/u/bigmapblog's posts
Is there any historical precedent for a pre-modern culture constructing elaborate mechanical traps (as seen in many films such as "Goonies" or in various "Indiana Jones" films) that are disarmable by an artifact or by a sequence of actions? Where does this common film trope come from?
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Why did the Soviet military maintain the Officer/Enlisted class binary rather than instituting some other hierarchichal structure? How did they ideologically justify maintaining two distinct and separate classes, one privileged over the other, in an army putatively fighting for a classless society?
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When did the population of the city of Rome reach its lowest level (post-fall)? How many people lived there, who were they, and what were they doing? What was life in Rome like when it had hit the absolute bottom?
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Do some points in our universe have more "observable universe" than others? Where is peak/minimum "observable universe"? Does this have implications for the science that can be done there? Would a species at our current technological level be able to learn more if it were positioned more favorably?
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Geneticists: As of 2012, what can the various "consumer-grade" genetics kits tell me about my genetics? (genealogically? phenotypically? prognosticatively?) How robust is the data that can be provided and in what ways can it be constructively interpreted?
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How much has the accuracy of (local, near-term) weather forecasting improved over the past 30 years? How much is it likely to improve in the next 30?
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How has U.S.'s method of (and promptness/accuracy in) notifying the family of a killed-in-action soldier changed over time? Telegram? In-person? Postal mail? Has the procedure changed in times where the volume of those KIA is high?
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When pop-sci writers describe groups of humans as being "more/less genetically similar" to other groups, is this the same as saying they share more/less recent common ancestors? Which two (small, stable) groups of modern humans are most different, genetically?
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Has there been any experiment designed to determine differences in object-throwing accuracy among different cultures? (Looking to test a hypothesis that men from baseball-dominant cultures throw differently than those from soccer/football-dominant cultures.)
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