QOTD IV!! 884: Who should be next QOTD master and why, or should it die?

[Refa]

I had to ask a lot of questions to compensate for the lack of a real question for the day.

I honestly think people should begin to truly abandon the commercialized idea of Christmas. Like, utterly and completely. We should turn our backs on Black Friday, spending for gifts to get The Best, and stuff like that.

I dunno, my family barely celebrates Christmas as is and we still get a decent amount of stuff on Black Friday because hey, wonderful deals. I can appreciate wanting the holidays to not be bogged down by a bunch of nonsense that is like barely related to the spirit of the thing, but I don't feel like a lot of the deals are intrinsically tied to Christmas at this point.

I am passionate about pointing out that this "question of the day" is not actually a question, and therefore false advertisement.

Nerd. Also you're clearly forgetting about your one true passion, which is Gamer Gate.

So what happens when that fails? At that point, light can no longer escape gravity, and a Black Hole forms. So when you have exceptionally large stars, when they collapse into black holes, the force of gravity is so strong that a Black Hole forms before the entire star collapses, and the black hole is engorged completely with excess matter and literally blows the star to smithereens. This is called a Hypernova.

Huh, never knew about that. Is there a precise size that stars have to be to for that to happen? Also kinda curious, why are black holes the coolest thing ever (or rather, why are they cooler than other things)? What actually happens when objects go in black holes, anyways?

I want to talk about more details about chickens but I also don't want to give an unmanageable wall of text trying to pass it off as a paragraph :'(

i love chickens ama

I can ask a few questions that are probably incredibly obvious but will make you feel smart.

1) Why chickens over like, I dunno, other animals (like penguins, an incredibly practical animal to own)?

2) Favorite types (breeds? I don't even know)?

3) What do you feed your chickens, anyways?

4) I don't get why they're separated into chickens and hens. Why not just male/female chickens?

5) Any weird and/or interesting facts about them that you've uncovered?

For through studying human history, we delve deeper in the realities of human nature. What human nature is, is completely up to your perspective. History puts a significance on perspective, whither if it's in a conflict, a war, or a controversy, there is more than one side to story. To me, history is but the greatest story to tell. What interests me, is how this tale shall end...

(screw grammar and spelling and stuff probably)

I'm curious, what do you think human nature is? But yeah, I think one of the most interesting parts about history is perspective. It's pretty cool how you can have a general idea of how something went down and then a few years later, someone will be like "you've got that wrong, everyone you thought were pretty swell people were actually a bunch of dicks and everyone you thought were a bunch of dicks are still a bunch of dicks" (okay, in retrospect this sounds sarcastic but I actually do think it's pretty cool how changing the perspective can make the same event appear entirely different).

(who cares about grammar and spelling anyways, not me)

So about 3-4 weeks ago I found out that css implemented the "width: calc(percentage-pixel)" method for div sizing. This is fucking awesome. As a professional front-end developer with a long history with web design and styling, this solves a lot of problems historical css had in regards to dynamic sizing. Say you want a side bar of a fixed width, I like 150px-200px usually depending on design, but the rest of the page to conform to the page or container width, you can't do it with pure css without doing something extremely hacky, and I was not fond of the margin or padding or whatever = -99999px hack. Felt it too inelegant.

Man, I've been taking some HTML classes for like the past six months and I wish I knew about this earlier. Like, I don't even make sites on a professional level and that seems like a really weird oversight.

The piano is a wonderful instrument. There’s so much room for diversity and creativity. Another thing I like about it is that it looks sophisticated and it's the only thing I can brag about. I can thank piano for my pretty fingers. One of my first things I remember playing was Beethoven's Fur Elise, which I totally showed off to all my friends in first grade. I remember begging my piano teacher to let me play it after seeing one of the senpai's play it at a previous recital. Some of my other favorites are Mozart's Sonata in G Major, Haydn's Sonata in C Major, and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor, even though I can't yet play the latter.

did i grammar right?

As an incredibly egotistical person, it's always nice to have hobbies that you can brag about. Why are those your favorite pieces in particular? Like, is it because of how they sound or because they're just really fun to play? Can you play the Super Mario Bros. theme????

Probably not.

I love studying the social behaviors and movement patterns of whales, my favorites being killer whales. Killer whales are particularly interesting in that they can fall into one of two categories of social and hunting behavior, these being transient- which itself has a coastal and deep water subdivision- and resident. Resident orcas are the ones most people are familiar with- the ones that travel in large pods, take care of their young as a group effort(like other marine mammals), prefer to eat fish, and employ coordinated hunting strategies across the whole pod. Transient orcas, on the other hand, travel in much smaller groups and are fucking savage, going after other marine mammals like porpoises, dolphins, and other whales, sometimes even sperm whales. Transient orcas will beach themselves in order to catch sea lions that escape to the shore and then shuffle backwards into the sea once the job is done. The great white shark's only natural predator is the killer whale. Orcas also have the second largest brains of all ocean mammals, surpassed only by sperm whales. It's my somewhat unrealistic dream to use my marine biology degree to study killer whales and other marine mammals, but if I do get to, I will be so goddamn happy. If not, whale watching will definitely be my hobby.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude

That's pretty great. Orca whale are my favorite whales as well (also my favorite sea life in general), and I actually did a decent amount of research (well, moreso in a general sense but social behaviors tended to come up a lot because it's kind of a big deal) on them in the past. I actually looked more into transcient orcas over resident orcas just because I thought they were way cooler. Like...everything you just described about them is pretty hardcore. But yeah, good luck with your completely (somewhat?) unrealistic dream. I'm pretty ignorant here, what else would you use your marine biology degree for?

