Datasets:

vblagoje

/

lfqa

like 16

{ "a_id": [ "cpad0tk", "cpad3lk", "cpalai5" ], "score": [ 7, 9, 3 ], "text": [ "I believe it started in the 70s with the import of the cartoons Battle of the Planets (G Force!) and Star Blazers. Followed by Robotech and Akira in the 80s. Then with the proliferation of the internet in the 90s, more anime became readily accessible and evolved from their.", "The answer is very multifaceted. Back when anime started to trickle into american television for the first time, one of the things it did was fulfill the rather common need for youth to find media that is (generally) outside the realm of their parent's enjoyments/understanding. In short, kids were attracted to it. Combine that with the fact that many anime shows were relatively cheap to produce. Think Pokemon; most of it is one drawn frame with mouths moving. You suddenly get a marketplace where an entire generation is fascinated with an inexpensive to produce cartoon that is geared towards toy sales and boom. You've suddenly given a ton of networks a multi-million dollar excuse to start offering anime more regularly.\n\nThere's way more of course. Some of it is culture shock. Anime was more often risking things that American cartoons were not. (Akira.) This created an attraction to more provocative animes as well that capture an entirely different audience than kids, which is a big factor in why you see such a range of people enjoying it. \n\nAmerica also made the mistake of not regularly developing cartoons for adults (because how could adults like cartoons?) A lot of anime with mature themes was featured in college \"Anime Clubs\" which sparked a whole new subset of anime fans. ", "In the US, cartoons were mostly for children, and tended to be sanitized and dumbed down to cater to children. But in Japan, it was a more general medium, and often told more complex, adult stories. \n\nFor people who like animation, but want something more than Bugs Bunny, anime is pretty appealing." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cwalarz" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Misidentification wasn't uncommon, especially during the early days of the war when many units had different-colored uniforms. Notably, during the First Battle of Bull Run (July 1861), one of the turning points came when the 33rd Virginia (Confederate) regiment was mistaken for a Union unit. They were able to get close enough to decimate an infantry regiment and capture several artillery pieces, which (along with a charge by Stonewall Jackson and the arrival of some Confederate reserves) started the general Union retreat." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e1y9k39" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "It could easily be the ingestion of large amounts of salt and/or sugar (which are often heavily used in rich foods) causing dehydration. It could also be elevated levels of insulin being released into the body as the food is processed, or your body rejecting an ingredient in some way. Lots of intolerances can be very mild and go easily unnoticed. \n\nThe simple answer is, if you're going to eat rich foods, drink a good amount of plain water with, or after eating, your food. It's a good remedy for most of the side effects I mentioned. Any large meal can make you feel a bit rough, so taking your time eating can be a big help as well." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e4d3iws" ], "score": [ 9 ], "text": [ "Fortunately for post-war Germany they didn't have to pay any reparations from the First World War as the payment had ceased in 1932. Reparations had always been a thorny political issue in Germany, even from the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. In the Treaty itself, Germany was not given a definite figure to repay; rather it simply agreed to pay an indefinite amount that would be decided by a yet-to-be established Reparations Committee. In the meantime, Germany had to pay for the upkeep of the occupying armies with raw materials and food. This is referred to as payment in kind. Eventually the figure was settled as 132bn Marks, or £6.6bn. \n\nGiven the state of the German economy after the war, and the loss of significant coal deposits in Silesia and Alsace-Lorraine, Germany was unable to keep up with her payments either in raw materials or in money. The result of this was that Belgium and France occupied the Ruhr region of Germany and confiscated all production in payment. German workers laid down their tools in a scheme of passive resistance. However, it was during this time that hyperinflation brought on by war debts, a failing economy and decreased production reached its high point. Germany needed serious help, and passive resistance in the Ruhr wasn't really winning them any friends. The practice was ended and the so-called Dawes Plan was drawn up, whereby Germany would recieve foreign investment and loans, the French and Belgians would withdraw from the Ruhr, the schedule of repayments would be redrawn and a new currency, the *Rentenmark*, would be issued to replace the hyperinflated Goldmark. \n\nHowever, many viewed the Dawes Plan as only a stopgap measure and pressured for a new deal, which was drawn up in 1929. The Young Plan, as it was called, set a new schedule and reduced figure for reparations. Crucially, it set a fixed end date for payments (1988), which was the first time that such a thing had happened. It also required the French and British to withdraw from the Rheinland ahead of schedule, and provided additional loans to Germany. While economically sound, the plan drew criticism from the right wing who viewed it as selling out to international financiers and making Germany dependent on foreign aid.\n\nLast but not least, following the deepening financial crisis, a moratorium had been placed on reparation repayments in 1931. In 1932, a conference was held in Lausanne which agreed that Germany should no longer have to make payments given their dire financial situation. By this point Germany had only paid roughly one sixth of what they were originally required to do so.\n\nTherefore, German ended and indeed began the Second World War without any obligation to pay reparations. However, following the end of the Second World War, various debts and repayments mostly fell on West Germany. West Germany voluntarily signed agreements with Israel, Greece and Yugoslavia amongst others to voluntarily pay reparations for the damage done to their citizens and economies. Additionally, West Germany agreed to pay the reparations which had not been previously paid from WWI, in addition to other debts accrued. It was agreed that West Germany should not bear the entire weight of debt, and a portion was only to be repaid upon reunification, which did not occur until 1990. However, reunified Germany continued to pay this debt, with the last payment being made in 2010.\n\nIn summary, Germany ceased to make WWI reparations payments in 1932 but the West German government voluntarily agreed to continue payments in 1953, with the condition that part of the debt only be paid upon reunification. \n\nFor further reading:\n\nLeonard Gomes, *German Reparations, 1919-1932: A Historical Survey* (2010)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "eh77tnm" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Gravity constantly pulls on your body and your bones have to be strong enough to hold your weight, so your body streghthens them to withstand that weight. In space, you have no weight, so your body redirects your resources elsewhere. Your bones don't need to be dense, because of that, so the body weakens them so it can use its energy and materials for other things that are more important." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "exg3r8a" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Yes, if Andromeda merged with Earth it would get crowded.\n\nIf Andromeda were to merge with the Milky Way, no, as long as you stayed away from news, internet and large telescopes." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfr04kx", "cfr0g6d" ], "score": [ 5, 11 ], "text": [ "So the rapid expansion happens because, during those times, those retail chains are filling a market demand.\n\nThe demand is high, business is good, the business expands.\n\nAt some point, the demand begins to fall. Bad business decisions that previously weren't noticed are now being noticed. Poor decisions might be made, or changes made too late to avert damage. The business continues to be able to operate for a period of time.\n\nThe losses increase over time. Executives are getting nervous. Competition is making their business obsolete. They are trying to compensate, but are hoping demand picks up again in the long term.\n\nIt doesn't. Demand continues to drop. They lose market share. Stores that were once wildly profitable are now massive losses. Meetings are held, shareholders are spoken to, and a decision is made.\n\nStores start closing. Loss leaders first, followed by the ones that are just making by, leaving only the leanest operating ones that can still make a profit. Last-minute deals to bring in new branding, services, or deals to somehow remain competitive might help keep the remaining stores afloat, but at this point their competition owns the market and is changing to keep ahead of it, while they are running out of steam.\n\nIn the end they mostly close down, leaving only a few stores behind, and using whatever is left to convert businesses to an alternative that still makes money, or look for acquisition (Blockbuster (Netflix + Redbox) - > Blockbuster Express, CircuitCity (Best Buy, poor management/lawsuits) - > _URL_2_ - > _URL_0_, Borders Books (low demand, Amazon, - > _URL_1_, etc.)", "Because the very nature of the business they provide becomes obsolete and scaling back does not provide a way toward regaining profitability. For example, let's take a retail chain that is hugely successful and everywhere today - Starbucks. They provide coffee to order ready to consume to the public. Let's now take a new business - hypothetically, let's call it eCoffeeMax - finds a new way to deliver coffee to consumers in a better, cheaper way (more selection, higher quality, faster). They find a way to deliver your coffee wherever you are using quadcopter drones - at home, at the office, at school, even on your commute - for half the price and their coffee is better in every way. They'll even accept your junk mail as currency to buy coffee.\nNow all of the sudden, Starbucks has lost all of its competitive advantage when it comes to capturing customers. It tries to cut prices as much as it can but any further and it will lose money. It shuts down the least profitable stores but now every story is unprofitable because of the new competition. That's what happened to every bookstore in America after Amazon showed up. There was no way to compete. Amazon was the place that got you more books than independent or chain brick and mortar bookstores, at better prices, and at the convenience of shopping without having to go to the store.\n\nBlockbusters was tied to physical media as a business model when streaming became widely used. Circuit City relied on brick and mortar stores rather than online stores (Best Buy adapted to this better and shifted business to online sales to balance their sales load). \n\nScaling back wasn't an option - it was just hitting an evolutionary dead end in the business world after the nature of the business changed beyond the ability of the company to adapt to it. \n\nThere are many businesses today that are at risk. For example, Hollywood movies rely a lot on digital visual effects - used to be mostly for flashy space battles and monsters, but now even present-time dramas rely heavily on digital \"set extensions\" (adding digital extras walking around a busy city street instead of hiring 100 actual people as extras, adding buildings to customize a skyline, cleaning up an environment or modifying an environment). This work used to be performed by somewhat well paid digital artists in the USA in VFX studios in the US. Now, this work is moving further and further away, just like with manufacturing. At first, it was being farmed out to cheap small operations in the US, then cheap small studios in Canada and Europe. Then, India. Now, China is getting in the game. \n\nOur manufacturing base disappeared that way. A lot of it has to do with our government's political priorities. Is it more important to keep jobs and a business here or do you call it \"Free market\" and let corporations pay for your campaign and make sure you vote against labor union laws and laws that help give tax incentives to keep jobs here? We're competing against nations that fund their businesses using their tax moneys - South Korean corporations got big because the governments subsidized them heavily protected them vigorously. It's not a free market economy out there. We don't order our soldiers to go fight using their own privately purchased equipment while other armies are funded by their government. But in business, that's what we do and worse." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "TigerDirect.com", "BarnesAndNobles.com", "CircuitCity.com" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dcbpoam" ], "score": [ 15 ], "text": [ "/u/LBo87 gave a good answer in an [old thread](_URL_0_).\n\nThere is /u/Astrogator's [answer](_URL_1_) as well, which adds one more term. See the last bullet point." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17g4b7/what_derogatory_terms_did_german_and_japanese/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3cxf21/wwii_deragatory_terms_for_soldiers/cszzv74/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e0c27bg" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Phone batteries use an chemical reaction something like \nLi - > Li+ + e- \nMg+ + e- - > Mg \n\nThis means the the electron travels from the lithium electrode to the magnesium electrode creating electron flow and therefore energy. \n\nIn all chemical reactions u can push/reverse the reaction by adding energy to the aystem. If u add electricity to the system the lithium solid will become lithium aqueous (in solution) this allows it to react again and produce power. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvd3bzz" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Yes. Freshly sliced meat that you get at the grocery store is, well, fresh. Prepackaged meat has to go to through the middle man, who slices and packages it before it's sent to the store. Getting the meat sliced at the deli means it skips the middle man and gets to you, more fresh than the prepackaged stuff." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "drk53x6", "drk56gt", "drk5lpk" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Quite simply, the Catholic Church happened to gain a foothold in the most powerful countries in the world. Spain, Portugal, France, etc. Those countries then spread their faith through their conquests. This of course came from the apostles of Christ spreading the gospel throughout Europe starting in Greece and Turkey. ", "One word. Rome.\n\nRome basically ruled the known world. But the fighting between the pagans and Christians was likely to tear the empire apart. An emperor on his deathbed was baptized and converted to Christianity. The empire then adopted Christianity. To ease the transition many Christian holidays adopted the same time frame as pagan ones.\n\nSince Rome was the world the world was Christian.\n\nI doubt without Rome it would be as prevalent as it is tpday.", "Everything changed once Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire. Instead of apostles evangelising new lands and spreading Christianity the Roman’s just plundered new lands, basically killing two birds with one stone. The new land coming under Christendom and Roman rule. Fast forward to the Middle Ages where 90 percent of Europe was evangelised by either Christianity or the Roman Catholic Church. \nSpain, Portugal had vast navy fleets (and significant Financial backing )that blew the other emerging European nations out of the water. The superior navy fleet and backing from the Catholic Church helped explore the ‘New world’. I guess through colonising the new world they had a foot hold on resources taxes and land $$$ and free labour. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqilgn9" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "During that time The Netherlands was fighting a war of independence, the 80 year war. While it basically stared as a revolt against the Spanish because of infringements of privileges like protection against unreasonable taxes etc.. It soon became also a religious based war between Protestants (Netherlands) and Catholics (Spanish). Since most Dutchmen were still Catholics themselves but against the Spaniards and their inquisition the common idea was that people should not be prosecuted because of their religion. This was specifically mentioned in the [act of abjuration](_URL_0_) (incomplete dutch english translation) send to the spanish king and publicly published in 1581. Besides a certain level of religious freedom several other privileges and rights were mentioned or implied. Like that the prince is there to protect his citizens as like father does his children or a shepherd his flock and not rule them like they are slaves. Also that there should be a justice system that is impartial en equal to all citizens and that there should be a freedom to trade. \n\nAll this created at situation that you could hardly be prosecuted for expressing yourself if you stayed within certain limits. Also, the merchant class had become the prominent force at the time which means there are a lot of potential supporters for any kind of art and philosophy instead of a singular/limited source of patronage. All the freedoms created in this situation was the main source that Amsterdam specifically and the Netherlands as a whole entered an Golden Age with wealth and creativity. While not a classical history source an easy to read description on how this came about is [Russell Shorto's Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City]( _URL_1_) \n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://cryptiana.web.fc2.com/docs/abj_dut.htm", "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17288660-amsterdam" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c2nf2z9", "c2nfwjk", "c2nf2z9", "c2nfwjk" ], "score": [ 3, 2, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "NiMH chemistry is much more forgiving to overcharging than other types of battery chemistry, but it's really not good for the cell. Get some extra cells, and only charge ones that have been (mostly) used.", "Edit: I just reread your question, and what I wrote isn't that relevant. But I'm going to post it anyway:\n\nNiMH batteries have two awesome traits that alkaline batteries don't have:\n\n- NiMH batteries' voltage does not drop a lot when they are under load (I think it usually stays at 1.2v). This means it can supply more current. Note that the alkaline voltage when under load is *not* the advertised 1.5v.\n- NiMH batteries' voltage does not decrease as much when they are less charged. Alkaline batteries become much weaker after they've been used a little bit, and you can expect NiMH batteries to outperform them.\n\nEdit: corrected incorrect voltage.", "NiMH chemistry is much more forgiving to overcharging than other types of battery chemistry, but it's really not good for the cell. Get some extra cells, and only charge ones that have been (mostly) used.", "Edit: I just reread your question, and what I wrote isn't that relevant. But I'm going to post it anyway:\n\nNiMH batteries have two awesome traits that alkaline batteries don't have:\n\n- NiMH batteries' voltage does not drop a lot when they are under load (I think it usually stays at 1.2v). This means it can supply more current. Note that the alkaline voltage when under load is *not* the advertised 1.5v.\n- NiMH batteries' voltage does not decrease as much when they are less charged. Alkaline batteries become much weaker after they've been used a little bit, and you can expect NiMH batteries to outperform them.\n\nEdit: corrected incorrect voltage." ] }

[]

[ "http://www.amazon.com/Sanyo-Eneloop-Charger-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B003VLAEPQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317264635&sr=8-2" ]

