Pieter Breughel the elder. The city in the background of the painting is the great northern Renaissance merchant import port Antwerp, right in the middle of the Flemish-Netherlandish geography.\n\nWe're reading between the lines here, but allegory of human folly and fate in the medieval period seems to shift to metaphor in Breughel's chained monkeys. In the context of Breughel's other moral paintings, the abiding theory of this painting is that the monkeys represent some aspect of human ambition. The nut shells in the painting are often correlated to the Dutch expression \"to go to court for the sake of a nut\".\n\nThe monkey on the left in Breughel's painting looks directly at the viewer. Perhaps a challenge: we can feel in these representations a tension between the ape-as-itself and ape-as-human, reflecting the dichotomy of the Christian allegorical world view. ",
"In Bahasa Malay the word \"orang\" means \"man\" or \"person\" and \"utan\" means \"forest\" - an [\"orangutan\" is a forest-person](_URL_2_). \n\nFor years, Western scientists thought stories of orangutans in Sumatra were of a type with bigfoot and yeti, a wild man who lived in the woods, half beast and half human. \n\nThere's still some controversy over a similar cryptid, *orang-pendek*, described by witnesses as an ape that's [about 3 feet tall and walks on two legs](_URL_3_). Because of the name, though (and since one has never been caught and identified), it gets more sensationally called things like \"the [forest hobbit of Sumatra](_URL_4_)\". \n\nThat process - finding something mythological or fantastic that this unknown thing resembles - seems like a human universal. (See also *Architeuthis dux* and the kraken....)\n\nIt might also be worth pointing out that there is a [movement within primatology today](_URL_0_) to reclassify great apes as a species of *Homo* (I think *Homo sylvanus* got suggested for chimpanzees). It's meeting quite a bit of resistance. \n\nThe movement is alluded to in [this article on the personhood of apes by H. Lyn White Miles](_URL_1_), which opens with the following historical quote on orangutans: \n\n > I still maintain, that his [the orang-utan] being possessed of the capacity of acquiring it [language], by having both the human intelligence and the organs of pronunciation, joined to the dispositions and affections of his mind, mild, gentle, and humane, is sufficient to denominate him a man.\n > \n > Lord J. B. Monboddo, *Of the Origin and Progress of Language*, 1773\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://archive.is/ueg8",
"http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Hanno.html"
],
[
"https://www.google.com/search?q=monkey+in+medieval+manuscripts&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_5jOUsKRMMa_0QXfxYGAAQ&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1306&bih=739",
"http://25.media.tumblr.com/GE10xdC1Ci93lu62MaNhJIu2o1_400.jpg",
"http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/04/monkeys-in-the-margins.html"
],
[
"http://www.pnas.org/content/100/12/7181.short",
"http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/whitemiles01.pdf",
"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=orangutan",
"http://www.orangpendek.org/orangpendek/",
"http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4077"
]
] |
||
48aabv | why bolt action shotguns and pump actions rifle stopped being a thing? | I know both those things do exist and are at least kinda viable, as there were commercial models that were successful. I also know that bolt-action became and still is the go-to operation mode for non semi-auto "one shot at a time" rifles, and pump-action to shotguns. What are the reasons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48aabv/eli5_why_bolt_action_shotguns_and_pump_actions/ | {
"a_id": [
"d0i0u1l"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The reason the bolt action shotgun fell out of favor is because a rifle action on a shotgun is non-intuitive. Shotguns are typically used for waterfowl or upland hunting, where snap shots are common, and reloads need to be rapid. A pump allows you to keep both hands in position and keep the shotgun shouldered.\n\nBolt action rifles by design, are very simple machines, typically rifle shots are one aimed shot, not a snap shot. Also, many people shoot prone, and the bolt is the easiest action to manipulate in that position.\n\nThe pump action on a rifle is a complicated mechanism, and it is about as easy to just make a semi-auto action. Many people prefer an AR-15 action over a pump action on their rifle, much easier for both hunting and target shooting in all positions."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2u0ai0 | In the 11th century, why were Flanders, Toulouse, and Vermandois ruled by counts rather than dukes? | They're as large as the major duchies of France and about as powerful. Why was this?