I like loopholes. Loopholes aren't necessarily something I'm passionate about, but I like them. It isn't quite being spiteful, but...it's kind of similar? After all, I don't like them because I have a need or desire to get around a limitation. I do so because I find it amusing to mitigate their effectiveness.

But if you're not passionate about them, doesn't that make it an inappropriate topic for a paragraph about something you're passionate about? Or did you use a loophole to get out of that, too?

[spoiler=Text form, if you don't want to click the link.]

1. Coagulated soy milk compressed into an oblong prism suffused with the vital amino acids required to live an extravagant and bounteous life is a popular composition of nutrients commonly enjoyed by those rendered incapable of masticating animal flesh, as well as those that can, whether of their own preferential or own constraint. I myself, am unable to tolerate the horrid chunk of soy myself, as I simply despise the mere thought of being forced to ingest the nutriment against the will of my own. The reason behind this bizarre detestment of this innocent, flavorless, mealtime culinary creation is because of how the foreign substance feels when attempting to ingurgitate it, and the taste of the object itself. "But wait," you may interject, "tofu doesn't taste like anything! How can you say it tastes bad?" And to that I would answer with the fact that I commonly eat cooked pasta without any supplementary condiments or foods and instead eat it in its pure, unadorned state. In doing this, I find great flavor and contentment in swallowing it; that of which I lack when eating tofu. Though the appreciation of this soy bean product has begun to arise in common people of today, I hardly stop to consider the likelihood of my dislike to diminish.
3. Alas, though the wretched substance is not to my liking, I fear the worst, as it has begun to become a somewhat tolerable "meal", much to my dismay; at least, when prepared a certain way.

I commend you on your impressive use of the thesaurus. I don't really get why you needed so many words to say that it has an uncomfortable texture and it tastes bad, though. Maybe I'm missing the point. Also couldn't you eat tofu with other things that you don't enjoy eating in their pure, unadorned state?

I think that I am most passionate about learning new things, especially in a biological context. Okay, yes that sounds super duper topical, but let me explain further. Today I learned that the reason why wetting your hair and then drying it again fixes your hilariously anime-esque bedhead because the hydrogen bonds between the keratin proteins of your hair are broken through hydrolysis. This is so goddamn cool, okay? I love finding out new things. One time, I spent an hour and a half researching ampullae of lorenzini in sharks just because I was so interested in the more specific uses that sharks have for these tiny pores in their cute sharky faces that they use to detect electrical currents, such as those in their prey, or even the Earth's electromagnetic field. Every day that I learn something new I remember how much I love this world because of how absolutely mag-fucking-nificent of a place i am in to be observing and learning of new discoveries about it.

Why a biological context over other contexts? Is it just, like, more relatable? I can totally get just being randomly curious in things for no reason, though. That's basically half of my distractions from my amazingly well followed work schedule right ther-wait, I never knew those pores actually did things. Like, how can they detect electrical currents? I can get why detecting them in their prey would help, but why Earth's electromagnetic field?

[spoiler=my thing isn't as interesting as everyone else's woops]nor is it one paragraph

background stuff first

i study journalism and communications at my high school. there five publication staffs you can join, but i chose the one i did because the adviser had decided to start over with a clean slate this year. it had originally been a school newspaper, but it had had so much disadvantages against the online news site we also published that my adviser chose to turn it into a city-wide magazine. this is also my first year on the staff, and i was really nervous because all the staffers seemed super close to each other. some of them had also won national awards for their designs or writing (one of my editors-in-chief actually won feature story of the year and the brasler prize this year it makes me happy to know that the staff is in good hands) so it made me SUPER NERVOUS what if i couldn't keep up or was a burden ;_; BUT over the summer there was a retreat at which all the journalism majors attended to get to know everyone else on staff better. it probably sounds really lame but i actually made a lot of friends while i was there and it was just a great experience in general i appreciated it a lot

our staff is now about to print our FIRST ISSUE (the ad team managed to collect 3000 dollars worth of ads so no one else had to do ad runs phew) and it was so fun watching the stories and designs and interviews and photos that we had all pitched forward. as a writer, i had learned a lot not from just doing my own story, but also while copy editing and fact-checking others'. it's super neat to see how far we've gone, especially because we've all worked together and built this issue from the ground up. we had run into a lot of roadblocks at the beginning (my first story actually had to be chopped because i was writing a profile and my interview subject got robbed but hey things happen) but everyone's gotten so far and idk i just love everyone i'm so happy and proud to be part of the staff ;_;

I'll have to pretend to be less interested, then.

Why'd you want to join the one with the clean slate (couldn't handle the rampant elitism, huh)? You'll probably hate me for asking this, but if several people won national awards for their designs/writing, why are they still working on your school newspaper and not something...bigger? But yeah, that retreat sounded pretty cool (how else would they induct new members into the cult).

I feel like I've asked this before, but what's an ad run? What was your story? Any particularly hilarious roadblocks you're comfortable sharing?