[ [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dhrsxxc" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "To start an ISP you need to invest in a lot of infrastructure. Most ISPs is therefore limited to a small geographical area. And if there are two providers who need the infrastructure to every house then the service will be twice as expensive for everyone. Just imagine if there were two main water lines running to each house and you could chose between them." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f527w1d" ], "score": [ 13 ], "text": [ "No, the main aim of the Zimmerman telegram wasn't to bring the US into WW1. It was intended as insurance against the likelihood that the US would join WW1 anyway over Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.\n\nThis is the full text of the Zimmerman telegram, sent from the German foreign ministry to the German ambassador to Mexico. English translation, obviously, and the emphasis is mine.\n\n > We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. **We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding**, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. **You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain**, and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace. \nSigned, ZIMMERMANN\n\nGermany had decided to resume Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (USW) in 1917 for two reasons, one military and one domestic political. USW means that submarines may sink any merchant ships in the declared exclusion area, regardless of national flag, and without warning. As opposed to the \"Prize Rules\" or \"Cruiser Rules\" traditional international law had applied to commerce raiding, where only enemy-flagged merchant ships were legitimate targets. Ships belonging to neutral countries could be stopped and searched, and seized or sunk if they were found to be carrying contraband to blockaded ports or if they tried to resist the search, but could not be summarily attacked. Any ships to be sunk under cruiser rules must first be given reasonable warning for the passengers crew to abandon ship. These rules were developed with surface warships (particularly frigates and cruisers) in mind, not submarines, and submarines of the era didn't have anywhere near enough crew to search and seize a merchant ship, and submarines relied on stealth to be effective combatants so surfacing and summoning a merchant ship to submit to search or ordering the crew to abandon ship was risky, especially after the British started disguising armed merchantmen as ordinary merchant vessels in order to sink German subs when they surfaced (this was legal under international law as long as the disguised ship revealed its true nature by raising a Navy flag before opening fire).\n\nGermany had previously attempted USW briefly in 1915, only to call it off after the US responded to the sinking of the Lusitania (a British ship sailing from New York and carrying many American and British passengers as well as a cargo that included war materiel being imported by Britain). The sinking was done without warning by a submerged U-Boat, the British denied the presence of war materiel on the ship (and the Germans had no hard evidence to the contrary), and 128 Americans (along with over a thousand British and other nationalities of passengers and crew) died. The US responded with vigorous diplomatic protests, stopping about half a step short of threatening war if USW continued. Germany acquiesced at the time and resumed cruiser rules.\n\nThe military reason was that the German navy had overestimated the effectiveness of USW and underestimated the British and American ability to build new merchant ships to replace those sunk. Based on their mistaken assessments, the Germans believed that they could sink enough merchant ships to prevent Britain from importing the food and raw materials they needed to continue the war, and that this would happen before Americans could mobilize enough to have a significant effect on the war.\n\nThe domestic political reason was as a response to the British blockade of Germany. Britain had been blockading Germany (with surface ships, operating under cruiser rules) since the outbreak of war, and Britain had been taking a very broad basis for what constituted war materiel. Specifically, food and fertilizer were counted as contraband, since food could be sent to the front to feed soldiers, and since fertilizer could be remanufactured into explosives. Germany had imported a large portion of its food pre-war, and German civilians had been on short rations for much of the war. The Winter of 1916-1917 (called the \"Turnip Winter\") was a period of particular hardship for German civilians, as the 1916 potato crop had failed, compounding the food shortage. Unrestricted Submarine Warfare was seen as a way for the German Navy to demonstrate to German civilians that they were Doing Something about the blockade and inflicting the same kinds of hardship on British civilians that the British Navy was inflicting on German civilians.\n\nOnce the decision to resume USW had been made, war with the US was considered inevitable. The idea of the Zimmerman Telegram was to exploit Mexican grievances against the US (not just the lost territory from the 1846-48 US/Mexican War, but also the much more recent US punitive expedition expedition in pursuit of Pancho Villa) to bring another country into the war on the German side as counterweight to the US joining the Entente. Every division the US Army used to fight Mexico was a division that couldn't be sent to France to reinforce the British and French armies, so forcing the US to divide attention between two fronts would further delay substantive American involvement with the war effort in Europe." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c384xs7", "c384xs7" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "That's the shape of the camera's aperture, and the effect is called [bokeh](_URL_0_).", "That's the shape of the camera's aperture, and the effect is called [bokeh](_URL_0_)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bokeh" ], [ "https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bokeh" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dh5j1iw" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "Red dwarfs are main sequence stars just like the Sun, except they only contain about 8-50% as much mass. As a consequence, the fusion in their cores proceeds slower, their surface temps are cooler, and their life spans are much longer. \n\nDuring its Red Giant phase, the Sun will gradually lose much of its upper atmosphere to space, enriching its general neighborhood with up to 0.5 solar mass of mostly Hydrogen. \n\nWould this be enough raw material to form a Red dwarf star? Sure, if something corralled it together until it began coalescing under its own gravity. \n\nBut with the Sun still coughing and wheezing in the center of it all, that Hydrogen will instead just disperse into the blackness, until sometime, somewhere, some of it finds some like-minded hydrogen to get all gravitational with." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dy9w4ca", "dy9wmvk" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Functionally they are almost identical to US State or Canadian Province. They do not have their own militaries, do not have their own passports, do not have their own treaties and trade agreements, but they do have some of their own laws and self governance. \n\nPuerto Rico is a territory. They are partially subject to the US, but are not full members of the US as they have so far chosen to not become a State. They pay some taxes, have their own laws and government, but rely on the US for military support and all trade has to come through the US first. \n\nQuebec is a Province of Canada, and Bavaria is a State in Germany. They are a somewhat culturally distinct grouping but are not separate countries, nor are they different from their other provinces or states of their nation as you imply by calling them \"sub-national entities\". ", "You note Scotland, but *England* also holds this status (along with Wales and Northern Ireland). The UK may have its government seated in England, but England does not directly represent, nor is it under any tighter control of “the UK” moreso than the other 3. \n\nWhether each has a head of state depends on their particular government’s structure, but they do have their own governments which handle regional affairs.\n\nThe concept is similar to states in the USA with each being a full and “equal” part of the union (though the way the government operates and benefits/restricts each one varies on an individual case). \n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dgsmyzo" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "So limiting this to the 20 year rule, and thus 1997 first off with only brief references to events and trends past it. We can actually though talk a good deal about Soviet carrier efforts, which obviously play a huge part in how Russian and PLAN Naval Aviation evolved. \n\nSimply put, from their origins to today an aircraft carrier is a tool of power projection. It allows you to take a piece of ocean that couldn't be used as an airbase and suddenly you have a fully functional one with up to +75 aircraft ready to go and which can be somewhere 100's of miles away tomorrow. It is a tool to enable expeditionary warfare and a sustained presence beyond the limits of land based aircraft for the power that has one. From Imperial Japan, to the United States and Great Britain, to the French, to other minor carrier nations, it has always been about building the ability to go someplace else and attack there using your big moving runway. \n\nTo avoid too deep an overview we can then suffice to say that they were crucial to Allied victory in WW2, very important in US efforts in SE Asia in the Cold War and elsewhere, and factored heavily into plans for a NATO/Warsaw Pact confrontation. And carriers through the years have done numerous different missions, often all at the same time. They can first and foremost attack other naval assets(ships, planes, subs), can attack ground targets and support landings, and can protect sea lanes of communication from enemy forces. All 3 have been key over the years from the drive across the Pacific and Battle of the Atlantic, to supporting fighting in Korea, Vietnam, and in the Middle East, to patrolling the North Atlantic and vital NATO sea lanes. \n\nThis variety of missions, and embracing of robust air power and naval forward presence helped drive the US to embrace the super carrier in the 50's, after temporarily successful efforts by the Air Force in the late 40's to kill earlier designs. While the British were faced with a shrinking empire, up and down economy, and loss of great power status, their navy including carriers slowly transitioned from a broad spectrum force to by the end of the Cold War on focused heavily on leveraging their position to focus on anti submarine warfare on the Greenland-Iceland-UK line. Though the importance of carriers as forward airfields was ably stated in the Falklands when Argentinian aircraft had only a few minutes of fuel to attack while the Brits could maintain a present CAP with their Harriers(though they had short legs too), the Argentines carrier was kept in safe water for fear of attack by RN subs after they bagged the General Belgrano cruiser. Many older US Essex class carriers experienced the same transition, as their usage in operating heavier modern jets waned their usage as anti sub carriers extended their lives by decades sometimes. While the newer super carriers could serve as the attack platforms and the centerpiece of offensive patrols or ground strikes. In a hot Cold War all in the name of ensuring that reinforcements could cross the Atlantic unmolested and fight it out on the plains of Germany.\n\nThe USSR though was in a very different place, they were for the most part already where they expected to fight and didn't need to take a plane or boat to get there. Thus they didn't have long sea lanes to protect or lack of airfields to support expected hot zones, though like all airfields they were stationary and fixed unlike a carrier. And their naval strategy was markedly different. They had 2 main goals, 1 was to protect undersea \"Bastions\" essentially heavily defended safezones where their ballistic missile subs could head to and be safe if the order came to launch. The other being to strike at NATO Sea Lanes. This was then achieved by using numerous fast attack subs, of nuclear and diesel varieties, surface ships firing big heavy and fast anti ship cruise missiles, and crucially long ranged shore based naval bombers and patrol aircraft. By the late Cold War a theoretical attack on a US Carrier Group might involve several soviet attack subs say Victor class nuke boat or a conventional Kilo, maybe a surface group of a Kirov battlecruiser a Kresta cruiser, and a gaggle of destroyers, and most importantly several dozen long ranged bombers. This would be split between the fast jet Backfires and the big ubiquitous turboprop Bears, all with the goal of saturating and overwhelming a battlegroups ability to meat all threats thanks to huge for their job missiles like the P-270, Kh-22, P-500 and P-700. \n\nSo what role for a carrier then? We see it in the limited USSR carrier projects, that aside from the ridiculous Stalin era plans that carriers were meant to simply augment this existing dynamic. To provide additional cover for the Bastions, and to protect surface task forces during the run in to missile launch. We can see this in the few classes of carriers the Soviets actually got completed, ignoring the Moskva's which are really just glorified DDH's and truly dedicated ASW platforms. That leaves us with the Kiev's and Kuznetsov's, both of which have very similar roles and the Kuznetsov's are really just enlarged improved variations on the same theme capable of operating non VSTOL aircraft from the get go. They were meant to simply defend their immediate vicinity to boil it down, and were even equipped with their own anti ship cruise missiles just like the surface combatants(if the trip is likely to be one way why not augment the striking power! this also had the benefit of allowing them to do the legal gymnastics of not calling them carriers and avoiding issues with them passing through the straits into the Black Sea). The Russians did flirt with larger designs over the years but it is a big step, and even the follow on to the Kuznetsov the Ulyanovsk would still have been a ski jump design and carry a large battery of anti surface missiles, though it was scrapped with the end of the Cold War only partly begun. \n\nChina faces many of the same issues, their primary concern is first ensuring the ability to defend their territory, then to meet enemies in the South China Sea and 11 Dash line of the first island chain. While for much of its existence the ability of the PLAN to project power any further towards the second chain of islands like Guam into the Pacific was simply not possible from a numbers or capability standpoint. Thus a reliance on Anti-Access/Area Denial strategy to protect the mainland and again usage of lots of shore based aviation since the foe mostly had to come to them and they were already mostly in range of what they wanted to hit to start a war (SK, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, etc.). This has changed though as China has sought to assert itself as a rising power.\n\nSo fast forward a few years the post Soviet slump meant no new ships and the Russians were left with what they had, hence the 1 Kuznetsov that was ready, and 4 Kiev's all of which were quickly withdrawn from service (2 sold as museums to China, 1 scrapped, and 1 heavily reconstructed and sold to India and in operation today). While the Kuznetsov has lunged from breakdown to breakdown never getting the care she really needs, her unfinished sister was taken by The Ukraine and eventually sold to China who finished her as the current Liaoning, and a near sister was just launched this week. \n\nAnd in the end we should not dismiss the importance of prestige when it comes to having a carrier. Its just something \"Great Powers\" have and do. If Brazil can operate a carrier so can Russia. If France can make a nuclear carrier work why can't China? If Britain is building a modern 2 carrier fleet why shouldn't the world's largest democracy in India do so?\n\nThat said the future of carriers has often been a hot debate. No more so at any other time than today with rising costs, advancing A2/AD assets, and evolving faces of warfare. Even in the US questions about what shape the force should take remain in the open and sometimes contentious. \n\nFor a better understanding of the shape of the debate I would suggest checking out professional sites and sources, one of which is the US Naval Institute, their magazine is pay for view, but their blog regularly publishes excellent work on relevant topics. For instance this was a selected essay by a Midshipman from Annapolis on the PLAN's carrier outlook nd ambitions, perfect as an introduction: _URL_0_ " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://blog.usni.org/2015/07/20/capstone-essay-blue-waters-for-a-red-state-aircraft-carrier-operations-and-the-peoples-liberation-army-navy" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqhqvh5", "dqi480m" ], "score": [ 9, 6 ], "text": [ "In 1941 the British troops retreating from Greece to Crete were forced to leave their heavy artillery behind. In an attempt to prevent the Germans from making use of those guns, the British artillerymen took the gun sights with them to Crete. When the Germans invaded Crete those artillerymen were left with sights for non-existant guns \n\nIn the famous Doolittle Raid, the tailguns from the US bombers were removed (in order to keep weight down) and replaced with broomsticks painted black.\n\nDespite both of those, your history teacher is unlikely to tell you the British sent their men into battle with artillery sights but no guns, or that the US sent bombers on missions without giving them weapons to defend themselves. \n\nIn war, there can be times when soldiers have to fight with less than ideal equipment. Just like the British artillerymen, there were times when Soviet infantry were forced - due to circumstances on the ground - to fight without sufficient arms or ammo. But it wasn't standard practice.\n\nThe point is that it's easy (and unfortunately common) to point to examples where the Soviets were forced to fight (or in this case train) without sufficient equipment and act as though that was the norm, while almost certainly not doing the same for the Western Allies.\n\nSo I'm not saying your history teacher was right or wrong (I don't know a reliable source that would confirm their story, and don't know how you could show it never happened) but it's important to remember that context is always important.\n\n", "[I answered a similar question here, and this reply is a slightly modified version of it](_URL_0_).\n\nFirst of all, training and doing drill with wooden guns or broomsticks (or other sticks) have been common in many armies throughout history. Frederick the Great's Prussian soldiers drilled with sticks before being issued muskets. Parts of the US army conscripted in 1917 initially drilled with wooden mock-ups of Springfield M1903 rifles and so on. When learning how to handle a rifle and drilling to commit movements with the weapon to your muscle memory, it does not matter that much if it is a stick or a gun - and guns were often expensive or in shortage.\n\nDid troops train with sticks? Did they go to battle unarmed?\n\nIt is true for the Russian Imperial Army during ww1 and some for the Narodnoe Opolcheniye (people's militia) units of the Soviet army during ww2.\n\nThe Russian Imperial Army was unable to equip all its drafted men with rifles early 1915 - and purchases and deliveries of British and Japanese rifles were made (remaining British and Japanese rifles in Soviet stock were later sold at high prices to the desperate Spanish Republic 1936-38). By December 1914, the Russian Imperial Army had roughly 6,5 million men in uniform, but only 4,5 million rifles to equip them with. At the end of 1915, they had 2 million men at the front, but only about 1,2 million rifles to equip them with. However, by that time the Russian production had picked up, reaching about 1,3 million rifles per year, and there were 2 million rifles in Russian ports or on their way from Britain and Japan.\n\nAll countries fighting in ww1 suffered huge problems trying to supply their forces and equip men raised to replace the extreme casualties suffered by the pre-war armies during the first year of the war. It took time for industry to change to war production, and the lack of nitrates (in the Central Powers due to the blockade, in the Entente due to difficulties in increasing shipment of guano) hampered production of ammunition. The British had to purchase Canadian and US rifles and took rifles from the Indian army as a stop-gap measure. However, the Russian Imperial Army was the only army to send uniformed but unarmed men into combat, expecting them to arm themselves on the battlefield late 1914 to late 1915.\n\nDuring ww2, the Soviets attempted several times to use Narodnoe Opolcheniye, or people's militia units as a desperate stopgap measure when the Germans advanced deep into their territory. These were civilians organised in a sort of a home guard and at times trained decently well and equipped almost like regular troops and at other times thrown into combat barely equipped at all when there was little or no time for training and little equipment available. This was especially problematic during Autumn 1941, when much of the Soviet war industry was being moved from territory that had been or would be over-run to beyond the Ural mountains, causing a temporary slump in supply and new equipment available to the Soviets. For example, the German 6. Panzer-division, when advancing on Stalingrad as part of Fall Blau in summer 1942, encountered a Soviet unit of AA guns and attacked it, noting that the enemy was firing badly, and after running over the unit, discovered that the guns had been manned by female factory workers still in civilian clothing. On the other hand, the Narodnoe Opolcheniye units part of the 62. and 64. Army that defended Stalingrad seem to have performed well during the fighting. \n\nIt is quite possible that Narodnoe Opolcheniye units were at times equipped with a lower number of rifles than it had men and went into battle like that - they often lacked heavier support arms such as artillery, AT guns and mortars. However, I have not seen any records of systematic under-equipment of Soviet units during ww2, neither regular forces or Narodnoe Opolcheniye.\n\nThe bottom line is that many armies throughout the history of gunpowder warfare have used wooden mockups, broomsticks or sticks to drill troops before issuing them weapons, including the US army in 1917. However, the Imperial Russian Army is, as far as I know, the only regular army to send trained and uniformed, but unarmed regular units into battle, expecting them to arm themselves on the battlefield.\n\nHowever\n\nSources:\n\nBrusilov Offensive, by Timothy Dowling.\n\nRace to the Front, by Kevin D Stubbs.\n\nStalingrad, by Anthony Beevor.\n\n2194 days of war, by Cesare Salmaggi and Alfredo Pallavisini.\n\n_URL_1_" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5icxqr/is_there_any_truth_to_the_stories_of/db80xgt/", "https://www.army.mil/article/185229/world_war_i_building_the_american_military" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dltn1cx" ], "score": [ 21 ], "text": [ "Technically, modern domesticated chickens can still fly. Sort of. Not well. But... for short distances and not terribly gracefully^1. They are not flightless.\n\nHowever, their poor flying abilities are the result of domestication, and selective breeding by farmers and the commercial poultry industry (1950s-now)^2 to be larger, faster growing, and meatier while keeping the birds sheltered from any sort of predators.\n\nThe large breast is actually the flight muscle, but their wings are now too short, and those muscles too heavy to support effective wing loading and flight.\n\nWhile chickens have been domesticated for ~6000-8000 years, [it's pretty clear](_URL_2_)^3 that many of the significant changes occurred in the very recent past (since 1950s). The authors in this study raised a set of lines representative of 1957 (experimental/archival), 1978 (experimental/archival) and 2005 (commercial/meat selected) birds on the same diet, and under the same conditions to study growth and development. While they didn't look at flight abilities of the respective chicken lines, the breast size and conversion rate of grams of food- > grams of breast meat is about tripled. They also measured a significant shift from the 1957 and 1978 lines to the 2005 line in terms of the grams of breast meat/total body weight. So, the 2005 meat-selected line is almost certainly a worse flyer than the 1957 experimental unselected chicken line.\n\n^1\n [Forget About the Road. Why Are Chickens So Bad at Flying?](_URL_4_) by Live Science\n\n^2\n[U.S. Chicken Industry History](_URL_1_) by the National Chicken Council\n\n^3\nM. J. Zuidhof et al., (2014) [Growth, efficiency, and yield of commercial broilers from 1957, 1978, and 2005](_URL_3_) *Poultry Science* \n- if paywalled, see [Huffington Post article instead](_URL_0_)\n\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/21/chickens-bred-bigger_n_5983142.html", "http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/history/", "http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2188334/thumbs/o-CHICKEN-570.jpg?6", "https://academic.oup.com/ps/article/93/12/2970/2730506/Growth-efficiency-and-yield-of-commercial-broilers", "https://www.livescience.com/57139-why-chickens-cannot-fly.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9d5ty8", "c9d660k", "c9d9sti", "c9d9uit" ], "score": [ 3, 2, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Are you asking how the mechanics of city states works in the context of Civ 5? Or are you asking what city states in real life are? Two really different questions.", "A City State is a city that has claimed it's own sovereignty - it's not part of any other country or empire.", "In the world there are City-States, Nation-States, and Empires.\n\nA real life city-state is an independent government, like a kingdom, able to feed, defend, and provide for its people. What makes it a city-state is that it is centered around only ONE city - along with the surrounding farmland and villages that sustain it. \n\nMany of the cities of Classical Greece were city-states, such as Thebes, Athens, Sparta, etc. Especially the island cities. In a city-state you might be friends with other cities, but you can act alone without a higher government than yours. \n\nYou can also share a culture with other cities, and consider yourself part of a \"nation\" of people without being a part of a nation-state, like say France or like Greece is today.\n\nIn the case of America, the 50 States are actually operating as Nation-States which have agreed to answer to a higher government, based in Washington D.C. Because of this, America (as \"united states\") is more of an Empire than a Nation-State.", "A City State is much like any other country, just very small and with mostly only a city and maybe some suburb " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c8deusb" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "There are actually several. The thing is, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all emphasize a \"closed canon\". Buddhism, for example, has a canon (though its often more of a library than a single book). But then again, Jews don't have a single book (\"Torah is only understandable with Talmud\") and Islam emphasizes generally emphasizes the importance of Hadiths in addition to the Quran. Several offshoots of these (like Mormonism and Druzism, and to a degree Bahaiism) use the core texts of the parent religion, plus additional texts so there's not just \"one\".\n\n * The Zoroastriansn have not only the Avesta, but several other core texts beyond that like the Gathas and the Yasna. \n * Hindus have the Vedas, and a variety of other holy books of wide acceptance and considerable antiquity (the Vedas are surprisingly unifying--in fact, when discussing India religion it's common to say what became Hinduism was Vedic, and what became Jainism, Buddhism, etc was non-Vedic)\n * Sikhism has the Guru Granth Sahib\n * If you want to count Confucianism as a religion, you have the Analects. \n * If you want to count Daoism as a religion, there's the Dao De Ching of Lao Tse (please pardon my mixing and matching romanizations; I'm on a phone that's cutting in and out of service so I can't look anything up)\n * Buddhism is complicated. Therevada had the Pali Canon, but Mahayana schools continued producing texts for a much much longer time. \n * I believe Jainism has a central set of texts as well. \n\nI'm going to assume you're in the west and from a Christian, likely Protestant, milieu. While these groups all have a canon of holy books agreed on (to various degrees), it should not be mistaken that , should say Zoroastrians disappear, we could recreate Zoroastrianism only from the texts before us in the holy books. Whether or not you could actually \"rederive\" Protestantism (or Salafi Islam) from a given set of holy books is beside the point--the religions think they are performing the authentic textual religion (if its not in the text, it's not in the religion--this is Martin Luther's *sola scriptura*). In almost every other religious tradition, recieved tradition is openly given a much more central role (like Catholicism). These books give one part of the religion and they are understood within a particular tradition. It should not be assumed that they explain all of the religion. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dl9cn61" ], "score": [ 24 ], "text": [ "Only sort of. After a transplant, the heart is generally not connected to the nerves that regulate rate. But cardiac muscle is not like skeletal muscle, in that the nerves do not directly initiate contraction, they just speed it up or slow it down. The heart itself has autorhythmicity. Not connected to those nerves, the heart will beat at its intrinsic rate, which is usually around 100 bpm." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ckxpl9k", "ckxpq17", "ckxqew9", "ckxqstb", "ckxqz5w" ], "score": [ 2, 10, 3, 4, 2 ], "text": [ "There might be some kind of baby boom afterwards, like after ww2. Which would then create an elderly population 60 years later, who depend on healthcare and other social services a lot more than the rest of the population. \n\nThe school system would be weird. Teachers and anyone working at schools would probably work part time while there's only 1/2-2/3 of the kids there that normally would be.", "Anyone working in childcare or childbirth would need to find new jobs for a while. ", "the great fappening part 6 - the two year war.", "It depends. If nobody knew it was only going to last two years, there would probably be mass panic because everyone would think we were entering into some sort of Children of Men scenario where we could never reproduce again.", "Christmas would suck for those two years when there are no toddlers and small kids to entertain with Santa outfits and presents and wrapping paper a hundred times more exiting than the gift inside :(" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dqj523j", "dqjc6r4", "dqjl88v" ], "score": [ 34, 7, 3 ], "text": [ "The dot in a red or green dot sight is not actually a coloured point that's hovering in a fix spot in the air like an iron sight does.\n\nInstead, the red dot you see is a reflection of a little red lamp that falls onto a spherical mirror which filters out only the red (or green) spectrum. This mirror is installed in a way that no matter what angle *you* look on it, the Red dot will always point towards the spot the bullet will hit. \n\nEDIT: That way the Red dot itself is virtual and basically only exists in your eyes, two people looking through the same sight at the same time from different angles would see the spots in different 3-dimensional places, but still pointed towards the target.", "a red dot sight (also known as a reflex sight or a reflector sight) bounces a laser off of a reflector that is curved so that the angle the dot reflects off of it changes where it appears to reflect off of the reflector. The reflector itself is actually transparent, and that's what you are looking through when you look through the sight. The curve of the reflector is tuned so that the image of the laser that is reflected appears to stay in one position relative to the target that you might be looking at through the sight, with it ideally being kept in the center of the reflector.\n\nyou could think of it as sort of the opposite effect of using a curved mirror to focus light to a point, where the image of the reticule is at the point, and your eye being able to see it from anywhere within a certain cone of vision.\n\nif you;re curious about the specific internal workings, there are some good diagrams on the [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_)", "The other posters are correct in how the device functions. However, I think you are asking, \"Why is it an effective way to aim something even if it only has one point?\" The simple answer is it is built to have the dot lie on a parallel line to the gun barrel. It is worth noting that reflex sights are not for long range or precision shooting. They are more for close-medium range combat situation, i.e. getting all shots in a bad guy shaped target. To get the best accuracy out of a reflex sight, you should mount it as close to the barrel as possible so that the point of aim and point of impact are as close together as possible. This principal also applies to scopes as a perfect scope(mounted perfectly on a perfect gun) at 0 windage and yardage should only be off by the same distance it is away from the center line of the barrel." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflector_sight" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "catu260", "catufng", "catuyy7", "cau0136" ], "score": [ 62, 8, 4, 14 ], "text": [ "Are you referring to somebody such as, say, a steward? Somebody who would manage the daily affairs of the estate while the lord was away?\n\nI'm going to base this on the holdings of a knight such a sub fief beneath a baron. A lord with one castle/stronghouse, and some moderate to small land holdings.\n\nThere would have been two different sorts of people to fill this role. In the direct lands controlled by the lord, there would have been the field master, or a title similar. There may have been several depending on the size of the lands. This person would have been in charge of the other field hands, ensuring that they were doing the work that they were supposed to, doing it well, and not slacking.\n\nThe second person would have been the steward. This person was in charge of \"the books\" as it were. Ensuring that the finances were in order. They were the medieval version of an accountant.\n\nOf course, this all assumes that the Lord had the money to pay for these people. Much like later farmers of the Antebellum South period, smaller landowners didn't always have the means to pay these individuals, who were skilled in their own right. If the Lord could read and write, he might well keep his own books, to save money.", "As a related question, would the Life in Medieval Times by Frances and Joseph Gies be considered reliable works for this subject? They're very popular, but do they get it right, or close to right?", "Much of the book 1215 The Year of the Magna Carta by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham has knowledge of the lives of an average peaseant to a lord during that time period.", "It would depend greatly on the time of year. Part of what they would do depened also on how big a place we are dealing with and what you define as a castle (just the main building or manor house? the lands or town with it and so on) a few tasks they might do or get information from workers. The main tasks would be food and maintenance related. Check on what food was needed for that day/week. figure out how much wheat needed to be milled and bolted, How much beer and wine were needed be it brought upstairs, bought, or made, how much of all types of food need to be provided from stores or harvested or slaughtered.\n\nDo the buildings need work, chimney repointed, wall white washed, fences mended, Thatch replaced, rushes for the floor brought in, is the well safe? are any of the horses or dairy cattle sick who and how are they being taken care of. Oversee linnons mended, wash done, candles, soap and medicine made. Is there enough wood, are the tables scrubbed, how is the sewing being done. Horse tack in good shape, anyone caught trying to poach? There are 100s of tasks to be done or seen to, and thats not even dealing with colleting rent, or anything political or religious you have asked a huge question. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cf1dssj" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "I'd love to answer your question if you could be more specific as to what it is you're asking." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doj1o3k" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Queen Liliʻuokalani continued to resist the overthrow with political, PR and judiciary actions for many years. \nThe royalist rebellion of 1895 had participants from the Hawaiian Royal Family, most notably Prince Kuhio. \nAs an interesting side note, Kuhio defeated the leader of the rebellion, Wilcox in an election for the House of Representatives in 1902.\n\n\"The Rights of My People: Liliuokalani's Enduring Battle with the United States 1893-1917\", Neil Thomas Proto\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvldr1k" ], "score": [ 10 ], "text": [ "Pike phalanxes were not standard infantry, but were adopted numerous times, often when fighting cavalry-heavy armies from the east.\n\nIn preparation for his Parthian campaign Caracalla ordered 16,000 men to be trained in Macedonian drill and fight in a phalanx. Severus Alexander also had elements of six legions formed into phalangiarii, who fought in a phalanx.\n\nArrian of Nicomedia, during his campaign against the Alani, used pike phalanxes to ward off the Alani cavalry. \n\nFrom Arrian's \"Extaxis contra Alanos\" \n\n(Section 15) The infantry should be drawn up eight ranks deep, in a closely packed formation. (Section 16) The first four ranks shall consist of pike-bearers, whose pikes will end in long, slender iron points. The men in the first rank should hold their pikes at the ready, so that if the enemy comes near, they can thrust the iron tip of their pike especially at the breasts of the horses. (Section 17) The men of the second (?), third, and fourth ranks should hold their pikes forward to jab and wound the horses where they can, and kill the riders." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cg8hggg", "cg8hopw", "cg8hphy", "cg8jr8p" ], "score": [ 2, 44, 3, 8 ], "text": [ "The 3 refers to Transmission Gear 3 of the car. On a manual, which you probably remember from your childhood, you'd shift from 1 to 2... to 3........ to 4 when getting up to highway speeds. Now it's done automatically, but you have the option of limiting your car to gear 3, 2 or even 1.\n\nLower gears can be useful in a situation where you need more traction, or just want to go slower. If driving in a city, you're probably better off using gear 3 since you don't need to go that fast (4 is best for mileage at higher speeds). Going downhill/towing with a heavy vehicle is another situation where 3 would be better. But don't switch gears too much, as it wears the transmission - plus, you could actually encounter a glitch due to the fact that the car automatically changes gears for you.", "It's for driving in the mountains. D will allow your car to go into the highest gear... your car may not have enough power to maintain a consistent speed in this gear, so it will drop into a lower gear to get back up to speed. This cycle can be annoying. D3 prevents you from going to the highest gear. Additionally, when going down a hill, shifting into D3 will use a lower gear for more effective engine breaking. ", "As has been explained, it means 3rd gear. On your vehicle, 4th gear is an overdrive gear, meaning it has a final drive that is less than a 1:1 ratio for better gas mileage.\n\nNow, the *reason* your shifter is probably marked 1-2-D3-OD is that D3 is used when you are driving in hills to keep the transmission from \"hunting\" between 3rd and 4th. But, it is considered a final drive gear, hence the reason it is distinguished with the \"D\" as oppsed to 1st and 2nd which are rarely used in an automatic...meaning the driver rarely shifts down to those gears. Most of the time it's best to just keep it in OD and let the computer take care of shifting.", "Everyone's explanation, except for the guy at the bottom, has given a correct explanation. From your questions, maybe an analogy will help. For example, a ten speed bike. The gears by the pedals is the transmission, and the gears at the rear tire is the differential. In cars, the gears in the differential don't change. Just like a ten-speed, when you hit the last gear, you are traveling very fast, but pedaling slowly. When you hit a hill, you must go down in gear in order to maintain speed, but this increases how much you have to pedal. In a car, placing the shifter in D3 is forcing the transmission to remain at that gear and not shifting up. Higher gears in automatic transmissions are only meant to maintain vehicle speed with as little power as possible. Not suitable for hills or mountainous terrain. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cx8zma2", "cx9763e", "cx99gio" ], "score": [ 7, 12, 2 ], "text": [ "If you're naturally athletic, you will more than likely take up sports early. \n\nIt is mainly genetics that determine your build. \n\nYour body shape is pretty much set from day one, although with hard work and discipline, most people can still improve themselves. ", "The different sports will cause different things to happen in your body while you're growing up. Yea you're genetics make you predisposed to doing well in sports or not but the type of sport will definitely effect you. \n\nThe more heavy lifting and explosive workouts you do the more testosterone you will develop and the more manly you get. If you are a endurance athlete cortisol levels spike and you get more feminine traits.\n\nI used to be a very good swimmer in highschool and college and the exercise plus my diet gave me moobs. I knew a gymnast girl who has just as broad shoulders and a square jaw like me. You train hard enough your can change your body while you're an adolescent.", "Here's a real ELI5 answer for you: Both of these play a role, and it depends on the individual as to which one plays more of a role." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cf6uw1g", "cf6uypc", "cf6v6f3", "cf6venp", "cf6waof", "cf6wbl8", "cf717qx", "cf737n2", "cf73wz9", "cf7cj7c" ], "score": [ 1417, 3, 124, 18, 51, 55, 289, 2, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Heroin overdose is similar to any opiate overdose. Opiates depress the central nervous system causing a relaxed, \"euphoric\" sensation. After the initial rush, breathing becomes more shallow, decreasing oxygen to the brain and rest of the body. Without oxygen, the brain will start shutting down systems, including the nervous system. The individual will feel extremely drowsy and slip into a coma state. At this point, the nervous system is so relaxed that it fails to function. The individual goes into respiratory arrest (completely stop breathing). Once this occurs, no oxygen is being brought into the body and systems shut down and death occurs shortly after.\n\nTLDR: Opiates relax the nervous system. Heroin overdose would be the same sensation as being so drowsy that you fall asleep.\n", "Opiates (heroin) depress the innate respiratory drive with the respiratory rate slowing or even stopping. This cuts off the body's oxygen supply leading to hypoxia or hypoxemia (low oxygen saturation of the hemoglobin in the blood). The brain isn't getting oxygen and this leads to brain damage. \n\nHypoxia can also cause cardiac arrest in which the muscles of the heart are getting sent an electrical signal to pump but the muscles are unable to contract (pulseless electrical activity). This can be due to lack of oxygen leading to electrolyte abnormalities, respiratory acidosis and likely hyperkalemia (too much potassium in the blood serum). Proper muscle contraction is dependent upon proper electrolyte balance. \n\nTLDR: essentially the person doesn't breathe and dies (in most cases)\n", "Hi, welcome to AskScience, your home for science questions and answers.\n\nIf you make a top-level response, be sure that you have enough expertise to answer follow-up questions.\n\nAlso, please help us keep the quality of AskScience high by downvoting and reporting speculative, off-topic and inaccurate and anecdotal answers. The mods appreciate your help.\n\n", "We change our breathing (both depth and speed) based upon the amount of carbon dixoide, oxygen, and our blood acidity/alkalinity in our system. \n\nOpiates and other sedatives will depress the respiratory center of the brain that give us the drive to breath. It can be similar to when a patient has a stroke that affects their respiratory center. \n\nToo much supression, and your brain first does not react to the increased carbon dioxide in the brain (as well as the resultant acidosis caused by increased carbon dixoide). Normally, your brain would tell you to breath deeper and faster with an increase in carbon dioxide levels, however it has been supressed and does not in this case. Your Co2 levels will build up, causing your blood to become more acididc. \n\nThe depressents also decrease your drive to breath based upon low oxygen levels, although this is depressed later on and in larger doses. \n\nTherefore, in an overdose (either opiates alone, or in combination with opiates, alcohol, and other sedatives), you first build up carbon dioxide, get more acidic, however your brain does not respond to this, because it is suppressed by the drugs. Then your oxygen level decreases, if your heart has not already stopped beating from the acidosis. However, since your total brain is suppressed, you would likely fall asleep and would not be \"consciously\" aware. \n\nYour brain suffers from the lack of oxygen, while the acidosis and elevated CO2 can cause your heart to go into a fatal arrhythmia and stop beating. \n\nSometimes patient's develop only hypoxic brain injury, so they are \"brain dead\" or in a \"persistent vegetative state\", while their heart and other organs survive. \n\nTLDR: Your brain does not tell your body to breath more when it needs to, and you suffer from elevated CO2 levels and low oxygen levels. This leads to hypoxia for the brain, and organ dysfunction from the acidosis.", "I wanted to add a third scenario to the \"you die\" or \"you wake up and are fine\" options. Sometimes medical help is given in time to save your life, but your brain has been without oxygen long enough for permanent damage to occur. I've seen several people in the hospital survive an overdose - but no longer functional and independent. Sometimes kidneys die because of lack of oxygen, or other organs as well.", "It depends on the drug. I'll mention a few of the more common overdose syndromes:\n\nCocaine and other stimulants like amphetamines lead to your body being ramped up and highly stimulated. Your heart pumps harder and faster and your blood pressure rises. The risks of stroke and heart attack rise tremendously.\n\nHeroine and other narcotics slow your body down. This can cause depressed breathing and eventually you stop altogether. Sometimes people breathe in their own vomit and are too out of it to cough. Hypoxia injury to the brain is what eventually kills you. Alcohol and benzos(like Xanax) do the same thing.\n\nTylenol depletes your body of the substances that fight free radicals. It results in destruction of your liver and kills you brutally over several days.\n\nAntidepressants can kill you several ways. Some cause irregular heart rhythms which can be fatal. Others cause large amounts of serotonin to be released which ramps your body up and causes some of the same sorts of effects cocaine would.\n\nAspirin causes changes in your blood's acid levels and induces chemical changes which can be fatal.\n\nThere's other overdose syndromes but those are some of the common ones.\n", "For context, I'm a research scientist, not a medical doctor.\n\nAs others have said, what happens during an overdose is related to the type of drug being used/abused. In general, and setting aside things like liver failure, the negative outcomes of taking psychoactive drugs are related to the desired effects of taking the drug taken to an extreme level that becomes dangerous and life-threatening.\n\nTo give a few examples from common drugs of abuse:\n\n**Heroin** is an opiate that works in the brain in the same manner as many prescription painkillers (e.g. Vicodin [hydrocodone] and oxycodone, both of which are common recreational drugs themselves). At recreational doses, this narcotic leads to a feeling of relaxed euphoria and sleepiness.\n\nAt overdose levels, the depressant effects of heroin suppress the part of the central nervous system that regulates breathing and heart rate, leading to hypoxia, in which a part or all of the body is deprived of oxygen, which can lead to organ failure (especially to the brain, as the brain is very sensitive to disturbances in blood availability) and eventual death.\n\nMany depressants, such as alcohol, have similar overdose symptoms. One thing that makes this sort of poisoning quite dangerous is that the sufferer is often rendered unconscious by the drug before any negative symptom can be recognized, which obviously prevents them from seeking treatment.\n\n**Cocaine** is a stimulant that acts in the brain in a manner similar to many antidepressants, albeit at a very different strength. At recreational doses, it causes a feeling of energetic euphoria. \n\nHigh doses of stimulants lead to tachycardia - excessively high heart rate, and many of the risks of stimulants are tied to tachycardia. Since the heart is pumping excessively hard, blood pressure is increased which can lead to hemorrhage or heart failure.\n\nCocaine is particularly likely to cause heart failure (more specifically, ventricular fibrulation) due to an interaction with a protein that is associated with heart function.\n\n**MDMA / Ecstacy / Molly** is also a stimulant carrying many of the same overdose risks as cocaine. However, it is particularly pyrogenic - increasing body temperature, which increases the risk of muscle cell death, renal failure, and seizure.\n\n**Three important things to keep in mind about overdose**\n\n1) In the case of these psychoactive drugs, 'overdose' symptoms are simply the desired effects of the drugs taken to the extreme. Note that the term \"intoxication\" contains the word \"toxic.\" \n\n2) For some drugs (e.g. those that are usually considered safe, such as cannabis), there tends to be a very wide gap between the smallest recreational dose and the smallest poisonous dose. To put it another way, for some drugs, the amount you need to get you high is much less than the amount that will kill you. For others, it is much closer, making overdose much more common. \n\n3) Tolerance to a drug is a complicated phenomenon *and is not a stable trait, but can be influenced by a number of physical and even mental factors.* It is not uncommon for overdose to occur at a dose that a drug user had used without incident many times in the past.\n\nIf you use or abuse drugs, please be safe.\n\n*e: removed a line, fixed a typo*\n", "Drugs such as heroin cause a depressed breathing rate when taken in overdose amounts. This leads to acidosis as less carbon dioxide is expired than required. Acidosis can lead to hyperkalemia (high blood potassium) which can in turn cause decreased excitability of cardiac muscle. When the heart can't pump blood effectively less oxygen is delivered to tissues. The decrease in breathing itself is not necessarily what kills but rather the hypoxia due to the lack of oxygen delivery. Mixed venous blood contains a relatively large amount of oxygen compared to the \"deoxygenated\" blood many people think of in veins. This is why chest compressions are by far more important than mouth-to-mouth breathing during CPR (blood circulation is more important than ventilation). ", "It depends on the drug.\n\nPropofol, made famous by Michael Jackson, is meant to put you to sleep and make you stop breathing for surgical purposes. When Michael Jackson \"overdosed\" on it, the drug was doing what it was supposed to be doing. \n\nOpiates, like heroin, morphine, etc. just make you stop breathing.\n\nBoth of these can be reveresed by stimulation. Narcotics can also be reversed by Narcan. Proper endotrachael tube placement or bagging a patient and breathing for them until the affects wear off but that's not probably not the best option.\n\nKetamine isn't very dangerous when you are given too much. The patient gets uncomfortable and experiences what they describe as an out-of-body experience. \n", "For those of you curious about opioids being used in lethal injection, here is an article describing just that:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically, a lethal injection cocktail of high dose midazolam (a.k.a., Versed, a benzodiazepine) and hydromorphone (a.k.a, Dilaudid, an opioid), was given.\n\nThere was concern over how long it took the person to die, and the jerking movements the person seem to make as he died.\n\nSince we use these medications on a daily basis in anesthesia, my colleagues and I have morbidly discussed how effective this cocktail is." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/16/justice/ohio-dennis-mcguire-execution/index.html?hpt=hp_t1" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d706ysr", "d708z6o", "d70f0t6" ], "score": [ 6, 176, 22 ], "text": [ "I can't answer your question, but the Klan had several waves. can you be more specific for those that can? ", "If you're referring to the Second Klan (1915-1930's), it was certainly both. William Joseph Simmons *Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan* was a religious, political, business and fraternal organization. Created during the Golden Age of Fraternal Orders, it was modeled on the multitude of existing fraternal orders like the Freemasons and the Elks, Simmons would often recruit members into the new Klan wearing the badges signifying he was a member of other organizations and Klansmen who recruited new members (Kleagles) specifically sought new members through Fraternal Orders they were already a part of. In addition to this, the Klan meeting was highly ceremonial and even had [assigned room placements](_URL_2_) for each member.\n\nEven in the KKK rule manual, the Kloran, (no, I have no clue why they would have modeled it on the Qur'an) it states firstly, \"We avow the disctinction between the races of mankind...and we shall ever be true in the faithful maintenance of White Supremacy\" followed almost immediately by \"We appreciate the intrinsic value of a real practical fraternal relationship.\" Politically speaking, the Second Klan was Nativist, [anti-Catholic](_URL_1_), anti-black, [anti-communist](_URL_0_), anti-Jewish and Prohibitionist. It absolutely was more dedicated to keeping White American hegemony. The Second Klan was almost certainly more a brotherhood and social organization than the First Klan (1868-1871) who were dedicated to restoring white supremacy to the Reconstruction South, and the Third Klan (1950s-1970s) who were dedicated to preventing black progress during the Civil Rights Era.\n", "I can only really speak confidently on the 'First Klan', which was prominent in the US from 1866 to around 1871, but I still found this question really interesting. When the Klan was first founded in Pulaski, Tennesse in 1866, it was by a number of former Confederate soldiers that were frustrated and outraged by the Republican's government hold over the South, and particularly the implications this had for African-American agency post-emancipation. So originally, Klan members were enraged racists that sought to take what they saw as natural law into their own hands, by reinstating the paternalistic system of dominance of white over black. Having lost faith in the US government (which most had fought to resist in the Civil War anyway) these people were attempting to enforce their own vision of justice by intimidating, assaulting and killing those that were insulting to their vision of white supremacy. \nYou can read the Klan's original 'Organization and Principles' here, where they describe themselves as defenders of American values: _URL_0_\n(Not the most reliable looking site I know, but it is an exact copy of a version I found when reading Henry Steele Commager's 'Documents of American History')\nSo to answer your question directly, original Klan members were indeed acting in what they saw as the interests of good, honest (i.e., white) American citizens by reinstating the subjugation of black people. \nBut, the opportunity for networking and socialising was absolutely a contributing factor to the Klan's popularity and widespread prominence; Elaine Parsons' excellent article 'Midnight Rangers: Costume and Performance in the Reconstruction-Era Ku Klux Klan' explains how the more expressive and performance based aspects of the Klan's terroristic acts lent their members an exclusive identity and a certain level of prestige, particularly in Southern communities that had not yet reconciled themselves to the idea of independent black agency, and certainly not to the idea of racial equality.\nTo conclude, there's no doubt that a significant number of Klan members enjoyed having a social outlet for the anger that had been created by Northern 'Yankee' government - but the fact also remains that they were vociferous racists hell bent on holding on to the system that had been the norm in the South for generations, and that this drove the Klan's growth with far more momentum than the idea that they enjoyed being part of a club." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/f2/93/6e/f2936e1560393528510c66e8b2fb6584.jpg", "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4de4fg/when_was_the_ku_klux_klan_active_in_canada_and/d1q8fe1", "https://ia800700.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/31/items/kloranknightsofk00kukl/kloranknightsofk00kukl_jp2.zip&file=kloranknightsofk00kukl_jp2/kloranknightsofk00kukl_0009.jp2&scale=4&rotate=0" ], [ "http://www.albany.edu/history/history316/kkk.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cqhm5tr", "cqhmd7w" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "It has nothing to do with the websites, but rather, the service that the website provides. Netflix can't just take people movies and make them available for everybody to watch, that's illegal copyright infringement. They need to purchase the rights to distribute them, and most distribution agreements come with a particular region. ", "There are databases that match IP addresses to locations. This website is explicitly blocking access from your country for some reason - the web server looks up the location of your IP, and serves a different page. You can bypass this by routing through a proxy server in another country.\n\nAnother possible reason why some websites may not be available in some countries is that that countries government censors internet access, and has decided to block the website you're trying to access. Again a proxy can circumvent it, provided the proxy hasn't also been blocked." ] }

