The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXVII

[Samson]

Question: Is there any page (NASA or others) that shows you the stars visible in your country at the moment?

I am supprised this has not already been answered. A quick google gives this which does what I think you mean.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Before the UN, wars tended to be more common but more easily resolvable:

What do the historians here think of this assertion?

 

[Hygro]

That the UN was created just in time to deal with the mess that was going to wars in post-colonies, something that didn't really exist prior to the UN?

 

[Cutlass]

What do the historians here think of this assertion?

The UN was created at the opening of the Cold War. And it was the Cold War which dominated the following 60 years of international relations. I would say that the UN was helpful in solidifying most national borders, which have rarely changed since the end of WWII. But the Cold War was responsible for as much of that. And a nation with a superpower backer may have had to worry about a lot of things, but a foreign invasion was rarely one of them.

 

[timtofly]

What do the historians here think of this assertion?

Which part? More common? What is common? It would seem that they had more better discerned reasons. Wars tend to come about when empires expand and run into other people groups and the means to control such people groups. I don't think they were more frequent in the past. The need for wars has seem to taper off with the lack luster of holding together a huge empire.

Easily resolvable? We conquered you and you must submit to our desires, seems like it would bring peace to me pretty quickly. The problem now is that people are not so easily acquiesced. Instead of fighting over territory they are fighting over rights and ideologies. Those do not solve themselves any more easily by fighting any more than having a civilized debate over. Just kill your opponent seems to be the answer. Finding all those people who do not agree with you makes for crazier wars than just taking someone's territory.

The purpose of the UN was supposed to be a civilized way to resolve any conflict in rights and ideology. I am not to sure it was a way of curbing empires. If someone wanted a larger empire, they would not find one in the UN. They would do that despite the UN.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

What do the historians here think of this assertion?

I think he's conflating two separate trends. Around the time the UN came around, the dominant manner of warfare in the world became guerrilla, and was waged by irregulars. Those are going to be much harder to resolve regardless of whether there's some kind of international body policing those things (unless Kaiserguard is opining the loss of the "screw it, let's just use genocide/ethnic cleansing to solve the problem" option?). In addition, the collapse of the colonial order gave rise to a whole new set of inter-national issues, most notably the fact that the colonially-drawn borders have zero bearing in ethnic reality, and so created all sorts of problems which are not easily resolvable. On the other hand, The UN solidified those borders as something immutable (after all, look at who created the effing UN, it wasn't the Angolans or Kurds) which rallied the world to stop the erosion of the order which created those borders by portraying any change of them as "illegal." So I suppose in that area, Kaiserguard has a point.

In other words, it was the passing of ships in the night. The UN was created to resolve conflicts between Westphalian entities with Clausewitzian goals, but at the same time as the UN was created, warfare was already shifting away from being primarily waged by such entities or in light of such goals.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I like that explanation. The second-to-last sentence of the first paragraph is key.

 

[brennan]

What do the historians here think of this assertion?

It should be rephrased: more common and usually resolved decisively through violence.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I visited a website and mistakenly told firefox to "continue blocking" when it blocked microsoft silverlight, and now I can't use that site effectively. How do I undo that?

 

[SouthernKing]

If I'm an American applying to UK unis through UCAS, should I use American or British English in my personal statement?

 

[Arakhor]

I'd always say British English, but that's me. Unless there's a specified style, I'd stick with consistency and accuracy in one language.

 

[Michkov]

I visited a website and mistakenly told firefox to "continue blocking" when it blocked microsoft silverlight, and now I can't use that site effectively. How do I undo that?

Look under Addons\plugins there should be a tab to the right of each plugin to set it's behaviour. Dont know if its still there in the newest version of FF.

 

[Takhisis]

If I'm an American applying to UK unis through UCAS, should I use American or British English in my personal statement?

I don't think there should be any problem with your using 'Merican English provided you do it properly.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

So I was just looking at stuff and came across this:

Trapped in the wilderness after Air Force One is forced down by a terrorist attack, the President of the United States (Samuel L. Jackson) must rely on the survival skills of a 13-year-old woodsman, in this thriller co-starring Ray Stevenson, Jim Broadbent and Felicity Huffman.

What would be the response to Air Force One crashing and how quick would it be?

 

[Tahuti]

moved, nothing to see here.

 

[Domen]

Are there any Slovenes on this forum?

 

[Takhisis]

Recommendation to Slovenes on this forum: stay away unless you want to be flooded with factoids about things related to Poland.

 

[Borachio]

Oh dear me! I laughed out loud, for real. Not just the normal bit of a giggle.

That's very cruel. Fair, but cruel.

 

[Mouthwash]

Oh dear me! I laughed out loud, for real. Not just the normal bit of a giggle.

That's very cruel. Fair, but cruel.

You've never played Civ IV, right?

 

[Borachio]

I have played Civ IV, in fact. I thought it was much like Civ III. Well... maybe a bit different. Then I found quite quickly I preferred Civ III. And then a bit later I found I was very bored with the whole thing.

But I don't see why that's relevant. Why is it relevant?