This statement is false. If I asked you a question, would your answer to that question be the same as your to this one? Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves contain itself? Paradoxes are an obsession of mine. The more I learn, the more I find that life is full of paradoxes. They have consumed me.

It's only half false. Maybe. Okay, I don't actually have an answer to that last one. I can get your interest in paradoxes, but really a big part of my interest is in somehow proving the paradox wrong...this doesn't actually work most of the time! Why paradoxes over contradictions, though (I mean, there's some overlap but I hope you get what I mean)?

A new set for Cardfight! Vanguard is coming out in a couple of weeks. It features several different variants of Aqua Force, but the one I'm interested in is the Ripple series. Back when they were first released, they looked like another somewhat-generic ride chain (that is, count to three using specific units), and most people ignored them.

Okay, I actually have no idea what Cardfight! Vanguard is other than what you've said before and Kaoz using a character from it in an EiMM game. Why do you like it over other children's trading card games? How easy is it to get into? Is it super costly like Yu-Gi-Oh! or MtG (or Hearthstone amirite)? Is the Ripple series related to JJBA?

there's also planets! planets are really cool and really dim, unfortunately. rocky planets form close to their parent stars, because volatile elements like hydrogen aren't stable when too close with the sun (think like jupiter and saturn). those 'hot jupiters' that we typically find via occulation techniques (ie, orbital transits/eclipsing) were probably formed far away from their stars and migrated inwards for some reason. we don't know! more research is needed. planets like neptune and uranus are icy bodies--everything freezes when it's too far from heat, intuitively speaking. those, along with small rocky planets, are immensely difficult to find. telescopes need to be nearly 10000x more photo-sensitive to detect them, as opposed to what's needed for hot jupiters. studying the composition of planetary atmospheres (my current research! ) tells us a lot about what's out there, but also gives insights about planetary evolution, and how unique or common our solar system is.

I'm pretty ignorant about space in general, so it was cool reading through your post. Are planets really limited to those few archetypes or are there other variations you didn't talk about? Wait, I always figured our solar system was fairly unique as far as we knew, is it not?

The Russian constructivists were a prominent subset of the 1920s avant-garde pan-European movement, standing out due to an emphasis on stark contrast and angular forms. This manifested itself in many forms, such as art and propaganda (Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge by El Lissitzky being the most famous example) - it was unashamedly pro-Communist and worked directly to further Communist goals. Stalin, upon coming to power, felt that the Constructivists were nothing more than a pack of dangerous fanatics, and Constructivism disappears from the USSR in the 30s onwards. However, its sustaining legacy comes in its beautiful and striking architecture, much of which stands today. Many of the buildings they were tasked to create were 'Workers' Clubs', a new kind of leisure and education building for the working class that would be built near factories and the like. Probably the most famous, Rusakov, had three ampitheatres that literally just jutted out of the structure. In my view, it's kind of a terrible eyesore. A far better example is the Zuev Workers Club which contrasted the traditional angles and hard brick with a large glass cylinder (which contains a staircase). Like the Rusakov, it stands today in modern Moscow, though for reasons unknown many of the windows have been bricked up and the balconies that allowed people to look over the streets taken down - it loses a lot in the transition as a work of beautiful architecture, and the old, contemporary black-and-white photographs capture it far better.

How did you get into the Russian contructivists? Like, I feel like it's pretty obvious how most people got interested in whatever they're passionate about, but I'm genuinely curious in how you got into in an old avant garde movement in the first place. I'm actually the worst person ever to talk about art, but I can at least appreciate how distinctive those buildings look compared to modern architecture. I don't really get the correlation between the art/propoganda and the architecture, though. Are there like some connecting themes that I'm missing?

[Roxas]

[spoiler=Exit Through the Gift Shop]I feel as if Guetta has Mr. “Brainwashed” himself into believing that he became such a high-profile artist through his art alone. Hardly a self-made man, Guetta just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with the right people and the right resources. Had it not been for a few chance encounters and an obsessive, almost infuriatingly so, fixation with Shepard Fairey, Mr. Brainwash would probably have never existed, and Thierry Guetta would probably be some kooky vlogger on Youtube. He has never had the genuine experience the journey an artist takes from a local sensation to international phenomenon. While he had accompanied Shephard Fairey on his routine pastings across LA, he never did so as an artist—never undertaking the dangerous and illegal task of running out in the dead of night to set up one’s own work, and reveling in the triumphant reveal the next morning. Unlike the subway bombers of Style Wars, whooping and yelling as the train bearing their stylized names speeds past them, Mr. Brainwash never experienced genuine success on this level. Instead of train cars or city walls, Guetta’s first pieces were displayed at an art show in LA, complete with 125,000 square feet of safe, legal display space. Life is Beautiful was a de-clawing of street art, and in a way, represents how Mr. Brainwash conducts himself in this business. It was here he gave interviews to news stations and magazines, and sold more than a million dollars worth of pieces from his giant collection. Combined with how proud he is to be a derivative of figures such as Worhol, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see Guetta as a real street artist. I believe that Mr. Brainwash and his MBW pieces never truly earned their spot at the top of the art world; instead, Thierry Guetta was prematurely hoisted up to third base by Shepard Fairey and Banksy, and basked in his success thinking that he had hit a triple.

[sylveonzoroark]

As an incredibly egotistical person, it's always nice to have hobbies that you can brag about. Why are those your favorite pieces in particular? Like, is it because of how they sound or because they're just really fun to play? Can you play the Super Mario Bros. theme????