[]

[ "http://i.imgur.com/i4yDaNx.jpg" ]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d9xt6u8", "d9xysts" ], "score": [ 5, 2 ], "text": [ "All general purpose machine guns (GPMGs) that I am aware of retain the interchangeable barrel function - a GPMG being a roughly 7.62mm belt-fed platoon- or company-level machine gun capable of laying down large volumes of fire. The M240 and MG3, the most common GPMGs in the western world, certainly have changeable barrels, and soldiers are taught to do so when laying down large volumes of suppressing fire. Even the intermediate-caliber M249 Squad Automatic Weapon has a quick change barrel.\n\nNow, there are some lighter automatic weapons that do not have a changeable barrel. But that's nothing new. The Browning Automatic Rifle, Chauchat, and Lewis Gun did not have changeable barrels. It generally doesn't become necessary to change a barrel until you've fired several hundred rounds through the gun, or less if you're firing very rapidly. Weapons that don't have quick-change barrels just aren't intended to produce the same volume of fire as a proper heavy/medium/GP machine gun.", "Interchangable barrels are still very much in use.\n\nThe M2A1 Machine gun in use by the US Army has an interchangable barrel that is considered an improvement over the older screw in barrel changing mechanism as noted by the Army itself. [The barrel extension also makes possible rapid barrel change-outs on the M2A1. With the older M2s, the barrels had to be screwed on. To change the barrel of an M2A1, a Soldier simply needs to slightly retract the charging handle, rotate the barrel by its carrying handle and slide the barrel off the receiver.](_URL_1_)\nThe M249 light machine gun also requires a barrel change after a period of use. [When used as a machine gun, the M249 requires a tripod, a T & E mechanism, and a spare barrel.](_URL_0_)\n\nI have used both of these weapons, it is incredible how quickly they heat up when used even under ideal circumstances on the range. The barrels themselves can and do melt, and can become jammed very easily. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m249.htm", "https://www.army.mil/article/92130/M2A1_Machine_Gun_features_greater_safety__heightened_lethality" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chgty0r", "chgtzln", "chgu0bg" ], "score": [ 8, 13, 3 ], "text": [ "At the quantum level that quarks exist on shape stops really being a thing. In diagrams they are commonly represented as spheres, though in truth they have no shape, and cannot in fact exist unless part of another particle.", "As far as we know, they are all pointlike. This could understanding could one day be improved upon.", "Quarks are points in space - so no, they are all shaped the same. To be precise, they are all shapeless (the concept of shape does not really apply to them). It's their interaction what makes a bigger particle - it is like a standing wave (in a way), and because this wave goes in all directions from the center, basically the protons or neutrons etc. are in some sense spherical :)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "djotx1f", "djowwzn" ], "score": [ 3, 3 ], "text": [ "Many people are still religious and support such laws, so they remain. It is legal to make a religiously motivated law, just not to establish mandatory religion.", "Because people are used to them and no one is chomping at the bit to get them repealed. They are a minor inconvenience that a small minority supports strongly, and everyone else opposes weakly. Politicians who want to repeal blue laws will only lose votes by doing so.\n\nOn top of that, the businesses affected by blue laws typically oppose them and lobby against them. They like having that day off, and a car isn't an impulse buy, they'll get your business even if you have to wait until Monday." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ch54t4z" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "A common cold has not much to do with actual temperature. It is an infection, mostly by viruses. There are dozens if not more viruses known that can lead to the symptoms commonly associated with a cold. \n\nNow, how does a virus infect us? Normally your skin is pretty tight and prevents any pathogen (something that will make you sick) from entering. So, skin drops out. Theses viruses get mostly transmitted by flying in little airborne water droplets. Therefore they can enter your body when you inhale the droplets while breating. In your mouth and and airways there is also a protection layer, the mucosa. This is a thin layer that produces mucus (who would have thought?). This slime hopefully prevents the pathogens from entering and catches them. Your airways have little hairs that sweep the mucus towards your throat and into the stomach were the acid deals with them. Sometimes this doesnt work. It is suspected that cold, dry air strains your mucosa and therefore makes it easier for the virus to enter your body and infect it. It spreads from the point of entrance, aka your airways. \n\nHowever, since it's not much of a threat it will not get very far. This is where your symptoms stem from. Your body sents defensive cells that prevent the virus from spreading and that fight it. This leads to an inflammation of the tissue. Some simply eat viruses or bacteria (*phagocytes*), others release enzyms that damage invaders or molecules that manage the inflammation. Acute inflammation has several effects on the body, fever and loss of appetite being some of them. They are caused on a molecular level by the proteins that are released by the defensive cells. The 5 classical signs of inflammation are pain, heat, redness, swelling, and loss of function. We can definetly find some of that in a swollen, sore throat, cant we?\n\n\n\nNow, one by one:\n\n* swelling\n\n\n fighting needs a lot of ressources and they come from the blood. In order to get them into the tissue blood vessels dilate and get permeable. This is nice but also leads to fluid accumulating in the tissue.\n\n* heat and redness\n\nIncreased and prioritised blood flow into the area (dilated blood vessels, remember?) naturally leads to higher temperature and redness\n\n* pain\n\nThat's of course the one you mostly feel. The defensive cells also release chemicals that stimulate the nerve endings in the area. Stimulated nerve endings mean you feel pain. Inflammation of organs may not always be combined with pain because there might be no sensible nerves.\n\n* loss of function\n\nThis can have multiple causes and doesnt matter that much in the case of the common cold. \n\n\n\n\nOkay, but how does all that lead to my symptoms?\n\nInflammated mucosa produces lots of mucus. Not a good combination together with swelling. If the mucus is thin you might just get a runny nose, otherwise a stuffed-up nose. The sinuses may fill with mucus if the nose is swollen and lead to a feeling of pressure below your eyes. A feeling of pressure within your ears can also occur. This is cause by swelling of the [Eustachian tube](_URL_0_) that connects the middle ear and throat to balance pressure differences. \n\nCoughing gets caused, who would have thought, by increased production of mucus in your airways. It gets called phlegm then. It contains dead cells, different proteins and much more. The composition determines what colour it has. Fluid and lungs dont work together very well and your body tries to get the phlegm out of your lungs by coughing.\n\nThe \"normal yucky felling\" is just a response of your body to the inflammation.\n\nHoly shit, this got longer than I expected. I hope I got everything and that I got it all right. Had to look up a lot of things (1 year medstudent) but I think overall it's more or less okay. Ask if you got any more questions and somebody with more knowledge might chip in and correct me if necessary." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustachian_tube" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cesdj92" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "They are stock indexes. Basically they are each used as a measure of a certain \"basket\" of stocks. There are thousands of different indexes used to track different market sectors. The Dow, Nasdaq and S & P 500 are the three most well know in US " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dgoar7u" ], "score": [ 12 ], "text": [ "Diagnosing mental illness retrospectively is a minefield. With respect to soldiers in history and their relationship with PTSD, I would refer you to the FAQ or past threads like [this](_URL_0_).\n\nPaging /u/Iphikrates to comply with the rules on linking past threads. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/457idw/did_people_in_ancientmedieval_times_suffer_from/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0i2v7o" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "There wasn't a formal hierarchy, but the KGB loomed large over all of the Warsaw Pact intelligence services, and its primacy was undisputed. Soviet intelligence personnel had a hand in creating all of the Eastern Bloc secret services, and KGB liaison officers were a constant and powerful presence in those agencies' affairs.\n\nThe Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies provided a constant stream of intelligence to the Lubyanka, along with extensive operational and logistical support. The KGB maintained a shared database of contacts and intelligence called SOUD, enabling them to receive and index intelligence from the Warsaw Pact services (and to share intelligence with them in turn — something they generally did only in the most circumspect manner.)\n\nThe KGB frequently used those services as their proxies, especially when it came to handling sensitive or potentially compromising relationships or operations — particularly those with terrorist and revolutionary groups. The Czechoslovak StB, for example, was a longstanding liaison between Moscow Centre and the Italian Red Brigades; the Bulgarian DS was a favourite weapon for 'special tasks'.\n\nThe relationship with the Stasi (in particular the foreign intelligence department, HVA), however, was by far the closest and most important to Moscow. Many of the senior figures in the Stasi had longstanding ties to the USSR, as agents or operatives of Soviet intelligence or the Comintern: Wilhelm Zaisser, Ernst Wollweber and Erich Mielke, three of the GDR's four Ministers of State Security; Markus Wolf, the longtime chief of the HVA. \n\nAs with many of the institutions of East Germany, the Soviets were heavily involved in the creation of the Stasi (which was closely patterned on the KGB.) The KGB maintained [a number of facilities](_URL_1_) in the GDR, including highly important *rezidentura* (the largest KGB installation outside the USSR) at Karlshorst. KGB officers regarded East Germany as a safe, even dull posting; as a First Chief Directorate officer in the late 1980s, Vladimir Putin was reportedly disappointed to be assigned to the *rezidentura* at Dresden, rather than a more interesting and adventurous station in the West.\n\nPart of the reason the Stasi were so important to Moscow was their proximity and access to West Germany and the rest of Western Europe, but it was also thanks to a general reputation for competence and ideological reliability, and a willingness to subordinate their foreign policy/intelligence objectives to those of Moscow. They were thus also entrusted with operations further afield. The Stasi worked alongside the KGB in Cuba, training Castro's intelligence service, DGI — which, in turn, was the preferred Soviet proxy for operations in Latin America. In 1972, when Egyptian strongman Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet (read: KGB/GRU) advisors, the Stasi acted as Soviet surrogates in that crucial Arab state.\n\nThere's a reasonably large body of writing on the history of the Stasi now — largely thanks to the concerted effort by the post-unification German government to preserve and open up the Stasi archives. There's a lot of interesting information on the website of the [Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records](_URL_0_). In terms of published work: John Schmeidel's monograph *[Stasi: The Sword and the Shield of the Party](_URL_7_)* is a good place to start. Gary Bruce's *[The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi](_URL_2_)* is a good grassroots history. Kristie Macrakis' *[Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasi's Spy-Tech World](_URL_4_)* is an interesting specialist history of the Stasi's technical methods and surveillance prowess.\n\nOn Soviet intelligence, I always suggest starting with Christopher Andrew's work on the KGB: *[The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB](_URL_5_)* and *[The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World](_URL_6_)*. Jonathan Haslam's more recent *[Near and Distant Neighbours](_URL_3_)* is a good history of the Soviet intelligence community as a whole." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.bstu.bund.de/EN/Home/home_node.html", "https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/on-the-front-lines-of-the-cold-war-documents-on-the-intelligence-war-in-berlin-1946-to-1961/4-2.pdf", "https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Firm_The_Inside_Story_of_the_Stasi.html?id=ktCalJjHr48C", "https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tLOYCgAAQBAJ", "https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LLZJk4FrqwwC", "https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9TWUAQ7Xof8C", "https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4eSR1rHg5_YC", "https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Stasi.html?id=h6RNXrFKLIsC" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c2ot6s6", "c2ot6s6" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "A person with a genetic disease has a particular gene that differs from the normal, unaffected population. When a genetic disease is identified that can be tested for, the discoverers known what and where the gene is and what makes it different from the normal population. That difference is called a mutation. Mutations come in different forms (insertions, deletions, frame shifts, repeats, substitutions....) but basically all you need to know is that it's a difference from the normal.\n\nNow to test for anything genetic you need DNA. Every cell in your body, minus just a few (red blood cells, gametes...) have the full genetic code of an individual inside them. Usualy a cheek swab is done to collect a few cells from the inside of a person's mouth or a few hairs plucked to get the cells at the root. Whole blood can also be used. Once the cells are collected the genetic information can be chemically extracted, amplified, then read.\n\nThe amplification process is known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and is one of the most important discoveries in the history of biology. It works by synthetically copying the information in DNA over and over. Since DNA is double-stranded and complementary, the information from one strand can be used to re-create the other. So taking a double-stranded DNA, unwinding it, then copying each of the two halves gives you a pair of double-stranded DNA's. Do this a bunch and you get lots of DNA to work with from a very, very small amount.\n\nOnce you have the DNA you have to actually read it. You can do this the old, hard way where you actually sequence part of someone's genome to figure out exactly what their genetic code is. If there's a mutation it'll show up as a change in the DNA sequence you read out from the normal sequence.\n\nOr you can do it the new, fancy way where you have a DNA microarray, which is a chip that has lots of little strands of DNA, each coding a slightly different copy of the gene in question. Which slightly different copy is in which spot on the chip is known going in. To the chip you add the DNA from the individual, but with one extra modification - you add a fluorescent marker on the end so it lights up. The complementary nature of DNA means that the individual's labeled DNA will bind to the spots on the chip that has DNA that most closely matches. A mutation in the individual's gene means that the DNA will bind less to the normal gene on the chip and more strongly to the corresponding mutant (there can be more than 1 mutant to cause one disease, too). Using a chip reader you can find where that is on the chip (thanks to the fluorescent label) and back-check to see what gene sequence (normal, mutant) that corresponds to. The microarrays can do hundreds or thousands of genes at once so this is a much more efficient way to screen someone for a genetic disease.", "A person with a genetic disease has a particular gene that differs from the normal, unaffected population. When a genetic disease is identified that can be tested for, the discoverers known what and where the gene is and what makes it different from the normal population. That difference is called a mutation. Mutations come in different forms (insertions, deletions, frame shifts, repeats, substitutions....) but basically all you need to know is that it's a difference from the normal.\n\nNow to test for anything genetic you need DNA. Every cell in your body, minus just a few (red blood cells, gametes...) have the full genetic code of an individual inside them. Usualy a cheek swab is done to collect a few cells from the inside of a person's mouth or a few hairs plucked to get the cells at the root. Whole blood can also be used. Once the cells are collected the genetic information can be chemically extracted, amplified, then read.\n\nThe amplification process is known as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and is one of the most important discoveries in the history of biology. It works by synthetically copying the information in DNA over and over. Since DNA is double-stranded and complementary, the information from one strand can be used to re-create the other. So taking a double-stranded DNA, unwinding it, then copying each of the two halves gives you a pair of double-stranded DNA's. Do this a bunch and you get lots of DNA to work with from a very, very small amount.\n\nOnce you have the DNA you have to actually read it. You can do this the old, hard way where you actually sequence part of someone's genome to figure out exactly what their genetic code is. If there's a mutation it'll show up as a change in the DNA sequence you read out from the normal sequence.\n\nOr you can do it the new, fancy way where you have a DNA microarray, which is a chip that has lots of little strands of DNA, each coding a slightly different copy of the gene in question. Which slightly different copy is in which spot on the chip is known going in. To the chip you add the DNA from the individual, but with one extra modification - you add a fluorescent marker on the end so it lights up. The complementary nature of DNA means that the individual's labeled DNA will bind to the spots on the chip that has DNA that most closely matches. A mutation in the individual's gene means that the DNA will bind less to the normal gene on the chip and more strongly to the corresponding mutant (there can be more than 1 mutant to cause one disease, too). Using a chip reader you can find where that is on the chip (thanks to the fluorescent label) and back-check to see what gene sequence (normal, mutant) that corresponds to. The microarrays can do hundreds or thousands of genes at once so this is a much more efficient way to screen someone for a genetic disease." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c3q90ha" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "Very detailed question, but i'll take a stab at it. I majored in Neuroscience and am now a first year medical student so I know a fair bit about this but I'm no expert.\n\n1. The cerebellum helps to coordinate movement and accounts for one type of memory. This structure has an extraordinarily repetitive/simple neuronal structure and almost everything that makes your cerebellum different from mine is learned. This type of memory would be active if, for instance, you're a baseball catcher and someone hits a foul ball. You would see the ball coming down and *know* where to move your glove to get in front of it. This type of memory is going to be important in actions such as throwing a football or texting without looking.\n\n2. The hippocampus is the site of additional memory functions. There are cells in your hippocampus that form a grid, and fire whenever you are in one area of the grid. The hippocampal grid cells are always helping you to localize yourself in 3D. Other hippocampal cells deal with other aspects of spacial mapping. This type memory is very important in knowing where your favorite restaurant is and enables you to walk around your house in the dark without bumping into things.\n\n3. Everything else:\nHere is where it gets complicated. Almost everything else you *know* is encoded as a representation of the internal state it evokes and in relationship to other things you know. This type of memory is diffusely located throughout the temporal cortex and is processed in the oribitofrontal prefrontal cortex.\n\nTo illustrate, imagine someone says to me, \"Kim Jong Il.\" Here's what happens in my brain:\n\nThe words Kim Jong Il are processed by my auditory cortex and converted into meaning. Now this is a *person* and not a string of words. This gets loaded into my working memory (localized in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.) It calls up everything I know about Kim Jong Il. I think to myself, \"he is a bad man.\" This is because my ventromedial prefrontal cortex has already associated KJI with negative affect and this visceral emotion (processed in my amygdala) is bound to the *idea* in working memory. Things like North Korea, famine, Kim Il Sung, all get called up secondarily, not directly from my working memory but almost bittorent-like, from the cells that were already activated.\n\nThis doesn't cover all types of memory, but is as good of a introduction as I can muster. This is as accurate as I can be, but there are still no absolutes in neuroscience. Every day we learn more about the brain!" ] }