In an 11th-12th century context, was there a major symbolic difference between a count and a duke? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2u0ai0/in_the_11th_century_why_were_flanders_toulouse/ | {
"a_id": [
"co447f0"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The suggestion that 'dukes' and 'counts' are some sort of neat hierarchy of rank is a post-medieval invention, a desire to map a modern fictional 'feudal pyramid' onto the medieval period. In fact, we don't know why all ducal and comital territories were known as such: some disappear into the fog of the Merovingian centuries. There are plenty of theories, but the most discreditable ones would start with a fine sense of modern order imposed on the past, a past where terms like *dux* and *comtes* appear in so many variants in Latin and vulgar texts from 7th to 11th centuries that it's bewildering. \n\nLands could become a duchy because the ruler was a duke, or vice versa; the same for counties, and even for *marches*. There were no rules to it, fixed and immutable.\n\n\nBy 12th century, count and duke were heritable, aristocratic titles attached to land (this is for the nascent high middle ages Francia). Most nobility had multiple titles, not just single count and duke, or sometimes both. These accrued through territorial acquisitions, like badges, reconfiguring with marriage, conquest, exchange. They weren't ranks and only meant as much as communities of nobility gave them credence. So, the Plantagenets could be kings and dukes at the same time (England and Aquitaine/Poitou, respectively), but that dukedom didn't somehow 'rank' over the count of Toulouse."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
3xj55f | Is Woodstock given too much credit as a society changing event? Is it being remembered nostalgically by the media & aged hippies as more than it really was? Or was it real turning point in the way of thinking at the time? | Edit: missed an 'a' | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3xj55f/is_woodstock_given_too_much_credit_as_a_society/ | {
"a_id": [
"cy5c7jo"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Well, it may have popularized [the phenomenon of holding lit cigarette lighters at rock concerts.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt was pouring rain in Bethel, New York on Friday, Aug. 15, 1969. A thunderstorm had moved into the area, drenching 400,000 people at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.\n\nAs [folk musician Melanie Safka took the stage just shy of 11 p.m. that night](_URL_1_), the stage announcer instructed the audience to light candles \"to keep away the rain.\" The candles had just been handed out to the crowd in a mass distribution. The drizzling rain dampened the candles, and attendees whose candles were extinguished (or didn't receive a candle) raised their cigarette lighters in support. The net effect was astonishing from the stage, Safka recalled.\n\nThe experience inspired her to write a song: \"Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)\". That song, released in 1970, reached No. 6 on the Billboard 100 chart, and Safka's fans commemorated the event by holding lighters up at her concerts. Today, [Safka's LinkedIn page declares](_URL_2_), \"My appearance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival prompted the now-common phenomenom of signaling an artist for an encore by holding-up some form of light...(at Woodstock it was candles; which then emerged into cigarette-lighters, and now onto cellular phones! ~It inspired my writing of \"Lay Down, Candles In The Rain)!\""
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ownn2/people_at_rock_concerts_in_the_70s_held_lit/cmrhlxj",
"https://books.google.com/books?id=CT_ViUaYTfwC&lpg=PT14&ots=fTlfTiswR4&dq=lighters%20at%20concerts%20origin&pg=PT14#v=onepage&q&f=false",
"https://www.linkedin.com/pub/melanie-safka/61/b7/9b7"
]
] |
|
bsnuw7 | unitary executive theory | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bsnuw7/eli5_unitary_executive_theory/ | {
"a_id": [
"eoolzjg"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's the idea that the president of the United States has unlimited or nearly unlimited powers to control the executive branch of the federal government. There are different interpretations as to how far this power actually goes. The most extreme interpretation give the president near dictatorial power, especially in times of war or crisis, and that nothing the president does can ever be illegal by virtue of simply being the president."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
29e2x9 | Do you believe in the land bridge theory? Why? | I think the Continental Drift Theory is more accurate. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/29e2x9/do_you_believe_in_the_land_bridge_theory_why/ | {
"a_id": [
"cik0xa2"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Could you elaborate on what you mean exactly?\nThe most common uses (without further context) of \"land bridge theory\" and \"continental drift theory\" describe two different things. (The former how the Americas were populated, the latter how the continents got to be where they are now; these events happened on vastly different timescales.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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