Probably not.

wao somebody actually read it

I like the first two because they're fun to play and have a special place in my heart. I like the last one just because it looks ridiculous. Oh, and I forgot, I also really like Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata, specifically the 3rd movement.

I could learn to play the mario theme, but idt i have the time.

Edited December 3, 2015 by sylveonzoroark

[Serpent of Sheol]

Huh, never knew about that. Is there a precise size that stars have to be to for that to happen? Also kinda curious, why are black holes the coolest thing ever (or rather, why are they cooler than other things)? What actually happens when objects go in black holes, anyways?

So the more correct term for a Hypernova is a Collapsar, which is short for collapsed star. Generally the stars that experience this kind of death have a core about 15M_o (Solar masses, where our sun is comparatively 1M_o). It also depends on the chemical composition of the star and its rotational rate, however this is the size (and larger) where hypernova appear.

So what happens when you go inside of a Black Hole? Well, in our current understanding of physics and general relativity, objects going inside of a black hole's Event Horizon (where events inside the black hole no longer influence the outside observer, or basically, "the point of no return") will become continually redshifted and then just stop entirely, then fizzle out of existence. The object moves into an increasingly strong gravity well in accordance to the theory of general relativity, and the wavelengths of light associated with the object increase in wavelength, or towards the red end of the visible spectrum. To the object falling in, however, they experience the exact opposite. They would observe everything being blueshifted, or contracting in wavelength as they fall through the black hole. If you want to see it, here's a visual representation of what would happen when an object falls in a black hole: http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3_q15.html.

Also, a good example of how General Relativity works with Carl Sagan (section on it starts at about three minutes in): https://vimeo.com/114647975

I mostly like Black Holes because of how little we know about them. There's a ton of interesting stuff about them and their properties, but a ton of it is really hard to explain without going very in-depth about Black Holes, so PM me if you want to know more about them, I guess.

I could talk for days about Stellar Evolution to give me an excuse to show pictures of the Planetary Nebula stage of stars, the most amazing and majestic thing in all of the universe, and also has absolutely nothing to do with planets.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Knight of Argentum

[Knight Falchion]

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude

That's pretty great. Orca whale are my favorite whales as well (also my favorite sea life in general), and I actually did a decent amount of research (well, moreso in a general sense but social behaviors tended to come up a lot because it's kind of a big deal) on them in the past. I actually looked more into transcient orcas over resident orcas just because I thought they were way cooler. Like...everything you just described about them is pretty hardcore. But yeah, good luck with your completely (somewhat?) unrealistic dream. I'm pretty ignorant here, what else would you use your marine biology degree for?

Yeah, I must admit that my chances of going into marine mammals as a career are a fair bit slimmer than I initially stated. Not quite impossible, but pretty close, lol.

As for your question, I'd study something else, hopefully still out on the field(at least some of the time). Reefs are definitely another marine interest of mine due to their variation and the threats they're facing from human activities, and I may be able to get some experience with them in the future since one of my advisors has opened parts of her own research on reefs for undergrads to participate in.

[Makaze]

i don't get this one

True on a few levels depending on interpretation. In the literal sense I meant that you can't see anything in either; they are defined by contrast.

[Makaze]

It's only half false. Maybe. Okay, I don't actually have an answer to that last one. I can get your interest in paradoxes, but really a big part of my interest is in somehow proving the paradox wrong...this doesn't actually work most of the time! Why paradoxes over contradictions, though (I mean, there's some overlap but I hope you get what I mean)?

No real reason. Paradoxes include the logically consistent but counter-intuitive, though. Those are just as fascinating.

[Freohr Datia]

I have to say I find the Ranger class in Guild Wars 2 (Heart of Thorns) to be the absolute perfect class for me. I enjoy it so much! The main mechanic of Rangers is you get to have cute pets help you fight your enemies. I have my adorable flamingo of a bird, who is my closest companion, and I also sometimes battle my enemies with a leafy dog, fire-breathing wyvern (who is charmingly named Donkey), and even a regular old eagle or snowy owl fighting by my side. One of the ranger's weapons that I use is the longbow because I really love archery. But to add onto that, in Heart of Thorns the Ranger can level up into the Druid class which adds on healing- and nature-based staves. Another thing I really love to be able to do is heal others who I'm playing with (especially Integrity who's always completely reckless about his health). And I just love nature in general so the theme just fits me so well too! I love animals, I love archery, I love healing others and I love nature. There couldn't have been any more perfect a fit out there!

I guess my paragraph's more about me than anybody else so I can't quite say I'm doing a very relatable topic ^o^ But it's something I'm passionate about for sure~! c:

on a very slightly different subject though I also just love guild wars 2 because

[spoiler=IT'S ACTUALLY CALLED FASHION WARS 2]

AND I HAVE LOTS OF PASSION FOR FASHION

[Hatsuoki]

Ooh I'm pretty late to the game this time. Damn finals and final projects. OTL

Mine may or may not be kind of boring. I feel like I end up talking about this topic one way or another wherever I go. I'm really passionate about wafuku!

Wa = Japanese and fuku = clothing! Really common misconceptions about kimono is that only geiko and maiko wear them. It's completely untrue because there are kimono that range from the formality of a t-shirt and jeans all the way up to a wedding dress. In order of formality they go like this: tsumugi -> komon -> iromuji -> houmongi/tsukesage -> irotomesode -> kurotomesode -> furisode.