[]

[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pkvnl/is_riding_a_bike_muscle_memory/c3q74qr" ]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c56pf92" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Birds actually urinate and defecate at the same time - their urine is viscous and highly concentrated (I believe it has a lot of ammonia in it, which is the characteristic smell). The white liquid/paste is the concentrated urine and the black pellets are the feces. Hope this enlightens you!\n\nClassic example: _URL_0_" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://marcypusey.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/bird_poo430x300.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "di3h5gv", "di3sfzv", "di3vcfi" ], "score": [ 7, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "The radius of the event horizon can be calculated from analyzing the orbits of nearby stars or planets. From the way it interacts gravitationally with its surroundings you can find mass, and thus the radius of its event horizon. ", "Due to the extreme warping of spacetime, measuring the radius as in using a ruler is non-significant. \n\nFor a non-rotating non-charged black hole, the radius, called the *Schwarzschild radius*, is equal to 2GM/c^2. From its mass, the Schwarzschild radius can be determined. By looking at nearby orbits of stars, for instance, one can determine this mass. ", "As other posters mention, the shape of the event horizon is well-understood, and depends on the mass, rotation, and charge. Everything that happens within the volume of the event horizon is not well understood by modern science. There are a few contradictory theories, but nobody really knows. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cevinkb" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Viruses can survive for limited times on various surfaces which would allow reinfection." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "doesvf1" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "If you cut a cylindrical log in two, you increase the surface area significantly. This means more of the log can burn at once, and so it is consumed faster.\n\nThis is not the only effect. If you put logs in close proximity, part of the radiant heat given off by one can be caught by the other, and structuring the wood may create air currents that replenish the oxygen in the mix." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cmdju22", "cmdk05q", "cmdkbka", "cmdkdzc", "cmdke98", "cmdkrxf", "cmdlpx4", "cmdo117", "cmdobcv", "cmdog26", "cmdp8x2", "cmdpe9a", "cmdq4eu", "cmdqpyf", "cmdraza", "cmdrzlx", "cmdszdx", "cmdu29t", "cmduabn", "cmdvc0b", "cmdxo2e", "cme1fh5", "cme32fd", "cme3g3z", "cme51i1", "cme8et4", "cmeaiqv", "cmearvz", "cmebk1p" ], "score": [ 2372, 14, 101, 76, 270, 788, 35, 99, 23, 2, 5, 29, 7, 17, 11, 6, 9, 5, 21, 21, 3, 3, 2, 6, 2, 3, 2, 4, 4 ], "text": [ "It is consumed and carried away by amoeba-like leukocytes in your body called *macrophages*. Here's a video of macrophages doing their thing: _URL_0_", "How long does it take to disapper? ", "Okay I actually just read an article where a man claimed to have not popped a zit for twenty years. He literally claims that the exact same zit has been in that spot for 20 years, and then he squeezed it. It's pretty gross. If you want to look, here is the article _URL_0_ ", "It gets engulfed by white blood cells called macrophages and drains into the lymph nodes, then into the blood where it can eventually be excreted in the urine. ", "So what happens when you get a cyst and the shizzle is not carried away by the marcophizzles?", "The white pus is a mixture of white blood cells, dead white blood cells, and proteins. The white blood cells arrive to fight any infections in the area, and signal more white blood cells to come to the site, hence the build up. Interestingly, those areas are also made acidic by the lymphocytes (white blood cells) so the bacteria can't replicate properly. \n \nOnce they're done, as /r/zerotan mentioned, the waste products are reabsorbed by the lymphatic system. That's the body's waste disposal system, and it's a bit of our anatomy that a lot of lay people don't seem to know about. Your body creates a staggering amount of waste all of the time, and almost every part of your body needs a constant highway to transport that stuff out of there. ", "Does popping zits have any negative effects besides scarring/cross infection? Does the inflamation/bleeding cause more macrophages to come and clean up the remains faster?", "am I the only one who feels like leaving a zit makes it go away slower than popping them? If I let them go they just get bigger and bigger. Where if I pop them they bleed a little bit scab up and go away in a day or 2 after that.", "My question is, after popping & removal of the puss, there is sometimes a fairly large hole, did the puss just push the skin aside as it grew? I know it closes back up, but sometimes they seem pretty deep, how deep can those holes go?", "I thought it just naturally broke down and we absorbed by the body.", "Get some apple cider vinegar, the real kind, and swab your face after cleansing your face.\nThank Johnny Appleseed later. \n(I see so many young people with rambunctious acne, and I am always like, \"you DON'T have to live like this, get yourself a bottle of apple cider vinegar,\" but I can never say anything in person because I'm afraid it would hurt their feelings.)", "Same question, but for farts. Where does the gas go?", "This must be a rhetorical question. NOBODY doesn't not pop the zit... ", "/r/popping doesn't approve of just \"leaving a zit\". Everything must go!", "i've seen whiteheads spontaneously erupt, it's a sight to behold. you're talking to someone, this glaring whitehead, you can't stop staring at it. then suddenly, it starts oozing out and depleting itself.", "They are chunks of your bodies defense system (neutrophils mostly) , you absorb them and recycle them.", "I hardly ever open the ELI5 posts.\nOut of all the great and intelligent questions posed in the subreddit this is the one that I'm interested in.\nFuck, what does that say about me?!", "Same place as the jizz goes if you don't ejaculate", "it seems your question has been answered but I thought I should share some knowledge about popping zits since the discussion has brought it up, popping is dangerous. Even though you see that pus has come out and you got that satisfied feeling of victory you don't realize by squeezing your also sending some further down which can cause more problems. I know its tough but best course of action is to let it be, your body can take care of it, there is a safe way to handle it early however, like someone said, wait till it's \"ripe\" then apply warm wet towel or take a hot steamy shower. then instead of squeezing towards the zit, use your thumbs and position them onto the side of the zit and press down and pull away from it. this will safely open the zit and remove pus without the risk of squeezing pus further into the affected pore", "\"Eww gross...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"I still wanna know.\"\n\nClick", "I always thought your body eventually pushes out the pus, and heals behind it. If you leave pimples alone they eventually push out/heal up. I might be wrong though.", "I really shouldn't have even clicked on this thread\n", "HA!... as if you don't pop a zit... that's impossible!", "I guess I'm the only person in America that has never popped a zit. I had them like anyone else in high school/college, and still from time to time now, but they only last for a day or two, and then they just go away.\n\nOr they rub off when I wash my face.\n\nIs this not normal?", "i feel like they usually just dry themselves up and eventually slowly pushes out the dried pus ball", "Eventually it ends up in your brain and kills you: _URL_0_", "Gremlins come out at night and feed off of it.", "as it gets closer and closer to your outermost layer of skin it scuffs of with the rest of your skin cells. A zit only ocurs when the opening at the top of the pore gets stopped up and your dermal layer keeps adding white blood cells(puss) to envelope the bacteria and render it be nine. If left alone the whole bacterial pathogen and blood cells with it become a tiny scab. Eventually it falls off. If you take a hot towel and cover your face it will heat up the oil in you pores and decrease the level of viscosity making it flow easier to the outer layers of your skin.\n.", "I just thought I'd pop in to see what the answer was. After reading some comments, I've come to the conclusion that I have pore judgement." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDr44vLNnPY" ], [], [ "http://www.oddee.com/item_99145.aspx" ], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_triangle_of_the_face" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d2jleah" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ " > The thing is, Islam emerged in literate times. Historians were writing journals. Scholars were writing diaries and letters. Jurists were writing bureaucratic articles. So from the 7th century onward there was a rich record of documents, and that's why we know so many historical details.\n\n\nNoooooooooooooooooo...\n\nNoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!\n\nOk I'm done having a minor aneurysm. But yeah this is a wildly inaccurate statement. It massively overstates the reliability of the documents he's apparently working from (I.e. Ibn Ishaq via Tabari and Ibn Hisham), is apparently ignorant of how that information got passed down (I.e orally, not written down) and fails to mention how poorly documented the 7th-8th centuries are.\n\n/u/Shlin28 gives a great description of just how poorly documented the rise of Islam is on the Christian side here: _URL_0_\n\nI've written quite a bit on the historiographical controversy over the use of these \"traditional\" sources, for instance here: _URL_1_\n\nI only listened to the first ten minutes or so of this YouTube video, but even accounting for the fact that he's uncritically relying on this dubious traditional sources I heard a good bit of bad history. A shura council is not \"like a democracy\", for instance.\n\nSome effects of the unreliability of those sources as it pertains to the video:\n\nWe cannot reliably quite Muhammad.\n\nWe cannot reliably say who was or was not present at battles.\n\nWe cannot reliably say how many people attended a speech.\n\nAnd so on. There are people who defend the use of traditional sources, and they are of course a matter of faith to Muslims. Its an incredibly contentious issue. Personally I'm not willing to reject their content entirely but find any specific details to be incredibly dubious.\n\nAs I mentioned in the other post Robert Hoyland's *Writing the Biography of the Prophet Muhammad: Problems and Solutions* is a great essay-length overview of these issues and available as a free PDF if you do a search for it." ] }

[]

[ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no5RCHRbknk&list=PLv-SNV2XmnZkJAGWGRKWTWheqEjEejQnf" ]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3yencp/how_did_christians_react_to_losing_so_many/cyd28pl", "https://m.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3pm6tg/what_are_the_most_reliable_sources_on_muhammad/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ch2kr1e", "ch2prdm", "ch2wka7" ], "score": [ 95, 8, 6 ], "text": [ "In the air, the Cactus Air Force was tying out new tactics to combat the agile Japanese Zero. \"Cactus Air Force\" is a nickname for the pilots of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal--codenamed Cactus. These pilots used a mix of aircraft, most notably the Grumman F4F Wildcats (there were some P-39's as well, and some dive bombers too). The Wildcat was heavily armed, heavily armored, and heavy overall compared to the Zero. If a Wildcat pilot tried to turn with a Zero in a dogfight, he would quickly end up with the agile Zero behind him. So, a naval aviator named Thatch came up with a defensive maneuvering scheme that came to be known as the [Thatch Weave](_URL_0_). This allowed pairs of Wildcats to keep their wingman covered from attack from behind. The linked wikipedia page has a good illustration of the tactic. Offensive tactics revolved around diving attacks or head-on passes, where the armament and armor of the Wildcat would make it the victor in most slugging matches.\n\nAt sea, there was a curious occurrence in warfare. Control of the area around Guadalcanal generally changed hands every twelve hours. During the day, the US Navy was able to largely command the waves--especially as Henderson Field became more established. At night, the Japanese expertise and experience at night fighting meant that they could exert control over the area. There were so many ships of both sides sunk in the area that it gained the nickname \"Ironbottom Sound.\" The clashes gave US naval forces valuable but costly lessons that were applied in the later island hopping campaigns. \n\nOn land, the Japanese committed troops piecemeal to various assaults on the Marines. Again, the campaign was costly for the Americans and there were several times where the enemy nearly broke through. However, the Marines gained valuable tactical, logistical, and other lessons that applied to warfare in the theater. I don't know of any tactical breakthroughs that were made, instead there were refinements to existing ideas. Coordination between infantry and mortars/artillery was improved. Close air support was practiced (especially with the aforementioned P-39's and dive bombers). Officers and men gained experience in how the Japanese liked to fight as well as what was effective against them. \n\n*Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle* by Richard B. Frank is an outstanding account of the battle. Robert Leckie's *Challenge for the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War* is also good if a bit shorter. However, Leckie was an infantryman in the actual battle, so his insights are incredible. They are more intimately described in his memior: *Helmet for my Pillow*. ", "Not directly related to your question OP, but an excellent book that describes the changes made in the British Army's tactics/strategy etc etc in Burma against the Japanese is: \n\nSlim, Master of War: Burma and the Birth of Modern Warfare.\n\n(General Bill Slim, IMHO one of the most overlooked commanders of all Military Commanders of WWII)\n\n(replying as this might have, at least some, relevance to your inquiries)", "I wrote my undergrad thesis on a directly related topic. It is more about learning how to fight in the pacific in general, but deals with Guadalcanal.\n\n\n[Here's a link to a sanitized version of it on google docs](_URL_0_), or you can contact me directly for a pdf link to the submitted version.\n\nWhat it boiled down to was reworking significant portions of combat doctrine. Combined arms warfare, which was born in the later stages of WW1 and was on full display by 1939, didn't really work in the dense jungles of the Pacific. Small unit tactics were of increased importance, as large unit maneuvers were difficult to execute. \n\nYou know how you always hear about how armies are constantly training for the last war? That is relatively accurate, but it's not as bad as it would seem because usually there will be a great deal of similarity from war to war. Sure, the technology changed between the Napoleonic Wars and WW1, but they were still fighting over familiar land, and were simply adapting existing tactics to emergent technology.\n\nIn the Pacific, American (and to a far lesser extent British and ANZAC) had to rethink the way they would fight the war. It wasn't simply fighting the same war with new weapons as it was in Europe, it was fighting an entirely different kind of war, fighting it with new weapons, and developing new weapons and tools throughout the war when it became apparent that they didn't have all the tools they needed to win the war.\n\nPlease feel free to ask any questions regarding my work on the topic that you might have." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave" ], [], [ "https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vhqVUZSg74hp7F7rPRfM39glx4plbp9qRATp1On5xFY/edit?usp=sharing" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dc3y6z0", "dc42nwq" ], "score": [ 5, 4 ], "text": [ " At a guess I would say that new games are bigger then a disc can hold, my battlefield 1 digital game was 43 GB (rip my data cap :( ). Im willing to bet that if everything has to be read off the discs the load screens would be all over the place and, with all the massive open worlds lately, that would be a game killer.\n", "The 360 has a ridiculously high reading speed to read the massive amount of data DVDs hold. I think a DVD spins around 300 times a minute? Which is crazy and one of the reasons the console is really loud. Yet, this gives the 360 the ability to read a lot of data off discs, avoiding long install times.\n\nThe PS3, on the other hand, had the issues that they used a new format and also way lower reading speeds, which ended up in the need to install games, at least partly. The BD drive used in the PS3 was really slow and to compensate for that I read that some companies put their game data more than once on the disc, so it can be reached in time without long loading times inbetween. Thanks to the pretty huge size of blu ray this wasn't really an issue. Or they simply offloaded a lot of reading work to the ps3s HDD, which can read data a lot faster than the disc drive.\n\nWhen the new consoles arrived the whole install thing became quite the usual thing, also HDDs weren't as expensive anymore as they used to be. So you can throw in a reasonable big size with okay-ish reading speed, copy the entire game on it and let it handle the reading speed issue because BD drives still aren't fast enough to access data off discs. So you pretty much pre-install a game on PS4/X1 up until a point where it becomes playable and the rest background installs while you can start playing.\n\nSome games, like Final Fantasy XV or Battlefront just give you a small demo level to run around in, others give you the whole prolog to play (I think Uncharted 4 does this?) and the worst ones, like Fallout 4, let you start the game but have you watch an ingame install screen." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c3e4w9c" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "The use of mnemonics such at those you describe are likely to work at a number of different levels. Firstly, when thinking about memory and learning, it is important to emphasise the role of attention. That is, when you *personally* create a mnemonic, you are assigning more attention to it which makes it more likely that it will be encoded. Using mnemonics also helps to link the new knowledge, to existing knowledge networks, or unique (and therefore memorable) identifiers. So instead of having to recall the new information from scratch, you can be prompted by its link with the existing knowledge structures, or those unique/memorable things that you will \"never forget\" (like the silly words). \n\nThere is a copious body of evidence that demonstrates that using mnemonics such as those you describe can assist in the recollection of new learning. Much of these principles are outlined in the [levels of processing](_URL_0_) model of memory encoding (although I am not up to date on the current consensus on this model). In this model your use of mnemonics is an example of deep level processing.\n\nedit: spelling, emphasis" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levels-of-processing_effect" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cd4btlj" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Hiragana ひらがな　is like the standard Japanese alphabet.\n\nKatakana カタカナ is used for words of foreign origin.\n\nKanji 漢字 is that impossible to read shit that was imported from China. \n\nNow, why don't they just get rid of Kanji, since they are such a pain in the ass? They had this debate after WW2, and felt that kanji was part of their culture, so they didn't want to dispose of it. Also, Japanese has an insane number of homonyms, so without kanji it would be a bit tough to know what a written word is. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cep39z2", "cep3kuk" ], "score": [ 3, 2 ], "text": [ "In really simple terms, it's when you do something the program has no idea how to respond to. In a perfect program this would never happen, but no program is perfect. So for example if you glitch through the wall in a game, the game doesn't really know that you shouldn't be able to do that because maybe you did it in a way the game developer didn't think of. I hope that kinda explains it.", "Implementing something like \"gravity\" is actually a very difficult concept in a video game. It's very hard to tell if two objects are touching - harder still when you are checking against thousands of objects. To simplify this, programmers implement shortcuts. \n\nUnfortunately, whenever you take a shortcut, there are going to be situations you don't think of where that shortcut doesn't work. If you happen to create the exact situation where that shortcut fails, you end up with strange results - like no gravity. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "df7h205" ], "score": [ 5 ], "text": [ "Essentially, they guess. It's an educated guess based on past experiences, but a guess none the less. \n\nThey know the size of their current market, and what portion of that they own. They make an educated guess on how much incremental revenue they will gain from being sponsored by whomever and then offer a deal that shares some of the anticipated revenue increase with whomever is speaking on their behalf. There is no guarantee that they will make more money, but that is a risk they are willing to take, and the deals are full of clauses that allow early termination of the contract for a myriad of reasons. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0w1j2c", "d0w9phy", "d0wbzqo", "d0wmkgb" ], "score": [ 63, 3, 7, 5 ], "text": [ "It is called machine learning and is quite complex.\n\nWhat it boils down to is that you break a problem into discreet parts, or steps.\n\nYou show the machine all the different steps it can do. Then you tell the machine what the desired \"win\" condition is.\n\nIt goes and compares all the different steps and series of steps to figure out the best way of getting to the win condition. \n\nAs these models get better and more generic, we can let the win condition be more vague and it has more freedom to learn how to get there. \n\nIt is entirely dependent upon structures called neural networks, which have an input layer, a hidden layer, and an output layer. The hidden layer is trained to give outputs to certain inputs. \n\nFor a board game training data might be all the moves of a bunch of games, and which player won. We don't actually know what the algorithm inside came up with, because we didn't tell it what to do. \n\nIt learned how to get to the \"win\" state by analyzing a bunch of data and coming up with its own pattern recognition to apply to new games.\n", "How would you guys feel if the AI bragged after it won a game against a human? ", "Twist, you are part of the AI and are trying to confirm how you think you were programmed.\n\nBonus: this is close to an explanation to how Google AI works, just feed data and the machine will try to understand the data given some rules to work.", "On a very very high level, machine learning and AI essentially work off of two things: data and statistics. \n\nWhen given a input data, it looks for what is the best output/decision based on statistical analysis. For example, if I show you a chess board that is in mid game and say, \"If I'm white, what move should I do?\". I AI analogy, the board is the input and the output is what piece you decide to move. \n\nHumans play board games and win by essentially two things: Foresight(being able to look X steps ahead of your opponent) and experience. Experience - in this sense - often allows you quicker knowledge of your game state without having to analyze it too far. For example, suppose you're playing chess and you've seen the current board setting thousands of times (because you play chess all the time). At this point, you have experience telling you that \"this is the next best possible move\" without having to look X steps into the future; in essence, it provides a form of \"shortcut\".\n\nMachine learning software, more or less, try to imitate these two things. Machine learning softwares will have a simple way to measure, given a board, whether it is winning or its opponent is winning. Obviously the software will try to maximize this value. A very very simple example for Go is \"If I am black, I have more black pieces on board than white pieces.\" (In reality, is not as simple as count- & -compare; it has more things it takes into account).\n\nNow going back to foresight and experience. \n\nForesight: Computers will do the same thing. It will use calculations to check what are all possible moves that the computer can make and what are the possible moves the player can make after, and so on. A very simplistic solution would be to \"Make one big ass tree of possible outcomes and then decide\" - but this NEVER works due to limited memory and computation speeds. Games like Go have so many possible moves that it is physically impossible to map all of it at once. \n\nExperience: Computers will statistically keep track of records/patterns/patterns of gameplay and place statistical value on them. For example: in chess, opener X has the highest winrate - so I'll go with that. This is similar to how an experienced chess player or Go player will simply see the board - and know what the right move is simply based on experience. Experience also gives you knowledge that standard \"logical\" thinking cannot. For example, in chess, you would sometimes purposely place one of your pieces into a bad position to set up a bigger, game-winning play. Logically speaking - moving that sacrificial piece is absurd and insane; but experienced players will know that is the best move despite logic defying that move. (There was a couple instances of this in the AlphaGo vs player showcases - the AlphaGo would make moves that would be seen as \"unfavorable\", but turns out to be a smart and beneficial move).\n\nNow both of these things are all implemented in various ways using multiple machine learning techniques at once. This is where it gets complicated, technical, and mathematical that really can't be explain in ELI5." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ddxe9h2" ], "score": [ 4 ], "text": [ "Newspapers were the major way information was spread before radio. Political candidates also did a lot more public speaking. They did \"whistle-stop tours\" where they basically road trains and stopped in every town and gave a speech. Local politicians would also speak in favor of their party in more remote areas." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7e5ibo", "c7e67qo" ], "score": [ 5, 4 ], "text": [ "This is not my area of expertise. But just in case you don't get a more detailed answer. \n\nI'm faily certain what you are looking for is the [Vestibular System](_URL_0_) of the inner ear. It contains a fluid which moves with your head/body and helps your brain understand/maintain your balance. When you spin very rapidly you do something with the fluid in this system that your brain doesn't quite understand. \nSomeone else will need to come in to explain how exactly that fluid is disturbed as I am not qualified. ", "Elaborating on the response by Bored2001:\n\nImagine your vestibular system as two circular tubes. One in the horizantal plane, one in the vertical plane. Now, these tubes are filled with a certain fluid. When you turn your head, inertia causes the fluid to stay where it is, while the tube around it rotates. That way the fluid will push little hairs, which are found on the inside of these tubes. This way your body knows that you've just turned your head and can act accordingly.\n\nNow, when you've been turning around for some time, the fluid within your inner ear will start spinning as well. Your body is at that point no longer noticing that it's spinning. When you then suddenly stop, inertia will once again keep things the way they are, except this time, that will mean that the fluid in the tube will keep on spinning. Though you are standing still, the fluid is still pushing the little hairs and that's why your body will still try to 'correct' for the perceived changes in position, throwing of your balance." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_system" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dh8bryt" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "My dad's an accountant. Short answer is, you have to have a business or at least individual income to deduct business expenses. If you're an employee somewhere that doesn't count. \n\nIf you don't file schedule C there are not many deductions you can take like what you're taking about. If you do, but the deductions are all or most of the income, you're asking for audit. If there's plenty of income and the business requires attracting clients, there's little oversight for deductions. \n\nBut remember, it's deducted from taxable income, not taxes i.e. you only avoid taxes on the spent amount. Unless you spend a lot, your reduction in tax bill is not very large. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ca8gipe", "ca8iq4s", "ca8jtzp", "ca8mbl3", "ca8ne0k", "ca8qs9t", "ca8rxiu", "ca8s636", "ca8sf3c" ], "score": [ 258, 120, 67, 15, 72, 2, 3, 5, 8 ], "text": [ "This is kind of an impossible question to answer from an archaeological perspective. Anything early humans/hominids would have used as a pillow would have been made from perishable materials that do not survive in archaeological contexts. Anything from furs to piles of leaves could have been used by early hominids as pillows. Other great apes make nests out of leaves, it's possible we did too. There's no way to know.\n\nAs for natural sleeping positions, you're probably better off asking a medical doctor or a biological anthropologist. Sorry I can't be of more help.", "As a side-question, are there any animals that use \"pillows\"?", "Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there any reason to believe that a \"natural sleeping position\" exists? Mammals of today certainly don't have any issue changing from position to position to maximize comfort. It would be dubious to try and pinpoint a \"natural sleeping position\" for, for example, [a lion](_URL_0_). There may be positions that involve the least muscle tension, etc, but when numerous sleeping positions are often used, does that even have any significance?\n\nJust a thought. Think of sleeping on an airplane for the first time, you just kind of do what works and everyone seems to have their own comfort spot.", "on a semi related note i have found the \"natural\" sleep/relaxed position in micro gravity to be interesting... kind of the default human posture \nESA study with pictures\n_URL_0_\na web page from the deep 1997 design language _URL_1_", "There was a thread about ancient pillows on /r/AskHistorians last week. It turns out that pillows and headrests have been with us for as long as we have recorded history.\n\n_URL_0_", "Based on what I know about sleeping positions now, it's probably easier to say what is important in a natural sleeping position, past that I think it's probably personal prefence combined with working with what you've got.\nA natural sleeping position is one that would allow easy expansion of the lungs, and good perfusion to the brain (if you put your head lower than your heart you'll notice the sensation of pressure, from pooling of blood in your veins). We change positions during the night, because if we stayed still, we'd develop pressure sores. This is particularly pronounced in the parts of the population with mobility problems. Talk to any hospital physio or nurse, they'd tell you how much time and effort is spent in this aspect of care", "Bioanthropologist here. Although our primate cousins make nests, there isn't a pillow per se and exact sleep position varies based on individuals and what's most comfortable for that particular spot. Some hunter-gathers use pillows, but many don't. Breastfeeding mothers typically rest on their back or side. \n\nAs a recent mother who read a lot of sleep literature on babies, I know that many young babies do not sleep well when flat on their backs alone. They tend to prefer sleeping chest to chest or snuggled in arms. A family bed is common in many cultures, and many primates prefer to snuggle as well. ", "What on earth happened in this thread?!", "Mods - Don't you think it is a bit ridiculous to remove the OP's question but leave the \"relevant\" answers? What is the point? Why not just remove the thread entirely. It is a bit silly to have to piece together the question based off the answers. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [ "https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&hs=5IZ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=sleeping+lion&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47244034,d.cGE&biw=1920&bih=949&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=_remUYLAEOqbiAKdjoFg" ], [ "http://eea.spaceflight.esa.int/?pg=exprec&id=9350&t=2715789418", "http://zerog2002.de/bodyreactions.html" ], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1eyqcn/does_anybody_know_much_about_the_origins_of/" ], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "f0uxztg", "f0v0vgc", "f0vtjt3" ], "score": [ 749, 179, 16 ], "text": [ "Cornwallis had one of the armies in the South with Alexander Stewart commanding another in South Carolina around Charleston. The lack of a foothold in the states and resilience of the American army helped push the British surrender and evacuation. British forces held New York City, Charleston, Georgia, and other places but could not fully control full regions. Even though the British army held Charleston, they did not have control of the rest of South Carolina. Slowly, the British forces in SC trickled back to the Charleston area after evacuating other posts such as Camden and Ninety-Six, and losing forts such as Fort Motte. The Battle of Eutaw Springs put an end with British forces trying to gain more control of South Carolina as the army would remain there until total evacuation. Even the great victories of Camden and Charleston did not seem to quell the continuing operations of the American armies. In addition, while Henry Clinton commanded the entire British army, he had distanced himself from Cornwallis after May 1780. Clinton had a disagreement with Cornwallis and for a time he would correspond with Cornwallis for updates they became sporadic by mid-1781. Clinton remained the commander in chief until 1782 when Guy Carleton took over, but the war had just about ended by then. \n\nThe British army after Saratoga had diminished substantially. Burgoyne's army became part of the Convention army. Not really prisoners of war but could not fight anymore in the war. That surrender took away 6,000 soldiers from the British army - a huge blow. Cornwallis' army numbered to almost 8,000. Clinton had a small force in New York and Stewart's army in Charleston had about 2,500. None of these armies had the capability to go against the larger American force. The British army had spread itself thin with the various theatres that popped up in 1778 including Anglo-French, Anglo-Spanish wars that made them fight not only in the Caribbean but the west including Louisiana and Kentucky (at least, what would become them). The surrender of Cornwallis' army spelled the end of the war effort in America. At that point, the American army had become a well disciplined force that showed no sign of shrinking. With the addition of Spanish and French forces, the British army had a lot to contend with and could not with the decreased amount of soldiers. \n\nOften times, army leaders plan on crushing enemy forces and occupy the capital cities to win the war. The colonies remained decentralized and if one city fell, the rest would remain in resistance. The British army also failed to fully crush enemy combatants after a battle. Most militia units in the South had horses for retreating purposes and could swiftly escape the field. American forces also tended to regroup after battles and gain reinforcements, as well as relying on more guerilla tactics. \n\nThe 1781 campaign started with the battle of Cowpens where the British forces lost and began the Race to the Dan. This would in turn force Cornwallis' hand with the need to chase Nathaniel Greene or beat him to the Dan river. The lose of the battle also spelled disaster for the rest of the campaign as the British army had to leave supply wagons behind in order to march at a quick pace through North Carolina. It also halted his plans for controlling the rest of South Carolina. The long chase ended at Guilford Courthouse with Cornwallis battling a renewed American army. After suffering a Pyrrhic victory, Cornwallis decided to head to the coast in order to get reinforcements and supplies at Yorktown. Cornwallis also had some of the most experienced and seasoned regiments with him at the surrender including the 33rd, 71st, 23rd, the Guard infantry, the British Legion, and German battalions. \n\nWith morale crushed, Lord North proclaimed the war to be over and the administration switched from war to peace negotiations (and prisoner exchange). Ironically, the naval campaigns in the Caribbean had been quite successful but not enough to continue the war. \n\nMatthew Spring, With Zeal and Bayonets Only.\n\nJohn Buchanan, The Road to Guilford Courthouse.\n\nCharles Ross (ed.), Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis of Cornwallis.", "/u/GeneralLeeBlount has covered the tactical military reasons that continued fighting would have been problematic for the British, but you are right, it was conceivable that the British *could* have kept going. In fact, there actually were some smaller engagements after Yorktown, including the Battle of the Saintes, and the Siege of Fort Henry. But even in the best case scenario if the British had kept on fighting, it was not going to be over soon, and the British had their armed forces engaged in more than just the Revolutionary War at the time. \n\nFrom a governmental standpoint, though, the British forces stopped fighting because there was no longer any political will to fight it. The warhawks in Parliament lost support, the majority was being threatened with losing control of the government, so instead of sending orders to engage in further conflicts with the Americans, the government began looking for a way to end the conflict.\n\nNews of the surrender reached London on November 25, 1781. When Prime Minister Lord North received the news of the defeat at Yorktown, he is reported to have responded with, \"O God, it is all over!\"\n\nThe evening the news was delivered, Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who was in charge of the government's war effort, hosted a dinner party attended by Lord North and King George III to discuss what to do next. Germain and King George wanted to continue the fight, and Lord North \"initially gave no public indication that the government had any intention of withdrawing from America.\" But he privately confided to friends and allies that he no longer saw a way to win it, given the tenuous hold he had in Parliament.\n\nThe King's Speech was delivered to the House of Commons two days later, which admitted to the defeat at Yorktown, but apart from that, was designed to rouse the public to continue the fight. But the opposition smelled blood. Opposition leader Charles James Fox countered that Lord North's government had conducted a disastrous war, the British public were against them, and it was time to end it if they wanted to avoid the public's wrath:\n\n > \"...[T]he representatives of the people must recall to the ears of his Majesty's Ministers the disgraceful and ruinous measures that had brought us to this state. They must hear of them not only here, but...by the aroused indignation and vengeance of an injured and undone people, the ministers would hear of their ruinous measures at the tribunal of justice, and expiate them at the public scaffold.\"\n\nA Tory ally of Lord North's, Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, would later recollect that Lord North conceded this was true. The war had started with popular support among the British public, but repeated battlefront defeats had changed public opinion:\n\n > \"True it is that ill success rendering [the war] at length unpopular, the people began to cry out for peace.\"\n\nHistorian Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy gives a pretty concise rundown of what happened next in *The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire*. \"It was a testament to his popularity and his political skills,\" writes O'Shaughnessy, \"that [Lord North] managed to sustain his government for over three more months.\"\n\nLord North attempted to negotiate with American diplomats Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams for a peace that would keep the colonies under British control, but the Americans would accept no deal that did not recognize them as an independent country. Nor would Lord North commit to ending further military action until a deal was agreed to. According to O'Shaughnessy, North \"was ultimately driven from power by his refusal to make a clear commitment to military withdrawal from America.\" North already had a slim majority, by barely a dozen votes, and by the early months of 1782, independent members of Parliament began to defect. \n\nAt the end of February 1782, General Henry Seymour Conway proposed a resolution that the war \"no longer be pursued for the impracticable purpose of reducing the inhabitants of that country to obedience by force\" and the resolution only failed by a single vote.\n\nTwo weeks later, on March 15, an independent MP proposed to censure the government for having \"reduced the country from a state of glory and prosperity to calamity and disgrace.\" It only failed by nine votes.\n\nOn March 25, Charles James Fox called for peace with America and motioned for a vote of no confidence against Lord North because \"our affairs were so circumstanced, that ministers must lose their places, or the country must be undone.\" The vote nearly passed.\n\nWith the prospect of another vote of no confidence that was sure to pass, two days later, on March 27, Lord North resigned. The Whig leader, the Marquess of Rockingham, then formed a government, and sent Richard Oswald to Paris in April 1782 to begin negotiating with the American diplomats. \n\nRockingham actually died a few months later, which sent Parliament into further turmoil, ultimately leading to North returning to power in an uneasy, and short-lived, coalition government in 1783 with his rival and chief war opponent Charles James Fox. But by then, the Treaty of Paris had already been drafted, and the coalition was formed with Fox as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, with North the head of domestic affairs, so peace negotiations continued unabated. \n\n**SOURCES**:\n\n*The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire* by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy\n\n*A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution* by Jonathan R. Dull\n\n*The Speeches of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox in the House of Commons*, ed. by \"A Barrister\"\n\n*The Historical and the Posthumous Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, 1772-1784* ed. by Henry Benjamin Wheatley", "I only had the opportunity to briefly skim through some of these responses; however, a major point that I think needs clarifying is that while the British *could* have held major American ports, the largest among them being New York, for years, if not decades, after Yorktown, popularity for the war at home in Britain dropped dramatically in the late 1770s. Furthermore, in the eyes of the Empire, maintaining control of the Caribbean Islands, especially the sugar producing islands, was of the utmost concern due to both the tremendous profits generated and the power of \"absentee planters\" in British Parliament.\n\nAs Richard Buel Jr. argues in his book *In Irons: Britain's Naval Superiority and the American Revolutionary Economy,* the sheer size of His Majesty's Navy meant the British would be able to at least hold New York, if not capture a number of other American ports in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies, even after Yorktown and probably hold these for decades. While possible, this avenue made little economic sense as the navy had a more important and lucrative role in protecting the plantation empire of the Caribbean. When you couple this with the idea the war in the colonies had been a disaster for the North administration (see both Mary Beth Norton's, *The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774-1789* and Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's, *The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire*) continuing to fight in mainland North America made little sense. Finally, it's important to note that while the British sugar producing islands had remained loyal, their loyalty was tenuous at best. If the British transferred forces from the Caribbean, who were not only fending of the French and Spanish but also suppressing potential slave insurrections where enslaved Africans greatly outnumbered white British colonists, they may have lost the the allegiance of island planters, many of whom held positions in Parliament. For more on this, see Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's, *An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean*.\n\nTL;DR: While the British could have kept fighting in North America and perhaps held important ports on the eastern seaboard, it made little economic sense to do so and they risked losing even more Atlantic possessions if they did so." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c4i0zfx", "c4i10n1" ], "score": [ 2, 7 ], "text": [ "The elements that are generally considered fissile materials are only formed during supernovae. Any fusion we perform on earth or that occurs in main sequence stars will not produce fissile materials. \nBesides, fusion should be able to provide more than enough energy alone.", "It would be an unlimited source of energy the same way having a water turbine run on water that we can then pump back up. Law no.1: If it gave out energy, you need to provide energy in order to reverse it and vice versa.\n\nIron is the bottom of nucleus potential energy. Fusion of lighter than iron nuclei with a lighter than iron result is going to release energy. Fission of heavier than iron nuclei into heavier than iron products will release energy. For vice versa you need to put energy in.\n\nImagine all elements lined up in a valley shaped curve with the iron at the bottom. Energy is released only when going downhill." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7vccs4" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Why not? It is a side effect of having a form to survive harsh conditions on Earth, such as drought." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cafhd4c" ], "score": [ 18 ], "text": [ " > Did the Greeks and Romans read the \"classics\"?\n\nAbsolutely. I'm much more familiar with the Romans than the Greeks, so I can only speak as to them - though I can't think of any reason that the Greeks would be different - but today's great Latin literature was definitely important back then as well.\n\nFor example, *The Aeneid* was, by the 2nd century A.D., mandatory if one wanted to claim a \"good\" education. In fact, it'd often be memorized.[^(Source, missing one page)](_URL_2_)\n\n*The Aeneid*, like *The Illiad*, was and is regarded as the epitome of literature in its language, and was, consequently, hugely popular. Plus, it certainly didn't hurt its popularity that it painted the ruling Julio-Claudian dynasty in the best of lights.\n\n > Do we have the same Greek and Roman canon as the actual Greeks and Romans?\n\nNope, and it's a real tragedy. Regrettably, \"we've lost more of Latin literature than we posses.\"[^Source ^\\(Abstract\\)](_URL_0_)^|[Source2](_URL_1_) Entire authors have disappeared from history, and we lack an enormous amount of what the Romans and Greeks wrote. It's the bane of every classicist the world over, but there's not much to be done about it.\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/702631?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102087172833", "http://www.jstor.org/stable/1075766", "http://books.google.com/books?id=eybIGmuny64C&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ccg7hql" ], "score": [ 22 ], "text": [ "The wheel is something that would need to be invented in order to be used, wheras stairs and steps can form naturally, so this question would be incredibly hard to answer whilst sticking to the AskHistorians top answer guidelines. The wheel was an invention. Somebody wanted to find a way to reduce the amount of force necessary to move large objects and invented the wheel and axel design to do so. its much more complicated then it sounds." ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c7wb9mt", "c7wbyo6", "c7wfp4g" ], "score": [ 2, 5, 5 ], "text": [ "well, London did after 1666, but mainly because they were **Mostly** destroyed, people still knew where their houses used to be, what land they used to own and how everything used to look, they wanted that back so just rebuilt on the existing land and made it how it was before. ", "Some of it has to do with the internal geography (or metageography) that the residents carried. After a war where the familiar has been smashed, people very often wanted to hold on to some of that familiarity, and spatial arrangements were an important part of social interaction. Besides, what was *below* the ground wasn't necessarily destroyed, so the infrastructure for rebuilding in the same configurations existed already even if the streets were cratered. Minor changes were probably rife: slight widening of streets and roads, tearing up of brick pavements and streetcar rails, expansion of certain facilities, the burying of power cables, et cetera. But I suspect the spatial order was persistent because people *wanted* it to be as much as because it was easier to do.\n\nIf any city would have been prone to a total reconstruction, it would have been Rotterdam after the Blitz. Although its skyline certainly changed, and the oud-centrum was vastly modified, I am not aware of whether the basic layout shifted (streets, etc). There's a certain psychologically restorative quality to that continuity in the face of an undeniably external, human-created disaster (as opposed to London 1666 or Chicago 1871, which came \"from within\" and highlighted distinct problems with the prior order), although I'm not sure if anyone's written on it specifically off the top of my head. It would not surprise me if one or another of the spatial theorists has done so. *Environment and Planning D: Society and Space* is a great journal to farm for that, if you're so inclined, as is *Progress in Human Geography*. I'm not in my office so I don't have access to my indexes.", "Actually a lot of provincial towns and cities in Britain were completely overhauled after the war, not because they were damaged by bombing, but as Victorian slums were cleared and massive new social housing estates were planned as part of the postwar settlement. Sometimes you see essentially the same street layout, sometimes there are alterations, but grids are still rare. I think the issue here is that Europeans (or maybe it's just me) do not share the automatic assumption that grid layouts are an 'improvement'. Like the people tasked with rebuilding postwar cities and the people who were going to move back into them, I grew up with windy streets and so don't have any particularly navigating them. And while I get the rational appeal of a grid layout, it seems to have some significant drawbacks of its own: ignoring the terrain (where I live is all hills; a grid would mean a nightmarish up-down-up-down to get from A to B) and making everything look similar (so I can't orientate myself by that distinctive double bend or the peculiar three-and-a-half-way intersection). Plus, you have to admit there's both an aesthetic appeal and a comforting sense of continuity in retaining old streets with \"character\". People planning new cities in America were essentially dealing with *terra nullius*; I happen to know that at least a half dozen streets in my town follow trackways older than the US itself.\n\nSo my (admittedly largely anecdotal/parochial) answer is that there's a difference in cultural ideals of what a city ought to look like on either side of the Atlantic. Even if you look at [Wren's ambitious plan to rebuild London after the Great Fire](_URL_0_) it isn't completely rational: the underlying grid is contorted to fit Baroque avenues and plazas which were first and foremost meant to impress aesthetically. Modern housing developments in Britain are the same: they're not exactly as chaotic as old medieval streetplans, but they do show a preference for aesthetically pleasing curves and circles over a strictly pragmatic grid." ] }

[]

[ "http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/16hz9e/chicago/" ]