-From komon (which have a repeating pattern all over with the size of the motifs depending on the era) and down, they are like everyday wear.

-Iromuji are only one color and no pattern and are very versatile and can be dressed up or down. They are also the most acceptable for tea ceremonies!

-Houmongi and tsukesage have patterns on the hem and sleeves and are like visiting wear or for something like a party.

-Iro and kurotomesode are for attending weddings! They only have a pattern that sweeps across the hem and are for married women.

-And lastly furisode are the most formal kimono for unmarried or young girls. This kimono is the one that many people think of when they think of kimono. It has the long swinging sleeves that are meant to let men know that they are available.

There are also some kimono that are in between these in formality but these are the main ones!

Each kind of kimono have a different weight (like for the temp? I don't know how to say it), different colors and motifs that are only worn during specific months. I think this is what I love most about kimono, it's that it has such great respect to nature and the transience of seasons and celebrate it in it's own way. I feel like I've talked too much about it already but I've barely scraped the surface and I could go on all day! I haven't even touched the obi, accessories, shoes, collars, hair and hair accessories, the seasonality could be a whole topic on it's own, and coordination! OTL

Edited December 3, 2015 by Hatsuoki

[Specta]

I can ask a few questions that are probably incredibly obvious but will make you feel smart.

1) Why chickens over like, I dunno, other animals (like penguins, an incredibly practical animal to own)?

2) Favorite types (breeds? I don't even know)?

3) What do you feed your chickens, anyways?

4) I don't get why they're separated into chickens and hens. Why not just male/female chickens?

5) Any weird and/or interesting facts about them that you've uncovered?

lmao you're a treasure

1. No real idea - they're not even my favorite animal. Though, unlike my favorite animals, I've had opportunity to actually keep them and learn about them, so that might be a huge part of why I'm a weird chicken person

2. Breeds is correct! The best chickens are buff orpingtons. Orpingtons are the most reliable, hardy, sweet, fat clouds you can find. I'd love to have lavender orpingtons but they're a weeeeee bit more expensive and hard to get. :'(

There are a lot just for looks, though. It's a basic bitch answer for chicken keepers but I love silkies and polishes. Less basic, I love russian orloffs.

I will insert picture links when I get home but I am at school right now

3. Chicken feed as their primary supplement from me. It's your catchall diet food for chickens just like dog food is for dogs. I also have cracked corn and dried mealworms for treats when I want them to love me. They're out foraging bugs and gross stuff by themselves as well, without my help.

4. They are not separated like that, luckily - that'd be confusing! They are hens (female) and roosters (male,) and both of these are chickens.

Fun fact there's a whole other term for a hen under one year of age! They're called pullets!

5. So many! Roosters like to do weird shuffly dances for attention, for example. It never, ever gets old. Roosters are so dumb, they're the best.

But for a real fun fact I only learned since keeping chickens there is the chicken crator. When chickens are too hot, they'll often dig themselves little bowls in the ground to sit in, since the temperature down there is a bit better. In times of temperature troubles, their yard can be just pockmarked with these.

(They also dig holes for another reason: dustbathing. Chicken throw dirt and dust over their feathers to scrape mites off and keep clean.

Good chicken keepers make dustbath mixtures that are muuuch better than just throwing dirt around, though, and the chickens almost always use that instead if you provide it)

Edited December 3, 2015 by Specta

[Julius Nepos]

Ius (the Latin word for 'law,' in the broad sense of the word) in the Roman Empire was made up of two things: lex (plural leges, literally 'law;' lex was the term used for all written sources of law) and mos (plural mores, literally 'custom;' it was the term used for all unwritten sources of law). As the centuries passed, the legal system become increasingly complicated, due to the many different types of lex that had developed and the sheer number of leges and mores that were in effect. Matters became even more complicated when Rome was sacked in the early 4th century BC, which caused the destruction of most of the tablets on which the leges had originally been written down - leading to older leges either being lost or living on only in memory or literature. A wholly new type of law was introduced with the creation of the institution of Emperor in 27 BC: the constitutio Principis (plural constitutiones Principis, literally 'regulation of the Prince;' it was the term used for "that which the emperor has constituted by decree, edict or letter"). The emperor was technically not above the law (although he was sacrosanct), but the lex curiata de imperio that gave him his powers exempted him from certain laws. Because of this, the Emperor could enact constitutiones that conflicted with the laws he was exempted from, making these laws effectively unbinding. With each new emperor, the number of laws he was exempted from grew, until finally (probably in AD 81), the lex curiata de imperio declared that the emperor was exempt from all laws. This effectively made the constitutio Principis the highest source of law, and any lex or mos conflicting with a constitutio was therefore unbinding (which streamlined the increasingly complicated legal system a little). But over the centuries, the number of constitutiones grew far too big. In the 6th century, emperor Justinian I decided to put an end to this situation. He created a wholly new body of law: the Corpus Iuris Civilis. It consisted of four parts (all edited by the emperor): a collection of constitutiones, a collection of jurisprudence, an edited textbook containing the principles of Roman law, and a wholly new collection of constitutiones enacted by Justinian to complement the other three parts of the corpus. The emperor gave the corpus full force of law and forbade reference to any other law. The corpus became the basis for our legal system.

[Thor Odinson]

Holy shit. I've been waiting my whole life.

Next you'll tell me they also have CSS means to center things vertically in fixed and absolute positions accounting for undeclared dimensions. e.g. Centering something vertically even when its height changes dynamically with window resizing.

If they add proper vertical centering without needing to declare a dimension I'm going to send whoever wrote that money because holy shit

oh my god I barely html and this is still wonderful

I know right

Man, I've been taking some HTML classes for like the past six months and I wish I knew about this earlier. Like, I don't even make sites on a professional level and that seems like a really weird oversight.

I think it's been fairly experimental before very recent because I think I've actually used calc() before in an attempt to not use js for my styling, but back then it didn't work quite as well (aka it does the calculation once and leaves it there) but now it's actually dynamic and SO SO GOOD

[Chen]

I love Princess Maker! I feel that the series is INCREDIBLY underrated and deserves a release in the western parts of the world. With the success of games like Long Live the Queen, maybe it's time for more simulation games to come out in the west. The mixed simulation and RPG aspect of Princess Maker 2 makes it a great game with hours and hours of gameplay and over 60 endings! The art is vibrant and well drawn and the music is catchy too. Of course, I would also like to talk about the other games. Princess Maker 3 is also a wonderful game that focuses solely on the simulation and rearing aspect of parenting ; there's no god slaying here. However, Princess Maker 3 has improved interaction with your daughter and is longer overall. Your daughter may ask to go to a music class or go on vacation. Depending on her personality your answer will get a different response (this is the amazing part)! No two daughters are exactly the same. Princess Maker 5 is a combination of Princess Maker 3 and Princess Maker 2. Compared to the other Princess Maker games, however, it is much more longer since it goes by a weekly schedule. The greatest thing about 5 are the hidden personality stats and the interactive world. There are shops and people that your daughter can befriend! Rearing simulation games should be the next trend in gaming.

[Monde]

I'm curious, what do you think human nature is? But yeah, I think one of the most interesting parts about history is perspective. It's pretty cool how you can have a general idea of how something went down and then a few years later, someone will be like "you've got that wrong, everyone you thought were pretty swell people were actually a bunch of dicks and everyone you thought were a bunch of dicks are still a bunch of dicks" (okay, in retrospect this sounds sarcastic but I actually do think it's pretty cool how changing the perspective can make the same event appear entirely different).

(who cares about grammar and spelling anyways, not me)

Is it perfectly reasonable to answer that with "I don't know"? I tend to stay pretty open minded about topics like this and I can't say I've concluded a definitive picture on human nature, it just simply is. One thing I can conclude though, is that people will believe what they want to believe, even me saying stating this is simply my belief and nothing would probably change it otherwise I decide it too. That can be reflected in many moments in history to explain why people may commit morally questionable things. They cannot just simply be 'monster' who simply were, there is always a reason for things, a reason for why someone may turn out like they have and think the way they do. Yeah perspective is great. I remember in one of my history classes back in like grade 10 one of the first things we were taught about was the five major flaws in written history, etc. Tbh I forget like most of them but the two ones i recall was 'Bias' and 'Distortion'. Bias is simply what it is called, history based on one perspective, it can tend to feed the same perspective to the people who read it and blur the reality of the situation. That is being brought to show in that whole situation in S.Korea where the president and the government want to rewrite the history textbooks, which is pretty interesting considering the president's father was formerly a dictator. Pretty sure Japan had done something similar but honestly I can't recall. The second was 'Distortion' because it just how history was before it stating being all recorded, etc. A lot of it was passed down plural, over time the tales start to slowly change, like a game of broken telephone.

[spoiler=IT'S ACTUALLY CALLED FASHION WARS 2]

AND I HAVE LOTS OF PASSION FOR FASHION

The best part of any mmo, THE DRESS UP.

Speaking of which I've been meaning to hop on FFXIV and do this event for this cool samurai armour...

[Melodi]

I like answering questions time to answer this one

Why a biological context over other contexts? Is it just, like, more relatable? I can totally get just being randomly curious in things for no reason, though. That's basically half of my distractions from my amazingly well followed work schedule right ther-wait, I never knew those pores actually did things. Like, how can they detect electrical currents? I can get why detecting them in their prey would help, but why Earth's electromagnetic field?

I'm one of those people who gets really excited about the capabilities of living creatures. I don't have much of a real reason, but if I absolutely had to choose one to satisfy the requirement for a question, I'd say that the things we can learn about the living things around us will bring us all closer to better understanding why a particular phenomena or disease takes place and then utilize that to make this world a better place. I believe that one day through the strength of science that I will live in a world where nerve cells (which divide so rarely that a single nerve cell is likely to outlive its organism) could be repaired in such a way that would reverse paralysis or Parkinsons or MS or the damages left behind after a stroke or a world where I would be able to completely understand the biological mechanisms that cause me to feel emotions or that cause my dreams or that cause my thought processes. That's why I'm especially interested in learning new things that i can then loop back to a biological context, because it makes me excited as all fucking hell to be alive.

Yes! The ampullae of Lorenzini do in fact do things! As for how, they do that, there's a special, hella conductive jelly solution and highly sensitive nerves inside each pore. The electromagnetic sensitivity has navigational uses as well as prey seeking. It's pretty cool. Hammerhead sharks are especially good at using the electrosensitivity they have to navigate the oceans of the earth, from what I have read.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Or did you use a loophole to get out of that, too?