[ [], [], [ "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/1744_Wren_Map_of_London%2C_England_-_Geographicus_-_London-wren-1744.jpg" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c2kyo8l", "c2kzfoj", "c2kzmrx", "c2l003k", "c2l07sa", "c2l08bu", "c2l0dpv", "c2kyo8l", "c2kzfoj", "c2kzmrx", "c2l003k", "c2l07sa", "c2l08bu", "c2l0dpv" ], "score": [ 32, 6, 4, 3, 2, 3, 6, 32, 6, 4, 3, 2, 3, 6 ], "text": [ "Aperture is one of the things that determines how much light reaches the sensor on your camera. \n\nThink of it as a hole in a box. Inside the box is a kid drawing with crayons. (Don't worry, he's being fed.) The bigger the hole (the larger the aperture), the more light that gets in, the more the kid can see his paper to draw what he sees through the hole. The size of the aperture is measured in f-stops. The smaller the f-stop, the larger the aperture, or the larger the hole in the box, or the more light that gets in.\n\nShutter speed is also important: how long does that hole in the box stay open to let the light in? The longer the shutter speed, the longer the hole stays open, the more light that gets in. That's one reason why some pictures are blurry: the subject moves while the hole in the box is still open. \n\nSports photographers use very quick shutter speeds (which requires smaller f-stops to let more light in) so they can capture motion without blur. If the aperture was not large enough, and the shutter speed too fast, the photo would be too dark because the settings did not let enough light in to accurately capture the image to the sensor.", "If you're interested, there's [a nice, easy to understand analogy](_URL_0_) in the reddit photo class (courtesy of nattfodd)!", "I'm bad at this whole \"like I'm five\" thing but here goes.\n\nAperture is to f-stop as \"speed\" is to \"miles per hour\" in that they are basically the same idea, but f-stop is just a unit of measurement for aperture.\n\nBut yes, aperture describes the amount of light getting through your lens into your camera. Inside your camera lens, there is an \"aperture ring\" that will be more open or closed for each shot. Different lenses have support for different ranges of apertures—and you (or your camera if you're in automatic) pick one best suited for each photo you take.\n\nAperture is useful for two reasons: \n\n* It controls \"depth of field.\" Try closing one eye, then focusing your open one on something close to you—hold it up to you if you have to. Notice how everything in the background gets blurred? That's a \"shallow\" depth of field, and the same effect can be gotten in a camera if you're using an aperture like f/1.4. But while you're still looking at that object, try squinting your open eye. The background should become clearer because you're getting light from fewer angles into your eyes—the same thing happens with a camera when we move from f/1.4 to something like f/8.\n* It can offset your shutter speed. The \"brightness\" of a photo is determined by two per-photo settings: shutter speed and aperture (there is also a third, ISO, but that makes things harder to explain and is usually constant). I'm going to use a hose analogy: imagine that to take a photo, we need to spray water on film instead of light. Shutter speed, then, is the length of time the hose is on, whereas aperture is a nozzle that controls the amount of water coming out. To get a photo at the right brightness, we need to spray one gallon of water on the film (we would need to spray more if our subject was darker, or less if our subject was brighter, but that's beside the point). Now then, you could either just dump a gallon all-at-once (very wide opening, very little time) or we could trickle it in (very small aperture, longer exposure time)...but if you miss that one gallon mark, your photo's brightness is going to be off.\n\nAutomatic cameras try to find the best \"average\" of shutter speed / aperture combinations every time, but if you are serious about photography, you can manually set one (or both) to achieve stylistic effects, like motion blur (long shutter speeds) or shallow depth-of-field (wide aperture)—as long as you \"offset\" that choice using the other variable, you'll get a good photo.", "Camera lenses work the same way your eye works. It has a glass end and there is something like an iris inside that can change from big to small. The name of the hole in your eye is called a pupil and the same hole in a camera is called an aperture.\n\nYou know when there is a very bright light and your pupil becomes very small? Why does that happen? Because there is too much light! Well you can do the same thing with a camera lens. For very bright light, you can use a very big f-number (f/22 is pretty big) to make the hole small so that you don't have too much light going inside your camera.\n\nHave you ever noticed when it's dark and your pupil becomes very large? Well that's because your eye is trying to let in more light so you can see. In a camera, when there are lower light levels you can use a lower f-number (f/2 is pretty small) to make the hole big to allow more light to go inside your camera.\n\nIn photography, one of the main things you are doing is controlling how much light goes into the camera. Controlling the size of the hole is just one of the ways to do it. Another way is to control how long the hole is open but that's a story for a different day.", "I know it's not really an exact search, but [this thread](_URL_0_) has a few comments worth reading (including an entire [thread by me and a few others](_URL_0_c2dwt0k)).\n\nThe teal deer is that aperture is just the hole that lets light into the camera where it hits either the sensor or film. The numbers are the denominator of a fraction, and the numerator is the focal length of the lens. The result is the diameter of the aperture. The numbers are weird because they are powers of the square root of two, and each full stop represents half as much (or twice as much) light hitting the sensor or film.", "I totally thought this was related to Valve/Portal. I feel stupid now. :(\n", "And here I was, thinking you were asking about *Portal*'s background story, and what the *F-stop* game mechanic might be.", "Aperture is one of the things that determines how much light reaches the sensor on your camera. \n\nThink of it as a hole in a box. Inside the box is a kid drawing with crayons. (Don't worry, he's being fed.) The bigger the hole (the larger the aperture), the more light that gets in, the more the kid can see his paper to draw what he sees through the hole. The size of the aperture is measured in f-stops. The smaller the f-stop, the larger the aperture, or the larger the hole in the box, or the more light that gets in.\n\nShutter speed is also important: how long does that hole in the box stay open to let the light in? The longer the shutter speed, the longer the hole stays open, the more light that gets in. That's one reason why some pictures are blurry: the subject moves while the hole in the box is still open. \n\nSports photographers use very quick shutter speeds (which requires smaller f-stops to let more light in) so they can capture motion without blur. If the aperture was not large enough, and the shutter speed too fast, the photo would be too dark because the settings did not let enough light in to accurately capture the image to the sensor.", "If you're interested, there's [a nice, easy to understand analogy](_URL_0_) in the reddit photo class (courtesy of nattfodd)!", "I'm bad at this whole \"like I'm five\" thing but here goes.\n\nAperture is to f-stop as \"speed\" is to \"miles per hour\" in that they are basically the same idea, but f-stop is just a unit of measurement for aperture.\n\nBut yes, aperture describes the amount of light getting through your lens into your camera. Inside your camera lens, there is an \"aperture ring\" that will be more open or closed for each shot. Different lenses have support for different ranges of apertures—and you (or your camera if you're in automatic) pick one best suited for each photo you take.\n\nAperture is useful for two reasons: \n\n* It controls \"depth of field.\" Try closing one eye, then focusing your open one on something close to you—hold it up to you if you have to. Notice how everything in the background gets blurred? That's a \"shallow\" depth of field, and the same effect can be gotten in a camera if you're using an aperture like f/1.4. But while you're still looking at that object, try squinting your open eye. The background should become clearer because you're getting light from fewer angles into your eyes—the same thing happens with a camera when we move from f/1.4 to something like f/8.\n* It can offset your shutter speed. The \"brightness\" of a photo is determined by two per-photo settings: shutter speed and aperture (there is also a third, ISO, but that makes things harder to explain and is usually constant). I'm going to use a hose analogy: imagine that to take a photo, we need to spray water on film instead of light. Shutter speed, then, is the length of time the hose is on, whereas aperture is a nozzle that controls the amount of water coming out. To get a photo at the right brightness, we need to spray one gallon of water on the film (we would need to spray more if our subject was darker, or less if our subject was brighter, but that's beside the point). Now then, you could either just dump a gallon all-at-once (very wide opening, very little time) or we could trickle it in (very small aperture, longer exposure time)...but if you miss that one gallon mark, your photo's brightness is going to be off.\n\nAutomatic cameras try to find the best \"average\" of shutter speed / aperture combinations every time, but if you are serious about photography, you can manually set one (or both) to achieve stylistic effects, like motion blur (long shutter speeds) or shallow depth-of-field (wide aperture)—as long as you \"offset\" that choice using the other variable, you'll get a good photo.", "Camera lenses work the same way your eye works. It has a glass end and there is something like an iris inside that can change from big to small. The name of the hole in your eye is called a pupil and the same hole in a camera is called an aperture.\n\nYou know when there is a very bright light and your pupil becomes very small? Why does that happen? Because there is too much light! Well you can do the same thing with a camera lens. For very bright light, you can use a very big f-number (f/22 is pretty big) to make the hole small so that you don't have too much light going inside your camera.\n\nHave you ever noticed when it's dark and your pupil becomes very large? Well that's because your eye is trying to let in more light so you can see. In a camera, when there are lower light levels you can use a lower f-number (f/2 is pretty small) to make the hole big to allow more light to go inside your camera.\n\nIn photography, one of the main things you are doing is controlling how much light goes into the camera. Controlling the size of the hole is just one of the ways to do it. Another way is to control how long the hole is open but that's a story for a different day.", "I know it's not really an exact search, but [this thread](_URL_0_) has a few comments worth reading (including an entire [thread by me and a few others](_URL_0_c2dwt0k)).\n\nThe teal deer is that aperture is just the hole that lets light into the camera where it hits either the sensor or film. The numbers are the denominator of a fraction, and the numerator is the focal length of the lens. The result is the diameter of the aperture. The numbers are weird because they are powers of the square root of two, and each full stop represents half as much (or twice as much) light hitting the sensor or film.", "I totally thought this was related to Valve/Portal. I feel stupid now. :(\n", "And here I was, thinking you were asking about *Portal*'s background story, and what the *F-stop* game mechanic might be." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass/comments/d43o1/photoclass_lesson_4_exposure_pipes_and_buckets/" ], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jownq/eli5_photography_terms_aperture_shutter_speed_iso/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jownq/eli5_photography_terms_aperture_shutter_speed_iso/c2dwt0k" ], [], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/photoclass/comments/d43o1/photoclass_lesson_4_exposure_pipes_and_buckets/" ], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jownq/eli5_photography_terms_aperture_shutter_speed_iso/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jownq/eli5_photography_terms_aperture_shutter_speed_iso/c2dwt0k" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dwgpryk", "dwgq52n" ], "score": [ 8, 3 ], "text": [ "A lot of the stuff that makes us dirty and smelly is accumulated on our body because of oil. Oil traps in dirt and odors. And if you know anything about oil, you should know that it doesn't mix or dissolve in water. So while rubbing with just water might get rid of some surface oils, we use soap, which breaks down the oil (along with the dirt and odors in it) into smaller pieces that can be dissolved into the water and washed away.", "Body odour is caused by overgrowth of bacteria on the skin which break down certain proteins in sweat. These bacteria reside in oily secretions of glands like the sebaceous gland. Soap removes body odour in mainly 3 ways.\n\n1. Soap washes away the oily protection for the bacteria. Soap particles contain a hydrophillic end and a hydrophobic end. The hydrophobic end binds to these 'oils' to form micelles. This process helps in the removal of this oily layer, and thereby washing away the bacteria.\n\n2. Most soaps have some amount of bactericidal activity. (Meaning they kill bacteria)\n\n3. Most soaps are scented which provides a masking effect." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjcwsiy", "cjcwzw5", "cjcxmcc", "cjcyesf", "cjcyodo", "cjczisr", "cjd0zb5", "cjd1vcr", "cjd21t9", "cjdjgor" ], "score": [ 386, 13, 60, 9, 2, 13, 5, 3, 3, 3 ], "text": [ "The most definite way is by old astronomical records. We know down to the minute when all the eclipses, periodic comets, etc of history took place, so if there was an eclipse on a certain day of the reign of the emperor Claudius, we know what year that was. Thus we know that there are some years we don't know much about, but there are no missing years. ", "Vaguely related to this question, when did the Western world come to use the current year system? Like, when was it decided that 'this is the year x' that our current date is a continuation of?", "The other way is because historians can correlate between different places. So for example if a English monarch wanted to 'fake' years of his reign then documents in would have different dates for specific mutual events than counterparts in France, Spain, Italy etc. \n\nTwo other issues, while I can see some motivation to lie about ruling longer than one actually has, as a historian I can't imagine a king actually trying to put that into practice. The scale of the lie is just too big even in the medieval period there are still enough scribes-notaries around that you would have to get everyone on board and then the problem of neighboring kingdoms not matching your faked timeline is easily apparent - for example in a treaty or marriage contract.\n\n > I imagine a scenario where a King/Queens wants to be remembered in a certain way, so pure fiction is produced, which would be indistinguishable from fact.\n\nAs a historian this is actually one of the most interesting parts of studying history. First, there is no objective historical document, not one. Every document is produced by a particular author with a particular subjective view and intended for a particular audience. Historians must always consider the bias that exists. The flip side is that when in the past people thought to 'fake' a document, or to lie in a document, they had to do so in a way that retained the verisimilitude of the account. For example, I read a lot of inquisition cases, people lie there all the time, but it is not complete fabrication because that is too easy to spot or check. So, instead, people have to bend the truth and tell an alternative story that is plausible for their circumstances. Yet, the beauty of history is that because they have made the account plausible within their own cultural-historical moment it is a true statement in the sense that it could have happened and that they expected/hoped that it would be construed as fact. Thus, even a forged or fudged document tells us something about the past because the person who produced that document intended that it would appear real.\n\nThat type of analysis is more suited for studying socio-cultural phenomenon. In the case of political or economic history it is usually easy enough to determine if an account is faked/overly-biased by comparing it to many other documents. Again, historical conspiracies are unlikely, largely impossible to achieve, so a preponderance of correlating evidence usually indicates historical reality.\n\n", "In addition to the other well reasoned replies in this thread, you can also bet for sure that the Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Greeks, Persians, etc were all keeping track of time too! If someone wanted to fudge the date, historical analysis using multiple regional calendars would show who's lying.", "My old archaeology professor used the pace of evolution of Mesopotamian pottery to prove that the established calender of events in the ancient Middle East was a bit too spaciously timed, and a century or two were pruned as a result. So the calendar remains a hypothesis - albeit one with very little wriggle room in times with a lot of sources.", "This would be more a philosophical/epistemological question than a historical one.\n\nHistory, like science, has a certain corpus of agreed upon assumptions that can and are disputed philosophically. For example, the sciences make an assumption that there is a \"real world\" that exists outside of observation and thought and can be alluded to. It makes the assumption that induction (the observation of repeatability of phenomena) is a valid means by which to theorize about laws of action. These can and are disputed philosophically.\n\nBecause if we're being honest here, it's quite easy to take your argument, philosophically, to its logical conclusion toward cartesian solipsism (do any of you or any phenomena exist, or you're just really fancy meat robots or illusions created by demons?)\n\nIt doesn't mean your argument is logically invalid, it's more that your argument isn't socially privileged by the scientific community (because it would paralyze the inductive scientific process).\n\nYou might want to consider trying /r/askphilosophy", "We can also date artifacts radiologically. Carbon isn't the only thing we can use for this and, as a result, we can get a good macroscopic view of things. \n\nOne of the handier techniques in this regard is the ability to date construction materials. For example, we can date the concrete used to construct the Colosseum . Not surprisingly, the construction of a 50,000 seat mega-stadium in the middle of the capital of Iron Age Europe did not go unnoticed and so we have documents that discuss the Colosseum and other things as well. \n\nAs we know the age of the Colosseum we can extrapolate the dates of the other events as well. ", "It's best to look at several different methods of measuring time. Astronomical records (as mentioned in another comment) are one, and tend to be the most precise.\n\nRadiocarbon dating is another. It can tell you when a particular dead thing was alive, e.g. when a tree was chopped down. If we were missing years in our chronology, then we'd end up with artifacts that were found to be younger than history records them to be.\n\nBut, how do we know that radiocarbon dating is correct? We calibrate it using my favorite method of determining age: dendrochronology (i.e. counting tree rings). We have records of tree rings spanning [8000 years](_URL_1_). Carbon dating these types of samples ensures the accuracy of the method, independent from historical records.\n\nThere are [other methods](_URL_0_) as well. For areas with recorded history, you can correlate reports of regional or global events to establish dates as well. Generally, multiple methods will converge on a specific year or at least a range of years. If one method disagrees, say wood in a monument is determined to be much older or younger than the otherwise established date for the monument, there's some explaining to do (was the wood recycled from an older structure or was the monument repaired at some point?). If we were missing years, dating methods would end up consistently disagreeing with each other.", "I'm sure this has been said before but the study of history is EXACTLY dealing with the problems you've put forth. Considering ancient letters, documents, ledgers, etc., can be exciting in itself (minus ledgers) it's the real job of the historian to put them into context. \n\n\nAn example of the big questions a historian must consider; who wrote this? Is there any reason for bias or to manipulate information (for instance does it mention a tyrannical king/queen)? Is a first or second source? Why was it written? Is the author pushing an agenda or collecting taxes? \n\n\nTo be clear I'm an extreme amateur and do it more for fun, my opinion on first hand sources could be compared to pure guesswork. Regardless, the process is very engaging. Information has to be taken in the context of the period it was written in. Even subtleties like handwriting (I'm not a student nor am I interested in becoming one) are considered when dissecting a historical document. History could largely be compared to a mystery, where each clue may not be what it seems and large finds might change the entire school of thought on any subject.", "This is a frequently asked question here. You may want to refer to these similar questions linked from the [FAQ](_URL_4_):\n\n\n* [How certain are we that the year 1 AD was 2012 years ago?](_URL_0_)\n\n* [How do humans really know what year it is? What historical events started us from BCE to CE?](_URL_1_)\n\nSee [this fascinating answer how dendrochronology can date things to the year](_URL_0_c84u1iw).\n\nAnd a related question that may interest you:\n\n* [How did civilizations determine what \"year\" it was before an \"international\" year was established?](_URL_2_)" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro/chap4.htm", "http://hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov/pls/paleox/f?p=519:1:::::P1_STUDY_ID:3376" ], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17e1kl/how_certain_are_we_that_the_year_1_ad_was_2012/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vjp3j/how_do_humans_really_know_what_year_it_is_what/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14czyz/how_did_civilizations_determine_what_year_it_was/", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17e1kl/how_certain_are_we_that_the_year_1_ad_was_2012/c84u1iw", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/calendars#wiki_how_did_the_world_agree_on_what_year_it_is.3F" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjhdkev" ], "score": [ 7 ], "text": [ "The wheeled vehicle is not as intuitive an invention as most people seem to think. In fact, as /u/Daeres explains in [this submission](_URL_0_), it was only ever invented twice and possibly even only once, in the entire history of mankind. The reason the wheeled vehicle did not reach the Americas before Columbus is that they were cut off from the rest of the world where this technology had spread from its original point of origin in the 4th millennium BCE." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/2bgqyf/carts_cereals_and_ceramics/" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c363q6j", "c36446f", "c36457y", "c365iji", "c367jqr", "c363q6j", "c36446f", "c36457y", "c365iji", "c367jqr" ], "score": [ 4, 8, 33, 2, 3, 4, 8, 33, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "Very briefly: those who benefit from a significant portion of voters to believe in economic conservatism (and hence vote ostensibly against their own economic interests) realised that a significant portion of voters already share social conservative values, and through effective marketing (what some may call propaganda) lasting several decades were successful in creating the association between the two. That was accomplished in no small part by also demonizing the other side; this is why U.S. is unique among developed nations in having majority of its population treat *socialism* as a swear word.", "It's funny because free trade and fiscal austerity is usually referred to as \"economic liberalism\" outside of the U.S.", "So there is this thing called [Duverger's Law](_URL_0_) which basically states that our electoral system will cause USA to have two dominant political parties which will effectively shut out all but the remote possibility of a third party candidate being elected. Because politicians want to be successful, they will be forced to align themselves with one of the two major parties. This causes a dialectic relationship between the parties where they must be polar opposites of each-other to remain one of the two successful parties. [Around the time of the New Deal](_URL_1_) the political parties made a shift. Prior to this time, Republicans were a party for the fiscally libertarian, which can be seen in the economic policies of the 1920s. Democrats, on the other hand, included much of the 'socially conservative' south. However, with the great depression and the new Democratic President Roosevelt promoting both [Keynesian economic policy](_URL_2_) and policy reform which promoted helping the economically disenfranchised minorities in the south, the Republican party split over whether to support it or not while the old democratic base in the South all suddenly didn't want to be Democrats anymore. In an attempt to gain votes, the Republican Party started promoting the socially conservative message the southern democrats wanted. The cycle of elections during the 1930s saw many of the old urban republicans become new deal democrats and many old southern democrats become new republicans. Other than slight shifts during the early 1980s and early 1990s, we have held the same party alignment ever since. \n\nedit: tl;dr: two parties means they must be opposites of each-other or a third party will take one of their spots. In the 1930s, the Democrats changed, so Republicans followed suit to appeal to the voters Democrats had left behind. \n\nalso, freereflection is right about the rise of christian fundamentalism being a factor.", "Economic conservatives don't give a shit about anything unless it's about them and their money.\n\nKnowing that nothing will sway mouth-breathers like angry populist bullshit, they deliberately began appealing to them on \"red meat\" issues to broaden their coalition. This is the origin of all the Archie Bunker bullshit like \"the lib'ruls are comin' to take yer guns,\" \"abortion is killin' teh babies,\" \"we need a Constitutional Amendment to prevent flag-burnin',\" \"drug dealers should be executed,\" \"the lib'ruls are declarin' 'War on Christmas,'\" et cetera, ad nausea.\n\nThe economic master class, behind closed doors, absolutely *laughs their asses off* at these simple-minded clowns they've managed to trick into voting in complete opposition to their own interests.\n\nIn the modern era this started with the John Birchers, became the Goldwater crowd, and has reached its pinnacle in the last 30 years with the Reaganites/Gingrich crowd. Fools and their money are soon parted, and that's just the way the economic master class likes it.\n\nSadly, it looks like the social conservatives still have no clue how they're being played, even after decades of this.", "In political science terms we don't call it economic conservatism - it's actually a form of liberalism.\n\nRonald Regan for instance was a pioneer in liberal economics - to the point that it was right up with anarchy. \n\nI don't know why, but I would guess the reason it's called economic conservatism in the american media etc - is because of it's links with social conservatism. ", "Very briefly: those who benefit from a significant portion of voters to believe in economic conservatism (and hence vote ostensibly against their own economic interests) realised that a significant portion of voters already share social conservative values, and through effective marketing (what some may call propaganda) lasting several decades were successful in creating the association between the two. That was accomplished in no small part by also demonizing the other side; this is why U.S. is unique among developed nations in having majority of its population treat *socialism* as a swear word.", "It's funny because free trade and fiscal austerity is usually referred to as \"economic liberalism\" outside of the U.S.", "So there is this thing called [Duverger's Law](_URL_0_) which basically states that our electoral system will cause USA to have two dominant political parties which will effectively shut out all but the remote possibility of a third party candidate being elected. Because politicians want to be successful, they will be forced to align themselves with one of the two major parties. This causes a dialectic relationship between the parties where they must be polar opposites of each-other to remain one of the two successful parties. [Around the time of the New Deal](_URL_1_) the political parties made a shift. Prior to this time, Republicans were a party for the fiscally libertarian, which can be seen in the economic policies of the 1920s. Democrats, on the other hand, included much of the 'socially conservative' south. However, with the great depression and the new Democratic President Roosevelt promoting both [Keynesian economic policy](_URL_2_) and policy reform which promoted helping the economically disenfranchised minorities in the south, the Republican party split over whether to support it or not while the old democratic base in the South all suddenly didn't want to be Democrats anymore. In an attempt to gain votes, the Republican Party started promoting the socially conservative message the southern democrats wanted. The cycle of elections during the 1930s saw many of the old urban republicans become new deal democrats and many old southern democrats become new republicans. Other than slight shifts during the early 1980s and early 1990s, we have held the same party alignment ever since. \n\nedit: tl;dr: two parties means they must be opposites of each-other or a third party will take one of their spots. In the 1930s, the Democrats changed, so Republicans followed suit to appeal to the voters Democrats had left behind. \n\nalso, freereflection is right about the rise of christian fundamentalism being a factor.", "Economic conservatives don't give a shit about anything unless it's about them and their money.\n\nKnowing that nothing will sway mouth-breathers like angry populist bullshit, they deliberately began appealing to them on \"red meat\" issues to broaden their coalition. This is the origin of all the Archie Bunker bullshit like \"the lib'ruls are comin' to take yer guns,\" \"abortion is killin' teh babies,\" \"we need a Constitutional Amendment to prevent flag-burnin',\" \"drug dealers should be executed,\" \"the lib'ruls are declarin' 'War on Christmas,'\" et cetera, ad nausea.\n\nThe economic master class, behind closed doors, absolutely *laughs their asses off* at these simple-minded clowns they've managed to trick into voting in complete opposition to their own interests.\n\nIn the modern era this started with the John Birchers, became the Goldwater crowd, and has reached its pinnacle in the last 30 years with the Reaganites/Gingrich crowd. Fools and their money are soon parted, and that's just the way the economic master class likes it.\n\nSadly, it looks like the social conservatives still have no clue how they're being played, even after decades of this.", "In political science terms we don't call it economic conservatism - it's actually a form of liberalism.\n\nRonald Regan for instance was a pioneer in liberal economics - to the point that it was right up with anarchy. \n\nI don't know why, but I would guess the reason it's called economic conservatism in the american media etc - is because of it's links with social conservatism. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Republican_Party#Opposing_the_New_Deal_Coalition:_1932-1980", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Keynesian_and_monetarist_interpretations" ], [], [], [], [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Republican_Party#Opposing_the_New_Deal_Coalition:_1932-1980", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Keynesian_and_monetarist_interpretations" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cub3avp", "cub3c30", "cub3dor", "cub3ibg" ], "score": [ 2, 2, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "The same way that determine that the high level employees won't do it -- very, very thorough background checks.", "Background checks, more background checks, and then even more background checks.\n\nMost of the time, they're not going to be anywhere near the actual president. Even then, there's always security, so if they do something weird, people will notice before they have a chance to go from \"weird\" to \"assassin\". Between the two, they're reasonably sure none of the staff *want* to kill the president nor have the opportunity to if they did.", "Background checks, lots and lots of background checks. Not just on you, but on your family and close friends. \n\nPlus lots of security. Searched going into White House, searched leaving White House. Only allowed in certain areas, you won't see the cook hanging out in the Sit-room. Then at the last line of defense you have the actual SS agent guarding the President. Anyone runs at/tries to attack the President will get taking down very fast. ", "Simple, they have to pass a Yankee-White security check. This is the equivalent (if not stronger) than passing a top security check, though the clearance itself does not grant you the access to any classified material. Everyone who works within the White House must pass this check. It's extremely detailed and extremely difficult to pass.\n\nI had an SH buddy (Ship's Serviceman) in the Navy who operates a store within the White House. The entire vetting process took about 18 months and he was flown from Guam to DC for interviews a handful of times. All of that for just the guy that operates the register and stocks items at the convenience/gift shop in the White House." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c70nyb9", "c70o073", "c70q8ii", "c710ywn" ], "score": [ 35, 341, 15, 2 ], "text": [ "Penguins were once introduced into the Arctic to fill the space left by the now extinct 'Great Auk'.\n\nThey were released with tags attached. One just disappeared and another was shot by a native who believed it was a 'demon'. A few were killed and eaten.\n\nWill try to find source..", "Unfortunately not open access, but [this article](_URL_0_) is about those exact questions.\n\nTwo answers to your questions, from that article:\n\n > If polar bears were transferred to Antarctica could they survive? And would penguins survive in the Arctic?\n\n > Polar bears would probably survive in the Antarctic, and the Southern Ocean around it, but they could devastate the native wildlife. In the Arctic polar bears feed mainly on seals, especially young pups born on ice floes or beaches. Many of the differences in breeding habits between Arctic and Antarctic seals can be interpreted as adaptations to evading predation by bears.\n\n > Polar bears would find plenty of fish-eating mammals and birds around Antarctica. Penguins would tie particularly vulnerable because they are flightless and breed on open ground, with larger species taking months to raise a single chick. Bears can only run in short bursts, but they could catch a fat, sassy penguin chick or grab an egg from an incubating parent.\n\n > In the Arctic polar bears hunt mainly on the edge of the sea ice, where it is thick enough to support their weight but thin enough for seals to make breathing holes. The numerous islands off the north coast of Canada, Alaska and north-west Europe provide plenty of suitable habitats. The Antarctic continent is colder, with only a few offshore islands, so bears would probably thrive at lower latitudes in the Southern Ocean than in the Arctic.\n\n > We can only hope that nobody ever tries what the questioner suggests. Artificially introduced predators often devastate indigenous wildlife, as it is not accustomed to dealing with them. This occurred with stoats in New Zealand, foxes and cats in Australia, and rats on many isolated islands.\nLarge, heavy animals would also trample the slow-growing, mechanically weak plants and lichens of the Antarctic. For instance, Norwegian reindeer have decimated many native plants in South Georgia, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, since they were introduced 80 years ago.\n\n > C. M. Pond\nDepartment of Biological Sciences,\nThe Open University,\nMilton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK\n\nAnd\n\n > While, as far as I know, no one has ever been stupid enough to introduce polar bears into the Antarctic, there have been at least two practical attempts to transplant penguins to the Arctic.\nThe original \"penguin\" was in fact the late great auk (Pinguinus impennis), once found in vast numbers around northern shores of the Atlantic. Although no relation to southern hemisphere penguins, it was very similar in appearance, and filled much the same ecological niche as penguins, particularly the king penguins of the subantarctic region.\n\n > With any attempt to introduce an alien species, there must actually exist an appropriate ecological niche for it to fill, and it must be vacant. For the most part, the ecological niches occupied by penguins in the south are filled by the auk family to the north. But the demise of the great auk in the mid-19th century at the hands of hungry whalers created not only a vacancy that one of the larger penguins might neatly slot into, but also a potential economic demand for the penguin's fatty meat and protein-rich eggs.\n\n > It was perhaps the possible economic opportunities that prompted two separate bids to introduce penguins into Norwegian waters in the late 1930s. The first, by Carl Schoyen of the Norwegian Nature Protection Society, released groups of nine king penguins at Røst, Lofoten, Gjesvaer and Finnmark in October 1936. Two years later, the National Federation for the Protection of Nature, in an equally bizarre operation, released several macaroni and jackass penguins in the same areas, even though these smaller birds would clearly find themselves competing directly with auks or other native seabirds.\n\n > The outcome was unhappy for the experimenters and, most particularly, for the penguins. Among those whose fate is known, one king was quickly despatched by a local woman who thought it was some kind of demon, while a macaroni died on a fishing line in 1944, although from its condition it had apparently thrived during its six years in alien waters.\n\n > And it soon became obvious that the real reason why any attempt to fill the ecological gap left by the great auk was destined to fail was the very reason that the niche was vacant in the first place — such large seabirds could not happily coexist with a large and predatory human population. Of course, it is the steadily increasing human presence in the far south that is now threatening penguins in their native habitat.\n\n > Hadrian Jeffs\nNorwich, Norfolk, UK", "I'm an ecologist. \n\nI will confirm IowaRedditor's excerpts.\n\nPolar bears would destroy the ecosystem in the Antarctic, starting with eradicating the relatively slow reproducing penguins. Complete extirpation in less than 30 years. Easily.\n\nPenguins might be able to survive up north, it would depend on their ability to share food sources with other species, because fish populations are already shrinking in the ocean overall. You likely wouldn't see in increased recruitment rate (% of young that make it to sexual maturity) as a response to higher predation in this situation. They might not need polar bears to be absent in this case because there is other, more prime food source available (seals). They offer more fat, which is predominately what the bears actually eat when they kill them. A lot of seal \"meat\" is left back and arctic (and unfortunately, the ever-expanding red fox) foxes and gulls usually scavenge it up. Unfortunately, the polar bears might find it a trade off to eat more penguin meat because they might be easier to get than seals, even though seals offer more as far as necessary nutrients go.\n\nFYI, OP, there was a north american penguin once upon a time- the Great Auk (_URL_0_). It went extinct in the mid 1800's due to hunting and demand for its down in Europe. It had great insulating properties.\n\nIt's kind of sad, the Great Auk was a super interesting bird that mated for life and only laid one egg at a time. Not very common (except in extreme climates). ", "ahh, experimental zoology, my favorite subject." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725133.000" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ei933sa", "ei958q4" ], "score": [ 3, 5 ], "text": [ "random primers are generally used for sequencing unknown DNA. You take a solution containing completely random oligos and they will bind to and amplify everything. Then once you assemble the sequence you can design specific primers for your region of interest.\n\nAlternatively, since we have already sequenced quite a few genomes, we know that certain sequences (like 16s/18s ribosomal DNA in bacteria/eukaryotes) are almost definitely present and just use primers for these very conserved regions.", "If the genome of the species you are trying to make primers for is well-characterised then the job of designing primers is not hard. \n\nIn humans, while there is a lot of variation between people, the vast majority of a person's DNA is identical to the known human consensus sequence. So if you design a primer to be complementary to a region of DNA, based on the consensus sequence, odds are that any given individual will not have a mutation at that site.\n\nYou can increase your likelihood of success by placing your primer in regions of the gene that are highly conserved (show low levels of variation between people or even across species).\n\nSometimes if you know that a variation exists frequently at a given site, you can even design your primers to only amplify DNA if it is present, so variation/mutation/polymorphism at that site becomes a feature not a bug.\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cu507pe", "cu508ea", "cu55it8", "cu5h1qz", "cu5h8p1", "cu7hza4" ], "score": [ 118, 32, 20, 7, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "He won't become public domain. In 2022 they'll extend how long copyright lasts after the creator's death, just like the last two times.", "This is an ongoing open question in intellectual property law. A lot of people seem to think Disney (and other companies in similar situations) will find a way to continue to extend their rights past whatever dates are established by current laws. They have the money, means, and desire to do so, the thought that it should become public when its clearly still in use is a bit questionable\n\ntl;dr: It probably won't become public domain like other stuff has, Disney is a monster in the legal world and ain't letting that happen.", "Mickey doesn't become public domain. He'll still be trademarked by Disney. Steamboat Willie will become public domain.", "IF I know what I'm talking about:\n\n- Mickey Mouse the character will forever be **trademarked** for as long as the Walt Disney Company exists i.e. you still can't use MM in anything you make.\n\n- But the **copyright** for Steamboat Willie will run out in 2023 i.e. you can do whatever you want with that short and Disney can't do anything about it.\n\n- In conclusion, you trademark intellectual property but you copyright products that uses IP?\n\nCorrect me if I'm wrong.", "Under current US copyright law, Steamboat Willy will enter the public domain in the year 2033 (all of the other answers seemed to get caught up on these points).\n\nAssuming the law isn't amended, when this happens the exclusive rights that the copyright gives to Disney Co will end. Those rights are listed in a part of the law called Title 17 section 106 (usually written as 17 USC 106), and they are: the right to make copies of it, to make sequels/spin offs/etc, and to perform the work.\n\nWhen the first one expires anybody will be able to torrent/burn DVDs of the original short, the third one will make it so theaters and tv stations will be able to play the short without paying royalties. The important thing is the second right, when it expires people will be able to make new things based on the short in the same way that the classic Disney movies were based on fairy tales. This includes the probably includes the characters from the short (Mickey, Minney, and Pete).\n\nGiven how much Mickey had become an emblem of Disney, it'll be a little difficult to tell where the copyright on the character ends and the trademark on the cultural icon begins. That issue will end up being dealt with in the courts. Most likely some people will make Mickey mouse cartoons, Disney will sue on trademark laws, and the courts will issue the largest IP decision since Atari v Activision.\n\nOn mobile sorry for formatting\n\nEdit: On PC fixed cleaned up formatting", "Disney might try to extend the copyright term like they did the past two times as the end of this decade nears. But I don't think it will happen again, for several reasons.\n\nFirst, the rise of the internet and resources like Wikipedia, Google Books, and the Internet Archive have led to greater public exposure to the idea of copyright and the public domain.\n\nSecond, the current copyright extension is already the longest in the world and is patently insane. There is no reason, except greed, for extending it even more.\n\nTech companies like Google are generally in favor of public domain. They have increased their legislative clout in recent years (see SOPA).\n\nI think companies like Disney may go for a compromise this time around. Let Steamboat Willie lapse into PD (they still have trademark on the mouse) and other basic reforms like PDing orphaned works, in exchange for increased enforcement on existing copyright." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ct8ohph", "ct8ohx3", "ct8oimh", "ct8ootn", "ct8otlo" ], "score": [ 11, 11, 26, 3, 4 ], "text": [ "\"ancestor\" in the first sentence refers to a species, \"ancestor\" in the 2nd sentence refers to an individual. Also human ancestry has nothing to do with complexity.", "I'm not sure I fully understand your question. I think you're getting the two uses of ancestor confused here. When we say that all species have a common ancestor we're referring to millions of years back, not their direct ancestors.", " > while human beings are considered to be too complex \n\nThat has been debunked and is only believed by people who either don't understand evolution or refuse to accept that evolution is a fact. \n", "For the first part, we don't really know that for sure, and I don't think they theorize that all life is descended from only one individual. Life could be descended from a species. \n\nFor humans, we also have common ancestors, but our population was never down to just two humans, even if every human alive today is known to be descended from two specific humans: Y-chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. But Y-chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve didn't even live at the same time, and there were many other people living with them at the same time. ", "I think you might be misinterpreting the common ancestor theory.\n\nThe concept as I remember it from science class is that all existing life on earth should be able to be traced back to a single cell organism that eventually mutated in different ways to form modern animals.\n\nFor example:_URL_0_\n\nYou wouldnt think it, but its believed that modern chickens, and birds in general, are descended from dinosaurs. But evolution can do some pretty amazing things if prompted to.\n\nAs for human beings, we have gone through several iterations until you get to a modern day human. Even then we are still very diverse as a species, with the most genetic diversity still existing in Africa.\n\nConsidering common ancestors for humans...if we travel back in time we will see several iterations of that will become a modern human. Some branches of our ancestors split off and became species that dies out, some eventually became modern chimps, and so on. The belief is that our species has been through countless iterations where something minor or major has changed due to mutation (evolution), or natural selection.\n\nThe theory still works, but you have to travel through an insane amount of ancestors until you reach that single cell organism.\n\nMy credentials: I paid attention in biology class, and read alot of science related articles." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [ "http://www.livescience.com/1410-rex-related-chickens.html" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dgwhs1m", "dgwizaj", "dgwj5pc", "dgwj77j", "dgwklh2" ], "score": [ 7, 3, 2, 3, 38 ], "text": [ "SDK stands for Software Development Kit.Which means a platform where you can develop a software within a software/workspace.\nand API is Application program interface which is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API specifies how software components should interact.", "As u/s0cket_err0r said, SDK is software development kit (the things you use to create your program)\n\nAPI is application program interface (the things you use in your program).\n\nLet's consider simple hello world program.\n\n using System;\n \n namespace helloWorld\n {\n class Program\n {\n static void Main(string[] args)\n {\n Console.WriteLine(\"Hello World!\");\n }\n }\n }\n\nin this program the function WriteLine() is part of API libraries. It is a function you use in program to do a thing.\n\nTo make this into a real program, open text editor paste in this short example and save it as lets say _URL_0_ Then open command prompt in the directory where you saved the _URL_0_ file and write\n\n csc _URL_0_\n\ncsc is part of the SDK. You would have to have it correctly set up, which I won't explain here, but basically this tells the computer to take your _URL_0_ file and give it to this csc program to do its thing. csc will create helloWorld.exe which you can run.\n\nhelloWorld.exe internally uses the API libraries (it needs those to be present on the computer) and it no longer needs the SDK to run.\n\nIn reality SDK consists of much more than just the compiler, i. e. debugger or IDE or profiling tools.", "SDK is Software development kit. If you're making something fancy like an Android app, besides general programming tools, you're gonna need some particular tools that help you upload your programs to Android, test these programs on your computer, and all sorts of auxiliary functions that you kinda need to effectively do the developing job. SDK is a collection of these sorta tools for some particular platform(Platform could be Android phones, it could be Playstation consoles, it could be mods of some games, so that you're having SDK to help in creating mods for some game, including things like level editor for said game, model viewer, etc).\n\nAPI is Application Program Interface. Basically, a program can offer an API that allows other programs to talk to it and request stuff from it. How this API works can differ greatly, stuff you can request from a program depends on the program that offers the API, but for example, Reddit offers API where programs can make web request info about posts and comments on Reddit. Another example I know somewhat well is that Chess AIs usually offer API that allows other programs(like programs that show Chess board and allow user to play against themselves) to ask this Chess AI what move Chess AI would make next, thus allowing Chess board showing program to sorta pass messages between player and chess AI and facilitating match between the two. This requires chess AI to offer API, otherwise chess viewing program couldn't talk to chess AI.", "An SDK is a *software development kit* and API stands for application *application programming interface*.\n\nYou can think of an SDK of a box of tools to help you work with a particular product. One of the tools in that box may or may not involve some pre-built stuff for the API pf the product.\n\nAn API is just way for programs to talk with each other, it is a predefined list of commands or queries that can be sent to the program in some way and an explanation of what the answers mean.\n\nIf you want to built your own product to interact with someone elses software you either need to know exactly how the software works on the inside and hope they never ever change anything (this does not really work in real life) or you need access to the API.\n\nMany software makers release the full documentation on the API on their products to the public or select parts of the public to give them the ability to make programs that work with their software.\n\nSometimes they go a bit father and release some pre-written libraries of commands to use that API, so that every developer who wants to work with it doesn't have to rewrite everything from scratch.\n\nThose libraries may be part of a software development kit. The SDK may also include other tools to help you write software for their product.\n\n\n\n", "When you walk into McDonalds, you can order a happy meal & get a nice pre-packaged meal (Burger, fries, toy, etc). But say you wanted to walk into the kitchen and make your own meal - you'd still have to use the ingredients the store has. You can't walk into McD & make a Taco Supreme as part of your meal - it doesn't make sense in their context, they don't know what to do with it. \n\nThe SDK & API is like the menu at mcdonalds. The SDK is the collection of tools & resources you need to build a meal. The API is the list of things you can ask the SDK to do for you - if you ask the McDonalds API for 'slivered onions' it knows how to deliver - whereas the Taco Bell API would have no idea what the hell that means. \n\nIf you don't like what the McDonalds SDK has to offer. You want waffle fries. You can go closer to basics & use the bare Grocery Store SDK. It's a lot more flexible & you can build more, but you're gonna have to do a lot of the basic development yourself that the SDK had pre-packaged for you, like cutting up the potatoes for fries, not to mention the tomatoes and onions etc. \n\nAnd if you wanted to go really crazy you could ditch the Grocery Store SDK & go all the way back to the Subsistence Farming - the Assembly Language of making meals. But now you're talking about growing your own vegetables & slaughtering your own cow - you got a LOT of work ahead of you before you get to that burger. \n\nIt's an imperfect analogy, but hopefully gives you an idea" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "helloWorld.cs" ], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dkkvsqc", "dkkx6ai" ], "score": [ 2, 6 ], "text": [ "We lack the enzyme (chemical) needed to break down cellulose. Our body doesn't produce it.\n\n1. [ELI5:Why does the body not fully digest things like corn and tomato rinds? ](_URL_2_)\n1. [ELI5: Why doesn't the human body digest corn? ](_URL_1_)\n1. [ELI5:What is fiber and what do our bodies do with it? ](_URL_0_)\n", "There are actually almost no animals that can digest fibers! Almost all animals who live off stuff like leaves and grass break them down with the help of symbiotic bacteria that live in their intestines. Humans only have a tiny number of bacteria than can break down cellulose, and they only break down enough of it to feed themselves. As for *why* we don't have these bacteria: probably because digesting that kind of food is not very efficient and you don't get a lot of energy out of it (for instance, I happen to have in my head that guinea pigs get about 40 kcal out of 100 g of hay). With a big energy-hungry brain like ours, it's better to have a digestive tract optimised for energy-dense foods like meat, fruit and starchy things, rather than one that'll be welcoming to cellulose-eating bacteria." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/289c18/eli5what_is_fiber_and_what_do_our_bodies_do_with/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23bqle/eli5_why_doesnt_the_human_body_digest_corn/", "https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37h9ph/eli5why_does_the_body_not_fully_digest_things/" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cb3idjp" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Language like this is usually used for disambiguation. It *can* lead to confusion in the process, but mostly it's to try and *avoid* it. \n\nThere's often some overlap between behaviour. In fact, *most* carnivores will scavenge when given the chance. There just wasn't much hard evidence of this specifically existing for T-Rex, and it's easier to classify animals in 'either / or' groups, than catering to blurry, movable lines. \n\nBear in mind, this find **doesn't** constitute proof, either (and the blogspot article seems a bit biased). There could be numerous explanations for it, not all of which imply active hunting." ] }