Right on the nose.

Like, I mean...I have things I actually am passionate about, I just don't feel like I could really, you know...'on command' passionate about them. Does that make any sense? Iunno, it might. Like, I like chemistry, and physics, and biology, I just think science in general is cool, and I like superhero stuff, and I like having ideas and running my mouth and comedy and the select few TV shows and movies I like which I love talking about. I like talking, you see, that's the loophole use, but, you know, silliness aside, things. I have a penchant for ending sentences I haven't structured well in something along the lines of 'you know, things', because, well...why not? It's a better ending than nothing, I suppose. But yeah. I like talking and things, but sometimes I just don't want to talk. Maybe it's just because I've been a little tired the past few days, stopping me from going on a more focused instead of this more general rambling. But hey, you can talk yourself into a passion, you know? I mean, I feel a bit more like talking about science now that I've done all that warm up rambling.

See, something I really like about physics is the units. They all...work out, you know? Like, all units in SI are arrangements of the seven SI base units, and from those seven you get tons of different units! Newtons, Ohms, Hertzes, all of them are arrangements of some of those seven base units. It's like French sauces, kind of. However, unlike French sauces, the units can be taken apart after being put together, you can dissect them into their components. For example, Newtons can be broken down in Kilogram Meters per Seconds squared, I think that's cool. One of the fascinating things about physics, science, and math in general, is how stuff just...works out, like I've already said, but, like...to put it in a better way, force is mass times acceleration, that's a very clean, simple calculation. And yeah, I know that the reason a lot of this works out is just that it was designed to, but...I mean, come on, isn't that cool? Trigonometry works for both Snell's law and triangles, one to any power is one and any number to the zero power is one, the world may be complicated, but it can broken down into all these deceptively simple processes. I like that. It's neat.

Pretty much everything in the body happens as an arrangement of four elements, and that's fascinating to me. Like, 60% of the body (by mass, I think) is oxygen, like, carbon is around 20%, Hydrogen is around 10% and Nitrogen is around 7% or something. I mean...just...woah. And chemistry is pretty amazing too, as that fact implies. Like, let's take chlorine and sodium: The former will form acid upon entering the repository system and the latter explodes violently on contact with water. But them together, however, and you get NaCl, more commonly called salt, which is largely safe to put in the body, which is mostly water. That's even more incredible when you consider that, in water, the Chlorine and Sodium aren't really even in a compound, they dissociate into free floating ions! It's just...kind of stable, all the sudden, because of the exchange of a single electron. Fluoride will pretty much eat your flesh because it's so reactive, but add six of it (or, technically three pairs of it, since Fluorine only exists in pairs because it's that reactive) to a molecule of sulfur and boom! Sulfur hexafluoride. That sounds like it should be the deadliest thing ever, but nope! It's incredibly stable, you can literally put it in your lungs and, for the most part, be okay. You know how some people inhale helium to make their voice higher? Inhaling sulfur hexafluoride makes your voice sound low, and doesn't kill you!

That's amazing to me, like...all these destructive, reactive forces can be mixed and arranged to do all these incredible things. They can be made even deadlier, they can be made harmless, they can be made into medicines that kill bacteria, or even into bacteria! And, you know, there's the very stable noble gases, but even those can be made to react! Fluorine can make some noble gases react with it, and you can have a Helium and Hydrogen mix into Helium Hydride, a substance so reactive we haven't been able to have it exist as a liquid because it will destroy anything you try to put it in. It's just...I'm taking AP Chem right now, in case it doesn't show. But I love that class, because you get exposure to a bunch of stuff like this! I'm taking physics with it, in case that also doesn't show, and I think it's incredible, you know? I think I went overboard, too.

[Integrity]

i'm gonna talk about an issue that's really near and dear to me as an engineering study: soft skills

because holy fuck the other engineering majors in my building have no idea what they are or why they're important. i'm talking, like, presentation skills, qualitative reasoning skills, social skills, writing, THAT STUFF. creativity! it's one thing to be able to solve a math, but so many engineers turn their noses up at the liberal arts (heh) and then turn around and have no idea how to present information they have to other people. i was working with a dude recently who was giving approximately the third presentation of his college career in his senior year! i can't say that this phenomenon is exclusive to STEM master racers, but jesus. imho, we should force STEM majors to take five years to get a degree, and force them to get a minor in a non-STEM field while they're at it. i will revamp college forever.

irregardless,

QUESTION SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT: Write a paragraph on somebody whom you're passionate about!

does not have to be anybody anyone on sf knows

also florina's mandate holds for this qotd too nobody cares if you have no friends to gush about

[Parrhesia]

How did you get into the Russian contructivists? Like, I feel like it's pretty obvious how most people got interested in whatever they're passionate about, but I'm genuinely curious in how you got into in an old avant garde movement in the first place. I'm actually the worst person ever to talk about art, but I can at least appreciate how distinctive those buildings look compared to modern architecture. I don't really get the correlation between the art/propoganda and the architecture, though. Are there like some connecting themes that I'm missing?

I took a design history class as an elective in university and ended up getting really into it. Wrote a visual paper on the Zuev Workers Club. As for the connection, I don't really know how to describe it - they're part of the same movement, using the same methods, advancing the same ideology.

(I will gush later I promise)

[Integrity]

Right on the nose.

Like, I mean...I have things I actually am passionate about, I just don't feel like I could really, you know...'on command' passionate about them. Does that make any sense? Iunno, it might. Like, I like chemistry, and physics, and biology, I just think science in general is cool, and I like superhero stuff, and I like having ideas and running my mouth and comedy and the select few TV shows and movies I like which I love talking about. I like talking, you see, that's the loophole use, but, you know, silliness aside, things. I have a penchant for ending sentences I haven't structured well in something along the lines of 'you know, things', because, well...why not? It's a better ending than nothing, I suppose. But yeah. I like talking and things, but sometimes I just don't want to talk. Maybe it's just because I've been a little tired the past few days, stopping me from going on a more focused instead of this more general rambling. But hey, you can talk yourself into a passion, you know? I mean, I feel a bit more like talking about science now that I've done all that warm up rambling.

See, something I really like about physics is the units. They all...work out, you know? Like, all units in SI are arrangements of the seven SI base units, and from those seven you get tons of different units! Newtons, Ohms, Hertzes, all of them are arrangements of some of those seven base units. It's like French sauces, kind of. However, unlike French sauces, the units can be taken apart after being put together, you can dissect them into their components. For example, Newtons can be broken down in Kilogram Meters per Seconds squared, I think that's cool. One of the fascinating things about physics, science, and math in general, is how stuff just...works out, like I've already said, but, like...to put it in a better way, force is mass times acceleration, that's a very clean, simple calculation. And yeah, I know that the reason a lot of this works out is just that it was designed to, but...I mean, come on, isn't that cool? Trigonometry works for both Snell's law and triangles, one to any power is one and any number to the zero power is one, the world may be complicated, but it can broken down into all these deceptively simple processes. I like that. It's neat.

Pretty much everything in the body happens as an arrangement of four elements, and that's fascinating to me. Like, 60% of the body (by mass, I think) is oxygen, like, carbon is around 20%, Hydrogen is around 10% and Nitrogen is around 7% or something. I mean...just...woah. And chemistry is pretty amazing too, as that fact implies. Like, let's take chlorine and sodium: The former will form acid upon entering the repository system and the latter explodes violently on contact with water. But them together, however, and you get NaCl, more commonly called salt, which is largely safe to put in the body, which is mostly water. That's even more incredible when you consider that, in water, the Chlorine and Sodium aren't really even in a compound, they dissociate into free floating ions! It's just...kind of stable, all the sudden, because of the exchange of a single electron. Fluoride will pretty much eat your flesh because it's so reactive, but add six of it (or, technically three pairs of it, since Fluorine only exists in pairs because it's that reactive) to a molecule of sulfur and boom! Sulfur hexafluoride. That sounds like it should be the deadliest thing ever, but nope! It's incredibly stable, you can literally put it in your lungs and, for the most part, be okay. You know how some people inhale helium to make their voice higher? Inhaling sulfur hexafluoride makes your voice sound low, and doesn't kill you!

That's amazing to me, like...all these destructive, reactive forces can be mixed and arranged to do all these incredible things. They can be made even deadlier, they can be made harmless, they can be made into medicines that kill bacteria, or even into bacteria! And, you know, there's the very stable noble gases, but even those can be made to react! Fluorine can make some noble gases react with it, and you can have a Helium and Hydrogen mix into Helium Hydride, a substance so reactive we haven't been able to have it exist as a liquid because it will destroy anything you try to put it in. It's just...I'm taking AP Chem right now, in case it doesn't show. But I love that class, because you get exposure to a bunch of stuff like this! I'm taking physics with it, in case that also doesn't show, and I think it's incredible, you know? I think I went overboard, too.

this is not "a paragraph"

[AnonymousSpeed]

...eh, I like to communicate. Sorry for the tangent though, I tend to tangent.

[claire]

im really passionate about myself...like im really pretty and cute, i have a perfect body and im super witty. im also good at everything? im good at certain sports, im good at art, im amazingly smart, too. on top of that im rich af??? like sure it's my dad's money but i can spend it??? i genuinely think im a gift to this planet. and my friends must be extremely grateful for knowing me. im way too generous and i dont know i guess im just perfect

[Freohr Datia]

QUESTION SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT: Write a paragraph on somebody whom you're passionate about!

bitch I already wrote a huge essay on you and now you're asking for one more paragraph????

GOD

[Freohr Datia]

so greedy

[AnonymousSpeed]

im really passionate about myself...like im really pretty and cute, i have a perfect body and im super witty. im also good at everything? im good at certain sports, im good at art, im amazingly smart, too. on top of that im rich af??? like sure it's my dad's money but i can spend it??? i genuinely think im a gift to this planet. and my friends must be extremely grateful for knowing me. im way too generous and i dont know i guess im just perfect

Hey, I was going to do the whole 'Egotistical Passionate About Myself' bit!

[Original Alear]

im really passionate about myself...like im really pretty and cute, i have a perfect body and im super witty. im also good at everything? im good at certain sports, im good at art, im amazingly smart, too. on top of that im rich af??? like sure it's my dad's money but i can spend it??? i genuinely think im a gift to this planet. and my friends must be extremely grateful for knowing me. im way too generous and i dont know i guess im just perfect

Ya you are. I derived your perfection solely from this paragraph. You are perfect.