[]

[ "http://westerndigs.blogspot.com/2013/07/t-rex-tooth-found-in-dinosaurs-tail.html" ]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cm1i5zg" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "The reason for the time dilation that happens isn't directly due to the black hole itself, it is more to do with how fast the planet needs to orbit the black hole to maintain a stable orbit. If the planet is moving too slow it would just get sucked into the black hole. So for a stable orbit near a black hole that would result in the time dilation as shown in interstellar the planet would need to be moving at a significant portion of the speed of light. (Maybe someone who understands how to calculate time dilation can calculate how fast it was going for 1 hour local to equal 7 years on earth)\n\nAs for the time dilation difference across the planet it would be quite insignificant i.e 1 hour on close side of planet = 6.9999999999999999999 years 1 hour on far side of planet = 7.00000000000001 years\n\nRegarding the rotation of the planet, the gravity shear is pretty high on a black hole, and high gravity sheer can more easily result in an orbital body becoming tidally locked like the earths moon. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "e9shwsf" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "What?\n\nIf I’m interpreting your question right, the two gasses will collect at the positive and negative poles in the circuit. Putting a test tube or some other container in the water over each pole will collect the gases as they bubble up. \n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "co5qriv", "co5r1c4", "co5vfu1" ], "score": [ 23, 136, 12 ], "text": [ "While I'd prefer to wait for a much more qualified person than I am to chime in, I believe it all started with the first Gutenberg Bibles, which had indeed forty-two lines of text over two columns; these, in turn, reflected the way prayer books were written before the adoption of the printing press.\n\nSources:\n\nWell... this is going to be a bit awkward, as I'm currently helping out as an apprentice book-binder; but both Pio Colombo's and Piero Trevisani's *Storia della Stampa* ^1 - as well as my employer - agree with the theory. :-)\n\n^1 in *Enciclopedia Poligrafica*, vol. I (Editrice Raggio, Roma 1953).\n\n", "According to the Bible publisher Crossway (publishers of the English Standard Version), the reasons are threefold:\n\nPrinting in a single column increases the page count by 10 to 25%, which increases how expensive it it to produce.\n\nFor the typical font size, the two columns increases readability (9-12 words per line is considered optimal)\n\nTraditionally, the first printed Bibles were printed with two columns, as were ancient manuscripts handwritten by medieval monks.\n\nHowever, there are some Bible editions written in a single column on the page. I have used several of them, it just depends on how the publisher is sizing the font and how thick they want to make it, and how big the book will be.\n\n_URL_0_", "When the text was translated the two or multiple columns model was an ideal for having the original text side by side with a translation. \n\nIn 235 CE, Origen (a Christian scholar in Alexandria) completed the [Hexapla](_URL_0_), a comprehensive comparison of the ancient versions and Hebrew text side by side in six columns. In the first column was the Hebrew, in the second column was a Greek transliteration of it, then the newer Greek versions each in their own columns. \n\nThe translation of the Septuagint (Greek version of the Bible), by Sir Brenton, published in 1851, based primarily upon the Codex Vaticanus, (the Codex Vaticanus is itself one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament) and was written in *three* columns per page, with 40–44 lines per page, and 16–18 letters per line,) Brenton's model contains the Greek and English texts in two parallel columns. \n\nHence, the two columns model was extremely useful in preserving the original text side by side with the translated text and was done for the most part for the sake of translations, the tradition continued.\n\n*He Palaia Diatheke kata tous Ebdomekonta: the Greek Septuagint Version of the Old Testament according to the Vatican edition, together with the real Septuagint version of Daniel and the Apocrypha including the fourth book of Maccabees and an historical introduction. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1851*.\n\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "http://www.crossway.org/blog/2006/05/two-column-bibles/" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapla" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cyvb7ar", "cyvf7oc", "cyvo0kv" ], "score": [ 8, 33, 4 ], "text": [ "I think you need to define what you mean by \"mentally ill\" more clearly. It is a very broad label. ", "Well you probably don't consider Syria to be western Europe, but I happen to have a source that suggests this was the case in medieval Muslim Syria. The book is a discussion of Medieval Syrian Saints:\n\n\"Certain men outwardly defied the ideals of Muslim piety by living in a state of ritual impurity, wearing filthy garments, and not praying. Yet, the 'marginal holy man' did not represent a distinct class of saints as such. [...] The *muwallah* may be regarded as variously a cross between a borderline mystic, saint, vagabond, charlatan, and healer.\"\n\nMeri translates *muwallah* as 'one who is mad with devotion to God'. It's unclear whether this refers to a person that we would today consider to be mentally ill. Meri quotes from Ibn Taymiyya:\n\n\"It is not possible for anybody to say that this is a friend of God. If this [person] is not insane (*majnun*), then he is a *mutawallih* without possessing insanity, or sometimes he would lose his sense of reasoning while at others regain it, and he does not undertake the religious obligations.\"\n\nMeri relates a few sources regarding one particular *muwallah* called Yusuf al-Qamini, who was apparently a popular healer and miracle worker in Damascus the early 1200s. It seems this was a person who had lost touch with reality but that people saw a power or religious devotion in his ramblings. Meri quotes from a late medieval writer, Ibn al-Hawrani:\n\n\"Yusuf al-Qamini, the *muwallah* whom the common people regard as a *wali* [Saint] Their proof is that he possessed illuminations and spoke words based on intuitions. This is what happens with the soothsayer, the monk, and the madman who has and the madman who has a companion of the *jinn*. This sort of occurrence has increased in our time. God is asked for support. Yusuf used to wallow in his urine, walk barefoot, and repair to the furnace of Nur al-Din's bath. He did not pray.\"\n\nMeri cites a few other examples and goes on to theorize that *muwallah* existed as kind of marginal-charismatic figures. They were on the border between madness and holiness. On the one hand they are recorded as often performing no religious duties (like praying) and doing things that proper religious leader would never do like going outside in soiled or insufficient clothing. Yet on the other hand they associated themselves with religious places and common people thought they might perform miracles and healings. They were beyond the boundaries of normal society, but also involved in it, and in that they possessed a kind of religious charisma. Meri writes:\n\n\"Men and women did not flock to them because they challenged established norms of learning, but rather for their conventional wisdom and because they regarded them as sacred persons who dispensed miracles and possessed a charismatic personality.\"\n\nBut, were these people mentally ill? If somebody today behaved the way these Damascenes did, we would probably regard them as such. However, our modern society doesn't have a category of person that is expected to act in that manner, but the late medieval society of Damascus did, which may have in turn elicited that behavior. So it becomes completely unclear whether a *muwallah* was a person suffering from a medical or psychological condition (schizophrenia, epilepsy?) or rather a highly devoted religious person who felt compelled to act in this manner. Perhaps a combination of both?\n\nYou might find this to be off topic but a relationship between \"marginal\" behavior and holiness is definitely documented in folk variations of Islam, both in the middle ages and into the modern era. \n\nMeri, Josef W. *The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria* Oxford University Press, 2003. The discussion of the *muwallah* can be found in chapter 2, pages 91-100. ", "I'm also really interested in historian's interpretation/ verification of Foucault's claims. Hopefully direct quote from his book would make the question more specific:\n\n > the Fool, or the Simpleton assumes more and more importance. He is no longer simply a ridiculous and familiar silhouette in the wings: he stands center stage as the guardian of truth-playing here a role which is the complement and converse of that taken by madness in the tales and the satires. If folly leads each man into a blindness where he is lost, the madman, on the contrary, reminds each man of his truth; in a comedy where each man deceives the other and dupes himself, the madman is comedy to the second degree: the deception of deception; he utters, in his simpleton’s language which makes no show of reason, the words of reason that release, in the comic, the comedy: he speaks love to lovers, the truth of life to the young, the middling reality of things to the proud, to the insolent, and to liars. Even the old feasts of fools, so popular in Flanders and northern Europe, were theatrical events, and organized into social and moral criticism, whatever they may have contained of spontaneous religious parody.\n\n > In learned literature, too, Madness or Folly was at work, at the very heart of reason and truth. It is Folly which embarks all men without distinction on its insane ship and binds them to the vocation of a common odyssey (Van Oestvoren’s Blauwe Schute, Brant’s Narrenschiff); it is Folly whose baleful reign Thomas Murner conjures up in his Narrenbeschwörung; it is Folly which gets the best of Love in Corroz’s satire Contre fol amour, or argues with Love as to which of the two comes first, which of the two makes the other possible, and triumphs in Louise Labé’s dialogue, Débat de folie et d’amour. Folly also has its academic pastimes; it is the object of argument, it contends against itself; it is denounced, and defends itself by claiming that it is closer to happiness and truth than reason, that it is closer to reason than reason itself; Jakob Wimpfeling edits the Monopolium philosophorum, and Judocus Gallus the Monopolium et societas, vulgo des lichtschiffs. Finally, at the center of all these serious games, the great humanist texts: the Moria rediviva of Flayder and Erasmus’s Praise of Folly. And confronting all these discussions, with their tireless dialectic, confronting these discourses constantly reworded and reworked, a long dynasty of images, from Hieronymus Bosch with The Cure of Madness and The Ship of Fools, down to Brueghel and his Dulle Griet; woodcuts and engravings transcribe what the theater, what literature and art have already taken up: the intermingled themes of the Feast and of the Dance of Fools. Indeed, from the fifteenth century on, the face of madness has haunted the imagination of Western man.\n\n > A sequence of dates speaks for itself: the Dance of Death in the Cimetière des Innocents doubtless dates from the first years of the fifteenth century, the one in the Chaise-Dieu was probably composed around 1460; and it was in 1485 that Guyot Marchant published his Danse macabre. These sixty years, certainly, were dominated by all this grinning imagery of Death. And it was in 1494 that Brant wrote the Narrenschiff; in 1497 it was translated into Latin. In the very last years of the century Hieronymus Bosch painted his Ship of Fools. The Praise of Folly dates from 1509. The order of succession is clear.\n\n > In its various forms—plastic or literary—this experience of madness seems extremely coherent. Painting and text constantly refer to one another—commentary here and illustration there. We find the same theme of the Narrentanz over and over in popular festivals, in theatrical performances, in engravings and woodcuts, and the entire last part of the Praise of Folly is constructed on the model of a long dance of madmen in which each profession and each estate parades in turn to form the great round of unreason. It is likely that in Bosch’s Temptation of Saint Anthony in Lisbon, many figures of the fantastic fauna which invade the canvas are borrowed from traditional masks; some perhaps are transferred from the Malleus maleficarum. As for the famous Ship of Fools, is it not a direct translation of Brant’s Narrenschiff, whose title it bears, and of which it seems to illustrate quite precisely canto XXVII, also consecrated to stigmatizing “drunkards and gluttons”? It has even been suggested that Bosch’s painting was part of a series of pictures illustrating the principal cantos of Brant’s poem.\n\nquote from **Foucault, M., Madness and Civilization**\n\nAre you familiar with these artifacts? Do you agree with Foucault's interpretation that they indicate a general social attitude which treated madness with inclusion, and in fact, as a significant source of meaning/ truth?" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cbvcpie", "cbvcr47" ], "score": [ 10, 5 ], "text": [ "Gluons are massless.\n\nProtons and neutrons get a percent or so of their mass from the Higgs effect (which gives a small mass to the up and down quarks), and the rest of their mass from the strong force fields (primarily) that bind those quarks together (and the strong force field is made of gluons).\n\nFinally: the Higgs boson does not give any particles mass. The Higgs effect causes certain particles to get a mass by their interaction with the Higgs field that fills space. The Higgs boson itself and the Higgs field that fills space are both consequences of the fact that there is a fundamental Higgs field.", "The Higgs field is responsible for the masses of fundamental particles that couple to it (which happens to account for the masses of all massive particles of the standard model). These include the quarks and leptons (electrons and neutrinos) as well as the W and Z bosons that mediate the weak nuclear force. Gluons do not couple to the Higgs boson and are actually massless.\n\nThe key to understanding the mass of the proton lies with the fact that it is not a fundamental particle but rather a bound state. This means that the proton is basically a complicated mess of quarks and gluons. Most of the mass comes from the fact that these quarks and gluons interact with each other and these interactions have energy associated with them in the same way that chemical bonds have energy associated with them. When looking at a proton from far away this binding energy is expressed as mass." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "ciurvin", "ciuu5jp", "ciuxe8h", "ciuyyf5" ], "score": [ 9, 2, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "It's a misconception that stars are in the center of a stellar system. \n\nIn such systems, all objects are orbiting around a common center of mass, the so called barycenter. Is the system a planetary system like ours, the barycenter is inside or close to the mother star, not because \"it has to be like that\", but because basically all the mass of our solar sytem (99,9%) is inside the sun. Because of that, ti's usually enough to say, that the sun is the center of our solar system, although in fact it isn't (jupiters mass is enough to let the barycenter be outside of the sun).\n\nHowever most stellar systems aren't quite like our own one, with a single star and some planets revolving around it. Most stars are in a binary or even multiple star system and as a stars mass is far higher than a planets mass, the barycenter is much further away from each star than it is in our system from the sun. So the answer to your question is: In our own galaxy it is rather unlikely, that a star is in or close the the center of it's stellar system. It is believed that about 70% of all stars in the milky way are in a binary or multiple star system. \n\nAsking if a star could orbit a planet becomes needless, because as already said, both objects revolve around the barycenter and not one rotates around the other. A planet however can never have a mass higher than a star, because if it would, it would start fusion and therefore become a star aswell. The size doesn't matter either. It is thinkable that a gaseous planet can be bigger in size than a very small star, however the star would still contain more mass. \n\nI hope, that cleared out the topic.", "Planets and stars orbit their mutual center of mass. Stars are usually so much more massive than planets that they are pretty much the center of the system. But they do wobble, in fact that is one way to detect planets orbiting stars - you look at the star's light to see if it is wobbling.\n\nPerhaps though you are asking if planets HAVE to orbit stars. The galaxy is pretty big, the answer is probably no. Even if planets have to form around stars (not really known), they could sometimes be ejected from their star system. So, there are probably planets that are alone, or maybe planets orbiting each other. They would be obviously hard to find, because they would be very dim (planets don't really emit much light, duh). But we've found a couple known rogue planets. It was once briefly wondered if rogue planets, rocks, dust, etc was a portion of the dark matter, but we now know that can't be.\n\n_URL_0_", "As a practical matter, stars (or black holes) are generally going to gravitationally dominate when they are present. It's a simple matter of abundance. There's much more Hydrogen and Helium in the Universe than heavier elements. So if you have a situation where a star forms then you're going to have a much smaller mass of material to make rocky planets. If you had a gas giant planet like Jupiter (which has basically the same composition as a star) but was heavier than an actual star then it would just be a star itself.\n\nRocky planets more massive than stars are hard to imagine forming naturally, by any means.", "Fun fact: It's entirely possible to have a planetary only system in which there was never enough mass to form a star. \n\nThen you could have a big Jupiter of some kind at the middle being orbited by some rocky planets...all of it very cold and dark flying through the void.\n\nThese would be called \"sub-brown dwarf stars\" or \"Rogue planetary systems\"" ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet" ], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "csoaer5", "csq9nf0" ], "score": [ 29, 2 ], "text": [ "There was a time when Jazz was not fancy, there was a time when it was considered a corrupting influence. It was linked to crime, drugs, insanity, promiscuity... \n\nCheck [this article](_URL_0_) published in Ladies Home Journal, August 1921.\n\nRacism was obviously a component in the prejudice against that music (and some others that were put in the same category).\n\n", "Basic popularity eras:\n\n1896-1912 Ragtime Era\n\nThis is when rag was at its peak. They were using it even in London (*The Nightside of London*), though not where High Society gathered.\n\n1912-1919 Tango Era\n\nThis is the time when tango was the new thing (1912 in America debuted the fame of the *Titanic*, Tarzan & tango). It was racy and radical. It continued to be danced into the 1920s, but it wasn't rebellious then.\n\n1919-1934 Hot Jazz Era\n\nJazz went from the underground to the inescapable, especially it was promulgated by radio. That eventually sent it into every corner of the land, much to the horror of conservative parents. There were many levels and flavours of jazz. It was majorly popularized by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. Interestingly, in his first autobio Rudy Vallée says Whiteman didn't play real jazz, just \"syncopated orchestral music.\" He didn't claim to do real jazz himself, but most of us use \"jazz\" more inclusively. \n\n1934-1944 Swing Era\n\nI date this from when Benny Goodman broke big as a national phenomenon. Musical styles are always in existence before they get out of very small circles of listeners. In swing there was sweet swing and hot swing. Your parents wouldn't object to a sweet swing band like Guy Lombardo.\n\n1944-1954 Cool Jazz Era\n\nIts like WW2 broke down and tired out bands. That and anyone gets bored doing the same thing. Still, Goodman did say later that be-bop was a mistake.\n\n1954-1964 Rock'n'roll Era\n\nI don't have to tell you about this.\n\nNotice that except the Argentine tango, all this sound originated in American black music. Rock'n'roll came out of country swing, but that came out of country , blues & swing. But we also need to note that they break big after they begin being taken up by white or mixed bands. It took Elvis to take rock out of \"race music.\" Same thing with forms of jazz, to move it out of small markets.\n\nIn Europe, this is in spades. The jazz is uncultured American, as well as black. This makes it even racier and more rebellious.\n\nIn fascist Europe, kids who took up swing usually did so via its British forms and recordings. It became very serious rebellion, actual resistance, in Nazi Germany and occupied France. Savage' *Teenage: The Prehistory of Youth Culture: 1875-1945* has chapters on this.\n" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=sol334hPuRoC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=Ladies+Home+Journal+jazz&source=bl&ots=FBNG-CXoAN&sig=XZWKcDrQ2WGfLXrF9CEgc-3yVPU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gFKTVcCLM8faoASkk7aABw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Ladies%20Home%20Journal%20jazz&f=false" ], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cgubaui", "cgul3v2", "cgutzmm" ], "score": [ 7, 2, 3 ], "text": [ "I'll take your more specific question. \n\nThe sources I've read about the creation of parks in cities (specifically Central Park, which I'll look through my house to find) shows that during the 19th Century there was some municipally centered demands to create jobs, but this was not to create jobs in and of itself, but for the purpose of creating, as stated, public parks.\n\nThe New Deal was really the time when the idea of \"job creation\" came into its own. Before this time the dominant school of economic thought was the Classical School (Smith, Ricardo, etc) which denied the existence of involuntary unemployment. Basically most people believed that unemployment could only result from people refusing to work below certain wages, not that in economic crises people could be out of work and unable to find it again. \n\nHowever, by 1933, that was proving to be untrue, John Maynard Keynes also helped by basically disproving it completely in \"The General Theory.\" At this point the Roosevelt Administration were looking for some way to alleviate the crisis, and eventually started the programs composing the New Deal in 1933. A whole portion of the basic program was Relief: meaning job creation through public works to decrease unemployment. After that Keynesian thought dominated economic thought, especially the idea of job creation. ", "Could you specify where? Like, Europe? The United States? In Spain, I know of documents as far back as the eighteenth century that use liberal rationalization for governments directly intervening in the economy, and many of those documents also considered a sort of social contract of labor, calling for the government to ensure that people are able to find work and demanding that those who can work be forced to (essentially the type of logic that was the root of subsequent anti-vagrancy laws throughout the nineteenth century in the British and Spanish Americas). ", "I think your question could be better phrased by reversing it: when did it become expected that governments *should not attempt* to intervene in economics? I'd argue that it's only been in the recent liberal era that governments were not expected to intervene.\n\nAs far as I know, as far back as ancient Athens there was some system of welfare. Citizens who attended the assemblies for a full day were remunerated, to ensure that even poor citizens could participate in the democratic process. Additionally, (many) public offices were doled out by lottery to the citizen body. While it did not give everyone a stable or long-term job, it at least provided some citizens with a livelihood.\n\nLet's also not forget that in Feudal times, lords were expected to provide care and residence for their serfs. Of course, it was not the \"state\" per se that took care of the serfs, but certainly the manor system in Europe can be seen as a micro-governmental system, especially given the frailty of feudal states. While serfdom was by no means an ideal labour system, it of course offered a stability that disappeared with the rise of the global capitalist system." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c87cw5h", "c87ibl8" ], "score": [ 62, 16 ], "text": [ "Child marriage was never really \"appropriate\" in Western culture; it barely happened. According to parish records, the average age for marriage was between 17 and 25 across much of Europe in the middle ages. The average age for women was 20 to 26 in Elizabethan England, and many writers of the time condemned child marriages.\n\nChild betrothals were performed between aristocratic families to cement dynasties but it was never a common practice, and they usually waited until at least early adulthood before marriages took place (since children often died). There are of course exceptions among the nobility, as with Henry VII's mother [giving birth to him when she was just 13] (_URL_0_).\n\nYou'll find pedophilia apologists trying to argue that marriage and sex between adults and children was \"normal\" in the middle ages, but this doesn't hold up to fact. It didn't make sense for an adult to marry a child, neither socially nor economically, and marrying children to one another before they've had a chance to establish themselves and their skills didn't make much sense either.\n\nThe stuff about average marriage ages in 16th- and 17th- c. England comes from *Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cyle in Tudor and Stuart England*, by David Cressy. *Medieval Households* by David Herlihy has something similar to say about the High Middle Ages.\n\nI'll defer to a good friend of mine who has this to say about early modern Jewish marriages, which sometimes took place between 12-14 year olds for several very important reasons:\n\n > First, unlike Christians, most Jews didn't own land. Their property was more often in the form of businesses and the goods involved in them. That means some of the most important things parents could bequeath their children also took the form of the experience, knowledge, and connections (quite) young couples would need to make their own livings. When couples married young, parents could take an active part in the early years of their marriages, show them how to manage their money and their business affairs, and set them up with houses and in their professions. Perhaps unsurprisingly when you consider how young they were, a lot of young couples spent the first years of their marriage living under the roof of the bride or groom's parents. The short answer is that for many well-off-ish Jewish couples looking to the future of their children, their inheritance required a lot more direct involvement than, say, the inheritance of a farm.\n\nI have limited knowledge and I may be wrong, but I hope this was helpful.", "A bit of a c/p I did last month, but I'm going to go one step further than Wolfalice and say it never happened, but that will depend on what is meant by 'marriage'. From the middle ages to the Early Modern period, the Catholic church tended to leave the age of consent to the area in which it operated. The majority places put the age of consent at a minimum of 12 to the mid teens, and some 'barbarian' tribes had that in the early 20's.\n\nAround 1150, a jurist named Gratian put together what is known as the [Decretum Gratiani](_URL_0_), which laid down a [couple of rules for marriage](_URL_3_), namely that both parties to the marriage had to be able to consent verbally to what was going on. Previously the mere existence of your presence was enough, but Gratian forced the verbal aspect. So you could be betrothed at the earliest age of 7, but this was only part of the process, as you then have to be at the age of consent (aetus nubilis) which was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. To be 'properly' married meant consummation, and that was fixed at the age of puberty which coincidentally was about 12 for girls, 14 for boys. So to wit:\n\n1. Get arranged with some girl (minimum 7, but often much older)\n2. Consent to the marriage (12 for girls, 14 for boys)\n3. Disregard currency, acquire females (puberty) \n\nGratian was really interested in the 'consent' part of the process which is why you had to be old enough to understand what was happening to get married. The other question is 'what does puberty mean?' \n\nPope Gregory IX decided that there were too many [decretals](_URL_1_) (pontifical letters) floating about and that they needed to be collated - so in the easiest historical date to remember, around 2000 decretals were published in 1234 in what was known as the *Decretales Gregorii IX* or as most people understand know it, *Liber extra*. This is where puberty is discussed in lots of excruciating detail. 14 letters from various popes discussed what puberty meant. Archbishop Isodore [said](_URL_3_) (you'll have to search for his name) that:\n > Pubescents are called from \"pubis\" that is, they are named from the pudenda of the body when these places first bring forth soft hair. Some think puberty depends on age, that is, when a boy has completed fourteen years he is pubescent, even when he becomes pubescent very late. But he certainly is pubescent when he shows puberty from the appearance of his body and is able to procreate. Girls are pubescent who can bear during the years of puberty.\n\nSo there you have one of the many descriptions of what counts as puberty.\n\nCuriously, simply because you were able to have sex and procreate didn't necessarily mean that you should. Hilderburg of Bingen and Albertus Magnus stated that having children too early would result in weak offspring, so it was often suggested that while you could have children/sex, don't, as your 'seed' would be too weak.\n\n\nTL:DR: You could be married as a child, but no hanky-panky took place until you hit puberty.\n\nFor more mediaeval marriage mayhem, check out [Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, c.1270-c.1540 by Kim M. Philips](_URL_2_) although there are a number of other books floating around." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Beaufort,_Countess_of_Richmond_and_Derby" ], [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decretum_Gratiani", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decretal", "http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medieval-Maidens-England-1270-1540-Manchester/dp/071905964X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354701401&sr=1-3", "http://faculty.cua.edu/Pennington/Canon%20Law/marriagelaw.htm#CASE_THIRTY-ONE_" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dazl7u6", "dazlcjo" ], "score": [ 4, 2 ], "text": [ "From an economic standpoint, there is a theory that this will actually increase album sales. It is based on the idea that psychologically, you want to do something for someone who gives you something. So, naturally, the thing to do in this situation is to buy the album, even if you can listen to it for free.\n\nAdditionally, singers traditionally don't make that much from album sales as opposed to what they make from concert tickets. By giving away songs, the singer hopes it will make you more likely to come see him/her in concert.", "Have you ever heard of YouTube monetization system? They can get money from the ad that plays before the music starts, at next to no cost." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cfdk9zh" ], "score": [ 60 ], "text": [ "This is a vague question and has many different points that can and should be considered. But in all, I will do my best to provide an answer to a general battle during the early Medieval period. First and foremost, open battles happened quite infrequently. I mean, very rarely did to opposing forces march to an open field, size each other up and then proceed to give them the business. With that being said...\n\n\nAny armed force that moves about is going to comprise a long chain of soldiers, wagons, tents and various supporters and retainers. Squires and horses for nobility. Each noble or knight could have a couple horses. Blacksmiths. Fletchers. Cooks and pages to prepare food. Some form of surgeon would be present for those of the upper echelon. And the best part is that almost none of these people would see a battle. They would be at a camp that was nearby. Also, we have to remember that a majority of the forces would be levies from the feudal estates of various lords, barons, knights, aka the landed gentry. The levies typically are only there fighting after the planting season and before the harvest (between spring and fall). They are more often conscripted to fight for their lord or face punishment. They don't have retainers or squires to help carry stuff or their equipment. They carry it themselves. They end up feeding themselves. They also typically walked everywhere without the chance to ride a horse.\n\n\nAs for a battle, it depends in large part to location, weather and position. Battles do and don't last very long. Some battles are very fast and over quickly due to a complete breakdown in morale if heavy cavalry is involved or if an ambush is sprung. Battles could last days if there were an open field siege (Hussite Wars where the Bohemians created wagon forts to defend from with spears, crossbows and early gun powder weapons).\n\n\nI digress, so I will list some assumptions - this battle is part of a larger conflict between two European crowns; the armies are comprised of the typical feudal arrangement of relatively few nobles and knights in comparison to the levies that make up a large portion of spear troops that are lightly armed; the armies themselves are being led by a semi-important to important general with some relation to the royal family (blood or political); last, we will assume this was a straightforward battle without much in regard to trickery, flanking or betrayal - good ole fashioned battle between two armies and only a few nearby villages or towns.\n\n\nIn medieval battle, the goal was not to destroy the enemy completely, although that would have been a bonus if you were invading or defending lands. It was much more important to route or break an enemy army and then take prisoners of worth for ransom. A member of the royal family or someone important in the aristocracy could be ransomed and pay for an entire campaign or fighting season. Lesser lords and nobles would obviously bring less in terms of ransom, but their household or the crown would actually pay the ransom. The peasant levies would still be captured as they pose a potential threat if left behind enemy lines. The levies carried no real worth for ransom except to their feudal lord - the lord would still need to have people available for harvest after the fighting season. As a battle ends, one army is broken and retreats. There will be a time during the evening that people are sent forward to locate anyone important that might have fallen (see articles regarding Charles of Burgundy being located after his last battle and identified because of his scars). Both sides of the conflict would send out these people, also comprised of monks or priests to provide last rights to the dying. Each army would have returned to their respective camps after the battle to assess damage, losses, gains, prisoners, potential ransoms, etc. This would then play into the next parlay between the forces - basically a way to say...\"I have this person and these lords, what will you trade me for them?\"\n\nQuick and dirty version - the armies will withdraw from the field to their own camps, prisoners have been captured and their ransom value assessed. People will check for others on the battlefield that have fallen but have not yet died. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c2g61eb", "c2g61eb" ], "score": [ 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Did you dye it brown? When you lighten hair with a bleach, it does damage it and makes it more vulnerable to harsh chemicals (shampoos) radiation (the sun), wind and any other stress. Also if you dyed it brown, the dye would likely fade off revealing the bleached hair underneath.\n\nMost dark hair has some red/gold/coppery undertones. A lot of the girls in Asia lighten their hair and so their hair all has the same reddish tint. Ditto Latinas.\n\nFYI, Once when I lightened my normally dark hair to a medium brown color and while I was standing in line to pay for lunch at a cafeteria, I looked up and saw myself on the surveillance camera monitor screen, and my hair looked perfectly blond!\n\nI asked someone about this and was told it probably had something to do with the \"infra red\" camera.", "Did you dye it brown? When you lighten hair with a bleach, it does damage it and makes it more vulnerable to harsh chemicals (shampoos) radiation (the sun), wind and any other stress. Also if you dyed it brown, the dye would likely fade off revealing the bleached hair underneath.\n\nMost dark hair has some red/gold/coppery undertones. A lot of the girls in Asia lighten their hair and so their hair all has the same reddish tint. Ditto Latinas.\n\nFYI, Once when I lightened my normally dark hair to a medium brown color and while I was standing in line to pay for lunch at a cafeteria, I looked up and saw myself on the surveillance camera monitor screen, and my hair looked perfectly blond!\n\nI asked someone about this and was told it probably had something to do with the \"infra red\" camera." ] }

[]

[ "http://imgur.com/gKJHQ" ]

[ [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cdwa6fu" ], "score": [ 11 ], "text": [ "Many of the customs survived. If you go by John Thornton's Africans and the Making of the Atlantic World, many of the Slaves, though coming from different kingdoms had many language and religious similarities. So when new Africans arrived in the United States there was little trouble in recreating a society they knew. The biggest change is that it was in the context under English masters. The result is something of a creole culture that combines many elements of AFrica and Anglo culture. Gullah is an example of a language that survives to this day and is a creation of this cultural mix. To hear it go here _URL_0_ . Gullah is still spoken today in parts of Charleston South Carolina.\n\nIra Berlin gives a little different view in \"Many Thousands Gone\". He states that the Middle Passage, the carrying of slaves from Africa to America, was such a harrowing experience that it more or less shattered the slave psyche. This combined with large language differences made the reconstruction of African culture very difficult, instead entirely new cultures were developed.\n\nOut of the two of them, I would say Thornton was more correct, as he is an African historian and would be more knowledgeable about African cultural differences.\n\nElements of African culture still pervade African American society today, I would doubt that any of it has been truly \"lost\"." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijl7Sg3ZAd0" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cngtpas", "cngtrv6", "cngttsz", "cngv5mg", "cngwdra" ], "score": [ 3, 2, 3, 2, 2 ], "text": [ "Some people drive faster than others. Passing on the driver's side is usually safer, which usually means passing on the left.\n\nAll the people merging in and out tend to slow down the outside lanes a bit, too.", "In many states, traffic laws are in place requiring slow moving traffic to keep to the right most lane. This makes the slow lane slower than the speed limit and the fast lane move at or above the speed limit.", "Legally, in theory the idea is that not everyone is going to go *exactly* the speed limit. It's the limit-- you can't go over it, but you can go varying degrees under it. So some people will go 65, some will go 60, and the people going 65 need to pass the ones going 60 to avoid congestion.\n\nPractically, everyone understands not everyone's really going to abide by the speed limit and it'll clear traffic to let the people going 75 have a lane to pass. This also helps alleviate aggressive drivers who want to go 75 tailgating those who want to obey the speed limit.", "For a start, some vehicles are restricted to speeds lower than the speed limit and some people are just more comfortable cruising at a slightly lower speed. Remember, it is a limit not a minimum target.", "In GA the speed limit on the interstate is most often 70, the minimum speed limit is 40. This means there is 30 mph rate options for a driver without breaking the law. So you need to establish rules so that slower drivers are not causing congestion or dangerous conditions. And yes, you can get a ticket for going too slow in the fast lane, it's a form of reckless driving IIRC. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [], [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cvcjw5f" ], "score": [ 3 ], "text": [ "Subconscious mind solves it for you with all of the acquired knowledge and experience. This won't happen if you've no knowledge. " ] }

[]

[]

[ [] ]

{ "a_id": [ "chrbri0", "chrbwdr", "chrdss5", "chrdtzb" ], "score": [ 8, 101, 3, 2 ], "text": [ "Are you thinking of a specific case or are wondering if this has ever happened?", "A slightly different scene. The Ottoman emperor Murad II abdicated his throne in favour of his son Mehmed II (aged 12). Murad wanted to pursue the beauty of the life, poetry and was fed up with government work. But when his son Mehmed II took over, there was an imminent danger of a crusade (christian coalition) to take over the Balkans. \n\nNow after this point there are two different view points as to what exactly happened. \n\n1. Some scientists claim that Mehmed II wrote a letter to his father stating \"If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies.\"\n\n2. Some write that the prime minister (vezir) at the time convinced Murad to come back and take over the throne because of the imminent danger. And so Murad just came back to capital and continued his rule until his death. The same prime minister (vezir) was executed shortly after Mehmed conquered Constantinople because it is claimed that Mehmed always held a grudge against him. \n\nIn case of Ottomans they just continued their rule. ", "This is also a slightly different scenario, but something like this did take place in Ming Dynasty China. The Zhengtong Emperor (ruled 1435-49 initially) was a young and impressionable ruler who was convinced by his chief eunuch/crony Wang Zhen to launch an expedition against the Oirat Mongols, who had formed a confederation under a leader named Esen. Esen was seen as dangerous because the Mongols were considered the primary threat to the Ming, having ruled all of China until 1368. Although they had been kicked out, the threat of their regaining strength and retaking China loomed greatly Thus the expedition against Esen was seen as a good way to neutralize a growing threat and to enhance Zhengtong's (and Wang Zhen's) personal prestige.\n\nThe campaign, personally led by Zhengtong, was ill-conceived. Many officials begged the emperor not to undertake it, but Wang Zhen overruled them. When it set out in August 1449, it was disorganized and chaotic, and it wasn't long before even Wang Zhen realized that they would be no match for Esen's well-trained forces. The army withdrew, but Esen's pursuing forces ambushed them at Tumu Pass on 1st September.\n\nIt was an unprecedented catastrophe. The entire army was destroyed, Wang Zhen was killed and Zhengtong taken prisoner. \n\nThis was unprecedented. In China's entire history, no ruler of a united China had ever been taken prisoner before. There was panic in Beijing, but the Minister of War, Yu Qian, convinced the court to put Zhengtong's younger brother on the throne to continue the functioning of government. They agreed and the young man became the Jingtai Emperor.\n\nThis was a difficult issue indeed. Chinese ideological orthodoxy maintained that could only be one \"true\" emperor at a time, and this dilemma only increased after Esen rather sheepishly released Zhengtong in 1450, realizing that Jingtai's continuing rule meant his captive was not a strong bargaining chip. Zhengtong returned to Beijing, but was not reinstated, being given a small stipend to live on, assigned a few rooms in the palace and then ignored by everyone.\n\nHowever, as Jingtai lay dying in 1457, a coup by disgruntled officials restored Zhengtong to the throne and Jingtai died soon after, possibly suffocated on someone other than the emperor's orders. Zhengtong became the Tianshun Emperor in his second reign and lived on until 1465.\n\nA final, fairly amusing point: Zhengtong/Tianshun's posthumous title was Yingzong, or \"the Heroic Ancestor\". Given the total failure of his military exploits, I'd like to think it was meant ironically. \n\nSource: F.W. Mote's *Imperial China: 900 -1800* ", "Sorry, we don't allow [throughout history questions](_URL_0_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again. Alternatively, you may PM /u/caffarelli to have your question considered for an upcoming [Tuesday Trivia](_URL_1_) thread." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [], [], [ "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_.22in_your_era.22_or_.22throughout_history.22_questions", "http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/features/trivia" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "c9vh6sz" ], "score": [ 2 ], "text": [ "Sleep involves increased secretion of growth hormone, which does stimulate increased protein synthesis in skeletal muscle.\n\n_URL_0_" ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "d0c58b1" ], "score": [ 17 ], "text": [ "The bottom line is, yes, there was definitely a racist root to much of it. One of the concerns of the Supreme Court in the infamous Dredd Scott case was that if blacks were citizens, then it would give, horror of horrors, \"to persons of the negro race ... the full liberty of speech ...; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.\" You can imagine how well the concept of armed blacks went over down South.\n\nFortunately, there were plenty of laws on the books prohibiting certain people from being armed, such as one to \"prohibit any negro or mulatto from having fire-arms.\", as addressed by the deliberation for the Civil Rights Act 1866. For more details on the problems occasioned by the 14th Amendment and the fact that the white government could no longer blatantly say that blacks couldn't have guns, check here. _URL_0_\n\nAs a result, modern gun laws came to be crafted a little more creatively. If it was unconstitutional to blatantly say \"Whites can carry guns, blacks can't\", then they had to find more ethereal ways around it. For example, laws on the carriage of concealed weapons could be...discretionary. California's current one is a case in point. The San Francisco Chronicle article on the matter back in 1923 (available about half-way down this PDF _URL_1_ ) is quite open about how the law was carefully crafted to try to avoid unConstitutionality issues. The target in this case was not blacks, but Asians and Latinos. The still-extant law requires that the Sheriff decide that the applicant for a firearm show 'good cause' and 'be of good moral character', a very subjective assessment which, back in the days, effectively meant 'you're white', but today the application of the law has gone more to a race-neutral position based on whether or not the Sheriff likes the idea of an armed private citizenry.\n\nOf course, not all gun control laws were racist. For example, back in the day, it was considered that carrying a firearm concealed was the act of a scourge and scoundrel, and that honest gentlemen carried them openly, this applied to all regardless of race." ] }

[]

[ "https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html" ]

[ [ "http://www.guncite.com/journals/senhal14.html", "http://www.hoffmang.com/firearms/AB263-Hawes-1923.pdf" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "cjz8ex8" ], "score": [ 8 ], "text": [ "They use the same character, 元. That's it. It's a common character, meaning \"round\" or \"round coin\".\n\nTo elaborate, the Yuan dynasty was a period of Mongol rule over China, from c. 1260 (de facto, 1271 officially) to 1368 (1380 if you count the Northern Yuan dynasty when the Mongols retreated to Mongolia after Kublai Khan's death and subsequently being driven out of China.\n\n***\n\nThe Chinese Yuan, referring to the currency, 圆 formally but commonly the above character, is the basic unit of Chinese currency, much like the dollar is to many other currencies of the world. It was first minted during the Qing dynasty between 1888 and 1898 in various provinces.\n\nWhile the modern rendering is officially rénmínbì (人民币) or People's Currency, in daily use 元 is far more common, or kuài (块) or \"piece\" in certain parts of China.\n\nReferences: \n_URL_0_ \n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_3_ \n_URL_2_\n\nEdited for formatting." ] }

[]

[]

[ [ "http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/china/china.htm", "http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=The_Mongol_Empire", "http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/06/21/yuan-or-renminbi-whats-the-right-word-for-chinas-currency/", "http://www.kenelks.co.uk/chinese/chinesedragon.htm" ] ]

{ "a_id": [ "dmetc5l", "dmeyyz9" ], "score": [ 9, 8 ], "text": [ "More sunlight is a good thing for the tree, as long as it can get enough water. Other trees don't spread out so much because the competition makes it a wasted effort, but in the Savannah the chance of two trees thriving right next to each other is lower. It's easier for a single tree to reach deep enough with its roots to hit water, and then take advantage of the clear sky above.", "Trees tend to maximize their sun exposure, and they also tend to grow outwards if they are not constrained by their neighbors.\n\nIn the tropics maximum sun exposure is more-or-less top-down and trees make broad crowns when they can.\n\nAll else being equal tall narrow trees tend to be found far to the north or the south were maximum sun exposure means collecting sunshine from a low angle rather than top-down.\n\nCompare [this tropical conifer, a Parana Pine,](_URL_6_) with these [conifers growing in a far northern taiga forest](_URL_2_). The latter photo also highlights another issue, tropical trees, by and large, don't have to deal with snow and ice load breaking them.\n\nAs u/HardlightCereal mentioned, water is a limiting resource and may help to keep the trees you are thinking of ([I'm assuming you're imagining something like one of the Acacia trees](_URL_3_)) spread out widely enough that they don't get in each other's way and inhibit growth. You see something very similar in California with [oaks growing in the California grasslands](_URL_0_). \n\nOne big difference between those examples is that the Acacia trees in the part of Africa you're thinking of are grazed by large animals with a good reach (elephants and giraffes, to name two of the biggest ones). They trim off the lower branches, forcing the tree to grow upward to survive. Once it reaches a height safe from grazing it can spread out to capture maximal sun. California doesn't have any large grazers with a reach like that anymore and the trees no-longer are shaped as much by grazing. Cattle and deer will crop the what they can reach though, leaving trees flat bottomed, [as can be seen on this oak in Florida](_URL_5_).\n\nEDIT: as a side note, you probably mean the [Sahel](_URL_4_) rather than the [Sahara](_URL_1_)." ] }

[]

[]

[ [], [ "https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f9/b8/80/f9b880284e84d54244d899e162923eef.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara", "https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e0/48/b9/e048b931e652b4adeb736c340e21d7cb.jpg", "https://afktravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/shutterstock_137959859.jpg", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahel", "http://www.southeastfarmpress.com/sites/southeastfarmpress.com/files/styles/article_featured_standard/public/uploads/2016/08/oaks.gif?itok=wmsefqmV", "http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/A9/A919EF8D-CD81-4430-A42A-561483C6A51C/Presentation.Large/Parana-pine-trees-in-open-field.jpg" ] ]